Just Like Jackie

by Lindsey Stoddard

Grandpa’s hand is swinging there beside me, and I kind of catch it for a second in the pocket of my baseball glove and squeeze. He looks down like he’s surprised I’m there, like he’d forgotten.

  “I’ll be more like Jackie Robinson, Grandpa.”

  He smiles at me and we walk on to the garage through the new falling snow.

  chapter 3

  As soon as we get to the garage I see Harold’s feet sticking out from under a Toyota Tacoma. I give his boot a kick and he drops his wrench on the cement floor and slides out from under the truck.

  His hair is thick, dark brown, and wild. He lets it stick up all over his head like he just woke up, and that’s only one thing I like about Harold.

  “What do we have here?” he asks, standing up and wiping his hands on his jumpsuit. “Shouldn’t you be in school, Robbie?”

  “Got in trouble.”

  “Trouble is no place to be,” he says.

  “Better than school.” I sit on the stool that has the one shorter leg that I can always get rocking really good. From here I have a perfect view of all four bays, and right now each bay is full. And each car has something wrong with it, and I bet I could figure out as fast as anyone how to fix every last one.

  “Got busy here this afternoon,” Harold tells Grandpa.

  Harold is my grandpa’s left-hand man. That’s because everyone knows I’m Grandpa’s right hand. But left-hand man or not, I don’t want a lecture from him about school and working hard and being good. He sometimes does that, pulls up a stool and sits down next to me and looks at me right under the brim of my Dodgers hat, right in my eyes, and tells me how I need to get through school and be my best self. Grandpa says it’s because Harold and his husband, Paul, are adopting a kid and he’s practicing being a dad.

  Harold is regular dad age. I bet he hopes when he and Paul get their kid she’s not like me. Someone who doesn’t get all red hot inside, who doesn’t punch stupid boys’ noses, even when they deserve it, someone who doesn’t make him shake his head for anything.

  “So what happened?” Harold asks.

  “Had to take care of this boy and his crappy attitude.”

  Harold tugs one of my braids. “I thought you were working with that counselor at school on not getting so angry. Counting to ten and stuff like that.”

  “Her name’s Ms. Gloria. And I am working on it.” Harold was there when Grandpa signed the papers to let me start seeing a counselor at school. That was the last time Grandpa was in the office, and I promised myself I’d never make the school drag him back there. Stupid Alex Carter. “But even if I counted to ten today I still would’ve slugged him.”

  He hits the brim of my Dodgers hat, which I usually hate but don’t really mind when Harold does it. “Always my little spark plug.”

  And I know what Harold means, but I’m not his little spark plug. I’m all Grandpa’s. He’s the only person I’m related to, which is maybe turning out to be a raw deal for him.

  Harold throws his arm around my shoulders. “Listen, kid.” And I know he’s going in for the whole practice dad talk. “When you’re out there in the world, you’re representing your family. And I know you weren’t raised to be fighting.”

  I nod my head and keep teetering on the stool, hoping that Grandpa has a job for me.

  “Little spark plug like her . . .” Harold starts.

  “From an old codger like me,” Grandpa finishes. That’s one of the jokes they’re always saying. Like who could ever believe that I came from my grandpa?

  We still get that from time to time, even in a town this small, where almost everyone knows us. Long looks and scrunched-up faces trying to solve our family puzzle.

  Sometimes Grandpa reminds me that I’m one-quarter black, even though you can’t tell by looking at me. “And that one-quarter comes straight from yours truly,” he says, jamming his thick thumb to his chest. It doesn’t matter that you can’t see it right off, he tells me. That one-quarter is still in me, beneath my surface, deep at my core.

  When I was little and didn’t understand, I used to picture a shiny, silver twenty-five cents quarter deep in me, next to my heart. Most grandpas pulled quarters from behind little kids’ ears and let them go to Dean and Walt’s country store for penny candy, and it made me feel better to think that Grandpa’s quarter was somewhere deep in me, and worth something more than candy. Worth keeping.

  “Up off your duff, Robbie.” Grandpa claps his hands twice to get me moving. “We’ve got work to do.”

  Harold gives me a fist bump, picks up his wrench, and slides back under the truck. Grandpa tosses me my work gloves, which are just like his but smaller, and points in the direction of the closest bay. I nod and toss my baseball glove on the stool.

  “What we’ve got this afternoon is a 2003 Toyota 4Runner,” Grandpa says. But I know that without anyone telling me. I know cars like I know baseball.

  I pull on my gloves and Grandpa shows me a box of replacement headlight bulbs.

  “You remember how to do it?” he asks.

  “Yup.” And I know Grandpa remembers too, because even if he sometimes forgets that he already had his morning cup of coffee, or that it’s winter so he’ll need his jacket, he never forgets cars. That’s one place where his memory isn’t tired at all. And that’s a good thing because I don’t need Harold raising his eyebrows and looking long at Grandpa. Harold’s too busy to notice anyway. He’s always under a car or thinking about his new baby coming soon.

  “Ready?” Grandpa asks.

  “Ready,” I say.

  I slide my fingers under the hood of the car and find the lever. When I pull on it, the hood pops up fast like it’s been waiting to burst all day. I know what that’s like.

  Grandpa tests me on the basics before we get started. This is our warm-up. He points. I name.

  “This one.” He’s pointing to a round cap in the middle.

  “Check and change oil.”

  He moves his finger to the right.

  “Transmission fluid.”

  “And here?” His finger points toward the back and I have to stand up on my toes and lean in far to see.

  “Washer fluid.”

  I know them all.

  Grandpa pulls on his gloves too, which means we’re ready to start the job.

  “First?” he asks.

  I turn my Dodgers hat backward and look into the hood. I see the connector lock release. “Disconnect the light,” I say. Then I do it. Pressing down on the lock release makes a small pop like a short bunt, and I like that. When I pull at it a little, it disconnects from the old, burnt bulb.

  Grandpa’s hovering over me, making sure I do it right. “Good,” he assures me. “Now what?”

  “Retaining ring.” I stick my head in closer to find it. The faint smell of plastic and metal and oil rise up to my face, and I like that smell. When I find the ring I twist it to the left and detach it from the headlight assembly. Then I take the burnt bulb from the retaining ring and give it to Grandpa. He throws it in the trash.

  “Good, Robbie.”

  I still have the retaining ring around my finger. Grandpa puts the new bulb in my other hand, and I put it exactly where the other one was in the headlight assembly. Then I twist the ring back and it’s in. It feels good when everything pops in and fits just right.

  “Last?”

  “Plug her in!” I shout and reach for the connector socket.

  “Ta-da!” Grandpa cheers. “A-plus.” An A-plus from Grandpa in the garage is better than any other A-plus ever.

  “Now the other one,” he says. And I do it all over again, but this time Grandpa doesn’t say anything because I know the steps by heart.

  When I finish, Grandpa squeezes my shoulder, but in a good job kind of way this time, and Harold comes over to start the car and turn the lights on. “Looking bright, Robbie,” he says, and reaches out for another fist bump, which is kind of our thing.

  I’m not feeling all hot and mad and like I could burst anymore.
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br />   In the bay next to us, an intern from the technical high school down the street is working. It’s his last day, which is good because he’s taking my jobs. Right now he’s jump-starting a Honda Accord. I know how to do that too. That’s even easier than changing headlights. Grandpa doesn’t let me use the word easy in the garage, though. He tells me it seems easy because I’m good at it. “If it was easy, why would all these people bring their cars in here to have us do it for them?” he says. I guess that makes Grandpa a genius, then. And me too.

  Sparks shoot from the Honda’s battery like little tiny fires, and Harold rushes over to help. I know that the little fires mean the intern attached a negative to a positive by accident. Either that or he didn’t connect the jumper cables to the dead battery first. Grandpa says that’s really important and that those sparks can catch fast. I know how that is too.

  But right now I feel pretty OK. Far from Ms. Burg and Alex Carter and his clicky-heeled mom.

  There are only three places in the whole world that make me feel like this, like I’m not sparky at all. Third base, where Jackie Robinson played; our sugar maple trees in the backyard; and in Grandpa’s garage, fixing something that’s broken.

  chapter 4

  “What do you bet the sap’s running?” Grandpa asks when we’re walking home from the garage. I bet it’s running fast because the conditions are perfect. I also bet he already forgot all about Alex Carter, and about me getting in trouble at school today.

  “I think we should be ready to collect,” I say. And as soon as we get to our house I throw my book bag and baseball glove on the porch, grab the empty milk jugs from the shed, and shove my feet in my big Bogs boots that come almost up to my knees.

  Out back, we have twenty sugar maples that are bigger around than Grandpa’s hugs. A few weeks ago we drilled two holes in each, hammered in taps, and attached metal buckets for the sap to drip down into. It started running as soon as we drilled the holes, like the trees had been waiting to burst. That’s what happens when you tap them at the exact right time. When it’s freezing at night but sunny and warm during the day.

  As soon as we get out to the backyard I can see fat drops of sap falling from the taps into the buckets.

  “Time to empty.” Grandpa hands me a cheesecloth.

  We have to filter the sap from the metal buckets through a piece of cheesecloth to collect all the bad stuff so it doesn’t get mixed in.

  We run the sap through the filters and collect it in the old plastic jugs. Once they’re full, it’s my job to half bury the jugs at the edge of our yard and pack them tight in the snow to keep the sap cool.

  Grandpa says we’ll boil soon.

  “If you promise to be good at school tomorrow, you can help me split,” he says.

  I don’t technically say I promise, but I know I’ll be good enough to keep Ms. Burg from calling Grandpa in. I don’t want anyone else asking him questions and telling him how bad I’ve been and making him shake his head and rub his temples. No way. I can be good enough to keep Grandpa away from all those adults and all their concerns.

  I run back to the shed for our work gloves and protective glasses and Grandpa’s ax. The snow in the yard is halfway up my boots, and I like the way it feels to sink in all the way to my rolled-up jeans as I walk back to Grandpa. He only lets me hold the ax with the head down and with two hands, and only if I walk.

  It’s my job to put the big pieces of wood on the old stump chopping block. I have to place them perfectly so they don’t wobble at all. It’s Grandpa’s job to swing the ax and split the wood along the grain into smaller pieces that’ll fit in our outdoor fire pit for when we start to boil the sap down into syrup.

  Grandpa always breathes out a big “Ha!” when he swings the ax down on the wood, like an umpire calling a strike. Then the wood cracks like a broken bat, split down the grain. Sometimes it only takes one hit like that and the wood just falls apart. Sometimes it’s a little tougher. Like if the wood has a big knot in it, the ax can’t get through it right off and Grandpa has to take lots of swings and then pry it apart with his hands at the end.

  “Couple more,” Grandpa says, and I know he’s getting tired because he’s not pulling the ax up as high over his head as he did the first time. But his memory’s not tired. Not out here. He never forgets what he’s doing at his chopping block, like his brain is hardwired. Hardwired to fix broken cars and split wood out by our sugar maples.

  And I sometimes wonder if he remembers other things out here at the chopping block while his memory isn’t so bad. Like my mom. And the way her voice sounded and if I look like her or what happened that made him shut up so tight like his tongue forgot how to say her name.

  And I’m thinking about asking him. Trying again while we’re out here at the chopping block. I run my work glove against the rough bark of the next piece of wood and open my mouth, but I know he’ll just shake his head and change the subject. Like he always does.

  “OK, Robbie,” he says. “That’ll do for tonight.” He lowers his ax and I lob the new split pieces on the stack under the eaves of the house.

  The creases are deep across his forehead, and I hope that he is remembering all that stuff out here by the sugar maples, because no matter how deep I search, no matter how hard I think, or how tight I close my eyes and try to see, I’ll never be able to find any memories. And I’m scared he’s forgetting his. Then I’ll never know.

  I make footsteps in the snow for Grandpa to follow, and I wait behind him on the porch as he struggles with the key to the front door, pushing the wrong one in over and over even when it doesn’t fit. “Goddammit!” he grunts. “This stupid . . .”

  I put my hand over his. “This one, Grandpa.” I point to the silver key hanging on the chain. “That big one’s for the garage, remember?”

  “Of course I remember that,” he says.

  I smile up at him and know that even if I try to ask now, it’s too late, because he’s all jumbled up and confused. But there’s no one else to tell me about her, so I help Grandpa up the steps and into the warm house.

  chapter 5

  When I get to school the next day everyone’s looking at me funny. They always kind of do because I’m the only girl they know who wears boy clothes and kicks everyone’s butt at baseball, but today they’re looking at me extra funny, like Alex’s blood is still sprayed up my sleeve or something. I hop over the wooden fence into the schoolyard and don’t pay them no mind. Just like Jackie Robinson.

  “They let her back here?” I hear one girl scoff.

  “No way.” It’s Chelsea and Brittany. They’re completely pink from their Uggs all the way to the gum they’re smacking with every stupid syllable they say. They’re also the girls who hang off Alex Carter like he’s some god or something.

  “I can’t believe it. Did you see what she did to Alex?”

  “Shouldn’t she be suspended? Her grandpa came and picked her up. If that even is her grandpa.”

  My hand makes a fist, but I just let the words run right off, like Grandpa says. And I try to count to ten while I’m searching around for Derek because I usually hang with him until the doors open for school. I put my baseball glove up over my mouth like I’m talking secret messages on the mound with my pitcher and catcher and blow hot air in the leather pocket. Each breath warms up my face before it fades back to cold.

  Then I see him running across the yard and yelling my name. “Rob!” Derek looks so funny when he runs that he’s making me laugh right out loud into my glove. He’s stick skinny and short and his ears kind of poke out, but his feet are so big that he looks like he might trip over them at any second. He can tell I’m laughing at him too, but he doesn’t mind because he knows we’re cool. Ever since I peeled off the kick the midget Post-it that Alex Carter stuck on his back in third grade, he’s been kind of hanging around. And that’s OK with me.

  “Rob! Rob!” He’s yelling and waving his hands over his head.

  He’s not named after Derek Jete
r either. He didn’t even know who that was when I asked. He doesn’t know anything about baseball. Watching him running over toward me, I’m thinking we should switch names, Derek and me, because he’s as soft and small as a Robin and I’m as hard as a Derek. That k like the crack of a bat. K for strike. I’m hard like that. He’s the one that’s like feathers. I guess that’s why we’re friends.

  He’s all out of breath by the time he gets to me. “Did you get in trouble?” he huffs.

  “Not enough. I’m still here, aren’t I?” I punch my right fist into my third baseman’s glove.

  “I’ve been wanting to see that kid get slammed since first grade.” He’s still breathing hard as anything. “His nose exploded!”

  “I know. I’m the one who exploded it,” I remind him. “No one calls me a motherless Robin bird.”

  Derek goes quiet, and I know that means he’s sorry Alex was such a jerk. “What did your grandpa say?”

  “Same stuff my grandpa always tells me. That I have to be more like Jackie Robinson.” Even though Grandpa didn’t say anything about Jackie Robinson to me at all this time, like it didn’t matter anymore who I was named for.

  “Well, Alex Carter deserved to get popped.” He looks around the yard. “Think he’ll come today?” he asks.

  I shrug my shoulders. “Doubt it. He was crying like a baby.”

  Derek gives me a high five as the bell rings and everyone runs toward the big double doors of the school.

  Principal Wheeler is directing us into our class lines in the lobby while we wait for our teachers. We get in the back of Ms. Meg’s homeroom line, and I’m looking for Alex, but I don’t see him, which is kind of too bad because I want to see what his nose looks like after a day of bruising. I bet it’s purple and yellow and gross. I want everyone to see what a nose looks like after you call me a motherless Robin bird.

  “Hey, Robinson.” It’s Candace, a girl from our class, and she’s tapping me on my shoulder. She’s a little pink too, but not the gum-smacky kind of pink that Chelsea and Brittany are.