Whippoorwill

by Joseph Monninger

  “So parents are carpenters? Or block planes?”

  “It’s a metaphor,” Jebby said, his eyes running into mine to see if I approved.

  “Jebby, you’re just a regular philosopher,” Dad said, and went back to fiddling with his project. “It must be like a rush hour inside your head with all those thoughts driving around.”

  I finished my egg sandwich and ran my plate under the faucet. Then I straightened up the kitchen from earlier. I put all the ingredients for biscuits away and hung the dishtowel on the door of the fridge. The kitchen looked as tidy as it could be with my dad’s engine projects scattered around and Jebby lounging with his heavy boots under the table.

  “I’m going up,” I said. “It was a long day.”

  “What are you watching these days?” Jebby asked, because we both watched a lot of movies on Netflix.

  I told him and he traded back a few recommendations.

  “Good night,” I said when we finished.

  “I should be shoving off too,” Jebby said, tilting his beer back and finishing it.

  I went upstairs and brushed my teeth and washed my face, then climbed into bed. The house felt cold and damp and I switched on a heating pad I sometimes used for a backache. It only took a second to start throwing heat and I felt my body spilling down, down into the bed and through the floor and into the earth. I imagined all my parts coming undone and melting away. Distantly I heard Jebby’s bike start, stall, then start again. A while later I listened to Dad turning off lights and slowly making his way upstairs. He sang an ancient Steve Miller song under his breath, but the song mixed with the sounds of the house, and the wind outside, and soon the world went away and didn’t come back until the morning.

  Thirteen

  “I DON’T KNOW the family,” Mrs. Cummings said. “The Stewarts? I can’t place them.”

  “Elwood and Desmond,” I said. “Strange names, I know. And Danny is Elwood’s son.”

  “Danny, huh?”

  She looked at me. Beside her chair she had a bucket of carrots to peel. The tips of her fingers, and her nails, already glowed orange with carrot skin. The door stood open to a nice morning.

  “He’s Elwood’s boy,” I explained.

  “Elwood Stewart? Yes, I guess I know the name. Funny that I can’t place him. And Desmond?”

  “Jebby says Desmond used to steal porch furniture and things from people’s houses. Things outside, and he would try to pawn them over at Gary’s.”

  “Oh, I remember that. I remember him now that you jog my memory. He was some squirrelly son of a sea cook. He was little and wiry and used to wear big black boots, and the rumor was he had a knife that fit in one of the boot tops and that’s why he always wore them. That’s who you’re talking about?”

  “Well, I only know Danny.”

  “You keep your wits about you. Don’t cross those people. Are you sweet on Danny?”

  “No, not really.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means we kind of like each other, but it doesn’t count for much.”

  “That’s how it starts,” Mrs. Cummings said. “That’s how it always starts.”

  I noticed she had new earrings. Or at least earrings I hadn’t seen before. They glimmered blue and a little purple like sapphires, only fake, of course.

  “Where did they come from?” I asked, mostly to change the subject.

  She touched her earlobes and smiled.

  “My hubby gave them to me. How about that? He found them in an attic he was cleaning out, doing an odd job for a rental firm down in Concord. The earrings might actually be worth something. At first I thought they were just costume, but good-quality costume, but now as I wear them, I’m not so sure. They have heft and the settings are pretty nice.”

  “You should take them in to get them appraised.”

  “I intend to,” she said, picking up a carrot and peeling it down as though she were whittling a stick of wood. “I just haven’t had a minute.”

  First bell went off, loud and crazy. Mrs. Cummings put the heels of her hands over her ears, the carrot and the peeler sticking out like rabbit ears.

  “I should go,” I said, standing. “Good luck with the carrots.”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  “About the carrots?”

  “No, the earrings. And look out for those Stewarts, you hear?”

  I nodded and hurried through the kitchen, then the cafeteria, then into the hallway, and finally into Mr. Masteller’s social studies class. Mr. Masteller gave me a sideways look as I found my seat. He sat at his desk and did roll call from there.

  That’s how school went until Holly texted me during the last period of the day. She said:

  Danny in parking lot. Wants to take us for eyes cream.

  A dozen questions flitted around my head as I filled up my backpack with books at my locker.

  How did Holly know Danny was in the parking lot before I did? And what does Danny want, anyway? Doesn’t he have other things he should be doing? Did he text her? And when did he get her number?

  Like that. A thousand questions like that.

  He was smart about showing up, though. He had Wally with him. When I came out, he stood leaning on his car, Wally sniffing around the parking lot at his feet. A few girls stopped and bent down to pet Wally, and a Frisbee skidded on the pavement right beside the car and made Wally hop to one side, but Danny had his best game going and looked kind of like a rebel—all jacked-up car and sideburns—if you didn’t know him any better. Holly already stood next to him, not bothering with Wally, really, but making sure to wave extra hard when she saw me. And it was weird that she waved so hard, because I knew it meant to convey an entire string of reassurances: Hello, how are you, here’s this guy you found first, and I’m standing here innocently beside him, and the dog you guys are training together is right here too, no, no way I’m interested in him. He’s all yours.

  That’s what her wave said.

  “My treat for ice cream,” Danny said when I came closer. “Let’s go to Fat Bob’s. What do you say?”

  I knew somehow he had rehearsed that offer, because he said it casually, just throwing it off, but underneath he meant it harder.

  No matter what, though, it beat riding the bus home.

  “Eyes cream,” Holly said, using an old joke line between us. “I’m starving.”

  “What do you say?” Danny asked. “Then I can swing you both home. I’ve got nothing to do this afternoon.”

  “Me neither,” Holly said.

  I shrugged and did something a little passive-aggressive. I grabbed Wally and hopped in the rear, and when Holly protested that she would get back there, I told her not to bother, I wanted to spend time with Wally. It made everything awkward for a second, until Danny spun his keys around on his index finger and walked around the front of the car. Holly tried to catch me with meaningful glances, but I suspected, also, that she didn’t hate the idea of riding up front with Danny. It made my bones hurt to think it all the way through.

  So we went. Danny revved the engine like a madman as he queued up for getting out of the parking lot. It was a boy thing. Other guys around the lot gunned their engines in answer and the whole thing struck me as idiotic, but inevitable. Holly sat in the front with one hand on the dashboard, the other on the seatback, and she looked like a baseball player taking a lead off first base, her weight shifting back and forth. I knew she wanted to be sure to include me in everything, because to do less was to ratify certain notions about her and Danny.

  I put my head against Wally’s shoulder and took a deep breath. He smelled like dog, but that was a good smell, I decided. He leaned into me a little and I hugged him hard. His tongue hung like a spool of wrapping paper from his mouth, and his teeth held small bubbles of air near his gum line.

  At Fat Bob’s I ordered a child-size portion of rocky road. Danny got French vanilla with sprinkles, and Holly ordered chocolate mint with a side of maraschino cherries. It
wasn’t exactly ice cream weather, and the girl who served us closed the slide window as soon as she took Danny’s money and made change. Clouds had moved in to cover the sun, and Mount Moosilauke, the tallest peak nearby, still had a cover of snow. Still, we sat at one of the picnic tables they had out near the parking lot and ate the ice cream and watched Wally vacuum the area around the tables. His flubbery lips rattled and his nose took in breaths deep enough to inhale the scent of every dropped ice cream from a decade gone by. Now and then he stopped what he was doing and looked at us, wondering where his ice cream was. It was funny and sad and Danny finally trotted back up to the window and ordered him a plain vanilla on a sugar cone.

  “He’ll like that,” Holly said, popping one of the cherries into her mouth.

  “I wonder if it’s good for him,” Danny said as he came back and resumed his seat. He had nearly finished his own cone. He speared it in his mouth and then he did something that kind of went right into my heart. He pretended he was going to eat the other cone, and Wally sat, squiggle-butted, and you could see all that yearning in the dog’s eyes. Danny smiled and slowly, slowly moved the cone toward his own mouth. Wally watched, a sting of drool yo-yoing down and glinting in the dull sun, and then Danny began talking real low and whispery.

  “If there was a good dog, I mean a really good dog, a special, ice-cream-eating dog,” he said, not letting his eyes go anywhere near Wally’s, “and if that dog happened to be anywhere nearby . . . if he happened to be sitting in this ice cream place and had been really good, no-kidding good, supergood, do you two think that dog, a dog like that, well, do you think he would deserve a cone of his own?”

  “Oh, you’re torturing him!” Holly said, but I could see she thought it was cute too.

  “And if that dog did get an ice cream cone, if he was one lucky dog, maybe the luckiest dog in the world, do you think that dog would promise to eat the ice cream like a proper gentleman? Do you think he would show good manners and not wolf it all down like a big hound dog?”

  He glanced at Wally and Wally wiggled his rear end on the ground, nearly crazy with wanting that ice cream.

  Then Danny looked right into Wally’s eyes and he stopped fooling.

  “You are a really good boy,” Danny said. “You’re a really, really good boy.”

  And I don’t know why, but tears came into my eyes and I had to look away when he gave Wally the cone.

  “He’s better-looking than when you first see him, don’t you think?” Holly asked on the phone almost as soon as Danny dropped me home. He had taken her home first. “I mean, he sort of grows on you.”

  “He’s okay,” I said.

  “I can’t figure you, Clair. Do you like him or not? I think Danny is wondering too.”

  “Danny can wonder all he likes.”

  “But do you?”

  I lay flat on my bed, looking up at the ceiling. Dad would be home any minute, bringing subs from Poulchuck’s Deli. I wasn’t hungry. Dad loved subs from Poulchuck’s, I knew, so I listened for his truck. He always made it into a big deal when he brought home subs, spreading out paper plates and extra mayonnaise and fussing with the condiments. He had to have Lay’s Classic Potato Chips, too, and a large Dad’s Root Beer. I tried to match his excitement on the days he brought home subs, because I knew he felt like he was doing something special for me. It was funny, really, and a little sad, but I wanted to meet him at the door when he came in from work.

  “I don’t know if I do, Holly,” I said. “I honestly don’t. He’s nice. He is. I don’t have anything against him, but I guess he was never the kind of boy I imagined hanging out with.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I mean, did you hear him gunning the engine when we drove out of the parking lot? I never imagined being with a boy who did that.”

  “Most boys do that kind of thing, don’t they?”

  “I guess. But with the sideburns . . .”

  “I love the sideburns!” she said, squealing a little when she said it.

  She had said that before and it annoyed me.

  “You take him, then,” I said, feeling bitter and lousy as I said it. “You take him for a boyfriend.”

  “Don’t be crazy, Clair. We’re just friends.”

  I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to fight with Holly. I didn’t even know if I liked Danny in any special way, but I didn’t appreciate her poaching, either. It tied me up to think about it all, so I was relieved when I heard Dad pull in the driveway.

  “Got to hop,” I said. “Dad’s home.”

  “Okay, I’ll talk to you later. You’re really weird sometimes, Clair.”

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  We hung up and I glanced in the mirror on my way out of my room. My hair looked like a rat’s nest. I shrugged and hustled downstairs and arrived in the kitchen as Dad did. He lifted up the plastic bag from Poulchuck’s and smiled a big smile.

  “Best subs in the universe!” he said. “Made by Doris herself.”

  Doris owned Poulchuck’s, and I always wondered if Dad had a crush on her.

  “Sorry, I was on the phone. I’ll get the table set.”

  “I’ll wash up. Crack that Dad’s Root Beer, would you?”

  He disappeared in the hall bath and I heard him splashing around. His boots made a heavy sound on the floorboards too. By the time he finished cleaning up, I had the table set with paper plates and salt and pepper and a bowl for the potato chips. I poured his Dad’s Root Beer over a glass of ice and handed it to him. He raised it to me quickly because the carbonation had turned the top into a moat of blond fizz and he knew I loved that. I had been sipping off his sodas for my entire life, and I did it now and felt the bubbles sizzle in my sinuses. He smiled and winked at me, which was something he always did too, whenever we did the soda thing.

  He unwrapped his turkey-Swiss-bacon, extra mayo, half hots. I had a straight tomato-mozzarella with oil and vinegar, hold the hots. It’s what we always ordered. The subs looked like swords of bread stuffed with deli food.

  “How was school?” he asked around his first bite. “Did you learn anything today?”

  “A million things. I’m a genius now.”

  “Really? Then it was a day well spent. Name one thing you learned.”

  “Mrs. Cummings got new earrings from her husband.”

  “Good for old Agnes.”

  “You really knew her when you were younger?”

  He smiled and flicked a piece of lettuce off his beard. Then he drank some root beer and chomped a few chips.

  “Of course I did,” he said when he had mouth space. “You know that. Is that so hard to believe?”

  “I just can’t picture it. I can’t see it somehow.”

  I had a bite of my sandwich, but I still wasn’t hungry. I didn’t particularly want to tell him about going for ice cream with Danny, but I didn’t know why. I tried another bite and had trouble swallowing it.

  “Everyone was young once upon a time,” he said. “That’s a fact of life.”

  “I know, but I can’t picture it.”

  “Well, I had an interesting day too,” he said, herding a few more chips onto his plate. “We did a job over by Hanover, and I can’t tell you what the house was like. You would have loved it, Clair Bear. All post and beam, like the restaurant you like over in Lincoln, and it had a fireplace that covered half the southern wall. It was right out of a magazine, I swear. The thing about it was, it wasn’t fussy. It was just a place these people had, but they had plenty of money, you could tell, but mostly they liked the house for the fun it promised. I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.”

  “Did you put in a big system?”

  “Oh, yeah. Top-of-the-line everything. They got the full setup, believe me. I don’t know what the final bill will be, but it will be steep.”

  “Do you like doing what you do, Dad? Did you like putting in that system today?”

  He smiled down at the sub. He didn’t say anything right away. I reali
zed I had never asked whether he liked what he did every day. I had taken his work for granted. It didn’t make me proud to see that for the first time. Somehow it felt a little like ignoring Wally all those days.

  “It maybe isn’t what I dreamed of doing.”

  “You dreamed of being a racecar mechanic, right?”

  “Or something. I used to think I could have been pretty good at designing new vehicle models. You know, like the new Chrysler or Ford for such and such a year. I liked doing that kind of thing as a kid.”

  “You never told me that before.”

  He kept looking down at the sub and I wondered if he felt emotional. I tried to see his face, but then he looked up and put a smile on his lips. But it wasn’t a real smile, and I watched him closely, trying to fathom what he was feeling at that moment.

  “Well, it wasn’t anything my parents encouraged, I guess. In shop class I used to make models of clay and sometimes soap, even. The shop teacher was a guy named Mr. Gallo and he was a good sort of teacher. He took an interest and he liked cars, so we would talk about the new models. It sounds funny now, but that’s what we did. He subscribed to Popular Mechanics and Auto Digest, I think, and he passed on the issues to me after he finished with them. I didn’t even know there was such a job as a designer for new cars. That’s how raw I was.”

  “Did you ever think about moving out to Detroit or something?”

  “Thought about it, but I met your mom and I didn’t really know how to go at it. So I did the heating business thing and that’s worked out okay. A job usually outlines your life, I guess.”

  “But that’s why you like monkeying with the Softail, right?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Probably so.”

  “I never thought about you doing anything else.”

  “Most people let go of a few dreams along the way. Jebby wanted to be an astronaut. Did you know that?”

  “That’s just wrong,” I said, laughing.