Dad pulled the pickup around in a U-turn so his lights would be on the rear of the Biscayne. We got out and he stepped around to the back box of the pickup. He reached in and pulled my spare up and out. Then he threw it back in and looked at me.
“What?”
“Did you feel that tire when you put it in the truck?”
I shook my head. “No. Should I have?”
“Wouldn’t’ve been a bad idea. It’s just as flat as the one on that car.”
“Shit.” I didn’t swear much in front of my parents but it seemed appropriate just then.
Dad must have thought so too. He started to laugh. So I laughed with him.
“What do we do now?”
“Two choices are all we’ve got.” Dad shrugged his shoulders. His shadow looked huge behind the light from the headlights. “We can give up and go home and explain all this to your mom…, or we go to town and wake up Jake Bannering at the tire shop and get him to fix it. Your mom’s going to think we’re both nuts. Besides, I promised her I’d get this handled for you, so I say we go with Bannering … ”
“At two o’clock in the morning?”
“At two o’clock in the morning,” Dad nodded. “One of the joys of small town living. You try this in the city, might get you shot.”
And that was the last word said until we pulled up in front of Jake’s Tire Store on Main Street.
Main Street has only two streetlights on it, but one of them isn’t far from the tire shop. So there was a fair amount of light where we parked. Mr. Bannering’s place was a Texaco gas station a long time ago. I knew that because you can still see the faded letters — T-e-x-a-c — up high on the wall that faces the street. The house was attached to the side of the shop and looked like it was pretty old too. The yard must have been the storage area for anything that wasn’t needed anymore in the tire shop. Lots of rims were scattered here and there on the lawn along with some ratty-looking tires, a few tools, some five-gallon pails, and a bunch of stuff that was pretty much garbage.
“I’ll go and wake up Jake.” Dad turned off the truck and climbed out of the cab. I was left alone with Uncle Herm, still hunched over all large and … quiet.
Quiet. Strangely quiet. Why wasn’t Uncle Herm snoring? Or at least breathing that loud drunk breathing he was so good at?
I looked at him. It was the first time I’d looked really closely at him since our journey had begun. I bent over and put my ear as close to his mouth as I could get. I expected a not-great smell.
Nothing.
At least I thought nothing. The passenger door opened and I jumped, hitting my head on the roof of the cab.
“Surprised you, huh?” Dad laughed.
Yeah, major funny, Dad.
“Bannering will be here in a minute. He was all right with me getting him up but Mrs. B wasn’t real happy…. I think we’re off her Christmas-card list.”
“Dad … I … I think there might be something wrong with Uncle Herm.”
“I know there’s something wrong with Uncle Herm. There’ll be a hell of a lot more wrong with him tomorrow.”
“No, I mean something really wrong. He’s not moving at all. I don’t think he’s breathing. Maybe he’s … ”
Dad looked at his brother then at me. “Naw.” He went around to the driver’s side, opened the door, and leaned in. He stared at Uncle Herm for a few seconds then lifted one of my uncle’s large arms and let it fall. It came down in a hurry and made a thump on the seat. Finally Dad twisted around so he could see Uncle Herm’s face.
Then he straightened up, kind of herky-jerky. He didn’t say anything for what seemed like a really long time. “Andy … I think your uncle’s … dead.”
I looked at Dad and at Uncle Herm “You think? You can’t tell for sure?”
“Well, hell, I mean, yeah I can tell … he’s … he’s dead.”
We stood there looking at each other and trying to think of what to say next. This wasn’t one of those life situations you get much practice dealing with. Dad closed the door and walked to the front of the pickup. I got out of the truck and backed my way to a place right next to Dad. Actually pretty close to him.
Mr. Bannering came shuffling out to the truck. He had his coveralls on but was still in his bedroom slippers.
“Get the tire into the shop and let’s get this over with,” he ordered.
“Uh … Jake,” my dad looked at him, “I need you to do something for me…. You had much experience with … the dead?”
“What the hell are you — ?”
“Dead people. Could you recognize one, y’know … if you saw him?”
“Tires, I fix tires, and I don’t feel like having some stupid philosophical discussion in the middle of the damn street in the middle of the damn night. Now are you gonna get that tire into —”
Dad raised his voice. “I’m talking about dead people here. We think Herm might be … gone.”
“Gone?”
“Yeah … gone. Dead, for Christ’s sake.”
“It’s coming on to two in the morning and if you think this is funny, I got —”
I’d been listening to my dad and I didn’t think he sounded like he was kidding around. “We’re serious, Mr. Bannering,” I said. “Uncle Herm — he’s in there and he’s not moving or breathing or anything.”
Mr. Bannering looked at me like suddenly there was something to this. Like having me say it instead of Dad — that seemed to get his attention. Big time.
He leaned into the cab of the truck and did pretty much the same thing Dad had done a few minutes before. Then he stepped back. And stepped back again.
“If the boy wasn’t here, I’d be sayin’ some words I won’t say with him here.”
“Yeah,” Dad said.
Mr. Bannering lifted a big hand and rubbed it across his face a couple of times. “Let me get this straight. You’re driving around the country getting tires fixed and who knows what all else with a dead body in the truck. And you’ve got the boy with you. Are you some kind of psycho?”
I could see Mr. Bannering was upset. Or maybe disgusted is a better word.
“We didn’t know he was dead, Jake,” Dad shook his head. “I swear to god we just found out —”
“Well, now you know, so get him out of here and off Main Street.” He stood and watched us as if he wanted to make sure we did what he said.
Nobody moved. I guess I was waiting for Dad. He had his arms crossed and he was thinking. “Jake, wait a second.” It seemed like Dad was shouting, but maybe that was just because it was so quiet on the street.
Mr. Bannering turned around. “What?”
“You might as well fix the tire.”
“What?”
“Look, we’re here anyway. It won’t make any difference to Herm and the tire needs fixing.”
It sounded kind of insensitive the way Dad said it, but I kind of agreed with him. Especially since I was still worried about my car out there on the highway.
“Well, shouldn’t we at least send for an ambulance?”
Dad thought about that. “Be forever getting here. And it’ll cost. We’ll drop him off.”
Mr Bannering seemed to think that made at least a little sense.
“After you change the tire.”
“The. Man. Is. Dead.” Mr. Bannering said it with a pause between each word.
“I know that and I wish he wasn’t, I really do. He’s my brother. But we’re here and we have to get Andy’s car off the highway and we need this tire.”
“I can’t believe this whole deal. This is so ridiculous I can’t even —”
“Just fix the damn tire, Jake.”
Mr. Bannering hesitated. “All right, bring it inside … away from … that.” He waved in the direction of the pickup. “And I’m charging you double.”
Dad looked at me, shook his head and took the tire inside the shop. While they were inside I walked up and down the block hoping no one would be out at this hour who might just happen to wal
k by the truck. And even more I hoped that Patti Bailer would never find out how I’d spent the hours immediately after our first date.
When Dad came out of the tire shop rolling the tire in front of him, I prayed that the weird part of the night was just about over. It wasn’t.
We started driving. I looked back and saw Mr. Bannering standing on the sidewalk watching us. His lips were moving and whatever he was telling himself I bet it wasn’t what a nice, normal family the Crocketts were. I couldn’t really blame him.
I just wanted to get out on the highway as quickly as possible so we could get back and be done with the whole thing. Dad had other ideas. Our next stop was the hospital. Dad parked at the emergency entrance, right behind the town’s ambulance. It’s weird the stuff that goes through your mind at certain times. I remember thinking that this night had convinced me that ambulance driver was one career they couldn’t pay me enough money to do.
Dad went through the double glass doors of the emergency entrance and I stayed in the truck, careful not to look over at my dead uncle. After a few minutes a nurse came out and for about the twentieth time that night somebody checked out my uncle.
Apparently just telling people someone is dead isn’t good enough.
The nurse looked at Uncle Herm for a while, did the pulse thing and stuff again, then looked at my dad. She nodded and said, “I’m sorry but he … your brother … has definitely passed away.”
Dad nodded and wiped his sleeve across his mouth. He seemed to be swallowing a lot. I’d never really known how my Dad felt about his alcoholic brother but I could see that, as weird as this whole thing was, it was tough for him.
“What do we do?” he asked the nurse.
“You have two choices. You can leave him here — there’s a morgue in the basement — or you can take him to the funeral home yourself. Seeing as it’s so late you may want to leave him —”
“We’ll take him … to the funeral home … uh … thanks.” Dad shook hands with the nurse, which I thought was kind of strange, but everything about this night had been strange.
The nurse walked off into the hospital and Dad got back in the truck. “I hate the word ‘morgue,’” Dad shoved the key in the ignition like he was punching somebody in the gut.
I was pretty much convinced that this was never going to end. Plus I was really tired. But resting my head against the side window and trying to get a little sleep, sitting next to Uncle Herm — that wasn’t going to happen. As we drove to Stan Marley’s Funeral Home — it was also where Mr. Marley lived, which is a little creepy if you ask me — I noticed that the Christmas decorations were up on the power poles on Main Street. They weren’t lit yet but they were up and ready to go. That meant that in the next few days Mom would say, “The town yuletide decorations look lovely this year.” She said it every year. Funny I should remember her words just then. Maybe it was because my mom is the only real person I know who says “yuletide,” or maybe it was because the decorations are the same every year.
I snuck another peek at Uncle Herm. I wondered what he’d think if he knew I was focused on Christmas decorations while he was sitting there all dead in the truck. I decided to stare at the glove box instead. More appropriate.
We didn’t get an answer to all our pounding on the door and ringing the bell at the funeral home. I guess it was foolish to think that something might actually go right on the night from hell. Standing on the steps looking at the plaque on the door that said “Welcome,” Dad shook his head then looked at me. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. But I had a feeling that he wasn’t real happy with me just then.
“I don’t think Uncle Herm died because I had a flat tire.” I told him.
He nodded his head and closed his eyes for a few seconds. I figured maybe the stress and lack of sleep was getting to him too.
He opened his eyes. “Probably not,” was all he said.
He looked back at the door to the funeral home. “We might as well go put the tire on the car and we’ll decide what to do with Herm after that.” Dad’s voice didn’t have much bounce in it, another sign that the night was taking a toll on the guy.
“It’s okay, Dad, we can leave it,” I told him. “What the hell, it’s almost morning anyway.”
Dad didn’t laugh or even smile. “Andy, we’re going to put that goddamn tire on that car. Let’s go.”
The way Dad said it meant that an argument wouldn’t be welcome. So I spent another fifteen minutes sitting next to my dead uncle — it was creeping me out way worse now that I knew he was dead.
It was a lot cooler than it had been the first time or even the second time I’d stood beside the Biscayne that night. But I was out there handing the lug nuts to Dad and trying to look like I was helping. Anything to keep from being in the truck.
I looked up and thought about how great the stars looked and then felt real guilty for noticing nice things like stars and Christmas decorations. Orion was up there, all warrior-like with the three stars in his belt. I bet he never went through anything like this.
When the tire was changed Dad said, “I’ll go back to town and see if I can raise Marley. You get home to bed.”
Those were the first words I’d heard in a couple of hours that made any sense at all. I was in the Biscayne and out of there before Dad could change his mind. And that’s how it ended.
For me. The next morning Dad told me Mr. Marley had finally come to the door and the two of them had wheeled Uncle Herm into the funeral home.
The funeral was three days later. I was actually feeling bad about Uncle Herm and it was a sad funeral, too — I guess most of them are. But every time I thought about driving around the countryside most of the night with a dead person in the pickup so we could change a tire, I had to work a little at not laughing right there in the middle of the funeral.
The Six all came to the funeral, I’m not sure why. I didn’t think they’d ever met Uncle Herm, but I suppose they might have seen him during one of his nights out. But I was pretty sure they were there just so they could say they’d been there. Like thirty years later when people were still talking about the weirdest flat-tire changing that had ever taken place in Parkerville history, everyone would want to be able to say, “I was at the funeral, you know.”
And they were hell on the sandwiches at the after-burial tea they had in the church basement. Hennie took a whole tray and pretended to be passing them around but I noticed that if anybody actually reached for a sandwich, he’d turn away before they could make contact. I’m guessing The Six downed pretty well that whole tray.
Three
Mr. R was walking up and down between the rows of desks, a battered old hard copy of a Webster’s dictionary in his hands.
“The word hoax is defined as ‘something intended to deceive; deliberate trickery intended to gain an advantage.’” Mr. Retzlaff wrote the definition on the board then underlined the word “deceive.”
“Who can give me an example?”
No one put up their hand so I did.
“Alamo.”
“What about all those Elvis sightings? I mean, the guy’s dead.”
Somebody at the back of the room said, “Andy’s an expert on dead people.” I couldn’t tell for sure who it was, but it sounded like Hennie. The whole class laughed. Yeah, it had taken about twenty minutes for the Uncle Herm story to make it through the halls of Parkerville Comp. Which made me the school dufus. So now, not only were people not talking to me — they were laughing as they walked past. Nice.
And there were the inevitable comments from The Six:
— T-Ho: Hey, Alamo, can I catch a ride home after school? Of course I can’t, I’m not dead.
— Jen: No wonder we call you Alamo. Weren’t there a lot of dead bodies then too?
— Hennie: Hey man, how unpopular do you have to be you got to go ridin’ with dead folks?
— Lou: You couldn’t get anybody else to help you change a tire?
Big Nose Kate didn’t say
anything, although she laughed more than any of them and Rebel just shook his head every time he saw me.
I was sure Mr. R had to have heard about Uncle Herm, but he didn’t say anything about it.
“Not bad,” he nodded. “Those sightings are definitely intended to deceive, although I’m not sure how telling someone you saw Elvis at Home Depot buying plumbing fixtures could gain anyone an advantage.”
Everyone laughed again. Everyone but me. I didn’t feel much like laughing.
“But it’s still a good example.” Mr. Retzlaff changed directions and started walking up and down in front of the class. “So not all hoaxes are bad. But some are. Some are very bad. I want to talk about one of the worst today.”
He had our attention like he usually did. “We talked last week about the Holocaust and the discussion got around to the pictures. I’m sure many of us have seen pictures of the concentration camps.”
A few people nodded. I’d never seen the pictures he was talking about, but I nodded too.
“I told you a few classes back that we would come back to the subject of pictures.” Mr. R set the dictionary down on the table next to his desk. “Pictures … pictures … pictures. They’re worth a thousand words, isn’t that the expression?”
The whole time I’d been watching Mr. R, he’d been reminding of someone. I finally figured it out. It wasn’t one particular someone. It was a bunch of someones. Lawyers. The ones you see on TV shows when they’re in courtrooms and they’re convincing the jury of something. I figured Mr. R could have been a good lawyer.
He went to his computer. Mr. R had one of those set-ups where he could punch stuff into his computer and it showed up on the smart board at the front of the classroom.
“Pictures,” he said again.
He started tapping at the computer keys. A picture of a bus came up on the screen. It was green, a passenger bus like you’d see in the big cities. It was travelling on a busy street, right toward the camera. Then there was another picture on the screen. This time it was Mr. R in shorts and a T-shirt. He looked like he was on holidays. His hair was pretty long and he was wearing sunglasses. He was staring at the camera and smiling. It looked like he was in a parking lot — a ball park or some kind of stadium behind him, but off a ways.
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