Mad Dad, Fun Dad

by Doug Draper

  For the next three weeks, Ben put on a show at school and home to hide his injury. It took great focus to ignore the persistent pain and to take a deep breath without wincing in agony. Slowly the pain lessened, but Ben’s ability to endure pain went unrewarded.

  The downfall came because one of the piano squad members couldn’t resist sharing the story with a buddy. And the drama of “little Benny Baker being squished by the piano” soon spread. When the news reached Mrs. Wright, she took immediate action.

  “Class, before today’s geography lesson, we need to discuss another subject—honesty,” she said with a stern tone.

  Ben thought someone might have been caught cheating. He had no worries about that problem, but Mrs. Wright quickly wiped out his sense of security.

  “We had a recent problem in the hallway where someone was seriously injured and five boys from our class knew it happened, but none of them told me about it. And that’s unacceptable, dishonest behavior.”

  The guilty party of five sounded like Ben and the piano squad. In case her verbal clue didn’t catch the culprits’ attention, Mrs. Wright delivered her statement while looking at Ben and then shifting her focus to Ted.

  “You need to understand that being honest goes beyond not lying, stealing, or cheating. It also requires sharing vital information instead of hiding it.”

  To illustrate her point, Mrs. Wright told a story about a mistake she made as a teenager. Shortly after learning how to drive, she put a long scratch in her father’s new car by brushing against a fence post. She worried that if she told her father about the scratch that he would take away her driving privileges. To avoid getting into trouble, she kept quiet about what happened.

  The next day, her father spotted the scratch and blamed it on his wife. She denied having done it and Mrs. Wright’s parents ended up in a heated argument. Because she couldn’t stand to hear them quarreling, Mrs. Wright confessed that she had scratched the car.

  “By not telling my parents about the scratch as soon as it happened, I caused them to argue and still ended up being punished. I learned a valuable lesson from that experience.”

  After pausing to make eye contact with Ben and each member of the piano squad, she asked, “Would any of you like to tell me about something that should have been reported immediately?”

  Ben avoided looking at Mrs. Wright and waited for one of his fellow conspirators to speak up. Even if Mrs. Wright asked Ben directly, he planned to honor his agreement with Ted and say nothing.

  After Mrs. Wright repeated her question, Ted spoke up from where he sat on the back row. “Ma’am, I think you might be talking about the piano tipping over when we were pushing it down the hall.”

  “Ted, thank you for sharing that information with me. But did you leave out an important detail?”

  “Uh, I suppose so. The piano landed on little Benny Baker and squished him like a bug.”

  Most of the kids laughed at Ted’s account of the incident, but Mrs. Wright shut down the levity with a stern look. When she glanced at Ben, he imagined that she wanted to see if he had truly been “squished,” so he gave his teacher a happy face to let her know that all’s well.

  Mrs. Wright asked, “Ted, didn’t you think that I should have heard about what happened so Ben could get medical care?”

  “I thought about it, but I helped Benny start breathing again and then he picked up the trash can and went right back to work. He’s a lot tougher than he looks.”

  It thrilled Ben to hear a popular boy compliment him in front of the entire fifth grade.

  “Ben, did you stop breathing?” Mrs. Wright asked, appearing surprised by the news.

  “Yes, ma’am, but Ted got my breathing started again. I only had the wind knocked out of me and it was no big deal.”

  Ben should have stopped with “Yes, ma’am.” Mrs. Wright jumped on Ben’s comment that the piano accident “was no big deal” and stated that she needed to know if any of her students gets hurt at school. She finished the lecture by asking Ben and the piano squad to remain in the classroom at the end of the day.

  With the teacher’s request hanging over Ben’s head, the day crawled by slower than normal. When the interrogation began, Principal Smith joined Mrs. Wright in asking for every detail of the piano mishap and why it landed on Ben. Until Ted started telling the story, Mrs. Wright and the principal didn’t know that Ben had been riding on the back of the piano. Both interrogators also expressed surprise when they learned that the accident had happened three weeks earlier.

  With the fact-gathering step completed, the punishment phase began. Mrs. Wright said she would reassign all members of the piano squad to chores to be done in the classroom. Ben lost his responsibility for emptying the wastepaper basket, being reassigned to dusting bookshelves.

  “Boys, I know that some of you have missed your bus and the rest should have walked home from school by now,” Principal Smith said. “Don’t worry. We called your parents earlier today and they’re here to take you home after we talk to them about this situation.”

  Ben couldn’t believe that the principal included “Don’t worry” in his announcement. He could make the long walk home from school—that wasn’t a problem. Having his parents receive a call about Ben being in trouble at school again would result in him getting thumped by his father.

  “Ben, your parents couldn’t get off work to pick you up, so Mrs. Wright will drive you home,” the principal said, embarrassing Ben in front of his new friends.

  “Oh, she doesn’t need to do that. I can walk. It’s only a couple of miles.”

  “No. Mrs. Wright will drive you home.”

  The principal told Ben to stay, but he sent the rest of the boys to wait for him in his office and promised to be there in a couple of minutes. The principal then asked Ben to show him his injuries. Ben pulled down the corner of his shirt collar and pointed at the red mark that still crossed the top of his chest. The principal asked Ben to remove his shirt.

  “OK, but there isn’t much to see now,” Ben said, unbuttoning his shirt and slipping it off. “I’m nearly all healed and feeling much better.”

  While his teacher took notes, the principal examined Ben’s chest and back. “Mrs. Wright, please record that there is a scrape across Ben’s chest and several faded bruises on his back and chest.”

  When Principal Smith pressed his fingers gently into Ben’s back, he said, “Tell me if you have any pain where I’m touching you.”

  Ben flinched and lied, “No.”

  The principal did the same thing with Ben’s ribs and received the same response.

  “We need your parents to take you to a doctor to be checked out. There might be a severe problem that X-rays could identify.”

  “But I’m fine,” Ben said.

  “You need to see a doctor because it’s obvious that you aren’t being truthful about having no pain. You cringe and hold your breath whenever I touch you.”

  Principal Smith turned to Mrs. Wright and asked her if she had seen Ben’s reactions to being touched and received a solemn nod to indicate her agreement.

  Ben desperately wanted to get out of going to the doctor. “We can’t afford more doctor bills.”

  “If your parents need help paying for a doctor to examine you, I’ll have the school cover the expense because the injuries happened here. There will be no debate about this—you’re going to the doctor.”

  The principal handed Ben’s shirt to him. “You can put your shirt back on. We’re done here.”

  Mrs. Wright watched Ben button his shirt. “Having the piano fall on you must have been very frightening and painful.”

  “A little bit. But I’m used to it. Like Ted said, I’m much tougher than I look.”

  “What do you mean about being used to it?”

  Once again, Ben realized that he should have limited his response to “Yes, ma’am.” Joe often warned him to be polite and cheerful but don’t provide more information than required. To answer Mrs. Wrigh
t’s question, Ben made up examples.

  “Sometimes I get hurt doing stuff that boys do,” he said. “Like playing football, falling out of trees, and tripping over things. I’m someone who trips and bumps into stuff an awful lot.”

  Ben’s examples omitted actual events such as his father throwing tools at him, breaking a broom over his head, or jabbing him in the abdomen with a rake.

  “If anything like that happens at school, please come to me so we can talk about it.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Ben said, keeping his answer simple.

  Ben followed Mrs. Wright and the principal to the school office, passing the corner where the piano had fallen. He resisted the urge to point out the spot. Instead, he joined the adults in silence for the entire walk.

  In the office, Mrs. Wright briefly talked to the parents who had gathered there and then left them with the principal while she drove Ben home. They chatted along the way about Ben’s schoolwork and she asked about Joe’s progress in sixth grade. As expected, Mrs. Wright mentioned that Joe was one of her favorite students of all time. Ben told her that Joe still spent hours doing his homework every night.

  “Joe has all the brains in the family. He’s even the best at milking the cow.”

  “I’ll tell you the truth about Joe,” Mrs. Wright said. “He excels at school because he sets lofty goals and then works hard to achieve them. You could do the same.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “You could be one of the top students this year and for years to come. I can see you going on to earn a college degree, but you need to focus on your teacher and take your eyes off the clock.”

  Ben laughed about the clock, knowing the criticism was true, but he also appreciated her words of encouragement.

  When Mrs. Wright pulled into the Bakers’ gravel driveway, Ben noticed his grandparents’ car parked next to the house. “Ah, what are they doing here?” he asked with a loud groan.

  “School policy doesn’t let me take you home without an adult being present. I worked it out with your mother to have your grandmother meet us.”

  “You didn’t need to do that. Joe is here and keeps me out of trouble.”

  “I’m sure Joe does a wonderful job. Today, your grandmother will be here too.”

  Having seen Mrs. Wright’s car, Grandma Thorne came out of the house with Becky in her arms and waved from the front porch. Ben gathered his books and lunch box.

  Before he could exit the car, Mrs. Wright said, “Ben, I hope you will trust me and let me know when you’ve been hurt. And I don’t want you to think that you need to get used to being hurt. That’s something nobody must go through. Do you understand me?”

  Ben answered with a quick “Yes, ma’am,” feeling uneasy about her touching the fringes of a well-protected area of his life.

  As he exited the car, Mrs. Wright repeated the main point of her honesty lesson. “Remember, being honest is more than not telling lies. It’s also speaking up about things that people need to know.”

  Ben nodded to her, closed the car door, and walked away briskly. He agreed with what she said, but he didn’t know if her comments applied to family secrets. That’s what he wanted to speak about for hours if anybody would listen—and if he had permission to mention those secrets.

  When Ben reached the front porch, he waved goodbye to Mrs. Wright and waited for her drive off. He wondered what she would do if he told her about his “hurts” and who gave them to him. But knowing the problems it would create for his family, he pledged to suffer in silence—and keep his eyes on the clock.

  CHAPTER 26

  In the summer following Ben’s sixth-grade year, his father received a phone call when the family was getting ready to eat dinner. After hanging up the phone, he took his seat at the table and made an announcement while loading his plate with mashed potatoes.

  “That was Jeb Parker, my father’s boss,” Al said. “He called to let me know that my father passed away this morning. There’s going to be a funeral for him on Saturday. I told Jeb we’d be there.”

  Al’s family waited for him to explain why his father died, but he acted as if his father’s death meant nothing more than an obligation to attend a funeral. Al ignored the stunned looks at the table and dove into his dinner with his usual speedy, silent approach.

  Ben wasn’t shocked by the behavior. He knew that his father came from a family that fell apart at the end of the Great Depression. Grandpa Baker abandoned his wife and four children on a small, run-down farm in Sandy, Utah, to look for work elsewhere. Because she had schizophrenia, Al’s mother couldn’t care for the children. When neighbors complained about the family’s deplorable living conditions, social workers placed Al, his brother, and two sisters in foster homes. Al ended up in Alma where he met Rachel at school.

  Ben had only participated in brief visits with his father’s birth parents. The last visit with Grandpa Baker ended in less than two hours. He lived north of Salt Lake City in a small trailer on the farm where he worked. When the Bakers dropped in to see him, he gave them a tour of the farm, pointing out all the things he needed to get done that day. He made sure they knew what an enormous vital job he had and made it clear that they should leave because he didn’t have time to chat. Al eventually took the hint and told his family, “Let’s go.” They drove away without hugs or promises to see each other again.

  “Don’t chase the chickens” were the only words Grandpa Baker spoke to Ben. Some of the chickens roamed about the barnyard searching for stray pieces of grain. As Ben often did on his farm, he reached down to grab one of the chickens by the feet, so he could carry it around like a pet. But the hen eluded Ben, squawking and flapping her wings. Grandpa Baker noticed the commotion and delivered his brief command with an angry tone and look that reminded Ben of his father.

  “Al, I’m sorry about your father passing away and know that your heart must be very heavy,” Rachel said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “What happened? Was it a heart attack?”

  “No, a train hit him while he was walking on the tracks west of the farm,” Al said, looking up from his food. “What’s wrong with you, idiots? Eat. It’s getting cold.”

  The train story puzzled Ben. He didn’t know how a train could sneak up on someone while walking through the quiet countryside. He imagined that the engineer would have blown the train’s horn when he spotted a man on the tracks.

  “What time is the funeral?” Rachel asked.

  “Noon. We’ll need to wake up early, get our chores done, and be on the road no later than eight. There will be no time for lollygagging around or stopping to pee every ten minutes. Got it?”

  Joe and Ben nodded in agreement, but Rachel sat with tears in her eyes and looked at her plate. She asked, “Do we need to take food for the funeral service or help with the arrangements?”

  “Nope, the Parkers will take care of everything. We don’t have to come up with even a dime to pay for it. Jeb wants to cover the entire cost—and that’s fine with me.”

  Al paused for a few bites of green beans before continuing. “But I promised that we would clean out my father’s trailer.”

  The funeral took place in the LDS Church meetinghouse where Grandpa Baker had been an inactive member. It looked empty with only forty people in attendance. Ben recognized the Parkers, but nobody else. The other attendees had met Grandpa Baker a few times when the Parkers had talked him into going to church with them.

  Because Grandpa Baker had been hit by a train, his casket remained closed for the memorial service, but it still sat in front of the chapel. Bishop Hyrum Hatch of Grandpa Baker’s ward led the service and talked about what happens to a man after death, presenting the LDS viewpoint about three degrees of glory—the Celestial, Terrestrial, and Telestial Kingdoms and the many mansions there. He didn’t predict which of these kingdoms Grandpa Baker would end up in or mention the other option—Outer Darkness where Satan and his angels would be sent along with Mormon leaders who turned against the chur
ch.

  “Not many of us knew Brother Baker very well,” Bishop Hatch said. “But the Parkers commend him for having been an exceptionally hardworking man. He always earned his paycheck by giving a full effort. Today, we celebrate his service to others.”

  Ben glanced to see if his father smiled when hearing that flattering remark, because the same thing could be said about him. Al paid attention to the bishop’s message but showed no emotions.

  After the memorial service, the attendees drove to a sprawling cemetery where men carried the casket to the gravesite. Bishop Hatch dedicated the grave and made a few more remarks. Ben didn’t cry and never caught his father doing so either. He knew his father’s opinion about crying—that’s something only girls do.

  Following the graveside service, the attendees returned to the church for a buffet lunch in the church’s cultural hall. Enough tables and chairs were set up to accommodate one hundred people. Ben filled his plate until it overflowed and then found an empty table away from where his parents sat with the Parkers and Bishop Hatch.

  Ben had gone through the buffet line ahead of Joe and his sisters, so he thought they might join him at his table. Instead, an older, large man with a gray beard sat next to him. He reminded Ben of Santa Claus, except he wore a conservative blue suit, not a flashy red one.

  “I hope you don’t mind me sharing this table with you,” he said.

  “No, but it looks like the adults are sitting over there,” Ben said, nodding toward his parents’ table.

  “Hmm, not that table. Don’t like being where everyone talks at the same time—drives me crazy.”

  “Same here.”

  “And, like me, you have a big appetite,” he said, pointing his fork at Ben’s plate.

  “I do,” Ben said, having followed his father’s advice about buffets—“Load up, because you never know when you’ll eat again.”

  Ben ate in silence while the man rapidly cleared his plate of everything. When finished, he pushed his empty plate aside and said, “I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Ray Spence, but most people call me Canada because I moved down here from Cardston, Alberta, Canada.”