“Sallie, sorry to bother you.”
“Joe, what the hell? Everything all right?”
“It’s this speech thing. I want it to be different,” Grudeck said.
There was a pause.
“Sal, you there?”
“Yeah, I’m just trying to figure . . . what’s bothering you, kid?”
“I don’t know, Sal. Everything changed. I changed. It was fun, at first, then it wasn’t. It got too, I don’t know, big or something. Too important. It’s out of whack.”
“You complaining? I mean, let’s face it, Joe, most people think you’re living every man’s fantasy.”
“They think. They don’t know what I’ve sacrificed.” Grudeck hated the sound of it, the second it came out of his mouth. “I mean, there’s been trade-offs.”
Sal was quiet again.
“So, what’s bothering you, kid?”
“I don’t know . . . I think I want to say something that puts things in . . . perspective.”
“Okay, kid, but remember, perspective depends on who’s perspecting. I mean, your take on things might not wash with other people.”
“But there’s things other people don’t know.”
“So again, I ask, what’s bothering you?”
Now it was Grudeck who was silent. He felt so . . . unfocused, and finally said so.
“Well, then, that’s what you need,” Sal said. “Focus. Tell you what. Come down next week, and we’ll talk it out. We’ll figure it out. I promise. I’ll take care of it.”
They hung up, and Grudeck wondered how he could once focus hard enough to see the rotation of the red stitches on a 95-m.p.h. fastball, but now couldn’t zero in on his own feelings.
Spring
Chapter Ten
After he heard that final museum budgets were approved, Horace went to see Grundling, in blacksmith garb with leather hat in hand, to ask if the summer youth work program had been chopped.
“It wasn’t easy, but I was determined to keep it,” Grundling said. He leaned forward and picked up the Conestoga covered wagon he kept on his desk. “We need to show these kids what we do. We’re a dying breed, Horace. We need to create the next generation of living historians.”
Horace resented the “we.” Grundling was no living historian. When was the last time he’d busted a blood blister forging a horseshoe, or took a metal flint in the eye? Never. He spent his days head in laptop, playing with Excel in the comfortable director’s office, not with tools, not breathing coal smoke eight hours a day. Still, Horace had to kiss his ass.
“Well, John, I’m glad you see it that way, and I wonder if we can get my son started down that path this summer,” Horace said.
Grundling leaned back in his chair, still holding the wagon.
“How old, Horace?”
“Fourteen.”
“Hmmm . . . fourteen . . . I don’t know. The rules say sixteen, Horace.”
“The heck with the rules, John,” Horace said, not in anger but with a phony co-conspirator’s tone. “You know he’s one of . . . us. He was chasing around chickens here while still in diapers. I taught him how to work the bellows for me when he was six. This is a kid who knows not to walk behind a horse.”
“Seems I haven’t seen him here in a while, Horace.”
“Well, you know, sports,” Horace said. “That’s why I thought a job this summer . . .”
“But he’s only fourteen, Horace. Isn’t there some other way for him to earn money?” Grundling asked.
A buzz, a hum like a tuning fork, dizzied Horace’s brain.
“It’s not about money, John . . .” he said, but his anger was tumbling and he couldn’t finish.
Naturally, Grundling would think it was about money. It was always about money with these spreadsheet guys.
Horace knew that whatever he said next would have to mask his disrespect for Grundling. Horace knew he was a corporate climber out to impress the foundation that he could “do more with less.” Flip a loser like the farm and, well, next stop was the Hall. Or the foundation itself.
And Horace was sure Grundling’s “other way to earn money” remark was aimed to cut him down to size: a big man, yes, but a poor man. Money, the great equalizer. Horace sat there, mouth dry, searching for something to say. Grundling’s patient silence—knowing he had struck a nerve, a nerve Horace was working to suppress—irritated Horace even more. That, and the way Grundling knew, and knew Horace knew, Grundling had him by the balls.
“How can I explain this?” Horace was trying to temper his voice, but it rose and he inched forward in his chair as he spoke. “It’s not about the money, John. It’s never been about money. Jesus, John, does anybody do this for the money? If it was about money . . . I’m a historian. A living historian! It’s about teaching. It’s about teaching a boy about his heritage, about his culture. It’s about grounding him in something, in something that is not somebody else’s idea of culture, which, for kids these days, let’s face it, is nothing but a bunch of shimmying exhibitionists and lunkheads scoring touchdowns or dunking basketballs or movies where aliens kill millions or girls get butchered. It’s about teaching him the value of hard work. To let him see that land can be used for more than just throwing a ball around, or for building yet another consumer pig trough of condos and shopping centers. To let him build up some calluses on his hands—like these.”
Horace thrust his hands palms-up toward Grundling and saw him flinch. And in that moment, just like that, Horace got some power back.
“Take it easy, Horace,” Grundling said as he leaned farther back in his chair. “I’m not the enemy.”
“I know, John, I’m just frustrated,” Horace said as he withdrew his hands and lowered his voice. “Raising a boy these days, well, it’s not easy.”
“I’m sure it’s not, Horace. And if he were sixteen, I’d love to have . . .”
“Michael. His name is Michael.”
“. . . Michael working here at the Farmers’ Museum. But there are other concerns and issues. Liabilities. Insurance, for instance. Improprieties, or the appearance thereof. Other young people may want those jobs. Shouldn’t we discourage nepotism to open ourselves up to the entire community? Maybe bring in a kid who really needs a job?”
So now, Horace thought, Grundling is using my “it’s not about the money” argument against me.
“Bullshit, John,” Horace said. “You know it and I know it. I’ve been here twenty years and every summer we carry at least one or two privileged offspring of this board member or that foundation trustee. And they have one thing in common with the underprivileged we bring in: they’re equally lazy. These opposite sides of the economic spectrum share the common trait of entitlement. Difference is, my kid will work. And work hard. I promise you that.”
Grundling said nothing, but his eyes moved around the office.
“Look, John,” Horace finally said, not wanting to plead, but not able to tolerate the silence, “this is important to me. I feel my kid is drifting away. Sports. Rap music. The crap TV and Hollywood put out. It’s not authentic culture. I want him to understand his culture. His roots are here. Right here. His great-great-grandfathers planted hops. He should understand their lives.”
Mid-spew, Horace realized how tinny and desperate he sounded with his Every Teen’s Parent Lament. And, yes, even racist, which Grundling zeroed in on.
“Are you saying you don’t want him exposed to ‘urban’ cultures?” Grundling asked. Horace thought he saw Grundling suppress a smile.
“I’m saying I want it balanced out,” Horace said. “I can’t change what comes at him through the TV or the Internet or the barrage of advertising my generation, by the way, never had to ingest. But I can make sure he sees the other side. I, we, have a culture, too. That fact gets lost these days in America.”
Grundling leaned forward and put down the model.
“Well, then, Horace . . . since this seems to be such an important issue to you, I’ll take it up with the
board. I see the biggest stumbling block will be insurance, but I think I can make it work. We can work something out.”
Grundling was going to ask for something in return, Horace knew. Everything with Grundling was like that. A negotiation.
But on his way back to the smithy, he noticed the season’s first crocuses stretching to bloom along the farm’s wide walkways and caught himself feeling surprisingly good.
In front of him, too far to call out, was Natalia in street clothes hurrying along with a patterned cloth satchel slung over her shoulder with her milkmaid dress spilling out. Horace picked up his pace to catch her but couldn’t close the distance fast enough as she turned the corner into the dairy exhibit and cow barn. He went to follow her in, but she swung the door partway closed and he stopped, partially hidden behind a black-and-white Holstein, who looked at him with dumb ambivalence.
He could see only half of Natalia’s body as she swooped her sweater over her head with her back to him. Next, down came the jeans, wriggling herself free. For an instant—no, an eternity—he took in the pink straps of her bra and one full naked globe of her butt, with a matching pink strip riding high on her hip. A milkmaid in a thong. He moved closer behind the cow, feeling more naked and exposed in the muddy yard than Natalia was in her underwear. And yet he watched. He watched as she bent down to retrieve the dress, revealing more of her ample, shapely ass. He watched as she fumbled with the dowdy material and raised it overhead, stretching out the body Horace wanted to embrace and, yes, mount, until the dress fell like a show-ending curtain from her head to below her knees. Horace turned and walked quickly to the smithy, hand concealing the beginning of a hard-on—like the schoolboy voyeur he was.
* * *
THAT NIGHT AS HE SETTLED into bed, Horace told Sally about his plan, expecting her approval.
Instead she let out one of her “that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard” sighs, like when he suggested they go off the grid.
“Did you ask Michael?”
Horace said nothing.
“Don’t you think you should first ask Michael if he wants to work in the fields?”
“A little hard work will be good for him.” Not to mention, a hundred years ago it was expected, Horace wanted to add, but didn’t.
Sally fell back hard on the pillow, eyes on the ceiling, then popped back up.
Horace knew what was coming. Sally pulled the strands of hair back behind her ear, so that there was nothing between him and her stare.
“What happens if he doesn’t want to work there? What happens if he thinks it will interfere with baseball? Did you think about that? This is his last summer of baseball before high school. Maybe he wants to work hard at that, to make a good impression on the varsity coaches next year. Did you think about that? What happens if he says, ‘Dad, I absolutely hate the idea of working at the farm’?”
She fell back on the pillow.
“Michael doesn’t use words like absolutely,” Horace said, a little meek but with enough snide.
“Don’t, Horace.”
“Well, you’re the one making it sound like I don’t know my own son; like arranging for this job is some giant miscalculation, another episode of Horace-in-the-Dark. Michael has always loved it at the farm.”
“When he was, what, seven? Eight? When was the last time he was there? Think about it, Horace.”
“I don’t know . . . his birthday, a couple of years ago?”
Horace knew he’d just stepped in shit, but it was too late. Sally was going to pile on.
“It was three years ago, when he turned eleven. Don’t you remember? His birthday party? The little side-trip you arranged? It was miserable. He was miserable.”
Horace remembered.
It was the year Horace began to see changes in Michael. The boy who once knew the night constellations, and the Greek gods they represented, switched his retentive skills to baseball statistics. He became bored with their sky watches and Sunday-evening hikes, where Horace taught him how to use a compass and coordinates to find his way. Michael wanted to stay home and watch sports.
Michael quit Boy Scouts, and his Birds of North America and Mammals of North America field guides and Boys’ Life magazines were lost under piles of glossy sports magazines aimed at kids. The rock-collecting and fossil-dusting kits now collected dust. One night Horace went into Michael’s room to try to convince him to stay in Scouts. He picked up one of the new magazines and flipped through ad after ad of outrageously expensive athletic shoes and other stuff. Nike. Under Armour. Adidas.
“Why is everybody a walking billboard these days?” Horace said as he flipped the pages, more to himself than to Michael.
But Michael answered.
“Because it’s cool.”
“Cool? Why? Because they say?” Horace said, pointing to a shoe ad with a player named Kamil Qawi shattering a backboard with a one-handed slam. The shoe was called the Kami-Qawzi. Was nothing sacred? Horace thought. All those World War II guys, spinning in their graves.
“Is that what makes it cool . . . that some big jock wears it? You know they pay these guys to wear these things, so they can sell them to you for more money. Don’t you think that’s a little dishonest?”
“I just think it’s cool,” Michael said, and Horace heard Sally’s flatness in his voice.
“Maybe they should pay you for advertising for them. Like in the Depression. Eat at Joe’s.”
“Huh? Dad, that’s stupid.”
The words burned Horace. The death of respect. If he had talked to his father that way . . . but Horace let it go.
Michael wanted a baseball-themed birthday party for his entire Little League team. Sally put together a tour of the Hall, with cheeseburgers and ice cream to follow at the Shortstop, a ’50s-style malt shop near Doubleday Field. After ice cream, the boys would go to Doubleday and watch a game between two out-of-town high school teams.
Horace did the math and figured it was a four-hundred-dollar day, even with his foundation discount. The money was one thing, the principle was another. Horace thought it was all overindulgent; video arcade parties, karate parties, sports parties, all in some strip mall or giant-sized aluminum shed, all contrived experiences done mostly for the financial benefit of the business owner, who did little more than put up a computer printout banner, serve some microwave pizza, powdered fruit juice, and a supermarket cake, and laugh all the way to the bank. Worse were the craft parties, where the kids were handed some cookie-cutter plaster sculpture or glued-together wood frame, splashed some paint on it, and were led to believe they had created something artistic, original, and worthwhile, as their parents gloated with their fixed phony smiles and glazed-over eyes, bloating the egos of their offspring with undeserved praise.
“Why don’t we have something here at the house?” Horace said to Sally. “You know, an old-fashioned birthday party. We’ll organize some games, have cake and ice cream . . . show his friends an authentic party for a change. Who knows, maybe we’ll start a trend.”
“He doesn’t want that,” Sally protested, “nobody does that anymore. He’d die of embarrassment.”
“I don’t understand this . . . what is so embarrassing about a game of horseshoes in the backyard instead of feeding quarters to some machines in an arcade parlor? What is so embarrassing about a homemade cake, instead of some cardboard-box thing?”
“You’re right, Horace, you don’t understand. It’s his birthday. Why can’t we just give him what he wants?”
“Because it goes against everything I want to teach him,” Horace said, holding up his huge hands in Sally’s face. “Look, I make things with these. Since when did homemade become a dirty word in this country?”
“Oh, Christ, Horace,” Sally said, exhaling the burden of the conversation. “It’s a birthday party, Horace! That’s all it is! A birthday party!”
Horace let it go. But on the day of the party he announced he’d arranged for the boys to visit the farm museum before the Hall of
Fame.
“For balance,” he said. “We’ll go through quick.”
Sally was furious and objected, but Michael, sensing the tension between his parents, agreed with a shrug that a quick stop would be okay.
Horace took the boys through the machinery and tools exhibit, stunned by their ignorance of tools. He held up an antique claw hammer.
“Anybody know what this is called?”
“A hammer,” they yelled in disunity.
“What kind of hammer?”
Only Michael knew.
Don’t your fathers teach you anything? Horace wanted to ask, remembering his own father’s organized tool bench with masking-tape labels so Horace knew what to get when sent.
Horace tried to make the boys visualize the hard manual labor their ancestors experienced but they quickly got bored, and the more rowdy among them began to fool around.
One grabbed a long-handled Amish scythe and did a Grim Reaper imitation. Another began pulling the levers on the 1923 Case Thresher, a rambling contraption of hundreds of irreplaceable moving parts. That same kid jumped, literally jumped, up on the running boards of a 1929 Model T milk truck.
“Boys, the signs say ‘Do Not Touch’ for a reason,” Horace scolded. “These things are the last of their kind.”
“These things are junk,” came a reply from one of the boys, a wise-ass named Jacob something-or-other, followed by laughter from the whole group.
Horace looked hard at the kid.
“Hey, Jake, this is a museum where old-fashioned things are kept,” Horace said, stepping up to him. “So, while we’re in this museum, we do old-fashioned things like respect adults and listen to what they say. Got it?”
Horace glanced over at Michael, who looked away, red-faced and fighting back tears, either embarrassed or angry. He was in the awkward position of watching his friends irritate his father, then watching his father be harsh with his friends—and not being able to control either, or choose a side. Sally moved toward him, saying nothing, a silent witness to the chaotic unraveling of Horace’s day.
Gods of Wood and Stone Page 12
