The Boy Who Couldn't Fly Straight (The Broom Closet Stories)

by Jeff Jacobson

  The salmon vendor took Charlie’s silence for reticence.

  “I know it’s kind of pricey. Tell you what,” he said, opening his hands palms up, eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled, “for twenty four dollars, I’ll give you the larger smoked Chinook, a tub of the chive cheese, which is normally four fifty, and throw in a box of crackers, too.”

  Charlie smiled and quickly nodded. He didn’t know if he was getting a good deal or not, but he didn’t care. He took out his wallet and handed over the two twenties that Randall had given him that morning.

  “This is the first thing that I bought in Seattle. Smoked salmon!” he imagined himself saying to the salmon vendor. Like shy people the world over, Charlie held many conversations inside his head, all of which turned out better than reality. No one ever embarrassed him during these fantasy chats. They only included him in their collective fold. He imagined himself saying it, imagined the red-bearded vendor clapping him on the back and congratulating his choice.

  Of course, he said none of this. Instead he placed his purchases inside his canvas bag, thanked the vendor, and turned away.

  But he could still taste the rich flavor of the salmon. He smiled. It tasted like freedom.

  ––––-

  Charlie wandered over to where a small crowd had gathered near the produce stalls.

  “…must be from last year’s supply,” he heard a woman say.

  “No ma’am. These are early Braeburns, I assure you. Try one and tell me if it isn’t the freshest apple you’ve ever tasted,” another voice said. It was male, and younger than the woman’s. Charlie couldn’t tell where it came from, but an unexpected thought ran through his head: ‘I like that voice.’

  As he stood there, he saw a sign that read “Ramirez Yakima Produce” above a stand selling several different kinds of apples. People were trying small slices. He could see the back of the black-haired person passing out the samples, only a few feet away from him.

  That person turned and caught Charlie’s eye.

  He looked to be about Charlie’s age, or maybe slightly older. He was taller than Charlie’s five feet nine inches, probably over six feet. His skin was cinnamon-colored, and he had wide eyes, nearly as wide as Beverly’s, but much darker. His teeth were bright white as he smiled at him.

  Charlie’s mind felt empty in that moment, all thoughts draining away. People were pushing against him to try the apple samples, but he just stood there, looking back at the boy. For some reason he held his breath.

  “Hi, I’m Diego,” he said to Charlie. “Wanna try a sample?”

  Chapter 23

  Charlie walked over to the sample plate the boy was holding. He took a small slice from the plastic container.

  “They’re really good this year. It was a hot summer over in Yakima. My uncle couldn’t believe they were coming in this early, or this sweet,” he said.

  Charlie looked up at Diego’s face, focusing on his lips. They were thick, and they moved quickly as he spoke, blocking, then exposing, the boy’s white teeth.

  ‘Like the sun behind curtains,’ he thought.

  ‘What are you doing, staring at him like that?’ he berated himself, horrified. He put the fruit sample in his mouth.

  Sweetness flooded over his tongue, causing Charlie to momentarily forget his embarrassment. The flavor of the apple was softer, had less sharpness, than the Granny Smiths he was used to eating. And instead of clashing with the taste of the salmon, it blended with it, causing his mouth to water.

  “Pretty good, huh?” said the boy, then turned to offer samples to other passersby. Charlie was struck by two feelings at the same time: relief, at being spared further embarrassment, and dread that the boy would never speak to him again.

  Both feelings disappeared when, moments later, Diego turned back to face him and asked, “What’s your name?”

  “Oh. Charlie. Charlie Creevey,” he said. A small fleck of apple flew out of his mouth when he pronounced the “ch” sound of his name. Heat flared in his cheeks. He was sure he’d turned as red as the tomatoes two stands over. It was all he could do not to run out of the farmers market as fast as his legs would carry him. Diego either didn’t see the piece of apple or chose not to mention it.

  “You live around here?”

  “Uh, yeah. Yeah, over on Washington.” Charlie said, relieved to hear that he sounded normal. “I, uh, I go to Puget Academy.”

  “What?” The boy stopped. He walked over and handed the sample plate to an older man with a thick mustache, then came back to Charlie.

  “No you don’t,” the boy said, laughing. “I go to P.A. I’ve never seen you before.”

  Charlie blushed. “Oh. Um, I just moved here. From California. I live with my aunt and uncle.”

  “Wow, that’s great!” Diego said. “Welcome to Seattle. How do you like it so far?”

  Diego was the first person not to mention anything about Los Angeles or San Francisco when Charlie said he was from California. He answered the boy’s questions easily, though he couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said.

  They fell in to talking about school, about the late summer weather, about what Charlie thought of living in West Seattle, and he noticed that there was something very easygoing about Diego, about the way he convinced people to try the apple samples, about the questions he asked Charlie, about the things he said.

  Most people overcompensated for Charlie’s shyness by either becoming overly cheerful and chatty, or quiet themselves. He hated it, and wished he could just be normal so people didn’t feel that they had to change around him, but so far he hadn’t been able to overcome being so bashful. When he tried to be more talkative it only made things worse.

  Diego didn’t seem to notice, or at least it didn’t bother him. Charlie found himself relaxing, even as the shoppers crowded around them. Even though the boy had been a total stranger up until a few minutes ago, he found himself wanting to tell him things, about his mother, about his fears and concerns, about…

  “Ven aqui, mi’jo,” shouted the man with the mustache. “Necesito ayuda.”

  “Vengo, vengo,” Diego turned his head and yelled back at the man. “Momentito.”

  “Hey look,” Diego said to Charlie. “I gotta get back and help my uncle. We’ll be closing up shop here in a little bit. But my friends are having a P.A. party Tuesday night. Wanna come? They do it every year as a bit of a kick-off for the new school year, or as a funeral for the end of summer. It’s all legit, the parents will be there and everything. It’d be turbo-bitchin’ if you came.”

  Charlie laughed, having never heard “turbo-bitchin” before.

  “Oh, um, yeah. Yeah, sure,” Charlie heard himself saying, shrugging his shoulders, as if he always got invitations to parties, as if confident people like Diego asked him to do things all the time.

  “Cool!” Diego said, and for some reason, Charlie believed that he meant it.

  “Gimme your cell number,” the boy said. Charlie’s mind went blank.

  “I, uh, I forgot it,” he blushed. “The number. Not the phone. I forgot the number. It’s stupid,” he said, pulling the phone out from his pocket. “I, uh, I just got it and…”

  Diego laughed, and took the phone from his hand. He touched the screen a few times and dialed in a number. Then he began typing. “D-I-E-G-O R-A-M-I-R-E-Z,” he said, spelling his name out loud. “Now I’m in your contacts. Call me later today and I’ll give you the 411,” he said.

  “¡Diego! ¡Ahorrita!” the uncle yelled.

  “Gotta go. Really great meeting you!” And with that, the boy pushed through the crowd and started taking cash from the shoppers impatient to finish with their apple purchases and be on their way.

  Charlie put the phone back in his jeans pocket and walked away, his mind once again empty of thoughts. His face felt funny, like it was bigger than the rest of his head, like it was ballooning outwards, full of so much air, that at any minute it would detach itself from the rest of him and float up towa
rd the blue sky.

  He wandered from stand to stand, not seeing much but hoping it looked like he was shopping.

  “This stuff is really good for your skin,” said a voice nearby.

  He looked down, and saw that he was standing in front of a small table displaying organic sunscreen. A heavyset, middle-aged woman with bleached-blonde hair and a pink plastic visor was sitting on a folding chair and pointing to the different bottles and tubes on the table. She was talking to him.

  “All of them are SPF 50, some scented, some unscented. Which kind would you like?” she asked him. Her eyelids were covered with thick green eye shadow, and she wore a pink T-shirt with a faded decal of a stuffed teddy bear and the words, “I love you BEARY much,” on the front.

  “What? Oh no, I don’t need any…”

  Before he could say anything more, the woman squeezed a dollop of white lotion from a tube in her hand onto Charlie’s arm and started to rub it all over his skin.

  “This has a nice pine scent. Guys love it,” she said, continuing to rub.

  Charlie wasn’t sure what to do. He wished the woman would stop, but he didn’t want to appear rude by just yanking his arm back and walking away.

  “There, isn’t that nice? Can’t you just FEEL all of that…?” she stopped, mid-sentence.

  Her eyes left Charlie’s arm and slowly scanned up his chest, to his chin, then his eyes, like she was looking for something.

  “Hey! You’re a…” she said. She stopped her rubbing motion and increased the grip on his arm.

  Charlie felt the same prickling sensation on the back of his neck that he had at Carson Park a few days ago.

  He tried to pull his arm away, but he found that he couldn’t move.

  The woman’s lips started to mumble something, saying words that were too quiet to make out. His field of vision narrowed to a dime-sized circle of light surrounded by complete darkness. Tiny sparks began to dance across the blackness. He felt sick to his stomach. He wondered if he was going to pass out.

  “What’s going on?” Charlie heard someone saying next to him. A woman’s voice. It was sharp, and familiar, but he couldn’t remember whose it was.

  The sunscreen vendor let go of Charlie’s hand and sat back in her chair. Instantly his head cleared. The tiny lights disappeared as the day’s sunshine glared in his eyes again.

  “Beverly!” the woman said, sounding surprised. “Nothing! Nothing’s going on. Everything’s fine, honey.” She looked very frightened, though she tried to hide it with a smile.

  Charlie watched as his aunt leaned down over the table until her face was only a few inches from the woman’s, pointing an outstretched finger at her pink T-shirt.

  “Don’t you ‘honey’ me, Mavis. This boy is mine, all right? Mine! You wouldn’t want to touch something that is mine, would you?” His aunt hissed, her words sharp like steel.

  He watched as the woman’s lips quivered, causing her double chins to jiggle. Her eyes flickered between his aunt’s face and her extended finger.

  “No, no, really, Beverly, really, I wasn’t doing anything. Anything. Please, you gotta believe me, I…”

  “This is the only warning you get, Mavis. You and all your bosom buddies. Understand? You screw around with me and mine, I’ll screw around with you and yours. Bad. Got me?”

  The woman started to whimper, and tears sprang to her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I g-g-got you, I won’t, uh, we won’t, we wouldn’t…wouldn’t do…”

  “Good. I don’t want to see you back at this market. Not in this neighborhood either. Take your crap and get out of here.”

  “All right. All right, Beverly. You got it.” The woman’s hands shook as she started to gather her wares together. Nearby shoppers had begun to look over at the booth with curiosity

  Beverly turned to face Charlie. Her eyes, which he had come to know as kind, held him fast with their violent brown glare. For a split second he thought she was going to strike him.

  “We’re done here,” she said, her voice snake-soft and scary. She led him away from the table.

  –––

  “I got the last item on our…what’s going on?” Randall asked as he stepped up to them, several filled canvas bags swinging from each arm.

  “We’re going,” said Beverly, already walking toward the street.

  “But we haven’t…”

  “We’re going. Now!” she said over her shoulder. Her hand searched around in her purse until she found her car keys.

  Randall looked at him for an explanation, but Charlie couldn’t find any words. He was still shaken by the dizzy, nauseous feeling. And by the way his aunt had completely terrified the vendor.

  “What happened back there?” Randall asked again as his wife pulled the car away from the curb.

  “Later. We’ll talk about this later,” was all she would say as she turned left, then right, and drove the car north, toward home.

  Chapter 24

  Once the shock of the whole experience wore off, Charlie began to wonder if he had done something wrong. His aunt was very angry, and he was worried that it was at him.

  He was also afraid of her. While he had been wary of her when his mother had introduced Beverly as his aunt, and while he had been in awe of how she had bewitched the candle, he hadn’t been afraid of her. But Charlie had just seen flint in her eyes, and he was pretty sure that it wouldn’t take but a small spark to set her ablaze. He would bet that the sunscreen vendor had been thinking the same thing.

  Charlie lay on his bed, pondering what had happened between his aunt and Mavis. The two women had known each other. But they were clearly not friends. Maybe Mavis was a bad guy too. They seemed to be popping up everywhere.

  He knew he should be doing his homework, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the events at the farmers market. He wanted answers, and he figured he knew where to get them, even if the source of the information wanted to tear his head off.

  Gathering his courage, he walked down the carpeted staircase. As he approached the kitchen, he could hear his aunt and uncle talking in low voices. They stopped as he walked through the doorway.

  “Hey buddy,” his uncle said.

  “Um, can I help with anything? Making dinner or whatever?”

  “Oh no, Charlie, thanks. We’ve got it under control,” said Beverly.

  He took a deep breath and opened his mouth.

  “Can I, uh, ask you something?”

  They both nodded.

  “Um, are you like, well, mad at me or something? Because I was talking to that sunscreen lady?” He felt stupid asking the question. Whenever adults were mad at you they told you so. No use stirring the hornets’ nest if he could avoid it. And yet, things were too confusing. He thought he might go crazy if he didn’t get more information.

  “What? Oh Charlie, no. No! I’m sorry you thought that. No, you were fine, perfectly fine. She, she just…”

  “Is she one of those bad guys you and Mom were talking about the other night?

  “No. Not at all. Mavis is, well, Mavis is a bit of a head case. A minor hassle really.”

  He waited, not really knowing what that meant.

  “She’s nothing to worry about, Charlie. She has some talent in her blood, but it’s not much. We call it an ‘echo,’ when someone hasn’t been popped before, but still has traces of the…”

  “Beverly,” Randall scolded, “knock off the mumbo-jumbo crap. Charlie doesn’t know what “popped” means. Sooner or later you’re going to have to explain it all to him. The more you wait, the more confusing it’ll be for him to…”

  She cut him off. “I know. I know. Don’t you think I don’t know it, Rand? Give me a little credit, for God’s sake.”

  Charlie watched as Randall held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “Okay, okay. All I’m saying is…”

  She turned to Charlie, and the late afternoon sun turned strands of her dark hair a deep red. Her menacing look from the farmers market was gone now, replaced with somethi
ng softer, though he wasn’t sure what. Reluctance? Apology? Acceptance of what Randall had said?

  “Charlie, there’s so much to talk about,” she continued. “I don’t even know where to start. I don’t know how much I should or shouldn’t say. All the kids in our community have grown up with this stuff, so when they learn something, they already have a foundation to build on. For you, it’s all so new. I’m afraid I’ll tell you too much and frighten you.”

  “And I’m afraid she won’t tell you anything, leaving you in the dark,” added Randall.

  Charlie wasn’t sure how much Beverly should say either. A part of him wanted to know everything, including who the bad guys were and how to make candles float. He was tired of being told that there was too much to know. There was a whole new world for him to discover, and waiting for it was so difficult it nearly made his bones ache.

  But another part of him was scared. Everything still felt like it was moving at light speed. If he could just slow things down a little and catch up with all the changes happening, he might feel like he was standing on solid ground. He worried that the more Beverly told him, the shakier and crazier things would feel, like after reading his mom’s notebook. Everything led to more questions, not less. He wanted it all to stop. If she told him more, it would speed things up.

  “Well, um, tell me what you want to tell me. Since I don’t know anything, it’ll be better than being totally clueless.”

  Beverly finally smiled, and he was reminded of how good she had been, how good both of them had been to him, letting him stay at their house, buying him clothes and a cell phone, a laptop…

  “Look, why don’t I tell you a little about Mavis, so you can understand what that was all about? The friends who are coming over tonight will want to know what happened at the farmers market, so there’ll be more to the story then, okay? I’ll be as brief as I can, but just interrupt me if you have any questions or don’t understand something.”

  “And I’ll just chop some vegetables for dinner and look pretty,” said Randall, blinking his eyelashes and grinning broadly.

  Beverly frowned.