Eleven Miles to Oshkosh

by Jim Guhl

  “I’ll let it go for a dollar and seventy-five cents,” he said.

  I pondered the beauty, and glanced at my jar that now brimmed with almost eight dollars in bills and coins.

  “Would you go for a buck-sixty-five?” I asked.

  He took a step back, as if appalled by my offer. I felt a little embarrassed, not meaning to insult the old guy. At last, he shot me a wink and a smile.

  “You drive a hard bargain,” he said. “But I’ll go for it.”

  I handed him a paper dollar, two quarters, a dime, and a nickel.

  “Good doing business with you,” said the man. “My name’s Wilbur.”

  “I’m Del,” I replied. “Good doing business with you, too.”

  “Will we see you here again?” he asked.

  “Most likely,” I answered.

  I took it slow going home with the Eskdale bottle perched next to the candy box and pickle jar in Eisenhower’s front basket. Every bump in the road had me slowing down. Every railroad crossing brought me down to a walk. I think my left arm may have stretched a few inches with the weight of the card table hanging from it, and, in the end, it took me twice as long to get home as getting there.

  My heart was still pumping when I got to my room. I stashed the pickle jar of cash in my sock drawer and placed the Eskdale gallon milk bottle with the metal handle on top of my dresser next to the other two bottles in my collection. One was a bright-blue medicine bottle and the other an old greenish pop bottle with bubbly glass, both of which came out of the Fox River while diving for lures. The Eskdale was the first bottle that I had actually paid for.

  From my bed I could see all three as they sparkled and glowed in the sunlight that poured through my window and, as far as I was concerned, they were as valuable as any of Captain Kidd’s treasures.

  I was the first of my friends to arrive behind the bleachers of the Neenah High School football field that Saturday afternoon. Even though the team was almost all juniors and seniors from Armstrong, the games were still played on the field behind Shattuck. I heard trombones, drums, and tubas playing something that sounded like a reenactment of the end of the world. Just last week the marching band did a halftime show that re-created the first moonwalk. (When your new school was named for Neil Armstrong and your mascot was the Rockets, it was apparently the thing to do.)

  Having already scoured the gravel behind the bleachers for money and coming up with zilch, I sat down by the chain-link fence and ripped open a frozen Milkshake bar on a stick. It cost me thirty cents at the concession window, but with my recent success at the flea market, I figured I could splurge. Just then, something hard drilled me in the back of the head.

  “Ouch!” I said. Without turning around, I could tell it was Mark by his shadow with the untucked shirt and gangly legs. He was also the most likely guy to thwack me in the head with a stone, although there were others. Mark stepped up and sat next to me.

  “How are things, Delmar?” He pulled out a pack of Red Man and placed a pinch of the soft tobacco under his lower lip. “Have a chew?” He reached out with the pouch.

  “Maybe later,” I said. “And I was better before you put a lump on my head.” I rubbed the spot with my index finger and checked for blood but came up empty.

  It was weird that Mark was one of my best friends, considering that he was neither a weakling nor a nerd. He was strong and athletic and a year older than the rest of us because he was held back a year in grade school. Heck, he could probably have been quarterback of the JV team if he had bothered to try out. But Mark was funny that way. And I’m pretty sure the reason he didn’t go out for football was because his dad wanted him to do it. There was definitely something weird going on between him and his dad.

  Other than bringing a certain cool factor to my small group of friends, Mark was also the only one who actually knew anything about girls. He had gone out with a bunch of them and even French kissed some. I knew all of this because Mark told us everything. I reckon 10 percent of my sex education came from Mr. Ward in Health class and the other 90 percent came from Mark.

  “Did you meet any new girls this week, Delmar?” That’s another thing about Mark. Other than my great-aunt Martha (now dead), he was the only one who ever called me Delmar.

  “I met a girl in English,” I said.

  Mark turned his head slowly in my direction and his eyes widened. “Details?”

  “It’s nothing really,” I said. “I just talked to her a little bit. That’s all. She seems nice and . . .”

  “And what?”

  “And she’s colored.”

  Mark’s head turned again in my direction, but it really snapped this time.

  “You’re going out with the black chick?”

  “No! I just met her.”

  “Holy shit, Delmar. You got more guts than I thought.”

  “I said, I just met her, and I would appreciate it if you didn’t say anything to Steve.”

  Mark looked at me for a long time like he had just learned that I was an Apollo astronaut or something. “All right—but you better keep me in the loop, okay?”

  “Sure. Whatever,” I said.

  “Hey, Minnow! Hey, Mark!” It was Steve.

  “Hey, Steve,” I said.

  “Hey, dork,” said Mark. “You score any chicks this week? Delmar’s got ’em lined up around the block.”

  I gave Mark my “I’m gonna kill you” look.

  “Lighten up, Delmar. It’s a compliment.” Steve was oblivious.

  “Let’s go,” said Steve. “The national anthem’s coming up. Mr. Glannek’s going to sing it and a bunch of us are going to boo him.”

  Mark waved his hands over his head in mock excitement. “Holy crap, we wouldn’t want to miss that, now would we.” We got to our feet and started walking. I saw my chance, grabbed a stone from the gravel and nailed Mark in the back of the head.

  Typical of Mark, he said nothing and just kept his cool as he walked on. Several seconds later, he reached his hand around behind his head like he was going to rub it and flipped me the middle finger.

  Except for the part where we all booed Mr. Glannek, the football game went pretty much like all the others. Kids goofed around. Adults watched the game. Neenah lost. We all went home.

  5

  On Monday morning before homeroom, Steve was buzzing around like he had swallowed a whole can of Folgers. I knew without asking that he had concocted some sort of invention again. It was as predictable as the seasons. About once every three months, his geekiness got the better of him. Last spring he dreamed up the Moto-Surf, a motorized surfboard on wheels. We even built a prototype and I had to admit it was pretty cool. We started with a six horse go-kart engine and a used surf board that Steve bought from a mail-order place in California. (That cost him fifteen bucks just for shipping.) We painted the thing banana yellow and rigged it up with roller-skate wheels, foot brakes, directional signals, and a cable-actuated throttle control. It was neat—or was, at least, until Steve crashed it into a parked ice cream truck on Chestnut.

  “I’ve got an idea! You’ve got to hear it!”

  I looked at the clock. Two minutes before homeroom bell. “Sure.”

  “Remember how Menasha screwed us last year by making that big white letter M out of salt on our football field the night before homecoming?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And remember how the salt turned the grass brown and everyone could still see the brown M for the rest of the football and track seasons?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ve got an idea on how we can get ’em back.”

  “Okay.” At this point I was calculating the odds of Steve ending up in juvie before the first snowfall.

  Steve looked left and right to see if anybody was listening. Then he leaned in so his nose was just inches from my face. I leaned back until my head hit a metal locker door. CLANG!

  “Okay, here it is,” he said. “You know that fake volcano we made by mixing vinegar and baking
soda in Earth Science?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We bury a tank full of baking soda in the Menasha football field, and another tank full of vinegar and then somehow we get them to mix together and we have a pipe leading to the center of the fifty-yard line and the eruption will come right out of the ground at some critical moment and screw everything up for Menasha’s homecoming ceremony.”

  He looked at me all proud and goofy like he had just won the national spelling bee. I was speechless. (And probably stone-faced, but I couldn’t see my own face). I was also changing my calculation on Steve. Maybe he would have to make a stop at the nuthouse for a few weeks before going to juvie.

  “It’s great, right?” he said.

  “Pretty good,” I said.

  “Are you with me?” he asked.

  “I guess so.”

  At this point in the conversation, Steve literally started twitching. I don’t think I had ever seen a bigger smile on anybody’s face, ever, and that includes scarecrows and clowns. It was even bigger than when he announced his invention of Rocket Shoes. (Nobody died and Steve’s feet have fully recovered from the burns, in case you’re wondering).

  “All we have to do now is work out the technical stuff. That’s where I need your help. Will you help me, Minnow?”

  The bell rang. “Okay,” I said. We blasted into homeroom.

  I got to third period as early as I could in hopes of nabbing the desk next to Opal Parsons again.

  Opal Parsons, Opal Parsons, Opal Parsons . . . She had such a groovy name I couldn’t stop repeating it in my mind. I had even looked up opal in the Encyclopedia Britannica and found out that it was a fluorescent gemstone from Australia, which made the name even better. Opal Parsons. Cripes, that was about fifty times cooler than Delmar Finwick . . . and seven million times better than Minnow.

  I watched the door as she walked in looking real serious and holding her books tight to her chest. I couldn’t blame her for being unhappy after what happened on her first day.

  “Hi, Opal,” I said.

  “Oh—hi.” Her voice leaked out sort of quiet as she looked back at the door.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked.

  She shrugged her shoulders and opened her English book. Then she glanced again at the open door.

  “Are you looking for somebody?”

  “Not really,” said Opal.

  “Is Leon Dinsky giving you more trouble?”

  Her eyes got as large as ripe plums and twice as dark. “What do you know about it?”

  “I saw him slap the books out of your arms on the first day of school. I was standing right next to you,” I said. My eyes sagged.

  “Oh,” she said. “Is he your friend?”

  “No.”

  She studied me like a puzzle. I think she was trying to decide if she trusted me or not.

  “Believe me,” I continued. “Dinsky is not my friend. I can’t stand the jerk.”

  “Then why didn’t you help me?”

  There it was. The question that defined me. Why didn’t I help her? Why did I walk away? Opal Parsons needed my help. I was right there, and I did nothing.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I guess I was afraid.”

  As soon as I said the words, I regretted them. What did I expect? Pity? Compassion? Good grief. Opal was the one who had been attacked by the creep. I was afraid. I was afraid. I was afraid. My God—they might as well carve the words into my tombstone right now. It was the one and only thing I was good at—being afraid and running away. I dropped my eyes toward the floor. Then my face followed. Then my whole head sagged like it was held up by a thread.

  The bell rang. I wanted to die.

  Then something touched the back of my hand and my eyes told my spinning brain that it was her small, smooth hand.

  “I wish you would have helped me,” she said.

  I nodded.

  Opal leaned over and whispered. “But at least you told the truth.”

  Time stopped. Albert Einstein was right about relativity. I know, because third period English on that day with Mrs. Borger went on for at least a month. Through it all, the clock refused to move. I heard the words. Something about similes and metaphors and cadence and verse. I was just thankful that she didn’t call on me again.

  At the end of class she told us that we would be reading one of six different books from classic American literature. She said that we would be preparing written papers as well as oral reports presented to the class and that we would work in teams of two.

  “If you know who you would like to partner with, let me know. Otherwise I will assign a partner for you at our next class.”

  Opal leaned toward my ear and whispered again. “Do you want to be my partner?”

  “Okay,” I said. My heart sped up.

  Opal walked to the front and told the teacher right away. Mrs. Borger nodded, wrote it down, looked at me, and smiled—slightly.

  When the final bell rang, I didn’t go straight home but rode through downtown Neenah past the old shopping district and the big red-brick Bergstrom Paper Mill, and down by the bars where the workers drank beer after their shifts. I clunked over the railroad tracks and zigged left off Main onto the side streets before locking Eisenhower to a light post in front of an old apartment building.

  A man in a plain white T-shirt with a spider tattoo on his hand sat on the concrete steps out front with a six-pack of Old Mil.

  “Are you sure you belong here, boy?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m visiting my grandpa.”

  “Who’s your grandpa?”

  “His name’s Asa.”

  The man nodded and let me pass.

  The hallway at Emerald Gardens Apartments smelled like dead mice. The single light bulb glowed so dim I couldn’t tell what color the walls were. Maybe gray or brown, I wasn’t sure.

  I found apartment 118 and banged on the door.

  “Who is it?” Grandpa’s voice sounded like he had a throat full of gravel.

  “It’s Del!” I yelled it loud because Grandpa’s hearing wasn’t so good anymore.

  I waited for several minutes before the door creaked open. Grandpa stood there with the support of a wooden cane. He had been tall and strong once. I had seen pictures of him when he worked at the Neenah Foundry making manhole covers and sewer grates. He smiled his usual crooked smile. “How we doing, Del? I didn’t know you was coming or I’d have cleaned up.”

  “I’m okay, Grandpa.”

  “Come on in. You want some ice cream?” Any visit to Grandpa Asa included ice cream. If you said yes, you got a bowl of ice cream. If you said no, you got a bowl of ice cream.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You scoop it up. There are dishes in the sink. Get some for me too.”

  I came face-to-face with a pile of dirty dishes that filled every bit of the sink and most of the countertop. The open cupboard doors revealed empty shelves. As I lifted some pans, a cockroach skittered to a new hiding place. It took a while to find the soap and a usable wash rag, but I finally got two bowls and spoons cleaned and filled with vanilla ice cream from the freezer. I handed one to Grandpa. He had plopped himself back down in a soft blue chair.

  “How’s your mother?” asked Asa.

  “She’s okay,” I said.

  “Is she still smoking cigarettes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Those things will kill her one of these days,” said Asa. He looked at me. “Are you smoking cigarettes?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  We both clanked away at our ice cream and I carried the empty bowls back to the sink and returned to sit across from Grandpa Asa.

  “I need your help with something, Grandpa.”

  Grandpa looked at me suspiciously. “Well . . . Let’s hear it.”

  “Do you remember my friend Steve?”

  “The kid with the motorized surfboard?”

  “Yep.”

  “Yeah, I remember him. Good idea man but a bit of
a nut isn’t he?”

  I nodded. “He has a new idea.”

  “Well, spit it out.”

  “We want to build an underground, artificial, baking soda and vinegar volcano on the fifty-yard line of the Menasha High School football field so that we can explode it at their homecoming ceremony in a few weeks and ruin everything for them. I was wondering if you could help us get the stuff.”

  For a full minute, Grandpa stared at me with half-closed eyes like I was a werewolf or something.

  “Is this some sort of retaliation for the salt letter M on our football field last year?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You could get suspended for this if you get caught.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you expect me to help you with this cockamamy idea?”

  “Yes, sir. I mean—we could sure use your help.”

  “Have you told your mom?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  Asa started flipping through a copy of Popular Mechanics magazine like I wasn’t even there.

  “Will you help?”

  “I guess so,” he said without looking up. “It’s not like I’ve got anything better to do.”

  “Thanks, Grandpa.” I got up to leave. Then I remembered something else. I stopped and looked at Asa but didn’t know if this was the right time to ask for another favor.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Could you show me how to shoot Dad’s 12 gauge?”

  That got my grandpa’s nose out of the magazine. His eyes got a wild look.

  “Who are you planning to shoot?” he asked.

  “Nobody.”

  “Then why do you want to learn how to use a 12 gauge?”

  “Duck hunting on Poygan.”

  “By yourself?”

  “Dad was going to take me this year. It’s all right though. I reckon I can do it by myself. I’ve rowed the skiff before.”

  “That’s pretty big water for October. You dump the skiff and you’re probably dead.” Asa’s face turned serious.