Eleven Miles to Oshkosh

by Jim Guhl

  20

  Saturday morning started off good. Mom fixed me up some scrambled eggs and sausage patties. Could you believe that? Well, it was true. And she had bought us two cans of real orange juice concentrate, which I mixed up with tap water in a plastic pitcher. The next thing I knew I was eating a breakfast fit for the sultans of Zanzibar. The best part was that Sally stayed in bed and Mom ate with me and she sipped her coffee and didn’t smoke any cigarettes while we just sat there and talked. Then Mom said the words that brought it all to a screeching halt.

  “Your confirmation class starts today.”

  If you’ve never been to a confirmation class and have a choice in the matter, I have four words for you: Run-For-Your-Life.

  Do you remember how, in Sunday church service, Pastor Olson talked about the Battle of the Bulge and wondered why God let it happen? Remember how I was on the edge of my seat, and couldn’t wait to hear the answer? Remember how he had the guts to say I don’t know? Confirmation class was nothing like that.

  In confirmation class it was all a lot of memorize this and recite that. It was like all the mysteries about God had been already figured out and it was all just a matter of filling in the blanks on the mimeographed worksheets. Don’t get me wrong. Mrs. Doppler was nice, and she was just following the workbook, but I’m pretty sure she had never seen Buchenwald or been on the Poygan Marsh at sunrise.

  Anyhow, my first day in confirmation lasted three hours and I survived. I did the math. A person only gets about four thousand Saturday mornings in a lifetime. One of mine had just been yanked away from me and I wasn’t ever getting it back.

  Back home, I spent the entire afternoon working. Anybody with two eyeballs could see that our house and yard were heading for the toilet and something had to be done. In the olden days, Dad used to take charge of that sort of stuff. I figured that now it was up to me. I raked and bagged the leaves and piled them along the north side of the house just like Dad had shown me. Then I took down the window screens and sprayed them clean with water before storing them for the winter in the garage. In their place, I put in all the storm windows and, believe me, they weren’t easy to hoist up that ladder and clip in position by myself. I washed them all too, with soapy water and a squeegee. It felt good doing all of that, and I went to bed as tired as an old, worn-out plow horse.

  My bedroom clock showed a time of one in the morning when a sound woke me up. I recognized the music right away as the Glen Miller album from my dad’s collection and snuck down the steps to peek into the living room. My parents had always been good dancers, but the sight of Mom dancing alone with her arms wrapped around a pillow gave me a sad, hollow feeling. It was a sorrowful thing, watching her sway back and forth with her eyes closed and her head tipped a little bit to the side. My God, I had never realized how lonely she was until that exact moment. Mom moved in an oval around the couch, following dance steps she had probably memorized since her teenage years. The loose folds of her nightgown swayed with each step. Her stocking feet floated over the floor like two little white clouds.

  Maybe I made a sound because when Mom’s eyes cracked open they caught me on the stairs by the banister. She just smiled and gave a little hand wave of embarrassment.

  “Don’t stop,” I said. “Keep dancing.”

  “You come here and dance with me, then,” she said.

  I walked down the remaining steps, and as I got close to her she took my left hand in hers and showed me where to put my right hand on her back.

  “This one is a waltz,” she said. “It’s easy. Just follow the three step beat.”

  Together we synchronized our steps. One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three. It was easy, just like she said, and before long Mom and I were dancing that oval path around the couch and making little circular swirls along the way. When the waltz was finished another song came on.

  “This one has four beats to the measure,” she said. “Let me show you how to foxtrot.” I don’t mean to brag, but I caught on quick. At first we did the basic step, but then Mom taught me how to change direction and add some spins.

  “My goodness, Del, you’re a natural,” she said, smiling.

  “I never knew it was so much fun,” I answered.

  “Well, now you do.”

  Just to be clear, what made it easy for me was my mom. You see, Mom was no ordinary dancer. She was a wonderful dancer. I imagined in my mind how she and Dad must have looked on the floors of the big dance halls where they used to go with friends on Saturday nights. I could see them twirling and floating across the floor. That was before Mom got hit by multiple sclerosis, of course, and before Dad got dropped down to working the graveyard shift.

  We danced to every song, Mom and me, on both sides of that record album. Then Mom put on another and we did it all over again. Whatever weariness I felt from hefting those storm windows was gone. As long as I was seeing that little smile I was happy to keep going and going. The chime on our mantle clock clanged three times, and Mom finally said that she’d had enough.

  “Thanks, honey,” she said. “I needed that.”

  “Good night, Mom. I needed it too.”

  I slept late, skipped church, and ducked out with my fishing pole and a leftover smile still on my face from my private dance party with Mom. It didn’t matter to me where I fished so I let Eisenhower lead the way, and he took me toward the old railroad bridge on Little Lake Butte des Morts, which I hadn’t visited in a few months.

  I parked Ike behind some bushes and listened hard for any sign of oncoming trains. Then I scurried out on the tracks until I was a hundred yards out from shore and shimmied down to one of the big concrete footings that supported the bridge and allowed the Fox River to flow underneath. Then it was just a matter of pinching on a split shot sinker, hooking up a worm, and chucking the whole works out into the current.

  The bullheads came and went in schools, sometimes biting steadily and sometimes disappearing for a half hour at a time. During one of those lull periods, a slow-moving freight train rumbled out on the tracks and stopped dead. Any worries about having my fishing spot invaded by others went away after that. I caught a couple dozen bullheads and threw all but the three largest ones back in the lake. Once the train rumbled off, I took advantage of the opening and made a run for home, where I cleaned and fried the fish for Sally, Mom, and me for lunch. Sally turned up her nose, and made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich instead. But Mom ate the fish with me and I could see that, like me, she still had a little smile on her face from the night before.

  After lunch the two of us sat together at the kitchen table. She sipped coffee and read her Reader’s Digest magazine. I listened to the Packers game on the transistor radio and paged through all three hundred pages of my Herter’s outdoor products catalog. I could spend hours salivating over the endless pictures of hunting, fishing, and camping supplies. From tents to duck skiffs to fish hooks of every size, they had it all. Along the way, I kept one ear glued to the play-by-play announcer. In the end, I ordered nothing from the catalog and the Packers beat the Bears by six with our great running back, John Brockington, leading the way.

  Was it possible? Could our lives actually be shifting back to normal again?

  The next thing I knew my alarm clock was going off again. Monday morning. Time to think about school again.

  After brushing my teeth and getting dressed, I pulled a box out of my closet. The size 4 Eaglewing steel-toed boots with the reinforced shank looked like a pair of living things. They even smelled alive. I pushed my thumb against the toe and it felt like solid granite. I knew what they could do because I had practiced in the garage, breaking boards and putting a few new dents in our trash cans. The boots came all the way up over my ankles, and when I pulled my pant cuffs down over the top nobody would even know that I was wearing lethal weapons.

  At the bus stop no one paid any attention to me. Didn’t they know that I was the kid coming back after a three-day suspension? The brakes screeched like al
ways, and the red-haired, gum-chewing lady pulled the door open on the bus so we could all pile on board. I picked out an open seat and sat in the middle to save a spot for Opal Parsons. Two stops later, through the bus window, I saw her waiting in her light-blue jacket with a white headband around her puffy hair. She climbed on the bus. I waved and smiled. She looked right at me but didn’t wave back—didn’t even smile. She slid into a seat in the second row. Suddenly, I was staring at the back of her head, and there was no sense saving the seat anymore.

  I knew that it might happen that way but had convinced myself that it wouldn’t. Apparently, after a three-day suspension some people figured I had turned into a bad apple, not all the way rotten, but pretty bad and not worth keeping. Maybe I was on track to turn into a dirtball. Not too long ago an adult might say, “Hey, there’s Del Finwick. He’s a pretty good kid.” Not any more—I was bad news all of a sudden—a kid to be avoided—a bad apple.

  Even though the Earth still spun on its axis like it had for four billion years, my place in the universe of Shattuck High was on a whole new orbit. I droned through the day, neither listening nor speaking much to anyone. Luckily, I didn’t have English class, so at least I could put off the humiliation of Opal finding a new place to sit on the other side of the room. I was behind in every class, and since nobody liked me anymore it didn’t matter. I had a math test the next day but I just left all my books in the locker. I hung out in the study hall, where nobody studied, and never once set foot in the Science Resource Center, where Mrs. Schwartz used to smile at me just about every day. At last, the final bell sounded and I began my foot-dragging hike toward home, because I sure as heck wasn’t about to ride the stupid bus.

  21

  Tuesday morning the gray sky delivered snow pellets and a cold, north wind. Breakfast consisted of Froot Loops and toast because we were out of Pop-Tarts. At least the jug of orange juice I had mixed up from concentrate was still partly full, so I gulped down a glass. Sally had already left for Armstrong and Mom was asleep. The announcer on WNAM reminded everybody that it was Election Day, and that folks should get out and do their civic duty. Lots of people had posted signs in their front yards, and it seemed like two-thirds of them cheered for Nixon and only a few for McGovern.

  My mind drifted away from the election. In just a few hours I would be in English class with Opal ignoring me again. It would be a gut buster but I had to get through it. In the meantime I had made the decision to go back to riding my bike to school. There was no sense putting up with riding the bus if Opal wasn’t even going to sit next to me.

  While locking my bike to the apple tree, I wondered if it was still okay with the Schnells now that I had a suspension stuck to my permanent record. Randy sure wouldn’t care, but his parents? Well, they were another question.

  As I jogged around the corner of the Schnell’s garage two arms grabbed me from behind and spun me. It was that dickface, Larry Buskin, and he wasn’t smiling. His big hands grabbed the collar of my jacket, and he jerked me up and toward him. He pushed my head back with the crown of his forehead.

  “Well, if it isn’t my old pal, Minnow. Seems we’ve got some catching up to do.”

  His stinky cigarette breath practically gagged me and made me turn my head away. I struggled to bust free but with every twist, Buskin tightened his grip.

  “Leave me alone,” I yelled.

  I made an attempt to sprint away from the goon but couldn’t get any traction. As I continued to squirm out of his grip he just spun me around again like a puppet and locked me into a standing wrestling hold with my back toward him. I glanced down at the Eaglewings on my feet. They were ready. I was ready. It was time to make my own luck. All I needed was a straight shot.

  I writhed and lurched, getting nowhere. In the meantime, he maneuvered my arms until he had me hooked with both elbows behind my back. Everything was backward. I was the good guy, yet Buskin had me in a bent-elbows lock like he was a cop putting me under arrest. I had seen the move a hundred times on Mod Squad but didn’t realize until now how painful it was. Jeez! My elbows and shoulders were getting ripped right out of their sockets.

  Dammit all! I’m supposed to be winning this fight.

  “I need a couple dollars, Minnow. Are you going to help me out today?”

  “No!”

  “Just a buck then.”

  “No!”

  I twisted and squirmed. Dammit! He just wrenched harder on my already pretzel-twisted arms. The next thing I knew I was off the ground and gasping for air. Suddenly, he released one of his hands and shoved it in my front pocket where I had my lunch money. He pulled out my dollar bill.

  “Thanks, Minnow. I knew you’d come through for me. Next time just hand it over.”

  Buskin finished me off by spinning me around and tripping me with his leg as he slammed me to the gravel driveway. My back hit hard. My head slammed even harder as bright, twinkling lights appeared before my eyes. I sprang to my feet, ready to run but not sure which way. I tried to focus my eyes in the direction of the school as the flashing stars faded away. What I saw was two of everything, including two Larry Buskins trotting away. I dropped to my knees again, trying to gather what wits I had left. After a while, I made it back to my feet and shuffled like an old man into the main entrance of the school building, just barely making it to homeroom.

  Mrs. Willison looked at me.

  “Are you okay, Del?”

  I couldn’t answer. My head throbbed like I was going to throw up all over myself and the desk. I must have passed out because, when I opened my eyes again, my head was half-submerged in a bag of ice and two eyes stared back at me from about twelve inches away. Miss Puckett, the school nurse, had a very worried look on her face.

  “How did this happen?” she asked.

  “I fell on my bike.”

  “Are you sure? You hit hard on the back of your head and everything else is fine. That’s not consistent with a bicycle accident.”

  “I fell on my bike.” She frowned and turned quiet. No way was I changing my story. My thoughts went to Grandpa Asa sitting in jail. He sure didn’t need to learn that my hypothetical friend was such a wimp that he got beat up and robbed while wearing the Eaglewing steel-toed boots. So much for the puny nerd who thought he could make his own luck.

  22

  The doctor said I had a bad concussion and sent me home for what was supposed to be a week of resting in bed. Another whole week? I had barely returned from my three-day suspension.

  The double vision went away pretty quick, but my head hurt something awful. It felt like my brain was the bell in the Neenah clock tower clanging over and over again. On top of that, I couldn’t eat anything without puking it back up, and when I finally could keep something down it was only a few soda crackers. By the time I could stand again without feeling dizzy, my body had skinnied up so bad that Mom had to punch two new holes in my belt just to keep my pants up. In my desperate desire to grow bigger and stronger, I was headed in the exact opposite direction.

  Believe it or not, there was a bright side to getting thrashed by Larry Buskin. I found out that I still had friends. Mark had heard about it somewhere, and since he was suspended and living out of his hideout anyhow, he came over every day. It was good for him to get inside a warm house. It was good for me just to have somebody to talk to. Mark knew right away that I hadn’t been in any bicycle accident.

  “Was it Buskin?” he asked.

  “Yes, but don’t tell anybody.” I said.

  “I won’t.”

  “And don’t do anything about it.”

  “Why not? Somebody needs to thrash the creep.”

  “It’s just something I have to figure out on my own.”

  Mark nodded. “You want me to get your bike?”

  “Crap. I forgot about that.” I gave Mark the combination so he could go get Eisenhower back from Randy Schnell’s house.

  Mom correctly assumed that Mark would be with us for a few days, so she bought a stack
of TV dinners at Food Queen and rolled out a sleeping bag on the floor of my bedroom. Someone else rang the doorbell just before suppertime on Wednesday. I recognized the voice right away in the front hall. Holy crap! It was Mrs. Borger. Mom led her right up the stairs to my room and shut the door. Maybe she was going to yell at me for missing class. Maybe she was going to punish me with more stupid questions about William Shakespeare. She looked at me sternly in my bed, but then she flashed me a huge smile and even gave me a hug. I was pretty sure nobody at Shattuck had ever seen that side of her before.

  “How is my church buddy?” she asked.

  “Fine.” I tried not to smile. She was still my teacher, after all.

  “I heard about the bicycle accident.” She sort of half-closed her eyes like maybe she knew the truth. “Mrs. Willison tells me you got a pretty big bump on the back of your head.”

  I rubbed the bump to show her. “It’s getting better.”

  “God is looking out for you,” she said.

  I wondered about that one. God could have done me a bigger favor by keeping Larry Buskin from pounding me in the first place. Mrs. Borger plopped a stack of worksheets on my bed as well as a brand-new paperback book called To Kill a Mockingbird.

  “I’m concerned that you’ll get behind in your schoolwork,” she said. “I brought a few worksheets from me and your other teachers. The book is for our modern fiction unit. It won the Pulitzer Prize. You’re going to find it interesting,” she said.

  I nodded and figured that was about it for the teacher visit, but instead of leaving, Mrs. Borger pulled up a chair, sat down, and started yakking. And do you know what she told me? She said I was one of the nicest and brightest young men in the entire tenth grade at Shattuck. I’m not kidding. She said it, and she knew about my three-day suspension and the volcano and everything. She said I had unlimited potential too, and that I could become a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer or maybe even a civic leader like Mr. Shattuck himself. She said I would make an especially good teacher because I had “a sensibility for the world around me,” whatever that meant.