Armstrong and Charlie

by Steven B. Frank

  “So, Charlie Ross, you kick the black kid’s ass yet?”

  “Who, Armstrong?”

  “According to Leslie, he kicked yours.”

  “You talked to Leslie?”

  “She’s in Girl Guides with my sister. Said you got in a fight, but he beat you real fast. Know what I think?”

  I look up at Keith.

  “Promise you won’t get mad.”

  “I promise.”

  “You lost your confidence when Andy died. I’m going to help you build it back up.” The light turns green. “You with me?”

  I nod, but I’m not sure.

  “Let’s boogie!”

  Keith dashes ahead into a left turn. I pump hard to catch up.

  Laurel Canyon gets real steep real fast. I step on my brakes going downhill, then ease up on them just to see if I can. My stomach flips as we gather speed. Keith is up on his pedals now, high over his banana seat, T-shirt flapping in the wind.

  What if something goes wrong right now? What if a car swings wide on a turn or skids and knocks me off the bike? I could be dead in an instant. But that can’t happen, can it? Two brothers in one family? That’s like lightning striking twice in the same place. No—​Andy used up all our bad luck. I’m safe. Now and forever.

  I stand up on my pedals the way Keith did. Woo-hoo! Look who’s traveling now, Armstrong!

  Armstrong

  I tried to get some of the boys around here to work for me. But nobody wanted a job. I didn’t know where to find some good labor to help with my business, which I call Armstrong’s Odds & Ends.

  But this morning, with my eyes closed and panties getting plucked from my arms, I realized I’ve got a pool of labor right here.

  My sisters!

  Charmaine says she’s too busy on a Saturday (never says doing what), but Nika and Ebony offer to pull weeds for a dollar a yard.

  “Fifty cents each?” I said.

  “A dollar each.”

  Trouble is, I already told Mr. Wong, who runs the corner store, that I’d weed his yard for two fifty. Which means I’ll be making a profit of only fifty cents a yard.

  On the other hand, they’re my sisters.

  On the other other hand, I’m running a business here.

  “Fine,” I told them. “Seventy-five cents each a yard.”

  “A dollar!”

  “Okay, a dollar.” At least it stays in the family.

  I put Cecily to work painting a mural for Mrs. Roland. She lives up the street from Mr. Khalil and is tired of staring at concrete. I’ll pay my sister good money too. Five dollars for a whole wall. (Mrs. Roland promised me ten.) Lenai asked what she could do, and I said one of my clients, Mrs. Croft, has a south-facing yard that gets enough sun for a vegetable garden. Lenai’s got the soil all churned up and ready to plant when, about ten o’clock, I drop by with packets of seeds.

  “Aren’t you going to help me plant them?” Lenai says.

  “I’ll be back just as soon as I drop off this paint for Cecily up the street.”

  I also got to check on Nika and Ebony to make sure they’re twisting until they hear the roots crack.

  It’s a lot of work organizing so many jobs.

  Charlie

  At Vantage Avenue, Keith makes a left in front of an oncoming car. The driver honks, and Keith flips him the bird. I try to flip him the bird too, but my middle finger doesn’t point straight like Keith’s. His shoots out like an arrow. Mine’s more like limp Play-Doh.

  For breakfast we have Baskin-Robbins. “Two Jamoca Almond Fudge malts,” Keith tells the girl behind the counter. He says it’s his treat, to pay me back for those Razzles. We drink our malts in Buddy Brown’s Toy Store next door.

  Where Keith sees me eyeing a Whirly Wheel.

  “Gonna buy it?”

  I finger the ten dollars I borrowed from my mom’s purse.

  “Too expensive,” I say.

  “They’re having a special today. It’s free.”

  “It is?”

  “If you move fast enough. I’ll create a diversion. You snatch and run. We’ll meet in front of the movie theater.”

  Keith walks up to the cash register with a pack of baseball cards. The manager rings him up, and the next thing I know, Keith is projectile vomiting his Jamoca Almond Fudge malt into the open register! He doubles over, clutching his belly, then stands up and sprays more half-digested malt at the manager’s tie.

  This is my chance to swipe the Whirly Wheel and run. I grab it from the shelf, glance over at the register, and see the manager handing Keith a towel. All I have to do is turn and walk out the back door.

  Which I do.

  After putting the Whirly Wheel back on the shelf.

  We meet up by the movie theater down the block. Keith falls against me, hysterically laughing. He slams me into the ticket booth.

  “That right there was totally bitchin’. Know what he said to me? Are you okay, young man? Would you like me to call your mom?” Keith laughs some more. Then he looks at me and says, “Where’s the Whirly Wheel?”

  I don’t answer right away. I get a twisty feeling in my stomach.

  “Charlie? Where’s the Whirly Wheel?”

  “Still in the store.”

  “What?”

  I look down at Keith’s shirt. At the brown stain.

  “But I set you up,” he says.

  “I’m sorry, Keith. It just felt wrong to me.”

  He looks at me, through me, with those icy blue eyes. Then he smiles and says it’s okay. “To get your confidence back,” he says, “it can take more than one try.”

  Armstrong

  I cut across the park, and that’s when I find out why Charmaine didn’t want to work for me. She’s with her boyfriend, Lester Davies, smooching by the swings. Daddy would kill her if he knew. He’s been out of the army since the end of the Korean War, but when it comes to my sisters, he’s Sergeant Theodore Le Rois all over again. His mission: keep them safe from what he calls “enemy advances.” You can tell who the enemy is by the uniform: tank top, jeans, a baseball cap, and a patch of fuzz on the upper lip. In other words, teenage boy. When my daddy sees one coming, he gives them a look that would make any soldier retreat. And if they dare launch some ammo at the house—​a box of candy or a record album or, if they’re crazy, some flowers—​he orders them to “STAY AWAY FROM MY GIRLS UNTIL YOU’VE GOT A DIPLOMA!”

  Lester dropped out of high school. That’s why they meet here at the park, out of range of the sergeant’s binoculars.

  Charlie

  The playground at Carpenter has four handball courts to our one, a full basketball court, and the painted oval lines of a track. I try to imagine playing sockball on a field this big. I’ll bet even Armstrong can’t clear the fence.

  We ride around to the back of the school and park our bikes. In the far corner there’s a gap in the gate just big enough for us to slide under. Keith leads me over to a building. He boosts me up to the window so that I can see into his classroom. He knows exactly where everything is, even without looking.

  “See that poster of the presidents,” he says, “on the wall opposite the clock?”

  It’s a banner with mostly lame sketches of all the U.S. presidents, from Washington to Ford. “I did the one of Nixon,” Keith tells me. “My dad says we’re going to miss him. One of the best presidents we’ve ever had.”

  Instead of telling Keith what my dad says about Nixon, I ask, “Where do you sit?”

  “From the teacher’s desk, four rows back and two seats in. You remember who sits right in front of me, don’t you?”

  I picture a foxy blonde with hair that smells like rain. That’s when several pebbles whistle past my ear and plink off the window. Keith drops me like a brick, and we spin around. Three kids—​two boys in jeans and a girl in a halter-top—​face us.

  “Busted, man,” the taller and tougher of the two boys says.

  “Lucky it’s by you.” Keith play-punches him in the arm, then introduces
me as a friend from his neighborhood.

  “Charlie Ross, say hello to Tim and Randy.”

  Tim is a tough-looking kid, with long feathered hair and dark eyes. Randy is about my height, but his hair looks like it was buzzed by an army barber. He wears a T-shirt with a cow drawn on the front and the word “COWSHIRT” under it. But he safety-pinned a crease over the R.

  “And this,” Keith says, tugging the strap on the girl’s overalls, “is Jodie St. Claire.”

  I already smelled that.

  “We’re heading over to Fryman Canyon,” Tim says. “Tons of lizards over there. Wanna come?”

  “Sure we’ll come,” Keith says.

  Then Randy asks me if I know how to catch a lizard. That’s like asking a Montana boy if he knows how to catch a fish. The only Laurel Canyon kids who can’t catch lizards are total wusses. At first sight of a lizard, guys like Keith and Tim and Randy stick out a hand to stop the foot traffic behind them. They know how to tell a horned toad from a blue-belly, how to tie a slipknot, and how to make a noose out of reed.

  At first sight of a lizard, my hand reacts just as fast. It reaches down and grabs on to my privates. Don’t ask me why. When I’m scared—​really, really scared—​that’s just where my hand goes.

  My herpetophobia is so great that I’ve rehearsed socially acceptable excuses in case someone asks me if I want to touch one.

  Nah, I’ve got a bunch at home I can hold.

  No, thanks—​you look like you could use the practice.

  That’s okay, I’ve got a skin disease. The doctor says it’s contagious to reptiles.

  So when Randy asks me if I know how to catch a lizard, I say, “Sure—​don’t you?”

  “Well, since you’re on our turf, it’s only right you get the first catch.”

  From Carpenter, the trailhead to Fryman Canyon is a short bike ride up Laurel Canyon, then right on Fryman. I don’t know my way around here, so I bring up the rear. Jodie St. Claire hangs back and waits for me.

  “So you go to Wonderland?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I hear black kids get bused to that school.”

  “A few.”

  “I hear they steal.”

  “You ever steal anything?” I ask.

  “Just candy and lipstick and stuff.”

  “Sometimes I take coins from my mom’s purse,” I say. “To buy candy.”

  “The nice thing about stealing candy,” Jodie says, “is you swallow the guilt.”

  We ride on a bit, both of us trying to think of something to say. She thinks faster.

  “So, Charlie, you like lizards?”

  “I like to leave them alone.”

  “Because … ?”

  “I want them to leave me alone.”

  “You’re scared of them.”

  “No. Course not. Well, maybe a little. But if you tell the guys, I’ll kill you.”

  Jodie slides her thumb and finger across her lips, zippering them shut.

  We look up and see Keith’s hand pushed back to stop us in our tracks. He’s spotted a pair of blue-bellies, a larger one chasing a smaller one into the shadow of a rock. We all get off our bikes. The hunt is on.

  Keith crouches out of the sun. Tim pitches a handful of dirt behind the rock. The two lizards run into the open and then freeze. Keith waves me over, and I creep toward him the way you sneak up on a brother or sister you’re planning to scare. Soon I’m close enough to grab one of the lizards. My hand inches out. The smaller lizard gets away, but at the last second I slide my hands together, trapping the larger one. It starts to wriggle out of my grasp. I pinch its tail.

  “Grab him by the belly!” Keith says. But just then the lizard jerks and squirms and gets away.

  I look down at the detached tail between my fingers. It twitches like it’s still getting signals from a brain. I toss it into the dirt.

  The rest of the lizard has run into an ambush of boys. Keith dangles a looped reed in the air a few feet ahead. Tim flicks a pebble at the lizard; it darts into Keith’s noose. Keith raises the reptile into the air, its mouth opening and closing, but with nothing to bite.

  Randy holds out a plastic baggie with holes poked in it for air. Keith drops the lizard in, then turns to me.

  “It’s not a rat, Charlie Ross. You don’t catch him by the tail.”

  As we walk away, I glance at the tail in the dirt. It’s the first thing I’ve stolen today. I wish I could give it back.

  Armstrong

  After I leave paint for Cecily and check on Nika and Ebony and help Lenai get those seeds into the ground, I stop by Mr. Khalil’s to see how he’s getting along. He’s getting along just fine—​halfway up his old wooden ladder, this time against the side of his house.

  “Mr. Khalil,” I say, “what in the world are you doing halfway up a ladder?”

  “Caulking my windows in advance of the next storm. The last one brought three inches of rain. Two of them wound up in my bedroom.”

  “That doesn’t look safe to me.”

  “You think a man in his tenth decade isn’t fit to climb a ladder?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Who’s going to climb it for me?”

  “I will.”

  “I can’t pay you, Armstrong. I told you that.”

  “You already did pay me, Mr. Khalil. I’m making seven dollars today off my sisters. But if you want, you can teach me how to caulk a window.”

  Mr. Khalil looks down at me like I’m twenty feet beneath him, instead of two.

  “It’s an advanced skill,” he says.

  “Aw, come on, Mr. Khalil, you know I’m capable of this kind of work. You can go inside your bedroom and coach me. That way I can add it to my repertoire.”

  He thinks about this, then climbs on down and hands me the caulking gun. “It takes a steady hand,” he says. “Squeeze and sweep. Squeeze and sweep.”

  He shows me how.

  Now with me on the ladder and Mr. Khalil inside his bedroom, we’re just about eye to eye. I point the caulking gun at the groove between the glass and the window frame. I squeeze, but nothing comes out. I squeeze a little harder. It’s like the gun is jammed. So I bang it on the edge of the ladder, and the next time I squeeze, a blob of gel goes splat against the window, blurring everything.

  Mr. Khalil kneels down to a clear spot in the window, where he can see me. He motions for me to try again. I do, and this time the gun works right. I make a clean line of gel in the groove, and when I see that it’s good, I ask Mr. Khalil what’s been on my mind since I first met him.

  “Were you ever married, Mr. Khalil?”

  “Three times, Armstrong.”

  “Three?”

  “You forget how old I am.”

  “What happened to your wives?”

  And then, to pass the caulking time, Mr. Khalil tells me about all three of his wives.

  The first was Tilly, his high school sweetheart. She wanted to start a family right away. How are we going to support a family, Mr. Khalil asked her, and she said, You’re healthy—​get a job. His job, he told her, was going to college, and she should be doing the same. But she didn’t want to go to college, didn’t want to wait four years to get a baby, so she found somebody else. Then Mr. Khalil met a girl on the train coming home from Michigan, after he got his first degree. They fell in love so fast, they were engaged by the time the train reached Atlanta, where he was headed to bury his grandma.

  “So were you a daddy?”

  “Almost,” he says. “I lost both Althea and our son in childbirth.”

  The caulking gel goes on clear as a drop of clean water. I can picture the young Mr. Khalil standing over a hospital bed looking at his wife and their baby, neither one of them alive. I don’t know what to say, or if there’s anything to say. So I just go on caulking.

  It’s Mr. Khalil who starts the conversation again. He tells me it was a long time between his second wife and his third. She was the librarian at the high school where he taught
English. Every time he checked out a book, he’d return it with a little note in the pocket where the card is supposed to go.

  “You must’ve checked out a lot of books.”

  “Sometimes three in a week.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “Cora died of cancer a year after we were married.”

  With all these sad stories coming from his side of the window, I feel like maybe I should share one from mine.

  “I almost had a brother,” I tell him. “He would’ve been nine years old now if he had lived past birth. Sometimes I pretend he’s still alive. Make up stories to tell him. Games to play.”

  “That would have been one lucky boy, Armstrong.”

  Two lucky boys, I think.

  Charlie

  “True or false: lizards can swim.”

  Keith holds the bag over the swimming pool in Randy’s backyard.

  “True,” I guess.

  Keith unzips the bag and turns it over. The lizard slides out and swims along the surface, his head just above the water. With only a stump for a tail, he seems to have a hard time floating. But his body jerks from side to side, and his tiny legs paddle to keep him from going under.

  Randy walks out of the house with Cokes for everyone. Keith sits on the lounge chair next to me, leans back, and crosses his legs like someone much older. He takes a swallow of Coke and then claps me on the shoulder.

  “Me and the guys have decided to invite you in.”

  “In what?”

  “Our club.”

  “Thanks, Keith. That’s really nice of you.”

  “You’re welcome, Charlie Ross. There’s just one thing you gotta do.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Something important. Something big enough to show that you’re with us.”

  The pool pump buzzes like an old refrigerator. Randy comes through the door of the shed carrying a long aluminum pole with a net on one end. He kicks the door closed. The pump quiets down.

  Tim sits at a table reading the comics.

  “I got a live one!” Randy whoops. He holds the net out high, pretending he’s caught a shark or something, but it’s just the lizard in there. He holds it over Jodie’s head. Pool water drips down her neck. She gives Randy a BB-eyed look.

  “Let the lizard go,” she says.

  Tim turns to Keith. “Your girl’s got a bad attitude. Tell her to leave.”