Interference & Other Stories

by Richard Hoffman

  In Margaret’s case, Gregory understood, her shyness probably had to do with her being the new kid. All the others in the class had been together since kindergarten, while Margaret had only arrived at St. Polycarp’s the year before. Introducing her on the first day of fourth grade, Sister Mary Patricia told the class that Margaret had lived in New York, New Jersey, and Delaware before moving to Pennsylvania. Margaret blushed deeply, slipped lower in her seat, and clasped her hands tightly on her desk. For a while the kids tried to include her, then they taunted her, and finally they left her alone.

  Margaret’s dad drove a Royal White laundry truck standing up, with the steering wheel on the wrong side of the cab so he could leap from his truck, one-two and, with a skip and a jump, ring the doorbells with a brown paper package in his hands. “Cleaner than clean,…” it said on the side of the truck, “fresher than fresh!” Tuesday mornings he came down Gregory’s street, and sometimes in the summer Margaret was with him. Gregory’d arrange to be on the crumbling concrete steps of his house, filing and refiling his baseball cards by team, and within each team by batting average, or ERA for pitchers—each team a block with a rubber band around it. If Margaret was in the truck, he tried to jut out his jaw a bit and look serious, and if she noticed him, he gave her a little two-fingered John Wayne salute off his right eyebrow with just the slightest nod.

  After the truck pulled away and stopped again farther up the street, Gregory would run up the stairs to his room to watch it from the window. Often his mother would poke her head in then to ask if he was okay and he would tell her that he was, sighing and rolling his eyes, or stretching the word “Ma-ahm” into two annoyed, derisive syllables.

  “Well, if you’re okay, I want you outside. It’s too beautiful a day for you to be mooning around in your room, singing into the fan, for godsake.”

  Gregory winced and blushed. He’d thought the singing was private. Besides, he hadn’t been singing just then. How much else did his mother understand? His yearning for Margaret? The coded initials he’d written on his brown paper book covers, their initials intertwined: GMKF?

  “Go find your brother. I swear I don’t know what to do with you.”

  Gregory’s mother worked a half-shift of overtime on Tuesdays, eleven to three, at the linen mill, in addition to her regular forty hours. The boys’ father, MIA in Korea, was presumed dead, and like any woman in her circumstance, she had no patience for hanging around doing nothing.

  “Go! Go to the park. Go anywhere. Just get out of the house and go play for godsake!”

  Gregory always knew where to find his brother Dougie in the summer. He and his friends would be by the river, on the bluff above the deep water where a thick braided rope hung from the branch of a huge honey locust. They’d be taking turns swinging out over the black water downstream from the rapids, letting go at the highest point, upward and out in a long, arced flight, accompanied by first a loud whoop and then a great splash. Then the rope would snake back to where the others fought to grab hold of it.

  Most of the boys would twist and tumble through the air and try to end up tucked in a ball that made a dull kaboom and a tall column of water. Dougie, however, always managed to hit the water with a quick rip sound like a flat stone when it turns sideways and won’t skip. That was even neater, and Dougie had offered to teach him, but Gregory was too scared—he looked down, heart pounding, and started shaking and backing away from the edge.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Dougie told him. “You’re still little. When you’re bigger you’ll do it.” Gregory always heard “when you’re bigger” as a taunt, coming from his brother, a reminder that Dougie was four years older, stronger and more powerful. Then Dougie swung out on the rope, let go, and Gregory watched as he entered the water clean as a blade.

  Sometimes when they were both home, when no other kids were around, it was the way it used to be. They might sit on the floor on the braided rug and play rummy or crazy-8s, or drag the old electric football game from the closet and plug it in, choosing all-star teams and giving the little two-dimensional players the names of their favorite pros according to position.

  Lately though, Dougie was making it clear that he’d rather be with almost anybody but his little brother, maybe because he was often left in charge for short periods when his mother had to run some errand or another, and that always meant he had to stay home unless he wanted to take Gregory with him when he met up with his friends—and that was worse.

  “Mom, that’s not fair! Besides, he’s not a baby. He can take care of himself!”

  Gregory’s hurt feelings on these occasions were offset by gratitude that his brother’d said he wasn’t “a baby.” The trouble was that, other times, with his friends especially, that’s what Dougie called him, “a baby.” For his own part, Gregory resented the fact that Dougie was the one who got new clothes, new toys, new sports equipment, while everything he had was something Dougie had grown out of.

  Gregory went out through the back door and hopped on his bike to ride to the river. Why did his mother have to be like that? Couldn’t she see he was practically a teenager? That eleven is a teen even if you don’t say it that way? Sometimes he just wanted to stay in his room and think. About Margaret mostly. He liked to lie on his bed and imagine they were kissing; he would hug the pillow to his chest and press his thumb into his lips. Sometimes he nuzzled the soft blond hairs on his arm and imagined they were the downy gold at the nape of her neck. He let the songs play in his head. He longed for romance, heartbreak, heroism; he yearned to be grown up and in love.

  Venus if you will

  Please send a little girl for me to thrill.

  A girl who wants my kisses and my arms

  A girl with all the charms of you.

  He cut across the abandoned lumberyard and parked his bike near the hole in the chain-link fence topped with rusty barbed wire and covered with honeysuckle, ragged and sweet. He could hear they were there. He liked the quality of sound of the place, the rumble of trucks on the bridge, the way the sheer rock face on the other side echoed their voices, on some days more than others. Just through the fence was a boulder on which he could climb and see his brother and the others for a moment, and then he was on the dirt path that switchbacked several times through the high weeds alive with grasshoppers and other chirring insects.

  One of Dougie’s friends, Kenny Messinger, saw him first. “Hey Doug. Doug. Check it out. Snotboy’s here!”

  Gregory tried to smile, as if this were a nickname, as if he were being welcomed. It was the usual crowd of Dougie’s friends: Kenny; Kennys twin, Neil; Zack; and Sam, all boys he’d known his whole life, neighbors, but somehow strangers now. Like Dougie, they had no use for him. These days he felt ashamed in their presence. They called him birdboy for his bony chest and skinny legs. They had all “filled out” as his mother called it. Muscular and hairy, they punched each other hard, so you could hear fists thumping shoulders, their voices deep and loud.

  A new sign at the end of the path read “SWIM AT YOUR OWN RISK, Town of Norville, Dept, of Parks.” It replaced the weathered “NO SWIMMING” sign, covered with the carved initials of generations of teenaged boys, that had been there until this year.

  As Gregory approached, Zack cut loose with his loudest Tarzan yell as he let go of the rope; his cry ended in a loud smack as he hit the water. The echo sounded like a slap. “Oooww, that hurt!” said Neil, shaking his head to the side to drain water from his ear. When Zack surfaced, they all taunted him.

  “Oh man, instant sunburn!”

  “Down in flames, man!”

  “Hey, check and make sure your nuts are still there!”

  “Offer it up for the souls in purgatory!”

  Zack scrabbled up the rocks and exposed roots of the bluff to stand again on the packed earth. His face, chest, stomach and thighs were all a bright red. “What are you lookin’ at, dick-lick?” He was speaking to Gregory. “Well?”

  “Lay off, Zack,” Dougie said fr
om the edge of the cliff where he’d managed to get hold of the rope. He backed up several steps to get a good running start.

  Gregory saw it coming, but there was no way to avoid it: as soon as Dougie was in the air over the river, Zack and the others were on him. “Red-belly! Grab him!” Gregory was on the ground, his T-shirt pulled over his head, a woody root cutting into his shoulder blade, the twins pinning his arms. He tried to kick, but Sam was soon sitting on his shins and holding his knees together and Zack was smacking his stomach, leading the chant: “Red-belly, red-belly, red-belly.”

  By the time Dougie had climbed out of the water the assault was over and Zack had pushed Neil aside, grabbed the rope, and was set to swing out over the water again. “Hey, Dougie, tell your little homo brother that’s the way we deal with chickenshitters. Ride the rope, you little homo, or go home to your mommy!”

  Holding his hot and tingling belly, Gregory could feel the rising welts left by Zack’s hands. Dougie grabbed him by the arm and said in a clenched whisper, “Why do you just let them do this? Why don’t you fight? What’s the matter with you?”

  “Like I had a chance.”

  “Oh, come on, don’t be such a baby. Nobody made you come here.”

  “Mom did.”

  “Yeah, well, Mom’s not gonna fight your battles for you, is she?”

  Gregory pulled away to walk up through the field to his bike. Zack hit the water with a great thumping splash that echoed as a string of dying bass percussions, joined by the other boys’ cheers.

  When Gregory returned to the fence, he saw the laundry truck in the lumberyard, but his wondering at it was trumped by the realization that his bike was not where he had left it. He ran along the fence this way and that, looking to see if someone had maybe hidden it as a joke, but it was gone. Gone! There was no sense in telling his brother and the others. How would he tell his mother? He’d begged her for that bike instead of Dougie’s old one. He let the tears come and kicked at the fence, tearing handful after handful of honeysuckle from the chain-link until a cloying sweetness filled the air.

  “What’s wrong, son?”

  Gregory spun around. It was Margaret’s father, standing right behind him in his white uniform; he was holding a camera with the biggest, longest lens Gregory had ever seen fastened around his neck by a strap. Gregory turned back to face the fence; he felt humiliated. Margaret’s father! And here he was sniffling like a baby.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “I’m sorry. I mean nothing, Mr. Fisher.” And now he was showing his bad manners, too!

  “No, no. That’s not what I meant, son. I mean is there anything I can do for you is all.”

  Gregory turned to face the man. “Somebody stole my bike.”

  “Are you sure? ’Cause I’ve been here awhile now.” He raised the camera. “Taking pictures of the birds. You like birds?”

  Gregory toed the dirt, still trying to pull himself together. Fisher handed him a folded handkerchief, and Gregory blew his nose in it and then didn’t know what to do with it.

  “You just keep that.”

  “I have allergies,” Gregory said. “They make my eyes water and I have to blow my nose.”

  “Yeah, bad time of year for that.” He was looking through the camera at the bridge, adjusting the telephoto lens. “What color was this bike of yours? Blue?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “With a basket on the front?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And colored streamers on the handgrips?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Come on! Get in the truck, let’s get you your bike back.”

  “Did you see him? Did you take his picture?”

  “Come on, come on! We don’t want to lose him. No. Go around the other side.” Fisher started the truck and it whined when he put it in reverse. Gregory sat on a high, torn leather seat with the stuffing coming out of it. There was a handle to grab hold of in the doorway. Fisher kept his left hand on the knob of the long gearshift that rose from the middle of the corrugated metal floor and bent at an angle. They lurched forward.

  “Now, listen,” Fisher shouted over the engine. He shifted. “If we catch this guy, you leave it up to me, you understand?”

  Gregory was noticing everything about the truck: the big, flat twin-paned windshield with wiper blades up top that had swept two boxy smiles in the dust; the small yellowing plastic Virgin on the dashboard; a clipboard holding a fat wad of pink and white papers; more papers tucked up under the visor in front of him. He had an exciting sense that he was in Margaret’s world now, riding in this truck he watched for on Tuesdays, hearing its predictable whine and the sound of its braking as it made its way down his street toward and then away from his house. It was a strange sensation being inside all that familiar noise.

  “You understand?” shouted Fisher.

  Gregory looked at him. He had a ruddy face, high forehead, bony nose, and a protruding vein that curled like a purple worm from his brow to his crew cut.

  “I mean it. I know you must be angry, but I saw this kid and believe me, he’s no match for a guy like you.” He spoke loudly, eyes on the road. “A guy as strong as you would tear him limb from limb.”

  Gregory knew he wasn’t strong; at least he didn’t feel strong. Still, Margaret’s father seemed to think he was. Maybe he would go home and tell Margaret how he met a big strong friend of hers today, how together they had caught a thief and made him give his bike back.

  As if he were reading Gregory’s thoughts, Fisher said, “We’re a team now. So listen to me, son. This is going to be clean. We catch up to him and tell him we know the bike is yours. We put the bike in the back of the truck and turn around. And that’s all.” They rumbled over the bridge; he could see downstream to where one of the twins, Kenny or Neil, had just swung out over the water and let go.

  A little way past the bridge, they turned onto a narrow road that ran beside a cemetery. Fisher slowed. “There she is.” He pointed with a movement of his chin. The bike stood there, propped on its kickstand, conveniently in a turnout big enough for the truck. “Don’t seem like anyone’s around,” said Fisher as they pulled onto the dirt and gravel. Gregory wondered where the kid who stole it would have gone; there was nothing to do around here. “Stay here.” Fisher hopped down, opened the back doors, put the bike in, and slammed the doors shut.

  As they pulled back onto the road, Fisher reached across the open cab and tousled Gregory’s hair. “What a team we make,” he said. “A regular Batman and Robin. What do you say, Boy Wonder? You’ve been through a lot. You want to stop off for some ice cream? My treat.”

  Gregory thought that sounded good. He shrugged.

  Fisher lightly slapped Gregory’s thigh. “I would say you really proved yourself today. A lot of young men, even older than you, would have panicked when they saw their bike was gone, but you kept your head on your shoulders. I like that in a guy.” He gave Gregory’s shoulder a pat before he shifted into fourth gear.

  Gregory wondered what he’d done besides ride in the truck, but he was also thinking how great it was that Margaret’s father thought so well of him. One day, when they were older, when the time came for him to ask Margaret to marry him, her father would think it was a neat thing. Who cared about Zack and his brother’s friends and the stupid rope and all that babyish stuff? The wind blew warm on his face as he let a song play in his head:

  When I want you in my arms

  When I want you and all your charms

  Whenever I want you

  All I have to do is dream, dream, dream.

  That evening Gregory sang every song he knew into the fan, some of them more than once. Unsettled and nervous, he sang to calm himself, all the while turning over and over the idea of himself as a kid—a guy—with special qualities, a thought that he liked. Margaret’s father liked and respected him. Maybe Margaret would be his girlfriend. His brother and his friends could have their stupid rope and stand around
punching one another like a bunch of knuckleheads. He was soon to be in love and all you had to do was turn on the radio to know that everything was better and that life was hardly worth living if you weren’t in love. He imagined his voice like colored confetti carrying farther than ever, beyond the neighborhood, over the river, out of town.

  The following Tuesday Gregory waited on the front steps until the laundry truck came down the street. He was disappointed to discover that Margaret was not in it. Fisher dropped off some laundry next door and waved to Gregory. “Want to ride along and give me a hand there, partner? I don’t guess we’ll rescue any bicycles today, but I could use some help with my route.”

  Gregory grabbed up his various piles of baseball cards, collecting them in one block, and put a rubber band around it. “I have to ask my mom.”

  She was getting ready for work, pinning her hair up. When he asked her she gave herself a stern look in the mirror, sighed, and came to the front door. Gregory hadn’t told her anything about the bike; he could not have said why he hadn’t, but he knew, somehow, that he shouldn’t. She would probably have scolded him for leaving the bike someplace where he couldn’t keep an eye on it.

  “Afternoon, Ma’am,” Fisher said. “I wondered if my young friend here might ride along in the truck and give me a hand with some of these bundles.”

  Gregory gave his mother a pleading look. She appeared uncertain and agitated.

  “And you are?” she asked, squinting a bit.

  Fisher instantly thrust out his hand. “Karl Fisher, Ma’am. I live close by, right there around the corner, in fact. You have a fine young man here. Fine young man.” He almost put his hand on Gregory’s shoulder, but changed his mind.