The Amazing Adventures of John Smith, Jr. AKA Houdini

by Peter Johnson

  Angel himself didn’t talk to anyone, and when my mother took a picture of me, my father, and Franklin in front of our newly renovated fireplace, I saw him standing off to the side, scowling. The next day at school, he followed me around, pretending to snap photos, saying, “John Jr., sweetheart, stand over there with Daddy and smile.” He probably would’ve kept it up all day if Lucky hadn’t threatened to smack him.

  For some reason, Angel especially hated hearing people praise Franklin, probably because no one in his family had ever done anything important. Franklin was a football star, class president, and now, to most people, a patriot.

  None of this explains Angel Dimitri, though. To me, at least early that fall, the only good thing about him was that he helped me to get my novel started. Every novel needs a villain, and I didn’t have to look far with Angel around. Unlike Lucky, I didn’t care if he’d been normal when he was a little kid. All that mattered now was that he acted like someone had gotten inside his head and fiddled with a Ginsu knife. The only neighborhood person we feared more than Angel was a one-armed, black Vietnam veteran called Old Man Jackson, a guy who’ll end up being important to this story.

  “A BUNCH OF WIZARDS WITH THEIR BUTTS STUCK IN BOOKS”

  Lucky was right about one thing: it was fun working for yourself. Even some of the neighborhood losers would high-five us when we showed up at their apartment buildings. But we couldn’t choose where we worked. That was the deal Lucky cut with Mr. Gregory Gregory, who assigned us to three streets, not surprisingly ones where he owned property. Whatever house was on it had to be raked, unless the people who lived there gave us a bad time. Most of the old people who owned their homes got as excited as first graders when we arrived, knowing that for once, after October, they’d be able to see what little they had of front or back yards. But druggies and hungover people don’t like the sound of rakes on Saturday mornings, so we had to be careful. One shady guy said he’d shoot us if we didn’t finish by noon, probably because he was expecting customers. He was a big, fat guy who had a gray ponytail crawling down the back of his red velvet bathrobe. When he became agitated, his cheeks got so red he looked like a gangsta version of Santa Claus. Although we knew he was joking, we made sure to be out of there by twelve.

  During our raking we discovered some very weird objects scattered around. We were prepared for cigarette butts, beer cans, and empty bottles of booze, even for the occasional shoe or pair of underwear (which made us always wear plastic gloves). But some things blew us away because they seemed so out of place.

  Ten Weird Things We Found

  A rabbit’s foot

  A dismembered Barbie doll

  A dismembered Ken doll (found in a different yard than the Barbie doll)

  A car’s gas pedal

  Two copies of Shakespeare’s Hamlet

  A golf driver

  Handcuffs

  A crucifix

  A picture of a naked woman with her head clipped off

  A George Foreman grill

  As you can see, the whole history of a neighborhood can be found in a simple pile of leaves. The picture of the headless woman really spooked me, and I told Jorge that we should become “leaf detectives” and find out who she was.

  Out of the three of us, Jorge was the least excited about raking, and spent most of his time whining. One day, he complained that he was working with a Houdini wannabe (me) “who couldn’t even make a lousy pile of leaves disappear. That’s the problem with hocus-pocus,” he said. “A bunch of genies with their butts stuck in books, where they can’t help anyone.”

  “He’s got a point,” Lucky said, laughing.

  “Magic’s not about tricks,” I said. “It’s about using your imagination.” I have to admit I stole that from the internet.

  “What the heck is that supposed to mean?” Jorge asked.

  “I guess I’m saying magic is trusting in yourself.” I stole that too, though I really believe it.

  Jorge looked at me like I was speaking Russian. “If you keep talking like that,” he said, “you’re going to end up even weirder than Old Man Jackson.”

  Which at the time was a very scary thought, especially since we were about to come face-to-face with him.

  OLD MAN JACKSON

  To call Old Man Jackson’s house a “house,” you’d have to use the word loosely. It was more like a shack, about thirty feet long and twenty feet wide. Upstairs was a little room with a small window, which was always half open. I imagined Jackson sitting there in his rocker with a rifle on his lap, deciding whether to shoot us while we played basketball across the street.

  Mr. Gregory Gregory had publically called Jackson’s house an “eyesore,” and he’d been on a mission to have it condemned and knocked down. He said he wanted to build a youth center there, but my father didn’t believe him. Last year, after forcing a bunch of people out of a three-story house, Gregory bought it, had it leveled, and built a convenience store on its foundation. If this pattern kept up, pretty soon the neighborhood would turn into Gregory Gregory Manor, which really angered my father. He could handle oddballs, like Jackson, but he didn’t like the way Gregory was intimidating people to leave, so he could buy up property. In Jackson’s case, Gregory even called the cops a couple of times, falsely claiming there’d been complaints about Jackson’s dog attacking people. Personally, the only weird thing I connected with Jackson’s little house was the strong smell of incense creeping out its windows during the summer, but I never heard anyone complain about it.

  Although Jackson’s house was small, he had a huge front yard that was so dry and weed-infested it looked like a desert, and because it was surrounded by huge maple trees from neighboring houses, we couldn’t ignore it. In fact, it looked like the wind had worked a deal with the trees to make Jackson’s house its primary target.

  The yard itself stretched from the house to the street and was enclosed by a waist-high, gateless, rusty wire fence, making it clear no one should leave or enter, and, in truth, I rarely saw Jackson outside his property.

  “I think he’s a vampire,” Jorge once said. “At night, he turns into a bat and sucks the blood out of winos.”

  “Maybe his dog runs wild at night,” Lucky said, “and brings him back scraps to eat.”

  The dog was a black pit bull called Da Nang, named after a battle Jackson had fought in. Periodically when you’d walk by, he’d sic Da Nang on you, and just before the dog reached the fence, he’d trigger a remote control programmed to the dog’s collar, which would make Da Nang halt, then stare you down. It was frightening, not only because Da Nang was a pit bull but because he had one creepy, grayish glass eye. It was even scarier because Jackson would break into this insane, high-pitched laugh as the dog charged you, getting a rush from the look on your face. Jackson could be a real goofball, but my father said he had saved some soldiers in Vietnam and had received a Purple Heart, and that the government had cheated him out of benefits.

  I had never really seen Jackson up close until we showed up with our rakes and paper leaf bags in hand.

  It was a sunny, late October afternoon, and we had decided to finish at his house, hoping it might burn down before we arrived.

  “I don’t think this is a good idea,” I told Lucky.

  “A freaking understatement,” Jorge said.

  “Gregory said he squared it with Jackson,” Lucky said, “so relax.”

  “Jackson hates Gregory,” Jorge said. “I just don’t want Da Nang taking my privates as a souvenir.”

  We probably would’ve spent the whole afternoon arguing, except Jackson materialized on his front porch, sock- and shoeless, Da Nang standing next to him at attention. Jackson wore old, blue overalls and a perfectly clean, white T-shirt. He was bald but had an untrimmed, bushy, gray beard. As he approached, with Da Nang walking like a trained poodle at his side, I noticed his one good arm was covered with tattoos. The stump of his other arm even had one. He smiled, showing a mouthful of different colored teeth, some
missing, and he smelled like incense. “What’s the problem here, boys?” he asked politely.

  “Didn’t Mr. Gregory call you?” Lucky said.

  “You mean the black man who wants to be a white man?”

  Lucky didn’t know what to say.

  “Yeah, he called,” Jackson said. “So you’re the dogooders I saw in the paper. Does that mean me and Da Nang have to make you cookies?” He let out this hyena-like laugh that made Da Nang howl.

  “Damn,” Jorge said.

  “Watch your mouth, boy,” Jackson said. “Da Nang don’t like swear words.” Then he laughed. “I’m just havin’ fun with you boys. Hop the fence and me and Da Nang will go inside.”

  And that’s what we were about to do when Angel Dimitri turned the corner. He was sucking on a lime Popsicle, grinning like a chimpanzee. Old Man Jackson hissed when he saw him, and Da Nang started to growl, probably sensing evil, like animals are supposed to.

  Angel just laughed.

  “I’m watching you, fatso,” Jackson said. “I know it was you who shot those apples at my house.”

  Jackson was right on that score. Two weeks earlier at the basketball courts, Angel made a catapult out of a four-foot plank and a large rock. Right before sunset, he placed a rotten apple on one end of the board, dropping a boulder on the other end, which made the apple hurl through the air toward Jackson’s house. The apple came up short, but he kept practicing until one hit Jackson’s roof. Then he made three more catapults and got some losers to help him, so he could fire four apples at the same time. That’s when Lucky, Jorge, and I left, but I heard Jackson was almost knocked unconscious when he stormed out of the house, yelling. I could still see the leftovers of Angel’s attack scattered around the yard.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Angel said, continuing to smile, his Mohawk twitching like a giant centipede.

  Old Man Jackson made his thumb and forefinger into a gun and pulled an invisible trigger. “I’m going to get you,” he said, “and when I do, I’ll let Da Nang lick up the scraps.” He walked back to the house, then turned to shoot his imaginary gun.

  “No,” Angel mumbled, “I’m going to get you, and I’ll have something special for your dog.”

  Jackson couldn’t hear him, but right before closing his door, he surprised me, turning his gaze my way and saying, “The paper said you’re Franklin’s brother.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, wondering where the “sir” came from.

  “Is he still alive?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good,” Jackson replied. He stared at his stump. “They ought to shoot those politicians for sending boys to war.” Then he disappeared into the house with Da Nang.

  Angel took a long suck on his Popsicle. “Have fun, sissy boys,” he said, walking away, followed by Jorge’s rapid-fire obscenities.

  “Save your energy for raking,” Lucky told Jorge, and he was right because when we hopped the fence, we were ankle-deep in leaves.

  GEARS OF WAR

  I wasn’t lying when I said Franklin was doing okay. But what I didn’t say was that having a brother in Iraq sucks worse than being named John Smith, Jr.

  At first, I thought it would be neat, especially after Franklin came home from basic training, jacked up and dressed in fatigues. Under his arm he carried a large, framed picture of himself in his blue dress uniform and white military hat. My mother set it up on top of the TV, and when he wasn’t around, I used to try on his hat and jacket. I’d also stare at the picture—his square jaw and steely blue eyes—imagining him surveying bombed-out Iraqi buildings, while steadying his automatic rifle or crisscrossing streets, dodging bullets. I could feel his heavy breathing, wondering whether the next bullet or car bomb was meant for him.

  But all our pride began to fade after he left for more training. What we feared most was Franklin being Franklin. We knew if he got killed, it would happen because he tried to save someone, or because he reached down to give a little Iraqi boy a candy bar while that boy’s father, who was an enemy soldier, leaped from a closet and shot him in the head. My mother wished the Marines had trained him to be a cook or journalist. “They have jobs like that in the Marines, don’t they?” she asked my father, who replied, “How the heck do I know?” He didn’t mean to be nasty. He just didn’t like talking about the war, unless he was yelling at the TV. He was also uptight because two coworkers had been laid off, and every morning I had seen him scanning the want ads.

  So it’s not surprising that during Franklin’s final visit before being shipped out, he and my father tiptoed around each other. I’m not saying they didn’t talk, but their conversation was mostly about sports, and Franklin seemed to be distant and edgy, like he was either itching to go to Iraq or worried about it. Sometimes he would sit in front of a bowl of cereal for five minutes before taking a bite.

  One day my father was ranting about Manny Ramírez, saying he was a “cancer,” and that the Red Sox were lucky they got rid of him.

  “It’s all about money,” Franklin said.

  My father was reading the sports section at the breakfast table, and Franklin was having a cup of coffee.

  “I wouldn’t pay to see any of those guys play,” my father said. “They’re making millions to hit a lousy baseball while the rest of us can’t afford a hot dog at Fenway. It’s insulting.”

  Franklin nodded, saying it made more sense to go to a PawSox game, the AAA team that played a few miles away.

  And this was how breakfast usually went, with them going back and forth about batting statistics or how steroids ruined the game while all I wanted to know was when Franklin was leaving. Maybe my father felt that if he didn’t mention the inevitable, it might not happen.

  My mother just avoided conversation. All she did was cook. Anything Franklin ever liked would mysteriously appear on the dinner table. He especially loved peanut butter cookies, so after he left, we had enough peanut butter cookies to feed half of Providence.

  What was nice about his last visit was that he paid more attention to me. When he was in high school, he was always busy with sports and school, and I hardly saw him while he was at college. But now we went to movies, played video games, shot baskets, and took walks around the neighborhood, talking to everyone we bumped into, like he was afraid he might not get another chance.

  The only video game he wouldn’t play was Gears of War. I asked if he thought real war would be like the video game, and he said, “No, real people die in real war.” When he said this, I noticed my father standing in the doorway looking at us, his face gray and somber. He himself hadn’t been in the service, but his favorite uncle was killed in Vietnam. Sometimes I felt my father had some secret knowledge about Franklin’s future, and it scared me.

  But it was nice to have Franklin back in the room, and I tried to convince myself he’d be there forever. Of course that was stupid, and one day he was gone, leaving behind a brand-new football autographed by Tom Brady. I don’t know how he made that happen, but it meant more to me than if he had been really dramatic, which would’ve just made my mother cry.

  TEN THINGS I MISS ABOUT FRANKLIN THAT ARE REALLY ONE THING

  Franklin deciding to chill with me on a Saturday morning.

  Then making me chocolate-chip waffles,

  Which we eat in the living room while watching SportsCenter,

  And bet on whether the Red Sox bull pen blew another save,

  Then getting into my father’s old Taurus station wagon,

  And going to play miniature golf,

  Knowing I can beat him in miniature golf,

  But letting him win anyway,

  So he’ll buy me an extra-large blueberry slush at the concession stand,

  Then going home and listening to him joke with my father about how he was behind but won the last five holes.

  Franklin never seemed to get it that I always let him win those holes, but it was worth it to see him happy. I truly believe Franklin could’ve been anything. He was one o
f those guys who everyone noticed when he came into a room, not just because of his smile and his size—he was at least six feet five—but because of the way he moved, like he was completely cool with himself.

  Unlike me, Franklin wasn’t a big talker. I tend to babble, and when I get that way, he puts a hand on my shoulder, or waits me out before giving advice. He’s also big on community service, like handing out clothes to the homeless or working in soup kitchens, and his favorite phrase is “To whom much is given, much is expected.” It was something he read somewhere, and at first I didn’t get it because from what I could see, we hadn’t been given very much. Then one day Franklin explained that we were healthy and loved each other, which was more than most people could say, so we had an obligation to give back.

  But don’t get the idea Franklin was a wimp. In my neighborhood, you can’t make it past first grade without someone trying to beat on you, and there are always gangsta wannabes starting trouble. But no one ever messed with Franklin. Although I’d never seen him beat up anyone, I had watched him stare down a few guys, making them have to decide if a fight was worth it.

  They always backed down.

  BEING A WRITER AIN’T EASY

  After Franklin left, I worked hard on my book, hoping I’d forget how lonely I was. Every night I tried to write for at least an hour. My problem was that I didn’t know how to organize things that were happening to me. And my list wasn’t helping.