Jack's Black Book

by Jack Gantos

  “Forgive me, BeauBeau,” I muttered. I raised the hammer up over my head and brought it down again, and again, until I had busted up all his joints. Then I twisted and snapped his legs back, and tucked them up against his chest. When I finished all the gruesome work I fit him sideways into the coffin and covered him with the taffeta. Sorry, sorry, sorry, I said to BeauBeau. I didn’t mean it to be this way.

  Hurry, hurry, hurry, I said to myself. I set the coffin top in place and was pounding the nails in when Mom, Dad, Betsy, and Pete scrambled into the garage. They stared down on me as if I were some serial killer chopping up another victim.

  “You’re just in time for the funeral,” I announced as cheerfully as I could, and drove in the last nail.

  “Pete,” I ordered, taking control of the situation, “help me pick up the coffin.” He grabbed the rear pallbearer handle with both hands. I grabbed the front and we lifted the coffin, then marched solemnly around the side of the house.

  “Pick up the pace,” Dad said. “The Teeters are looking out their window and I’m sure they think we’re burying the baby.”

  “God forbid,” Mom said.

  “They probably think we’re Satanists,” Betsy speculated, and she waved to Mrs. Teeter, who had pulled the picture-window curtain to one side.

  Mom made a big sign of the cross so we’d look legitimate. It probably just made us look more ghoulish.

  When we arrived at the grave site Pete and I set the casket on the ground.

  “Would anyone like to say a few words on BeauBeau’s behalf?” I asked, and bowed my head.

  Dad began to laugh. “Look,” he said dryly, “I liked the dog. But keep in mind that he was so dumb he dug his own grave. What more needs to be said?”

  “He barked in French,” Betsy added. “So I hope he ends up on the French side of dog heaven.”

  “With a bunch of French poodles,” Pete said.

  Mom declined.

  “Amen,” I croaked, wrapping it up.

  Pete and I bent down and lowered the coffin into BeauBeau’s double-wide hole. Then I grabbed my shovel and sprinkled a load of dirt on the lid. This is the final hole he dug, I thought, and one of the last holes of his I’ll ever fill in. From now on I’m going to be a writer. Not a gravedigger.

  Then I made the sign of the cross and said a little prayer.

  Betsy was watching me closely. “You should be institutionalized,” she proclaimed. “This whole ceremony is the workings of a sick mind.”

  “I’ve already been tested,” I said proudly. “And I’m not mentally ill.”

  “He’s just really stupid,” Pete said. “Leave him alone.”

  She left in a huff.

  I gave Pete a dirty look and pointed to an open hole. “You’re next,” I said coldly. “You know what I did to BeauBeau. What makes you think I won’t do it to you, too?”

  He ran.

  “Don’t turn your back on me,” I shouted. “I’ve already got you sized up for my next wood project. I’m goin’ for extra credit!”

  Six

  Mr. Gilette wasn’t fooling.

  At dinner Dad unfolded a letter and held it up over his head and waved it around as if he were trying to surrender to the enemy. “You’re failing seventh grade,” he announced. “It says right here,” and he slapped the paper for effect, “that you’re getting an F in shop.”

  “How?” I yelped. “Me. How?”

  “Brain dead,” Betsy said sadly. “Probably from sniffing too much wood glue.”

  “Mind yourself,” Mom advised. “Jack’s not challenged because of glue.” She reached across the table and patted me on the head as if I were some drooling cave dweller.

  Betsy reconsidered. “You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry. It’s not glue. He just naturally doesn’t have a clue.”

  I kept looking back and forth at them as they insulted me. This is what BeauBeau must have felt like around this house, I thought. Everyone talking badly about him right in front of his face and all he could do was look at them with big wet doggy eyes.

  “You do have a way out,” Dad said somberly.

  “What?”

  “Shop camp,” he replied. “Mr. Gilette runs a private woodworking summer camp in Kissimmee. If you attend it’s like going to summer school and you’ll pass into eighth grade.”

  “What a racket,” I huffed. “What he’s doing is criminal. Can’t you see what he’s up to? He fails me, then he charges us tuition to go to his summer camp.”

  “Hey,” Betsy said, loving every minute of this, “don’t blame your problems on someone else. You are the nimrod who failed shop.”

  “I have big plans this summer. I’m going to stay home and write a book.” I blurted this out. I had no intention of telling anyone. Now I knew they would make even more fun of me. It was bad enough to have told them I was stupid. It was worse to tell them about my dream. “I want to be a writer,” I repeated. “Not a whittler.”

  “Even writers have to pass seventh grade,” Betsy started.

  “Wait a minute,” Dad said, and hushed everyone else who had lined up to take a shot at me. “You want to become a writer? Do you know what the odds are of being a successful writer? It’s like becoming a pro basketball player. Millions of kids play, but only a few hundred can be pros. And what do the rest do? They end up spending all their time sitting on the couch watching the game on TV. It’s the same with being a writer. What are the odds you’ll ever get published? A million to one?”

  “That’s not the point,” I said. But he wasn’t listening.

  “You might as well sit on your bum all day playing the lottery. No, being a writer is not a career choice. It’s a hobby, something you do after work. What you need for a career is a skill, and I think woodworking is a good place to begin. So I don’t want to hear any more about it. Besides, I already talked to Gilette and it’s settled. He even gave us a discount because of your diminished abilities. So, next month you’re going up to the Kissimmee Wood Shop Camp for Boys.”

  “But I want to write a book!” I said. “Can’t you send me to writers’ camp?”

  “Don’t be so lame,” Betsy scoffed, and broke into a laugh. “They don’t have camp for writers. People who want to write just do it. They don’t wait to go to summer camp for scribblers. And they certainly don’t sit around in their bathrobes all day staring toward the heavens while sucking on a piece of brain-damaging lead.”

  I cringed. She must have seen me waiting for my muse. But that muse business was all over with. From now on I planned to write all my ideas in my black book, and not just wait for them to appear on the ceiling. But now that I was going to wood-shop camp, where would I get the time to write? Especially around guys who carried more penknives than pens in their pockets.

  I had one more chance of getting out of shop camp.

  The next day after school I stayed behind and spoke with Mr. Gilette.

  “Don’t fail me,” I pleaded. “My dream is to be a writer, not a woodworker.”

  “Dream on,” he said. “I checked with Mr. Ploof and he gave me your test scores. Apparently, even woodworking is a stretch for you.”

  “Really,” I insisted. “I want to be a writer and I was planning to write a book this summer. And you know I worked really hard on that coffin.”

  “I warned you,” he said. “I humiliated you in front of the class. I distinctly said I would fail you if you made that coffin.”

  “I know, but give me a second chance. I think you judged me too harshly.” I said this with all the sincerity I could. Then I looked him right in the eyes and added, “Besides, I’m a good kid.”

  It worked. “Okay,” he said reluctantly. “I don’t want to, but I’ll give you a second chance because I’m a decent guy. Bring the coffin in tomorrow morning and if it’s well made I’ll think about giving you a break.”

  I was shocked. “But it’s already in the ground,” I stammered. “With a dog in it. A dead dog. My dog.”

  “
I can’t give you a grade on what I can’t examine,” he said matter-of-factly. Then he grinned with the total pleasure of knowing what he was about to say. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. No coffin, no grade change. It’s your choice.”

  “Okay,” I said, and staggered out of school in a daze just thinking about what I had to do. When I got home I stood before BeauBeau’s grave. “I have nothing but respect for you,” I said quietly. “But forgive me, I have to pass seventh grade. I hope you’ll understand.”

  That night I got up out of bed, snuck down to the garage, and got a crowbar out of the toolbox. I hoisted my shovel up over my shoulder and tiptoed around to the backyard. I kept saying to myself, You already did worse to him. Just don’t dwell on it. Now dig him up, open the coffin, flip BeauBeau into the hole, cover him up, and take the coffin to school. Once you pass, you can dig him up again, put him back into the coffin, and everything will be as it was. Now just shut up, turn off your low-level brain, and dig a hole like a big dumb BeauBeau IV.

  I stood on the grave and looked down at the mound of dirt. It was covered with plastic flowers, BeauBeau’s dog toys, his water dish, and a little cross I had made out of Slim Jims. I bent down and carefully removed all the decorations.

  When I was ready, I took a deep breath and pushed the shovel into the soft ground, then tossed the dirt to one side. I stuck the shovel in again, and again, until I heard a hollow thud. Too bad it wasn’t buried treasure. I hit the top of the coffin lid again. At that moment a neighborhood dog barked and I jumped back as though I had stuck my finger in an electrical socket. I let go of my shovel and ran around to the kitchen door and dashed inside.

  “I can’t… do it,” I panted, while standing in the dark. “I’d rather … fail seventh grade … than dig up the dead.”

  Even though I said that, I knew I didn’t mean it. Deeper within me, a stronger voice roared back. “You can’t go to wood-shop camp. You’ll be carving ships in a bottle for the rest of your life. Now get out there and do what you have to do.”

  I took a deep breath, narrowed my eyes, and marched across the yard. Other writers had done what I was about to do. Once I had read about the poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti. When his wife died he put a manuscript of unpublished love poems in her hands just before they closed the coffin. No one in the world would ever read them but her spirit, he thought romantically. She was the love of his life. But a while later he wasn’t feeling too romantic when he had a hard time writing any more good poems and needed money. So one dark night he went to the cemetery and dug up his wife and pulled the poems out of her bony fingers. While he had the coffin open he also took the jewels she was wearing. He later published the book and probably pawned the jewels until the checks on the new book started rolling in.

  “In order to be a writer,” I whispered to myself as I picked up the shovel, “you have to be tough. You have to be willing to dig up the dead for your art. I love you, BeauBeau,” I said. “But a man has to do what a dog can’t.”

  When I cleared the dirt from the top of the coffin I put down my shovel. I bent over and wiggled my hand through the damp soil until I felt the pallbearer’s handle on the front. I got a grip on it and pulled. The coffin wouldn’t budge. I crawled on top of it and began to scoop the dirt out around the sides. I looked over at the house to see if any lights had come on. None. So far, so good. If Betsy came out and saw me she’d call the cops and have me sent to the funny farm, where I’d be hanging out with guys who ate flies for fun.

  In a few minutes I had the dirt free from around the edges. I grabbed the handle and pulled up. This time the coffin lifted out and I dragged it across the backyard to the side of the house. Already I could smell something bad.

  When I had the coffin behind some bushes the most dangerous part was still to come. I had to get the top off without making so much noise that I’d wake everyone in the house. I felt around the edge of the lid until I could detect a slight opening, then I jammed my crowbar into the crack and pressed down. Then the odor of rotting BeauBeau hit me. It was worse than his breath. I could feel my face contorting as if someone were trying to rip it off, and I began to gag. Some of Mom’s fish-stick supper came up into my throat. I swallowed it back down, stood up, and tottered far enough away so I could breathe some fresh air. I was this deep in it already, and I had no choice but to finish the job.

  I returned to the garage. I took a rag Dad used for gasoline spills and wrapped it around my face. “No one ever said being a writer was going to be easy,” I said to myself as I knotted the rag behind my head and pulled it down just below my eyes. Then I marched back to the coffin.

  Fortunately, I hadn’t pounded many nails in the top because I had been in such a hurry to get the lid fastened. The gasoline rag only helped a little. I had to stand away from the coffin, take a deep breath, run back, pry up a nail, then run away from the smell and take a deep breath. Then repeat the process. When I had all the nails loose from the top, I dragged the coffin back over to the grave. I turned away, took one deep breath, then did it. I lifted the lid of the coffin, tossed it aside, and rolled BeauBeau into the hole. I peeked down at him. I shouldn’t have. He was covered with a million wiggling white worms that shimmered under the moonlight. I turned away, lifted my mask, and swallowed really hard to keep the fish sticks down. I wiped my mouth across the shoulder of my shirt, lowered my mask, took another deep breath, then worked like a fiend shoveling the dirt back over him and redecorating the ground before I ran to the other side of the yard and took another breath.

  I had one more thing to do. I ran back, grabbed the coffin by a handle, and dragged it to the garage. I slipped a green garbage bag on either end and taped it up around the middle. Then I yanked the gasoline rag up over my head, threw it in a corner, and snuck back into the house. I had done it. No one would believe it. But then there was only one person who would have to know—Mr. Gilette.

  In the morning when I woke up I could smell something sickly sweet and disgusting. Something rotting. It was me. I sniffed my hands. I wasn’t rotting, but the smell of dead BeauBeau was stuck on my skin as if it had been glued there. It was in my hair, and rising up from the pile of clothes on the floor. My pillow smelled, my sheets smelled, the air all around me smelled of dead dog.

  Once we had thrown some out-of-date raw chicken in the kitchen trash and had forgotten to take the trash out before going away for the weekend. When we came home the house smelled like a dead person. We couldn’t breathe. And even though we opened all the windows and aired everything out, the house reeked of rotting meat for a week. It was awful. Mom still says on really humid days she can smell the dead-chicken odor in her clothes.

  And now I smelled worse than that. I threw myself out of bed and ran to the bathroom. I turned on the shower as hot as I could stand it and scrubbed my whole body, even my face, with the stiff-bristled back brush.

  When I returned to the bedroom Pete was sitting up in bed.

  “Oh, man,” he moaned with his face wrinkled up as he sniffed the air. “What did you eat last night?”

  “Lots of beans,” I said, and rubbed my stomach. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re stupid, and you smell,” he said as he rolled over and pulled the covers across his head.

  I raised my fist in the air. “You’ll die later,” I said. “Once I figure out a way to dispose of your body.” Then I dressed as quickly as possible and went back into the bathroom. I sprayed myself from top to bottom with Bay Rum cologne. What powerful cologne did morticians use, I wondered. I’d love to get some.

  When I opened the door to the garage the same gamy smell was in the air. It made the inside of my nose sting. There was nothing I could do about it. I put another layer of trash bags around my coffin and then balanced it across the seat of my bike and the handlebars. I walked it to school. If I took the bus, kids would be climbing out the windows to get away from me.

  Mr. Gilette must have thought I would never do what he suggested in order to pass sh
op. When he saw me drag the coffin through the classroom door he seemed pretty shocked. Then when he smelled me he jumped to action.

  “Take that outside,” he ordered, as he marched toward me with his hand over his nose and mouth.

  “Yes, sir,” I replied. I took it around back where all the scrap lumber was kept and began to unwrap the tape and pull off the plastic bags.

  When he caught up to me he put his hands on his hips and stared down at the coffin. “Did you actually dig up your dead dog?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” I replied. “I didn’t have time to make another coffin.”

  “Is the dog still in there?” he asked.

  “No, sir,” I replied.

  “Well, it smells like he is.”

  “It’s all the worms,” I explained. “And maggots.”

  I thought he was going to throw up so I got right to the point.

  “Are you going to pass me?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he wailed, pulling the neck of his T-shirt up over his nose as he stepped back. “But not because of your woodwork. Because you’re a sick puppy and I don’t want to have to deal with you again.”

  I smiled. “Thank you, sir,” I replied.

  “Now I want you to go home and put your dog back into that coffin and rebury it,” he instructed. “I’ll write you a pass.”

  “Okay,” I said. “That was my plan, anyway.”

  I took the long way home. I wanted to make sure everyone was gone by the time I returned. For a moment I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to repeat seventh grade, or go to wood-shop camp. But then I began to imagine what it was going to be like digging BeauBeau back up in the light of day. I could make nose plugs out of Kleenex and cologne, and wear sunglasses. I was going to need rubber gloves to grab him. And I didn’t think I’d ever eat a Slim Jim again.

  One

  My dad always said that in order to make a hard job easier you needed the proper tools, like having the perfect three-pound hammer for cracking BeauBeau’s legs into place. So I went on a search until I found the perfect writing tool. It was an old portable Underwood manual typewriter that sounded like a Gatling gun when I really got it going. It came in a square black carrying case with a built-in lock and key, and I could fit it into the big front basket of my bicycle and take it to the library, or the beach, or any other lucky writing spot. Plus, it made me look like a writer. A real writer. Not a scribbler. Not a dabbler. Not some kid with a writing hobby. But a real professional with a novel in his brain just aching to be written. That was me. All I needed was a good story and I was ready to cash in.