Jack's Black Book

by Jack Gantos

  “Don’t worry about a thing,” I said nervously, then smiled at him as I recited my business jingle. “You go free, and leave the writing to me.”

  He marched off, probably to go kick sand on little guys with cute girlfriends.

  I gave him ten days of the worst bad luck I could imagine: Sun-poisoning rash on privates from day at nude beach. Stung on eyeballs by man-o’-war. One hundred stitches in foot from stepping on child’s rusty sand shovel. Inner tube swept out to sea by rogue dolphins. Needed blood transfusion after wicked mosquito attack. Witness to a lifeguard mugging. Ear infection from sea monkeys. Amnesia caused by heat stroke. Buried in sand while sleeping and left for dead. Needed hip replacement after crippled by suicide surfer.

  I closed the typewriter case with a snap. I figured if my postcard business didn’t work out I could write headlines for the National Enquirer or The Weekly World News.

  When he returned he read each one, slowly, with his lips moving. “You have a sick mind, kid,” he declared.

  I was thrilled. “I’m going to be a writer,” I said to him. “The sicker the mind, the more money you make.” I held out my hand for a tip.

  “I’ll give you a tip,” he said, and ripped the cards in half. “If my parole officer read this junk he’d probably track me down and have me tossed in a padded cell.” He flipped the pieces back over his shoulder and they blew across the sand. “Now give me back my ten-spot.”

  “No way,” I said. “I worked really hard.”

  He stuck out his open hand. “I’ll count to three,” he growled. “One.”

  I stood up. “I did what you asked,” I said.

  “Two.”

  “I did the best I could. I’m not the governor. I can’t write you out a pardon.”

  “Three!” He lunged forward and pulled the typewriter out of my hands.

  “No!” I yelled as he spun around and ran down the beach with the typewriter held overhead.

  “Come back with that,” I shouted.

  I was too late. He waded into the water and heaved the typewriter about twenty feet farther out, past the drop-off. At first the machine, in its closed case, floated and bobbed up and down on the waves. Then slowly it began to tilt to one side and sink, going down like the Titanic. I dove for it. The water was all sandy, and it disappeared before I could reach the spot.

  I came up for air and looked back at the bully. He was a big single-celled blob that hadn’t evolved.

  “Let this be a lesson to you for now,” he shouted. “I’ll get my ten bucks later.”

  I hated people who tried to teach me a lesson. I was going to say something that would probably get me killed, but at that moment I spotted Pete and my mind went spinning out of control.

  He was tapping his way across the beach with a fake blind man’s walking stick made out of a painted cane fishing pole. On his face he had a pair of huge wrap-around sunglasses that were tinted so dark I couldn’t see his eyes. Hanging from his neck was the old Polaroid camera. He tapped a few more feet, then hollered, “Get your picture taken. Two dollars. Have a lifetime souvenir of you and your loved ones on Fort Lauderdale beach for only two dollars.”

  No wonder Mom was concerned about his behavior. And if Dad found out about this he’d have the stick and I’d be the rat. “Over here!” I hollered, as I dog-paddled toward the shore. “Hey, blind boy, over here!”

  “I’ll be right there to take your picture, sir,” he shouted, and waved his arms around. “Don’t move.”

  He stirred up the sand with his cane as he clumsily made his way toward me. I wanted to kill him. But then I thought better of punching him in the head in front of people who might really think he was blind. They’d probably beat me to a pulp, and pamper him.

  “What are you up to?” I growled when I got my hands on his shoulders.

  He rotated his head back and forth, and smiled widely.

  “This is not what I meant by evolution,” I said. “What you are doing is criminal. Mark my words,” I stressed. “This is going to lead to trouble.”

  “It’ll lead to big money,” he said. “See.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills. “I bet you don’t make this from writing postcards.”

  I snatched the money out of his hands and began to count. “Wow,” I said. “Sixteen bucks.” I put it in my pocket.

  “Some fish were smarter than others,” he replied. “I’m already on my second box of film. Watch this.”

  He tapped a zigzag path through the beach crowd. I watched as he whacked a few of the sleeping sunbathers on the butt with his pole. They flipped over with a shout and he began to apologize wildly. Then he acted as if he had gotten turned around and began tapping his way directly toward the crashing waves. The people he had whacked saw him as he sloped down toward the water and they ran to catch him and turn him in the proper direction. I didn’t hear what he said next, but in a moment he had them all lined up and was preparing to take their picture.

  I couldn’t stand still any longer. I’ve created a monster, I thought, a deviant fish with no shame.

  I arrived in time to hear him say, “Sing out loud and I can aim for your voice.” Then he held the camera up and wiggled it around. One by one they sang like opera stars and, of course, he took a perfect shot. When they saw the result they “ohhed” and “ahhed” over his ability to capture them right in the middle of the picture. He just smiled brightly and said, “It’s a gift.”

  He had a lot of nerve. I thought I would burst their bubble and tell them about Pete’s 20-20 vision. But when I saw them reach for their wallets I changed my mind.

  “That will be two dollars a picture,” he informed them, and stuck out his hand.

  “For his operation,” I pitched in, and winked.

  “I take tips,” Pete announced. They shelled out and drifted away. Before I could pry that money out of his hands he said, “Treat you to a Coke and a Slim Jim.”

  Now, that was impressive. “You’ve definitely evolved,” I said.

  “Money makes you smarter,” he replied. “You should get some.”

  Three

  The next morning after I got Pete’s camera loaded up with film and packed him off to work, I strolled along the beach to see if my typewriter had washed up. I figured if I got to it fast enough I could hose the salt and sand out of it before rust set in. But after finding a lost swim fin, an ice chest, and cracked sunglasses I gave up.

  On my way back to my postcard-writing spot I passed a gypsy tent. A sign outside read: WHY SUFFER? TAKE A SHORTCUT TO THE FUTURE. LEARN YOUR MISTAKES WITHOUT HAVING TO PAY FOR THEM THE HARD WAY FIVE BUCKS.

  That was for me. If I was going to make the big money, I needed to get a head start on writing about big disasters headed my way. Little money came from little disasters, and I had plenty of those. Last night Betsy made crepes suzette, which were vile enough, but they were also hazardous. She poured a bottle of vanilla extract on a heap of ice cream and set it on fire. The bowl got so hot it cracked and the flaming ice cream melted over the table and scorched the varnish. It was really cool-looking when it happened, and we were screaming and laughing, but then the table tipped over onto the bassinet and we just managed to get the baby out before the blanket burst into flames.

  This kind of thing happened all the time, it seemed, but I didn’t think anybody was going to pay me to read about it. Whatever I was going to write about, it had to be worse. A lot worse, and so humiliating no one had ever thought of it before in the history of writing.

  I slapped the side of Madame Ginger’s tent. A cloud of patchouli incense wafted out. “Hello,” I shouted, then began to cough and gag.

  “Enter,” she called back. “If you dare.”

  I dared. “Hi,” I wheezed. “I want to see the future.” I set my black book down on her round table, next to her crystal ball, and stuck out my palm. Madame Ginger held it between her smooth hands. She wore a gold-lamé turban and had little diamonds embedded in her long red fingernails.r />
  “What do you want to know?” she asked fearlessly.

  She wore mirrored contact lenses, which made her eyes look like polished-chrome ball-bearings. As I stared into them I saw a tiny reflection of my face. “I want to know about love and money,” I said, and waved the cloud of incense away from my face so I could breathe.

  “Ahh,” she sighed, and threw her head back. “The two most important subjects in the world. The cause of all joy and misery.”

  This was perfect.

  She hummed some gypsy Muzak as she charted my palm with a red fine-point marker and drew stars and half-moons and question marks. “You are a writer,” she said.

  I placed my free hand over my black book as if I were taking an oath. “How did you know?” I gushed, and leaned forward.

  “It is written in your palm,” she said, and touched a line. It made my backbone vibrate.

  I didn’t see what she saw, but that’s what I was paying her for. “Will I write about something awful?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I’ve already written about a criminal who threw my typewriter in the water,” I said, bubbling over. “That was pretty awful.”

  “What I see is worse than that,” she said, sounding very distressed.

  “What?” I asked. “Is it something with tragic love in it?”

  “Yes,” she replied sadly. “Tragic, and vastly humiliating.”

  I was thrilled. The more misery on the page, the more money in my pocket, I recited to myself. “When will it happen to me?”

  She stared even harder at my hand. “You won’t have to wait too long,” she said. “It’s coming.”

  “Tell me more,” I said. “I need the gory details.” I opened my notebook, took out a pen, and was prepared to write down her predictions.

  She began to shuffle through a deck of tarot cards, then laid them out. “Love,” she murmured, as she ran her hands over the pictures. “Love, love, love.” Then she brightened. “Here it is.” She held up the card of an angel, then pressed it against her eyes. “I see a leg,” she moaned.

  “A leg. Whose?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “I can’t give names. Just clues.” Suddenly Madame Ginger slumped down into her chair like a deflated balloon. “I’m whipped,” she said, and sighed. “A leg is it for today. I need a cup of tea.”

  “For five bucks all I get is a leg?” I asked. “Can you tell me if it’s tall, muscular, skinny, short, thick, bowed, anything?”

  She closed her eyes and tried to squeeze out another vision. “I’ve got it,” she said. “The leg you are looking for is upside down.”

  That confused me even more. “Is it attached to a body?” I asked. “Or has it been severed? That would be really good.”

  “Don’t go getting psychotic on me,” she snapped. “You’re too young to be a sicko.”

  I knew that wasn’t true. I changed the subject before she had a vision of what I did to BeauBeau. “Anything about money?”

  “You have a lot of rodents in your financial future,” she said. “Don’t ask me why. Some people have a date with destiny. You have a date with vermin.”

  That depressed me. I could already feel the rats clawing my face. “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll let you know how it all turns out.”

  “I’ll know before you do,” she said, and slumped back into her chair. “If you need more advice, come see me.”

  “Okay,” I promised.

  When I stepped out of her tent I took a deep breath of fresh air. I was allergic to patchouli and coughed up a huge yellow loogie. I spit it out behind her tent. An ant walked onto the loogie and got stuck. I watched closely as it slowly drowned. I bet that’s how amber is made, I thought. Then I strolled over to the Yankee Clipper Hotel to think about the upside-down leg.

  The Yankee Clipper was my favorite hotel because it was shaped like a cruise ship with decks, round windows, and smokestacks. And whenever I sat at the outside patio, on a barstool, with a pair of smoky-blue sunglasses covering half my face, Coke in one hand and black notebook in the other, I felt like a famous American writer, usually F. Scott Fitzgerald, sailing from New York to Paris. He had a brilliant wife named Zelda who went insane and died in a hospital fire. That gave him plenty of tragic material to write about. I didn’t have anything that horrendous in my life, but maybe the upside-down leg could lead to total humiliation. That would be awesome.

  Pete came tapping by to give me the morning profits. He was a fabulous non-stop moneymaking machine. As long as he was working, I didn’t have to write postcards, but could sit around all day waiting for trouble.

  “I’m going to the bathroom,” he said to me after I turned all his pockets inside out to make sure he had given me every cent.

  “Don’t aim against the wind,” I advised, as he tapped across the patio and went inside the hotel lobby.

  I hadn’t got any writing done, as I was busy watching a squad of girls practice synchronized swimming in the pool. I figured they were on the bottom of the evolutionary scale. They were like real fish with feet. And then it struck me. Wham! There they were—eight upside-down legs that belonged to four girls. Madame Ginger was a visionary genius. I was wondering how I might meet them when the lobby door opened and Pete came flying out. A security guard stood in the doorway and shouted, “I don’t care if you’re blind. Don’t let me catch you going into the ladies’ room again.”

  “Geez Louise,” I muttered. “I can’t let him out of my sight.” I hopped up and ran over to him. “Now you’re becoming a perv,” I said, yanking him forward by his ear. “What would Mom say about this?”

  “Don’t tell her,” he begged.

  “As long as you just stick with being a criminal I won’t say a word. Besides, you’ll make more money that way.”

  “But it was a mistake,” he cried, and slapped at my hand. “I was practicing with my eyes closed and I went in the wrong door. I was whacking my stick around trying to find the urinal and accidentally poked a woman.”

  “Yeah. Tell that to the judge,” I said suspiciously. “Anyway, I need your help, and you owe me.”

  “What do you want? I already gave you all my money.”

  “I want to meet those girls,” I said, and pointed to the pool. “They have upside-down legs.”

  “I don’t get it,” he said.

  “Madame Ginger said I’d meet someone with upside-down legs and that it would lead to devastating humiliation and shame. That’s just what I need for my writing. Now, what do you see? Eight upside-down legs, right?”

  “Right. But how do you know which one you’re supposed to meet?”

  “I’m not sure yet, but let me handle it my way,” I replied. “I have a plan. Tap your way over toward the far end of the pool,” I said. “The deep end. Right next to the sign that says, SWIM AT YOUR OWN RISK. I’ll follow you.”

  We walked over there and watched. They bobbed up and down, spun around in circles, and splashed water in all directions. They looked like human lawn sprinklers doing ballet. Then they turned upside down and kicked their legs back and forth, snipping the air like scissors. They all looked dangerous to me. If you fell on top of them they’d slice you to shreds.

  “How do they hold their breath so long?” Pete asked.

  “Practice,” I replied. “Now you take a deep breath.” He did. I ripped the stick out of his hand and pushed him into the water. He still hadn’t learned to swim very well and went straight to the bottom. Forgive me, Mom, I said to myself, but he’ll be okay. I figured he was good for about two minutes before I had to rescue him.

  “Excuse me,” I shouted toward the girls. They didn’t hear me. I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Excuse me!” I shouted again. They kept spinning around, twirling their arms overhead, and spitting like fish.

  They couldn’t hear me because their bathing caps were pulled down over their ears. And then they turned upside down again. I looked at those upside-down legs. Which one was mine? I had
to take a chance. “If my mother punched your mother,” I sang, pointing from leg to leg. “What color was the blood? R … E … D.” I took Pete’s cane and jabbed the winner in the thigh.

  That got her attention.

  She stopped swimming and turned toward me. “Hey!” she shouted. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “My blind brother,” I hollered and pointed toward him. “He’s drowning!” He was. He had been under for a minute and a half and was probably blue by now.

  By then the other girls had stopped, and all four of them dove underwater toward the deep end, where they grabbed Pete and brought him to the surface. I leaned forward and dragged him up over the edge and laid him out on his back.

  “Quick,” one of the girls said. “Give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”

  I stared at her. “Me?” I asked.

  “You’re his brother,” she said impatiently. “I don’t want to do it.”

  I knew how to do it. I leaned over and opened his mouth. At the same time I whispered so that only he could hear me. ‘Just go along with this,” I said. “I’m not kissing you.” He didn’t say anything back so I figured he didn’t mind, or he was already dead. Then I bent over and put my lips on his and blew air into his lungs. I pulled away, sucked more air into my lungs, and started to do it again. Only this time he spewed a bellyful of water into my mouth just as I opened my lips over his.

  “Ugh,” I moaned and jerked my head back. There was other stuff besides water in his belly.

  “Ohh, gross,” I heard the girls say in perfect harmony. “That’s disgusting.” They were well trained.

  I took another deep breath, then leaned forward and spit his spit back into his mouth. His eyes opened. “I can’t see!” he shouted.

  “Jerk,” I said and slapped my hand down over his mouth. “I told you to fall into the water. Not drown.”

  He bit me on the palm and I yanked my hand back. “Goober,” he said to me. “I wanted one of them to give me mouth-to-mouth.”

  “You disgust me,” I shouted and hopped up. “I don’t even know you anymore,” I said, totally grossed out by him. “You’ve changed.”