The Outhouse Gang

by Neil Plakcy

  He supposed he was disappointed in Dennis. But then, nothing had worked out quite like he had planned. The pretty, impetuous girl he’d married had matured into a woman with spidery veins and a date book full of appointments and activities. He owned a tract house just like every other one on the block, and struggled to make the mortgage payments every month. Dennis ate like he had a tapeworm, outgrew his clothes faster than Paul could pay for them, and was always stuck in a book or in front of the TV.

  Paul opened a bun, flipped a burger onto it, and handed it to Dennis. Then he slapped him on the backside and said, “Don’t eat too much. You’ll make yourself sick.”

  Dennis ran off with the burger on a paper plate, toward the picnic tables where the mothers and kids were sitting. “They never listen to you,” Sandy said. “Christ, I hear myself talking sometimes, and I think I sound just like my dad. No wonder my kids don’t listen to me—I never listened to him.”

  Paul remembered when Dennis was a baby, how he would cling to him, how he’d cry when Paul tried to put him down. He had felt so close to the boy then—that his son had been an extension of himself. But now, with every year that passed, the boy got older, became more of his own person, slipped farther away from the father who wanted only to hold him.

  He turned back to the burgers, which sizzled sweetly in the background and filled the air with a warm charcoal scent. “You never answered,” Sandy said. “Was it worth the trip?”

  “They had these little gondola cars up there,” Paul said. “They took you for a ride all across the fairgrounds, but the wait was terrible. I thought it would be a great thing for Dennis, to ride up so high over the park. But he was scared. He won’t ride the roller coaster, not even the Ferris wheel.”

  He paused to flip a couple of burgers. “I started yelling at him. I told him we were going to ride in that gondola or else we were going home right then.”

  Sandy leaned back against the tree and look another sip of beer. “I get like that sometimes,” he said. “When the kids get to me.”

  “So we were waiting in this line, and I’m talking to Elaine, and then we look down and Dennis is gone.”

  “He ran away?”

  Paul turned toward Sandy, away from the grill. “We thought so. We got kind of crazy. We got out of our place in line, started hunting for him, calling his name.” He paused. “When I was working for Lockheed, I went up in one of the Phantoms, with a test pilot I knew. Scared the shit out of me, going that fast. But that was nothing compared to looking for Dennis at the fairgrounds. I mean, the people were so thick you had to push your way through.”

  “But you found him.”

  Paul nodded. “After half an hour, Elaine and I met back at the gondola line. Dennis was standing there, holding our place. He’d gone off to see a clown or something, while we were waiting, and when he came back we were gone, so he waited with the family in front of us.”

  “Jesus,” Sandy said. “If I lost one of my kids, I think I’d go crazy.”

  “Take it from me, it’s not something you want to try.” Paul turned back to the burgers and concentrated on making sure that they all cooked evenly. The truth was he still felt bad about losing Dennis, felt he had failed him in some way.

  And it was more than just that incident at the fair. Paul was a supervising engineer at a factory that made detonator mechanisms for bombs. The escalation in the Vietnam war meant more and more bombs were needed, and therefore more and more detonators. It meant overtime, and that was good, because the Warners could use the money, but it was bad, too. He spent very little time with Dennis, and he couldn’t help feeling that same sense of despair that he’d felt in Canada, the sense that he was losing his son, though in this case the loss could be measured in increments, some of them as small as the calibrations he measured at work.

  When Paul looked up from the grill, he saw Dennis sitting alone at the edge of the lake. “Can you take over for me?” he asked Sandy.

  “Sure.”

  He handed Sandy the spatula and walked toward the lake. He sat down next to his son. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing,” Dennis said. “Watching the fish.”

  “That one’s a bass,” Paul said, pointing to a fish that moved lazily around in the shallows. “See his tail? How it looks orange? You can tell the young bass that way.”

  “Neat,” Dennis said.

  Paul reached over and ruffled his son’s hair. “I guess it is.”

  As it got later, families started to drift away from the picnic. “Dennis always disappears when there’s work to be done,” Paul said as he and Sandy and a couple of the other fathers took down the grills and cleaned up the lakefront.

  “That’s kids for you,” Sandy said.

  “I specifically told him to stick around, though. It’s like he willfully disobeys me.”

  Dragging the charcoal and the lighter fluid home with him, Paul continued to fume about Dennis’s absence. The boy had taken a perfectly nice day and ruined it. “Dennis!” he bellowed when he reached the front door.

  Dennis was in the living room watching TV. “You were supposed to help me carry this stuff home. Now you can take it down to the basement.”

  “I’m watching TV,” Dennis said. Tinker Bell the fairy sprang across the screen, spraying her magic wand over the Disneyland castle.

  “I don’t care if you’re talking to the queen of England. Take this downstairs now.”

  He dropped the charcoal at Dennis’ feet. “Paul! Not on the carpet!” Elaine said.

  “Dennis will clean it up, after he takes the charcoal downstairs.”

  Paul turned and went up to the master bedroom. He was angry that Dennis had destroyed his good mood. After all, he worked hard all week. He deserved some support on the weekends. The kid had to learn to pull his own weight.

  He settled down on the bed with a magazine, but could not concentrate. Why did the kid always have to act up? What was wrong with him, anyway? Somehow his mind drifted from his anger at Dennis to his problems at work, where his workers were always screwing something up.

  Elaine finished puttering downstairs and came up to bed. Paul picked up the magazine again as he heard her footsteps. “The picnic was nice today,” she said, after she had brushed her teeth and put on her nightgown. She got into bed next to him.

  Paul grunted. “What are you reading?” she asked, tapping the magazine. Paul held the cover up for her to see—it was a technical journal he never seemed to have time to look at during the day—and went back to reading. “Be that way,” she said. She picked up a book of her own from her nightstand.

  * * *

  A few days later, Chuck Ritter’s father finally died after a long battle with cancer. The funeral was on a sunny Sunday afternoon, and Paul and Elaine argued over whether they should take Dennis with them. “He’s only ten years old,” Elaine said. “Can’t we let him stay a kid for a few more years?”

  “I hardly think we’re destroying his childhood by taking him to a funeral,” Paul said. They were in their bedroom getting dressed, Paul pulling on a suit and tie, Elaine picking out a somber gray dress from the closet, a linen one that needed to be pressed. She went downstairs in her slip to throw it over the ironing board and Paul followed, fiddling with his tie.

  “We’ll go out for a drive afterward,” Paul said. “Out into the country. We can stop and have dinner somewhere, up the Delaware at one of those little old inns.”

  “I still think it’s gruesome. He’ll probably have nightmares.”

  Dennis came downstairs, wearing a white tricot shirt and shiny gray trousers. A piece of brown hair stood up in a cowlick and his tie was draped around his neck. “Can you tie my tie, Daddy?” he asked.

  “Sure. Come here and I’ll show you how to do it.” Paul stood behind his son and leaned over him. “Start with the wide end of the tie on your left, and let it hang down about a foot below the narrow end.” He walked Dennis through the rest of the steps. It felt so good to have his boy ne
xt to him that Paul’s heart pounded. This was love, he thought, this feeling that bubbled up in his windpipe and pulsed through his veins. “Now turn around.”

  The tie was crooked, but it would do. “Lisa Ritter says her brother Bruce said there would be worms in their grandpa,” Dennis said.

  “That’s terrible.” Elainepressed the last pleat in the linen dress and held it up.

  “The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the worms crawl up and down your snout,” Dennis sang.

  “Are you still worried he’ll have nightmares?” Paul asked.

  There were over a hundred people jammed into the funeral home, to pay tribute to Hal Ritter, who had sold hardware in the center of town for as long as anybody could remember. There were tales told of seed and tools he’d advanced to men in trouble, of his copious knowledge and his willingness to tell you exactly what tool you needed and how to use it.

  There was also a swarm of family members, Hal’s elderly cousins and their grown children and small grandchildren. The Ritters had been in the Delaware Valley since sometime after the Civil War, and their clan stretched from Philadelphia north to Easton and Allentown. Paul tried to speak to Chuck a few times but was always interrupted by distant cousins, weeping women in black and stoic men who didn’t have much to say, just a nod, or a touch on the arm.

  Afterwards, the Warners joined the procession to the cemetery, down along the river to the north of town. It was shady, driving under the tall swamp maples that lined River Road, but at the cemetery, a broad, flat plain that ran almost from the water’s edge to the first line of hills, it was hot and bright. Paul pulled uncomfortably at his collar and dabbed at dots of sweat on his forehead. It was September, he thought; it shouldn’t be so hot.

  They stood behind a crowd of people because Elaine was afraid it might bother Dennis to see the coffin going down into the ground. “When I die, I want to be buried in this cemetery,” Dennis said. “It’s really pretty, and it’s close to the house.”

  “You’re not going to die for a long time,” Elaine said.

  “And besides, you couldn’t be buried here,” Paul said. “We have to be buried in a Jewish cemetery. We’d have to go to Ahavath Shalom in Trenton.”

  “How come? Don’t they want us here?”

  What are we teaching him, Paul wondered. How not to belong to a place? Paul put his arm around Dennis’ shoulder. “Remember how when you went to Tommy Rossos’ house and his father said Grace before dinner in Greek?” Dennis nodded. “Well, everybody has their own customs. This is just one of ours.”

  “OK,” Dennis said. “As long as they have worms there, too.”

  As people began to disperse, Chuck and Susanna Ritter came through the crowd, followed by Bruce and Lisa. Elaine and Susanna stepped to the side, followed by the children, who hung in their shadows. “I’m sorry,” Paul said to Chuck. “I hope he didn’t suffer a lot.”

  Chuck shrugged. “Toward the end, he slept most of the day, and sometimes he didn’t even recognize me when he woke up.” He paused. “I like to think it wasn’t too bad, but you never know what’s going on inside somebody else.”

  “If you need anything, give us a call,” Paul said.

  “Thanks for coming.” Chuck looked up and shaded his eyes with his hand. “You know, I spent years trying to get out of my father’s shadow.” He paused. “It’s awful bright out here.”

  Paul put his arm around Chuck’s back and they walked toward the limousine.

  * * *

  As September wore on, Paul worked until ten o’clock some nights, and most of the day on Saturday. One day toward the end of the month, Elaine said, “The Moscas have invited us for dinner on Saturday. Can we go?”

  “Do we have to? I just want to stay in and rest.”

  “That’s all we ever do,” Elaine said. “Stay in. I know you’re working hard, but I’m not asking you to take me dancing until dawn. I haven’t had a chance to see Jane in months.”

  “You saw her at the Labor Day picnic, didn’t you?”

  “They don’t come to our picnic,” Elaine said. “You should know that.”

  While the Warners lived in The Lakes, a neighborhood of large houses, winding streets, and small lakes, the Moscas lived on a long straight street of small bungalows. Though it was not too far away, it was on the other side of the golf course and the Reading Railroad tracks, within the town limits of Stewart’s Crossing. The lots were small, the houses nearly identical. Elaine often slowed down too early when approaching the Moscas, lulled by the similarity. Only a split rail fence distinguished their house from their neighbors.

  “They could,” Paul said.

  Elaine looked at him. She was a real estate saleswoman with a local firm, so her knowledge of the class distinctions between neighborhoods was acute. She had to be able to size up new clients and determine whether they’d be happy in The Lakes, or Fairway Drive, where the Moscas lived.

  Paul held up his hands. “All right,” he said. “Saturday night. I’ll try to get home by three so I can get a nap in.”

  Friday afternoon, however, a directive came down from the top canceling weekend overtime. “Don’t ask questions,” Paul said when he came home that night. “Just be grateful. A full Saturday off. I can sleep late, work downstairs, whatever I want.”

  He stood in the living room pulling off his tie. “You can help me run errands,” Elaine said. “I have to go to the cleaners and the grocery. Dennis needs new shoes, and Aunt Rose and Uncle Harry got us a couple of tins of those butter cookies you like. I said I’d pick them up tomorrow.”

  “Come on, Elaine, I only get one day off,” Paul said.

  “I don’t get that much.”

  Paul was about to shoot a comment back at her but their live-in housekeeper, Etta, stepped out of the kitchen doorway and said, “Dinner’s ready, Miz Warner. You want me to call Dennis?”

  Dennis came jumping down the stairs just at that time. “Is dinner ready yet?” he asked.

  “Thank you, Etta,” Elaine said. “Come on, let’s eat.”

  * * *

  Paul spent Saturday morning in his shop in the basement. He repaired one of the kitchen chairs that had come apart, measured lumber for a new bookcase for the den, and put a new catch on one of Elaine’s silver bracelets. When she came home from the grocery, she called down to him from the kitchen. “You want lunch?”

  Paul put his tools down and climbed the stairs to the driveway, where Elaine was unloading the car. “What are you making?”

  “I’m making a trip to the Harvest Fair,” she said. “At the Friends’ Meeting. I told Helene Lord I’d help her at the Garden Club table. You and Dennis can walk around and pick up some food from one of the booths.”

  “I want to take a nap,” Paul said as Dennis carried two bags inside.

  “Do you want me to leave Dennis here with you? I’m sure he won’t mind if you take a nap.”

  Dennis was back almost immediately, frisking and jumping in the driveway. “I put my bags down, Mommy,” he said. “Can I have more?”

  “I’ll go to the Harvest Fair,” Paul said.

  The day remained warm and sunny as the Warners drove into Stewart’s Crossing. They had to park nearly a block from the Friends’ Meeting and walk. Paul said, “At least we’re getting some fresh air.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Elaine said. “Look, there’s the Garden Club table. You can talk to Sandy Lord.” She walked quickly ahead.

  Paul watched as Dennis ran off to join a few other kids at a small playground at the back of the meeting house. Sandy met him at the edge of the gravel driveway. “Haven’t seen you for a while,” he said. “Not since the picnic, I guess.”

  “Work,” Paul said. “This is the first Saturday I’ve had off in months.”

  “All work and no play makes Paul a dull boy,” Sandy said. “So what do you think? Does the Outhouse Gang ride again this year?” By then, the Outhouse Gang had become something of a local tradition, with coverage in the loc
al paper and general speculation in town as to the identity of the perpetrators.

  “I don’t know.” They started walking around the perimeter of the fair, a glorified flea market with a bake sale and a few tables of local crafts. “You think?”

  “See that kid over there?” Sandy asked. “The blond one, in the white shorts?” Paul nodded. “That’s Danny. He’s my youngest. He just started school this year.”

  “My kid turned ten last week,” Paul said. “We’re getting old.”

  “Hey, speak for yourself.” Sandy stood up straight. “I say we do it again, and we keep doing it as long as we can.”

  “If we do this thing, we’ve got to plan it better.” Paul paused. “I was thinking of bringing Dennis. I’ve been working so much overtime, I don’t get to see him enough. I thought this’d be something we could do together.”

  Sandy said, “There’s an old farm out on Taylor’s Mill Road. I took the kids out for a hike there last week. And there’s an outhouse. Perfect. Even has a half-moon on the door.”

  “You tell anybody else?”

  Sandy shook his head. “Not yet.”

  Just then Paul spotted Chuck Ritter coming around the corner of the Meeting House. The first theft had been his idea, a way to spark them all out of their suburban inevitability. They conferred together, in a quiet spot underneath an ancient maple, and worked out the details of their plan.

  That evening, Paul was eager to let Dennis in on the secret, but he and Elaine had to hurry through dressing for their evening with the Moscas. Normally they left Dennis home with Etta when going out, but since she was staying over with her friend in Trenton they took him with them. “He can play with Terry and Karen,” Elaine said.

  The night seemed interminable. Though Elaine had known Jane Mosca all her life, Paul never seemed to have much to say to Harry, and so he passed most of the evening uncomfortably making small talk or listening to the women. He could not talk to Dennis in private.

  When they got home, Elaine sent Dennis to bed immediately. Then days passed, and still Paul neglected to tell his son about the Outhouse Gang. It wasn’t hard to do. Elaine had usually fed Dennis and sent him to his room to do his homework by the time Paul got home, and it was hard to get the boy alone. He and Elaine ate quietly and quickly, and then Paul retired to his lounge chair to watch TV. Dennis was too quiet for his own good, too shy to grab his father’s attention. Some days the only thing Paul said to his son was, “Good night.”