by Neil Plakcy
“These guys are criminals, but they’re treated as folk heroes,” he was quoted as saying. “How can we preach law and order to the little kiddies when grown men are allowed to get away with theft?”
“Thought-provoking, isn’t it?” Elaine asked, when Paul had put the paper down.
“I think it’s kind of silly. “It’s just an innocent prank. Nobody gets hurt.”
“A victimless crime, you mean.”
“Not a crime at all,” Paul said, as Etta walked in carrying a platter of fried chicken. Dennis was right behind her, munching on a leg. “Can’t you wait until the food gets to the table?” Paul asked, as his son slumped down into his chair.
“I admit it,” Dennis said. “I’m guilty. First degree chicken-cide. Lock me up and throw away the key.”
“Thank you, Etta,” Elaine said, as the housekeeper went back into the kitchen. Elaine turned to her son. “People with good manners wait to begin eating until everyone at the table has been served. Please pass the mashed potatoes.”
After dinner, Elaine went up to the bedroom to do some work and Paul and Dennis sat in the living room watching TV. “Did you tell Mr. Ritter about Lisa yet?” Dennis asked.
Paul shook his head. “I haven’t yet. But I know I have to. What she’s doing is against the law.”
“Like the Outhouse Gang?”
Paul frowned. “Not exactly. It’s wrong to steal. There’s even a commandment against it. But taking an outhouse is such an innocent kind of theft, and people seem to appreciate the humor behind it.”
“You could say smoking dope is pretty innocent.”
“A couple of the guys at the plant smoke dope,” Paul said. “They say it’s relaxing, fun, better than alcohol because you can’t get so drunk. They think it ought to be decriminalized. One of them even has a t-shirt with a marijuana leaf on it. He wears it in to the plant on weekends.”
“So it’s not so bad.”
“These guys I work with are old enough to know better and to make their own decisions. And those men in the Gang with me, they are too. Lisa is an impressionable teenager, and even if there is nothing harmful about marijuana, which I doubt, it’s still illegal, and she’s just a young, naive kid.”
“Do you think she’ll get punished?”
“I hope so,” Paul said. “I can tell from my own experience kids learn better when you beat lessons into them.”
“Dad.”
* * *
The next morning Paul stopped by the hardware store on his way to the plant. Chuck was not in the store; instead, his son Bruce, who was home on a brief leave between Marine boot camp and being shipped overseas, was standing behind the counter reading a catalog. “Morning, Bruce,” Paul said. “Is your Dad around?”
Bruce stood up straight and shook his head. “No, sir. He had to go up to Doylestown to get a variance from the county for some renovation work he wants to do on the store.”
Paul marveled at the change in Bruce. A few months before, he had been a slouching, rude, restless youth, like so many of the kids in Stewart’s Crossing, indeed, like Dennis.
“Can I help you with something, sir?” Bruce asked.
Paul hesitated for a moment. “Did you ever smoke dope, Bruce?”
Bruce looked surprised. “No sir.”
“Know anybody who does?”
Bruce looked even more mystified. Cautiously, he said, “Some kids used to smoke at the high school. None of my friends, though.”
“I came to tell your father something, but maybe I’d better tell you,” Paul said. “I know the kind of temper he has.” He hesitated, then told Bruce how Dennis had seen Lisa getting high at the Harvest Festival.
When he was finished, Bruce nodded slowly. “I thought she might be doing something,” he said. “She’s been kind of distant since I came home. And her room always smells like strawberry incense.”
“Will you talk to her? She might listen to you more than your father.”
“This afternoon, sir,” Bruce said. “Thank you for coming in.”
Paul waved his hand. “If it was Dennis, I’d want to know. So, when do you ship out?”
“Next week, sir. I’m going to a base in California, and then probably to Southeast Asia.”
“We’ll miss you at Halloween.”
“I’d have to pass anyway, sir,” Bruce said. “The Marines are very strict about engaging in illegal activity. I could get a dishonorable discharge.”
“Well,” Paul said, feeling that somehow the tables had been turned on him. “Good luck to you.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll speak to my sister.”
* * *
On Mischief Night, Paul came home from work at six and sat down to a quiet dinner with Elaine and Dennis. After dinner was over, Elaine said, “I’m going up to the bedroom to do some work. You two can clean up the dishes, and whatever you do for the rest of the night is your business. I don’t want any part of it.”
After she walked out, Dennis said, “Mom’s mad about the Outhouse Gang, isn’t she?”
Paul pushed his chair back. Etta had already retired to her room for the evening, so Paul stood up and picked up his plate and his wife’s. “She thinks being part of the Outhouse Gang is wrong.”
He walked over to the sink and put the plates down. “Bring your plate over here.”
Dennis carried his plate to the sink. “Do you think it’s wrong, Dad?”
“Finish clearing the table.” Paul turned on the faucet and sprayed the dishes as Dennis finished clearing the table. “I don’t think it’s wrong,” he said, after a minute. He turned to his son. “Do you?”
Dennis shrugged.
“You did the right thing by walking away from those kids at the Harvest Fair,” Paul said. “You’re old enough to know what’s right and what’s wrong. Tell me what you think.”
“We take something that doesn’t belong to us. That’s against the law. But we don’t keep it. And it makes a lot of people feel good.”
“Like marijuana does?” Paul asked.
“Dad.”
“Don’t Dad me. I’m trying to figure this out myself.”
“You said you thought marijuana was bad not because it was against the law, but because it made you lose control.” Dennis put the last of the leftovers in the refrigerator, and Paul finished stacking the dishes in the dishwasher. Dennis leaned up against the kitchen table, and Paul could almost see the thoughts moving around in his son’s brain.
“So maybe something isn’t bad just because it’s against the law. You have to decide how you feel about it.”
“But that doesn’t mean you should go out and break a million laws,” Paul said. “You have to consider everything you do.”
“Like the Nazis,” Dennis said. “They were just following the laws, but they were wrong.”
“Exactly.”
Dennis looked up at the kitchen clock. It was almost eight. “We have time to watch Hogan’s Heroes before we go, huh?”
Paul smiled. “Plenty of time,” he said.
Nick: 1974
Nick Miller’s phone rang at three o’clock in the morning on a hot night in July. As his girlfriend Stephanie stirred next to him, he rolled over groggily and reached for the receiver.
“Dad?”
“Fred? Do you know what time it is?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry to wake you up, Dad, but the thing is, I’m kind of in trouble.”
Nick sat up in bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Lately, Fred had been getting into more and more trouble. Carol wasn’t doing a very good job at keeping him in line. “What is it now?”
“I’m at the jail. Could you come down here?” His voice was very tentative, almost pleading.
“What did you do, Fred?”
“The police say I was driving kind of crazy. They gave me some kind of breath test and I failed.”
“Jesus. Did you call your mother?”
“No. Please don’t call her, Dad. She’ll freak.”
&n
bsp; “I’ll be there in a few minutes.” Nick hung up the phone and swung his feet over the edge of the bed.
“What’s the matter?” When he turned around, Stephanie was staring up at him. She was a luscious brunette with pre-Raphaelite ringlets of hair and a sweetly rounded bottom. They’d met a few weeks before at a singles bar in Princeton.
“It’s my son. I have to bail him out of jail. You go back to sleep.”
Stephanie yawned. She was twenty-three, some fifteen years younger than Nick and only six years older than Fred. She worked in the cashier’s office at the University, loved to dance and drink stingers. This was about as much as Nick knew about her.
* * *
Fred was sitting next to a desk when Nick walked in. His blond hair was tousled, and his shoulders drooped. The officer at the desk explained that Fred’s breath had tested out at three tenths of a percent higher than the legal limit for intoxication. Along with a ticket, because he was a juvenile, driving on a junior license, his license would be revoked until his eighteenth birthday.
“What about his car?” It was a 1968 Chevy, Nick’s hand-me-down when he’d finally bought a new car of his own.
“It’s parked near where he was stopped, out on the highway,” the officer said. He handed Nick the keys.
“Thank you, officer. Can I take him home now?”
“You were lucky tonight, son,” the officer said to Fred. “Things could have turned out a lot worse.” He looked up at Nick. “Yeah, you can take him home now.”
The night was dark and moonless. Crickets chirped in the shrubs around the police station, and in the far distance Nick could hear a motorcycle revving. He was silent until they got to his car. “Fred,” he said.
“Look, Dad, I know what you’re going to say, so you don’t have to bother. I’m stupid and irresponsible. I should know better than to drink and drive. How would my mother feel if I’d gotten killed.” He looked at his father. “How’m I doing?”
Nick slapped him across the face. “That answer your question? Stupid kid. Get in the car.”
In the light reflected from the dashboard, Fred looked like he was ready to cry. “You hit me.”
“I should have done it a long time ago.” He slapped his hand against the wheel, then started the car. “Your mother is going to have a fit when she hears about this. And you can bet she will. How is she bringing you up, anyway?”
“It’s not all her fault,” Fred said defiantly. “I’m half your kid too, you know.”
“But you don’t live with me.”
“Whose fault is that? You’re the one who moved out.”
“We’re not talking about me here, Fred. We’re talking about you. Why don’t you tell me what happened tonight, before I break something on your body and make more trouble for both of us.”
Fred was quiet for a minute. “We went to this bar in Trenton.” The drinking age was twenty-one in Pennsylvania and eighteen in New Jersey, which meant Fred was still illegal there. “We didn’t drink too much. Just a couple of pitchers.”
“A couple of pitchers? How many of you were there?”
“Four of us. Then we bought some six-packs and went cruising. I had just dropped the last guy off and was on my way home when the cop stopped me.”
They drove in silence. When they pulled up in front of the house that used to belong to all the Millers, but now belonged to Carol alone, Nick stopped along the curb. “You know what you did tonight was incredibly stupid. For starters, you’ve lost your license. Since you won’t be able to drive, I’m taking back the car and selling it.”
Fred whimpered.
“Your mother and I will have to talk about some other punishments for you,” Nick continued. “I just want to say that I’m very disappointed in you. I thought you were too smart to pull this kind of stunt.”
Fred opened the car door. “Well, it just goes to show that you’re not always right.” He jumped out of the car and slammed the door behind him.
* * *
Nick’s insurance agency was small, but made a good profit. He had to, after all; he was supporting two households. After the divorce, Carol had gone back to college, at his expense, for a master’s degree in psychology. Now she worked in the personnel department of a bank in Trenton, conducting staff assessments and running the training program. But he still paid her alimony and child support for Fred, while paying for his own life in a townhouse on the north side of Stewart’s Crossing. He was just keeping his head above water.
He and Carol had stopped fighting; at least her M.A. had taught her how futile it was to stay bitter towards him. They were even civil the day after Fred’s arrest, when they worked out a punishment scheme for him. But she couldn’t resist giving him a few digs about his latest girlfriend.
“Soon you’ll be competing with Fred for girls,” she said. “How old is this one? Eighteen? Twenty?”
“She’s twenty-three. She’s got a firm butt, no wrinkles, and her tits don’t sag. I’ll send a picture of her over if you want.”
“Don’t bother,” Carol said. “I can imagine.”
A few days later Nick dropped in at the hardware store on his lunch hour to pick up some picture hooks. He was helping Stephanie settle into her new garden apartment outside Lawrenceville over the weekend.
The hardware store was beginning to look more like one of those fancy new do-it-yourself centers out on the highway and less like the comfortable, dusty, crowded old store it had been for thirty years or more. Chuck Ritter had expanded out into the back yard, put in skylights and new shelving and an electronic cash register he was still having trouble mastering.
Chuck was behind the register, ringing up a load of garden supplies for an elderly woman. While he waited, Nick noticed that Chuck, who had always seemed so young and boyish, had gotten a lot older lately. He glanced at his own profile in a mirror at the sunglass display and noticed, to his dismay, a few new wrinkles on his own face. In two years he would be forty; his hairline was already receding and he was starting to get aches in his joints that he suspected were premonitions of arthritis. He took another look at the elderly customer, as Chuck called for a stock boy to come out and carry her bags to her car.
He wondered how people could survive the slow decay of their own bodies. He had always been vain, proud of his height, his thick, sandy-colored hair, his strong, jutting chin. Even now, he could pick up any girl he chose. And if a girl turned him down, well then, to hell with her.
“Nick?” Chuck said. “What can I do for you?”
Nick rose back up out of his reverie and handed the picture hooks to Chuck. “How’s everything going?” Chuck asked.
Without meaning to, Nick found himself describing Fred’s brush with the law. “I don’t know what to do with him any more. I hardly see him, and when I do he’s either sulky and quiet, or angry at me for something.”
“My Bruce was that way for a while. He hated having to work here. He said my father’d caught me in a trap, and he wasn’t going to be caught the same way. The only way he got over it was getting out.”
“How is he now?” Nick asked.
“He’s in Vietnam.” Nick understood why Chuck seemed older. “He writes us nearly every week, but there isn’t much to say. Every time the phone rings, Susanna jumps. I don’t think I’ve had a decent night’s sleep since he shipped out.”
Nick nodded as he pulled his wallet out to pay for the picture hooks. “I suppose I should be grateful Fred’s still safe in Stewart’s Crossing.”
“I think about it all the time. What I could have done differently, to keep him from enlisting.” He handed Nick the change, and slipped the picture hooks into a brown paper bag. “But it’s useless. Sometimes I think we don’t have any choices in this world, that everything we do is predestined somehow. I’m the kind of father I am because of the father I had, and I can’t change that, any more than I could change my kids’ personalities.”
“I told Carol I would try to spend more time with Fred,”
Nick said. “I have to believe I still have a chance with him.”
“Good luck.” Chuck turned to the next customer. “How’s everything going?” he asked.
* * *
Nick’s affair with Stephanie ended during the first week of August. She wanted to spend the weekend with friends at a summer house on the Jersey shore, and he was jealous and didn’t want her to go. They were sitting next to each other on his leather sofa, although she was facing away from him.
“Wouldn’t you like to spend the weekend with me?” he asked. The lights were dim and Johnny Mathis was doing a slow burn on the stereo. He caressed her thigh and said, “We could relax together, just the two of us. Maybe we’d slow dance, look into each others’ eyes, then go upstairs and do the wild thing on satin sheets.”
Stephanie turned back to him. “We’ve done that for two months. I’m getting bored. There’s this club we go to, down the shore. They’re open til five a.m., for all the kids who work at the other clubs. I’m dying to go somewhere and dance for hours. I mean, no offense, Nick, but you’re too old for that.”
“No offense?” he said. “How can you say that, no offense?”
“I’d better go.” Stephanie stood up. “I guess we shouldn’t see each other any more. But I want you to know I had a really good time.” She turned, climbed up the two steps to the entry level, and walked out.
Nick started drinking Scotch. “Too old for you,” he mumbled. “I’ll show you. I’ve got a young soul. I can party with the best of them.”
He flipped on the TV when he’d gone through half the bottle. Richard Nixon was standing on the tarmac somewhere, holding up his arms. The voice over said Nixon had resigned, and Gerald Ford had been sworn in as president. Nick lifted his glass in a toast toward the TV. “Get out while the getting’s good,” he said. “They won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around any more.” He drained the glass, then threw it hard against the wall, where it shattered.
He passed out as the coverage shifted to Ford’s inauguration and the music of “Hail to the Chief” filled the room.
* * *
