by Chris Lynch
“What happened to your neck?”
“Jeez, Mikie, can’t we talk about something else for a change? What is it with you, it’s always, wrestling, wrestling, wrestling, wrestling lately.”
He got the picture. “Okay, El, new subject. Your mother coming this weekend?”
“I won one today.”
“Excuse me?”
“I won a match. Beat the bejesus out of one very tough welterweight.”
Mike extended his hand across the table and shook mine. “Hell, El, awesome. You pin him?”
“Nah.” I took a big satisfied bite of dry French bread from a basket on the table. My mouth filled to capacity with chalky bread, so Mikie had to wait. Finally I said, “Nah. Fell on him. Bloodied his nose up pretty good, though.”
“Well there you go. It’s a start.”
“Yup. A finish too. The next little welterweight spun me on my head like a figure skater and put me in sick bay.”
Mike stared at me deadpan. “El, there may be guys who want to be here more than you do—”
“Ya, like maybe three hundred of them—”
“But there sure isn’t anybody getting more bang for the buck than you.”
“Except me,” Frankie said, slipping in beside Mike.
“You look better than this morning,” I said.
“You don’t,” Frankie answered. “But we can fix that. You guys want another chance tonight? The O’s—that’s what we call Obie and Okie and all those guys—the O’s kind of think you two are wimps, but I told them you’re cool and you should have another chance.”
“Spare me,” Mike said.
“Ya, spare me too,” I said.
“Come on, guys,” Frank said. “Tonight’s movie night. Real movie night. Not like Ernest Goes to Camp chump stuff. More like Felicia Goes to Camp. It’s going to be wild, and you’re invited.”
“Take a night off, why don’t you, Frank,” Mike snapped.
“No way. This is the night. We have the flicks. We borrowed a projector and a screen and a generator from the seminary—they were very generous about it. Once-in-a-lifetime stuff.”
“This sounds dangerous, Frank,” I said, “taking stuff from the school.”
“Don’t be so serious, Elvin. This is the kind of stuff guys do together. This is what that brochure of yours was talking about, bonding stuff. It’s going to be hot.”
“Franko,” Mikie said, “let’s make you a deal. Stick around camp for one night, and we promise Elvin and me will bond with you. Won’t we, El?”
“Well, ah, what exactly is involved with that?” I asked. “Sounds a little complicated to me. I’ve got a lot on my plate as it is, and I’m not sure I could manage...”
“We’ll listen to your stories,” Mike encouraged Frank further. “The nun story and the Avon lady story and the crossing-guard story like we never heard them before. We’ll boost a ton of Cokes and Suzy Q’s from the dining hall and pound them down until we’re so mental we can’t sleep all night and we can’t stop talking.”
“Listen to him, Franko,” I leaped in. “He’s making a lot of sense here.”
He was listening, with a dopey little-boy smile coming across him that made him look younger, less smarty-pants. Happier.
“We’ll even tell you some stories about you that you don’t even know. The ones that we make up to tell the girls in the school yard.”
Frankie looked hooked. “Like when it was just us,” he said, kind of dreamy, “and everybody else was kind of outside.”
“Right,” Mikie and I chirped together.
There was a long pause. I felt the long day gaining on me and popped some more bread to fight the oncoming woozies of fatigue.
“Okay,” Frank said easily. “To tell the truth, I could use a night off from—”
“From being hazed?” Mike snipped.
“I’m not being hazed—that’s so totally wrong. I’m being... ceremoniously welcomed.”
“Jeez,” I said, pulling back. “That sounds like it would hurt even more.”
“Tell me something, Franko,” Mike asked. “You really like those guys? Honest?”
Frank dragged out the word way too long to actually mean it. “Ahhyyyya, y-ya I like them. They’re cool. They’re, y’know, I’m learning to like them.”
“I see,” Mikie said. “Why bother, if you have to learn to like them?”
“Okay, never mind. You’ll see, later on. You’ll thank me for breaking us in.”
“Okay,” Mikie said, “I’ll see.”
Frank got up from the table. “All right, I just have to run ahead and tell them I’m out for tonight. Then I’ll meet you guys back here. Elvin, save me some Suzy Q’s.”
“I’ll try my best,” I said, “but you better hurry.”
We took our sweet time with dinner, dragging it out until we were the last ones eating. Then when the two guys who were that night’s sweepers started cleaning up, Mikie and I went over and volunteered to relieve them, to get rid of the final witnesses.
They were pretty grateful. And I didn’t even mind the extra work, since I’d been doing it every morning after Mornmeal and before wrestling. I was starting to take a strange, satisfying pleasure in my skill with the big industrial broom. Though I didn’t tell anyone about it.
When we were done sweeping, we slipped into the kitchen. We opened the big red-and-white floor cooler and pulled out fifteen cans of Coke, stuffing them into brown shopping bags. Then we went to the stack of metal cage shelves, scanning the dessert possibilities.
“How can they have no more Suzy Q’s?” I barked. “What kind of a savage joint is this anyway?”
“Shaddup,” Mikie said. “You want to get caught? Look, at least they have Sno Balls.”
“Sno Balls? The pink Sno Balls? In place of Suzy Q’s? Jeez, I’m embarrassed to be seen stealing food with you.”
“Elvin, Sno Balls are Suzy Q’s, only with hats on.”
“And I thought you were smart. And I thought you had taste. Sometimes, the things you say—”
While I was ranting, Mikie had ripped the packaging off a pair of Sno Balls. Then he jammed one in my gaping mouth. I bit, chewed, swirled it around in there.
I started tossing Sno Balls into the bags.
“But they are not the same as Suzy Q’s,” I said. “That rubbery skin makes it a whole different ball game. So you were not right.”
We left our haul just inside the doors and went out on the porch to wait for Frankie with three cold Cokes.
“Taking him a long time,” I observed.
“Uh-huh,” Mike answered.
“Is he not coming, do you think?”
“No. He wouldn’t not come. He can be jerky, but he’s always there, you know?”
“Ya. I know.”
We’d just about finished the first Cokes when we saw the van, the O’Van, angling across the compound. It wound around the road, hopped the rounded asphalt curb, and came heading our way over the grass. When it skidded to a stop about twenty feet away from us, Frankie was sitting sheepishly in the shotgun seat, on the side closer to us. Obie was driving. There was a lot of banging around and raunchy laughing in back.
“We’re really sorry, boys,” Obie said, leaning across Frankie to yell to us. “I know you wanted him, but we just couldn’t spare him tonight. But he did insist on coming back to tell you himself.”
Frankie hung his head out the window. Obie, behind him, couldn’t see Frank’s face. “Maybe tomorrow night,” Frank said. “Okay? I just can’t tonight.”
He had an apology on his face that just didn’t come out of his mouth.
Mikie and I simply nodded, as if there was any choice. Obie took that as a signal to hit the gas and peel away.
When they were good and gone, I went inside and got two more Cokes and two packs of Sno Balls. Then Mikie and I sat ourselves down on the porch. I told Mikie the story about Frank and the crossing guard. He told me the one about Frank and the school committeewoman. We go
t pretty sugared up and stupid after a while and toasted Frankie and laughed a lot at all the stories. But we didn’t laugh as much as we would have. We didn’t laugh as much as we had before.
We put most of the stuff back in the kitchen before we headed back to the Clusters.
“See,” I said just before we split up, “I told you Sno Balls wouldn’t be the same as Suzy Q’s.”
Since I’d slept all day, then gotten wired up with Mikie, sleeping all night was sort of a problem. Long after all the “Night, Knights,” and after the hard-core snorers kicked in, even after Duke stopped staring at me, finally keeled over on his side, and passed out, I was still awake. I lay in bed with the long red flashlight Thor had lent me, poring over the words of Rummy Macias.
I had started out a little ambitiously, zooming from the table of contents right to page 114 and the heading “Opponent on His Knees.” It just sounded so good. Like: Read this page and your life will all come together before morning.
Unfortunately, page 114 didn’t tell me how to get an opponent to his knees, only what to do with him once I’d gotten him there. Clearly, Rummy and I were ahead of ourselves here.
The next most exciting thing to me was the Whizzer Series of moves, beginning on page 89. Before I went to it, I closed the book and just stared at the darkened ceiling, playing it in my head. The Whizzer Series. Whizz. Whizz kid. Whizz-bang Bishop. I Whizz. See that Bishop kid out there, sure is a goddamn Whizzer, ain’t he? Whizzzzzz.
I liked it. I loved it, to tell the entire truth. I felt lighter already. I’d wear silver shoes.
I refused to open the book to page 89 and investigate the Whizzer Series any further. I would not pollute my imagination with reality.
The Trip Series, page 85, caught my eye. They allow tripping? If they allowed tripping, I reasoned, then this could certainly be an area I could specialize in. So I read.
As it turned out, Rummy’s tripping was a little more complicated than sticking out your foot when the other guy runs by. I read the whole section, but it didn’t turn out to be the beacon I had hoped for. These moves were as complicated as any of the others, involving hands, feet, balance, strength, and all that hooey. I got more discouraged.
I still couldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t read anymore. I clicked off the flashlight, pulled on some clothes in the dark, and slipped outside.
I followed the route Mikie had showed me that morning. It was dark now, but the moon was strong again and the paths were fairly smooth. And halfway there, I had the grunts and slurs of the O’s to guide me.
I stepped very lightly as I approached the edge of their camp. The fire was almost dead, but they weren’t gathered around that anyway. They sat in tiers, on rocks and logs and sometimes on each other, like a miniature primitive temple as they prayed to the grainy silver glow on the screen. The grrr of the generator and the tickey-tick of the reels were all the soundtrack I could hear. Down in front center, almost like he was forced to stay in that spot, was Frankie. He was as big as half of them there, but kneeling and slumped, he looked very small.
The next flick started without fanfare. And as soon as it did, I was transfixed. I froze, puck-eyed, from the first frame.
It was a thing called Barnyard Hijinks, in which a woman did... things—there can’t be words, actual dictionary words with pronunciations and definitions, to label some of these acts. With animals. I didn’t recognize the backgrounds in the film, other than that it was a farm, but wherever this took place had to be a country with no laws. This one lady, and her lovely assistant, had several farm beasts working harder than any creature has labored since the invention of the mechanical tractor. I was sure there would have to be some special-effects trickery going on with some of those stunts, except the picture seemed to be made on somebody’s grandfather’s 16-millimeter hand crank.
When it got to be too much to bear, I turned from the screen back to Frankie. I noticed that two of the bigger guys flanked him, like guards. When Frank looked away from the screen, one of them pushed his face back into viewing position. The other grabbed his wrist and coaxed Frankie’s beer bottle back up to his lips. As he drank, somebody slapped him hard on the back. The movie was gross, but what Frankie was putting up with was a lot harder to look at.
I slithered back down the hill, feeling weak and a little sick in the belly. With all the roars of laughter, nobody heard me crunching through the woods. I slogged back to camp with the noise gradually shrinking away behind me.
I lay in bed more sleepless than before until, about an hour and a half later, Frankie came trudging through.
“So, how were the movies?” I whispered as he passed my bed.
He stopped. “All right,” he said. “A couple of them were great. A couple of them I didn’t like so much.” He said it, especially the last part, with a heavy tired voice. He forced a smile and went on to bed.
Big Mama Bishop,
Not sure? What do you mean, “Not sure”? You’re not sure if you can make it this weekend? No, Mother, I will not sit tight until you hear back whether Aunt Mamie can go with you to Presque Isle for the weekend. I don’t care what you say, I did so tell you it was this weekend. Just tell Aunt Mamie I’m sure Presque Isle has enough lonely police officers and lobster trappers to tide her over for the two days before you can get there.
Don’t toy with me, Mother. I’m not the frail lumpen lad you shoehorned onto that yellow bus a mere forty days and forty nights ago. I’m mean now, like, Lord of the Flies mean, because of what you did to me, so you better not fool around. Everybody here is afraid of me.
And this is put-up-or-shut-up time around here. This is when you have to produce hard evidence that you have actual parents and that you weren’t just left here on the grounds when the circus moved on to Providence. If your family does not show up, you’re put into a group informally known as “The Unloved,” who, legend has it, roam around like a pack of wild dingoes all weekend doing unspeakable things to themselves and others.
And I could well do it. Take me seriously, Mother. I’m learning new ruffian stuff every day. I have a book.
Elvin “Rummy Junior” Bishop
PART 3: WEEK THREE
Chapter 8: Oh yes, my other family.
IT’S NOT REALLY EVEN a weekend anyhow. In fact, it’s not even twenty-four hours. The parents arrive around midday on Saturday and are broomed back out again before lunch on Sunday.
It was one of the few moments that felt like they made sense. Mikie and I were sitting in the parking lot just watching cars roll up. Just like we would have been doing at about this point any other summer at home.
“I bet your mother gets here before my mother,” I said.
“Hnn,” he said.
“I mean it, Mikie. What do you want to bet? I’ll bet you anything.”
“Cut it out, Elvin. I don’t want to make bets on my mother.”
“Fine, take another mother,” I said. “I’ll stack my mother up against any mother in the joint. Or any father. I bet she’s the last one to show up. I bet I’m going to be sitting here with the crickets and the coyotes while everyone else is inside watching the talent show tonight and eating popcorn.”
“She’ll be here before Frankie’s folks.”
“No fair. Jesus will make an appearance before Frankie’s folks do.”
As I spoke, through the gate and up the drive came Mike’s mother’s little red Dodge Omni.
“See?” I said. “You owe me all your sick vouchers. Who’s next? Who else wants to take on my mother? She’s going to kick some big booty all over this camp.”
Mike left me there ranting while he went to the car to greet his mother, Brenda. I could call her Brenda, because she always said I could. And that wasn’t the only un-motherlike thing about her. She was smaller than us and red-headed and went on dates with men and did not mention it when one of our voices cracked even though everyone else in the world thought it was so damn funny. I was probably as anxious to see her when she stepped
out of the car as Mikie was. As I always am.
She got out of the driver’s side and hugged him, which I loved. I stood stupidly watching it for a few seconds.
Then I fell back down on the seat of my pants. Out of the passenger side popped—my mother.
I was cool. I got back up, walked super slowly to the Omni, and shook my mother’s hand.
“This a new car, Brenda?” I asked while still shaking my mother’s hand. Brenda waved me off, and Mom started laughing. She thinks every single thing I say is a laugh riot whether I intend it to be or not.
“Still at it, are we Elvin? I suppose you’re chewing up everybody’s slippers since I left you too.”
Brenda came over and gave me a hug.
“Good,” I said as she squeezed me to her. “You’ll take me home now, won’t you?”
“You putting on weight?” she asked, holding me at arm’s length.
“Yes, he is,” Mikie chipped in unsolicited.
I pointed at myself as I spoke. “I’m in an athletic program,” I enunciated. “I’m bulking up.”
“And down,” Mike said.
Mom came up beside me and put an arm over my shoulders for moral support. I tried to be cool to her without scaring her off.
“So I have added a few pounds since I’ve been here. But I tell you, it’s the training. Muscle weighs more than fat, you know.”
“Ya, but a whole lot of fat still weighs more than a medium amount of muscle,” Mike said.
“You look wonderful,” my mother said, squeezing me.
“Strapping,” Brenda said.
It worked. I felt wonderful and strapping, and gave Mikie a face that said so. Sometimes I think he gets a little jealous because I’m needier than him and the mothers mother me a little more out of instinct.
“Well, now that the size of my butt is out of the way,” I said, “should we show you around?”
Mikie offered his arm, and Brenda took it. Mom looked at me expectantly.
“I knew you’d come crawling back,” I said, hooking my arm for her like the little teapot short and stout.
“I always do, don’t I?” she said, taking it.
