by Sean Boling
Chapter Twenty Five: Dale
Jonathan was having a good day.
He ordered his nachos on his own, pointing conclusively to the item on the takeout menu, and he was still happy about the rain. Everyone else seemed to have grown tired of it already, even though three straight days of rain barely started to make up for what was needed.
Dale had yet to reacquaint himself with carrying an umbrella after so much time away from one, so he had dashed from the truck to the restaurant, while Jonathan stopped short of the door and stood under the drops with his head back, as though relaxing in a hot shower after a hard day’s labor. Dale had to come back out and nudge him onward to keep him from getting soaked.
The furtive stares aimed at them appeared less pitying than normal. Their fellow diners seemed to appreciate Jonathan’s enthusiasm for the storm, perhaps being reminded of how grateful they should be for water.
Dale pretended not to hear when their number was called, and Jonathan was alert to that as well. He shooed his Dad in the direction of the counter, to which Dale feigned offense and told Jonathan to get it himself.
And he did.
When he arrived back at the table, Dale noticed he only had the nachos on the tray.
“Where’s mine?” Dale asked.
Jonathan sat down and started eating. Dale looked over and saw the young woman who often served them holding his order and smiling. He smiled back and went to retrieve it.
“Did he tell you to do that?” Dale asked her.
“Not exactly,” she said. “He just took yours off the tray.”
He chuckled and rejoined Jonathan at the table, who continued to ignore him.
“Fine,” Dale said before digging in. “I deserved that.”
Jonathan laughed in a way that sounded like someone imitating laughter, which was good enough for Dale.
They ate in silence for some time before the door opened and a group of four men came in shaking themselves from the rain. They all wore matching windbreakers that sported the logo of an ag company on the breast. Three of them paired the jacket with jeans and work boots, while one of them wore slacks and dress shoes.
That one was Rod.
Dale made no gesture to attract Rod’s attention, but braced himself for the possibility of Rod seeing him. He was relieved to hear the party order their food to go, but tensed up as they sat at a table in the dining area to wait, with Rod taking a seat that put Dale in his line of sight. He breathed easier again when they started to talk and Rod failed to notice him, but then the lack of recognition started to irritate him. He looked at Jonathan while being acutely aware of what was going on at Rod’s table.
The area in his peripheral vision occupied by Rod came to a standstill. Dale figured he had been spotted. He continued to look at Jonathan as the figure of Rod rose from its table. It was on the move, and there was no use pretending any longer. Dale averted his eyes from his son as Rod approached.
“Dale Copeland!” Rod held his arms open while he walked, but reduced his gesture to a handshake by the time he arrived.
“Hello, Rod,” Dale stood up and shook the hand.
“We were on our way out to Stanton Ranch,” Rod released his grip so he could gesture in the direction they were heading. “Now that the prison’s open, they don’t want to farm the land next to it. Like prisoners will escape all the time and take their workers hostage or something. We were kind enough to offer our services. I told my guys we had to stop for burritos on the way. The burritos here are like a magic potion when you’re getting ready to negotiate.”
“They are good.”
“So what are you up to?”
“I’m back with the district,” Dale said. “The woman they hired to replace me didn’t work out. I don’t think they wanted me back, but the talent pool wasn’t very deep.”
“Selling yourself short, as usual,” Rod waved him off.
“It’s a hard job to fill. Even harder in a place like ours.”
“You’re the best anywhere. They’re lucky to have you.”
Rod looked down at the table and saw Jonathan.
Dale took note.
“This is my son,” he said. “Jonathan.”
“Nice to meet you, Jonathan.”
Rod appeared to wait and see how Jonathan responded before making any moves. Jonathan didn’t respond at all.
“Rod is one of the people I worked with at the charter school,” Dale explained in his son’s direction. “He was the head of our board. There wouldn’t be a charter school if it weren’t for Rod.”
Jonathan jerked his head slightly to one side. They waited to see if anything else was forthcoming.
He scooped up some cheese with a chip and took a loud, crunching bite out of it.
“Well,” Rod said, “nice to meet you, Jonathan. I should go up and check on our food. Can I borrow your Dad for a moment?”
Jonathan nodded slightly, but it may have been coincidence.
“I’ll be right back,” Dale said, and followed Rod to the front where people milled around the soda machine waiting for their orders.
Rod found a relatively open space and pivoted.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked just above a whisper.
“About what?” Dale played dumb.
“Your son.”
“I told you I had a son. And a daughter.”
“But you didn’t tell me about his…I don’t know. Condition? Challenges? What am I supposed to say?”
“It’s not something we go around announcing to people.”
“We worked together for almost a year.”
“And I learned right away that you hate it when people ask for things.”
“What does that have to do with this?”
“Because it’s hard not to tell someone about Jonathan without feeling like you’re asking for something,” Dale explained. “Sympathy, pity, praise, help.”
“Money,” Rod added.
“Money,” Dale agreed. “If they’re the type who has money.”
“You’re different,” Rod assured him. “You’ve earned the right to ask.”
“For what?” Dale asked. “Sympathy? Help?”
“You know,” Rod grinned.
The young woman behind the counter called out a number.
“You’re right,” Dale confessed. “I know. But I don’t agree.”
“Stop the modesty already. You’re overdoing it.”
“I’m not being modest,” Dale said. “I don’t agree that people have to earn the right.”
“They do if they want my money.”
The young woman behind the counter called out the number again.
“And they earn it by not asking,” Dale confirmed.
Rod chuckled and wagged a finger at him.
“You didn’t talk to me like this last year,” he narrated his gesture.
“I wouldn’t have earned your approval if I did,” Dale said.
Rod ceased all playfulness and charm. He sized up Dale as though meeting him for the first time.
The woman called the number again.
One of the men from Rod’s table arrived.
“Mr. Pluma,” he said. “That’s us.”
Rod looked over at the other men with whom he shared a logo. They were standing by the table, waiting for him with patient smiles.
“Sorry,” he said, forcing himself back into the highest level of charisma he could manage. “Just talking to my old friend here. Catching up a little.”
Dale nodded and played along.
The man politely returned the nod while keeping his focus on Rod.
“We shouldn’t keep the Stanton family waiting,” he reminded him.
“Of course,” Rod agreed.
He moved toward the counter and brandished his wallet as the trio reconvened behind him.
“I’ve got this,” he announced.
The men offered various forms of gratitude.
After paying, Rod handed the bag t
o one of them and faced Dale.
“Good to see you again, Dale,” he offered his hand.
“Good to see you, too, Rod,” Dale shook it.
“If there’s anything I can do, let me know.”
Dale covered his impulse to laugh with a smile that may have been a bit too broad, for Rod appeared to notice its expanse.
“Thank you,” Dale withdrew his hand from Rod’s. “I will.”
He watched the four of them walk out the door and break into a trot through the raindrops.
“Anything,” he said as he rejoined Jonathan. “You hear that? He’ll do anything. Our troubles are over.”
Jonathan was done eating. He had wadded up a paper napkin into a ragged ball and was batting it back and forth on the tabletop.
“What a ballgame!” he exclaimed. “What a ballgame!”
Dale watched him for a while.
“Did I ever thank you?” he finally said.
“What a ballgame!” Jonathan repeated.
“Thank you for helping me make the right decision about the buyout and the job. I really appreciated your help.”
The paper ball made its way to and fro.
“Bumping into Rod just reminded me,” Dale continued. “He was one of the people I talked about around the campfire that night.”
“What a ballgame!”
“So anyway, like I said. Thanks.”
Dale dug back into his food. It was cold, but still tasted good.
Jonathan finished his game a few bites before Dale finished his meal.
The drive home was quiet. The hills were already turning green, having waited so long for some water, and the raindrops had knocked off most of the frail autumn leaves from the trees. The rhythm of the windshield wipers and heat from the defroster seemed to make Jonathan drowsy.
He revived when they pulled into their driveway, and was in the house before Dale was out of the car.
Dale assumed he would be in his room with the door shut, settling in for a nap. He planned on checking to see if he needed anything before he fell asleep.
But he entered to find Jonathan at the kitchen table with the instrument placed squarely in its center. He was staring at the instrument, which meant he wanted to use it.
“I don’t think Mom’s home,” Dale said before calling Alma’s name a couple of times.
“Nope,” he confirmed. “I’ll let her know when she gets back that you want to do some writing.”
Jonathan tapped an open hand on the table, as though patting a dog on its back.
“Me?” Dale asked.
He gave the table one last forceful pat and stopped.
“You don’t like it when I use the instrument,” Dale reminded him. “I’m too slow. That’s what you say.”
Jonathan brought his hand down one more time.
“All right,” Dale said. “If you insist. Let me get some paper and a pen. I need help remembering where we are and where we’ve been.”
He retrieved the tools and sat down next to his son. They hadn’t worked together on the instrument for a while, so Dale was rusty. But after sliding it around beneath Jonathan’s fingertips for several letters and forming a few words, he reached a decent stride, from which a sentence materialized on the paper Dale used as his palette.
“I want to understand what happened,” Jonathan said.
“When?” Dale asked. “Or, where?”
He realized Jonathan wasn’t done with his sentence yet. Dale apologized and waved his arms in front of him as though clearing a white board with an eraser in each hand, then started playing the instrument again.
“At the charter,” Jonathan continued.
“I told you what happened,” Dale said. “On our camping trip. And in bits and pieces a bunch of other times.”
He was getting the hang of adding in the prepositions and articles of speech to make Jonathan’s sentences flow, and anticipating what word he was trying to spell.
“You told me what happened to you,” his son replied.
“I told you about the others,” Dale maintained. “Like Rod, the guy we ran into at lunch. I even made up stories by the campfire about what may have been going on in their lives.”
“I said I want to understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Why people do what they do.”
Dale hesitated. He kept the instrument away from Jonathan while he considered his answer.
“Only they know for sure,” was all he could come up with.
Jonathan eagerly gestured for the instrument. Dale obliged, and Jonathan’s hands flew around the contours of the letters as Dale transcribed.
“We should try to understand,” it said on the next line of the paper.
“We?” Dale asked.
Jonathan undertook a more confined version of the same gesture Dale had used earlier, wiping an imaginary board clean with both hands.
“Something new?” Dale wondered aloud, then fed him the instrument.
“Something not in my voice,” Jonathan said.
Dale stared at the latest line they had written together.
He couldn’t quite figure out what it meant. He was about to ask, but Jonathan was already flowing back to work on the instrument. Dale rallied the pen back to the paper.
Jonathan brushed his hands over the topography of the board, which seemed to move with less guidance from Dale, as though his son was casting a spell on its peaks and valleys.
“People used to smile at them when he took his son out to lunch,” he wrote.
Dale caught on and caught his breath.
His son proceeded.
“Back when Jonathan was a child…”
Dale delivered the words and tended to them, making sure their place in the sentence and on the page was secure.
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About The Author:
Sean Boling lives in Paso Robles, California with his wife and two children. He teaches English at Cuesta College.
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