Parts & Labor

by Mark Gimenez

  Some day.

  I spit out the throw-up taste again then walked around to the back door and dug my key out of my backpack. I unlocked the door and went inside and into the kitchen. I tossed the bills on the table then emptied my lunch box and stashed it in the lower cabinet. None of the cabinets had doors, and the floor was the cement slab. The walls were bright yellow (Mom said the prior owner's only sense of taste was in his mouth). Mom and Dad had gotten a good deal on the house because it was a serious fixer-upper, but Dad hadn't finished fixing it up when his National Guard unit had gotten called up. His favorite show was This Old House. We had moved into this old house four years ago right after Maddy had been born and Dad had been promoted to station chief. He was a fireman, and the house was his project.

  It looked like a construction project.

  Mom or Dad used to always be home to greet us after school. If Dad were here, he'd give me a big hug and say, "Max, my boy! How was school?" Then we'd toss the ball in the backyard or shoot hoops or work on the house until dinner. After dinner, we'd do homework (he understood math; I didn't). If he was at the fire station for his twenty-four-hour shift, he'd always call to see how my day had gone.

  But now the house sat empty and silent.

  I climbed the stairs. Scarlett's bedroom was off to the left, mine to the right. Her door was closed, but she wasn't home. Scarlett was in eighth grade and always had after-school activities—on Wednesdays it was band—so Mom picked her and Maddy up on her way home from work, unless she was running late. I never, ever entered her room, not even to snoop around her stuff while she was gone; a fourteen-year-old girl's room was just too creepy. Dad always said, "Max, God didn't intend for guys to understand girls, which is why He gave us a hundred sports channels on cable."

  Made sense.

  Scarlett and I shared a bathroom, which neither of us liked. The sharing, not the bathroom. She didn't like that I left the toilet seat up and sometimes forgot to flush; I didn't like that she hung her personal items to dry over the shower curtain rod. I mean, a guy my age didn't need to see that kind of stuff. Fortunately, none of that stuff was there to see when I walked into the bathroom. I brushed my teeth then rinsed with mint-flavored mouthwash to get rid of the throw-up taste, but I couldn't get rid of the smell. Then I got a washcloth off the shelf and soaped it up. I sat on the bare wood floor and wiped the blood off my knee and scrubbed the road rash.

  Yow, that stung!

  I patted it dry then found a big Band-Aid in the medicine cabinet and stuck it over the scrape. I rinsed the washcloth. I could hear the water running through the exposed pipes because Dad had torn down the walls, but he had deployed before he could put up the new Sheetrock panels that were stacked out in the garage. The Army didn't ask if it was a convenient time for him to fight a war; they just ordered him to Afghanistan, like he didn't have a job or a house to fix up or a family to take care of.

  I stood, went into my room, and shut the door. I dropped my backpack on the floor then pulled the broken iPod out of my pocket. I set the pieces on my dresser in front of the big photo of us that Mom had taken at the airport the day Dad deployed; he was standing between me and Scarlett in his desert camouflage fatigues with his big arms wrapped around us. Maddy stood in front with a frown; she had a mad on that day because Dad was leaving. I did too, but I tried to smile anyway.

  I always liked looking at photos of Dad in his Army uniforms. He was on active duty back before I was born. He had been stationed in a lot of foreign countries, like Germany and California. When he got out of the Army, he stayed in the Guard, moved to Austin, and became a fireman. And a home repairman. He could fix anything and build everything. We always joked that if he had been the guy in that Castaway movie, after five years on that island he'd have built a house with running water and a vegetable garden. He could survive on a deserted island just fine.

  But a war was different.

  A bottle of Old Spice aftershave sat next to the photo. I picked it up, pulled the top plug, and sniffed. I always liked the way Dad smelled, but I was starting to forget his scent so Mom gave me his aftershave. I was sniffing the Old Spice and staring at Dad's image and getting sad when I felt someone's eyes on me. I looked up, and in the dresser mirror I saw Legend Jones smiling at me from the big poster—Buy Legend sneakers - Be a star—taped to the closet door across the room. For some reason—or maybe for no reason—Legend's smile turned my sad into mad.

  I threw the broken iPod across the room at his image.

  My face felt hot so I went over and opened the big double window. My room looked out over the driveway and the hedgerow and the new neighbors' backyard. The breeze blew in and cooled me down. The window was low with shutters that opened out. There was no screen. Dad had finished the shutters but not the screen, so I could sit on the window sill and dangle one leg outside, which I often did; it was a good place to think. But I had to be careful to always lock the shutter and the window when I left my room because one time Mom found Maddy sitting on the window sill and really freaked out. It was a long drop to the driveway below.

  My room was my man cave now. I didn't have cable TV or even my own computer up here; we shared a family computer down in the den. But I had movie posters on the walls—Star Wars and Star Trek and Men in Black with Agent K's quote: "Fifteen hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago you knew that people were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow."

  A telescope stood by the window, my science fiction books on the bookshelf (I was a sci-fi guy so I had never gotten into Harry Potter like most kids, but I did like that Diary of a Wimpy Kid), and a chessboard on a little table in the corner (Dad had tried to teach me) next to my sports rack with my basketball and baseball bat, glove, and ball (I played rec). A huge tub of Legos sat in another corner. I used to build all sorts of stuff with Legos, but I had lost interest.

  I had lost interest in most things now.

  I flopped on my bed and stared at the ceiling. Dad had painted it black so when I turned my solar system lamp on in the dark, it looked like the night sky with the sun and the planets and the stars. When he came up to say good-night, he'd always lie next to me and we'd say prayers then we'd talk about space and stuff, like if there were other life forms out there. Dad said it was dumb for us to believe that we were the only intelligent beings in the universe. "All you've got to do is watch those reality TV shows to know there's got to be someone smarter than us out there," he said. He'd always kiss me on my forehead and say, "I love you, buddy." You never know how important your dad is until he's not there to kiss you good-night.

  Tears came into my eyes.

  I felt weak and I felt sad and I felt mad. I rolled over and punched Jabba the Hutt in the Star Wars poster on the wall hard enough to hurt my hand. But I didn't feel the pain. I retrieved my stuffed bear from its hiding place between my bed and the wall and pulled off my rec specs then buried my face in my pillow and hugged my bear and cried some more until I fell asleep.

  "Wake up!"

  I opened my eyes to a girl on fire. I screamed.

  "Aah!"

  "You're dreaming again, Max. It's just me."

  "Oh."

  Scarlett's flaming red hair looked like real flames … at least when I was still groggy and wasn't wearing my glasses and was waking up from that same bad dream (don't ask). She sniffed the air.

  "What's that smell? Sour milk?"

  Some of the hurl must have gotten on my clothes. We'd have to burn everything I was wearing to get rid of the throw-up smell. Scarlett sniffed again then shook her head.

  "Come downstairs and help. Mom's running late again."

  Then she was gone. I looked at the clock. It was after five. I stuffed the bear back into its hiding place—Scarlett knew I still slept with the bear, but she never made fun of me—then I climbed out of bed and closed and locked the shutters and window. I swapped
out my rec specs for my regular glasses. Mom said the black frames made me look like a young Buddy Holly, but I didn't know who that was. My hand hurt, and I wondered why, then I remembered I had punched the wall. Again. I went downstairs and into the kitchen. I found Maddy singing the Sesame Street theme song—she never got it right—and smearing strawberry yogurt on the concrete floor like she was finger painting. Scarlett was starting a load of wash. She yelled from the laundry room.

  "Mom texted me that she was gonna be late, so I got Maddy from her after-school! Let's get the place cleaned up before she gets home!"

  Scarlett was a very responsible and mature teenager so Mom gave her a cell phone (family plan). She was a straight-A student and already thinking about college. She read lots of books—her latest was a teen vampire romance—which kept her out of trouble, Mom said. Reading, not vampires. Scarlett Dugan never got into trouble. She never did stupid stuff like other kids her age did. She never giggled or acted the fool around boys like the other cheerleaders, even though most boys thought she was really cute. I guess she was, in a girl sort of way. But she acted as if she could care less about boys. Clothes were her only weakness; all she had ever wanted for her birthday or Christmas was clothes. But her clothes never matched. She wore green with purple with yellow. She said she had her own unique fashion sense. "I'm different and proud of it." (I was different and got beat up for it.) Anyway, Scarlett didn't dress like the other girls her age. She dressed colorfully and responsibly, Mom said. In other words, Scarlett Dugan was the perfect child. Consequently, I suffered from the "second-child complex" just like every other kid I knew with an older brother or sister: we could never measure up to the perfect first child. Scarlett was now on her hands and knees cleaning up Maddy's mess while Maddy made another mess a few feet away. I pointed at the table.

  "I put the bills right there."

  "I hid them," Scarlett said.

  "Will you help me with math?" I asked. "I got a D-minus on my fractions quiz."

  "Max …"

  "I can't concentrate on school work now."

  She sat back and sighed. "I know. I'll help you. After dinner."

  "Thanks."

  I pulled a chair over to the sink and climbed up. I put the rubber stopper over the drain and turned the water on then adjusted the temperature and squirted in the liquid soap. I piled the dirty dishes from breakfast into the sink. Dad had built a new counter with a place for a dishwasher underneath, but now we couldn't afford to buy a new one and the old one was broken and cost too much to get repaired. So we washed dishes by hand. My hands, mostly. Mom always said every man needed to know how to wash his own dishes and clothes anyway. I never knew if she was being funny. I had just rinsed the last dish when Mom blew in through the back door with a Whole Foods Earth-friendly canvas grocery bag under each arm. She kicked the door shut behind her.

  "Sorry, guys, we had an emergency C-section."

  Mom was a nurse at the hospital downtown. She was still wearing her green scrubs with Kate Dugan, R.N., Labor & Delivery, Austin General Hospital stitched across the front pocket. She usually got off at four each day so she could pick up Maddy from her after-school program, but sometimes women had their babies on their own schedules. Mom had to go back to work full time, so we had to make some adjustments. The Army didn't ask about that either.

  "The Mommy shift went overtime—"

  That's what Mom called her shift at the hospital because she worked around our school schedules. Usually.

  —"and I got stuck behind full baskets at the check-out line."

  She hadn't bought that much, but Mom was the type of person who wouldn't take eleven items into the 10 Items or Less Express Lane. She was sniffing the air.

  "What's that smell? Did we leave milk out from breakfast?"

  She looked suspiciously at me, but I gave her my innocent face and shrugged.

  "How was everyone's day?"

  "Good," Scarlett said.

  "I had fun," Maddy said.

  I didn't say anything.

  "How was your day, Max?"

  She set the grocery bags on the table and brushed her blonde hair off her face. She was only thirty-six and normally looked more like a teenager than a mother, but today she looked tired and frazzled. I decided not to mention the bullies.

  "Uhh … okay."

  "What happened to your knee?"

  She never missed anything.

  "Tripped."

  She removed a long bottle from a grocery bag and stepped over Scarlett and Maddy and her yogurt art. She rummaged through a drawer and found the corkscrew then screwed it into the cork like the cork had really annoyed her. She yanked the cork out with a pop. She poured a big glass and took a long drink. She leaned against the refrigerator and closed her eyes and exhaled like I did when the pediatrician said I wasn't due for shots that visit. Scarlett and I glanced at each other. Mom inhaled and opened her eyes.

  "Did you clean it with soap and water?"

  The nurse questions came first.

  "Unh-huh."

  "How'd you do on your math quiz?"

  Then the mother questions. I decided to try a diversionary tactic (Dad had been teaching me how to live safely with women).

  "What's for dinner?"

  Mom came over and gave me a little hug. I liked the way she smelled, too. She smiled.

  "Your dad's diversionary tactics didn't work on me either."

  "Oh. Not good. The math quiz. Fractions."

  "I'm gonna help him," Scarlett said.

  "Good." Mom said. "How about bison burgers and baked fries for dinner?"

  "All right!" I said. I loved her bison burgers.

  Mom bought everything organic from Whole Foods and never fried anything or cooked regular hamburger meat because she said ranchers gave shots to the cows to make them fatter. I hated shots, so I felt sorry for those cows. But Mom said our future eating habits are established when we're kids, so she wanted to teach us to eat healthy, socially conscious food. So she bought free-range chickens and cage-free eggs, hormone-free milk and antibiotic-free turkeys traceable to the farm, although I'm not sure I really want to know where our Thanksgiving turkey had spent its childhood. In most parts of Texas, Mom would be considered a wacky hippie. In Austin, she was considered normal. Right now she was a whirlwind of nonstop motion, putting up groceries, turning on the oven and grill, pulling out a bowl, slipping a red apron over her head and tying it behind her back, washing her hands, and then unwrapping the meat and dumping it into the bowl. She dug her hands into the meat to make patties.

  "Scarlett," Mom said, "start a load of wash."

  "I already did."

  "Thanks. Will you put the fries on a tray, set the oven for four hundred?"

  "I'll do the fries. You already turned on the oven."

  "Oh. Max, set the table please. Maddy—"

  Maddy dumped the strawberry yogurt on top of her head. Mom groaned.

  "Maddy, why'd you do that?"

  " 'Cause I want red hair like Scarlett."

  Her voice sounded squeaky. Scarlett grabbed a handful of paper towels and started working on Maddy's blonde hair … strawberry-blonde now.

  "I'll mop the floor after dinner," Mom said.

  That was a good thing about concrete floors—cleanup was easy with a wet mop. I moved the chair over from the sink, climbed up, and got four plates and four glasses. Blue plastic plates and yellow plastic glasses. You didn't use stuff made of glass when your floor was concrete.

  "How many babies were born today?" I asked.

  "Nine."

  "It's not coming out," Scarlett said. "This stuff's like glue."

  Or throw-up taste.

  "I've got my hands in meat," Mom said. "Stick her head in the sink, use the spray nozzle. Max, get a towel from the laundry room."

  Scarlett hefted Maddy, put her head over the sink, and rinsed the pink yogurt from her hair. I jumped down from the chair and went around the corner to the laundry room. I didn't find any clea
n towels in the dryer, only a pile of dirty ones in the basket.

  "No clean towels!" I yelled.

  "Use a dirty one!" Mom yelled back.

  I found the driest dirty towel and went back into the kitchen. I dropped the towel on Maddy's head, and Scarlett dried her hair. I set the table with plates, glasses, silverware, and the Scrabble board.

  Scarlett put down her letters—Q-U-I-Z—and shrieked like a girl.

  "Sixty-two points!"

  Scrabble was Dad's favorite game, so it had become a Dugan family tradition to play during dinner. Dad would always pass on his turns and trade in his letters trying to get a seven-letter word for the bonus points. He said it was his "high risk strategy." It worked, sometimes.

  "Very good, Scarlett," Mom said.

  "That's the highest word score in family history," Scarlett said. "Except when Dad got one hundred ten with zoology, triple word plus fifty-point bonus for using all seven letters. Remember that night?"

  "Yeah … that was a great night," I said.

  The smile dropped off Scarlett's face, and her shoulders slumped. She was Dad's "big girl." But she didn't look like a big girl now. She wiped her eyes and said, "It'll never be the same."

  We all sat still and quiet for a long moment, until Maddy dumped the bowl of ketchup on her head.

  I was lying in bed when Mom came in to say good-night. I had my solar system lamp on. The ceiling glowed with stars and planets. I was eating a cookie (the organic version of Oreos) I had snuck out of the kitchen.

  "Max, you shouldn't eat cookies in bed."

  "I'm seeking solace."

  She half-smiled and sat down next to me.

  "Does your knee hurt?"

  "No."

  She checked my scrape. I had removed the Band-Aid in the shower.

  "I know you didn't trip and do this. What really happened?"

  It was spooky, how moms know everything. I felt my chin quiver, and I had to wipe a tear away. I pointed at the floor below the Legend poster. She went over and stared down and stood real still for a moment. Then she bent down and picked up the pieces of the broken iPod.

  "Your birthday present from Dad."