Secret Histories yrj-1
Page 12
The professor slid a sheet of paper and a pencil across the desk. “Leave me your phone numbers. As soon as I hear from the Smithsonian, you wil
hear from me.”
As Weezy wrote down their numbers, Jack said, “Professor, have you ever heard of a klazen?”
Weezy stopped writing but did not look up.
The professor frowned. “An unfamiliar term. What does it refer to?”
“I’m not sure. A creature, maybe? A spirit?”
“No. Most sorry. I have never heard of such a thing.”
Swel , Jack thought. I’m batting zero today.
4
“Wel ,” he said, squinting at Weezy outside Professor Nakamura’s house, “what do you think?”
Her expression was grim. “I think I wish I had the pyramid back. I’ve got a bad feeling …”
Jack tried to look on the bright side. “Yeah, but you’ve got to admit, if anyone can find out what that thing is, it’s the Smithsonian.”
“I suppose.” Suddenly she perked up and looked at him with bright eyes. “What if they come back with the same age? Fourteen thousand years! Do
you know what that means?”
“It means Professor Nakamura wil have to eat a big plate of fricasseed crow.”
She gave his arm a gentle slap. “Who cares about that. It means we’l have to start rewriting human history!”
Jack thought about that and found it kind of scary.
“Yeah, I guess we wil .”
Just then a blue Mustang convertible pul ed up with a grinning Carson Toliver behind the wheel. He pointed to Weezy.
“Hey, you fol owing me?”
She reddened. “No, I, no, I mean, no, we were just visiting Professor Nakamura.”
This guy had just turned the smartest girl Jack knew into a babbling boob.
“Aw, too bad,” he said, dramatical y snapping his fingers. “I was hoping you were. A guy likes to have a pretty girl fol owing him.”
Weezy said nothing, just stared.
“Hey,” Carson added, “I bet you like the Sex Pistols.”
Weezy hesitated, then said, “Yeah. They’re cool.”
“Knew it! I could tel by the way you dress. I love to blast them as I tool down the road.”
You area tool, Jack thought.
“Want to try that sometime?”
“Yeah.” She swal owed. “Sure.”
“Great. I’l cal you up sometime and we’l go for a spin.”
He waved and roared off. Weezy watched him go, then grabbed Jack’s arm.
“Did you hear that? Carson Toliver just asked me out.”
“Yeah, to listen to the Sex Pistols—which you hate by the way. Or did you forget?”
“I didn’t forget. They’re awful.”
“Then why’d you tel him they were cool?”
“I couldn’t insult him.”
“If you ask me, he’sfol owing you.”
“Don’t be sil y. He lives right on this street.” She beamed. “And he thinks I’m pretty.”
Weezy had said she had a bad feeling about the pyramid going to the Smithsonian. Wel , Jack had the same sort of feeling about Weezy getting into
Carson Toliver’s car.
5
Jack sat by the living room window, pretending to read but real y watching the driveway.
Mom had the annoying Oklahoma! score playing, and he was forced to listen to “The Surry with the Fringe on Top” as he stood watch. Stupid, lame-o
song.
She was in the kitchen fixing dinner and Kate was helping. Dad wouldn’t be home from work for another half hour or so. Only Tom was unaccounted for.
He’d been gone most of the day but Mom said she expected him for dinner.
Jack wanted to know when he arrived so he’d have time to set up his sting.
When he saw Tom’s ‘79 Malibu pul ing into the driveway, he jumped up and hurried to the kitchen. He pul ed out the bag of pistachios and, while Kate
and Mom weren’t looking, emptied the envelope with the tepin-treated nuts on the counter. He’d just tucked the envelope into his back pocket when Kate
turned and saw the pile.
She frowned. “I’d eat those right now, Jack. You-know-who just arrived.”
Good old Kate, always looking out for him.
Jack shrugged. “They’l be okay.”
She shook her head. “You’re a glutton for punishment, aren’t you.”
“Trust me, Kate,” he said with a smile. “I’m anything but a glutton for punishment.”
But, he thought, I’ve arranged some punishment for the glutton.
He started shel ing pistachios but ate them instead of adding them to the pile. He tensed as he heard the frontdoor screen slam. This was it. Tom stil
had a chance. He could turn Jack’s plan into wasted effort by walking past and leaving the pistachios where they were. His fate was in his own hands.
Jack pretended to be looking the other way as his big brother breezed into the kitchen. Without breaking stride and without the slightest hesitation, Tom
swept the nuts off the counter and into his hand, then popped them al into his mouth.
Jack yel ed, “Hey!”
Kate said, “Tom!”
Mom hadn’t noticed and Tom said nothing as he opened the refrigerator and reached for a beer. He never made it. He froze in mid-reach, then
coughed and spat the nuts into his palm.
“What the—?” As he turned toward Jack, his face started to redden. “What did you—?” Then the redness darkened. “Oh, my God!”
As Tom dove for the sink, Jack remembered what Mr. Canel i had said about water making the burning worse. He felt it only fair to warn Tom, but he
lowered his voice, Wil y Wonka style.
“Stop. Don’t. Come back.”
“Dear Lord!” Mom cried as Tom dumped the partial y chewed nuts in the sink and turned on the water.
He didn’t wait to get a glass, simply tilted his head under the faucet and let the water run into his mouth.
“Tom?” Kate said. “What on Earth are you doing?”
Tom lifted his head—his face was almost purple now—and pointed to Jack. “That little bastard—!”
Mom whipped him with her dish towel. “Thomas! I wil not have that kind of language in this house. Now you—”
Tom wailed and stuck his mouth under the faucet again.
“The burning!” he croaked between gulps. “I can’t stop the burning!”
Jack watched him, trying to keep from smiling. He felt like going over there and dancing around him, chanting, Gotcha-gotcha-gotcha!
Kate turned to Jack. “What did you do?”
Jack raised his hands, palms up, and shrugged. “Nothing much. Just spiced them up a little.”
She smiled. “With what? Pepper?”
Jack nodded.
“What kind? Jalapeño? Habañero?”
“Hotter.”
She began to laugh. “Oh, this is rich—this is too rich!”
“It’s not funny!” Tom yel ed, his voice echoing from down in the sink.
Mom was clueless. “What’s the matter? What’s wrong with him?”
“He poisoned me!” Tom cried, then went back to drinking.
Mom obviously knew that wasn’t true, because she was half smiling as she turned to Jack.
“Why did you poison your brother, Jackie?”
Kate was stil laughing. “Tom stole his pistachios, but they had pepper on them!”
Mom hit Tom again with the towel. “Noware you going to stop stealing from him? Have you learned your lesson?”
“I’m going to kil him!”
“You’l do no such thing. And drink some milk. Water makes it worse.”
Tom lifted his dripping face. “What?”
Kate grinned at him. “The stuff that burns is an oil. Water spreads it around.”
“Oh, no!” Tom leaped for the fridge.
“And don’t you dare drink fro
m the carton!” Mom told him.
6
Jack stood by while Kate told Dad what had happened.
“Serves him right.” He laughed, then settled down to watch the evening news
before dinner.
Though the burning from the tepin juice had been intense, it hadn’t lasted long.
Tom recovered and had retreated to his room in embarrassment. Jack was heading back to the kitchen when he heard a knock. He reversed direction
and arrived in time to see his dad opening the front door for Mr.
Bainbridge.
They shook hands, then Mr. Bainbridge pointed at Jack and smiled. “There’s the man I want to see.”
Jack looked around. Man? Me? Was he in trouble?
“Jack?” Dad said. “What for?”
“Seems he stood up for my brother-in-law the other day when that Bishop punk
was hassling him.”
Dad tilted his head down and looked at Jack over the top of his reading glasses. “That so?”
Embarrassed, Jack shrugged. “Not real y. Weezy’s the one who—” “Yeah. Walt’s not always reliable in what he says, but he told me you and the
Connel girl took his back against two guys a lot bigger.” Mr. Bainbridge looked at Dad. “Sound like your boy’s not afraid of anything—just like his old
man.”
Dad gave him a sharp look, then turned to Jack. “Grab us a couple of beers, wil
you?”
“Sure.”
As he left the room he heard Dad say, “No Korea talk, Kurt. You know how I feel
about that. Save it for the VFW.”
Yeah, Dad never wanted to talk about the war. He and Mr. Bainbridge had met
in Korea. Then, seven years ago, when his company transferred him
from Kansas City to Trenton, he looked up Dad. He loved to fish, and when he
learned how plentiful the trout and bass were in these parts, he decided Johnson was the ideal place to live. So he moved in with his wife, Evelyn, and
her brother, Weird Walt.
Jack pul ed out a couple of Carlings, red cans with a black label, and brought
them back to the living room. On the way in, he heard Mr. Bainbridge
speaking in a low voice.
“Yeah, Walt’s al right. Keeps to himself. Mostly we don’t know he’s there. But the
drinking … man, the guy’s always half lit. He says it’s because of
‘Nam, but come on—he couldn’t have seen any worse than we did above the
thirty-eighth. We—”
He cut off when Jack arrived with the beers.
“Ah, here’s the man we’ve been waiting for.” He laughed as he took the can from
Jack. “‘Mabel! Black Label!’ I see you’re stil stocking the Canuck stuff,
Tom.”
“They know their beer.”
They popped their tops, clinked cans, and drank.
Jack hesitated, then had to ask: “What did you mean by ‘above the
thirty-eighth’?”
Dad shot Mr. Bainbridge an annoyed look, then said, “North Korea and South
Korea are divided along the line of latitude thirty-eight degrees north of the equator. It’s cal ed the thirty-eighth paral el. When the commies in North
Korea tried to take over the south, we were sent in to kick their butts back above the thirty-eighth.”
Mr. Bainbridge wiped his mouth. “Which we did pretty easily, and that should
have been that. But some REMF ordered us above the thirty-eighth, and that’s when it got ugly. I remember—”
“Hold on there, Kurt,” Dad said, raising a hand. Then he turned to Jack. “What
you’ve just heard is a history lesson. Let’s leave it at that.”
Before Jack could protest, or ask what a REMF was, Mr. Bainbridge said, “Hey,
you hear what happened at Al Sumter’s wake?”
With no prospect of war stories, Jack had been about to retreat to his room. But
now he was al ears.
“I thought that was tonight,” Dad said.
“They had a viewing this afternoon. That freeholder, what’s his name?” He
snapped his fingers. “God, you see his name everywhere—”
Jack’s mouth felt as dry as pine needles. Final y he managed to say, “Mister
Haskins?”
He pointed to Jack. “You nailed it!” He smiled at Dad. “Good citizen you’ve got
there. Knows his civics.”
Jack decided to let him go on thinking that. No way could he tel him about
eavesdropping on Haskins and Steve’s father.
“But tel me,” Mr. Bainbridge went on, grinning. “Do you have any idea what the
hel a freeholder does?”
Jack shook his head. “Not real y.”
Mr. Bainbridge laughed. “Neither does anybody else!”
Jack wasn’t interested in what freeholders did. Who cared? He was interested in
the fate of just one of them. He had a premonition he needed
confirmed.
“What happened to him?”
“Keeled over dead, just like Sumter. Couldn’t bring him back. Seems like his
heart just stopped cold.”
Stopped cold … that was how Jack felt. Could it have been the klazen? Was there
real y such a thing?
“Wonder who’l be next?” Mr. Bainbridge said.
“What do you mean?” Jack asked.
“They say deaths come in threes. We’ve had Sumter, and now Haskins. Who’s
going to be the third?”
Jack must have looked as upset as he felt because his dad reached out and gave
his shoulder a gentle squeeze.
“That’s just an old wives’ tale, Jack. And don’t worry, if there’s a third, it won’t be
anyone from this house.”
Jack hadn’t been worrying about that—the idea of anyone in his family dying
was, wel , unthinkable. He’d been worrying about Mr. Brussard. He didn’t want Steve to lose his father. But he couldn’t say that to Dad. How could he
explain something he didn’t understand himself?
He turned to Mr. Bainbridge. “Can I ask you something?”
Both Dad and Mr. Bainbridge looked at him expectantly.
“Go ahead,” Mr. Bainbridge said.
“Have you ever heard of a klazen?”
Both frowned. Dad shook his head. “You asked me about that this morning.” He
glanced at Mr. Bainbridge. “Kurt?”
Mr. Bainbridge shrugged. “Doesn’t ring a bel . What is it?”
“Wel … I heard the word and just wanted to know—”
“Hey, wait,” Mr. Bainbridge added. “I knew a Hans Klazen back in Mizzoo.
Dutchman. But that’s the only time I’ve heard the word.” He glanced at his watch. “Oops. Ev’l have dinner ready. Gotta go.”
He polished off his beer and handed Jack the empty. “Thanks for the brew,
sport.” Turning to Dad, he said, “You coming down to the VFW tonight for the
smoker?”
Jack knew that was a code word for the one night each month the VFW showed dirty movies.
Dad shook his head. “Not my thing.”
Mr. Bainbridge laughed. “Deadeye, you amaze me. After al we went through, how can you stil be a prude?”
Dad didn’t smile. “Just the way it is, I guess.”
Jack barely heard him. Deadeye? Mr. Bainbridge cal ed him Deadeye.Wasn’t that what they cal ed marksmen?
7
After their guest was gone, Dad headed upstairs to change out of his suit into something cooler. Jack fol owed.