Treehouse
Page 3
clear plastic box full of car tools, another filled with emergency gear, a sturdy black toolbox which he had taken to Kenneth’s new house to upgrade the light fixtures in Darren's room, and a well cushioned box which he stocked with wines whenever he traveled. "Set these back about thirty feet, will you Kenny?" Kenneth took a set of red-and-orange reflective triangles from his father's hands and set them carefully on the traffic-side of the shoulder while Granpa removed the tire iron from the trunk. He grinned at his grandson, "Hold this for me, Darren," and the kid's eyes widened like a squire entrusted with the knight's sword. Granpa lifted the flap that covered the spare-tire compartment and unscrewed the handle that secured the spare, then removed his suede coat in contempt for the cool late-afternoon breeze. With a great inhalation he lifted the spare out of its well, then rotated like a discus thrower and set the tire down flat on the ground. Kenneth stood behind his son with his hands clasped before his crotch like a fig leaf. "Kenny, why don't you--"--Jack's voice trailed off as he searched his mind for a useful task--"set these chocks behind the tires. Then call Mom and tell her I'm late."
Granpa stepped to the right side of the car with the jack, but hesitated as if fearful of pain.
Which Darren perceived. "Dad can do that for you, Granpa."
Granpa smiled. "No, Dare. You see, this thing is called jack--like me. It's my job this time."
Jack lowered himself stiffly to his knees, lowered his head like the marble-shooting wizard he had been in the Fifties, aligned the jack with the jacking point, inserted the turning rod and began to rotate it. His son and his grandson looked silently on. "Help me, Dare," he winked. The boy set his hand on the turning rod, and with his grandfather's warm, soft hand grasping his own, he turned the rod and beheld the wondrous sight of the car levitating. "Now let's get that tire off of this thing," Granpa smiled, kneeling by the rear tire and pointing at the wheel. "First we've got to get that hubcap off. Give me the sacred tire iron, Darren." Darren reverently handed the tire iron to his grandpa and watched as Jack inserted the blade between the edge of the wheel-cover and the tire and pried. He repeated the process in several spots around the wheelcover and pried if off with a grunt. "Now comes the fun part, Darren. Nuts!'
"What's wrong?" asked Darren.
"Nothing," grinned Granpa, pointing at the lug nuts.
"Granpa's making a joke," explained Kenneth. His son registered the information and waited for an explanation. Perceiving that none would come, he turned to soak up his grandfather's grin.
Granpa rested one knee upon a clean rag to keep his slacks clean and seated the iron over a nut at an angle parallel to the ground to allow him to transmit the weight of his body down to the nut along stiffened arms. The nut quickly gave way, and Darren's face brightened the way it had at age five when his dad had first puffed a dandelion ball into the air at the park. He turned to share the joy with his father, but Kenneth's grin wore a defeated grin, and his gaze, vaguely oriented towards the tire, was distant and diffused. "Hold this," Granpa said, pressing the lug nut into Darren's hand. Darren measured the nut’s heft in his palm, derived pleasure from its hardness and strength. "Don't lose it, my boy." Granpa seated the head of the iron over a second nut, raised himself to a crouch and leaned down on his arms, his triceps rising as if pulled by cables. Even at his age Granpa was still lean, as Great had been throughout his long life, as Darren was now. Darren felt a surge of pride at the hardness of Granpa's arms, and stole a studious glance at his father's belly--so round, so soft, so nice to jump on when he had been little--and his face, so pleasantly round and ruddy and kind. Granpa pressed the second nut into Darren's hand as a tow-truck rolled past.
"That's Dad's club," said Darren.
"It's a lot of people's club," mumbled Kenneth, and began punching his iPhone after aiming a serious farmer's squint at the black-tinged clouds rolling in from seaward. "Wanna search for the weather report, Dare? Red sky at night, sailor's delight." The sky was not red but gray, but Kenneth never missed a chance to quote Darren's favorite line from Navigation!, an exploration game which Kenneth had scripted. But Darren didn't hear, for he was pressing down on the tire iron along with Granpa, the two looking a bit like the marines in the Iwo Jima flag-raising photo. "That's three!" cried Darren as the recalcitrant nut gave way before a great effort from Darren and Jack. The fourth and fifth followed readily, and Darren fondled the lug nuts he had collected in the deep pocket of his cargo shorts, imagining that they were ball bearings for a Sherman tank.
Granpa seated the iron on the sixth and last nut for an upward pull. The two gave it a try, but it didn't yield. "Better let me go solo on this one, Dare." Darren stepped back as Granpa strained against the iron, grimacing with discomfort as steel rubbed against papery skin rarely toughened by manual labor these days save routine household repairs. "Time to show this sucker who's boss," he told Darren with a reassuring grin. He squatted on his haunches like a weightlifter doing the clean-and-jerk and thrust violently upward, but the iron kicked free and slammed into his mouth along with his fists, knocking him back and down onto his back.
Jack cursed as he lay on his back like an overturned turtle, but it was a gurgling curse muffled by pooling blood in his mouth, for he'd split his lip badly. Kenneth reached his hand down but Jack knocked it away and rolled stiffly onto hands and knees. It occurred to him that he was in the horsey position, and he turned to Darren with the inviting smile that had cued Darren to mount him when Darren was small; but the smile stretched the gash, and blood thick as syrup poured from his mouth.
"Get me the mmph," Jack told Kenneth, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth.
Kenneth fumbled through the emergency box for the first-aid kit and removed a roll of gauze wrapped in plastic. He recalled the Halloween party at fourteen when he'd borrowed his dad's Boy Scout uniform in a pinch, and how he'd joked about its hokeyness while secretly admiring the sash nearly full of merit badges--orienteering, lifesaving, first-aid. He remembered how he'd secretly envied his dad the scouting experience even though none of his big city friends was a Scout, even though he knew that his dad had quit scouting at sixteen, in 1967, for hatred of the Boy Scout uniform and uniforms in general. Kenneth felt the heat of his father's appraising eyes as he desperately tried to figure out how to open the package. At last he noticed that the edges of the plastic were slightly separated where they met at the top, and he fiddled fruitlessly at the separation with stubby fingers. Seeing his father's frustration, Darren said gently, "I can do it Dad, it's like string cheese" and reached for the roll, but Kenneth knocked the boy's hand away and mumbled "Sorry Dare," and continued to paw at the roll. He finally managed to pinch both ends and peel the thing open. "Clean your hands," said his dad in a blood-muffled way, so Kenneth cleaned his hands with antiseptic gel and unrolled a length of gauze which he folded neatly into a compress which he presented to his father like a ring-bearer's pillow.
Jack pressed the compress tight to his mouth.
"Do you need a--"
"No," said Jack.
Still the tire needed changing. Kenneth looked askance at the fallen tire iron, then looked at his dad, who looked at him skeptically, and his son, who looked at him with hope and sympathy. He bent to pick the tire iron up. Jack noticed that he was wearing flip-flops, and noticed Kenneth's misshapen middle toe too. "Kenny," said Jack. "Mind your toes."
Kenny had been Dad's little helper at eight when Jack roofed the tool shed. Jack stood atop a stepladder setting shingles in place while Kenny looked up at him with tools and roofing nails at the ready. Jack asked for the hammer and Kenny reached it up to him, but the exchange was muffed, and the hammer fell like a baton in a relay race, its heavy head landing right on Kenny's middle toe. The boy's shrill howls of pain, certain to bring his mother tearing into the yard in a panic, excited a chastizing "klutz" from Jack even as he hopped off the ladder to set the boy on his lap and examine the injury. He capably set the bent toe in a splint, but it was a Sunday, and they didn't ge
t Kenneth to a doctor until Tuesday, and the doctor said there was nothing to do.
"It looks like a caterpillar bunching up to crawl along a leaf," said Jack. His wife repeated the line, and Kenny grinned along with them.
Kenneth set the iron on the recalcitrant nut and squatted low on his hauches like a sumo wrestler; he found it hard to keep his balance. He knew that he had the advantage of bulk, and he looked like a weightlifter as he strained against the iron with a two-handed upward motion, conscious that his son and father were studying him, determined not to lose his grip on the rod with two hands full of thumbs, as Dad had called them once.
But the nut didn't budge, and perspiration from exertion and nerves beaded on his brow.
"Dad," said Kenneth, "do we have any--you know, lubrication stuff?"
Jack nodded at the tool box in the trunk. There was a little canister of WD-40, but the detachable nozzle was tiny, and Kenneth struggled to fit it into the tiny aperture of the canister's head. Darren said, "Let me try Dad, I've got little fingers," and this time Kenneth accepted the help. Darren stuck his tongue out in concentration like the adept model-plane builder Granpa had taught him to be and