Sticks

by Joan Bauer

Camille stands up. “This isn’t a stupid pool game, Mickey! This is my life!” She runs out of the kitchen.

  “What did I say?”

  Mom shakes her head and kicks my bookbag toward me. “Go to school, darling.”

  I go.

  Arlen gets worked up at school because Petie Pencastle tells him that Rory Magellan is planning the greatest science fair experiment in the history of Grover Cleveland Elementary. Petie doesn’t know if Rory is building a chemical purification plant or an electric car.

  “How do you know this?” Arlen screams.

  “Because T.R. told me.”

  “How does he know?”

  “Because Warren Eversley told him.”

  “Warren Eversley,” yells Arlen, “is in third grade! This is not a reliable source!”

  Petie shrugs. “He lives next to Rory.”

  “I need facts!” Arlen shouts. “Aerial photographs!”

  Mrs. Riggles gets worked up talking about the Revolutionary War and forgets to give us science and reading. The best teachers don’t stay on schedule. Mrs. Riggles says that some people who fight each other can become friends like America and England did. Petie Pencastle and I smile at each other. Petie tried to beat me up when he first moved to town, but we found out we had things in common, like playing pool and spitting, and started liking each other after that. I think a lot of the world’s problems could be solved by a couple of guys shooting a few racks down at the local hall. Mrs. Riggles says war happens when people lose all common ground with each other.

  On the way home from school I ask Arlen if he thinks Buck Pender and I are at war.

  “It’s a definite possibility.”

  Arlen starts running like a soldier with a grenade in his hand. I check the piece of cloudy sky above A-1 Locksmith for low-flying planes; we sneak behind Leon’s Shoe Clinic, smelling the polish. We rip across the vacant lot beside Vinnie’s Variety, staying low.

  No enemy sighted.

  Arlen heads home down Slocum Street. It’s up to me to make it through. I turn right on Flax Street and whistle to Mrs. Cassetti, who whistles back like always. I wave at Mr. Kopchnik, who lifts an old vacuum cleaner from a woman’s Chevy and carries it to his fix-it shop.

  “It went phhhit,” the woman says, following him toward the little brick store. “Then it died.”

  “Phhhit?” Mr. Kopchnik asks. “Or phhhit phhhit?”

  “One phhhit,” says the woman.

  Mr. Kopchnik stops at the fire escape that leads to his apartment above the shop and shakes his old head. “That’s bad,” he says, giving me a wave.

  Mr. Gatto sticks his head out of Cut Rate Gas and Groceries and tosses me a Tootsie Roll.

  I jump to catch it. “Thanks!”

  I watch Crystal’s Launderette for enemy surveillance. Hard to see through the purple curtains. Crystal’s giving a washer a kick to get it going. Looks clear.

  I cross the street by the bus stop and head inside the heavy green door to Vernon’s, where Big Earl Reed, the day manager, is picking a soft blues song on his guitar. He nods that bald head of his, lifts his bushy eyebrows, and slaps the side of the old guitar he calls Baby Gal. He got her in New Orleans. Earl and I have been friends for years even though he’s fifty-three and I’m ten. His father died when Earl was two, so we’ve got stuff in common. His great-great-grandfather was a slave in Mississippi.

  Big Earl’s eyes are closed. He’s told me how blues is something that grows inside you and has to spill out. If I couldn’t be nine-ball champion of the world, I think I’d be a bluesman. Blues helps people understand sadness. Big Earl sang a song at my father’s funeral about good men dying young.

  “Play it now,” I say, and lean against the counter to listen.

  * * *

  “Mom?”

  Mom’s sitting at her desk doing her college homework, which means she’s got her earplugs in for total concentration. Mom started going to night school part-time to become a teacher after Dad died. He made her promise she’d follow her dream. She’s going to graduate this June.

  “Mom?” I touch her shoulder. She jumps sky-high.

  “Try, sweetie, not to come at me from behind.” She puts her hand over her heart, takes her earplugs out. “So how did life treat you today?”

  There’s a rumble on the street.

  “What in the world?” Mom looks out her bedroom window. I look, too. The awesome green Peterbilt pulls past Cut Rate Gas and Groceries and parks. The man gets out, flicks some dirt off his Western boot, straightens his cowboy hat, and walks toward Vernon’s.

  “That’s the cowboy, Mom! I’ve got to go downstairs.”

  “Homework first,” she says.

  “Mom!”

  “Do it!”

  I crash into my room and divide fractions like a maniac. It takes a whole thirty minutes. I turn to go.

  “Check your work!” Mom yells.

  “I checked it!”

  This is only half a lie. I’m going to check it, honest. I race down the wooden stairs and stop at the pool hall door. I catch my breath and walk into Vernon’s, not too fast, not too slow—with attitude.

  Poppy’s on the phone screaming that if somebody doesn’t come fix the Coke machine that’s been broke for three weeks, she’s going to get a new one filled with Pepsi. I get a bead on the cowboy who’s playing on table eleven, get my rack of balls behind the counter, and walk to table twelve, cool.

  Snake Mensker slaps me five. “Mick the Stick,” he says. This is an honor. Snake’s the head stick—that’s pool talk for best player. He’s got a scar on his cheek that looks like a rattler. He says he got it in a knife fight in Detroit back when he was stupid.

  The guy with the beard nods hello and makes a killer two-ball combo shot. I nod back and get a stick from the wall. I set up my three-bank terminator trick shot because it makes me feel tough when I make it. I put the four ball near the corner pocket, put the cue ball in place, aim my stick—

  “You’re going to miss it that way, son,” the man says.

  “I’ve been making this shot for years, mister.” This isn’t exactly true.

  “You’re going to come out short,” he says, chalking his stick, “just to the left of the four.”

  I shoot, hitting the first two banks. Then the ball rolls short, just to the left of the four.

  Poppy shouts, “Joseph Alvarez, don’t you go corrupting my grandson now, do you hear?” She laughs when she says it.

  I step back. “You know my grandmother?”

  “I sure do.”

  You were here yesterday, I’m thinking. She didn’t know you yesterday.

  “Haven’t been here for a lot of years,” he says, and touches his beard. “Didn’t have this when I last saw her and your mom. I was pretty skinny back then, too.” The man stands straight up and folds his arms. He looks like a boxer. “I was a friend of your dad’s, Mickey.”

  I put my stick down.

  “We were real good friends, your dad and me. I met you, too.” Joseph Alvarez puts his cue ball in place at the end of the table. “Course you were too little to remember.” He lets loose a machine-gun break. I watch as three balls zoom into pockets.

  I step toward him. “Did you know who I was yesterday?”

  He smiles and makes the four ball in the side. “I had a pretty good idea.”

  “What did you mean about me winning that game?”

  Mom comes downstairs at this point, lugging a bag of laundry for the launderette, brushing back her bangs like she always does. It’s Wednesday, her day to do the laundry. Camille and I take turns on Saturdays. Joseph Alvarez looks at Mom and bites his lower lip.

  “We’ll talk about it, son. I promise. But not now.”

  He takes a big breath and heads right toward her. He says something to Mom I can’t hear, points to his beard, and Mom about drops the laundry.

  “It’s me,” he says. “Honest.”

  Mom’s mouth is half-open. She’s just staring at Joseph Alvarez, wh
o brushes himself off and scratches his head. “Do I look that bad?” he asks, laughing.

  Mom’s trying to pull herself together, trying to smile, but I can tell she’s struggling.

  “We thought . . .,” Mom begins, and doesn’t finish.

  Joseph Alvarez’s face caves in. He takes a step toward her and lets out a long sigh. “I’m sorry I let you down, Ruthie. I know I’m nine years late.”

  CHAPTER

  I’m in the kitchen making my Mickey’s Famous Double Chocolate Chip Brownies, which Mom asked me to make so that Joseph Alvarez would see the best the Vernon family has to offer at dinner. Poppy says some of the best chefs in the world are men, which proves that males can learn anything. I created the recipe myself using three boxes of brownie mix and two bags of chocolate chips. Mix this together and bake in a roasting pan. It will feed six ten-year-olds.

  Mom and Joseph Alvarez are in the dining room setting the table. I can see them from the kitchen door; I’m trying to eavesdrop and bake at the same time. Mom’s voice is really tense. She’s telling Joseph Alvarez how she’s an assistant nursery-school teacher, but when she gets her teacher’s degree, she’s going to teach older children who won’t smear food on her clothes. She doesn’t mention how she used to sometimes treat Camille and me like three-year-olds when she came home from work. Last December Camille met her at the front door for a whole week straight and said, “Mother, I just want to remind you that I am sixteen and Mickey is ten. We can go to the bathroom by ourselves and we know how to cut our meat.” Mom got the idea. The only time she asks us if we have to go to the “potty” now is before a long car trip. Camille is real good to have around for some things.

  Camille is wearing the silver apron she made that says A STAR IS BORN. She’s making her special salad dressing with extra-virgin olive oil and red-wine vinegar.

  “Do you remember him?” I ask her as Joseph Alvarez’s big laugh booms from the dining room.

  Camille has little memory pockets she can pull from sometimes. She shakes her head.

  “What did he mean about being nine years late?”

  Camille dices up some garlic. I don’t know how she does anything with those long red fingernails. “I’m clueless, Mick.”

  If Poppy ever yells at me for being late again, I’m going to tell her she should be grateful the latest I’ve ever been for anything was four hours and fifty-three minutes instead of nine whole years. The buzzer goes off; Poppy’s Mile High Lasagna is done. Poppy made it instead of what she usually does on Wednesday nights—teaching pool at the senior center. Poppy says seniors in America need a whole lot more pool and a lot less bingo.

  We all sit down at the round oak table, which has been set special with candles and the napkins you’re not supposed to get dirty.

  “I do remember this table,” Joseph Alvarez says, feeling one of the scratches.

  Poppy smiles. She can tell you the history of each scratch on our table. Dad made the water spots when he was a boy; his brother, Ed, who lives in Montana now, put the nick in the side when he was showing off his new Swiss Army knife. Uncle Albert, Poppy’s brother, made the slice in the middle when he was carving the Thanksgiving turkey and Aunt Edna kept telling him he was doing it wrong. Poppy says a table isn’t worth much until it’s got a few good scratches in it. She feels the same way about faces and wrinkles.

  Mom’s homemade herb bread is right by my place and I suck in the smell of it as Poppy says the blessing.

  “Lord, we thank you for this fine food and for bringing this rascal Joseph back in our lives. We pray he won’t be such a stranger.” Poppy raps the table, which means she’s done. Joseph Alvarez says, “Amen,” and starts putting away the lasagna and talking about his trucking life and how he’s just moved to New Jersey from Alaska to start a trucking business with his brother, Enrique. He says that no matter where you stand on Alaskan soil, you see mountains, big sky, and wilderness.

  “It’s the last frontier,” he explains.

  “Well, you were always looking for that.” Mom says it like it’s not a good thing.

  He says he and Enrique saved enough money working in Alaska to buy two trucks and they’re leasing two more. He puts a card on the table:

  A TO Z TRUCKING—LONG AND SHORT HAULS

  —ANYPLACE, ANYTIME

  1540 South Street

  Cruckston, NJ 02573

  Joseph Alvarez 201-555-0067

  Owner/Operator fax 201-555-1903

  He says his own truck’s logged three hundred thousand miles and is still rolling strong. Then he says to me and Camille if we ever want to ride in it, just say the word.

  Now, I’d like nothing better than to ride in that truck, except wiping Buck’s face across a pool table on national television. I clear my throat.

  “What did you mean about me winning that game with Buck Pender?”

  Joseph Alvarez leans back near the blue-painted china cabinet, which belonged to Poppy’s grandmother. “He was trying to psych you out and you were letting him do it.”

  “I was trying to win!”

  “You bought everything that boy said, son. That’s why you were sweating.”

  “He’s a bully! You saw him!”

  Joseph Alvarez shrugs. “You’ve got to know that all bullies want a payoff. You can’t give them one.”

  “How?” I say soft.

  Joseph Alvarez looks around the table and gets a smile from everyone except Mom. He points that long finger at me again. “You don’t listen to lies. You learn to be the best at what you can do. You commit to it, you practice your rump off. You figure out the part of the game that you’re best at, and you figure out why you’re losing.”

  I feel like jumping out of my chair. “Where’d you learn to play pool so well?”

  Joseph Alvarez puts down his fork. “Well now, I was lucky, son. Your dad taught me.”

  I slam my hand right down on my lasagna. “For real?”

  Joseph Alvarez laughs and hands me his napkin. “He was one rough rider, too. Old Charlie wouldn’t let me hang on to any of my bad habits.”

  Poppy slaps her side, laughing too. “That is surely right, Joseph!”

  I wipe lasagna muck off my hand. I look at Mom, who’s not laughing or eating. I don’t think it’s the talk about Dad because he comes up plenty of times and she can handle it.

  “Do you play like him?” I ask.

  “I play like him some,” Joseph Alvarez says. “I got my game. Charlie had his.”

  This is too cool. I hold on to the table as everyone except Mom has seconds. I reach under it and touch the initials my dad carved there when he was my age: CMV. My heart’s thumping hard.

  I lean forward. “Can you help me win?”

  Joseph Alvarez smiles big and sticks out his hand. “Son, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to—”

  “I’m sure Joseph is a very busy man, Mickey.” Mom gets up and starts clearing away plates with short, choppy motions.

  “No, Ruthie, really, I’d love to help.”

  “It’s not a good idea.” Mom storms into the kitchen and throws a pan in the sink.

  “But Mom!”

  “No!”

  I feel like I just got thrown in jail.

  Joseph Alvarez is looking down.

  Camille is playing with her silver earring.

  Poppy nudges me, nudges me again.

  “Ouch!”

  She points toward the pan of brownies on the server by the window like dessert is going to solve the problem. I bring them to the table and start cutting them in huge squares as this heavy feeling fills the room.

  “I have never,” Joseph Alvarez says quiet, “seen a brownie that big.”

  I hand him one. “It’s the biggest brownie in America.”

  I clear some plates from the table and bring them in to Mom. She’s fuming around the sink, shoving the little yellow rug in place to cover the cracked floor tiles. I can hear Poppy telling Joseph Alvarez how good it is to see him again and
how they’d all wondered if he’d fallen off the end of the earth.

  “I guess Alaska’s pretty close to the end,” he says loud, looking in at Mom.

  “I guess it is,” Mom says under her breath, and starts scrubbing a pan hard with Brillo even though it doesn’t seem to need it. Her lower lip starts going, she looks hard at the yellow-and-white-striped wallpaper that she and Camille put up last summer, then runs out of the kitchen, saying she isn’t feeling well, and takes that wet Brillo pad right with her.

  I come back into the dining room.

  “What was that about?” Camille whispers to Poppy.

  “Pundonor,” Joseph Alvarez says sadly, getting up slowly to bring his plate to the kitchen.

  “Pundo-what?” I ask.

  “Pundonor,” he says. “It’s a Spanish word. It means something you’ve got to do—a point of honor.”

  * * *

  I can hear the Peterbilt roaring away down Flax Street. Mom never did come back out.

  “Honor,” I say to Poppy. “That means doing the right thing, doesn’t it?”

  “That’s what it means.”

  “Did Joseph Alvarez do something wrong?”

  Poppy rubs her fingers to get the blood circulating. It helps the arthritis in her hands. “Just because somebody’s an adult doesn’t mean they always know what to do.”

  “I know that.”

  “Your mother never cared much for Joseph’s ways, and it’s up to her to decide what’s best for you.”

  “What didn’t she like about him?”

  Poppy thinks about that. “What bothered Ruth most, I think, was how Joseph just needed his space. He’d go off for days, weeks, to kind of recharge, not tell anybody, and then he’d come on back to visit.”

  “Where’d he go?”

  “I never asked him. I just respected his right to do it.”

  “He always came back?”

  “He did. We used to kid him about where he’d go, and he’d laugh and say nothing. Your dad always called him Cowboy because he had that kind of spirit to him. He and Charlie were always working on cars, doing something automotive. Makes sense he’s driving a truck, starting his business, wearing that hat. On the road’s a good place for Joseph.”