Grouper's Laws

by D. Philip Miller

  Blondie felt his tongue knotting up. He didn’t want to say anything dumb to the number-one stud in school.

  “How about you, Blondie?”

  Clements did remember his name. That was a score.

  “Yeah, I play,” Blondie said, trying to keep from showing too much enthusiasm. Guys who got too excited over things weren’t cool.

  “Any good?”

  “Low eighties.”

  Bobby whistled. Blondie felt his chest swell.

  “I’ve been playing since I was ten,” Blondie added, hoping Bobby wouldn’t think he was bragging.

  “You could be on the golf team.”

  “Fenton has a golf team?”

  Percy High hadn’t had one.

  “Yeah. It plays against the Baltimore schools. I bet you could make it. Talk to Mr. Beasley. He’s the golf coach.”

  Beasley? Blondie’s overweight phys-ed instructor?

  “He doesn’t look like a golfer.”

  “Beasley’s a real klutz,” Bobby said. “but he’s the coach. He could use you. You could get a letter.”

  “That so?”

  Blondie raised his eyebrows. He’d always thought athletic letters were reserved for macho sports like football, baseball, or wrestling.

  “I’ll think about it,” he said in an offhand manner.

  “Do it.”

  Blondie began to walk away, then stopped and turned back to Clements. He felt inspired — like he always did, just before he did something rash.

  “Maybe we could play golf together sometime.”

  “Maybe. I play baseball in the spring and that takes up a lot of my time, but maybe.”

  Wow! Bobby Clements would consider playing golf with him! That would put Blondie right up there with Fenton High’s elite. He bet Tammy would pay him a lot more attention if she knew he was buddies with Clements.

  Back on the street, Blondie noticed the marquee on the Marylander Theater just up the street: Psycho. Some Christmas movie. Only in Fenton, he thought.

  A car pulled up to the curb across the street.

  “Merry Christmas, Blondie!” a woman shouted from the open window.

  It was Miss Darlington, her red hair hanging from the car like a Christmas stocking.

  “Merry Christmas to you,” he called back.

  Seeing her boosted his mood even further. She was so cheerful, so positive. He couldn’t help looking back her way as he headed down the street. He wished he hadn’t.

  Something caught in his mind. It took hold and wouldn’t let go … a seed of worry and, like a seed, it began to assume color, to take shape. The color and shape were that of her car. There was no denying it. Her late-model metallic-blue Rambler looked a lot like the car he’d seen parked at the sleazy motel on Route 40 the month before — beside the one that had looked like Mr. Bearzinsky’s. No, it couldn’t be. He remembered how Feller had told him, in a fractured metaphor, that the Bear was married to an old heifer that’d borne him a brood of cubs.

  Angry voices jerked him from his speculation.

  “Worthless piece of crap!” he heard a man shout. Blondie turned to see figure in the lot beside Ernie’s Hardware. Shakes was one. He was standing beside the run-down Studebaker Blondie’d seen at his house and facing a short, stocky man with hedgehog hair and a bullet head. His dad, Blondie assumed. A split paper bag lay on the ground between them. It was surrounded by a swarm of nails.

  The man lowered his voice. Blondie could no longer make out what he was saying, but from the way Shakes hung his head, Blondie was sure he was berating him. Without any apparent provocation from Shakes, the man lashed out with his fist and punched Shakes in the shoulder. Blondie was shocked. He’d never seen a father hit his son before. For an instant, Shakes coiled like a cobra preparing to strike. Then his shoulders quivered and his arms fell to his sides. He slumped into the car.

  Blondie hurried to where his mom had left the car. He let himself in with his set of keys, started the motor, and clicked on the radio. He needed to push the scene he’d just witnessed from his mind. Brenda Lee was singing “Rocking around the Christmas Tree.” It didn’t help.

  During the ride home, he started to tell his mom what he’d seen. He couldn’t find the words to begin. It seemed too shameful to discuss.

  Blondie’s dad was putting up the Christmas tree when they got home. He was playing Christmas carols on the phonograph, the religious kind he liked: “Oh, Little Child of Bethlehem,” “Oh Come All Ye Faithful,” “Away in a Manger.” Blondie preferred bouncier songs like “Sleigh Ride” or “Jingle Bell Rock.” But he was in no mood to quibble about his dad’s selection of music — or anything he did. He’d seen how bad a dad could be.

  That evening, Grouper surprised Blondie by appearing at the front door wearing a stylish wool overcoat, a tartan scarf, and dark gloves. Except for an extra hundred pounds, he could have stepped from the pages of Esquire magazine. He held out his hand to Blondie’s mom and introduced himself as “Walter Clarence Whipple.” He complimented his dad on the way he’d decorated the tree.

  “Such a well-mannered boy,” his mother whispered to Blondie as he went out the door.

  “What’d you come to the door for?” Blondie asked the Grouper. He wasn’t sure he wanted his parents to know all his friends.

  “Only plebeians just drive up and honk for people.”

  “Dispatch always honks.”

  “Precisely my point.”

  Blondie felt rich, spoiled, in the Whipple’s New Yorker. It was brand new, navy blue, and polished to a glimmer. Blondie sank into the soft leather seat. It engulfed him like a mother’s embrace. He began to relax.

  Not for long. Grouper backed over the curb leaving the driveway, missed the turn out of Heritage Acres and drove through the first red light they came to.

  For a moment, Blondie considered telling Grouper about Shakes and his dad, but he decided against it. They were on their way to pick him up. Blondie was sure Shakes didn’t want anyone else to know. What kid would?

  “Nice wheels,” Blondie said instead.

  “Dad has to look good with his peers.”

  “Because he’s a lawyer?”

  “A corporation lawyer in Baltimore,” Grouper emphasized. “He defends corporations against bogus on-the-job injury claims.”

  “You mean people fake injuries?”

  “Everyone does, according to my dad. He could convince a jury someone mangled his arm in a machine just to dodge work.”

  Blondie decided not to pursue the subject. He was already bummed out about Shakes’ dad. He didn’t need to hear about the shortcomings of Grouper’s.

  “What’s that on the radio?” Blondie asked.

  “Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.”

  Was Grouper trying to impress him? Or did he actually like that stuff?

  “Do you mind if I change stations?” Blondie asked

  Grouper smiled and pushed a button on the dash. The Tokens blared forth: “Weem-o-way, weem-o-way.”

  Grouper was more talkative than usual, agitated about something he’d heard on the radio that day. An American soldier had been killed in Vietnam. The first one, he said.

  “Miss Darlington told us about Vietnam,” Blondie said. “She’s worried we’ll get into a war.”

  “It sounds like we already are.”

  Khrushchev’s doomsday device came to Blondie’s mind again. “

  The commies are evil. We have to draw the line somewhere.”

  “Vietnam is a long way from America and the side we’re supporting is corrupt,” Grouper replied.

  Miss Darlington hadn’t mentioned that.

  Blondie still didn’t know where Vietnam was. He supposed it was one of the countries in the Third World. Blondie wasn’t sure where the Third World was either. He always thought of palm trees and half-naked natives when he heard the term.

  “What if you had to go?” Grouper asked him.

&
nbsp; “Why would I? I’m not going to enlist.”

  “You have to sign up for the draft when you turn eighteen.”

  “Yeah, but no one’s being drafted. Vietnam isn’t Korea.”

  Grouper pushed out his lower lip and fell into thought. He was the only one in the group who ever talked about politics or current events.

  Blondie stared out the window at the red, white and green Christmas lights on Front Street. It almost looked pretty all lit up. A life-sized crèche crowded the corner of Front Street and Home, in front of the armory. A donkey with a missing tail, three wise men in garish garb, and the holy family huddled under a cedar-shingled roof. The Christ-child’s nose was broken off.

  Grouper shifted his eyes from side to side as he drove. He seemed to be looking for something. Before they reached the cutoff to Shakes’ house, Grouper turned.

  “Where’re we going?” Blondie asked.

  He didn’t answer. He drove a few more blocks and turned again. A hazy garland of lights glowed in the distance. As they drew nearer, Blondie saw that someone had strung Christmas bulbs in some trees above a frozen pond. Several people were skating on it.

  Grouper slowed as they passed. What was he up to? In an instant, Blondie understood. Skimming over the ice in wide circles, like a gull turning in the breeze, was a girl in a long white coat and white gloves. Her dark hair tossed from side to side with each turn.

  Blondie hoped she’d look his way, although he didn’t know what he’d do if she did. He pressed his face against the cold glass of the car window and watched, mesmerized, until the rink faded from view. A cameo remained in his mind for a long time, a Currier & Ives print. Tammy had never seemed more beautiful.

  An approaching car momentarily lit Grouper’s face. He was looking straight ahead, but an almost imperceptible smile creased his lips.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Shakes was waiting on the porch in a rusted lawn chair when they arrived, wearing a thin plaid jacket, his arms wrapped around his chest to fend off the cold. Light spilled from the little rambler, but there was no movement within. The driveway was empty.

  Shakes seemed his normal self when he got into the car — whiny and argumentative.

  “It’s about t-time,” he complained.

  Blondie watched him furtively for evidence of the altercation he’d witnessed earlier — some mark, some emotion. He detected nothing. Were beatings so common as to be quickly forgotten? Blondie couldn’t imagine it.

  “W-watch out!” Shakes yelled as Grouper headed for the mailbox backing out. Grouper twisted the wheel sharply.

  “Gr-great. Now we’re h-headed the wrong w-way.”

  “Doesn’t Barnwell live up here somewhere?” Blondie asked.

  “A c-couple blocks up the street and then l-left,” Shakes answered.

  “Why don’t we drive by?”

  Blondie felt drawn by morbid curiosity to see the abode of his archenemy. It was as if someone had said, “There’s a nest of copperheads in that woodpile over there. Wanna see?” Yet, when Grouper turned up Buford’s street, Blondie felt out-of-place, a voyeur. Moreover, he pictured Buford’s house as something from a horror flick, harsh and forbidding.

  His imagination was out to lunch. The Barnwells’ house, far from being Dracula’s lair, was an ordinary mobile home on cinder blocks — neither freshly painted nor peeling, neither well-kept nor slovenly. The thin front lawn was held in check by a knee-high white fence and populated by a plastic flamingo and a lopsided doghouse. The only thing frightening about the place was its banality.

  “That’s enough,” Blondie said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  They swung by and collected Brick and Dispatch, then headed for the Suds Cellar.

  “Who’s going to buy?” Brick asked when they arrived, fixing his gaze on Dispatch.

  Blondie wondered why Brick never volunteered. He seemed gutsy enough and he looked older than Dispatch. Perhaps he felt it was beneath his dignity.

  Dispatch reached for his wallet.

  “Uh-oh,” he said. “I forgot my cards.”

  Brick turned toward Grouper.

  “You could pass,” he said.

  Grouper hesitated. Blondie could also tell this was a “moment of truth” for him. Would he step over the line? Break the rules?

  “Well, I am the most sophisticated,” he said.

  “Whatever,” Brick replied.

  The minute Grouper left the car, Brick turned to Shakes and told him to follow Grouper “and see how he does.”

  Shakes slid out of the car as soon as Grouper lumbered down the short flight of stairs into the tavern. Time dragged by. Other patrons came and went.

  “What the fuck? Are they jerking each other off in there?” Brick asked. “I’m thirsty.”

  Shakes bolted from the stairwell, ran to the car and jumped in. Almost immediately, Grouper sauntered from the Cellar with empty arms.

  “He didn’t get it?” Bricks shouted. He was outraged.

  “Gr-Grouper asked for a s-six Pabst of p-pack.”

  “Some friggin’ sophisticate,” Brick groused.

  “D-don’t t-tell h-him I w-was w-watching.”

  “They’re not the type of people I like to deal with,” Grouper explained when he got in the car.

  “Yeah, and you’re a dufus,” Brick said.

  “Please gentlemen, I understand your disappointment, but I’m sure there are other ways to get what we want.”

  “I oughtta ream your asshole out with my church key,” Brick snarled.

  A shadow appeared beside the car.

  “It’s P-Purdy,” Shakes said. “H-he w-wants me to r-roll down the w-window. What should I

  d-do?”

  “Give him the finger,” Brick recommended.

  “N-no w-way,” Shakes said.

  Purdy’s appearance made Blondie apprehensive. Barnwell was likely to be nearby. Blondie caught sight of Purdy’s battered pickup under a light across the lot. He was relieved to see it empty.

  “Roll down the window and see what the dickhead wants,” Brick ordered.

  “You guys aren’t having trouble getting beer, are you?” Purdy inquired.

  “No, we just come up here to watch all the town drunks,” Brick replied.

  Purdy ignored him.

  “I can get you some beer.”

  “Why would you do that?” Brick asked.

  Purdy shrugged.

  “We don’t have to be enemies,” he said.

  “How much?” Brick asked.

  “How much beer do you want?”

  “A case.”

  “Five bucks,” Purdy said.

  “A little high, but I’ll chip in,” Dispatch chimed in.

  “How do we know y-you won’t just t-take our f-five and s-split?” Shakes asked.

  “If that’s the way you feel,” Purdy sniffed, “don’t give me the money until I give you the beer.”

  “Sounds foolproof,” Dispatch said to Brick.

  Brick grunted.

  “Okay, it’s a deal,” he agreed. “We want Pabst.”

  Purdy walked over to the stairwell and disappeared. Shortly he reappeared holding a grocery bag.

  “Look in there and see what it is,” Brick told Shakes.

  “It’s P-Pabst,” Shakes confirmed.

  They each ponied up a buck and gave it to Purdy.

  “Hey, thanks man,” Blondie said to Purdy, hoping this marked some turning point in his relationship with Purdy — and Barnwell.

  “Ah, it’s nothing,” Purdy said with a wide smile. He strolled away.

  “What’d you go thanking the cocksucker for?” Brick chided Blondie.

  “Where next?” Grouper asked.

  “How about the quarry?” Dispatch suggested.

  As soon as they turned off the main drag, Shakes reached into the bag, pulled out a can and handed it to Brick.

  “Nice and cold,” he remarked.r />
  He punctured it in the dark with the can opener he wore like dog tags around his neck. He tilted the can up to his lips. Phhwwwwt! Vapor exploded from his mouth and sprayed the front of the car.

  “What’s the m-matter?” Shakes asked.

  “Turn on the light,” Brick ordered.

  Grouper switched on the overhead light. Brick raised the can to eye level. Mountain Dew.

  “I thought you looked,” Brick said to Shakes.

  “I d-did.”

  Brick reached in the bag and pulled out a flat piece of cardboard with Pabst printed on it.

  “It’s just packing material.”

  “We’ve been had,” Grouper said.

  “Go back!” Brick shouted.

  Blondie asked Brick what he planned to do.

  “I’m going to rearrange Purdy’s internal organs,” he said.

  Blondie had never seen Brick mad before. His whole body bristled. Blondie was impressed — and nervous. Events were spinning out of control.

  “Are we sure we’re handling this situation rationally?” Blondie asked no one in particular.

  “This isn’t something we’re taking a poll on.” Brick bit off each word. “This is personal. You don’t prepare someone’s taste buds for a Pabst and give him fucking Mountain Dew.”

  Blondie conceded the point.

  Dispatch’s counsel: “Kill the son of a bitch.”

  The pickup hadn’t moved.

  “I’m surprised he’s got the guts to be here,” Brick said. “I’m going to clean his clock.”

  Grouper ground the Chrysler to a halt about ten feet from Purdy’s truck. He was as expressionless as usual, but his movements were wooden. Blondie felt tense, too. He hoped Purdy wouldn’t show, that he’d gone off with one of his friends.

  No such luck. Purdy came strolling around the corner of the diner. Matching him step for step was Barnwell. Blondie sucked in his breath.

  “Buford’s with him,” Dispatch said to Brick.

  “I can see.”

  “What if he joins in?” Blondie asked.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Blondie had never seen Brick so pissed. He got out of the car.

  “Hey Purdy,” he yelled at him. “You fat fucking hillbilly jack off. Come over here.”