THREE
After calming down and wiping what Jason thought were tears but what I told him was sweat on my soggy shirt, we crossed over Fullerton and took a ten minute break. Sitting on a low, unfinished wall with rebar sticking out of the top of it, we split the orange that I had picked. Jason peeled it and handed me half and I sank my teeth in, enjoying the sweetness of the white-orange meat and the juice as it overflowed my mouth and ran down my chin.
To our right stood a three-foot sign on six foot-tall four-by-fours. It read:
MAGNOLIA GLEN
TOWNHOMES
COMING SOON
“Your birthday’s coming up soon, isn’t it?” I asked Jason-to make conversation more than anything-as if he didn’t know when his own birthday was. He separated a section of fruit and popped it in his mouth and nodded his head.
“Yeah, not until September,” he told me and spat a seed in the dirt at his feet.
“You’re going to be ten, right?” I asked, spitting out a seed of my own.
“Eleven,” he said, insulted and got to his feet, throwing what remained of his orange on the ground. “Come on; let’s do what we came to do.”
I stood and followed his lead and we headed into the first unfinished house in the new community of town homes, leaving my wagon by the wall.
We had come up to the construction site in the hopes of finding recyclable bottles that the workers would leave behind. After finding enough we’d take them down to the 7-Eleven on the corner of Fullerton and Grand and get ten cents a piece for them. Then we’d turn around and buy as many baseball cards as possible, which ran twenty-five cents a pack.
“What do you think mom and dad will get you for your birthday?” I asked him, picking up a Coke bottle and the conversation again.
“Well,” he said, stepping around a stack of pallets and inspecting a box of nails, “I think I’ll ask them for a radio with a tape player. If they can’t get that, maybe the new Van Halen album.”
After finding more bottles here and there and loading up our arms, we went back to the wagon to drop them off. Then we headed for the second house up to recover more booty.
In that house we found a total of seven bottles. One 7-Up, two Coke, and four Budweiser. But something else caught my attention in that house. Something that was sitting on a stack of drywall. It was a plastic package with a cardboard back containing one shoelace with Sesame Street characters on it. The package had been opened and one of the laces removed. The plastic looked as though it had been chewed on or crushed underfoot.
“Hey, Jay, look at this.”
He stopped messing with a bundle of electrical wire and strode over to me. “Oh, cool. Shoelaces,” he said sarcastically. “Throw it away.”
“No way. I’m keeping it, even though there’s only one.”
“What are you going to do with one shoelace?” He asked. “Blindfold a Chinese man?”
“I don’t know,” I said, but then had an idea. “I could make a necklace out of it, maybe.”
“Whatever,” he said with that same undertone in his voice. “Stick it in your pocket and help me find more bottles.”
I shoved my find into the left pocket of my red corduroy shorts and did as my brother told me. We ended up finding twenty more bottles in the next four houses, taking armfuls back to the wagon after each search. Jason was just picking up his first bottle in the fifth house when we heard a booming voice from behind us.
“Hey. What are you kids doing in here?”
We both jumped at the sound and slowly turned to face the person who had yelled at us and found an enormous man of about six and a half feet standing in the shadowy entrance of the unfinished garage we were in. He had a puffy, red beard, a tank top, and a hard hat on. By the sunburn he wore, like an angry red wet suit, we could tell he spent a lot of his time outdoors. And he didn’t look at all pleased that we were there.
“We’re just collecting bottles,” Jason said as I stepped behind him for cover.
The bearded man gave us a long and meaningful stare as if maybe Jason weren’t telling the whole truth. “Well, you kids need to leave. We’re about to start work for the day,” he said in a throaty growl. “And don’t step foot in these houses again until they’re finished. Understand?” He pointed a finger at us, his eyes wide.
My brother nodded vigorously as I cowered in fear. “Okay. We’re sorry. Come on Ricky.”
But as we turned to leave and were nearly out of what would soon be the slider door to the unfinished town home, the man called after us.
“Hey!”
We both stopped dead in our tracks at that powerful voice. It would have been easy to have just started running back for the wagon and then on home, but something about him intrigued us a bit I think, although we couldn’t say exactly what it was then. So not knowing why, or what to expect, we turned back to hear what he had to say.
He looked different now, not mean or angry, but almost sincere. A transformation had taken place while our backs where turned and it eased our fears of him some.
“Sorry if I scared you,” he told us with a wry smile that showed about six empty sockets were teeth should have been.
My brother smiled back and with a half wave he said, “That’s okay. Sorry if we got in your way.”
“No harm done, boys,” the man boomed.
We turned and started off when once again he called after us. “Hey, wait. Come here son,” he said and pointed to me.
I stood my ground behind my brother, unsure of what I should do. Mom-like every other responsible mother in the world-had told me never to talk to strangers. But I-just like every other kid in the world-rarely did what I was told to by my parents.
“It’s okay, son, I won’t hurt you. I promise. I just want to see something.”
I looked at my brother for help. He nodded and trusting him I did as the strange red giant told me.
I walked slowly toward the man and stopped five feet in front of him. He bent into a crouch and winced as his knees popped like cap guns. He pointed at my shirtsleeve and asked, “What happened here?” His voice was now that of a kind old man although he looked no more than forty. “Did you hurt yourself in one of these houses? Did you fall or something?”
I shook my head from side to side, silent.
“Don’t talk much?” he asked and grinned.
I shrugged.
The man looked at my brother and raised his eyebrows.
“He caught it on a fence earlier,” Jason explained.
“Oh, I see. That’s good,” he said and then checked himself. “I don’t mean that it’s good that you ripped your shirt, your ma’ will probably skin you. What I mean is… well, we just don’t need any lawsuits around here. It’s dangerous for kids to be in here. That’s why I sort of got on you guys a minute ago and I apologize again.”
He patted my shoulder and stood back up. I returned to my spot next to my brother keeping an eye on the man at all times.
“What are your names boys? Mine’s Rod.”
My brother looked at me and then back at the red bearded man. “My name’s Jason. This is my brother Ricky,” he said and cocked a thumb in my direction.
“Well okay then, Jason and Ricky, I’ll tell you what. If you guys promise to not come back through these houses, I’ll go around at the end of the day and pick up as many bottles for you as I can. I’ll even leave ‘em in a box by the sign at the entrance. How does that sound?”
It sounded pretty damn cool to us. Free bottles and no work? Not too many adults would do that kind of thing for kids.
“That would be great,” Jason told him, grinning. “But you don’t have to. I’m sure you’re probably tired at the end of your work day and just want to get home.”
“Not me.” Rod said. “See, I live here.” My brother and I exchanged glances, not quite understanding how this man lived in one of these unfinished houses and we gave him a puzzled look as he began to explain. “I’m foreman for the company that plans out how to buil
d these houses; Berner Construction. They provide me with a trailer to live in at every job site we go to so I can oversee everything that’s going on in every stage of building. The trailer’s down at the west end of the lot. So, you see, it’s not a problem at all for me to get the bottles for you.”
“Cool,” Jason said. “We promise never to come through here while you’re working again. Don’t we Ricky?” I stood there looking at the tall man, nodding my head.
“How much do you boys get for those bottles anyway?” Rod inquired.
“A dime a piece,” Jason told him.
The man whistled as if this were a fortune, which, in turn, made us laugh.
“Must be saving up for something pretty important, huh.”
“Baseball cards,” Jason told him proudly.
“Well, listen,” Rod said, reaching into his pocket. “Here’s fifty cents. A quarter for each of you.” He plopped a coin in each of our hands. “Hope that helps some.”
We accepted the coins with a thanks and a smile.
“Now you boys get going. We’ve got work to do. Those bottles will be out by the sign at the end of each day. You can pick them up then,” he said and turned and headed out of the garage.
Jason and I went on back toward the wagon at the entrance to Magnolia Glen. We had ended up with twenty-one bottles all together. After we took them down to cash them in we’d get two dollars and ten cents and with the money Rod had given us, it would make it two-sixty. Not bad for about a half hours worth of work. The next thing to do would be to head to 7-Eleven.
“Let’s go back and see if Cory’s awake yet. Maybe he’ll want to go to the store with us,” Jason said to me.
We headed on back to Cottonwood, crossing back over Fullerton and took the dirt path until it met Mr. Gagner’s front drive. We ran the length of the wall, wagon in tow, bottles clinking, hoping Ben wasn’t around. He wasn’t.
Cory Dayborne, my brother’s best friend, lived across the street form us and we headed to his house to see if he was up and going yet.
Frisbee Page 5