Jack Adrift

by Jack Gantos

  He rubbed it. “Come on, Buddha,” he sang. “Bring lady luck home to Papa!”

  “Bet big,” I advised him. “You can’t lose.”

  “Sure,” he said. “I’ll put it all on the line.”

  Mom gave me a scolding look. I knew she feared that by tomorrow night we’d all be sleeping under the stars with just the clothes on our backs. He’d lost all his money before and she was worried he could do it again. Betsy stared at me like Medusa trying to turn me into stone. “Don’t encourage him,” she growled.

  “What?” I said innocently, facing them. “What? You just wait. The Buddha will bring us luck. You’ll see.”

  “Right,” said Betsy. “And while you’re at it why don’t you go cut off the foot of a rabbit, catch a leprechaun, and sell your soul to the devil.”

  A couple of hours later Dad came home and emptied his pockets on the coffee table. There was more than a hundred dollars. “I couldn’t lose,” he said. “They ran out of money and we had to quit. Where’s my new Buddha buddy?”

  I had picked a spot of honor for the statue on top of the refrigerator where we could always use some luck. The way we kids were growing, there was a lot of competition for the food. Dad stood up and rubbed the Buddha’s belly.

  “Keep rubbing,” I encouraged. “Maybe you’ll get a promotion.”

  Dad smiled. “Yeah,” he said. “It would be great to give orders instead of taking them.”

  I knew exactly how he felt.

  The next day Dad roared up to the house. He jumped out of the car. “Jack!” he hollered. “Hey, Jack!”

  From my room I heard him running. I dropped a tadpole back in its jar and ran toward him. We embraced like children who had been separated at birth.

  “That Buddha is remarkable!” he shouted directly into my face while clutching me by the shoulders. “Look at this.” He pulled something that looked like a silver dollar out of his pocket. “You know what this is?”

  I didn’t.

  “A piece of eight. Pirate money. Part of Blackbeard’s treasure. I found it while cleaning a drainage ditch under the commander’s house. It’s real treasure.”

  “Wow,” I said. “Can I hold it?”

  He flipped it into the air. “Heads you win, tails you win,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. With the Buddha on our side, we can’t lose.”

  He headed for the refrigerator. He popped open a beer before I could stop him. The spray hit him full force in the face.

  “Should’ve rubbed Buddha’s belly first,” I said.

  The next day he received a letter with a check in it from the guy who had stiffed him. “Unbelievable,” Dad said as he flopped back onto the couch. “Betty!” he hollered. “Come in here and see this. You won’t believe your eyes.”

  When Mom read who the check was from, she spun her head around and looked at me. “Where’s that Buddha?” she asked.

  “He’s safe and sound,” I said.

  Even Betsy was impressed. “Well, let’s not wear him out on little stuff. Let’s save the luck for something big.”

  “Like a new bike,” Pete pitched in.

  “A real house,” Mom said.

  “Military academy,” Betsy said, smiling at me.

  “Hold your horses,” Dad cautioned. “Let’s just take it easy. Jack got me the Buddha for fishing, and it’s time to give him a deep-sea workout.”

  “What will fish ever get us?” Betsy cried out.

  “A happy dad and food on the table,” he said. “Nothing wrong with that.”

  “That’s right,” Mom agreed. She curled her arm around Dad’s waist. “You just save your luck for the ocean,” she said sweetly. “Maybe you’ll pull in a mermaid.”

  Dad smiled at the thought. “You’d look good with a fish tail,” he said, and gave her a peck on the cheek.

  I just loved it when they kissed. It cheered me up. It was better than luck. It was better than money. When they were happy it made us all happy, and nothing was better than knowing we belonged together.

  The next day after work Dad no longer had to look out the door and watch other people fish. “Jack,” he said,”get my fishing gear and the Buddha and let’s go across the street for a while.”

  “Aye-aye, sir,” I said, and scrambled to get everything he needed.

  “Pete,” Dad said gravely as he removed a beer from the refrigerator, “you didn’t shake this up, did you?”

  “I keep telling you,” Pete cried out. “I don’t shake the beer.”

  Dad held the beer can out the kitchen window, took the opener, and popped the top. The suds shot clean into the middle of the swamp. He whistled. “That would have blown my head off,” he said. He grabbed an extra one and I followed him outside. He shouldered his rod and reel and I carried the Buddha and tackle box.

  When we reached the beach he was eager to get going. Mom had given us only an hour before dinner.

  Dad fastened a silver spoon with triple hooks on to the line, then swung back into position with the pole almost parallel to the sand. “Casting out!” he hollered.

  “Stop!” I shouted. “Don’t forget to rub the Buddha!” I ran toward him with the Buddha held out in front of me like a cross held before a vampire.

  But Dad was already in full swing. The hook caught the Buddha under his chin and in an instant launched him out to sea like a stone from a Roman catapult.

  “What the heck was that?” Dad shouted.

  “Reel him back,” I pleaded, jumping up and down. “Reel him in. That was the Buddha!”

  Dad was like Popeye after he ate his spinach. He put everything he had into spinning the reel’s handle round and round, but it didn’t matter. In a minute the silver spoon with the triple hook danced cleanly through the surf and dragged across the sand. I stared at it, horrified, like people in a movie who open their wall safe only to find it empty of all their gold and diamonds. For an instant Dad’s expression was the same as mine.

  Then he put his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s not your fault.”

  “But you said the Buddha gave you luck.”

  “I only half-believed it,” he said. “The other half of me knew I was just on a lucky roll. It happens.”

  “How can you be sure?” I asked.

  “People wiser than the Buddha know you make your own luck,” he said. “If you keep your head down and work hard, luck comes your way sooner or later.”

  We fished for a while longer. Dad caught a flounder. When he reeled it in I picked it up and worked the hook out of its mouth while it looked up at me with its two odd eyes on one side of its face.

  “See,” Dad said, “that’s a lucky fish. It lay on its side so long its eye drifted around to the other side of his head.”

  “Dad,” I said, “that probably took a hundred million years to evolve.”

  “Patience,” Dad advised. “No patience, no luck.”

  He was losing me again. Nobody lived to be a hundred million years old.

  In the morning I went over to the beach. I walked up and down the shoreline searching for the Buddha as desperately as if I had been washed up on a desert island and I was searching for signs of life. I did find all kinds of cool things—blue sea glass, hollowed-out crabs, an unbroken sand dollar, a size-seven swim fin, and a three-foot-long reef shark. I assumed it was dead, but when I reached down to lift its snout so I could examine its rows of teeth, it still had one bite left. It was just my luck that it got me. Or maybe it was just my luck that I got only seventeen stitches. It wasn’t bad. And on the way back home from the Navy clinic Dad put his arm around me and said, “You know, if we hadn’t lost our lucky Buddha this never would have happened.”

  It was nice of him to say that.

  Romance Novels

  Being Miss Noelle’s friend was good for a while, but it was not as satisfying as having a crush on her. As a friend, I could imagine being her equal, as if we were just teaching buddies who shared common interests like windsurfing, or scub
a diving through old pirate wrecks. As a friend, I could be her play pal and pitch in to help her do chores in half the time so we could dash out to a wild beach party. We could talk on the phone as phone friends and make silly comments about everyone but ourselves. This was fun to think about, but being in love, having a crush, an infatuation, was much more fun to wallow in. I spent hours sitting quietly in class while in my imagination I was holding her hand as I drove my customized dune buggy through the surf toward a setting sun. I dreamed of exchanging gifts each year on the anniversary of the first day we saw each other—I’d give her a pair of lovebirds in a golden cage in the shape of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, and she would give me a miniature portrait of herself painted inside the illuminated dial of a diver’s watch.

  I would look up into her eyes and boldly say, “I love you now, and forever.”

  She would stare down into my eyes and say, “I love you more.”

  “No,” I would reply, and kiss the top of her extended hand. “I love you more.”

  “Impossible,” she would whisper, swooning slightly. “I’m crazy about you.”

  I was back to wishing I were something I was not. I just couldn’t help myself, and this kind of mindless fantasy conversation occupied my brain for most of the day. Still, a small part of me kept whispering in my ear, “Get a grip on yourself! You are in fourth grade. Grow up! Be a man!” Even though I knew my fantasy life was a complete waste of time, it was too blissful to resist.

  As I sat in class I had to keep an eye on myself so she wouldn’t catch me staring vacantly at her with honey-glazed eyes. Instead, I was sneaky. I dreamed my hazy love dreams while pretending to be interested in what she was saying. I tried to sit up straight at my desk and look as solid as a fifth president on Mount Rushmore. Had she ever given us a pop quiz, I wouldn’t even have known what subject to fear. Half the time I didn’t even realize I was in school, I was so wrapped up in the fantasy of her accepting my marriage proposal, which was simultaneously broadcast over the school intercom.

  One afternoon while I stared out at her as if looking into the eyes of a hypnotist, I suddenly realized she had been standing in front of the entire class with her hands on her hips and a look on her face that meant she was cooking up something extra special for us to do. There were eighteen of us and slowly, one by one, boys and girls, we looked up from our work, or daydreaming, and realized she had a powerful thought she needed to share. So we waited. And waited. And waited, until the suspense was killing us. Our faces stretched toward her like flowers reaching for the sun. There was so much torque in the anticipation that it was nearly impossible to sit still in our chairs and we nearly popped out of them like old seat springs busting loose.

  Finally, she raised her left pointer finger in the air and spoke with precise enunciation. “The great thinkers of the world have always claimed it is better to know one thing really well than to know a little about a lot of things,” she declared. “Do you know what I mean?”

  I raised my hand and started talking at the same time. “My mom always says it is better to buy one good thing than a lot of cheap junk.”

  “My point exactly!” she said. “A lot of junk is still junk. And a lot of bits and pieces of knowledge just makes you scatterbrained. So, I’ve come up with an assignment that you can really sink your teeth into—something you can thoroughly immerse yourself in. I want each of you to go home tonight and check your bookshelves or go to the library or a bookstore and think about what your favorite book is, then bring it in. But choose carefully, because what we are going to do is copy it word for word into our journals. This way, from writing it down it will be as if you created it—each word—each sentence—each thought—the style of the writing—the voice—the range—the punctuation—you will understand everything about how it was written. And in the end, your favorite book will be etched into your brain forever and you will know it so well you will be able to recite it by heart to your children and grandchildren.”

  I don’t know what the other kids thought, but I imagined she looked down at us like Cleopatra ordering her loyal scribes to copy books onto papyrus for all of mankind. She was incredible.

  “Then, once we have all finished our books, we will dress up as the main characters and parade through the school, leading all the other kids into the auditorium for a Reading Roundup. Then each of you will corral a group of students and recite a passage, and in doing so you will become the living, breathing book.”

  That part sounded a little scary because I wasn’t good at memorizing anything word for word. I knew kids who could recite Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address by heart, or Longfellow’s Hiawatha. I was much better at just making something up than remembering what someone else had made up. My mind was always wandering just a little too much. But because Miss Noelle said it was a good project, I believed her and would try my best. Perhaps, I thought, I could just try to remember some funny poems from a joke book. I had memorized one already: Billy built a guillotine, Tried it on his sister Jean, Said mother when she brought the mop, These messy games have got to stop.

  At the end of the day I wanted to go to the school library and check out a great book, but I couldn’t. A few weeks before, I had left Charlotte’s Web on a table in the cafeteria and it had disappeared. I figured someone would turn it in, but they hadn’t. I thought of asking Mrs. Nivlash to make an announcement over the intercom, but I didn’t want anyone to know I had been reading a book that Miss Noelle might think was below my reading level. Even though I loved Fern and Wilbur and Charlotte and her babies, I guessed I had outgrown the book. After all, now that I was becoming a man I needed more challenging reading, something more manly and romantic.

  Since I hadn’t saved up enough allowance to pay for Charlotte’s Web, I had lost my library privilege. And at home I didn’t have a shelf full of favorite books. We didn’t even have bookshelves. But down the road we had a volunteer lending library. It was in a little pink beach shack between Midgett’s grocery store and the mini—post office. The library wasn’t staffed and was based on the honor system, which meant that if you took a book, you had to leave a book. I needed a book to donate, so I began to look around the house for one that nobody would miss. In our living room I spotted a rain-swollen copy of Kon-Tiki tilted up against the side of the window frame. Dad said it was about a boat that might disappear under the waves. I thought I’d help it disappear a little sooner.

  I walked down to the lending library. A big sign on the door bluntly read: THERE IS NOTHING WORSE THAN A THIEF. It made me nervous because I had stolen things before, things I needed, like my sister’s pen, or one of Pete’s shoelaces, or the book I had in my hand. I opened the door and stepped inside. It smelled like seaweed. I waved my arm in front of my face to wipe away a spider’s web, then squatted down to look over the selection. There were mysteries, histories, war sagas, self-help books, and romances. There were no children’s books. But that didn’t matter, because once I saw the romances I knew I had hit pay dirt. I grabbed one and read a few flowery sentences.

  Her loveliness was infectious, for when she entered the ballroom the music stopped as if the conductor’s hand were paralyzed, and heads spun in awe as quivering jaws dropped and knees bent. She was a vision of beauty, a vision as powerful as any seen by the ancients on the Acropolis or at Thebes or Troy. She was a gossamer goddess. An Athena, a Cleopatra, a Helen rolled into one. Grown men froze at the sight of her and women of typical beauty either fled the room or remained to serve her. And yet, she did not wish for obedience, but for equality, justice, and faith, and she was searching for a soul mate—a man of true compassion—a man of hope in a hopeless world.

  It was the best writing I had ever read. I was sure of it. With each word I imagined Miss Noelle as the great beauty ruling the world with unwavering wisdom and grace. And I could be the compassionate soul mate, the man of hope she was searching for in a hopeless world to share her noble life of truth and justice. I squeezed the swollen Kon-Tiki into the em
pty slot on the shelf. I went straight home and began to copy the romance novel into my notebook. I figured if I got a head start on the copying, Miss Noelle would read mine first and live and breathe the book that defined me.

  The next day we turned in our book choices. Miss Noelle stacked them on her desk and began to sort through the titles while we did some math problems. Every other moment I glanced up at her desk, because I had also turned in my journal and I wanted to catch her eye the moment she read the passage I had copied, which was the moment the great beauty met her great soul mate.

  Finally she did look up at me. Her brow was furrowed. “Jack,” she said, and I could tell by the way she paused she was carefully choosing her words,”may I speak with you?”

  My heart beat wildly. I stood and walked to her desk with stiff dignity as if I were being called to receive the Pulitzer prize for my work on the subject of hope.

  “Do you realize,” she asked, “that you have to dress up as the main character in your book for the Reading Roundup?”

  “Yes,” I said, imagining myself more or less as a dashing prince.

  “Then you must understand that the main character in the book is a woman and you would have to wear an eighteenth-century ball gown with beeswax makeup and jewelry.”

  I snapped out of it. “Oh no,” I said, and suddenly had a vision of myself dressed up like Cinderella at the ball. The vision was all wrong.

  “You might rethink this book choice,” she said gently. “In fact, you might think about choosing a more traditional children’s book. Something like My Name Is Aram, or johnny Tremain. You know,” she said, “a young man’s book, like Onion John.”

  “I-I didn’t think I’d have to dress like a girl,” I stammered, blushing wildly. My face felt like a sputtering neon sign. “I was confused over the assignment,” I said, trying to recover. “I’ll get another book. A better book.”