It's Up to Charlie Hardin

by Dean Ing

  The last day of school was a half-day, with time allotted for cleaning out lockers. Since they shared a home room and had adjoining lockers, Charlie glanced across during the hubbub of a dozen shouted conversations. He finished shoveling debris into his satchel while Aaron was still carefully loading his own. “I got four Bs,” he bragged, then noticed his pal’s expression. “Uh-oh. Don’t tell me,” he added, meaning tellmetellme.

  “Let’s talk at the pipe,” Aaron replied, stone-faced. Later, after very few words from Aaron as they trotted single-file down the creekside trail, they sat down beneath a familiar fig tree, a few yards from the storm drain. Charlie elevated his nose and inhaled strongly. “I smell coal oil,” he said.

  This comment was surpassed instantly by stunning news. “I’m getting a bike,” Aaron blurted.

  Charlie’s eyes grew round. Then he had second thoughts and frowned. “Because of bad grades?”

  “’Course not, you Nimrod. Because I made the honor roll,” said Aaron, as if admitting a felony. Understanding flooded Charlie as his pal explained and finished with, “And my dad already made me promise positively, absolutely no riding double.”

  Several times Charlie framed a reply, then left it unsaid. “When we go places I could run alongside,” he said finally.

  Aaron’s expression was pained. “Aw, guy, I’d purely hate that.”

  “Well then, I could pedal and you could run along . . .”

  But Aaron’s pain only increased. “I’d hate that a durn sight worse, Charlie,” he interrupted. “Where are your skates?”

  “Um, parts of ’em are under my bed, I think.”

  “That’s what I mean. If pieces of my bike wound up under your bed my dad would make me live in the basement.”

  “You guys don’t have a basement,” said Charlie.

  “He’d make me dig one,” Aaron rejoined. “Look, I’m sorry about this but it’s done, and we’ve gotta make the best of it. My folks expect me to use the bike to run errands and stuff and not lend it out or bust it, and I’ll go somewhere once or twice a month to make it look like I’m having fun with it. And come on, guy, wouldn’t you want me to enjoy it once in a while?”

  Since the blunt truth was unspeakable, Charlie shrugged. “Once a month, huh?”

  “Or twice. Times when we’re not doing stuff together. You wouldn’t even hardly notice, I bet. Hey, what do you care about those times?”

  Put like this, it was hard for Charlie to mount an attack against a two-wheeled rival he hadn’t known about an hour earlier. He sensed unseen trouble hiding in the crevices of his mind but it was plain to see that Aaron was as unhappy as Charlie himself. Charlie stood up with a sigh. In some states far away, boys sharing such a problem might have shared a handshake, or even a hug, to reduce it, but this was Texas. Charlie’s comradely punch to Aaron’s upper arm was so gentle, even Roy Kinney would have called it sissified.

  Aaron stood and returned the gesture. “It’ll be okay, Charlie. We’re still pals,” he said, then wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, somebody opened some coal oil somewhere,” he added. And for the moment, the bike was forgotten.

  Like all creatures, humans pay more attention to things they learn from their sharpest senses. The subtle movement of air currents told the boys only that kerosene, labeled “coal oil” in those days and used as everything from cleaning fluid to quack medicine by farm wives, was present nearby. It would have told Lint, whose sense of smell had a college degree, that the fluid had been thrown away as trash by a man so lazy he could not be bothered to bundle his junk. Pinero had neglected to tell his partner to take the trash where it would not advertise furtive operations in a vacant house. A kerosene-drenched towel went into the storm drain after Cade Bridger mopped up most of a quart of the fluid he spilled near the printing press.

  In a way, Pinero said, the spill was a good thing. One of the properties of kerosene is its ability to mask other odors. “Counterfeiting has its own set of stinks, amigo. Two kinds of alcohol, penetrating oil, several kinds of ink—sometimes mixed with the smells that casting metal and electric motors make, but not for this job. A cop walking past an open window could’ve spoiled everything for us. That cleaning fluid you spilled disguised it all.”

  “All that stuff gives me headaches, Pinero. I don’t even have a fan to blow fresh air through here.” Bridger had a lot of complaints arising from the basic fact that he began with no knowledge of printing and found himself working as Pinero’s janitor. By now, janitorial work was his principal duty, and made him more servant than partner.

  “Don’t need electricity for a letterpress powered by a treadle, and you can be glad I found this one. Foot power’s enough when you’re crankin’ out a brand new bill every couple of seconds. Click-clack, twenty bucks. Click-clack, twenty more, and four bits of each one to us.” While his rhythm imitated the muted mechanical clatter of the cast-iron press, his arm mocked the slow revolving of its flywheel. “Click-clack, stomp the treadle, click-clack, watch your fingers.” He winked. “When I get it adjusted, this ol’ antique will turn out stuff I could pass right here in town.”

  Pinero was stretching the truth here; the plates with reversed images that he had received from Mexico, originally manufactured in Germany, had made better copies when new. He knew better than to risk the entire enterprise by showing inferior funny money to an Austin storekeeper.

  Bridger had seen the press work, after a fashion. Standing almost as tall as a man, the old device had the iron tongue of its foot treadle sticking out at floor level, where the printer’s foot must pump it. A wooden feeding tray hung out at elbow height with its supply of very special paper. Every piece of that paper needed to be trimmed within a gnat’s eyelash of perfection, too. But the heart and soul of the press was only half-visible, a reversed image of a twenty-dollar bill held rigidly in place by a metal frame. With the press in operation, the reversed image would be kissed by a mechanically inked roller before transferring that inky kiss to the paper, where the image would no longer be reversed. Every time the paper got kissed, it printed one side of a fake twenty-dollar bill.

  Bridger knew the bill had to be printed on both sides. He knew that a tiny ink smear could ruin a bill at any point in the process. And he knew that Pinero intended to trade stacks of their false money to a man in El Paso for fifty real cents per fake bill. Beyond this, Cade Bridger knew so little about counterfeiting that his partner worried about his ignorance.

  “No, we won’t try it out in Austin,” Pinero had sighed while Bridger held up their first trial bill and shared his thoughts aloud. “For sure, not this sorry piece of goods.” The printer took the bill back from Bridger. “That’s just my first try; gotta make adjustments. Even if you passed it at the liquor store, the first time a bank clerk saw it he’d send it to the Department of Whatever.”

  “The which?”

  “I forget. Department of Justice, Treasury, State—federal cops of some kind. I can’t keep track of all the badges, there’s so many here in the States. And every one of ’em can put you behind bars in a gummint hoosegow for a long, long time. That’s why we’ll take four bits on the bill for what we do and let somebody else take the risk of passing the stuff in Mexico.”

  “We got Mex’cans here in town,” said Bridger, thinking about all that cheap tequila.

  “You’re not listening, Cade. In this country, the day after you passed it, that bill would be in the hands of federales, gummint cops. People with badges would be checking out who buys our kinds of ink, our special paper, everything we need. Let’s do this my way. In Mexico it takes longer for the cops to get moving.”

  “Then seems to me we could go across the border and pass a few pocketfuls our own self to the stupid greasers,” Bridger said with a snicker.

  Pinero stiffened, then made himself relax. “I’m of Spanish extraction myself, compadre, in case you forgot. Try not to think ‘stupid,’ and think ‘not so familiar with American money.’ But if you got caught passing it south of
the border to some poor Mexican, you’d never see an American jail. Or a cop. Or another sunrise. In a country where you can’t trust your cops, the cemetery fills faster than the jail.”

  Bridger digested this news in silence, and set aside his plans to embezzle a few bills for himself. Understanding a tiny fragment of the international counterfeiting business, he imagined that he understood it all. Pinero had told him nothing about where those plates had come from, or that Nazi Germany had created and released many of them hoping to flood America with enough fake money to start a financial panic. Pinero knew a larger fragment of this plot; knew, and did not care.

  Within a few days Charlie found the flaw in his pal’s promise that the bike would not bring important changes. The flaw was this: instead of Aaron being out of touch once in a while, that “once” became most times in every while. If Charlie sought a playmate, Aaron might be off with his bike on a shopping errand for his mother. When Aaron wanted to see the Austin High Maroons play a baseball game, he could pedal a mile to the ballpark while Charlie had to walk—both ways. And the time Aaron went to Austin’s sprawling Barton Springs resort to see a swimming competition, he rode there with another bike-owning boy. Charlie could not have walked several miles to the resort and, in any case, he was forbidden to cross the river.

  Willa Hardin could not miss the signs of her son’s misery because he made them clear. Charlie told his mom that a boy who had graduated to the sixth grade should not be punished by remaining bikeless when “all the other guys” were wheeled.

  “I hadn’t noticed, Charlie,” she said. “Does Roy have one?”

  “He’s just a kid,” Charlie said.

  “That Rhett boy; does he have one?”

  “I dunno,” Charlie said, willing to stretch a fact because Jackie might have stolen one, or a dozen of them, during the past week.

  “And Aaron Fischer?”

  Charlie’s anguish in his “He’s got a new one” was almost a cry for help, and told his mother all she needed to know. She hugged him and skooshed up his hair as in earlier times, and kissed the top of his head and told him she would talk to his dad.

  And she must have said something in Charlie’s behalf because that very night, after Charlie and his dad had laughed at the Fibber McGee radio program for its full half-hour, Coleman Hardin patted his own thigh and invited Charlie to take a seat there. It surprised him to note that Charlie would soon be too big to be sitting on his father’s knee. “I get the idea you miss your buddies this summer,” Hardin said. “Want to tell me about it?”

  Charlie nodded, adopting his most serious mood. Having stored up such a pile of complaints, he needed a while to explain them all.

  “Your mother and I can’t afford a Schwinn right now,” was his dad’s first wall of defense.

  Charlie hurdled it with ease. “Western Auto has bikes for fourteen ninety-five.”

  “That’s still a lot, son.”

  Charlie took his time now, pursing his lips as if thinking about some brand-new, very large idea. Then: “What if I earned the money myself?”

  Hardin had no idea just how fast his son could have laid his hands on fifteen dollars, but he could feel Charlie vibrating as if waiting for the nibble that would catch the biggest catfish in Texas. “You’re still too young, son. Even if your Grandmom Hardin gave you one I couldn’t let you ride it yet.”

  “Sure you could,” Charlie said with some heat. “You just won’t.”

  Hardin sensed that this was no longer the Charlie who, a year before, would have wheedled and whined. But this was still the one who had reduced brand-new roller skates to an assortment of twisted pieces while testing the theory that he couldn’t break his neck. “All right then, son, I won’t. We love you too much to help you find new ways to hurt yourself. Maybe in a year, you’ll settle down like—like other boys.”

  “Like Aaron,” said Charlie, who almost hated his pal at that moment.

  “Fischer’s boy is quiet and thoughtful. He looks before he leaps. You don’t look even after you leap, and you leap like a grasshopper. I don’t know what we’ll do with you, but I know every time the phone rings, your mother wonders if it’s the hospital calling about you.”

  This was an angle Charlie had never considered. “Aww, Mom,” he said softly, as if she could hear him.

  Coleman Hardin saw that he had touched a soft spot. “So you think about that next year, when you go to a different school on a bike we’ll probably get you. But meanwhile, do you remember the Carpenters? Jim and Amy Carpenter, at church?”

  Bewildered by this sudden change of subject, Charlie blinked and then got it. “Gene Carpenter’s folks? Yessir. They have bicycles or something?”

  “It’s their boy Eugene I was thinking about. He’s about your age, maybe a year older. You used to like him, didn’t you?”

  Charlie looked before he leaped, this time, rather than commit himself. “Wellll, kinda. He’s in junior high. I guess he’s okay.” With no other connection, Charlie wondered if his dad was about to say that Gene Carpenter’s mom had gotten a phone call from the hospital. That would not have surprised Charlie because, sensing a kindred spirit, Eugene Carpenter had whispered a few of his experiences now and then to Charlie to enliven Sunday school lectures. To the best of Charlie’s understanding, the only reason his father hadn’t met Gene Carpenter in handcuffs was that Gene seldom chose companions to share his adventures.

  But Charlie’s dad was aiming in another direction today. “Eugene seems like a smart, friendly boy, and last month Jim was saying they don’t know many boys his age out near the golf course where they live. I think he was hinting to see if we’d like to get you and Eugene together overnight. Your mother and I could make it happen.”

  Charlie did not need to mull this over for long. If Aaron could pal around with another bike owner, maybe Charlie could have another pal too. Gene was in fact several good things: smart, polite, and friendly as a playful pup. Young Carpenter also had the kind of curiosity that made him unforgettable to the few who knew his secret nature.

  What might happen if a boy, adopting the voice of a young woman, called in a false fire alarm? Gene had the details. How loud was the church bell, assuming a boy could reach the bell rope undetected? Gene knew. How far could a stolen golf ball travel across a wealthy neighborhood when walloped as hard as possible by a boy with a baseball bat? Gene could have answered. And yet his parents knew nothing of these adventures. If they suspected anything, they chose to deny those suspicions. Perhaps they imagined that matching their crafty Eugene with the son of a juvenile officer might infect their own boy with civic virtue. In any case, Jim Carpenter made his friendly overture and waited for Hardin to reply.

  Coleman Hardin could not have made a more dangerous decision if he had locked his son in a fireworks shed with a lit blowtorch, but he was not acquainted with what Charlie knew of Gene’s unique views on innocent pastimes.

  That is how it happened that Willa Hardin drove Charlie to the Carpenters’ fine home one Friday afternoon, and it’s why Charlie wasn’t surprised when he learned that Gene had some uncommon fun in mind.

  CHAPTER 12:

  THE FUN OF IT

  “Eugene! You remember Charles,” Mrs. Carpenter called from her sweeping driveway as Charlie and his mother exited the Hardin Plymouth. Both mothers shed fond gazes on their sons. “Willa, come in for coffee, won’t you?”

  The introduction was totally unnecessary for the boys. Gene had already tossed a tennis ball across the manicured lawn in Charlie’s direction, and followed this by making a comical, ferocious face. Within seconds a game of tennis-ball tag exploded toward all corners of the Carpenters’ half-acre, an expanse that advertised family wealth as clearly as if they had installed man-sized dollar signs on the lawn.

  Mothers seemed not to notice how many ways a game like tennis-ball tag helped boys to size each other up. Gene had been politely familiar with Charlie for years, but as a suitable companion beyond the strict limits of
Sunday-school society, Charlie was still untested. In a game like this, speed, accuracy, and strength counted on the throw; deception and courage were important for the thrown-at. New tennis balls had rubber’s flexibility and would sting only a little. Gene Carpenter preferred last year’s balls, which might as well have been flint, because he placed high value on courage and had a comic book hero’s contempt for pain. Though Gene was a year older and three inches taller than Charlie, they finally negotiated a King’s X on even terms. “Boy, you’re tricky,” the older boy panted with honest admiration, as he sprawled on the back lawn.

  “You too,” Charlie replied, and sat down. “Sorry about your cheek.” Though he rubbed an abrasion on his upper arm, Charlie was content. He had seen his best throw catch Gene above the jaw hard enough to snap his head sideways.

  “Aaah,” said Gene, dismissing the wound with a grin. He spat on his fingers and rubbed a tiny blood spot from his face. Wink. “I’ll tell Mother I fell in the Algerita.”

  If Charlie had wondered how well Gene absorbed punishment, he wondered no longer because he knew the scratches on that cheek must sting like the very dickens. It might be interesting, he thought, to watch Gene Carpenter compete against Jackie Rhett for about ten minutes.

  Studying the line of shrubs behind the Carpenter home Charlie said, “They planted Algeritas like those outside the walls of my school. Almost as bad as rosebushes.” In his experience with roses Charlie was an expert by now. The Algerita shrub’s vice was also its main virtue: self-protection. Well known in the region, Algerita was a year-round evergreen, its leaflets stiff as metal and more spiky than holly. In spring it decorated itself with small bright yellow blossoms. Now in early summer the blossoms had become tart pink berries that were popular with songbirds.