by Jim Kokoris
“Okay, everyone, one shot each,” he said, dropping the ball on the ground.
For the next few minutes, everyone on our team scored a goal. Bob Poliski, who walked with a permanent limp, scored three times, pumping his fist hard in the air the last time to the cheers of the team. At first, Mr. Peterson was patient and tried to show me the proper way to play goalie.
“Try and get in front of the ball. Put your body in front of it,” he said. He got down into a crouch near the ground and stretched his arms wide. “Didn’t you ever play this in gym class?”
“No,” I answered truthfully. Mr. Helpner, our gym teacher at St. Pius, was seventy-two and concentrated most of his efforts in class to perfecting the jumping jack, an exercise with which he was obsessed. Usually during gym class, I just sat on the ground and watched Mr. Helpner clap his hands and say, “That’s the way, kiddies, jumping jacks!” There was always talk of Mr. Helpner’s retiring, but he never did. Every fall, he returned to St. Pius, eager and ready to do jumping jacks.
After Bob Poliski scored his last goal, Mr. Peterson abandoned any pretense of coaching me. Instead, he let everyone score goals at will, watching me in a detached, clinical manner that made me feel like a laboratory rat. After twenty minutes, he blew his whistle, ending practice. Walking off the field, I passed right by Benjamin, who looked past me.
“Well, that was interesting,” Maurice said as we walked home. It was getting dark and a trail of headlights passed us as we stood at a corner waiting to cross. Maurice held Tommy by the hand. Twice Tommy had tried to run onto the soccer field and join the practice and Maurice had had to hold him back. Tommy had asked to come along to practice, and my father, after quickly conferring with Maurice, had agreed.
“Did you enjoy it?” Maurice asked me, watching the moving headlights flow by. “Playing soccer?”
“No,” I said, though I didn’t feel as bad as I might have. Despite my humiliation, I had a general sense of relief that it was over and that Benjamin hadn’t made an attempt on my nose.
“Well, maybe tomorrow, you, me, and Tommy can practice a little. I could use the exercise.”
I didn’t say anything. I was getting tired of everyone wanting me to play soccer.
“Yeah, let’s play soccer,” Tommy said and kicked his leg up in the air.
“Did you like practicing when you played football?” I asked Maurice. “For the Bears?”
“Did I enjoy practice?” Maurice repeated slowly. He was thinking. “To be truthful, no, I guess I didn’t. I enjoyed the idea that I was improving, but I didn’t actually enjoy practicing. It was the same thing all the time—I guess it was boring.” Then he said. “But it had a purpose. An important purpose.”
We crossed the street and walked a block without talking. My question seemed to bother Maurice.
“Practice made me a better player,” he said. “I’m sure of that now. So it was necessary.”
“Did you get nervous when you played football?”
“Only before and during every game. I still get nervous watching football. It’s a violent game.”
“Why did you play it then?” I asked.
“Because,” he said, “I used to be a violent man.”
When we turned down our block, we passed Sylvanius sitting on Mrs. Rhodebush’s front porch again, drinking a glass of wine. He stood up and gave us a deeper bow than usual as we walked by and called out, “Hail the conquering heroes.” When he tried to sit back down, he almost lost his balance and fell over. Mrs. Rhodebush wasn’t looking at Sylvanius though. She just stared at Maurice through her sunglasses, which she was wearing even though it was now almost completely dark.
When I got in the house, Aunt Bess told me that Charlie’s mother had called and said that he couldn’t come over to play Mr. Verb that day. He was being punished for something.
“What did he do wrong?” I asked.
“I didn’t ask,” Aunt Bess said. “Everyone has problems.”
I went down to the basement to e-mail Charlie but was disappointed to find Uncle Frank sitting at the desk, working on the computer. I had never seen him on the computer before. When I tried to see what he was doing, he purposely blocked my view with his body.
“Sorry, Teddy, but I need to do some work for awhile,” he said. “Why don’t you go watch TV?”
“I can’t,” I said. My father never allowed Tommy or me to watch TV during the school week except on special occasions.
Uncle Frank stared at me and shook his head, concerned. “That’s right,” he said. “I forgot. That’s unbelievable. Well,” he said, “I’ll be awhile.”
“What are you working on?” I asked. Uncle Frank had a serious but satisfied look on his face and I could tell that he wanted me to ask him that question. “Are you working on your TV show?”
“Oh, no, no. This is something else,” he said with a slight smile. “It’s a novel.”
“A book?”
He shrugged. “Novel, book. No biggie. Just a little something.”
“Is it about a vampire?”
Uncle Frank laughed a little and thoughtfully arched one of his eyebrows. “No, no, no. Nothing like that.” He pointed his chin at me and smiled. “Let’s just say that it’s a departure for F. Aris Pappas.”
“Who?”
“Me,” he said. “That’s going to be my pen name. Aris is my middle name. I don’t use it enough.”
“Is it about microbes?” Uncle Frank was obsessed with germs, scrubbing his hands and face with special soap five or six times a day.
“No. It’s something different,” he said. “Something, well, something important. It’s going to make people think.”
“What are they going to think about?”
He nodded his head and looked deeply into my eyes. “About the human condition, Teddy,” he said. “The goddamn human condition.”
I nodded my head, disappointed. I was hoping for a book on vampires, apostles of the devil, or virulent strains of civilization-threatening disease. His book sounded as interesting as the Civil War.
“What’s the human condition?” I asked. I didn’t say goddamn.
Uncle Frank sighed, his knowledge a burden. “Well, how can I put this. It’s, well, the things that make us human. Love, lust, hate, pain. Mostly though, it’s about the things people want.”
“What do people want?”
Uncle Frank considered my question, nodded his head. “Things. People want things. That’s what makes them people. I’m going to tie the whole lottery into this.” He shook his head. “Personally, I think it’s dynamite stuff.”
I looked at Uncle Frank for a moment. His description just furthered my disappointment. His book sounded dull.
“How much have you written?” I asked. Uncle Frank seemed unable to sit in one place very long without falling asleep with his mouth open and I wondered how far along in the process he was.
He gently waved a finger at me and my question. “Now, now, now. No more questions about the creative process. I have some real work to do here. Real work.” With that, F. Aris Pappas took a deep breath and turned back to the computer.
Back upstairs, I found Aunt Bess in the kitchen cutting carrots at the counter, chopping hard with a large knife. After every two or three chops, she would bend down and peer through the crack in the drapes out the window at Mrs. Rhodebush’s house and wistfully sigh. I poured myself a glass of milk, sat down at the kitchen table and began flipping through another magazine Uncle Frank had begun bringing home, Eastern Estates. I stopped at an article on home helicopter pads for the busy CEO.
Aunt Bess sighed again. “Cutting carrots at my age.”
I didn’t say anything. I kept reading the article and imagined myself, after a hard day at school, descending on our roof in a helicopter, onto our specially designed pad that guaranteed soft, skidless landings.
Aunt Bess sighed again. “I could cut off a finger.”
I continued reading the article. The pad could be installed
for less than $35,000, which seemed reasonable enough to me.
“A thumb.”
I turned the page.
Aunt Bess suddenly stopped cutting and turned to face me. “Talk to your father,” she said sharply.
I was sipping my milk when she said this and her abruptness caught me off guard. I coughed.
She took a step toward me, waving her knife. “Talk to him about spending a little money around here. I worked sixty-two years and I never made more than forty-two thousand a year. I’m not saying we have to go nuts, but a little comfort, a little convenience.” She held her arms out wide like Mr. Peterson did on the soccer field. “Something.”
“Okay,” I said.
“The old man, the Yankee, keeps calling about his house. Tell your father to think about it. It’s a beautiful house.”
“The one Mrs. Wilcott likes?”
Aunt Bess’s large body sagged when I said this. She slowly turned back to the kitchen counter and cut more carrots. Then she scrunched down and looked out the window again.
“What in God’s name is going on over there?” She said. “He’s been over there for hours. She’s monopolizing him. The poor man needs his rest.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Sylvanius. He’s been over at Emily Rhodebush’s all afternoon. I don’t understand him at all. I’m half in the grave and she’s older than me. I don’t know why he spends so much time over there. She doesn’t even know who he is. She never watched Dark Towers. I watched Dark Towers every day until he was killed off.”
Sylvanius’s death interested me. “How was he killed?”
Aunt Bess waved the knife. “I don’t remember. However vampires die.”
“Was it a stake through his heart? Or . . .” I paused here because I wanted Aunt Bess to seriously consider my question, “did sunlight destroy him?”
“What? I don’t remember,” she sighed. She cut up another carrot. “Sunlight. It was sunlight, I think,” she said reluctantly. “He stayed out too late, or got up too early. I don’t remember.”
“Did he turn into ashes?”
“What?” Aunt Bess’s knife came down sharply on the cutting board. “Yes, it was ashes,” she said quietly. “But then he somehow came back to life again, for the reunion special. The ashes, something happened and they . . .” she stopped cutting and turned around to face me again. “What are we talking about this for? I don’t want to talk about that silly show. I want to go home. I want to go back to Milwaukee. My cats need me. The family I left them with aren’t taking care of them the right way. I need to go up there and be with them. At least they love me.”
I was alarmed by Aunt Bess’s outburst. I didn’t want her to go back to Milwaukee. I had gotten used to having her with us and couldn’t even remember how things were before she moved in.
“He likes going over there because he feels sorry for her,” I said.
Aunt Bess stopped cutting, her knife suspended inches over an innocent carrot. “What?”
“Because she’s so old. And has no teeth. Because of her gum disease. He thinks she’s boring.” Aunt Bess looked over at me. I glanced down at the magazine. “He told me that,” I said.
She went back to her carrots. But I noticed that she wasn’t chopping as hard anymore.
AT DINNER, Sylvanius made a toast. “To my host and hostess,” he said, standing unevenly. “For your graciousness. For your friendship. For your concern. For this wonderful, wonderful repast worthy of the finest chefs in Europe. And most of all, to you, Theo,” he said, turning toward my father. “For everything.” He bowed his head. Uncle Frank cleared his throat and said, “here, here,” and raised his Diet Coke, which he was drinking instead of his usual glass of wine.
“Well, yes,” my father said. He looked quickly around the table and began eating.
“I must warn you, Theo, that I am enjoying my sabbatical so much that I may be tempted to stay here forever and soak up the warmth and love of this unique and fortunate family. Imagine,” he said, laughing, “a vampire in Wilton.”
My father dropped a forkful of carrots onto his lap.
“Don’t worry,” Aunt Bess said, passing around the serving bowl of carrots. “I made too many of them.”
After dinner, I worked on my List of Things in my room. I had decided that I would approach my father with the list within the next few days, possibly by the end of the week. I was preparing both a short and a long list, and would present one or the other, depending on my father’s mood and interest at that particular moment.
On the other side of the room, Tommy looked out the window. He was wearing my now old wax lips.
He took the wax lips out of his mouth. “How long is that old vampire going to stay here?” he asked.
“Sylvanius? I don’t know,” I said. I decided to drop helicopter pad from my short list, concluding that while nice, it was not all that practical since we didn’t yet own a helicopter.
Tommy kept looking out the window. He was clutching the wax lips with his hand and pressing his face against the screen. Outside, I could hear the steady rise and fall of crickets humming. Even though Miss Grace had said it was the first day of autumn, it was a warm night and I knew that I would be sleeping without my blankets again.
“Are more vampires coming to live here?” Tommy asked.
“No. I don’t think so,” I said. “Sylvanius is the only one and he’s just an actor. He’s not really a vampire.”
“Is Mom in heaven?” Tommy suddenly asked.
I looked over at Tommy. He was wearing gray Batman pajamas that were too tight for him. It was then that I noticed that he was also holding When You Give a Mouse a Cookie, a book my mother used to read to him.
“Yes,” I said. I was as sure of this then as I am now.
“Is she an angel?”
“I don’t know,” I said. Tommy had his eyes closed and looked so small that for a moment, for the first time in my life, I thought I might want to hug him. “I think she is, Tommy,” I said.
“Will she always take care of us, even when bad things and bad people are around?”
“Yes,” I said. Then I said, “And I can take care of you too. Sometimes.”
“You can’t take care of me when he’s around,” Tommy said. He had his eyes opened now and was pointing his finger outside the window.
“Who?” I asked.
“Him.” Tommy pointed again.
I got up and walked over to the window and looked out. There, across the street, under the street lamp, was the pickup truck. The man with long blond hair was leaning against it and looking up at us. He was smoking a cigarette and I could see its red tip glowing in the dark, burning bright like it was angry.
THE NEXT DAY in school, while I was sketching a laughing pumpkin during arts and crafts, Mrs. Plank walked into class, like an army general, her back unusually straight and rigid.
“Children,” she said and clapped her hands. It was then that I noticed Maurice standing in the doorway with a policeman.
“Children,” she said again. “I need your immediate attention. There has been a strange man loitering on the playground. He has long hair and drives a red truck of some sort. I want to remind everyone here that you are not to talk to strangers under any circumstances.”
The room fell perfectly quiet. I felt a thousand eyeballs on me. I looked down at the beginnings of my laughing pumpkin and saw its eyes looking back up at me too, expectant and worried.
“Apparently, this is the second time he has been seen here this week,” Mrs. Plank said. “We’re trying to find out who he is. He may just be someone’s relative or someone working in the neighborhood. We’re trying to identify him, but in the meantime, you are not to speak to him.”
“Does this man want to kidnap Teddy Pappas?” Johnny asked.
“No one’s kidnapping anyone, Johnny,” Mrs. Plank said. “We’re not sure who he is or what he wants. Apparently he approached some children in another class during recess and spoke wit
h them. I don’t think we have to be overly alarmed but we just want to make sure.” Then she said, “Teddy, can you come with me for a moment?”
I felt everyone’s eyes follow me as I walked outside into the hall where Maurice and the police officer were waiting.
“Are you okay, Teddy?” Maurice asked.
I nodded.
“Did you see that man in the red truck today?” the policeman asked. He was shorter than Maurice and had a soft, white, doughy face. Next to him, Maurice looked tight and lean. Even though the policeman had a gun holstered at his side, I didn’t think I would feel as safe with him as I did with Maurice.
“No,” I said.
“Well, he was there, Teddy,” Maurice said. “Right outside.”
“I didn’t think it was necessary to alert the entire school of this situation,” the policeman then said. “He’s clearly interested in the Pappas boys.”
“It’s my responsibility to protect all of the children at St. Pius,” Mrs. Plank said. “Heaven forbid something happened and we didn’t warn them. We don’t know what this man wants.”
“Well, we’ll post a squad out in front for the next couple of days,” the policeman said. “I don’t think there will be a problem. You’re going to be watching him, right?” he asked Maurice.
“I’ll be there,” Maurice said. “I don’t think there’ll be any problem either. You go on back to your project now, Teddy, go back to your drawing. Everything’s going to be all right.”
During soccer practice after school, Maurice stood on the sidelines holding Tommy’s hand. When he watched me on the playground during lunch or recess, he usually sat a distance away, under a tree or in his car, smoking his pipe, but this time he stood as close to me as possible, following me up and down the field on the sidelines, shadowing my every move. I could feel his eyes on me and sensed a tension coming from his direction, an alertness that put me on edge.
Near the end of practice, Mr. Peterson asked me to kick the ball. “I don’t think I’ve seen you make contact yet,” he said. I slowly lifted my leg and tried to kick it but when I did, my foot hit the very top of the ball and I fell on the ground. Lying on my back, I looked up at Mr. Peterson. I was hoping that he would somehow understand that I hated soccer and was only there because Mrs. Wilcott was having sex with my father. Mr. Peterson didn’t seem to understand any of this though. He just said, “Try again. Use the side of your foot and kick it in the center.”