by C.T. Millis
Chapter 8
He went to reach for his backpack on the cement behind him, but James remembered that he left it in his cubby at school. He kept one of his father’s watches in the front zipper. James would pull it out four or five times a day during class and glance at its red and white face to see how much time was left before lunch, recess, and going home.
His father had over a dozen watches, and left most of them at home when he left. Before his father died, James asked his mother if he could get a watch of his own. She told him he could wear one of his father’s watches.
“Wait, wait!” she interrupted herself, “I’ll ask him, just to make sure-” That night when James’ father called, she told him about the watch and asked if James could wear one.
“Of course!” his mom had the phone turned up loud enough for James to hear his father’s voice, which was muffled through half a dozen satellites, “He can use the red one, I think he’ll like the colors, Karen.” James walked around the corner and he heard his mother say between chuckles,
“He’s just like you, so concerned with time, the letter I got from you this past Thursday was all about time. I’m worried. Are you okay?”
“I don’t know what I was getting at, honey, don’t worry- I shouldn’t stay up so late and write letters. I should write them with a fresh mind.”
His mother paused before saying, “Well, while we’re on the subject of time- it’s only a few months before you come home.”
“It’s all I think about. Well, I think about what we’ll do when I get back” he said in a faux-suave manner, causing them both to chuckle. “They aren’t going to send me back before I retire.”
“It’ll be wonderful to have you around all the time, getting in my way, worrying about time, stinking up my house with your pipe.” This caused them both to laugh in unison. The sudden change of volume caused the phone to crackle.
James’ father remembered something about the watch, “Oh, that watch isn’t going to fit his wrist, but he can put it in his pocket or his backpack until I get back and I’ll buy him one of his own.” That was the last time they talked before it happened.
Karen had not looked in the drawer where he kept the watches since James’ father died. Or, at least she had not moved them around. James knew this because he left the room when his mother told him about his father being dead, and he stared at the faces and hands of the watches moving in unison for an hour before going back into the living room. He memorized the pattern his father put the watches in the drawer. Every few days, when his mom was downstairs, James would open the drawer and look at the clocks again.
A snowflake hit James’ eye and he let the thoughts of the watch and his father dissolve like the melting flakes on the sidewalk. They kept melting because it was not cold enough for them to pile up on one another. Not yet.
He started to worry about what time he should get back to his house. James did not want to show up at his house and start to eat his afternoon snack before three in the afternoon, when he usually did. His mom would realize that right away and know that his ruffled appearance did not occur from some legitimate source.
The kids in his class were probably still at recess, they probably dropped their sticks, stopped their swings, stilled their jump ropes, and looked to the sky when it began snowing. After that, they probably started to squeal with delight, and talk about what they would do in the snow over the weekend.
He could not imagine them to be much different than a bunch of dwarfed farmers, clothes suddenly brown and threadbare, dropping their scythes, unhanding their plow, and running toward the second coming the way the pastor talked about in The Garage. He could not imagine the looks on the faces of his classmates being any less excited about the snow as the farmers would be about the end of all their work. That was the difference, he thought. Kids were happy when things started, and adults liked it when things ended. He got a chill when he thought that he might understand why someday.
Sophie probably heard the fifty kids on the playground stop everything and start laughing and talking. She was probably shocked into not crying anymore. With curiosity, Sophie must have put her legs out in front of her and let her hands lay on her lap in order to slide down the orange tube-slide into the snowing playground. James hoped she smiled. Phil always had to pick sides even if there was no need for them. He was probably with Sonny and Sonny’s friends, and stopped laughing when it began to snow. The laughter would begin again because of the pure delight of the snow falling heavier and heavier like fallen wheat to the ground. One of the teachers was probably blowing a whistle to go back inside about now. The snow by James was starting to fall so thickly it began to stick to the grass.
James tried to think about how to know when to go home, he started walking down the street towards a gas station. There was a clock in there, but he could not wait around that long staring at it, the clerk would think he was shoplifting and call his mom.
After school every day, James took the long way home- and as soon as he left the school yard, his stomach would begin to growl for a snack. That was when he figured it out; he was going to go home around the time that his stomach started to ache.
When James went into the gas station, he heard the bell chime above his head from opening the door, and he saw that he still had a couple of hours before school let out. James walked to the bathroom with his head down. When the clerk, a guy a few years out of high school, saw James, he said,
“That started up pretty fast!” James walked faster and replied,
“It sure did! It will probably go all weekend.”
The guy worked got the job at the gas station a few weeks after graduation and it seemed like he was there all day, working odd shifts and regular shifts. Other than the owner, James was pretty sure that guy was the only one who worked there.
James got into the bathroom and twisted the deadbolt to lock it. He started to wonder why the guy was so friendly all the time, and seemed happy just watching the still store for hours and hours and was so happy to talk to anyone who walked in. James would have been bored standing for that much time, listening to the same DJ’s on the same radio station hours, days, weeks, months, and years.
James went over the mirror and looked at his face. With some water from the sink, he started to brush back his hair where it was messed up. James wiped away some of the dry blood he missed, and swished out his mouth with water. He tucked in his shirt where it was torn at the bottom, and turned his head to look at himself at an angle.
The only thing James could not figure out was the black eye. He would have to find a way to explain it so that his mom would not talk to the teacher or any of the students’ parents.
James washed his hands and looked down at them. He did not have any bruises or scrapes on them, no war wounds. He did not mind, and he would rather have hurt everywhere else on his body than his hands.
James remembered washing his hands with his dad every evening before dinner. The steam would fog up the small window above their steel sink; they used dish soap instead of hand soap. The dish soap smelled like green apples and left their hands almost tacky with residue. One time, a few weeks before he left, James’ dad was drying his own hands he stopped midway through a chuckle and said in the most serious tone that James had known at the time:
“Keep your hands clean,”
“Yeah, Dad, I know” James replied
“No.” His eyebrows pulled together and he looked at his own hands, “Keep your hands clean, and don’t hurt anyone unless you have to. It’s rough.”
“Okay, Dad.” James tried to think of the source of the sudden strain in his father’s voice. His father ruffled James’ his hair with his wet hands.
“Rough stuff out there, kiddo.” He began tickling James and roughhousing, eventually carrying him by the feet into the dining room for dinner that night.
When James left the bathroom, the clerk was reading a magazine and did not look up until the bell chi
med again. Knowing the clerk heard the chime, James said,
“Have a nice day, keep warm,” just loud enough so he would not have to turn around and the clerk would not have to see his face.