Jack on the Tracks

by Jack Gantos

  “‘Well, if you are fine,’ she replied, ‘then I need a shrink.’

  “‘I think you are being mean to me,’ I said. ‘We had a deal.’

  “‘Since when,’ she said as sweet as a sugar cube, ‘is being concerned about my baby brother’s mental health so mean?’

  “Well, after she said all of that I didn’t answer her, because I felt some ugly thoughts bubbling away in me and I knew if I stood there any longer with my mouth wide open horrid words would burst out and I’d lose the bet. So I stomped down to my room. And really, I tried to get my mind off Betsy. I started reading. I did some drawing in my diary, but my mind was not on my work. I had already slipped into a black mood and was planning my revenge. So I went into the back of my closet and that’s when I got out my gallon jar of homegrown monster-sized roaches.

  “I thought maybe eating a roach would bring her down to size. On the back of the biggest of them, with red nail polish I had painted Zippy. I plucked it out of the jar and stared it right in its shiny brown eyes. ‘Okay, Zippy,’ I said. ‘You have been selected for a suicide mission. There is always a chance you might survive, but don’t count on it.’ Zippy didn’t seem to mind. He just wiggled his inch-long antennae.”

  “Whoa,” Dad said. “Did you do what I think you were planning to do?”

  “You bet,” I replied, and saw him smile, which made me think that he was definitely on my side and would pass judgment against Betsy. “Now imagine this,” I said, getting really excited because this was the best part.

  “The problem with getting a live roach into Betsy’s mouth while she napped was not getting the roach into her mouth, but getting it in without her knowing I did it. Because as soon as the roach started running around on her tongue her eyes would flip open, and if she saw me standing over her she would kill me on the spot then throw my dead, naked body across the train tracks. And she could do it, too. She has wrestled me down into the ground and made me eat dirt more than once. But I was about to avenge all the wrongs she had done me.

  “I waited until she went into her room to take a nap. I stood outside until she was sound asleep. Then I cracked open her door a few inches to where I had a good view of her. I had to wait until she was on her back.

  “While I waited, I got ready. In one hand I had your 25-foot, spring-loaded, self-retractable tape measure. In the other hand I had Zippy. In the kitchen I had squeezed a drop of honey onto the tip of the metal tape, and when I put Zippy on he got busy slurping. And then my moment arrived. Betsy rolled over onto her back and her mouth opened into a beautiful round target. I pulled the stiff metal tape out of the case, keeping the tension just right so that the tape didn’t snap down and knock Betsy in the head. Zippy was busy with the tiny drop of honey and stayed right out on the tip as I pulled out more and more tape.

  “Finally, I was ready. From where I was standing, it seemed to me that Zippy was directly over her mouth. I counted to three and then slowly turned the tape sideways. Just as Zippy lost his grip and slid down into her mouth, I released the lock on the tape and it snapped back into the case. As she screamed out loud I was already three steps down the hall and ducking into the coat closet.

  “I stood there in the dark listening to her. First there was the scream, then the spitting, then I could hear a shoe hit the floor. It was a suicide mission for Zippy. Then I heard her in the bathroom brushing her teeth, then gargling, then taking a shower.”

  I looked up at Dad to see if he thought it was as wonderful as I did. He was making a gruesome face and smacking his lips as if he had just swallowed a roach.

  “My God,” he said, “what did she do next?”

  “She stomped down to the living room and made an announcement. ‘I just want you to know,’ she hollered, ‘whoever you are, and I have a good idea who you are, that I don’t believe for a minute that a roach named Zippy just fell into my mouth by accident.’

  “Suddenly my desire for revenge was replaced with fear for my life. I knew what I had done was wrong. I knew that I should just apologize to Betsy and beg for mercy. But I also knew that it was too late. She wouldn’t forgive me and in no time I’d be standing naked next to the tracks. So I figured I’d try a new strategy. I hid out for a while then went into her room. She was sitting on her bed. ‘I’m going down to the store,’ I said as nice as possible. ‘Anything I can get for you?’

  “‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s my turn to empty out the cat box and I need some fresh litter. Will you get some?’

  “‘You bet,’ I said. And when I left her room I thought she wasn’t mad at me at all and didn’t seem to blame me for the roach in her mouth. I figured I had gotten away with it and was in a pretty good mood now that I had released some revenge from my system. When I came back Betsy was by the kitchen back door next to the litter box. I handed her the ten-pound bag of litter and she smiled at me and then threw it down onto my foot. Then, as I hopped up and down, she twisted her fingers in my hair and jerked me forward. I fell over and she held my face just above the cat box. It was supposed to be self-cleaning but it still stank.

  “‘I know you put the roach in my mouth. Now, confess or else.’

  “‘Or else what?’ I said desperately.

  “She lowered my face further. ‘Or else I’ll make you eat dinner right now.’ She dredged my face back and forth across the litter until I confessed. I told her I only did it because I was being so nice to her and she didn’t even say thank you.

  “‘Is that the only reason you are nice?’ she said. ‘Are you only searching for a good-puppy pat on the head?’

  “I said it’s good manners to return the favor when someone does something nice for you.

  “‘It’s good manners to always honor your bets,’ she replied. ‘Now get naked. And wipe the litter off your lips.’ She looked at the kitchen clock. ‘The passenger train will be here in fifteen minutes and you better get ready to put on a show.’

  “I went into the bathroom and undressed. When I came out, the back door was wide open.

  “Betsy hollered, ‘To the tracks!’ and I ran directly for the toolshed, but it was locked. Then I ran a little farther and hugged the rubber tree. I reached up and grabbed a low branch and ripped it from the trunk. I held the thick, wide leaves against my privates and ran screaming toward the tracks. I got over the fence and climbed the gravel bank and stood there, waiting. I kept looking back at the house and hoping you would come home and rescue me, but you didn’t. Then, in a few minutes the passenger train rounded the bend to the north and headed toward me. I just stood there looking up at the windows filled with people. I figured the only fun I would get out of this whole deal was watching the look of surprise on their faces. With one hand I held the rubber plant leaves in place and with the other I waved as I did a little hula dance. Some people were shocked, others smiled, some looked really confused.

  “After the train passed I ran directly back to the house. I tried to open the back door but it was locked. I desperately ran around to the front door. It was locked too. And all the windows were shut and locked. I returned to the back of the house. ‘Let me in,’ I hollered, and beat on the door. Betsy cracked open a window. She said I’d cheated and had to wait for the next passenger train to make up for my violation of our agreement.

  “The next train was in four hours. I must have gone a little nuts,” I said, trying to get Dad’s sympathy on a temporary-insanity plea. “I needed to find some clothes. I looked over at Tack’s house and saw some things on their clothesline. I made a mad dash across our back yard to theirs. I was almost to their clothesline when the new Mrs. Smith opened her back door and started yelling at me. She called me indecent and said to go put some clothes on. So I did.

  “I grabbed the first thing I could reach off her line and ran. As it turns out, I grabbed her undies, and as I hopped away on one foot while getting my other through the leg hole, she yelled out, ‘Pervert!’

  “‘I’m not a pervert,’ I yelled. I’m just naked.’”r />
  I turned toward Dad and delivered my final defense: “By then I had both my legs in the panties and I ran off and hid in the bushes and that’s when Jock came looking for me and now you know everything. So, don’t you think Betsy was wrong for what she did and should be punished?”

  “I suppose you want some justice?” he said.

  “Exactly,” I replied, relieved that he knew what I was going through. “I’m tired of being on the low end of the totem pole.”

  “I’m thirsty,” Dad said. “Let’s go to the drive-through and get something to drink and that will give me time to sort this out and come up with a verdict.”

  “Okay,” I said, a little disappointed that he didn’t immediately see that I was the injured party in this case.

  After we got our drinks Dad finished about half of his before he pulled over by the side of the road. “Well,” he said gravely, “here is what I think. First, I’m disappointed that my oldest son is exposing himself to innocent people on trains and then running around the neighborhood dressed in women’s underwear.”

  “I just told you,” I said, pleading. “It’s not all my fault. I’m the victim.”

  “Being or not being the victim is not the point in this case,” he stressed. “If you want to be known as a serious person on this planet you have to draw the line somewhere with what you will or will not do. And wearing women’s underwear around the neighborhood is way, way below that line.”

  “But she locked me out of the house,” I reminded him. “I was desperate.”

  “That’s not the point,” he said again. “So let me restate the point so you never forget it. In life you set high standards for yourself. You live by those standards and you never sink below them. This is the bottom line. And this is how you can judge for yourself your own behavior. Because if you can’t make good judgments for yourself, nobody is going to do the job for you, especially Betsy.”

  I pursed my lips and lowered my head for his sentencing.

  “Didn’t you think it was wrong to be mean to your sister?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “Didn’t you think it was wrong to drop a pet roach into her mouth?”

  “Oh, yes, sir,” I said.

  “Didn’t you think it was dumb to stand naked in front of a train?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” I replied.

  “And didn’t you think it was even dumber to put on the neighbor lady’s undies?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Since I have judged against you in this case do you have anything to say for yourself?” he asked.

  “No, sir,” I said.

  “You must apologize to your sister for your mean behavior, and you must apologize to the new Mrs. Smith for running off in her underwear, and you must promise me you will never do it again.”

  “Yes, sir. I promise not to wear ladies’ undies again.”

  “Then this case is closed,” he announced, and pounded on the dashboard with his fist as if it were a judge’s gavel.

  On the way home I thought about the point Dad had made, and he was right. I wasn’t mad at him at all. I was guilty as charged. I had behaved lower than the standards I had set for myself. I had let Betsy get to me, and once more, I was the sucker. But I had learned my lesson, and I never again wanted to slip below the bottom line.

  That night I apologized to Betsy, and after dinner I went back to my room. I climbed out my window and snuck around to the Smiths’ clothesline. I pinned the big undies back onto the line. They were wet because I had sprayed them off with the garden hose. Also pinned to the undies was my apology: I’M SORRY I BORROWED YOUR UNDIES AT A TIME WHEN I WAS UNDER EXTREME EMOTIONAL STRESS. PLEASE DON’T MENTION THIS TO ANYONE AND I PROMISE YOU IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN. JACK HENRY.

  Crybaby

  I was sitting on the floor with a book in the far corner of my bedroom. The wide pine planks were splintered from wear so I had a small round piece of linoleum to sit on. It was the fleshy color of a slice of baloney with odd white flecks which I imagined were chunks of pork brain, and black flecks which I imagined were rotten teeth. It made me a little ill to sit on it because I was still a vegetarian. But it was better than sitting on splinters.

  There was just enough dim reading light coming through the curtains and I wanted it this way. I wasn’t thinking about my eyes. I was reading A Day No Pigs Would Die and the father and Robert had just slaughtered Pinky the pig on a cold winter morning. The father had taken a crowbar and crushed Pinky’s skull, and then slit her throat with a curved knife, and the blood drained into the fresh snow. It was so sad the tears were streaming down my face and soaking the neck on my T-shirt. I had read the same book over and over, and each time I reached the killing part I couldn’t stop myself from crying.

  And that was the whole point. To feel so sad, so completely sad, and to cry so much that when I finished the book there would be fewer tears inside me and I might feel more like a man. I would feel tougher and drained of sadness like Robert felt after his pig was killed. But although I could feel as sad as Robert, I could never seem to feel as much of a man. And so I kept crying.

  Suddenly Betsy pushed my bedroom door open and flicked on the blinding overhead light. Before I could wipe away the tears she saw me hunched down in the corner, bingeing on my sad thoughts.

  “What are you reading?” she snapped. “Your pathetic autobiography?”

  She leapt at me and snatched the book out of my hand. “A Day No Pigs Would Die,” she scoffed. “What’d you do. Get a pardon?”

  I stood up but before I could clear my eyes and fight back she grabbed the soft band of fat above my hips with both her hands and swung me around. “Hey, Pete!” she yelled. “Hey, get in here!”

  She was killing me. I knew she wanted Pete to grab the fat above my other hip and they would have a tug-of-war which she called the “Battle of the Bulge.”

  “Let me go,” I yelped.

  “Crybaby,” she said, and twisted my fat as if it were the key on a windup toy. I danced up and down on my tiptoes like a spastic string puppet. “You’re the most girlie boy I’ve ever met. You aren’t on a baseball team. You’re not a Boy Scout. You hang out at the library. You even collect stamps.”

  “I don’t play with dolls,” I shouted back.

  “You should,” she replied, and pushed me to the floor. My lower lip quivered and I began to blubber. “Look at you,” she said with contempt. “If something really tragic happened you’d be in deep doo-doo.”

  I sprang forward. If I were a bull I would have gored her. But she dodged me. I ran from my room, slamming directly into Pete. I pushed him out of the way, then tripped over Miss Kitty II. “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” I said as I crawled down the hall on my hands and knees.

  “Oink, oink, oink,” Betsy hollered behind me.

  I jumped up and dashed out the kitchen door. I kept going across the back yard and up over the fence until I reached the railroad tracks. Then I sat there, right in the middle of the hot tracks with my chin on my knees, waiting for the train to run me down. I told myself I didn’t care if I was flattened like all the pennies and frogs and Coke cans I had set on the rails. I didn’t care if my blood and guts greased the wheels. I didn’t care if everyone I had ever loved cried when they heard I was dead. I wanted to be hard and cold and unfeeling and manly and able to bear awful tragedies like smashing in a pet pig’s skull and slitting its throat. If I couldn’t be callous and hard-hearted, I didn’t want to live.

  But I wasn’t anything at all like what I wanted to be. When I watched tearjerker movies, I cried. When I listened to sad ballads, I cried. When I saw roadkill, I cried. When I passed the Miss Kitty grave, I cried. When I read awful newspaper stories about adults who beat up kids, I cried a lot. It’s a wonder I didn’t have ugly, brown tearstains running down my cheeks like I always noticed on little white lapdogs.

  And each time a glassy tear slipped out of my eye it seemed that Betsy caught me. She called me a crybaby, a wim
p, a candy butt, a sissy, a pantywaist, a sniveler, and a mama’s boy.

  One night, while I rubbed Mom’s tired legs, I asked her about my crying problem. She said I was just going through a sensitive stage. “You’ll get older and wiser and tougher and put the world in perspective,” she said. “You used to cry over spilt milk when you were two, now you don’t. So, don’t worry, you’ll move on.”

  I felt awful when she said I’d move on because the other night at dinner I spilled my milk and felt like a baby and had to jump up from the table and get a kitchen cloth just so nobody could see the tears welling up in my eyes.

  Well, I was going to change my crying ways. I was going to toughen up and learn how to be hard and solid and unshakable like a man. Real men didn’t cry, they stood up to danger.

  I saw a train come around the bend and felt the rail tie tremble from the weight of it, but I didn’t budge. The expression on the face of the engine was uncaring. Two black windows stared out above a rust-pocked flat front and a grill of metal bars. It could roll over me and never flinch. When it was only a hundred yards away I held my ground. Fifty yards away and the stones around my feet began to jiggle like popcorn popping. A lion’s mane of heat buckled the air around the engine. I didn’t move. Twenty-five yards away and the engineer pulled the cord on his air horn. The sudden blast unnerved me and I screamed as loud as I could and dove headfirst off the tracks and tumbled down the gravel bank with my hands over my face. I kept screaming but couldn’t hear myself over the throbbing drone of the engine and clacking wheels. Finally, I tried to play as if I were dead, but the gravel was so sharp I couldn’t imagine heaven as anything more than a bed of nails.

  After the train passed I hopped up and went over to Tack’s original house. I felt tougher already. I was bruised and bleeding along a few scratches but I wasn’t crying about it. I knocked on his door and while I waited I took a stick I found on the ground and jabbed it at one of my cuts. It hurt, and my eyes glazed over, but still no tears. Maybe I was getting tougher, I thought, yet I knew the ultimate test was before me.