Jack on the Tracks

by Jack Gantos

  “Fine,” she said. “You don’t have to prove it to me. You just have to prove it to yourself. Tomorrow put yourself to the test and find out if you have inner strength or if you need to be constantly watched over like a baby in order to do the right things in life.”

  “Okay,” I said defiantly. “I’ll do it.”

  The next day when everyone else got ready to go to the Guggies I went up to Mom. “I don’t feel well,” I said, and put a fake sick look on my face.

  “Pull yourself together,” Mom replied, as she flicked her feathered hair into place.

  “I’d rather stay home and rest in bed,” I said.

  “You’ll be fine,” she said, not paying much attention to me.

  “I think I’m going to barf,” I yelped, and ran down the hall. I lifted the toilet seat and made a series of beastly belching noises. Then I filled my mouth up with water from the sink and spurted it into the toilet bowl. “Arggghh,” I groaned.

  I wiped my mouth on my sleeve and returned to Mom.

  “That didn’t sound very good,” she said.

  “I’m just going to get into bed and take it easy,” I said. “I think it is the adult thing to do. The childish thing to do would be to come with you then barf all over the dinner table.”

  “I think you’re right,” she agreed. “Now go put on your pj’s. Miss Kitty III can keep you company.”

  I did, then got into bed. Mom gave me the Guggies’ phone number just in case I began to die. “And no funny business,” she warned me.

  “Don’t treat me like a child,” I whined.

  “Don’t let Tack bring those magazines over here,” she said, getting to the point.

  “Mom, I won’t read his magazines,” I said, knowing that I had my own.

  “Fine,” she said, and walked off.

  Betsy stuck her head in my door. “Remember,” she sang. “What you do when no one is looking is the real you.”

  “I get it,” I said. ‘Just leave.”

  As soon as they were gone I hopped out of bed. The only sounds made were mine. Somehow they scared me because they were supposed to say so much about me. The floor creaked when I walked across it. What could that mean? The curtains flapped like huge bird wings in the breeze. And when I flushed the toilet the noise seemed as loud as the sinking of the Titanic.

  I sat down on a chair in the living room. Do not turn on the TV, I said to myself. Not the radio either. Just sit and think, like an adult. These were my rules. Betsy told me that it took a lot of courage to really want to know who I was, and if I was adult enough, I just needed to sit quietly and listen to my own thoughts.

  My nose itched. I picked it. Then I stopped picking it. Betsy had said if I were an adult I would not pick my nose. She said if I was still a kid I would pull out a big nose-nugget then squeeze it between my thumb and finger and roll it into a ball and flick it across the room or stick it under the seat of a chair. I had done that before. And worse. I had cleaned food out of my teeth with a pencil point, spit loogies into the kitchen sink, picked the underwear lint out of the crack in my butt, jammed my little finger halfway into my ear to dig out some wax which I then sniffed, and hollered curse words when I stubbed my toe on a chair. I peed all over the toilet seat and didn’t wipe it clean, scraped the toe jam out from under my nails with a dinner knife that I put back in the drawer without washing it. But that was all in the past. Now I was a mature adult. And mature adults didn’t do any of that stuff anymore. They had conquered childish behavior.

  So I sat in the chair in the living room with my hands on my lap and my feet flat on the floor. I had on a clean pair of pj’s. I had on clean socks. I had good posture and a smile on my face.

  “This,” I said out loud to Miss Kitty III as she slept on the couch, “is the real me.”

  Almost immediately the echo of a voice in the back of my head said, “No, this is not the real you. Don’t lie to yourself. The real you is the other you, the one who drinks out of the milk carton.” After about thirty seconds I couldn’t stand sitting still anymore. I thought my head would explode from all the quiet. “You know what you really want to do,” I said to myself. “Now go do it! Be the real Jack.”

  I hopped up out of my chair, jumped over the couch, and got busy.

  We did not have air-conditioning and it was already hot. So first, I created my own total comfort zone. I opened the refrigerator door and pulled a chair up to hold it open. I put the portable television from Mom’s room on another chair. I skipped down to my bedroom and got my magazine and my gummy worms. Then I took my refrigerated seat, tuned in the baseball game, and propped my feet up on an inside shelf. “Now this is aliving,” I said, and reached for a pot of cold German noodles. Miss Kitty III joined me. There was a plate of leftover meat loaf on a low shelf. I pulled off the plastic wrap and she picked at that while I moved on and worked over an old piece of fried chicken. After I chewed off all the good stuff, I tossed the bones and skin into the refrigerator so Miss Kitty III could finish the rest.

  I started to read an article in the magazine on how successful men properly trim nose hair, but after a paragraph I was bored. I flipped through the other articles. It was all pretty dull. “You’ve been to the Elks Club with Dad enough to know how a grown man should behave,” I said to myself. I put the magazine down next to a bowl of cucumber salad and took out the Cheez Whiz. I opened the top and dipped a gummy worm in. As I ate it I thought to myself, This is the real me and there is not a thing wrong with it. I’m just misunderstood by adults. Any kid my age would agree that at this moment I was living the good life. I popped open a soda and drank almost all of it down. I could feel a huge burp growing inside my belly like a nuclear mushroom cloud waiting to let loose. I held it in and glanced up at the clock. As soon as the second hand was over the twelve I let it loose. I sounded like a yodeling bullfrog and when I finished I looked up at the clock and smiled. “That glorious sound,” I said to Miss Kitty III, “was eight seconds of pure belching pleasure.”

  Then I really let myself go. I picked my nose some more, wiped my mouth on my sleeve, opened the back door and spit out any food I didn’t like, sang way out of tune, and swore at the TV anytime the other team did something good.

  This was living. This was the real me.

  Suddenly, headlights swept past the window and Dad’s car turned up the driveway. “Emergency!” I shouted. “Go, go, go.” I hopped up and jumped into action. I slammed the refrigerator door shut, pushed the chairs back to the dining-room table, and carried Mom’s TV back up to her room. I got it plugged in just as they opened the front door. In an instant I sprinted to my room and slipped into bed. Safe.

  Betsy was the first one to check up on me. “Well,” she said. “How did it go?”

  “Piece of cake,” I said, adjusting my pillow and giving a fake yawn. “I sat in the living room, read a book, and listened to opera on the radio. Finally, I got tired, washed my face, flossed and brushed my teeth, said my prayers, and went directly to sleep. Totally adult behavior.”

  “Very impressive,” Betsy replied. Still, I could tell by the tone of her voice she was suspicious. But she could never prove a thing.

  Mom was next. “How are you feeling, sweetie?” she asked, and pressed her palm against my forehead.

  “Fine,” I said. “Better.”

  “Was Miss Kitty III good company?” she asked, and lifted her hand.

  “The best,” I said. “She’s a very mature cat.”

  After Mom left I turned off my light and lay in bed looking up at the ceiling. I guess I am a combination of two types of people, I thought. I have a secret life as a guy doing guy stuff, and when I’m in public I live a perfect life of manners and refinement. And there will be no witnesses to judge the difference. No harm done, I thought.

  I was the first one up as usual. Our school was overcrowded with all the kids like me whose families had moved down to Florida for the construction boom. There were a lot of new jobs building houses and bus
inesses, but they still hadn’t built enough new schools. So we were on a split shift at South Miami Elementary. The fourth, fifth, and sixth graders were on the early shift and so every morning when I woke up it was still dark.

  I quietly walked down the hall and went into the kitchen. I whipped open the refrigerator door and was reaching for the orange juice when I saw her—Miss Kitty III. She was stiff from the cold. I put my hand over my mouth and stopped myself from screaming as I closed the door. “Oh my,” I said, talking out loud like a crazy person, “how did this happen?”

  Then I said, “This is a joke. Pete or Betsy tricked me and I bet it’s a stuffed animal they made up to look like Miss Kitty III.” Slowly, I opened the refrigerator door again and peeked inside. It didn’t look like a toy stuffed animal. It looked more like one of my Uncle Jim’s stuffed foxes. But there was no doubt about it, it was Miss Kitty III. Her gray paw was still raised up in the air with her claws sticking out where she’d been furiously scratching the inside of the door. “Oh God, not this again,” I cried out in despair. I stepped back, closed the door and asked myself, How could this happen? It was obvious that the cat did not open the door herself. Someone must have come into the kitchen in the middle of the night to get water. They opened the refrigerator door in order to get some light. Then they turned around and opened the cupboard and reached for a glass. At that moment the cat must have seen the open refrigerator door and climbed in to explore. Then whoever the person was must have turned back around, poured cold water out of the pitcher into their glass, then quickly closed the door and returned to bed. This left Miss Kitty III trapped inside while her muffled cries went unheard. But who did it?

  I opened the door again to make sure this wasn’t all a nightmare. “Oh,” I said when I got a good look at all the desperate scratch marks on the inside of the door.

  Just then I heard Pete start down the hall. He liked to get up after me so I could make him toast with butter and jam. I thought, Should I tell him about Miss Kitty III? No, I decided. There was only one way to catch the culprit. I had to surprise him. I stood to the side of the refrigerator where I could get a good look at Pete’s face to see if it showed signs of guilt.

  “Good morning,” he said sleepily.

  “Top o’ the day to you,” I replied, just as he opened the door. In about two seconds he started to let out a horror movie scream but I leapt forward and covered his mouth.

  “Settle down,” I said, and removed my hand. “It’s too late to do anything about it now.” Then I heard Betsy come down the hall. “Hush,” I whispered to Pete. “This’ll be good.”

  When she came around the corner Pete and I were standing next to the refrigerator looking totally innocent.

  Betsy smirked at us. “What are you two morons up to this morning?” she asked.

  ‘Just being morons,” I replied as she opened the refrigerator door.

  “Oh my God!” she shouted and slammed it. She glared at me. “Is this your sick idea of a joke?” she snapped.

  “Relax,” I said. “We don’t know how it happened. Now stand over here with us,” I said. “Mom’s coming.”

  When Mom turned the corner she was yawning and rubbing her eyes. “How come the three of you are so quiet and not fighting yet this morning?” she asked.

  “We called a truce,” I replied. “You know, like in the old wars when both sides would call a cease-fire so they could remove the dead bodies from the battlefield.”

  “Charming,” Mom muttered, then asked, “Have you seen Miss Kitty III?”

  “Nope,” I replied.

  “Not yet,” Betsy said.

  Pete twisted his head, no.

  Then Mom opened the refrigerator door. She reached in for the coffee cream and didn’t seem to notice anything weird. She’s not wearing her glasses, I thought. But then she stooped down to reach for the cream cheese and pretty much shook Miss Kitty Ill’s hand. Her mouth opened but no sound came out. I leapt forward and grabbed her before she let loose a bloodcurdling scream.

  “It’s okay,” I said to her. “Well, maybe not okay, but there is nothing we can do about it.”

  “How did it happen?” she asked.

  “I’m trying to figure that out,” I said.

  I could hear Dad coming down the hall and by the time he turned the corner we were standing in a huddle next to the refrigerator.

  “What are you all up to this morning?” he asked.

  ‘Just having a loving family moment,” Mom replied, and gave him a crooked smile.

  He opened the door, paused, then slowly turned and looked at us. “Good Lord,” he said. “Who killed this one?”

  “Not me,” said Pete.

  “Certainly wasn’t me,” Betsy said emphatically.

  “Innocent,” Mom said.

  Then everyone looked at me. “I didn’t have anything to do with it!” I cried out.

  “But who else could it be?” said Betsy, bearing down and poking me in the chest with her finger. “You are the only cat serial killer in this house. Now confess!”

  “Yes!” everyone said at once. “Confess!”

  Without a doubt in their minds they had me pegged as the killer of Miss Kitty III. But it wasn’t me this time. They were just judging me by my reputation.

  “I can prove I’m innocent,” I shouted, and thumped myself on the chest with my fist.

  “Then prove it,” Betsy said arrogantly. “Go right ahead. We are all waiting to hear your explanation.”

  I knew what I had to do. I ran up the hall and into Pete’s room. There was no water glass next to his bed. I ran into Mom and Dad’s room. No water glass. I checked the bathroom. No glass. Then I ran into Betsy’s room. The water glass was right on her bedside table next to her allergy medicine. I smiled a very big smile to myself as I held the glass behind my back and marched into the kitchen.

  I looked Betsy directly in the eye. “How come you aren’t sneezing this morning?” I asked, sounding as genuinely concerned about her health as possible.

  She looked at me suspiciously.

  “Answer him,” Dad ordered. He had taken over as judge on the case.

  “Because I took my medicine last night,” she replied. “Before I went to the Guggies.” She took the glass from my hand and sniffed it. “Iced coffee,” she said. “Two days old.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I said.

  ‘Just hold your horses, Sherlock,” she replied. “We all ate at the Guggies and when we came home we went to bed. There was only one person at home with the cat last night. You! And it’s my guess that you were eating like a pig in front of the refrigerator again and the cat got inside. Then the car pulled up in the driveway, you panicked because you were supposed to be in bed, so you slammed the door and Miss Kitty was still inside.”

  “Impossible,” I said. “I was in bed the whole time. I didn’t do it. It couldn’t have been me.” Yet, as I defended myself, a cold feeling went up my spine. As cold as Miss Kitty III. It had to be me. And I knew Betsy was right. I just didn’t have the inner strength to confess. I couldn’t say, Yes, it was my fault, like an adult would.

  “Well, whoever is responsible for this,” Dad said, “knows it in their heart. And I for one, sure wouldn’t want to live with myself.”

  Again, I wanted to blurt out, It was me! But I didn’t have the guts to say so. Instead, I looked Betsy in the eye and asked, “Where is your evidence?”

  “Well,” she replied, “it just so happens that while you were collecting dirty glasses I did a bit of snooping on my own.” She held out the jar of Cheez Whiz with the gummy worm still in it. In her other hand she had the chicken bones. “Signs that Jack has been here,” she said. “Plus look at the food fingerprints all over the refrigerator door.”

  “That could be anyone,” I said desperately.

  “But I have more evidence,” she said coldly, staring directly into my eyes.

  Suddenly it struck me. Where was the magazine? Mom would kill me if she knew I broke
a promise.

  “An adult would own up to their actions,” Betsy said, giving me another chance to do the adult thing.

  I was mute. I didn’t know what would be worse. Owning up to killing Miss Kitty, or having Betsy show Mom the magazine.

  “A responsible, secure person would admit their mistake and learn from it,” Betsy said, applying pressure.

  I couldn’t take it anymore. “It was me,” I said meekly, with my head bowed. “It was an accident.”

  Mom just stared at me with tears in her eyes, and shook her head. “Poor Miss Kitty,” she cried.

  “I’m telling Tack,” Pete hollered.

  “I don’t know what has gotten into you,” Dad said.

  “I’m just trying to be an adult,” I explained.

  “Well, I have news for you,” he replied. “Whatever you’re doing, it’s not working.”

  No one had anything more to say to me. “I’ll take care of Miss Kitty III from here,” I said. “I’ve had some experience with this sort of thing.”

  As soon as everyone left I put a plastic bag over Miss Kitty III and took her out the back door. I walked down to the shed and got the shovel. And then I did what I had already done two times before. Only this time I wished I could crawl into the hole with Miss Kitty III and shovel the dirt back up over myself. As I dug I looked at my cat. “When you have no self-control,” I said to her, and myself, “there is no such thing as no harm done.”

  When I returned to my room Betsy was waiting for me.

  “You left this in the kitchen,” she said, and handed me the magazine.

  “Well, I won’t be needing that anymore,” I said. “I plan to remain a kid for as long as I can.”

  “You don’t have a choice,” Betsy said.

  She was right. I was a kid and there was no reason to fight it. “So, why’d you let me off the hook?” I asked.

  “Because the only way to become an adult is for you to make the right choices,” she said. “And confessing was a good start.”

  “One more thing,” I said. “What do you do when you’re home alone?”