Breakfast with Neruda

by Laura Moe

  My mom touches my cheek. “Did Annie tell you I got you something?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “That’s why I stopped by. I can’t stay long, though. I’m due at the theater in like thirty minutes.”

  “It’s still in my car,” Mom says. She steps off the porch and walks toward the front of the house.

  I give Annie a quick hug, say, “See ya,” and follow my mother to the street. Her car is not that old—a five-year-old Taurus—but it looks worse than mine. I don’t think it’s been washed since she bought it from Paul three years ago. Like the house, her car is stuffed with objects, and she has just enough room to see out the back window and the passenger-side front window.

  “One of my patients is cleaning out his house,” she says. “He asked if I needed any camping gear, and I told him I have a boy who likes to camp.” She glances at me. “I didn’t tell him you camp out in your car. But anyway, he gave me all this equipment I thought you might be able to use.”

  Inside my mom’s trunk is a pop-up tent, a camp stove, two lanterns, a flashlight, a sleeping bag, some camp dishes, and a thick jacket. “Wow, Mom, this is great. He just gave it to you?”

  She sighs. “Yeah, poor guy. He’s not even that old, sixty something, but he won’t be walking in the woods anymore. He had one leg amputated, and looks like he may lose the other. Sweet thing. He calls me Julie because he says I remind him of the girl on The Mod Squad.”

  “The what squad?”

  “Some old TV show from the sixties.”

  As much as I don’t want to clutter up my car, this acquisition actually makes sense even though it reeks of musty basement. I put my arm around her shoulder. “Thanks, Mom.”

  I haul it over to my car and dump the stuff in the back. The odor stinks up the car, but I can set it all outside tonight after work. Maybe I’ll buy some Febreze and spray it.

  We stand by the driver’s side of my car. “You need any money, hon?” she asks.

  “No, I’m good,” I say. “But thanks.” I hug her quickly and get in my car. As I drive away, I feel my face grow hot and my breath quiver. I miss my mom so much. I miss who she used to be, before her life revolved around the accumulation of things.

  I pull into the mall parking lot and change my shirt. I hope Mitch doesn’t notice I’m wearing cargo shorts rather than pants. I grab my pack and hoist it over my shoulder, cracking the windows an inch all around, and hope nobody steals the camp gear. Maybe the odor will keep thieves at bay.

  In the break room I stash my bag in my locker and pin my nametag on my chest. I don’t have time to freshen up, so I smear some deodorant on my pits and splash some AXE cologne on my face. It’s the world’s worst aftershave, but I found a small pocket-sized bottle of it on the floor of Theater 6 one night and use it in emergencies. Like today.

  Mitch frowns when he notices my shorts.

  “Sorry,” I say. “We didn't have time to wash clothes with the power being out and all. Then we went camping.”

  “You’ll have to work the ticket booth,” he says, “where nobody can see your hairy spider legs.”

  He’s killing me. I hate working the ticket booth, and Mitch knows it. I’d rather sweep floors and clean restrooms. Direct customer contact gives me the willies. When shows get sold out, or people arrive late to a movie, or we don’t honor discounts on hot films, somehow it’s my fault. If I take too long getting change, some people go ape shit. Then there are the scammers who claim they gave me a twenty when they really gave me a ten. Mitch had warned me about those types on the first day. “Always keep the money they gave you in front of you until after you have confirmed their change. That way they can’t question it.” Guys try that trick more than chicks, especially if they have a date with them. If guys don’t bring enough cash to buy popcorn, they think they can fake out the idiot in the ticket booth. I want to tell them I’m not as dumb as I look, asshole.

  The worst thing about working the ticket booth is seeing kids from school, guys on the football team who treat me like shit because I’m cross-country, which they think is a sissy sport, and kids who don’t have to work, the kind of kids who live in Shelly’s neighborhood. Maybe the type of guys she should be going out with instead of scumbags like me.

  But as she said, she and I are those lost ducks who strayed too far from the pond, too far from our kind, and maybe we need to find our way around this spiny world. It’s as if the world is made of porcupine hide, and we need to tread lightly.

  As soon as I open my door after work, my car emits a moldy stench, so I roll all the windows down as I drive down Rocket Road. Maybe it would have been better if someone had robbed me. The camp gear reeks of dirty cat box, and it makes me wonder if cleaning it up is going to take more than Febreze and a day in the sun. I park the car near the football field and grab the whole mess and toss it all on the ground.

  Hunkered in my car, I can’t sleep. It’s not the lingering smell from the camp gear or the heat. The night is cool and pleasant, and I know later I will need a blanket on top of my sheet. My mind is revving over the possibility of finding out who I am tomorrow.

  My whole life I have searched for him in the shadows and the bright sun, searched for him in coffee shops and bookstores and gas stations. I conjured him in the black-haired dishwasher at Bob Evans, and believed I saw him in the spaghetti aisle of the grocery store. Scenarios of our meetings roll through my head like a film where I imagine him lumbering toward me with the slightly askew gait I inherited (I don’t walk like Jeff or my mother), his arms spread out to welcome his long-lost son. At the pool he taught me how to dive and swim, and later, on vacations, we went to the beach where he taught me how to body surf. I envisioned meeting him at the circus, where he took my hand and bought me a bunch of balloons. In another film, he carried me on his shoulders at a county fair. He and I bowled together at Main Lanes and ate ice cream in Graham Park. My father played catch with me in the backyard of his sprawling home, the one with the pool and a pair of well-behaved golden retrievers. He bought me Christmas presents and threw birthday parties for me, sparing no expense. My father introduced me to his coworkers, saying proudly, “Here’s my boy. Someday he’ll be running this company.” He told me bawdy jokes and said I was going to be a “lady-killer,” and showed me how to shave without cutting myself. He instructed me on how to treat a lady on a date, and how to tie my tie and wear cologne. He coached me in softball and football, and cheered at every game.

  But none of this is true, and in every film, he has no face. He has no name. Because I have no name. I am not who I imagine I am. I am nobody.

  That’s my biography: the boy with no name.

  I am teeming inside, and throw the sheet off me. Maybe Shelly is wrong; I don’t need to find my father. I just need to accept that he will never be a part of my life.

  Chapter Eight

  After a restless night’s sleep, I rise early. It’s a splendid morning, and it’s been awhile since I have run, so I rummage through my clothes, find my running shoes and track shorts, and run on the track. When I reach the end of three miles, I’m a little winded and very sweaty. I heave my sweaty self uphill back to my car, and Earl is parked next to me in his battered pickup. He’s leaning against my rear fender, puffing on a pipe. Shit! Does he know I have been parking here all night?

  “You’re up early, kid,” he says as I approach.

  “I needed a run.”

  “I see that you're here before me sometimes,” he says. “You come in early a lot?”

  “Yeah,” I say, half out of breath. “I try to stay in shape for cross-country. Training starts in July.”

  “Uh-huh.” He nods slowly. I don't know how to read that nod. Does he believe me? I almost wish he’d come out and ask me if I’m living in my car. He scans the camping equipment strewn near my car. “Camping out here?”

  I flushed. “I brought this stuff in to see if I can freshen it up,” I say. “Our cat peed all over it, and my brother and I want to go camping this weekend
. I was hoping to maybe scrub it up during lunch.”

  “Sure, kid. We have some stuff that will get the stink out.”

  “Thanks.”

  Earl takes another look at the gear. “That camping gear is good quality. Old, but quality stuff.”

  “Yeah, it’s not bad.”

  “You need a shower.” He glances at his watch. “You’ve got time. See ya inside, kid.” He gets in his truck and drives to his usual parking spot by the rear doors.

  I rustle through the backseat and gather some semi-clean clothes and a towel. I also grab my travel-sized shampoo and soap, toothbrush and toothpaste. I glance at my phone. Seven-fifteen. Shelly will be here soon. I leave a note to tell her I’m in the shower and to wait for me. I half expect her to join me in the boys' locker room. Not that I’d mind.

  When I come back out she’s sitting on the open tailgate of the car, smoking. I know better than to comment.

  I spread my damp towel across the back of my seat. “That shower felt good,” I say as I finger through my wet hair. “It’s rare I get a total-body shower.”

  “You live like a Frenchman.”

  “Oui, oui, mademoiselle.”

  “Except you smell a little better. They don’t wear deodorant.”

  I shove my sweaty shorts in the back of the car. I notice a pile of laundered and folded clothes resting on the seat. “Thanks for doing my laundry,” I say, as I sit down next to her and sling an arm around her. I pull her close and kiss her.

  She shrugs. “It’s no big deal.”

  “To you, maybe.”

  “I have something else for you,” she says. She tosses a plastic bag at me.

  It contains one of her brother’s shirts, a pair of olive-green Dockers, and a half-bottle of Guess Seductive Homme Blue. “This way you won’t smell like you’ve been sleeping in a sewer,” she says.

  “Isn’t this your brother’s?”

  “I bought him a new bottle,” she says. “I’ll tell him I broke the old one by accident.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “If it weren’t for lies, you and I wouldn’t survive.” I splash on some of the cologne and place it in the bag. “I think Earl suspects something.”

  “About you living here?”

  “Yeah. He was parked next to my car waiting for me when I came back from a morning run.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Just that he’s noticed my car here early in the morning sometimes before he gets here.”

  “Oh shit,” she says.

  “Yeah. My thinking exactly.”

  She laughs and slides off the tailgate. Shelly unwraps a piece of cinnamon gum and chews it. “Even though I’m smoking again, I’m still trying to cut back.” She looks at the football field. “I think I’ll go see if our ducks are out there today.”

  I dress quickly in a pair of clean shorts and the T-shirt Shelly brought me and finger-comb my hair. I swish some mouthwash around and spit it to the side of the car, and I slide on my secondhand Nikes.

  Shelly whistles when she sees me. “You clean up pretty well for a vagrant.”

  “Thanks. Were the ducks there?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “What’s the story with the stinky camping gear?”

  “My mom found it in the basement,” I tell her. “She thought I could use it. I didn’t realize how bad it smelled until I put it in my car.”

  “I guess it’s not a bad idea.”

  She spits her gum out on the ground. “What are we hungry for today?”

  “Let’s live dangerously,” I say. “Burger King.”

  Before we get into the car, Shelly makes me pose for a picture. “Why?” I ask.

  “Because you don’t look like a rabid dog for once.”

  “Gee thanks.”

  “Stand still and look human.” She holds up her iPhone and snaps a pic.

  I try to pay for my own breakfast to thank her for the clothes and cologne, but Shelly pushes my money away. “My parents hemorrhage money,” she says. The counter girl laughs and looks at us curiously. We both order ham-and-cheese croissants, large coffees, and hash browns.

  I lift the tray. “Heart attack on a plate.”

  “Let’s hope you don’t keel over before you find your father,” she says.

  We sit near the window so I can keep an eye on the car. Not that anyone would steal it.

  “If you could have breakfast with anyone in the world,” Shelly says, “living or dead, who would you choose?”

  “Besides you?”

  She nods. I think for a second. “I don’t know. Elvis, Einstein, Marie Curie, or . . .”

  “You can only choose one.”

  “Oh man.” I consider again. “Probably Pablo Neruda. How about you?”

  Shelly stirs sugar into her coffee and takes a sip. “Jack Kerouac.”

  I laugh. “Breakfast with him would be beer in a tavern at four o’clock in the afternoon.”

  “Can you imagine the four of us in here together?” she asks.

  “Neruda and Kerouac in Burger King? That would be freaky.”

  We eat in silence for a few seconds. “Today is the day you find out who you really are,” Shelly says.

  “I’m not sure I want to know.”

  “There is always a risk. You could find out your dad is a pedophile or a circus clown.”

  I recall my dreams of the faceless men and I think of the kind of men my mother is attracted to now. She had chosen good mates in Bob and Paul, so there may be hope I am the son of a decent man. Lately, though, my mother’s boyfriends and husbands have all been losers, users, and abusers.

  If I have learned anything from my mother’s string of men, it’s how not to be a schmuck. “What if I find out my dad is a serial killer?” I ask. “And what happens once I find him?”

  Shelly takes a deep breath and steals one of my hash browns. “Let’s just find him first. Then we’ll worry about the details.”

  We arrive back at school a few minutes before eight. Earl and Hess are bent in conversation in the teacher’s lounge. They glance up when Shelly and I step inside.

  “Where are you planning to camp?” Hess asks.

  “We haven’t decided yet,” I say.

  “My wife and I like Spring Valley near Cambridge,” he says.

  “Thanks,” I say. “We might check it out.” I hate lying to Hess and Earl. They’re good guys.

  Chapter Nine

  At lunchtime, Hess offers to go to a drive-thru for everyone. Shelly and I use the time to scrub the grime off the tent, which really did have cat piss on it. We scour and rinse the tent and pop it open to let it dry in the sun. While we work, Shelly plaits her hair in a long braid draped to one side.

  “Very fetching,” I say.

  She shrugs. “It’s cooler.”

  The sleeping bag turns out to be down filled, which will come in handy this winter if we can get the odor out. I guess if I get cold enough the stink won’t matter.

  It feels good to be outside, scrubbing and rinsing alongside Shelly. The stove and the dishes clean up easily with the hose, but the fabrics have absorbed a foul stench. We soak the jacket and the sleeping bag in a cleaning solution Hess concocted and hang them to dry over one of the railings by the back door. The wet feathers make the sleeping bag heavy, but I hope the sun and breeze will dry it. I hang the jacket on the opposite railing.

  “How long was this stuff in your basement?” Shelly asks.

  “Long enough,” I say.

  “Your cat must be a piece of work. Maybe the smell of other animals from nature made him use it as a litter box,” she says. “To mark his territory.”

  “Maybe.

  She studies me. “You don’t really have a cat, do you? And you and Jeff never go camping.”

  “No,” I admit. “My mom thought I’d be able to use this old stuff.”

  “So even though you tried to blow up the school, and she tossed you out, she still loves you?”

  “Something like that,” I say. �
�No matter what we do, our parents still care about us. Look at you. Whatever you did to be my co-criminal, your parents still love you.”

  “Nice try, but I’m not ready for that conversation.”

  “I can wait.” I point a finger at her. “Someday, though.”

  “And someday you’ll tell me the real reason you live in your car.”

  By the end of our workday, most of the camp gear is almost dry. Earl lets me hang the damp sleeping bag and jacket inside the school. I drape them over some chairs in the custodial storage room. The tent is dry, though, and I stash the now fresh-smelling tent and other gear in the back of my car. It all smells like industrial cleaner, but that’s a whole lot better than cat urine and mold.

  Shelly glances at the pile of dirty clothes and sheets littering the backseat of my car. “We can wash the rest of those at my house while we look up your birth certificate.”

  As I drive, every time I turn a corner the camping stuff rolls around. “It sounds like you have a body in the back,” Shelly says.

  “Yeah, I’m going to have to organize it better.”

  “Or store it somewhere.”

  “Maybe I can leave it in Jeff’s basement until winter.”

  When we get to her house I grab the duffle, fill it with the rest of my dirty clothes, sling it over my shoulder, and haul it up her driveway.

  “I’ll show you how to work the washer, and then I’m going to change clothes.”

  She dumps in a capful of detergent and sets the load on high. I lift the duffle and start shoving clothes inside the washer.

  “Don’t you separate lights and darks?” she asks.

  “Huh?”

  She shakes her head. “You’re supposed to wash dark clothes separately from lighter-colored ones. It keeps your underwear from turning gray.”

  “Oh. I never thought of that.” I shrug. “I guess that makes sense.” I look at my now wet pile of clothes inside the washer. “Too late now.”

  She picks up my duffle with two fingers and holds it out like it’s a stinky fish. “Might as well throw this in as well.”