“Don’t you get it?” Jimmy asked.
Turning toward Larry, Dugan waited to hear what he had to say about it. He’d even settle for a bad joke.
But behind his thick glasses fogged with lotion, Larry just stared at him, too. To Dugan, it began to feel like Jimmy and Larry knew something that he didn’t. The thought that they were just having a joke at his expense began to piss him off. Like he always did when he got mad, he got quiet. But Jimmy had seen it all before. He tolerated only a minute of the silent treatment before he smiled and shook his head.
“You’ll figure it out, man. You’re a smart guy.”
Jimmy stood up suddenly. Dugan watched him run and take a flying leap off the edge of the cliff into the abyss below. It seemed to Dugan that a very long time passed between his friend’s jump and the inevitable splashing sound of him hitting the water.
* * *
In the early afternoon the three began gathering up their stuff. Although there was plenty of daylight left, the air had become oppressive with early summer humidity and the bugs had come out.
When Larry bent over to collect his things, Jimmy poured the melted ice from the cooler onto his shoulders and back and he screamed like a little girl.
They took a detour to Lookout Hill on the way home to climb the long, steep staircase to the top of the hundred and twenty foot granite tower. The highest point in town, the structure had been built in the early 1800s as a fire observation platform, but had been abandoned early in the century.
Most of the iron railing of the staircase had fallen out, been stolen, or otherwise disappeared over time. The floorboards at the top were rotted out in places. Every now and then, the town made a half-hearted attempt to seal up the dangerous structure, but the local burnouts always found a way to break into this favored party spot. From the top of the tower, you could look down on the whole of Grantham.
Jimmy led the way up, with Dugan and Larry right behind. As they neared the top, Dugan felt a hand reach out to clutch his belt tightly. Stopping, he turned and reached down to offer Larry his hand. Larry took it. Dugan held on tightly as the two walked together the rest of the way.
At the top, Jimmy popped open the last of the beers and took a sip before handing it around. The three were mostly silent as they looked out from the tower, as if underscoring the unspoken knowledge that this would be their last time together for a while. Jimmy was packing up tonight to leave early the next morning. He’d spend the next three weeks at a CYO camp in New Hampshire. His father wanted him to work on his jump shot. Larry was leaving early Monday morning to spend two weeks at his family’s home on the coast of Maine. Both would be gone for the Fourth, leaving Dugan behind to hold down the fort.
As he looked down on his small town, Dugan tried to recall the last time he’d left it. He remembered after a moment that it had been in the sixth grade. His class had taken a field trip to Old Sturbridge Village in the western part of the state. A restored early nineteenth-century town, the Village used trained actors to play the roles of various townspeople, who realistically demonstrated what life back then had really been like.
Dugan smiled to recall that he and Jimmy had grabbed Larry from behind and forced him into the stocks in the town square. He remembered being so excited the night before the field trip he could hardly sleep. Now, as he stared out from the top of the tower, Dugan tried to remember the last time he had been as excited about anything and couldn’t. They didn’t let you go on field trips in junior high. Even adults weren’t that stupid.
The late afternoon sunlight had lost its battle with the treetops by the time the three finished off the last of the beer. Nodding once to each other in silent signal that it was time to go, they descended the serpentine staircase and exited the tower. Twenty minutes of mostly silent walking later, they said their goodbyes, wished each other well, and left the woods to head to their respective homes.
* * *
The humidity of the previous day had broken after a rain shower passed through sometime in the night. Dugan was up early because it was Sunday and the thick newspapers didn’t deliver themselves. It took him about an hour on Sundays to ensure each newspaper had its correct allotment of glossy ads, store coupons, and Sunday magazines.
Sunday papers were usually so fat that he had to make a few trips back to the Korner store to refill his baskets. He tried to time it just right to make sure that he could both deliver the papers and collect from his customers as they were getting home from church. There were three houses of worship in Grantham: the Temple, the Protestant church where Larry went and where Dugan used to have Boy Scouts, and the Catholic church that Jimmy and his family went to every Sunday. Dugan and his family used to go there too. He hadn’t been back since his mother’s funeral.
Mr. Harper out on Route 135 owed him for two weeks. He banged on his door for five minutes but nobody came. He would have sworn the front room curtain moved a little bit, as if he were being watched from inside the house. The car was in the driveway so he knew somebody was home. He left another envelope taped to the door and made a note in his book to suspend deliveries to the house.
He stopped by Mrs. Skinner’s house, Larry’s piano teacher. As always, she opened the door as if she’d been waiting for him, greeting Dugan from behind the screen door with only a skimpy towel around her. She never looked wet, though, and the older he got, the smaller the towels seemed to become. She always invited him in for coffee and he always said no thanks, opting instead to wait for her on the front porch. But the older he got, the more he thought about taking her up on the invitation. For an older lady, she was still pretty hot.
By the time he finished collecting, setting aside the money he needed to pay for the papers, he had about fifty bucks. It was just after noon as he headed back home. The sun was still high, though he had no use for it. He had no plans. As he rode home that day, he thought, nothing ever changes in this town.
6
Cupid, draw back your bow
Shaded from the midday sun by the dome of the gazebo, Dugan was sitting on the porch writing in his notebook when he looked up to see Jimmy’s older brother Billy coming out of the woods at the end of the street. Billy must have spied Dugan too, because after peering around suspiciously for a while he invited himself up onto Dugan’s porch.
Billy had been a hotshot jock in high school, the good-looking captain of both the football and basketball teams. But something happened during his freshman year of college: he began to hear voices and see conspiracies everywhere. He didn’t last the year and had been in and out of hospitals ever since. Though Jimmy didn’t talk about it, Dugan knew that all the athletic hopes and dreams Jimmy’s father once had for Billy now fell on Jimmy’s shoulders.
More lucid than the last time he had seen him, Billy declined Dugan’s offer of refreshment to share in a conspiratory whisper some of the recent conversations he’d had with Ronald Reagan and the Aliens. Dugan listened carefully as Billy told him that the interstellar invaders were now in cahoots with the Republican presidential nominee. After warning Dugan to watch his back, Billy left his porch abruptly and did not say goodbye.
Later that same afternoon, Dugan began to hear the sound of a nearby truck. He raised his head after a while to listen to its engine rev up and down, up and down, as if executing a difficult three-point turn or backing into a tight spot.
Applewood was a narrow dead-end street, so it didn’t get many trucks. Sometimes people might buy new furniture or get some other kind of delivery, but that was rare. This truck was close enough and the noise went on long enough that Dugan began to get curious. Putting down his notebook, he walked to the end of the porch at the front of the house. Looking up the street, he could just see the ass end of a big eighteen-wheeler, its back doors open. Large men in green uniforms were gathering in front of the open doors or milling about.
Dugan caught movement out of the corner of his eye and glanced across the street. Some of the neighbors had also come out to have
a look. They got bored after a moment and closed their doors to go back to whatever it was they had been doing, but Dugan hadn’t been doing anything at all. He was a little embarrassed to discover that he found this unusual break in his daily routine quite fascinating.
He watched the men begin to pull down the ramp before it occurred to him: someone was moving into the empty house that had been vacant since Mrs. Ryan died. Dugan had heard there was trouble between her two grown sons about it, leaving the house empty for more than a year now.
Dugan thought about it for a second, then went out back and got on his bike. He rode slowly up the street, and slowed even more as he passed the house. As he rode by, he saw a girl step out of the back of a station wagon. She looked about his age, and wore a turquoise blouse with white shorts. Her long blond hair was pulled back behind her ears. When she looked over and saw him, she smiled, and her smile was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
Not wanting to stare, he kept on going to the top of the street and then turned left. Once he was sure he was out of sight, he stopped the bike by the side of the road. His legs were shaking and he felt kind of funny, dizzy, so he closed his eyes and dropped his head for a moment and waited for it to pass. He hadn’t had much breakfast this morning. That’s what it was. He stood there a while and thought about the girl.
He realized that he couldn’t just turn around and go back down the street. It would be too obvious and look too much like he only rode by to see the new neighbors. Smiling to himself, he shook his head and decided that he was in need of a long bike ride. He got back on his bike and rode down the state highway, past the houses on his paper route, and kept on going. He went past the elementary school that he’d walked to as a kid, past the small dairy farm that sold fresh ice cream in the summertime. He rode past Grantham Green, where the town had mustered its twenty-nine Revolutionary War volunteers, who had gone west to Pittsfield before beginning the long march north to Ticonderoga. Going past the new library, he found himself suddenly in the center of town.
Grantham Center was a four-block area of three story shops, many of them closed up now. The J. J. Newbury’s and the A&P had been empty since the new mall opened on the other side of town. The cinema was still operating, but showed mostly second and third run flicks. There were a couple of sub shops, a pizza place that kept changing hands, a mattress place, and an Army-Navy store. An ancient Odd Fellows hall loomed over the center of town, next to the fire station.
Just off the main drag were the VFW and then the diner, followed by a couple of unsavory drinking establishments that he knew his father frequented. After that was an adult bookstore, and Dugan rode past them all, then past the fast food places that marked the fringe of the town center. He went past the high school, just up the hill from the junior high, and decided to keep on going. He rode ten more miles at least, out past the old cemetery, the huge junkyard, and finally, the town dump.
Pumping faster now, as fast as he could, he could feel his long hair blowing straight back. He kept up the breakneck speed until he was close enough to see a small orange sign that he knew said “Grantham Town Line” and he blew past that too, huffing and puffing, then braked suddenly enough to burn rubber. Jerking his bike to the left, he slowed down and finally came to a complete stop about half a mile into the neighboring town of Dutton. He dropped his bike on the sidewalk and collapsed onto the strip of green fringe to catch his breath.
Sitting up, he felt around in his pockets for a cigarette but found none and thought it just as well. He could feel the tension that the strenuous exercise had left in his lungs. He sat there a while thinking about the girl who had moved into his neighborhood and then got an idea. It would have to wait a bit, though. Give them some time to settle in.
Standing up, he brushed off his backside and climbed onto his bike, turning back toward town. He was in no rush or hurry this time. There was no need for it. Before he crossed the line into Grantham, he noted that at least now he would remember for certain when he had last left town. He laughed to see that the new motto had been added to the “Entering Grantham” sign. On the way home, he stopped by the cemetery to pay respects to his mother.
* * *
Three days later, Dugan was already thinking about his third shower of the day. It was what his old man used to call “poor man’s AC” back when his old man said anything at all. He took one after completing his paper route and he took another before lunch to wash away the accumulated sweat of the hot summer day.
He had spent most of the morning and early afternoon sitting on the porch writing in his notebook, sneaking an occasional glance up the street. It was mid-afternoon by the time he saw the station wagon leave her driveway. Not that he’d noticed, but the car seemed to leave the house at this time every day. She hadn’t gotten into it this time either. The car would be gone for twenty minutes or so. Running upstairs, he quickly showered and sprayed on some deodorant with just a drop of his father’s Aqua Velva. He donned his best cutoffs along with a clean, collared shirt and even combed his long hair. He took Larry’s paper—they wouldn’t need it this week—and walked up the street.
He stood outside the house for a moment. They had been in the house for three days, by his math more than enough time to begin settling in, anyway. Walking up to the front porch, he rang the doorbell and then heard footsteps coming down the stairs.
She was wearing a white tank top with black shorts and her long blond hair was tucked underneath a red kerchief. She had a puzzled look on her face when she opened the door, but that softened up a bit after she saw him. Dugan noted her head was tilted at an angle that accentuated her long neck. She pushed open the storm door and stuck her head out. “Can I help you?”
Her voice sounded exactly the way he had imagined it would. Soft and breathy, lilting even.
Managing a smile, he croaked out a phlegmy, “Howyadoin today?” It was not quite the way he’d rehearsed it, not by a long shot. She smiled anyway.
“You’re the kid on the bike,” she said. He smiled.
“Yup. That’s what they call me. The kid on the bike.”
She smiled too and a moment passed. Perhaps too long a moment, because he was beginning to see that quizzical look appear on her face again. He realized then he’d been holding his hands clasped behind him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, bringing his hands around to display the neatly folded newspaper. “My name’s…umm…Dugan…Scott Dugan, I mean…but my friends call me Dugan.”
He paused before he tried it again. “I live right down the street and I deliver the Globe. I wanted your family to have this complimentary copy, and then maybe speak to someone about maybe you getting it every day?”
He held out the folded newspaper. She made no move to take it. It was Dugan who began to look puzzled before she spoke.
“I’m sorry, and this has nothing to do with you, believe me… but I know my father won’t have that paper in his house.” Her face began to turn red. “Fathers. Crazy, huh?”
Dugan was oblivious to her embarrassment because he saw only her sparkling blue eyes. After a moment, he came out of it and smiled broadly. “You don’t know the half of it.” He moved his hands and the newspaper behind him again, to shield her vision from the offensive object.
The two of them stood in silence until Dugan broke it with, “Can I buy you a Coke?”
It had come out of nowhere and wasn’t in the plan. He knew it was lame, but she was nice about it.
“Naw, I can’t right now, but thanks anyway. My mother will be home soon with my little brother and we’re still unpacking and stuff.”
She began drawing away from the door a little. Dugan hoped it wasn’t impatience with him.
“I didn’t necessarily mean right now,” he said, maybe a little too defensively. He tried again. “I just meant sometime.”
She smiled. “Yeah, I’d like that. That’d be nice.” A moment later she asked, “When?”
Dugan thought a moment and then recalled
that he had nothing on his schedule for the rest of the summer. He smiled and tried to sound clever by answering, “I’ll tell you what. See that big old gray house at the end of the street? That’s where I live. As soon as you get yourself settled in, stop on by anytime, day or night. Does that sound like a plan?”
She smiled and nodded.
“All righty, then,” he said.
They stood there for another awkward moment before he said, “I’ll see you around!” He half-turned and began walking down the porch but did not look away from her. Halfway across her lawn, he turned fully around to stop and ask seriously, “You really gonna stop by?”
She smiled again and nodded once before closing the door.
Dugan was about halfway home and walking on air when it occurred to him that while he may have gotten himself a date, he hadn’t gotten her name. But he thought it had gone pretty well otherwise.
7
Uncle Dan comes to visit
But for all that, she didn’t come around. As the days wore on, Dugan’s showers became less frequent. His clothes selection took a turn for the worse. Two days before the Fourth of July, he was wearing his ripped and worn Kinks T-shirt and cutoff jeans with bleach spots. The day was hot and sweaty, the kind of day where everything feels like a wet facecloth.
He was sitting at the kitchen table sweating up a storm when he heard a knock at the back door. Looking up in horror from his Spaghetti-O’s, he stared down the long hallway. When the knock came again, he threw the spoon into the almost empty bowl and glanced down at what he was wearing.
Screw her, he thought, though he didn’t really mean it. “She’ll get to see the real me, anyway,” he muttered as he got up from the table to walk down the hallway. Opening the door, he broke into a huge grin when he saw that the hulking, bearded man at the door was his Uncle Dan.
“Hey, scrub!” Dan said through the screen.
Applewood (Book 1) Page 4