by John J. Bonk
“Lemme give you the grand tour,” Dad said through his bullhorn as if I were a crowd of fifty. “This here is the great room; over there’s the john. And that concludes the grand tour!” We threw our jackets on an overloaded coatrack, toppling it over. “I know it’s a dump, but like I said, it’s just temporary.”
Temporary seemed to be a permanent feature when it came to Dad.
“So sit down, take a load off.” He jiggled my shoulders. “Relaaax!”
How could I relax? I kept expecting that home wrecker, Shelly, to come rushing into the room any second in skimpy lingerie and bunny slippers.
“You could throw your stuff anywhere.”
That seemed to be the general rule. I dropped my backpack and looked around the not-so-great room for somewhere to sit. Dad cleared a pizza box off a beat-up armchair and I collapsed into it – the chair, not the box. A cloud of dust actually puffed up from the cushion.
“Sorry I didn’t have time to pick up,” Dad said, rushing around scooping up handfuls of stuff. “I was running late.” He disappeared into the bathroom and came back a second later empty-handed. Still no Shelly. “So what can I do ya for? You want anything to eat – drink?” I shrugged. “Don’t get bashful on me now. I know my cupboard’s not completely bare…” Dad was going for the cabinet, but veered off to the window instead, and pulled down the shade with a quick jerk. “Which is more than I can say for my next-door neighbor!”
That could’ve used a “bah-dum-pum,” but I was too busy picking at a cigarette burn in the armrest and having a panic attack.
“Let’s see what’s on the menu,” he said, opening the cabinet. “Peanut butter, creamy; peanut butter, crunchy; and peanut butter, all natural – for the discriminating palate.”
“What about Shelly?” I blurted out.
He just kept rummaging.
“I’m really sorry to have to break this to you, kid,” he said turning to me. Brace yourself – here comes the bomb. “But I’m all outta jelly.”
“Shelly!” I practically screamed.
“Oh. How did you find out about Shelly?”
“At the Laugheteria – hello? Your friends were teasing you about her right in front of me.”
“Oh, right, right, right.”
His brain was as scattered as his dirty laundry.
“Well,” he said with a wiggly worm of a smile, “wanna meet her?”
Let’s not and say we did. “Okay.”
“Just sit tight,” he told me, rushing to the other side of the room. “Don’t go anywhere.”
Where would I go?
Dad wrenched open a warped closet door and a bunch of shoe boxes and junk spilled out on top of him. He shoved it all back in except for a black leather case – kind of like Wally’s bassoon case, only bigger – then ran out the front door of the apartment, closing it behind him.
Where’s he off to? Is he coming back? I knew I was being ridiculous, but I still couldn’t help wondering. I perused the room, trying to spot his phone just in case I had to call Mom to come and rescue me. After all, Dad had a reputation for running away when things got weird.
Buzz!
I jumped. That had to be the loudest doorbell in the history of doorbells.
“Dad?” I said, rushing to the door.
Buzz-buzz-buzzz! Knock-knock-knock!
“C’mon, quit screwing around!”
I twisted the doorknob and pulled the door open. Nobody there. When I stuck my head around the door frame, a big purple thing lunged out at me.
“Eeesh!” I yelped. “What the –?”
“You must be Dustin,” it said in a high, tinny voice. “I’m Shelly. Nice to make your acquaintance.”
A ventriloquist dummy? Who would’ve guessed I’d be so stoked to meet a three-foot-tall purple mermaid puppet? She had turquoise hair with starfish stuck in it, a long, floppy tail, and two sparkly shells where a bikini top would be.
“I’d shake your hand, kid, but mine are all clammy. Bah-dum-pum!”
“Dad! I knew you were up to something – fishy.”
“He’s a real cutie, Ted,” he went on a la Shelly. “Too bad I’m dating a Navy Seal.”
“Oh, gawd.”
Dad unclenched his jaw and switched to his real voice. “Well, whaddya think? Ain’t she something? Ask her how old she is, Dusty. Go ahead, ask.”
“Daaad, can we take this inside?”
“C’mon, throw me a line. Just for the halibut.”
“All right already. I’ll bite.”
“Ha! That’s m’boy!”
“So, Shelly, what year were you – spawned?”
“Lemme think… I can’t remember the exact date. But the Dead Sea was just starting to get sick!”
I pulled Dad and company into the apartment before the neighbors called the men in the white coats.
“What did the Pacific Ocean say to the Atlantic?”
This was getting old real quick. I was drowning in fish jokes! Plus, he was really bad at keeping his lips from moving. Still, I was so relieved that Shelly wasn’t a real live woman, I just kept playing along.
“I don’t know. What did the Pacific say to the Atlantic?”
“Nothing. It just waved.”
I threw myself across the couch in exhaustion.
“Okay, folks, that’s my time.” Dad must’ve gotten the hint. Shelly took her curtain call (with help from Dad, of course) and wound up propped on the couch next to me.
“Give it up for the comic stylings of Teddy Grubbs and Shelly!” I shouted, tossing a pillow into the air. I was clapping and whistling on the outside, but on the inside I was thinking, If that’s his new act, he’s in real trouble.
“Uh-oh, speaking of time,” Dad said, glaring at his watch, “I gotta drop my cab off by nine o’clock or I’ll be in deep doo-doo.” He rushed to the dresser across the room and started digging through the bottom drawer like a maniac.
“You never did tell me how your audition for the school musical went. I definitely want the play-by-play when I get back, okay, buddy?”
I got a sinking feeling.
“Here, this oughta keep you entertained till I get back,” he said, shoving a videotape into the VCR/DVD combo next to the small TV atop the dresser.
“What is it?” Please don’t let it be The Little Mermaid.
“You’ll find out.” He tossed me the remote. “The taxi hub is just around the corner, so I’ll be back faster than you can say Jack Robinson.”
“Jack Robinson.”
“A thousand times.” He grabbed his jacket and shot out the door with a wink.
Once again my heart froze in my chest. I guess it was, like, a Pavlov-and-his-dogs type thing. I ran to the door and locked it because I was in the big city and you just can’t be too careful; then curled up on the couch next to “the other woman.”
“So, home wrecker, shall we dive right in? Whaddya say?” I clicked on the TV with the remote.
“… hear it again for Miss Thompson’s first-grade snow angels and Santa’s little helpers.” The sound blasted out, but the picture was still fuzz. “Good job. You really knocked it outta the park!” There was clapping and cheering, then Mr. Futterman appeared on the screen! This must’ve been from a long time ago because he still had a patch of hair. “And now Mrs. Sternhagen’s second-graders will present a Christmas recitation, followed by a festive song of the season.”
Mrs. Sternhagen waved her students onstage, and waddled down the steps to the piano. I swear she was wearing the same brown dress she had on last week.
“Oh, I know what this is,” I said out loud to Shelly. “The Christmas pageant from five years ago that we had at our school.” I squeezed the contraption in Shelly’s back that worked her mouth, answering myself in a high falsetto. “I know a family of clownfish that travels around in a school.”
“Shhh! Watch the movie. Hey, look, that’s me! In front of the leaning Christmas tree, carrying the letter S. Jeez, my head was gi-normous!”
Finally we ended up in the correct boy-girl-boy-girl positions. Sternhagen was barking something at us. “Now I want to see expressions of joy on your little faces or there will be serious consequences!” I’m guessing. She cued us to begin and the first kid stepped forward to recite his line.
“C is for the CAROLS that we sing from days of old – yore!”
“H is for the HOLLY WREATH that hangs upon the door,”
Gee, I wonder why Holly Peterson got that line.
“R is for the REINDEER that guide Santa’s special sleigh,”
“I is for the, uh, ICICLES that – umm, shimmer – no glimmer…”
Millicent Fleener was freaking out, flipping the placard around like she thought she was holding it upside down. Didn’t matter – it was an I!
This is painful. I fast-forwarded it.
“– the ANGELS bright,”
“And S is for the SNOW!” a mini-Dustin hollered.
Applause, applause. We all took an awkward bow and the other letters marched off to their places on the chorus bleachers joining the rest of our class. But not me. I stayed put and just kept on bowing away. Beaming. Mugging.
Then it hit me. “Omigod!” I cried out, pointing at the screen. “That’s it! The exact moment in time when I knew I wanted to be an actor! Six little words and I was hooked.”
Shelly seemed unimpressed. But I was flying high. I pressed REWIND and PLAY to see it again. “– S is for the SNOW!” And again, and again. What a find! A major turning point of my life caught on tape. They could play it to embarrass me when I’m a big star promoting my latest movie on Leno and Letterman. “Oh, no!” I’ll gasp, pretending to be mortified, but loving every minute. “Now where the heck did you dig that up?”
Dad came barging through the front door coughing, wheezing and breaking my time-travel spell. “I’m back!”
“Jack Robinson, Jack Robinson. Whew! Nine hundred and ninety-nine. You made it by the skin of your teeth!” He didn’t get it. “Dad, this tape is so cool. I didn’t know you had it.”
“Don’t tell your mother – she’ll want it back.” He fell onto the couch, reeking of cigarette smoke, and stretched his legs across me. “She just called my cell,” he said, kicking off a shoe. His big toe was poking through his sock, staring up at me. “Said to remind you that she’ll be picking you up at the Greyhound bus station on Sunday at six sharp.”
“How can I forget? She embroidered it into the tags of all my shirts.”
My second-grade class launched into “Holly Jolly Christmas” with full arm choreography and we both zeroed in on the TV. “Oh, look, there’s my little guy!” Dad gushed. The camera panned in on my adorable (I have to admit) face. “Hey, did you forget the words to the song or something? Look close. You’re not even moving your lips.”
“Which is more than I can say for you.” Okay – I didn’t really say it out loud.
“See? See? I never noticed that before.” He scooched upright to get a better view. “Maybe ventriloquism runs in the family, huh?”
“Nope. That’s ‘cause I was a Hummingbird,” I said proudly. Dad had a question-mark look on his face. “I remember – Sternhagen had a few of us hum along instead of singing. She called us the Hummingbirds. We were – special.”
“Oh, okay.”
As I heard myself saying the words, it dawned on me what a total goofball I’d been. My excitement fizzled. The Hummingbirds were special all right – especially bad. We weren’t even allowed to sing along with the rest of the class, and they weren’t exactly the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I’d been duped!
What if I haven’t improved at all since then? What if I wasn’t just having an off day when I auditioned for the musical? What if I was born with some sort of incurable singing impairment?
“Okay, time to get off me, Pops. Your legs weigh a ton.” What if, what if, what if? I clicked off the TV. My hummingbird feathers were definitely ruffled.
“I gotta pee like a racehorse anyway.” He rolled to his feet and darted toward the bathroom, calling out, “We can order some real food if you’re hungry. There’re menus on the coffee table.”
“What coffee table?”
“One man’s milk crate is another man’s coffee table. Smart aleck.”
Shuffling through the take-out menus, I kept thinking about how I’d turned out to be one of those people who thinks they can sing, but really can’t, and go around making gigantic goobers of themselves. How depressing. I caught myself humming a sad rendition of the stupid “Holly Jolly” song and bit my lip. I’ll never be able to look another hummingbird in the beak again!
“I can’t believe I fell for it hook, line, and sinker,” I said out loud, turning to Shelly. “Uh, you can use that line in your act if you want.”
Just when I had the restaurants narrowed down to Tex-Mex Express and Wok-the-Talk, I heard a muffled riiing! coming from under my left buttock.
“Hey, Dad, the couch is ringing!” I yelled, feeling between the cushions for something shaped like a phone. “It’s probably Mom checking up on me again.”
“Well, get it!”
I almost answered a checkbook, a banana, and a statuette of the Sears Tower before I got to Dad’s cell phone.
“Hello, hello?” I said, flipping open the phone. “Uh, Grubbs residence.”
“Teddy? It’s Nadine Fleck. I’m so glad I caught you.”
Dad was still doing up his pants when he leaned out of the bathroom asking, “Who is it, Dusty?”
“A Dean Frick?” I threw him the phone and he actually pulled off a one-handed catch.
“That’s Nadine, my agent,” he told me in a stage whisper, covering the phone. “She never calls.”
Dad was knocking over glasses, struggling to jot stuff down on a roll of paper towels during their conversation. It was over quick, and he flipped the phone closed with a resounding “Yes!” and flew into the living room. “Well, kid, I’ve got good news – and I’ve got good news.” Sunbeams were pouring out of his eye sockets. “Which do you want to hear first?”
“Umm, the good news.”
“Your father has an audition for a national television commercial tomorrow morning! Can you believe it?”
“Sweet! And the good news?”
“You get to tag along!”
Chapter 12
Stink-Zappers
Dad took a slow, hard drag out of his cigarette, savoring it as if he were sucking on the straw of the last chocolate milkshake on Earth. He flicked it onto Wabash Avenue without thinking twice. And without thinking twice, I stomped on it, snatched it up and dropped it into a nearby trash can.
“I could learn a few things from you, pal,” he said, smiling. And with our arms around each other we monkey-walked into the glassy, green high-rise that housed McKenna Casting, Inc. The chrome elevator was rocket-ship fast and we only made one stop on our ascent to the forty-seventh floor. I think my stomach got off with the cleaning lady on thirty-one. When the elevator doors opened, all we saw was the Prestige Modeling Agency.
“This can’t be right.” Dad looked as confused as the super-model he was holding the elevator door open for. He didn’t notice that I’d noticed, but he was staring at her like she was Little Red Riding Hood dipped in gravy and he was the wolf.
“Yeah, the casting office is definitely on forty-seven,” I said, pulling him away from the elevator. “Hey, Dad, did you know most penguins mate for life?”
“Where did that come from?”
It was a cheap shot, but a kid’s gotta do what a kid’s gotta do. As we were speed-walking past Prestige, I spotted a CLOSED FOR REMODELING sign on their door. “Oh, look,” I said, pointing it out, “Do you think that means they’re hiring all new models – or just fixing up the place?”
Dad didn’t react at first. Then he busted out laughing as if it were the most hilarious thing he’d ever heard. “You’re a funny kid, Dustin. Don’t ever let anyone tell you you’re not funny.”
“I won’t.”
It turned out that McKenna Casting, Inc. was at the opposite end of the hall behind a giant glass door. Dad had to sign in at the reception desk, where a silver-haired lady snapped his picture and handed him a large index card. “You can take a seat over there with the others and…” she said, but her voice petered out. “You’ll be reading for the role of…”
“Excuse me?” Dad asked, leaning into her. She was one of those real soft talkers who should only be allowed to work in libraries.
“The role of Smelly Father,” she repeated. “I’ll give you your sides.”
“Sides?” I half-expected her to whip out a dish of coleslaw, fries, or creamed spinach – but she removed a few typed pages from a file folder and handed them to Dad.
He flipped through the pages as we walked past a lineup of chairs filled with a variety of anxious-looking people devouring their own sides. “It’s, like, the script,” Dad muttered, “I guess.”
“Smelly Father – you’re perfect for the part! I can’t believe we’re in a real casting agency, and you’re up for a real commercial. How exciting is this?”
“Exciting? Jeez, Louise, I think I’m having a coronary. I’m sure glad I got my lucky charm with me.”
“What is it, like, a rabbit’s foot or something?”
“No, it’s you, dum-dum. I thought my agent had crossed me off her list. You show up and – bam! I’m auditioning for my first national commercial.”
We took off our jackets and plopped down on two orange fuzzy chairs. Dad was filling out his information card and I noticed that his button-down was totally wrinkled. In fact, he was way underdressed compared to his competition – and he still had sheet marks across his cheek. Real classy. Maybe that would work in his favor, though, since he looked more like a smelly father than the other guys.
“Lemme see.” I grabbed the sides from him and read his lines out loud. “‘Honey, I’m home! Rough day today. My dogs are really barkin’.’ I don’t get it. What’s this commercial for? Pet food?”