by Jack Gantos
“You know, Heinz,” he repeated, “like the ketchup.” He jerked down on his red tie as if he could shake out a few drops. Then he slipped his hand into his inside jacket pocket and removed an ID.
“See,” he said, holding it up just out of my reach. It was his face, but with that phony name.
“Does Mom know you changed your name?” I asked.
“Joey,” he said, and put his hand over his heart as if I had stabbed him there, “don’t be cruel to me. All I’ve done is to finally discover my true self.”
“If you’ve really changed,” I said, “you’ll give me that other hundred.” I held out my hand. “And I don’t take checks or credit cards,” I added because he started to look a little shifty.
But I guess he was only distracted because by then Mom was standing behind me. I smelled her before I saw her since she had taken a bubble bath in something called Passion Fruit for Lovers, which was from a party-size free sample we got while visiting the hot-tub showroom the other day. Every time she used it the dogs licked her ankles, even dogs we didn’t know.
“Hola, Charles,” she said in a very formal voice. “Won’t you come in, por favor?”
I whipped my head around. “Charles?” I repeated. “How do you know his name is Charles?”
She didn’t answer that question but reached over my shoulder and gently inched the hundred-dollar bill from Dad’s fingers. “Charles and I need to talk for a few minutes,” she said in a whispery voice as she slipped the bill up the cuff of her blouse. “Why don’t you finish off your snack?” She pointed to the kitchen but she might as well have been pointing to a sign that read TAKE A BACKSEAT now that what’s-his-name was here.
“I have research homework to do upstairs,” I said, and shoved my cash deep into my pocket before she got that, too.
“Even better,” she murmured, and smiled her approval.
Before I turned away I saw Dad point a long finger toward Mom’s outstretched foot. Each of her sculpted toenails peeked out the front of her sandals like a row of red and gold fall leaves.
“Seasonal,” he remarked smoothly. “Your artistic talents are impressive.” He swooped down and ran a fingertip across her toenails as if they were piano keys.
“Glad you noticed,” she replied softly. “Sculpting toenails is a new luxury service only I offer in all of Lancaster. Right now I’m looking for a backer to help me open my own salon.”
“What a coincidence,” he said, hopping up. “I’m looking to back a good business.”
I couldn’t listen to any more even if I wanted to. As I passed through the living room I tried to grab the dogs but they sensed something was wrong and darted under the couch. Never mind, I thought, I’ll get them for the second run. I pounded up the stairs and went into the storage room. I think my brain was overworked with trying to make believe that Carter Pigza had not returned and my mother was not calling him Charles because I forgot to use my better judgment and it wasn’t until I was running halfway across the room that I thought maybe I should be wearing my bike helmet. Some small part of me heard the dogs yapping from below. I thought they were saying “Think, think, think,” but by then I was diving through the air and for a moment I didn’t think of anyone—not me, the dogs, or Mom and Dad. What I had planned really worked well because my dive was perfectly aimed and my body was a rocket that went directly through the opening in the box. I slammed into the far closed end of it as if I’d hit the bull’s-eye, and the box shot off across the loose roof gravel and I went screaming down over the falls. It was a dark, long drop that became much darker and longer than I expected because I never heard the splash. In fact, I never even hit the wading pool. Instead, I whacked headfirst onto the cement cover over the cesspool.
2
KNOCKOUT PUNCH
I’ll tell you this—if you happen to knock yourself out cold by accident and the ambulance has to take you away, then no matter how mad people are that you did something really stupid they will still be happier to see you alive than dead. Sure, later on, after the doctor tells them that your brain has not turned into yogurt from the head-splitting crash, they will give you a long lecture on safety and make you wear a helmet for a while, but in the beginning they are just worried that you might die, or be permanently ruined in some way.
Since I woke up in the hospital I thought maybe the blow on my head had confused me a bit because the first thing I heard after my long scream off the roof was a man weeping as he said, “Wake up, Freddy. Come on, son. Open your eyes. You can do it.”
“Yes, sweetie,” a woman pleaded. “Wake up, honey.”
It was them, Mom and Dad, and as they spoke Dad tapped on the tight gauze bandage that was keeping my skull together and each tap bounced through my brain as if it were on springs.
“I am not Freddy,” I moaned with my eyes still closed. “You got me mixed up with another kid. I’m Joey Pigza and my head hurts.” I said all of this very softly as if little puffs of white smoke signals were rising out of my mouth.
“You are not Joey Pigza,” the man said firmly. “You are now Freddy Heinz, my son. And this is Maria, your mom.”
That was news to me. I tilted my face toward them and it hurt so much I thought my head would roll off my shoulders, roll off the bed, roll into a nice dark closet and hide. Instead, I peeked out just a bit and the overhead light stabbed me in the eyes. I must have hurt myself more than I realized and maybe died. I mean, why else would my sobbing new-named parents be staring down at me with their hands clasped together as if they were saying their final prayers over my dead body?
“Did I die?” I asked, and pulled the sheet up over one eye. “Tell me the truth.”
“Only your past has died,” Dad replied, now smiling as broadly as a game-show host while tugging the sheet down to my chin. “Those dark days are over with. You’ve just won a great new life as Freddy Heinz!” He made it sound as if I’d won a prize, a prize so bright and shiny that it made being Joey Pigza seem old and worn out.
Just then a doctor entered the room and leaned over me. “How’s the daredevil?” she asked as she reached forward and gently lifted my closed eyelid with her thumb.
I didn’t answer, because next she zapped me in the eye with her flashlight and I yelped.
“I think you gave yourself a concussion,” she said, then reached down and pinched my toe. “Can you feel this?”
“Ouch,” I said. “That hurt.”
“Good,” she replied. “Now I need to check your mental status by asking you a few quick questions.”
“Can I win a prize?” I asked.
“If you get them all right. Now, where are you?” she asked.
“General Hospital,” I figured, because it was near our house.
“What day is it?”
“Wednesday.”
“What’s your name?”
“Joey Pigza!” I said with pride, and squinted over at Dad. He squinted right back and crossed his arms tightly across his body as if he were strapped in a straitjacket.
“I think he’s fine,” she declared.
I raised my hand. “Where’s my prize?” I asked.
“After we take some pictures of your brain and neck and double-check that you are okay, I’ll give you copies,” she said. “Would you like that?”
I already knew there were brains inside my head. “Can I have ice cream?” I asked. “Then you can take a picture of that inside my stomach.”
“We’ll see,” she said, smiling awkwardly, and left.
The second she was out the door Dad leaned over me. “Freddy,” he said. “You gave us quite a scare.”
I turned to Mom. “Is this what happens when you die?” I said in my dry, raspy voice. “You become another person, like you get recycled?”
She smiled and ran her hand lightly across my head before reaching for a glass of water. “No, honey, you are still the same nutty kid. Your father and I were just testing out a new name.”
I took a sip. “Why shou
ld I change my name?” I asked. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”
Mom glanced over at Dad and gave him an “I told you so” look. “I’ll explain more a little later,” she said hesitantly, and turned back toward me. “You need a rest.”
I did need rest, but now that they got me stirred up I had a few things on my mind.
“What about the dogs?” I asked. That hit on the head made me think they went over the falls with me.
“Charles and I thought it would be fun for you to rename them later,” she added.
“I don’t mean that,” I said. “I mean, how are they?”
“Oh, they’re in the car,” she explained.
“Speaking of which,” Dad piped in, “they’ve been in there a long time. I better go take them for a walk.”
“Don’t dognap them again!” I cried out, trying to sit up, which made me dizzy and I flopped back down.
“Freddy,” Dad calmly replied as he leaned low over me and put his hand on my shoulder. “That was the old me who took your dogs. I’m new now, remember? I’m Charles, your good dad, and I’m back. It’s time for all of us to forgive and forget the past. I have, so you have nothing in the world to worry about. Now get some rest and I’ll see you later—after I walk the dogs and make a few business calls.”
He gave Mom a peck on the cheek and whistled a happy tune as he left the room.
Suddenly, I felt my shoulder for my med patch because it needed changing. This much I knew for sure. But it was missing and that made me nervous. “Where are my meds?” I asked anxiously.
“The doctor thought it best to keep you off them until she makes sure everything’s okay with your noggin. She thinks you had a slight concussion and doesn’t want your blood pressure to rise.”
“Well, it’s giving me a bigger headache just thinking that I don’t have my meds. And how can I rest,” I asked, “when without my meds I’m restless?” I said restless too loudly and my head began to pound.
“Tranquilo, little man, tranquilo,” she said, stroking my forehead. “Now, relax. You might hurt yourself if you get too worked up.”
But I was not tranquil. My head still roared like Niagara Falls, and I was worried about not having my meds because Dad took them away the last time he got his hands on me and I didn’t trust him no matter what his name was.
I glanced toward the door and sneered. “I’m glad he’s gone,” I said in a low, cranky voice.
She opened her mouth and a row of hissy little sounds sputtered out as if she were spraying perfume on my words to make them nicer. “Well, since Charles is gone,” she said, taking a deep breath, “you can just chill out while I get you caught up on a few things.”
“Like what?”
“Like your dad and I have been seeing each other again—for a time,” she said sheepishly. “For a few months, actually.”
It hurt my head to roll my eyes. It was like my brain was doing a somersault. But I couldn’t help it. “How could you?” I asked. “After what he did to us.”
“But he’s changed, Joey, for real,” she said with admiration in her voice.
“Only his name,” I shot right back. “That’s like some kind of stupid pet trick.”
“It’s deeper than that,” she insisted. “He’s stopped drinking for one thing, and he’s sticking to it. He’s more of a new man than you think.”
“I don’t want to think about him,” I said, and pouted.
“But you have to,” she insisted. “You have to understand how unhappy he has been on the inside. I know he was so crazy before on the outside that you couldn’t see what he was like on the inside, but if you did you’d see a very unhappy person. That’s the Carter Pigza I remember—the unhappy one, and every crazy thing he did was because he was so sad and confused with himself and who he is. And it’s up to us to see this and try to help him like his new self better.”
She must have seen the suspicious look on my face that said I was having a hard time believing not only what she was saying, but that there was some invisible goodness deep inside of Carter Pigza I hadn’t seen. Then she turned on me in a way that was so nice but so painful at the same time.
“You know, Joey,” she said in a quiet voice as she reached for my hand and gently held it, “when you were having all your troubles behaving in school, it was other people who looked into your heart and saw that you were a good kid. That you were not just that out-of-control wild kid on the outside, but the real sweet kid was on the inside, deep down inside where hardly anyone could see, and only the people who truly loved you could see it, and they took the time to see the goodness in you and it changed your whole life. You know this is true, and now Carter—I mean, Charles—needs your help to show him that it’s okay to be the best part of himself.”
“Why is it up to me to save him?” I pleaded, and I could barely ask the question because after what all she said I felt a fearful weight crushing down on what was left of my little body. “Why me?” I whimpered.
“Because you have been very unhappy in the past,” she said, “and now you are not, so you know what it is like to change.”
I felt tired just trying to imagine where that goodness might be in my dad. And I felt that trying to find it was going to be like crawling down one of those old dark coal mines around here that were gated shut because they were dangerous. He once pointed one out to me and said, “A man would make a million dollars if he could find a way to turn coal into diamonds.” And now I was being asked by Mom to unlock one of those gates and feel my way down that cold shaft and somehow, some way I couldn’t even guess at, find a way to turn his coal-black heart into a diamond. But if no one else had ever figured out how to do it, I didn’t think I could either.
“Is this what you are asking me to do?” I asked after I pulled myself together and told her about the mine shaft being like Dad.
“Yes,” she said brightly. “That’s it exactly. His heart is a diamond in the rough and you can help me find a way to polish him up.”
The way she said “diamond in the rough” made me think of some old country-and-western song, and I wondered if this was where she got the whole idea of his “goodness way down deep inside.” But I guess it didn’t matter where she got the idea as long as she believed in it. And maybe that was the same with Dad—it wasn’t about what was true, or what was real, it was about what he believed. And Carter Pigza believed he was Charles Heinz.
“You forgave me,” she continued, and held my hands in hers. “You forgave yourself. You even forgave your crazy granny. Now it’s Carter’s turn. Like he said, you have to forgive and forget, and I challenge you to find the goodness deep inside your father,” she said. “I know it’s there, Joey—all he wants is a second chance to be a número uno dad.”
This was going to be a big job, bigger than my bruised head could imagine.
“But I don’t understand, Mom. How could you forgive him after all the bad stuff he’s done to you?”
“For better or for worse,” she recited. “Those were the words I promised God when we were married. And”—she paused and sat up straight and stuck her chin out as if what she was about to say was going to cause a riot—“we are actually still married.”
“Married!” I cried out. “I thought you divorced him a long time ago.”
“I chased him off,” she explained, “but I never had the extra cash to actually get the divorce.”
“I have a hundred bucks,” I offered. “Will that help?”
She didn’t answer me. Instead, she quickly jumped tracks and switched the conversation in another direction.
“There is another thing I didn’t tell you,” she chirped, suddenly full of joy. “Charles has won the lottery—not a lot, but enough to give us a fresh start, and he has some good ideas on how we can improve our family life.”
“Won the lottery?” I said doubtfully. “I’ll believe it when I see it ‘cause he might have made that up, too.”
“It’s real, Joey,” she said, “bec
ause ever since your dad won all that money he’s been so helpful. I mean, where do you think we got the new furniture and carpeting? He’s finally learning to be a man and look after us.” She looked so lovesick I thought she should crawl into the hospital bed with me. “He’s become a new man,” she whispered.
“He’s certainly different,” I remarked. “So different he thinks he is someone else.”
“It’s more than that,” she went on. “The money has settled him down. Allowed him to make plans and follow through on his dreams. And now that he has the money to make his dreams come true … well”—she hesitated and gave me her big-eyed-doll look—“I’ve always been one of his sweet dreams, so now he can make me come true. After all, our wedding vows did say ‘for richer or for poorer’ and now that he’s richer we can say goodbye to poorer.”
At the moment it seemed the money had changed her more than it had changed him. He had always wanted to be with her, but she didn’t want anything to do with him. Until he won the lottery. Now it all made sense that she was happy he was back. And even though I loved her so much I still wanted to say, Aren’t you just after him for the money? Isn’t that goodness deep down inside him located in his wallet?
Suddenly, I snapped my fingers. “Now I understand about the money,” I said.
“What?” she asked.
“Back at the house he gave me a hundred bucks. And I’ll bet you my hundred that he’s just walked out of here and is gone for good.” I pointed toward the hospital room door. “The moment anything goes wrong he runs away, and now that I’m hurt I bet he’s changed his name to the Jolly Green Giant and has headed for the hills.” I knew my voice sounded mean, but I wanted to hurt her for now liking him.
“Well,” she said slowly, “I’ll take you up on that little ol’ bet. He cried like a baby after we heard the crash and found you knocked out cold in that box. I know he loves you just as I know he loves me and that he’s back to stay.”
“We’ll see,” I said. “Shake on it.”
I stuck out my hand and she gave it a shake. Then she stood up and looked closely at her face in the mirror.