by Paul Zindel
“Me?” I asked.
“Yes, you,” he said, fiddling now with the medallion around his neck. “I want you to help me take this thing off. My arms don't move so well.” For a moment it seemed as though he smiled again. I saw he hadn't had much practice at smiling, because it seemed to strain his facial muscles in an unusual way. I looked at John and he flashed an It's okay message at me. I got up and moved slowly toward the old man. I watched his hands very carefully as I circled behind him and lifted the chain over his head. The sparkling mineral hanging on its gold thread almost hypnotized me.
“It's beautiful,” I said, raising the dangling object high into the light, where its clusters of blue crystals sparkled brilliantly.
“Of course it's beautiful,” he said; then he pointed to John. “You, move that bench closer. I'm not a ventriloquist. I can't shoot my voice to the moon, you know.”
“Oh, sorry,” John said, obeying his orders.
“Look, John,” I said, swinging the shining rock toward him.
“What is it?” John asked.
“Primarily,” the old man explained, “it's a fossil.” The twinkle was beginning to grow in his eyes as he raised a finger to point out the details. “You see that raised sliver on the front? It's the horn tip of a prehistoric rhino. What you're holding in your hand there is over twenty-five million years old.”
“Wow,” I said. John handed the fossil to me right away. I could see he didn't want to take any chances with it, and I didn't know what to do with it either. Just the way the old man talked about it I felt as though I was holding a piece of his heart in my hand, and that at any moment it would slip through my fingers and crash to the floor into a million pieces.
“No,” the old man scolded, “don't be afraid of it. Run your finger over the rhino's horn.”
He just stared at me and seemed to be waiting. I was afraid to do it because I thought at any moment I might be changed into a pumpkin or something. But finally I did as he told me, and it gave me chills knowing that my fingertips were actually touching something so old my mind couldn't even dream of it.
“You're touching one of the mysteries of the universe,” the old man said joyfully. “Imagine being able to hold on to a part of life that was there long before you or I ever came into existence. It makes you think about where the force of life comes from.” The old man's voice practically began to sing. “Certainly not from you or me. It's all out there, hiding, waiting to be known, perhaps only when we die.”
It gave me chills to listen to him talk about death in Mr. Pignati's house. I even saw John shudder.
“Where did you get this?” I asked.
“Somebody gave it to me,” the old man said slowly. “I used to dig a lot of fossils on my own too,” he added. I felt now that his voice had grown guarded.
“You like digging?” John pursued.
“I always loved digging,” the old man said. “At your age I couldn't get enough of it. I'd dig all over the place. I loved finding anything Mother Earth had hidden beneath her surface!”
I turned the fossil around in my hands, and I noticed a smooth polished area with printing on it set in the back of the blue crystals. I lifted the rock closer as though I was seeing things. Finally I was able to read it aloud: To the Colonel, for fifty years of service, the engraving said.
Suddenly the twinkle disappeared from the old man's eyes, and he reached out grabbing the fossil from my hand, almost breaking the gold chain. I leaped back as though I had been attacked, and now the old guy not only looked cranky, but he looked infuriated that I had noticed the engraving—as though he had forgotten about it. I scooted back next to John, who stood up fast. We both stood tense, ready to flee, but after a dreadfully long silence John squirmed and shot out as though nothing had happened at all, “You should come to our high school some time and help Mrs. Stein teach a geology lesson.” John sounded sincere in spite of what had happened. I breathed a sigh of awe and admiration for him, and I remembered why I had picked him for my friend to begin with. Whenever the going got rough, John Conlan was there to save the day.
“You need shock treatments,” the old man growled, getting the chain back over his head until the fossil was again safely resting on his chest.
“You forgot about the fudge,” John reminded the old guy, counting on helping the old man forget whatever had made him go as nuts as he did.
The old man laughed cruelly. “I didn't forget about it. You're just dying for me to open it so you can stuff yourselves with it. You just brought it for yourself, not me, buster.”
I saw a look of sadness cross John's eyes, and I began to feel terrible for him. Every time John said something he had his head snapped off.
“Please, sir,” I said with a voice that was barely audible, “have some of the fudge.”
The old guy just stared at us. John and I looked at each other and now we were both very sad. We thought maybe we should just leave—that there really wasn't anything we could do. Just when we felt that we had totally failed, the old man reached out and ripped open the box of fudge. He started stuffing pieces into his mouth like there was no tomorrow.
John and I beamed. And John decided not to back away from the matter that had triggered the old man's anger to begin with.
“Who was the Colonel?” John asked loud and strong.
“What Colonel?” the old man sputtered while munching on the fudge.
“The fossil said To the Colonel, for fifty years of service” I reminded him.
The old man looked up and seemed ready to scream at me. The blood drained from his face again, and he looked like he was having an anxiety attack of his own. “The Colonel was a friend of mine,” he said.
“The fossil belonged to him?” John asked.
The old man hesitated, shoved another piece of fudge into his mouth and spoke while chewing away. “Colonel Glenville and I were friends. We both liked digging and I worked for him. He was a rich man once upon a time.”
“How rich?” John wanted to know.
“You're a nosy little brat, aren't you?” the old guy said. “I'll tell you how rich Colonel Glenville was. He owned a town house in St. George, and he dug great tunnels under the earth. Colonel Glenville was a very famous man, and if you kids knew anything about history you'd know who he was. He designed eleven subway systems all over the world. He was knighted by the King of Sweden for the subway system he did in Stockholm.”
“How exciting,” I said. “But that must have been a long time ago.”
“Why do you say that?” he demanded to know.
“I don't know,” I said.
John jumped in to help me out: “Because everybody knows Sweden had subway systems a long time ago.”
The old man didn't say anything. He just chewed away and suddenly his eyes looked far off, as though traveling back in time.
“What happened to the Colonel?” John asked as though he was onto something.
“Oh,” the old guy said, “he died. I was with him a long time, and if you ever want to feel terrific you try living in a town house. Everybody wants to live in a town house. I tell you, I lived in a town house until … a train ran over him! That's what happened to him. I remember now, it was a train. That's one of the great ironies of life, don't you think? This man spends his whole life building subways, gets knighted by the King of Sweden. A terrific hole in the ground he built over there! And bam! Gets knocked off by a subway. That's life, isn't it?”
“Were you with him?” I asked.
“When he got run over by the train?” the old man asked as though I was crazy. “No, I wasn't with him! But I should have died the day of that crash, I'll tell you that. When a man's work is ended—when no one wants to hire him anymore—his life is ended too.”
Then a very remarkable thing happened. The old man opened his mouth as though he were about to call out for help, but instead he burst into tears. The tears ran down his face, and they led to great gasping sobs. I could barely understand the words that tried to es
cape through his profound sadness and mouthful of fudge, “I want to go back. I want to go back,” I thought I heard him cry.
“Have some more fudge,” I heard John saying. I realized John's nerves were finally shot too.
“No,” the old man sobbed.
“We really bought it for you,” John said.
“No, thank you,” the old man answered, readjusting his position in the chair. Slowly his sobs and tears died down, and he pulled a handkerchief from his pants pocket. We expected him to dab at his eyes or blow his nose, but instead he put the handkerchief over his face and held it there with his hands as though he was a person suffering a very great shame.
“I really think you should have another piece of fudge,” John said softly. “Fudge has a lot of energy in it, you know. It's almost all sugar.”
The old man shook his head negatively with the handkerchief still secured over his face. I could see John seemed not only disappointed, now, but frustrated because he hadn't been able to make friends with the old man yet. I've seen John meet a wild dog on the street and make friends with it faster than he was doing at the moment with the old man.
“Please, look at us,” John almost begged.
“What for?” The voice came out from behind the handkerchief.
“We want to be your friends,” John said as straight as an arrow.
The old man slowly lowered the handkerchief. John moved forward, lifting the box of fudge up toward the old man. The old guy reached down, took a piece, passed it under his nose as if he was savoring a fine cigar, and popped it into his mouth. He then looked at me and John and smiled. This time there seemed to be nothing forced about the glow on the man's face. He was truly smiling at us, connecting with us, and I could feel the electric message running through my veins that indeed our Pigman had come back.
I felt now as though I was going to interview a ghost. “Do you like to play games on the telephone?” I couldn't stop myself from asking. That was one thing our Pigman knew all about. The games we played, the riddles we liked, jokes; our Pigman knew all about jokes and riddles.
“What are you talking about?” the old man asked as though I was out of my mind.
“She means,” John came to my support, “did you ever call a cigar store and ask if they have Muriel in a box, and when they say yes you tell them they'd better let her out before she suffocates.”
John and I burst into laughter remembering how we used to do that before we met the Pigman.
“Or you call an A&P store and ask them if they have peanut butter and amatta” I continued, “and when they ask, ‘What's amatta?’ you say ‘I don't know. What's amatta with you?’“
John and I tried to laugh it up again, but the old guy still seemed to be a wet blanket in the humor department.
“Or the best one,” John blurted, “you call some number from the phone book, and when they answer, you tell them you're the telephone repairman working on the line and that they shouldn't answer their phone for the next ten minutes or it will electrocute you—and then you hang up and call them right back and let it ring and ring until they do answer it—and then you let out a bloodcurdling scream, ‘Ahhhhhh!’ Did you ever do that?”
The old man looked completely puzzled. We had so many memories of the Pigman trying to keep up with the games we played, but this old man wasn't amused at all. We had no choice but to shut up and wait for him to say something so we'd know what was going on in his head. I was afraid that in some way we might have even scared him by telling him our corny jokes.
“The only game I know is the Game of Life,” the old man finally wheezed, and his words riveted us because that was really the kind of game that the Pigman would know about. He knew good games like how to remember things, and how to tell who was guilty in a crime; wonderful, intricate, mysterious games.
“How do you play that game?” John asked.
“You've got to get me a paper and pencil,” he said.
John and I looked at each other and had a double attack of nostalgia, because paper-and-pencil games were specifically the Pigman's favorite. In fact I couldn't even move because an anxiety attack hit my feet. John raced around the room and dug up a piece of paper. I managed to activate my hands enough to find a half-chewed Papermate pen in my pocketbook. The old guy grabbed the paper and pen, and in a flash it seemed as though we were in a classroom. The old man was the teacher and John and I were just spellbound at his feet waiting, begging for the rules.
“You close your eyes,” the old man said.
“Okay,” John agreed, and his eyelids slammed down like a pair of well-greased Venetian blinds.
“I can't close my eyes today,” I said. “Maybe tomorrow.”
“What do you mean you can't close your eyes?” the old man wanted to know.
“I'm too nervous” I admitted.
“Look, you've got to close your eyes to use your imagination,” the old man ordered.
“I can't,” I said.
“Then you're not going to play.” He turned all his attention to John. “Now look, boy. The first thing you do is imagine yourself walking down a road. You've got to imagine the entire road, and really see yourself walking down it. Can you see it? Heh? Can you?”
“No,” John said,
“Try, you dummy,” the old man instructed.
“Oh, yeah,” John finally said, his eyes still shut tight. “I see a road. I see a road and I'm walking down it.”
“Okay,” the old man continued, “what does the road look like?”
“It's thin, and it's winding. It's got cement curbs and there's a lot of jungle vines all over the place.”
“Ha,” the old man announced, and started doing some drawing on the piece of paper as though he was a psychologist. “That road is your Road of Life, and it means your life is a pretty hard one and it's not exactly clear. You don't know where the @#$% you're going, and there are wild animals lurking about. And the cement curbs mean you are a big mess of confusion and probably a lot of people are trying to cramp your style.”
“Oh, yeah,” John said, “that makes sense. It's probably my mother and father.”
“Are they cruel?” the old guy wanted to know.
“Horrible,” John said. “If I don't do everything they say, they rub Ben-Gay into my eyes!”
I felt like kicking John for being such a liar, but the old guy just moved right along anyway. “Keep your eyes shut,” he ordered again, “and keep walking down the road until you see a key lying in the middle of it. Can you see a key?”
“Oh, yeah,” John said. “I can see a key. I pick it up.”
“What does it look like?”
“It's old, dirty, rusty, and bent.”
“Now what do you do with it?”
“I throw it back down on the road and keep walking,” John said.
“Well!” the old man exclaimed, as though John had just told him something he already suspected. “That key was the Key of Knowledge, and the way your key looks, it means you probably don't think too much of learning anything. You probably hate books and school. You're probably one of those smart-alecks who think they know it all when you're more than likely nothing but a big dope.”
“Or maybe” John countered, and I could see he was a bit angry at being called a dope, “maybe I don't like school because the school is old and rusty and a hundred years behind the times. Do you ever have anything like that in your Game of Life?”
“Look, I'm not going to argue with you, you know-it-all,” the old man said, starting to put the paper and pen down as though he wanted to quit.
“No, look, let's go on,” John said, changing his tone quickly, almost pleading.
“Please,” I added.
The old guy grunted and sucked in a big breath of air. “All right. Keep your eyes shut and keep walking down the road now until you come to a cup. Do you see a cup?”
“Got it,” John finally said.
“What does it look like?”
“It's Styrof
oam, the kind you get at a hot-dog stand and bite pieces off so you can spit them out—and there's a soggy cigarette butt in the bottom.”
“What do you do with it?”
“I try to clean it out because I'm thirsty, and I want to drink out of it.”
“Good,” the old man approved, nodding as though at last something was acceptable. “The cup, you see, is the Cup of Love, and your cup is in pretty rough shape, but at least you want to clean it up and start drinking out of it. But your cup is the cup of someone who probably sees love as pretty shaky, something that will fall into pieces and disappear. Somebody who thinks maybe his own love isn't worthwhile, but there's a flicker of hope in it for you because you're willing to try to clean it out.”
I tried to keep my eyes from showing that I was more than routinely interested in the subject at hand. Also, you might as well know that this paragraph that I'm typing now is not going to be seen by John until after this whole memorial epic is finished, or he would probably tear it up—or be very embarrassed that I'm going to start telling you my true feelings about him. Up until now I never said very much about what I really feel for John except that he really is very good-looking, and I like it when he holds my hand because of the electricity and strength he gives me. And it's true, John and I have had a lot of adventures and have gone a lot of places together. We've been alone in cemeteries. We've been chased by the police from time to time. We've even discussed all the great issues of life, like death, love, careers, war, heaven, God, and school. We've gotten dressed up in adult clothes, and had candlelight dinner parties for just the two of us. We've had beer bashes for the neighborhood gang. We did a lot of silly things and a lot of dangerous things. I just know it's not going to come as a surprise when I tell you that I've been in love with John for quite a while now. In fact some kids at school can't believe John and I haven't been making out like bandits with each other for years. And I'm not naive. I know that a lot of surveys and statistics on teenage sex would probably think we were both a couple of freaks if they knew that John and I had not been sleeping together, or even frolicking around in the backseats of cars. Maybe all the kids who will read this will say, “Boy, that Lorraine Jensen is a real waste,” but I'm sorry, John Conlan and I have only been friends. Up to now all we've been is the two best friends in the world, and there are good reasons we never got more intimate than that. And anyone who says the way you were raised doesn't haunt you the rest of your life is nuts. There was one girl in school who used to act like a real loony tunes, and everybody hated her, but I knew there must have been a big problem in her past—and when I checked it out I found out that when she was eight years old her mother murdered her father. In my case you've got to understand that my mother hated my father for leaving her very shortly after I was born. And she spent a good deal of time teaching me that boys are dirty-minded and sneaks, and I'm not blaming her because if I had to live the life she did, trying to support myself and a kid without a husband, I would probably be a bit bitter and feel very cheated myself. And thank God she started to mellow out a bit this spring because of all the adult self-help books she's been reading, but she still hasn't gone to a psychologist. She still spends a great deal of time reinforcing in me the fear that all members of the male sex are out for one thing. Even though I know she's always been a bit crackers in the love department, it interferes with any romantic thoughts I have. Anytime I begin to have deep feelings for a boy, I can hear her voice in my mind saying things like “Don't let them touch you; boys are only out for one thing. Don't ever be left alone with a boy or he'll take advantage of you. Don't let a boy get you in his car or you'll end up pregnant. Don't kiss boys; you never know what germs they have on their lips. Sit with your knees together and ankles crossed or boys will think you're a slut.” One thing I can tell you is if you go through your life hearing stuff like that, it can make you afraid of any man from Santa Claus to a priest. But if knowing our Pigman did anything for me, it at least taught me that kids are responsible for their own lives at a certain age. And that's exactly why I'm now able to admit to myself that I love John Conlan very, very much, and even though he doesn't know it, I'm going to do everything in my power to make him my own. I want to love him like I've always dreamed of loving a boy. I'm going to make John Conlan love me, even if it kills me. That's why I was particularly thrilled when the old man said there was still a flicker of hope for John when he didn't throw his Styrofoam Cup of Love away. (The end of my secret paragraph!)