Joey Pigza Loses Control

by Jack Gantos

“Joey,” she said, “are you changing your patch?”

  “Then I went into a video arcade and had self-control.”

  “Joey, you aren’t answering me. Have you changed your patch?”

  “What do you think?” I said, and began to sputter with laughter, and then I just kept finding different ways to laugh like a braying donkey and an insane hyena and a wacky chimpanzee and I laughed until I thought by the time I stopped laughing she would have forgotten what we were talking about. But she didn’t go for it.

  “Joey, don’t play games with me,” she said in a voice that was backing me into a corner.

  “Yes,” I said. “I changed it.” And I had. I went from a patch to no patch. That was a change. But it was a lie too, and I wasn’t laughing about that, because it was wrong.

  “Let me talk with your dad,” she said sternly.

  I held the receiver by the cord and swung it around like a soap-on-a-rope. “Dad,” I hollered across the room. “Mom wants you.”

  He came over quickly and snatched the phone out of the air. He put his hand over the mouthpiece and whispered to me, “You didn’t tell her about our little secret?”

  “No,” I mouthed.

  “Good boy,” he said, and winked at me. “Hi, Fran,” he said smoothly. “How was Mexico?”

  I don’t think she talked much about Mexico. Because all Dad said was, “Don’t worry. Everything is under control. He’s having the time of his life. It’s good for him to live in a man’s world. He’ll make friends, but for now he and I are spending lots of time together. And don’t worry about the medication. I’ve got it under control.”

  When he gave the phone back to me he opened the refrigerator and pulled out a beer.

  “I’m going to work,” he said. “When I get home, be ready for the game tonight.”

  I gave him the thumbs-up even though it worried me to see him having a beer for breakfast, and when I put the phone to my ear it sounded like Mom was grinding her teeth. “I have a little secret,” I whispered.

  “What?” she asked in her I’ve-had-it-with-you voice, like she just wanted me to spit it out. “What?”

  “It’s a secret,” I said. “But when I tell you what it is you’ll be stunned.”

  “Well, stun me now,” she said. “Hit me with your best shot.”

  “Not now,” I sang. “As they say, the best things in life are worth waiting for.”

  “Don’t play games with me, young man,” she insisted.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’m going now. Goodbye.” I put down the phone and went to my room thinking that when I tell her the secret she’ll really be surprised and then she won’t yell at me anymore.

  On my way through the living room Grandma stopped me.

  “Do you have any of that telephone money left that your mom gave you?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “A little.”

  “Well, run down to the store and part with some of it and get me a pack of generics.”

  “But they’re killing you,” I pleaded.

  “Nonsense. You just don’t want to part with any of that phone money. You’re too cheap to spend a couple bucks on your old grandma.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “And I’ll call and tell them you’re coming,” she said. “I just don’t want to ride that buggy down and all the way back. I’m too winded.”

  I dug the money out of my pillowcase, grabbed my trumpet, and ordered Pablo to follow me.

  “Hurry back,” Grandma hollered from the couch.

  “March behind me,” I ordered Pablo as we left the house. “A one, a two, a one, two, three, four!” I put the trumpet to my lips and tried to blast out the long first note from “El Garbanzo” and off we went, down the sidewalk. I took huge giant steps like I was leading a parade and wearing a fancy outfit with gold buttons and one of those white hats with a tall fluffy gold feather sticking out the top. I tried to play and march without the metal mouthpiece cracking my front teeth in half and Pablo had to take twenty baby steps to my one in order to keep up.

  At the store the lady clerk had already set the cigarettes on the counter. I gave her the money and she put them in a bag. We turned right around and started home.

  Now I was trying to play “Love Potion No. 9” until I started singing, “I held my nose, I closed my eyes … I took a drink!” Then I ran around kissing “everything in sight” just like the guy in the old song. I kissed a mailbox, a telephone pole, a stop sign, and a tree trunk. Pablo didn’t kiss anything but he did do his business in someone’s front yard and then got snappish with a toy poodle and I had to separate them and a lady came out of the house and yelled at me for what Pablo did in her yard and I yelled “Sorry” and grabbed Pablo with one arm and ran down the street and after I had turned left and right a few times I didn’t know where I was.

  I put Pablo down on the road. “Okay, troublemaker,” I said. “Sniff out how to get home.” He sniffed a pebble and looked up at me with his squinty lizard face and I could tell he had no idea either.

  We walked around in the sun for a while, which made my head hot. I was nervous that the dogcatcher might come looking for us because Pablo was off his leash. Then I saw a police car and ducked because I didn’t want to get arrested for having cigarettes. Finally I saw the oxygen tank delivery truck and knew it had to be going to our house. I picked Pablo up again and tucked him under one arm like a football and my trumpet under the other and ran until I came to a corner that I recognized and then I knew how to get home from there.

  “Where’ve you been?” Grandma asked when I opened the front door. “I’m here having a nicotine fit, darn near climbing the walls, and you run off to the end of the earth.”

  “I got lost,” I said. “I took a wrong turn.”

  “I’ve heard that excuse before. Whenever you used to get lost coming home from school, I knew to expect you were slipping into a bad spell. And sure enough, you couldn’t keep your mind on what you were doing and ran around like the devil was poking you with his pitchfork all night long.”

  “I’m not that way anymore,” I said. “I’m different. I’ve changed. I’m better. I spent the whole day in Pittsburgh and was fine.”

  “That tells me nothing,” she said. “People in Pittsburgh are nuts, so how could you tell if you weren’t too?”

  I looked over at Pablo. He was lapping pop out of her glass she had set on the rug and that made me smile.

  She unwrapped the pack and began to tap a cigarette out the top. “You might fool yourself, but you can’t fool Grandma,” she said, and struck a match.

  “You’re just trying to scare me like before,” I shot back.

  “No,” she wheezed, putting her cigarette down and reaching for her oxygen. “I’m trying to scare some sense into you now.”

  I didn’t want to listen to her anymore and she knew it. I put the trumpet to my lips and let out a crazy duck sound.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ve said my piece. Now, get some forks. I heated up a snack for us, but it’s probably cold by now.”

  I set out the TV tables like I used to do when we lived together and then she tuned the TV to The Price Is Right and a lady was making a decision between choosing a car, picking what was behind door number three, or taking the big wad of cash.

  I got a little jumpy when screaming “Take the cash! Take the cash!” and when the lady picked door number three and only got a roomful of ice cream sandwiches I threw up my arms and knocked over my TV table. It fell forward and my chicken potpie hit the carpet and exploded like someone had upchucked a bucket of yellow slime and peas and carrots and burnt crust.

  “Klutz!” Grandma snapped as Pablo started to lap it up.

  “Don’t eat that, Pablo,” I said. “That’s like eating throw-up.”

  “It’s not throw-up,” she snapped back. “Only throw-up can be throw-up.” Grandma stood and poked her foot under Pablo’s tummy and flicked him into the air. “Bad dog!” she shouted as he flipped around. I lunged
forward to catch him but missed and belly flopped onto the potpie mess and slid forward like I had hit an oil slick. Pablo landed on my back and I started to laugh so hard because it was like we were a circus clown act and as I laughed Pablo barked and ran circles around the rug and Grandma pursed her lips and nodded like she had seen it all before.

  “Mark my words,” she said. “You’re slippin’ back to your old self.”

  “I only fell,” I said. “I’ll clean it up so Dad won’t get mad.”

  “It’s not the cleaning up that concerns me,” she said. “It’s you getting that wired look again with your eyes spinning around all over the place.”

  I got up and went to the bathroom to wash. But really, what Grandma had said bothered me because I wanted to be the new me and not the old me. I stood in front of the mirror and stared into my eyes. She was wrong. They didn’t spin. But the room did so I pulled the T-shirt up over my head. “I’m fine,” I said to myself. And I was.

  That night my first pitch went right down the middle of the plate about waist high and the kid swung the bat only after it had already smacked into the catcher’s glove. A perfect pitch. I looked over at Dad. He was shaking his head and I thought I could hear the gears turning as he was trying to figure out how to get Mom to let me live with him. All the way over in the car that’s all he could talk about. He called me and Leezy his “second-chance family” and went on and on about how he wouldn’t make the same mistakes he did with Mom. I asked if he had told Mom and Leezy about all this and he said he was working out the details and figured he needed to visit Humpty Dumpty to do some thinking.

  My next pitch was a called strike, and the third one was about nose high, but by then the guy was so desperate he would have swung at one ten feet over his head. The next guy popped out. And the next one grounded to first.

  I was sitting in the dugout with my hat pulled down over my face when Leezy came over. “Hey, caveman,” she said, lifting my hat. “You look sharp out there tonight.”

  “Thanks,” I replied.

  Then she leaned over and gave me a hug. “Your dad told me the good news that you want all of us to live together,” she said, looking at me like she was practicing a happy face for clown school.

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “That maybe your dad and me would live together and you would too.”

  “That wasn’t my idea,” I blurted out. “It was his.” And I pointed to Dad, who was pacing a dirt path in the grass down the third-base line.

  “Well, no matter who thought of it first, I think it’s a fantastic idea.”

  “I already have a mom,” I said, and took a deep breath and didn’t stop until I was dying to breathe out as if I could blow her away like the wolf did to the pig’s straw house.

  “I wouldn’t replace your mom,” she said. “Nobody could do that. I just mean that I’d love it if you lived with us. And I sure know your dad is excited about it.”

  “He’s excited about everything,” I said.

  “That’s what I like about him,” she said. “He’s a nut.”

  “What about Grandma?” I asked, and looked over into the stands where she was sitting with her oxygen tank on one side and Pablo on the other.

  “Your dad thinks she needs assisted living,” Leezy said. “You know, a place where she can get constant medical attention.”

  I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it couldn’t be good. “And Pablo?”

  “Oh, he can stay,” she said cheerfully. “Everyone loves Pablo.”

  That part of what she said was true. But it wasn’t true that I already loved the whole idea of living with her and Dad. And I knew Mom wouldn’t love it either.

  “Do you want a pizza?” she asked, and held up the phone. “Would that make you feel a little better?”

  Everything that would make me feel better would make everyone else feel worse. Ever since I had lied to Mom, I hadn’t felt good about myself. “Can I use your phone?” I asked her. “I want to call home.”

  “Sure,” she said, and handed it to me.

  I pressed the little numbers and held it to my ear. Mom answered.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m pitching.”

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  “In the dugout.”

  “Honey, that’s wonderful,” she said, and began to laugh.

  “Why are you laughing?” I asked.

  “Because I think it is great that you and your dad are getting along and that you are on a team and doing so well. I’m just so proud of you.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “I’m glad you called but you better keep your mind on the game.”

  “I have something to tell you,” I said.

  “What?”

  I wanted to tell her my secret, and I wanted to tell her that Dad was drinking beer for breakfast and planning for me to live with him and Leezy, but I didn’t want to ruin her mood. So I said, “I love you.”

  “I love you too,” she said.

  Just then Leezy waved her hand in my face. “Time to pitch,” she whispered.

  I hopped up. “Gotta pitch,” I said. “Bye.” I pushed past Leezy and ran toward the mound.

  It didn’t take me long to get the first guy out. But after two strikes to the second batter I lowered my hands. “Can I call a time-out?” I asked the ump.

  “Time-out!” he hollered.

  Dad looked horrified, like I had just fallen in front of a moving truck. He ran out to the mound. “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  “Why did you tell Leezy that all of us living together was my idea?”

  “I was just trying to soften her up,” he said. “You know, make her feel like you wanted her to live with us too.”

  “Well, I didn’t say it, you did. So you should tell her she’s wrong.”

  “I will,” he said. “Right after the game. I promise. Now, no more time-outs,” he said.

  “And no more saying I said things I didn’t,” I said.

  “Okay. Chill out. Now just pitch. We’ll talk about it later.”

  “We never talk,” I said. “I only listen.”

  “Well, you’re talking plenty now,” he said.

  “You’re on my mound,” I said. “I’m the boss here.”

  “Okay, boss. Pitch,” he replied, then walked off talking to himself.

  “And one more thing,” I said.

  “What?” he hollered, spinning around.

  “No more beer for breakfast or I’ll tell Mom.”

  “Hey, it doesn’t hurt me, and what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” he said harshly. “Now don’t ruin the game for me. Just pitch.” Then he walked back to the third-base coach’s box.

  When I turned around, the rest of the team was staring at me like I was the weird one. I didn’t want to ruin things for them either. So I just pitched. I got that batter out. And the rest of them too. And even though we won the game I didn’t feel like a winner for some reason.

  11

  JELLY LEGS

  “You need to get some fresh air,” Grandma said, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “You’ve been moping around and fidgeting and driving me and Pablo nuts. Why don’t you go outside and wind your spring down.”

  “Do you want to play golf?” I asked her.

  “No. Last time I almost yanked my nose off. Since then I’ve decided I’m of the age where I just smoke cigarettes and watch TV.”

  “Can I push you around in your buggy?”

  “Why don’t you go pester Carter?” she said. “Maybe you two can go to town again.”

  “Forget town,” Carter called out from the hallway. “I been thinking about something better—a place I been wanting to go.”

  “What about work?” I asked.

  “To heck with work,” he said as he entered the living room. “How long can you change lightbulbs and mop floors before you go bonkers? That job would drive a normal man insane.”

  “Then you must be abnormal,” Grandma cracked. “It only
drives you to drink.”

  Dad flashed her an angry look. “How about we all go bungee jumping?”

  “If I dove off a bridge it’d take the last of my breath away,” Grandma said, sucking on her mouthpiece.

  “Just what I had in mind,” Dad mumbled with his voice trailing off toward the door.

  I hopped up onto the couch, and kept hopping until I hopped on the cushion where Pablo had burrowed and he growled. “I’ve always wanted to go bungee jumping,” I said.

  “Come on,” Dad said. “Let’s crank it up.”

  On the way over in the car he said, “Now don’t tell your mom we did this. Bungee jumping is one of those guy things she might not understand.”

  “Okay,” I replied, and thought, I won’t be able to tell Mom anything that I did with Dad. She’ll pick me up and ask, “How’d it go?” and I’ll say, “Fine,” and she’ll say, “What all’d you do?” and I’ll say, “Stuff,” and she’ll ask, “Did you do anything special?” and I’ll say, “No,” and she’ll keep asking until finally she’ll give up talking to a wall.

  We drove outside the city and passed through farm country. I had my face pressed to the glass so I could see everything. There were cows and tractors and barns and people working. Rows of corn and beans and fields of melons were planted. Dad pointed out everything. He knew it all because his dad had been a farmer. “I should have been a farmer too,” he said. “But plants just grew too slow for me and when I was old enough I went into the city to chase after the fast life.”

  I had a hard time imagining Dad, or Grandma, living on a farm. “What happened then?” I asked.

  “I burned out,” he said. “All my energy went into bad habits and drinking and running around and it seems I was always on the go, but I didn’t get anything done but mess up my life.”

  “Where did you meet Mom?” I asked.

  “In a restaurant,” he replied. “I was learning how to be a bartender and she was a waitress and it just went from there.”

  Finally we pulled up to an old railroad bridge that spanned a wide gorge. Dad parked and we got out. In the middle of the bridge was a tall crane and a group of people all leaning over the rail. As Dad and I walked toward them I looked over the edge of the bridge. Down below was a creek filled with round, dark boulders. One of them had a skull and crossbones painted on the top. The crane operator lowered a kid whose jump was over and as he reached the ground a man in an orange vest and hard hat grabbed him and began to unstrap him from the harness. Then the crane brought the harness back up.