I tip my cap to her and head inside, hopefully a strong enough hint this conversation is over, but her skeletal fingers clutch my arm. “And don’t forget to pick up Cuddy,” she warns. “You may want to ruin your own life by skipping an education and becoming a vagrant, but you will not forgo the care of my grandson.”
She releases my arm and straightens her hair. “For some reason, the boy thinks the sun rises and sets on you. Please don’t disappoint him.” And with a further sharp look over the rims of her spectacles, she trots down the stairs to a waiting carriage.
I sigh. I don’t want to disappoint Cuddy, but it’s not really my fault he likes me so much. A lot of people like me. There’s Cuddy. And Mama. And Stinky Pete. And…and…probably a lot of other people who haven’t met me yet.
Also, the sun does happen to rise and set on me. It’s just what it does. It’s science.
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“You here for the mail, Stan?” Mr. Mulcrone asks as I approach the counter. “Little early today. Aren’t you supposed to be in school, young man?” He’s a friendly kind of guy, so even though his words sound disapproving, he’s not going to turn me in to Mama or anything.
“Um, actually, Mr. Mulcrone, I’ve been asked to pick up a crate of dried beef.”
He rests his arms on the counter and leans in. “And who’s this for?” he asks. “This on your mom’s account or the Carlisles’?” He pulls out his ledger.
“Neither,” I answer. “It’s for my da—for Captain Slater, sir.” Simply saying his name makes me feel proud.
But it also seems to make other people feel, well, something else entirely. Three grown men start coughing, a lady utters, “Oh, my,” and Mr. Mulcrone, usually so talkative, immediately puts away his ledger, pinches his lips, and nods to a boy to get the crate.
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“Here,” he says, thrusting it at me like it holds Mr. Glashaw’s glass eye and Granny’s dentures, and while we’re at it, we could throw in some cod liver oil, too. All things I would avoid like the plague if possible.
I scoot the box toward me. It’s heavy, but I am strong. And manly.
“Oof!” I say, nearly dropping it. “Will you be sending a bill, Mr. Mulcrone?” I ask. I’m pretty sure my dad would appreciate this professional touch.
Mr. Mulcrone just shakes his head and shoos me out the door. “It’s fine. Fine,” he says crisply. But his face, along with all the others in the store, looks less like he’s fine and more as if he’s bitten into an apple and found a worm.
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“But, Stan,” he adds, as if he just remembered something. “Well…”
Well what? Hurry up! This crate is heavy!
His eyelids droop like his mustache, making him look like a friendly rag doll. “I just want you to be careful. A man is known by the company he keeps,” he says.
I nod, but I have no idea what he’s talking about. I don’t have a company. I don’t like it when company comes over because then I have to wear clean trousers and sit up straight and watch how much I eat, and I end up uncomfortable and hungry and generally ill-tempered. So I am not keeping any company, that’s for sure.
I lug the crate out the door and wonder what exactly just happened in that store. Why did people gasp when I said my dad’s name? And why did he get this crate of beef for free?
I pause to catch my breath. This thing is heavy, but I don’t want my dad to think I can’t handle it, so I muster all my strength, grimace through the pain, and meander my way toward the Wanderer like I know what I’m doing.
I don’t have any idea what I’m doing. And with my dad watching me, I realize this more than ever. Also, this crate is heavy and is making me walk like a drunken sailor.
My dad snickers when he sees me. “You been hittin’ the bottle?” he jokes as he takes the crate. I feel like I no longer weigh anything and am floating off into the air. “They charge you?”
I shake my head no, still afraid to say anything out loud in case my voice squeaks or I say something stupid.
I don’t want my dad to think I’m stupid.
I’m a whiz at not being stupid, I don’t mind saying. Although don’t ask Geri about that. Or Mad Madge. Or Granny. You can ask Cuddy, however. He knows the truth.
“Good thing they didn’t charge you!” My dad looks as pleased as a boy with a pet monkey.
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He gives the crate to a deckhand, reaches into his pocket, and throws something my way. “Thanks, kid,” he says. “You were a big help. Come back. I’ll have more work for you.”
I snatch it out of the air. It’s a quarter! That little errand earned me a twenty-five-cent piece. Between this job and watching Cuddy, I will be rich! Mama won’t have to marry Mr. Crutchley, and we’ll be able to fix up the boardinghouse.
And we can send Granny back to Chicago with Geri. I’ll pay for the tickets myself.
“Thanks!” I say, but my dad is nowhere to be found, evaporated like this morning’s fog.
I whistle my way down the dock, thinking my rich man’s thoughts about new bicycles and maybe a fur coat for Mama and a jackknife for me.
“Stan! Ovah heah!” I certainly know that voice. There’s Sheriff Dolan leaning against the depot building. “Whatcha doin’ down theah?” he asks, nodding toward the boats. His thick Boston accent makes him seem even more official than the star pinned to his chest.
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“Um, helping out?”
“And who was yah helping out?” he asks through the toothpick dangling from his mouth. He throws it to the ground without taking his eyes off me.
“Um.” I look over my shoulder nervously. “Um, just one of the captains. I’m done now,” I reassure him, because Sheriff Dolan looks suspicious.
“Naht that Cap’n Slater, was it?” His eyes are slivers.
I think for a minute, then shake my head no.
“Good. Stay away from that fellah, yah heah me, son?”
I nod. What is it with everyone calling me “son”?
“Stan!”
And what is it with everyone calling my name? It’s such a burden being so popular.
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“Whatcha up to, man?” Stinky Pete strolls up and claps me on the back. I don’t really feel like looking him in the face, his ruddy, smiley Stinky Pete face. I feel like the time I switched Granny’s bar of soap with a hunk of lard, which was fine until she decided I needed a good scrubbing behind the ears. I think it’s obvious what happened next.
Let’s just say I ended up a bit slippery and the cats loved me.
Granny said I got my just deserts for that prank. Frankly, I thought she was talking about desserts, so understandably I felt a little let down.
Which is exactly how I feel now. Let down. And like I might have let someone else down.
“What was Sheriff Dolan saying to you?” Stinky Pete asks. He rests his elbow on my head, forcing my cap over my eye. I straighten it up and back away. For some reason his usual friendly self annoys me.
“Oh, you know. Stuff.”
Stinky Pete looks confused. Or befuddled, like a pan of water just starting to simmer. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” he asks, his head slightly tilted, his arms crossed.
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“Um. Maybe.” I can’t lie to that guy. He’s too, well, too nice. And I mean that in a bad way. In a way that even if you were the Pope of England and had never said a swearword or thought a bad thought, you’d still feel like you weren’t quite good enough standing next to Stinky Pete.
I’m a whiz at popes. And geography, I don’t mind saying. I know right where the Catholic Church is. And Uncle Erick sent me a postcard from England once.
“Let me escort you back to school,” Stinky Pete says. “I’m going that way anyway.” Which is not at all true since the Martel Furnace Company is in the opposite direction.
Stinky Pete yammers on about going to the World’s Fair in Chicago a couple of years ago, and how he
happened to still be in town the day the mayor was shot two days before the fair closed. And how a man named Nicholas Dresser demonstrated all sorts of uses of electricity.
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“Tesla. Nikola Tesla, Stan. Remember that name. He’s going to be known forever in history books.”
But once again, all Stinky Pete’s yammering does is remind me how little I’ve done in my almost twelve years of life, how little I’ve seen of the world, how ordinarily ordinary I am.
Stinky Pete stops. He’s always about a good four steps ahead of me, so I almost run into him. Both of his hands brace my shoulders, and I look up before I have a chance to think.
“If you’ve never heard anything I’ve said before, Stan, listen to me now. You don’t need to prove anything to anyone to be worth your weight in gold. You, my man, are the least ordinary person I know.” He lets out a little laugh. “And one of my favorite people in the entire world.”
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My throat catches. I want to believe him, but just going to school and watching over a seven-year-old is not going to get a new roof on the boardinghouse. It’s not even enough to buy a carpet sweeper that will save my poor, aching back.
“Stan, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you lift a finger to pick lint off the carpet, let alone sweep it,” Stinky Pete says. His arm drapes lightly across my back as he steers me toward the school.
But I still have that lump in my throat and it might be creeping toward my eyes. I might not need to prove anything to Stinky Pete, but I’m pretty sure my real dad will be a whole lot harder to impress.
You didn’t ask me about school today, Stan. No, you didn’t. Don’t you want to know how my day went, Stan? Mother always asks Father about his day. Don’t you think you should ask about my day?”
I’m actually not sure I should ask Cuddy about his day. For one thing, we’re not married. For another, what interesting thing could have happened to Cuddy today? Yesterday he was excited because he got new socks. The day before he went on and on about some worm that got stuck to his shoe. I can appreciate an overactive imagination, but I’ve got too many other things on my mind.
“Perhaps today you should take the time to see the surprise Cuddy has been dying to show you,” Geri whispers. I start to inform her of all the times I’ve tried to see his surprise but have been foiled in the process, but I can’t get a word in edgewise. She sounds like she’s giving a sermon. Like the sermon Reverend Elliot gave last week about doing something unto others? Or having other people do something to you?
I’m not quite sure because I might have been picking a scab while he was talking.
He talks a lot.
“Maybe I remind you of Reverend Elliot because you have a guilty conscience, Stan,” Geri says. “You could learn something from those sermons.” She’s still whispering. Probably because she doesn’t want Cuddy to hear us and get upset. Or ask what a guilty conscience is.
“What is a guilty conscience?” Cuddy asks. He holds my hand and peers up at me, his face its usual dirty and sticky self. I adjust his crooked cap and smile at him.
I can’t help smiling at that kid. He grins back. I notice his two front teeth are missing. When did that happen?
“You know that feeling when you do something you shouldn’t?” Geri asks Cuddy, but she’s looking directly at me. Cuddy nods.
“I sure do. I sure do know that feeling, Miss Geri,” he says sadly. “One time I ate the last cookie right after Mother said not to or it would spoil my dinner. And do you know what, Miss Geri?” He doesn’t wait for Geri to answer. “It sure did spoil my dinner, but not because I was full of cookie and couldn’t eat. No, because I had done something Mother asked me not to do, that’s why. I couldn’t even eat my dinner, and it was my favorite—pot roast with potatoes and gravy.”
My stomach rumbles.
“Have you ever felt that way, Miss Geri? Have you? I’d ask Stan, but I know he could never have a guilty conscience, could you, Stan?”
I shake my head no, even though I sure have had that feeling. And I’ve had it more lately than ever before.
“C’mon, Cuddy,” Geri says, reaching for his other hand. “Let’s get you home.”
I have a sick feeling in my gut as I do it, but I let go of Cuddy’s hand. I know it’s not right, but it’s like I can’t control my brain, like I’m a buggy and someone else has taken over the driving.
“Hey, thanks, Geri!” I say. Both she and Cuddy look at me, confused. “I’ve got, uh, a couple errands to run,” I add.
Geri’s eyebrows knit together, like thunderclouds quickly forming over the lake.
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Cuddy looks at me like I’ve taken his cap and thrown it in a tree and he has no idea why.
I don’t have any idea why, either. But I can’t help it.
“But, Stan,” he starts. “We were going to look at my surprise….”
I cup my hand around my ear while breaking into a jog. “What? What was that, Cuddy? I will see you in the morning, son!” I point a finger at him, wink, and dart in the opposite direction. Geri’s glare cuts through the air, as harsh as a north wind.
But I’ll deal with her and my conscience later, because right now my dad is calling me. Not with his words, exactly. Well, not with his words at all, but with his simply being here, in this town at the same time as me.
And while on one hand it doesn’t make me feel good at all to act this way, on the other hand, I don’t have a choice. It’s like a magnet and steel. Me and bacon. Sailors and tattoos. Geri and deadly diseases. Mad Madge and bad news. Some things, and some people, just belong together.
Like me and my dad.
I wander down the docks. It’s practically my second home now, I’m here so often, running an errand or two for my dad. Some of the guys nod at me or tip their caps. I’m one of them. I’m thinking about getting a tattoo soon. And maybe I’ll start smoking cigars. And I’m going to start spitting more.
I spit on the planks. It’s a good feeling. I’m a whiz at spitting, I don’t mind saying. Although I’m not such a whiz at aiming because the spit landed on my shoe. I’m going to need more practice.
“Boy!” I hear my dad holler. I may have meandered my way near the Wanderer. I may have been hoping my dad might be there. I may have been right.
“C’mere!” he says, waving me over. I point to myself in a surprised Who? Me? kind of way, and my dad chuckles and jogs down the docks to throw his heavy arm around me. He laughs as he guides me toward the ship. His laugh is like ice skimming a puddle, thin and sharp.
“I was just telling the fellows what a great job you’ve been doing.” Five guys gather around barrels near the gangplank. They don’t look very impressed. Two of them look like they could use some sleep, another has his hat over his eyes and is snoring, the fourth guy stares at me blankly while tugging on his cigarette, and Joey stands at attention, his eyes never leaving my dad. He looks as jumpy as a popcorn kernel in a vat of hot oil.
My dad thumps my back, making me stumble. “Ha! You’re right! Joey is about as jumpy as a cheating husband in a room full of ex-wives. Ha! Am I right?” He slugs Joey, who smiles slightly and rubs his arm.
One of the guys rumples Joey’s hair and grins. I think if you took all the men’s teeth and put them together, they’d make one nice set; sailing must be hard on a person’s dental hygiene. I make a note to bring my tooth powder when I take up the seafaring life.
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“So, as I was saying, this is the guy who got us an entire crate of dried beef for nothin’ down at Mulcrone’s. Not to mention sundry items from Steinberg’s, eh?” He elbows me so hard I stumble again. I need to work on my sea legs if I’m going to hang around this crew.
“The boy said that once he said the order was for me, they just gave him the stuff, right, son?” I nod and smile. One of the guys takes a swig from a brown bottle. Another one takes a drink from a jug. He hands it to Joey, but my da
d swipes it and takes a long draw.
“Care for some?” he asks me. I’m tempted. I don’t want to let him or the other guys down, and I want to feel like part of the group, even though I don’t yet have any tattoos and I have more teeth than all of these guys put together. I reach out, but just as I do my dad’s face changes.
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All the blood drains, his arm drops, and he straightens up like he’s four years old and his mother is coming after him with a switch because he may or may not have dressed the cat in his cousin’s finest bonnet.
Not that I know anything about that. Also, that bonnet looked better on the cat than on Geri, I don’t mind saying.
I swing around to see what might have made my dad react so strangely.
Then I wish I hadn’t, because who should I see striding down the merchandise dock like she’s marching off to war but Mama. And she’s madder than a wet hen sitting on a cold egg.
My dad hands off the jug to one of the guys, all of whom have snapped to attention, mainly out of curiosity, I think. I can’t imagine many people cause this kind of reaction in the good captain.
It is impressive, my little mama standing up to this motley crew.
Mama stops abruptly in front of my dad. All the fellows have removed their caps and are knotting them in their hands. Except for my dad. His shoulders shiver like he’s shedding rain from his back as he steps up to Mama, a smile snaking its way up his bristly cheeks.
“Well, Alice!” he says, shaking his head in wonder. “You look lovely.” His voice sounds like pebbles rolling around in my hand, waiting to be flung at something.
But Mama is having none of it. She stands like a string dangles her from heaven and stares at my father like no one I’ve yet seen. And I realize why.
She’s not afraid of him.
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My Near-Death Adventures Page 10