Mayday

by Karen Harrington

  Okay, my attempt wasn’t Shakespearean. But I mean, Shakespeare’s first drafts probably weren’t perfect, right?

  I stared out the window at the tree and sky in our front yard. I could rhyme tree with Sandy. Or even with the Flee.

  I watched the Flee park his car in front of our house. I tried to remember if I’d gotten a text from him. Nope. If he was supposed to come over. Nope. Maybe this was more of Mom’s idea. Either way, I was going to pretend I wasn’t home.

  He strolled up the walk, his hands stuffed into his pockets, his work shirt with his name and employer stitched on a badge: DOUG and LPS PLUMBING in white lettering. He didn’t have my jacket with him.

  He knocked on the door.

  I ignored it.

  “Hi, Wayne, open up. I know you’re in there. I saw your grandfather drop you off.”

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  I opened the door.

  I scribbled a note, tore off the paper, and shoved it out the door. The Flee read it and frowned. “What do I want? Is that any way to talk to your father?”

  It seemed right to me.

  “So, listen, can you come over to the house? Stephanie’s dad is a lawyer, and he’s there right now. He’d like to ask you some questions about the airline case,” he said, pushing his way farther into the house.

  What’s our case?

  “Well, that’s the thing. We don’t know if you have a larger case. So he’d like to get a statement from you. See what your position is.”

  I wrote: I don’t know.

  But I did know. Mom had told me we weren’t joining any lawsuit. She’d settled with the airline.

  We got out with our lives. The airline is paying all our bills and giving us a settlement right now if we don’t sue. There’ll be enough to replace the broken dishwasher, she’d said, happy. She was ready to put all this behind her, and a friend had told her the lawsuit might drag on. I thought that was smart and told her so. Then I told her I’d rather have a new computer than a dishwasher.

  What about both? she’d said. I just found out about this iPad app that will talk for you. Wouldn’t that be cool?

  I thought it might be cool. Or maybe I’d sound like a digital nerd. Like a seventh-grade Stephen Hawking.

  So I wasn’t going to say anything to my dad. Mom told me not to talk to the Flee about it.

  “Hey, get me a glass of water, would you? Your mom won’t be back for a while.”

  Wait, what? How did he know Mom was gone?

  I got him a glass of water. Before you knew it, we were standing in the kitchen and the Flee was moving Mom’s blue glass birds around on the counter.

  “Don’t know why she liked these stupid birds,” he said.

  Because they were her mother’s birds.

  Then he pawed around at the Sandy Showalter basket of muffins like they belonged to him. My neck started to burn hot with aggravation. If the Flee said or did one more thing, I might go up in flames.

  “Look at those tennis shoes,” the Flee said. “What are those, anyway?”

  He had to do it. One more thing.

  I looked down at my feet. That’s where the flames would come from. From my used shoes. Pity shoes. Duuuude, your face shoes, so why can’t you just get out of my kitchen now?

  “How about we go get you some new ones? Write your mom a note on that silly little pad around your neck.” He took another drink of water.

  I lied on a note. Can’t go. Dr. appointment.

  “Well, I’ll take you.”

  Talk to Mom.

  “‘Talk to Mom’? Don’t be such a mama’s boy, Wayne. Your mom doesn’t know all the questions to ask.”

  Please leave.

  He tossed my note onto the linoleum but kept eating a muffin. Half of it crumbled to the floor.

  “Look, it’s no big deal,” he said as he lazily pushed the dropped pieces of muffin underneath the cabinet with his foot. As if that took care of the problem. “I just want you to explain to the lawyer the accident details, like whether your mom was injured because she unbuckled her seat belt trying to get that silly flag. You didn’t unbuckle yours, right?”

  No.

  I was certain that my entire face had gone tomato red.

  Mom had to unbuckle on the plane. I let go of the flag. Every time I pictured the flag escaping the plane, my chest felt heavy. I wanted to hide from that fact, but there was no place to go. The flag just had to be found. Period. The airline couldn’t replace that.

  He poked his head in our refrigerator and pulled out the milk. He shook the carton, which was almost empty. “She still doesn’t know how to keep house. Where are the sodas?”

  My neck got hotter and I got a sick feeling in my stomach. I didn’t want new shoes from him. I’d always look down at them and remember him saying mean things about Mom. I’d rather look at stupid Goodwill shoes.

  I wrote him a note: Can’t go.

  “Wayne, don’t be such a pain. Let’s get some shoes and a bite to eat.”

  I shook my head again.

  “Come on!” He slapped his hand on the countertop. I froze. For a minute, I thought maybe I should go with him and not make anything worse. He took a deep sigh and drummed his fingers on the countertop. Mom’s blue glass birds were awfully close to his hands.

  He took me by the sleeve of my hoodie and pushed me toward the front door. Now that we were clear of the kitchen, of the birds, I jerked my arm out of his grip. I shook my head no, and I wrote it on my notepad with several exclamation points following just so that he could hear my tone. I saw the flash in his eyes. I knew it was coming.

  “Now, you stop it!” The Flee clipped the left side of my head with his hand. Normally, I wouldn’t have felt anything but a thump. But now the left side of my face felt everything. I didn’t even sleep on my left side anymore.

  So my skin burned.

  And stung.

  It hurt like a million tiny darts hitting my forehead. I held my breath. I fought to keep the tears away. I wouldn’t show the pain. I would not.

  “Kovok!” Grandpa said, surprising us both.

  Grandpa wasn’t just a former army drill sergeant. He had been chosen to teach drill sergeant school. When he turned on that voice, it was full of thunder. More than once in my life, it had scared me senseless. But at that moment, his voice wasn’t directed at me. I felt a tiny bit of relief. No, actually I felt a big wave of relief. The Flee wouldn’t dare be a Grade A jerk in front of Grandpa.

  “Take it easy, old man,” the Flee said.

  Then again…

  “Coming into my house and touching my family! Exactly who do you think you are?”

  Grandpa stared down the Flee with the intensity of a laser beam. I’m not joking. And the Flee backed into the front door, then shook a little. “I’m his father. I can come over here anytime I want.”

  “You seem a little confused on the facts,” Grandpa said. “Wayne, I feel like getting a cheeseburger. Go wait in the Car while I straighten out Mr. Kovok on the facts.”

  I scribbled on my notepad. THE car?

  “Affirmative.”

  I took a few slow steps backward toward the garage. Because who wanted to stop watching this showdown?

  The Flee shifted his weight from side to side. Nervous.

  Grandpa crossed his arms and kept his eyes leveled at the Flee. Confident.

  Dr. P was right about nonverbal communication. Just looking at the Flee versus Grandpa, you knew who would win on the battlefield. Who would turn and run, and who would stay and fight. Lazy Kovoks on one side. Hero Daltons on the other.

  What did that make me?

  For a split second, I turned my head away. I didn’t like what I was seeing. Because maybe I was seeing the Flee the way Grandpa saw him. As a darn Kovok.

  I felt dazed and even more sick to my stomach.

  “Wayne, you don’t have to do what he says,” the Flee said, locking eyes with me. “You can come with me.” He grinned, and it made him look stupid. Lik
e a stupid Kovok.

  Grandpa turned and gave me the slightest nod.

  My chest tightened and my head throbbed. There was a tug-of-war going on there in the entryway of my house, and I was the rope. The rope never wins. It just gets pulled.

  I broke out of my daze and headed toward the garage. Maybe Grandpa saw a darn Kovok junior when I was around.

  I stood in front of the Car, feeling dizzy. I told my brain to go someplace better.

  I closed my eyes and remembered a Bear Ball hitting me in the chest, knocking the air out of me. Yes, that is the stupid memory my brain selected for me. Bear Ball. Bear Ball is a game they play at Beatty Middle School. Two captains are chosen, and then they choose their teams. The PE coaches think they’re giving us a treat when they say, You can go play Bear Ball now.

  It is not a treat.

  Last time, I was the second-to-last to be picked. The last one picked was a small girl. We were the leftovers.

  The only time a leftover is good is when it’s pizza.

  Trey Harris picked me. “That’s just Kovok.” For everyone else, he’d introduced the person by his or her talent. Good at passing the ball. Fast on the court. But me? I was just Kovok. Picked by default. And when that happens, you have to try to show some skills or risk ultimate humiliation. You have to prove they were right to pick you. Instead, you end up proving they were right to pick you last.

  Because when you are nervous and annoyed, you suck. And you wish that the gym floor would open up into a black hole. Because then you’d be known as that guy who disappeared into the floor instead of “just Kovok.”

  You see how it is inside my head now that my mouth can’t speak and all these thoughts have no place to go? Do you see?

  CHAPTER 14

  I stood in the garage, wishing a black hole would open up underneath me.

  Grandpa was just taking me to Sonic and letting me ride in the Car by default.

  I’d never ridden in the Car. The Mustang. The red Ford convertible so shiny you could check your teeth in it. The do not touch this under penalty of death vehicle.

  So when Grandpa came out into the garage an eternity after he’d put the Flee in a corner, I was still staring at it like the forbidden, expensive piece of artwork it was.

  “You waiting for an engraved invitation?” he asked. And he looked me straight in the eye. He hadn’t done that since that awkward day in the kitchen.

  He eased himself into the driver’s seat and then put the key in the ignition. I buckled my seat belt and remembered to breathe.

  “The thing you have to remember with old cars is that they don’t just start up cold as soon as you turn the key. You have to pump the gas twice and then hold down the pedal.”

  He pumped the gas twice and got it started, and we drove at Grandpa speed out of the neighborhood. Do you know I can skateboard faster than he can drive?

  True story.

  I didn’t mind. Even though it was chilly outside, Grandpa put the convertible top down. The sun poured into the car and warmed the leather seats. I got a good look at the inside of the Car. All original.

  The seats were creamy-white leather with detailed ponies stitched into the backs. The dashboard was the same candy-apple red as the paint. Every time we stopped at a light, we got looks from the other drivers. Good looks, too. When we got to the last stoplight, I passed Grandpa a note: What happened?

  “You don’t worry about him, Wayne.”

  We parked outside the Sonic. Grandpa pushed the red button and ordered a cheeseburger and a root beer float. A carhop on roller skates delivered the food minutes later.

  The icy drink felt good.

  “Don’t you even think about spilling anything on the Car.”

  I nodded.

  “Don’t tell your mother I’m eating a cheeseburger.”

  I nodded again.

  “And don’t tell your mother about the Flee. In fact, don’t even think about the Flee.”

  My one usable eyebrow rose.

  “Don’t think about what happened today for another second. Darn Kovok, son of a gun. He was a loser from zero hour. Even your uncle Reed thought so.”

  I know.

  Grandpa paused to take a bite of sweet root beer–flavored ice cream from my root beer float. “Reed. Now, that was a decent human being who would’ve made a great father. Solid. One of a kind, that one. Was carrying on the Dalton family name with honor. There’s no one now, which is an injustice of colossal proportions. No one. Sad shame. Reed died with all my stories, all my advice, all the attributes that generations of Dalton men have carried since the time of the Revolutionary War. He was going to get this car next year. I find that… unacceptable.”

  Maybe I hadn’t just been hit square in the chest with a Bear Ball, but it felt like it. It wasn’t just the wave of sadness about Reed I could hear in Grandpa’s voice. It was how he’d turned and looked at me when he said the word unacceptable.

  In the game of Bear Ball, all Daltons would get picked first. Kovoks last. We’d lose every time.

  “Did I ever tell you about Henry Dalton, my great-grandfather, who fought in the Revolutionary War?” Grandpa asked.

  Of course I’d heard all about Henry Dalton, who fought in the Revolutionary War, and all the other Daltons who were not like the Flee and me, about one thousand times. Well, twenty-four times to be precise. Three times a year on the major Grandpa holidays (Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Fourth of July) for the past eight years. In our family, holiday dinners were traditionally, but not intentionally, served cold. Grandpa’s toasts about patriotism and freedom fighters made hot turkey and mashed potatoes a delicacy foreign to my taste buds.

  True story.

  So even if I’d had the full use of my voice, I wouldn’t have responded. Grandpa was having a “memorial moment,” as Mom called them. Never interrupt when he does that.

  Somewhere around the time Henry Dalton had been gravely wounded in battle, taking his last breath on the “hard-won ground of a new nation,” Grandpa had commandeered my root beer float to use as a prop illustrating incoming British soldiers.

  “I’ll get you new shoes, Wayne,” Grandpa said. “Good running shoes, too. I know you’re a good runner. You have the build for it, you know.”

  I let out a breath. I gave him a slight smile.

  He rolled down the window of the Car and waved over the carhop, a boy who looked like he was barely in high school. I caught a glimpse of his name tag: TODD. Todd grabbed the first cup and then tripped and spilled root beer float down the door of the Car. THE. CAR!

  “Oh, my bad, dude,” Todd said. “Here are some napkins.” He extended a handful of white Sonic napkins toward Grandpa.

  Todd was digging his own grave with two shovels.

  Grandpa opened his door slowly. He squared his shoulders and took two controlled steps toward Todd. He removed his aviator sunglasses. He inspected the Car. Then he tucked the napkins into Todd’s shirt collar.

  Todd looked like he was going to pee his pants.

  Did you know that bladder control is connected to the brain? When the body is scared, it receives a rush of adrenaline, making you prepared to run or fight. Under stress, inhibitory signals from your brain’s frontal lobe can be overridden, and so you urinate in the presence of danger.

  Todd was in the presence of danger.

  And the expression on Todd’s face indicated that his frontal lobe might have sent an evacuation signal.

  “Soldier, you best go get your commander in chief!” Grandpa said quietly. Too quiet, if you asked me. Like calm-before-the-storm quiet.

  I sat up higher to watch. I sort of liked seeing this version of Grandpa when it wasn’t directed at me.

  Sure enough, Grandpa and the Sonic manager began discussing how upholding customer-service policies was the first line of defense in a strong nation. I couldn’t believe it. Todd stood there, shaking in his roller skates. I’ll say this for him: At least he didn’t skate away. A lot of guys would have.


  Grandpa continued, “Buttercup, this may be challenging for your young mind to comprehend, but if you don’t uphold the pillars of the American work ethic at a burger joint, you have not earned the right to wear any uniform. You have failed in your mission to bring dignity to a job that many would be privileged to have. There are no small jobs, only small people.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Todd got on his knees and wiped away the vanilla ice-cream evidence with a special yellow cloth Grandpa had pulled from the trunk of the Car. Grandpa grimaced at Todd like he was doing it all wrong.

  “You’re doing it all wrong!” Grandpa shouted. He showed Todd how he’d wanted it done in the first place. “You know what Napoleon said, son?”

  “Napoleon, sir?”

  And I thought, Here we go. The Napoleon lesson. This speech goes well with turkey and cranberry sauce.

  “Geography is destiny.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Your geography is the United States of America. Do you know what that makes you?”

  Don’t screw up now, Todd. This is actually a good lesson.

  “No, sir,” Todd said. “What does that make me?”

  “Luckier than a great majority of the world who would love to trade places with you and live in a nation built on the backs of your forefathers and my forefathers and do a job—any job—the right way. Even at Sonic, son.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Will you be upholding the nation your forefathers built for you?”

  “Yes, sir. Lots of upholding.”

  Todd was a quick learner.

  All this excitement drew a small crowd. People got served burgers with a side of Americana, and I guess they liked it better than fries. I couldn’t figure out how he did it, but Grandpa made the link between a soldier’s bravery and the ability to steady a Styrofoam cup seem realistic.

  He made it sound as if dropping a plastic spoon or forgetting a straw would be letting our country down. I wished people who didn’t pick up a crumbled muffin on my mom’s kitchen floor could hear this lesson, too.

  Volunteerism…

  Nobility…

  Service…

  All of a sudden I caught a glimpse of how Grandpa must have looked to the men he trained in the army. He wasn’t just a square-shouldered man with a big voice who told you what to do. He was a man who loved his country and made you want to love it, too.