Me, Dead Dad, and Alcatraz

by Chris Lynch

  6 The Wednesday Trick

  “I CAN’T GO TO school. Alex broke me.”

  “Elvin, that was two days ago. It was really pushing it to stay home yesterday; today is out of the question. For goodness’ sake, you worked out at a gym; you weren’t in a train crash.”

  I knew I was going to school, obviously. I was dressed for school. I had my school stuff with me. I had my note explaining that I was absent the previous day because I had to care for my sick mother—I wrote it, she signed it—and I had my hand on the doorknob. I never minded going to school, and truth was my body didn’t hurt all that much anymore. I didn’t expect to win the debate, but I was hell-bent on prolonging it.

  And I had no idea why.

  “Elvin?” Ma asked.

  “Yes?”

  “You are going to be late. You’re not even trying at this point. Stop staring at me, and get to school.”

  I stared at her a little more.

  “What’s wrong, pet?”

  Maybe twice a year she called me pet. Made me want to pull in and retreat from the world. Retreat back into about 1995.

  “I don’t know, Ma,” I said. “I don’t feel right. I don’t feel like myself. I feel like I don’t know.”

  “Like you don’t know what?”

  “Nothing in particular. Just, like I don’t know. Usually, even when I don’t know, I kind of feel like somehow, I know, you know? But right now I don’t know, at all. You know?”

  She took in a deep breath through her mouth, whistled it back out through her nose.

  “It’s Alex, yes?”

  “It’s Alex, yes. But it isn’t. It’s me. It’s me and everything else. Alex is stirring stuff up, that’s for sure. But it feels even bigger than that. Like up till now I had a fairly clear notion of myself and how I fit into everything and how everything fit around me. I mean, I wasn’t master of any universe by any stretch, but I didn’t feel lost. Now? Right now, I don’t have any clear notion, any sure view of myself and everything else.”

  There was a pause. I gripped the doorknob harder. I could at least be master of the doorknob.

  “Oh, shut up, Elvin.”

  That was me, speaking. I suddenly got sickened by me and my running mouth and I wished I could suck it all back in.

  “No,” Ma said, and grabbed my hand as it twisted the doorknob in a lame attempt at fleeing. “There is nothing wrong with speaking your mind, Elvin. I’m glad you did. I would be terribly worried for you if I thought you were bottling all that up. And... now, don’t get angry here... I have to say, what you just described to me was a pretty fair definition of puberty.”

  “You promised not to use that word,” I said, rattling the doorknob like a prisoner.

  “Fine,” she said, “fine, I won’t. I just wanted you to be aware, that there is a lot of stuff probably at work on you now. That this is all terribly hard but perfectly normal, and you aren’t going crazy. Other than the fact that adolescence is basically a form of mental illness.”

  We did some more staring.

  “Thanks,” I said with a little sneer. “You always know what to say to make me feel better.”

  “I know,” she said.

  And you know what? She did. I felt better. Not a lot better. But better.

  “Now, I’ll need to drive you to school so you’re not late.”

  “Now, you will,” I said.

  There was more to it than that, of course. I felt, as I was heading back to school, like I was returning from some around-the-world trip, or from some pagan right-of-passage ceremony where they dump you in the jungle for a month to survive naked and without any prepackaged snacks.

  Or like maybe I was unchanged, but the world I was reentering had morphed in my absence.

  “Have you heard from Alex?” I asked as we neared the school.

  “No,” she said.

  “Where is he?”

  She shrugged. “Wherever it is he stays,” she said. “He declined to give me a phone number or anything else. Said he’d be back. He always was fond of the old clandestine.”

  “Well, he’s hardly going to be able to fix me with that kind of consistency.”

  She pulled in front of the school as the last stragglers slipped in through the big metal front doors. She shifted into park.

  “Do you want to be fixed?”

  I thought about it for a few seconds. “I don’t think so.”

  “Good,” she said brightly.

  “But I think I do want to listen to him for a while. I think I want to know more.”

  “Good,” she said brightly. She slapped my knee. She made me smile.

  One thing that had not changed in the last few days was God’s sense of humor. First period was gym.

  All my muscles were contracting in horror as we entered the locker room. But that was not it. The physical pain and exertion of dodgeball and rope climbing, the ritual humiliation of my utter inability to master even one of the several individual skills that contribute to quality basketball, these things paled next to the real problem.

  Frankie and Mikie were in my gym class.

  As we were getting changed, something we had done in scores of gym classes before without notable incident, I became terribly aware of one of the big somethings that were wrong with me.

  I was suddenly awkward with my two best friends.

  What was wrong with me? Was I that weak minded, that a couple of random potluck observations from an uncle who didn’t know anybody could change my whole view of me and my friends?

  Yes.

  I was shy, I was embarrassed, I was guilty. Guilty? I was curious. I was rudely curious. As we changed, and as I fought this thought with everything I had, I was just about powerless to refrain from sneaking peeks at both Frank and Mike.

  And it wasn’t even that kind of peek-sneaking, even though it was still in the back of my mind that it was okay, that everyone did it, that I was free.

  No. I was looking into them, somehow. As if there were actually something there, that I could see, that was going to enlighten me somehow about what existed down deep inside that could tell me an important more about them.

  Or, about myself.

  I was doing it, I was doing it clumsily, and I was aware of it. But I couldn’t stop.

  “What are you doing?” Mike asked. He was standing at the locker next to me, pulling up his shorts. For his part, he didn’t seem particularly bothered one way or the other what I was doing. Just curious. Mike, much like my mother, was expert at never being alarmed at whatever I did.

  “Nothing,” I said smoothly, bending down to tie my laces.

  “Yes, you were, you were staring at me. What, am I getting fat or something? Cut it out, will ya?”

  His manner, treating it like it was just another oddity of mine, was reassuring.

  “Go back to staring at Franko; he likes it.”

  Well, that didn’t help. Mike pulled on his shirt and headed for the gym. I scurried after him.

  “Seriously, Mike,” I said, “is that true? Am I always staring at Frank?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I was so distracted and disturbed I didn’t at first even realize the attention I was getting from all the other guys. But one by one practically everyone in the class made a dash my way in order to give a playful bouncing pat to the sponge that was my head. I had almost forgotten.

  “I cannot believe how bad this thing looks,” Frank said when it was finally his turn for a pat. “You are brave, Elvin, I’ll tell you that. If it was me, I’d kill myself.”

  “You’d kill yourself if you got a zit,” Mike said.

  “I think that would be the honorable thing to do,” Frank said.

  I just stared at him. I stared at him hard and consciously. Not, as it may have appeared, out of pathetic admiration. But to gauge myself. To see, now that I was aware, how it felt when I stared at Frank. To see how I felt, about how it felt.

  I needed answers, and I needed them now.

  I w
as really kind of floating out there for a minute until Mikie squeezing my arm brought me back.

  “Do you want to talk about something, El?”

  “What?” I asked. “No,” I answered.

  Mikie shook his head. “I think you do.”

  I didn’t say no this time. I didn’t get a chance to say anything before the PE teacher’s horrifying scream of a whistle sliced the air and was followed by the more terrifying words, “Okay, all line up for choosing up sides for basketball.”

  At least I could honestly say the day wasn’t going to get any worse after first period. It didn’t get noticeably better, either. I could not concentrate on a thing, and helpfully wore my daydreamer/out-to-lunch expression all day so the teachers didn’t have to search too hard for a slacker to mock in class. And did my hair make the task that much easier? Well, you could hardly blame them.

  “Are you okay?” Mike asked as we hit the street when the school day finally consented to die.

  “I’m okay,” I said in such an unconvincing dial tone I almost blurted liar at myself.

  “Is it your hair bothering you?”

  “Of course my hair is bothering me. My hair is bothering everybody. But that’s not it.”

  “Ah, so there is an it.”

  Sheesh, he could be exhausting.

  We were on our way to our weekly Wednesday afternoon chill-out session. That means bowling. And I needed to bowl like I’d never needed to bowl before.

  “Can’t we just bowl?” I asked.

  “What,” he said, “and not talk at all?”

  “Ya,” I said.

  “No,” he said.

  Franko was suspiciously quiet. He normally had a poorly informed but convincingly delivered opinion on everything. Now he was just sort of drifting along behind Mike and me. Not very alpha Franko at all.

  “And what’s with you?” Mike asked. Mike woke up on the I’m the daddy side of the bed today, which was really not such a bad thing. We even called him Dad on those days. It gave the world a slightly better feeling of rightness. Mike’s the guy you would want to do the driving if you suddenly had to take over the space shuttle or the world.

  Frank just stared at me.

  “Well?” Mike said.

  “His hair. His hair is really upsetting me. Your hair is really upsetting me, El.”

  We decided to let him be quiet for another while.

  I felt better when we entered the bowling alley and submerged ourselves in the fluid of bowling alley sounds. The nice baldy guy behind the counter knew us and had our three pairs of shoes up by the time we reached him. He never said anything to us, which was cool.

  “What happened to your head?” he said.

  Already I didn’t have the strength for this conversation anymore. “I fell down,” I said.

  He felt bad for me. “That’s terrible. Lane seven.”

  In lane seven, as we laced up our shoes, I was reminded of other conversations I didn’t want to have.

  “So Elvin,” Mike said, “what did your uncle do to you?”

  “What are you talking about? My uncle didn’t do anything to me.”

  “He must have done something to you. You aren’t the same guy since you came back.”

  “Well, we’re always trying to make me not the same guy, so that must be good, right?”

  “No. Don’t be ridiculous. Franko, you’re up.”

  Franko always bowled first, followed by Mike, then me. We liked things always the same. Same is good. Change is bad. I always won, by the way. I was the best.

  If you’ll allow me, I would like to repeat that. I was the best.

  Bowling was life’s only endeavor that provided me the opportunity to say that. This may have been why we bowled every Wednesday and at some point on most weekends. It was my pals’ weekly contribution to propping up my floppy self-esteem.

  “We don’t want to change the basic you, Elvin,” Mike continued as Frank bowled. “We just try and help you out here and there, with suggestions, advice. But one trip to the gym with Alex seems to have you shell-shocked.”

  Frank was bowling poorly, as usual. Because he was watching all the other bowlers more than the pins in front of him, as usual.

  “I’m not shell-shocked. But... Alex is missing all his toes.”

  “What?”

  “Well, not all of them. But all the middle ones on one foot. He had diabetes. And he had cancer. And he said I better watch out because I have sweet blood and would you call my Franko thing a crush?”

  “No,” Franko called in the middle of rolling what was very nearly a gutter ball.

  Mike stood up for his turn. He smiled me a Dad smile. “Is that what’s bothering you?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Nothing is bothering me, but maybe.”

  “So what?” Mike said. “Millions of people have a crush on Franko. In fact, nobody has a bigger crush on Franko than Franko, and look how happy he is.”

  “It is not a crush,” Frank said, shoving Mikie off toward the lane. “It’s admiration. And that’s fine.”

  The two of us stared silently at Mike as he went through his Steady Eddie routine of sizing up the pins, feet together, six perfect steps, nice follow-through. After three balls, he had an eight. He always got eights in candlepin. It was hypnotic, reassuring.

  “So what if it was a crush?” I said to Frank.

  “Are you trying to tell me something?” he said.

  “No, I’m trying to ask you something. You can tell by the way my voice goes up at the end there.”

  “So what if it was?” asked Mike, returning to the table. He was staring at Franko as he said it.

  Frank pondered a few seconds. “I think the rules say I’d have to beat him up,” he said, without either malice or humor. He sounded as if he were just working out an If Sally had fifty-five cents and wanted to buy three nectarines at five cents and twelve strawberries at two cents problem.

  “Is anybody else hungry?” I asked.

  “Frankie, chips and Cokes,” Mike said. “Low man buys, and we already know you’re our low man, so you might as well just go buy now.”

  Frank just shrugged. I figured he was happy enough to exit the conversation.

  “It’s not a crush,” Mike said as I got up to do my bowling.

  I lined up my perfect form. I was made for bowling. I had a bowling body.

  I said that out loud one time. Once.

  I addressed the pins. I gave them names. I sensed their fear. I intimidated them mentally, I started my approach, my long strides, my backswing.

  My bleeping telephone.

  I stopped, pulled the phone out of my hip pocket. I was one of those jerks who hears even the tiny mobile phone tone as some kind of authority figure that I must obey.

  But it was no authority figure; it was my mother.

  Our usual tin can sounds were even more symphonic here in the bowling alley.

  “Do you know what I’m doing, Ma?” I grouched.

  “Of course I do, you wild thing, it’s Wednesday. You are bowling and you have your burgundy socks on.”

  “I do not—,” I started, looked down, stopped.

  “I wouldn’t bother you, except Alex is here looking for you.”

  “Alex? Why is he there now? What does he want?”

  “He wanted to see you, I guess.”

  The sound of every ball in the place, especially the sound of every ball rolling down alley six or alley eight next to me, sounded as if it were originating inside the phone.

  “Well, he cannot see me. I am bowling. Or, rather, I am standing halfway down alley seven talking on the phone, watching other people bowl.”

  “I could send him down,” she said. “I’m sure he would love to watch you.”

  I yelped, loud enough to interrupt quite a few other bowlers. I waved at them, the universal bowler’s apology signal. “He cannot come here, Ma.”

  “Fine. He probably wouldn’t like you with your bowling face on anyway. But here, I’ll
put him on.”

  “No!” I shouted, and had to do the wave again.

  “Is that any way to talk to your ol’ uncle?” Alex said.

  “Sorry, Alex,” I said. “I wasn’t shouting at you.”

  “No, you were shouting about me, though.”

  I was about to be stupid and deny it. “Sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t worry about it. Hey, you know your dog peed on the floor here.”

  “Well duh,” I said, “it is Wednesday.”

  “Uh, right,” he said. “Listen, since you’re busy, could I see you tomorrow then?”

  I was standing there with my phone in one hand and my ball in the other, looking back up the lane to where Franko was crumpling up his chip bag and starting right in on mine. “Ya,” I said. “That’ll be okay.”

  “Great,” he said. “Can’t wait. By the way, I hear you are a great bowler. So was your dad. Here’s your mother.”

  “Hi,” she said.

  “I hate it when he says that stuff. About me being like my dad.”

  “Do you?”

  “Well, no.”

  “I didn’t think so. Have a good game, Elvin.”

  “Okay, I’ll try.”

  I hung up, put away the phone, and addressed the pins all over again. I picked up my stride right where I’d left off.

  And threw my first gutter ball since I was about six.

  “What’s he doing?” I asked when I returned after fighting my way back to a respectable seven on the frame. Frank was hunched over his shiny, slick, silver-plated mobile phone. His thumb was working furiously.

  “He’s sending a picture of himself,” Mike said.

  “To whom?”

  Mike pointed over to lane two, at a pair of girls. “He went over and got their number while you were up. He promised them a picture.”

  “My phone can do that,” I said, just to get his attention. “But I’ve never had a chance to use it. My mother already has pictures of me. Will I send one down to lane two? Tell them we’re twins?”

  Frank jumped up out of his seat and glared at me as he went to the line to bowl.

  I sat with Mike.

  “That your mom on the phone?”

  “Yup. And him.”

  “Alex?”

  “Ya. Grog did the Wednesday trick for him.”

  “That’s our girl. What did Alex want?”