Nina Revoyr

by Wingshooters

  But during the school year, I rarely made it to Jimmy’s, and the hour and a half between the time I got home from school and my grandfather’s return from the coffee shop was the longest part of the day. That afternoon, I opened the door to the attic and went up to my father’s old room. Brett came with me. He was always at my heels as I moved from room to room; he slept in my bed; he lay on my feet during meals. Whenever I stood, he’d jump up too, and give me a look of excitement and questioning—ears perked, tail moving hesitantly, inquiringly, not sure yet whether the situation warranted a full-out wag. If I headed to the door with a leash or a ball, he was beside himself with excitement, jumping in circles and barking until my grandmother yelled for quiet. But if I just went to another room and sat down again, he’d continue to look at me for a moment, still hopeful, still giving me a chance to redeem myself, before lying down with a long-suffering sigh.

  This is what he did now, once he saw that no adventure was imminent. My mind was on something else that afternoon. My father had put some old photo albums into a closet before he left, and I took them out and flipped through them until I found what I was looking for. In a few pictures of my parents in California, and in others from Japan, there were black men and women, clearly friends. In one picture from Tokyo, my father and an older black man were leaning together and laughing. I remembered that I’d met this man and his wife; they’d come over to our apartment several times. A few pages later I found some pictures of my parents in Bakersfield with a black couple around their age. There was nothing strange or threatening about the people in the photos—but then again, I wouldn’t have thought that I was threatening, either.

  Seeing these photographs made me think about my father’s letter from the week before. I now considered the fact that it hadn’t come from California. Since he’d arrived on the West Coast ten months before, all of his letters had been from the Sacramento area. But this last one had come from Kansas City. Because he’d written from several places the previous fall as he’d made his way out west, it hadn’t struck me at first that this most recent letter didn’t fit the usual pattern. Now it did. And then I remembered that his postcard before that had been from Salt Lake City. He seemed to be moving in our direction. Did this mean he was on his way back to Wisconsin? Could it be that my parents had reconciled, and he was keeping it a surprise? My heart jumped at this possibility. Now I tried to think about what he had actually written. He’d gone to Missouri for a music festival in the summer, to cover it for a radio station in Berkeley, and he’d liked the area so much that he’d decided to stay on there with friends. It was so great, kiddo, he’d written in his careless hand. People relaxing, getting along with each other, just feeling the music. This is what the whole world should be like! I’ve got a couple of things to figure out and then I’ll come and get you. Sit tight—I’ll be ready for you soon.

  This sounded promising, but I wasn’t sure I could believe it. Two weeks had already turned into thirteen months. And besides, as much as I wanted to see him, I didn’t know how I felt about leaving. There was plenty I liked about being there in Deerhorn.

  At four-thirty sharp, I went downstairs and took my usual seat by the dining room window. As soon as I saw my grandfather turn the corner onto Dryden Road, Brett and I ran out of the house. We sprinted all the way up the street, running straight at Charlie, and when he saw us, his face broke into a crooked grin. I barely slowed down as I hit him and threw my arms around his waist, the dog circling us and barking. “Whoa, Mikey,” he said laughing, as he stepped back from the force of my blow. He often called me Mikey, and sometimes Mike; he only addressed me as Michelle when I was in trouble. Now he rubbed my head hard with his knuckles and asked, “How was school today?”

  “Fine,” I said into his shirt. I knew I wouldn’t ask him what I’d asked my grandmother; I didn’t want to talk about the nurse and the teacher anymore. Besides, I felt peaceful—my arms around Charlie, my cheek against his shirt, which smelled like Old Spice and fresh-cut grass. He disentangled me and we walked down the street toward home, me holding on to his, rough callused hand.

  We sat down for supper at five. My grandmother served us chicken, scalloped potatoes, and squash, getting up several times to refill our glasses of milk. Finally, after all of our plates were half-cleared, my grandfather looked up from his food.

  “Those kids still giving you trouble, Mike?”

  I stared down at my plate, remembering the girls at my locker, the boy who’d called me a name. “No, not really.”

  “Well, if they do, you know what I told you now. Just pop ’em one.” He made a fist and punched his other hand.

  My grandmother turned to him. “Charlie, you shouldn’t encourage her to be violent.”

  He leaned back in his chair, arms spread and palms up, appealing to her, resisting. “I’m not talking about violence, Helen. This is self-defense. Mike’s got to be able to take care of herself.”

  “Well, I don’t like it.” She got up and went into the kitchen. From the harsh way she opened and closed the refrigerator, I could tell she was upset.

  I wondered if my grandfather was annoyed at her—but when I glanced over at him, he winked. Then he reached over and poked me—in the shoulder, in the side—until I giggled and tried to swat his hand away. When my grandmother came back to the table, with more butter for the squash, she looked at us disapprovingly. Then Charlie fixed her with that grin of his and said, “Thank you, sweetheart,” and her expression finally softened.

  Our good spirits restored, my grandfather recounted what he’d heard that day. Earl Watson had gotten a new order of shotguns, just in time for duck hunting season. John Berger’s construction company had received a contract to build a dozen new houses near the clinic. Uncle Pete’s secretary was pregnant again, her third child with that good-for-nothing Jerry Kolinski who Pete had fired two years ago. I stole glances at Charlie while I ate. His skin was a glowing brown, so tanned from working in the garden that he might have been that color all the way through. His hair was the color of barley, while my grandmother’s had been gray for as long as I could remember. Watching my grandfather, I could see what it was about him that made women blush at him even now. He sat there in his trousers and green short-sleeve shirt, elbows slung on the table, looking at home with himself and the world.

  He’d been sitting in the same spot a little over a year before when I emerged from the bedroom one morning. I’d taken a few steps toward the table and then stopped, surprised—my grandfather was always out of the house by the time I woke up, and although my father and I had only recently arrived, I knew it wasn’t normal for Charlie to be sitting there doing nothing, as late as eight o’clock in the morning. But what also gave me pause was the way that he looked. He sat slouched over the table, leaning on his forearms, loose fists touching in front of him.

  I had been there with my father about a week and a half, and already my first thought when I woke up each day was Charlie—what he was doing, how fast I could wolf down my breakfast and join him in the weeding or mowing he did before he walked up to the coffee shop. My father, who went out in the evenings after I’d gone to bed, wouldn’t wake up until after ten. During the days he was restless, moving from front porch to back steps to attic to kitchen, avoiding my grandmother and her remarks on his shoulder-length hair, his stubble, the wide-bottom pants, the shirt with the three buttons open. In the afternoons he’d sit on the back steps with a cigarette and beer, eyes red-rimmed and watery. He didn’t fit with his own family much better than he fit with my mother’s; when Uncle Pete had come over the day before and he and Charlie had talked about hunting, my father just stared at the television and hadn’t said a word.

  Conversation over supper that evening, after Pete left, was stilted and strange, even before the nightly news came on. I already knew that the news meant arguments, or a tense quiet that was almost worse. As Walter Cronkite went through the stories of the day—the continuing fallout from Watergate and the bombin
gs in Cambodia, the robbing of a bank by an antigovernment group, the drug overdose of a famous activist in San Francisco—I could feel the pressure building.

  “Things are out of control,” my grandfather said finally. “This country needs some order.”

  “The old order is exactly what people are trying to break free from, Dad,” said my father. “Everything’s getting shaken up now. Things are changing.”

  Charlie made a sound of disapproval. “Sometimes change is more trouble than it’s worth. Sometimes things should just stay like they are.”

  “But when those things aren’t working anymore, then it’s time for a new way. It’s not just about the war and the government, Dad. It’s about freeing people’s minds, expanding their lives.”

  My grandfather was about to cut into his food and now he stopped, fork and knife poised over his plate. “Expanding their lives? What does that mean?” he asked. “People have responsibilities. They have commitments, routines. They shouldn’t just be able to do whatever the hell they want.”

  “Yes, they should. That’s what freedom’s all about.”

  “Freedom,” Charlie repeated. “Is that what you call it?” He lifted his fork and pointed it at my father. “Seems to me like you ran off and just avoided everything. Now you’re thirty-two years old and you don’t have a job, and you look like you haven’t shaved in a year.”

  “I just got here. I still need to—”

  “You forget with all your freedom that you’re supposed to be a father. You can’t just go out drinking all night and leave your child at home. What kind of example is that? What kind of life are you trying to make for her?”

  “I’m not trying to make her life. That’s exactly the point. I want to show her that there are all different kinds of ways to live. I want her to know that she can make her own choices.”

  Charlie moved like he was about to stand up, and then lowered himself again. “She’s a child, Stewart. She doesn’t need to make ‘choices.’ She needs you to be a parent.”

  “I am a parent. I may not do things the way you would do them, but I’m still her father, and I’m still an adult.”

  “Are you?” Charlie said. “Then why don’t you act like one?”

  There was a brief, tense silence. Then my father pushed back from the table and stood up so fast his chair fell over backwards. He walked out of the house and slammed the door. My grandfather clenched his fist and raised it like he was going to hit the table, but he just let it fall and shook his head and didn’t say a word.

  The next morning, when I found my grandfather sitting at the table, it took him a moment to notice me. When he did, he raised his head and smiled sadly.

  “Hello, Mike,” he said, and his voice was soft and hoarse. He looked like a different man from the night before.

  “Is my dad up yet?” I asked. I glanced at the door that led to the attic where he always slept. Suddenly I knew that whatever was wrong must have had to do with him.

  Charlie took a deep breath and said, “Your father is gone.”

  “He didn’t come home last night?” It wouldn’t have been the first time. There’d been times in Japan, after my parents had argued, that he hadn’t come home until morning.

  Charlie’s gaze was steady and he spoke carefully, as if to make sure I understood. “He did come home. But he packed up and left again early this morning. He heard something about your mother, and he had to get out to California.” My grandfather stopped and uncurled his fists, touched the table with the edges of his hands. “He told us to tell you he was sorry that he didn’t have a chance to say goodbye. But he’ll be back soon, he said. He’s coming back to get you.”

  I just stood there, not knowing what to think. I was used to having one or the other of my parents disappear. But both of them? “When?” I asked. “When will he be back?”

  “A couple of weeks, he said.”

  Just then my grandmother came into the doorway; she must have been in the kitchen. Her eyes were red and puffy and her face was drawn. She and my grandfather exchanged a look, and then he turned back to me and smiled. “You don’t mind this now, do you? You don’t mind staying here with us for a while?”

  The day that I learned about the substitute teacher, there was nothing in Charlie’s manner or words that suggested anything was amiss. We finished supper and quickly cleared the table. After we all did the dishes (as always, she washed, he dried, and I helped put everything back into the cupboards), Charlie changed into his work pants and undershirt and we went out to the garage to get our baseball gloves. His was an old glove from his playing days, mine was a kid’s glove, the color of dried blood, with the stamped signature of Catfish Hunter. Charlie had a pail of baseballs in the corner of the garage but we used just one that day, playing catch in the yard while the dog ran between us, following the flight of the ball. We didn’t talk—he only spoke to tell me to extend my arm further, or to pull my legs together so grounders wouldn’t sneak through; we just slung the ball back and forth through the cooling air. This—playing catch with my grandfather at dusk—was my very favorite thing in the world. And it was especially good on a day like today, when I felt stirred up and confused. Charlie seemed to know I needed physical activity; maybe he needed it too. We threw and caught the old baseball, sent it whirling through the air, heard its leathery thunk as it lodged in our gloves, until the ball began to blend in with the night and it got too dark to see.

  When we went inside, my grandmother made us my favorite dessert—strawberries she’d canned and frozen during the summer, poured over French vanilla ice cream. We ate in the dining room, where Brett—once he realized he wasn’t getting any food—lay down, yawned, and shook his head a little, as if the yawn was so large his head couldn’t quite contain it. He rolled onto his side for a belly rub, which I happily gave him, scratching the spot just below his rib cage until his eyes half closed with bliss. Then we all went into the living room—Grandma sat in her recliner, me in the corner chair, and Charlie stretched out on his sofa—and watched TV until my bedtime. I got up and kissed my grandmother on the cheek, then stood behind my grandfather at one end of the couch and kissed him on his forehead.

  “’Night, Mike,” he said, and I scrambled off to my room, ready to go to sleep.

  I didn’t mind staying with them. I was comfortable there. Although I missed my father and wanted to see him, my grandparents were predictable and safe. As hard a time as I sometimes had in town and in school, their place, their house, was different. Even with what was happening at the elementary school, I felt, at least for that evening, like I was sheltered and protected; like everything could be all right.

  THREE

  The next morning—the substitute teacher’s first day—I got to school without a bit of interference. There were no new ink marks on the front of my locker, no older kids waiting to taunt me. It was as if I had suddenly vanished, and I might have enjoyed this new anonymity if the mood hadn’t been so tense. When I went into Miss Anderson’s class and sat down at my desk, the entire room was abuzz.

  “Have you seen him yet?”

  “No, have you?”

  “I heard Jackie Sanderson’s mother wouldn’t let him come to school.”

  “Well, if that was my teacher, I wouldn’t come either.”

  “All right, all right, children, come to order,” said Miss Anderson, and she sounded frustrated—not a good sign so early in the day. There were bags under her eyes and her mouth looked pinched. The class quieted down quickly and we waited for whatever she was going to tell us. Our school was small—two classes per grade—so whenever a new teacher came, or even a long-term sub, our teachers usually told us so we’d know to be friendly, even though new people were always greeted more with giggles and pointed fingers than with smiles. But though we sat quietly and waited for Miss Anderson to give her assessment of the black teacher, she took attendance and asked us to open our reading books and didn’t mention him at all. We obeyed her and followed along in
our books, but as we read about Chester the caterpillar, we were all more aware of what we hadn’t yet discussed; it hung there like a threatening cloud. Finally, at ten-thirty, after a spelling test and a math lesson, Miss Anderson released us for recess.

  We spilled onto the playground slowly, my classmates suddenly unsure of how to do normal, everyday things like playing tetherball or working the swings. Mrs. Hebig’s fifth grade class wasn’t out yet, and it seemed that everyone on the playground, both teachers and children, was waiting for them to appear—waiting to see if they bore visible signs of having spent the morning in the company of a Negro. While I sat at the bottom of the stairs on my usual bench, I noticed a lone figure a bit farther down, standing with his back against the wall. It was Kevin Watson, Earl’s younger son, who was in the fourth grade. Although Kevin was my age, I’d always thought of him as younger. He was short and stocky, unsteady as a wolf pup stumbling out of his cave. Now, he put both hands behind him against the brick wall and rocked back and forth, his thick black hair, which was a bit too long in front, falling over into his face. Kevin often seemed at odds with the few friends he had, crying easily and throwing tantrums if he was left out of a game or passed over when they were picking teams for kickball. Judging from the rocking and the look on his face, that must have been what was happening now. He was sensitive and quiet, with brown liquid eyes and lashes as long as a girl’s. His older brother Jake was burly and tough, more like Earl; he was one of the boys who’d chased me on my bike.

  Thoughts of the Watson family quickly left my head, though, when the fifth graders finally appeared. And as they ran outside—and that is exactly what they did, run—they were immediately surrounded by other students. The whole mass of children moved down the playground away from the door, each of Mrs. Hebig’s fifth graders flanked by two or three kids, as if they had just survived a spectacular accident and were being interviewed by throngs of reporters. The teachers who were outside on recess duty tried to look indifferent, but soon they too were inching toward the fifth graders. And I, who never joined in any gathering of students, just watched this from my bench. Although it bothered me how everyone was reacting to the new teacher, there was also a part of me that felt relieved. He and his wife, by attracting so much of the town’s attention, had drawn it away from me. I was ashamed to feel this way, to be enjoying this respite, but there was no question that I was being glared at less frequently now, shoved around a bit less often in the hallway. And it occurred to me that at that moment, I could have walked out of the school and down the street and left the town forever, and no one there would ever have known the difference. But I didn’t. What I did was sigh and stand up and walk back inside so I could spend a few minutes alone.