The Boy Who Couldn't Fly Straight (The Broom Closet Stories)

by Jeff Jacobson

  He also felt embarrassed about his house back in Clarkston. He had known that the place wasn’t anything that would show up in magazines, but he had been proud of it. A rambling old Victorian with a sagging front porch and high ceilings, it was a place of nooks and crannies, old plumbing and plenty of storage in the basement for gardening supplies and his mother’s bolts of fabric.

  But when he compared it to Beverly and Randall’s house, it just seemed shabby.

  He hated to admit it, but he felt the same way at school. He’d overheard so many people talking about their summer vacations to exotic places, or the cool jobs their parents had. A few kids had asked him about California.

  “Ooh, are you from L.A.? I love L.A.. My parents went to college there.”

  “Are you from the Bay Area? I think San Francisco is so pretty.”

  He’d shaken his head and tried to tell them that he was from a small town not far from the California-Nevada border. He was pretty sure it wasn’t anything like L.A. or San Francisco, though he’d never been to either city (he didn’t admit that part). In the 1800s, it had been a miner’s camp. Now it was basically a hick town. He knew he wouldn’t tell anyone that his school had a 4-H club, or that he had won 2nd place when he was ten years old at the county fair. They’d raised goats that year, and he’d brought a young billy in to claim the prize.

  “Charlie,” said Randall, interrupting his thoughts, “we’re having wine with dinner. Would you like something? Non-alcoholic, of course. I could make you a cool mocktail, with pomegranate juice in it.”

  “Oh no, no really, water’s fine.”

  “Charlie, let him. Your uncle thinks he’s a master mixer. He won’t let up until you try one of his ‘mocktails,’” she said, making air quotes with her fingers.

  “Ignore the woman, Charlie. Just because she and her ‘community’,” Randall teased back with his air quotes, “are a bunch of foodies, you’d think no one outside of their fancy little club knew anything about cuisine.”

  “Well, your uncle does know how to cook. Thank God for that. It’s the only reason I keep him,” she said, then yelped and hopped out of the way as Randall pretended to snap her with a dishtowel.

  They used so many words. He almost imagined that their lips were set to double time, and that his mother had long ago changed her setting two or three notches down. Maybe when you lived this far north you had to talk faster. He wasn’t sure.

  The mocktail was really good. There was fresh ginger and lime in the drink, mixed with soda water and pomegranate juice, which he’d never had before. It was sweet and tart, and spicy from the ginger.

  “It’ll put hair on your chest,” Randall said, winking at him.

  “We’d love to hear about your maiden voyage at Puget Academy, if you’d like to talk about it,” Beverly said as she walked past her husband and took a lemon from the bowl sitting near the stove, the casual tone in her voice not matching the eager light shining in her eyes. He could tell they were both excited to hear about his day, but were trying not to overwhelm him with questions. Maybe his mother had told them that he was as shy as she was, or maybe they just knew to take it easy. Regardless, he appreciated that they didn’t throw as many words at him as they did with each other.

  His uncle had grilled the beef on the barbeque out on the deck, which was where they sat down for dinner. The sun wouldn’t set for a few more hours, and the water of the Sound was slate blue.

  The beef was rare, tender, and incredibly delicious. He ate three helpings, along with salad and vegetables.

  In between bites, he began to answer questions about his first day at school. They were intrigued by Chinese.

  “It sounds so hard,” Beverly said.

  He was surprised to find himself saying more than just simple yes’s and no’s. “It’s weird. You not only have to learn how to say a word, but you also have to know what tone it is. Like the word for ‘thank you.’ If you say the sound ‘xiexie,’ but you make your voice go up, like asking a question,” which he demonstrated, “you’re saying one thing. I can’t remember what. But if you make it go down, like you’re angry,” and he demonstrated again, “it means, ‘thank you.’” He found himself warming up to the topic of Chinese. Maybe it would become one of his favorite classes.

  “Is that why when I hear Chinese, it sounds like people are singing?”

  He shrugged. “I guess so. It took me a while to figure out that the teacher was trying to teach us how to say ‘yesterday,’ ‘today,’ and ‘tomorrow.’ By the time I finally understood, class was over.”

  They chatted about the rest of his day, and about Randall’s upcoming travel schedule. Randall was a pilot for Alaska Airlines, which was based out of Seattle. He would be flying to L.A., then Mexico the next day, and flying home late Saturday night. Charlie was finding it quite easy to talk to these people.

  “Charlie, did you have all the school supplies you needed today?” asked his aunt.

  He nodded.

  “Good. Please speak up if there’s anything else you need. Okay?” She stood up from the table and walked to the deck door. Before opening it, she turned back to him and said, “I bought you some things today that I thought would be useful. I figured you could use them for school, and, it’ll make it easier for us to communicate with each other. Be right back.”

  She stepped inside the house. He looked over at Randall, who just winked at him and tried to hide his smile behind a mouthful of shortcake.

  “Aren’t these late-summer strawberries good?” he asked.

  At that moment his aunt walked back out onto the deck, carrying a large white plastic bag over to the table. She set it on the ground next to him, then sat back down in her chair. She too seemed to be trying to hide her smile. She was better at it than her husband.

  He leaned over on the edge of his chair and looked in the bag. Inside were two white boxes, one quite large, the other the size of his old thesaurus.

  “Oh my God!” he said. “Oh my God!”

  “It was easy. There’s a store nearby, so…”

  “Oh my God! Are you serious? Seriously serious?”

  He jumped up out of his chair and pulled the boxes out of the bag.

  Beverly had bought him a laptop and a cell phone.

  He’d wanted his own laptop, but they hadn’t been able to afford one. He and his mom shared an old desktop at home, “which is more than plenty for our needs,” she’d always say. “And why everyone thinks they need high-speed internet these days…”

  She’d never let him have a cell phone, even though all his friends did. “It’s just a waste of money,” was another favorite of hers.

  “Do you like it? Is it okay?”

  “It’s awesome! It’s so great. Thank you so much.”

  Then he paused, feeling the same worry that he did before when he didn’t have any money for school clothes. Worry, and shame.

  “I, uh…Can I pay you back? After I get a job and stuff?”

  This time it was his aunt’s turn to stifle a laugh. Randall shushed her and spoke up.

  “Listen Charlie, about all that. Let’s clear the table and then go inside for a talk. Just so that you know where things stand. Okay?”

  Charlie brought the bag with the unopened laptop and cell phone into the dining room and set it on the floor, worrying about what they were going to say to him.

  Chapter 18

  The three of them sat in the living room together. Charlie looked over at the fireplace, wondering if his aunt was going to do any more fire tricks tonight. He doubted it. Beverly and Randall sat side by side, occasionally opening then closing their mouths like carp in a fish pond, trying to find the right words for whatever it was they wanted to say. It didn’t seem like the right kind of moment for displays of witchcraft.

  He was nervous. He could feel shame creeping in to his face; shame that he was poor, shame that he came from a hick town, and even in the hick town, he and his mother lived on the outskirts. They were even more
country than most of the other people of Clarkston. And his mother was so strict with money all of the time. He was afraid he was going to get into trouble, or at least get a stern talking-to, from Beverly and Randall. He knew that didn’t make sense, since they had just given him two very expensive gifts. But he wasn’t used to any of this at all, and didn’t know how to behave. He wanted to walk upstairs, go in his room, and close the door behind him. It was very hard to sit still and look them in the face.

  Finally, Randall broke the silence. “Charlie, do you know that I’m Jewish?”

  He stared at his uncle. He certainly hadn’t expected him to say that.

  “Rand, really. What does that have to do with anything?” asked Beverly.

  “Just let me, okay? I think it might help start off this conversation.”

  His aunt started to say something, then shook her head and waited for her husband to continue.

  “Do you, Charlie? Do you know that about me?”

  “Um, no.”

  “Okay, I am.”

  Charlie had never met a Jewish person before. But he didn’t want to admit it out loud. It would make him sound like a Clarkston hick if he did.

  “The reason I brought it up,” he said, glancing at his wife before turning back to him, “is because some people hold stereotypes about Jews as being cheap, or overly focused on making money. This is ironic to me because those same people fail to step back and look at the real reason for this, at years of oppression, at…”

  “Rand, while this is true, I’m not sure why this little lesson is appropriate right now,” said Beverly, making a “get on with it” gesture with her hands.

  “Right. Okay. Sorry. Anyway, at times throughout history, Jews, as well as many other kinds of minority groups, have found themselves looked down upon, or outcast, by the societies where they lived. This meant that they never knew if, or when, they might have to flee their homes in the middle of the night to avoid being killed by angry townspeople.

  “If you’re constantly worried that you might have to escape in the night, you’d probably try to save money, keeping it hidden in little bags, or the lining of your clothes. You know, saving for a rainy day.

  “Or you might buy and save gold. Gold is interesting, because it tends to hold its value better than local currencies. I mean, wow, look at all the governments over the years that have fallen. And when they fall, sometimes, whammo, all that cash you had saved up is worth nothing.”

  “Rand,” Beverly groaned, elbowing her husband in the side.

  “Okay. Jeez. I’m getting there!

  “Anyway,” he continued, raising his eyebrows and tilting his head toward his wife with a “Can you believe her?” look on his face, making Charlie laugh in spite of the fact that his head was swimming and he didn’t know why Randall was saying all of this.

  “Witches are a little like this too. You’ve probably heard fairy tales of townspeople with torches descending on some little cottage in the woods at night to drive out, or even kill, the old woman who lived there. Just because a cow was born with two heads. Or because someone’s baby died, a baby that she had treated for whooping cough.

  “Over the centuries, many witches haven’t been safe living in towns, surrounded by regular people. We talked about this the other night. Fear can run deep among witches, fear that the townspeople might turn on them at any moment.”

  Beverly didn’t look impatient anymore. She simply stared at her husband as he spoke, the vertical line between her eyes deepening.

  “One of the implications of all this is that many witches live temporary lives. They never settle down, they keep to themselves, always on the go, never forming lasting friendships.”

  Beverly interrupted. “Many of us feel like we have to be on the run all the time. Even now, when it’s so much easier to live what would seem like a normal life on the outside, it’s just sort of witch culture to move from place to place, with either a small family or just by yourself, keeping your head down and trying not to draw attention to yourself.”

  “But you don’t do that,” Charlie said, wondering what all this had to do with him and money.

  “No, you’re right. Our ancestors built quite a community here in Seattle. And there are certainly many other places like this all, over the world. But it’s still common for witches to be loners.”

  She paused, looked at her husband, then back at him. “Kind of like your mother,” she said gently.

  “Oh,” said Charlie. He’d been so wrapped up in Jews and witches, laptops and money, that he hadn’t made the connection.

  “The reason why I brought up the Jewish thing, Charlie,” Randall continued, “is that many witches also do their best to be frugal, to save money, to keep savings on hand in case of emergency. Even if they’re like your aunt here, who has an established life and is a vital member of her neighborhood, they still might save a lot more than non-witch types.

  “Does all of this make sense so far?” he asked.

  Charlie nodded, though he wasn’t sure it did.

  “Okay. So if you take a people who for generations have saved money in order to have extra cash on hand for emergencies, as well as to pass down to their children and their children’s children, well, witch families might end up saving a lot of money. You can imagine it, right? ”

  He nodded again.

  “If you combine that with the fact that witches for the most part tend to be careful, they don’t make willy-nilly decisions about investing, but focus on long-term growth over short-term ROI…”

  “Charlie,” Beverly cut in while she patted her husband’s knee, “what your uncle is taking forever to say is that we have money. A lot. More than we could ever need. My ancestors saved it and made it grow, and each time they passed it down from one generation to the next, it grew more. So that by the time it came to my generation, as I said, there was, is, a lot.”

  Randall looked at her, then back at his nephew. “What that also means is that half of that money is your mother’s. She hasn’t claimed it, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t hers. And what that also means, basically, is that since we have no kids, you’re the only one of the next generation. So all of that money is yours, too.”

  Charlie felt his jaw drop open. He knew his aunt and uncle had been trying to tell him not to worry about money, that they had enough. It was kind of obvious when you looked at their nice house and the neighborhood they lived in. But the part about his mother, and about him…

  “What? No, no, it’s yours. I didn’t, uh, I didn’t have anything to do with it. I never even saved any of it. I, …what?”

  “Take it easy, buddy. We’re not trying to scare you. I know everything is brand new and strange. We didn’t want to just drop all of this on you at once. But you’ve talked about money and getting a job a couple of times, as well as paying us back. We just want you to know that there is plenty for all of us, for your aunt and me, for your mother if she’d like it, for you too. For your schooling, for a computer, for your food and clothes, for a car when you’re ready to drive.

  “It’s not like we’re going to give it all to you and tell you to go crazy, Charlie.” Randall laughed. “That wouldn’t be very responsible of us. It sounds like your mother has done a wonderful job instilling in you the value of saving money. That’s great.

  “We just want you to know that for right now, you can relax a little. You’re taken care of. We can only imagine how much is on your mind. A new place to live, a new school, all the things we talked about the other day with your mother and your aunt. All that witch stuff. We want you to have one less thing to worry about.”

  Charlie looked back and forth from his uncle to his aunt, then down at his hands. The three helpings of beef and the extra dessert sat like a lump in his stomach. Even though he liked how they seemed to respect him enough to talk to him like a person instead of a little kid, he didn’t know how he felt about what they said. It just seemed too weird. His mother had a lot of money? And he did too? How
could that be true?

  “Did we tell you too much, Charlie?” asked his aunt.

  “Um, I guess not. Well, you said it was my money too. But not really, right? I mean, not to sound disrespectful, but,” he said, then paused. What was he trying to say?

  That he didn’t believe them? No, that wasn’t it. As strange as all this sounded, it was more believable than some of the other weird stuff he’d had to swallow in the past few days. That they were going to give him a crazy allowance or something? No, it was just that…

  “But that money really isn’t mine until you two, and my mom…until I’m the only one still alive, right?”

  “You mean, as an inheritance?” asked Randall. “Technically, yes. Or at least not until you’re eighteen years old. But we don’t think about it that way. That pool of money is for all four of us. Right now. And someday it’ll just be for you, when we’re gone.”

  Chapter 19

  Charlie walked down Washington Street on his way to his second day of school. It was a bright, sunny morning, though he could feel a cooler layer of air beneath the warmth of the day. His uncle had told him they never knew how long summer would last in Seattle. Sometimes it could go until late September, and other times it ended right about now, not even mid-month and the weather would turn cold, gray, and rainy.

  “And then that’s what we’re stuck with, for about eight to ten months,” he’d said, with an odd mixture of annoyance and affection in his voice, as if Seattle weather were a fussy, yet lovable infant.

  A fresh-faced woman in a light blue T-shirt and shorts who appeared to be in her early twenties was jogging toward him, the white cord of her earbuds shining in the sun. Her dark blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she smiled at him as she passed by. He turned around, not sure if he was supposed to know who she was. She winked at him, then kept moving.

  He wondered if he found her attractive. She was obviously older than him, but not by too much. She seemed to have a great body, and a really pretty face.