by Jack Gantos
“Are we finished with my lesson?” I asked nervously. “We haven’t talked about Mrs. Roosevelt’s obit yet and I’m a little worried that the real cops will catch up to us.”
“Hold your horses,” she said, slowly glancing up and down the roads and pathways. “I might be writing an obituary, but these are the moments in history that live forever. This is the site of one of Eleanor Roosevelt’s greatest victories over racism and prejudice, so we have to add it.”
I had kept the pen she had earlier given to me in the cemetery and now removed it from my jacket pocket. I opened my small suitcase and pulled out the pad of paper I was writing on. I tested the tip and now that the ink was warmer it flowed just fine. “I’m ready,” I said.
“On this very spot another battle for freedom was fought within ourselves as a nation. Right here Marian Anderson sang, ‘My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee we sing.’
“She changed the ‘of thee I sing’ to ‘we’ to include all Americans. And do you know why she was up here singing it?”
“No,” I said, feeling like a student who skipped his homework.
“Because she was a black woman and was going to sing at Constitution Hall, owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution, but in 1939 they would not let her sing to an integrated audience. They banned her because she wanted to sing to all races under one roof. And this is why the great Eleanor Roosevelt resigned her own membership in the D.A.R. ‘That’s that!’ she probably said. ‘I’ve had enough of this evil racism.’ I expect she ripped up her membership card and did a little angry dance on the pieces.”
With that, Miss Volker did a little dance of her own to illustrate Eleanor’s angry jig. But she wasn’t finished there. Once she caught her breath she continued to orate. “And as a result Eleanor Roosevelt secretly arranged for Marian Anderson to sing for free at the Lincoln Memorial to a gigantic audience of all colors and creeds. Well, she sure showed the D.A.R. ladies something about patriotism!”
“Yep,” I said, and pointed across the Tidal Basin toward the Jefferson Memorial. “She reminded them what the Constitution was all about—that all people are created equal.”
“A-plus for that,” she said, patting me on the shoulder before starting up again. “And to further show just what a great person Marian was—she was a forgiving person—in 1943 Marian Anderson was invited back to Constitution Hall to sing because those white D.A.R. ladies realized they had made a huge blunder and angered Eleanor and embarrassed themselves.
“Now, everyone would have understood completely if Marian Anderson had put her foot down and said, ‘Forget it, you white old ladies! You insulted me and my race and I’ll never forgive you for it.’ But she didn’t say that. She graciously forgave them and went back to Constitution Hall and sang to an integrated audience and was a huge success.
“Just as Lincoln had his mind turned against slavery by the will of the people, so too did the women of the D.A.R. change their minds when they looked out at the real America—the America made up of races from all around the world—and saw the power of seventy-five thousand people listening to Marian sing at the Lincoln Memorial and millions more listening on the radio, and they were convinced they were wrong. The people had once again gathered to cast a vote and right a wrong—which is how democracy is supposed to work. People have the power. And just last year Marian sang for President Kennedy at his inauguration and this year for him at the White House. Who knows who else will sing or speak and gather people together on this very spot to once again exercise democracy as it was meant to be—for the people by the people!”
“How much of this do you want in the obit?” I asked.
“Every word of it,” she insisted. “And add this too.”
“Cheeze,” I mumbled. My hand was as cramped up as hers.
“As Marian sang,” Miss Volker said with a bit of swagger, “who had her back?”
“Lincoln,” I answered.
“A-plus again,” she said robustly. “Lincoln was right behind her, praising her because her love for this country’s future was greater than this country’s ugly past. Marian was a visionary. The greatest lessons in history are about people changing their minds for the better,” she said with reverence. “Marian went back and changed the minds of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She did not want anger and bitterness within herself and she didn’t want it in her enemies either. Lincoln too changed his mind when he realized he was not just fighting a war to beat the South but fighting for a better Union, a Union of free people joined together with common beliefs.”
“What about this history lesson on forgiveness changing your mind about Spizz?” I asked, trying once more to be sensible. “Think that over.”
“I think even history is not going to bring all those poor old Norvelt ladies back to life,” she replied with certainty. Then she looked toward Lincoln as she tugged her coat up over her own slumped shoulders. “Remember what they did with John Wilkes Booth?”
Even I knew Booth had been shot dead through the neck while running from a burning barn. But Miss Volker’s question hung stiffly in the air like the bodies of those who helped Booth—and I knew better than to help Spizz.
There wasn’t anything more to say and we both looked away. I stared toward the distant White House and wondered how the president felt each morning when he looked out his window toward Lincoln—the great man who freed the slaves, saved the Union, and lost his life.
Just then a taxi pulled into the parking lot.
“Hold that cab!” Miss Volker shouted. “We’ll be right down.”
As we descended the stairs, a long line of chattering girls my age, all dressed in bright overcoats and hats, stepped out of the taxi like an endless scarf being pulled from a magician’s jacket sleeve. As I held the taxi door for them, I envied their laughter. Somehow Mr. Hyde hadn’t found them yet.
“We should buy a car,” Miss Volker announced once the girls had drifted away and we settled into the backseat.
“Where will we do that?” I asked.
She pointed into the distance. I followed the line of her finger to a billboard which read,
FOGGY BOTTOM USED CARS
Guaranteed to drive you
CLEAR across the country!
“By now Spizz has a pretty big head start,” I said.
She smiled a wicked smile. “My thought exactly,” she replied. “Remember, the best place to harpoon a whale is in the back.”
10
In fact, from the moment the taxi dropped us off at the Foggy Bottom Used Car dealership, everything about our trip started to get more than foggy.
First, Miss Volker and I had a little problem with choosing which car to buy. I was searching the lot for a car like her old Plymouth Valiant, because I knew I could drive it. But Miss Volker’s eyes widened when she spotted the car of her dreams.
“Look!” she cried out, flapping her arms as she ran toward a massively long black car and threw herself across the hood as she hugged it.
When I caught up to her I saw trouble. “Why this?” I asked.
“This is what we are buying,” she replied with absolute certainty.
“It’s really big,” I remarked, trying to hint with my wide-eyed look that I was afraid of its bigness. “I think it’s bigger than my dad’s airplane.”
“It should be big,” she said grandly, and kissed the hood. “It’s a hearse. You have to be able to fit a casket in the back.”
“I know what it is,” I said. “Mr. Huffer has one and Bunny used to have her dead doll tea parties in the back.”
“We won’t be having a tea party,” she said gleefully. “This will be perfect for hauling the white whale around before we give him a proper burial.”
I had to open the driver’s side door with both hands. It felt like I was opening a bank vault. When I sat on the front seat I sank down so low I couldn’t see over the dashboard. I felt like I was driving my own casket. The pedals were two feet farther
away than what I could reach and the steering wheel was the size of a bicycle tire.
“I don’t think I can drive this beast,” I said out the window. “It’s too big.”
“You sound like fussy little Goldilocks,” she snapped. “Now put some effort into this. Not everything in life is just right.”
“Even if you put me on a medieval rack and stretch me into Turkish Taffy, I couldn’t drive this car,” I protested. “I’m too short.”
The moment I said that, she began to pout as she had on the train, when those soggy beads of wet bread trailed down her face like little white garden snails. When she didn’t get her way, bad things were about to happen.
That’s when the car salesman came hopping toward us from his log cabin office. He had a tidy human face on the upright body of a well-dressed cat. Something must have been wrong with his fidgety legs because every few seconds he adjusted his balance as if he were standing on the tip of a pointy stick. He smiled a slender, toothy smile at Miss Volker and adjusted his skinny plaid tie.
“Hello,” he purred. He was foggy too.
“Hello,” Miss Volker barked back at him.
“This used hearse is a bargain,” he declared, and quickly began to polish the side mirror with a colorful silk pocket square. “But it’s not all used up. There are plenty more bodies it can carry around for you—or if you are a florist you can use it to make deliveries.” He quickly ticked off a few more practical uses for the hearse, from “mobile day-care facility” to “extra-large pizza delivery.”
“It’s the perfect vehicle,” agreed Miss Volker, “but he said we need something smaller—I guess he means something that would hold the peewee wooden coffin of a boy.” She shot me a cross look.
“Pardon my manners,” the salesman asked in a very svelte tone, “but what is your name, ma’am?”
“Miss Volker,” she replied bluntly.
“Volker!” he sang out, suddenly perking up and rubbing his nubby feline hands together with joy. “Oh, I have just the car for you. I always match up names of cars with their owners. For instance, if your name is Dodge you buy a Dodge. If it is Ford…”
“Nothing by Ford,” she insisted harshly. “He was anti-labor and blamed the Jews for everything bad in the world, and he didn’t read books. He thought the American Revolution took place in 1812. He was mean to his family, and he was ignorant except for how to build cars.”
“Clearly, you are not a Ford,” he concluded, bowing and backing up as if she were royalty. “You have a more illustrious history running through your veins.”
As soon as he said the word history her ears glowed and she seemed to like him more.
“I have a Volkswagen Beetle,” he offered, and smiled confidently. “A perfect fit between woman and machine, for as you must know, Volk means ‘folks’ in German. It fits your name perfectly!”
He pranced us over to the bright red car and it did perfectly match our needs for a lot of reasons. Mostly, it was my “perfect fit,” and as he rhapsodized about the German engineering, I quickly slipped into the front seat and held the wheel. I could easily reach the pedals, and when I turned my head to the left and right I could see out the windows.
I got out to check the engine, but when I opened the hood all I found was a luggage compartment big enough for the loose spare tire and some tools.
“The engine’s in back, son,” the salesman said. “Runs great, as the windshield says.”
I opened the rear compartment and pretended to know something about motors as I examined the lawnmower-sized engine.
I loved the car but Miss Volker detested it.
“I know a lot of Volks,” she said with authority, and crossed her arms, “who since World War II will not buy anything German—especially a car designed by Hitler’s Nazi gang, who built tanks and other war machines!”
“Oh dear,” he replied, and his entire body twisted up in anguish. “Then perhaps you have a middle name that will inspire a match—Packard perhaps? Cadillac?”
He nervously hopped around from side to side and back and forth as if the thin legs inside his pants were pogo sticks. We followed him along the rows of cars and considered a Chevy and a Rambler. Then we dragged ourselves past a Chrysler, a Pontiac, a Buick, a Mercury, and an Oldsmobile. She disliked them all.
“Do you have anything like a whaling ship on wheels?” I asked, trying to be clever because Miss Volker’s face was looking as testy as Mrs. Captain Ahab’s.
“Darn,” exclaimed the salesman as he snapped his fingers. “I did have a spiffy Amphicar that drives on land or sea. It was bright baby-blue and as cute and tidy as a ship in a bottle. But I just sold it an hour ago to a big guy who was driving to Tennessee.”
“USS Spizz!” she hissed like a steam vent.
“How did you know his name?” the salesman asked, fussing compulsively with his jacket buttons.
“We’re heading to the same place,” she replied knowingly, and circled back to the Volkswagen.
“Think of it as a German submarine,” I whispered eagerly. “I’m sure we can blow him out of the water.”
“Okay,” she groaned reluctantly. “We better get moving. Spizz is already going over land and lakes in his vehicle. But just remember that this Kraut car is your decision, because it’s against my moral judgment.”
I reached into her purse, felt the pistol, but only removed her wallet where she kept the big bills. I counted out two hundred dollars.
The salesman recounted it while whistling a jaunty tune, and then opened his jacket. He slipped the money into one inside pocket and from the other he fished out a charm bracelet of car keys. “The VW is perfect for you, ma’am. Trust me,” he said as he unfastened the key and eased it into her hand. “The war is over and the Germans are now good Volks.”
“We’ll meet you inside,” she replied through clenched teeth, “after a little test drive.”
“I’ll prepare the paperwork,” he sang merrily, and hopped away as if he were bouncing along a country path.
As soon as he was inside his cabin Miss Volker tossed me the key. “Quick,” she said urgently. “Let’s hit the road.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because neither of us has a license and only one of us can drive,” she explained, “and he is underage.”
She was right. I hopped into the car and reached over and opened her door and she got in. I started the engine and then I looked down at the pedals. “Cheeze,” I said in dismay, “why are there three pedals?”
“It’s a stick shift, ninny,” she replied. “You said you could drive it!”
“I’ve only driven automatics,” I blurted out nervously.
“Automatics!” she echoed scornfully. “You get a failing grade at being a boy. Now push in the clutch pedal and put the stick into R for reverse and step on the gas while you slowly let up on the clutch—and don’t forget to release the emergency brake.”
I did all of that and we jolted straight back like a dog yanked on a short leash. I slammed on the brakes and the clutch and stopped a foot before we flattened an old police motorcycle with a sidecar.
“Now put it in first gear,” she instructed, “and let out the clutch.”
I did, and we shot forward and I steered out of the car lot onto an empty street.
“Now second gear!” she instructed once the engine began to whine. “Now third … now fourth.”
We took off down the road, and after a few miles I seemed to get the hang of using a clutch and shifting gears. I turned and smiled at her. “This is a great car,” I remarked. “Perfect fit.”
“Hitler loved perfection,” she replied with a bit of menace in her voice. “He tortured all of humanity with his quest for perfection.”
“Where are we going?” I asked, changing the subject and trying to get a clear view out of the windshield. RUNS GREAT! was still painted across the glass.
“Tennessee,” she replied.
“It’ll take a month to get there,” I groan
ed.
“You don’t know anything about geography,” she said. She pointed to a gas station and when I pulled to a stop she sent me in for highway maps of Virginia and Tennessee. On the way back to the VW I saw a wrecked car by the side of the station. I hustled over to it and swiped the license plate, which was barely hanging on by a loose screw. There was some rusty wire on the ground. I picked it up and quickly secured the license plate to the back of the VW.
I had us back on the road in minutes.
“I’ll teach you a few things. Now keep your eyes peeled for Highway 50 west and your foot heavy on the gas.”
As I followed her directions across the Potomac River into Virginia, I was going flat out. I definitely gave myself an A+ on my driver’s test. I had both hands on the wheel. I was passing cars on the left and right, and if they didn’t get out of my lane I ducked way down and hit the horn with my forehead. If the horn didn’t scare them, then what looked like a Headless Horseman driver and his ghostly granny sure did. If someone looked at me like I was too young to drive, I just put my arm around Miss Volker’s neck, held her close and said, “Give your Spizz Junior a big kiss.” Then I gave her a loud smooch. That made them look away!
Once I broke free from the pack and had no one ahead of me I reached for the radio.
“Don’t turn that on!” she screeched above the noise from the engine. “A little Nazi inside will start ordering us around in German. If you want news, just ask me. I’ll be your radio.”
“But you are like a radio of the past,” I said. “When you open your mouth, dead people speak.”
“You are mistaken,” she countered. “When I open my mouth, dead people come alive with the wisdom of the ages.”
“If they were so wise, how come the present, as my dad says, is worse than the past?” I asked.
“Because the military taught your father that winning a war would make life better. But war doesn’t care about winners and losers. War consumes the losers on its unrelenting march to ruin the lives of the victors.”