by Paul, Lawton
"Why Johnny, you've turned into a skinny dork! You should meet my friend Matty," I said. But Matty didn't break out of character. He knew something, and as usual, he was going to let everyone know how smart he was. He got right near me, just like Johnny had done. So I got into my boxer's stance and waited. Just as I was about to get bored, Matty's right fist was coming at me. We'd been working on the left jab, so the right came out of nowhere. Instead of slipping, I jerked my head wildly to the left and got off balance. Matty stopped his punch before it hit me, but he stepped forward and could have nailed me."
"He leads with his right, every time," Matty said.
"This is the kid who beats everyone up?" the old man said laughing. "His technique is poor. Jesse, you can take this kid, even though he is stronger and bigger."
So we all practiced slipping Johnny's wild right, mixed in with the left jab.
That Saturday night me, Matty and Tyler were watching The Outdoor Show on TV with the old man. I really couldn't see what the big deal was with this show. Just some old fart, river rat surrounded by a bunch of salt-water tackle answering call-in questions from other river rats. The old fart would shift in his big, wooden chair, a huge, oval The Outdoor Show sign over his head, and say in a North Florida drawl, "This is The Outdoor Show you're on the air." Like it was a big deal to be on the show. And then the caller would ask about the best bait for red bass, or if croaker were still biting in Potsmouth Creek.
Tyler actually seemed to enjoy it, but me and Matty were just waiting for it to end so we could watch The Six Million Dollar Man. Now there was a TV show. An astronaut nearly dies in a crash and has to be rebuilt with super technology by a bunch of smart guys in white lab coats at a secret facility. They give him new arms and legs that look real, but are actually super-strength, robotic parts. So he can throw real heavy stuff like giant boulders and he can run fast, and of course, he's a good guy who takes down bad guys. Sometimes he gets hurt and you can see all of the mechanical stuff and wires under his synthetic skin. But the lab guys always fix him up in the end.
The Outdoor Show was almost over and Tyler, spread out on the floor in front of the TV, asks the old man if we had gas for the boat. "Gonna let 'em soak," the old man answered. That meant we weren't going to pull the traps tomorrow morning because the old man didn't think we'd catch much. Better to let them sit a few more days. Immediately my little brain kicked in.
"Dude. Conference." I poked Matty with my toe and started towards the kitchen. Tyler, still laying on the floor, grabbed my leg and I nearly fell.
"Are you guys gay?" he said. "It's okay with me. You wussies should just come out of the closet. You know you could talk about your shit right here. Me and the old man ain't gonna say nothing. But you got to run off to the kitchen and whisper like a bunch of women." I tried to step on his arm and he tightened his grip. He was strong and I could feel the skin on my calf starting to burn.
"Let go," the old man said. And Tyler pushed my leg into my other leg so I had to sort of hop a step to keep from falling right into the old man in his recliner.
Aunt Jeannie was in the kitchen doing a crossword. "Why does Tyler have to be a butt-head?" I asked her. Matty headed for the fridge. AJ had bought a case of A&P soft drinks.
"He's your older brother. That is his job, I suppose."
"Yeah, but Matty doesn't act like a jerk to his little brother," I said. Matty wisely stayed out of it and just leaned on the counter near the sink sipping on a cream soda.
"Older brothers give us an unfiltered look at ourselves. Sometimes it's a fair assessment, sometimes not."
"He thinks we're gay," I said.
"Do you really think that's true?" AJ gave me and Matty her I-know-everything smile. "Maybe he's trying to tell you what is in his heart, but he's too proud to say it in another way."
"That ain't what I got out of it," I said.
The next morning after breakfast I went to the garage and pulled out the old beach cruiser. It was covered in dust. I grabbed an old rag that used to be a crab t-shirt and wiped it down revealing the metallic blue paint. After pumping up the tires it seemed roadworthy but it only had one good pedal. The other one had broken off so all that was left was the spindle. You had to pedal carefully or your foot would slip off. So I gingerly pedaled to Matty's house, my left leg giving full power to the good pedal, but about 3/4 power on the right, balancing the middle of my foot on the spindle. When I got there, Matty rolls out of his garage on a pink three-speed with a big, white wicker basket. He stopped right in front of me and looked at my bike. He had a backpack on with a water bottle in the side pocket.
"You're going on that thing?" he said, calmly, like he was sitting in a Porsche instead of riding his Mom's bike.
"No. You can't give me grief about my cool bike when you are on that girly bike," I said.
"Well, it may be pink, but it does have gears and it's not missing any parts. Geesh, dude. You ain't got nothing better than your 'cool bike'?"
"This bike is cool! Boy, Tyler's gonna have a field day if he sees us. If we're gay, you're the girl."
"Screw Tyler," Matty said, and rode off. I followed. We were headed for the bridge and then the apartments.
It was about five miles to the bridge, then a mile over that, then another eight or so to the apartments. We made it to the base of the bridge in one piece, then rested under some trees near a guy in a truck selling boiled peanuts. We were right there on the river and it was strange not being in the boat, to see everything from the shore. A muddy path ran along the edge. Tiny black fiddler crabs that looked like little spiders from a distance popped out of little holes, heading to the reeds near the water. People were fishing with cane poles using tiny pieces of bread, or a fiddler if they could catch one, for bait. It was almost October, but it was still hot. Matty was sucking down a sweaty bottle of water. I watched him like a dog waiting for scraps under the table. He saw me eyeing him and kept drinking. I started grinning because I knew he'd cave in a second.
"You're not getting any," he said. He stopped drinking to catch his breath. "What'd you bring?" He wiped his mouth on the edge of his t-shirt.
"I figured we could stop somewhere," I lied.
He called my bluff. "How much money you got?" I checked. 48 cents and a Nehi Grape bottle cap. He handed me the bottle and I took a long drink. It was some orange, fruity drink. I was expecting water.
"It'll put some salt and sugar back into your system," he said. I made sure there was a little left over when I gave it back. Then we made our assault on the Arthur J. Truckman bridge.
It was Matty's idea to ride behind me just in case I couldn't make it. I didn't object because he had the better bike and had actually spent some thought on this so I really wasn't in a position to argue. It was pretty easy going at the base, but soon I was out of the saddle. It was Sunday morning so we figured traffic would be lighter, but car after car whizzed past at warp speed. There was a space to the right of the yellow line about three feet wide that we were riding in and I don't think it was meant for bikes. There were little pieces of glass and debris all up and down. For a few minutes I road to the left of the yellow line which was smooth and glass free, but then a pickup hauling scrap metal came by close so I retreated back to the right. Meanwhile the road just kept getting steeper and I could feel the heat coming off the pavement. Each time a car passed there was a little breeze that followed.
We were making slow, but steady progress: me standing on the pedals, rocking to the left and right, in a rhythmic, steady motion, using my weight to turn the cranks. At one point I wondered if walking would be faster. I snuck a peek back at Matty. I heard him click, click into the lowest gear on his Mom's pink girl bike, which I was now envious of, and he was spinning along, keeping up with me and the cruiser. I had a feeling we were gonna make it.
Then a moving truck flew by and hit the horn. The driver yelled something, but his voice was drowned out in engine noise and wind. I instinctively swerved to the right, away f
rom the noise and the rush of wind as he passed, but I only had a few feet of room. My right pedal hit the concrete embankment and I'm not sure in what order things happened, but all of a sudden I was sort of sliding down onto the little concrete step to my right. I was pushing the left pedal and suddenly there was no more resistance and my whole body lurched forward. The chain had come off. I fell down onto the concrete and ended up in a sitting position on the embankment, like I'd just sat down to take a little breather.
The old cruiser was in a tangle half-over the yellow line. The front wheel was bent into a taco shape, parts of inner tube sticking out. A dump truck roared by and nearly retired the old bike for good. Of course, he blew his horn, too. Matty quickly pulled the carcass of my cruiser inside the yellow line, inner tube trailing behind like black intestines. The front tire was a perfect circle, mocking the hideous L-shaped bend in the rim. The pink bike was parked behind us, standing upright on its kickstand, the handlebars reflecting the afternoon sun. I imagined picking it up and throwing it into the river. Watching it fall down, down, then a splash and then nothing but brown, choppy water.
My right leg was itchy. When I scratched it my fingers got wet. I looked at my hand and it was red.
"Dude, you're bleeding," Matty said. He took off his backpack and started rummaging around. "Might as well have a bite," he said, holding out a Snicker bar for me.
"I don't want it," I said to Matty, but took it anyway. I stood up on the little embankment and looked down into the St. Johns River. There were tiny white boats passing beneath us under the bridge. I knew the path the boat took to the big orange floating marker where we turned left to go to Eastport. And not much further down the trap line. And the apartments. All of these buttholes got a boat, or a car and can zoom wherever the hell they want to go. I could do nothing but shake my head. I sat down again and started banging the chocolate bar against the rim of my broken wheel. Little bits of brown stuff stuck to the rim. It looked like poop. I threw the rest of it into the water. I watched the paper wrapper come off and float down, twisting and dancing, while the brown chocolate made a straight path for the rippling water. Way down I could just see a little splash. I looked up towards the top of the bridge. We weren't even close. Maybe we could just walk? I mentioned this to Matty who'd been quiet during my little bout of insanity.
"Even if we do make it over, how are we going to cover the eight miles to the apartments? Your bike is toast," his voice was quiet and soft. I sat down again. Put my hands in my head. I thought about crying. AJ always said a good cry is good medicine. But that wouldn't help. So I opted for the head down, we-just-lost-the-game-and-I'm-sitting-on-the-sidelines-injured pose.
"Let's head back down. Your rear tire is good so we can take turns walking your bike." It took about thirty minutes of walking and riding to get back to the little grassy section near the edge of the river. As soon as we made it an old green truck pulled up next to us.
"Hey, you Arther's striker. Ain't yeh?" It was some dude with brown teeth, wrinkled brown skin and a REDMAN chewing tobacco hat on. It was red with a picture of an indian on it. "I'm Richard. The gillnetter. I talk to your old man--226--when y'all's on the water." And then I knew who he was. I'd seen his truck from the boat. Sometimes he'd park over near Heckscher Dr. which ran parallel to our Eastport line.
The old man would do a radio check when we were crabbing. He'd say, "Break 12 for a radio check. Break 12 for a radio check." You had to say everything twice on the CB. More often than not Richard the gill netter would answer. He'd say, "Gotcha loud and clear, 226. You got help this morning?" Which meant did he have his strikers.
"Boy, look like a wildcat done et up yer leg," he said. "I'm heading thataway," he pointed down Main street towards home, "if'n y'all need a ride."
We put our bikes in the truck next to a huge pile of gill nets, rope and weights, all covered with the usual brown moss that grew on our crab traps. We sat down in the rusty bed of the old truck and leaned back on the nets and were almost comfortable. The bright, Florida sun beat down on us and even with my eyes shut tight I could still see an orange glow. The truck bounced and rocked, springs squeaking, on the dirt road that led to Main Street. Everything in the bed of the truck: the bikes, dried-up fish, and us, lurched in unison. We stopped for a moment, then turned and were on the smooth road headed home.
I held my hand up to shade my eyes from the sun and squinted at my leg. It looked like hell: streaks of blood from knee to foot in various hues from dark red to dried brown. I leaned back and took a deep breath. The wind whipped in from all directions as the truck gained speed and the sun actually started to feel good on my face. But all I could think about was the apartment. Still there, a million miles away.
Palmeri
The next morning before school, I met Matty at his house. "Dude! Check this out," he pulled me into his room, shut the door, and flipped on his work light. In the center of the desk was the photo. The sticker was off.
"Wow. You did it," I said.
"That ain't the half of it. Put these on," he says, handing me the magnifying glasses.
"I don't need that crap," I said, leaning in for a closer look. There were other names on the back of the picture, but they'd been cut off. There was a "nson" on the top left, part of a "y" on the bottom left, a "Jer" at top right. Only "Jessica Palmer" was there complete. Matty was right about the picture being part of a larger picture. A cut out.
"What else do you see? Anything strange?" Matty asked.
"If you know something, tell me. Don't play games!" He knew something and was testing me again to see if I was smart enough to spot it. I headed for the door.
"Wait," Matty said, grabbing me by the arm. "I think I found something. But if you don't see it then maybe it isn't what I think. So please look. And use these." He was holding the dumb magnifying glasses.
"Ok. But this is stupid." I put the glasses on and my eyes refocused and suddenly it was another world. The paper looked rough, with little clothlike strands. I could see gouge marks from Matty's tweezers, especially at the bottom left where he was trying to get a hold of the sticker. He was meticulous and careful, but magnified, his work looked rough and sloppy.
The names were written with the same blue pen. The letters "nson" on the top left were round and full, all leaning to the right in a handsome script. I thought of Mrs. Gamble's second grade class when we were learning to write in cursive: a huge woman writing giant letters on the chalkboard. She'd write letters in four-lined rows. The top of the J had to touch the top line and the bottom had to go down past the thick line and touch the bottom line. The capital "J" of "Jessica Palmer" would have made Mrs. Gamble proud. The lower case letters were beautiful as well. The capital "P" was not a quicky, block style "P" that I would have made, but a proper cursive "P" with the little line on the left that led into the "P" and the little line on the right that swept out from the round part.
And then I saw something. There was a smudge at the end of "Palmer". I stared at it for a moment and it started to look like a lower case "i". But why would someone write an "i" after Palmer. The "i" was close to the final "r" so it didn't make sense. Maybe the person who wrote it was running out of space.
"You see it?" Matty asked.
"I see a lowercase "i".
"That's it!" Matty squealed like a girl. "What do you think?" asked Matty.
"I think you are a wuss." I couldn't help it. I paused, braced for a counter shot. But Matty was quiet and serious. He was still pushing me towards some conclusion that I hadn't seen yet.
"It's part of a sentence, like: Palmer in a dress," I said.
"I don't think so. The "i" is too close to the "r".
"That don't make sense." I pulled off the glasses and the paper looked smooth again, and the little "i" at the end was nothing but a smudge. "Maybe the person who wrote the names got it wrong or it was really a sentence.
"Nope. I don't think so. All the other letters are so carefully made. This person liked to write
letters. Liked the way they looked."
"Who are you, Sherlock?" Matty stopped talking.
He was just looking at me. There was something else. He looked like Mrs. Tingley, my fourth grade math teacher waiting for me to figure out a long division problem. She'd bite her lip and raise her eyebrows, almost like she was in pain, while I scribbled random numbers. Then she'd pat me on the head and say, "Nice try, Jesse." The next year I ended up in the remedial math class with the other math reject kids.
I put the picture in my pocket and Matty and I headed for school. And I could think of nothing else except that stupid, little "i". I usually sat next to Jerry Tynes, the second string JV running back, in 1st period history. But that morning I sat in the back of the class with the miscreants and kids who needed a little extra shut-eye. I had work to do. Our teacher, Mr. Barnes, was a huge man who liked to linger near the front of class where there was plenty of space, never venturing to the back because he just didn't fit. I had my book open to page 42 like I was supposed to, and Barnes was blathering on about Medieval castles in Wales in the 11th century, but I was looking at the picture sticking out from under the book. Barnes would randomly fire questions at you if he thought you were sleeping. My good student act was spot on: head down, eyes open, brows furrowed. I was concentrating--just not on the class system of Wales in 1047.
I was fixated on the "Palmer i," trying to see through my blind spot. Something was right there but it hadn't yet come into focus. Jessica Palmer in front of the old car. Jessica Palmer is beautiful. Jessica Palmer is standing next to--. Suddenly Patricia Meyers, who was sitting next to me, was poking me with her finger. My attention surfaced and I realized Barnes' voice was directed at me. His words boomed like a opera singer and I caught the tail end of his question: "--most devastating engine of war in Medieval times?" The class was silent. A few sleepers to my left slowly slid upwards into a less slouchy position. Why didn't he nail one of those guys? I looked up about an inch North of the picture into a sea of words in the textbook that I hadn't read and didn't really care about. I blurted out the first bolded word I saw: trebuchet. "TREH-BUH-CHET," I mumbled. Some of the kids at the front of class snickered.