by Ike Hamill
Joe laid the doll back down carefully. Its eyes rolled closed again and the little doll went back to sleep. When his hands were free of the cloth, Joe jumped back and waved his hands around, trying to shake the feel from his fingertips.
“Oh my god, that was the creepiest thing I ever saw,” Joe said.
“I know, right?” Alan said, laughing.
Joe started laughing too. Joe reached and tugged at the lid to the trunk, letting it slam shut over the doll.
“Come on,” Alan said. “You can do your homework later. Let’s walk down to the lake for a minute.”
“Okay,” Joe said. “You’re filthy.”
Alan looked down at his shirt and pants. He was covered in dust and cobwebs.
“Here,” Joe said. He held the broom up.
“Dust it off first,” Alan said. “Beat it on the stoop.”
They found their way outside where Joe dusted Alan’s clothes with the dirty broom. Afterwards they crossed the road and walked down the path to the lake. Before Joe started school, they’d spent the better part of a month putting the trail back in order. Weeds were mowed, rocks slid back into place, and trees cut up and stacked. They’d reclaimed the Colonel’s old trail from nature’s grip. Since school started, it seemed like they never even bothered to use the trail anymore.
Alan saw all their work with fresh eyes and was proud of the time he’d spent with his son that summer.
“Did you start soccer today?” Alan asked.
“Kinda,” Joe said. “We just ran around a lot. I didn’t even touch a soccer ball.”
Joe dropped his backpack next to a tree.
“How’d your history quiz go?”
“I don’t know,” Joe said. “We don’t get answers back until Friday.”
“But how did it feel?”
“Fine.”
Joe picked up a stick and swiped it at ferns as they walked. They crossed the first stone bridge. It was just a big flat rock propped over a little creek, but it had taken the two of them an afternoon to wrangle it into just the right position. Joe crossed first.
“You want to try snowboarding this winter?”
“Yeah,” Joe said. “Can we get a snowmobile? Some of the other guys have them. They said they go to the store on Saturday mornings.”
“By themselves?” Alan asked.
“Yup.”
“We’ll see,” Alan said. He thought that saying, “over my dead body,” might be a little strong for a first response, but he would work his way up to it. Joe ran ahead when they saw the light reflecting off the lake. When Alan caught up, Joe was at the end of the dock, taking off his shoes and socks and rolling up his pants. He dangled his feet in the water and turned around to smile at his father.
“Come on, Dad, put your feet in,” Joe said with a big grin. “Its s-s-s-ooo wuh-wuh-warm.”
“Yeah, right,” Alan said. He lowered himself to the dock next to Joe and dangled his hand in the water. “It’s freezing! Are you trying to kill your old man?”
“It’s nuh-nuh-not so buh-buh-bad,” Joe said.
“Then why are your teeth chattering? Can you explain that?” Alan asked. He took off his shoes and socks and pulled up his pant legs. The water felt good after a few seconds. His feet sent out a ripple across the glassy surface.
“Don’t wiggle your toes,” Joe said. “The snapping turtles will think they’re worms.”
“Who told you that?”
“Mom.”
“Oh, well it must be true then,” Alan said. “I always wondered why she only has seven toes.”
Joe laughed.
“How long are we going to live here?” Joe asked.
Alan looked at his son. The boy was looking across the water at the sinking sun.
“What do you mean?”
“Are we just going to stay a couple of years and then move someplace else?”
“Don’t you like it here? I thought we had a great time this summer.”
“No,” Joe said. “It’s not that. I like it here fine. But the kids at school say that a lot of people move here before they realize how hard the winters are.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Alan said. “Your mom has been coming here forever. Her folks have been bringing her here since she was a little baby. And I spent almost ten years in Boston. That’s not that much farther south than here. I think we know what we’re in for.”
“Okay,” Joe said.
“You’ve never seen what the leaves look like up here in the fall,” Alan said, pushing Joe’s shoulder. “You’re going to be knocked out. It’s not like down in Virginia. Up here the leaves look like they’re on fire when they change.”
“How come?”
“I don’t know. But once you see it, you’ll never forget.”
They settled into a rhythm of swinging their feet. The ripples emerging from their legs collided and sent interference patterns across the still water. The body of water wasn’t very wide here—it was more of a stream—but if you wound north along its twists and turns, it opened up into a big sparkling lake. On the lake, all along the shore, wooden docks reached out into the water and little cabins sat nestled in the woods. One weekend during the summer, Alan rented a boat and they’d cruised up and down the lake until dark. Alan looked upstream and wondered if the big lake was as serene and calm as their little stream.
“It’s nice here,” Joe said.
“I was just thinking that,” Alan said. “It’s very private down here on the stream. I bet you don’t get any privacy up on the big lake.”
“No, I mean it’s nice here in Maine. Even though I’m in school, it still seems like we’re on vacation.”
“Yeah?”
Joe nodded.
“I’m glad,” Alan said. “You want to go see if your mom is home?”
“Can we stay a little longer?” Joe asked.
“Sure.”
CHAPTER THREE
Boat
SEPTEMBER 12
ALAN WOKE when Liz left and he couldn’t get back to sleep. Joe wouldn’t need breakfast for another hour, but Alan dressed anyway, putting on yesterday’s clothes and shuffling out to the barn. It was cold out there. The wind came right through the siding and the morning sun hadn’t gotten much of a foothold through the trees.
Alan flicked on the lights and started working.
He shoved everything down to the far end of the cow room and then only re-stacked it back in place when the area was clean. The Colonel had stored most things in wooden trunks stenciled with Air Force lettering, but the occasional cardboard box held a treasure. These boxes, Alan stacked on top of piles. The cardboard looked like it had been peed on by a thousand mice.
He was wrapping up the cow room when Joe wandered out.
“I finished breakfast. I’m going to the bus.”
“What? I’m sorry, Joe, I was going to make you breakfast. I guess I got absorbed out here.”
“It’s okay. I had cereal.”
Alan smiled. “Have a great day.”
“Does Mom know yet?”
“Know what?” Alan asked. He looked up at Joe.
Joe was waving his arm around the room. Alan saw it with fresh eyes. It still contained the same stuff, but the room looked completely different. Everything was orderly and sterile. He’d swept away all the mystique.
“She’ll be thrilled, I’m sure,” Alan said. “Go catch your bus.”
He watched Joe until the boy reached the end of the driveway and turned left. Alan took one more look at the cow room and then ducked under the stairs to pull open the doors to the horse stalls. Horses had lived a dark and cramped life in this barn. Their room was small and in the back corner. They had their own door to the outside, but the Colonel or someone else had nailed the door shut long enough ago that the nails were spikes of rust.
Alan ran his hand along a smooth curve of wood. It had been gnawed by countless horse teeth.
In terms of clutter, this room was in decent shape.
It held a few standing wardrobes—big wooden boxes that opened to reveal moldy dresses and uniforms. Under a wooden rack and a sheet, Alan found an ancient motorcycle, almost as old as he was. He pressed on the seat and the springs bounced merrily, undamped by the shocks. He put the sheet back and tugged the light chain to turn off the bulb.
Alan stopped on his way to the door and turned around again. He turned on the light. One of the vertical boxes was too small to be a wardrobe, and it didn’t have hinges along the edge. It was just a chest-high rectangle, standing in the corner like a child’s coffin. Alan pulled it away from the wall. It was heavy. On the side, someone had stenciled the Colonel’s name and his old Tennessee address.
With growing excitement, Alan jogged for the shop to get the dolly. He returned to the horse room and worked the lip under the box. The weight was manageable, but the floor of the barn had countless lips and troughs. Alan had to wrestle the box all the way to the door. Sweat trickled down his forehead as he rolled the box out into the sun of the driveway. He parked the dolly near the shed door and went inside for his toolbox.
Alan returned and set to work. He removed the final screws and pulled off the side and top of the box, already anticipating what he’d find. It was both better and worse than what he’d hoped.
It was better—enclosed in the box was a pristine, fifty-year-old outboard boat motor that looked like someone had cared for it like it was a child. It was worse—across the engine’s cover he found a single word scrawled in grease pencil by an old man’s hand. It read, “Piston.”
Alan stepped back and regarded the crate that the engine was stored in. It was obviously designed for shipping the engine, but it also doubled as a stand if you folded the top over and used the screws as a hinge. Alan set it up and then removed the cover from the engine. He found the correct socket and began to back out the nuts holding on the cylinder. One nut didn’t want to turn. He shook his can of solvent and sprayed the nut and surrounding area. While he waited, he surveyed the rest of the engine.
At the bottom of the engine’s case, Alan found a compartment with a lid. It contained a binder with the engine’s manuals inside.
“Thank you, Colonel,” Alan said. He flipped through the manual, looking at the careful instructions and diagrams. He found a section entitled, “Piston Replacement.” The page had a greasy thumbprint on the corner. Alan smiled.
He held the binder in one hand and circled the engine. He pulled the spark plug wires and set the book down so he could follow the instructions to the letter. All he had to do was remove the last cylinder nut.
Alan slipped a short length of pipe over the end of his socket wrench handle and braced his foot on the side of the engine’s box.
Movement caught his eye.
He raised a hand to the passing jogger. The jogger waved back.
“Okay,” Alan said. “Help me out, Colonel.”
He applied pressure to his cheater-bar and the nut started to turn. With slippery ease, the socket turned on the nut, stripping it and sending Alan to the pavement. He landed on his ass and turned his face to the sky. Alan let loose a stream of obscenities at the passing clouds. He began to chuckle and then laugh. He was still holding the pipe. He threw it to the asphalt. Alan laughed until a tear escaped the corner of his eye. He wiped it away with his shirtsleeve.
“You okay?” a voice asked.
Alan scrambled to his feet. It was the jogger.
“Yeah. Yes, I’m fine. I just stripped a nut,” Alan said.
“I’m Bob,” the jogger said. “We met the other day, but I forgot to introduce myself.”
Alan blinked away the remnants of his tears and got a look at the jogger.
“You’re the carpenter,” Alan said. He noticed the jogger was holding out his hand. Alan reached for it, forgetting the grease from the motor. “Sorry,” Alan said as the jogger glanced at his own hand.
Alan reached down and handed Bob a rag.
“I’m Alan.”
“I remember.”
Alan nodded. “Yeah, I was trying to get this last nut off but I just stripped it.”
“You have a torch?”
“Pardon?”
“A little propane torch?”
“Yeah, around here somewhere, sure.”
“I have a trick,” Bob said.
X • X • X • X • X
They sat in folding chairs in front of an old sheet carefully stretched out on the driveway. On the sheet they’d laid out all the parts of the engine that they’d removed—cylinder, carburetor, pistons, camshaft, and dozens of nuts, bolts, and washers. In the center of it all sat the broken piston. The flat surface of the piston was marred by a jagged hole.
Alan leaned forward.
“How do you think it happened?” Bob asked.
“I don’t know,” Alan said. “Maybe the metal just got brittle? Maybe it was a bad piston to begin with?”
“Where are you going to get the new one?”
“I have no idea,” Alan said. “I just started this project on a whim. I’m not allowed to do much around here.”
Bob chuckled.
“Hey—I’m sorry to interrupt your jog,” Alan said.
“Don’t worry about it,” Bob said. “I mostly just jog to get away from the house for a bit. This was a more interesting diversion than running the same roads again.”
Alan leaned back in his chair and looked up at the sky. The sun was nearly overhead now—they’d been working on the engine for hours.
“You know what would go good right now?” Alan asked. He answered his own question. “A beer.”
“You have any?” Bob asked.
“Does the pope shit in the woods?”
Alan was walking back inside while Bob was still laughing. He came back with two bottles. He handed one to Bob and they clinked the necks before they each took a sip.
“I should put all this shit away. It’s supposed to rain this afternoon. Wouldn’t do to get all this rusty old boat garbage wet,” Alan said.
“It’s in pretty good shape for its age. All you need is a new piston, right?” Bob asked.
“Yeah, probably. I’d feel better if I knew where the missing piece of that piston went to, and why it went missing,” Alan said.
Bob shrugged.
“I can probably find a new one online,” Alan said.
“You know where the Knowles road is?”
“Yeah, maybe. Off the Manchester Road?”
“You can go that way. It’s not the fastest, but sure. There’s a guy over there named Clough. He has a little engine place. I bet he has a piston for you. Get a set of rings for it while you’re there.”
“I don’t have one of those tools they talk about in the book to put the new clips in though,” Alan said.
“I bet you can just use a screwdriver.”
“C-L-U-F-F? Is that how he spells it?”
“C-L-O-U-G-H,” Bob said. He tipped back his beer and drained it. “What are you doing this afternoon?”
“I don’t know. I’ve got to put this shit away and then I was thinking I’d mow the grass, but it’s going to rain. I don’t know.”
“Pick me up in a couple of hours and I’ll take you over to Clough.”
“I don’t want to put you to all that trouble,” Alan said.
“No trouble at all,” Bob said. “It will be fun.”
“Cool, thanks,” Alan said. Bob stood up and began to stretch his legs. “And thanks for the help with the engine.”
“Consider it payment for the beer,” Bob said.
Alan sat in his chair as Bob jogged down the drive and out of sight. Alan took another sip.
X • X • X • X • X
As he pulled the big green truck to a stop, Alan’s foot slipped on the clutch and they bucked to a halt. Bob braced himself on the dashboard.
“Sorry,” Alan said.
Bob was smiling.
They got out and crossed the gravel drive towards the barn. The sign over the big d
oor read, “Clough’s Machines.” Alan followed Bob’s gaze over to a big engine block, hanging by thick ropes from the limb of an oak tree near the shop. Alan followed Bob through the door of the barn. The floor was concrete and stained by a million patches of oil. It was warm inside, and smelled of supple leather.
A man wearing stained blue coveralls was hunched over a workbench mounted to the wall.
Bob approached with Alan following close behind.
“Afternoon, Roger,” Bob said.
Roger turned around and assessed him.
“Well, hello. If it isn’t that new guy from the Location Road. What’s broke this time?” Roger asked. “Need another piece of titanium milled, do ya?”
“My friend needs a piston,” Bob said. He gestured to Alan.
Alan carried the impaled piston in a plastic grocery store bag. He pulled it out and handed it towards Roger.
“That’s a Johnson, I gather?” Roger asked. He took the piston and turned it over with knotty fingers.
Alan looked at Bob with surprised eyes. Bob shrugged back.
“How did you know?” Alan asked.
Roger laughed. It was a dry, whistling sound that undulated with his pulsing belly. “You’re living with ghosts,” he said eventually.
Alan cocked his head as he watched Roger tap his pipe against the corner of his bench. Something about the coveralls and pipe, or maybe the man’s beard with white streaks at the corners of his chin, made him look older. He looked like a father or a grandfather—someone who would command respect when he rose to speak at a town meeting. But he wasn’t that old. He probably wasn’t any older than himself, Alan decided. This was a man who couldn’t just tell you the time or the weather, he had to make a big production of the delivery, commanding everyone’s attention as he did.
“So can you get one?” Alan asked, cutting through Roger’s performance and getting right to the point.
Roger wasn’t done with his production yet. He clamped his pipe in the corner of his mouth and pushed off his stool. He was headed for a big metal rack against the wall. He talked as he walked.