Migrators

by Ike Hamill

  “You see, you rolled up in the Colonel’s green truck. Can’t be more than four of those big green monstrosities in all of New England, and none of them as pretty as the one you drove up in.” With both hands, Roger grabbed a big box from the shelf and turned. He hugged it to his chest as he turned. “The Colonel had the whole thing completely repainted—top-of-the-line job—not more than twelve years ago when the dealership had a lawsuit against them. He didn’t have so much as a scuff on a door panel, but he had them do it anyway. Said it was the principle. They sold him an undercoat and he was damn well going to get his undercoat. I think everyone else just took the money. Nobody but the Colonel could keep a truck looking that good for forty years.”

  Roger set the box down on his bench and picked at an envelope taped to the top. He peeled the envelope off and handed it to Alan. Alan turned it over and read Roger’s name.

  “What’s this?”

  “That’s the note the Colonel left me, asking me to order him a rebuild kit for his Johnson. It includes pistons, rings, gaskets, you name it. It’s been sitting on my shelf there for years.”

  “I just need the piston,” Alan said. He saw Bob glance at him quizzically, and understood the sentiment behind that look—why not take all the parts in case he needed them? But Alan was sick of being bossed around by a dead Colonel, and this box of parts felt like yet another intrusion. If the Colonel wanted someone to rebuild the whole thing, he should have thought of that before he came down with cancer.

  “Piston comes with the kit,” Roger said. He looked confused.

  “Then could you order me just a piston?” Alan said.

  “This is already paid for,” Roger said. “The Colonel prepaid. I know I should have delivered it over to the house, but I wasn’t sure anyone was there to receive it.”

  “If the Colonel bought it, then perhaps he should claw his way out of the grave and shove it up his ass sideways,” Alan said. “I just need the piston.”

  Roger didn’t move. He just stood there, looking confused. Alan felt a little satisfaction at having knocked Roger out of his comfort zone. These locals liked to make sport of the newcomers. Alan enjoyed setting Roger back on his heels a bit.

  “We’ll take the kit,” Bob said.

  Alan shot him a look.

  “Since it’s already paid for,” Bob said. He stepped past Alan and picked up the box from the bench. “Come on, Alan.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Alan called back over his shoulder as he followed Bob.

  Bob set the box in the bed of the truck and climbed into the passenger’s seat. For once, Alan’s foot found the sweet spot on the clutch and they pulled out smoothly.

  When they pulled back onto the Knowles Road, Bob began to chuckle under his breath. Alan looked at Bob and smiled. The chuckle was infectious. Before they’d topped the big hill, both men were laughing.

  “You kinda went red zone back there,” Bob said.

  “Yeah, but that guy had it coming,” Alan said. “Trying to give me a box of free parts. What was he thinking?”

  Bob laughed harder.

  “My dad is the same way,” Bob said. “I go over to his house to help him put in a new light or whatever. Suddenly he’s got all kinds of opinions on how it should be done. I mean, if he was capable of putting in the damn light, why am I even there?”

  “If I were competing with an actual guy, it might be a fair fight,” Alan said. “But I’m trying to live up to my wife’s memory of the perfect man’s man, you know? The Colonel could do no wrong. It’s bad enough from her, but then I have to get it from this Clough guy too?”

  “He does seem somewhat like a local legend,” Bob said.

  Alan nodded. He chuckled once more but then their laughter was replaced with silence.

  Bob broke the silence. “I mean, I can see why, if he could fit one of those pistons up his ass sideways.”

  The truck weaved as Alan laughed. He hadn’t laughed that hard in months.

  X • X • X • X • X

  SEPTEMBER 18

  THEY HAD three days of rain.

  It was a cold, blowing rain so Alan was finally allowed a presence at the bus stop. He and Joe sat in the old green truck with the heat on, waiting for the bus to come. The splattering rain was hypnotic.

  “You want me to just drive you to school?” Alan asked.

  “No, that’s okay,” Joe said. “It would take too long.”

  “Even in this old truck, I’m faster than the bus,” Alan said.

  “I mean it would take too long dropping me off,” Joe said. “The cars of the ‘People from Away’ line up all the way to the road. It takes them forever to pull up and let the kid out and then go. We watch them sometimes from the upstairs window.”

  “What do you mean, ‘People from Away’?”

  “You know, like us.”

  “We’re from away?”

  “It’s what everyone calls people who aren’t from here. If you’re from away then your mom drops you off. The bus isn’t good enough for those kids.”

  “I hope you’re not making fun of those kids, Joe.”

  “No, Dad. Except for taking the bus, I am one of those kids.”

  “Do the other kids make fun of you?”

  “I’m friends with Lee. Nobody makes fun of Lee’s friends.”

  “Okay,” Alan said as the bus pulled to a stop.

  “Bye, Dad.”

  Alan waited for the bus to pull away before he turned the green truck around. He pulled into the barn and left wet tire tracks on the packed-dirt floor. Rain splashed from the door as he shut it behind himself. Alan wondered if the Colonel had ever taken the green truck out in the rain. He glanced around the solid posts that held up the barn and wondered if somewhere there was a towel labeled “truck rag,” hanging from one of them.

  He returned to his shed. In the little alcove near the door, Alan had set up his operating room. He had the big sheet laid out and all the outboard motor parts arranged again. He replaced them with the new parts from the kit. In a special place on top of a bench, the binder was open to the section describing the rebuild process. Alan was working on the third step. He was supposed to guarantee the flatness of the cylinder head assembly. A big sheet of glass was his reference surface and he worked the metal across a sheet of sandpaper to try to bring it back to flat.

  “I think that’s pretty good,” Alan said, checking the metal against a flat bar of metal.

  Alan moved to step four.

  The process itself wasn’t difficult or even very time-consuming, but the manual assumed a level of expertise that Alan didn’t posses. Each step and sub step required Alan to retreat to online videos and further research before he could fully understand what was expected of him. He scanned ahead. The next few steps looked easy.

  Alan turned on the radio and zoned out. Now that everything was cleaned and prepared, the assembly progressed quickly. His array of parts on the sheet evaporated and the engine came together. As he waited for the gasket sealant to dry, Alan had a brainstorm. He put on his slicker and rolled the big plastic trash can out to the driveway under the shed’s gutter. All the rain collected from the shed’s gutter pounded into the can. Alan went back into the shed and mounted some scrap wood to the handles of his dolly.

  His stomach and the clock agreed—it was lunch time. Alan only had one more big step. He had to torque the nuts for the cylinder. He walked in a circle around the engine as he thought. He could guess at the torque, but that wasn’t the right thing to do. He didn’t have any feel for how tight those nuts should be, and he suspected they all wanted to be approximately the same tightness for the engine to work properly. He could go into town and buy a torque wrench. It seemed like a silly expense for one minor job. For a fraction of a second he considered trucking the whole thing over to Roger Clough’s shop to have him torque the bolts. He laughed the thought away as it formed.

  Alan’s eyes stopped on a little metal box sitting on the rail of the wall’s framing. I
t was roughly the same color as the unfinished wood. It must have been overlooked by whatever cousin had made off with the Colonel’s tools, Alan figured as he pulled it down to his bench. He flipped the clasp and looked at a long socket wrench. One end had a dial, marked in foot-pounds.

  “Dumb fucking luck,” Alan whispered. He glanced over his shoulder, half expecting to see a laughing prankster, waiting for his reaction.

  Alan fitted his extension and socket on the wrench and set the proper torque. In a few minutes, the engine was done. He snapped the cover back on and plucked a dirty rag from his bench. He folded it over to a clean spot and wiped the word “piston” from the cover.

  He checked on his trash can. It had only collected about six inches of water—not nearly enough. Alan wheeled it back into the shed and then ran back out for the hose. He let the trash can fill with water as he mixed up some fresh gas and gave the outboard engine a little sip. He parked the dolly under the trash can and then wrestled the engine into place. This was another trick he’d picked up from an online video. Your outboard engine needed the water to cool itself, but it was much easier to test it in a trash can at the house than drag it all the way down to the lake.

  Alan filled the trash can up above the engine’s inlet and then crossed his fingers. The cord was tough to pull with the outboard mounted on a dolly. On his first couple pulls, the whole thing threatened to spill over. Alan popped the cover and gave the carb a shot of ether. He was about to put the lid back when he noticed his rookie mistake—he hadn’t connected the plug wires. Alan smirked and seated the caps.

  His next pull was magic.

  The engine only ran for a second, but the puffs of blue smoke and coughing sputters made Alan beam. He set the choke to half and pulled again. The engine buzzed to life. In the trash can the water bubbled noisily and some sloshed out onto the shed floor.

  Silently, Alan shot his arms up into a V and lowered his head. He was smiling so hard that his cheeks hurt. He goosed the throttle, putting the engine in gear. That experiment was short-lived. The water splashed and the dolly started to tip. Alan had to kill the engine to keep the thing upright. He put it back in neutral and started it again with one pull. He let the engine run and danced around the shed, putting away his tools.

  As he shut the engine off, Alan said, “There you go, Colonel. I fixed your damn piston.”

  With the noise of the engine gone, Alan heard the phone ringing inside.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Joe

  ALAN DROVE THE LITTLE Toyota out to the school. After they met with the Vice Principal—the man in charge of kicking ass and taking names, apparently—Joe followed Alan back through the parking lot. The boy had his book bag clutched to his chest.

  “Get in back,” Alan said as Joe reached for the passenger’s door.

  “But I ride in front in the truck,” Joe said.

  “You ride in front because the truck doesn’t have a back seat,” Alan said. He didn’t like the way his own voice sounded—clipped and angry—but he couldn’t help it. His voice was an accurate reflection of the way he felt.

  Joe got in the back seat and closed the door softly.

  After slamming his own door, Alan spun in his seat.

  “You care to explain to me exactly what just happened in there?” Alan asked. He felt the blood rushing to his forehead and ears. He saw his own rage reflected in Joe’s wide eyes.

  “I told you,” Joe said. His voice was pitched up from his normal tone.

  “Look at me,” Alan said. “Don’t tell me it was an accident again. They have cameras in the stairwell, Joe. I saw the video.”

  Joe was looking straight down. Alan saw fat tears dropping onto his shirt. Alan started the car and backed out of his parking spot.

  “You’re lucky they didn’t expel you,” Alan said as he took a left at the stop sign. His right foot wanted to slam the pedal to the floor, but they were driving through Kingston Depot where the speed limit was twenty-five. They passed between old houses. Some were converted into small shops and some were divided up into apartments. Alan didn’t like these houses. They’d been built as proud residences for big families, but now they’d been rolled through the dirt and gnawed to the core. They looked used up and forgotten. He’d almost rather see them plowed under and replaced with prefab houses with no history. At least a clean start would erase the years of neglect these old buildings showed.

  The Toyota bumped over the railroad tracks.

  Alan took a right. He made short work of the rest of the trip. The car dragged to a halt on the dirt floor of the barn.

  “You take your things and sit at the kitchen table,” Alan said. Joe was looking out his window at one of the barn’s plank walls. Someone had hung a collage of old license plates there. “You’ve got two things to do before I confine you to your room. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Get going,” Alan said.

  He waited for Joe to disappear through the door to the long shed before Alan got out of the car. His anger bubbled just beneath the surface of his thin layer of restraint. Alan thought of his own father—a man who would smash his fist through a window because he couldn’t get it open. His father was a man who would work for several hours fixing a radio and then throw it across the shop because he couldn’t tune in the station he wanted. His father would lose his temper and then let his anger destroy his hard work. Alan despised that impulse. He understood it, but he despised it.

  Back at the school, after watching the video of his son pushing a little girl down the stairs, he’d wanted to grab Joe by the shoulders and shake him. He’d wanted to take Joe’s little hands in his own and squeeze the evil out, like some deranged Baptist healer. Those concrete stairs had rubber treads with big raised circles for traction. They had rounded metal edges on each stair to absorb the abuse of a million little feet climbing and descending. Now they had splotches of blood.

  Alan closed his eyes and beat his fists against the barn wall, trying to expel the image of bright blood painted down the stairwell—blood his son had spilled. He took a deep breath and walked through the shed. His father’s rage in his veins saw the outboard engine sitting in the trash can full of water and wanted to shove the whole thing over, drenching the shed floor. His father’s blood wanted to destroy. Alan paused, took another deep breath, and folded the anger over in his mind, looking for a clean spot to rest his thoughts.

  When he had control and could unclench his fists, Alan went inside.

  X • X • X • X • X

  “From the top, tell me what happened,” Alan said.

  Joe wouldn’t look up. He stared down at his own hands which were gripping the edge of the table and trembling.

  “Joe?” Alan asked as he sat down. “Can you speak?”

  “Yes,” Joe’s voice was strong and defiant.

  Alan blinked and shook his head.

  “Joe?”

  “You won’t believe me,” Joe said. His hands were still trembling.

  “I need the whole story, Joe. And I’ll believe you if you’re telling the truth. You know that.”

  Joe started breathing fast. Alan wondered if he was about to pass out or perhaps drop into seizure, but then the boy’s shoulders slumped and he let out a sigh. “I couldn’t help it, Dad.”

  “From the top, Joe.”

  Joe shook his head.

  “Joe—look at me. The first sentence is the hardest. After that everything is easier.” He covered his son’s trembling hands with his own.

  For a minute, Alan thought Joe would never start. His son looked like he was holding his breath. His mouth was pressed into a tight line and his face began to turn red.

  Joe’s words burst from his mouth—“She stole my lunch.”

  “Go on.”

  Joe’s tears began to flow again.

  “I went to my locker after History and I looked in my backpack, but my lunch bag was gone. Polly was walking away and she turned around and told me to have a good lun
ch. She was holding my lunch bag.”

  “So you went and got a teacher, right?”

  “No,” Joe said. He looked up with red-rimmed eyes. “She was always so nice. I thought she just made a mistake. Her locker is right next to mine.”

  Alan nodded.

  “I went up and told her she had my lunch bag,” Joe said. “She opened a door we’re not supposed to open. It’s a supply closet or whatever. She pointed to me and told me to come in.”

  “To the supply closet?”

  “Yeah. So I went in.”

  “Why did you go in?” Alan asked.

  “I thought maybe she was ashamed she took my lunch and she wanted to give it back where nobody would see.”

  “Did anyone else see you go inside the closet?” Alan asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What happened?” Alan asked. He was no longer sure that he wanted to know.

  “When I went inside, she was holding the lunch bag up over her head. She’s taller than me, so I couldn’t reach it. She closed the door.”

  Alan held his breath.

  “Dad, she said terrible things.”

  Alan exhaled and then croaked his question. “What happened, Joe?” Alan’s thoughts swirled with perverted images. You spent so much effort to protect your kids from damaging sexual imagery from the media and—God forbid—wandering hands of sick adults. Then, quite possibly before they’re ready, their peers shed light on their own twisted views of sex and it feels like there’s no way to protect your children. No amount of calm, rational discussion about the body will trump lurid stories whispered at recess.

  “She said I’m a demon,” Joe said.

  “What?”

  “She said that the devil had visited me and that I had a demon inside me that would bring darkness to our world.”

  “Joe, what exactly did she say?” Alan asked. He wasn’t sure if he should be relieved or not.

  “She talked about you and mom and her voice got really deep and her eyes were red. The lights went out in the room and she lit on fire.”