“Mercy!” Delia slapped her hands over her ears as the sound ricocheted around the garage. The General, moving at the speed of an advancing glacier, had managed to climb into the car with enough time left over to get mad.
“Great new life so far!” Socko shouted as his great-grandfather smacked the horn again.
“Wait ‘til you see the house!” Delia shouted back.
They wrestled the chair into the trailer, and Socko pushed the footlocker up the dropped tailgate.
On the way out, Delia grazed one of the parking garage’s concrete pillars. Metal squealed.
The old man glared. “Someone gave you a license?”
Delia climbed out to inspect the damage. “Lucky accident!” she reported with a big fake smile. “We hit the car door that already had a dent.”
When they reached the little booth, another bar blocked their exit. “They don’t want us to leave either?” Delia asked.
A hand reached out of the booth’s window. “Ticket?”
Socko leaned over Delia’s shoulder from the backseat and grabbed the ticket off the dashboard.
The woman fed the card into a machine. Out came the hand again. “Four dollars.”
Delia pulled out three bills, and then stared into her empty wallet. “Who knew it cost so much to park?”
“Have you ever been anywhere?” the General asked as Socko made up the difference using the change in the cupholder.
“Sure.” Delia steered the SUV out of the garage. “A few places.”
She was exaggerating. Socko knew she’d been nowhere. He’d gone there with her.
“Hitler took care of that for me,” the General wheezed. “Raised so much ruckus Uncle Sam shipped me over to Europe to straighten him out.”
While Socko waited, hoping for a war story, he studied the leathery skin on the old man’s neck and the fringe of white hair that stood out above his collar like feathers.
“My advice?” The General turned his head toward Delia, the wrinkled skin on his neck twisting like strands of rope. “Enlist the kid. Of course he’ll have to get a little older, but the U.S. Army’ll teach Sacko in the backseat there what to do when someone throws a punch.” He raised his voice to a loud whisper. “You know about Sad Sack, kid? Sad Sack was a comic strip character in the Army newspaper, the Stars and Stripes. That poor old soak was one sorry excuse for a soldier.”
Socko didn’t know what he’d expected from a newly acquired great-grandfather, but name-calling wasn’t it. He stared into his lap and imagined it was a regular day. He and Damien were skating—
“Holy moly!” the General yelped.
The shoulder strap cut into Socko’s neck, and he was instantly back in the Suburban.
Delia was in the middle of another sudden lane change.
“Delia Marie Starr, pull over right now,” the General ordered. “I’m driving.”
Socko gripped the seat, knowing that wasn’t going to happen. His mother didn’t like being told what to do.
Delia pulled over immediately. For a minute, they sat, the passing traffic sending shudders through the car.
“I just remembered,” Delia said, eyeing the General. “Nancy said you lost your license for being half-blind.”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures. Change seats.”
With the General at the helm, the needle on the speedometer never wavered, glued to the 45 mph mark. Cars veered wildly around them. The General stared straight ahead.
“You drive like the lead car in a funeral,” Socko blurted out.
The old man flinched and Socko remembered the reason they suddenly had a house and an old guy to share it with. “Sorry … I didn’t mean … sorry about …” Socko didn’t know what to call his dead great-grandmother.
The old man waved his sympathy away. “Let’s just find that fool house.”
Delia managed to interpret the directions the fry cook had drawn on the back of the Phat Burger bag, shouting them at the General over the squeal of locking brakes, honking horns, and screeching tires. Socko kept a death grip on the seat until they pulled off the freeway.
It was getting dark when they finally passed the entry to the first subdivision on the main road to Moon Ridge Estates. Hot, dry air blew Socko’s long hair around as he hung out the window to read the gold-edged letters on the sign: Quail Roost Acres. The subdivision was guarded by a man in a booth. It looked like a pretty cushy job.
Colonial Park. Heritage Oak Manor. Lorelei Meadows. Socko read each of the signs that rose from elaborate beds of flowers. Every one of the subdivisions had its own guarded booth. Were they expecting an invasion or something?
“Stop!” yelled Delia.
The General pulled over.
“Look! That’s my bus stop.”
“Not anymore it isn’t,” said the General.
“Oh, sugar!” Delia stared at the little bus shelter with its three plastic seats. A large notice had been taped to the schedule sign: Route Cancelled Due to Budget Cuts.
“Mom, how are you going to get to work?”
Delia stared at the sign a moment longer, then turned away. “Don’t be such a worrywart, Socko. I’ll think of something. I am not going to let this spoil things!” She waved the General forward. Within a few yards, another sign, this one leaning as if it were about to fall on its face, passed by the window.
“Stop!” Delia yelled again.
The General tapped the brake. Going as slow as they were, that was all it took to bring the SUV and trailer to a creaking halt.
Delia took off her seatbelt and hung out the window too. “Turn here! This is it!”
“Shoulda warned me,” the General complained. “Now I have to back up the whole wagon train. Hope nobody’s behind me ’cause I can’t see worth spit.”
Socko looked back over his shoulder. “You’re clear.”
They moved so slowly, Socko felt the trailer resist before beginning to roll. The subdivision’s sign inched past Socko’s window, giving him plenty of time to read it.
WELCOME TO MOON RIDGE ESTATES—A GOLF COURSE COMMUNITY
BUY NOW! UNITS GOING FAST!
ANOTHER “HOLMES HOMES” PROJECT
Where are the flowers from the brochure? Socko wondered. And why is the sign falling over?
The guard booth behind the Welcome sign had a sign on it too—Nonresidents Check in with Guard—but the booth was empty. The bar meant to keep out nonresidents pointed at the sky.
“Our house is right near the entrance.” Delia held her hair back with one hand. “Take your first right …”
“Where are the hedges?” Socko pressed his palms to the warm outside of the car door.
“Hedges, lawns, and trees come later. They’re Phase 2.”
“What’s Phase 1? Dirt?” the General wheezed. “Tarnation, Delia Marie. A man could get lost and die out here. It’s just the same house over and over.”
“Because they’re perfect,” said Delia.
To Socko the perfect houses looked creepy. Wasn’t it a little early for every window to be dark?
Delia pointed. “There it is! That’s it!”
“You’re sure?” The General hesitated before turning into a driveway that looked like all the other driveways, at the end of which sat a house that looked like every other house.
“Positive. I recognize the coffee cup on the step.” In the dimming light the white cup glowed.
“That’s not a coffee cup, Delia Marie.” He set the brake and turned off the ignition. “It’s trash.”
Delia opened the door and climbed out. Socko did the same. He expected her to rush up the walk, but she stood, one hand clasped inside the other, looking the way he imagined people did in church. “Come on, Socko.” She put a warm hand on the back of his neck.
“Don’t you dare leave me in this car!” the General yelled in a loud whisper.
“We’ll be back in a sec.” Delia gave Socko’s neck a squeeze and they walked up the path to the front door together.
The cup on the step was Styrofoam, and it would have blown away except it still had coffee in it. Delia picked it up and dumped it. “There’ll be no litter in our yard.” She covered her mouth with a hand. “Oh, Socko, we have a yard!”
Socko took a long, hard look. Did she see what he saw? Like the General said, the yard was dirt.
“The inside is even better!”
Socko hoped so.
Delia wore the key to the new house on her good gold chain, the one she hocked when they really needed money, and got back again as soon as she could repay the loan. She unhooked it from around her neck and handed the key to Socko. “You do the honors.”
The General leaned on the horn. Blaaaat!
“We’ll be right back,” Delia called to him.
Socko turned the key.
Holding her breath, his mother pushed the door open. They stepped inside and she flipped a light switch. “Welcome home.”
Socko had never seen anyplace this white before. Nothing had ever dripped or spilled here. It was like he was inside a gift box that had never been opened. He wrinkled his nose. “What’s that smell?”
“Paint, carpet. Breathe deep, Socko; this is what new smells like.”
He breathed in a lungful of new, then coughed.
“Is this perfect, or is this perfect?”
He was just about to ask if there was a choice C when an engine roared to life in the driveway.
Delia’s penciled eyebrows shot up. “You don’t think he’d drive off, do you?”
Socko rushed the door and jumped from the top step to the ground. Headlights came on, blinding him. He stumbled toward the light and threw his arms across the hood of the SUV. “Where are you going?”
The headlights went out. The warm hood stopped vibrating under Socko’s chest. He heard the driver’s door unlatch. When he lifted his head, the dome light in the SUV was illuminating the old man’s shiny scalp. “For future reference, I don’t like being left in the driveway.” Socko detected what could have almost passed for a smile as the old man looked at him. “You make a fine hood ornament, Sacko.”
11
THE GREAT WHITE
As soon as they carried Delia’s recliner inside, the General deserted his wheelchair, scuffed over to it, and took possession.
Socko thought he looked like a scrawny king seated in the overstuffed chair—and he acted like one too. “It’s hot as blazes in here,” he proclaimed. “Crank up the AC.”
“I’m the one paying the electric bill!” said Delia. Shaking her head, she turned on the air-conditioner as commanded.
Socko didn’t like his mother doing heavy lifting, but it took both of them to get everything inside.
“Table over there,” the General ordered. “Chair over here. And while you’re up and around, lower the thermostat.”
Although the house was turning into a walk-in freezer, the sweat stains under Delia’s arms were as big as dinner plates by the time they brought in the couch.
“Over there.” The General waved toward a distant wall.
Delia dropped her end of the couch with a groan and fell onto it.
“You okay?” Socko asked.
“None of this broke-down junk is worth dying over,” observed the General. “Fini-kaput, every last bit of it.”
“Yeah? Well, it’s still gotta get moved,” Delia puffed.
Socko put a hand on the shoulder of her damp T-shirt. “I’ll get the rest.”
“I’ll be,” the General remarked, watching Socko carry his folded metal and canvas bed into the house. “It’s a goll-durn army cot.”
“Your room’s the first one on the left,” Delia called as Socko carried his bed up the stairs.
He reached into his new room, felt for the switch, and flipped it. Light flooded the huge white cavern. “Whoa!” he whispered. He crossed the floor, his footsteps muffled by the oatmeal colored carpet, and set the cot down in the middle of the room. It seemed to float in a sea of nothing.
After he’d carried the rest of his stuff up the stairs, Socko took a look at everything he owned. It had seemed like a lot when it was crowded into his skinny corner of the living room, but in a room this big, three milk crates of clothes, a backpack, a stop sign with a bullet hole through the O, and a skateboard didn’t add up to much.
He wondered what the kids who lived in the houses around here had in their rooms.
He flipped the switch in each of the other three bedrooms and tried to decide which one would be Damien’s.
Not the one with its own bathroom. That one would probably be the General’s. He knew from the way old guys at the Kludge sometimes used the stairwell like it was a bathroom that people the General’s age needed easy access to a toilet.
The second-biggest room would be Delia’s. That left the third empty bedroom, which was smaller than his—but Damien was smaller too, so it would work fine. Plus, the room was right next to his. They could signal through the wall, no problem.
In a place this big, the General wouldn’t even notice Damien.
“He smells,” Socko whispered, putting plates and dented pots in the kitchen cupboard.
“Of course he smells. He’s past his pull date.” Delia slid a stack of plates to the back of a shelf.
“And what about the names he calls us? Sacko and Delia Marie?” His mother’s middle name was Ann.
“Still, he’s family. He’ll grow on us.”
“Like mold,” Socko whispered back.
“He’s family,” she repeated. “And just look at what we have because of him!” She pointed out the side-by-side washer and dryer in the laundry room off the kitchen. “No more going down to the basement.”
Socko had to admit the washer and dryer were pretty sweet. He was the one who had always done the laundry in the basement. He wouldn’t miss the musty damp that made his chest tight or the stress of listening for the sound of footsteps on the stairs, wondering who was about to catch him alone in a soundproof room.
“And how about this?” Delia slapped the humongous refrigerator, an extra she had bargained hard for. It was so big that, with the shelves out, Socko could have climbed inside.
He was emptying the zip-up cooler that contained the contents of their old refrigerator into the new one when he noticed something.
Or the absence of something.
Unlike the fridge at the Kludge, which panted like an old dog, this one was absolutely silent.
He listened harder, straining to hear something, but the silence didn’t stop at the refrigerator. There was no beep beep of trucks backing up in the street, no one yelling in the apartment below, no gut-thud bass from a car stereo, no wheeze when the temporarily working elevator door opened.
Trying to bring the old place back in his mind, he closed his eyes, but the silence of the new house wrapped around him like cotton. When he opened his eyes again it got worse. What he could see was a kind of silence too: the white interior of the refrigerator, the white kitchen walls and ceiling, and the inky square of sky in the window.
Missing the neon flicker of Donatelli’s sign, he walked to the window. Up close, the simple black square was flecked with dots of light. His forehead pressed the glass. He had always wanted to see a starry sky someplace other than TV. But now, gazing into a sea of stars, he felt like he was falling up. Suddenly he didn’t know where he was. Or who he was. Or what he was.
His heart was racing in a panic of not-knowing when a voice he barely recognized broke the silence. “Sacko? Sacko! Hustle me up some grub. My belly button is shaking hands with my backbone.”
12
GI PAJAMAS
His mother’s voice ripped though his sleep like it was a school morning. “Rise and shine!”
Groggy and confused, he opened his eyes.
“I gotta go.” She stood over him, already dressed in her ugly brown and orange Phat Burger uniform. “Feed the General, okay?”
“Go away!” Socko moaned.
“As soon as you ge
t your butt out of that bed.”
“Ten minutes.” He closed his eyes.
“Five.” She thumped back down the stairs.
“I don’t even want to be here!” he called after her. He covered his head with the pillow and rolled up on his side, the stretched canvas of the cot giving under him with a strained creak.
He slid back into sleep.
Thud … thud … thud He woke to the sound of Delia rocking up the stairs again.
“The General’s getting antsy! Get up, Socko. I have to leave!”
Today he would be babysitting a cranky old man. Tomorrow and the next day too. Every day, all summer. Great. Just great.
His mother fiddled with a button on the front of her blouse. “There’s a little problem with food. There’s only one burger left, and some dry cereal, no milk. Who knew a skinny old guy could eat so much supper?”
Socko didn’t mention all the food Damien had scarfed before they even hit the road.
“I’m on from seven to three. Tell him lunch will be late but plentiful.” She walked out the door.
He pushed up on his elbows. “How are you going to get home? There’s no bus!”
She stuck her head back in the room. “I’m working on it! Just make sure the General puts on some clothes. I’ve seen more old man than I can take before my first cup of coffee.”
“What?” Was she leaving him with a naked old guy?
“You can call Damien,” she added as she started down the stairs. “The phone’s on the kitchen counter. Just don’t talk too long.” Delia paid for minutes, or as she called them, “emergency minutes.”
Giving him permission to call Damien had to be her way of saying sorry I screwed up your entire life.
Was it too early to call? Yeah, probably—plus, the phone was downstairs with a naked old guy.
Socko heard the car start in the driveway, but he didn’t get to hear it drive off because downstairs the General started hacking like he was trying to get rid of a lung.
Socko stared at the white, white ceiling over his bed and the metal air-conditioner vent. No demented clown here.
Summer on the Moon Page 6