“It might be my cellular, but I’ll have to check,” MacKenzie said. “My daughters gave me the silly thing for when I’m working back here in the greenhouse, but I never use it. You know they charge you even when someone calls you?” He shook his head at the impudence of the phone companies—probably had a nostalgic rush of warmth for the times when Ma Bell was the only monopoly in town—and walked over to a small metal box on a table near some hothouse roses.
MacKenzie opened the box and sorted through a number of “3x5” index cards, each of which bore a phone number neatly printed in dark marker. He found one marked “CELLULAR,” and compared it to the paper I’d handed him.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said in a dreamy voice. “It’s my number, all right.”
“And I’ll bet you didn’t call me that night,” I offered as he stashed the card in the box and set the box back carefully in exactly the same place.
“Mr. Tucker, before your unannounced arrival here tonight, I had never heard of you, and no offense, my life didn’t seem all that much emptier.”
“No offense taken,” I said. I was starting to like this guy.
“I’m sorry I can’t help you gentlemen,” he said, “but I’m sure, Mr. Tucker, I’ve never called you and threatened some woman I’ve never met.”
“Are you sure nobody else could have used your phone, Mr. MacKenzie?” Okay, so I was grasping at straws, but I’d driven all that way, and was looking at another two-hour trip down the musical memory lane of my youth on the way back. I had to come home with something.
MacKenzie shook his head. “No, nobody ever comes in here except me and occasionally one of my daughters. Besides, I’d never leave someone alone in here. I’m very protective of my plants.”
“Maybe somebody picked up the phone without your hearing. . .”
“I know my hearing isn’t what it used to be, Mr. Tucker, but I like to think I would have noticed someone using my phone while I was in the room. And as I said, only my daughters come here to visit me. You did say the caller was male, didn’t you?”
I forced a smile and shook MacKenzie’s hand. “Yes, I did. And I’m sorry to have taken up so much of your time, Mr. MacKenzie.”
“Not at all. And put that phone down, Mr. Mahoney.”
Mahoney looked sheepish and replaced the phone in the drawer. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. You needed to try. But you see, I did notice. I hope you didn’t call out of the area. They charge you for that, you know—at least on my plan.”
“I didn’t get to call anybody, Mr. MacKenzie. You were too quick for me.”
MacKenzie laughed until he started to cough. “That is the first time anybody’s said that to me since Jimmy Carter was in office,” he said.
Mahoney pointed at one of the flowers MacKenzie had ready to plant. His brow wrinkled, which usually means he’s about to say something you wouldn’t expect from a rent-a-car mechanic.
“I’ve never seen roses like these before, Mr. MacKenzie. The pink petals with the blue specks in a diamond shape like that.” See what I mean?
“Yes,” MacKenzie beamed. “I’m real proud of those. They’re a hybrid I developed myself.”
“But can’t these roses be planted outside at this time of year?” Mahoney asked. “I’d think they’d be able to withstand even one of the colder nights this late in the season.”
“You have a keen eye,” MacKenzie nodded. “I actually could plant them outdoors now, but the fact is, my knees are shot. I can’t bend and plant things in the ground the way I used to. It’s one of the reasons I took my retirement savings and built this greenhouse six years ago.”
“It’s an impressive set-up,” Mahoney said. He took a few steps around, nodding. If he were wearing a tuxedo, I’d have sworn the next words from MacKenzie’s lips would have been, “so, Mr. Bond. . .”
Instead, Mahoney said, “I don’t suppose you’d sell me some of these hybrids? I could use them in a flower bed in front of my house.”
MacKenzie smiled. “I do sell some on occasion, Mr. Mahoney. But since I couldn’t help you gentlemen with information tonight, and seeing how you drove all this way, you can have the rose bush for nothing.”
He walked us to the front door, and as the white gravel crunched under our feet, we waved at MacKenzie like we would to a favorite old uncle. I slumped into the passenger seat of “The Trouble-Mobile” and consciously didn’t put on my seat belt. Mahoney, using some coarse twine, bound together the skinny rose bush and its enormous thorns, placed them in the back of the van, and secured them between a couple of 10-gallon drums of oil.
“What’s your problem?” Mahoney asked as he barely coaxed the van into ignition. I hoped the company’s rental cars ran better than this vehicle, but then again, if they did, the company might not need a chief troubleshooter.
“What do you think is my problem? The only halfway decent lead I had turns out to be another dead end.” If you’re going to whine like a high schooler, it’s best to do it in the company of someone who knew you when it was age-appropriate for you to do so. Mahoney grinned.
“I’ve got just the thing for you,” he said, and pulled out an eight-track tape from a box under his seat. He slammed it home.
Billy Joel. “Turnstiles.”
Chapter 16
At midnight, after thirteen choruses of “All You Want to Do Is Dance,” we arrived back at my house, and a yawning Mahoney said his quick farewells without getting out of the van. A couple of middle-aged guys who used to be able to greet the dawn with bright eyes after a night out and about. It was sad, really. I dragged my weary ass up the front steps.
The lights were on in the living room, which was unusual. I’d told Abby I’d be late, and that she shouldn’t wait up. But even before I had the chance to open my newly installed screen door, the steel door inside opened, and my wife, in a T-shirt and sweatpants, stared me in the face, her eyes looking anything but pleased.
“So? What are we going to do?”
Ah. Clearly, she was speaking in anagrams tonight, and I’d have to decipher her meaning. I was up to “doot noigg” (I’ve never been any good at anagrams) when she spoke again, impatiently: “Well?”
“Well, what? What are you talking about?”
“You didn’t see it?” Abigail walked out through the screen door and pointed at the sidewalk. My weary eyes could barely focus.
“See what?”
“Honestly, you must have walked right over it.” She walked to a spot on the sidewalk and pointed straight down. Calculating how much the average mental institution cost per month, I followed her.
Something in very faint orange was scrawled on the sidewalk. In the dark, with just the porch light on and after having spent the night not finding anything I was looking for, I had a hard time working myself into a lather over it. There were two choices: I could pretend to get all bent out of shape so she’d have company, or I could be honest and risk my wife’s wrath.
I’m a good husband, but I was tired and irritated.
“So?”
Abigail’s teeth clamped shut so tightly I was afraid she’d drive the top ones up into her skull. Somehow, she still managed to speak.
“Well, if this doesn’t bother you. . .”
“Honey, I don’t even see what you’re talking about.”
“Take a better look.” Abby produced a small flashlight from the back pocket of her sweats and pointed it at the sidewalk.
The orange blotches became a little clearer as I knelt to follow her flashlight beam. And then I saw why Abby was so upset.
There on the sidewalk, in clear (however faded) block letters were the words “FUCK ETHAN.”
“Oh, shit.” I suppose you could have done better.
“I spent the whole night comforting him and then washing the sidewalk,” said Abby.
“Any idea who might have done this?”
“You’re the investigative reporter.”
I started to feel like I’d eat
en a hand grenade for dinner. “Oh, not you, too.”
“Hey, you’re the one who’s been off all night playing detective.”
I stood again, my knees cracking as I did. “Yeah, and doing a damn lousy job of it, too.” I noticed something lying next to the garbage cans on the side of the house, and walked over to it. Bending down again, I found a plastic squeeze bottle.
“Well, our first clue.” I examined it in the light from the porch, and probably chuckled in spite of myself.
“I don’t see how this is funny,” Abby sniffed.
“Well, you have to see the humor in it. Somebody just wrote ‘Fuck Ethan’ on our sidewalk with a squeeze bottle of barbecue sauce.” I held it up to show her.
Sure enough, the bottle, which had clearly been pilfered from some restaurant counter, bore the label “Big Bob’s Bar-B-Q Pit”—a picture of a large porcine creature wearing a chef ’s hat and standing next to a log cabin.
Abby burst out laughing, then put her hand over her mouth, upset with herself for the natural response. I stood up and took her hand.
“Could be worse,” I said.
“How?”
“Could’ve been ketchup.” We both hate ketchup, and she involuntarily made a gagging sound.
Abby turned off the flashlight and we started back up the steps to the house. I put my arm around her shoulder to prove that I’m really not that bad a guy, and she put her arm, hand still holding the flashlight, around my waist, to prove that I’m really not that bad a guy.
“Is he still up?” I asked as we made it back into the house.
“I wouldn’t be surprised. He’s pretty upset. He figures it means that absolutely nobody at school likes him and he’s destined to live his life alone and in misery.”
“It probably really means that someone in his class just learned the word ‘fuck.’”
She chuckled. “You’re so naive.”
“How do you wash a sidewalk, anyway?”
“With Mr. Clean and a brush.”
“Aha, two-timing me with this Clean guy, huh?”
I trudged up the stairs to talk to my son.
Ethan was lying in bed, his overhead light dimmed to just slightly not-off. He’s working on his fear of the dark. Pokémon posters decorated the walls, and used socks decorated the floor. He’d been crying.
“Hey, Pal.”
He didn’t move. “Hi, Dad,” came a voice from somewhere near his pillow. Two artists from Webster’s came in and began sketching a picture of Ethan to put next to their definition of “dejected.”
“How you doing?”
“Bad.”
Uh-oh. I sat down beside him. He hadn’t left me much room on the twin bed, and I had to fight to keep from falling onto the floor.
“I heard about what happened tonight,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“You have any idea who might’ve done it?”
He rolled over, so as not to be facing me. “No. It could have been anybody. Nobody likes me.”
“I like you.”
“I mean nobody young.” Webster’s artists now had a choice: they could take Ethan’s face or mine.
“Well, let’s think about it,” I said, remembering a technique Ethan’s therapist had offered. “How many people like you?” He didn’t move.
“Let’s see,” I continued. “There’s me, and Mom, and Leah. She’s young.”
“She’s too young,” he countered.
“Okay. How about your friend Matthew? And Andrew from camp? And Thomas from the baseball team?”
It took a long time, but he rolled back to look at me. “I guess,” he said.
“And Emma from school. . .”
“Emma doesn’t like me. She calls me names all the time.”
“You have a lot to learn about girls, my friend.”
“Girls don’t count, anyway,” he went on, ignoring what I’d said.
“So. We’ve established that a pretty decent number of people, some of whom are not even related, like you. Now. Who doesn’t like you enough to write that on our sidewalk?”
His face clouded over again. He didn’t turn away, but he didn’t look at me, either. Ethan’s dark eyes stared at the outdated posters on his wall, pictures of characters any other 11-year-old would have thrown away months, if not years, ago. But for a kid whose intellect is eleven and whose emotions are eight, there is great comfort in things that aren’t quite as mature as he is.
“I dunno.”
I didn’t want to push it. Maybe tomorrow he’d remember a name. Or think of someone he’d especially pissed off today. Maybe by the time we woke up tomorrow, rain would have washed away the rest of the barbecue sauce that had formed the objectionable phrase. Maybe tomorrow I’d find the little bastard who wrote it and throttle him until his clavicle fell out—whatever a clavicle might be. I hadn’t gotten all the way through biology class, either.
“Well, get some sleep, okay, Pal? Remember, all sorts of people with really good taste like you.”
I started to stand, but Ethan, uncharacteristically, reached up suddenly and grabbed me in a tight hug. I held my son close, kissed him on the head, and felt my shirt get just a little damp where his eyes were pressed against it.
“It’s okay, Ethan. It’s going to be okay. It’s okay. I promise.” I stroked his cheek and repeated myself for a long, long time.
Chapter 17
The next morning, the sun was shining brightly and the stain on our sidewalk was plainly visible. Figured. When you want bad weather, you can never get it.
Ethan was the last one down the stairs that morning, which is not unusual, but he was ten minutes later than on an average morning, and his expression was dour in a way that only an 11-year-old boy’s can be. Not only was he sad, but everyone within a fifteen-mile radius of him should also be sad, and never be happy again for the rest of their lives.
Leah, of course, compensated by being so cheerful Walt Disney would have gone into insulin shock in her presence. That just served to blacken Ethan’s mood another degree or two. He clomped into the kitchen, wearing the same Star Wars T-shirt he’d slept in, a pair of shorts that had last been washed before Keith Richards took up smoking, and a pair of white athletic socks that I felt it best not to actually look directly at.
“Good morning, Pal.”
He glowered at me and sat at the kitchen table.
“What would you like for breakfast today?”
“I’m NOT HUNGRY!” he said, flashing me a look that defied me to make something of it. Clearly, it was my fault someone had written an epithet on the sidewalk in front of our house with his name on it.
“Well, have an apple or something,” I said, trying to hold onto my calm. One of us had to speak in a normal tone for a moment.
“Daddy, I got my cereal and the bowl all by myself this morning,” Leah chirped.
“Very good, Cookie.”
Ethan’s mocking tone mimicked me perfectly. “Very good, Cookie.” Then, in his own voice, “I may puke.”
“Watch yourself, Ethan.”
“Watch yourself, Ethan.”
“Look, Pal, it’s not my fault that. . .”
In mid-sentence, he started aping me again. And my eyes were just a little wider, my throat a little tighter, than when I’d started speaking. Remember, I told myself, he’s the one who’s having the rough time. It’s not his fault.
Ethan got up from the table, with a triumphant smirk on his face, and started for the living room. I walked to the cabinet where we keep his Ritalin pills and took one out.
“Hey, Ethan, you forgot your pill.”
“Hey, Ethan, you forgot your pill.”
Leah’s eyes widened a bit as she watched me, sure that I’d blow up in Ethan’s face. I am not the most patient man in the world, and Asperger’s Syndrome is a perfect fit for someone like me (your Sarcasm Alarm should be going off about now). I’m likely to pop a blood vessel one morning.
“Ethan. . .”
�
��Ethan. . .”
I grabbed him by the forearms and forced him to look into my eyes. His hands started to flap at his sides, and his eyes rolled up in their sockets, a sign the Asperger’s was in full bloom.
“I didn’t write anything on the sidewalk,” I said. “I’m not the one who doesn’t like you. Don’t take this out on me!” As usual, I’d tried, and failed, to hold onto my temper. A swell start to another great day.
Leah jumped up and ran to the bow window in the living room. “Who wrote something on the sidewalk?”
Abigail walked down the stairs in her work clothes, still putting on her earrings, just in time to hear Leah ask, “Daddy, what does F-U-C-K mean?”
“Nothing, Honey.”
“Then how come somebody wrote it out on the sidewalk, with Ethan’s name. . .”
Ethan broke my grip on his arms, glared at me, then walked out of the room. He grabbed his backpack off the banister hook, threw it over his shoulder, and barreled his way out of the house, slamming the door behind him.
Abby looked at me.
“What happened?”
“What do you think happened? He’s upset, so he’s taking it out on me because you’re upstairs putting on pantyhose.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault that. . .”
“It’s not mine, either.”
She looked at me and took a long breath. Then, at the least likely time, she reached over and kissed me gently on the cheek. “I know.”
“I know, too.” I held her in my arms, the only time of the day I truly feel right, and exhaled. “I’m sorry.”
“Well, the Ritalin will kick in before he’s at school.”
I groaned. “No, it won’t. He didn’t take his pill before he left.”
Abby stared at me. “Are you kidding?”
“No, and he didn’t eat breakfast, either.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Mommy, what does ‘oh, shit” mean?” Leah suddenly appeared from behind Abby.
“Nothing, Baby.” She looked at me. “You want me to. . .”
“No, I’ll call the nurse and tell her to get a pill into him as soon as he gets there. They know me. Besides, I think I’ll be over there this morning, anyway.”
For Whom the Minivan Rolls Page 7