“Get in,” he said.
I thought we were heading home, but instead, he backed up a few yards, then drove forward onto the walkway, still blocking half the road. The cars kept honking and lining up behind us, but my father ignored them. He grabbed a Swiss army knife from the glove compartment and told me to get out of the car. Suddenly, he was climbing onto the roof, slashing at the thick twine holding the sign in place. I tried to talk him down but he kept hacking away. He had just about completed his mission when the cops pulled up. There was some conversation, a little swearing, then they made us follow them to the station.
TEN THINGS YOU CAN DO TO CALM DOWN YOUR FATHER WHEN HE LOSES IT, WITH THANKS TO THE THESAURUS
1. Zilch
2. Zero
3. Zip
4. Scratch
5. Goose egg
6. Nix
7. Nil
8. Blanko
9. Jack
10. Nada
In other words, NOTHING. Just stay out of his way.
FAMILY REUNION AT THE POLICE STATION
The cops didn’t question us much when they found out who we were. They almost seemed annoyed they had to bring us in, and one young officer, whose name was Carlos Perez, asked if we wanted something to eat or drink. He kept calling my father “Mr. Smith” in a very respectful tone, and we discovered he had served in Iraq.
“Do you know Franklin?” my father asked.
The cop, a short but very powerful bald guy, said he’d been in the Army, not the Marines, and that he had played football against Franklin in high school. “He was pretty amazing,” he said, “even when he was a sophomore.”
So we all sat there chatting, like this was your basic Little League banquet until my mother arrived.
Wow! What an entrance she made. It was almost eleven o’clock, so I couldn’t figure out why she got so dressed up. She had on her camel overcoat, and when she removed it, she was wearing her favorite church dress, a nice blue number that broke above her knees. She also wore stockings and dress shoes. It’s hard to think of your mom as being good-looking, but I guess she was, because a number of cops glanced her way. Did she think she’d be able to spring us faster if she came dressed up? It was a bizarre concept. Even more bizarre, she seemed to be crying and laughing at the same time. She walked right past the cops into my father’s arms, and I stood there dumbfounded as she hugged him.
“How did you get here?” my father asked. But she didn’t answer.
“Franklin called,” she said. “They let him call. It was all a mistake, some kind of ‘miscommunication,’ they said. But he was wounded.”
“Wounded?” my father said, and the young cop asked where.
“In the arm, but he’s okay. He’s coming home.”
She tried to go on but broke into tears. My parents kept hugging each other, and I found myself jumping up and down, while the cops looked on, glad to make the charges go away. Before we left, Officer Perez gave my father his phone number and said, “Tell Franklin to call me if he wants to talk.”
“About what?” my father said.
“Just tell him I served there,” the cop said.
We didn’t get home until about midnight, and my father phoned his foreman to explain why he missed his shift. Although exhausted, we were all having trouble coming off the rush of the good news. My mother made some hot tea and put a plate of peanut butter cookies on the kitchen table, which made my father laugh.
Afterward, while she cleaned up, my father left to have a smoke. I found him in the backyard, sitting on a beach chair in his winter coat. It was cold and windy, but a full moon lit up the backyard. I didn’t know what to say, so I sat on the cold ground next to him.
He lit another cigarette from the one he was holding and said, “If I ever catch you smoking, I’ll knock your head off.” He smiled and rubbed the top of my head. “Sometimes, it’s hard, you know.”
“What’s hard?”
“Everything. Working, the bills. Just getting by. We have to do right by her,” he said, motioning toward the kitchen. He took a drag from his cigarette. “Do you know about your grandfather’s brother? His name was Dick.”
“Just that he was killed in Vietnam.”
“Franklin was always asking about him. He even used to do school reports on the war, and I think that’s one reason he enlisted.”
“Franklin never mentioned him to me,” I said.
“Dick was about fourteen years younger than your grandfather, kind of like you and Franklin. He was one of those guys who was class president, and everyone figured he’d be rich. But then he decided to sign up for Vietnam, and in ’69 he was killed when he went back to help some guy who got shot. They gave him a Purple Heart even though he was dead, and something called the RVN Cross of Gallantry. That was supposed to make everyone happy, but it didn’t. I haven’t stopped thinking about him since Franklin left.”
I wanted to say something but I wasn’t used to my father talking about serious things.
He took a long drag on his cigarette. “I went with your grandfather to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington when I was about twenty-one, the year before I married your mother.”
He glanced up at the sky, then all around him, as if someone might be listening. “At first, it seemed pretty stupid, just a black granite wall, about ten feet high, with thousands of names etched into it. I thought if I’d been asked to build something for all those dead guys, I could’ve come up with a better idea. It didn’t take your grandfather long to find Dick’s name because they’re listed by the year they were killed. He was doing fine until he put his finger on the name. It was scary because he knelt down and almost fell over, like someone had shot him in the back. Then he cried harder than I’ve ever seen a guy cry. When I touched him, he pushed me away, but when I tried again, he hugged me, and I started to cry too. After that day I promised myself I’d always have his back.”
He looked up, then rubbed the back of his hand across my cheek. “Why are you crying?”
“I don’t know,” I said, resting my head against his shoulder.
A WHOLE NEW ENEMY
Before that night, I’d never heard my father say much about death, and I hated thinking about it. Sometimes at two or three in the morning I’d wake up worrying about Franklin, and my stomach felt like it was soaking in battery acid. The fear of what happens after I die doesn’t freak me out. The spooky part is the thought of nothing: no family dinners, no friends, no nothing.
Houdini liked cemeteries and he was often photographed in them. It makes sense that a guy whose job it was to cheat death didn’t seem afraid of it. He probably got a rush every time he finished a routine, knowing he had shot death the finger. He even created an act where he was placed in a wooden box that was covered by dirt. Once in California, buried four feet underground, he couldn’t breathe and started to flip out, which was the worst thing he could’ve done, because it made him use more oxygen. Fortunately, he managed to claw his way to the top, and he swore he’d never do that trick again.
Some writers put down Houdini, saying he was arrogant because he believed he was immortal. But if that were true, he wouldn’t have planned his escapes so carefully. And even if he didn’t seem afraid of dying, he once wrote that he always worried about his wife, Bess, going before him. He also kept a little journal of other relatives who had died.
People certainly thought of death differently during Houdini’s time. I remember overhearing my mother talking to Franklin about a project he did in college on the Plague. She said that even a hundred years ago, people didn’t live as long as we do. Sometimes you couldn’t even count on babies making it through the first few years. People also died of tuberculosis and other diseases we have cures for.
With Franklin being wounded, death suddenly became more real. It was like a whole new enemy had popped up, one a lot more frightening than Angel Dimitri.
NO EXPLANATIONS
The next morning, we found out Franklin had indeed been mis
sing, then mysteriously reappeared with a few other marines, though we never got the whole story.
“It’s your kid,” my father said, “and they tell you squat.”
But we did learn that although Franklin’s wound wasn’t crippling, it was bad enough for him to come home, at least for a while. We were torn between the fear that he’d been wounded and our happiness that he’d soon be sitting at the kitchen table having dinner.
My father, probably thinking about his uncle, was still mad the Marines had unnecessarily worried us. They never apologized, but instead kept saying Franklin would receive a medal. “A medal?” my father yelled, back to his old self. “Who cares about a freaking medal?” That’s when my mother ended her grace period on swearing, but she did it in a nice way.
We were all standing in the kitchen, my father leaning against the sink, cradling a cup of coffee. My mother gently reached for his cup, placing it on the counter. She hugged him and said, “All that matters, is that he’s coming home.”
“I guess you’re right,” he said, returning her hug.
I think she was also glad we didn’t end up in jail. But, whatever, we all knew we’d sleep better for the rest of the week, and that we could go back to our routines: my mother to the cleaners and her classes, my father to his job, and me to my friends and my plot to get revenge on Angel.
THE WORM CRAWLS OUT OF ITS HOLE
The next school day I was looking forward to being with Lucky and Jorge, hopefully doing something normal. Walking down the hallway toward class, I wasn’t surprised to see Lucky on crutches, wearing a soft cast around his calf and foot. He gave me a playful poke with one of his crutches and congratulated me on Franklin coming home, but he looked tired and sad. When I asked Jorge about it, he said Lucky’s father had threatened to kick him out of the house, repeating how dumb it was to start a leaf-raking business, even dumber to get hurt jumping into a pile of leaves, especially when the stunt would ruin Lucky’s football career.
“But Lucky doesn’t care about football anymore,” I said.
“Yeah, but you know how it goes.”
And I did. You could be a serial murderer in my neighborhood but if you were good at basketball or football, everyone cut you slack. Guys who never said boo to their sons would appear mysteriously at games, like they spent their whole lives teaching them how to play. The irony was that Lucky was probably a great football player because he thought about his father when he ran over people.
“Have you seen Angel today?” I asked.
“No.”
“Are we still on for Saturday night? You sure your mother won’t be home?”
“She’s going away for the weekend,” Jorge said, leaving out the “with some guy” part.
“You mean she’s leaving you alone?”
“Why do you care? She’s not going to be home, okay?”
“Sorry,” I said.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about. I take care of myself just fine.”
Which was pretty much true. Most kids his age would’ve been in juvie if they had his life.
“Have you decided what we’re going to do to him?” Jorge asked.
I was so tired from the craziness over Franklin’s disappearance that, in a way, I didn’t care as much about Angel. But something had to be done, so I told him my idea, which had crawled out fully formed from its wormhole that morning on the way to school.
He laughed and said, “I don’t think he’ll show up. He hates us.”
“Don’t forget, we all used to hang with each other.”
“But that was a long time ago.”
“Well,” I joked, “then maybe he’ll come because he wants to be cool like us.”
“Dude, I don’t even want to be cool like us.”
TEN THINGS THAT MAKE YOU HIP IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD
1. Playing football
2. Playing basketball
3. Getting Fiona Rodriguez to look your way
4. Throwing a string of lit firecrackers into the yard of the local crack house at two o’clock in the morning
5. Getting Fiona Rodriguez to go out with you
6. Copping tickets for an Eminem concert, then talking your mom into letting you go
7. Throwing an egg at Mr. Gregory Gregory’s car
8. Petting Da Nang without getting your hand bitten off
9. Being on the front page of the Metro section for cleaning the neighborhood of leaves
10. Getting Fiona Rodriguez to do more than just stare at you
So I guess, in some ways, Lucky, Jorge, and I were hip. But as far as me and Fiona went, forget it. She never looked my way.
THE STORM
Saturday night, a northeaster had come up the coast and was pummeling the neighborhood with a cold rain. Sewers were overflowing but, thanks to us, most of them weren’t clogged by leaves.
Jorge, Lucky, and I got to the courts, taking shelter under a tree by the shed we had leaped from. Lucky and I wore slickers, but Jorge just had his hoodie on and was visibly shaking. “I hope that goofball gets here fast,” he growled.
I offered to stretch my slicker over our heads like a tent, but he said, “Just leave me alone.”
I asked Lucky if he had the razor, and he said yes.
“Do you think he’s even going to show?” Lucky said.
“He’ll be here. I told him if he wants a shot at Fiona Rodriguez, he’ll have to be friends with us.”
Jorge laughed and poked Lucky in the side. “She’s only got the hots for one dude.”
Lucky ignored him. “You sure he’s going to fade into one of those weird sleeps if we keep him up long enough?”
“If he falls asleep in class, by the time night comes, he’s probably comatose. We just have to wait him out.”
We all laughed at that, then we shivered under the tree for about five minutes until Angel arrived. He seemed nervous and smelled like booze.
“Am I late?” he asked.
“I told you five thirty,” I said.
“You said six, Weenie Boy.”
“Damn,” Jorge said, “why are we bothering with this guy?”
“He’s right, Angel,” Lucky said. “If you don’t stop the Weenie Boy stuff, the night’s over.”
Angel looked like he was ready to punch someone but backed off. “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I just thought Houdini said six.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We have all night and we rented some video games with our leaf money.”
“Cool,” Angel said, as if he really meant it.
Then we hurried through the rain toward Jorge’s house, which was only a block away while I kept reminding everyone to wait up for Lucky, who was still limping.
“CAN WE TAKE A HAND VOTE ON THAT?”
Jorge lived on the third floor in an old, beat-up, gray three-family, so we had to climb the hall stairs, ambushed by a strange mix of odors—boiling Italian sauce, old cat litter, and the stale sweat of a thousand people who had ever lived there. The stairs were covered with old paint cans, a headless doll, and a bunch of broken McDonald’s toys.
The inside of his apartment would’ve been nice if someone had worked on it, though it wasn’t dirty. It was more like no one lived or ate there, probably because his mother always bought takeout. And there was a huge, flat-screen TV on the living room wall, a gift from one of Jorge’s mother’s boyfriends, so we had a great place to play video games.
“When did you get that?” Lucky asked, pointing to the screen.
“About a month ago,” Jorge said.
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Why would I want you here?”
I took off my slicker and collapsed onto an old, black, soft, upholstered couch. Lucky sat next to me while Jorge went into the kitchen to pour us some sodas.
Meanwhile, Angel surprised us when he pulled out a pint of peach brandy from his jacket pocket. “You guys want some?” he said, trying to impress us.
Lucky frowned. “No thanks, dude. I’m
already in enough trouble at home.”
I said no, too.
“Suit yourself,” he said, taking a gulp from the bottle.
Jorge returned, balancing four cheap plastic green glasses filled with Coke and squeezing a huge bag of potato chips under his arm. He handed the Cokes to everyone, and when he reached Angel, Angel showed him the bottle of peach brandy. “I’m cool,” he said.
“Can we take a hand vote on that?” Jorge said.
We started on the video games, determined to play until Angel fell into one of his dead-man sleeps. Every time Jorge went back to the kitchen to refill the glasses, he’d smile and make a goofy face behind Angel’s back, which made me laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Angel asked.
“Nothing, dude, I’m just feeling happy.”
Lucky, Jorge, and I took our time with our Cokes while Angel was knocking down his brandy like it was Powerade, not knowing he was making our job easier. If Angel was impossible to rouse after he fell asleep, then there was no way he’d wake up when asleep and drunk. We continued with the games, trying our best to laugh at Angel’s jokes, but as the night wore on he got weird, talking about his lousy family, and saying no one ever gives him a break. The more tired and drunk he became, the more emotional he got. At one point, I thought he was going to cry when he mentioned his father’s gambling problem. I actually liked the old Angel better. This new touchy-feely Angel was messing up our plan, and I didn’t want to sympathize with him. Jorge seemed annoyed by the whole scene and motioned me toward the kitchen. When I got there he was mad. “Is that goofball ever going to pass out?”
“Just relax,” I said.
The Amazing Adventures of John Smith, Jr. AKA Houdini Page 7