Learning to Live Again

by Marie Kinneer

  “What’s a guy got to do to get a refill around here?” Amos yelled from six stools down.

  “A ‘please’ might come in handy. ‘Sides, Amos, you know I ain’t suppose to give more than one refill when you don’t eat nothin. This four or five?” Hannah walked to where Amos sat, coffee pot in hand and a smile on her lips.

  Sam followed her swaying hips with his eyes. He didn’t remember Hannah in high school, but he remembered the type. Plain Janes bursting with puberty and insecurity, they stood on the sidelines watching life, not living it. Many of them, starved for acceptance, were an easy mark for guys on the make. Sam guessed Hannah was one of those girls.

  He did remember Amos—what was his name? Two years older than Sam, he’d spent three years in the same grade, dropping out of school at the age of sixteen. Sam knew him from freshman English. Amos was a cut up, a tough guy. He spent most of the English periods in the principal’s office. Looking at him now, Sam could see time or circumstance had taken its toll on Amos. He looked to be in his late fifties, though he couldn’t be more than forty-seven or eight. He had less hair than Sam, was pole skinny and not nearly as tall from what Sam could tell from a sit down position. The last thing Sam would call him was a “tough guy.” “Skid-row-bum” might work. But he still had an attitude, an arrogant air about him.

  “You got a problem, mister?”

  Sam guessed he was staring.

  “Amos, isn’t it? I had freshman English with you. Sam Gear.” Sam slid from his stool, handshake ready.

  Amos shook his head, slid off his stool, and turned toward the door. “Don’t member you.” The door slammed shut behind him.

  Amos wore a long black coat like the one on the kid in the pharmacy. A Wool overcoat from the twenties or thirties, Sam decided. Was this the new fashion for men in Green Mountain?

  “Don’t mind Amos.” Margie said coming through the kitchen door. “There isn’t much he remembers these days.”

  “His wife, Mavis, took ill a while back,” Hannah added, “and stays in her bed. I bet she ain’t set foot out of that house in a year. Doctors don’t know what to make of it. Psychologists and all have had a go, but no one can figure what ails her. I’m guessin’ it’s Amos and that no account kid of theirs. In trouble all the time that Joey. Just last we…”

  “Hannah said you needed to talk to me?” Margie interrupted. “Sorry, Hannah.”

  Sam thought too late he should have rehearsed what he was going to say. This probably wasn’t the proper time or place either with Hannah ready to add to her repertoire of town gossip. “Uhm,” Sam ran his hand across the top of his head, “Your son works at the drug store.” That’s a brilliant start, Gear. The woman knows where her son works.

  “Yes?”

  Hannah moved closer to Margie. With her hands in fists resting on each side of her waist, she leaned forward in rapt concentration. Sam wondered if he should continue, or just say, “I thought so,” and leave. But he had something he had to tell this mother that couldn’t wait.

  Sam closed his eyes to clear his head, a habit Karen ragged him about. Was Karen ever going to get off his shoulder? He looked at Margie who was staring at him, waiting for him to speak. “There was this kid who came into the drugstore when I was there getting my prescription filled. He made Peter real nervous. I mean his hand was shaking.” This wasn’t going well. He hadn’t said one thing he wanted to say, yet. “He, Peter, handed this kid a bag. Said it was the kid’s mother’s medicine. The kid didn’t pay, didn’t sign anything. He just stuck the bag in his coat and took off.” Margie and Hannah stood side by side, watching him, waiting. They were not moved by the story. What did he leave out? “Peter was scared of this kid, I think. I mean, it appeared to me he was shook up. I thought so at the time, but I didn’t question him or anything. I was trying to get my prescription filled, and it was none of my business.”

  Margie and Hannah looked at each other than back at Sam. He felt a silent message sent between them.

  “So, what are you saying?” Hannah asked him. “What is he saying?” She turned to Margie.

  “What are you saying, Sam?” Margie asked.

  “Remember what we talked about at the hospital? Maybe this kid had something to do with Peter getting beat up. I guess my thought is, maybe this kid is hitting Peter up for drugs.” Both women continued to stare at him in silence. “This was a big, scary kid.” The women’s mouths twitched in unison, but they kept their sober expressions intact. “Oh come on, this isn’t funny! Somebody beat him up.”

  “Peter said he fell. Why would he lie?” This from Hannah.

  Surely Margie didn’t believe that story. “Because he’s scared.”

  “Peter tells me everything. If someone threatened him, I’d know about it,” Margie said.

  Sam was flabbergasted. Was this the same woman that admitted Peter wasn’t himself lately? “He didn’t get that busted up falling down.”

  “You don’t know Peter. He’s … clumsy.”

  “You need to ask him about that kid. There was something wrong there.” Sam remembered something … what was the kid’s name? “Piccolo, that was his name. Joe Piccolo.” Suddenly Amos’s last name appeared in Sam’s mind. “Any relation to Amos Piccolo?”

  The two women stood speechless, their thoughts hidden behind faces of stone. Sam had overstepped some boundary. He was dumbstruck. What’s going on here? He wanted to yell at them. He felt the blood rush to his face while his heart beat double time. Not knowing what else to say or do, Sam dug in his jean pocket for change and dropped a couple of coins on the counter.

  “You saw him after he was cleaned up,” he said looking at Margie. “Your boy may have fallen from the beating he took. Let me know if I can help.”

  His task finished he slid from the stool, waved a hand in the air, and left the diner. Outside, alone with the sun and a crisp, blue sky, he leaned his back against the door of the station wagon and stared at the entrance. Maybe she wouldn’t talk in front of Hannah, or maybe she’s scared of Piccolo. He turned around and opened the car door. What’s this all about, Gear? I can’t believe I said, “Let me know if I can help.”

  As he climbed in the front seat of the station wagon, a picture popped in and out of his mind. Margie Merryhill. What was it about that girl? The big brown eyes, the heart shaped mouth, that mouse colored mop of hair, or the tiny pointed ears that stuck out from under it? Whatever it was, her image put a smile on Sam’s lips even as he promised himself once again, he was not getting involved with the mother or her son.

  CHAPTER VIII

  “Joe Piccolo, right? But what can you expect from a kid with a father the likes of Amos? I’m tellin’ you, Margie, you should tell Eddie Polanski.” Hannah talked as she wiped down the front of the coffee machine, polishing in the same circle again and again.

  “Tell him what? That Joe picked up a prescription for his mother without paying? The Piccolos have a running bill with every establishment in town including this one.” Margie straightened the skirt of her cook’s apron, picked at a splat of fresh dough, then, exhaling a sigh deep from within, turned toward the kitchen. “I need to talk to Peter.”

  The phone rang. Margie twirled on a heel to pick up the extension on the wall beside the soda dispenser. Dr. Martin Pharr was calling personally to say that Peter’s test showed no signs of concussion and she could pick him up anytime that afternoon. She thanked him and hung up. Worried anew, now that she must bring him home and out of the protective womb of the hospital, she stood there with her hand on the receiver and her head on her arm. “I can bring him home,” she whispered to the wall. She turned her head to look at Hannah still standing in front of the coffee machine. “I’m scared. Please don’t say anything to Polanski before I talk to Peter. Nothing is more important than protecting him. Promise me, Hannah.”

  ******

  Peter was so Peter on the way home, Margie had a hard time believing he’d been beaten or was in any kind of danger. Surely, fear would sh
ow in his eyes or his manner if he were threatened by the likes of a Joe Piccolo. Hannah said it; that kid wasn’t right. She’d heard stories about him, stories of pulling legs off frogs, pouring salt on slugs, there was even a story of cutting the tail off Mrs. Colby’s cat. A frequent companion to his father, she saw him often at the diner, especially during deer season. He stuck out in the crowd. He wasn’t like the other boys laughing with their dads, talking hunting, rifles, quotas. Joe Piccolo was taller than most of the boys his age, but the feature that stuck in Margie’s mind were his eyes. They were the color of steel, and Joe Piccolo never smiled.

  ******

  Pat ran to the end of her chain, and stood wagging the rear portion of her body while barking with happiness at the sight of Peter. He fell on top of her thick, black coat, arms hugging her broad back, while she twisted her head to give him a sloppy kiss. Margie unhooked the chain from her collar and she followed them into the house.

  Margie stalled, not knowing how to start the interrogation. She didn’t want to scare Peter, make him clam-up. “What would you like to eat? I could fix us grilled cheese, I have some white Cabot sharp.”

  He was on the floor with the dog, intermittently messing up her mane and hugging her. “Okay, but don’t get the cheese so thick as last time.”

  While she assembled their sandwiches, she tried to dream up an opening sentence, but nothing came to mind that satisfied what she wanted to ask—nothing, that is, less than, Is someone after you for drugs? Finally, as Peter took the first bite of his sandwich, she tackled him.

  “Who beat you up?”

  Peter unglued his eyes from the sports page of the school paper, and swallowed. “I’ve already been over this with Polanski, Mom.” His eyes had shifted to her briefly, but were now back on the paper.

  “Humor me.”

  “But I already told you, I fell. I was running, tripped on that bucket we couldn’t find in the tall grass, and landed on my head.” He didn’t look up this time.

  Margie’s sandwich sat in front of her untouched. “Both your face and the back of your head were injured … Peter, look at me.”

  “What do you want me to say? You want me to make up some story about being beat up? Guess I bounced when I fell.” He held up his hands to demonstrate with one hand falling on top of the palm of the other, jackknifing and rolling over onto the table. “Bamm, like that.” He was watching her and smiling, showing teeth, reminding her how badly he needed an orthodontist.

  “Yeah, make up some story. Will Joe Piccolo play a part?” Margie pushed her plate and all pretense of eating aside, and leaned forward in her chair.

  “Piccolo?” Peter spat the name. “Piccolo wouldn’t put himself out.” Peter stood up, taking his sandwich and paper in hand. “I’ve got homework.” He pushed his chair back with his foot, and turned to leave. “I fell, Mom. Trust me on that,” he said looking over his shoulder.

  Margie watched his back as he walked down the hall to his bedroom. Tall for his fourteen years, she thought, and old. Tears filled her eyes and trickled unchecked down her cheeks. Life sure hadn’t dealt him an easy hand. Peter had told her to trust him, and she did. But could she, should she believe him?

  ******

  She brought up the name, Joe Piccolo, so many times in the course of the next two days, customers of the Railroad Car Diner were beginning to ask questions among themselves. “What’s he done now?” Mrs. Colby, of the cat story, wanted to know.

  “I was just asking,” was the off-handed reply Margie answered after her questions about whether the boy had ever been suspended from school, suspected of drug use, arrested, or caught at other notorious activities.

  The answers were consistent if not informative. Joe Piccolo was an enigma. Secretive and unproductive in school, he was often suspected of wrongdoing, but never caught and never suspended. Joe was not a known user of drugs, and he’d never been arrested. If a picture could be drawn from Margie’s research, it was out-of-focus, in varying shades of gray. While everybody knew about him, recognized him on sight, no one, not school mates or teachers, seemed to know him. They did know his mother had medical problems, his father, a drinking problem, and the town had a growing problem with debt carried on their behalf.

  There was nothing to do, Margie decided, finally. Peter acted as if nothing had happened, and it occurred to her that perhaps nothing had. At least nothing worse than a disagreement between boys.

  ******

  Angela Piccolo and Lisa Heathro were sitting together in the lunch room again. Peter wondered when they had become friends. He purchased a glass of milk from the cafeteria line and walked by their table with his milk in one hand and his lunch box in the other. “How’s it going?” he said looking at Angela.

  “Heard you were in the hospital. Are you okay?” Angela asked him.

  “Yeah. You seen Joe around?”

  “He never eats. Probably outside smoking,” Angela said smiling up at him. “You can join us if you want.”

  Lisa Heathro had a way of looking put out and bored at the same time. Peter detested girls who treated less popular classmates like an inferior species. Most of the guys thought she was drop dead gorgeous and fell all over themselves whenever she walked into a room. Peter just thought of schemes to force her nose out of the air, like putting a foot out into the aisle as she passed him on her way to her desk. Mostly he bugged her in math class by talking to her. Now she was acting like she didn’t know him. They had English Literature and Algebra together this semester and had been in each other’s classes all five years he’d been living in Green Mountain.

  “That’s okay. I’ll just eat over there with Summer,” he said motioning his head toward a table where Quince Summer was sitting with some other boys.

  ******

  “Heard you had a run in with the Michelson brothers,” Quince said when Peter sat at the table. Quince was the second person to make that statement this morning.

  Quince was a year older than Peter and in some of Danny Michelson’s classes. Danny was the younger of the two boys.

  “Who’s talking?” Peter wanted to know.

  “Word gets around.”

  Andy Baldwin shifted in his seat then cleared his throat. “Them boys are in for big trouble, they keep messing around. We don’t want their flatlander ways around here,” he said pointing a finger at Peter. “You have their old man in any your classes?” Andy didn’t wait for an answer. “He’s stoned, man. Every day. Now you tell me. How come Mercer can’t tell stoned when it’s staring him in the face? He audits the class this morning, watches Michelson climbing the damn walls, red eyes bugging out of his damn head, and leaves with a, ‘Carry on, class’ like all’s well in math class. We friggin’ couldn’t believe it. And Michelson pouring sweat like a water fountain thinking he’s busted. Our principal needs glasses and a hearing aid, man.”

  The boys at the table were all shaking their heads in agreement. “I sure feel warm and fuzzy knowing my principal is looking out for my best interests,” Quince said.

  Peter listened while keeping his thoughts to himself. He needed to find out who knew what about him and the Michelsons. That a stoned teacher should upset this group of boys nicknamed “The Rolling Stoned” was a joke. Deciding he wasn’t going to get any information from these guys, he picked up his lunch box and left in search of Joe Piccolo.

  Joe was where Angela said he would be—in the smoking area, shoulders scrunched inside a thin coat, black strands of hair blowing wildly in the wind. Peter turned shy when he approached Joe. You had to respect a guy like Joe Piccolo. Nobody and nothing ever got to him. He was amazing.

  “Joe?” Peter said standing a foot away.

  Joe looked up and at him. Blew out a cloud of smoke.

  “You have any contact with the Michelson brothers?” Peter asked.

  “Got Billy in a couple of classes.” Joe put his cigarette out in the sand box.

  You hear about me?” Peter was losing his voice or his nerve.
/>   “I heard.”

  “Who’s talking? Do you know?”

  “Maybe. Don’t worry about it.”

  “I’m afraid of losing my job.”

  Joe shrugged, started walking. Peter followed. “If Polanski or Smith gets wind of it … ” Joe stopped short and turned to Peter with a finger poked into his chest. “If I hear you give those yo-yos drugs, I’ll beat the shit out of you myself. You got that?”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “I’ll get back to you. “ Joe walked away leaving Peter alone in the school yard.

  ******

  Sam would be straight jacket material if he spent one more day rambling around his parents’ house suspended with nothing of purpose to tackle. Allison had invited him to accompany her and her friends in their various activities, but helping them cook at the senior citizen’s center in Springfield, or sewing Quilts for Kids in Mrs. Colby’s kitchen, stirred little enthusiasm within him. Anyway, he knew he had only been invited out of kindness. He was a lousy cook, and quilting… well.

  His parents’ house could stand painting, especially the trim around the windows and doors, but he was not supposed to take on laborious tasks so soon after surgery. He’d hammered down the loose boards in the front porch, oiled the hinges in squeaky, screen doors, and replaced the back door bell his first week home. The second week he pulled the old Ski-Doo snowmobile out of the shed.

  His mother told him it hadn’t been run since his father died six years ago. It would need some work, and so did Sam—perfect.

  Sam loved snowmobiling. It was one activity that he and his father could chew on for hours, work side by side for days, and play together all winter in harmony. Well, a friendly argument now and then didn’t count. They were friends back then. Sam tried to remember when that friendship began to break apart.

  He used to think it was when he told his dad he was leaving Vermont, but it was before that.

  He dismantled the carburetor, poured cleaner in an empty coffee can, and handed the pieces in.