The Outhouse Gang

by Neil Plakcy

  Jenny and Tom went to school the next morning and managed to convince the teacher not to kick Andrew out of class. “Have you considered therapy?” the teacher asked. She was a pleasant, heavyset woman named Mrs. Jacoby.

  “Therapy?” Jenny asked.

  “You know, sometimes children are more comfortable talking about their problems with a third party,” Mrs. Jacoby said. “Someone who can be objective.”

  “Thank you for the advice,” Jenny said, with a tight smile.

  “He’s just bright for his age,” Tom said. “He gets bored in class.”

  Tom and Jenny walked out together, after further reassuring Mrs. Jacoby that they would talk to Andrew. “Maybe he needs a private school,” Tom said. “If I get this job in New York, we’ll be able to afford one.”

  “I wish you would stop talking about that stupid job,” Jenny said. “You haven’t gotten it yet.”

  But he did get the job two days later, when the head of personnel called him at home to make him the offer. “I got it! I got it!” Tom yelled up the stairs to Jenny after hanging up the phone. “They want me to start right away!”

  “Dad, are you going to help me with my project?” Andrew asked. “It’s due tomorrow.”

  “Why do you always wait until the last minute?” Tom asked. “You’ll have to learn some responsibility sometime. Now I need to talk to your mother about this job.” He went upstairs.

  Jenny was at the desk in the spare room, her reading glasses perched on her nose. “Did you hear me?” he asked, coming into the room. “I got the job.”

  “I heard you. I’m busy.”

  “You’re always busy lately.”

  “And what about you? You’re not exactly Mr. Available.”

  “You have something you want to say? Go ahead, I’m right here. I’m listening.”

  “You can take your job in New York and shove it,” Jenny said. “Now if you don’t mind, I’m working.”

  Tom went into the bedroom, where he spread out a portfolio of materials from the new company. He studied them for a while, and was surprised when Jenny came in. “What time is it?” he asked.

  “It’s after eleven.” She yawned. “I’m so tired.” She looked up. “Did you make sure Andrew washed his face and hands before he went to bed?”

  Tom shrugged. “I’ve been up here.”

  “Honestly.” Jenny kicked her shoes off and walked out of the bedroom.

  Tom heard her a moment later. “Andrew? Where are you?” She looked back into the bedroom. “He’s not in bed.”

  Tom followed her downstairs. The light was still on in the living room, and Andrew was laying face down on the carpet. The contents of the Laroquettes’ liquor cabinet was arrayed around him, a bunch of half-empty bottles with their caps off. A dirty glass was next to Andrew’s hand.

  “Oh, Andy.” Jenny ran over to him and lifted up his head.

  “Mommy, I don’t feel so good.” Andrew’s voice was slurred.

  “Come on, Scooter, get up.” Tom lifted his son up under the armpits, and Andrew threw up on the carpet.

  “I’ll clean up and make some coffee,” Jenny said. “You put him in the shower.”

  Up in the bathroom, Tom undressed his son and turned the water on cold. After a while Andrew was able to stand up without swaying.

  Tom got him clean pajamas and then walked him downstairs, where he and Jenny plied him with coffee with lots of milk. “You know, they say coffee doesn’t do anything for drunkenness,” Tom said. “The only thing that works is time.”

  Jenny shrugged. “It gives us something to do.”

  Finally they put the boy to bed. Jenny turned out the light in his room and she and Tom stood there in the doorway for a moment, looking at him.

  “He’s going to have a hell of a hangover in the morning,” Tom said.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Jenny said. “Maybe we should listen to Mrs. Jacoby. Andrew might need to see a psychiatrist.”

  “You think so?”

  “He may still be upset about Betsy. I mean, he’s only a kid. He’s not as strong as we are.”

  They walked back to their bedroom. “Do you still think about her?” Tom asked.

  “Every day. Don’t you?”

  Tom nodded. “I guess you’re right. We’ll look for a therapist for him tomorrow.”

  * * *

  At the end of the week Tom handed in his two weeks’ notice. The marketing department gave him a going away party, and he convinced Jenny they should go out to celebrate that evening. They hired a babysitter to look after Andrew and went to a fancy French restaurant in Princeton. Both of them were trying hard to get along, to make the evening a good one. Jenny asked about Tom’s new job, and Tom asked about the way the campaign was going.

  After dinner they walked along Nassau Street for a few blocks. It was late in spring and the evening was cool and fragrant. They heard the heavy beat of disco music spilling out of a building ahead of them and they strolled casually toward it.

  There was a dance that night at the Methodist Church social hall. The yard was decorated with garlands of tiny white lights, and filled with people, most of them college students. A sign out in front advertised that the dance was a benefit for a “Save the Whales” group. There was a $3 cover charge.

  Tom and Jenny stood under a spreading oak tree next to the churchyard and watched as couples streamed in. “You want to give it a try?” Tom asked.

  “You don’t think we’ll be too old?”

  In answer, Tom pointed at a couple who were just going in. The man was in his fifties, balding, and wore a tweed jacket. The woman wore a shirtwaist dress and a pair of Earth shoes. “I guess not,” Jenny said. “All right, let’s go.”

  She took Tom’s hand in hers and they walked up to the door, where they paid their admission charge to a teenager in a Bruce Springsteen t-shirt. The social hall was a big room with a wooden floor and high ceilings. A mirrored ball hung from the ceiling, throwing spangles of light on the walls as it turned. The center of the room was filled with couples dancing.

  Donna Summer cooed on the sound system. Tom and Jenny moved to the edge of the crowd and started to dance. They were both children of the rock and roll era; they’d grown up on Elvis and Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison. It was hard to dance to this heavy back beat. Whatever happened to the Twist, Tom wondered. All those dances with intricate steps he had spent endless teenaged years memorizing?

  Against the wall, a group of college kids were doing line dances. A black guy in purple bell bottoms was obviously the leader; he stood in front of the rest and everyone seemed intent on his movements. “I feel old,” Tom shouted to Jenny, over the din of K.C. and the Sunshine Band.

  “Me, too,” Jenny yelled back. “Do you think they’ll ever play a slow dance?”

  “When you can fool around like that who needs slow dances,” Tom shouted. He nodded at a long-haired couple writhing together in a corner of the room. At any given moment it was hard to tell which was the boy and which was the girl.

  “Let’s go home,” Jenny yelled.

  Out on the street the disco music faded as they walked toward their car. In the trees overhead, birds chirped, unaware of their competition.

  “That was nice, even though the music was terrible,” Jenny said. “It’s been years since we’ve been dancing.”

  “You’ll have to come into New York sometimes, and we’ll go out there. We can have dinner, see a show, whatever you want.”

  “I’d like that.” They got into the car. As Tom pulled out onto Nassau Street to head back to Stewart’s Crossing, Jenny said, “Do you think you’ll be able to make the commute every day?”

  Tom shrugged. “People do it. The trains from Trenton to New York are packed.”

  “I don’t want to move,” Jenny said. “I think the house is our last connection to Betsy. If we moved to a house she’d never seen, I’d feel like we were losing her all over again.” It had taken Jenny months to be able to give away Betsy’
s clothes, to throw out the bottles of pills and the special salves and clean up the house. She had finally turned Betsy’s nursery into an office for herself, with a big picture of Betsy on the wall across from the desk.

  “I think that’s the wrong reason to stay, though,” Tom said. “I mean, I loved her. I miss her, too, but we have to move on. We still have Andrew, and we can’t let him feel that we care more for Betsy’s memory than we do for him.”

  “He seemed to like the therapist,” Jenny said. “At least, he wasn’t complaining on the way home like he was on the way there.”

  “It’s going to be harder for me to spend time with him, at least at first,” Tom said. “I’m going to have to leave earlier, to catch the train, and I’ll be getting home later. And I may have to work late for a while, until I get my bearings.”

  They drove in silence for a while, and Tom thought about his son. He couldn’t remember the last fun thing they had done together. Tom had a short fuse around Andrew, was always ready to blow up at something he said or did. It was as if he was blaming Andrew for not being Betsy, for surviving when she had not.

  Andrew did not help matters. He was quiet and sulky, given to outbursts of rage when things didn’t go his way. But maybe the therapist could help, Tom thought. He remembered Andrew as a baby, and as a little boy, so sweet and kind to his sister, happy to play for hours with his building blocks.

  * * *

  Tom’s new office had a big window facing out over South Street Seaport and the East River. If he stood at a particular angle, he could even see the Statue of Liberty. It was an interesting and challenging job, a stretch for him, but one he felt confident he could make. As spring turned into early summer, he began to feel comfortable enough to leave work every day by five-thirty, to be home in time for dinner at seven.

  Andrew was seeing his therapist once a week, and Tom and Jenny had begun to notice subtle changes in his personality. He did his homework without complaint, sulked less, and was less prone to explode in rage. He was far from being a perfect child, but Tom felt like they had pulled him back from the brink of something terrible.

  They ate dinner together every night, and Tom, who had grown up in a household where silence was mandated at meals, tried to get his son to talk. “Did you know that this July fourth will be the two hundredth anniversary of the United States?” Tom asked Andrew one night at dinner.

  Andrew nodded. “The bicentennial.”

  Tom and Jenny exchanged pleased looks over Andrew’s head. “There’s going to be a special parade of boats in the harbor in New York,” Tom said. “Tall ships, they call them. Old-fashioned ships with big white sails. If you’d like, we can go into my office and watch the parade from there. I have a great view of the harbor.”

  “From what floor?”

  “The twenty-first.”

  Andrew considered for a minute. “All right.”

  The morning of July fourth, Tom, Jenny and Andrew took the train into Newark, and switched for the PATH train over to lower Manhattan, just as Tom did every day. They got out at the World Trade Center stop and walked across Fulton Street towards the building where Tom worked.

  The streets were crowded with sightseers and vendors selling everything from food to green foam crowns in the shape of Lady Liberty’s. At a display of Colonial flags, Tom let Andrew pick out the one he liked best. He chose the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag with the snake on it.

  There was extra security on duty at Tom’s office building, and the Laroquettes had special passes to enter. Upstairs, several of the other employees had brought their families, and there was an impromptu picnic in the secretarial pool. Andrew met a girl his own age named Alix, from Westchester County, and they went off to explore together.

  The harbor was full of boats of all shapes and sizes, but there were no tall ships for a long time. Finally a man with binoculars spotted the first ship, up the river a long way. From that height Tom could see how the river curved around spits of land, where the FDR Drive seemed to jut out over the water, the small patches of green park and the sidewalks that shone in the summer light.

  Tom pulled his desk over to the window so that Andrew could stand on it, and he and Jenny leaned against the window frame. The parade was truly impressive, one tall ship after another, all of them surrounded by a flotilla of tiny escorts. It seemed like everyone in New York who owned a boat was out in the harbor.

  “I wish Betsy could be here,” Andrew said. “She’d like this.”

  “Maybe she’s watching,” Jenny said.

  “I think she is,” Andrew said. “I think she’s looking out for us. Like the Statue of Liberty, the way she stands there and takes care of the harbor.”

  Alix stuck her head in the office. “My dad’s office has a neat view,” she said to Andrew. “Want to come look?”

  “Sure.” Andrew jumped down from the desk.

  “Andrew,” Tom said. “Don’t go.”

  Andrew turned back to look at his father, his face a question.

  An image of Betsy flashed through Tom’s mind, how hard he had struggled to hold onto her, and how, in the end, it hadn’t mattered. “No, it’s all right,” Tom said. “You can go.”

  * * *

  Chuck Ritter started trying to reach Tom early in October, but Tom was always out of the office, or, if he tried at home, he was still at work, or on the train somewhere between New York and Trenton. Finally, the night before Mischief Night, Tom returned the call.

  “I don’t know if I can make it this year,” he said. “I’m swamped at the office. I have a big presentation to make at the end of the week.”

  “That’s a shame,” Chuck said. “We were counting on you to bring your son this year. He’s ten, after all.”

  “That’s right. Ten’s what, the initiation year?”

  “Seems to be.” Chuck paused. “Aren’t Charley’s boys his cousins?”

  “Second cousins. Jenny and Connie Woodruff are first cousins.”

  “So your boy’ll hear about it from Charley’s.”

  “This is blackmail,” Tom said.

  “This is tradition. And occasionally a good time.”

  “You’ve got me. I’ll be there, with Andrew.”

  Andrew, however, was not interested. They discussed it at the dinner table. Sure, he had heard his cousins talk. It sounded boring. He’d have to miss one of his favorite TV programs. He slumped back in his chair and stared at the table.

  “I don’t believe you,” Tom said. “I started to do this before you were even born. These other guys, they were bringing their sons along when you were a kid, and I kept thinking, gee, I can’t wait until Andy’s old enough to come along with us. A real father and son thing.”

  “Don’t you think you’re laying it on a little thick?” Jenny asked. “If he doesn’t want to go, don’t make him.”

  “Come on, Jenny. You’re always saying I should spend more time with him.”

  “Doing something he wants to do.”

  “And what about things I want to do?” Tom demanded. He realized he was being foolish, that he was trying to trick Andrew just the way Chuck had tricked him, but it had started to matter. All the other guys brought their sons. How would he look to them if his son wouldn’t come?

  Tom turned to Andrew. “How about that new bicycle you’ve been wanting?” Tom asked. “Come with me tomorrow night and I’ll buy it for you.”

  “OK,” Andrew said.

  “Tom! That’s bribery!”

  Tom frowned at Jenny. “These days it’s just called parenting.” To Andrew, he said, “We’ll go for the bike this weekend.”

  * * *

  They drove up along the Delaware, to an isolated farm in the flat, rich land between the canal and the river. They parked the truck along the road and everyone walked over a narrow bridge over the canal and onto the farmer’s land. The outhouse was visible from the road, cleaned up and decked out as a decoration, not a working unit any more. “This should be a piece of cake,”
Chuck said.

  Tom had to coax Andrew out of the truck, and then he didn’t want any part of lifting or carrying the outhouse. He didn’t want to follow the guys back to the truck, either; he stood by the side of the canal, scuffing his feet in the dirt.

  “Come on, Andrew, it’s almost over,” Tom said. “Try and have a good time.”

  Andrew shrugged. Then suddenly powerful outside lights mounted on the side of the farmhouse came on. It was no longer a working farm, but a country playground for rich people from New York, and this was one of the few nights the owners were in residence.

  The owner of the house was framed in the light of his doorway. He held a shotgun in his hand. “Jesus, let’s get back to the truck.” Tom put his hand on Andrew’s shoulder, pushed, and started to run. Andrew ran alongside him.

  The air behind them was punctuated with short rifle blasts. Dust rose on the track around them as they ran, flat out, to the bridge. They were the last ones across, and Chuck already had the motor going. Sandy and Paul pulled Tom on board, while Charley reached down for Andrew.

  A final shot pinged off the side of the truck. Tom slumped against the side, panting, his heart racing. Andrew was next to him, holding himself away, his body shaking.

  When Tom leaned close to him, he realized the boy was sobbing. “It’s all right,” he said, putting his arm around Andrew’s shoulders, trying to pull him close.

  Andrew resisted. “It’s not. We could have gotten killed.”

  “I would never let anybody hurt you.”

  “You couldn’t save Betsy.” Andrew pulled away from his father’s grasp. He stopped crying and turned to his cousins, who had watched with awe his death-defying run and last-minute rescue into the truck.

  * * *

  They didn’t talk on the ride home from Chuck’s store. Tom pulled the car into the driveway and cut the engine. When Andrew started to get out, he said, “No. Wait.”

  “What?”

  “I was wrong out there. You were right. I can’t protect you, any more than I could protect Betsy. But I wanted to.”

  Andrew shrugged.