The Outhouse Gang

by Neil Plakcy

  Dennis nodded. “In Arkansas, at a state college.”

  “Arkansas?” Elaine said, coming into the kitchen. She was wearing a housecoat over her nightgown and yawning. “What’s in Arkansas?”

  “Your son,” Paul said, turning back to his omelet. “He’s moving to Arkansas to teach at a college.”

  Elaine turned to Dennis. “That’s so far away,” she said. “There weren’t any jobs closer?”

  “Mom, they’re not exactly lining up to hire Ph.D.s in Political Science,” Dennis said. “I’m lucky I’m not going to be driving a cab, as Dad has already pointed out.”

  The corners of Elaine’s mouth drooped. “It’s so far away,” she repeated. “Like Afghanistan and Armenia.”

  “And Albuquerque,” Dennis said, digging into his omelet. “That’s another A. Don’t forget Albuquerque.”

  “Don’t laugh, you’ll end up there next,” Elaine said.

  Paul Warner had a lot of seniority at the plant by then, and got nearly five weeks vacation a year. He and Elaine took at least two major trips a year, to Asia, Africa, and undiscovered corners of Europe. Once Dennis was settled they visited him in Arkansas for a week, and promised to come back every year, bringing bagels, soft pretzels, and recent copies of the New York Times.

  On their second visit to Arkansas, Dennis introduced them to his friend Mike, an ER nurse at the local hospital. Soon after, he and Mike moved in together, and though no one said anything, it was clear to Elaine and Paul that the boys were more than just roommates. Elaine and Paul were saddened to think they would never have grandchildren, but to Paul it just confirmed something he’d figured out a long time before but had never been willing to consider.

  * * *

  Paul was still friendly with Sandy Lord, though Sandy had changed a lot since Helene’s cancer surgery, and her subsequent death. He wasn’t as outgoing any more, and had dropped his public service posts, concentrating on his law practice and his children. Tom married a girl he met in law school and they joined her father’s practice in Virginia. They had two children and Sandy drove down to visit them regularly. He liked arguing legal issues with his daughter-in-law even more than he liked arguing with Tom.

  Ellen also went to law school, but she didn’t practice. She married a baseball player for the Atlanta Braves and managed his career. She had gotten him several lucrative endorsements and negotiated a significant bonus in his latest contract. They had no children; Ellen was determined to continue to travel with the team from city to city and watch over her husband, who was, as she put it to her father, “the smartest investment I ever made.”

  Danny became a counselor for disadvantaged kids in Newark after he graduated from college. At twenty-six, he was starting to burn out and was thinking about going to law school, if he could figure out a way to do things differently from his father, his brother and his sister. He was tired of following in somebody’s footsteps. Even his community work reminded him of his father’s activism, of his tenure on the School Board, the Library Committee, and as a town councilman.

  Sometimes Danny drove down to Stewart’s Crossing for the weekend. He would sleep in his old room in the restored Colonial farmhouse, rifle through his dusty childhood treasures, and imagine that his mother was downstairs, sitting in her favorite chair, rereading Charles Dickens.

  On one visit, Sandy came to his open door and knocked. “Am I disturbing you?”

  Danny shook his head and sat up on the bed. “No, Dad, come on in. I was just daydreaming.”

  “I guess this house does it to you.” Sandy sat down in the chair at Danny’s desk. “It has a lot of memories.”

  “Not all of them good,” Danny said. “I was a pretty rotten kid.”

  “You were the baby. You just wanted to make sure you got your share of attention.”

  “I think I got more than my share. Remember that time I nearly got suspended from high school? You and Mom had to come down and convince the principal I was a good kid who hadn’t reached his full potential. I don’t think Mom was ever so mad at me.”

  “She loved you very much,” Sandy said. “She loved all you kids. I’m just sorry she couldn’t stick around to see how you all turned out.”

  “I bet you miss her.”

  Sandy nodded. “I do. It’s terrible to say, but a little less each day. The hurt does get easier, though I have to admit I’ve been pretty lonely.”

  “You should get married again. You’re only what, 58? You’ve still got a lot of spunk left.”

  “Thanks for the vote of encouragement.” He paused for a minute. “If I did, you wouldn’t resent it? Feel like I was trying to replace your Mom?”

  “Nobody could replace her. But if you can find somebody who’ll put up with you, I say, go for it.”

  “I’ll think it over.” Sandy stood up. “There’s some chocolate chip ice cream in the freezer. Want some?”

  Danny bounced up from the bed. “There better be a lot.” He darted out the door. Sandy heard his voice going down the hall and the stairs, saying, “Otherwise you won’t be getting any.” He shook his head, laughed, and walked out of the room.

  * * *

  Charley Woodruff was still waiting to see how his kids would turn out. Raymond was not college material; he had been eager to get out of high school and get a job. He drove a truck for a delivery service in Newtown, a few miles away from Stewart’s Crossing. He was married, to the waitress at the donut shop across from the warehouse. She was pregnant with their first child, Charley’s first grandchild. She and Raymond came over to the Woodruffs’ a lot in the evenings, so that she could put her feet up and have somebody wait on her once in a while. “Not that I’ll ever get that from Raymond,” she said, though it was obvious to anybody with eyes in her head, Connie often said, that Raymond adored her.

  Jeffrey had gone to the community college for two years, and then applied to the police academy. He was now a rookie cop, and Connie was starting to dread the ringing of the phone. Charley tried to comfort her, but if the truth were known, it bothered him just as much.

  They were counting on Edward. He had gotten his two-year degree from the community college, and was taking business administration courses at Trenton State. Charley was proud that he was going to have the first four-year degree in the family. Or in their immediate family, at least; Connie’s big family was still around, the cousins going off to college, getting good jobs and marrying and having kids. It was enough to make him glad he was an only child, that at least he didn’t have a big family on top of Connie’s.

  Edward was the one who’d always loved working with Charley the most, and he felt bad chasing the boy out of his workshop, but he was determined not to interfere with his son’s education. One spring day he had to say, “Get out of here and go do your homework.” He was working on the framework of a cabinet that would be faced with Formica. “I can manage down here without you.”

  “It’s almost the end of the semester, Dad. I don’t have much work. And I’ve only got one final.”

  “Then go study for it.”

  “It’s not for two weeks. Come on, Dad, can’t I do anything to help you?”

  Charley shrugged. “All right. See if you can’t cut me six shelves for this cabinet.” As Edward started toward the saw, Charley called after him, “Be sure to measure them.”

  “Measuring correctly eliminates half the problems you encounter in cabinetry,” Edward said. “You always said that.”

  “Well, I’m pleased that you listened.”

  They both worked silently for a while. “Once I graduate, Dad, I’d like to work with you,” Edward said finally. He held up his hand. “Now, don’t get all upset. I mean, I’d like to bring what I’m learning in college to this business. You’d be amazed at what you can do about marketing, and financial management and accounting. We could make this business great.”

  “Why’d you want to do a thing like that? You could get a real job, in an office somewhere.”

  “I�
��d hate that,” Edward said. “And don’t look at me like that. You know you would too.”

  “Your mother will have a fit. She’s got her heart set on you in suit and tie, with business cards and a job she can brag about to her relatives.”

  “If it makes her happy, I’ll wear a suit and tie and have business cards made up. And she can brag about me all she wants.”

  “Well, we’ll talk about it later. You’ve still got shelves to cut.” Charley watched Edward start cutting again, and then leaned back to his work, hiding his face out of pure mulishness, so his son wouldn’t see him smile.

  * * *

  In late April of 1988, Harry Mosca was turning the soil over in the sunny patch behind the house where he had a garden, when he felt a queer tingling sensation in his arms. Then there was pressure on his chest, like someone was sitting on top of him and pressing all the wind out of him. He managed to make it back to the house, where he collapsed on the kitchen floor.

  Jane was in the living room. “Harry? What did you forget now?” she asked, coming into the kitchen. “Oh, my God!” She ran to the phone and dialed 911. In a shaky voice, leaning down over Harry and holding his hand, she gave the operator her address and asked for paramedics.

  Harry’s condition stabilized at the hospital. They brought in a battery of doctors to examine him, and while they did Jane stationed herself at the pay phone in the lobby and tried to track down Karen and Terry.

  Karen was at work, at a diner outside St. Louis. She gave her mother her schedule and made her promise to call as soon as there was any word.

  Terry was harder to find. A woman answered at his home number; she said he was down at the beach, but she wasn’t sure where exactly. Jane explained the situation.

  The woman was immediately concerned. Jane wondered for a moment at who she was; there had been a woman answering around Terry for almost as long as he’d been in California, but Jane never talked to the girls and Terry never volunteered any information. For all Jane knew, the same girl had been answering the phone for ten years.

  Not that Jane and Harry had called much. Once a year, on Terry’s birthday, and then at Christmas. Terry called a few times a year, generally connected with a holiday. Sometimes he sent them postcards of the beach at Santa Cruz, where he had settled. There was a long boardwalk and a big Ferris wheel. Terry was especially fond of cards featuring the wheel. “Life keeps on rolling,” he’d written one year.

  “You give me the number where you are, and I’ll go find Terry,” the girl said. “I’ll have him call you as soon as I can.”

  “That’s nice of you.” Jane paused. “What’s your name?”

  “Lissie,” the girl said. “My real name’s Melissa, but nobody calls me that but my parents.” In the background a baby cried. “I’ll have Terry call you as soon as I find him. There aren’t but a few places he could be.”

  “Thanks, Lissie,” Jane said.

  After she hung up, she sat by the phone for a few minutes. How had she ended up so alone, she wondered? She had been a wife for thirty-eight years, had given birth to and raised two children. Was this where it all led, to a pay phone at a hospital, torn between waiting for her son to call and standing by her husband’s hospital bed, watching the heart monitor and praying every time it beeped?

  The phone rang a little while later. Jane told Terry what had happened and, to her surprise, he volunteered to fly out, if she thought it would help. Jane started to cry, for the first time that day. “Yes, that would be nice,” she said. “I’d like that.”

  She went home late that night, after the doctors had told her there was nothing she could do, after the nurses had assured her that Harry was resting comfortably, that he was in good hands. It was the first night in over thirty years when he did not sleep by her side, and she could not fall asleep until early morning.

  The doorbell woke her. She put a bathrobe on over her nightgown and walked downstairs. Through the peephole she saw Terry, tall, deeply tanned, as handsome as ever. It was only when she pulled the door open that she saw he was not alone.

  “Mom.” Terry enfolded her in his arms. When he pulled back, he said, “This is Lissie.”

  Lissie was a tired-looking girl with a long brown ponytail. She was carrying a baby wrapped in a blanket. “Hi,” she said. “It’s nice to finally meet you after all these years.” She held the baby up to Jane to see. “This is Dylan. Your grandson.”

  Jane held the door open wide. “I think you’d all better come in.”

  Terry, Lissie and Dylan had taken the red-eye flight from San Francisco, and rented a car in Philadelphia. “I wish I’d known you were coming in,” Jane said as they walked into the kitchen and sat down. “I feel terrible you had to rent a car. That’s so expensive.”

  “I’m doing all right, Mom,” Terry said. “I can afford it.”

  “We own four beach concessions,” Lissie said. “Maybe when Mr. Mosca gets better you can come out and see them. You’d be real proud of Terry.”

  “This is all so surprising,” Jane said.

  Terry nodded. “I guess it is a lot to take in. We were going to call you when Dylan was born, but it always seemed like a lot to spring on you, so we never got around to it.”

  “What matters is that you’re here now,” Jane said. “Your father will be so glad to see you.”

  They went down to see Harry after breakfast. He was pale and the hospital surroundings made him look worse than he was, but he perked up when he was introduced to Dylan. “My grandson,” he said. He looked up at Terry. “He looks just like you when you were a baby.”

  “I hope you have pictures,” Lissie said.

  They pulled extra chairs in and everybody sat down. It was almost like a family reunion, Harry thought. If only Karen had been there, too.

  Dylan’s presence had a great effect on Harry, and within a few days, he was much better, sitting up and watching television. Terry planted the garden for him, cleaned the leaders and gutters, and even painted the garage.

  Terry and Lissie finally made plans to return to California after about a week. Terry was sitting by his father’s side, watching a basketball game on TV, when Harry said, “All right. I have to ask you, Terry. Why didn’t you tell us what you were doing? Dylan is as cute as a button and that Lissie is a wonderful little girl. She says you’re very successful out there. Although,” and here Harry looked toward the window, “she says you’ve been living without benefit of clergy.”

  “See, that’s why I didn’t tell you.” Terry stood up and paced around. “You’re always saying things like that. Without benefit of clergy. Lissie loves me and I love her. We think that’s enough.”

  “I’m allowed to disapprove of what you do,” Harry said. “I’m your father. I raised you. That gives me the right. But I wouldn’t shut you out because I disapproved. So why do you shut me out?”

  “I always thought I’d tell you. As soon as I felt good about things. As soon as I had everything under control.”

  Harry threw back his head and laughed. “You never feel that way,” he said. “Not if you have a brain in your head. You wait until that little tyke starts school, and you have to worry about what might happen to him every minute he’s out of your sight. Then you’ll know what out of control is.”

  Terry looked anxious. “So it doesn’t get any better?”

  At that moment, Lissie and Jane walked in. Jane was holding Dylan in his blanket and cooing to him. Lissie smiled and took Terry’s hand.

  “No,” Harry said, “it doesn’t get any better than this.”

 

 

 
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