by John Lekich
Did I mention that the Colonel has a vast collection of nightsticks from his part-time job as a security guard? Did I also mention that he bragged to me about having a Super Soaker water pistol filled with a special bright red dye he’d mixed up in his basement? He called the formula CR-13. The CR stood for Citizen’s Revenge. He told me it took him exactly thirteen tries to get the formula just right.
According to the Colonel, CR-13 smelled like a combination of rotten eggs and boiling roof tar. After several experiments on himself, he had determined that the dye was highly resistant to soap and water; he informed me that the lingering odor was “comparable to that of a very angry skunk.”
It was going to take a lot of planning to break into the Colonel’s house. Especially if I was going to avoid any pitfalls along the way. Fortunately, Wally Whispers taught me more than how to pick a lock: he also taught me a lot about patience.
I missed Wally almost as much as Uncle Andy. There was something about him that always made me want to listen very carefully. Maybe it’s because he has a way of making everything he says sound like a valuable secret. “Every disadvantage has a silver lining,” he told me, in regards to his soft way of speaking. “For instance, people tend to pay attention when you whisper.”
“But aren’t there times when you feel like yelling?” I asked.
Wally shrugged. “I have discovered that nothing worth saying above a whisper is worth saying at all.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, suppose I volunteered the opinion that I consider you a very polite young man,” he said. “Would that opinion sound any more sincere in a louder voice?” When I shook my head, Wally looked very pleased. “So what have we learned?” he asked. And then, answering his own question, he added, “Yelling is not only rude but also highly overrated.”
I must admit that there have been a couple of times over the last few weeks that I’ve felt like yelling. If only to get rid of some extra tension that comes with my present situation. Much as I enjoy my freedom, there are times when I get this lonely feeling that won’t go away. It can also get somewhat stressful lying to my Uncle Andy about the Hendersons. But when I feel like yelling, I always try to remember that it’s overrated.
The thing I wish most of all? That when Uncle Andy gets out of jail, he’ll find a house somewhere so that everybody can be together again. Of course, it’s only a dream. And sometimes it seems like that dream is never going to happen. No matter how long I wait.
Not that some things aren’t worth waiting for. Yesterday I got back from cleaning myself up at the outdoor pool facility down the street. When I returned to Evelyn’s yard, the sky was still blue. It was the kind of sky that looked like Uncle Andy had put it all together just right.
I tried to remember that blue-sky feeling as I drifted to sleep that night. I thought about how great it would be if the world were more like one of Uncle Andy’s jigsaw puzzles. A place where every piece was made to fall perfectly into place. That way, no matter how bad it got, you’d always know that blue skies were coming your way sooner or later. All you had to do was be patient.
FOUR
Sometimes I like to think back on the days when I didn’t have to steal to survive. Back then, I thought of it as “recreational theft.” I didn’t have to worry so much about the basics because I could afford to use any liberated cash for the luxuries of life.
You might think that I would spend all my ill-gotten gains on frivolous items like junk food and computer games. But just about every penny I stole back then went into what I like to call cultural enrichment and self-improvement. Like matinee tickets to the theater, opera or symphony. Or maybe a special lunch at the type of restaurant where you have to use at least three forks for a single meal. Even though I have fallen asleep at the symphony a couple of times, I enjoy cultural enrichment a lot.
You may ask, “Why would Henry go to an Italian opera in the middle of the day when he doesn’t even understand Italian?” Let me explain. I used to feel extra guilty about stealing, because I knew my late mother would not approve of me indulging in criminal activity. Maybe not guilty enough to stop stealing altogether, but way past guilty enough to come up with a guilt-easing plan that kept some of my mother’s long-term wishes for me in mind.
My mother loved the arts and, every once in a while, she would scrape up enough money to take me to a play or a concert. “Let’s be extravagant, Henry!” she would say. Extravagant was one of her favorite words, and whenever she used it, it meant dressing up to go sit someplace for a long time.
I was young and squirmy at the time. But she explained that I would appreciate the experience later on. “I want you to value the finer things in life,” she told me. “I love your Uncle Andy, but all he cares about is beer, poker and staying up late to watch old movies on tv.”
There are times when I get lonely for my mother and our extravagant times together. That’s why going to an opera or a concert that I know she might have liked makes me feel a little closer to her spirit, if you know what I mean. She was always a big believer in savoring life’s more elegant moments.
Once, we were passing a display in a store window and she pointed out a very expensive bottle of French perfume called Springtime in Paris. We went inside the store so that a woman in a little black dress could spray my mother with a free sample. Then she laughed and leaned down toward me so that I could smell what she considered the greatest perfume in the world. From that moment on, I always looked forward to the day when I could save up enough to buy her a whole bottle.
I even told my Uncle Andy that I was starting a perfume fund for her next birthday. The trouble was, my mother got pretty sick way before her birthday and had to stay in the hospital. My uncle got this idea to buy a bottle of Springtime in Paris to cheer her up. “Why wait for tomorrow when she can smell good right now?” he asked.
Our plan was simple. “You kick in the money from your perfume fund, and I will make up the difference with a suitable donation,” said Uncle Andy. “But if your mother asks, you tell her you bought the whole bottle with your savings. Understand?” Even then, I understood that my mother would not try a single squirt of any perfume bought with the proceeds from theft. I told my uncle he could definitely count on me.
We went to buy the perfume at a fancy department store, and Uncle Andy asked the saleslady for the biggest bottle of Springtime in Paris she had. I took out all my change and put it on the counter. The saleslady was very nice about sorting all the coins. She even made a little joke and asked if the perfume was for my girlfriend. I said it was for my mother.
I’ll never forget the way my mother looked when I presented her with the bottle of perfume. She gave me her best smile, and then she looked at me like maybe it was too good to be true. Right away, I knew she wanted to make extra sure that Uncle Andy had not liberated it from a perfume warehouse or some strange woman’s dresser. I showed her the sales slip and then topped things off by lying very vigorously about how I’d been saving up for ages.
Normally, my mother would have asked a few more questions. But she was pretty pale and skinny at that point—what you’d definitely call frail. So she cut the questions short to save energy and just smiled. “Why don’t you squirt some in the air right now?” she asked, looking at the bottle like it was part of some very nice dream she was having. “You know, like they do at the perfume counter.”
“Isn’t that a bit wasteful?” I asked.
“What the heck, Henry,” she said, a little bit of color returning to her cheeks. “Let’s be extravagant.”
And so I squirted a little perfume in the air while my mother lay back on her hospital pillow and closed her eyes. She looked so happy that I asked her what she was thinking about. “I am thinking about our lunches at Chez Maurice,” she said. I guess of all our extravagant times together, the lunches at Chez Maurice were her favorite.
Playing piano in cocktail lounges didn’t leave my mother with a lot of money to throw a
round. But whenever she could afford it, we would go to a really nice restaurant called Chez Maurice, famous for its delicious French pastries. She would try to teach me the finer points of dining etiquette. Like which fork to use for salad and how to politely address a waiter. It was her favorite restaurant because, as she put it, the whole place was “glued together with good manners.”
Chez Maurice was run by the Girards, a father and son who were both named Maurice. In the busy kitchen, everyone called the son Young Maurice and the father Old Maurice. Old Maurice was the owner and head pastry chef. He was originally from Paris and kept a little replica of the Eiffel Tower by the cash register. Sometimes Old Maurice would talk sadly about growing up as an orphan and the hard times he had in Paris. But he was normally a very jolly individual.
Old Maurice was round all over and had a little gray mustache that looked like it was painted on. He always wore a pink rosebud in the lapel of his chef’s jacket and called me Henri, the French way to say Henry. Old Maurice always stood very straight. He told me once that he was very proud of his posture. “As a waiter you must always assume that others are paying close attention to your deportment,” he said. “Slouching is very bad for business.”
You might think that Young Maurice would be a lot like Old Maurice. But he wasn’t. Young Maurice was very slim, unsmiling and clean-shaven. Old Maurice described him as “Someone who is inexplicably crazy for rapid exercise and all kinds of fizzy water!” But even though Young Maurice was crazy for exercise, I would often see him slouching while serving customers. Personally, when it came to slouching in the restaurant, I agreed one hundred percent with Old Maurice. It just wasn’t the sort of place where anything should look tired or droopy.
At Chez Maurice, the napkins were folded in the shape of swans. So whenever my mother felt it was time to go to the restaurant again, she would say, “Henry, I think it’s time that we went to visit the swans.” My mother always said the same thing when they put a swan-shaped napkin on each of our plates. “It’s so pretty that I can’t bring myself to unfold it.” Maurice would bring her an extra napkin for her lap. After that, he would place the swan beside her plate so she could look at it all through lunch.
The thing I remember most is how happy my mother was during those lunches. We would laugh and her cheeks would get a little flushed from the single glass of wine she always ordered. Even though I was just a kid, I knew she was the prettiest woman in the room. I think Old Maurice thought so too. He promised that he was going to name a special pastry after her someday. Plus, he always made sure we had table number six, a window table with the best view in the entire place.
Old Maurice came over to our table once and asked, “Does the gentleman find his ginger ale satisfactory?” My mother said, “We’re pretending its champagne, Maurice.” After that, Old Maurice brought my bottle of ginger ale over to me in an iced champagne bucket. He would say, “Someday, you will grow tall and this will be champagne!” and we would all have another good laugh. At the end of every lunch, Old Maurice never failed to take the pink rosebud he wore in his lapel and give it to my mother. She never failed to blush and say, “Merci.”
Old Maurice reacted the same way every time. His eyes got a little watery and then he gave a little bow. Like my mother was a European princess or something. “No, thank you, madame,” he would say. “It is my great privilege to be of service.”
I guess my mother never forget how special she felt at Chez Maurice. When she was sick in the hospital, I would squirt some of her perfume in the air and she would say, “Let’s pretend we’re at Chez Maurice. What are we having for lunch?” In real life, she wasn’t really eating much at all. But as soon as she started to pretend we were visiting the swans, she developed quite an imaginary appetite.
After deciding what we were going to have for the lunch we weren’t actually eating, my mother would get worn out. It was never hard to tell when my visit was over. Mostly because she would ask me to leave the bottle of perfume on her bedside table. “I just like to know that it’s there,” she said.
What was my biggest hope? That my mother would get better so we could go back to Chez Maurice. I used to think about her spraying on Springtime in Paris and getting all dressed up. You know, looking just like she used to. But the last time we visited the swans together, it was just in our imaginations.
After Mom died, I took the bottle of perfume off her bedside table at the hospital, and I have kept a close eye on it ever since. I make sure to travel light these days. I have a backpack filled with such essentials as a toothbrush, a few lock-picking tools and my emergency Holloway hotline cell phone. Not to mention a big bottle of Springtime in Paris. I would not confess this fact to just anybody, mostly because of the embarrassment factor, but if anything ever happened to that bottle of perfume, I’d be very upset.
A while ago, I got the idea to go back to Chez Maurice for lunch. It was her birthday and I was feeling nostalgic about the happy times we had there. Also I had saved up all my burglary money and wanted to do something special. This may sound weird, but sometimes I have trouble remembering what my mother looked like. I mean, I’ll close my eyes and try to recall the details of her face and everything will get a bit hazy.
I had grown up quite a bit since the last time I was in the restaurant, and I didn’t think anybody would recognize me. Young Maurice—who didn’t seem so young anymore—didn’t give me a second look. But I could see Old Maurice squinting from across the room like he was trying to figure out if it was me.
I could tell he was really glad to see me. He took my hand and started to pump it like he was still a young Maurice. “But it has been so long!” he exclaimed. “Why do you not come to see Old Maurice?” Then he looked around, all excited, and asked, “But where is your dear mother?”
I explained to Old Maurice what had happened to my mother. I told him it was her birthday, and I was taking the whole day away from school to do the kinds of things that reminded me of her.
Old Maurice didn’t say anything, but I could tell he was upset. His eyes were starting to water. Then he pulled himself together and got very official. Calling over a waiter with a quick snap of his fingers, he said, “The gentleman will require table number six.”
I could hear the waiter whisper that table six was reserved for a larger party. “Move them to table number eight!” ordered Old Maurice.
Even though I ended up sitting at good old table number six, I was kind of confused at first. Despite the fact that I was dining alone, there were two table settings. Naturally, I thought there was some mistake. But the longer I looked at the white napkin swan across from me, the more I understood what Old Maurice was trying to do. If you just concentrated on the swan instead of the empty chair, it was almost like my mother was there. Like she was just in the washroom—combing her hair or putting on a fresh coat of lipstick—and would be back any minute.
Of course, my mother was never coming back to table number six. Old Maurice did his best, sending over a bottle of ginger ale in an iced champagne bucket just like the old days. But eating at a table for one made me sad.
Old Maurice was a little melancholy himself. Apparently Young Maurice wanted to get rid of the tablecloths and swan-shaped napkins and turn the restaurant into one of those sleek, high-tech places that look like very expensive cafeterias. “He thinks I am a useless napkin-folder who is ready for the Old Pastry Chef’s Retirement Home!”
We talked about my mother and, after a while, the waiter brought the bill. When I made a move to look at it, Old Maurice snatched it up smoothly from the little bill tray and ripped it in two neat little halves. When I protested, he said, “In memory of your dear mother.” Then he took the pink rose from his lapel and placed it on my mother’s plate next to her napkin swan.
“Without his mother, a boy’s life is like a custard tart without the crust,” he observed. “There is nothing to hold it together.” His sad eyes got watery again. “If there is anything you need, Maurice Girar
d Senior is eternally at your service,” he declared. He wrote down his home phone number for me before clicking his heels and giving a little bow. “You will remember this, Henri?”
I told him I would and thanked him very much in French. And then Old Maurice headed back toward the kitchen. Even though he was moving for the kitchen at a fast clip, I thought he looked a little tired. But then he straightened up, put his shoulders back and kept moving. I guess he knew that everyone was paying attention to his deportment.
For a minute, I just sat there and looked at the rosebud next to the napkin swan. It gave me a funny feeling, like I was sad and grateful at the same time. You might not think that those two feelings can go together, but once in a while, they really do. I guess that’s why I took all the burglary money out of my wallet and left it on the little bill tray as a tip for Old Maurice and his staff.
After my visit to Chez Maurice, I made up my mind to stop recreational theft for good. And you know something? I did stop. Even before I moved into Evelyn’s tree house, I was beginning to consider myself more or less reformed. I think my mother would have been proud of me. At least for a little while.
Mind you, there have been a few times lately when I can’t help thinking of all the things I could buy with the tip money I gave Maurice if I still had it. But you know something? Ever since my last visit with the swans, I can see my mother’s face a little more clearly every time I close my eyes and think of her. And there’s no way you can ever put a price on that.
Back when I was still going to concerts, I liked to use what I called the Chez Maurice technique whenever there was an empty seat beside me. I just looked at the empty seat and pretended that my mother was at the coat check or just up the aisle getting a program. Right before the lights would dim, I’d almost convince myself that she was going to return to her seat and tell me to stop squirming and listen to the music.