The Accidental Siren

by Jake Vander Ark

  I shook my head. “Whit–”

  “Sure,” he said. “Lemme see how she looks.”

  I sighed.

  “What you got to trade?” Danny asked. “How ‘bout one of those candy bars you’re always sellin’ at recess.”

  “Deal.” Whit nodded, reached beneath his seat, and pulled out a Nestle Crunch bar.

  Danny snatched it from his hand, tore it open, and bit off a corner.

  Whit licked his lips and rubbed his palms. “Now let me get a gander at Roslyn!”

  Danny flipped over the photo, plunged it in Whit’s face, then snapped it back. “Wha’d I tell ya? Huh? Big ol’ titties!”

  “No fair! Too fast! I didn’t even see–”

  “Whit,” I said. “Knock it off.”

  “But he–”

  “Was there really a girl in the picture?” I asked.

  “Yeah, but I didn’t get to–”

  “Okay.” I looked to Danny and the chocolate-stained corners of his lips. “Where’d you get the picture?”

  “Snuck it from my uncle’s drawer. Roslyn gave it to him as a birthday present.”

  “It’s the only one?”

  “If there was more, I’d have ‘em.”

  If Danny was proud enough to show the picture to a nerd for a candy bar, he’d show his friends for free. In a rare moment of maturity, I imagined my sister in Roslyn’s place.

  “Whit’s got twenty candy bars in his bag,” I said. “I’ll trade you the entire stash for that picture.”

  Whether he was upset that I offered his product for trade, or excited at the prospect of owning a picture of a naked girl, Whit’s eyes grew bigger and rounder than the wheels on his chair.

  Danny coughed up a wad of brown spit and blew it at my feet. He let the foil wrapper fall from his candy, slipped the naked bar in his pocket, plucked the weapon from the stump, and wiped the spit from his lips. “If I wanted his candy...” He began pumping the gun. “I’d take it.”

  Whit gripped his wheels and inched away.

  I backed up too, right into A.J.’s beefy arms.

  The gun was loaded. Danny poked the barrel in the soft tissue above my bellybutton. “Tell ya what, Fatty. I’ll give you Roslyn if you give me that camera.”

  Was he serious? Apparently, the brainless bully had some concept of value, authority, and the difference between petty and serious crimes. If he stole my camera, he knew I’d tattle and he’d get busted. But if I gave him the camera fair-and-square, it would be his to keep.

  The gun sank deeper into the crook between my stomach and ribs; the farther Danny pushed, the more I could feel my heart beating against the tip.

  “Well?” he said. “You want Roslyn all for yourself?”

  A.J. tightened his grip on my arms.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Let’s trade.”

  * * *

  The bullies were gone. They had my camera.

  Roslyn’s photo was in my jeans. I lifted my shirt and inspected the grey bruise webbing across my chest. I wasn’t sure if I had done the right thing; either way, my parents were gonna kill me.

  “They’re jerks,” Whit said as he rolled along the path.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Real jerks.”

  “So...” He paused as if it was my job to fill in the blank.

  “So?”

  “So are you gonna look at the picture?”

  I pulled the Polaroid from my pocket and creased it in half, then quarters.

  Whit shook his head. “Do you even know that girl?”

  A Coke bottle protruded from the dirt beside the path. I tore the picture along each crease, crumpled the squares, then jammed them into the neck of the bottle. I added some dirt, then stepped on the glass until the soft ground swallowed it whole; another treasure lost forever in my castle forest.

  The storybook shafts of sun had dissipated, leaving the woods in stagnant light. As we walked toward the house, I felt a soft poke in my side. I looked down... Whit was offering the Butterfinger.

  I took the candy bar, ate it, and pushed my friend all the way home.

  * * *

  We emerged from the trees just as a burgundy minivan came weaving down the paver-brick driveway. I waved to Mrs. Conrad, Whit’s mom, then gave her a hug when she got out to help with the chair.

  She made a big deal about the scratch on my face. She held my chin, inspected the depth of the cut to rule out stitches, thumbed the bruise around my jowls, and recommended a dab of peroxide and three small bandaids. Good thing she couldn’t see my ribs.

  When I finally convinced her that I wouldn’t drop dead on my way in the house, she kissed my good cheek and helped her son into the passenger seat.

  “Summer in two weeks,” Whit said.

  I nodded and waved. But it wouldn’t be summer without a camera.

  The van’s brake lights drifted left and right, flickered between tree branches, then disappeared completely. Sunday was “family day” in the Parker house–no exceptions–so Whit’s Saturday evening pick-up had become routine.

  I turned around and looked at the castle. It was supposed to be in my movie, The Girl’s final destination, a spectacular set-piece for the epic climax. I already drew the storyboards for the Spielbergian shots for the sword fight between The Girl and the evil prince... but without a camera, I was screwed.

  My fingers grazed the coarse stucco retaining wall that held the dune away from the driveway. I hop-scotched a fallen scooter, a bucket of sidewalk-chalk, and a tipped bag of fertilizer awaiting the geranium trough along the garage.

  I should pause for brief explanation of the castle, as it was one of the few quirks in my otherwise normal childhood.

  With an infant at home, a bun in the oven, and the promise of more foster kids, my parents decided that it was time to upgrade from their two-bedroom apartment above Dad’s architecture firm to a place more appropriate to raise a family. Through her old realty connections, Mom discovered a deal on a 1920’s Spanish-style castle in money-pit disrepair. There were leaks in three rooms. The kitchen was trapped in the seventies with rust-brown linoleum counters and a yellow linoleum floor. The inside walls were slathered in lead-based paint, and the basement was a dungeon, perpetually moist and sprinkled with the gnarled nestings of rats. But it was huge, it was cheap, and it was a beautiful place for kids to grow up.

  Dad agreed that the investment was promising... pending a substantial overhaul of the dilapidated interior. (I don’t recall the exact stage of the do-it-yourself remodel in 1994, but I’m sure there was a layer of sawdust over every flat surface, unfinished drywall scrawled with crayon graffiti, and a mountain of torn carpet in at least one room.)

  The estate sat on the outskirts of a quaint tourist-trap town called Grand Harbor, placing us squarely inside what the elementary playground dubbed “hillbilly township.” The world as I knew it stretched for five miles along the lakeshore, starting with the red lighthouse at the State Park and ending with A.J.’s home on Hickory Street a half-mile south. In between sat Whit’s middle-class suburb, the Township Walmart, and the glorious castle where I grew up.

  Trees hugged the brick structure on three sides, nestling it comfortably atop a dune grass bluff with an extraordinary view of the lake. From the beach, the mansion was intimidating with three steeples of varying heights, mismatched and awkwardly placed windows, a tower that stood higher than the tallest oak, and wrought-iron accents that bestowed the palace with a gothic aura. When the sun dropped just below the horizon, the castle looked majestic; “A little piece of heaven,” marveled my mother’s friends whenever they stopped by. But at night, when the moon cut zagged shadows across the brick and glass, I imagined the house among the eerie fog and lamplit cobblestone streets of Transylvania.

  Woulda been perfect for a movie, I thought.

  A new hummingbird feeder graced the eve above the front door and glistened red in the light from the setting sun. Leo, the stone lion, stood guard. I stroked his mane, thumped his back, and
went inside.

  * * *

  Years later, the smell of basil would remind me of Mara’s eyes; how they matched exquisitely the flicking emerald glass of the tea-candle sitting between my lasagna and her Chianti at the Campanile in LA. But in the mid-nineties, basil meant Mom’s kitchen.

  “What happened to your cheek?” she asked without looking up from the stove. “You know how worried Whitney’s mother gets when you wrestle.”

  “We weren’t wrestling. I just tripped. Where is everybody?”

  “Jake has a time-out in Mom and Dad’s room, Bobby has a time-out in your room, Dad’s in the tower with his head in the clouds, Fantasia’s right behind you–rock her for me?–and Olivia’s in her room with... what’s her name... the redhead?”

  “Kimmy? I thought you said no friends on Saturday nights!”

  Mom looked up but continued to stir. “You want some cheese with that whine? Next week is your sister’s first set of exams and I told her she could study with a friend. Don’t be a little booger tonight, okay? They’re nervous.”

  “I thought exams were for high schoolers.”

  “Junior high too. Do Mom a favor and be sweet to your sister, okay?”

  “I’ll be good.”

  “Pinky promise?”

  Whenever I fly home for the holidays, I make it a point to squeeze my Mother’s shoulders, to calm her hazel eyes, and to ask her about her. Like most “stay-at-homes,” Mom lived for everyone but herself. She was a chameleon of necessity with the ability to morph–seamlessly and without complaint–into whatever roll her family demanded. At once she was a gourmet chef, a fast-food employee, a soccer player, baseball player, frisbee thrower and Monopoly banker; a nutritionist, cab driver, hair-stylist, architecture consultant, surgeon (specializing in sliver removal), lover, mentor, counselor and executioner. She performed her duties despite a low metabolism, high cholesterol, and a weakness for things covered in cheese; she wasn’t fat, but her body fluctuated between varying degrees of “round.” During the nineties, her dimpled thighs went to war with Dr. Atkins, Weight Watchers, Susan Summers and a plethora of “lose forty pounds in two weeks!” yo-yo schemes. But like everything personal, Mom buried her weight issues in a carousel of characters, performing daily routines for her family’s well-being. (Only in writing this book was I able to make these observations; in ‘94, Mom was just a mom.)

  “Yeah, Ma,” I said. “I pinky promise.”

  She balanced her ladle on the pot’s edge, bent down, ran her thumb across my cut, and pecked my forehead. “Go fix up your face and tell Dad dinner’s ready in ten. I love you, Jamesie.”

  I wiped off the kiss and groaned, “Love you too.”

  * * *

  For years, my parents feared I’d never come. After twelve months of failed attempts, Mom was finally diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, a disease that made it difficult to ovulate and, twenty-three years later, is harboring the cancer that’s draining her life. When she lost all hope of giving birth, she quit her job as a realtor and enrolled in a class for foster parents.

  Six months later, Olivia came into their lives. They fostered her from the day she was released from the hospital and adopted her the day the courts allowed. Seventeen days after signing the papers, Mom discovered she was pregnant with me.

  Her love of children (and a knack for stirring spaghetti while burping a baby) yielded a crop of little brothers and sisters for Livy and me; “temporary gifts,” Mom would call them, and when they lived with us, they were family. Bobby and Jake were temporary gifts too, the “on-again-off-again” type whose mother wobbled the line between “stable” and “unfit.” The twins were weasely little rug-rats with no vital affect on my story, but provide a colorful backdrop none-the-less.

  The parlor had green carpet and a tin ceiling and served as the central hub for every room on the main level. The kitchen could be accessed from two open archways separated by a piano that never got played. Livy’s bedroom was on the left. Dad helped her nail a chalkboard to her door so she could “express her individuality”; today it read “KIMMY IS THE COOLEST!!!” and, hidden in the bottom corner, “livy loves ryan!” I could hear her boom-box through the wall, the soft baseline gave the castle a steady pulse. Studying... my butt!

  My room was next in line. A glow-in-the-dark galaxy of stars clung to the door with poster putty. I cracked it–just an inch–and peeked inside. Bobby was in his undies, hugging his knees and sucking his thumb as if my beanbag was a womb.

  “Whadja do?” I asked.

  “J-Jake stole my orange c-c-c-crayon and I dinin’t even do noffin!”

  I grinned and sealed the little jailbird back in my room. I slunk past the library hallway to my parent’s room and pressed gently on the door. Jake was in the fetal position too, wrapped in my father’s robe and sucking his thumb. “Hey, Jake the Snake,” I whispered, “whadja do?”

  He sniffled. “I stole Bobby’s crayon and he punched me in da nose!”

  I snickered and quietly closed the door.

  Next were the two stairwells. An antique iron gate blocked the downward steps on the right. They led to the foyer, garage, playroom and the unfinished guest room. I barreled up the other set with leaps and bounds, zoomed passed the thin windows where I sometimes pretended to be a medieval archer, then emerged into a vast and glorious ballroom with twenty-foot ceilings and awful floral-print carpet. I tugged the lapel of my invisible velvet robe, straightened my jewel-studded crown, bowed to my minions, then strode with lumbering poise to the base of the spiral staircase. “Dad!” I called. “Dinner in ten!”

  Silence. Then, the click of a pen... the thump of a hardcover book... the shallow cry of a wooden chair... five intentional steps above my head and my father appeared at the balcony rail. He wore square glasses–always–and held himself with a scholarly demeanor. Despite his ruffled hair and loosened tie, David Parker was as mild and structured as his blueprints. “I’ll be right down,” he said.

  Believe me when I tell you that–like most boys–I lost all reverence for my father by the time I could drive a stick-shift. But now that I’m older, I find myself reverting to that childhood sense of bridled awe: my dad can do anything. He’s in his sixties now and still a master architect. He’s a carpenter, an artist and a connoisseur of wine, beer, books and film. He’s an avid fishermen, a poet, and an amateur photographer. On his forty-ninth birthday, he went bungee-jumping from a helicopter... probably thought about work the whole way down.

  After Mom bought him a book about Michigan wildlife the Christmas before this story, Dad added “birdwatcher” to his list of interests. The new hobby brought tubs of seed to the garage and more feeders on our property than discarded toys. On weekends he rolled up his blueprints, unlocked the shed, immersed himself in a train wreck of chicken-wire, rope and wood, and tinkered for hours on a more effective means of keeping squirrels off his feeders.

  A month ago, The Grand Harbor Tribune reported a Bald Eagle sighting over the lake and speculated that a whole family of the patriotic birds may have nested in the woods on the outskirts of town. Since the article, Dad spent his spare moments locked in the tower with patient binoculars around his neck and a determined checklist of birds on his lap.

  “That man gets obsessed,” Mom told me. “I love your father like Bush loved this country, but if those gosh-darned eagles don’t show up soon... I’m hiring a plumber to fix the disposal!”

  * * *

  Family dinner.

  The dining-room/living-room combo was a recent addition to the castle and still carried the grainy smell of new carpet. There were seven of us including Kimmy, but Mom was still back and forth from the table to the kitchen, unable to sit until the rest of us were fed.

  My leg bounced beneath the table. At some strategic moment I had to bring up the camcorder, and I still didn’t know if I should tell the truth or lie. I dipped my garlic bread in my milk, sprinkled extra cheese on my noodles, and politely devoured my spaghetti and meat
balls.

  “There goes the Super Nintendo,” Livy said and Kimmy choked on her food to stifle the laugh.

  “Watch it, Princess,” Dad said and eyed her from the head of the table.

  “I’m just sayin’, if he wants his silly game, he could just eat like I do.”

  “It’s called genetics!” I said, then grabbed a meatball and raised my arm like a catapult. I hesitated.

  Multi-colored beads hung at the tips of Livy’s tight braids and rattled when she cocked her head with “you’ve-got-to-be-kidding” annoyance. “Go ahead, Jamesie. Throw it. I’ve never seen you waste a handful of meat before!”

  “Olivia Parker!” Mom said from the kitchen. “Be nice to your brother or Kimmy goes home! James, if you throw that meatball, you’re on toilet duty for a month!”

  Dad glared at me over the rim of his bifocals to reaffirm Mom’s threat, then took a sip of his fancy beer and grinned.

  I lowered my arsenal. “Livy’s just crabby ‘cause of Ryan Brosh.”

  Livy coiled like a pissed off cobra. Her spine tightened, her shoulders constricted into ridged knobs, and she shot me a look so deadly I could taste the venom.

  Her silent attack worked. I slunk to my seat and stuck out my tongue.

  She opened her mouth in retaliation and showed me the creamy red mush of half-chewed pasta.

  The twins giggled and shoveled marinara sauce on their tongues, then opened their mouths too.

  Kimmy snickered.

  Dad cut the tension by clearing his throat. “James, your mother tells me you might have a screening for your summer project?”

  My heart sank like peas in milk. “I told her not to call them. The movie won’t be any good anyways.”

  “If it won’t be good, why did I agree to be the executive producer?”

  I rubbed the blunt end of my fork against the bandaid on my cheek. Think, James! The camera was yours, right? Why should they care what you do with your own stuff?

  That line of reasoning was foolish; my parents let me buy the camcorder to prove my responsibility. Plus, I only paid half... they matched my savings dollar for dollar.

  “The art show is a big deal at The Lakeshore Celebration,” Dad continued. “Mom said she talked them into accepting film submissions this year. We expect a lot from you.”