Half of the Lund Gang. My day’s ruined before it barely began.
Lund perches his wet chin on the side of the concrete pool. “Well, if it ain’t Quinn.”
A whale surfaces, his blowhole sending a stream of water onto my chest—Fat Albert. Nick Lund enjoys a hysterical laughing fit, coughing up pool water from his porpoise mouth hole. Jason dives in over their heads, disappearing to the bottom before surfacing like Sub-Mariner. I’m left alone with Lund and Albert.
“Is Sanders your only friend?” Lund wears a permanent smile like a sharp-toothed hyena.
“Didn’t I see you caddying the other day?”
Shut your fat face, Fat Albert.
“Why the hell are you caddying for?” Lund asks.
“Only once in a while, just to learn about golf.” Why tell anyone from the Hills my only way to pay for college is through a caddy scholarship?
Lund isn’t buying it. “You learn about golf by playing golf.”
“I’m savin’ up some cash.” This is a slippery slope toward disaster.
“For what? A queer disco album?” Lund again.
“Yeah, a disco album. Hilarious.” That’s as far as I want to go with Lund.
Sanders dog-paddles by, clueless about Lund’s taunts as he heads to the diving board at the other end of the pool. Lund pulls himself out of the pool, and we stand toe-to-toe. “You want in to the Fantastic Four?” The Lund Gang’s assumed the identities of the Fantastic Four as follows: Lund—Mr. Fantastic (please), Fat Albert—The Thing, Jack Lott—Human Torch, Jason Sanders—Luke Cage a.k.a. Power Man.
“For real?” A happy dizziness wobbles me off my axis.
Lund assumes jack-knife formation. “I never ask twice.”
“Sure, then.” It’d be boss—no, a life changer—getting into the Fantastic Four. As a freshman in high school this fall, I won’t have to worry about looking over my shoulder to make sure Lund hasn’t stuck a stupid note on my back like he did last December: “I love Sister Martini.” I’d sat through the whole first period in Mr. Crable’s history class wondering why the back of the class thought the Normandy Invasion was such a laugh riot.
Sanders backstrokes to the edge of the pool. “Your buddy here is testing for our gang,” Lund says to him.
“Diving test?” Sanders points to a cloud-high diving board.
“Game on,” Lund replies.
I think ahead to the cool things I’ll be doing with Nick and the boys. Last winter, the Lund Gang scored front-row tickets at Olympia to see the Dead Things (Red Wings) play hockey. Maybe the Wings will be playoff ready when I arrive next season with the Fantastic Four + One.
“Okay, then, Quinn. The test to get in is a front flip from up there.” Lund points to the high dive. “You get sixty seconds.”
“I’ll time it,” Fat Albert says.
At the Kensington Hills public swim club, Rocket and his fiery red hair would launch off the high-dive pad after a running start near the ladder. He would tuck in his limbs and fall straight down like a cliff diver. That’s why we call him Rocket. My problem is that you can’t be afraid of heights if you want to be a space traveler, can you? Heights make my windpipe close and pores water. I normally climb stairs because elevators make me woozy. The kid down the block in a wheelchair, Zach Bartholomew, had dove off a high dive and cracked his cranium on the side of the pool. Joey Mason witnessed the fall and told me the deep end had turned red as a girl’s period. Though Zach is paralyzed from the waist down, he dates a nice-looking girl, Patsy Lindsey, who rides in his lap all day long. I’ve been practicing partial flips on the Olivehammers’ in-ground trampoline. Not the soaring, crazy front and back flips Rocket does, but baby flips just the same. Astronaut-in-training.
In T-minus sixty seconds, I can enter freshman year in the Cool Zoo Crew rather than the Putz Patrol. Rumor has it if you break into the Fantastic Four, you have your pick of super heroes, since the three have been taken and the fourth’s the Invisible Girl. As I circle the pool toward the diving board, my mind rifles through the superheroes in my comic book collection at home. I narrow it down to three: Iron Man, Captain America, The Question.
I scale the high-dive ladder, hanging on for dear life with each nauseated rung, and enter Apollo’s Command Module headed for the moon’s gravity. I step up on the board with my knees shaking, amble onto the launching pad, eyes half closed from fear, telling myself not to gaze down. A stiff wind sweeps across my waistline, and I reach back, grabbing the top of the ladder to steady myself.
Two steps.
The board dips from my weight with each lurch toward oblivion, like it’s made of papier-mâché. The boys whoop with laughter down below, their heads bobbing in and out of the deep end. At the end of the diving platform, I stop and open my eyes wide, still afraid to peer down into the abyss.
“Twenty, nineteen, eighteen, seventeen…”
I freeze from fear and survey the view of this world from up here. Lunar land rovers posing as golf carts. An oasis of purple-green grass dotted with craters filled with ivory sand. The golfers and caddies on Number 7—the farthest hole from the clubhouse—are specks on a green page. A group strolls up close on Number 18. A caddy stoops over from the weight of the bag, arches his chin my way before handing his golfer a putter.
You only have ten seconds left. T-Minus nine, eight, seven, six. Just climb back down the ladder.
“Five, four, three …”
Two. One. Ignition. Think three feet above the trampoline. Boosters firing. Blast off. Suspended in space. Head over heels. Tuck. Spin. Flip.
Plummet.
Legs tad beyond vertical.
Plunge.
Stomach meets my esophagus.
Splash!
Skull fractures wide open.
Sink.
Dead weight hurtles to the bottom.
Quinn has landed. One big splash for Ford, a giant typhoon for Quinnkind.
I tunnel up for air through the bubbling water, fighting toward oxygen and the new life that awaits me on the surface. Before surfacing, I make my decision. Definitely The Question. I pop up the side pool ladder and onto the concrete surface with the strength of He-Man. Yeah. Forget The Question and his tattered trench coat. Call me the naked-chested He-Man. Three of the Fantastic Four stand by the edge of the pool, dripping wet next to their new superhero.
“Awesome dive,” Sanders remarks.
“I guess he’s in,” Fat Albert says, turning his head toward a tight-lipped Lund.
Sanders holds up his hand, and I gave him an epic high five. “Pick your superhero. Aquaman? Green Lantern?”
“Nope.” Lund crosses his arms and shakes his head. “Not even close, Quinn. You didn’t complete a whole flip. You landed on your ass. You’re supposed to hit the water hands first. Plus, you were one second late by my count.”
“Nick, he came close enough,” Jason Sanders says.
“We’re the Fantastic Four,” Lund spits back. “There’s no such thing as the Fantastic Five, anyway. Plus, the Human Torch isn’t here to vote in a new member.” Jack Lott would have voted for me, but he’s probably playing tennis at his club.
“By my count he made it, Nick.”
I knew I could count on Jason!
“Fine, Batgirl.” He nods to Sanders. “You two can be the Dynamic Douchebags. C’mon, Fat Albert, let’s catch a sauna and”—he snaps a towel at Fat Albert’s meaty thigh—“burn some of your fat ass off.”
Lund whispers something into Fat Albert’s ear that elicits a gargantuan-sized grin from The Thing. “Sanders, are you coming or staying with Captain Caddy with his amazing ball-washing ability?”
Sanders tilts in the wind. Lund grabs a green-striped towel, wraps it around his tan neck, and saunters toward the clubhouse. Fat Albert takes one step to follow Lund before thrusting his bulkhead around and shoving
his two large hands into my chest.
Capsize.
Drowning.
Touching bottom.
Rising back to sea level from the abyss, I break the surface of the water and find myself alone. Sanders has abandoned ship. I try to be mad at Jason but can’t blame him. Lund has some kind of control over him. Why does Jason Sanders need Lund? Power of a group leader. Think Jim Jones serving cyanide-laced Kool-Aid in Guyana to his followers at the Peoples Temple. I realize that I could have performed a double flip within five seconds and Lund still wouldn’t have baptized me into his cult. Did I really think he was going to let a caddy into his exclusive club?
Rich kids don’t caddy. They use caddies. I can forget the Dumb Lund Gang.
fter being denied entrance into the Fantastic Four, I sulk in my room and decide to write a hateful poem to vent my anger.
Nick’s a gnarly prick, and I’d like to stick a picket up his wicket.
A stake penetrates my heart. I notice that a thin empty space the size of the spine of a spiral notebook exists between The Outsiders and Salem’s Lot, but it might as well be a mile wide. The next hour is spent turning my room upside down.
Nothing.
Kate! I rush into her room and rummage through it, finding nothing except her diary, which is locked. Another half hour rifling through her things, but I can’t find the key or my notebook, so I kidnap her diary for ransom. Who else could have stolen my notebook? Billy could care less about my life, Mom never cleans my room, Chimney can’t read, so the only suspect left is Kate.
Then it strikes me out of the blue. Cleo? We’d rushed out of my room so fast, maybe she grabbed it on the way out the door. Not sure why she would do that. One thing does dawn on me: Kate threw a huge sleepover the other night with tons of girlfriends. Practically the whole neighborhood showed up, so I slept over at Rocket’s house.
After an hour of simmering panic, I walk Chimney uptown in a dark, vile mood and tie her leash to a lamppost in front of Olga’s Kitchen. I order the usual three things from Olga’s helpers: three-cheese Olga, plain original Olga with ketchup only, baklava for dessert.
Nothing cheers me up more than Olga food. I leave with a crumbling baklava after I see the Lund Gang in the back of the restaurant. Nick Lund’s giving Peter Lattimore’s younger brother a nuclear nuggie while Fat Albert holds the helpless kid’s arms behind his back.
On the sidewalk, a man in a Levi vest is petting Chimney. He owns a mustache and sideburns down to his jawline. I untie Chimney’s leash from the lamppost, but my dog doesn’t twitch a muscle, just sits at attention for the man. Chimney normally wouldn’t sit for the King of Prussia.
Is this guy trying to pinch my pooch?
The man removes his thumbs from his vest pockets. “This your dog?”
“What’s it to you?”
He smooths my dog’s wrinkled coat. “I know this dog.”
“She gets ’round.” Get lost, buddy.
He crouches down and rubs under Chimney’s chin. “No. I mean I trained her.”
“Not possible.” Chimney knows one trick—fetch. “It’s like she hears a foreign language when people speak to her.”
“Roll over!” Chimney rolls over.
Maybe he’s hypnotized her. The original Olga, Virginia’s substitute bridge partner, strolls by, heading for her kitchen.
“Play dead!” Chimney plays dead on the hot concrete, tongue hanging out and panting. The man pulls a dog biscuit out of his pants pocket and gives it to Chimney. He has my attention. Chimney doesn’t follow commands from some stranger. I figure this is one of those scenarios you hear on the news every so often. Mother gives up baby for adoption and now wants her back a year and five hundred diaper changes later. There’s no goddamn way this creep is stealing my Chimney away from me.
I tug on her leash, itching to get away as fast as I can before Nick and Fat Albert ruin my lunch. “We have to go.”
“Too bad we had to let your dog go from the training center.” The man puts his thumbs back into his vest pocket. Chimney sits frozen in front of him, waiting for another command. “You don’t know?”
God pulls the trigger on his sunray gun, and shafts of light strike my forehead. Olga rushes out the door with a mountain of Styrofoam, leaking vapors from lamb and beef piled high in her arms. Chimney’s nostrils quiver, but her eyes remain fixed on her master.
The man won’t let up. “Tank is a cancer dog.”
“Her name is Chimney.” I follow Olga’s Olgas down the maple-lined street.
“Wait!” he shouts. “I’m a medical dog trainer. I train dogs to detect cancer in humans. Tank—or rather Chimney here—was good, but we couldn’t keep her because she kept chewing up the furniture.”
That sounds like Chimney.
“Well, tell Kate I said hello.” The man starts to stroll away.
Kate? “Wait. Did you say Kate?”
The man stops. “Yes. Your sister came and got her. I guess she never told you?”
A dreadful thought occurs to me, and I think I might piss my pants. “How does Chimney know someone has cancer?” Chimney pants in the heat, her rubbery tongue unfurling onto the sidewalk. I spot a Styrofoam hat turning left at the Kresge corner.
“She can smell it.” His finger touches his nose. “Blood, kidney, bladder. All sorts.”
An electric eel crawls up my spine. No wonder Chimney’s obsessed with Cleo. I break out in a cold James Brown sweat. Cleo. “I gotta go.”
An evil hoot of laughter jerks my ear to the door. Nick Lund marches out of Olga’s with Fat Albert trailing behind, an Olga burger falling out of his blubbery mouth. “Quinn. Where the hell are you going? I got something for you.” Nick holds up his thumb and two fingers in nuggie pose. Fat Albert grins and nods his head in approval. I wish Chimney was trained to kill, but I have more important things to deal with than those two bozos.
It’s an exhausting sprint home. Cleo has cancer? I debate telling Mom, but she’ll think I’m crazy. What if the guy is putting me on, and it’s all some gag? I’ll be the laughingstock of the neighborhood.
Why would a guy make a thing like that up? Out of breath, I stop running and wonder what to do. Kate will know for sure, because she found Chimney.
I find my sister in the mudroom sorting Rainbow vacuum cleaner accessory boxes containing extension wands, power nozzles, and dusting brushes. She’s become Virginia’s little sales disciple. I snatch a box from her hand. “Did you know Chimney’s a cancer dog?”
“Yes, that’s why I picked her.” She grabs the box out of my hand, and hoses uncoil onto the floor. “I’m a Cancer, too.”
“That’s true. You are a cancer.”
She stacks boxes over her head; Virginia’s inventory has filled the mudroom from floor to ceiling. “Yes. We are very loyal and able to empathize with other people’s pain and suffering.” She’d lifted this line from the placemats at Ping’s China Express, where Billy had been fired for sticking chopsticks up both of his nostrils and then handing them out to customers. “You can leave now.”
“OH MY GOD, Kate. Really? Chimney is a cancer dog, as in the illness. NOT THE ZODIAC SIGN!”
A box of Aquamates crash to the floor. “Chimney has cancer?”
“Forget it, Kate.” Damn if Chimney isn’t a cancer dog, after all. I run out the door with no time to waste.
On the front step of Cleo’s Gothic-style house with its blue slate roof and turret, I freeze with fear. How do you tell someone they might have cancer? Or that they might die? A voice trickles down from the upstairs window. “Giff? Is that really you?” Rapunzel? “I’ll come down in a sec.”
I reach the front door just as Cleo’s mother yanks it open. She stands sternly with her hands on her hips, wearing a cropped and fluffed Princess of Wales haircut. “Can I help you, young man?”
“I’m here for Cleo
. So is my dog.” I know it sounds dumb, but that’s how it spills out of my mouth.
“Cleo can’t see anyone because she’s not feeling well.” She points her needle nose at Chimney. “And she’s allergic to dogs.”
“That’s why I’m here.” I take a step toward the door. “You need to take Cleo to the doctor.”
“Excuse me?” She starts to close the door.
Cleo comes down the stairs and wedges her thin frame between the door and her mother. “We’ve been to a million doctors, Giff … She thinks it’s up here,” Cleo says, pointing to her head.
I lose my grip on Chimney’s leash, and she charges forward, bumping past Cleo’s mother, barking at her daughter.
“You need to control your dog, young man.” She nudges Chimney back out the door with her foot. Cleo tries to step onto the front porch, but her mother blocks her with the back of her hand. “What’s going on?”
“Chimney doesn’t usually bark at anyone.”
Cleo’s mother bares her teeth, and Chimney growls in response. “Well, she’s barking at my daughter!”
I shake my head. “You don’t understand. Chimney was trained as a medical dog.” I’m not about to tell her she might have cancer. “I think she’s trying to tell you something, Cleo.”
Her mother’s eyes throw darts at me. “I know my daughter better than you and your silly dog.” The door slams in my face.
I sigh. What kind of fool am I thinking she’d believe a kid and cancer-bloodhound dog? I sit down on their stoop, thinking of what my next move is to save Cleo, and hear Cleo’s window shut above my head along with her mother’s muffled, angry voice before finally pulling Chimney down the front walk as she scrapes her paw nails on the concrete. After I arrive home, I decide to ask the only doctor I know on Dot Ave for help.
The neighborhood therapist from next door. Dr. Lorraine Clark.
Looper Page 9