Looper

by Michael Conlon

  “A hummingbird? Huh. I like that.” Her pupils drift up toward the ceiling. “You’re not like other boys, are you, Giff?”

  That’s what I think about her—that she’s not like other girls. She smiles, seems satisfied, and squeezes my hand tight. Her eyelids droop before closing.

  I hold her hand for another good twenty minutes. Just Cleo, me, and our forty-two grams of soul. And eighty-five pounds of a sleeping Chimney.

  Twenty minutes later, a nurse dressed in blizzard white pulls a cart full of liquid vials, pill bottles, and a glass of water backward into the room. She flips open a patient chart, spills four pills out, and crushes the pills into dust, all while her back is turned to me. A glass of water is filled with powder. I mouth to a sleeping Cleo, We need to get you out of this place.

  Florence Nightingale turns, startled, and drops the glass on the floor, shattering an ocean of pill water on the floor, causing Chimney to jump out of bed and lap up the dusty puddle. My life turns into a slow-motion reel as I make eye contact with the nurse while grabbing my dog’s leash, which slips from my hand, and I rush after Chimney, who’s galloped out the door and slid sideways past Cleo’s mother, who’s entering the room wearing a mask of pure hatred.

  “You!”

  A mad dash through the hall chasing a blur of fur, past a man who looks familiar, but I don’t have time to exchange pleasantries. I lunge for the end of the dog leash, then I’m yanked on my stomach toward the cancer hall led by hound nostrils. I reach an open exit door, pound down three flights of stairs, scramble through the lobby and a sea of wheelchairs, white uniforms, and gawking onlookers, and burst out into the parking lot as Dr. Clark drives away in her battered VW Beetle. I don’t bother trying to flag her down.

  Chimney’s looking sluggish and thirsty, so I take a small detour toward the cider mill located on this side of town, where I know they have a dog-drinking fountain next to a plaque that says “Gristmill Est., 1837.” I have to practically drag her to the mill, wondering what’s wrong with her, then I recall the drug-laced water she lapped up in Cleo’s room. She takes a few sips and collapses on the ground, falling into a deep coma sleep.

  After gorging on a gallon of cider fumes and imaginary donuts waiting for Chimney to revive, I worry about what’s going to happen to Cleo if left to her mother in that psych ward. They should just let Cleo work through whatever it is that’s making her sick and not fill her with poison like her mom wants to. But what do I know? I’m no doctor. She seems perfect enough to me, and no one’s perfect anyway despite some parents trying to raise them that way. Sometimes I wonder if country and hunt club kids like Cleo, Jason, Jack, and even Nick have it harder in some ways than the rest of us because their parents expect too much out of them, with their moms and dads devoting too much time fiddling with their kids’ heads and lives. Pop would have fallen under this umbrella as a kid, and it might explain a lot about him.

  Owen Rooney told me he hardly sees his dad because he’s too busy working the late shift at the GM assembly plant and sleeping all day at the Palms. And if you ask me, Owen’s turned out all right. Loves music, caddying, video games, cycles, all things mod. And as far as I can tell—life. I ponder all of this and lean up against an oak tree to watch the flowing, muddy creek water and wonder if I should stop uptown on my way home to buy a new notebook to write some of these thoughts into a new poem.

  But then I think again. Owen and Rocket are a bit alike: They just “do” and don’t think. Maybe people like Cleo and I think way too much about life.

  he weeks go by, and I fall into a routine. If I don’t go to the Palms Motel after caddying, I usually go straight home to take a nap. Waking early and carrying a bag for eight hours makes you exhausted. One Tuesday in mid-July, I crash on the couch after carrying a second loop in the blazing afternoon sunshine. Chimney’s dead to the world on the floor, and Lost in Space is playing on TV. Penny is in a tizzy because her pet space monkey Debbie has escaped from the Jupiter 2.

  Pop comes home red faced and flushed, sees me sprawled against the cushions, my eyelids half shut. He shuts off the TV and declares, “Boy, you guys are useless around here. I’m getting the hell out of here!”

  I don’t know where he went or why he left. I’d been up since 6:30. How much has he worked today? I’m the only one with a full-time job in the family.

  Pop’s exodus hit me hard. He’d left in rages in the past but always came back before dawn. Maybe he’s gone for good this time. His job isn’t going well; I know that because he comes home every day around three or four o’clock. Most Kensington dads don’t do that. There’s only one thing I can think of that would make him this upset: the side lot plot.

  During Pop’s absence, Rocket’s mom, Mrs. Olivehammer, sits vigil with Virginia on our brick patio. Every late afternoon they slug down tea, whisper, and laugh out loud into the fading sunlight.

  By day four, Virginia straightens up and discards her tissues and is recruited by Mrs. Olivehammer into her burgeoning army of door-to-door sales moms of the National Mix-Fare Federation. No more Rainbow vacuum sales. Before Pop returns from the village of Godknowswhere, our mudroom floor has grown knee-high with boxes of various Mix-Fare products—chocolate powder, plastic shakers, skin lotion, cleaning liquid, fruit bars, and Mix-Fare this and Mix-Fare that. Dr. Clark becomes Mom’s first customer, buying liters of something called Super-V, an earth-friendly cleaning product good for dishes, floors, counters, and even mouthwash. Mom’s enthusiasm and the thought of drinking milkshakes all day gives me the itch to work for her home-based business instead of lugging a golf bag around for hours in the humid Michigan weather.

  One morning, I pick up the Mix-Fare milkshake mixer, pour brown granules into a plastic container, and pull a milk carton out of the fridge. “Virginia, I think I’ll sell shakes to my friends instead of caddying.” Milk goes into the mixer, and I give it a firm shake.

  Virginia is flipping through a manual on the merits of Mix-Fare pyramid sales. “No, Ford, you’ve got a job. Mix-Fare can’t give you a college scholarship, but caddying can.”

  I gulp down some Mix-Fare chocolate shake. “You don’t get caddying—”

  “Now, listen to me, Ford—”

  “But, Mom—”

  “Don’t ‘Mom’ me. Your father never got his college degree, and look where it got him.” She picks up the Holy Redeemer directory, a treasure trove of future Mix-Fare recruits, and writes down names in her sales notebook. “How could I have forgotten the Pinkertons? They know everyone in town.” She plucks a pencil from behind her ear and scribbles down their name into her book.

  “Why’d Pop leave?” I surprise myself by asking this, but I’m not a little kid anymore.

  She presses hard with the pencil, and the tip breaks. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  Virginia closes her notebook. “The neighbors are fighting the lot split.”

  Mom tells me Laney Carter’s dad from across the street is a lawyer and has started a petition opposing Pop’s zoning variance. One evening, I see Mr. Carter and his long, crooked neck in his brown suit and bow tie, carrying a clipboard, knocking on doors, his head tilting to one side like he was edging the grass with his earlobe.

  All of our neighbors sign the petition except for the Clarks and the Olivehammers. Pop hates lawyers and now despises almost everyone on the block.

  A week later, I’m woken up by a wonderful smell and know he’s back home. I’m relieved and go downstairs, a bit scared of what he might say to me or I might say to him. Bacon is piled high on a plate covered by a piece of paper towel to soak up the grease. He turns away from the oven, and all he says is “Hey, Fordo. One egg or two?” like he’d never left. That’s all right with me. I’m glad he’s home and the “D” word hasn’t been uttered.

  For a short while, even Pop gets sucked into the Mix-Fare sales frenzy, and Mom is cashing in her chips from h
is leave of absence. Soon he is delivering boxes around the neighborhood to Mrs. Dee with the trampoline on Derbyshire Road, and Mrs. Lynch on Rutland Grove. She even drags him to a sales meeting to hear the latest marketing pitch and to learn about the new product line. The Mix-Fare squeeze mop has been scientifically designed to spread Super-V cleanser over every horizontal surface of your house. There were late-night meetings with friends, Mom trying to build her sales force after a bridge game, repeating the mantra of sales multiples while touting the success of her competitor, the giant of all door-to-door sales, Amway. “They’re selling product in Japan! Do you have any friends overseas?”

  For a moment, I thought we were going to be living on easy street, and paying for college would be like buying a Mars bar. Pop would no longer mope around the house and could join the Kensington Hills Country Club set instead of playing golf at the nine-hole municipal dog tracks. Mom has actually done the impossible, I tell myself. The combination of Mom’s self-help philosophy and the Mix-Fare Federation proves as unstoppable as Godzilla in downtown Tokyo.

  I never saw Mr. Fitz and his silver convertible parked in our driveway again. The Kensington Hills zoning board denied Pop’s variance. Kate’s elm trees and my TV room are safe from the buzz saw for now. Pop railed on and on about lawyers, how he hated Carter, and how he was going to plot his revenge on our spiteful neighbors. Now he refuses to acknowledge the existence of any of the “petition-signing Dorchester rodents” as he calls them. He keeps a list in the den drawer, and I catch Pop reading it over every so often with knife eyes. He talked about running for the zoning board but didn’t carry it through. What else is new? He hates politicians worse than lawyers. There’s only one person he despises more than Carter and his backstabbing neighbors: Mr. Fitz.

  The way Virginia described it to me, Carter had carved up Mr. Fitz at the zoning hearing, chewed a mouthful, and spit him out at the feet of the board members. Instead of arguing the merits of the variance, Carter exposed Mr. Fitz as an unscrupulous land developer intending to turn the idyllic Hills into high-density urban sprawl. Carter handed the seven male board members a purchase agreement showing Mr. Fitz’s intention of developing low-income housing on the western edge of the Hills on forty postage-stamp parcels.

  Pop pounded his fist on the table. “What’s that got to do with the fifteen square feet of my land?”

  Seven—zero. Variance denied. No lot split. No pay day for the Quinns. As the chairman’s gavel sealed the verdict, Pop’s outstretched hands reached to straighten Carter’s crooked neck. Mr. Fitz slowed his attack with a hip check. The gavel fell hard a second time.

  “Order!” A young man seeking a variance for a circle driveway subdued Pop.

  A week later, Pop received a restraining order, prohibiting him from coming within fifty feet of Mr. Carter. Pop’s blood always simmered on the surface of his vessels, but the Carter affair raised his blood temperature to a constant boil on Dot Ave. The Carters become arch enemy number one.

  For months, Virginia had been pestering Billy about taking the college entrance exam. With his land deal dead, Pop turns to Billy while we sit around the dining room table eating pork chops and Rice-A-Roni.

  Pop cuts into his pork chop like he’s sawing a piece of wood. “You’re taking the SAT.”

  “No, I’m not, Pop.” He throws me a “shut your mouth about the Rubik’s Cube” glare.

  Chimney and I sit on the sidelines. Her tail stiffens—a sign that another Quinn storm is brewing from the living room. Fluffy paws an imaginary villain.

  “You can’t get into a four-year college without taking it,” Virginia pleads with my brother.

  Billy pokes at his rubber broccoli. “They only test you on math and verbal.”

  “What the hell else is there?” Pop asks.

  “You wouldn’t get it.”

  “I do.”

  “Fordo, you better stay out of this.” Billy narrows his eyes at me, warning me again not to reveal the Rubik’s Cube incident. I understood what Billy means. Standardized tests don’t measure your ability to solve Rubik’s Cube or navigate north or south if you’re dropped in the middle of the Iranian desert like our guys who tried to save the hostages. Billy’s a walking compass.

  “Goddamn it, Billy,” Pop says. “For once you’re going to apply yourself and take this test. Your future’s at stake.”

  “You mean your future.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Billy stands, biting his lip. “You just want to tell the neighbors or whoever that I’m going to college and not some dropout.”

  “He hates all our neighbors,” Mom says.

  Pop’s face turns Mars red, and he comes around the table. Billy brushes his long hair out of his eyelashes, pushes his chair from the table, and stands toe-to-toe with Pop. Two Quinns ready to come to blows.

  “What are you going to do, hit me?” Billy dares, knowing Pop has never done such a thing. Mom pushes herself in between them. Pop backs away. Just a bluff on both sides.

  “You’re just afraid you’ll fail like with everything else you’ve ever done.”

  “Howard!”

  “I’ll bet you a car”—Billy cocks his head—“that I score better than half the dopes who take that stupid test.”

  “It’s settled, then,” Mom says, satisfied with the resolution.

  “Believe me, I’m not too worried.” Pop storms out of the room, red faced.

  Later that night, Billy knocks on my door. “We’re closed.”

  Billy steps into my room. All of my baseball cards that I keep in two Dutch Masters cigar boxes are on the floor, and I’m sorting through my favorite teams in order of preference. Tigers. Red Sox. Athletics. Reds. Orioles. “Can I borrow a hundred bucks?” he says.

  The last time I gave Billy money was in the sixth grade, and the next thing I knew he’d gotten suspended from school for God knows what. “A hundred dollars?” Simple math tells me that’s ten loops. “What the hell for?”

  “I’m getting a tutor for this stupid SAT test. I need to cram four years of high school into thirty days.” He hangs his head down, and I know he’s thinking I’ll fall for whatever stupid reason he gives me for coughing up my money just because he’s my brother. “If you lend me the money, I’ll give you a ride with my new car anywhere you want at any time. No questions asked. It’ll be like you have your own set of wheels.”

  “You swear?”

  He puts his hand up. “Scout’s honor.”

  Billy had been thrown out of Boy Scout’s for setting some fake plastic army men on fire. “Throw in your Ernie Banks card.”

  “My Ernie Banks?” Billy shakes his head. “No way. You know that’s my most valuable card. How about Boog Powell’s rookie card?”

  I think of a smiling Ernie with his baseball bat on his shoulder in a pressed blue-and-white Chicago Cubs uniform. The card from 1957 must be worth a pretty penny. “Ernie Banks ... deal or no deal.”

  “Deal,” he says and gives me a fake slow-motion punch in the jaw.

  Billy’s brilliance will surely show through on the test. Even if he scores pretty average on the test, he could get into some college, and that would shut Pop up. I can’t imagine Billy still living at home while I go to high school and the two of them bickering about whatever. Once I reach eighteen, I plan to get out of Dodge as fast as possible.

  I go downstairs that night to circle the date on the calendar for Billy’s SAT test. Virginia has beaten me to the punch, circling the date in red and writing next to the date a quote from Osmond P. Peabody: “Don’t hold yourself back in life! Take courage and leap forward, for greatness might await you just around the corner!” I stare at those words and wonder if those are really for Virginia, not Billy. Poor Mom. She tries to rub some of her positive potion onto Billy’s oily skin. I don’t have the heart to tell her the truth, but if I had to spout a bit of ph
ilosophy of my own, I’d scribe this in my lost spiral poetry notebook:

  And stoners are dreamers,

  not doers,

  And grinders are doers

  not thinkers,

  But thinkers that tinker,

  End up driving gull-winged DeLoreans.

  Stuff that in your self-help pipe and smoke it, OPP.

  With Cleo undergoing round-the-clock medical exams, I hunker down at the club, waiting for her healthy and happy return. My life becomes one big hamster wheel or an all-day pass on the Corkscrew at Cedar Point—a loop-the-loop. Get up, caddy thirty-six holes, gulp down chocolate milk and gobble tasty Myrtle dogs, fall asleep exhausted, rinse and repeat. My shoulders become as hard as an iron manhole, my thigh muscles toned taut, my light brown hair bleached streaky blond. Three straight weeks of nothing but caddying and endless golf on my Mondays off. I’m becoming one of the reliable troops among the Green Shirts.

  Once you’re used to carrying a bag and marching and up and down hills all day, you can relax and actually notice your surroundings. Like the different hues grass can take on depending upon the weather, the time of day, or even the length of the cut by the grounds crew. Short grass on the greens is the color of caterpillars or green apples, the fairway a praying mantis, the longer rough a turtle shell.

  A golf course has its own ecosystem, like an island or the surface of a planet or a zoo without cages. A narrow creek crisscrosses the course filled with trout, sandy craters scattered about, muskrats, willows and maples, oaks, and pine trees, all species of butterflies, including black swallowtails, goldfish, and box turtles in the pond on sixteen. Frogs, birds, geese, squirrels, rabbits, the fox den next to the woods on Number 5, gophers you never see except for their holes, garter snakes, red-shouldered hawks, woodpeckers, slugs, worms, beetles, ants, and every flying insect you can think of like dragonflies, bees, and Tiger moths.