Okay for Now

  My brother watched her leave. He just stood there, watching her back as she worked at dishes in the sink. He stood there a long time. Then he said something she didn't hear, dared me to say anything—just one little thing—and went upstairs.

  I did my homework at the wobbly kitchen table. Mostly Mrs. Verne's stuff. And copying a map of the Mississippi River from Geography: The Story of the World—which I want you to know was still as clean and perfect as the day Mr. McGraw-Hill sewed the cover on. I also drew costumes of the samurai tradition of Japan, where we'd gone with Mr. McElroy after we left China. And of course, I did a few pages of Jane Eyre, who was settling in at Mr. Rochester's house even though he hadn't shown up yet. At least, I think he hadn't shown up.

  I took my time.

  When I finally did go upstairs, all the lights were off and my brother was in bed. The covers were drawn up over his head.

  You know, when someone has been crying, something gets left in the air. It's not something you can see, or smell, or feel. Or draw. But it's there. It's like the screech of the Black-Backed Gull, crying out into the empty white space around him. You can't hear it when you look at the picture. But that doesn't mean it isn't there.

  The trees were reddening and yellowing. You could see the color moving like a slow tide down the hills that rose on both sides of stupid Marysville. One day it was only the trees toward the top ridges, and then the next the color was coming down, first where the trees stood mostly by themselves, and then in bigger patches of red and yellow, until the green was holding out only in the cut-ins on the hills. And then when the tops started to thin out and you could see the bare rock beneath them, the red and yellow reached the bottoms of the hills, and then the trees around town colored quickly, like they didn't want to miss the parade.

  Except the trees around The Dump. Their leaves turned brown and dropped.

  Terrific.

  My mother and I raked them across the front dirt and burned them in the street. Do you know what that smells like?

  "It's the smell of fall," said my mother. "Lucas used to love to play in the leaves before we burned them. He'd rake them up, and jump in and scatter them all, and rake them all up again, and jump in again, until he was covered in bits and pieces of leaves. Then he'd come get me, and we'd burn the piles, and he'd stand there all serious and still, like he was watching something far away."

  She shifted some of the leaves closer to the low flames.

  "He'll be back soon," I said.

  "I know he will."

  I looked at her face.

  She was watching something far away too.

  "I hope there isn't any more trouble," she said.

  And so you know, that's what I was thinking about in PE these days. I didn't want there to be any more trouble, mostly because my mother already had enough. So I was really trying not to get sent to visit Principal Peattie again, even though it would almost have been worth it to see the Brown Pelican. But I was really trying. No funny business. No sirree, buster.

  And things were going okay, even though Coach Reed and I didn't talk much. We were finishing up the Apparatus Unit, which meant messing around on leather horses and parallel bars and ropes and the high bar, which people who are skinny and wiry like yours truly can do without breaking a sweat. Not that Coach Reed would ever say anything to me about that in a million million years. I could have thrown a triple-somersault full-layout dismount, and he wouldn't have said a thing. Pretty much he walked around the gym and hollered at Otis Bottom or someone else and he wouldn't talk with me and I wouldn't talk with him and then he'd tell us to line up in platoons and he wouldn't look at me.

  Which was fine. No trouble.

  Until the day he announced that he didn't feel like spotting us for another hour, so we should line up and he'd count off two teams and we'd play basketball, and he divided us into Shirts and Skins, and I got on the Skins team and Coach Reed went into his office and I walked over to the Shirts team and asked James Russell if he'd trade and he said "Sure" and so we did and Coach Reed must have been watching because he came back out of his office, yes sirree, buster, and he was not a happy coach.

  He wondered what I thought I was doing. Sergeant's voice.

  I pointed out—and I think I pointed this out politely—that I thought I was about to play basketball.

  He told me—and I don't think he did this politely at all—that I should shut my mouth and get over to the Skins team.

  Is this starting to sound familiar?

  Then James Russell said that he had switched with me.

  Coach Reed told James Russell that he wasn't talking to him and he should mind his own business and then he looked back at me and wondered if we hadn't already been through all of this before and hadn't I learned anything at all?

  I could have said that I'd learned a whole lot. The periodic table and Jane Eyre and even the location of the Brown Pelican. But I didn't say anything, which is important for you to know so that you don't blame me for what happened.

  Coach Reed guessed that I hadn't learned anything at all, but he was going to give me a chance now. He told James Russell to put his shirt back on and get over to the Shirts team, and when James said he was fine on the Skins team, Coach Reed gave him the kind of look that said he was going to gut him if he spoke one more word.

  James put his shirt on and went over to the Shirts team. "Sorry," he whispered when he walked by me.

  "Shut your face," Coach Reed said to him.

  Then Coach Reed—who is the kind of person that Joe Pepitone would probably want to pound into the dirt with his baseball bat—looked at me again.

  "Get over to the Skins team," he said. Growled, really.

  I shrugged. What was I supposed to do? I walked over to the Skins team.

  You can see I was really trying.

  "With your shirt off, Swieteck. You have to have your shirt off if you're on the Skins team."

  I looked around at the two teams. "I think we're all smart enough to remember who's on our team," I said. "It's not like we're gym teachers or something."

  Okay. So, there I wasn't really trying. I guess that was sounding like Lucas.

  Coach Reed said, "Over there now," in a kind of double sergeant's voice. Each word slow. And apart. And long. Carrying a whole lot of atomic weight.

  "So are you going to shoot me if I don't?" I said.

  I think Coach Reed crossed the floor almost without touching it, and the words "Who do you think you're talking to" filled the gym.

  He reached for my shoulder, but when he reached, I pulled back, and all he got was my PE uniform shirt.

  Maybe that was what he wanted anyway.

  And I don't know if it was him reaching or me pulling back, but whatever it was, the whole stupid gym shirt got torn right down, the whole way.

  Everything in the gym stopped—again. But this time, it wasn't because I was mouthing off to Coach Reed. It was because of what they saw.

  And what they saw—it's not any of your stupid business.

  It got around the whole stupid school in probably a minute and a half. When I walked down the hall after PE, it was like I was in a circle of silence. Ahead of me, people would be talking and laughing their heads off, and then they'd see me and stop talking. They'd hold their mouths shut like the funniest thing in the whole stupid world had just happened and they wanted to bust out talking about it but they couldn't until I walked by. So they'd watch until I got past them, and then wait a couple of seconds, and then I'd hear them start up again, laughing their heads off, and talking, but low enough so I couldn't hear exactly.

  You know what this feels like?

  When I got to Mr. Ferris's class, I walked in the door to this: Otis Bottom was standing over a group of guys—and he's tall, so he can look pretty threatening—and he was saying, "Shut up, just shut up," and Mr. Ferris was going over to calm things down, I guess, when everyone saw me come in and everything went that eerie quiet.

  Mr. Ferris looked at m
e for a second and then said, "Let's all sit down and get started," except that I turned around and walked out. He came to the door and called after me, and I started running.

  So did he.

  We reached the front doors of Washington Irving Junior High School at the same time.

  He grabbed the bar handle so I couldn't open it.

  He grabbed the bar handle of the next door so I couldn't open it.

  And the next.

  I reared back and hit him in the stomach as hard as I could. I know: After School Detention for Life. Didn't care.

  He grabbed my arm. (So I was crying by now. So what? So what?) He walked me across the school lobby. Slammed through the auditorium doors. Shouted to the Washington Irving Junior High School Brass Quintet that they'd have to go practice somewhere else—Now!—which they did, in a hurry. He pushed me down into one of the auditorium chairs. Sat next to me. He said, "Tell me."

  I tried to get up and he pushed me back down.

  "Tell me," he said again. So I did.

  How my father came home late on the night of my twelfth birthday, and how he'd missed everything because he'd been with Ernie Eco. How he sounded when my mother told him that. How he came up into my room with beer on his breath and told me we were going someplace for my birthday present and I should get dressed right now. How I said he didn't have to and he smacked me and said he'd better not have to tell me again. How he'd taken me past my mother, who wasn't smiling. How we got into the beery car and he gunned it and said hadn't I always said I wished I could have a tattoo like Lucas did? Hadn't I? I nodded because I was afraid not to. How we arrived at the mostly dark place and got out of the car and I said I wanted to go home but he looked at me with beer in his eyes and said I better get in there so I did. How I lay down on this couch and my father talked with this guy and they laughed and my father covered my eyes with his beery hands because this was a present and he was picking out a real surprise and this fat sweaty guy bent over me and I could smell and feel him close when he pulled up my shirt. How it started and I said it hurt and my father pushed me down with his hand over my eyes and said I'd better be still if I knew what was good for me and so I did even though I was crying then too. How when it was done after a long time I looked into the mirror and saw the scroll and the flowers at each end and the words I couldn't read so the fat sweaty guy read them for me: Mama's Baby. And I told Mr. Ferris how they both laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed. The funniest thing in the whole stupid world. Mama's Baby.

  How I spent days trying to wash it off, and then trying to scratch it off until it bled.

  How I hadn't gone swimming since then.

  How I changed for PE in the locker room stalls.

  How I wished he would...

  Mr. Ferris didn't say anything the whole time. He sat next to me and listened. And when I finished, I looked at him.

  He was crying. I'm not lying. He was crying.

  I don't think it was because of how hard I hit him.

  I know how the Black-Backed Gull feels when he looks up into the sky.

  Maybe, somehow, Mr. Ferris does too.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Yellow Shank Plate CCLXXXVIII

  HERE ARE the stats from the last two weeks of October:

  Three fights in the downstairs hall. No wins. One loss. Two ties. Mr. Ferris stopped them.

  One fight in Mr. McElroy's class with barbarian hordes. A tie. Mr. McElroy stopped it.

  Two fights in the upstairs hall. No wins. One loss. One tie. Mr. Ferris stopped it.

  Two fights in the PE locker room. Two ties. Otis Bottom stopped them both, since the So-Called Gym Teacher was nowhere around.

  One fight while running the cross-country course in PE. One loss.

  One fight in the boys' bathroom. A tie. James Russell stopped it.

  Two fights between school and The Dump. No wins. Two losses. But they were close.

  Twelve near-fights. Probable record: Eight wins. Four losses. You don't believe me? So what? So what?

  Five days of After School Detention.

  Two threats of school suspension, because I was the instigator of the PE locker room fights, according to the So-Called Gym Teacher. Liar.

  Things were not going so well at Washington Irving Junior High School. Mr. Barber told me I needed to put a new brown-paper book cover on Geography: The Story of the World, which I hadn't bothered doing since I was leaving it in my locker instead of bringing it to class and I think Mr. Barber was starting to suspect that I'd taken his new book and destroyed it. I hadn't turned in my Chapter Review Map on the culture of China to Mr. McElroy, and no, I didn't know if I was going to get it done or not. Jane Eyre still hadn't figured out that she was in love with Mr. Rochester, and I mean, how many more clues do you need? I didn't raise my hand anymore in Mrs. Verne's class, and after the first time I didn't bother answering even when she called on me, she stopped calling on me. I spent PE running the cross-country course while the rest of the class started in on the Wrestling Unit. No one said anything when I went out, not even the So-Called Gym Teacher. And I didn't do anything on the next two lab experiments in Mr. Ferris's class. Lil did them both. Even the smelly chemically stuff. And so what that Apollo 7 successfully detached from the Saturn rocket to practice the rendezvous they would have to perform perfectly for a moon shot? So what that they landed a mere third of a mile from the landing site? So what? Clarence is a stupid toy horse. Who cares if he's rocking like anything?

  Because no matter where I went in stupid Washington Irving Junior High School, there was the look. And the laugh. And the smirk. Jerks.

  And no matter where I went in stupid Marysville, there was the look. And the laugh. And the smirk. Jerks.

  Do you know what that feels like?

  I stopped helping Miss Cowper with her County Literacy Unit. Who were we kidding?

  I did do the Saturday deliveries. Guess who wanted the money and wouldn't let me stop?

  I didn't meet Mr. Powell at the library afterward either. I don't know if Lil was waiting there or not.

  I didn't draw anymore.

  I didn't even want to.

  It was like the Black-Backed Gull had laid its head down and given up the sky.

  So you can see why, on the day of the Annual Ballard Paper Mill Harvest-Time Employee Picnic, I wasn't overcome with happiness and joy.

  Neither was my father.

  It was pretty clear that Mr. Big Bucks Ballard was an idiot, he said, and that my father or Ernie Eco could run the paper mill blindfolded and do it better, a hundred times better, than he could, he said. All Mr. Big Bucks Ballard did was sit around his big office wearing his nice white shirt and silk tie and telling everyone else what to do, he said. But he never got his freaking hands dirty, no he didn't. You never saw him at a forklift. You never saw him backing a truck into the loading dock. Wood pulp? Big Bucks Ballard wouldn't recognize it if he tripped and fell into it over his freaking head, he said. That's what happens when you get rich. You leave all the real work to the little guy, and you sit back and enjoy all the profits, he said. And it was going to take a whole lot more than a Harvest-Time Employee Picnic to change things to the way they ought to be.

  When my father was home—and it wasn't often, since Ernie Eco came over most nights and they drove off together—but when he was home, that's pretty much what he told us.

  So no one wanted to go. Not to a picnic thrown by a jerk like Mr. Big Bucks Ballard. But on the last Saturday in October, my father made all of us get in the car and drive to the Annual Ballard Paper Mill Harvest-Time Employee Picnic—even my brother. You can imagine how happy we were. Especially when my father said that Mr. Big Bucks Ballard was the skinflint of skinflints, and there probably wouldn't be much to eat. And what there was wasn't going to be all that good. You don't expect a jerk and a skinflint to be grateful to his employees, do you?

  The only reason we were going, he said, was the Trivia Contest. And this Trivia Contest, accord
ing to Ernie Eco, was all about Babe Ruth. And who knew more about Babe Ruth than my father? No one, and I'm not lying. Do you know how many World Series home runs Babe Ruth hit? No, you don't. But my father did. Fifteen. You probably know that in 1927, Babe Ruth hit his famous sixty home runs in a single season. But do you know when he hit fifty-nine home runs? Probably you don't. But my father did: 1921. Do you know how many home runs Babe Ruth hit in the final game of 1928? Three. In one game.

  My father could tell you that and a whole lot more, because he had once met Babe Ruth. He shook Babe Ruth's hand and bought him a beer, and Babe Ruth had winked at him and said, "You're a helluva good guy."

  My father loved Babe Ruth.

  And Ernie Eco said that the prize for the Trivia Contest was going to be a baseball signed by a Yankee. It was probably, Ernie Eco said, a baseball signed by the Babe.

  So we all went to the Annual Ballard Paper Mill Harvest-Time Employee Picnic, because my father wanted to win a baseball signed by Babe Ruth.

  Terrific.

  I had to run through the Saturday-morning deliveries pretty quickly, which wasn't hard, as you might remember, since not everyone knows the basic principle of physical science. Mrs. Mason hadn't ordered any doughnuts. Mr. Loeffler didn't have a single light bulb to change. Mrs. Daugherty's kids were playing upstairs when I came. And Mrs. Windermere never came into the kitchen.

  I really wished that at least the Daugherty kids had been...

  So what? So what? I'm not a chump.

  I made it back as quickly as any human being could, which wasn't good enough for guess who.

  It was a Saturday that you somehow knew was going to be one of the last beautiful days of fall. The sun was shining hot, like it thought it was still July, and November drizzles were a whole season away. The sky was blue, and a few white clouds were easing themselves along like they didn't care. The grass was warm and sweet, like April, but the trees hadn't forgotten it was October. They were all on fire, and behind their leaves, the birds were singing their last songs. Waves of heat shimmered above the stone walls, and the granite sparkled.