A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag

  Sean frowned. It wasn’t as though he’d never had a girlfriend before, or would never have one again.

  “They’d probably send Jardine to an evacuation station in Secaucus.” Raymond’s brow clouded. “My uncle would say, ‘Jardine, as long as you’re here, why don’t you pick up some extra money?’ Oh, no!” He took a large gulp of tomato juice and winced from the taste.

  A varsity basketball star doesn’t have to worry about girls. They line up for him … So where were they? Even Mindy didn’t want him anymore; she preferred a sleazebag like Danny to one of the most popular guys in the school!

  “But what if they sent Jardine to an evacuation station in Connecticut? Or Pennsylvania? What if they sent Ashley and Cementhead to the same evacuation station? What if …”

  So what was the use of the best jump shot in town? Here he was, sitting home on Friday night, watching Marshal Dillon babbling in some foreign language — drawing moral support from the likes of Raymond Jardine. This Ashley-Steve thing must have affected him more than he’d thought. He was losing all sense of perspective.

  Raymond sat forward in his chair. “Well, Delancey, Jardine had a putrid time. I hope you had the same. I’d better get going so we can both burst into tears in the privacy of our own rooms.”

  A smile tugged at the corner of Sean’s mouth. “Raymond, dinner was lousy, the movie stank, and the park was ugly and boring. What less could I ask for? I hope the tomato juice was to your disliking?”

  Raymond was clearly impressed. “Hey, Delancey, you’re starting to think like Jardine. Bad move.”

  Nine

  Neither Sean nor Raymond was upset when Mr. Kerr wanted another update on the poetry assignments on Monday morning. Ashley seemed to be revving up for a blow by blow account of her big date, and a change of subject was most welcome.

  This time, Jardine, Delancey, and Bach pulled through their interview fairly well. They only had work relating to six poems (there were only six poems — “Registration Day” and five by Raymond and Sean), but Mr. Kerr seemed to accept that things were rolling along. Raymond explained how his paper on “Industrial Secret” described his view of the poem both before and after discussion with Mr. Gunhold. Ashley gave rapturous details about the poet himself, and talked about “Fruit Fly.” Sean smiled a lot, and tried not to blush.

  “By the way,” said Raymond in an offhand manner. “In case you’re interested, Mr. Gunhold’s being featured on Spice of Life this week, so you might want to check it out.”

  Sean winced as though receiving a blow to the head. He had known Raymond would do this, yet hearing it out loud was a painful experience.

  Mr. Kerr perked up. “I’ll certainly watch. Your Canadian poet is beginning to intrigue me.”

  After class, as the three partners headed out into the hall, Steve Semenski jogged up, calling greetings. He kissed Ashley briskly, and beamed at Raymond and Sean. “Hi, guys. What’s up?”

  “Nothing much,” Sean rasped.

  “Any news on our first hockey game, Ray?”

  “The schedule should be released any day now,” Raymond replied.

  Steve pulled Sean aside. “She doesn’t have a boyfriend named Tank,” he whispered.

  “She doesn’t?” Sean said woodenly. “I must have been thinking of somebody else.”

  After Steve waltzed off, Ashley on his arm, Raymond turned on Sean. “Now look what you’ve done. I hope you’re satisfied.”

  Sean was in no mood for this. “Raymond, just stay out of my life, okay?” With the girl of his dreams out of reach, and Gramp two days away from his television interview, aggravation from Jardine was the last thing Sean was willing to accept.

  ***

  Spice of Life was an hour-long variety talk show on every Wednesday night at nine. Ashley, Raymond, and Sean rode in on the train and met Gramp in front of the Euripides Café to take him to the studio. Raymond called his neighbors from a pay phone to make sure they were videotaping the show. Sean called his own home to make sure no one was there. Both his parents and Nikki were with friends that evening, preferably with the TV sets switched off. Sean wasn’t sure how his family would react to Gramp masquerading as a poet on national television, but one thing he was sure of: He didn’t want to find out.

  At the studio, Ashley and Gramp were whisked off to the Green Room, and Raymond and Sean were deposited in two spare seats in the studio audience.

  Before parting, Sean advised Gramp, “Don’t be nervous,” which he now realized was stupid, since it was he himself with the sweaty palms, while Patrick Delancey looked completely serene.

  The show began, and Raymond was a participating member of the audience, laughing at all the host’s bad jokes, and cheering madly whenever the applause sign came on. But not Sean. He sat rigid in his seat, playing nervously with his shirt collar.

  “Lighten up, Delancey. Jardine’s never been to a TV show before. I dig this.”

  “I can tell,” said Sean sarcastically.

  Spice of Life, which had a reputation for unusual guests, proceeded from one segment to another as Raymond drank it all in and Sean grew stiffer in his chair. Finally, it was Gramp’s turn.

  Michael Donovan, the host, was standing at the front of the stage as the audience cheered the previous act. “That was Dr. Marc Desjardins and his psychic orangutans! Weren’t they terrific? Our next guest has been making great strides in the area of short poetry. Originally from Canada, Mr. Gavin Gunhold has been thrilling American readers with his unique blend of humor and social observation. Please welcome Gavin Gunhold.”

  Sean’s heart was in his knees as the curtain swept aside to reveal Gramp, shuffling papers on a small wooden lectern. Dwarfed by the enormous set, the old man looked tiny, and about a hundred and fifty. Suddenly, Sean felt incredibly guilty for having done this to his poor grandfather. How could he have allowed it to happen?

  Then a crabby, opinionated voice boomed through the studio, a voice that was usually making statements about prune juice, Scrulnick’s, and Brooklyn:

  “On registration day at taxidermy school

  I distinctly saw the eyes of the stuffed moose

  Move.”

  In the glassed-in control room, the producer slapped his forehead. “Why me? Honest to God! Why me? Did you hear that stupid poem?”

  “I don’t know, Malcolm,” said one of the engineers. “I kind of liked it. You see, the moose is looking accusingly at the student taxidermists to bring out their guilt —”

  “That’s not it at all,” the assistant producer interjected. “The moose represents the environment, and —”

  “What a show!” moaned the producer. “First the psychic orangutans, and now this! I should have taken the job on Bowling for Dollars!”

  “He’s not doing too bad, boss,” the switcher called back. “The audience likes it. It’s going over way better than the orangutans.”

  On stage, Gramp was reading “Industrial Secret,” “Household Security,” and “Fruit Fly” in rapid-fire succession.

  “This is great, Delancey!” Raymond crowed. “Listen to the laughs we’re getting!”

  “Shhh!” Sean could not take his eyes off Gramp, who was really warming to his role as poet, reading with cantankerous passion at top volume.

  In the Green Room, Ashley was staring at the monitor, clasping her hands in adoring pride.

  “He stinks!” said the orangutan trainer. “How’d he get on this show?”

  “I like it,” said the guest who was scheduled to go on next. “I hope I do this well with my watermelon act.”

  Gramp read through Gavin Gunhold’s skimpy repertoire, finishing off with “Group Therapy,” which got the biggest cheer of the lot. He acknowledged the applause with a casual wave, looked over at the control room, and announced impatiently, “Well, I’ve got nothing else to read. What do you want me to do — tap-dance?”

  “Oh, my God!” The producer held his head. “Get him over to Donovan, ask him a couple of questions and get hi
m out of my face!”

  A Spice of Life hostess hurried over and escorted the poet to the interviewee’s seat.

  “Excellent! Excellent, Mr. Gunhold! Welcome to the show. Is it true that you were discovered recently by three Long Island high school students doing an English assignment?”

  “Great kids,” said Gramp definitely. “With so many robots around these days, it’s amazing to find such levelheaded youngsters.”

  “Obviously,” said Donovan, “your poems are highly symbolic. Could you tell us something about the hidden images in your work?”

  “No.”

  Donovan frowned. “No?”

  “There aren’t any hidden messages. Whatever my poems say, that’s it.” He folded his arms and nodded for emphasis. There were titters from the crowd.

  “But surely you must feel some need when you write your poems —” the host persisted.

  “There you go again. The poems — the poems. Who cares about the poems? Let me ask you a question for a change: You’re a handsome enough fellow, bright, successful, a good talker. What’s the point of that great big bushy soup-strainer you’ve got under your nose?”

  A hoot of laughter escaped Raymond as Sean jerked forward in his chair. In the glass booth, the producer leaped to his feet and glared out at Gramp as though willing him to disappear.

  Donovan was flustered. “A lot of men like to wear a mustache —”

  “A mustache is one thing. But when my rosebushes get too long, I prune them, if you know what I mean.”

  A buzz of embarrassed laughter swept the audience.

  Before Donovan could speak up in defence of his mustache, Gramp was on his feet, marching out into the seats.

  “Oh, my God, what’s he doing?” the floor manager exclaimed. “Get a camera on him!”

  The producer was having hysterics. “My career is over! I’m lucky if they let me answer phones for a Channel Thirteen pledge drive! Would somebody please shoot that guy!”

  Raymond and Sean were on their feet. “Raymond, can you see where he’s going?”

  “Second row!” gasped Raymond. “There’s a kid playing with a yo-yo!”

  “Son, let me show you how you’re really supposed to use that thing.”

  The mystified child surrendered his yo-yo, and Gramp tossed it down and up experimentally a few times. “Now, I may be a little rusty at this —” He then began a demonstration worthy of the world yo-yo championship, executing complicated tricks while shouting their names out to the amazed crowd. “Walk the Dog! … Around the World! … Rock the Cradle! … Now, this is a trick I made up when I was a boy.” It was a tour de force, with the spinning yo-yo flying in all directions, and Gramp leaping over and about, his face a study in concentration. “And if it wasn’t for my rheumatism,” he panted, handing the yo-yo back, “I’d have really shown you something!”

  The crowd rose to its feet in a thunder of cheering, and Sean rose, too, filled with pride and wonder for this little old man who was his grandfather. Even the technical crew was clapping. In all the excitement, Gramp forgot to go back to the stage.

  Instead, he tried to make his way through the crowd to Raymond and Sean, but he was mobbed by well-wishers on the way.

  Total chaos reigned. Michael Donovan stood staring at the control room for some kind of instruction until the producer, now close to tears, junked the script and cut away into a three-minute film clip on covered bridges in Vermont. This bumped the watermelon act from the show, which caused the watermelon man to storm onto the set and hurl a twenty-two pound melon through the control room window. He was restrained by network security.

  “Get me something to roll credits on!” howled the producer, and back came the covered bridges, this time upside down.

  Ashley came sprinting out of the Green Room. “Gavin Gunhold, you’re wonderful!”

  And the studio audience agreed.

  ***

  “A marvelous eccentric,” proclaimed Mr. Kerr the next day in English.

  “Not bad,” said Raymond, winking at Sean. “But he’s even better on a one-to-one basis.”

  “He’s wonderful,” said Ashley without reservation. “He’s funny, smart, and cute.”

  Cute? thought Sean. Gramp?

  “Well,” said the teacher, “each day I’m more and more pleased with my decision to allow you to study Gunhold. You’re on the edge of something very fascinating.”

  “Not half as fascinating as if he knew where Gav really is right now,” Raymond whispered to Sean.

  “Shhh! Raymond!”

  In fact, a number of the students had seen the Gunhold interview the night before. But the big interest came from the last person Sean would have expected to become a poetry fan.

  “Danny was really impressed by the interview last night,” Mindy O’Toole informed Sean and Raymond, while the student body president stood at her side, smiling with all his teeth. “He was wondering if you could work it so he could meet Mr. Gunhold.”

  “If it’s Danny who wants to meet Mr. Gunhold,” said Raymond, “why doesn’t he ask us himself?”

  “All right,” Danny chuckled. “Could you fix it so I could meet the poet?”

  “No,” said Raymond honestly, and walked away.

  Danny addressed Sean. “What’s eating him?”

  Sean studied the ground. “It’s just that Mr. Gunhold doesn’t like to meet with that many people. He’s a little, you know, strange.”

  Mindy was still watching Raymond’s receding back as he headed down the hall for second period. “It’s not Mr. Gunhold who’s strange,” she said, her eyes wide. “Your friend Raymond is scary! First he came up with that crazy EARS thing, then he got threatening when I asked him about it. Then he attacked Danny with a balloon. I’ve even heard he’s been banned from Howard’s poker game.”

  Sean nodded. “It’s true.”

  “And you’re the only one who can control him,” she marveled.

  “Well, do what you can for me, Sean, okay?” said Danny. With Mindy in tow, he headed into the crowded hall, en route to second period.

  ***

  The next Monday, Ashley was in such a good mood that she cut her third period class and met Raymond and Sean at Miami Beach with lunch already picked out.

  “Uh — thanks,” said Sean painfully as he gazed bleakly into the green of the Amazon rain forest.

  “Gavin was fantastic on Spice of Life!” Ashley raved. “They’ve been ringing the phone down to get him!”

  A mouth-bound forkful of spinach froze in front of Sean’s face. “Ringing the phone down?”

  “Other shows,” said Ashley enthusiastically. “Isn’t it fabulous? Already three other shows have phoned Spice of Life about having him on. I’ve got the messages right here in my purse. I’m going to call them back just as soon as you get me some dates when Gavin is free.”

  Raymond was jubilant. “Any time! You go right ahead and book whatever you can!”

  Sean felt his stomach curling into a knot, and as Ashley and Raymond raved on about how great Gavin Gunhold was, and how big a star they were going to make him, Sean was having a flashback to the close of the Spice of Life interview. Oh, the relief he had felt! He could remember thinking, Thank God it’s over!

  He didn’t voice these thoughts until he and Raymond were navigating the halls on the way to fifth period. “Sometimes I hate your guts, you know that? Where do you get off setting up TV guest spots for my grandfather like that? Especially when you saw how wiped out he was after Spice of Life!”

  Raymond looked surprised. “Gramp wasn’t wiped out, Delancey; you were. Gramp said he had the time of his life, and that it reminded him of the good old days when he was the yo-yo champion of Brooklyn. He said he’d love to do it again, and now he’s going to get the chance.”

  Sean was flustered. “Well, he did say all that, but —” He stopped short. He’d been about to say, “It isn’t good for him,” but Gramp had been a changed man since his TV debut, bouncing energetically aroun
d the house, humming “You Ought To Be in Pictures.” He had even let up a little in his sarcasm attack on his son, grudgingly admitting that it was probably not Dan’s fault that the Stead-E-Rain Company had folded its tent and silently stolen away, leaving the Delancey family underwater.

  “It’s good for him, and it’s good for us,” Raymond went on. “If Gavin Gunhold becomes big enough, we’re talking guaranteed Theamelpos. So don’t hassle it.”

  Sean wished he had an argument but, failing that, he decided to take a stab at being nasty. “Don’t tell me things are going well for Jardine, the man with no luck, none at all, zero, zip, zilch?”

  Raymond grinned. “Well, there is one slightly shady tiny detail we have to take care of. Nothing heavy …”

  ***

  “Raymond, this is crazy,” Sean whispered. They were sitting in a cramped cubicle at the New York Public Library, waiting for the poetry specialist to retrieve the Gavin Gunhold file.

  “I agree with you. But believe me, Delancey, this is the only way. We have to make sure that no one can roll into the library and look up the obituary of the guy who was playing with a yo-yo on TV, looking not very dead at all.”

  The same thin file was placed on the cubicle desk. They opened it and stared. “Registration Day” was there. The blank notepaper was there. But the obituary was gone. Sean checked each and every page to see if the newsprint sheet was stuck to the back. He checked the floor to see if it had fallen out. He went back to the folder to see if, by some miracle, the clipping had returned. Nothing.

  Raymond clutched at his heart. “Calm down, Jardine,” he told himself. “Keep cool.”

  “But where’s the obituary?” Sean barely whispered.

  “Good question.” Raymond scanned the room briefly and shrugged. “Let’s just hope it got lost, because there’s no way we can stop now. We’re committed. And if someone surfaces in the middle of everything with Gunhold’s obituary, we’ll flunk English and kiss Theamelpos good-bye.”

  “And Gramp will go to jail for fraud,” said Sean nervously.

  “We’ll take all blame,” Raymond assured him.