"You've got great parents," Larry said, surprising me. That's one thing I never expected to hear from anybody and knew I'd never believe myself, much as I loved them. "They just let you be, don't they? They just kind of live for the moment. It's great."
"Your parents are pretty good" I said, and then added, "Your father's great"
Larry flicked his cigarette ash over the side of the porch and squinted at me. "You good at sports?" he asked.
I shrugged. "I'm okay, I guess, in basketball."
Larry shook his head. "No good, two strikes against you. You're mediocre, strike one, and you like basketball, strike two. Now, if you were really great in basketball, that would put you in neutral territory, but you see with Dad, with my great, wonderful, slap-you-on-the-back, how-ya-doin' father, you'd better be great at some sport, preferably football, because that's all that counts."
"I don't know. He's nice enough to me," I said.
"For a friend of Timmy's. For a neighborhood buddy. It would be a whole different story if you were his son."
"Yeah, maybe."
Larry tossed his cigarette down on the wooden floor and mashed it with his foot. "You say 'maybe' a lot. Aren't you ever sure of anything? Don't you know anything?"
I could hear the irritation in his voice.
"I know you're living in a doghouse," I said.
He snickered. "Yeah, I sure am." Then his expression changed. He looked worried, even scared. He looked out toward the cabin again. "They'll never let me change. To them I'll always be Larry the dropout, the dopehead.... They were just looking for me to slip up. I take a few vitamin pills and it's the perfect excuse to kick me out. I'm too much trouble, and I'm not worth the effort. Even I'll admit that."
Larry jumped off the porch. I watched him, long legged and lanky, walking toward Mam and Pap, and I thought about the way he'd blown it, thrown his family away with the way he acted. I knew if I had his family, his parents, I'd do anything to stay with them. I'd do anything to keep a father like Mr. Seeley.
I looked across the lawn and saw Pap, dizzy from spinning, waver and then fall to the ground.
Chapter Seven
MAM AND THE contest were a one-week wonder, and then all the hoopla ended. Everyone went back to whatever they were doing, and we got down to the business of planning our move. Mam held a yard sale and sold at least half of our furniture.
Pap and I walked every day to the grocery store to pick up any cardboard boxes they were willing to hand us, and together we packed up the house.
Mam enrolled me in the public high school out in New Hope. I had never been to a public school before, only Catholic schools. Mam said it was too late for me to apply for a scholarship at a Catholic school nearby, which is the only way she could send me, so for at least my junior year I'd be attending the public school.
We didn't see Dr. Mike but a few times that August. He came to give Mam a few more driving lessons, but since we were so busy with the move he did most of his visiting over the phone, always late in the evening, always when I had gone to my room for the night.
Larry, who had never given me or my family the time of day until that summer, came over every day to help us pack and to talk to Mam. It seemed to me that in just a few short months, ever since Grandma Mary's death, she had replaced Pap with Dr. Mike and me with Larry. While Pap and I did the grunt work, sorting and packing the junk in the garage, arguing over what should go and what we should throw out, Mam and Larry sat laughing and talking over their plates of hummus and tabbouleh, figuring out the logistics of the move.
I never told Mam that Larry lived in the McCloskys' doghouse. I didn't want her feeling sorry for him.
I asked Larry once if he ever planned on getting a job to support himself, get himself out of the doghouse, and he said he still had plenty of money. I asked him where he got it and he said he used to sell drugs on the streets. I didn't know whether to believe him or not Why would a drug dealer own a beat-up van? I thought they drove around in Cadillacs or limousines. Why would he live in a doghouse instead of renting a place? But I told Mam about the drugs, thinking she ought to know what kind of a person she was really dealing with.
"Don't let him fool you, Mam," I said to her. "All the Seeleys say he's nothing but trouble. You don't know all the things I know about him, but believe me, he's dangerous. He could get Pap hooked on drugs. Think of what that would be like."
"Now, why would he want to do something like that?" Mam had asked.
I shrugged. "I don't know. Why would he sell drugs? He can't have much of a conscience if he's going around doing something like that."
***
ONE NIGHT LARRY came to the door. Mam and I answered it at the same time. Larry looked at the two of us, then said, wiping at his nose, that he'd come to talk to Mam in private. Mam shooed me out of the room. I didn't like it, but I headed back to the porch. I heard Pap come inside, and Mam told him to go on to bed and she would be there in a while. Pap left and the voices in the kitchen got low and whispery. I turned on my radio and flipped through a copy of Sierra magazine, waiting for Larry to say what he wanted to say and then leave, but after a couple of hours of flipping through magazines and then playing myself in a game of chess, I got tired of waiting and headed back out to the kitchen.
I could see them from the living room. Mam and Larry stood hugging each other, and I came to the entrance to the kitchen and just watched, waiting for them to realize I was there. Larry stood facing me, but he had his head buried in Mam's shoulder, his hair mixing with hers.
Larry lifted his head and saw me first, springing back from Mam as if there were a coil between them. His cheeks were wet and flushed. He turned away from me, holding his head down, not saying anything. He grabbed a napkin off the counter in front of him and blew his nose on it.
Mam turned around to face me, surprised. She grabbed up her hair and flipped it off her shoulders. I noticed a wet patch on her right shoulder.
"JP, is everything all right?" she asked.
I stared at her a good minute, saying nothing, amazed that she had asked me what I should have asked her. Then Larry, with his head still bowed, keeping his face averted, said he ought to get going and fled before Mam could stop him.
Mam looked at the door and I looked at her. She stood with her arms crossed, shaking her head and licking and biting on her lips.
I took a deep breath and let it out. Mam turned toward me.
"What's going on?" I asked. "What did he want?"
"He just wanted to tell me about himself, JP."
"What about him?"
"About his life, what it's been like for him."
"What what's been like for him?" I asked, knowing that through his brother, Tim, I probably knew as much as she did about him.
Mam massaged her shoulder. "I'm sorry, JP. If you want to know more than that, ask him yourself. Now, I'm very tired. I'm going to bed. We've got just one more day before the move, and I've got my driving test in the morning." Mam moved toward me, holding out her arms as if she wanted to hug me. I glanced at the wet spot on her shirt and backed away. I turned and shuffled off to my room. Then Mam called to me and I turned around, standing just inside the room.
"Larry's going to be coming with us," she said. "He's going to be living with us in New Hope. He needs a place to stay."
I looked at Mam standing in the light of the kitchen, and I stood in the light of my porch, but the room between us, the living room, was dark, and the distance across that darkness, immeasurable.
Chapter Eight
THE NEXT MORNING Mam set off with Dr. Mike to take her driving test, and since she planned to drive Dr. Mike's BMW for the test, I asked her at breakfast if she figured on buying a BMW after she passed. We'd never needed a car before, we had the train station and the bus stop at the end of the road, and most of what we really needed was within walking distance.
Mam said that Larry had offered his van in exchange for his living with us. She said this with her bac
k to me, leaning over one of the last boxes left to pack. What little talking we'd done that morning had been like that, our heads turned away from each other, almost as if we were talking through someone else who would then pass our message on to the other person. I knew that this time Mam kept her back to me because she thought I would think a beat-up van in exchange for a place to live was a stupid deal I did, and I told her so while spooning the last bit of my cereal into my mouth. We only had the one bowl and spoon left out, so we ate in shifts.
Mam turned from the box and looked at me, ready, I realized, for a battle.
"That van is all Larry has to offer, and so I'm taking it. He said he'd keep it in working order, so what more do I need?"
"We're moving to a rich people's town, Mam. Rich people like Dr. Mike and Aunt Colleen. What will those people think if they see you driving around town in that thing? And then when they see Pap act up, which he will eventually, and find out Larry the drug dealer's living with us, what are they going to think?...Larry will probably start selling drugs on the streets of New Hope."
Mam's face got red and I could see her chest heaving. She set her palms flat on the kitchen table and leaned toward me. "That was an ugly thing to say. You listen, JP. I've never cared about what other people think, and I'm not about to start now."
"Well, that's obvious," I said, grabbing the cereal bowl and moving toward the sink.
" JP, what's wrong with you? What's going on? We're moving to a beautiful new home with woods that go on for miles. What could be better? You and I can—"
"You mean you, Larry, and I," I said, turning on the faucet and letting the water run as if I could drown out the sound of her voice and the clamor of my own thoughts.
"Larry? Is that the problem?"
"No, just part of it" I turned around to face her, letting the water run behind me. "It's this Larry thing—and—and..." I shrugged. I couldn't think of what to say. I just wanted her to tell me, explain everything without my having to figure out what it was I wanted to know.
"I won this house, JP," she said. "A whole big dream house. Now, I don't deserve it any more than anyone else, but I won it. So I want to share it—with you and Pap and Larry, whoever, not grab it and sit on it and keep people away. I want to share my good fortune. I believe in doing that, JP. Larry's giving me an opportunity to do that. He's really giving me another gift."
I rolled my eyes and turned back to the faucet. Mam came up behind me, reached around my waist, and turned off the water. She grabbed my shoulder and turned me around to face her. "Do you think that's corny? Stupid? What? Don't just roll your eyes. Tell me."
I wouldn't look at her. I looked at the sink instead. I yelled at the sink "I care about what people think. I care, Mam. You and Larry and Dr. Mike—what are you doing? What about me and Pap? What about us?" I lifted my head and saw Mam's bewildered face. I wanted to cry. I wanted to tell her I didn't know what I thought or what I was feeling. I just knew that things felt wrong and I wanted them to feel right. I wanted her to hug me the way she had hugged Larry, and yet I knew that if she tried to touch me I would push her away.
Mam must have seen it, my weak moment, the moment when I thought I wanted her to hug me, because she moved toward me, and she lifted her hand toward my face. But I couldn't let her touch me. I bolted from the kitchen, slamming the door behind me and running toward the creek.
I stood ankle deep in the water and listened to Pap and Larry talking in our yard. Larry stood on the roof and Pap stood down below, shouting warnings to Larry about taking down the Nativity set.
"Don't break the lightbulbs," he said "See, they got lightbulbs, is how they light up. See them, Larry? Don't break 'em."
I heard Pap shout to Mam when she left with Dr. Mike to take her test, and then I walked on, down the creek, moving from rock to rock, past the Polanskis', the Wallaces', the McCloskys' houses, thinking how this would be my last time at the creek.
I spent all morning wading in the water and examining the flora and fauna around me. When I got hungry I wandered down to the Seeleys', realizing it would be the last time I could just walk over and spend the day hanging out with Tim and his father. Mr. Seeley didn't get home from work until after five, and I looked forward to it all afternoon. I wanted to spend one last good evening with him, but the evening didn't go well at all. He was upset about Larry moving out to New Hope. He said Mam wasn't right in the head, first marrying my "retard" father and then inviting his own drug-addict son to live with her. "She's just asking for trouble," he said. "How's he ever going to learn anything if people keep bailing him out?"
I cut the evening short and, feeling irritable and disappointed, said my good-byes to the Seeleys and wandered on back home.
No one was there when I got to the house. I found a note Mam had left for me on the kitchen table. It said, "Gone for a drive in Larry's van. I passed my test!"
A few minutes later the van rolled into our driveway and all the doors opened at once. Larry got out of the front seat with Mam, and Pap and Bobbi Polanski hopped out of the back.
I stood outside on the stoop with my arms crossed, watching the four of them laughing, each one carrying a bag from McDonald's.
Pap waved to me. "We're going to have a picnic for our last night Come on, JP, to the creek."
"I've already eaten," I said, waving, trying to look cheerful, casual. When had Bobbi Polanski joined the crew?
"Well, come on with us, anyway," Mam said.
I glanced at Larry snitching fries from his bag, and then at Bobbi, who was hanging back behind Pap. I saw that she had her arm in a sling.
"No," I said. "No, thanks, I've still got a box to pack."
Mam handed her bag to Larry and told them all to go on without her, she'd be there in a minute. Then she headed toward the house. I went back inside and hurried toward my room.
I didn't want to talk with Mam just then, but she followed me back.
"How long are you going to act this way?" Mam asked when she caught up to me. She stood in the doorway in her jeans and a T-shirt, her hair in a ponytail, and I thought she looked young. She looked young enough for people to think Larry was her husband.
I turned away from her and chucked my basketball shoes, my basketball, and the book on chaos and complexity I had been reading all into my last cardboard box. "Is Polanski living with us, too, now?" I asked, keeping my back to her and not answering her question.
"No, JP, but she's eating with us."
"What's with her arm?"
"Why don't you come out and ask her yourself?"
I threw a sweatshirt into the box. "You know, Mam, you have a knack for choosing just the people I happen to hate, who the whole town hates. That ought to tell you something, don't you think?" I looked up at her.
"Yes, it does. It sure does." Mam nodded and crossed her arms in front of her. She leaned against the side of the doorway.
"Mr. Seeley was right," I said, setting her up, wanting to hurt her.
"Right about what?"
"You're not right in the head." I pointed to my own head. "You're not all there. Mam, you go for every misfit and oddball that comes along. No, you don't just go for them, you marry them!"
I gasped, realizing what I had just said. I had gone too far. I could feel my face burning. I took a step toward Mam and tried to speak. "I—I—"
"You've said enough, JP," M^m said, backing away, her voice quiet "Finish packing and get to bed. You need your sleep."
She left and I didn't call her back. I didn't say anything. I flopped down on my bed and just sat, waiting for the dark.
Chapter Nine
WE MOVED ON a Tuesday, Dr. Mike's free day. Mam insisted we couldn't move without him. We used a U-Haul truck, and Larry, Pap, Dr. Mike, and I loaded it while Mam directed us.
I kept myself busy, trying, in a way, to make up for what I had said the night before. I acted extra-nice to Pap, even when he dropped my box with the microscope in it that Grandma Mary and Mam had given me for C
hristmas that past year. My only gift. I had written FRAGILE all over the box—not that Pap could read it, but Mam could, and Mam was the one pointing out which box went where and who carried it. Maybe she was getting even with me, having Pap haul my stuff, but I didn't let her see that it bothered me. I just picked up the box and said, "It's okay, Pap," and set it down in the truck.
I didn't speak to Mam except to say, "You want this in the back of the truck?" or "Should we set that box on top of the table?" I was all business to everyone.
Larry brought his radio and set it on the roof of his rusty van and turned it up full blast, drawing neighbors out of their houses to come watch the procession in and out of our front door.
Tim Seeley and Bobbi Polanski stopped by and helped awhile, Bobbi using just her one good arm. I tried to act more cheerful around them, as if I were having as much fun as the others. I didn't pull it off too well, though, and Seeley asked me at one point, "What's wrong with you, anyway?"
When it was time to leave we said our good-byes and Mam walked through the house one last time, dabbing at her tears with a McDonald's napkin left over from that morning's breakfast.
I said good-bye to Seeley. I told him to come visit and that next weekend wouldn't be too soon, and then I went down to the creek for one last good-bye. I stood looking down in the water, watching the minnows darting about in what appeared to be aimless activity, and I wondered if there were some creature larger than us, God maybe, who looked down on us and saw all our comings and goings and thought all our activities were aimless, pointless. I thought about randomness and chaos, my old fears. I thought about the way life was, and death. I thought about Grandma Mary just dropping dead in the middle of her bedroom, in the middle of blow-drying her hair, wearing her slip and panty hose and navy blue pumps. Her skirt and blouse lay on the bed ready for her, but poof! she dies before she can get to them. She dies with the blow-dryer in her hand and her hair half-wet and half-dry. She dies right in the middle of living. It made no sense. Life made no sense.