Jerk, California

  Mom scurries down the stairs carrying The Child. Old Bill stomps out of the bedroom and storms after her. She takes a right into the kitchen and grabs the kettle while Old Bill huffs toward the front door and throws it open.

  The house is silent.

  “Mornin’, Bill.” George hints a smile. “I was just wondering if you’ve seen my hired hand around here.”

  Old Bill looks back at me, and his eyes narrow. “No. Just a mangy dog that wandered in. I better start lockin’ the back door.”

  I don’t see the blow. I do see Old Bill’s frame reel and smack the floor.

  “Bill!” Mom hurries to his side, kneels beside him, and gently cradles his head. Lane cries and crawls onto Old Bill’s chest.

  George stands over them and shakes. “Lydia, I—I couldn’t—”

  “I know.” She looks up and tears stream down. “I know.”

  Mom rocks gently and strokes Old Bill’s hair. She glances at me and catches me midtwitch. Pleading eyes hold me for a minute before she turns back toward her husband. I rise, walk over, and pick up little Lane. His tiny body wriggles and pushes against mine, and his cry strengthens to a shriek. I reach him back down to Mom, who squeezes her son to her side.

  And it hits. Something about the sight. The three of them together. A family. Complete.

  “I’ll, um—I’m gonna go now.” I step toward the door, turn, and take in the scene one last time.

  “Good-bye,” I say.

  Mom looks up. “I love—”

  I slam the screen door on her, but she hollers out the door. “I love you, Jack Keegan!” Her voice rises to a shout. “Don’t forget your father’s name! You’re a Keegan! You hear me? A Keegan!”

  I stand motionless on the porch until Mom’s hollers give way to sobs. Nothing makes sense. Not Old Bill knocked out on the floor, not Mom finally talking about Dad, not her calling me Jack after all these years. I’m wet and I shiver and I just want someone to tell me who the hell I am. George sits statued on the rocker and stares at the fields across the road.

  “Didn’t mean to—if I learned anything from James—but him callin’ you a dog.” He runs his hand across his chin stubble. “Some things a man can’t stomach.”

  So much for my manhood. I’ve been eatin’ stuff like that for years.

  George turns to me and brushes off his jeans. “With a start like this, I’d understand if you need space from me today.”

  I look at him, and want to go wherever he goes. Suddenly this crazy man is the only one I know who makes sense. I stare, and a strange warmth fills my heart.

  “Let’s go to work.”

  chapter seventeen

  EXCEPT FOR A SHOVEL, GEORGE’S TRUCK SITS empty in Mom’s turnaround. We hop in and rumble out of town.

  “Don’t we need to pick up flowers or something?”

  “Yep.”

  He takes the right onto Farkel’s drive. I haven’t risked this turn in ten years, but not much has changed since the Dahlgrens’ dare sent me quaking into the Butcher’s barn.

  Zeke Farkel ranked beneath George on the mystery meter, but light-years beyond on the terror gauge. He’d been known to flat-out shoot cows who wandered onto his property. But it was the cat incident that cemented him in our nightmares.

  I don’t know why Jace started it, why he tied up his cat’s unwanted litter in a burlap sack and pitched the helpless kittens into Farkel’s field. But that’s what he did. Jace hid behind some junipers and watched Farkel, high on the tiller, grind right up to that bulging, meowing bag. The old guy stepped down from the tractor, picked up the sack, and shook his head.

  And then dropped the sack and made cat-burgers. Jace saw it plain as plain. Farkel became the Butcher.

  “Why are we turning here?” A fluttering fills my gut.

  “Need to see Zeke.”

  “Farkel’s your friend? Don’t you know what he’s like? Animal-hating butcher who’d mulch innocent—”

  We slow at the shelterbelt and my mouth gapes.

  “Cats.”

  Everywhere. Cats large and small own the drive. Must be a hundred of them.

  “Come on.” George parks near the decrepit farmhouse. “’Bout time you meet Zeke.”

  I quietly exit and follow George to the door. “Zeke! Got a kid here wants to see the animal butcher.”

  “Ho, George!” a voice echoes out. “Sharpening my cleavers. Send him in.”

  I take a deep breath and push through the screen door. Farkel sits at the kitchen table. Dressed in oily dungarees and an old railroad cap, he looks straight off the lines. He pushes back from the table, stands, and stares into me. I expect to see the eyes of a monster, but he looks like a twinkly, old man. Stubble-chinned like George and wrinkled deep, he seems harmless. So much for Jace’s Kitty Killer story.

  Twitches overtake my shoulder, and I stare at my boots.

  “So this is the man,” Zeke says. “These parts is ready for another Keegan.”

  I force my gaze to his and stretch out my hand. “Sam, Sam Carrier. Nice to meet you.”

  “Boy suffers from name confusion.” George wanders around the kitchen. “Wanted you to know him by face so you don’t shoot him when he enters.”

  I wriggle free from Farkel’s grip.“Shoot him? Me? What am I entering?”

  George ignores me and stares at the kitchen counter.“What kind of crazy contraption is that?”

  The farmer lumbers over to the counter. “That durned Trixie. Stupid cat jumps up on my counter and licks my butter. I’m tired of cats lickin’ my butter.”

  I walk over behind them and peer over their shoulders. The sink is full of dishes, but the countertop’s scraped clean, except for two car batteries—their terminal wires plunged into opposite sides of a butter stick.

  George stares at Zeke. “You are trying to kill ’em.”

  “No, no, just give ’em a jolt, remind ’em who’s boss—and to keep their tongue off my butter!”

  My brows raise. “Think it’ll work?”

  Zeke raises a finger and points back over his shoulder into the living room.

  What the—

  At the top of a thick yellow curtain hangs a cat. His paws grip the curtain rod, while the rest of him hangs down stiff and spread-eagled with hair on end. He’s twitchy, too, but I don’t reckon it’s Tourette’s.

  “Zeke!” George jogs toward the cat. “Is it alive?”

  “Reckon so. She’s still quivering. Never seen a cat bolt so quick.”

  I walk over toward the poor creature and stare. When I turn, George and Zeke are gone. I hear their gravelly voices outside, and I join them behind the truck. Zeke faces me with a somber nod.

  “Okay, Jack. Sounds like George done given you the keys, so feel free to head in anytime. Don’t have to tell me. Just drive slow. I got lots of cats.”

  “Keys to what?”

  “Hop in, Jack.” George starts the truck.

  We pull past Zeke’s house, past the first two pole barns, and head straight for the third. We don’t slow.

  “Uh, George?”

  He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a garage-door opener, and clicks. The whole barn front raises and we hurtle inside. The barn is long and spotless and well lit. Gardening tools and bags of wood chips line each side. George clicks again and a smaller rear door opens as the front shuts behind us. We cruise onto an ascending tarred path that winds through Zeke’s shin-high corn. The truck slows near the top of the ridge. George stops, and I swear.

  “It’s my garden. I may need you to yank a plant from here someday. Zeke’s good about keeping this here front door locked, but we can’t keep out every kid who runs away from his graduation and ignores my trespassing signs.” He points at one posted twenty paces off, looks at me, and smiles. “Serendipity, I guess.”

  I peer down into the bowl—green and wild with bark-chip paths that lead to the center like spokes on a wheel. And in the center, that windmill. It’s not the tall spindly kind. The base is thick and stro
ng and looks like it jumped off my potato-chip bag.

  “Do you like the mill?”

  I squint. “Hard to tell from here. It’s a long way off.”

  “James built it.”

  George guns the engine, and we wind down into the beautiful bowl.

  “Stay here.” George brakes and gets out. “I’ll be a minute.” He vanishes down a bark-chip path.

  It’s quiet. Not spooky quiet, but heavy quiet. I don’t want to move quickly or breathe hard or disturb anything. Inside the truck, my muscles are at peace. The place feels safe.

  George reappears carrying two leafy somethings. He says nothing, which feels like the perfect thing to say. We creep up the side of the bowl, chug through the barn and out Farkel’s drive, and speed down the highway. I look over at this man—the one who slugged my stepdad, who hides beautiful things behind cellar doors and Farkel’s barns—who calls me Jack.

  “Your dad helped me plant that garden twenty years ago,” George says.

  The graduation card, the pictures under my couch, the windmill, the garden. The dad this strange man has shown me doesn’t match the man I know from Old Bill’s stories.

  I stare and twitch and ignore the pit in my stomach.

  “All right. Tell me about him.”

  chapter eighteen

  WE DRIVE TO PRINCETON ANCHOR STONE AND Gravel in silence. George winces, scratches his chin like he does when he’s stuck in a thought. The more I think about my question, the less I’m sure I want to know. We pull into the gigantic storehouse of decorative rock. George stops scratching and maybe he forgot it. Probably for the best.

  We carry the two plants around to the back of the warehouse.

  “Why do you want to know him?” George finally asks.

  I stop. He stops. I start to walk. So does he.

  “What I know isn’t making sense, is all. Besides, he’s sort of—he’s my dad. Right?” I frown.

  George nods. “Yep. But he was your dad last week, and you didn’t care then.”

  I turn and my arms jerk so fiercely, I almost lose hold of the plant. “Not asking ain’t not caring.”

  “Nope, you got that right.” George scratches and shuffles to a small bed of flowers. Hidden behind the showroom and surrounded by a vast ocean of tar, the four-square-foot bed of dirt looks more like a bad miss by Bill’s Bituminous than a planned plot.

  “You’re gonna stick these here? No one will see ’em.”

  George looks around, pats his jeans and breast pockets. “Shoot. My shovel. Must’ve been your question that threw me.” He wrinkles his nose at the plants. “Ah, these ain’t going deep.” He plunges his fingers into the black dirt. “Shelly, who owns this place, loves to smoke, and she loves flowers.” George walks over to the spigot and fills the five-gallon pail that rests beside it. Sloshing back to the tiny garden, he fills the hole with water and slams the plant into mud.

  “So on smoke breaks, she wants something to look at.”

  George nods toward the earth and soon my fingernails are dirty. I feel his stare as I get the water, slam the plant, and mound it and water again.

  “How’d I do?” I ask.

  George stares down at the plant and winces again. I wince back at him. I’m sick of waiting.

  “So you knew my old man pretty well?” I grab the bucket, flip it over, and plunk myself down. George leans over and sinks my gaze.

  “Walk with me.” George straightens and ambles away.

  I cross my arms. “I’m not movin’ till I get at least this one answer.”

  “Sure you will.”

  “George!” I hurry after him.

  He stops and exhales. “Knew him well.” He nods, and I twitch. “James had the jumps worse than you.”

  “Worse?”

  “Well, let me see.” George closes his eyes, reopens them. “Yep. Come to think of it, he was in near-constant motion, exceptin’ when he was building.”

  “‘Come to think of it?’ How can you forget that?”

  “Doesn’t stick out, is all.”

  We reach the truck.

  “Then you couldn’t have known him like you say. So why did he give you that letter?”

  “James was my best friend.”He climbs into the bed, stretches out his legs with a grimace, and eases against the cab. With a sigh, George swings his head toward me. “What do you know already?”

  “Too much.” I jump aboard, scoot toward the wheel well, and throw my arm over. “Where to start. Dug ditches. Dumb and lazy. Ran off with some woman and wrapped his car around a telephone pole. Old Bill’s told me more, but those are the lowlights.” I stare at George. “He wasn’t anything like you. Why’d you hang out with him?”

  George is silent and stares at the bottom of the truck.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  “That’s what Bill said?” he says quietly.

  “That’s what I know.”

  “Lydia, Lydia.” His eyes roll, and focus on me. “No wonder you’re such a mess. Knowin’ where you come from just ain’t optional, kid.” He picks dirt off the shovel and sighs.

  “You got a different story?” I ask.

  George rubs his face. He moves his hands and looks ten years older.

  “So, yep, James dug a lot of holes. Wells, not ditches. Hired me to help. Your dad loved water, always did. Loved bringing it up. Loved building those mills to do it. It used to drive me crazy.” George smiles. “Him coming over in the wee hours to build them towers. Your mom and him didn’t have room in town.”

  I raise my hand. “He built windmills for a living?”

  “The towers, anyway. Usually ordered the machinery, but he pieced together a few—all those are probably still working. He looked at a machine, and his fingers knew what to do. It was in his blood.”

  Whatever was in his blood would be in mine.

  “Can’t unravel all Bill’s words today.” George lifts his eyebrows. “But your dad never dug a ditch, and he worked so hard it put me to shame.”

  His eyes glaze over, and we sit in silence. In time, George shifts. “Maybe enough for now—”

  My hand shoots out and squeezes his forearm. “Where did you meet?”

  We both stare at my limb, and I sheepishly pull it back. George smiles.

  “I told you. In a pub. He grew up in the States, but went to Ireland after graduation.” George rubs his arm, squeezes his hand.

  I don’t say anything, and he continues.

  “I was drunk the day of the brawl. Bunch of Aussies off the docks set to haggling two young women seated at a table near the bar. Pretty young gals. Haggling became roughing and roughing became groping, and soon those gals are screaming. Bleary-eyed me barely lifted his head, but when I did, I saw this tall fellow next to those women. And James says, ‘There’ll be no more of this here.’”

  George shakes his head and looks off into the distance. “Right then I knew your dad would die.”

  I blink hard. “Keep going!”

  “Easy, Jack. Getting to it now. James turns toward those frightened women, takes their hands, and”—George spits over the side of the truck—“he leads ’em right out of the circle.”

  “Like pushed through, kinda?”

  “Nope.” George scratches his stubble. “He walks through and pops out on the outside.” He shrugs. “Probably the drink. The girls ran out—James could have, too—”

  “But?” I lean forward, eyes wide.

  “One of them brutes says, ‘Hey, mate, what’s with the jump?’ James spins and catches a fist to the jaw. Didn’t seem fair. Those guys were huge and your dad was only nineteen.”

  I lean back and exhale slow. Great, Dad gets pummeled.

  George bumps my boot with his shoe, and I glance up at his twinkling eyes. “But he didn’t go down. His head snapped back and he rubbed his chin and stared at the red-faced bloke. James was upright and that made the lug look bad and his friends let him know it.”

  “‘Fool!’ one says. Another smack, still your dad
stood.”

  “James says, ‘Go on home.’ He didn’t talk like a kid. The next blows were to his waist and his face, and I don’t know what kept him up. Well, I could take no more. I staggered from the bar along with a few others and soon chairs flew and men crashed to the ground. Including me. I woke up in the apartment of James Keegan, my best friend ever since.”

  “Dad fought you out?” I felt a twinge and straightened.

  “Doubt he ever threw a punch, being a Mennonite and all.”

  A strange look must’ve crossed my face. George smiles and stands with a grunt.

  “James was raised a pacifist. Real conservative. No drinking, dancing, or cardplaying. Still don’t know why a person with religion was in an Irish pub. James said he just knew he was supposed to be there. Enough for me.”

  We look out at mounds of rock. George climbs over the side of the truck, leans back over the edge. “I come back with him. He marries. I marry.”

  “You were married?”

  “Don’t look so surprised. I wash up pretty good. But my ex and I were two ticks without a dog. Sucked the life right out of each other. Now I ain’t saying the divorce was wrong. I ain’t saying it was right. I’m just saying we started wrong and couldn’t make it right.” He puffs out air.

  I’m eager to leave my father for a while—too much at one time—and I push.

  “Kids?”

  He’s silent.

  “Grandkids?”

  “Couple boys and a girl.”

  “Get to see ’em much?”

  He pauses. “No.” George’s voice is tired. “I don’t. Just my granddaughter, on occasion.”

  The sun is high in the sky. “No more working today,” he says. “I’m beat.”

  We drive back to Farkel’s and spend the remainder of the day in George’s garden, our feet propped up against the mill. He jokes and I laugh and wish this afternoon would stretch into tomorrow. But mosquitoes come out and George slaps and stretches and slowly stands. He quiets, reaches out, and strokes a blade.

  “What do you think, Jimmy? Reckon he’s ready?” George peeks at me, winks, and again faces the mill. “Yep. Me, too.”

  I stand. “You’re talking to a windmill blade.”