Jerk, California

  “The tail! Give me the tail!”

  “Right. The tail.” Mom takes a deep breath, but still doesn’t turn from the sink. “She said, now I think I’ve got this straight—”

  “Mom!” I pound the table.

  “Okay. Yes, she said, ‘Thank Sam for being my hero.’”

  My heart clobbers my rib cage. “Go on.”

  Mom shrugs and scrubs a plate. “That’s it. Then she and Heather left.”

  “Oh, what a stupid, stupid—” I thump my forehead with the heel of my hand. “And while she’s here, I’m wasting time with the Coot.” I slump back down onto the chair and bury my face in my arms.

  “He stopped in, too.”

  “I know, I know.” My muffled voice moans into the wood. “He ate your cute little ham sandwiches. He told me. I still don’t understand why he came.” I lift my head in time to see Mom’s droop.

  “I don’t know why he waited so long. I do know you have a thank-you to write. He left you ten dollars.”

  “I have to write a thank-you for that?”

  “You have to thank him.”

  Letter writing is a nightmare. With my jumpy arm, its two words forward, one word back, as I erase myself through a note. There are better ways to show appreciation. Besides, I have a question or two for the man.

  I rise from the table, stretch, and gimp toward the door while my legs fire and complain. “Can’t believe Naomi was here.”

  “And Sam. She . . . she brought back this.” Mom holds up the coat in front of her face. Her eyes peek over the top.

  “My parka.” I step toward it, and Mom raises it higher.

  “Hey, relax. I’m not that tall.” I pause. “You okay?”

  Her shoulders slump, and I catch a glimpse of her face.

  “Looks like she had it dry-cleaned,” Mom says. “I think these are new buttons.”

  “Move the coat.”

  “What happened is none of yours, Sam.”

  “Move. The. Coat.”

  She smoothes the parka onto the countertop, turns, and looks into me. She fidgets about her lip, puffy and yellowish blue.

  I gasp and walk toward her.

  “No, Sam! You go, you hear?” Mom’s voice surges. She points to her swollen lip. “Don’t make this for nothing.”

  “Tell me he didn’t—”

  “And so help me, if you look back, I’ll whoop you myself.”

  I run toward the screen door and give it a kick. The rickety frame smashes against the house. Once outside, I grip Old Bill’s oak porch swing and heave it over the rail. It lands with a crack.

  If Old Bill had been around front, I would have cracked him, too. So he pummels me. Fine. Just more defects to tote around.

  But not Mom.

  Never again Mom.

  I storm through Pierce on a fine Sunday morning. I smack a stop sign, kick a telephone pole. My feet pound past Pierce Church of Peace. Organ music floats out the sanctuary and ministers to the five cars in the parking lot. Bunch of losers! My jaws clamp together for a grind. Teeth catch the inside of my cheek and fill my mouth with the taste of blood.

  Your God gave me a dad who left me this!

  Old Bill’s assault on Mom jars loose something deep and hot and ugly. By the time I reach Coot’s driveway, I’m about to burst.

  Because I know it’s me, that if I wasn’t a monster, Mom’s lip wouldn’t be swollen. No matter what anyone says about who smacked who and who’s at fault, if I were motionless, Mom wouldn’t hurt and that obsessive asshole would be proud of me.

  I pace the road in front of Coot’s drive and glare at his property. Located five minutes away on the far side of town, George the Coot’s farmstead is as trashy as his hidden garden is beautiful. Rusted shovels and lawn mowers, rotted wheel-barrows, and wagon wheels litter the lawn. Overrun with weeds, it’s a wasteland of junk. There’s a windmill near the house. Two outbuildings—a barn with osteoporosis and a crippled machine shed straddle the gravel drive. Next to the road, visible to anyone who passes by, there’s a painted shingle fixed to a stake and hammered into the earth.

  HELP WANTED. APPLY INSIDE.

  I storm down the drive. “Coot!”

  I bound up the front steps and double-fist the door. “You crazy coot, where are you?”

  I whip around. George the Coot grips the handle of a razor-edged scythe. Bushy eyebrows raise and form deep wrinkles that chisel across that leather forehead. Watery eyes lock my own stunned pair in a straight-ahead stare. Mine want to flit, to escape, but only my shoulders are free to jump and dance. He strokes his stubbly chin—sounds of sandpaper.

  “Ain’t got to holler, kid. You need something?”

  Why am I here? He hasn’t done anything to Mom or me.

  “I—I came to thank you, I guess, for the money.”

  He turns his head and spits. “So that’s a thank-you.” Coot glances toward the clouding sky.“I’ll consider myself thanked.” He pushes by me toward the farmhouse. “Excuse me, Jack.”

  Jack.

  “Wait. I mean, hang on. Please.” George stops in the doorway but does not turn.

  “Old Bill. Well, Bill. He didn’t invite you to my party?”

  “Nope, threw me out.”

  “So my real dad—”

  “His name was James. He was a good man.”

  I shift my feet and tense my arms. “Right. He gave you that letter, and this isn’t some screwball gag. I mean, the letter’s for real?”

  George glances over his shoulder. His voice is soft.“What did it say?”

  “You should know. You gave it to me.”

  “What did it say?”

  I pause. “Something about Mom and stuff going wrong.”

  George faces me and lays down the scythe.

  “And some weird stuff about you,” I say.

  George the Coot folds his arms. Looks a different man now. Kinder, I guess. A few neck twitches escape in the strangeness of the moment, and my gaze falls.

  “Do those hurt?” he asks. “When you really get going. Them jumps hurt?”

  “I kind of need them to hit a pain point or they don’t count.” Why am I talking to the Coot? I fidget with my hands, and then look back toward the road. “I got to get going.”

  “That’s the truth.” The Coot rolls his eyes.

  I frown and shake my head. “What do you mean by that?” He says nothing. Looks at me as if I should be talking. But I’ve already said plenty. Spinning, I shuffle past the windmill and almost make it to the road.

  “So you want the job or not?” George’s call grips me by the scruff of my neck.

  I stop and turn. He digs in the back of his pickup.

  “Job?”

  “The one you came to apply for.”

  Now I know what he means. Every summer, it seems a drifter happens through Pierce. Some slimy character with no life. The Coot hires ’im and gives him room and board. I used to see them—the Coot and the loser—on my run. They take off toward the Twin Cities in that junky Ford pickup. Sometimes I see them come back. It’s usually late—eight, maybe nine. At the end of the summer I guess the bum moves on because the next year it’s some other scraggly face.

  “I didn’t come for any job.”

  “Grow up, kid. What else you gonna do?”

  I open my mouth and let it slam shut. A quick peek into my future reveals precious little. No money for college. My right shoulder leaps. With this arm, no running machinery for Old Bill.

  “There’s work in town. I’ll find something. I ain’t no loser desperate for help.”

  “That so?”

  No more. I shake the dust off my feet. “Later.”

  Dinner is late and Old Bill’s in rare form: he smiles.

  “Now that you’re done with school, here’s the deal, boy. Your mom and I have discussed it.” Old Bill shoots a silencing look toward Mom. Bet this’ll be news to her, too.

  “You’re useless to me on the job site and a load on us all. Time for you to pull
your own weight.”

  I put down my hot dog and glance at Mom’s face. I feel mine redden and my jaws tighten. Mom’s eyes plead, and her lips form the word no. Taking a deep breath, I stare across the table at Old Bill’s full plate. He stuffs beans in his mouth, gestures with his fork, and keeps talking.

  “Its high time you pay rent. Since you’re one-third the adult population, I think one-third the mortgage and bills. Comes out to five hundred a month. Plus an extra two hundred up front for my broken swing.”

  I glance at Mom and raise a napkin to whispering lips. “What do I get for a broken mom?”

  “What, boy?” Old Bill’s eyes narrow.

  “Where am I supposed to come up with—”

  Old Bill slams down his fork, and Mom jumps. “Will you listen to him? I feed that birth defect every day, and the free-loader wants to go on living off my generosity.”

  “That’s too much money,” Mom says softly. She stares at her untouched food and rubs her lip.

  Old Bill hollers, and Lane begins to cry. I get up from the table and lift the little fella from his playpen.

  “Shh, hey, now. It’s okay.” I let my twitches run free and bounce him gently. “This is about me, not you.” Within my jerking arms, Lane settles and smiles and his head falls against my heart.

  I stroke his hair and kiss him. “It’ll be fine for you as soon as I’m gone,” I whisper. “Long as you stay still.”

  chapter ten

  THE NEXT MORNING ON MY JOG, COOT’S “HELP Wanted” shingle is gone, but its replacement slows my stride to a trot.

  GROW UP, JACK

  “What the—”

  Dawn’s pinks and purples normally get my attention, but not on this run. As I churn past Coot’s farmstead, the sign’s words hold my gaze and turn my head.

  “That guy is nuts.”

  My toe catches beneath a dead raccoon on the road. “Wha!” I tumble over the roadkill and sprawl face-first onto gravel.

  “Your fault, Coot! Your fault.” I brush myself off and pebbles launch from my lips. “Grow up, you say.” I rise, ease back into stride. “You’re the one playing a stupid game.”

  Grow up, Jack. The phrase echoes through my head all day, and I wake the next morning with one intention:

  Don’t look at the sign. Don’t look.

  But when I pass by I sneak a peek.

  CAN’T WAIT FOREVER

  I squint, and my eyes widen. I face front just in time to leap the flattened raccoon.

  “Hah. Missed me. And get used to waiting. Ain’t nothing you could hang out there that’d get my attention!”

  JUMPY HANDS WELCOME

  I grind to a halt.

  “This has to stop.”

  I approach his door to the squeaks of fruit bats and windmill gears—sounds that do not soothe.

  “Don’t like this.” I whisper, “Cripes, I know I’ll wake the guy. He probably sleeps with that scythe. Liable to come out swinging.”

  I risk the doorbell. Nothing.

  From behind, the crunch of gravel. I spin around and peer through morning mist. From somewhere a whistle approaches, breaks into song:

  “Slam the flowers, slam the flowers, oh, my darlin’ Clementine.”

  A hand squeezes my shoulder.

  “Hey!” I jump.

  “Sorry, Jack. Put these in my truck, will ya?” George presses a plastic tray filled with flowers into my palms and disappears. I escort the plants to the parked truck and place them delicately in the passenger side of the cab.

  “What are ya doin’, kid?” George stands right behind me and asks loud and I jump again. He yanks the tray off the seat. “First off, flats and pots in back.” He nods toward a truckbed filled with flowers and slams the flat back into my hands. “Can’t be so gentle. Take charge. Show ’em who’s boss. Slam those flowers!” He shoves me toward the back of the truck. I spot an empty space, shrug, and slam them down. Four flowers break free from their molds and topple, splayed roots up, onto the plywood sheet lining the truck bottom.

  “Oh, man! I—” I shove mashed flowers back into their little plastic containers. My hands twitch and crunch the holders like Old Bill crunches beer cans. “I could use some help here.” I glance up, but George is gone.

  “There! I killed four of ’em.” I haul off and kick his tire. “You happy now?”

  When George returns, he pushes a wheelbarrow with four bags of reddish bark chips.

  “These go in the bed. Try not to crush those two pots. Not too worried about the rest—making a mess of my plants already? That’s good.”

  I clap dirt off my hands. “Listen, I only came here because of your stupid signs.”

  “What about ’em?” He disappears again. This time I watch him vanish into the machine shed.

  “Keep talking, kid! I can hear you. Ain’t as deaf as Mildred Moury!”

  “I’ll wait!” I stare at the wheelbarrow, sigh, and hoist the bags into the last free space in the truck. Coot returns with a shovel and a pitchfork.

  “That sign. Why are you broadcasting my life?” I ask.

  He looks over the cab. “All set. Three houses to do today. Lots of flowers. So if you’ll excuse me.”

  George slaps the passenger door above the faded lettering: GARDENS, BY GEORGE! He continues around the front and soon the engine sputters to life. “Needs a new battery is all,” he calls out his open window. George hawks and spits. “Bye, Jack.”

  The truck pulls away, but I feel drawn to it and give chase and catch it at the road. George leans out the driver’s-side window.

  “You can stay at the house. Comes with it.”

  I scratch my cheek. “Comes with—”

  “There’s an apartment underneath. Plenty of room for you to move around.”

  “Why don’t you ever answer me straight?” I ask.

  “’Cause you don’t ask what you need to know. The job don’t pay much, maybe a hundred a week.”

  I thump his door with my fist. “Stop right there. I have to cough up five hundred a month for Old Bill.”

  He reaches two fingers over and taps my temple. “Not if you don’t live there. I need someone now.” George rolls up his window, guns the old engine, and lifts up two fingers.

  “I’ll give you two days.” His gravelly voice forces its way out the cab, and with a shudder, his truck lurches onto the road.

  I pound the truckbed and again he clunks to a halt, lowers the window.

  “There’s a time issue here, Jack. Got a hell of a lot to do today. What do you want?”

  I blink hard and try to figure how to ask the question that worms around in my mind. “ Why—why would you—” His gaze is too much, and I look past him into the cab at a ratty spiral notebook—at a graduation picture paper-clipped to the cover. At her.

  “Why would I what?” George asks.

  My eyes glaze, and my voice monotones. “Why would you have a picture of her on your notebook?”

  George glances down at the heavenly image. “This her?”

  I nod.

  “Can’t a man choose who he wants greeting him each morning?”

  I wince. You’re too old to be thinking about that stuff.

  “Calm down. Naomi’s mom’s been a client for years. I’ve known Nae since she was a wee babe.” He looks back to me. “She graduated this year, too. Though I reckon she stayed at her ceremony long enough to get her diploma.” George smirks. “That it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good.” He revs the engine. “ Two days.”

  I watch him disappear.

  My urge to run is gone, and I shuffle back toward our farm.

  Coot works for Naomi? Must see her all the time.

  “Hey, Twitch! Just the guy I need. Well, Bill does.”

  Jace pulls his four-wheeler next to me. I don’t slow.

  “Stop, Sam. Serious here. I was on my way to your place.” Jace gestures toward the back. “Your dad’s in a mess.”

  I roll my eyes and straddle the sea
t. Jace’s dad owns and bartends at the Corner, Old Bill’s favorite hangout, and we speed toward it.

  “So your dad comes in last night all upset,” Jace says. “Two hours later he’s upset and wasted. My dad cuts him off, right? Stop jerking that leg, will ya? Makes me nervous.”

  “Doin’ my best here. I—Bill got drunk?”

  “Guess it was a sight,” Jace says. “And Dad says he’s tired of him counting all the shot glasses when he gets hammered.”

  “I’ll let him know,” I say quietly.

  “Anyway, your dad loses it, and then my dad loses it. Pretty soon Bill is hollering around the bar, and I mean, around the bar. Outside. He’s swearin’ a blue streak; I see where you get that little urge.” Jace turns his head and smirks.“It quiets down. Dad thinks he went home. Then this morning I go over to get Bill’s keys from the till—”

  “Whoa. Wait. You have his keys?”

  “Yeah.” Jace pats his pocket.“Dad said wrestling them away’s what set him off. But shut up and let me finish. So I lock the door this morning, and I see him in—”

  We screech to a halt. I follow Jace’s gaze.

  “A tree?” I hop off and stare up the maple in front of the bar. Bulbous Bill drapes across three limbs a good fifteen feet up.

  Jace shakes his head. “You Carriers got strange habits. He done this before?”

  “Not in a maple. Usually goes for elms.”

  Jace chuckles, and my shoulder jerks twice.

  “Guess I’ll go up,” I say.

  “’Fore you go”—Jace slaps the cast-iron key ring into my hand—“you give him these.”

  My fingers have never touched them before. “Yeah, sure.”

  The climb isn’t hard. I soon sit on the branch that supports Bill’s vomit-covered head—Bill’s vulnerable head.

  “Bill?” I tap his cheek. “Bill?” I slap him lightly and think of Mom. “Bill.”

  My fist balls and I rear back.

  “What are ya doin’ up there?” Jace fights to see through the lower branches. “You gonna hit him?”

  My hand relaxes. I shake my head. “Get some water, would ya?”

  Jace disappears inside the building. I reach toward Old Bill’s middle, where he clutches a bottle. I grab it and sniff.