Getting Nowhere Read online

  “Oh, oh, oh,” she kept saying. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Are you sure it’s for me?”

  He took her in his arms and kissed her. I might just as well have taken a huge jump in the lake for all they knew I was there. When they’d finished, he said, “I wanted to get something really special to let you know how much this year has meant to me. And the boys.”

  She threw her arms around my father and hugged him. I looked at them and right into Pat’s face.

  “Yes,” she said, “you and the boys.”

  She put her arm through his, and they went back inside the house, leaving me standing there running my hand over the smooth, gorgeous thing. Over and over and over.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The next morning I woke up and tried to remember what had happened the night before. That was special, I mean. The morning after Mom died I did the same thing. For a second I couldn’t remember she’d died. I knew something terribly important had happened, but it took a couple of seconds to put it in place. And when something clicked inside my head and a nasty voice kept saying, “Mom is dead,” until I couldn’t stand it, I crawled down to the end of the bed, under the covers, and didn’t come up for air until somebody opened the door and said my name. Then I wanted to go back to sleep. I figured maybe if I did and woke up again, everything would be all right. Mom would be standing at the side of the bed, smiling at me, telling me to hurry and get dressed.

  Of course, it didn’t work that way. I was only six and didn’t know any better.

  It was only a new car. That was it. Just a new car. No big deal. I didn’t have to go through an elaborate routine to pretend it hadn’t happened. All I had to do was go down to the garage and check it out. Now. Before anyone else was awake.

  I could hear Tony snoring on the other side of the partition my father had put up to divide the big bedroom between us. That way we had some privacy. Tony wasn’t much on privacy, but sometimes when I’d been with people for days at a time, talking, arguing, eating, I thought it was the greatest thing on earth. To be by yourself if you feel like it is a luxury as far as I’m concerned.

  I sleep in my underwear. In case of fire, or having the alarm conk out, it’s extremely handy. A real timesaver. I hopped out of bed and into my jeans and the shirt I’d worn yesterday and got down the stairs, managing to avoid the two creaky treads. I didn’t even stop for food, although I was hungry. Later. Right now not a creature was stirring except me. Dad and Pat wouldn’t surface for hours. The joint was all mine.

  The entire garage smelled new. There she was, sitting sleek and shiny as a jungle cat. I opened the door and slid into the driver’s seat. I slung my right arm along the back of the seat, like a guy who drives so expertly he only needs one hand on the wheel.

  “Comfortable?” I turned my head, an enigmatic smile on my face, to look at the beautiful chick sitting next to me. She smiled back.

  “You certainly are a terrific driver,” she said in a sexy voice. “I feel so safe when I’m with you.”

  Oh, babe, if you only knew.

  A gigantic truck pulled out of a side road, directly into the path of my car. Ahead, little kids trailed off the school bus. With split-second timing, I skillfully maneuvered us out of danger, brakes squealing, spectators aghast.

  “That was some job you did of avoiding a collision,” a cop said admiringly, motioning me to pull over. “Untold people might’ve been injured, perhaps even killed, if it hadn’t been for your quick action. And you’re only a kid!” He scratched his head in bewilderment. “If I was in charge of giving out medals, I’d give you one right now.”

  Pale and shaken, the girl laid her hand on my arm and said in a trembling voice, “You must be the best driver in the world.”

  Slowly I let the corners of my mouth lift in a modest smile. “I’m just doing my job,” I said quietly.

  Fadeout.

  “Hey, turkey.” My friend Jeff Fields stood unmoving, watching. I don’t know how long he’d been standing there. Not too long, I hope.

  “You forget today is window day, turkey?”

  Two years ago Jeff and I had formed a cleaning service called the J. and M. outfit. He got first billing because his initial came first in the alphabet, that’s all. Any household job done better for less. We put handmade cards in people’s mailboxes. The response was sensational. I think it was the word “less” that touched the hearts of the populace, because we got more calls than we could handle.

  Most folks asked, “Do you do windows?” Neither of us had ever washed a window, so Mrs. Fields gave us a crash course. She stood over us until each pane gleamed.

  “In this business,” she told us sternly, “it’s word of mouth that counts. If you do a good job on your first try, you’ll have it made.”

  She must’ve been right because, from then on, we did windows until we could hardly stand up straight unless we were on a ladder.

  We did other jobs too: cleaned out garages, attics, raked lawns and rebuilt stone walls that’d been torn apart by the winter. I even cleaned an oven for a lady who told me, “If you do a good job, I’ll give you a bonus.” So I worked my buns off and, believe me, that oven hadn’t been cleaned in ten years, and she slipped me a dime. Before that, I’d thought she was pretty. Then I noticed she had no ankles, her legs just sort of slid down to her feet uninterrupted, and her fingernails were dirty. Working for people could sour you for life if you let it. Jeff and I were on our way to our first million. We made up our minds that when we made it we’d be the same sweet, unspoiled kids we’d always been.

  “No, I didn’t forget.” I got out of the car and made for the kitchen.

  “Nice boat,” Jeff said approvingly. “Don’t tell me, let me guess. Your old man gave it to you for passing your math test.”

  “Naw, he gave it to me because I’m such a good kid.” I thrashed around in the cupboard, looking for some cold cereal. I wanted to eat and get out of there before anyone woke up.

  “Let’s have some eggs,” Jeff suggested. He’s got a perpetual hole in his stomach.

  “No, they’d smell ’em cooking.” I threw a couple pieces of bread at him, followed by the jar of peanut butter.

  “Whose car is it?” Jeff’s voice sounded as if he was at the end of a long tunnel, muffled by massive doses of peanut butter and jelly.

  “It’s a present,” I said. “From my father to Pat for their first anniversary.”

  “Hoooo-eeee.” Jeff whistled through his teeth. “Not bad, not bad at all. He must really dig her.”

  I threw the dirty knife in the sink and stuffed the rest of the sandwich in my mouth.

  “Are you going to sit around on your arse all day or are you getting out into the field of commerce?”

  He waved a stiff middle finger at me and we took off.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Jeff and I split at the corner of Willow and Beach. He had two regular window jobs to the left. I went right. Sometimes, when we’re not too busy, we do a job together. But now, with folks crying for our services, we go our separate ways. Mrs. Baumgartner was first on my list. In a way I was sorry. I like to save the best for last. Mrs. Baumgartner looks like an ancient queen or a ruler of men. She’s tall and thin and moves with dignity. Her back is very straight and she carries her head as if she was balancing a basket of fruit on it. Mostly she dresses in black: black pants and a sweater or a black dress that reaches almost to the floor. Once I saw her downtown in a black cape that billowed in the wind. People turned to look at her as she passed by.

  “Some people wear blue or green to match their eyes,” she told me. “I wear black to match mine.” Her gray hair is always neat and tidy. Her face is full of bones.

  I’ve been doing windows and odd jobs for her since the first week we went into business. Her husband, Henry, is an invalid. He seldom goes outside except when it’s very warm. Even then she pushes him out to the porch in his wheelchair all bundled up in blankets. Mrs. Baumgartner is all black, Henry is all white�
�hair and skin. His hands are almost transparent. The fingers on his right hand are stained yellow from smoking.

  “I was afraid he’d set the house on fire,” she told me, “so I asked him to please stop smoking and he didn’t even argue. That was the worst. He didn’t put up a fight.”

  She reads aloud to him a lot. Usually, when I get there, she’s reading Charles Dickens or Mark Twain or poetry. She has a voice that makes poetry more interesting than I thought it could ever be.

  They were the only people I knew who didn’t have a television set. “It’s all I can do to face up to the morning paper every day,” she said.

  Today she met me at the door. “There you are,” she said. “I wanted to tell you we won’t be needing you from now on.” She buttoned and unbuttoned her sweater, fussed with her blouse, settling her clothes down.

  “How come?” I asked. “Didn’t I do a good job last time?”

  “It’s not that,” she said. “Henry’s going to have to go to a home, the doctor says, and I’m afraid we won’t be able to afford you.” For the first time she looked at me. “You’re a good boy and we’ll miss you, but that’s the way it is.”

  “As long as I’m here, I might as well do the windows and stuff and you can owe me,” I told her. Both my grandmothers live in California, and sometimes I pretend Mrs. Baumgartner is my grandmother. Last Easter she colored an egg for me with my name on it, and for Christmas she knitted me an orange-and-black hat that made me look like a convict, but I wore it anyway. When I went to her house, that is.

  A sound came from the living room. It was Henry calling to us, asking us to come see him. Mrs. Baumgartner stretched her mouth into a narrow smile.

  “I’m not fooling him, but I keep on trying,” she said, and we went to see him.

  “It’s Mark, darling.” She patted his sleeve.

  “How are you, sir?” I shouted. I have to control myself when I talk to him. His eyes seem to know me, but it’s hard to be sure. She says he can hear perfectly well, but I always shout. Mr. Baumgartner’s got hardening of the arteries of the brain. He knows what’s going on, it’s just that he can’t talk and his body’s giving out. I wish I’d known him when he was in his prime. He was a newspaper editor and worked all night long and wore a vest every day.

  “He was so elegant,” she said, “so natty. People don’t expect newspapermen to be elegant, but Henry was. He could be stern too, but he was always fair.”

  Henry’s eyes went from her to me and back to her. “Can I get anything for you?” she asked. He shook his head.

  “I was just going to have some tomato soup,” Mrs. Baumgartner said. “Would you care to join me?” We went into the kitchen. “Oh, he does so enjoy seeing you, Mark,” she said. “The way his face lights up when you come does me good. Care for a Saltine?” She passed me a plate of crackers and ladled the soup into bowls. She broke up a handful of Saltines into her soup so that it became a soggy pink mass. I thought it was sort of disgusting, but she attacked it with relish.

  “All the time I was growing up, I did this, and if my mother caught me, she made me throw it out and start again with just soup,” she said. “Have you ever read Jane Austen, Mark?”

  I burned my tongue and shook my head. Jane who?

  “Good for you,” she said approvingly. “She’s one of those people you’re supposed to have read. You’re not really well educated if you haven’t read her, they tell you. And I tell you this. She’s a crashing bore. I can’t help it. That’s the way I feel. My mother read Jane Austen to put herself to sleep. She felt very virtuous reading Sense and Sensibility. There are some good things about growing old, and one of them is that you read what you want, and another is you say what you think.

  “The eyesight fails, the blood thins, the chin sags, but there are compensations.” She got up briskly and rinsed the dishes.

  “I better get going,” I said. I got the cloths out from the drawer she kept them in and went to the closet to get the bucket and the ammonia.

  “Mark,” she said, “did you hear what I said when you first came today?”

  “I heard you,” I said. “I want to do it—wash your windows and rake your leaves. And you’re not going to stop me.”

  I guess you could say we had a Mexican standoff. We stared at each other and I won. She smiled at me.

  “Mark, if I had a grandson, I’d want him to be like you,” Mrs. Baumgartner said. “And I’m not saying that just because of the windows. I’m saying it because it’s true.”

  “Thanks,” I said. Being paid a compliment is pleasant, especially when it’s been a long time since you’ve heard one. Maybe I could move in with the Baumgartners and help take care of Henry so she wouldn’t have to send him away to a home. I’d visit my father and Tony on weekends and holidays, and that way we’d be better friends, smile and laugh and talk to each other calmly, in friendly voices. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Familiarity breeds contempt.

  Probably if she’d really been my grandmother, I would’ve charged her double. That’s the kind of guy I am.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Whatdya say, turk, you want to go to the flicks tonight?” Jeff asked me when we were tallying up the day’s receipts.

  “Can’t,” I said. “I’m going to a party.”

  He put his hand on his stomach, half closed his eyes and swayed like a willow tree in a hurricane. “Is this here party a stag affair or are there going to be members of the opposite sex there?”

  “It’s just a party,” I said. “All you can eat and drink. Maybe we’ll play spin the bottle a couple of times. Turn off the lights and make out. Have an orgy. How do I know? I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

  “Where’s this party taking place? Maybe I’ll hop on my Honda and whiz by, and if I like what I see, I might stay for a couple of beers.” I figure Jeff and I qualify as the original Walter Mitty kids, always fantasizing. I’m going to ask Mrs. Baumgartner if she ever reads Walter Mitty to Henry. I bet he’d get a kick out of it.

  “It’s at Lisa’s house. Lisa McClean’s house.” I liked the feel of her name on my mouth.

  Jeff frowned. “She that girl turkey with the knobby knees sits in front of you in biology class? How come she didn’t ask me?”

  How’d he know if her knees were knobby? “Yeah, that’s Lisa,” I said stiffly. I told him about rescuing her from the two creeps. “Jesum crow!” he whistled, rolling his eyes. “No wonder she invites you and not me. You’re a hero!

  “If that old Lisa knew what a peachy dancer and all-around lover I am, she would’ve asked me,” Jeff said. “On the other hand, I don’t think I’m ready for a boy-girl relationship just yet.”

  Jeff was better-looking than me. He was cool, easygoing. He had two brothers, both older, and two sisters, younger, and his mother and father hollered at them and at each other a lot. I liked going to their house. If Mrs. Fields hollered at Jeff for something he’d done, she included me. She hollered at everyone. It made me feel, I don’t know, sort of cozy when she let go at both of us.

  “You can come if you want,” I told Jeff. “Lisa wouldn’t mind.”

  He shook his head. “This flick is about a guy who gets frozen in an iceberg for two thousand years. All of a sudden there’s this gigantic thaw and when he comes up for air there’s this gorgeous blond chiquita, practically naked, see, giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”

  “I think I already saw it,” I said. “See you around,” and I cut out for home.

  Tony was reading comic books on my bed when I got there.

  “Why don’t you ever read anything good, for Pete’s sake?” I said.

  “Hello there, Scrooge,” he said slowly. “How are things down at the orphanage?” For a kid who reads so many comic books, Tony does all right.

  “Read on your own bed and quit messing up mine,” I told him. I wanted to get to work on trying my hair parted in the middle, and I didn’t feel like having a twelve-year-old brother as an audience. I had a bottle of h
air tonic stashed away in my bottom drawer. I knew if Tony saw me using hair tonic, he’d give me a hard time.

  Slowly he got up and dragged toward the door.

  “Tonight’s the party, huh?”

  “What? Oh, yeah, I guess. Now scram.”

  “When you feel up to a duel, let me know,” Tony said. “Swords or pistols.”

  “Don’t tempt me, baby,” I said. I had a new comb just for the occasion. Usually I use my fingers. They do a pretty good job. Tonight was different. Tonight was my big opportunity. For what, I wasn’t sure. Tonight or never. I could feel it in my bones.

  CHAPTER TEN

  A middle part was like an arrow pointing to my nose, saying, “NOSE,” in big red letters. I gave up and settled for my old hairdo, which was sort of your basic Cro-Magnon man. My blue shirt was clean, and my khakis. I brushed my teeth, sprayed the old pits, and made sure my socks matched. I was so adorable Lisa would swoon when she caught sight of me.

  I went downstairs. My father and Pat were in the living room having a drink. Tony was sitting with them, laughing and talking like he was a master of ceremonies or something. He wasn’t on the sauce yet, so he was drinking a ginger and ginger. Jeff and I had tried a shot of his father’s bourbon once when we were alone at his house. Either we made the drinks too weak or too strong. Whatever, they tasted lousy.

  “There he is,” my father said. He sounded pleased. That’s one nice thing about him, he always acts glad to see me. Or he used to. This was a big night for him. He felt good, I could tell. “Come and join us. Have you had any dinner or does this party include dinner?”

  “I left some meat loaf in the oven if you want it,” Pat said. I hadn’t talked to her since last night. Or looked at her either, for that matter. From the corner of my eye, I could see she had on a blue dress.