EPISODE 22
We don’t see Jerry much anymore since Gregory moved him to another dorm. In some ways, I miss him, and I’m sorry I lost his money. “If I tell you the truth, will you keep it under your hat?”
“Sure. Rumors have been flying since the morning old Collie found you’d gone over the wall. Hearing your side will be interesting.”
“A nasty dude who wanted to sell me to his friend was dangling me by my ankle from a second story window and it fell out of my pocket. I got away from him, but when I went back later that night, the money was gone. So I guess he found it.”
Jerry looks at me like he wants to take a ball bat to my head. Then he laughs. “What the hell. Keep it. That’s a good story. Not worth a hundred bucks, but a good story.”
I don’t remind him it was more than a hundred bucks, or try to convince him that’s what happened. I’m just glad Gregory has tamed him so he doesn’t dare break any more of my bones.
“Next time,” he stands up, “you can tell me about how you were driving the car and wrecked it trying to miss a little old lady crossing the street.”
I fill the days with board games, reading, watching educational videos, and wondering when my surprise package will arrive. Most nights I sleep through without dreams or interruptions, and without pills. Gregory keeps me on the sidelines because of my injuries, but they don’t bother me much, and I walk around the track every morning and evening.
Even so, I’m restless. Start to call Ernie a few times, decide to wait and thank him after I know what the surprise is. Has John gone home to his farmhouse? We never learned what he did for a living, but with his secret bank account he’s probably taking time off. Camping. Fishing. Driving his Caddy without worrying about cops. Wish I was with him.
The morning of the Fourth, I’m in my room, adding finishing touches to a rocket. If the timer works the way it should, and the launch doesn’t fail, it’s supposed to explode in the air and rain down in pieces like a puzzle that can be put back together.
An announcement over the intercom reminds us of a special presentation by a guest speaker, and the hubbub in the hall draws me out into the crowd. We cross the lawn to the auditorium and file into seats reserved for us Middles. Somewhere behind us, a piece of hard candy arcs over our heads and into the Littles up front. Hits one, who swirls out of his seat like an angry cat to look for his attacker.
“Gotta be Jerry,” Eric says beside me.
“I don’t think so,” I answer, and then I’m dumbstruck.
A slender young man is ushered onto stage by a junior dorm master who introduces him as Gordon Thomas, who has just flown into town from his university, and explains that the program is a slide show on saving the environment.
His neck hair has been trimmed so he looks scholarly, but the rest is long enough to cover the shaved spot where the sterile pad protected his scalp, skinned off on the rear view mirror. He’s wearing wire-rimmed half glasses which I suspect are from a drug store rack, a long-sleeved white shirt and preppy pants like the ones he ruined washing in the rest area sink. Loafers with socks.
So this is my surprise. It’s all I can do not to yell, Yea! Ernie! But I hold it in, knowing something’s afoot and I don’t want to spoil whatever he has in mind.
Organized, methodical, confident, he points to the pictures on the screen, and his voice is clear and authoritative. It lasts about twenty minutes, the attention span of the Littles (and most Middles). When he shows the last slide— ‘The End’ —everybody starts clapping.
The junior dorm master marches from behind the curtain, and the applause freshens, mainly because, even geared for Littles, the program’s the most excitement we’ve had all week and it’s not time yet for the cook out. Nobody stands, we learned long ago to wait for permission. It’s a good thing, as the
JDM leans into the mic. “Our guest has asked for one of our Middles to give him the Grand Tour of the campus.” My hand shoots into the air, its plastic pinky guard unmistakeable,seconds before other hands join it, some waving for attention. Ernie’s bespectacled eyes rivet on me, and he speaks to JDM, who sounds like Bob Barker when he says, “Come on down! Binnie Scott, lucky Middle.” Sounds of laughter and jeering fade behind me as I make my way to the stairs leading onstage.
JDM dismisses the audience and Ernie says with a straight face, “Hello, Binnie. I’m doing research on benevolent institutions such as East Wind, and I’d like to experience the rest of your day with you.” JDM is hovering, listening, so I answer in the same mode, “Mister Thomas, I’m honored to be your guide. Would you like to see my dorm, and the rocket I’m building for the celebration later tonight?” “Fireworks, is it?” he asks, as we head in the direction of the dorms.
“You’re leaving your slides,” I remind him, but he carelessly says, “I’ll pack them up later.”
Steve’s in the room when we get there, though after a formal introduction that strains my acting skills, he reluctantly departs for an appointment with his clarinet tutor.
I manage to close the door before we burst into laughter. “You dog! Why didn’t you just tell me you were coming for a visit?”
“This was more fun, wasn’t it? And I am doing research, for my major.”
Typical Ernie. Writing papers before he has to. I show him the rocket, and he says, “Got any airplane paint?”
We filch some from the art department, along with small brushes, and he paints the word ‘GOODBYE’ on the nose cone. I like that, so we paint ‘GOODBYE’ on most of the puzzle-joined pieces, and I hope they don’t burn too much to be read once they hit the ground. “So what’s been happening with you, Vinnie?”
“Other than skull-busting boredom?” I wipe off a smear of paint that went astray. “Found out my mom’s alive and knows where I am. Has known since Day One.”
“That’s gotta hurt. I found out Fran’s only my half sister. She’s Dad’s kid, but not Mom’s. Which explains why Mom designated the trust fund just for me.”
We’re silent for a while, painting.
There’s more. “When Francine went wild, I thought it was because of the money, but that was less than half of it. She found her birth certificate, right before she met Hoodoo. She was furious with Dad for starting the whole fiasco, with Mom because she let her think she was her real mother who just up and left her without any explanation.”
He’s not through yet. Clearing the air seems to help, so I just listen. “Dad has always been a private person, but what I didn’t know was how his guilt had made him abuse Mom. That was why she left.”
No wonder her sweet face looks sad. I want to say how sorry I am, but another silence falls and we leave it at that.
When the rocket’s covered with as many goodbye’s as we can fit on, all sizes and in red, white, and blue on the gun metal gray body, I set it in the window to dry.
“I brought transcripts from John’s hearing.” He pulls several tri-folded papers from his slacks pocket and we read each other’s responses to the judge’s questions. I’m impressed by the shrewdness of my companions, especially this part:
Judge: You admit to shooting Jordan.
John: I didn’t shoot him for killing my wife. Had no proof of that. I shot him because he broke into my house.
There’s a copy of Jordan’s confession, which Ernie assures me was not coerced. The weapon wasn’t an axe handle, the way Cuz Martin or Reporter Bob— I don’t know which— claimed that day when I heard them in the coffee shop. It was a baseball bat Margie kept beside her door in case of an intruder. Whether the crime was murder or manslaughter will be decided at Jordan’s trial. His story, which must have been hard to tell, if true, is that Margie was planning to leave him. And take her money with her.
The report from Hoodoo’s hearing explains how he’d found out from Francine about the case file and the antique car, and it was easy for him to gain access to the grounds, with her key numbers.
Ernie clears up Hoodoo’s motive for wanting to kill or at least maim her half brother. “Sufficient is never enough for people like Hoodoo, they have to go all out. Sabatoging my car was his way of getting even with me, not only for all the things he imagines I’ve done to him, but for who I am.”
I lay the papers aside. “Do you know where John is now?”
“He went to the farmhouse.”
I never did get my hands on a map, so I’m still confused about how far that might be from here. When I ask Ernie, he’s already changing the subject.
“If you had to choose, what in this room would you save in case of a fire?”
I point to a handful of books. “Those.”
“That’s all?”
“Unless you brought my camera and running shoes. HEY! What about the photos? I thought you’d mail them to me and that would be your surprise.”
He hands me an envelope of prints from his shirt pocket. There he is, leaning on John’s Caddy in the parking lot. The three of us at lunch. At the tennis courts. And there’s the old guy at the flea market who sold me the shoes. And, on the bottom, the first shot I took. Hoodoo’s fist connecting with Ernie’s jaw.
Out of the blue, I remember something else I would save, in case of fire. I haven’t touched or even seen it since Collins shoved the box to the back of my closet shelf, the night I arrived at East Wind. We were both a lot younger then. And I’m still not tall enough to get the box down without Ernie’s help.
Rabbit.
He’s about ten inches long, yellow fuzzy cloth, with beady eyes and nose, ears with wires that make them adjustable. The head and body are stuffed with something, but not the thin limp arms and legs. You’d expect a typical powderpuff bunny tail, but it’s just a bit of cloth like the rest of him. Magnets for hands and feet so he hangs on stuff. Before I can cry over leaving him alone all these years, Ernie asks,
“What else have you got in there?”
Clothes to fit a five-year-old. A Christmas tree ornament with my name on it: Scott. A hand-tooled leather billfold, kid size. Opening it, I find a black and white photo of a woman and man under the protective plastic. My throat tightens. It’s them, I want to say, but can’t. Ernie’s hand briefly touches my shoulder.
“You’ll want to get to know her, one day.”
“Yeah, probably.”
We don’t mention my dad, but if he’s alive, I’ll want to know that too. One day. Not soon. I fasten Rabbit’s magnets around my arm, stuff him in my sling, and slip the wallet into my shorts pocket. “I travel light,” I joke.
After some thought, I muse : “So I am Scott. Scott Vincent.” I won’t have to legally change my name. It’s already the way I always wanted it.
“Whoever filled out your admission form must have left out the comma separating the first and last names, and they got switched.”
“Remember when we were in the barracks at Haw Creek? I told you we were alike because we always want to do the right thing. We’re alike another way, too. We have names that work both ways.”
He smiles. “Comes in handy whenever you need an alias.”
Steve returns from his lesson and we decide to show ‘Mister Thomas’ the rest of the campus. By the time we’ve finished touring the classrooms, gym, and library, there’s a smell of lit charcoal in the air, and tables are filled with uncooked hot dogs and burgers, packages of buns, containers of mustard and ketchup, covered bowls full of cole slaw, and coolers full of ice and drinks.
During the picnic, I try not to think of the last time we did this, a month ago, and the adventures I’ve had since Margie’s lifeless body imprinted on my brain. Ernie disappears for fifteen or twenty minutes, and I hope he hasn’t taken off without saying…
Goodbye.
He hasn’t. He’s on hand for a dessert of chocolate brownies, and while most of the inmates compromise their digestion with baseball or volleyball, he pulls my Scrabble board out of a canvas bag he’s carrying around, along with my duffel. Nobody in the dorm will play me anymore, since I stopped throwing a game now and then. Ernie beats me two out of three.
Something else is in the bag. “Thought you might need them.”
I pull on a pair of summer socks and slide my feet into my running shoes. They make me want to take them for a spin around the track, but that last hot dog persuades me otherwise.
Dusk comes early because of clouds rolling in, and it’s a moonless night, so the fireworks start early in case it rains. Ernie remarks, “Shades of the festival.”
“Too bad John can’t be here.”
If he answers, I don’t hear him for the first volley. Ours aren’t extravagant, but the show usually lasts maybe thirty minutes, with pauses between sets. We’ve watched maybe half when Ernie says,
“Ready for rocket launch? I brought it.”
“Now? Sure.” I’ve planned to climb the stairs to the walkway outside the library tower, and send Goodbye sailing toward the main buildings and picnic area. We do that together.
Forgot to bring matches. Ernie hasn’t. “Boy Scout,” I tease. I light the fuse and stand back. The rocket sputters, teeters, smokes, then takes off . . . like a rocket.
We lean on the railing and watch it arc over the gym and explode above the picnic grounds. I think about the debris left from the grill-out and figure all of it, including my rocket, will be raked up in the morning by old Martin before I’m even awake.
“I have one more surprise for you, Mouse.”
Descending the stairs in the dark , I’m thinking about what else Ernie’s been plotting. He’s tossed away the empty canvas bag but is still carrying my duffel, which bulges. Probably stuffed with his slides. Does this trek across campus mean he didn’t arrive in a cab? Is a private small plane concealed somewhere beyond the garden plots, where he’s leading me between rows of beans and squash?
Before I can express doubt about whether he can safely navigate at night, we come to the farthest corner of the chain link fence, a good half mile from the fateful abandoned well, so no ghosts rise up to howl a lament. The two-lane runs past here, darkly bordered by forest on both sides. I’ve never been in this direction, and excitement builds.
Ernie kneels about three feet out from the corner post, and shoves something under the fence. Under the fence?
“Come on, Mouse. You’re next.”
He guides me into a recently-shoveled ditch covered in painter’s plastic. “I knew you’d never be able to climb with a broken collarbone.”
“And pinky,” I remind him, though truthfully I usually forget about it. “Why are we doing this?”
‘Doing this’ is sliding under the fence, kicking out of his way as he follows me. We stand up, and I notice the distant street lamps. Wisps of fireworks smoke and an occasional illegal firecracker mark the end of the Fourth celebration.
He folds the plastic into a square convenient for carrying away.
“Look.” He turns me around, picks up the duffel, and we start walking along the grassy shoulder of the road. What does he want me to see? In the starlight, between clouds, a shape moves towards us. It’s a big, heavy car-shape, under blackout, easing over the tarmac in reverse. Stops about ten feet away. We run towards it.
Someone forgot to remove the dome bulb, because when Ernie opens the driver’s side rear door and we pile in, by its light I see John grinning, his arm over the seat. Next to him, Ernie’s mom smiles at us.
The door closes and the light dies. John changes the gears to ‘go’ mode. “Well, Scott,” she says, “are you ready for another life?”
Stunned but thrilled, I tell her, “I’ve been ready.”
As the Caddy picks up speed on the straight, dark road, I’m torn between insane tears of joy and the urge to laugh out loud. Possibilities rush at me like fireworks, colorful and noisy. “Where are we going?”
“First, to my place,” John says.
“We need to cut and bleach your hair,” Ernie tells me. He takes the drug store glasses from his pocket and fits them onto my face. No magnification.
“And we can start homeschooling right away, if you want,” Ernie’s mom adds. “Don’t want you getting bored.”
While I’m trying to remember if I’ve ever heard her name, we round a curve and John clicks on the Caddy’s lights. East Wind is history, hidden now by trees. Collins left without revealing any more about my real mother, but when the time comes, I’m sure I’ll find her. Will she be sad in the meantime, not knowing where I am?
Ernie suggests, “Why don’t you put Rabbit in the duffel with your books?”
As I do that, I remember the wallet in my pocket, and the photo in the wallet. When we’re at the farmhouse, I’ll check to see whether anybody wrote my parents’ names and maybe a date on the back.
“So how long have you guys known each other,” I ask Ernie’s mom.
“We just met,” she tells me. Their smiles tell me there’s a possible future here. I try to remember if Ern— Tommy ever said his parents are divorced or just separated. She’s been out of the house for two years, so either way she’s not likely to go back.
My racing thoughts light on an entirely different matter. “Can we have banana pancakes for breakfast?”
“Sure,” Ernie’s mom says.
“And coffee?”
John and Ernie laugh. “Just don’t let the kid make it,” John advises.
“Why not?” She glances from one to the other, curious.
Ern— Tom explains, “Oh, he can make it. If you like it strong.”
“Strong enough to float an iron wedge,” John warns her.
Ernie’s mom’s voice is calm, contented. “I like my coffee strong.”
“Me, too,” I tell them.
The two-lane stretches ahead, smoothly winding away behind us under the Caddy’s wheels. I wonder how I’ll look as a blond.
THE END?