Dead End in Norvelt (15 page)

I did get up early and was in the pony pen rubbing the paint remover onto War Chief and scrub-brushing it in big glistening circles over the paint and then rinsing him down with soap and water. The paint was dissolving and War Chief seemed pretty happy and I was too. After about a half hour Mom joined me with a bacon and cheese sandwich wrapped in newspaper to keep it warm. “I thought you could use a little something,” she said, and gave me a goofy love look, like she was remembering the morning I was born.

“I am hungry,” I replied, and put the brush down and washed my hands in the soap and water. I unwrapped the sandwich and took a bite, but because my hand still smelled of petroleum the sandwich tasted like my hand.

“You better wash them again,” she said.

“Could you hold the sandwich and feed me?” I asked.

She smiled. “Just like a baby bird,” she cooed, and as she held the sandwich for me she stroked my hair. Normally I wouldn’t like all this kind of Mom attention, but it was my birthday and we always acted like it was her birthday too, because it was the day I was born and the day she gave birth to me. So I was as sweet to her as she was to me.

“I also came out here to tell you something else,” she said as she took a napkin and wiped my mouth. “I called a farrier to see if he would trim War Chief’s hooves.”

“Did you offer to pay him in pants now that you work at a pants factory?” I asked, and looked her directly in the eye.

“Hey, I wear the pants in this family, so don’t you be a smarty-pants,” she said, and poked me on the shoulder. “I offered him
you.
I told him I’d trade an hour of his time for three hours of yours. I thought that was fair.”

I stopped chewing. “What’d he say?”

“He laughed. And when he finished laughing he said that he lived in a ‘cash only’ world.” She didn’t sound surprised.

“But didn’t you know he would say that?” I asked. “I did.”

“Yes and no,” she replied. “I told him he could teach you the business and he said that nobody wanted to learn his business anymore. He called himself an antique. I told him that when I was a kid, antique men were the best because they knew how to take care of a horse, farm the land, build a house, and fix a car.”

“And I bet he said those days were dead and over with,” I cut in.

“Exactly,” she replied.

“Are you ever going to realize this barter stuff doesn’t work anymore? That people want cash? They’ve always wanted cash—or gold. I haven’t read one book where people didn’t want
something
valuable for their work.”

“What about a caveman?” Mom suggested. “Did they want gold?”

“No, they wanted food and fire and safety—these things were as good as gold to them.”

“Well, they are as good as gold to me too,” she reasoned. “So are you calling me a caveman?”

“Cave
woman
,” I said, correcting her.

“Who is a cavewoman?” Dad said loudly as he came around the corner of the barn and into the pony pen. He was carrying a plain brown package under his arm.

Mom pointed at Dad and gave me a knowing look. “He’s definitely a caveman,” she whispered.

“Happy birthday, son,” he said, and tousled my hair.

I smiled, until Mom gave me that serious look that meant she needed to educate me about something before I was allowed to have fun. “Now that you have turned twelve,” she started, “I know you’ll appreciate what I have to say about birthday gifts and gift giving. My mother taught me this and it is the old Norvelt way.”

I dared to glance at Dad for a moment and could tell he was not about to interrupt her.

“We always got three gifts,” Mom explained. “They were
good
,
better
, and
best
. A good gift was always something
useful
, so your dad and I each got you something useful.”

At that moment Dad scooted outside the pony pen and grabbed something out of sight, and when he returned he handed me a new round-nosed shovel with a nice blue bow tied around the handle. And before I could squawk he also gave me the package that was wrapped up in brown butcher paper.

“Open it,” Mom allowed, with a beaming look across her face. Right away I knew it could not be fun.

I was right. I ripped off the wrapping paper and inside a box were a set of three cotton dish towels hand-stitched with my name on them.

“Don’t worry,” Mom said quickly before I could blurt out some complaint. “These are the good, useful gifts. The more you use them and pitch in around the house the more you can understand how the whole family works as a team.”

“That is a gift?” I asked, incredulous.

“Don’t be an ingrate,” she said playfully. “There is still the
better
gift to come.”

That was hopeful news and so I waited for the
better
gift to be revealed, but it was a gift I couldn’t even see!

“The
better
gift is basically a good deed you do for free,” Dad said.

“Or,” Mom said in her upbeat voice despite the melted smile on my face, “it’s a deed you do because helping others makes you a
better
person. Your dad and I thought you should volunteer this fall at the Frick Hospital in Mount Pleasant. You’ve been doing a lot of reading and we signed you up to go to the hospital to read to patients who can’t read for themselves. You were born in that hospital and everyone took such good care of us, so this is a way of saying ‘thank you’ to them and the community.”

“Okay,” I said. I knew it was a good deed to read to sick people, but there was still nothing wrong with wanting a real gift just for me.

“And now,” Dad announced, “here comes the best gift—the gift that we think
fits
you best.”

I was sure it was going to be a pair of underpants or socks or T-shirts that just happened to
fit
me
best
.

But then Dad reached into his back pocket and pulled out the smallest white envelope I had ever seen. It was about the size of a matchbox and it fit in the palm of his hand.

“It’s all yours,” he said with much fanfare, and bowed deeply as if I were the emperor of China.

“So what do you think is in there?” Mom gushed as I held it by the corner and waved it back and forth like a tiny white flag. “Take a guess.”

I wanted to say, “I surrender.” But mostly I wanted to guess the right gift because it would make Mom very happy to know that she made me happy.

“Well?” she asked. “Cat got your tongue?”

“Come on, son,” Dad chimed in. “Take a wild shot at it.”

But I didn’t know what to say because my mind was screaming,
I hope it’s a car, car, car!
And then it came to me in a flash. “A ticket to the Viking Drive-in!” I shouted.

Her smile flattened. “Good guess,” she said without much promise. “Now open it.”

I ripped the envelope down the side and gave it a shake. Three thin handmade tickets slid into my palm. I looked down at them. The first one read: GET OUT OF JAIL FREE. Before I could say anything she explained, “It’s a pass to get out of your room for a day,” she said. “An un-grounded ticket.”

“Like, for twenty-four hours?” I asked.

“Yes,” she confirmed.

“That’s great!” I shouted, and my cheeks swelled up so much they blocked my vision, but in my mind I could see myself running free all over Norvelt.

I paused for a moment, then looked down at the other two tickets. One read: ONE FLIGHT IN THE J-3.

Mom suddenly shot Dad a dirty-bird look. “I thought we agreed you were going to give him a ticket to the carnival so he could go on the rides,” Mom said.

“I figured the J-3 would be a better ride than some old Ferris wheel,” Dad replied, and looked away from Mom and toward me. “Right, son?”

“Right, Dad,” I snapped back.

“But I fly it,” Dad confirmed. “And I’ll give you a few
tips
.”

The way he said
tips
made me think he had some fun on his mind that he couldn’t tell me about in front of Mom, who was not looking real happy.

The last ticket read: DOUBLE FEATURE AT VIKING DRIVE-IN.

“I guessed it!” I said, grinning. “I really did!”

“Of course you did,” Mom said, and leaned forward for a kiss. “You stare at that tiny screen so much I fear you’ll ruin your eyes. But keep in mind that I had to barter for the drive-in ticket. You can see the movies for free, but when they are over you have to stay behind and pick up all the trash that people throw out their windows.”

I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. “Really?” I asked in a small voice. “Do I have to pick up trash for my birthday gift?”

“Just kidding,” she said. “I tried to barter your work for the ticket but then they reminded me about the child labor laws. Darn! So your dad and I thought we’d better start you off with an allowance before Mr. Spizz caught you working around the house and put
us
in jail.”

Dad pulled out a two-dollar bill and set it right in the middle of my hand. “You do a lot of work around here, so you deserve some reward,” he said.

“Wow,” I said, and I stared wide-eyed. I had never seen a two-dollar bill before and now I knew that President Jefferson was on the front side.

“Hey,” Dad said, “I hate to break this party up, but Miss Volker called a little while ago and said she needs a ride to her church. Jackie, can you drive her?”

“Sure,” I said. Normally I walked down the hill to the Norvelt Church of Christ with Mom and Dad. But getting to drive Miss Volker was as good as a birthday gift, because her small Catholic church was out in the country and must have been about a half-hour trip.

Mom stepped out of the pony pen and looked up into the air. She could judge time from the range of blue shades across the sky. “You better wash up,” she advised. “You have to be there in a half hour and you smell like kerosene. If they light candles you’ll go up in flames.”

“Then we’ll have holy smoke,” I said, and was in such a good mood I laughed at my own joke. “And thanks for the great gifts,” I added, and then ran off to get ready.

It didn’t take me long to wash up and Mom had already laid out all my clothes, so I was dressed and running down to Miss Volker’s house in no time. I opened her porch door and she was waiting for me with her back turned.

“Can you button up my dress?” she asked. “I’m gettin’ to the point where I’m just going to wear a bathrobe everywhere. Buttons, zippers, hooks and eyes—I just can’t do them anymore.”

“That’s why you have me for your boyfriend,” I said, and I buttoned her up in a jiffy.

“I think you are more pet than boyfriend,” she cracked, “which is good. At my age a pet is all I need.”

I got her into the car and then ran around to the other side and started it up. We were no sooner out of Norvelt than she said, “You know I can’t write.”

“I know,” I replied.

“But if I could write here is what I’d put down onto paper. I want you to have this fine little car,” she said.

I almost drove off the road and into a mailbox. “Really?” I said, and gently patted the steering wheel like it was my tender new baby.

“Don’t get too excited,” she continued. “You can’t have it until I’m dead.”

“But I’d rather have you alive than the car,” I said.

“That’s sweet of you,” she said without much sweetness. “But you’ll find the car will be more useful. And I have a bit of birthday advice to give you.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

She pointed at my nose. “I hope you aren’t still taking all those iron drops,” she said gravely.

“I am,” I said. “Mom makes me take spoonfuls of the stuff.”

“Well, pour it down the drain,” she ordered. “Immediately! I did some research on your nose. There is a disease called hemochromatosis, which you get from having too much iron in your blood! It destroys your liver and pancreas and causes severe depression—guess who had it?”

“No idea,” I said.

“Ernest Hemingway!” she hollered out. “The great American writer who shot himself last summer with a loaded rifle!”

“Was it an accident?” I asked, thinking of my own little accident.

“No,” she said matter-of-factly. “Suicide.”

That was a totally depressing birthday warning. I was wondering how I could keep Mom from making me take the iron drops and I started driving so slowly that Mr. Spizz passed us on his tricycle and was already inside the church by the time we arrived.

After I very carefully parked the car-which-someday-would-be-mine I escorted Miss Volker to the front door. She had a special “old folks” seat close to the altar and strolled up the center aisle to take her place. I stayed behind like her chauffeur, and sat in the back pew. From there I could keep an eye on all the grownups who were fidgeting or falling asleep or adjusting their fancy hats or singing off key. But the best part of sitting in the back was that my mind could wander aimlessly, because church was so dreamy. Real life was lived like doing a math problem: one and one always equaled two. But church had a different kind of math. You could never be sure what anything added up to, which meant that what was in your imagination while sitting in a pew was just as important as what the preacher was saying—maybe even more important. It’s like when you read a book and you know that the words are important, but the images blossoming in your imagination are
even more
important because it’s your mind that allows the words to come to life.

Because I had gotten a bunch of nosebleeds in church, I spent a lot of time sitting in the pew with my head thrown all the way back and my eyes looking straight up at the brilliant white ceiling, which was sort of like God’s movie screen where I could imagine what heaven might look like.

For me, heaven mostly looked like the pictures in the Landmark book I read about Julius Caesar in ancient Rome. Everyone wore colorful robes and drove around in chariots and lived in massive stone buildings with tall columns and statues of famous leaders and generals and thinkers. The noon sun was always parting the clouds to show off a robin’s-egg-blue sky and people didn’t so much walk as they drifted just an inch above the all-white stone paths and roads, and they never went the wrong way because in heaven everything you did was always the right way and everything ended the way it should. For some reason the only food in heaven was bread, but the bread came in every shape you can imagine. There were tiny loaves for dolls, and warm dinner rolls, and long French bread, and braided rings of bread, and thick loaves as big and round as wagon wheels, and even entire wheat-colored cottages of crusty bread which when you lived in them were more like yeasty caves in a gigantic mountain of bread, and all you had to do in order to feed yourself in heaven was pull a hank of soft, moist bread right out of the wall. And there was never such a thing as a “last supper” because every night while you slept your bread house was made fresh all over again, and as my mother always said, if you had fresh bread each day then you’d never have a worry. And not having a worry in the world was the definition of heaven. Dad said that he wanted to move to Florida where he could buy a little piece of heaven, and Mom had said Norvelt was heaven on earth. I guess for me heaven was everything good I could imagine. It was always so beautiful to stare up at that white ceiling and imagine only clean beautiful places, where the reward for living a pure life was a great loaf of warm bread.