Made in the U.S.A. (14 page)

Lutie decided they would go to a Catholic church—not, she said, because of the denomination, but because the building was only two blocks from the library.

They arrived just after nine, found the front doors unlocked, the vestibule empty and silent. The nave was dark, lit only by gauzy diffused light coming through stained-glass windows and some candles glowing near the door.

One elderly woman was sitting in the back pew, her eyes closed as she ran the beads of a rosary through her fingers, her lips moving without sound as she prayed. Another woman, a young Latina, sat near the statue of the Virgin Mary at the side of the nave. Neither woman acknowledged in any way that Fate and Lutie had entered and seated themselves close to the front.

Fate sat still and stiff, his face registering nothing but discomfort that may have come from the unfamiliar surroundings. Or perhaps he was feeling the pain of his reason for being there—to remember good times with his father as a way of saying good-bye. A funeral of sorts, as Lutie had called it that morning.

The thought of death and funerals made him remember something he’d read in one of his fact books about the strange deaths of some popes. He recalled that John X was imprisoned and suffocated and John XIV was left to die of starvation in prison. He reasoned that prison had been no kinder to his father than to those unfortunate popes.

Just then he realized that Lutie was wiping tears from her face, making him wonder not why she was crying, but why he wasn’t, so he willed himself back to thoughts of his father, searching for memories.

A ball game. His father had taken him to a semipro ball game in Rapid City, but what he remembered most about that outing was his dad getting drunk on beer and falling from a row of bleachers.

He quickly ran through the books of the Bible and the Ten Commandments, which he’d memorized at the Sunday school Floy took them to in Spearfish, then he backed up and went through the commandments again to count the number he’d broken.

A party. A surprise birthday party. They’d been living with a woman named Beverly, a woman his father had taken up with for a while. He recalled a cake with candles, a pretty woman giving him his first sip of whiskey, everyone yelling, “Surprise!” when his daddy walked in. But again, the memory dissolved with a picture of his father drunk, passed out in a recliner, vomit on his undershirt.

To quiet the films playing behind his eyes, he concentrated on the life-size crucifix attached to the front wall. Fate studied the figure with such fixed attention that he curled his fingers so that his nails cut into his palms, trying to imagine the pain Christ must have felt, hoping that his own pain would bring tears. But that didn’t work, either.

Beside him, he felt Lutie’s body shudder with weeping, saw her hand covering her mouth to silence the sounds of her sobs. He shifted then, put his arm around his sister, and pulled her close so she could cry into his shoulder.

But still he remained dry-eyed.

Though he couldn’t remember his mother, her death, or her funeral, he tried to reach that empty spot deep within him that would forever remain a void, a feeling that sometimes made him sad enough to cry.

But he couldn’t get there now.

He remembered reading somewhere that the number of Catholics in the United States was 66,407,105.

Finally, he tried to make his mind go blank, something he’d read about in a book on meditation. Concentrate on his breathing, focus on a pleasant scene, and when his mind wandered, bring the scene back and breathe.

And that’s when he saw the image of his father, alone in a prison hospital as he suffered the throes of death—his mouth agape in agony, crying out for help but without the aid of sound, his belly bloated as his lungs filled with blood, the last gasp for air.

And with the vision of his father’s swollen hand reaching out for comfort, the comfort of another’s hand, the tears that Fate had tried to shed came. Not because he’d willed them, but they came. Streaming down his face and falling onto Lutie’s hair.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

F
ATE HAD KNOWN
from the moment he opened his eyes this morning that he was going back to Paradise to see what he could learn about the school. He hadn’t mentioned it to Lutie, knowing that she wanted to be left alone when she woke up. Besides, he knew she had something on her mind, something she hadn’t been able to share with him.

She was grieving for their father, no doubt about that. She’d always been a daddy’s girl, and learning about his death had, in some ways, been harder for her than for Fate.

When Jim McFee had run off and left his boy and girl with Floy, he had broken Lutie’s heart. And though she hadn’t talked much about it, Fate knew she believed her daddy would come back for them soon. Fate, on the other hand, had come to believe as the months dragged on that his father cared so little for them that he would likely never show up again.

So now that Lutie knew she wouldn’t see her daddy again, she was lost. And Fate knew that having a little brother to take care of wasn’t making her life any easier.

That’s why he was sorry he’d gone on and on about Paradise. She didn’t need any more pressure right now.

He waited until she took off before he went into the library to brush his teeth and take his whore’s bath, but he didn’t stick around there long.

He reached the elementary school soon after nine, found the front door unlocked, and went inside as quietly as he could. He inhaled the odor of floor wax and chalk, the smells that always signaled fall to him, the time the new school year began. His favorite time of year.

He’d been upstairs, downstairs, and in the basement before he met someone on the main floor, not far from where he’d come in.

“Good morning, young man.”

The man who spoke appeared to be in his midforties. He was dressed informally—cotton slacks, short-sleeved shirt, boat shoes with no laces. He came out of an office marked Principal and seemed surprised to find a visitor in the hall.

“Hello,” Fate said.

“Mind if I ask how you got in here?”

“Through the front door.”

“Ah, still the most popular entrance, I suppose, though we do have the occasional student who prefers to bust through a locked window or crawl up the fire escape, but that’s usually a late night visit. And you don’t strike me as that sort.”

“No, sir.”

“I thought that the front door would be locked, but a number of our teachers are here today getting ready for the new semester.”

“Yes, I saw some of them in classrooms shelving books and decorating bulletin boards and—”

“So you’ve been touring Paradise.”

Smiling, Fate said, “I saw the amphitheater, the swimming pool, the computer lab and chemistry department and the band room and—”

“Do you play an instrument?”

“No, but I’d like to learn the saxophone.”

“Excellent. Our music professor, Dr. Wintle, would—no doubt—like to teach you. He’s the best.”

“And you offer Latin and drama, and you have a chess club, and you teach geology.”

“We lucked out this summer. We had a visiting lecturer from Austria who taught a two-week seminar in crystals.”

“Wow,” Fate said, then remembered Lutie told him only dweebs used the words
gosh
and
keen
, making him wonder if
wow
fell into the same category. “I went into the language lab and the library and I found the . . .” Suddenly his smile faded, and worry lines creased his forehead. “Was that okay? Going in and out of your classrooms, just wandering around without permission?”

“Absolutely.”

“Are you the principal?”

“No, I’m her assistant. Excuse me for not introducing myself sooner. I’m Mr. Grove. And you are . . . ?”

“Fate McFee.”

“Nice to make your acquaintance, Mr. McFee,” he said, offering his hand. “Now, tell me. Did you like what you saw here today?”

“Oh, this is a wonderful school. The one I went to last year didn’t offer much more than math, language arts, social studies, and gym. But here . . . well, I’d give anything to study here.”

“What’s stopping you?”

“I figure this is a private school with tuition and all.”

“Nope. Public. No tuition, no fees, no uniforms.”

“Then . . .”

“All you have to do to come to Paradise is to live within our zone.”

“Oh.”

“Where do you live now?”

“Well, my family isn’t settled yet. Not really. I mean, we’re not in a permanent place right now.”

“I see.” Mr. Grove had worked with kids long enough to know he was getting too close to that private place in troubled youngsters. “Well, when you’re ready, we can have your school records faxed here, usually within minutes.”

“Sure.” Fate nodded. “The fax.”

“I’m curious, Mr. McFee, about your grades. I’m guessing they’re pretty good. Am I right?”

“They’re good.” Uncomfortable with talk that bordered on bragging, Fate looked at his shoes. “I make straight A’s. And I’m in accelerated classes.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. Not at all.”

Fate blushed but managed a timid smile.

“If you’ll wait here, I’ll get you a map of our zones.”

“Okay.”

Within moments, Mr. Grove returned and handed Fate a brochure called “Everything You Need to Know About Paradise.”

“The map’s in there as well as answers to some of the questions you’ll think of later.”

“Thank you.”

“I look forward to seeing you at enrollment. And welcome to Paradise, Mr. McFee.”

When Fate left the campus, he walked north on Swenson, an unfamiliar street, but he had no destination, had no reason to want one. He was content to let his mind take him back to Paradise, where he saw himself as a student, spending his days in classes learning Latin, studying art and music history, using a real telescope; asking questions about astronomy, mythology, the measure of force—the kinds of questions he’d longed to ask.

He would, in all probability, have teachers with PhD’s. Not some coach who had to teach social studies and drive a school bus.

Fate knew, too, that he would explore the university campus every day after school, sneaking into classes of calculus, British literature, geology, Chinese, philosophy, world religions. He’d meet students from Bhutan, Eritrea, Guinea-Bissau, Andorra, and Nauru—places he’d only read about; he’d listen to professors designated as university scholars, those who held endowed chairs, maybe even Nobel Prize winners, as they explained why the dugong, the babirusa, and the goliath frog were disappearing from the world.

But he was abruptly pulled out of the fictional world where he’d been living for the past several minutes by a golf ball that came sailing over a chain-link fence several feet away, bounced three times, then rolled to a stop just at the toe of his right foot.

When he looked to see where it had come from, he saw a golf cart speeding across the grounds inside the fence, the cart coming in his direction.

The driver, a man nearing sixty, stopped the cart, got out, and, using his golf club, started searching for the ball by parting tall grass and smacking at low bushes.

“You looking for this?” Fate called, holding up the ball for the man to see.

“Imagine so,” the golfer said, then walked to the fence and accepted the ball as Fate dropped it into his outstretched hand.

“Yep, see right there?” He pointed to three black letters printed on the ball: F.E.W. “My initials,” he said. “Frederick E. Wing.”

“What does the
E
stand for?” Fate asked.

“Never told, never will.” He smiled, then took a money clip from his pocket, pulled off a one, and handed it to Fate.

“Son, you have any idea what this ball costs? Of course you don’t,” he said in response to the blank look on Fate’s face. “It’s a Pro V1. Most expensive ball made. A buck’s a cheap price for getting this back. Now, understand, I’ve got a whole pocketful of these in my golf bag, but I’m having a good game. I can afford to take a stroke on this hole, and I will as long as I recover this ball.”

He waved, his back to Fate as he dropped the ball a couple of feet inside the fence and gave it a whack that Fate thought must have pleased him when he looked over his shoulder and smiled.

“Thanks, boy,” he said as he climbed into the cart, then drove away.

Fate spent the rest of the afternoon searching for misplayed golf balls. He figured any ball that landed outside the fence might mean more cash for him, so he looked through weeds, sand, and gravel, beneath bushes and the occasional tangle of vines. He paid special attention to the brand names on the balls and was particularly pleased when he found a Pro V1 or any ball with initials, believing that they might bring the best prices.

When a woman in a uniform and cap pulled up in a cart marked Wynn’s Security, Fate felt tense for fear he had violated some law. When she motioned him toward the fence, he moved reluctantly in her direction.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

Fate held open the bag so she could see what was inside. “Figured I might be able to sell them.”

“You can if they’re in decent shape, but you won’t get much for your trouble. There’s a place called the Eighteenth Hole over on Hacienda Avenue that reconditions used balls if they’re clean. But they won’t give you much.”

“How much?”

“Ten cents each, I think.”

“I sold one a couple of hours ago for a dollar. One ball.”

“Now, who the devil would pay you a buck for a—”

“Frederick E. Wing.”

“Sure, I know Mr. Wing. He’s been a member here forever. Rich, too, but so is everyone else who belongs to Wynn’s.”

“It was a Pro V and had his initials on it. And I’ve got lots more Pro V’s in here, and most of them are initialed, too.”

“Here.” She reached across the fence for the bag. “Let me see what you’ve got in there.”

As she raked through the balls, she would occasionally pull one out and read the initials. “B.J.H. That’s Ms. Hendricks. She only plays with Lady Precepts. And here’s one belongs to Jim Vanzant.”

“You think they’d pay to get those back?”

“They might. Problem is, you can’t get past the front gate, and the boys in the guardhouse for sure will run your little butt off if you stand out there trying to sell used golf balls back to their owners.”