The Horse in My Garage and Other Stories (18 page)

Bun shook her head. “You are many things, some even socially acceptable, but you are not romantic!”

“No, really, I am. I just go to great pains to conceal it. Why, when I was ten years old I made quite a study of romance.”

“Really? Maybe I should have known you when you were ten years old. So what was this romance you studied?”

“The romance of my sister, the Troll. I was ten and she was sixteen, the perfect situation for scientific research.”

“I bet. Your sister had to put up with a little brat of a brother when she was sweet sixteen?”

“Just plain sixteen. I never detected any sweet. That's why I called her the Troll. For some reason that my scientific methodology failed to detect, boys were attracted to her. I remember one miserable specimen by the name of Derwood. He drove a blue coupe with a rumble seat. Whenever they went for a drive, my mother would make me go along in the rumble seat. Both the Troll and Derwood hated me. I sometimes thought about Derwood's car going up in a ball of flames. It emitted so much exhaust that I thought it was about to go at any minute, but it never did. Sometimes they would sit out in the swing on the front porch and talk and giggle. I never once saw them run through the rain, but they may have. Derwood was about that dumb. Anyway, one day they were sitting in the swing, and my friend Crazy Eddie Muldoon and I were lying in one of my mother's flower beds next to the porch doing scientific research on them and . . . ”

“Snooping, we used to call that,” Bun said. “I'm just so glad I didn't have a little brother when you and I were dating.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I would have had to tie him in a gunnysack and drop him in the river.”

“Nonsense. We never did anything out of line.”

“Oh, that must have been some other girl.”

Bun gave me a murderous look.

“Oh, I just remembered. There weren't any other girls. You were my first and only girlfriend. Now, isn't that romantic?”

“I suppose,” she said. “On the other hand, I just thought of something even more romantic.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” she said. “I have to go fix supper, and you can peel the potatoes.”

“I'd rather run laughing through the rain,” I said.

Mother's Day is coming up, and I usually buy Bun a gift, even though technically I don't think the husbands of mothers are required to do so. We have four daughters and umpteen grandchildren, and they usually come through with a ton of gifts. Still, my romantic side feels compelled to buy Bun something romantic. I've been thinking of a potato peeler. Not just one of those hand-operated ones, but something you drop the potato in and it buzzes off the skin. Otherwise a lot of hand labor goes into to peeling spuds.

Bun likes to clean. I've never been into cleaning much myself, but she seems to like it. Personally, I tend to think of semi-mess as clean. The problem is that Bun has a whole closet full of brooms and mops and vacuums and even some little whiffler things for getting dust out from under davenports and other stuff where the dust can't be seen anyway. Hey, if it can't be seen, why bother?

She says, “I think the same about you, but even when just the two of us are home, you tend to be a bit of a mobile mess. A lovable mobile mess, but still a mess.”

“I clean up pretty good, though,” I counter.

“Yes, I remember.”

As a matter of fact, I'd better get cleaned up, if I'm going out to buy Bun a Mother's Day present. The boys at the hardware store don't mind one way or the other, but Bun likes me to be presentable any time I leave the house. You'd think I was going to a royal wedding rather than to a hardware store, but that's just the way she is.

Hey, it's starting to rain. I wonder if Bun would . . . naw, I'll wait until Mother's Day.

The Canoe

W

hen Retch Sweeney and I drove up in Mrs. Peabody, our mountain car, Retch's father was sitting on the front porch having himself a beer and a cigar. Mrs. Peabody never liked to be turned off so when Retch flipped the ignition switch, she continued to roar, bellow, smoke, and steam, finally giving up only after emitting an explosive backfire that raised Mr. Sweeney a good six inches off the porch. Mrs. Peabody, named in honor of our favorite high school English teacher, had provided us with many good laughs, and this was one of them.

Disheveled and covered with beer foam and cigar ashes, Mr. Sweeney glared at us as we came up the walk.

“Gave you a little start, huh, Popper?” Retch said, still chuckling.

“One of these days . . . ” Mr. Sweeney said. It was his favorite expression.

Retch pointed to five steel barrels lashed to the roof of Mrs. Peabody. “What do you think of our canoe?”

“Canoe?” Mr. Sweeney said, staring at the barrels.

“Yep. Of course, they ain't a canoe yet. See, what Pat and me are gonna do is cut the tops and bottoms out of the barrels. Then we'll split them down the center, spread them open, and weld them together in a straight line. What do you think, Popper?”

“I think it will sink like a rock,” Mr. Sweeney growled.

“Don't joke, Popper. This is serious. Now where's your welding outfit?”

There then ensued one of those loud, nasty family arguments that a visitor finds so embarrassing. Mrs. Sweeney came out on the porch to intervene and just in the nick of time, too, for I was of the clear impression that Mr. Sweeney was trying to get his hands around Retch's throat.

“Shush, you two,” Mrs. Sweeney said. “What will the neighbors think?”

Mr. Sweeney released his son, and Retch squawked, “We just want to use Popper's welder for a little bit.”

Mrs. Sweeney frowned at Popper. “Don't be such a grouch, Harold. Let the boys use your welder. It's good for youngsters to work with their hands. Keeps them out of trouble.”

Retch said, “Yeah, Popper, Pat and me built Mrs. Peabody ourselves, didn't we?”

“My point exactly,” Mr. Sweeney said.

The truth was that Mr. Sweeney had used up several days of his vacation assembling confusing piles of wreckage scattered about the floor of his garage into what was now Mrs. Peabody. This may have explained why he responded to Retch's utterance with a maniacal laugh, a sound which never failed to stir the short hairs on the back of my neck.

Mr. Sweeney finally gave in, and said we could use his welding outfit. “Just don't burn down the garage, that's all I ask.”

It seemed little enough to ask.

The cutting and welding of the barrels went along smoothly, at least until Retch put the torch to the last barrel. Mr. Sweeney was on his back porch now, glumly sprinkling the lawn with a garden hose. Retch stepped to the garage door and asked, “Popper, where do we keep the fire extinguisher?”

“There's one in the truck,” Mr. Sweeney said. “Put it back when . . . FIRE EXTINGUISHER!”

He bounded off the porch and out to his truck, snatched up the fire extinguisher, and managed to extinguish the fire before it reached his workbench.

Retch said, “I guess there was a little oil or something in that last barrel.”

“Unnnhhhh!” Mr. Sweeney said, twitching.

Mrs. Sweeney had rushed out to see what all the commotion was about. “Good heavens, Harold!” she cried. “Be more careful. You could have burned down the garage!”

“Unnnhhhh!” Mr. Sweeney replied.

“Say, Popper,” Retch said. “Since you ain't doing nothing, why don't you help us shape the bow of the canoe?”

“That's a wonderful idea!” Mrs. Sweeney said. “I think it's so nice when you help the boys with their little projects.”

Mr. Sweeney muttered something.

“Harold! How many times do I have tell you—don't use that word!”

Mr. Sweeney finally shaped the last barrel into a very faint resemblance of a canoe bow, while Retch and I were sawing off lengths of angle iron to use as thwarts. Shortly thereafter, the canoe was finished. You would never guess it had been made out of five steel barrels. The gunnels were a bit wavy, but that certainly wouldn't affect the performance of the canoe. Now all that remained was for Retch and me to carry the canoe out of the garage and hoist it onto the top of Mrs. Peabody. But by straining to the maximum, we moved it only a foot or so. Mr. Sweeney stood there, hands on his hips, watching us. Then in one fluid motion he grabbed the canoe, hauled it out of his garage, and threw it atop Mrs. Peabody. “Now get it out of my sight!” he yelled.

Retch and I stepped back to admire our canoe. “Look at that baby!” Retch said. “I bet it will last a hundred years!”

“Two hundred years!” I said.

“Three seconds,” Popper said.

Each barrel used in the canoe was a different color—red, blue, green, and rust. The seams welded with coat-hanger wire as a substitute for welding rod and bordered with burnt paint gave it a primitive look, assuming primitive canoe builders had access to welders and metal barrels and possessed minimum talent.

Mrs. Sweeney came out to admire our accomplishment. “Oh, it looks wonderful! Be sure to wear life preservers when you test it. Now, Harold, I want you to go out with the boys and keep an eye on them to make sure they don't get hurt or drown if their boat tips over. You know how boys are.”

“Know how boys are!” Mr. Sweeney said in a voice very much like a horse's whinny.

“Don't worry about us, Ma,” Retch said. “We're taking along a truck inner tube as a life preserver. Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. We need to get the oars out of Popper's boat to use as paddles.”

“Not on your life!” shouted Mr. Sweeney. “You're not touching my oars!”

“Harold!”

Half an hour later, we were headed out to Sand Creek for a test run. Now at flood stage, Sand Creek had overflowed its banks and formed a small, calm lake out in the middle of a pasture, a perfect launching place for the canoe. The creek, however, was an ugly brown current churning along and eating away at its banks, carrying off trees, fence posts, and various other spoils.

Contrary to Mr. Sweeney's predictions, the barrel canoe floated like a cork, although a somewhat tippy cork. Retch and I got in, Mr. Sweeney shoved us off with his foot, and we paddled happily around on the little lake.

“What do you think, Popper?” Retch called out.

“Looks good. Better than I expected. I think it will hold all three of us.”

“What did I tell you?” Retch said to me.

Mr. Sweeney arranged the inner tube in the middle of the canoe and sat his rear end down in the middle of it.

“All right, me hearties!” he shouted. “Cast off!”

We paddled about the little lake for twenty minutes or so, getting the feel of the canoe. It floated wonderfully well. Even Mr. Sweeney said so. The only problem was the tipping, but as Mr. Sweeney pointed out, the secret was to pretend you were riding a bike. You had to keep your balance.

Retch soon tired of the placid water. “Let's take her down the crick a ways!” he shouted. “Hold on, Popper!”

Even as Mr. Sweeney croaked out, “Wait! Stop!” Retch thrust the canoe into the brown, swirling current of Sand Creek.

To Mr. Sweeney's surprise, as he said later, the craft appeared exceedingly creek-worthy, and the three of us relaxed and enjoyed the pleasant float. “Hold her steady, boys,” he said. “Hold her steady.” He dug out a cigar, lit it, and relaxed in his inner tube, enjoying a smoke.

As we rounded a bend, I was the first to spot trouble ahead. The foundation of a railroad bridge sent a large, nasty, diagonal wave across the creek. I could see that the canoe would not survive the wave. At the bow end as the canoe passed the abutment, I stood up and stepped off on to it. Retch, paddling in the stern, did the same when his end of the canoe came by. The canoe instantly vanished beneath the waves.

Although the loss of the canoe pained Retch and me a great deal, Mr. Sweeney lucked out. He got his picture in the newspaper. A photographer snapped a photo of him floating in an inner tube down the flood-swollen creek, a cigar clenched in his mouth. He was rescued by sheriff's deputies, and Mr. Sweeney was even luckier to have the photographer record that. It made Popper famous throughout the whole county, and for years afterward his feat was remembered by most of the county.

“Geez, Popper,” Retch said to him. “You're a local celebrity!”

As Retch admitted later, it was apparently the wrong thing to say.

The Writing of “The Green Box”

I

have written humor columns for New York magazines for nearly fifty years. A casual observer of the craft might assume we humor writers simply skim comic ideas off the tops of our heads. Not so. Much care and deliberation go into the creation of the idea for each humor piece. Here is an example of the complexities of the humor-writing process.

Many years ago, New York editors figured out that by taking advantage of the three-hour time difference between New York and Spokane, Washington, where I live, they could phone and catch me asleep and unaware at five o'clock in the morning. I, therefore, wouldn't have any time to think up any lies about why I had missed a deadline or some other inconsequential thing.

So one morning at about five, or maybe it was seven or eight, I was suddenly awakened by the ringing of the phone next to my bed. Still groggy from sleep, I answered it.

Without so much as a “hello,” a gruff voice growled in my ear: “It had better be in the mail!”

At the time, I was writing a monthly column for an outdoor magazine, and, consequently, had no trouble guessing the identity of the caller. It was Editor Dave Psinsky, as I'll call him here, the managing editor of the magazine.

I instantly realized Dave was calling about my column. I wasn't too surprised he hadn't received it yet. I hadn't mailed it yet. I hadn't written it yet. I hadn't even thought about writing it. The only decent thing to do was for me to confess my error and plead for mercy. So I said, “What! You haven't received it yet?”