Flyers (9781481414449) Read online

  We spent the next hour or so pushing and pulling Cappy around the yard, but the lesson didn’t seem to be taking. The odd thing was that if Ethan dropped the halter, she’d follow him anyplace he went, but that wasn’t good enough. When he got Cappy into the ring, he’d have to grip the halter right next to her chin and hold her head up just so, and be able to have her take half a step forward or backward if that’s what the judge wanted. Of course, that’s all theoretical. I’d seen plenty of kids get dragged into or out of the ring by their animals, and it had even happened to me a few times.

  “What if she won’t learn?” Ethan said at one point, looking up at me.

  “She will,” I said. “As much as any of them do. Remember what June did to me the first year I showed her, Ethe?”

  Ethan looked at me and shook his head. He’d been pretty young then. June had been a full-grown cow for a couple of years and this happened when she was still a junior heifer calf, which is the youngest division there is.

  “I led her into the ring,” I told him, “and everything was going fine. Then just before the judge came over to look at her, she decided to lie down in the sawdust right where she was. She just lay there chewing her cud and looking around at all the people in the stands. No matter what I did she wouldn’t budge. Then the kid behind me tried to help by pushing on her. Then the judge himself got into the act. Don’t you remember that, Ethan? Pop got such a charge out of the whole thing. I could hear him roaring from the stands on the other side of the ring.”

  Ethan gave a quiet little smile, and I could see his face was brighter and the story’d had an effect on him. Ethan’s funny; he’ll worry about all kinds of things, but as soon as he finds out that something he’s been worried about has already happened to me or Pop or even Bo, then he’ll stop worrying about it. It’s as if he thinks, if it happened to us, it must be all right.

  He was still looking happy when we finished up and walked in from the barn. “Pop really got a charge out of it, huh?” he said, smiling up at me.

  “Yeah,” I told him. “He really did.”

  • • •

  Not long after that Bo pulled up in The Tank. The Tank was actually a late-model, top-of-the-line Lexus, but it had earned that name because of Bo’s father’s history of using it to drive through things. Actually, this was the third in a series of Tanks. The original Tank had been dubbed by us about six years earlier when Mr. Michaelson had used it to put a new opening in the back of their two-car garage. It seems he got a story idea just as he was pulling into the driveway and was jotting it down after he parked in the garage. Unfortunately he never got around to taking the car out of drive, and it was creeping forward the whole time he was scribbling down the idea. When he heard the first telltale crunching sounds, he went for the brake but caught the gas instead and ended up on the back lawn. The thing that got me was he sat there for a few minutes getting the rest of the idea down before he climbed out to check damages. I still kind of admire him for that.

  “Do I see a new dent?” I said as Bo got out.

  “Good eye,” he said. “Dad had a run-in yesterday with one of those mail collection boxes on Main Street.”

  “Whose fault?” I said with a straight face.

  Bo had Ethan in a headlock and was pretending to whale on him. “Hard to say,” he said, deadpan. “They never found the guy driving the mailbox.”

  It’s not that Mr. M. wasn’t a good driver; he was actually pretty handy behind the wheel. It’s just that too many times his body was behind the wheel and his mind wasn’t. Bo explained it away by saying his father had no earth signs. He wrote books for a living, so spacing out was right up his alley. Anyway, every Christmas Mr. M. would send fruit baskets and signed books to anybody whose car he’d hit or whose property he’d damaged. The list grew a little larger each year. I was even on it. He’d backed over my bicycle when I was ten.

  We decided to head over to Bo’s house and review the footage we’d gotten the night before. First we dropped Ethan off at Pop’s office. At the end of each week Ethan liked to hang around there and help Pop organize everything, which, unlike me, he was amazingly good at. Pop said lots of times Ethan was able to find files that even his secretary hadn’t been able to locate. Nothing against Pop’s secretary; it’s just that when it comes to misplacing things, Pop is right up there in my league.

  “Let’s check out Rosa’s first,” I said as we pulled away from in front of Pop’s office. Rosa’s was, among other things, the tavern on the outskirts of town that was run by Rosasharn’s family. They also made the best pizza around—take-out mostly, but they did have a small dining room right off the kitchen. Rosasharn’s parents were real entrepreneur types and were always looking for ways to expand their operation. A few years ago they added a little laundromat, and last year they opened a ten-unit motel. This year they were planning on putting up a row of those self-storage sheds that people could rent. The place had already grown into a hodgepodge of buildings that some of the locals referred to facetiously as “the mall.”

  Another thing—Rosa’s just happened to be where Ray McPherson and his crew generally landed on Saturday afternoons, and I was eager to hear what kind of stories, if any, Ray was telling about his aborted trip down our road the other night.

  Rosasharn and Sudie were in the kitchen making pizzas when we walked in. Jeremy was there too. They had him grating cheese, and he was busy scowling down at the little pile he’d just made.

  “So how’s our charred buddy doing?” Bo said, meaning Rosasharn.

  “Excellentay, o maestro of film,” Rosasharn said, bowing. “Most excellentay.”

  “Most stupiday,” Jeremy said, and then held up the cheese grater in a blocking action because whenever he said anything that sounded even remotely French, Rosasharn would pretend to be Gomez Addams and try to kiss his way up Jeremy’s arm.

  “I love it when you speak French, Morticia,” Rosasharn said to the cheese grater.

  “I leave this guy alone for one night,” Sudie said, “and he almost burns himself up.” She drew her arm back as if she were about to give Rosasharn a good backhand.

  “Did he tell you what else he did?” I asked her.

  She nodded and tried to aim a look of scorn his way. She couldn’t keep a smile from breaking through, though, so she drew her arm back and actually swatted him this time. “Ya goof,” she said.

  “I must protect zee swamp,” Rosasharn said.

  “Has Ray been in yet?” I asked.

  Rosasharn turned and pointed like a bird dog to the door behind him, which led to the bar.

  Sudie rolled her eyes. “He got here an hour ago and he’s already been through the story at least three times. The last time he told it, the thing practically tried to yank him out of his car.”

  “You didn’t tell him it was Rosasharn, did you?” I said, remembering Ray’s crazy side.

  Sudie shook her head. “Why spoil his fun? Speaking of which, Clutzy Lutzy just pulled in before you guys, so Ray’s probably going through the whole nine yards again.”

  This we had to hear. We filed into the bar and headed for the pool table, which Mr. Rosa let us use afternoons. I started racking the balls, but quietly so I wouldn’t miss any of the story.

  Ray was at the bar, front and center, already zeroed in on Harold Lutz, also known as Clutzy Lutzy—a name he’d picked up because league night for him doubled as drinking night, and he had a tendency to fall on his face at least once while bowling his last frames. Ray was punctuating his point with a Budweiser bottle aimed at Clutzy’s chest.

  “You can laugh if you want,” he said, “but I’m telling you it happened.”

  Clutzy squinted at him. “I ain’t laughing,” he said. “You’re forgettin’. I seen a ghost for myself that time. I seen it with my own eyes.”

  We all knew that story. Years ago Clutz had been fixing up the Briggs place a mile east of town, and one day he heard footsteps downstairs. Thinking it was his wife bringing his lunch,
he yelled that he was upstairs and then went back to ripping out the old lathing and plaster. The footsteps kept coming his way but nobody said anything. As Clutzy told it, in thirty years he’d never known Ellie to keep her mouth shut when there was a working set of ears within range, so he became suspicious and walked over to the door. That’s when he saw his ghost heading right toward him. He swears it was old Mr. Briggs himself, a crotchety old miser who’d checked out weeks earlier as the result of a blast from his own shotgun. The death was ruled accidental, but Clutz has since developed a foul-play theory which he says would explain why Old Man Briggs was trying to make contact with him. Anyway, the ghost kept coming right at him, not saying anything, and not picking up any speed but not slowing down any either. When it came into the room with him, Clutzy decided he was feeling a little crowded and left through the handiest exit, which happened to be the window behind him. As you might imagine, he took a lot of ribbing for that story over the years, but he still swore by it, defending his ghost diagnosis by explaining how he could see the thing and see right through it at the same time, and adding that he wouldn’t have jumped out any second-story window if he hadn’t been absolutely sure of the facts.

  “I don’t wanna hear that friggin’ ghost story again,” Ray said, obviously not feeling any kind of supernatural kinship with Clutz. “I’m not talkin’ about sonavabitchin’ Casper here! What I seen was a real live two-dimensional thing, for chrissake! It was bouncing the front of my friggin’ car up and down, and there ain’t no ghost can do that.”

  “Well, whaddaya think it was?” Clutzy wanted to know.

  “I don’t know,” Ray said, shaking his head. “But I’ll tell you one thing. . . .” He took a dramatic sip from his Budweiser before continuing. “Whatever it was, it wasn’t human.”

  “I coulda told him that,” Jeremy mumbled from behind me.

  “And whatever it was,” Ray continued, “the sonavabitch wasn’t alone. Right before it come after me, I seen something else on that friggin’ road. It come out from behind Old Man Lindstrom’s barn and scooted across in front of me. I slowed down to try to get a look at whatever the hell that was when—bam!—this other ugly-assed thing jumps in front of me. I’m tellin’ ya, there’s something to all them stories about that place. Laugh if you want, but that thing on my hood was as friggin’ real as you are.”

  “I ain’t laughing,” Clutzy said solemnly. “I’m the one who’s seen a ghost myself.”

  “Shut your ass about your sonavabitchin’ ghost. What I seen was no friggin’ ghost.”

  I could feel a pain starting to develop in my side from trying to hold it in. I figured Bo and Jeremy must’ve been in about the same boat. Then all of a sudden a thought struck me. Ray had said he’d seen something else besides Rosasharn that night. And right across the road from Mr. Lindstrom’s barn—exactly where I’d seen Ethan staring right after Ray had made his getaway. If I hadn’t seen the look on Ethan’s face, I’d’ve thought Ray was the biggest liar in the world for sure. As it was, I just didn’t know.

  Five

  I’m a big fan of Sundays. Days off, in general, I’m all in favor of, but Sunday, being my second free day in a row, is when I’m just hitting my stride at being laid-back. We’d taken care of mass on Saturday evening before dinner, so I didn’t even have to deal with sitting there thinking that every time Father Ryan looked my way he was having visions of Sister Violet and the Rogue Nun stampede.

  Ethan and I started the day with our usual seven-mile run, making a big circle that took us into town and out the other side, and then doubling around past the Wulfsons’ farm and, after a few more turns, back onto our road from the other end. I never pushed for time on Sunday, considering it more of a family outing than training, but even so, I could see that Ethan was turning into a pretty fair runner. He loped alongside me with long easy strides and, as far as I could tell, never once had to breathe through his mouth. And this was a kid who didn’t even train. Just out of curiosity I picked up the pace for the last half mile or so and Ethan didn’t lose a foot of ground. We hit the driveway, neck and neck, at pretty close to a full sprint.

  “You’ll be leaving me in the dust one of these days, Ethe,” I said as we climbed the porch steps.

  “No I won’t,” he said, giving his little smile. I don’t think he meant it to be modest. I think he just meant he liked running with me so why would he want to go out ahead.

  After we’d showered and dressed and had Sunday brunch, courtesy of Pop, I decided to ride my bike over to Bo’s and see what was doing over there. He’d had a date with Gretchen Chambers the night before, and I’d stayed home and watched a movie with Ethan and Pop. I enjoyed doing it and have no complaints, but I’ve never been one who could stay put too long without getting a little stir-crazy. Pop says I have the roving spirit of the Irish in me.

  It was pushing noon when I left. Pop and Ethan were involved in another of their big chess tournaments, and Pop was fighting him off with all he had. I remembered how it wasn’t so long ago that Pop would have to sandbag so that Ethan could win once in a while, but now he couldn’t even get away with any philosophizing or telling stories during their games because by the time he came out the other end of his spiel, Ethan would have put him away. Pop would raise a fuss whenever he lost, vowing a concentration unrivaled in Western civilization for their next match, but he didn’t fool me. I knew how much he loved seeing Ethan win.

  When I got to Bo’s, he was in the living room watching an old Flipper episode on The Family Channel. You might think that a future-valedictorian type like Bo would avoid TV like the plague, or that he’d only watch PBS or Arts & Entertainment, but it wasn’t the case. He loved all those old shows—including the cornball animal rescue things. He also loved the classic TV Westerns like Bonanza and Gunsmoke and The Rifleman. My personal favorite was F Troop, but that may have been the result of watching it one time with Pop and Mr. Whitecloud, who both practically fell off the couch laughing every time they showed the Hekawi Indians and their stone-faced, wheeling-and-dealing chief.

  Bo’s little sister Erika was lying on the floor in front of him, drawing in her sketchbook and being Bo’s footrest. When she saw me her face lit up and she slid out from under Bo’s feet. “I’m making you something, Gabe,” she said, and reached for her drawing tablet. “See? It’s you!” She sat up and handed it to me.

  I took the thing in my hands and stared down at it. She didn’t need to say it was me; it was me. It was incredible and it would have been incredible even if she hadn’t been only nine years old. Erika didn’t work in crayon like most kids her age, but did mostly pencil sketches and occasional watercolors. This was a pencil sketch, and she’d nailed me. She’d captured both my trademarks—the first being my hair, which except for the color (Pop’s was gray and mine was brown) was exactly like Pop’s, longish and wavy, bordering on wild (Pop called it free-spirited), and the second being my slightly cockeyed smile. I don’t know where that came from, but I’d always had a way of smiling out of one side of my mouth, and it made me look a little like a wise guy, although I don’t think I am particularly. Pop always told me I had the face of a choirboy who was thinking seriously of defecting, which was probably as good a way of putting it as any. I stared down at the picture, amazed. Being unable myself to draw much more than stick men with captions coming out of their mouths, it always gets me how, with just a few lines, some people can capture whatever it is that makes a person distinctive. Especially when the one doing the drawing is a kid.

  “Wow,” I said, still studying the picture as I handed it back to her, “that’s really great.” Which wasn’t nearly enough to say how I really felt. I mean, I wasn’t fighting back a river of tears or anything like that, but I was touched. I really was. Just the thought of her pouring herself into that picture for my benefit got to me, and I would’ve hugged her if I were the hugging type.

  Erika smiled and slid the sketchbook back in front of her. Bo’s feet were draped over her s
houlders now and sticking out on either side of her head. She didn’t mind. She put that earnest look back on her face, the one that almost all little kids get when they’re all wrapped up in something, and went back to drawing. I watched her for a minute, and then plopped down next to Bo on the couch just as the show broke for a commercial. “So how’s Flipper doing today?” I asked him.

  “Couldn’t be better,” Bo said. “He sends his regards.”

  “You know,” I said, stretching out and slumping into my usual couch posture, “the thing that gets me about Flipper is that the kids never get into any life-threatening situations unless they’re in the water—or at least close enough to it so Flipper can point out the situation to a responsible adult. It doesn’t make sense.”

  Bo looked at me. “They’re not allowed to go inland,” he said. “With their track record, it’d just be too risky.”

  “What about school?” I asked. “Haircuts? The dentist?”

  Bo shook his head. “Nope. Not unless they’re within Flipper range.”

  Erika had gone back to lying on the floor and was now working away with two sets of feet resting on her. She scrunched her head around and studied us as we discussed the behind-the-scenes rules governing life in Flipperville. She was never quite sure just how seriously she should take most of our conversations.

  Right then the front door opened and Mr. and Mrs. Michaelson walked in. They were wearing their tennis things and carrying rackets so it was easy to see what they’d been up to. As they walked into the living room Flipper was jumping around in the water making that annoying noise he makes. Practically every Flipper episode ends the same way. Everybody stands around the water and one of them delivers a lame joke about how lucky they are to have Flipper around to save the day while he shows off by doing flips and tailstands. This never fails to crack up the whole cast.