Adrift

Chapter 8 Samson

I stand next to Dad’s desk with its locked cabinets and individually locked drawers, and Mom looks more like me than herself. Bony. Her shoulders slumped.

“The pan was my fault, Dad.”

He turns to me.

“You what?”

She shakes her head frantically behind him.

“I put the egg pan on when Mom was in the bathroom. I was trying to help. It wasn’t her, see. It was me who did it.”

He turns to look at her then back to me.

“Tell the truth, boy.”

“I am.”

He walks toward me, shoulders back, forearms tensed. “You’re telling me you put that pan on the burner and then wandered off and left it. That what you’re saying?”

I want to flee. But instead I stay in place and nod; some fortitude I never knew I had.

He frowns and chews his liver-colored lower lip.

I am trembling.

“Drew,” says Mom.

He raises his hand in the air. “Boy’s come clean. Thought he was a pansy but he’s showing spirit, first time in his life. You owning this, Samson?”

I nod.

“All right, then. Get over here.”

I step closer.

“I said get here.”

I walk to him and the power he possesses, the potential contained within his large, tightly bound frame, is palpable. I sense the force of him.

“I was about to walk up to Miller’s yard to empty our toilet cassette in their septic, but now you’re such a chivalrous young man you can do it. You’ve seen me carry them often enough. Tell Miller to add it to my tab. You can manage it, can you?”

“I’ll borrow Mr. Turner’s barrow.”

“You’ll carry it, boy.”

“Andrew,” says Mom.

“I could have carried two at his age. You’ll take it on your shoulder. No need for Jeff Turner’s barrow. I’m going to work with an empty belly thanks to you. I’ll have to pay for a BLT at the yard. When I come home I expect that cassette empty, understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

I call in to see Mr. Turner for my Saturday shift but instead of having to go visit his bungalow I walk all of ten yards.

His boat, Skylark, inspired Dad to buy ours.

I think he liked the idea of no neighbors to share Mom’s attention with.

He won’t credit Mr. Turner with the idea, though; he says he knew about houseboats since he was a teenager.

Says he had the idea years back and anyway Jeff Turner’s boat is a completely different design from ours.

“Mr. Turner, can I come in?”

He’s there at his dinette reading a TV Guide in his long johns and undershirt.

“Shut that door, Samson. I’ll catch my death.”

“Mom says if she makes stew later she’ll send over a plate. Think it’ll have Italian sausage in it. She went to the butcher.”

“She’s a princess, your mother.”

“She’s all right.”

I wish she wouldn’t leave pans on, though. The last thing I need is carrying a cassette full of waste all the way to Miller’s septic.

“How much does a full cassette weigh, Mr. Turner?”

“A what, Samson? You want a KitKat, do you? I’ve got a drawerful.”

I take one and put it in my back pocket.

“Take another one, why don’t you. For later.”

I don’t hesitate.

“A cassette from the toilet,” I say again. “How much does it weigh?”

“Too effin’ much, pardon my French. I have another day on mine and then it’ll need emptying. You offering, are you?”

“I thought Phoenix was going to help you. Your cousin’s son?”

“He is. But he’s not well. You met him yet?”

I shake my head.

“He’s a good man. Studied physics at college. Planets and all sorts. I know he looks like a punk rocker and goes by that nickname, but he’s one of the good guys, trust me. Phoenix isn’t well, but he still makes the time to come say hi.”

“I can do it today.”

“All my waste? You sure?”

“I’ll need to borrow your barrow, though, if that’s OK.”

“Course it is.” He looks at me, frowning with thought, and then his face lights up. “But we can do one better, I reckon.” He folds over the page of the TV Guide and stows it down in the magazine rack. “We can steam there in style if you’re up to being captain’s mate?”

“I’ll get the cassette from my bathroom.”

“Sorry?”

“I’ve got to do ours, Dad says.”

“Is he still raw over Amber barking at that mallard?”

“It’s not that. He just wants me to help out more now I’m older and stronger.”

“We’ll do them together,” he says. “Two cassettes, one luxury cruise. Go get it, young man.”

I collect it and when I step back awkwardly onto his boat he’s wearing a captain’s hat complete with mud stain and feather.

I help him free the boat from its moorings and pull up the hooks and we set off.

He looks unsteady at the tiller, but he smiles like I have never seen him smile before, like he’s proud of motoring his boat on his own.

If I’d had a grandpa I wonder if he’d have been like Mr. Turner. When I’m with him I don’t feel like I’m with an adult, really. He’s more like a friend.

I empty out the cassettes into Miller’s disgusting septic tank, flies everywhere, kids in the distance burning stuff and shooting at rats and aerosol cans, and then we maneuver the boat back to where it was before, directly behind ours. The only two on this stretch of the water.

“Eight foot deep around here,” says Mr. Turner, securing the mooring. “Most of the canal’s shallow, needs a dredging it does, but it’s deep here. You could swim if you wanted.”

“Too cold, Mr. Turner.”

“It’ll do you some good, Samson. Bit of pond weed never hurt nobody.”

“Don’t mention this to Dad, will you? He wanted me to carry it on my shoulder.”

“On your shoulder?”

I nod.

“Far as I’m concerned that’s what happened, buddy. Tank of old shit on your shoulder. What should we do next?”

On Tuesday I take the long way home from school.

I don’t want to see him yet. I need time for myself and I can’t have that on the boat.

Dad’s face is growing tighter and more etched with rage every passing day.

Each time Amber barks or growls at the wading birds on the embankment he physically hardens.

Football practice didn’t go so good. I walk along the side of the road trying to make sense of it, but I know deep down there is none.

No logical reason whatsoever. Why do they choose me every time?

It’s like I have a target on my face that I cannot see or scrub away.

When I finished practice and came out of the shower they didn’t whip me with their rolled towels this time.

They didn’t hide my jacket or my cleats.

This was worse. According to local radio it’s only three degrees above freezing.

As I walk my socks squelch, and my shirt freezes hard against my chest. They threw my clothes on the tiled floor by the drain.

I don’t know who did it, how many of them.

They all yelled and laughed as I collected my sodden socks and jacket.

They cried with laughter as I wrung them out into the communal shower, twisting and squeezing.

When I tried to pull on my pants they cheered and some of them had tears in their eyes they were enjoying it so much.

Mr. Rodriguez came in to see what all the noise was about.

They shut up then. I pulled on my jacket and walked straight out of school.

The one saving grace is I left my Walkman at home this morning.

Yesterday at lunch, as I was eating mac and cheese on my own in the cafeteria, Rozza Metcalfe stood behind me and told me it was a cheap knockoff Asian Walkman and I should have bought a Sony and if he ever sees it again he’ll stomp on it to do me a favor.

Asshole doesn’t realize Sony is a Japanese company.

He said I listen to queer foreign music and I should be ashamed of myself. Said I was a disgrace to his school.

The footbridge over the railroad is colder than ever.

There’s some synchronicity between rail and canal.

It is not their shared industrial heritage, although I know all about that thanks to last year’s history class.

Rather it’s the unusual wind they have in common.

The way we have sliced through the soft curves of nature with alien lines.

Gusts funneling and blowing through a cut, or along a straight platform.

It is the kind of gale I relish because it burns hard.

It blows the cobwebs out of your ears, is what Mom says.

Resets you. The wind up here on the footbridge brings an exquisite pain with it.

The pretty girl from the bus stop is heading up the steps.

I tense. My shoulders tighten. I pretend I’m looking at a sedge wren.

Should I walk quickly to the other side and head home or stay where I am and ignore her?

What will she think of me up here on the footbridge all on my own in a soaking wet uniform looking at wildlife?

She won’t pick on me, it’s not that, but she’s too pretty.

I focus on a discarded cardboard ticket on the ground between us. An orange rectangle. First Class. Car seven.

I don’t want her to notice me.

Move along.

She wears one gold ring in her ear, but not in the lobe, up at the top. It catches the light.

I don’t want to catch the light.

I don’t want to be seen.

“What you staring at?”

I freeze.

“Is that an eagle?”

I shrug.

Her voice is smooth and melodic.

Not like mine.

The wind gusts and she holds her palms up to her cheeks.

I look at the far bank of the canal and can’t help but smile when I notice it.

“That’s an owl,” I say.

“Is it?”

“Barn owl.”

“You sure it’s not a snowy? It’s white. I think it’s a snowy.”

“It’s pale, not white. That’s a barn owl.”

We don’t say anything for a long time. I am transfixed by the hovering raptor and its ghostly humanlike face, the roundness of its features, the grace of it.

“What’s it looking for?” she asks.

“Mice. Voles, maybe. It’s getting dark, this is when they like to hunt.”

She sits down cross-legged next to me.

I can hardly breathe.

Staring forward, her arm not quite touching mine, she says, “I’m Jennifer Adamu. I’ve seen you downtown.”

“Sam,” I say.

We do not look at each other.

We look at the owl.

“You catching a train, Sam?”

“No, I’m watching the owl.”

“I’ve never sat and watched an owl.”

I don’t answer.

We stare into the waning light.

I can smell her shampoo. Smells like wild mint.

“There are barn owls in the Galápagos,” I say. “In the Himalayas, even.”

“Yeah?”

My teeth start to chatter.

“You cold?”

“No.”

“You sure sound cold. Your teeth are rattling.”

“Look at it glide. Look at the shape of its wing tips, its primaries.”

“Is it a boy or a girl?”

“It’s like a ballet dancer. No, that’s not it. Scrap that. A Harrier jet. But silent. Look at its movements. Smooth, but dangerous and untamable.”

“You sure know a lot about owls.”

“Not a lot.”

She stands up and straightens her gray skirt. She smells like bubble gum now, and I am lightheaded for a moment. “I’ll see you at the bus station, Sam.”

I watch her walk away across the footbridge and disappear out of sight as she descends the steps on the other side.

When I look back the owl is gone.