Chapter 42 Samson
Paul Pricklett is allowed out for lunch.
I am not. I have to wait until next grade for that liberty.
The other boys in my class talk about how they meet up with their girlfriends at the Dairy Queen or the skate park after class.
Gunner says his brother will happily drive them around in his Dodge Dakota.
He says you can rent the back seat for ten minutes if you give him five bucks.
He also says the brother tends to drive erratic because he’s watching what’s happening in the rearview mirror.
Paul wants to leave so we go out the back way past the principal’s office and the janitor’s shop.
I’m an unlikely maverick, too wild for this small town, too independent of thought.
If I want to go out at lunch, I damn well will.
A modern-day cowboy in a polyester blazer who rides the bus.
Paul walks heavily through the churchyard and I follow.
We buy freshly made corn dogs, still warm, and hang around the back of the deli eating them, the grease turning our chins shiny.
“Let’s go visit your mom,” he says, pointing in the direction of the municipal library. “See if there’s a section on erotic fiction.”
“Are you nuts?”
“What?”
He has food on his shirt.
“She’ll go mental if she catches me out of school.”
“She’s already mental, bud.”
We walk past the post office and run into some girls from the other high school that Paul knows from his bus route. They don’t want to talk to us, I can see that from their body language, but I’m impressed Paul had the guts to go approach them.
“Too skinny for me,” he says, after they walk away giggling.
“Bullshit.”
“Too young, as well.”
“What? Paul, they were your age.”
“I’m looking out for a more sophisticated lady, I guess. A worldly woman I can go to church with.”
“You don’t go to church.”
“But I would.” He coughs. “She could drive us in her car.”
I laugh and place my corn dog stick in the trash.
We walk by the aquarium store. Then we backtrack and go inside. It is warm and humid and it smells weird. We peer at the azure-blue tropical fish and Paul tells me how his dad’s going to build an aquarium in his new apartment once he gets around to it.
“Goldfish?” I say.
He shakes his head. “Piranhas and stuff.”
I start to speak and he says, “Japanese fighting fish. Maybe a shark.”
I smile. “You see him much?”
Paul doesn’t answer.
We leave.
“You’d think this place would be important,” he says.
“The aquarium?”
“No, dumbass. The town. With the railroad, the rivers, the mines. Right at the center of our country. You’d think we’d be important to somebody.”
I don’t say anything.
He heads toward the church and the pawnshop but I urge him to loop back toward the bakery.
He goes on anyway. I walk with him and it is right there in the window.
I spotted it last Friday when I passed by.
My Walkman. I remember unwrapping the box by the Christmas tree in our bungalow.
Now it’s for sale at half the original sticker price.
I’m surprised it’s still there behind the glass.
People in this town are fools. They should snap it up.
Tape cassette and FM radio with headphones, excellent sound quality.
It was close to Mom’s necklace last Friday but now the necklace has gone, and I have to bite the inside of my mouth to stop myself from thinking about it.
Dumb, I know. It was just a necklace. But it belonged to Nanna Ruth and Mom says I chewed on it as a baby when I was teething.
“What’s wrong?” he says.
“Nothing. Walkman, that’s all.”
A girl bounces past on a pogo stick. She’s younger than us. Pigtails. Her pogo stick squeaks with every jump.
“Gotta oil that thing,” says Paul.
She flips him off and keeps on hopping.
After school I visit Phoenix’s boat. It snowed briefly while I was on the bus, the children cheering, but it melted away as soon as it touched the dirt.
“Just a minute, Samson.”
He goes to his room for five minutes because he says he needs to adjust something.
I sit looking out of the window. There’s little boat traffic this time of year.
The canal feels more like a rural river: bare branches and nests high up in the chestnut trees.
There is a silver sheen to the landscape.
He has been writing something. There are pens and envelopes on his dinette table next to his meds.
When I return home I’ll have another look for my LEGO pieces. I’ve been losing more and more pieces recently. Mom says she saw a LEGO man in the gas locker so I’ll check in there.
“I’ll just be a few more minutes,” says Phoenix, from the other room. He sounds like he’s in discomfort.
I flick through a copy of National Geographic. It is my favorite magazine; the one I always gravitate to in Smith’s.
I still haven’t seen Jennifer. I hung around by the strip mall place after school, but she wasn’t there. Haven’t seen her at the bus station either. There is a rumor she’s met a boy, an older boy with a motocross bike and a tattoo on his arm. I just want to know the truth.
After washing three mugs and a small bowl and spoon, I sit close to the fire.
This woodstove is larger than ours and it is backed by blue-and-white tiles that Mr. Turner once told me came from a small town in Holland, Europe.
Ours is backed with aluminum foil Dad bought from Walmart.
The boat smells mustier than it used to.
More like ours. Dad’s got some kind of plan to install moisture absorbers from Lowe’s but I have no idea if they’ll work.
I will help him do it because I want to help, but also, to be fair, he’s made my life a lot easier.
I owe him. I’m not even sure how he did it, to be honest. He started looking at me different, I suppose.
Talked to me in a new way. That’s all it took.
And then suddenly I could face the world for the first time ever.
School improved. Like night and day. He says he will take me to an aeronautical show in the next town over if I maintain at least a B+ average and my teachers say good things at the parent-teacher conference.
“Sorry, Sam. I’m OK now.” He’s out of breath. “You hungry?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“I should be honest with you. I won’t need to visit the hospital anymore, fingers crossed. That part’s over with now. I’ll be cared for here on the boat from now on. Nice and quiet. That’s how I want it. You understand?”
“That’s brilliant. No more miserable hospitals. No more mush to eat. You must be pleased.”
He smiles flatly and looks out of the window.
“How’s your mom and dad doing, Sam?”
“All right. Why?”
He takes a deep breath. “I hear things from my boat, you know. It’s not far.”
I freeze with the shame of it.
How much does he know?
“It’s not what you think, Phoenix.”
He rubs the bridge of his nose.
“They’re just… I don’t know. Mom’s been ill, you know. It’ll get better.”
She’s livid she can’t find any of the floppy disks where she saves her work.
Dad says he’s never seen them. Doubts she ever had disks on the boat.
She tells him she wants to help out more with finances, so we don’t get into trouble again.
He says she’s not exactly qualified for that, especially not after her medical diagnosis.
She’s showing her anger more than she used to.
She’s bold. Dad says she’ll be back on a psych ward soon if she’s not careful.
He says he only needs to make one call.
Says he won’t hesitate.