Chapter Six
Live, Laugh, Love the Mailman
Trenton was waiting for Hilary in his spot in the parking lot.
It wasn’t his spot in the way of having his name across it, so it surprised him a little that Trenton had noticed enough to remember.
Then again, when you regularly chose the spot furthest from the school doors, that was memorable by itself.
“You really do enjoy freezing to death, huh?” Hilary said once he’d parked and pulled himself from the Shitheap’s innards. The door was stuck, so he had to squirm his way out through the window, taking hold of the arm Trenton held out for him as he did for balance.
“Does that happen a lot?” the boy asked about the stuck door.
“When I slam it too hard. I’m usually more careful.”
Trenton pushed a paper bag into his hand and took the backpack from the passenger seat before Hilary could grab it.
“Sure you don’t want to nab Aspen for yourself?” Hilary asked after doing a quick check of the bag’s contents—grilled cheese and a banana. “You’re prime boyfriend material.”
Trenton managed to fix the door—the boy with the magic touch—before shutting it again with just the right amount of force to deal with the shitty seal, but not so much as to get it stuck. “You’re early.”
Not that early, was he? Maybe fifteen minutes earlier than usual. (Okay, and probably the earliest he’d ever been.) “Better thank the gods that I am, or you’d be a block of ice.”
Trenton shouldered the second bag easily. It looked smaller on him. “I brought more books with me today.”
Trenton took him to a good reading spot—the heater by the window on the third floor. It was more than large enough to sit on, which meant Hilary’s butt was roasty-toasty and might even have been too warm if not for the sweatshirt Trenton put down first to keep their bottoms from third-degree burns.
“Meticulous, aren’t you?” Hilary said.
“It’s easy when your life doesn’t have a lot of distractions.”
“I’m a distraction, aren’t I?”
Trenton handed him the new book. Something by a woman named Mary Oliver.
“Is this going to be sappy?” Hilary asked.
“I think you’ll like her.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
But Trenton never answered his questions.
They read until the second bell, and Hilary was surprised at that. That a boy as conscientious as Trenton would risk being late. Ms. Elwin followed right behind the door Trenton held open for her.
It was boring as it always was. Maybe even more so than usual.
Trenton didn’t bother with the lessons, opening his book before he’d even settled into his seat.
After watching the boy read blissfully for a while and growing increasingly bored, Hilary took out the Mary Oliver book and was immediately called out for it.
“Care to join us, Mr. Davis?”
Not really, but something like that was impossible to say for a weenie like him. So he shut the book and went back to drawing geometric patterns in his notebook.
“How come you get away with it?” was his accusation to Trenton as soon as the lunch bell rang.
The boy pushed a container of cantaloupe Hilary’s way, a supplement to his lunch. “I didn’t. Not at first.”
“How long did it take before they accepted it?”
“About four years.”
“Who has that kind of patience?”
“It was an investment.”
“Investment, my ass. When did you start training the teachers?”
“Pre-K.”
The story Trenton told was equal parts sad and cute. Apparently, the little ogre baby used to camp out in the reading corner of his pre-k classroom and only come out for lunch and snack time. “Do you have pictures?”
Trenton shook his head.
“So they let you get away with ignoring all the other classroom shit?” Hilary asked.
“I was a hefty kid. Difficult to move.”
The thought made Hilary laugh. It was an image of a taciturn butterball dragged to the class circle to sing the wheels on the bus.
“How’d you learn to read so young?” Hilary asked next.
“I don’t really remember. It just happened.”
“Says the genius.”
“So you call me, but I couldn’t tie my shoes until the third grade.”
“Selective genius.”
It seemed Baby-Trenton continued to read, though after being caught trying to take books home with him multiple times, he was forced to come up with other plans.
That was how he found the library. It had taken the baby ogre several hours of asking directions from strangers until a woman brought him there, a little worried about a four-year-old out exploring the world on his own.
“I wasn’t allowed to bring books home from there either,” Trenton said. “Because you needed a parent to get you a library card. But then Ms. Sally let me use her own account to keep from having to fight me at closing every night.”
“And your parents were cool with you wandering around town as a baby?”
“I wasn’t wandering. I was in the library.”
That smacked too much of avoidance to let the boy get away with. “Trent.”
Trenton grinned, the flash of it like lightning cutting into his face. “Hil.”
Almost, Hilary forgot his question. He scowled, but let the stupid nickname go. “Your parents?”
“My mother was working.”
“And your dad?”
“I don’t have one of those.”
That might have been sad if Trenton had said it with anything less than his usual flatness.
“No babysitter?”
“I don’t think we could afford one.”
Hilary could relate to that. “Who fed you while your mom was at work?”
“It’s not hard to make a sandwich.”
“This is coming from the third grader in Velcro shoes, right?”
Trenton flashed a little of that grin again. He seemed so young with that smile. Too young to be as big as he was. “Some things you can eat right out of the box.”
True. Like Hilary’s own personal favorite, Captain Crunch.
No milk and no bowl, just eating it clean until the roof of his mouth was scraped raw.
And he knew Trenton was right. There was plenty of food you could eat without any prep.
Fruits and vegetables. Bread. Cheese. Milk and juice.
Honestly, he could see himself never cooking again.
“I bet your options expanded explosively once you mastered the microwave.”
“Like cheese puffers.”
“Cheese what?”
Apparently, that was when you took a slice of American cheese and microwaved it for twenty-eight to forty-two seconds depending on the power of the microwave.
“Is that…” Hilary wasn’t sure which word to use next, “good?”
“Like heaven to a five-year-old.”
“And now?”
“I’ll bring you one tomorrow.”
Questions and answers followed in that vein until the bell rang, causing Trenton to make a strange expression.
“What?” Hilary asked.
“Nothing,” Trenton answered. “I never went through lunch without reading before.”
That had Hilary feeling guilty until he realized it hadn’t been an accusation.
They went home right after school. Well, to his home (though the parents already seemed to think of it as Trenton’s as well). And this time the math was different from what it had been before, and undoubtedly worse.
“Can’t I just keep relying on the rules?” he whined. “I like being stupid.”
“You need to understand things,” said Trenton the tyrant. “You shouldn’t use rules until you understand them properly.”
“But what difference does it make whether I understand if I’m still going to be doing the same thing in the end?”
All the difference in the world, apparently, and Trenton wouldn’t move on until understanding was nailed in like his own name.
It wasn’t good enough just to copy out the derivations either.
That could be done with memorization, as was revealed when Trenton tripped him up with several probing questions.
After about an hour of such torture, Hilary pitched a fit. “We’re never going to be tested on any of this!”
Trenton was relentless, his expression like the hammer of God. “Do you only learn things because you’ll be tested on them?”
“Yes!”
The look of appalled surprise on Trenton’s face was almost worth the further hour’s math it triggered, but finally the book was shut.
It was the sign Hilary had been waiting for. With the feeling of righting an immeasurable wrong, he wrenched the window open and tossed the book out onto the patchy lawn.
“What’s this?” Albert asked, the timing lining up perfectly with his arrival home.
“Burn it!”
But his father only laughed and brought the book inside.
“How’s my son?”
“Suffering.”
“I meant my favorite son.”
Trenton came to take Albert’s hand. He couldn’t seem to help doing that every time. “Do you mind if I make dinner tonight?”
“If you use the secret magic word.”
Trenton was stumped until he got a hint. “It’s probably ‘dad,’” Hilary suggested.
The boy made the correction. “Can I make dinner tonight, Dad?”
Albert was overjoyed. “Of course you can, son.”
Trenton’s dinners were as good as his breakfasts, and he wasn’t the only one to think so. Annette was in heaven. “Will your mother trade for you? I’m sure Hilary won’t mind.”
Hilary did indeed mind. The house was where all his stuff was and where Trenton’s cooking was. He was already on his third helping.
Albert pretended to block the door when it was time for Trenton to leave. “Just stay,” he said. “Pretend it’s the library.”
Hilary had re-shared the story of baby Trenton at the dinner table.
“I don’t have my pajamas,” Trenton said.
“We have pajamas here.”
“Ones that would fit me?”
“Have you seen your mother’s T-shirt collection?”
It was true that Annette had never approved a T-shirt unless it was at least four sizes too large.
They did indeed fit Trenton, and Hilary was given the esteemed honor of making the choice for the boy—and a great choice it was.
He got to see Trenton brushing his teeth in a live, laugh, love the mailman t-shirt—the worst anniversary present Albert had ever given his poor wife (though the man himself argued it was his best.)
“I ordered the trundle,” Annette informed them, already finished with setting up the couch for the night. “It should be here Saturday.”
Hilary asked the question that should have been on everyone’s mind. “Aren’t you moving a little fast, mom?”
That only earned him a snort. “Next you’ll be telling me I shouldn’t have names picked out for my grandchildren.”
“There aren’t going to be any grandchildren.”
“I know you’ll never give me any, but Trenton’s much more accommodating. Aren’t you, Trenton?”
Trenton spat his toothpaste into the sink with all the delicacy of a genteel maiden. “I don’t think I’d be a good father.”
“Oh, there’s nothing to it. Just ask Albert.”
Albert’s hearing was nearly as good as his wife’s. He called back from the kitchen, “I mow the lawn, don’t I?”
“We have a lawn?” Annette shot back.
Trenton thought it was sweet how much the pair loved each other. He knew, because the boy used those exact words straight to Annette’s face without a trace of embarrassment, causing Annette to take hold of his cheek in a hell of a pinch and croon, “Not as much as we love you, sweetheart.”
It had Hilary feeling a little out of sorts as Trenton wished him goodnight.
“You don’t need to be so good, you know,” he told the boy. “No one will kick you out if you’re not perfect.”
“But I’m not perfect,” Trenton said. “I’m rude and difficult to deal with.”
“Since when?”
“Since always.”