Closer All the Time Page 7

  The bus moved down the road and some of the kids turned their heads, as if Arnold’s house were a roadside attraction, like the Hurd family’s made-up desert. Then they were swinging onto the tar road, and everyone faced forward as they rolled on to the school.

  During recess, when Arnold heard Daryl Sleeper say chicken coop, he clamped a headlock on him and rubbed his face in the snow. One of the teachers ran over to stop it, and then told Arnold to follow him inside.

  Arnold had to spend the rest of the afternoon in the principal’s office, at a table in the corner. He didn’t mind that so much. It was better than being in class, with everybody whispering. But then Mrs. Kimball sat down with him and started in about his family. Mrs. Kimball wasn’t all that old but had gray hair. She wore it in a ponytail that sat on her shoulder like a pet squirrel.

  “It’s never easy growing up without a dad,” she said to Arnold. “But you still have to behave yourself. Otherwise you’ll spend your whole life in and out of trouble. You don’t want that, do you, Arnold?”

  “Nuh-uh,” Arnold said.

  Mrs. Kimball let the ponytail slip through her fingers while she talked.

  Arnold pretended to pay attention, but he couldn’t really, or it made him feel awful. He hated talking about his father. He mumbled every now and then so she’d think he was listening. Meanwhile, he thought about other stuff.

  He thought about his uncle and cousins and their big house up on the corner. He thought about the Red Sox. Then he thought some more about the big coop—how it made echoes when you walked around inside.

  The big coop was pretty spooky. There were round metal bins where the chickens used to eat, and all these weird little “spectacles” lying around that they’d worn on their beaks. They weren’t really spectacles; you couldn’t see through them. They were something the chickens wore so they wouldn’t turn into killers. His grandfather had told him that without the spectacles they would pick one poor chicken out and gang up on it. They’d all chase it into a corner and peck at it until it died. For some reason the spectacles stopped that from happening, but Arnold had never figured out exactly why.

  “Are you listening to me, Arnold?” Mrs. Kimball said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Arnold had to apologize to Daryl Sleeper and the Hurds and Mrs. Morrison before he was allowed back on the bus. The Hurd brothers were being picked up by their father, and when Arnold walked over to say he was sorry, Mr. Hurd made them all shake hands. Then he said to Larry, “Next time, punch him back, right in the nose,” and Larry looked at the ground.

  Arnold sat behind Mark on the bus and told him he could come over and have some coffee cake if he wanted. His mother had brought it home from the shoe shop two days before. Mark, who never got coffee cake at home (Aunt Lois didn’t think it was good for you), was a little friendlier after that, and said he would try to sneak out.

  He had to sneak because Aunt Lois wouldn’t let him play at Arnold’s anymore after Arnold had let Mark shoot the .22 his dad had left behind. They’d taken it into the woods behind the big coop and had shot at a pine tree. Arnold’s grandfather had heard the shots and come down into the woods and taken the rifle away. He’d told Mark’s parents, and Uncle Mike had lectured them about guns. Afterward Arnold’s mother had hidden the rifle, although it didn’t take him long to find it in a closet behind her coats, the same place she hid everything.

  Mark finally came outside and ran past the elms and down the driveway and across River Road. The dogs were barking and he sprinted right past Arnold with a laugh, and Arnold had to hustle to catch up. Then Mark slowed down and they walked together along the dirt road.

  It was getting dark already, but Arnold could see a car in their driveway. He ran up and looked it over—an old Nash Rambler; he knew his cars—without letting himself think that his father had decided to come home. He wasn’t that stupid. There were little boxes and snap-shut cases on the backseat, along with a fishing rod and tackle box. His father had hated fishing.

  “Whose car is that?” Mark said.

  “Somebody that gave her a ride home, I guess.”

  They walked downhill toward Arnold’s house and the big two-story coop.

  Arnold opened the screen door and they went inside just as the curtain parted in the doorway across the room and a short man with a red face ducked out. The man saw them and grinned.

  “Well, hello there, gentlemen!” he said. “School’s out, I take it?” He looked at his silver wristwatch, shoved his shirttail into his pants.

  Arnold’s mother came out. “You had to lallygag, didn’t you, Frank?”

  “Whose fault was that?” the man said.

  Arnold’s mother giggled and raked a hand through her reddish hair. “I guess you caught me, Arnold!” she said. “But you didn’t have to bring company! How are you, Marcus?”

  “Okay, Aunt Carolyn.”

  “How’s things up at the plantation?”

  “Okay.” Mark looked at Arnold. “Maybe I’d better go.”

  Arnold shrugged as if he didn’t care.

  Mark turned his eyes toward the kitchen table.

  “Can Mark take a piece of coffee cake?” Arnold asked.

  “Why not?” Arnold’s mother said.

  Arnold peeled the waxed paper off, cut a piece of the coffee cake, and handed it to Mark.

  Mark said, “Thanks!” and took off out the door.

  Arnold saw him run past the window, stuffing the coffee cake into his mouth.

  “Time for me to be running along, too,” the man said.

  Arnold left them hugging in the kitchen corner. He walked through the living room and parted the curtain to his bedroom. They didn’t have doors to their rooms here in the old brooder coop. He made a face and flopped on his bed with his hands behind his head.

  After a minute his mother walked up and pulled the curtain aside.

  “I’m going for a ride, honey. You be good; have some coffee cake yourself. I’ll be back in a little while.”

  “Where are you going?” Arnold said.

  “Just for a ride. Be good, now!”

  Arnold heard the front door shut. He went to the window and watched his mother run up the path with her arms swinging across her body, like a cheerleader. The man named Frank pushed the passenger door open for her from the inside and she got in and slammed it shut. They backed onto the road and rode up toward the crossing.

  When they were gone Arnold lay back on the bed, thinking every swear word he knew. Then he got up and went down to his mother’s room. He ducked under the curtain and took the .22 out of the closet.

  Remembering about it had made him want to shoot it again. He still had some of the little shells under his bed. He put them in his pocket, took the rifle outside to the big coop. She’d never even notice it was gone.

  The coop’s door hung on one hinge and there was a fan of fine snow on the floorboards. It was cold as anything. He ran up the stairs and hid the rifle and shells behind a feeder near a corner.

  Then he went back into the house. He took the rest of the coffee cake over to the couch and turned on the TV.

  Arnold was lying down when his mother finally came home. He said, “Hi!,” but she didn’t answer. She banged into something and then it was quiet.

  Arnold left her alone for an hour, but finally got too hungry. It was way past suppertime. He tiptoed up to her curtain and listened to her breathing.

  “Mum?” he said.

  She went on breathing.

  “Mum?” Arnold said again. “Can we have supper?”

  “Can’t a person take a nap?” his mother said.

  “I’m hungry!” Arnold yelled.

  His mother made the bed creak and stomped toward the doorway, but got tangled in the curtain. While she was swatting it away Arnold grabbed his jacket and ran outside. He stuffed his hands into the pockets and walked toward the road through an inch of new snow.

  He could see his breath, and a cold breeze pecked at his cheeks a
nd the tips of his ears. It made him wish he’d had time to get his cap with the earmuffs. Down the road he could see his grandfather’s house all lit up. But his grandfather would just send him home. The cousins’ big house was all lit up, too. He could walk up there; he’d done it before when his mother was on the warpath. He even took a couple of steps that way, picturing warm rooms, cousins sprawled on the floor with comic books, his uncle reading the newspaper in his recliner. But his aunt would probably slam the door in his face.

  He glanced back at his house and, behind it, the two-story coop.

  At least he could get out of the wind.

  Arnold trotted down the hill and ducked past the cockeyed door. It was cold and dark inside the coop. He climbed the stairs, feeling his way, retrieved the .22, and loaded one of the shells through its side gate.

  He marched around like a soldier for a while, kicking the spectacles out of his way, and when he got tired of that, he knelt by a window and looked through the scope. The streetlight at the crossing jumped into view. A car cleared the woods on the right. It was like watching a TV show.

  He followed the car past the cousins’ house until it disappeared behind the bushes on the left, then swung the barrel back and stopped when he saw his aunt in the kitchen window. He watched her laugh and wave a wooden spoon and was surprised when the .22 spat. It didn’t make very much noise.

  He quickly slid another shell in, so it would be like nothing had happened. He looked through the scope again and saw Uncle Mike come outside, sort of crouching and looking around.

  When the .22 went off again, Uncle Mike ducked back into the house.

  Arnold laid the rifle down then so it wouldn’t shoot anymore. He hoped it hadn’t hit anyone. He blew on his hands and stuck them in his jacket pockets. It was so cold!

  After a while he could hear a siren. It got louder and closer, and he waited to see what would happen. He’d be just as glad if somebody would show up. It was freezing in the coop, and it was getting creepy, too, because he couldn’t keep from thinking about those chickens.

  He kept imagining a whole gang of them, moving through the building without their spectacles. He could almost hear them, scratching from room to room, getting closer all the time.

  Russell

  I stop with the ashtrays, take a good look through the window at the big white owl sitting on the wind-sock pole. It’s nice, almost like a piece of Alaska has followed me home. I watch him ruffling himself, and I think about Dora O’Malley and Nakasuk.

  I space out a little until the kid from the commuter airline says, “Earth to Russ.” Then I look over my shoulder. This kid is droopy-eyed, like he never gets enough sleep. Which he probably doesn’t, since he recently married a girl with large breasts and sweet, sad eyes.

  “Whatcha got out there?” he says.

  “Come see.” I look back at the owl.

  He steps around his counter and scuffs over. The lobby wall is all glass, and I point out at the big white bird. “Don’t usually get this far south.”

  “Huh,” the kid says.

  “Guess he’s having some tough luck.”

  “He’ll have more if somebody lands on him.” Then he yawns until his jaw snaps. He’s too tired and not bright enough to be all that interested. He graduated from Baxter High, same as me, but I’ve seen the illiterate notes he leaves around for Roger Lambert, who manages the airport and runs the air taxi, and also just happens to be the guy who talked me into coming back to Maine.

  The kid yawns again. Snap.

  Outside, the owl swoops low over the field and sprints for the trees.

  I go back to my janitorial duties, but my head’s still in Alaska. I’m thinking birds, and I’m thinking Dora. Birds used to mean nothing to me, right? But she had feeders all over her yard, and bird books in her Klondike trailer. She was a good gal, and it was fun learning from her. There’s a lot to birds, it turns out. Owls, especially.

  I move around the lobby, emptying the tops of the ashtrays into their hollow bases.

  It’s a pain to be back, but I’ve got no one to blame but myself. I could still be flying old Sven Strnad’s mail plane if I hadn’t thought it was a fine idea to land downwind in a snowstorm on an unimproved strip. I remember thumping over a frozen field, a crumpled wingtip, snapped nose gear, mailbags in the snow.

  Strnad had to let me go for insurance reasons, and that was it until Lambert called. He’d heard about the accident and wanted to run something past me. His second pilot had left for the airlines, and he wondered if maybe we could help each other out. I could pull the power back for a while, and he’d be off the hook, at least for the short term.

  He wasn’t being especially kind; that wasn’t Roger Lambert. He was a pretty cold-fish man who never got too close to anybody that I ever saw. He did teach me to fly, though, and I’d worked for him before I’d left Maine.

  Anyway, when I didn’t answer right away, he made this little snort and said he hoped I wasn’t still carrying a bloody torch. I knew he was talking about Katie Jones, who was this other girl I used to know.

  “No” was all I said.

  “Good,” he said. “So, have you still got the one-eighty?”

  “Yep,” I said.

  “Well, crank it up. I’ll see you in a few days.”

  It was six o’clock in the morning when he hung up, but Dora was already outside, loading the feeders. I watched her slog back through the snow, her wild, thick hair pushed out around the parka hood. She’d tucked the bottom of her flannel nightgown into her boots. Her breath shot out in clouds. We’d been together a year; just one of those random things. Neither of us was any big prize, but we had our fun.

  Dora stopped to fill the pole feeder and then came inside and saw me sitting at the table.

  “You’re up early,” she said.

  She took the parka off, ran her hands through her mass of red hair. Dora was as Irish as they come. I told her that once and she said, “Yeah—face like a potato.”

  “Don’t run yourself down,” I said, but she just laughed. The second time she said it, I carved a cute little face on a peeled potato and showed it to her.

  “There you are,” I said, and it felt pretty good when she threw her arms around my neck.

  It didn’t feel so good now, the way she was looking at me, and I finally told her I’d had an offer to go back to Maine and work.

  She said, “Huh,” pried her boots off, and went over to the woodstove.

  “So, what do you think?” I said.

  “Not up to me.” She rubbed her hands together over the heat.

  I’d fed it while she was outside. She took the percolator off the stove and poured herself a cup and sat down in the easy chair by the window.

  “After I get squared away I can come back.”

  She laughed.

  “Seriously,” I said. Then I went over and took her hands, but she stood up and strode past me to the bedroom at the end of the trailer. She shut the door, and I couldn’t decide whether it would be good to join her, so I poured another cup of coffee and sat down to think it over.

  When she came out a half hour later she seemed fine.

  Three days later she gave me a ride to the airstrip, helped me with the tie-downs, kissed me good-bye. Her lips were warm in the crackling cold. I guess it was about fifteen below.

  I climbed aboard and got the 180 started and rumbled down the frozen airstrip between eight-foot snowbanks and lifted into the air.

  When I banked back over the field I saw her: tiny, waving.

  I bang the last ashtray top, drop it back onto its base.

  When I go back behind the Avis counter, the kid says, “We a little cranky this morning?”

  “Just bored.”

  I open the hard-covered Avis book to see what’s up for the day. I lean close and squint; Lambert’s handwriting isn’t much better than the kid’s. Doesn’t look like much going on.

  “I hear it used to be pretty exciting,” the kid says, like he
knows something.

  “Spit it out,” I say.

  He laughs. “My mother was a bridesmaid.”

  “For real?”

  “She’s still mad you got her dress dirty.”

  I shut the Avis book and walk over to the window. It’s brighter outside, and a breeze is lifting the wind sock. I remember flying toward the steeple, diving down at the wedding party.

  “How come nobody turned you in, anyway?” the kid says.

  “Maybe they tried. I didn’t wait around.”

  He laughs, looks out the door. “Oops. Guess it’s time.”

  I look at the parking lot. There are cars sitting with their engines running, exhaust curling up past the pole lights. There’s a couple of Norm Lavin’s taxis out there, too, waiting to see if anyone will need a ride when the plane comes in from Boston. That’s all the little commuter does, round-trips between Boston and Baxter.

  “Think you could take a swipe at my floor?” the kid says.

  I go into the hangar for the mop, slap it over the tiles. The kid puts the slippery floor sign down and unlocks the door. The people start coming in and I take the mop back and stick it in its bucket and head for the 206 to preflight it for the day. The hell with old weddings, I think.

  I find a nick on the three-bladed prop and take a moment to file it smooth. Then I open the cowling and turn petcocks, pull dipsticks, check fluids. But my mind keeps going back to Katie—how she’d been working part-time for Lambert, renting cars, answering the phone—and how one day I got brave enough to ask if she’d like to go up for a little ride.

  I wipe my hands on an old rag and go outside to have a cigarette.

  I feel the damn ache all over again. She was so pretty it still killed me. I’d never had a really dazzling girlfriend, and that made it worse when she ditched me. It was like thinking you’d won the lottery, then finding out you’d written the goddamn number down wrong.