Jack Adrift (11 page)

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Authors: Jack Gantos

BOOK: Jack Adrift
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“I don't have time for that stuff,” Dad said. “The Navy works my tail off all day long.”
“Well, you better make time, mister. You don't want
him turning out like that wild
problem
child across the swamp.” I knew she was pointing toward Julian's house.
“Okay,” Dad said. “I'll think of something.”
“And don't just take him across the street to go fishing,” she said. “Or rent a dune buggy and race around for your own kicks. You have to talk to him about things. Help him figure out the world. You can't just fish in the dark and
brood
all evening like you do. God, the last thing I want you to do is teach him how to brood.”
I could hear Dad stand up and stomp across the room.
“Don't walk away from me when I'm being serious,” she said. “We have to talk about this. Every time I want to talk, you want to walk. But if we don't talk about problems, we won't solve anything around here.”
But Dad wasn't talking. He yawned loudly, like a lion. “I'm exhausted,” he said, stomping in circles as if tramping down the tall grass and making a bed. “Time to call it a day.”
 
The next night after dinner Dad looked over at me. “Hey, sport,” he said. “Get my fishing rod and let's go over to the beach for a spell. It's time to spend a little time together, man to man.”
I smiled. I knew what that was all about. “Great,” I
said. I got his pole ready, put a few beers in the cooler, and grabbed a blanket. He carried his tackle box and a flashlight, and a hammer—just in case he caught something so big he had to give it a crack to calm it down.
“See you later,” I called, waving to Mom.
But she didn't respond. She was glaring at Dad. “Remember what I told you,” she said.
“Talk!”
“Don't worry,” Dad replied. “With my fishing luck, that's all I can do.”
We crossed the road in front of the house and walked up over the dunes and down the beach a bit before getting set up. Right after Dad had cast out and we had settled down on the blanket, he began to talk.
“Don't listen to your mother,” he said. “Brooding is good. She misunderstands what brooding means. Let me tell you. When a man is brooding, he is taking big troubles and working them down into little troubles. You know how in the movies they always show prisoners using sledgehammers to pound boulders into gravel?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Well, that's what I do in my mind.” He tapped the side of his head. “When I'm quiet, I'm just grinding big worries down into a pile of dust and at the end of the evening I just blow them away and go to bed and sleep like a baby.”
“So, why does Mom call that brooding?” I asked.
“Because your mom works her problems out differently,” he said. “She likes to talk about everything. Talk, talk, talk. But a man needs his silence, and because she doesn't understand silence, she calls it brooding.”
“I see,” I said.
“Now, what's your problem?” he asked.
I took a deep breath and looked up into the night sky. Between two oval clouds, the stars looked like they were trapped in an hourglass. “I'm just sad about Elliott dying,” I replied. “It's not fair. He was just a kid like the rest of us and he never did anything bad and now he's dead.”
“Well, you just sit here silently and let the gears in your mind grind down all your troubles about that Elliott boy. Death is a tough subject, but I guarantee you that before long you'll feel a lot better.”
So while Dad fished and remained silent—brooding, I guessed, about his own Navy problems—I thought about Elliott. I was relieved at first that it was dark out because I thought if I began to cry, Dad wouldn't see my face all screwed up. And with the wind blowing, maybe he wouldn't hear me whimper. But I didn't cry. Instead, the more I sat there the angrier I got. It seemed my head would explode. Life was unfair. The world was unfair. The universe was unfair. Why should Elliott die? It seemed so unjust when hundreds of people everywhere
did awful things and got away with it and were never punished, but some poor kid in a wheelchair whose one joy in life was playing ticktacktoe was now dead. It really made me angry.
“Hey, Dad,” I said, after my thoughts got the best of me.
“Yeah?”
“Maybe I'm not very good at brooding yet,” I said. “I'm just getting madder and madder and I'm not grinding anything down to dust. What should I do next?”
“Hmm,” he said. “Well, sometimes instead of solving anything from brooding, you just smolder. It's a bad form of brooding. You get stuck on a subject and you can't seem to get it out of your system no matter what.”
“Then what do you do? Because I think I'm smoldering. I'm really mad about it. I thought I was going to be sad. But I'm more angry. And that's confused me. Because I thought my problem was going to get smaller but it just seems the more I brood, the bigger and worse it gets.”
“Let me give you some advanced brooding lessons,” he said. “First, if I'm smoldering over some work problem I take a walk along the beach. You know, just listen to the ocean waves crashing on the shore. Wave to the boaters. Breathe in the good sea air. Maybe you can let
your mind drift along and think about what you like and don't like, who you are and who you are not, and what you want to become and what you don't want to become. Stuff like that.”
“So, were you smoldering tonight?” I asked, standing up and getting ready to take a walk.
“No,” he said calmly. “I was beyond smoldering. I was just thinking about sweet nothing.”
“Nothing?” I asked, unconvinced.
“Nothing,” he said firmly.
“How can you think of
nothing
?” I asked. “I'm always thinking. My eyes keep seeing, and I hear stuff. I
have
to think.”
“It takes practice,” he said. “Knowing how to be quiet, how to be still, how to think about nothing is one of the secrets to life. Thinking of
nothing
and brooding are related. First you brood until you grind your troubles down to
nothing
. Then you are totally happy. You are like that Buddha. You just sit and meditate all day over nothing and it's the best feeling in the world. If I had all the money I wanted, then I'd have no troubles. But I'm not rich in that way. So, when I'm thinking of
nothing
, it means nobody bothers me. Nobody can get into my head and bug me. Nobody. It's the poor man's way of being rich.”
“I'm confused,” I said.
“Well, why don't you just start off simple and try walking down the beach?” he said. “Try it. You'll catch on fast.”
I started walking down the beach but I hadn't taken a few steps before I started getting angry all over again. Even thinking about Miss Noelle didn't distract me. I tried to think of us sailing on a gold-and-white yacht across a blue sea. We were smiling. Laughing. Not a trouble in the world. But then the image of us fizzled in my mind. I was
too
angry. Elliott should never have died. I turned around and marched back toward Dad. Before I bugged him again, I stood in the dark and watched him. Car headlights swept the beach and flashed across his face. He just sat there, looking out at the water, slowly sipping a beer and plucking on the fishing line, feeling for a bite. For a long time I watched his face. He was totally relaxed. Content. There was nothing on his mind he needed to say.
“How'd it go?” he asked when he saw me creeping up on him. He reeled in his line all the way until the silver spoon was hanging off the tip of the rod like a tongue full of hooks.
“I still have my work cut out for me,” I said. “I can brood. I can smolder. But I can't seem to get to
nothing-ness
.”
“Give it some time and practice,” he said. “You'll get there.”
I picked up the blanket and waved it overhead. The sand blew away from us. I could only wish my sadness and anger would follow.
 
The next day I went over to Julian's window and peeked in. He was sitting at a little side table with a plate of food. He was drinking a glass of milk. I guessed he was so grounded he had to eat in his room, like Max in
Where the Wild Things Are.
“Hey,” I said, “did you hear? Elliott died.”
“I know,” he replied. “I already made up a new song for my dad's band. What to hear it?”
“Sure,” I said.
“It's not really a rock song and it's not really a folk song. It's just sort of a ballad. So picture me sitting onstage, on a tall black stool with my acoustic guitar and a single spotlight on me.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Elliott was nice,”
he sang softly, strumming his fake guitar as if he were petting a cat.
“Elliott was sweet. Life was mean to him, but he didn't dig defeat … He's circling the world, spinning like a ring, his soul set loose like a kite out of string.”
“That's beautiful,” I sighed, tearing up.
He took a bow.
I was clapping when his mother entered the room. “You again!” she shouted.
As I tried to duck out of sight, I saw her hand snatch Julian's glass of milk off his table and pitch it toward me.
The glass shattered against the wall.
“Get out of here!”
I turned and ran across the road, up and over the dunes, and began to walk along the shore. The sun was setting and the whitecaps looked pink, then purple, and as I circled home they were gray. The walking helped because when I thought about Julian's mom throwing milk at me I began to laugh. It seemed so silly, like a cartoon playing over and over until it faded away. I took a deep breath of sea air and just when I thought I was doing better, I began to think of Elliott's death again. I was hoping I could grind it down into nothing like I did with Julian's mom, but I was still too upset, and even though I took an extra walk up and down the dunes I couldn't get my anger and sadness to go away.
When I came through the front door I knew Mom had been waiting for me.
“Where've you been?” she asked, looking me right in the eyes before I could look away.
“Just walking on the beach,” I said, “thinking.”
“You were off brooding,” she guessed. “Tell me the truth.”
“Maybe a little,” I replied.
“Your dad
broods,”
Mom said. “You are too young to brood. When something bad happens I want you to have a healthy reaction to it. A strong young man's reaction. I don't want you stewing and getting yourself worked up into a black mood.”
“I'm not in a black mood,” I said. “I was just trying to feel nothing.”
“Feeling
nothing
is not going to solve anything. Now, let's talk,” she said, and crossed her hands on her lap. “Tell me how you
feel
about what happened to Elliott.” I could tell that she wasn't just going to let me go read
Charlotte's Web
again and think about the life cycle of spiders, and death and rebirth and the natural order of things.
“I'd rather just go sit and think about my problems,” I replied. “I'm a man.”
“I knew it!” she cried out. “Your dad has already taught you how to brood! You need to talk about this stuff. Both of you need to learn how to talk about stuff that bothers you. Keeping it inside is only going to eat you alive.”
“I'll figure it out,” I said.
“Not if you listen to him,” she said, warning me. “You both need something healthy to do with your time.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“I'm not sure yet,” she said, standing up and jamming
her hands down onto her hips. “But I'll think about it.”
 
Two weeks later Dad and Pete and I got dressed in our new Junior Naval Cadet outfits. Dad had the rank of chief petty officer and we were dressed as new recruits. I guessed Mom was going to set Pete in the right direction while he was still young enough to not fall into the bad habit of brooding. She knew Dad was a lost cause and probably had her fingers crossed that I might come around and see things her way.
Mom lined us up in a row and took our pictures. “My three handsome
men
,” she said, as if she were stamping the word
men
on our foreheads. Then we got in Dad's car and quietly drove to Roanoke Island to a sleepover camp for the weekend. If we had any thoughts about what we were doing, we kept them to ourselves. The weekend orientation was supposed to be just for kids from five through eight years old, but Dad brought me along to help, and as Mom said, “Don't worry, you'll fit right in. You're young for your age anyway.”

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