Lean on Pete (27 page)

“That’s where they moved.”

“When was the last time you talked to her?”

“A year or a year and half ago,” she said and smiled.

“Okay,” I said and then I left.

I walked towards the freeway and it took me a while but I made it to the on ramp heading east towards Laramie. I waited most of the day trying to hitchhike but no one ever stopped. Near dusk a man pulled over in a dented old Datsun truck. I ran up to him and asked him if was going to Laramie and he said he was going right past it and that he’d give me a ride.

His truck was as beat up on the inside as the outside. Everything had duct tape on it and there was no stereo or anything on the dash except the speedometer. The man had long sandy blond hair and wore a stained white T-shirt and cut-offs. He was smoking cigarettes that he rolled himself while he drove. He said his name was Dan.

The truck could only go fifty miles an hour. We had the windows rolled down so it was hard to hear, but he started talking about cameras and how he’d just bought a bunch of them and thousands of dollars’ worth of film from a guy in North Dakota for five hundred dollars.

He kept talking but with the wind and the heat I fell asleep. When I woke up he was shaking me. We were parked at a truck stop called Little America. We both went inside and used the toilet, and afterwards I waited by the truck and he came out with two ice-cream cones and handed me one.

“Thanks,” I said.

He nodded. “They have great toilets here, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“The cans have their own little rooms. You could live in there if you had to. Plus the ice cream. Guess how much it costs?”

“I don’t know.”

“Thirty-five cents.”

“Really?”

“And its good,” he said.

I looked in the back of his truck and it was filled with old coolers. “Why do you have the coolers?”

“The film I bought is expired. They don’t make the film I like anymore but the guy said he kept it in a huge fridge. That’s why I have all the coolers in the back of the truck. If you keep the film cold it lasts a lot longer.”

“But what if the ice melts on it?” I asked him.

“Dry ice,” he said and smiled. “That shit’s the best. You ever used it?”

“No,” I said.

“You should,” he said.

We finished the cones, then got back in the truck, but it wouldn’t start. We both got out, pushed it down the parking lot, then he jumped in and compression started it. He let it idle for a bit, then we got on the freeway and he talked about how he could control his dreams. He said he was trying to bring his camera into his dreams so he could take pictures of the things he saw. He said a whole bunch more things like that but I couldn’t really hear him because of the wind. I fell asleep sometime later and when I woke he was shaking me again. We were on the side of the highway.

“There’s Laramie,” he said and pointed to lights in the distance. We were maybe a mile away from town.

“You ever been there?” I asked him.

“No, man. What are you doing there?”

“I think my aunt lives there.”

“You don’t know for sure?”

“No,” I said.

“You know anyone else in town?”

“No.”

“Damn, that’s rough,” he said and put out his hand. We shook. “Good luck.”

“I hope your film still works, even though it’s expired.”

“Me too,” he said.

“I like your truck.”

“It’s called a Little Hustler. It’s a piece of shit but it runs.”

“Well thanks,” I said and got out. He put the truck in gear and drove off down the side of the freeway trying to pick up speed. The little truck coughed and sputtered its way down the road until its tail lights just disappeared in the night.

I don’t know what time it was as I made my way into town. I walked down a main road where there were businesses and shops but everything was closed. Cars and trucks passed me and I saw a police car go by so I got off that road and took side streets until I came to a bridge. Below it was a dried-out irrigation ditch and I jumped down there and hid underneath the overpass. Once in a while I thought I saw police lights but I couldn’t tell for sure and I knew I was just nervous. I stayed in the ditch and waited out the rest of the night.

Chapter 30

When it was light out I walked downtown. I found a payphone with a phone book. I took out the piece of paper the librarian had given me and looked in the Ps and saw a listing for M. Piotrowski. It gave an address which I memorized. Then I went to a sporting goods store across the street and asked them where it was.

They gave me directions and as I followed them I tried not to think about anything, but in my heart I knew she wouldn’t be there. I went through a neighborhood and at the end of the street I came to a rundown mustard-yellow apartment building. I climbed up the stairs and knocked on the door of apartment number seventeen, but no one answered. I sat there for an hour or so, then left. I walked back downtown and counted my money, but I only had two dollars in change. I went to a payphone and called Lonnie’s ranch in Nevada but no one answered. I walked in and out of stores to kill time, then called there again but no one ever picked up.

It was past six when I went back to the yellow apartment building. I knocked on the door and within thirty seconds a woman answered. She stood there and it took me a while to realize who it was. She was much heavier than when I knew her and she hadn’t aged well. Her hair was gray and cut very short and her face was bloated. There were dark circles under her eyes.

“You’re so tall,” was the first thing she said when she saw me. “Oh, Charley, it’s you, isn’t it?” Her voice broke when she said it. She opened her arms and hugged me. She invited me inside her apartment. It was small with a couch and a table and plants and paintings on the walls. It was a really nice place. We sat in the kitchen across from each other and tears fell down her face. We sat there staring at each other, and then finally I told her about the Samoan and my dad and Del and Lean on Pete and some of the things I’d seen to get to her.

“I can’t believe Ray’s dead,” she said barely. “You must miss him bad?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

She tried to say something else but she began sobbing so hard she couldn’t. “I prayed you would come to me,” she said and wiped her eyes on her shirt. “I tried to get ahold of your dad, but you guys kept moving and it was impossible to find you because he hated phones. He never wanted to be found by me.”

“You tried?” I said and tears filled my eyes.

She nodded. “He didn’t want me to be in your life.”

“I did,” I said.

She nodded again, then got up and went to the counter and took a paper towel and blew her nose into it. She sat back down and told me that she was married but that her husband and her were in the process of getting a divorce and he was living with a woman somewhere in New Mexico.

“Can I ask you a question?” I said.

“Of course.”

“You don’t hate me?”

“Why would I hate you?” she said.

“I don’t know. He said a couple things.”

“Don’t believe anything like that. He was just mad at me. I love you, Charley.”

“Can I ask you another question?”

She nodded.

“You’re really my aunt?”

“Yes, you know I am.”

“Then can I stay here with you for a while?”

She wiped her eyes and smiled. “Of course you can.” She leaned back in her chair, set her hands on the table, and looked at me and smiled. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

I smiled at her.

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

“I’m always hungry,” I told her.

She got up from her chair and went into the kitchen and put two Weight Watcher meals in the microwave and we ate them at the table. Afterwards she made me a bed on the couch in her living room. She put a sheet down and laid a blanket over that and left me one of her pillows. She gave me a towel and a toothbrush, and told me she would take the next day off work and we’d spend the day together and buy me new clothes.

That night I lay there in bed for a long time but I couldn’t sleep. I got up and walked back to her room and knocked on the door. A few seconds later she turned on a bedside lamp and told me to come in.

Her room was small but it was nice. There was a double bed and a dresser and a couple paintings on the walls. Next to her was a bedside table that held the lamp, a radio, and an older phone that was off the hook.

“Do you leave your phone off the hook every night?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“Why?”

“My ex calls sometimes in the middle of the night.”

“Oh,” I said.

“What do you need?”

“I just wanted to let you know something.”

“What?”

“If in a week or so you don’t like me, you can kick me out.”

“I’m not going to kick you out.”

“But if you do, you don’t have to feel bad about it.”

“Fair enough,” she said.

“I’ll get a job, too. I’m not going to cost you much.”

“I’m not worried about that.”

“I had one other thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think it would be alright if I went to school here?”

“You can live here as long as you want, and you have to go to school, it’s the law.”

“Do you think it would be alright if I played football when I go back to school?”

She nodded. “We just have to call Del and figure out what we’re going to do about his horse and his truck and trailer.”

“If I have to go to jail can I still live here when I get out?”

“You won’t have to go to jail.”

“Maybe I will.”

“You can stay here when you get out,” she said and smiled. “Now go get some sleep.”

“You’re sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” she said and yawned. “Now go back to bed.”

“Alright, good night,” I told her and walked back to the living room and lay down on the couch. But still I couldn’t sleep and I didn’t feel any better. I hadn’t told her about hitting Silver or all the shoplifting or the group home. I didn’t tell her anything that might make her hate me.

When I woke up the next morning she was in the kitchen cooking breakfast. I lay there for a while and listened. The couch was nice and the sun was coming through the window and the room smelled like coffee and bacon. The radio was playing quietly.

“I went to the store,” she said when she saw me. “We can’t have you eating Weight Watchers if you’re going to play football.”

She smiled at me, then went back to cooking. I sat at the table and drank orange juice and watched her. We ate together at the table and listened to the radio.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” she said.

“What if your husband comes back? Do you think he’ll want me to leave?”

“He’s not going to come back. It’s the last thing I want.”

“But if he does, what then?”

“I know what you’re doing. You can’t worry so much, okay? And we don’t need to talk about my husband anymore. I don’t like him, and I’ll never live with him again. So that’s the end of the discussion on him. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“The real question is, what if I’m too boring? I don’t have a TV and I never go anywhere. I spend my weekends in bed reading. You won’t leave me, will you?”

“I don’t mind not having a TV,” I told her.

“I’ll get you some good books. You’re stuck with a librarian, you know.”

“I like reading alright,” I said.

“We’ll have a nice time together,” she said. “I know we will.”

After breakfast we left to go shopping, and as we went out to her car I noticed she walked with a slight shuffle. She wasn’t the same lady I once knew, but then I guess I wasn’t the same boy either. We drove to a thrift store and she bought me three pairs of pants and a half-dozen shirts. Then we drove to JC Penny’s and she got me socks and underwear, a winter coat, sweats and shorts, and a pair of running shoes.

When we were done we ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant and after I finished my plate she shook her head and laughed.

“You eat faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. I don’t remember that.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t help it.”

“Don’t be sorry. You’re just hungry.”

“Del used to say my manners were so bad it made him hate eating.”

“He was just being mean,” my aunt said. “Look at my plate. It’s almost empty too.”

“I don’t disgust you?”

“No,” she said, “of course not. But you might enjoy it more if you slow down.”

“I’ll be better,” I told her.

“You don’t have to be,” she said.

“I will though, you’ll see. I’ll work on my manners.”

“Maybe we should both work on our manners,” she said.

When we left the restaurant she drove me around town. We stopped at the high school and walked around. We even went to the football field. We drove past the library where she worked and the old house she’d lived in with her husband.

It was late afternoon when we got back to the apartment. I put my clothes in the wash and she made soup. When the clothes were done I changed into my sweats, put on my new shoes, and went running. I took a road up to the university and ran through the campus and I felt okay.

When I got back to the apartment I took a shower and dressed in my new clothes. My aunt had set three novels on the couch. Two Westerns and a James Bond novel, and I sat down and opened a Western and tried to read it.

That night we had soup, cornbread, and salad. I wanted to ask her about Del, about what she was thinking, or if she’d called him, but I was too nervous to bring it up and I hoped that maybe the whole thing would just disappear.

Later that night I lay down on the couch but I couldn’t sleep for a long time. When I finally conked out I dreamt that I was in a rowboat and I was in the middle of the ocean. Pete was next to me in the water. I was trying to get him in the boat but I didn’t know how. I kept trying to lift him by his halter but I wasn’t strong enough. Pete didn’t seem that worried at first because he knew I’d figure it out. He trusted me. But time went on and nothing I did worked. I think after a while he knew I wasn’t going to be able to save him. Then morning came and Pete went into a panic. He splashed and screamed and waved his head around. He became exhausted. His head began slipping down into the ocean. I’d try to hold him up but I couldn’t. Then finally his head went under and he didn’t come back up, he disappeared. I dove in after him but I couldn’t find him anywhere. The water was cold. I dove deeper and deeper but I could never see him. I swam to the surface and I was tired and by then the boat had begun to drift. It was maybe thirty yards away and I swam as hard as I could towards it but I could never get closer.