Spare Change (16 page)

A short while before sunup,
when there were streaks of red poking splinters into the sky but still no
daylight, the car sputtered to a stop. “What-the-hell?” Ethan groaned. He tried
starting the car again. The engine coughed once then settled into a hollow
whine. Susanna had taught Ethan to drive—start the engine, shift gears, stop
and go; but she’d not bothered with the necessity of gas-buying. The boy
twisted the ignition key numerous times then finally gave up. He took hold of
Dog’s rope and stepped out onto the road. “You hunk of junk,” he said, giving
the fender one last kick before they began walking south along the towpath—him
kicking at the dirt, the dog panting as if he was thirsting for a drink of
water. “Forget it,” Ethan moaned, “We ain’t got none.” Once the light of
morning broke, they turned east in search of a main road, some food and water,
and hopefully someone who could give them a ride to Wyattsville.

Ethan Allen

W
e’d of been in Norfolk by now, if that stupid ass car
didn’t give out. Mama would be real proud of me, driving off in her car, and
escaping as I did. She says I’m free-spirited like her. She says her and me has
got a God given gift for seeing past bad times and fixing our eye on some
bright spot in the future. I ain’t figuring on no bright spots coming up
anytime soon, but leastwise I ain’t getting my ass pounded to a pulp by Scooter
Cobb.

I’m glad I’m like Mama,
even if she is dead. Leastwise I‘ll be having myself some fun instead of
grumping all the time, like Daddy. This Grandpa, I’m headed for, he’s from
Daddy’s side of the family but I sure hope he ain’t nothing like Daddy; ‘cause
if he is, I got myself one hell of a problem.

One time I asked Mama
where her side of the family was, but she said there wasn’t none. She said she
never had no mama or papa; she just one day crawled out from under a rosebush,
full grown and singing like a lark.  That was Mama, always making up stuff and
acting a fool. Daddy used to think she was poking fun at him, but Mama poked
fun at everybody, even herself. Daddy never did see that.

Help at Hand

W
elcome to Exmore the sign said, but for as far ahead
as Ethan could see there was nothing but dirt road. He’d been walking for what
seemed to be hours. He was tired, thirsty, and damn sorry he hadn’t brought his
bicycle. If I had it, he thought, I would have been clear to the ferry by now,
instead of dragging my sorry ass through a bunch of back roads. Almost an hour
after he passed the sign, Ethan came to the first inkling of civilization; a
gas station. Standing alongside the pump was a man wearing a uniform that read
Go
ESSO
. “You got water for a dog?” Ethan asked.

“Around back,” the man
answered, “there’s a spigot and pan.”

“You sell food? Sandwiches,
maybe?”

“Just soda pop and snacks.”

Ethan led Dog around to the
back of the station and waited as he lapped up two full pans of water. Then he
trudged inside the garage where a rack of cup cakes and candies sat next to a
red cooler. Ethan took hold of two Moon Pies then lifted the lid of the cooler—a
bunch of pop bottles were bobbing around in a tub of lukewarm water. “Hey,” he
shouted, “this pop ain’t cold!”

“It’s all I got,” the man
answered.

“Figures,” Ethan groaned. 
He pulled out a bottle of Yoo-Hoo then slid a pack of gum into his pocket on
his way out the door. “How much for two Moon Pies and a pop?” he breezily asked
the attendant.

“Fifteen cents for the pies
and ten for the pop, two cents deposit if you’re taking that bottle with you.”
The man, willowy as a reed and, according to neighborhood boys, suspicious by
nature, raised an eyebrow.  “And,” he drawled, “that gum in your pocket’s an
extra six cents.”

Ethan, who had a knack for sliding
things into his pocket smoothly, had never before been caught in the act. He
turned red-faced; “Oh yeah, the gum,” he stammered, “I almost forgot about
that.” He fished in his pocket and counted out thirty-one cents. “I ain’t gonna
take the bottle,” he said.

Ethan squatted on the curb
and peeled back a Moon Pie wrapper. He took a bite then broke off a piece and
fed it to the dog, took another bite and fed the dog another piece. The
attendant watched as this continued until the first Moon Pie was finished but
when the boy unwrapped the second one and started doing the same thing, he
called out, “You ought not be giving that dog chocolate, it’ll kill him!”

Ethan turned, “Huh?”

“Dogs,” the man said, “they
can’t eat chocolate the way people can.  Speeds their heart up; causes them to
fall over dead, that’s what it does.”

“You pulling my leg,
mister?”

“I sure ain’t. I got eight
dogs, I’d feed any one of them gun powder ‘fore I’d give them chocolate.” The
man walked over to the curb and sat down alongside Dog. “Bet you love this dog,
don’t you?”

Ethan nodded.

“Can’t say I blame you. He’s
a mighty fine animal. Yep, a body sure wouldn’t want to harm a fine animal like
him.”

“No sir,” Ethan answered, “I
wouldn’t.”

The ESSO man smiled, “What’s
your name, boy?”

Ethan swallowed hard then
spit out the first name that came to mind.  “Jack,” he answered, “Jack
Mahoney.”

“Well, Jack Mahoney, my
name’s Tom, Tom Behrens.”  Tom reached over and scratched the back of Dog’s
neck. “Yes sir, you got a mighty fine animal there. You two ain’t from around
here, huh?”

Ethan nervously shook his
head.

“I’d know if you was,” Tom
said, “…because I’d remember such a fine animal. Where you headed?”

“Wyattsville,” Ethan
answered. No one was looking for a Jack Mahoney and a truthful answer might
help him learn which way to be travelling.

“Wyattsville? Why, that’s
way past Richmond!”

“Could be. My mama gave me a
note saying how I was to get there, but I done lost it. Can you point me in the
right direction?”

“Well, it’s over on the
mainland, but that’s a mighty far distance for a boy your age to be travelling
alone. Your mama ought to be taking you!”

“Oh, she would Mister
Behrens, but she’s flat on her back, at death’s door the doctor said. She
likely won’t make it through the week, that’s why she sent me to fetch my
Grandpa.” Ethan sniffled as though he was fighting back a tear.

“Good grief,” Tom Behrens
said, shaking his head side to side. “That’s a lot of worry for a little fella
like you to be carting around.” Tom stood and walked into the garage, minutes
later he was back with a map of Virginia. “Okay, now,” he said unfolding fold
after fold, “…let’s find out
exactly
where Wyattsville is.” It took
almost ten minutes but he finally plopped his finger down on a tiny speck and
said, “Here!”

Ethan stretched his neck and
looked, but not having any map-reading experience, he wasn’t all that sure of
what he was actually looking at.

“It’s about fifty miles
northwest of Richmond,” Tom said, “and Richmond’s one hundred and fifty miles
from here, give or take.”

“Whew! Further than I
figured.”   

“Was you planning on walking
the whole way?”

Ethan lowered his eyes and
nodded solemnly.

“You’d be an old man by time
you got there. You got to catch a ride.”  Tom started fingering his chin,
“Let’s see,” he hummed, “with it being Sunday, there’s less folks likely to be
headed over to Richmond. So, we got to figure who’d have cause…” He sat there
for what seemed to Ethan an awfully long time; then he said, “Kenny Wilkes!
Kenny harvested a slew of soy beans last week and he’s probably going to market
today.” 

When Tom went to call Kenny,
Ethan picked up the map and started studying it, tracing his finger from town
to town, wondering if he would ever make it to Wyattsville. And what if he did?
Maybe this grandpa he’d never even seen would simply slam the door in his face
and tell him to go on back home
. What then?
He wondered. By the time Tom
returned, there were tears rimming Ethan’s eyes.

“What’s this?” Tom asked and
offered out a greasy handkerchief.

Ethan set his mouth in a
perfectly straight line and said, “Nothing.  A cinder might’ve blew in my eye.”

Tom shrugged. He knew damn
good and well the boy was lying, but sometimes it was a kinder thing to believe
a lie than probe for the truth. “Kenny took the beans over last week,” Tom
said, “but he fixed it for you to ride with a friend of his, name of Butch
Wheeler. Thing is, Butch’s working on a tight schedule, so you got to meet him
at the truck stop over on Route thirteen—one o’clock, on the button.”

 Ethan glanced at the clock
outside the garage. “I’ll never make it,” he said with the corners of his mouth
turned down, “it’s twelve-thirty now.”

Tom smiled, “You will if I
drive you.” As they climbed into the truck, he handed the boy a pack of
Twinkies and a stick of beef jerky. “On the house,” he said, “but, don’t you go
giving the dog any of the cup cake.” 

Tom whirled into the Lucky
13 Truck Depot with almost two full minutes to spare. Butch Wheeler was already
there; he was standing outside the cab of a flatbed loaded with crates of
squawking chickens. The sight of him, back turned, caused Ethan to shudder; for
if ever Scooter Cobb had a twin, it was surely Butch Wheeler. He had the same
massive build, taller even than Scooter, certainly wider. As it turned out,
there were two differences—Butch Wheeler was blacker than a night sky and he
had a robust laugh such as Ethan had never heard. “Well boy, I sure hope you
ain’t allergic to Chickens,” he growled, then laughed so loud it sounded like
thunder.

“No sir,” Ethan, still
taking measure of the man’s size, mumbled.  “I ain’t afraid of nothing,
leastwise chickens.”

Butch Wheeler laughed louder
than ever, so loud in fact, Dog’s tail drooped to the ground. Tom, not given to
the same level of joviality as Butch, cracked a bit of a smile then told Ethan
allergic was when a thing caused you to itch or sneeze. One minute later, on
the dot of one o’clock, the flatbed pulled out carrying a very large man, a
boy, a dog and seventeen crates of live chickens. 

Just before Ethan climbed up
into the truck, Tom had pressed a dollar bill into his palm and whispered,
“Take care of yourself Jack and get to Wyattsville safely. I’ll be praying for
you and that sick mama of yours.”  After that he’d given Ethan a real friendly
hug and sent him on his way, expecting nothing in return. 

 Several miles later as
Ethan sat watching the road signs whiz by, he thought back to the incident and
started hoping this grandpa he was going to see had the goodness of Tom Behrens.
Maybe, he thought, Grandpa will feel real bad about me losing my mama and buy
me a new bicycle. After that, Ethan started wondering whether it would be
better to ask for the bicycle right off or start with a third baseman’s mitt.

“Whatcha thinking about,
Jack?” Butch asked. “Jack?  Jack?”

Olivia

I
know the people here at the Wyattsville Arms apartment
building mean well. At first they were real standoffish, but now they treat me as
kindly as they would one of their own. Someone is always telephoning to ask if
I’ve an interest in going shopping, or joining up for some social event; and I
make an effort to be sociable right back. But still there isn’t a day that
passes when I don’t wake up and wonder how I can possibly struggle through
another twenty-four hours. I look at that chair and instead of seeing a plumped
up pillow, I see a hole where Charlie ought to be sitting. A single day hangs
onto me like a week, and a week, why that seems longer than a lifetime.

Sometimes I wish I could
stop thinking about Charlie for just a few minutes of the day, but I can’t. I
suppose it’s only fair I suffer this way, because sure as the sun rises, I’m
the one who caused his death. I was so caught up in the way he was doting on
me, I let him hang that opal pendant around my neck without giving thought to
what the consequences might be. I might just as well have poured a cup of
arsenic into his soup.

Most every night, I kneel
down alongside the bed and pray for God to come and take me too. What good is a
life like this? I ask him. What earthly good?

Way of a Widow

O
livia thought of Charlie every day. Sometimes he’d
seem real as life, so real that she could believe he’d come walking through the
door at any minute. Other days, try as she might, she’d be unable to picture
his smile or the tilt of his head—such a thing usually happened when the wind
howled and sheets of rain cascaded down the windowpane, or when a fog thick as
oatmeal rolled in from the river. On days like that, she’d turn against herself
and swear he’d been a figment of her imagination, a fantasy lover who never
truly existed. Moments later, she’d open a closet door and see his jacket, or
reach for a salt shaker and slide her hand across his eyeglasses; then it would
slowly come back. Bits and pieces at first, the crook of his nose, a single
dimple on the left side of his face, a callous on his index finger—until
eventually she’d see the whole of him. When she recalled the way he held her
hand, whispered in her ear or cupped her breast, a heavy wedge of sorrow would
press against her heart and she would wonder whether such a brief interlude of
happiness was worth the heartache that followed.