Spare Change (19 page)

Clara followed along,
worrying that maybe Olivia, who still hadn’t said word one, had slipped into
shock. “Believe me, it’s for the best,” Clara mumbled, when Olivia opened the
closet door and found nothing but her own things. Dresses, skirts, blouses,
lined up one after another, extra hangers spaced out in between, her pink
flowered bathrobe looped over the hook that once held Charlie’s. 

A tear slid down Olivia’s
cheek—the complete disappearance of Charlie seemed so sad, and yet in some
strange way, it was peaceful.  She was reminded of a balloon, held back from
heaven until an earthbound soul let go of the string. After a long while of
saying nothing, she whispered, “Goodbye, Charlie,” then she turned and circled
her arms about Clara.

Two weeks later, with Olivia
at the wheel, five women from the Wyattsville Social Club drove over to the Old
Sailors Home and donated nine cartons of perfectly good clothing. They stayed
for lunch and watched as the men happily divvied up jackets, suits, sweaters
and so forth. Olivia had to admit the bearded man who won out for Charlie’s
powder blue suit looked strikingly handsome. All in all, she had never before
witnessed quite so much smiling in a single afternoon.  

The club chair, which was
far too cumbersome to transport any distance was given to Herman Hopmeyer, a
man who lived three doors down and had the same roundness of behind as did
Charlie.

In the weeks that followed,
Olivia transformed the apartment bit by bit. She bought a Queen Anne slipper
chair to replace the one given away, painted the bathroom a rose petal pink,
hung new curtains in the kitchen and set row after row of potted plants on
every windowsill. She also had the name
Westerly—Doyle
etched in brass
and affixed it to the front door. 

One night in early April,
shortly after the hyacinth burst open in a profusion of purple, Olivia had a
dream. She was walking through the park holding tight to the string of a powder
blue balloon, when suddenly the string slipped from her hand. As it floated
upward she saw the sky filled with brightly colored balloons, all of them
rising higher and higher until at the very top of the heavens they became part
of a rainbow. Although the people around her seemed to be singing a truly
joyous song, Olivia started to sob. “Why are you crying?” a boy asked.

“Because I’ve lost my
balloon,” she answered.

“Lost? It’s not lost. Look.”
The boy lifted his hand and pointed a finger toward a brilliant speck of blue
dancing on the edge of the rainbow. 

“But,” Olivia sobbed, “…when
the rainbow is gone—”

“It’s never gone,” the boy
said, “it’s always there if you go looking.”  The child eased his hand into
hers and looked up with eyes blue as the balloon.

The next morning Olivia
awoke with the strangest peace of mind. 

Thus began a new life.
Olivia had gone through a thousand heartaches and passed by countless
milestones, but at long last she had arrived at the place where she could spend
her days enjoying the simple life of warm-hearted friends, pot roast dinners
and neighborly parties—a life free of complex relationships.

Ethan Allen

I
t was a real nice thing, Mister Behrens fixing me a
ride to Wyattsville. But I gotta say, the closer I get to Grandpa Doyle’s
house, the more I’m worrying he ain’t gonna be too pleased with the sight of
me.

Mama said he didn’t want
nothing to do with Daddy—could be, he’s got no use for kids. ‘Course, I don’t
know if Grandpa didn’t want nothing to do with Daddy when he was a kid, or just
after he got growed-up and mean. I’m hoping it was the growed-up part;
leastwise then I got a chance.

 Daddy wasn’t always
mean. Mama said when they was first married he was sweet as honeysuckle—‘course,
you couldn’t prove it by me, I only knowed him as mean. 

Blood’s thicker than
water, according to Mama, so I’m trusting this grandpa’s gonna let me stay.
I’ll say I take after Daddy when he was a kid, that ought to make Grandpa feel
good—if it turns out Daddy was a mean kid, then I’ll say I’m more like Mama. If
I can’t get this grandpa to take some sort of liking to me, I’m really shit
outta luck. 

The Crossing

W
hen the flatbed
of chickens pulled out of the Lucky 13 Truck Depot, Ethan Allen had his eyes
focused straight ahead, watching only where he was headed. Had the boy turned
to look back, he would have seen Tom Behrens—a man standing apart from the others,
his hands jammed deep into the pockets of ESSO coveralls and his foot kicking
at the dirt. Tom watched as the truck shrunk to the size of a toy then
disappeared altogether. If he was smart, he told himself, he’d walk away.  Walk
away and forget what he’d seen in the boy’s face, forget that it was the same
look of hardness and hurt he’d seen in the mirror a thousand or more times. It
had taken him twenty years to forget those days, and now, in the span of a few
short hours, it was all back again. “May the Lord God have mercy on you, Jack
Mahoney,” he mumbled, then turned and walked off.

“Y
ou got dirt in your ears, boy?” Butch Wheeler shouted
in a booming voice.

 Ethan Allen, lost in the
thumping of tires against the road and thoughts of how to explain himself to
this never-before-seen grandpa, looked over. “Dirt in my ears?”

“Yeah. Four times I asked,
whatcha thinking about Jack; but you sit there like you’re deaf as a stone.”

“Oh, sorry,” Ethan said with
a sheepish grin. Obviously, he was gonna have to keep an ear open for answering
to the name of Jack Mahoney. 

“No harm done.” Butch Wheeler
signaled for a left hand turn then pulled into the line of cars waiting for the
ferry to dock. 

Ethan craned his neck
checking out the cars on both sides of the truck.  He saw plenty of Fords,
Plymouths and Pontiacs, but happily, no police cars. All he needed now was
another hour or two of luck. Once he made it to the mainland, Scooter would
never find him. Never in a million years. Even if Cobb nosed around the
truckers asking if they knew anything of Ethan Allen Doyle, they’d say no and
shake their head. Good thing he’d thought to say his name was Jack Mahoney.

They sat there for another
twenty minutes, the chickens squawking and the motor grumbling like it was in
need of some oil; finally the line of cars began to inch forward. They’d moved
two, maybe three, car lengths when Ethan spotted a uniformed man up ahead. His
heart came to a standstill—no beating, no pumping blood in one side and out the
other, nothing. It could be they had his picture—if that was the case it
wouldn’t matter what name he was using. A faint heartbeat started up again and
he slid closer to the door, looping his fingers around the handle. He could run
if he had to, if his heart held out long enough, but maybe… he turned and in
the high-pitched voice of a castrated canary, said, “Okay if I squat down under
the seat when that policeman gets here?”   

  “Policeman?” Butch roared,
a cascade of laughter slid down his chins and set his belly to bouncing, “Why,
that man’s just a ticket taker!” He laughed again then said, “But you…well now,
you got the look of a lad who’s up to something.”

Ethan’s mouth flew open,
“Not me,” he stammered, “I ain’t up to nothing!” 

“Is that so,” Butch said, a
chuckle still rumbling through his chins.  “Could be you robbed a bank. You got
the shifty eyes of a bank robber.  Yes sir, robbed a bank, or maybe stole that
dog. You do either of those things, boy?”

“No sir,” Ethan Allen
answered in earnest. “I never robbed no bank, and this here dog was a birthday
present from my mama.” 

“That so?” Butch laughed
again, then stuck his arm out the window and handed the uniformed man his
ticket. Once the ferry was underway, he turned to the boy and asked, “You running
away from home, Jack? Is that why you’re so skittish about the police?”

Ethan Allen, who’d now tuned
his ear to listening for the name Jack, answered, “No sir.”

“Your mama, she knows where
you’re headed?”

“Yes sir.”

“And she allows for you to
be hitching rides on chicken trucks?”

Ethan could make up stories
quicker than you’d imagine possible, and he could tell them in a way that was
most convincing. He also knew when he was skating too close to the edge of
believability and the look on Butch Wheeler’s face, indicated it was time for
him to move back. “Truth is,” Ethan said, in a heavy-hearted voice, “my mama’s
dead. But, when she was breathing her last, she told me to go live with
Grandpa.”

“Hmm.”

“Honest! Look here,” Ethan
fished in his pocket and pulled out a card that read
—love, Grandpa.
“See,
this is who I’m supposed to go live with.”

“Oh? And, where exactly does
this grandpa live?”

Ethan showed the back flap
of the envelope with Charlie Doyle’s return address.

“Doyle, huh? He your mama’s
daddy?”

Still tuned in to his using
of the name Mahoney, Ethan nodded.

Butch handed the envelope
back, “Where’s your own daddy?”

“He got shot in the war and
died.” Ethan thought about adding in that his daddy had been a hero with all
kinds of medals, but he decided against it—sometimes saying too much was what
could get a fellow in trouble.

“That’s sure enough a rotten
break,” Butch said, “but it don’t explain you being so afraid of the law.”

“If they get hold of me,
they’ll lock me up in an orphanage. This kid I know got sent to an orphanage,
and he said it was God awful; they make you sleep on the floor and eat things
that ain’t fit for human consumption.”

 “It ain’t quite that bad,”
Butch said with an easy smile, “but it sure enough ain’t pleasant. Anyway, you
got no worries; you got blood kin willing to claim you.” He glanced over at the
way one side of the boy’s mouth was sloping toward his chin, “Your grandpa
knows you’re coming, don’t he?”

Ethan forced a happy-looking
smile onto his face and nodded.

After that, things went
along smooth as a pig’s belly. Butch Wheeler unloaded the crates of chickens in
Richmond, then turned west onto Route 33 and drove Ethan Allen all the way to
Wyattsville, right to the front door of his grandpa’s apartment building. “You
want me to go in with you?” Butch asked, but the boy shook his head and hurried
off.

E
than Allen ran his finger along the names printed on
the mail slots—Parker, Cunningham, Ryan, Casper, Dolby—Doyle! Apartment 7D. He
gave Dog’s rope a tug, walked past the
No Pets Allowed
sign, stepped
into the elevator and pushed number seven. As the brass doors rattled shut, he
started to sweat—it was one thing to say you were going to live with a grandpa
who didn’t know you from a knothole; but something else entirely, to be
standing there when the door opened. He spit into the palm of his hand and
slicked his hair back. “He’s my grandpa, he’s gotta like me,” Ethan told his
reflection.    

When the elevator doors
opened, Ethan stepped out into a hallway with carpeting that stretched from one
wall to the other. There was not a soul in sight and it was way too quiet for
his liking. It didn’t give off the sounds or smells of a place where people
lived. He heard the far away echo of people talking, but after the elevator
doors rattled shut, even that was gone. Using the smallest whisper possible, he
tried to practice what he would say when Grandpa Doyle answered the door,
“Hello,” he squeaked, “I’m your grandson, Ethan Allen; I’ve come to live with
you.” The words flip-flopped in his throat and made him want to gag, they
sounded stupid and shrill as a tin whistle. He started down the hallway and
tried again, “Hi there, Grandpa Doyle,” he said, this time mustering up a
feigned gleefulness. It sounded worse than
hello, I’m your grandson
. One
more try and then he found himself face to face with apartment 7D; he gave the
doorbell a quick glance, then decided he wasn’t quite ready and shuffled off to
the far end of the hall. “Grandpa Doyle,” he repeated over and over again,
trying for the sound of sincerity, the sound of a boy genuinely glad to be
spending time with an old man. When he finally got it right, he started working
on what would follow. 

The better part of an hour
had passed by, before he finally gathered himself together and went back to
apartment 7D. He positioned himself square in front of the door, with Dog
partway behind, hopefully looking smaller than his actual size. “Hi, Grandpa, I
come to thank you for all those dollars you been sending me,” Ethan mumbled in
one final run through, then he straightened his back, forced a smile to his
face, and pushed the doorbell. He waited for what seemed an awfully long time,
then pressed his finger to the bell a second time. This time he heard the
chiming, a muffled sound like the ringing of a steeple bell miles off, but once
the sound of the bell died away there was nothing else—no shuffling of feet, no
calling out just a minute, no sound whatsoever. He stood there a while longer
then went back to the lobby and checked the mail slots again.

There it was,
Westerly-Doyle, 7D. No other Doyle in the building.