Breakfast with Neruda (11 page)

I follow Shelly down to the fence, and ask, “What are you looking at?”

She points at the ducks walking on the tarmac. I lean my elbows over the fence and gaze at the pair of ducks tottering across the AstroTurf.

“Odd,” I say. “The school pond is way out on the other side of the school property. They walked a long way to get here.”

“You and I are kind of like those ducks,” she says. “An odd pair of misfits, way out of our leagues, but without enough sense to know it.”

“I think we know it; we just don't know enough to care.”

She leans against me. “Caring what inconsequential people think of you is a ginormous waste of a life.”

“Am I a person of consequence?”

“Right now, you're
the
person of consequence.”

I slide an arm around her and hold her closer. “Ditto,” I say.

“We're two halves of some ancient coin,” she says. “Money that no longer has any value, but contains a long and ragged history.”

Annie calls as I walk back into the building and asks me to stop by the townhouse as soon as possible. “Mom bought you something,” she says, “and I'm afraid if you don't come get it right away, she'll find a place for it inside the house.”

“How big is it?”

“It's a bunch of small stuff, but if she puts one more thing in here I think I'll suffocate.”

I worry about my sister. Last year she had bronchitis twice, and I know it has to do with whatever bacteria are simmering under the filth. “What is it? Does Mom remember I live in a car?”

She laughs. “She knows that. She got you some camping equipment.”

“Oh. Actually, that may come in handy,” I say. “I'll be over right after school.”

“It should still be in her car, but if she tries to bring it in the house I'll keep it on the back porch. That way you won't have to come inside.”

“Thank you. You're my favorite sister.”

I miss living with my siblings. I don't miss the crazy days of spending the nights in strangers' homes, or the revolving door of my mother's husbands and lovers. But I miss the camaraderie between Jeff, Annie, and me. We squabbled as kids, tried to get one another in trouble, and called each other some of the foulest words not in the dictionary, but nobody else was allowed to call us names. Once when Jeff and I were walking back home from playing softball down the street, we came upon a group of girls taunting Annie, calling her things like “a half-breed jababbi.”

One girl reached out and yanked Annie's hair. Jeff and I glanced at one another, ran full speed, and knocked those brats down. One of the girls' mothers scrambled over and split us all up. The girls claimed we started it. Annie was crying too hard to say much. Jeff and I stuck to our story. Mom just shrugged it off, and told the woman to keep her damn kids the hell away from us. As fractured as we are as a family, I would kill for each of them.

• • •

At the end of the day, Shelly asks, “What's up? Wanna do anything?”

“I have to work later, but first I need to stop by my mom's and pick up something.”

“Want company?”

“No!”

She gives me a questioning glance.

“I mean, it won't take long.” Some secrets are best left unearthed. Shelly likes me now, but one false move will send her running. Besides, I have other layers of secrets she can scavenge over. “I wouldn't have time to get you home and get to work on time.”

“Okay. Maybe next time.”

“Yeah,” I say, meaning never.

We head out the door, and as I walk to my car, Shelly looks at my grimy pants and says, “You can't wear those to work.”

I shrug. “It's okay for the theater. Khaki and olive are okay. Just no jeans.”

“That's not what I meant,” she says. “You can't go in to work looking like something on the bottom of the laundry basket.”

I shrug. “I don't have time to worry about it now. I don't have any clean pants.” I glance at my filthy cargo pants. “This is all I have. I'll change my shirt when I get there.”

“Give me your dirty clothes. I'll take them home and wash them.”

“You've already done more than enough for me.”

“We're friends, right?”

“Yeah, I guess we are.”

“Friends take care of each other. Someday you'll repay the favor.” She winks, and I give her a grin. I hand her my pillowcase full of wadded up clothes. “Give me those pants too.”

I've learned it's easier not to argue with Shelly. I crawl into the back of my station wagon. The only other clean thing I have is a pair of cargo shorts. I shuck off my trousers and slide into the shorts.

Shelly holds on to my filthy ones like they're nuclear waste and dumps them inside the pillowcase. She kisses me quickly on the lips and says she will see me in the morning. “Don't forget, we have an important date tomorrow.”

I stop by Tim Hortons on the way to the townhouse and get a box of Timbits with Jeff's discount. He tells me to say hi to Mom for him. I park behind my mom's wreck of a car in front of the townhouse and walk to the back porch. Annie is sitting in her lawn chair with her feet propped on top of an inverted plastic bucket, reading from
The Arabian Nights
. Annie's legs have grown long and lean, and today her hair is woven into a thick braid down her back. When she wears her hair down it's wavy and wild.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey.” She sets the book next to her. “Did you know some of those stories are pretty racy?”

“Really? Your dad never read those to us,” I say.

“Or if he did, we didn't understand what they meant.”

The cushions my sister sleeps on are put away, the sheets and blankets tucked inside a duffle bag. The dresser where Annie keeps her clothes is free of anything on top. The condition of the porch would not alert neighbors or authorities that there is a problem inside the home.

I hand her the donuts. “Ooh, my favorite.” She opens the box and pops one in her mouth and hands me the box.

I pick out two chocolate ones. “Mom home?” The back door opens and my mother steps outside. She is dressed in her nurse's aide uniform, her long blonde hair pinned up in back. She works in a nursing home and the old folks adore her. For all her issues, our mom is a good listener and a gentle soul.

She still resembles the young bleached blonde from old pictures, but now her face is lined from cigarettes and life. Mom walks over and squeezes me into her, and I squeeze her back. She holds me out at arm's length. “You look good, son. You must be eating regularly.”

“It's all that free popcorn.”

She studies my face. “Are you in love?”

I blush. “Mom!”

“You're embarrassed, so it must be true. What's her name?”

“We've only gone out a couple times.”

“Jeff told me he saw you with some Goth chick the other day,” Annie says. “Who is it?”

“I . . . uh . . . don't think you'd know her.” I'm embarrassed to say I don't know Shelly's last name. Did she tell me and I don't remember? “Jeff says hello.”

My mom touches my cheek. “Did Annie tell you I got you something?”

“Yeah,” I say. “That's why I stopped by. I can't stay long, though. I'm due at the theater in like thirty minutes.”

“It's still in my car,” Mom says. She steps off the porch and walks toward the front of the house.

I give Annie a quick hug, say, “See ya,” and follow my mother to the street. Her car is not that old—a five-year-old Taurus—but it looks worse than mine. I don't think it's been washed since she bought it from Paul three years ago. Like the house, her car is stuffed with objects, and she has just enough room to see out the back window and the passenger-side front window.

“One of my patients is cleaning out his house,” she says. “He asked if I needed any camping gear, and I told him I have a boy who likes to camp.” She glances at me. “I didn't tell him you camp out in your car. But anyway, he gave me all this equipment I thought you might be able to use.”

Inside my mom's trunk is a pop-up tent, a camp stove, two lanterns, a flashlight, a sleeping bag, some camp dishes, and a thick jacket. “Wow, Mom, this is great. He just gave it to you?”

She sighs. “Yeah, poor guy. He's not even that old, sixty something, but he won't be walking in the woods anymore. He had one leg amputated, and looks like he may lose the other. Sweet thing. He calls me Julie because he says I remind him of the girl on
The Mod Squad
.”

“The
what
squad?”

“Some old TV show from the sixties.”

As much as I don't want to clutter up my car, this acquisition actually makes sense even though it reeks of musty basement. I put my arm around her shoulder. “Thanks, Mom.”

I haul it over to my car and dump the stuff in the back. The odor stinks up the car, but I can set it all outside tonight after work. Maybe I'll buy some Febreze and spray it.

We stand by the driver's side of my car. “You need any money, hon?” she asks.

“No, I'm good,” I say. “But thanks.” I hug her quickly and get in my car. As I drive away, I feel my face grow hot and my breath quiver. I miss my mom so much. I miss who she used to be, before her life revolved around the accumulation of things.

I pull into the mall parking lot and change my shirt. I hope Mitch doesn't notice I'm wearing cargo shorts rather than pants. I grab my pack and hoist it over my shoulder, cracking the windows an inch all around, and hope nobody steals the camp gear. Maybe the odor will keep thieves at bay.

In the break room I stash my bag in my locker and pin my nametag on my chest. I don't have time to freshen up, so I smear some deodorant on my pits and splash some AXE cologne on my face. It's the world's worst aftershave, but I found a small pocket-sized bottle of it on the floor of Theater 6 one night and use it in emergencies. Like today.

Mitch frowns when he notices my shorts.

“Sorry,” I say. “We didn't have time to wash clothes with the power being out and all. Then we went camping.”

“You'll have to work the ticket booth,” he says, “where nobody can see your hairy spider legs.”

He's killing me. I hate working the ticket booth, and Mitch knows it. I'd rather sweep floors and clean restrooms. Direct customer contact gives me the willies. When shows get sold out, or people arrive late to a movie, or we don't honor discounts on hot films, somehow it's my fault. If I take too long getting change, some people go ape shit. Then there are the scammers who claim they gave me a twenty when they really gave me a ten. Mitch had warned me about those types on the first day. “Always keep the money they gave you in front of you until after you have confirmed their change. That way they can't question it.” Guys try that trick more than chicks, especially if they have a date with them. If guys don't bring enough cash to buy popcorn, they think they can fake out the idiot in the ticket booth. I want to tell them I'm not as dumb as I look, asshole.

The worst thing about working the ticket booth is seeing kids from school, guys on the football team who treat me like shit because I'm cross-country, which they think is a sissy sport, and kids who don't have to work, the kind of kids who live in Shelly's neighborhood. Maybe the type of guys she should be going out with instead of scumbags like me.

But as she said, she and I are those lost ducks who strayed too far from the pond, too far from our kind, and maybe we need to find our way around this spiny world. It's as if the world is made of porcupine hide, and we need to tread lightly.

As soon as I open my door after work, my car emits a moldy stench, so I roll all the windows down as I drive down Rocket Road. Maybe it would have been better if someone had robbed me. The camp gear reeks of dirty cat box, and it makes me wonder if cleaning it up is going to take more than Febreze and a day in the sun. I park the car near the football field and grab the whole mess and toss it all on the ground.

Hunkered in my car, I can't sleep. It's not the lingering smell from the camp gear or the heat. The night is cool and pleasant, and I know later I will need a blanket on top of my sheet. My mind is revving over the possibility of finding out who I am tomorrow.

My whole life I have searched for him in the shadows and the bright sun, searched for him in coffee shops and bookstores and gas stations. I conjured him in the black-haired dishwasher at Bob Evans, and believed I saw him in the spaghetti aisle of the grocery store. Scenarios of our meetings roll through my head like a film where I imagine him lumbering toward me with the slightly askew gait I inherited (I don't walk like Jeff or my mother), his arms spread out to welcome his long-lost son. At the pool he taught me how to dive and swim, and later, on vacations, we went to the beach where he taught me how to body surf. I envisioned meeting him at the circus, where he took my hand and bought me a bunch of balloons. In another film, he carried me on his shoulders at a county fair. He and I bowled together at Main Lanes and ate ice cream in Graham Park. My father played catch with me in the backyard of his sprawling home, the one with the pool and a pair of well-behaved golden retrievers. He bought me Christmas presents and threw birthday parties for me, sparing no expense. My father introduced me to his coworkers, saying proudly, “Here's my boy. Someday he'll be running this company.” He told me bawdy jokes and said I was going to be a “lady-killer,” and showed me how to shave without cutting myself. He instructed me on how to treat a lady on a date, and how to tie my tie and wear cologne. He coached me in softball and football, and cheered at every game.

But none of this is true, and in every film, he has no face. He has no name. Because I have no name. I am not who I imagine I am. I am nobody.

That's my biography: the boy with no name.