Breakfast with Neruda (12 page)

I am teeming inside, and throw the sheet off me. Maybe Shelly is wrong; I don't need to find my father. I just need to accept that he will never be a part of my life.

After a restless night's sleep, I rise early. It's a splendid morning, and it's been awhile since I have run, so I rummage through my clothes, find my running shoes and track shorts, and run on the track. When I reach the end of three miles, I'm a little winded and very sweaty. I heave my sweaty self uphill back to my car, and Earl is parked next to me in his battered pickup. He's leaning against my rear fender, puffing on a pipe. Shit! Does he know I have been parking here all night?

“You're up early, kid,” he says as I approach.

“I needed a run.”

“I see that you're here before me sometimes,” he says. “You come in early a lot?”

“Yeah,” I say, half out of breath. “I try to stay in shape for cross-country. Training starts in July.”

“Uh-huh.” He nods slowly. I don't know how to read that nod. Does he believe me? I almost wish he'd come out and ask me if I'm living in my car. He scans the camping equipment strewn near my car. “Camping out here?”

I flushed. “I brought this stuff in to see if I can freshen it up,” I say. “Our cat peed all over it, and my brother and I want to go camping this weekend. I was hoping to maybe scrub it up during lunch.”

“Sure, kid. We have some stuff that will get the stink out.”

“Thanks.”

Earl takes another look at the gear. “That camping gear is good quality. Old, but quality stuff.”

“Yeah, it's not bad.”

“You need a shower.” He glances at his watch. “You've got time. See ya inside, kid.” He gets in his truck and drives to his usual parking spot by the rear doors.

I rustle through the backseat and gather some semi-clean clothes and a towel. I also grab my travel-sized shampoo and soap, toothbrush and toothpaste. I glance at my phone. Seven-fifteen. Shelly will be here soon. I leave a note to tell her I'm in the shower and to wait for me. I half expect her to join me in the boys' locker room. Not that I'd mind.

When I come back out she's sitting on the open tailgate of the car, smoking. I know better than to comment.

I spread my damp towel across the back of my seat. “That shower felt good,” I say as I finger through my wet hair. “It's rare I get a total-body shower.”

“You live like a Frenchman.”

“
Oui, oui, mademoiselle
.”

“Except you smell a little better. They don't wear deodorant.”

I shove my sweaty shorts in the back of the car. I notice a pile of laundered and folded clothes resting on the seat. “Thanks for doing my laundry,” I say, as I sit down next to her and sling an arm around her. I pull her close and kiss her.

She shrugs. “It's no big deal.”

“To you, maybe.”

“I have something else for you,” she says. She tosses a plastic bag at me.

It contains one of her brother's shirts, a pair of olive-green Dockers, and a half-bottle of Guess Seductive Homme Blue. “This way you won't smell like you've been sleeping in a sewer,” she says.

“Isn't this your brother's?”

“I bought him a new bottle,” she says. “I'll tell him I broke the old one by accident.”

“Thanks,” I say. “If it weren't for lies, you and I wouldn't survive.” I splash on some of the cologne and place it in the bag. “I think Earl suspects something.”

“About you living here?”

“Yeah. He was parked next to my car waiting for me when I came back from a morning run.”

“What did he say?”

“Just that he's noticed my car here early in the morning sometimes before he gets here.”

“Oh shit,” she says.

“Yeah. My thinking exactly.”

She laughs and slides off the tailgate. Shelly unwraps a piece of cinnamon gum and chews it. “Even though I'm smoking again, I'm still trying to cut back.” She looks at the football field. “I think I'll go see if our ducks are out there today.”

I dress quickly in a pair of clean shorts and the T-shirt Shelly brought me and finger-comb my hair. I swish some mouthwash around and spit it to the side of the car, and I slide on my secondhand Nikes.

Shelly whistles when she sees me. “You clean up pretty well for a vagrant.”

“Thanks. Were the ducks there?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “What's the story with the stinky camping gear?”

“My mom found it in the basement,” I tell her. “She thought I could use it. I didn't realize how bad it smelled until I put it in my car.”

“I guess it's not a bad idea.”

She spits her gum out on the ground. “What are we hungry for today?”

“Let's live dangerously,” I say. “Burger King.”

Before we get into the car, Shelly makes me pose for a picture. “Why?” I ask.

“Because you don't look like a rabid dog for once.”

“Gee thanks.”

“Stand still and look human.” She holds up her iPhone and snaps a pic.

I try to pay for my own breakfast to thank her for the clothes and cologne, but Shelly pushes my money away. “My parents hemorrhage money,” she says. The counter girl laughs and looks at us curiously. We both order ham-and-cheese croissants, large coffees, and hash browns.

I lift the tray. “Heart attack on a plate.”

“Let's hope you don't keel over before you find your father,” she says.

We sit near the window so I can keep an eye on the car. Not that anyone would steal it.

“If you could have breakfast with anyone in the world,” Shelly says, “living or dead, who would you choose?”

“Besides you?”

She nods. I think for a second. “I don't know. Elvis, Einstein, Marie Curie, or . . .”

“You can only choose one.”

“Oh man.” I consider again. “Probably Pablo Neruda. How about you?”

Shelly stirs sugar into her coffee and takes a sip. “Jack Kerouac.”

I laugh. “Breakfast with him would be beer in a tavern at four o'clock in the afternoon.”

“Can you imagine the four of us in here together?” she asks.

“Neruda and Kerouac in Burger King? That would be freaky.”

We eat in silence for a few seconds. “Today is the day you find out who you really are,” Shelly says.

“I'm not sure I want to know.”

“There is always a risk. You could find out your dad is a pedophile or a circus clown.”

I recall my dreams of the faceless men and I think of the kind of men my mother is attracted to now. She had chosen good mates in Bob and Paul, so there may be hope I am the son of a decent man. Lately, though, my mother's boyfriends and husbands have all been losers, users, and abusers.

If I have learned anything from my mother's string of men, it's how not to be a schmuck. “What if I find out my dad is a serial killer?” I ask. “And what happens once I find him?”

Shelly takes a deep breath and steals one of my hash browns. “Let's just find him first. Then we'll worry about the details.”

We arrive back at school a few minutes before eight. Earl and Hess are bent in conversation in the teacher's lounge. They glance up when Shelly and I step inside.

“Where are you planning to camp?” Hess asks.

“We haven't decided yet,” I say.

“My wife and I like Spring Valley near Cambridge,” he says.

“Thanks,” I say. “We might check it out.” I hate lying to Hess and Earl. They're good guys.

At lunchtime, Hess offers to go to a drive-thru for everyone. Shelly and I use the time to scrub the grime off the tent, which really did have cat piss on it. We scour and rinse the tent and pop it open to let it dry in the sun. While we work, Shelly plaits her hair in a long braid draped to one side.

“Very fetching,” I say.

She shrugs. “It's cooler.”

The sleeping bag turns out to be down filled, which will come in handy this winter if we can get the odor out. I guess if I get cold enough the stink won't matter.

It feels good to be outside, scrubbing and rinsing alongside Shelly. The stove and the dishes clean up easily with the hose, but the fabrics have absorbed a foul stench. We soak the jacket and the sleeping bag in a cleaning solution Hess concocted and hang them to dry over one of the railings by the back door. The wet feathers make the sleeping bag heavy, but I hope the sun and breeze will dry it. I hang the jacket on the opposite railing.

“How long was this stuff in your basement?” Shelly asks.

“Long enough,” I say.

“Your cat must be a piece of work. Maybe the smell of other animals from nature made him use it as a litter box,” she says. “To mark his territory.”

“Maybe.

She studies me. “You don't really have a cat, do you? And you and Jeff never go camping.”

“No,” I admit. “My mom thought I'd be able to use this old stuff.”

“So even though you tried to blow up the school, and she tossed you out, she still loves you?”

“Something like that,” I say. “No matter what we do, our parents still care about us. Look at you. Whatever you did to be my co-criminal, your parents still love you.”

“Nice try, but I'm not ready for that conversation.”

“I can wait.” I point a finger at her. “Someday, though.”

“And someday you'll tell me the real reason you live in your car.”

By the end of our workday, most of the camp gear is almost dry. Earl lets me hang the damp sleeping bag and jacket inside the school. I drape them over some chairs in the custodial storage room. The tent is dry, though, and I stash the now fresh-smelling tent and other gear in the back of my car. It all smells like industrial cleaner, but that's a whole lot better than cat urine and mold.

Shelly glances at the pile of dirty clothes and sheets littering the backseat of my car. “We can wash the rest of those at my house while we look up your birth certificate.”

As I drive, every time I turn a corner the camping stuff rolls around. “It sounds like you have a body in the back,” Shelly says.

“Yeah, I'm going to have to organize it better.”

“Or store it somewhere.”

“Maybe I can leave it in Jeff's basement until winter.”

When we get to her house I grab the duffle, fill it with the rest of my dirty clothes, sling it over my shoulder, and haul it up her driveway.

“I'll show you how to work the washer, and then I'm going to change clothes.”

She dumps in a capful of detergent and sets the load on high. I lift the duffle and start shoving clothes inside the washer.

“Don't you separate lights and darks?” she asks.

“Huh?”

She shakes her head. “You're supposed to wash dark clothes separately from lighter-colored ones. It keeps your underwear from turning gray.”

“Oh. I never thought of that.” I shrug. “I guess that makes sense.” I look at my now wet pile of clothes inside the washer. “Too late now.”

She picks up my duffle with two fingers and holds it out like it's a stinky fish. “Might as well throw this in as well.”

I cram it in the washer. “Thanks for letting me do this.”

“How did you live without me before?”

“Obviously I was dangling on the edge of a cliff.”

“I'm going to change clothes,” she says. “Give me five minutes, then come up to my room.”

“Will you be naked?”

“You wish,” she says.

A few minutes later we sit in front of her laptop, and a fully clothed Shelly powers it up. “The moment of truth,” Shelly says. “Are you ready?”

“Yes and no.” This feels too easy. “In a few minutes I find out if I'm half Mexican or Amish or Italian.”

“You're probably the spawn of alien life forms,” she says.

I laugh, and swing my arm around her shoulder. I say in my best cheesy French accent, “Perhaps I am a Frenchman after all.”

She feigns a British accent. “Or perhaps you're a royal, the long lost bastard child of Prince Charles.”

“Oh, do behave.”

She types Ohio vital records in the search bar and the website appears on screen.

The first thing I notice is the time frame to get the certificate. “It takes twenty to thirty-five business days,” I say.

“That's just a rough estimate.”

“And it costs eighty-five bucks! Plus shipping,” I say.

“Don't worry about it,” she says. “I have open access to a credit card.”

“Are you sure your dad is okay with you spending money like this?”

“He wheezes money,” she says. “Don't worry about it. What's your full name?”

“Michael Gillam Flynn.”

“Gillam?”

“I'm named after my dead uncle,” I say.

Shelly types in my name, date of birth, and Columbus, Ohio. The screen takes its time spooling.

“Why is it taking so long?” I ask.

“There's a lot of people in Ohio.”

Finally the screen shows a hit. My name's there, as is my mother's, but my father's name is a giant blank space.

“What the hell?” I shout.

I want to hit something. “Every damn time I get close, I hit a brick wall. Damn it!” I slam my fist on the top of her desk. I stalk out of her room and run down the steps. I fling the front door open and pace on her front lawn.

Shelly follows me out. “Michael!”

I wave my fists and shout, “What the hell do I do now?” I walk back and forth on the lawn. “Why is she keeping this such a big fucking secret? Is my father a Cuban spy? I mean, what the hell? Why can't she just tell me? Was I hatched instead of born? Am I a goddamned alien, or just a figment of your wild imagination?” I pinch my own flesh and it stings, so I know I am real.

Shelly lets me rant some more. When I am finally quiet, she touches my arm and says, “I'm really sorry, Michael.” She reaches out to caress my face. “I guess the good news is you're not Amish.”