Hello Loved Ones (4 page)

“No, 1925. You’ve got to learn to listen, boy.”

“I did listen. You said 1927.” He might be deaf in one ear, but he knew how to listen. And he always made sure he kept his good ear toward his dad.

Dad shook his head. “I did not say 1927. Now get over there and give it a few swings.” He pushed Lenny across the grass. “I’ll go get the ball.” He turned toward the house, then stopped. “Where is it?”

“Under my bed. In the box.”

Dad disappeared inside and Lenny examined the bat. The pale wood was shiny and smooth, soft to his touch. He put his nose to it and breathed in deep. It smelled of dug-outs. He choked up on it.

“Hurry Dad!” Lenny yelled, hoping that after all that talk his dad hadn’t lost interest. He was relieved when Dad came out with the ball in his hand. He’d taken off his suit jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves.

“Now that model you’ve got there,” Dad said, tossing the ball in the air, “that’s the same kind Mickey Mantle used to smash one out of Griffin Stadium. What do you think about that?”

Lenny’s hands felt electric on the bat. “Griffin Stadium is for babies,” he said. “I’ll take the bus to Chicago and hit one out of Wrigley Field. It’ll fly so far it’ll land in Lake Michigan.” He hunched over, assuming his stance.

Dad laughed. “Lake Michigan? Why not the Atlantic? You oughta aim higher son.”

A quick bitter laugh flew out the window above the kitchen sink. “You’re a fine one to talk,” Mom called. Her face was a flat pale circle behind the shadow of the screen. Dishes clinked faintly under the sound of running water.

“Was I talking to you?” Dad said. He did a few wind-ups.

The water stopped. Mom’s voice came back louder, “Why don’t you aim toward some dinner for your children? We’ve been out of groceries for a week.”

Dad raised his voice too. “Don’t start with me. Lenny and I are playing baseball.”

“Throw it Dad!” Lenny wished his mother would shut up for one minute. Why was she going on about dinner? Who could eat when you had a brand new bat in your hands? If she’d leave them alone they could play and laugh and have a nice time together. His father would keep his good mood, and they might be able to settle in quietly for the evening. After all, it was the day before his birthday. He was the owner of a Louisville Slugger and his dad was about to throw him the ball.

“Mind the house now.” Dad pitched and it flew high over Lenny’s head. He swung anyway. He couldn’t help it. The ball rolled into the bushes in the neighbor’s yard.

“Damn! Sun was in my eyes,” Dad said. He walked wearily toward Lenny and rested a hand on his back. “Word to the wise, son. Women are put on this earth to torment us. They can’t begin to know the pressures a man is under but they bellyache like they’ve got the world on their shoulders.”

“What sort of pressures?”

“What do you mean what sort? Does everything have to be explained to you?” He sighed. “Go get the ball.”

He took the bat from Lenny and sliced the air a couple of times, making his back crack twice in little pops. Lenny retrieved the ball and then waited while his dad stretched and groaned with the bat in his hands. Finally Dad stopped swinging and looked at him. He sighed again.

“Finding work, supporting a family,” he said, as if Lenny were badgering him. But Lenny had his eyes on the bat. He didn’t like the way his dad was hogging it. He held out his hand but Dad didn’t seem to notice. Lenny looked up at him. He put on his Spiderman face, making his mouth a thin flat line and sending all his powers out through his eyes. Lenny had big brown eyes that he could keep open, unblinking, for hours and hours, and that was the secret to the Spiderman face. He used it when he felt like sending a secret message into his dad’s head, like
stop jabbering and give me the stupid bat!

“Quit staring at me,” Dad snapped.

“Sorry.”

“And no more questions. Talk about pressures.
Jeez.
”

“Sorry,” Lenny said again, wondering what questions he ever asked except the most ordinary kind. He never said anything about Dad’s new clothes. He‘d stopped asking, every time his dad went away,
when are you coming back?
He didn’t once say
why are you always mad at us? What have we done wrong?
He asked him about baseball or the snow in Canada, or how long it took to drive across one whole state, or whether he knew any truckers.

“Aw, you’re a good kid,” Dad said. He looked over at the kitchen window, then bent low over Lenny. “You know what they say, don’t you son? Baseball’s the only sport where you can go a couple months without scoring and your balls won’t hurt.” He threw his head back and laughed.

Lenny didn’t get it. “I thought you said baseball was nothing to joke about.”

Dad sighed, exasperated. “You’re a serious little cuss, aren’t you?”

Was he? Was it bad to be serious?

“Rich, the girls are hungry,” Mom called out.

“I’m playing with my son here!”

“Sally will be up and needing some dinner.”

“Goddamn it woman! I’m going.” Dad dropped the bat and stomped back to his car without a word to Lenny.

“Can we play when you get back?” Lenny asked, and then, “You are coming back, aren’t you?”

“I just got home, didn’t I?” Dad said from behind the wheel of the car. He smiled. “I’ll get your favorite food for your birthday. Sloppy joes, right?”

Then he revved the car so loudly that Lenny wasn’t able to tell him that corn dogs were his favorite now, ever since he went with Uncle Ollie and Aunt Bunny to the State Fair where he ate one while he watched a man in a batting cage hit a ball going 100 miles an hour. Hit it not once, but four times. That was something exciting he could tell his dad about. Or had he already told him? The things he had actually said and the things he wanted to say were hard to keep straight. They blurred together, like the stitches on a fastball flying toward you, with you just hoping to connect.

Later that day, Lenny sat on the front porch, waiting. An hour passed. How long did it take to get some groceries? He began to worry about all the things that might have happened. Dad might have had a car wreck. Wouldn’t that be bizarre, to have Dad drive a thousand miles home, then get smucked pulling out of Charlie’s Market? But Lenny would have heard the sirens by now. Maybe he went clear across town, to Meijer, to special order Lenny a birthday cake, and he had to wait while they iced a perfect baseball diamond on it. Knowing his dad, it would have to be made to scale, exactly nine inches between bases, or it wouldn’t be right. Maybe he passed a burning building and ran in to save some poor baby. He’d be on the front page of tomorrow’s paper. Maybe he had another surprise for Lenny, like a new glove to go with the bat. He might have driven to Grand Rapids because he’d want to get the best. Maybe he bumped into an old friend, someone who said
let me buy you a drink ol’ pal!

Maybe he was drunk.

Why? Why today? Couldn’t Lenny enjoy one lousy day with his dad?

Lenny was no fun. Dad said it himself. He racked his brain for a good joke. Nothing. He couldn’t come up with a single thing, not even a knock-knock joke. There had to be
something
that would make his dad laugh. He could do an impression of the way his gym teacher ran with her knees knocking together. That always made the kids at school laugh.

Trouble was, he was feeling far from funny. Each hour that passed and Dad didn’t come back, it was all he could do to keep from crying. He’d show him. If he couldn’t be funny, he’d be serious in a way that mattered. He’d break the world record for porch-sitting, if there was one. If there wasn’t, there would be after tonight. He had a Guinness book in his room. There must be a phone number in it. Nell could call and have them send out their scout. When Dad came back he’d find all the neighbors gathered around, cheering for Lenny. They’d hang banners from the trees.
Way to go, Lenny! Hang in there!
Reporters from the Sentinel would scramble for an interview. Dad would have to push through the crowd.
Lemme through, that’s my son!

When he came back.

He said he’d be back. He
said
. He
said
. He’d brought the bat, hadn’t he? Around and around, Lenny twisted that bat in his hand. He considered giving up his post and heading over to his friend Willie’s house to show him the Slugger. Then he remembered what Willie had told him a couple of weeks earlier. Willie went to visit his grandma in California, and they went to a place called Knotts’ Berry Farm. Willie bragged that he saw how movies are made.

“When you see John Wayne walking down the street, just before the gun fight, and you see those buildings behind him? They’re fake. Flat as a pancake. You can walk around them and there’s nothing there.”

That was about the last thing Lenny wanted to hear. Now every time he watched a movie, it was ruined. Seeing his dad lately was like seeing those buildings. Stupid Willie. If he thought he’d ever get to try Lenny’s Slugger, he was dead wrong.

Finally Lenny went inside and found his mother folding laundry on the kitchen table. His mother, who was always serious, always boring.

“Why’d you have to drive him away?” he snapped.

She looked at him, surprised. “I know you’re disappointed.”

“You don’t know anything! You ruined my birthday and you don’t even care.”

She sighed and came around the table, reaching for him, but he ducked away.

“I hate you! And I hate my stupid birthday. I wish I was never born.”

He ran to his room and slammed the door. There was a mirror over his dresser that caught his reflection. There’s the joke. Lenny Van Sloeten.
Hardy har har!
Winner of the world record for stupidity. He punched his pillow a few times, then put it over his face. One serious cry was all he’d allow, only because he was still seven. Come midnight he was done being a baby.

It was ten p.m. and Lenny was in the kitchen getting a Nehi grape soda from the icebox. Mom had gotten three bottles for his birthday. She made him promise he’d drink no more than one a day, and here he was, going for the second. Well, he needed one. He’d sat all day in the hot sun on the front porch, and for what? Just to be reminded, as if he needed reminding, that he had the world’s worst life. Being a year older wouldn’t mean a damn thing. Dad was probably never coming back, and even if he did, he’d leave again anyway. The way Lenny figured it, he was the man of the house now, so if he wanted fifty sodas, he’d sure as hell help himself. He was closing his hand around the cool wet neck of the Nehi bottle when the kitchen door rattled. Turning, he saw a wide-eyed, grizzled face pressed against the black window. With a shriek he dropped the bottle and it cracked open, sending a purple puddle across the floor.

“Hey there. Open up,” came a slurred, furry voice. Dad! Drunk or not, here he was. Lenny should have known he wouldn’t miss his birthday. He looked down at the mess on the floor and, picking his way gingerly over the broken glass, moved toward the door. He was one step from it when his mother came in.

“Stop!” she said. “He’s not coming in if he’s been drinking.”

Leave it to her to ruin everything again. So Dad had a few drinks. So what? Chances were he’d sit for a cup of coffee and babble some nonsense about market shares or steel-belted tires. Or he might explain to Lenny the value of recognizing a sound investment. He’d tell him to keep his ears open, and Lenny would imagine that if only he weren’t deaf in one ear he’d be able to locate a sound investment for his dad. If Lenny tried to tell him about how his teacher, Mr. Vollmer, passed his false teeth around the class, or about the arrowhead Lenny found at the beach, Dad might wave him away with his hand. One time he fell right off to sleep, snoring in the middle of Lenny’s sentence. But other times he might listen. He might get excited at the mention of Marvin Haas’ go-cart or the new gas pump at the Stop-n-Go and slap Lenny on the back as if he’d just answered the $64,000 question. Tonight might be one of those times.

“What’s the hold-up?” Dad hiccuped.

“You’re soused and I won’t have you around the children! Go to your brother’s and sleep it off.”

“So I’m a little late.” Dad’s face mushed up against the glass.

“How could you?” she asked through clenched teeth. “It’s Lenny’s birthday. And you,” she said, pointing at Lenny, “what is this mess?”

“I dropped a pop. And my birthday’s tomorrow, so let him in.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Is that Dad?” Nell asked, coming in. Sally was behind her, rubbing her eyes with a tiny balled-up fist.

“Daddy?” Sally said. She squinted suspiciously at the window.

Mom held her arm up to keep the girls out. “Your father’s not feeling well and can’t come in right now,” she said. “Nellie, help me clean up Lenny’s mess.”

“You mean he’s drunk,” Nell said.

Dad pounded on the door. “Prudy, this isn’t funny. I’ve got to relieve myself.”

“No one’s stopping you.”

“Fine. I’ll piss on this geranium.”