The McGillicuddy Book of Personal Records (15 page)

“And does he?” asked Rhonda.

“Eighty-fifth day,” said Lee, “he goes out in his small boat and sails way out past all the other fishermen. And he catches him a fish.”

“The end,” interrupted Rhonda.

“Nope. This is no ordinary fish story, Ron. The thing weighs fifteen hundred pounds, and it's longer than his boat. It's the biggest darn thing he's ever laid eyes on.”

“And he brings the fish home,” said Rhonda, “and he sells it for a million bucks, and buys a king-size bed and lives happily ever after. The end.”

“Who's telling this story?” said Lee, starting to get irritated. “Now, have a little patience Rhonda, and I'll tell you what—”

“My name's not Rhonda.”

Lee squeezed his eyes shut again and counted to ten. He wondered if Santiago had made it home yet.

CUT TO DOG

Santiago relied on her nose to play the “hot and cold game” to get her home. She didn't recognize the street she was on— Lee had never brought her this way before—but her nose told her which way to go. “Cold,” it whispered whenever she took a wrong turn, and “Hot” when she started trotting in the right direction. Santiago stopped to pee by the base of a tree—so many trees, so little time—and turned down a street that made her nose icy. She turned left at the next intersection and knew she was hot on the trail again.

Even though she couldn't recall exactly why, Santiago felt particularly happy this afternoon as she trotted down the boulevard—except for one thing: There was something niggling at the back of her mind like an annoying flea—a little voice telling her she'd forgotten something. Was she supposed to tell Mom something? But the next tree called out to Santiago to leave her mark behind, and as she whizzed, the annoying flea jumped straight out of her mind.

AND BACK TO LEE

ROLL 'EM

“You see, Ron,” said Lee, “the fish was so huge and powerful that once it got caught on the end of the old man's rope, it started dragging the boat out to sea instead of the old man dragging
it
back to shore. There's just no way he could pull the fish in. But the old guy hung onto that rope with all his might, and refused to let go.”

Without letting go, Lee flexed the stiff fingers of his hands, one at a time. “So anyway …” Lee stopped. “You still awake, Ron?”

“Yeah,” she said, trying to sound bored, but Lee knew he had her hooked.

“For four whole days,” continued Lee, “the old guy had a tug-of-war with that fish. It was like some kind of crazy marathon. He had to eat raw tuna to stay strong, and his hands were a bloody mush from hanging onto the rope for so long, and every muscle in his body ached.”

“Didn't he ever hear the saying: ‘Enough's enough'?”

Lee ignored her again. “And you wanna know the weirdest part?”—he didn't give her a chance to answer—“The weirdest part is that as much as he wanted to kill that fish, he loved it as well. He loved it like a brother. And he loved the moon and stars like brothers, even though the nights were long and painful.”

Rhonda made fake gagging sounds at the bottom of the well. “‘
The moon and the stars were his brothers
.' Lee, I think you've been reading too many romance novels.”

Lee smiled to himself. “Could be, Ron; could well be.”

“Lee,” he heard her say a moment later, “do you think Santiago is on her way back yet? Do you think she understood?”

CUT TO DOG

Some days you're the dog, some days you're the hydrant.

– Anon

Santiago understood perfectly well that squirrels were way too fast to even think about chasing, but they were such irritating little wackos. Always bragging, always teasing—
Hey, dog-chow breath, better watch out or you'll trip on your tongue!
—that's why Santi just had to stop and give that bushy-tailed pest, chittering away on the fence, a good old-fashioned scare. She was fast enough to at least do that. But before Santi had even finished thinking it, the squirrel had hightailed it to the top of a tall tree and sat laughing down at her.

Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably still be a dog. Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement.

– Snoopy

That's the secret to life … replace one worry with another …
– Charlie Brown

Lee's hands hurt so bad, it almost made him forget that anything else in the world existed. Including Rhonda (whenever she'd rest her trap for more than a minute straight—jeez, was it really me who told her not to go to sleep?).

“How'd you get that stupid name, anyhow?”

Lee bristled. “Shadup! Lee is a perfectly …”

“Not
that
name,” said Rhonda. “I'm talking about the
stupid
one: McGillicuddy. Stupid!”

Lee gave a weary shake of the head. “And I suppose you
chose
Ronaldson as your last name?”

Lee imagined Rhonda giving her nose an upward swipe— buying herself just enough time to figure a composed response. “No, dopey,” she spat, “but if I could choose, I sure as
HECK
wouldn't have chosen old fuddy duddy McGillicuddy.”

“I'll have you know,” said Lee, “that there's no other name I'd rather have. Did you know that the late, great Connie Mack had the very same last name? Well … before the name-change, that is.”

“
NOW, THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I'M
TALKING
ABOUT
!!!” Rhonda chucked a loose stone at the side of the well. “I'd change my name to Mack too if I had to suffer McGillicuddy! Takes a girl to be able to figure something like that out.”

“Sorry, toe-brain,” sang Lee, “but Connie is a man's name. Not only was he a super-duper professional baseball player, but he was also a legendary major league manager who—”

Lee scowled at the “
PPFFFT
!” sound that seemed to echo to him from the well. “Baseball, shmaseba—”

Lee cut in. “
AND
… he held the unbeaten
RECORD
for most wins …” Suddenly he saw the hopelessness of communicating anything of importance to Rhonda Ronaldson, and gave up. Unfortunately, Lee was able to imagine all too well her Huge-Hairy-Deal smirk. He imagined her eyeballs stuck to the ceiling of her lids right about now.

“So what happened to the old guy, anyways?” asked Rhonda.

“Connie Mack?” said Lee.

“As
if
!” said Rhonda. “I'm talking about the old dude and the fish. Did he have some kind of miracle happen to him or somethin'? That's gonna bug my butt royally, if he had a miracle. I hate it in books when … are you
listening
to me, Daddy?”

Lee hadn't been listening. He was too busy worrying about the cramp in his right hand. He needed so badly to let go of the rope, even for just a second, but he knew he couldn't.

“Daddy?”

“What? Oh. Yeah. What do you want?”

“I
said
, what happened to the old fart, 'cause, like, if you're going to tell me he—”

“You wouldn't want to know, Ron,” said Lee.

“Hey, come on, you can't just—”

“Trust me,” he said. “You just wouldn't want to know what happened next.”

“Well, I'm not going to
beg
you, if that's what you think.” He could tell she was ticked.

Lee let ten minutes go by before asking her if she was still awake. She didn't answer, but soon he could hear her chucking pebbles at the side of the well. He wondered what was going through her mind. It was a while before she spoke.

“It's because I'm not ready, if you
must
know,” said Rhonda.

“Huh?” Rhonda was constantly coming up with weird things out of the blue, and expecting him to follow.

“You asked why I keep my violin a secret,” she said. “It's because I'm not ready, and tough beans to anyone who doesn't like it. I don't want anyone getting the stupid idea that they know me till I'm ready to be known.”

“Okay,” said Lee.

But Rhonda had more to say.

“Like, imagine you were trying to write the most fantastic story in the world, and for months you put your whole heart and soul into it. And you wrote and rewrote the darned thing, and even though you were far from being finished, you could tell it was getting better and better. And then, imagine that some pea-brain idiot came along one day and stole one of your old, crappy, rough copies from the trash can and
read
it. Wouldn't you just want to tear their
eye
balls out?”

Lee was getting the distinct feeling that either Rhonda, or girls in general, had a different way of thinking about things.

“The point
is
,” said Rhonda, “I'm pretty much a rough copy right now, and I don't want anyone trying to read me. Till I'm
ready
. Do you get my drift?”

Silence. He could hear her sigh.

“Man,” said Lee, “all I know is that all my life, all I've ever wanted was to be half as good at anything as you are at the violin. If I had one-
tenth
of your talent, I'd be shouting it from the rooftops.”

“You're nuts, Lee.”

“I know.”

“No, I mean, you
really
think you're not good at anything?”

Silence for a count of ten. Lee finally spoke up. “I've gotta tell you something, Ron. 'Member I was telling you about Connie Mack?”

Rhonda went for the bait. “Who's she?”

Lee groaned.

“I know, I know,” shot Rhonda, “the baseball nerd. What about him?”

Lee let out a long sigh. “You know I said he held the record for most games won in a lifetime?”

She didn't answer.

“What I didn't tell you,” choked Lee, “is that he also held the record for the most losses.”

“Wha …?”

“He just stayed with baseball way longer than any other manager. He may have had a lotta wins, but he had even more losses.” Lee closed his eyes. “Guess I was right after all, Ron. I deserve the stupid name.”

“Boo hoo.” Lee could hear her trying unsuccessfully to chuck a pebble out of the well. “What you're forgetting to remember is that you've got as much piss 'n' vinegar and bull-headed patience inside you as that old dude and his big dumb fish— heck, as stubborn Connie Mack, for that matter. You don't think that's worth something?” she said.

Lee thought for a while, and then he said: “Do you get good marks in school, Ron?”

“Could if I wanted to,” she said.

I'll bet you could, thought Lee. “You're pretty amazing, you know that, Ron?”

“Cryin' out loud,” said Rhonda, “I am what I am. Now shut the heck up, and tell me the rest of that dumb story.”

I yam what I yam and that's all what I yam.

– Popeye the Sailorman

BRING IN SLANG FOR A SHORT SCENE

QUIET ON THE SET … AND ROLL!

Slang Kischuk raised his sunglasses over his eyebrows, reached over the back seat of his car, and raked around in the mess of books and garbage until he found what he was looking for—a brand new Eagles team soccer shirt with a bold
McGillicuddy
written on the back, and a number one on front. He looked it over, smoothed a few wrinkles with his hand, and smiled. He got out of his car and then jumped back in and took something from the glove compartment. He tossed the object up in the air and whistled as he walked up Lee's front walk. Then he took the steps three at a time and rang the doorbell. He heard Gertrude's voice through the screen door. “Door's open, partner, come on in!”

Slang opened the screen door and stepped inside. He saw Gertrude wearing a Harley-Davidson T-shirt with the sleeves cut out, cutoff shorts and cowboy boots, and a tool belt around her waist. She was squatting in front of the television's panel box with a screwdriver in her hand. She looked up. “Oh!” she slipped her screwdriver into the loop on her tool belt like a cowboy returning a gun to its holster. “Name's Slang, isn't it?” she said. “Just trying to repair the idiot box, here, Slang. Should be easy enough. Little bit of common sense is all you mostly need. Come on in! Take a load off! Know anything about these fool machines?”

Slang smiled and sat down on the couch. He gave an admiring whistle. “Beauty of a cowboy hat,” he said.

“Thanks for noticing,” said Gertrude. “It's the real McCoy. Genuine Stetson. Get you a cold drink?”

“No, thanks, Mrs. McGillicuddy,” said Slang. “I just came by to give Lee this.” He held up the T-shirt. “Genuine Eagles T-shirt for the kid. The real McCoy. Is he around?”

“Well, isn't that kind of you,” said Gertrude. “But no, the kid's not around. I keep telling him to leave a note when he goes out, but he can't seem to get in the habit. Haven't a clue where he is, to tell you the truth.”

“Well, maybe you could give this to him when he gets home,” said Slang, handing over the T-shirt. “Oh, and this, too.” He tossed Gertrude a Mars Bar. “Just something I owe him,” he said with a wink. “He'll know what it's about.”

“Sure thing,” said Gertrude, opening the front door for Slang. “But are you sure you can trust me with this?” she said, waving the chocolate bar in the air.

Slang laughed. “Do your best,” he said.

I always do my best, sonny boy, thought Gertrude. Don't you worry about that!

“Slang!” she called just before he ducked into his car. “Thanks for being so kind to Lee. You're a gem!”

Slang smiled and gave Gertrude a wave before driving off.

Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind.

The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind.