The McGillicuddy Book of Personal Records (2 page)

“Gertie's working tonight,” he answered. “
Jeez
, now look at that, Ron,” he said, exasperated. “You've got me calling my own mother Gertie. Why can't you just say ‘your mom' like any normal person?”

Ron shrugged her shoulders without looking at him. She stared at her not-quite-immaculate fingernails, zeroing in on which one to bite first. She settled on a hangnail on the side of her thumb.

“And you'd better not let Agnes catch you calling her Aggie,” warned Lee, “or she'll string you up by your boxers.” Rhonda pulled the waistband of her boy's underwear above the tops of her jeans. She liked to advertise them that way.

Agnes was Lee's neighbor. And his other mother. From time to time, his
real
mother worked the late shift as a bouncer at the All Night Country and Western Club, and on those nights he ate and slept at Agnes's. The rest of the time he lived at home. It made him think of the kids at school who had divorced parents— spending so many days a week at Dad's house, so many at Mom's. Lee didn't have a dad, so in some ways it wasn't so bad having two moms. And Agnes was more than willing to fill the position. She didn't even charge money anymore. Said he was like a son to her, and since she didn't have any kids of her own, Gertrude was the one doing
her
the favor, not the other way around. He figured that's why she called him Sonny most of the time. Agnes insisted it was Sunny with a “u” but he knew she said it with an “o.” Lee, Sonny, Daddy. Three names, two mothers. And one annoying short kid who worshiped the ground he walked on (heck, yeah, he'd figured that one out for himself ages ago). And Rhonda might just as well have been one of Agnes's kids as well, for all the time she spent hanging around there.

“Maybe I'll see you at Aggie's later,” she said, faking a yawn. She pounced toward Lee as if to grab the basketball and just about gave him a heart attack; he came that close to losing control of the ball. She laughed as she took off down the street toward home. Lee shook his head.

RECORD OF THE CENTURY
held by Lee “Daddy” “Sonny” McGillicuddy of 933 Dorchester Avenue for putting up with a scrawny, pain-in-the-butt, tomboy turkey bugging him every second of the day—a grueling four years, twelve weeks, and who knows how many days—basically, ever since she moved into the rundown house across the street.

With Rhonda finally gone, it felt like a giant relief to be alone again. For about an hour. Then the boredom started to set in. It would have been good to have
anyone
around then—even Rhonda Ronaldson. Lee thought about Santiago at home on her leash, waiting patiently for him. This morning, before leaving, he'd whispered in her ear that she'd have to be extra patient today, that he had something important he had to do. Boy, what he wouldn't give to see her slobbery jowls and wagging tail right now, but he knew she'd only want to play, and that just wouldn't do.

Kathunk, kathunk
. This was the hard part, when the boredom made you want to pack it all in. Worst thing was, he knew the hardest part was yet to come—boredom
and
pain mixed together. Aching back, tired feet, sore wrists. By that point, the basketball would cease to be a basketball and become his worst enemy.
Kathunk, kathunk.
The mere sound of it smacking the pavement over and over and over again could make him want to puncture the stupid thing with a jackknife and stomp the life out of it until it was flat as one of Agnes's failed cakes. Yeah, that's just about when he'd start to question his own sanity. Was he nuts? What was the point of all this? Why not go home to a warm supper and a hot bath? And he'd be tempted to do just that if he didn't know something else … that there'd be that amazing point when he'd get past the boredom and the pain, when his will gave him wings to …

Lee heard footsteps and the unmistakable clink of a dog leash approaching. Could it be Rhonda bringing Santiago for a visit? He watched, disappointed, as an old man walked by with a mutt nowhere near as gorgeous as Santi. Lee sighed. Just for a little variety, he began bouncing the basketball closer to the ground.
Thunka-thunka-thunka
. He liked how the quick, short bounces sped things up, made him feel like time was passing faster. Anything to make him forget his full bladder. So much for not drinking anything for the last twelve hours. Lee figured it was the dehydration combined with an empty stomach and a full day in the hot sun that was making him feel kind of nauseous. And dizzy. The faster he bounced the ball, the worse it got. He straightened up and went for a series of high slow bounces. That helped a little with the queasiness, but did nothing for his screaming bladder.

Lee looked over at the bushes. Crap. He didn't trust his coordination for this right now. His hands felt shaky. And clammy, too—that wasn't good for basketball grip at the best of times. And it would mean moving from the pavement onto the long grass. Lee looked around. Better get this over with. As he stepped from the pavement of the empty parking lot into the weedy grass, the muffled sound of the bouncing made him feel weird, as if he were walking into a dream. That, mixed with the light-headedness, made him think he was losing it. That's pretty much when the lights went out. The last thing Lee remembered as he crumpled onto the grass was a wonderful feeling of flooding warmth. No, not so wonderful.
McGillicuddy boy pees pants, setting a new record in personal humiliation
. That was Lee's last thought before conking out cold.

CHAPTER TWO

It's not whether you get knocked down; it's whether you get up.
Vince Lombardi

Heck is
that
? A warm, wet washcloth—a warm, wet,
stinky
washcloth wiping his face over and over again. What the hey? Lee opened one eye to find Santiago licking the devil out of his left cheek. And Rhonda slapping the daylights out of his right cheek. “Daddy, Daddy, you o
kay
?”

“Knock it off, Ron,” he said, pushing her away. Lee raised himself on one elbow. “What are you doing here?” he squinted at the unfamiliar bushes. “Where the heck am I?”

“You fainted!” said Rhonda. “I was just bringing Santiago over for a visit and I saw you keel right over. You okay?”

Lee sat up. “'
Course
I'm okay.” Then he lay back down. He wasn't okay. He was sure he was going to throw up. He was already lying there in front of Rhonda Ronaldson, in wet Levis. Now all he needed was to upchuck in front of her. The smell of Santiago's dog breath wasn't helping.

“Just give me a minute,” he said.

Rhonda settled back on her haunches and watched Santiago sniffing at Lee's wet jeans. When she caught Lee noticing the
sucks-to-be-you
look on her face, she turned away fast and whistled a tune into the treetops.

Smooth as sandpaper Ronaldson, thought Lee. He rolled his eyeballs.
Ouch!
That gave him a headache. He took a deep breath and slowly stood up. Bed. He wanted his bed.

Unfortunately,
bed
happened to be three blocks away.

“Do you need help?” asked Rhonda.

“No,” said Lee. A wave of dizziness. “Yes.”

Rhonda took his arm and steadied him as he weaved his way down the sidewalk. “What happened, anyway?” she asked.

“Sunstroke, probably,” he said. “Had it before, once. Should have worn a baseball cap, I guess.”

Three blocks might as well have been three miles, as far as Lee was concerned. And as they approached his street, his brain was such a bowl of mush he couldn't even remember which “home” he was staying at tonight—pffff! which was mostly his
mother's
fault; how was he supposed to keep track of her constantly changing schedule. He'd asked her once why she couldn't just work Monday to Friday like the rest of the world, and she'd snorted, “The day I become a creature of habit is the day I make like a lemming and head for the nearest cliff.”

“Just lead me to the nearest cliff,” he mumbled to Rhonda, “and make it a high one.” But instead, he felt her steering him toward Agnes's house. Good, thought Lee, Agnes would be the better of the two moms tonight. He knew his real mother would have a thing or two to say about this, and he didn't have the stomach for it right now. Didn't it just figure that as they reached Agnes's sidewalk, his mother came bustling out of her own front door, late for work. She was tucking her denim shirt into her blue jeans with one hand and straightening her cowboy hat with the other. She stopped dead when she saw Lee leaning on Rhonda, looking pale as a naked spud. Lee used his last ounce of energy to make it up the steps and into Agnes's house.

“What's up with him?” Gertrude asked Rhonda as they both followed him into the house.

“Sunstroke,” said Rhonda.

“
Sun
stroke,” repeated Gertrude, hurrying over to the couch where Agnes was already fussing over Lee. “I thought you were going to a movie with a friend today.” She put a hand to his forehead. “How can you get sunstroke in an air-conditioned movie theater?” Her look of concern suddenly changed to one of suspicion. “Lee,” said Gertrude, eyes narrowed, “
please
, tell me you weren't doing another one of your fool marathon records again …”

Lee knew his mother wasn't going to like this. He remembered the day she finally put her foot down and tried to squash his record-breaking stunts. It had been a rainy afternoon when she'd come home from work to find him in the kitchen on his pogo stick. He happened to be two hours and eighteen minutes into a record of non-stop bouncing and the linoleum still had the dents to prove it. There had been no need for his mother to say a word. He could translate the angry smoke signals that had poured from her red ears that day:
Verboten
. No more records. The end. And now here he was with sunstroke.

Lee looked up now at his mother's broad shoulders. There was a reason she'd been hired as a security bouncer at the Country and Western. Aside from her size, she had a presence that let you know at once that she wasn't about to put up with any monkey business. Lee had heard stories of grown men who had been known to cower past her and out the club door after merely receiving one of her “I think it's about time you were heading home” looks. Lee knew she had a soft side, but not everyone did.

“Your lipstick's on crooked,” said Lee, hoping to buy a little time. Gertrude always wore a bold swipe of lipstick the same color as her bright red neckerchief.

“Never mind that,” said his mother. “Didn't I make it a
bun
dantly clear to you that …”

But Lee was gone. He just made it to the bathroom in time. Rhonda squeezed her eyes shut and wrinkled her nose as she heard him retch.

Gertrude sighed, went to the kitchen for a cool cloth to put on Lee's forehead, and met him at the bathroom door. “Come on, kiddo,” she said, gently leading him down the narrow hall to his bedroom.

Agnes grabbed a plate of homemade gingersnaps, and she and Rhonda tailed Gertrude (well … more accurately, Agnes tailed Gert, and Rhonda tailed the plate of cookies) and squeezed in the door before Gert could shut it.

By this time, Lee was moderately confident that the danger of barfing in front of them had passed. He looked at the trio at the foot of his bed and imagined he was viewing them through the lens of a video camera—zoom in for a close-up of their faces, zoom back out for a full frontal view of three goofy people framed against his bedroom wall like some kind of wacky portrait—okay, hold it; now freeze that frame. If he weren't feeling so crappy, he'd be tempted to laugh at this bizarre picture of extremes: Rhonda, as short as he was tall, Agnes as thin as his mother was wide. It was as if they were made of silly putty and some kid had come along and stretched them this way and that for his own crazy amusement. It seemed to Lee that life was all about extremes. At school, for example. Kids were either very cool, or way uncool. They either came from nauseatingly normal families, or totally weird ones. Sometimes Lee wished he could just be Joe Average—dive right into the mainstream and coast along the current with everybody else. More often, though, the thought of being “ordinary” seemed like the worst life sentence in the world.

Agnes plumped his pillow, then sat on the edge of his bed and offered him a cookie. Aggie was every bit as strict as his mom, but she didn't mind letting her affection gush out in a way that would have embarrassed his mother.

“You sure you don't mind, Agnes?” said Gertrude. “Because I can book off work if you'd rather—”

“'Course I don't mind,” chirped Agnes. “Sonny'll be just fine here with me.” She looked over her shoulder at Gertrude. “Run along, now. No point in being late for work.”

Lee could see the motherly apprehension on Gertrude's face as she took his chin in her fingers and gazed into his eyes as if she could read something there. Lee didn't know much about telepathy, but just in case, he imagined his eyes were computer screens with the words I'
LL BE FINE
!!
written across them in bold. Lee's mom must have picked up the message. Suddenly satisfied, she squeezed Lee's toe on her way out, and she and Agnes left the room, discussing such details as whether or not the ginger ale supplies would hold out until morning, and whether it wouldn't be a good idea to persuade him to take a Gravol.

CHAPTER THREE

Rhonda took two more cookies from the plate beside Lee's bed and fed one to Santiago. Lee could see she was enjoying this.
He
knew that
she
knew that the sign on his bedroom door,
STAY OUT OR DIE
!!
was specifically meant for her. He also knew how much that bugged her. And now, here she was making a slow tour of his room with a smug smile while he watched, helpless, from his bed. There was nothing he could do about it. He was too sick to get up and kick her out. Besides, she
had
more or less helped him out this afternoon—although he guessed that that would have its own drawbacks. Tomorrow she'd be announcing to the world that she'd saved Daddy McGillicuddy's life.