The Obstacle Course (13 page)

“It’s nice to meet you, Roy,” she said, holding out her hand to me.

I was careful shaking it, the way you’d hold a bird that was hurt. She wasn’t like any woman I’d ever known before.

“I don’t want to break up your little soiree,” she said, smiling first at me and then at the admiral, “but we do have the Morrises in forty-five minutes, James, and you’ll want to change.”

Admiral Wells rapped his knuckles on his forehead. “I’d completely forgotten about that,” he said, “I had thought we would invite Roy to have dinner here with us.”

Boy, did that startle me. I just stared at him.

“If you had mentioned that earlier we might have made accommodations …” Her voice trailed off. She glanced at me, checking me out more carefully.

“I’ve got to get home,” I told them real quickly, “my old … my parents don’t like me being out too late.” I was scared, I admit it, eating dinner with people like them was definitely more than I could handle, my first day at their house and all. Besides, something about Mrs. Wells told me I wasn’t welcome eating with them, not tonight anyway.

“We’ll do it next time,” the admiral said, taking a glance at her. She didn’t seem to react one way or the other.

I did, though. He’d said “next time.” I was going to come here again; he wanted me to.

“That would be lovely,” Mrs. Wells said finally, like she had to think about it. “We haven’t had a young person in the house for a long time.”

Then she smiled at me. She had this dazzling smile. She had very full lips, actually her mouth was pretty sexy-looking like the rest of her. It felt weird thinking that, because she really was old and besides she was married to the admiral.

At the same time, though, it shook me up, that smile. Something about her scared me—it was like she could see right through me, and she didn’t like what she saw, smile or no smile.

“It was nice to meet you, Roy,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again. Don’t be late, darling,” she cautioned her husband.

“I’ll run Roy down to the bus stop,” he told her.

She left the room. We both watched her without saying anything.

It was dark. The evening cold was settling in as the admiral pulled his old Packard to the curb by the bus stop.

“Does the bus go directly to Ravensburg?” he asked.

“They all go through Mt. Rainier, but it’s an easy transfer.”

He frowned. “You’ll be late for your supper.”

“It’s pretty casual at my house, they won’t mind.”

“Take a taxi.” He pulled a money clip from his pocket—it was real silver, I could see that, he’s the kind of man who would only have a real silver one—and peeled off a five.

“Will this be enough?” he asked.

“Oh, sure,” I told him, “that’s plenty, but listen, Admiral Wells, I can take the bus.” Normally I would’ve grabbed the bill but I didn’t want his money, not after this afternoon and the way we’d spent it together.

“I don’t want you out on the streets at night,” the admiral told me. “Take it. Please.”

The way he’d put it I didn’t have a choice. I took the money and stuffed it in my pocket.

“I’ll wait until we see a cab coming, then you can jump out and hail it.”

“Oh no, sir, you don’t have to do that, you don’t want to be late for your wife, I’m fine, really.” I didn’t want him being late for his wife, that’s one thing for sure.

“All right.” He patted my shoulder. “It was a pleasure.”

“Thank you, sir. Me, too.”

Right out of the blue, then, the admiral asked me, “Would you like to come over next weekend? We could work on a ship together. Although I’m sure a boy your age has many activities,” he added hastily.

I swallowed. The question had caught me unawares, I wasn’t prepared for it.

“Only if your parents approved,” he said, he must’ve thought I was thinking something else, like figuring all those activities he thought I had, “and you’re available, of course.”

“No, it’ll be fine with them.” No way my parents were ever going to find out about this. “I’m totally free weekends.”

“Good.” He smiled, like I’d done him this big favor. “I could drive over and pick you up at your house. It’s a long bus ride, I imagine.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I told him lickety-split. If he ever saw where I lived he’d never want me near him again. “I can take the bus, I do it all the time, going to MacGregor’s and places like that.”

That satisfied him. We shook hands and I got out of his car. He waved goodbye to me and drove off.

After I was sure he was gone I stepped off the curb and stuck out my thumb. I could use that five dollars a lot more than some dumb cab driver.

My math homework kept me up until two o’clock in the morning. It was a bitch, especially since I’ve never cracked a book in my life. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but not all that much, I’ll bet you could count the times on the fingers of one hand. It’s not like I
can’t
do the work—I’m pretty good at schoolwork, it’s that I never put my mind to it. Math is one subject I actually kind of like; it’s logical, one step leads to another, if you study on them you can come out all right at the end. Any good model builder, of which I am one, has got to be good at math, at least in his head, because there’s a lot of math in building, figuring out how things go together. I can look at a thousand parts of a model lying on my desk and see the completed ship, even without a drawing or sketch. Math’s like that, I think—you see the problem solved, and then figure how to get there.

No way was I going to make up nine years of lost time in one semester, but I had to start sometime; if I knew the admiral he’d be wanting to check my work out sooner or later, and there’s no way I could bullshit him, even if I wanted to, which I don’t.

I studied in the library until Miss Hughes had to close up, then I went straight home, no dicking around at the dime store or with my buddies or anything—just straight home, up to my room, and except for dinner, which I inhaled in about thirty seconds flat, that’s where I was all night.

“Roy, are you okay in there?” my mom asked about ten-thirty, before she went to bed, opening the door a crack to poke her nose in—she hardly ever does it, she knows I hate having my privacy violated—and looking at me anxiously, like I was sick or something.

“Yeah, Mom, I’m fine,” I said, not bothering to look up from my book.

“Do you have a test or something?”

“Just homework.”

“Oh.” She closed the door quietly so as not to disturb me, like I was a scientist working on important research. Maybe she thought I did homework all the time, but I doubt it. I can pull the wool over her eyes some of the time but she didn’t fall out of the tree this morning, if you know what I mean.

“You’re doing homework?” Ruthie asked in this totally stunned voice about ten minutes later.

“Good news travels fast.” I said it under my breath, hoping she’d take the hint and leave me alone.

She came in, though, right into my room. I don’t mind that so much, she’s the only one I can tolerate at all in my room, she is my sister after all and I go in hers, too, which sometimes pisses her off, especially if she isn’t dressed. Like I want to spy on my own sister naked.

Some of my work was scattered over the floor, the problems I’d fucked up and had to do over, which was most of them.

“This is a first. Roy Poole with his nose in a book. A schoolbook.”

“Go to hell.” I stared at her with the angriest stare I could. What a family—you try to improve yourself and they shoot you down for it.

“Well, I am so sorry, mister genius.” She pouted, checking herself out in the mirror to see how she looked. She thinks she looks like Justine Carillo, on “American Bandstand.” That’s her life’s goal, to get on “Bandstand.” She’s saving up to go to Philadelphia. “You got a new girlfriend who likes brains or something? Come on, you can tell your sister.”

She’s always trying to get me to tell her about my love life. It’s just an excuse, so she can tell me about hers. She loves to gossip. She even told me one of her friends has the hots for me. Like I’m interested in some girl two years older than me.

“I’m just studying, that’s all,” I explained, trying to be patient with her so she’d leave. “Don’t you ever just study?”

She looked at me like I was crazy.

“What’s got into you?” she asked.

“I want to get decent grades for a change. Is that a crime?”

Around midnight I took a milk-and-cookies break. As I was walking back upstairs I heard my old man’s car pull up. I ran the rest of the way before the front door opened, turned off the lights in my room, and waited for him to stagger his way through the house. No telling what would happen if he saw the light on under my door—better to let sleeping dogs lie, that’s my motto.

As usual, my mom had to come to his rescue. They bickered, the usual arguments. It’s the only thing that keeps them together, I was thinking as I sat there in the dark, if they didn’t have this shit to fight about they wouldn’t have anything. What a life—what a crappy life.

It was after two when I finally finished the assignment. I was dog-tired, I was practically propping my eyes open with toothpicks I was so tired, I didn’t even know if I’d actually gotten any of them right, but I felt really good, which was a first, since I haven’t felt good about school in years.

Can’t anyone explain this?” Miss Swindel asked. “Lewis, what about you?”

“I didn’t get that far, Miss Swindel,” Sarkind the brain said from his seat, which of course was in the front row, where all the brownnosers sit.

“No one?”

They all sat there like bumps on a log, even the good students who always get it done.

“I thought this class had more on the ball.” She was pissed, you could tell. “It’ll have to be tonight’s work, then.”

She started to go to the blackboard but turned as a hand was raised in the back of the room. It was mine.

“Yes, Roy, what is it? Do you need a hall pass for the bathroom?”

She doesn’t mind giving me a hall pass, even though she knows I’m probably going to sneak a smoke. It keeps me out of her hair for a while.

“I got that far.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said I got that far. With the homework.”

“Are you sure?”

I could see the gears turning inside her puny brain—I’d never done a lick of homework in this class the whole year, and from what she’d heard from the other teachers, I’d never done any in their classes, either.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She had to figure something was up, like I was setting a trap that would embarrass and humiliate her.

“Come up here.”

As I stood and walked to the front of the room she backed off behind her desk, checking her hemline to make sure her slip wasn’t showing, something I’d pointed out to her in the past. It wasn’t, so at least I couldn’t get her that way.

She put her hand out for the work, looked it over, kind of just glancing at it at first, like it would be a dirty doodle or something stupid. Then she looked at it more carefully, like she couldn’t believe her eyes. Finally, she handed it back to me.

“Did your friend Mr. Einstein help you with this?” she asked in this sarcastic tone of voice. Some of the kids giggled, which made her smile. I could give a shit less about those morons.

“I couldn’t get ahold of him,” I told her, “seeing how he’s dead, so I had to do it my own self.”

That shut her up fast.

“Put it up on the board, please. Explain it to the class as you go, step by step.”

She still didn’t believe me, like I’d gotten some grownup to do it or something, and would make an ass of myself.

This particular problem was really a bitch. It had taken me almost an hour to do it, and like I said, I didn’t know if I had it right. I copied it up on the board, racking my brain, trying to remember how I’d figured it out in the first place.

“What about this?” she asked, pointing to the center of the equation. “Shouldn’t this sign be squared?”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot that”; meaning putting it in the right place, not doing it. I was sweating like a bandit, I shit you not. My knees were actually shaking—but I finished, and stepped aside.

The classroom was still. I glanced at Joe out of the corner of my eye. He was staring at me with his mouth wide open.

Swindel looked at the problem real carefully, going over it herself, actually talking to herself under her breath.

“Darn it,” she said, almost to herself. To me: “This sign should be a positive, not a negative,” pointing out where I’d fucked up. “What do you have when you multiply a negative by a negative?” she prompted.

Son of a fucking bitch—the simplest part of the whole damn thing, and I’d blown it. My body sagged; all the air had gone out of my balloon. I turned to go back to my seat.

“Not so fast, buster,” Swindel called. “Come back here. Come on,” she coaxed, walking over and taking me by the hand, actually holding mine in hers. “Let’s work it out together,” she said, leading me back to the board. “Here, where you goofed. Although it’s the kind of mistake we all make,” she added quickly, “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve made that exact same mistake.”

Damn. For the first time in my whole life, a teacher was on my side.

I corrected my mistake, made the corresponding changes, stood back from the board.

“Now it’s right. Excellent, Roy, excellent.” She glanced at my paper again. “And you did this all by yourself? No one helped you?”

“Who would’ve helped me?” I threw back at her, offended.

I’d done the goddamn work, she’d seen me do it right, there at the board; I wanted to get credit for it. They give it to you, then they want to take it away. “Nobody else got that far.”

“You’re absolutely right. I apologize.” She meant it; I could tell. That felt good.

I started back to my seat. I was playing it pretty cool, but I felt good, I couldn’t deny it.

“Roy?” she called, before I could sit down.

“Yes, Miz Swindel?” I said, turning to her.

“This is an A paper. I don’t even have to look at the rest of it; the fact that you did the work is enough for me.” She smiled. “I wanted you to know that. Congratulations.”