Chapter 1.3
Josh and Tom spent most of their free time, which wasn’t much, in the first months after Bonnie died doing body work in the garage. It helped keep them busy and working through some of their emotions together with their muscles and although Josh didn’t know it they raised three thousand dollars that they desperately needed to keep afloat when the first Mustang was sold. They visited Bonnie every Sunday afternoon.
Josh was home alone for a teacher’s in-service day, watching baseball on TV, when the doorbell rang. When he answered the door he was surprised to see Mitch standing there. “Hi Josh,” he said. “I thought you might like a little company.”
“I’m not allowed to have people in when there is no adult here,” Josh said. Of course he exercised that rule at his own discretion, depending on who was knocking, but in this case he felt the need to be good.
“Don’t be like that,” said Mitch. “I’m not people. I’m your uncle.”
“What do you want?” said Josh.
“Nothing,” said Mitch. “Never mind. I’m leaving.” He turned to go.
“Wait,” said Josh. “I’m sorry if I was rude.”
Mitch turned back. “Are we going to stand here at the door all day?” he said.
Josh let him in and went back to the TV. Mitch sat on the couch, tried to act interested in the game for a few minutes, and then began to fidget. “Want to play pool?” he asked.
“OK,” said Josh. He loved to play pool, and seldom had a worthy opponent. They went down into the basement, and began to play. Mitch was very good. Even at fourteen Josh was almost as good. They had a great time playing all afternoon, and lost track of time, until Josh heard his father coming in upstairs. He gave Mitch a look that meant we’re in trouble now and Mitch gave him a devilish grin back.
Josh heard his father’s puzzled voice come down the steps. “Josh, who’s down there with you?”
“It’s just me. Mitch,” Mitch said back up the steps and winked at Josh.
To Josh’s total astonishment, it was less than a minute before his father was in the basement with a look on his face that Josh had never seen before. It was somewhere between powerful and ferocious. If he had his old army rifle he would have put it right between Mitch’s eyes, but it was lucky for them that he didn’t.
Tom grabbed Mitch by the back of his shirt collar and marched him up the steps. Mitch did not resist.
At the front door, Tom shoved Mitch out so hard he ended up sprawled across a bush beside the front walk. “Come back again and I’ll beat the ever-loving shit out of you, I swear to God,” said Tom and slammed the door without waiting for any response.
“What the heck was that all about?” said a frightened Josh.
“He smells bad,” said Tom.
“What!?” said Josh.
“He smells bad,” said Tom. And that was all the explanation that Josh ever got.
Josh decided not to wait for his father to be fatherly and figured he should drop by the principal’s office himself between classes. He wasn’t sure what he expected to accomplish, but maybe Dr. Lowan did have some way of helping them. It couldn’t hurt to find out.
The secretary told him to wait. She was very kind. Everyone at school knew about his mother. She came back and said he was in a meeting, but he would try to see Josh in a few minutes. “Are you OK, honey?” she asked. “We all wish there was something we could do.”
“Yeah, we’re OK,” he said. He didn’t really like the attention his situation was causing with his teachers and the staff. He felt like a freak or something.
Dr. Lowan came out with a big smile and motioned for Josh to come into his office. Josh smiled too. He was tired of seeing pity on everyone’s faces. Dr. Lowan was one of the tiniest adult men Josh had ever seen, which couldn’t be an advantage in a building containing 800 kids between the ages of eleven and fourteen. “So Josh,” he said. “We were all very sorry to hear about your loss. But you seem to be coping well, from what I hear. That’s great.” He was still grinning from ear to ear. Josh felt relaxed with him. Josh was surprised that Dr. Lowan knew his name, but then he remembered that he was now a special case.
“I’m OK, I guess. It’s not easy,” said Josh. He suddenly wanted to spill everything that was on his mind, but he didn’t know where to start.
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“No, it’s just me and my father now,” said Josh.
“I see,” said Dr. Lowan. “And what about extended family? Do you have grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins?”
“Not really. I mean, there’s Aunt Elaine, who’s not really my aunt, just my mother’s best friend. Max Webster, who goes here too, is her son. They live across the street from us. I have a couple other relatives but they have their own problems. My Dad has a brother that we don’t see much, and his Mom and Dad passed away. I don’t much remember them.”
“So it’s mostly just you and your Dad then. How is he doing?”
“Dad is Dad. He’s doing OK. I mean he never lets anything get to him. He says we’re going to have to move. To an apartment, cause we don’t have enough money to keep paying for the house without Mom. I probably wasn’t supposed to tell you that. But the school is going to know when my address changes, aren’t they?”
“Why shouldn’t you tell me that?”
“Well, I guess because Dad wouldn’t like anyone to know that he can’t do it all himself.”
“Oh, I see. What about you, Josh? How is your schoolwork going?”
“I don’t really care about it, to tell you the truth. It doesn’t seem very important. I wish I could drop out of school and get a job, but I’m too young.” He felt really weird about telling the principal of the school that he didn’t care but everything was different now.
“That’s understandable,” said Dr. Lowan.
“You’re not supposed to tell kids not to care about school are you? That’s messed up.”
Dr. Lowan laughed. “I didn’t say you shouldn’t care. I said it was understandable that you don’t right now. You’ve been through a big shock. And you’re worried about moving. You have real problems on your mind. It’s not like you don’t care because you want to play all the time.”
“I always liked sports more than school anyway,” said Josh. “I mostly am into baseball. I really want to be the catcher next season. But I’m playing soccer this fall to stay active until next spring. I might do winter track, too.”
“Would you mind stopping by to see me from time to time? I’d like to know how you’re doing.”
“Yeah, OK. I might do that. Thanks.” Josh got up and turned to leave. Dr. Lowan came around his desk and walked him to the door. Josh felt better, although all he did was answer a few questions. “Tell your Dad I’d like to talk to him, if he has time.”
“I’m supposed to make an appointment for him while I’m here. That’s mostly why I came by,” Josh lied. They set up an appointment for the next week. Josh wasn’t sure yet how he was going to handle it with Dad, but he’d figure something out.
“Hang in there, Josh. You’re doing great, so far,” said Dr. Lowan. “It’s going to take some time before you feel like yourself again.”
Josh suddenly got teary-eyed as he walked away. He didn’t feel like he was doing great.
Josh shook the mood off when the excitement of the soccer game began. The game was against one of the other two middle schools in the same district. Josh was always good at defense, and great at passing, but usually he lacked the killer instinct when it came time to try to score. He tried of course, whenever he got the chance, and sometimes succeeded, but this game was different.
Josh was assigned to play wingback, as usual. Two of the boys from Josh’s birthday party were on the team. Matthew was a forward, and Ross was a full-back. Oak Ridge scored first, and then possession went back and forth without a shot taken by either side
for the next fifteen minutes. Josh became more and more impatient. Oak Ridge attacked and Ross stripped the ball from their striker and sent a long pass forward to Matthew. Josh saw that Matthew was not going to get into position to get the pass in time, and moved to intercept it midfield. Instead of relaying it forward as he was supposed to, he drove toward the goal with it himself.
In the confusion that followed his breaking of formation no one responded as they had been trained to do and Josh took advantage. He made a move as though to pass it to his team’s striker, and then spun and nailed a ferocious kick toward the left corner of the goal. The goalie dove for it and missed and Josh’s kick scored. At the next break, Coach Ripkan slapped him on the back and said, “Great. Way to make things happen. Play your position, next time.”
‘Yeah, make things happen,’ Josh thought. He was sick of stuff happening to him. He was going to start making things happen. At least on the field. At the next opportunity he robbed his own midfielder of the ball and tried to do it again, but this time he missed. Everyone was furious. Then Ross decided to play along and started sending passes to Josh that should have gone elsewhere according to the team’s strategy. Josh scored again, and everyone’s play began to revolve around what unpredictable move Josh was going to make next. Coach Ripkan yelled every few minutes for everyone to play their positions but it did not happen. Oak Ridge scored again, Maple Valley scored twice more, partly due to Josh’s assists, and the game ended with a Maple Valley victory. When it was over Coach Ripkan said, “Greenwood, what the hell got into you? Keep some of that bottled up will you? We might need it someday.”
Josh, flushed with excitement, said, “Just go with it, Coach.” Ripkan rolled his eyes.
“Hey bro. What the f?” said Matthew, in the locker room. “Were you fighting them or me?”
“You know what? I’m getting sick of losing. If you don’t play hard enough, I’ll have to do it for you.” said Josh.
“We only lost once,” said Ross. “Get a grip man.”
Matthew punched him in the arm. “So, you’re going to be the star now? This is going to be fun.”
“Damn straight,” said Josh. He felt better than he had since his mother died. He tucked that bit of information away in the back of his mind. It would come in handy from time to time, to know how to take out his feelings, and feel right again, whenever he needed to. Coach could just get over it.
When Josh got home from the soccer game, thanks to Aunt Elaine, he decided that nothing was going to get done unless he did it and he was sick of living in a house that looked like a ransacking that had never been reported. He realized that he made more of the mess than his father did, but it still didn’t seem right that he should be burdened with the cleaning. He started with the kitchen. He immediately ran into a problem because he couldn’t find any trash bags in the house. He could walk six blocks to a store to get some, but by the time he got back, he would have lost too much time. He decided to improvise by putting all the trash and rotten food into the bathtub. Either his father could get some bags or not be able to bathe. That would make him share the problem.
He turned up some old Rolling Stones very loud on the stereo and got to work, dancing and singing, to make it more fun. An hour later when he had the dishes washed and put away and everything nasty disposed of, he couldn’t find any cleaning sprays or paper towels to use on the counter, so he used a clean sock that he didn’t like anyway and shampoo. It seemed to work. At least the counter looked a lot better than it did before. He swept the floor and dumped the dustpan behind the garage. He used the shampoo to wash the floor, and then made a shopping list that he taped to the front of the refrigerator. One room down and six to go. He hoped that his Dad would be impressed but that wasn’t really the point. He just wanted to live better than this, no matter how his Dad reacted.
Josh wanted to make a nice dinner, partly because it was better than doing homework but mostly because he was sick of spaghetti and pizza, but he couldn’t find much to work with. He ended up making fried potatoes with onions and some pork chops he found in the freezer. It wasn’t too hard to figure it out how to cook them, once he found the assortment of cookbooks on a shelf by the back door. He even fixed some frozen green beans. It was funny how when Mom wasn’t pestering him to eat some vegetables, he discovered that he missed them.
Tom came home earlier than usual that night. “Real Food!” he said. “Will you marry me?”
“You’d better look in the bath tub before you get carried away,” said Josh.
“I need to use the bathroom anyway,” said Tom. When he came back, he popped open a beer, and said, “What is that all about? You thought the smell of the bathroom wasn’t bad enough?” Tom began to fix himself a plate to take into the living room and watch the news.
“No trash bags,” said Josh. “How about we eat here? I spent all afternoon cleaning the kitchen. Let’s eat at a clean table like normal people.”
Tom obediently sat down and they filled their plates.
“Okay. I guess I need to go to the store.”
“There’s a list on the refrigerator. You better go tonight if you want to shower tomorrow morning.”
“Hey, who’s in charge around here?”
“No one. That would seem to be the problem. No offense,” said Josh.
Tom didn’t like Josh trying to take over, but he could hardly complain about what he was doing, and he sure did like the pork chops, so he decided not to respond to that. The phone rang and Josh listened while his father said, “Uh huh, yes, the thing is…” to someone who apparently didn’t let him finish any sentence for four or five minutes. Finally Tom got out a full sentence. “No. I have serious money problems of my own. I can’t help.” The one-sided conversation went on for five more minutes and then Tom said, “I can’t. I just can’t. I’m sorry.”
When Tom sat back down to his cold pork chops, Josh asked, “What was that all about?”
“Your grandmother. Something about back school taxes. I don’t have any money to lend her.”
“Oh,” Josh said. He continued to eat without comment.
At 5:30 the next morning, Tom slapped the alarm twice and finally got out of bed and made his way to the shower, half asleep. He pulled back the shower curtain and the stench from the garbage that Josh had put into the tub the night before hit him in the face like a bucket of wet fish guts. He opened his mouth to yell an obscenity in the direction of Josh’s bedroom but couldn’t because he started to retch. He threw up in the toilet, and then to his own surprise, he started to cry. He flushed and sat with his back to the side of the tub, and sobbed until the tears ran their course. He then discovered that he had a headache from crying, but also that some knot that he hadn’t realized until that moment was clogging up his insides seemed to be gone. He felt more ability to look forward instead of feeling like he was frozen in time. He washed his face, bemused by the fact that having an emotional meltdown made him feel better rather than making him into a disturbed invalid as he would have imagined. He cocked his head to the side and said to his tear swollen reflection, “Well then. Now you can stop being such a pussy.”
He went to the store for the trash bags and was back and had the tub cleaned out before Josh got out of bed. He didn’t say one word to Josh about the mess. In fact he even made him scrambled eggs and bacon.
Josh got home from soccer practice to an empty house again, ate another egg sandwich and spent another hour cleaning. As he cleaned he fussed and worried about how to get his father to visit Dr. Lowan. He finally decided to try to convince Dad that Mom would want him to go. Josh was ready, but Tom didn’t come home until almost eight. Then when Tom did finally get home he said that he didn’t have time to talk because he was going out.
“Where are you going?” demanded Josh, extremely frustrated.
“I’d rather not say,” said Tom. He looked smug and secretive.
/> “If you’re looking for an apartment, could I come with you?”
“No. That’s not it.”
“So what is it then? Come on, Dad. I hardly ever see you.”
“Are you sure we’re not married?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. If we were married, I would have boobs and I’m pretty sure I don’t.”
“Good thing. That would ruin your chances of scoring with the ladies when you get a little older.”
“Yeah, probably. Where are you going?” Josh knew that it wasn’t hard to wear Dad down. He was not determined enough about anything to stick to his guns.
“Oh, all right. I thought I’d drop over to Elaine’s house and see if they need anything.”
“What?” Josh stared at him. “If they need anything? Don’t we need enough around here? Aunt Elaine is the one helping me, with rides, and school supplies, and whatnot.”
“See. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you.”
“What the hell are you doing, Dad?”
“Watch your mouth,” Tom said. Josh smirked. If he was going to have to grow up fast, he’d talk any way he liked.
“It’s none of your business, actually,” said Tom. He pushed away from the table, and started putting on his jacket. Josh knew he could wear him down again if he wanted to, but there was an easier way to handle this. Since he was feeling frustrated with Tom anyway, he blurted out, “Oh by the way you have an appointment with Dr Lowan on Friday at three, and if you don’t keep it they’re going to give me detention.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Tom.
After he left, Josh did the dishes, waited an extra ten minutes and then went across the street to ask Max’s advice about some social studies homework that he didn’t intend to do anyway.