“What about them?”
“Let’s reverse the situation here, shall we?”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s reverse the situation. Say you dropped by my place of residence and said you were temporarily not flush. Do you think for one minute I’d hesitate to reach directly into my pocket, snap out my wallet, and hand you a roll of five-dollar bills, or tens, or twenties, you being my son in need? Peel off a few fifties for you? Right on the spot to help out my son?”
“I’m fifteen, Dad. I work in a bookmobile. Maybe you didn’t know that. Maybe that news didn’t reach you in California. I’m never flush.”
“Speaking of license plates, you’re pretty flush now, aren’t you?”
“Were you listening to WGRD, maybe? Like Mom says, miracles never cease.”
“Your mother and I don’t agree on that. I think miracles cease the minute you’re born.”
“Mom’s life is not easy. I don’t know what yours is.”
“Imagine how proud I felt — just dropped in to have a cup of coffee at a counter on Division Street, on comes the radio, and on comes my own son’s name spoken by WGRD. If that’s not good news first thing in the morning, I don’t know what is.”
“It was to me. I’m giving half to Mom.”
“Hey, know what? I could give you a lift over to Old Kent Bank, you could cash your check, and I’d be right there with you.”
“Where’ve you mainly been this past year?”
“Mostly California.”
“Oh, sure.”
“Mostly. Not always. Mostly.”
“Well, I think some of that money you say you sent didn’t get here. Mom’s not exactly flush.”
“Whoa, now, son. Hold on. Just hold on. The adult finances — no, that’s not your business.”
“I’ll give you a hundred dollars.”
“How about a three-way split. Me. You. Your mother. Just like a family. Of course, it’d be a short-term loan, mind you.”
“We could stop at Blodgett Hospital. They could look at your thumb.”
“No, no — life’s generally an emergency, but this thumb’s not.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Let’s drop it. How’s your job in the bookmobile? What’s your wages?”
“I’m paid six hundred sixty-six dollars an hour, Dad. Since you’re all of a sudden so interested. I file cards in the card catalogue. You once told me you used to read books. You should drop by, find a book to read. When it becomes overdue, I’ll send you a notice. Give me your address, just in case.”
We drove in the Studebaker to Old Kent Bank. The teller had heard the WGRD lottery on the radio and commented on my luck. “You don’t need to deposit it,” the teller said, “because we’ll hold the amount against your mother’s account overnight. But it’s WGRD’s check. It’s going to be fine. Congratulations.” He counted out the cash and pushed it toward me.
In the parking lot I handed my father ten ten-dollar bills. No more bargaining. No further discussion. It felt as if I’d compensated him for his rare visit. I told him that I wanted to take a bus back, and he said, “A nice summer’s day to be young with cash in your pocket.” He got into the Studebaker. The windows were rolled down. “The money I gave you would buy maybe two hundred cups of coffee in Dykstra’s,” I said. I turned away, not wanting to see the expression on his face. I’d rather have imagined it. I heard the Studebaker drive off.
I’d gotten only a block or two away from the bank when my father pulled the car up alongside the curb about ten feet from where I was walking. He honked the horn in a snippet of Morse code. I looked over. “Men shake hands when they part company after a business arrangement,” he said. I walked up to the car and we shook hands.
When my mother dragged herself in from work, she said, “I’m beat.” I’d already cleaned up the kitchen. She liked a clean kitchen when she got home. I handed her a wad of cash and told her that I’d won $666 in a contest on WGRD. I told her I had just given her $566. She was flabbergasted and had to sit down. “Oh, my,” she said. “I had no idea. No idea at all. Miracles never cease.” She set the money down on the kitchen table and got a glass from the cabinet. She filled the glass with water and drank it. “So, you kept a hundred dollars for yourself, sweetheart. That’s good. That’s a lot of gas money — when you turn sixteen and start to drive, for instance. But why not splurge a little now? Why not take a friend to see Zorba the Greek? It’s still playing at the Majestic. I hear it’s wonderful. You should see it, honey.”
“I’ll think about it, Mom.”
“All right. I’m going to have a cup of coffee, then go meet your brothers at the bus. Want to come with?”
Four days after the incident with the swan, Pinnie Oler did something unprecedented, which was to say, “How about lunch with me today?” Right away I knew something was wrong. I soon discovered that he’d put some advance thought into this because he’d brought along a checkered tablecloth. He parked the bookmobile near a small park full of big sycamore trees, carried the tablecloth and his lunch pail along with two bottles of Nehi orange over to one of the sycamores, spread out the cloth, and sat down.
I stood by the bookmobile with my lunch in a paper bag, watching, postponing what I felt was going to be a bad moment. I had no choice, however, but to go over and sit under the tree. I had taken only one bite of my peanut butter and jelly sandwich when Pinnie unfolded the Grand Rapids Press, flipped through it, found the page he wanted, and laid it flat on the tablecloth. I saw he had circled a small article in pencil.
“What’s that?” I asked.
It is remarkable how long you can suspend a peanut butter sandwich in midair and stop time, hoping perhaps to turn back the clock, return to the life you led before, say, you stole a book. I noticed Pinnie staring at my levitated sandwich, so I set it down on the bag. “There’s an interesting article in the paper today,” he said. And he read the three-paragraph article about the police going out to investigate the death of a swan. Apparently two young women walking home from playing tennis had discovered the swan washed up on the shore of Reeds Lake. I recall this sentence: “Police say the swan died from the malicious handiwork of a cruel person.” The investigation was ongoing, the article said; swans fell under the jurisdiction of the Parks Department, and the perpetrator would, if identified, be fined and possibly serve jail time.
“Sad about the swan,” I said.
“You know who my favorite author is?” Pinnie asked.
“You never told me.”
“Arthur Conan Doyle. You know, the Sherlock Holmes mysteries.”
“I’d like to read one someday.”
“As you know, my bookmobile’s got quite a few.”
“If I don’t know that, who does?”
“Right. Well, I mention Sherlock Holmes because it’s interesting to see how clues come together in those stories. I know they’re made-up stories, of course. But that’s what good fiction can do, isn’t it, give you a different way of looking at real life.”
“I’d need to think about that. Maybe tonight I’ll think about it.”
“Hey, take out any Sherlock Holmes you want. I’ll personally cover it if you’re delinquent in returning it on time. No problem in the least.”
“That’s nice of you.”
“You get peanut butter and jelly every damn day, don’t you? I don’t think I could do that. I have to vary lunch a little. Today, for instance, I’ve got ham and cheese with mustard. Yesterday it was meat loaf with mustard.”
It was blessedly cool in the shade, and would’ve been a serene picnic had it not been for the conversation.
“You wouldn’t happen to remember, from last week, a fellow came in and returned a book,” Pinnie said. “The Union High School stop. His book was out on interlibrary loan. It had North American Indian in the title. I’ve got a record of it, of course, me being professional, everything neat and clean and in its own place. This fellow got a notice from the main library that the book was still overdue. He wasn’t too happy about this and telephoned the library to lodge a complaint. The downtown library can’t seem to locate the book. And I’ve looked high and low in the bookmobile — no luck. Now, I’ve given this some thought, and here’s the conclusion I’ve come to. I can either hire Sherlock Holmes to solve this mystery or just get it over with and pay full price for the book out of pocket, seeing its disappearance happened on my watch. How would you advise me here?”