Christopher Paul Curtis (18 page)

I ran down to the basement and stopped in the utility room to get the hammer and one of the shiny brass nails. A gold medal deserves at least a gold-looking nail.

As I stood holding the hammer and nail and gold medal I paused to do some musing. You know, there's something especially lonely about a gold medal hanging all by itself on a bedroom wall, something that says “fluke,” or “beginner's luck,” or “one in a million,” but two gold medals, now that says something completely different. That says, “Oh, yeah, baby, this is the real deal!”

I put the nail in my mouth, stepped up on my bed and did a double take. Right next to my first medal there already was another nail. This mystery nail was just a regular old nail, it wasn't gold.

This must be some kind of a sign. Maybe someone was trying to tell me that there was now the possibility that I could win the science fair three times in a row.

I put the new medal on the old nail and hammered the new nail next to them both.

“Be patient,” I told the gold nail, “in three hundred and sixty-four days you'll have gold hanging from you, too!”

Me and Darnell and the Sarge had just finished one of our old family traditions: we'd gone to the Food Club and done the month's shopping for the homes. Darnell parked the Happy Neighbor Group Home van at the front door and I got out and began unloading groceries. The Sarge got out of the van, looked through the window into the dayroom and was just
this
far from actually laughing.

She said to Darnell, “Have you ever seen those magazines where they show you a picture and you have to supply a funny caption explaining what it's all about?”

I knew whatever this was about it wasn't going to be funny to me. I'd read somewhere that there's always a whiff of tragedy in humor, and the couple of times I'd heard the Sarge try to crack a joke the humor didn't have whiffs of tragedy, it
stank
of tragedy. Darnell said, “Yeah.”

She said, “For this picture”—she pointed through the window into the dayroom—“I'd have these two television
executives looking through a two-way mirror and one says to the other, ‘From our initial test audiences it looks like this new program might have some serious quality problems!’”

Darnell looked in the window and broke out laughing. It seemed like a real laugh too, not the usual behind-kissing one he had for everything the Sarge said.

She said to me, “Unless I'm mistaken, I think you're needed.”

I didn't even bother looking, I just lugged the crates of macaroni and cheese and ramen noodles into the kitchen. As soon as I set the first one down Mr. Foster came up to me and said, “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Luther, but he did it again.”

Aw, no! This can't be happening!

When I got near the dayroom my nose told me what he was talking about.

Mr. Baker had fired another shot in this war me and him had been having. We'd been beefing 'cause about a year ago Mr. DuBois, the Sarge's quack lawyer, had convinced her to follow state law and make everybody in her homes stop smoking. Most of the clients were OK with it after a while, but Mr. Baker let everyone know he'd been smoking since he was in his momma's womb so he wasn't about to stop for some stupid state law. Plus, there was the little thing of the people at the rehab center and Darnell Dixon and the Sarge giving him cigarettes every once in a while, just enough to keep his tobacco jones alive.

His way of getting revenge for not being able to smoke
24/7 was to mess his pants up 'cause he knew I was going to be the one who had to clean him. Since it was me who had to enforce the new no smoking rule, he figured who better to hit back at?

I'm not going to lie, at first I did feel a little sympathetic for what he was going through, I mean the poor man had been a nicotine addict most of his life and then the Sarge cut out ninety-nine percent of his smokes. That didn't seem fair, but it didn't seem fair that he'd try to get at me for what she'd done to him, so my sympathy had worn out a long time ago.

I'd even sneaked some money out of the petty cash and paid Dr. Mark to write him a script for some Stop-Smoke gum, but right after I got the script filled I came home from school and Mr. Baker was bouncing off the walls. He had a coconut-sized wad in his mouth and had chewed all twenty pieces of the gum at one time.

When nothing seemed to work and he kept dropping these loads in his pants for me, I'd told the Sarge she should toss Mr. Baker out and find him another placement, but she threw another Sargeism at me.

“Don't you think you're being a little harsh?” she'd asked. “Or have you even bothered to think what his life would be like if he had to leave here? The time that he's been under your wing is the first time in thirty-five years of institutional care that he hasn't had to be in restraints most of the day. Give him a break, the man likes you, go look at his records, he's done a lot worse.”

The real reason she wouldn't get rid of him was that she
could use him as what DuBois called plausible deniability for the suspicious fires that happened to pop up in any of the rental houses that she wanted to get rid of.

Strange as it might seem, if she had Mr. Baker transferred to one of her rental houses you didn't have to be watching the Psychic Lifeline Channel to know that within a few weeks that baby would be going up like gasoline-soaked rags at a pyromaniacs' convention.

I followed Mr. Foster into the dayroom and knew I was right in not wasting my time looking to see what the Sarge had made that weak joke about.

Mr. Baker had stunk the room up so bad that all of the Crew was sitting there with their eyes glued to the TV and their thumbs and pointing fingers squeezing their noses shut.

Ha, ha, ha, big joke. “Looks like this show might have some serious quality problems.”

As soon as he saw me, Mr. Baker threw one hand up in the air like he was halting traffic and started repeating, “What can I say, I gotta smoke.” Even he was pinching his nose closed.

What's the point in getting mad? Nobody else was going to clean him up, and the sooner I got him wiped down and showered the sooner this funk would leave the day-room and I could get some hours in on my science fair project, finish my homework and get me and the Crew to bed.

I pretended this wasn't nothing and started breathing out of my mouth so the smell wouldn't gag me.

“OK, Mr. Baykah, into da shower. Ged 'em off and leab 'em by da doe.”

Mr. Foster said, “We want to give you our deepest and most abiding thanks for taking care of this matter, Luther.”

Mr. Baker said, “I think a cigarette would really help me now.”

“Not today it won't.”

“It would, I gotta smoke now!”

I steered him to the bathroom.

He knew the drill. He took all his clothes off and dropped them outside the bathroom door, then turned on the shower and adjusted it to his regular temperature, about two degrees above ice cold. As punishment at the home he'd been in before he came to me, whenever he did anything wrong they used to hose him down with freezing water. Over the years I guess he'd come to think that was what a shower was all about so he only took icy cold ones.

He stood there shivering and goose-pimpling up with the water running over him. I set the commode seat in the shower and had him sit on it. I used the handheld hose to clean him off, had him scrub himself, then pulled on a pair of rubber gloves and picked up his pants and underpants.

Mr. Baker said, “Call that idiot Darnell Dixon and tell him I want that cigarette he promised me.”

“I'm not calling Darnell and you aren't smoking anything.”

“Oh yeah,” he said, “you watch me, before this night's through
something's
gonna be smoking in this house.”

I rinsed his pants and drawers out.

I got Mr. Baker all cleaned up, put his clothes right in the washer, took my own shower, cleaned the stall, got the Crew's MREs ready, fed them, cleaned up the table, put the
dishes in the dishwasher, gave them their dessert, gave them their meds, put Mr. Baker's clothes in the dryer, sprayed air freshener in the dayroom, turned on the TV, got them all settled, let them watch half an hour of TV, got them all to bed, finished my homework and my science fair project for the night, then went down to my room.

I was being real careful around Chester X since we'd had our heart-to-heart talk. Not only because I knew he'd been awake when he should've been asleep, but also because I was feeling a little bad about how I'd treated him back when I thought he was out of it. It had me thinking about how I treated all of the Crew.

Don't get me wrong, I've been to a lot of different group homes and seen how bad the clients get treated, I've never done anything really bad to my crew, I mean I always talk to all of them like maybe there's a chance they're understanding what's being said. But that was the problem, instead of acting like
maybe
there was a chance I should've been acting like they really did understand. It might not seem like much of a change, but it was.

So I was being real careful how I talked to everybody now, especially Chester X.

When I got into my room he was in bed with the covers tucked under his chin pretending he was null and void, just in case the Sarge was making an inspection.

I said, “All clear, Mr. X.”

He said, “Mr. Baker left you another surprise, that's why I had to give up on TV.”

I told him, “I know, I got it all taken care of.”

He pulled the covers down and climbed out of bed. He already had the card table set up.

This was another change since we'd had our heart-to-heart. It seemed like he thought since I knew he was aware of what was going on I had to entertain Chester X and talk to him a lot more. So me and him had been playing cards until eleven or twelve every night. Most of the time we played tunk.

When I'd come into the basement at the end of the day he'd have the chairs and table waiting for me. In the middle of the table there'd be a deck of cards and next to where I sat he'd have my jelly jar full of quarters with the top already off. He told me that way I wouldn't have to expend any energy constantly taking the top off every time I lost.

On his side of the table he always started with one quarter. He said it was in case I had beginner's luck.

He eased himself into his spot and started shuffling the cards. For being old as he is he has real good hands when it comes to shuffling.

“So what's the word today, Luther?”

“You don't know, and you don't want to know, Mr. X.”

I cut the cards.

He said, “Couldn'ta been that bad.”

“Says who?”

He dealt and said, “Luther, if it wasn't for two certain women you wouldn't have any problems, would you? Which one of them was it today?”

“Shayla.”

He said, “Son, I'm not one to get into your business, but why don't you just try being nice to the girl? Why don't you let her know how you feel? She might surprise you.”

“Yeah. Right.”

He spread his cards and said, “Fourteen.”

I had thirty-six. I dug two quarters out of the jar and he slid them over into his pile.

I think he lets me win one or two out of every ten or fifteen hands just so I won't get too discouraged and quit.

Chester X said, “I'm serious, sounds to me like you two are trying to get a spark going but neither one of you knows how. And I'm not trying to be funny, Luther, but I think a lot of the problem is you.”

I had to be careful. Although me and Chester X had got kind of cool I still think some of the time he was playing mind games with me and trying to distract me from my cards.

I said, “Wha-a-a-t?” And shuffled the cards. They just wouldn't dance in my hands the way they did in his.

He said, “No, seriously. I just don't think you've got enough self-confidence. And, Luther, I'm telling you, that's what folks find irresistible about other folks, confidence. And don't confuse that with cockiness, either, I'm talking about a healthy dose of self-respect and confidence.

“Take me, for example, even though I've spent many years being considered pretty dapper and witty, I've never thought that those were the main things that kept me with a whole bevy of female company.”

I dealt each of us five cards and pretended I was surprised.
“I can't see how they could see anything beyond your wit and your dapperness, Mr. X.”

He said, “Scoff if you want, but I think it's the confidence.” He winked. “Don't take it personal, but even some of the plug-ugly fellas I knew did OK with the women if they had confidence.”

Chester X sure does like to dis folks in his conversation, but he always smiles when he fires these shots.

I said, “Thanks for the advice, Mr. X, but I don't really have a problem when it comes to the honeys. It ain't that kind of party. What I have here is a failure to communicate.” That was a line from a movie I'd just seen on the Classic Movie Channel.

He said, “Go on, this is a good first step. Knowing you've got a problem, or as you like to call it, a failure, is the first step to solving it.” He spread the four, five, and six of hearts.

I shook my head and said, “I saw this documentary on the Wacky World of Nature Network about animal mating rituals. It was called something like ‘Animals Are Just Like Me and You, They Like to Get Their Freak On Too’ and it was all about courtship and getting a mate, mostly with birds. It was about how the male birds have to put on what they call a courting display before the females will give them any kind of play.