Heads or Tails (8 page)

“Will’s gonna take me to where he saw the UFO.” I could tell she wasn’t in the mood to hear about spaceships after she had been sitting with Grandma for two days.

Will came around the corner. “I’m gonna take him with me for a few minutes. I’ll bring him back in one piece. Don’t worry, if he’s a pest I’ll ship him off to Mars.”

“Okay,” Mom said and rolled her eyes at me. “Just make certain you have your stuff packed and ready for tomorrow.”

We jumped in Will’s huge Oldsmobile and sped off down a dark road until we came to the town of Hecla and pulled up to the fire station. “Hey, Jerry,” Will called out as he lifted the garage door. “My nephew wants to hear your spaceship story.”

Jerry was short and sturdy. He had a fluffy head of white hair as thick and woolly as sheep. “Sorry to hear about your dad,” he said to Will. He set his cup of coffee next to the radio scanner, then turned to me. He didn’t miss a beat.

“We came up to it from a cropping of rock and it was down in a gully. It had not started glowing blue just yet. You could feel the heat coming off it, but there was no fire and it was in one piece, about the shape of a doorknob and about the size of a car. I could see a path of trees it had bowled down, but it wasn’t scratched. The hardest metal I’ve ever seen, looked like a blue copper. I rapped on it with my flashlight and it was like hitting solid rock. No echo and no vibration. I had hollered out that I found it and a couple of the volunteers came and saw it. The strangest part was the writing all over it, like it had been drawn on with a welding torch. I ain’t seen no writing like it, and since then I studied up on every form of writing known to man, past and present. It was totally foreign. I only wish I had a camera. And then the state police come up and run us off. Said the army didn’t want anyone messing with it. As soon as I turned to go, that’s when it started to glow blue, and I ran for my life, thought the thing might blow up.”

“That’s amazing,” I said. I wanted to remember every word he spoke. I had to write
this
down when we returned to Florida.

“Yeah. And when I got back here to the station, the army had arrived and taken over our phones, and I was told by a four-star general to keep my mouth shut if I knew what was good for me. Top Secret, he warned me.”

“From where I was,” said Will, “it started glowing when the army arrived. Then they brought in a huge truck like a tank carrier and a crane and they loaded it up, put a tarp over it, and drove on out of there.”

“I called the newspapers and the state cops and the local army reserve and all of them said they hadn’t heard a thing about it,” Jerry added. “I called my congressman and he reported back that there never was no sighting. If that isn’t a government cover-up, then I don’t know what is.”

“Wow,” I said. “Can I shake your hand?”

He stuck out his thick hand and I shook the hand that touched a UFO. “You gotta believe that they’re out there,” he insisted. “I’ll go to my grave knowing the truth of what I seen, and no army or government or some of these Bible-thumping folks around here are gonna make me think different.”

When we got back in the car, Uncle Will told me that most people think Jerry’s gone insane. “People are nice to him to his face, but down at the fireman’s club he’s always talked about as a ‘space shot.’”

“Do you mean that I shouldn’t believe him?” I asked.

“Believe what you want to believe,” he replied, confusing me even more.

On the dark ride back to Jackson’s, I began to think about returning home. What a wreck, I thought. Dad is going to have to face the Internal Revenue Service, which will make him angry every day. BoBo has probably torn my bedroom to shreds, and Mom will be heartbroken. I’ll be behind in school and have a pile of homework waiting for me. I wished a UFO would come down and capture me. Just lift me off the ground and take me far away. Maybe that’s why I believe in them, I thought; they’ll take me away from all this confusion and set me down in a place without fear.

D
AD COULDN’T STAND the Pagoda family, our right-side next-door neighbors. He said they had all lost control of their senses. “Just look at ‘em,” he hollered when he watched them do something weird like paint a giant atomic-bomb target on their roof. “They are out of control. The parents just let those kids get away with anything.” The oldest, Gary, had just been sent to a juvenile prison for stealing cars. Frankie was my age. His whole face was still bruised from when he dove off the roof into their swimming pool. He was a little short with his leap and hit his forehead on the concrete edge around the pool. The whites of his eyes were still blood-red. And Suzie, his twin sister, had just tried to dye her brown hair blond with Clorox, but it turned from brown to green. Mr. and Mrs. Pagoda bred show dog poodles for a living.
Inside
their house they must have had thirty dogs in cages. Every time I visited them, I took a deep breath of fresh air before I stepped inside. It was the last chance for good air, because the house smelled nasty, like dog crap and piss and damp fur. It made me gag and my eyes sting. And when I left their house my clothes smelled like a used diaper.

Frankie and I were building a tree fort around the far side of their house. We were finishing one started by his older brother before he was arrested. The platform was in place and we were adding new ladder rungs to climb up the outside of the trunk.

“Let’s build a roof,” I suggested to Frankie. “Then when it rains we can stay in the tree.”

“What about lightning?” he asked.

I thought that was a dumb question coming from someone who’s roof-dived into swimming pools. He also had a spiraling scar up and over his shoulder from being hit by a boat propeller while water-skiing on old snow skis. “We’ll put a lightning rod on top of the tree,” I said, “and run a wire down to a bucket, and if lightning strikes, one of us can put it over his head and be turned into Frankenstein’s monster.”

Frankie laughed. He always laughed at my dumb ideas—which encouraged me to say and do dumb things.

“Yeah. We can do anything we want. It’s our tree fort.”

Pete had been snooping around our yard looking for me and now I watched him run over to the tree.

“What are you guys doing?” he asked, panting.

“What’s it look like?” I said.

“We’re building a clubhouse,” Frankie explained.

“But you can’t join,” I said. “It’s private.”

“I’ll tell Mom,” he said, meaning that he’ll tell that I’m in the Pagodas’ yard. Dad had told us not to play here. “If old man Pagoda had a brain, he’d be dangerous,” Dad said, and, “If brains were dynamite, she couldn’t blow her nose.”

I groaned. “All right. You can join. But you have to pass the initiation. You have to play Barnum and Bailey Circus Dare.”

“Okay,” he agreed, without asking what it was.

I pulled a long plank from the woodpile and set it under the tree. Then I put a round piece of log under the middle of the plank, like a seesaw. “You stand on the low end of the plank, facing out,” I instructed. He did, as I climbed up into the tree fort. “When I jump on the high end,” I shouted, “you fly up in the air and do a front flip.”

“Okay,” he said.

I jumped and landed with both feet on top of the board. Pete flew straight up in the air, just like in the circus. He flipped forward and landed on his butt. He laughed and hopped right up. “Let’s do it again,” he shouted.

“This time, go straight up and try to land on Frankie’s shoulders,” I said and placed Frankie in the right spot. When I jumped, he flew up, and on the way down he stepped on Frankie’s bruised face instead of his shoulders.

Frankie dropped to the ground and howled. “He’s re-broken my nose,” he cried.

“Come here,” I ordered and looked him over. “Naw, you’re fine.”

“One more time,” begged Pete.

“Okay, do a back flip.” I climbed the tree and jumped. When I landed on the board, Pete shot straight up. Then he threw his head back and flipped around wildly like a dropped cat. He landed with a thud on his back, then jumped right up.

“Wow,” he said. “I’m dizzy.”

Then I saw his arm. His forearm had hit the edge of the plank and now he had a second elbow between his old elbow and his wrist. I thought I was going to be sick.

“Can we do it again?” he asked, as his broken arm flopped over to one side.

Frankie turned his head away and started to gag. Pete gave me a funny look. Maybe I can just walk away, I thought, and in an hour he’ll finally discover the break and wonder how it happened. But I couldn’t. I just pointed at his arm and made a scared, moaning noise.

Then he saw it. “Aghhh!” he wailed and looked up at my face as if I had stabbed him.

“I didn’t mean it,” I cried. “Honest.”

He turned and ran. I was right behind him. “Don’t tell on me,” I begged. “Please don’t tell.”

He screamed and his helpless arm flopped left and right with his running.

“You can have my stamp collection,” I said.

He hollered even louder. “Mommmmm!”

“You can have my marble collection,” I said.

He yelled in great long shrieks.

We had reached the front door of our house. “You can have my allowance for life,” I said. “For
life,”
I repeated.

“Daaaaaad!” he screeched.

I blocked the doorway. “Just remember, when you thought you shot down the airplane I was really nice to you.”

‘ ‘Mommmmm! ‘ ‘

I opened the door for him. I didn’t know yet if he turned me down or if he just wasn’t listening.

Mom dashed out of the hallway like a sprinter. “Oh, what happened!” she asked and then saw that his arm was broken before I said it. Pete held it up for her to examine as he gasped for breath. Tears ran down through the dirt on his face.

“It looks bad,” she said firmly, “but we can fix it.” She turned to me and I flinched. “Jack,” she ordered, “go get your father. He’s in the shower.”

I wanted to turn and run. I knew Dad’s first question was going to be, “How’d it happen?” I opened the bathroom door and hollered in, “Hey, Dad, Mom needs you.” I didn’t say what was wrong, because I knew that most accidents happen in the shower and I didn’t want to shout out, “Pete shattered his arm!” and have Dad get worked up and slip in the shower and break something of his. I imagined Mom having to drive us all to the hospital, and since she can’t drive, we’d get into a flaming accident and in one day I could be responsible for wiping out our entire family.

“What’s she want?” Dad asked, sputtering under the shower nozzle.

“Well, Pete busted his arm, and when you get a chance, they need a ride to the hospital,” I explained, trying to stay calm during an emergency like in safety films at school.

“Jesus,” he cursed. “As soon as I turn my back on you kids, something happens.” He turned up the water pressure and slapped water at himself. “I’ll be right out,” he gurgled.

When they returned from the hospital, I was in my room. What Dad had said got me thinking. “It’s true that as soon as you turn your back, or as soon as you think nothing bad can happen, it does,” I’d written in my diary. “Just look at the
Titanic.
The captain said, ‘Even God can’t sink this ship.’ Then, on the first voyage across the Atlantic Ocean,
boom,
it hit an iceberg and sank. And as soon as a daredevil utters the words ‘piece of cake’ before attempting a stunt, he is doomed. ‘Piece of cake’ becomes his ‘famous last words.’ Mom says she can wait all day for a delivery truck to arrive, then as soon as she runs the bathtub and gets in, the doorbell rings. And when I was little, Dad bought a convertible. Every time we took a drive with the top down, it rained.”

I reread everything I had written, then locked up the diary again and hid it under my mattress.

On the way from the hospital, Mom and Dad had stopped at the grocery store and let Pete pick out dinner. When they arrived home Dad started the grill on the back patio. I set the picnic table. Mom made potato salad and Betsy picked limes off the tree in the back yard for limeade.

“Anything else I can get you?” I asked Pete as I passed by him. He was sucking milk through a strawberry-flavored straw.

“Your marble collection,” he said quietly.

“No way,” I muttered. He was becoming more like Betsy every day. “You told on me.”

“I didn’t tell
how
you did it.”

He hadn’t. He told Dad he “fell” across the board.

After dinner I went into my bedroom and began to sort through my marbles. I picked out most of the ones I didn’t want, and threw in a few beauties to trick Pete into thinking I was giving him my whole collection. Dad would go nuts if he knew how I broke Pete’s arm. He’d probably take
me
out to the back yard and start flipping me up into the air like a moon shot until I crashed and burned.

I was sitting on my rug when Dad drifted into the room and sat on the corner of my bed. This is it, I thought, I’m dead.

“I just want to talk with you for a moment,” he said. I took a deep breath.

“It’s your responsibility to take care of your younger brother.” He stated this as a fact.

“I know,” I replied, “but bad things happen when you least expect them.”

“Yeah, only it’s called not paying attention to what you’re doing.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. If I could apologize fast enough, he might go away.

“Just keep it in mind,” he continued, “that paying attention to what you are doing is one of the big rules in life. The sooner you learn it, the better.” He winked at me, which meant the end of the conversation. Then he stood up and left the room.

A wink was not a bad ending to being “talked to.” Last year, he told me about a science teacher he had in school when he was my age. The teacher had a nasty way of ending his talks. He’d built a very high and deep chair for the bad students—high and deep enough so that their shoes couldn’t touch the floor. Across from them, he sat in a tall wicker chair. On the student’s chair he had taped strips of metal across the seat cushion. The metal was attached to wires that ran under the chair and across the floor to an old Lionel train transformer that was beside the teacher’s seat. If the student needed a rough “talking to,” then at the end of the talk the teacher said, “Now let this be a lesson to you,” and blasted the student from his seat with a jolt of electricity.

•

The next morning Pete knocked on my door. “I need five dollars,” he said.

“I don’t have five bucks.”

“I’ll tell Dad.”

“You’ve become a monster,” I yelled. Betsy was definitely giving him directions. “I’ll work on it,” I said and slammed the door.

I decided to train BoBo to be my younger brother. He was safer and cheaper. “Come on, BoBo,” I sang, and the dog jumped off the bed where he was sleeping. I tied a bandanna around his neck and put a broken wristwatch on his front leg. He followed right behind me all around my room. If I could shave his body and teach him how to walk on two legs, he’d be perfect. Already, he was less trouble than Pete.

But it didn’t matter. That evening, after Dad left my room for the second time in two days, I opened my diary. “Disaster,” I wrote. I had just finished teaching BoBo how to tell time and was looking out the window. A few blocks away, I saw a thick cloud of smoke slowly traveling down a distant street. The houses blocked my view of where it came from. I thought it was a burning car that was still being driven. Or some strange weather condition, like a baby tornado. Then Frankie Pagoda rode his bike up our driveway. “Hurry up,” he yelled through my window. “It’s the mosquito fogger.”

I ran outside. Pete was playing with his Lego blocks in the carport. “Where are you going?” he asked and jumped to his feet.

“To chase the fog truck,” I said. “But you can’t come. It’s too dangerous. Dad said I have to look out for you. I won’t be able to see you in all that mosquito fog even if you’re an inch away from my nose, so stay put.”

“You owe me five bucks,” he screeched.

“I’ll give it to you later,” I yelled and hopped on the back of Frankie’s bike. “Come on, Frankie.” I slapped him like a horse. “Hurry before he catches us.”

Following the fog truck was the best fun. Kids from all over rode their bikes in the cloud of dense smoke, which smelled like kerosene and billowed out of a big pipe on the back of the truck. When I was in the middle of the cloud, I couldn’t see a thing. It made me feel like I was flying through the air. It was a wonderful feeling as long as you didn’t collide with another kid.

Frankie and I entered the cloud from behind. I could hear the kids screaming and yelling and bikes clashing as we worked our way into it. The best part of the cloud is the solid white middle. That’s the place that makes me feel like I’m drifting up over the world, empty and weightless like a hot-air balloon. The white is so dense it’s like being buried in pure sugar, except it has no weight. Sometimes I can’t tell up from down and I lose my balance.

Suddenly, the fogger engine stopped and the cloud lifted. There were about twenty other kids on their bikes. “Boooo! Hissss!” we shouted, like when the film breaks during a movie. “More! More!”

The driver of the truck stepped out of the cab and hopped up onto the bed of the truck. Ignoring us, he refilled the fogging engine tank with gasoline and started it up. I looked over my shoulder and spotted Pete and BoBo in the back of the pack. Pete was riding slowly because he could only use his one good arm.