Strider Page 4

  In gym I discovered I am no longer the mediumest boy in my class. I thought if my pants were too short, every other guy’s pants would be too short, too, but it hasn’t worked out that way. When we lined up according to height in gym, I was toward the tall end of the line. Why do we have to line up according to height anyway? Do teachers think we look neater that way? If we lined up according to width, I would be near the front of the line because I am skinny.

  September 16

  After that first day, I washed my shirt every night, hung it in the shower, smoothed it while it was damp, and put it on again the next morning. Kevin waits every morning, but I keep ahead of him, and we both outrun Barry. Kevin’s legs are longer, but I have more stamina, thanks to Strider. Sometimes he gets close enough to grab my shirt. Then I turn and chase him for a change. It wasn’t long before half the school was watching and cheering. The redheaded girl cheered, too, but she yelled, “Come on, Joseph!” She has forgotten my name, or maybe she means Kevin. Her name is Geneva Weston. I found that out by what are called “discreet inquiries.”

  One morning a man who must be the fittest teacher in the school grabbed us both by the arms and said, “I’d like to see you boys harness that energy and turn out for cross-country now and track next spring.” I found out later he was Mr. Kurtz, the track coach. Not being the football type like Barry, I hadn’t thought much about sports before. Running makes me feel good, but I don’t like to run where I can trip in gopher holes, so I don’t think I’ll go out for cross-country.

  September 19

  This morning Mom said, “Please, Leigh, wear a different shirt today.”

  “Why?” I asked. “What’s wrong with this one?” I don’t like Mom telling me what to do. I’m not a little kid anymore. My pants proved that.

  “No real reason,” she said. “Just a change of scene.”

  Since she wasn’t giving me a direct order, I decided to go along with her. Besides, I don’t want to wear out my shirt. It is valuable because it stands for my not being a wimp.

  When Barry and I met Kevin, he demanded, “Where’s my shirt?”

  “In my closet,” I told him. Out of habit, we began to run, not really chasing, just running. Barry was able to keep up, which was good. I hadn’t liked leaving Barry behind while I defended my honor.

  At school, kids began to tease me: “Hey, look! Leigh has a clean shirt.” This didn’t bother me. I know my shirt is always clean.

  When I was about to enter my math room, the redheaded girl came down the breezeway. “Hi, Joseph,” she said. “What happened to your coat of many colors?”

  Geneva hadn’t forgotten my name. She was referring to the Bible story about Joseph and his coat of many colors I learned about in Sunday school when we lived in Bakersfield.

  “My shirt needs a rest,” I told her and ducked into my classroom because I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t learn much math because I thought about the girl instead of algebra equations. Her hair isn’t really red, and calling her carrot-top would be inaccurate. I tried to think of the right word. Rust? Orange? Chestnut? Copper? None seemed right.

  After class Mr. Gray, who seems to have years of chalk dust ground into him, stopped me and said, “Leigh, you’d better stop day-dreaming and pay attention in class.” He was right. Mom said if my grades dropped, the TV set would have to go.

  September 21

  Lots of Many things have happened lately. (I guess you can call that a topic sentence. My English teacher is enthusiastic about topic sentences.) The most important thing event happened last night, which was Mom’s night off. We were watching the Olympics on TV when the phone rang. I answered because I was closest. To my surprise, Dad was on the line. For a second I thought about how I used to long for Dad to call, and now I was thinking about how great athletes from all over the world looked marching into the stadium. “Oh, hi, Dad,” I said. “Where are you?”

  “In Cholame.” He sounded worried. “Is your mother there?”

  Mom took the telephone. “Hi, Bill,” she said. “This is a surprise.”

  While she listened, I wondered why Dad was worrying in Cholame, which is just a wide place in the road in a dusty valley between Highways 101 and 5.

  Finally Mom said, “I’m sorry, Bill. Really sorry.”

  I ran my hand over Strider’s rough hair and wondered what she was sorry about. She soon told me. The transmission of Dad’s tractor had broken down. He was waiting for a tow truck to tow him into Paso Robles, where he will have to wait for a new transmission to be sent up from L.A. First he had to wait for another tractor to haul his load of tomatoes to the soup plant. Even though tomatoes are grown for a long shelf life, they rot fast in the sun.

  “A transmission means big bucks,” I told Mom. “And if those tomatoes don’t reach the loading dock on schedule, Dad is in money trouble.”

  “Don’t I know it?” said Mom. “And the tractor isn’t even paid for. Your father took out a six-year loan to buy it, and if he gets more than two months behind in payments, the bank will take it.” She sounded so sad and so discouraged I didn’t know what to say, so I slid down on the floor and hugged Strider, who laid his nose against my neck. I continued to watch the Olympics, but my thoughts were in Cholame.

  September 24

  Mom and I haven’t been getting along as well as we used to. Maybe we are both worried about Dad, or maybe this shack is so small we are getting in each other’s hair. Even though I outgrew my pants, she forgets I’m not a little kid any longer. She is always after me about something, especially about taking our washing to the laundromat, a job I hate and postpone until our laundry practically ferments. She says doing what is expected of me without complaining is a sign of maturity. Yeah, yeah. What about longer pants as a sign of maturity?

  If some landlord ever had an attack of kindness and rented us a two-bedroom apartment, it might have a laundry room in the basement, where the whole world couldn’t see me with our washing.

  I admire Mom, even when she’s mad at me, and I know she loves me. I’m not so sure about Dad, who never gets mad at me. Maybe he doesn’t care enough. We haven’t heard from him since he called about his breakdown. I picture him sitting alone on a dusty road beside a double trailer-load of tomatoes beginning to smell like old catsup.

  September 26

  Today was a real shocker. This evening, while Mom was at work and I was studying, Dad telephoned with more news. He has lost his rig! After he had the tractor transmission replaced, he had to admit he couldn’t pay for it until after the tomato season and that he was a month behind in his payments to the bank. The repair people kept the keys, settled with the bank, and now they have the tractor and Dad doesn’t. Boom! Just like that.

  Now all Dad has to drive is a beat-up pickup truck.

  He towed his house-trailer he had used as home base from Bakersfield to Salinas, where he has a temporary job pumping gas until something better turns up. He said he wanted to be closer to us, something I never expected to hear him say. Nothing was said about support payments, and it wasn’t the time to ask. He sounded so discouraged and sort of ashamed that I feel terrible.

  Dad without his rig! The first time I saw him drive it, I thought he was the biggest, strongest man in the world, and nothing could ever happen to him.

  September 30

  In English we finished studying The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, about an old sailor who corners a wedding guest and makes him listen to a long story about shooting an albatross, thereby placing a curse on his ship. It was a pretty good poem except Ms. Habis-Jones made us pick it to pieces.

  Today she said, “Now we are going to write, write, write.”

  The boy behind me whispered, “Rah, rah, rah.” She glared.

  At first I thought she was going to make us write essays on such topics as the mariner’s motivation in shooting the albatross. Maybe she doesn’t really like the poem because, instead of some bird-related treatise, she told us to write a paragraph on any subje
ct and to pay special attention to the topic sentence.

  I thought about The Rime of the Ancient Mariner being written as if the old sailor were telling it. I also thought about gonna and sorta and all the words Ms. Habis-Jones said were not acceptable in her classroom. This made me want to use them. There is something about Ms. Habis-Jones that makes me feel ornery. Since Dad lost his rig, I feel ornery to the nth degree, as we say in algebra, about almost anything.

  I wrote, “The old man said to the stranger, ‘I gotcha cornered, and I’m gonna tell ya about my dog. Ya gotta listen even if ya don’t wanna. My dog’s coat is sorta rough, but his ears are kinda soft. He knows howta heel. His eyes say, Gimme your attention, gimme your love, gimme a bone. Whatcha think of that? When I walk him, he always hasta lift his leg. Ya oughta see my dog.’ The stranger said, ‘Lemme go. I don’t care aboucher dog.’”

  I had fun writing the paragraph and thought it had a good topic sentence.

  Ms. Habis-Jones, who was patrolling the aisles like a guard, stopped at my desk to read over my shoulder. Then she picked up my paper and read it to the class, who laughed. She asked, “Class, what is wrong with this paragraph?”

  One of those generic goody-goody girls raised her hand. “Leigh used improper words such as gonna and sorta.”

  “That is correct,” said old Wounded-hair, who always speaks in complete sentences. “Leigh, what words should you have used?”

  I tried to argue. “My paragraph is spoken. The people speak that way, so the words I used are correct.”

  Ms. Wounded-hair dropped my paper on my desk and said, “At the beginning of the semester I said I would not tolerate improper words in this classroom. Rewrite your paper correctly.”

  “But that will make it incorrect,” I said, still trying to argue. “I was writing about people who don’t speak correctly.”

  Ms. Wounded-hair looked annoyed. “Leigh, you need to improve your attitude,” she informed me. I suppose she has the right to lay down rules for her class. She loves rules. The more the better. She would probably tell Samuel Taylor Coleridge to improve his attitude because he had his Ancient Mariner speak words like o’ertaking and ne’er, but I didn’t say so. You can’t argue with some teachers. If she were grading his poem, she would put a red check over Rime because he didn’t spell it Rhyme. Then she would mark his paper C—.

  October 4

  I still feel so cross with old Wounded-hair (today her scarf was white with pink dots, which made it look as if it had been peppered with bird shot) that I feel cross with other people, too, even Barry, because he has gone out for football, a sport that doesn’t interest me. I mean playing. I enjoy watching. After school I collect Strider alone and go watch the frosh-soph team practice. Barry feels so tired and sore he doesn’t feel like running anymore. He leaves Strider to me.

  Today, when Strider and I came to the apartment house in front of our shack, I began, as usual, to look around to see where Mrs. Smerling was so we could sneak in without her seeing us. Wouldn’t you know? There she was, with her hair hanging down in a braid, going through the trash, trying to jam it all down into two cans so she won’t have to pay for three cans, one for each of the two apartments and one for our cottage.

  “Hello there, Leigh,” she said as she stomped on a carton.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Smerling,” I said. Politeness often pays. Strider lifted his leg on a dusty geranium.

  “How’s school?” she asked. Adults always ask that. They don’t really care.

  “About three on a scale of one to ten.” I tried to smile, even though my stomach was tied in a knot.

  She looked at Strider, who was putting on his good-dog act: ears up, eyes bright, a doggy smile on his face. I hurried him into the shack before she could say anything.

  Sometimes I wish she would raise our rent, end our suspense, and put us out of our misery.

  November 25

  October and November were so boring I didn’t have anything to write in my diary. My attitude isn’t great. I am haunted by Dad, who lives close enough to come to see me but doesn’t. Maybe he is too ashamed because he lost his rig.

  One day Mom said, “Leigh, you really get on my nerves when you call this place a shack. This is our home. I am doing the best I can. It isn’t my fault rents are so high and your father can’t keep up his support payments.”

  I know I looked sulky, but I was really ashamed. She was right. Everything I do seems wrong. I worry a lot, mostly about Dad washing windshields after being a trucker.

  Things were better yesterday because the Brinkerhoffs invited Mom and me to Thanksgiving dinner. Mr. Brinkerhoff cooked the turkey, his specialty, and carved it with a flourish. The grandmother was there, knitting a wild red, purple, and orange sweater out of fluffy yarn, which Mom admired and Barry says will sell for several hundred dollars. The little girls were all flapping around in the monarch butterfly costumes they wore in P.G.’s annual butterfly parade in October. We had all the things that go with turkey, and two kinds of pie. Everyone laughed a lot. Mom laughed, too, and admired the spaghetti wall. It was good to hear her laugh.

  After that dinner, our cottage seemed small and cold. I fed Strider the scraps Mrs. Brinkerhoff had sent him and wondered where Dad ate his Thanksgiving dinner.

  I wish Mom would laugh more often.

  December 17

  Running with Strider is cold, damp work. I overheard one of the gas station attendants next door say, “Doesn’t that kid ever walk?” He ought to try substituting for a herd of cattle to exercise a Queensland heeler.

  Old Wounded-hair now gives me A’s on my compositions and says my attitude has improved. Ha-ha. That’s what she thinks. I hand in the most boring papers I can think of, but I am careful to make them correct. Writing “My Summer at Camp” was especially interesting to write because I have never gone to camp. My topic sentence was “I made many friends at camp.” Boring!

  I worry about Dad, I worry about Mom, I worry about me. Wiping up Strider’s muddy paw prints so Mrs. Smerling won’t see them is an ongoing job.

  December 25

  Christmas! Friday Barry left for Los Smogland with his two real sisters to spend vacation with Real Mom. I now have Strider all to myself for ten days.

  This morning Dad turned up in his old pickup truck to bring me a quilted jacket for Christmas. He gave me quilted jackets the last two Christmases, but he forgets. Or maybe he doesn’t know what else to get. I gave him a warm shirt to wear under his uniform to keep him warm when he has to go out in the cold to check oil and wash windshields.

  Because Mom had Thanksgiving off, she had to work today. She cooked us a nice midday dinner with roast chicken, so she invited Dad to stay. Nobody objected when I slipped a bite to Strider. Dad left right after we ate because he had to work, too. He was pretty quiet the whole time.

  “Buck up, Leigh.” Mom kissed me as she left for work. I washed the dishes to keep hordes of beady-eyed, antennae-waving cockroaches from invading.

  Today is not exactly a Joyeux Noël, as they say on Christmas cards. The good part is I am free of old Wounded-hair for the holidays, and I have Strider all to myself.

  January 6

  The day before Christmas vacation ended, serious rain came pounding down. Our cottage didn’t leak, but the windows steamed, and mildew drew a map on the bathroom wall. One morning I woke up feeling awful and said, “Mom, I have a sore throat and I think I have a temperature.”

  Mom laid her hand on my forehead and said, “Everybody has a temperature. You have a fever.” That’s what working in the hospital has done to her—made her sound like my English teacher. Being Mom, she began to worry full-time and said she’d better phone the hospital and say she couldn’t work that day.

  “Mom,” I croaked. “I’m not dying. I’m old enough to stay alone. I’m not a baby, and I have Strider to keep me company.”

  Because the hospital was shorthanded, Mom finally agreed to let me stay alone if I promised to stay in bed, drink lots
of fluids, etc., etc. She made me a bed on the living room couch because my room is unheated, took Strider jogging in the rain, and dried him on an old towel so the shack wouldn’t smell too doggy; and before she left, she set water, juice, books, and a thermos of hot soup on a chair by the couch.

  The rest of the day stretched ahead like a long, dark tunnel. I didn’t even feel up to watching TV. Strider and I dozed until he began to act restless. I forced myself to get up and open the door for him. “Hurry up,” I ordered because rain was blowing in, and I felt weak. He obliged. Good dog, Strider.

  Later, I poured soup but wasn’t hungry. I must have dozed, because it was dark when I heard footsteps on the path. They were too heavy to be Mom’s. She has light, quick steps. Strider stood up, pricked his ears, raised his hair, dropped his haunches, ready to spring.

  I raised up on one elbow until I heard, “Leigh, it’s Dad.”

  “Down, boy,” I croaked and raised my voice as best I could. “Come on in, Dad.” My throat felt like sandpaper.

  “How ya doing, son?” he asked.

  “Mom phoned you.” I seemed to be accusing him of something.

  “Sure she did.” Dad sounded determined to be cheerful. “She’s worried about you. Don’t forget, you’re my kid, too.”

  I hadn’t forgotten, but I often feel as if he has. I turned my pillow to the cool side and tried to keep tears out of my eyes.

  Dad felt my forehead. Then he went into the kitchen, just as if he lived here, and came back with ice cubes which he dropped into my juice. It tasted good. Then he found a washcloth, wrapped more ice in it, and laid it on my forehead. That felt good, too. “Your mother says the doctors tell her there’s a lot of this going around,” he said as he turned on the TV with the volume low and sat down beside me. The sound and the comfort of Dad being near lulled me to sleep.