Breathing Water (18 page)

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Authors: T. Greenwood

Tags: #General Fiction

BOOK: Breathing Water
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July 1994
I
n the Quimby Atheneum I searched the card catalog for the books Magoo had requested. They were mostly history books. More bricks than books. I made a pile at the circulation desk. World War II, biographies of kings and soldiers, ancient Greek myths. It took me two trips to the car to carry them all. He was bored, stuck in bed; this was my second trip in the last week.
“For Mr. Tucker?” the librarian asked. I didn't recognize her. She was young and tall.
“Uh-huh.” I nodded. “He can't get enough.”
“He's becoming a reader now, huh? More like your grandfather than himself. He's lucky to have a delivery driver. Like meals-on-wheels, huh?” Her laughter surprised me. It was high and nervous, too loud for a library.
“I don't mind,” I said.
 
I pulled into the parking lot at the diner and had a hard time finding a parking place. I finally squeezed in between an RV and a little sports car with New Jersey plates. I got out of the car feeling a little pissed off by the tourists. It would only get worse, I imagined. When autumn came, they would come in throngs, causing accidents on the interstate as they peeped at the leaves. And now, with the new ski resort, they would never leave.
“Hey, Maggie,” I said, sitting down at the only empty seat at the counter. It was lunchtime, the diner was full of demanding and hungry people, but she handled each of their requests and gripes with the grace and poise of a great diplomat. “Tuna melt on sourdough, extra mustard, and a diet Coke with lemon?” she asked the man sitting next to me at the counter. He nodded and within minutes she was back with his lunch. She sat down next to me and laid her head on the counter.
“Just a little nap.” She sighed. “That's all I need. You can handle things for a minute?”
“Get back to work, Maggie.” I laughed and poked her side.
“Sure thing, boss,” she said and got up.
“Come over tonight?” I asked.“I have something to show you.”
“Can I bring Alice?” she asked, clearing someone else's dishes, scooping change into her apron pocket.
“Of course.”
 
On my way back to Gormlaith, I took the long way, so that I could pass Devin's house. The bicycle was gone. The grass in the front lawn needed to be mowed. I longed to go inside, to see how he lived.
Policeman greeted me at Magoo's door. I had brought him over to visit with Magoo before I went into town. The cone made him look like an alien dog. Like a Shakespearean character. Elizabethan. Regal.
“Here's your weekly allotment, Mr. Tucker,” I said, stacking the books next to his bed. “I'm going to have to limit you to fifty pounds a week.”
“My library angel. She brings books on wings of silver and gold,” he said. His skin was pale now. All the summer sun disappeared in the hospital. I couldn't help imagining the doctors syphoning it and capturing it in a jar.
“How are you feeling today?” I asked.
“I'd feel a lot better if I could eat meatloaf. You know that's my sustenance. I don't even know how to cook some of the things they've prescribed for me.
Vegetables. Whole grains.
Phooey. I know how to make meatloaf. So does Gussy. And now even she's refusing to give it to me.” He eased himself to an upright position and opened one of the books I had brought.
As he checked to make sure I had fulfilled his requests, I glanced at the clock on his nightstand. The table was littered with orange prescription bottles, tissues, and fingernail clippings.
“What's your hurry, Effie? Have you got a date? Bet some fellow's on his way to take you out for dinner. I bet you'll be eating meatloaf and gravy as soon as you leave.”
“No, Tuck. Just a friend.
Maggie.
She's coming over for dinner.”
“Meatloaf?” he asked.
“Nope. Salad. With whole grain bread. Lentil soup. I'll bring you some leftovers if you'd like.”
“Nah, I'll stick to my dreams of meatloaf. Now you run along then.”
As I skipped back to the camp, I felt twelve years old.
 
Maggie was sitting on a tree stump, smoking a cigarette. Her hair was a mess of curls, and she had her happy shoes on. She only wore the Mickey Mouse tennis shoes when she was feeling particularly glum.
“Where's Alice?” I asked.
“At my mother's. Ma's taking her to a movie in Quimby. Something Disney, I think.”
“Come in,” I said and pushed the door open.
“I had to call Bugs's mother today. He's six months behind with his child support.” Maggie put her cigarette out in an ant hill and then put the butt in her pocket. “She called me a whore and then hung up on me.”
“You're kidding,” I said.
“I used to call her
Mom
, can you believe it?” She laughed and ran her fingers through her tangled curls. “Anyway, I needed a break from Alice. Enough of that. Whatcha want to show me?”
“Come see,” I said, grinning so broadly my cheeks hurt. I felt bad being so simply thrilled, but she didn't seem to mind. I led her out onto the front porch and up the stairs to the loft.
“Look,” I said, pointing to the box. It was sitting on the bureau where the sun could shine through the glass.
“That's amazing,” Maggie said, holding the box up to the light. “He
made
this?”
I nodded. “He goes to an art school in New York.”
“What do you call it?” she asked. “Sculpture?”
“It's a shadow box, I think. I don't know.”
“Art school, huh?” she asked. Then, setting the box down on the nightstand, “How on earth can he afford to live up here for the summer?”
“He's a carpenter too,” I explained.“He's working on some of those houses up by the mountain.”
“The condos they're building by the ski resort?” she asked, disgusted.
“No, the old ones. The railroad houses. Once they're fixed up they're going to be low-income housing. It'll keep the new development down, if they can save some of those houses.”
Maggie held the box up to the light and peered in at the impossible flight. She set it down carefully and sat down on my bed. It yielded to her weight and she put her hands on the iron bed frame.
“When do I get to meet him?” she asked.
“I don't know,” I said.
“You can't keep him to yourself forever.” She laughed. “Not in a place like Gormlaith.”
But she was wrong. It was easy to hide things here. For as much as people are prone to gossip, they also have a certain quiet respect for closed doors. You could keep secrets in Gormlaith. Maggie knew that as well as I did.
 
The tree house needed a lot of work, and I wasn't sure how to go about repairing the leaky roof, the crumbling deck, or even the weathered ladder. I assessed time's damage and made notes about what I would need to re-create at least a semblance of what it used to be. I called Gussy and told her my plans and then headed into town to get the things I would need. Two by fours from the lumberyard. Nails. Tar paper. I didn't know the first thing about how to put this broken place back together.
I got in the Bug and headed for town. About halfway around the lake I realized that I would never be able to fit the boards into the car. Not even with the window rolled down. I drove nearly all the way to Hudson's before I decided to ask Devin. He said he had a truck in his garage. I turned around in someone's driveway and headed back toward the lake.
Devin's bicycle was leaning against the garage door. There was a bright red wheelbarrow in the front yard. His door was propped open with a couple of dusty bricks. I stepped up to the door and knocked gently.
Through the front door, I could see the open back door, sunlight streaming through, making dusty rays. I squinted and leaned in. “Devin?”
I could hear the scratchy radio. Miles Davis inside the hollow metal box.
“Devin?”
“Effie?” His voice swam to me through all of that dust and sunlight. “I'm out back. Come on through.”
I stepped hesitantly into his home for the first time. It was dark, but I could see the faint shadows of a couch and a worktable. The back door led to a huge backyard bordered by woods. He was kneeling in the garden. He was wearing jeans the color of sky and a T-shirt that said
Georgetown.
The letters were cracked. He stood up and brushed soil from his hands. The corn was taller than he was. There were tomatoes bigger than my fist growing on the vines. This was a giant's garden.
“Wow,” I said, looking at him dwarfed by all these living things.
“It's great, isn't it?” He smiled. “Try this.” He held out a peapod that looked like a small green purse.
I took the peapod and snapped it open. It cracked sharply and the tender skin bled green on my hands. I coaxed the peas out and popped them in my mouth. They were hard and sweet.
“You don't have to work today?” I asked.
“I only go in a couple of days a week. By the end of July we should be done,” he said and stepped carefully out of the garden.
“That's good,” I said.
“That would be
great
if I had some money saved. At least I won't starve.” He laughed and motioned to the garden. “We start work in May, so I usually have August free.”
“You've been to Gormlaith before?” I said.
“For a few years now,” he nodded. “Never had a garden until this year though.”
“I have a favor to ask,” I said and tossed the peapod into the compost pile.
“What's that?”
“I need a truck.”
“Well, I just happen to have a truck in my garage. A nineteen seventy-four Chevy, a fine automobile. And what, little one, do you need with a truck?”
“Wood.”
“Ah, wood,” he said, scratching his chin. I noticed for the first time the faint shadow of his unshaven cheeks. “A truck of any other caliber might not be able to help you. But the Chevy? I think she can handle it. And would you also need a driver, miss?”
“I think so.” I smiled.
 
He had to boost me up into the cab of the truck, a rusty green thing that smelled like french fries inside. Inside the cab, I felt like a kid. Tess and I used to sit in her father's truck and pretend that we were truckers. We smoked rhubarb cigarettes and talked on shoebox CB radios. There was an 8-track stuck inside Devin's truck playing “Ring of Fire” over and over. I could barely see over the dashboard. My feet didn't even touch the trash-littered floor.
“Sorry about the mess,” he said.
He stopped at Hudson's and filled the tank with gas. I sat in the cab and looked out at the hills, which were glowing green on this rare cloudless day. He went in to pay and came out with two giant-sized Cokes and a bag of Reese's Cups.
“Breakfast,” he said and handed me the treats.
All the way into town I sucked on the sweet chocolate and peanut butter, crumpling the gold wrappers and putting them in the ashtray. It felt good riding high above the road in the truck, sitting next to him. It felt right.
We went to the lumberyard and he selected the boards that I would need to repair the tree house. He threw them in the back of the truck and chatted with Mr. LaFevre, who owned the lumberyard. Devin was so friendly with everyone here, more at home than I was even, it seemed. Meanwhile, I sat in the front seat of the truck trying to check my teeth for chocolate in the side-view mirror. Devin's elbow rested on his open window. His arms were thick and strong. My heart stuttered at the involuntary twitch of a muscle as he opened the door.
“You need to go anywhere else?” he asked as we left the lumberyard.
I thought about going to the diner to see Maggie. To show her that he was real. I thought about the way it would feel to say,
Maggie, this is Devin. Devin, Maggie.
I thought about walking through the doors into the busy diner, the smell of gravy and biscuits. I thought about his hand spreading fire across the small of my back as we walked to a booth near the window. I imagined watching each stool at the counter turn, each head turn, as Effie Greer walked in with this big black man. I imagined the whispers like beestings.
“No,” I said.
“Sure?” he asked at the intersection.
“Yes.” I nodded. I could handle the stares. I could even withstand the hushed disbelief at my
audacity.
What I couldn't stand were the rumors that would spread like an infectious disease. That would mutate as they spread, reaching my parents eventually. It was inevitable. At the lake, I didn't have to share him with anyone. He belonged to me.

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