The Obstacle Course (7 page)

Besides all the ships I’ve got Navy posters and pictures plastered all over the walls as well. If I ever brought a four-star admiral in here he’d go apeshit.

The rest of the room is pretty bare. I like it that way—easier to clean, which I do myself, all of it, plus my own ironing (I guarantee you I’m the only boy in Ravensburg Junior High who irons his own shirts), I even vacuum twice a week, to make sure the models are free of dust. No one ever comes in. My old man could give a shit less, and my mom’s happy that she’s got one less set of chores to do. The only time anyone even sticks their head in is when my old man gets drunk and wants to give me a ration of shit, or when mom or Ruthie absolutely have to talk to me. They never come all the way in, they know I want my privacy. I’ve even got a padlock for it when I’m not here.

The phone rang downstairs. Ruthie answered it, of course. She thinks she owns the damn thing, anyone else gets a call she acts like they’re invading her privacy. If she really wanted privacy she wouldn’t hang her stockings and undies all over the house where anyone could see them.

“Roy!” She called out after a minute. “For you.”

I shut the door firmly and boogied down the stairs.

“Don’t take forever,” she glared as she handed it over to me.

“Don’t get your bowels in an uproar,” I told her. “You don’t pay the bills, Daddy does.” I turned away from her, cradling the phone on my shoulder. “Hello.” It was Burt. I listened for a moment. “Just a sec.”

I ran up to my room, grabbed the first book I could lay my hands on, and ran back down to the phone, leafing through it like I was looking for something specific.

“Here it is,” I told him over the phone, “page forty-three, numbers one through ten.” I listened a minute. “Yeah.” I turned around carefully, checking to see if my nosy sister was eavesdropping. She’s low enough that she would if I gave her half a chance. But she’d gone back into the kitchen to gossip with my mom, so she was safely out of earshot.

“Okay,” I whispered, “’bye.” I hung up.

“Who was that?” my mom asked as she passed through on her way to her bedroom.

“Burt. He forgot the history assignment.”

“Someone’s calling you to ask about homework?” Ruthie butted in. “That’s a first.”

I ignored her. With her, that’s usually the best tactic.

“I’m pretty tired,” I announced. “I’m going to bed.”

“Okay, sweetie,” my mom told me. She still treats me like a little kid sometimes, like she wishes I was, not back-talking and being a general pain in the ass. She gave me a peck on the cheek. “See you in the morning.”

“See you.” I stuck my head into the living room. “’Night, dad.”

My old man grunted a response. He was watching TV, “Strike It Rich,” one of his favorite shows. He’s always on the outlook for a get-rich-quick scheme. If some asshole can win all that money for doing nothing except come out with some sob story on television, he’ll say, why can’t I?

“Jesus, look at it,” he bitched. “That is pathetic. How can people be so stupid?”

He wasn’t talking to me, he was just bitching, probably his favorite thing in the world after drinking and screwing. He never talks to me. As far as he’s concerned, I’m not even there. We don’t have any real conversations, about the best we ever do is exchange information, like pass the salt. About the only time we’re ever actually talking to each other is when we’re fighting with each other, which is a hell of a lot more than I wish it was. I can’t remember me and my old man ever having a normal father-son relationship. We probably never did, even when I was little. He’s never come to one Boys Club baseball or football game I’ve ever played, even though I’m one of the stars. He’s never heard me sing in the choir at school, never looked over my schoolwork. Not once. He pays the bills, that’s about it for him as far as being a family man goes.

I put on my pajamas and brushed my teeth, leaving the bathroom door open so everyone could see and hear me. I called out “good night” one more time for good measure, closed and locked my door behind me, and turned off the light.

After waiting a couple minutes to make sure they all thought I was asleep, I slithered out of my pajamas, pulled my clothes back on, and slid open my bedroom window. The incoming air was cold and clean. I took a deep drag. It was frosty but it felt good, jolting me awake after the hot, still air inside my room had half knocked me out.

I put on my new jacket, slipped a long-necked screwdriver into a pocket, and climbed out the window, quietly sliding it shut behind me. I oil it regularly to keep it from squeaking. My parents don’t know I do this—my old man would blister my ass into ribbons if he ever found out. There are a lot of things my parents don’t know about me, a whole other life.

I worked my way to the edge of the roof, dropped like a cat to the ground, tiptoed around to the side of the house, and snuck a look in one of the windows. No one had heard anything, they were all zombied out in front of the TV. Silent as an Indian warrior, I moved through our yard and took off down the street, sliding down the fresh ice, grinning like a nut. Sometimes something simple like sliding down fresh-frozen ice can be the most fun in the world.

Burt and Joe met me at the bottom of the hill. I met Joe the first day of first grade, back in Ravensburg Elementary School. Burt made it a trio when he moved here two years ago, when the D.C. schools integrated and the niggers took over. His older brother and sister had graduated Eastern High and Burt had always dreamed of it—his older brother’s a really cool guy. But after Washington integrated, Eastern, like every other white school (except in northwest D.C, where the rich people live) went from one-hundred-percent white to about ninety-percent colored overnight. That’s when everybody moved out.

Ravensburg is totally segregated, like every other school in this county. It’s redneck to the core, always has been and always will be and proud of it. No niggers are ever going to come to our school, not unless they feature getting their brains beaten out.

It isn’t like we hate niggers or anything. It’s just that they’re one thing and we’re another, and mixing us doesn’t do nothing but cause trouble. Actually, I’ve never hardly had any contact with colored people, except for maids and shit like that, garbage collectors. There’s an area south of town, the Heights, where they live, but I’ve never been to it. No one I know has. There’s all these stories about how they practice voodoo and all kinds of weird stuff, like drinking chicken blood and grisly shit like that.

Of all of us, Burt’s the one who really hates coloreds, because they ran his family out of their own neighborhood. All his old stomping grounds are full of black faces now. It would be as if all of a sudden I woke up one morning and I was the only white kid in Ravensburg Junior High. I don’t know what I’d do if that ever happened but I wouldn’t stick around long, that is for shit-sure. That’s what Burt’s older brother must’ve felt—he went back to Eastern one time after it was desegregated, to get an old trophy or something, and the halls were filled with colored students, it made him so sick he almost puked on the spot. He drove over to the Anacostia River, took off his class ring, and threw it in. Then he went out and got royally shitfaced.

We crossed the highway and went down the hill to Quincy Arms, these cheap two-story brick apartment buildings that were built ten years ago after the war for the returning vets who needed a place they could afford to live and start up their families in before they could buy regular houses. They were the first apartments built in Ravensburg—now there’s three other developments scattered around the town. Quincy Arms is only ten years old and already looks like it’s about to fall down, it’s so dirty and grimy and putrid. Ravensburg’s still a small town full of hicks for the most part, but it’s no longer the little out-of-touch farming community it was when I was born.

A few apartments were lit, but it was pretty still. They don’t allow dogs here, so you can pretty much come and go as you please and no one ever knows.

We approached the buildings from the back, waiting near the playground to see if there was any activity. Satisfied we hadn’t been spotted, we carefully picked our way down the icy sidewalk and went in through one of the unlocked basement doors.

The basement was like a labyrinth, stretching under several adjoining buildings. It was dim, even in daytime, just some naked bulbs hanging down. There are dozens of entrances and exits and crawlspaces and doors leading upstairs to apartments.

We’re always wary when we come in. Better safe than sorry, that’s my motto. After we were sure no one else was around we moved through a bunch of corridors until we came to the laundry room.

The laundry room is a big square white-tiled room with four coin-operated washing machines and four dryers set against the walls. Each machine has slots for dimes and nickels. The first thing we always do is check to make sure nobody has a load going, because we don’t want somebody coming down to take out their dirty underwear and find us there. We’ve found some really funny stuff in those machines. It’s amazing what people’ll put in the wash.

All the machines were empty. We had it made in the shade.

“Helloooo down there,” Joe mooed in this real low voice, which echoed off the walls like at the Grand Canyon. He’s a real clown sometimes, most usually when it’s the wrong time.

“Shut the fuck up, you asshole,” Burt whispered. “You want some dumb-shit housewife to come down here and start screaming her lungs out?”

“I got her lungs,” Joe laughed, grabbing his balls through his pants.

“You got jack-shit,” Burt said. “Now shut the fuck up.”

There were two entrances, the one we’d come in and another one at the far end, about fifty feet further down. Joe stood guard at one and Burt watched the other. I took the long-necked screwdriver out of my jacket pocket and pried it into the coin box of the nearest washing machine. I’ve got this down to a science; a few good thrusts, and the box popped open. I scooped the coins into a bookbag Joe’d brought and went to work on the next one.

I checked Burt and Joe. They were bouncing on the balls of their feet, ready to run. I was the cool one—I just went from box to box, doing my work. I’m pretty cool under pressure, I guess it comes from having to dodge my old man all the time.

The whole operation took less than three minutes. I scooped the last of the coins into the bookbag and carefully reattached the coin boxes to the machines; until they were opened by the guy that services them nobody could tell they’d been fucked with.

We ran out the way we’d come in and up the hill clear of the apartments, resting behind the Mobil station.

“I thought sure somebody was coming down that time,” Joe said, gulping for air, “it was so quiet I couldn’t hardly stand it.”

“Somebody should’ve come down the way you were mouthing off,” Burt said.

“Oh, fuck you,” Joe said.

“Fuck you, too,” Burt came back.

We’re always talking to each other like that. It’s like somebody else saying ‘how you doing.’

“I’ve been through every corner of that place,” I told them. “I’ve got ways in and out of there you ain’t never seen yet.” I’m good at planning strategy for shit like that, that’s how come I know I’ll do good at the Naval Academy.

“Count up and let’s get out of here. I’m freezing my cookies off,” Burt said, shivering as much from the danger as the cold.

“You ain’t got enough cookies to freeze off,” I told him.

“Ask Carolyn Hill how much cookies I got,” Burt fired back.

“You getting any off her?” Joe asked.

“Bare titty and more to come,” Burt said, strutting his achievement like a goddamn rooster in a barnyard.

“You wouldn’t know what to do with it if you got it, which you never will,” I jibed at him.

“Fuck I wouldn’t.”

“Come on, count up,” Joe said. It really was cold out, our breath was condensing in front of our faces.

I laid the change out on the ground, making three equal piles. The take came to almost three dollars each.

“Not bad for a night’s work,” I stated, feeling proud. Three dollars is good money any way you look at it.

“Let’s adios the hell out of here,” Burt said, scooping his share into his pockets.

“We’ve already done the deed,” I told him, “so don’t get your bowels in an uproar.”

I silently climbed through the window into my room, crossed the dark floor, and opened my closet door, where I took out a Mason jar that I’ve hidden behind some old football pads, way in the back. I opened the lid and put my night’s work inside. The jar was three-quarters filled with nickels and dimes. That’s where I get the money to buy stuff like my models and the new Ravensburg High jacket.

I hid the jar away and got back into my pajamas. Then I cracked my door, checking things out. There weren’t any lights except the glow from the television set.

My old man was sleeping in front of the test pattern. He woke up with a start when he heard me come into the room.

“Got hungry,” I explained, making sure to stay upwind from him, because his breath, a combination of booze and mouth-open sleeping, was truly vicious. He could get a job steaming wallpaper off walls, I swear to God.

He grunted with a loud belch. If he lit a match he’d blow up the whole goddamn house. Finally he forced himself up from the couch and staggered upstairs, shedding his clothes as he went for my mom to pick up in the morning.

There was the usual stack of unwashed dishes in the sink along with a bunch of greasy glasses, some smeared with lipstick. I got out a fry pan and fixed myself three western-omelette sandwiches and washed them down with a couple glasses of chocolate milk. I’m a growing boy, since I was about six years old everyone’s been saying I’ve got a hollow leg. My old man’s always threatening to charge me room and board because I eat so much. Someday he will, he’s such a bastard.

The kitchen was clean when I went back upstairs. I hate a dirty kitchen.

I lay on my bed looking up at the ceiling for a long time, playing with my cock, thinking of Darlene, Ginger Huntwell, Mrs. Fletcher. My ceiling is papered in swirls and patterns, an old job that’s faded over the years. As I lay there thoughts of pussy faded away, and just before I fell asleep I saw the patterns above my head come alive and start to move.