Antiques Maul (16 page)

I
’m pretty sure Jake had a good time at Wild Cat Den (I know I did), rediscovering the natural-made attractions at the state park, from “Fat Man’s Squeeze” (a fissure in a limestone rock wall allowing a shortcut for the slender) (my son made it, I did not) to “Steamboat Rock” (a gigantic boulder in the shape of a prow that you could climb up on). And of course, every kid’s favorite was “the Devil’s Punch Bowl” (a small crater that filled with reddish goo when it rained), and Jake was no exception.

Unbeknownst to me, however, my son had an ulterior motive, other than hiking…and if I’d had my parental radar up and running, I’d have noticed he
had
agreed to the outing a little too readily.

We were driving along the scenic River Road on our way there, when Jake asked, “Ever hear of geocaching?”

I admitted I hadn’t. If it’s not fashion-related, I’m pretty much on the outside.

He un-Velcroed one of his many pants pockets, withdrew a small rectangular gadget, and asked, “Know what this is?”

I thought,
Another expensive toy your father bought you
?

But I said, “Plays music, right? Download your tunes?”

How sad when Mom tries to sound “with it” (“with it” by now being a term only a mom would use, by the way).

Jake shook his head. “It’s a GPS—Global Positioning System.”

“Oh, I have heard of that…allows you to track something?”

He nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, within ten meters.”

I took my eyes off the road for a second. “Cool…. Uh, what exactly do you track with it?”

He smiled. “That’s where geocaching comes in.” After a pause, he went on: “Remember you told me how you and Grandma used to vacation every summer at the same place, and how you’d put little stuff in a tin Band-Aid box, then hide it and try to find it the next year?”

Yes, life really was that exciting back in the Olden Days.

“Yeah,” I said with a smile, “only sometimes I’d forget where I buried it…but somehow, eventually, I always found my precious trinkets—rusted and slimy, but I found ’em.” I shot him another glance. “Is
that
geo…geo…?”

“Caching. Like in a cache…get it? Yeah. It’s sort of a treasure hunt and stuff, only with lots of people playing besides you.”

“And how do they do that?”

“Well,” Jake explained, slowly, as if to a small child or an imbecile, “once I hide my cache, I post the longitude and latitude points on an Internet site.”

“Then what?”

Jake shrugged. “Then anyone with a GPS can try to find it.” He reached into another pocket and produced a large plastic aspirin bottle. “This is what I brought along to stash.”

“What’s in it?”

“Oh, coins and marbles and stickers and stuff…just whatever we had lyin’ around.”

“Won’t that disappoint the finder?”

“Naw! Everybody hides that kind of junk. It’s more about
finding
the thing than what’s in it.”

I smiled. “Not much different than when I was a kid.”

“Yeah, technology changes but kids don’t.”

My eyes widened. Nice to have a child this smart…if intimidating.

Jake, really talkative for the first time since he’d come to stay with us, was going full throttle: “But sometimes the cache can get muggled.”

“Muggled?” What was that, a Harry Potter reference?

“Found and taken by somebody who’s not playing the game. So you got to hide it real good and stuff, only you can’t bury it…that’s the rules.”

“Sounds like fun. Can I help?”

“Sure…especially if you can spot poison ivy.
That
is no fun findin’.”

One of the unchanging rules of childhood over the ages: Poison ivy bites.

We’d been all over the park before Jake settled on an acceptable hiding place for his aspirin bottle, in an old oak, just off the main trail. He slipped the bottle into a hole in the trunk, then checked his gadget for the coordinates.

Satisfied, he rejoined me on the path.

We were walking along the pine-needle strewn trail when Jake gave me a sideways frowning look, whispering, “Mom…don’t look, but there’s a guy back there in the woods…. I said don’t look!”

“Sorry…. Is he wearing army fatigues?”

“Yeah, I guess. He keeps ducking and weaving and peekin’ out from behind the trees.”

“That’s Joe Lange.”

Another sideways frowning look. “Who’s he?”

I sighed. “Just a guy I know.”

“What, another stalker like that rolltop-desk freak?”

“No, just a friend of mine, from high school. And, anyway, that other guy isn’t a stalker, just another antiques buff.”

Our shoes crackled on leaves for a few steps.

Then Jake sighed and said, “Mom, you sure got some weird friends.”

I didn’t bother trying to deny it. “Joe’s a special case,” I said. “He kind of lives out here—during the day, anyway. He was in Desert Storm…ever hear of that?”

“Nope.”

“It was a war before you were born.”

“You mean Vietnam?”

“No, Iraq.
First
Iraq war.”

Jake shook his head, his expression sour. “That figures. You know what they say.”

“What do they say?”

“Sequels always suck.”

I guess I could have mentioned
Godfather Part 2
, but his was a point well taken just the same.

“Anyway,” I continued, “Joe was in Desert Storm and, well, came home suffering post-traumatic shock syndrome.”

“Oh. You mean he’s a mental case like Grandma.”

“It’s better to say ‘mentally disabled,’” I suggested, dispensing advice I oftentimes didn’t take.

“Whatever,” Jake said.

I stopped and pointed to a small boulder by the side of the path that we could easily climb up onto. “Let’s sit here…. Knowing Joe, heprobably just wants to talk to me.”

As Jake settled on the rock, he asked, “Should I pretend not to see him? I mean, he doesn’t think he’s invisible or something, does he?”

Trying to get comfortable on the hard surface, I responded, “Joe marches to a different drummer, is all. Just go with the flow.”

“Okay. But if the flow gets too
weird
, I’m goin’.”

We sat and waited, now and then glancing over our shoulders as leaves behind us crunched and pine needles snapped.

Suddenly Joe’s head popped up alongside the boulder, startling us, even though we knew he was coming. The black and green greasepaint that camouflaged Joe’s face made it difficult to see his not-bad-on-the-eyes features.

I said casually, “Hello, Joe, whaddaya know?”

Jake, a little nervous, squeaked, “Hey, dude…what’s new?”

Joe returned to a crouch, using the boulder for cover. He looked here and there and everywhere (but at us).

“Thought you should know you’re under surveillance,” he whispered.

Jake, innocently, asked, “By you?”

Joe shrugged. “Counterinsurgency has its place.”

Riiiight
, I thought, but asked, “You mean, someone’s following us?”

“Affirmative. Male. Civies.”

“Description?” Best to keep it clipped with Joe.

“Negative. Too far.”

“Hmmm,” I said.

“Hmmm,” Jake repeated, playing along.

I said, “Well, thanks for the tip, Joe. By the way, this is my son, Jake.”

Joe, dropping the whisper, said, “Thought so…can see the resemblance. Nice to meet you, son. Say, you don’t happen to have any chew stick or pogie bait on you?”

Jake and I exchanged quizzical looks.

“Beef jerky or candy…haven’t been able to get to a slop chute.”

Jake offered helpfully, “I got some Hi-C boxes.”

Joe nodded. “Bug juice’ll do.”

Out of a cargo pocket, Jake retrieved the small drink carton with its little attached straw and handed it down to Joe.

“Much obliged, bro.”

Jake asked, “Where’s your gun?”

I glared at my son, who gave me a
What?
look.

Joe spread out his hands, fingers clawlike. “Don’t need a Glock
or
a pineapple….
These
babies are registered.”

Jake’s eyes went wide, and I tried not to smile at this army blarney.

I said to Joe, “We’re heading back to our car. Do you want to walk along?”

“Negative. SOP is for me to go on ahead for recon.”

“Oh,” I said, “sure. Right. Well, thanks for the intel.”

Joe gave us a loose salute. “If I get a better read on him, I’ll catch you on the AGB.”

“AGB?”

“Alexander Graham Bell,” he said. “You won’t see me, but I’ll be around.”

Yeah,
I thought,
like the wind.

Then, assuming a half crouch, my commando guardian angel ran back into the woods.

“That guy talks way cool,” Jake said, sliding down off the rock.

For a mental case
, I thought.

Walking, Jake asked, “Do you think he’s right?
Is
some guy after us?”

I joined my son on the path. “No. He has an overactive imagination, that’s all. Joe just likes to play survivalist out here.”

But I could only wonder if Joe hadn’t spotted a real threat, considering all the strange things happening lately. Maybe, Troy, my rolltop desk picker, really
was
a stalker….

The return to our car was uneventful; we didn’t spot Joe again, and no male among the tourists hiking and camping seemed to have anything more than a casual glancing interest in us.

The only bit of unpleasantness came on the drive home, when Jake said I didn’t make a complete stop at a four-way sign coming into town.

I said, “I did
too
stop.”

He said, “You did not.”

“Did too.”

“Did not.”

“Too!”

“Not!”

“
Too, too, too!
”

“
Not, not, not!
”

I let it drop. Honestly, for a kid his age, Jake could be childish sometimes.

Arriving back at the house, we found a note from Mother taped to the front door, saying she would be back in time for supper. So much for alerting burglars (and stalkers) that no one was home. How did the old song go?
Walk right in, sit right down….

Inside, on a table in the foyer, we found another missive from Mother—beside a large orange plastic bowl brimming with an assortment of miniature candy bars—telling us to keep our mitts off the treats. This was Halloween, after all.

Out of respect to Mother’s wishes, I took only one Almond Joy, and Jake a single Snickers.

My son said, as he tore off the wrapper, “Am I bigger, or are these things smaller?”

“Yes,” I said, and popped the candy morsel in my mouth. Talking while I chewed, setting a really splendid example, I said, “Not the big regular candy bars you got when
I
was a kid…as the fillings in my teeth can attest.”

While Jake retreated to his bedroom, I headed for the bathroom, because hiking had swathed Brandy in a scent that was not perfume. After a quick shower, I wandered into the kitchen to see what was for supper, and found yet another note from Mother.

I looked at the wall clock.
Yikes!
The little ghouls and goblins would be ringing our doorbell in just half an hour….

Mother had set out three ingredients on the counter: spaghetti, V-8 juice, and bacon bits. She had invented this cheap, easy meal back when I was a snot-nosed kid, and this was probably the only food we had left in the cupboard. The concoction doesn’t taste too bad, but really stinks up the joint when cooked…a terrific house-guest-clearer-outer. (If you make it, I won’t be held responsible.)

I broke up the spaghetti, threw it in the frying pan, poured in the juice, tossed in the bacon, slapped on the lid, and let the thing simmer. Remember: I am not liable.

Jake appeared in the kitchen. He wrinkled his nose. “What
died
?”

Didn’t I tell you?

“Supper,” I said.

“Yuck. I’ll just have candy.” He tromped out.

Another mother might have called out, “Come right back in here, young man!” Another mother who wasn’t competing with Jake’s father’s money, that is.

I was setting the table with paper plates (this dish didn’t deserve china) when I heard someone coming in the front door. Expecting Mother, I went into the living room to greet her, instead coming face-to-face with a furious Peggy Sue.