Daddy Lenin and Other Stories (11 page)

“It’s no sample,” said Mrs. Bernhardt. “I don’t have any samples. Did you go behind that counter?”

“It was on top of the counter and it was
opened
. Looked like a sample to me,” Darcy said, bristling.

Mrs. Bernhardt snatched the eyeshadow from her hand. “You got some gall,” she said.

Reinie spoke up. “There’s been a mistake, I guess. I’ll pay for it.”

“First, I look in her purse and see what else she helped herself to.”

Darcy flicked the clasp of her handbag, defiantly upended the purse on the countertop. Out tumbled cigarettes, matches, a mound of wadded Kleenex.

Mrs. Bernhardt pursed her lips disapprovingly. “Your age and smoking.”

“Who asked you? Mind your own business,” snapped Darcy, scraping everything back into her purse.

“Get out. And don’t you come back here again. I got enough to do without keeping an eye on the likes of you.”

“Kiss my you-know-what,” Darcy said, whirling around and flouncing off, leaving Mrs. Bernhardt to viciously bang the cash register keys and Reinie to pay. When he handed Darcy the eyeshadow out in the car, she was too gleeful to thank him. “Old bitch. See her face? Did you see her face?” Darcy wriggled forward, thrusting her own face at the rear-view mirror to admire the free touch-up she had helped herself to. As she did, she planted one small hand on Reinie’s thigh, steadying herself. That slight pressure obliterated everything looming in his mind – that Mrs. Bernhardt, like his mother, was a notable Lutheran dragon, and likely to squeal that he had been the wheelman for a shoplifter. The warmth of Darcy’s palm burned him right through the cloth.

For an hour and a half Darcy and Reinie sat in a booth in Wong’s Café, a new experience for Reinie since he had never before had any inclination to waste his time just hanging about the way the other teenagers did. He bought Darcy two hamburgers and two vanilla milkshakes. Each booth had its own individual station for selecting tunes on the jukebox and Darcy kept demanding quarters from him to feed the machine. She sang along softly to each song with a longing look on her face that Reinie found thrilling. When she wasn’t singing or eating, she was chain-smoking. Reinie felt gratified when two girls from his home room, Beverly Steckel and Marjorie Hampton, whispered and shot steely looks in his and Darcy’s direction until she turned to them and said, “What you looking at, scrags? Because I sure ain’t looking at much.”

This time, when Reinie pulled up to the Pushko residence, it was Darcy’s mother who was enthroned on the front step. The Pushko men were nowhere in sight. “I like your car,” said Darcy before she left him, hustled across the sun-blasted patch of couch grass that masqueraded as a lawn, and went bounding up the steps past her mother.

Mrs. Pushko beckoned him, a directive not to be denied. Reinie climbed out of the Chevy and approached her warily.

“I’ll put a extra plate on,” she said. “You better come in and eat with us.”

“Really,” began Reinie, “I got to –”

“Ah, don’t be shy. Nothing here to scare you.”

She got to her feet, laid a powerful hand on his back, propelled him up the steps and into the kitchen. There, all the rest of the Pushkos were sitting around a battered Formica table set with Melmac plates. Mr. Pushko still wore his engineer’s
cap and mirror sunglasses indoors. White stubble dusted his face, like a skiff of snow.

“This is Darcy’s friend,” announced Mrs. Pushko. She turned to Reinie. “What do they call you, son?”

“Reinie.”

“Whiney? Whiney?” Mr. Pushko’s deep, resonant bass boomed in the hot, steamy kitchen.

“No –” Reinie started to say, but his correction was stalled by a burst of laughter from the others. Only then did he realize Mr. Pushko had perpetrated a joke.

“Eenie, meenie, Reinie moe!” bellowed Charlie. Another wave of hilarity engulfed Reinie.

“He’s company,” warned Mrs. Pushko, although with a long-suffering, indulgent smile for her brood.

Darcy was less forgiving. She sat, fingers sulkily twisting the ends of her long hair.

“I should phone my mother. To tell her I’ll be late,” explained Reinie.

“No can do,” said Mr. Pushko. “Cocksuckers at the phone company cut me off.” He glared at his sons. “Too much of the long distance, these assholes phoning to every wrecker’s yard in the province looking for car parts.” It astonished Reinie that Mr. Pushko so readily confessed his financial embarrassment without a trace of shame.

“You – Everett, Lincoln – shove over and let Reinie get his feet under the table beside Darcy,” demanded Mrs. Pushko. Her two sons began to playfully jostle each other, thumping their chairs together. It reminded Reinie of bumper cars colliding on the midway. Gradually, a gap inched open into which he self-consciously squeezed himself.

“The boy looks like he could use a beer,” said Mr. Pushko. Dutifully, Charles retrieved a bottle of Pilsner from a case strategically positioned on the floor near the table. Reinie was about to refuse, but before he could get a word out Charles had set the rim of the bottle cap to the edge of the table and smacked it with the heel of his palm. The cap spiralled into the air and landed with a faint clatter on the linoleum. Presented with the foaming bottle, Reinie had no choice but to clamp his lips to it to save the floor from a drenching.

Mrs. Pushko was bustling about with bowls and platters. As soon as one hit the table, somebody snatched it up. “Give over to Reinie now,” she kept urging her children. “Give the boy a chance.” When nobody heeded her, she took charge and served him herself, heaping his plate with thick slices of pork loin roast, perogies, cabbage rolls, cucumbers and cream, buttered carrots and dill, mashed potatoes and gravy. Everybody tucked in, making grunts of delight except for Darcy, who showed little interest in her food after all those hamburgers and milk shakes. She toyed with a single cabbage roll, aimlessly shifting it about on her plate.

Lincoln elbowed Reinie. “Hey, Darcy,” he said to his sister, “if you don’t eat your supper, you ain’t going to grow any pinfeathers on your chicken. No pinfeathers on the chicken, you ain’t old enough for a boyfriend.”

“Go fuck your hat, moron,” said Darcy. Then she jumped up and stormed out of the kitchen. Once again, everybody howled laughter. Reinie’s eyes flitted from face to face, searching for some sign that somebody disapproved
of this vulgar exchange between brother and sister. He found none.

Reinie’s wristwatch showed him it was just shy of six o’clock. He was going to be late getting home. Turning to Mrs. Pushko, who was slamming plates of gingerbread and whipped cream down on the table, he said apologetically, “That was an awful good supper, Mrs. Pushko, but I better be going.”

“Nobody leaves without they have dessert,” Mrs. Pushko declared sternly. “Not in my house.”

Darcy’s family proved impossible to escape – not that Reinie really wished to. Grinning foolishly, he ate two helpings of dessert, drank two more beers. He wasn’t used to the beer. It made him feel silly, giddy, light-headed, and light-hearted. He giggled at almost everything that was said. When Darcy’s brothers asked to see his car, he proudly did the honours. The boys popped the hood, inspected the motor, pored over the interior, all the while murmuring enviously.

This was followed by a guided tour of the Pushko automobile graveyard. The wrecks struck Reinie as falling into two distinct categories: definitely not running and certain never, ever to run. Reinie, who had always stood apart from the common run of humanity, burdened by all the duties and responsibilities that attended being an Ottenbreit, was sure the Pushkos were
embracing
him, that he was being accepted as
family
because of Darcy. In his befuddled, tipsy state he could have flung his arms around them, hugged them to demonstrate the vast, oceanic wave of fraternal feeling he was experiencing. His emotions even began to colour his estimation of the value of the junked cars.

Finally, as utter darkness descended, Reinie and Darcy’s brothers stood companionably in the chilly fall night, warmed by the limitless potential the derelict vehicles would reveal some time in the future.

“I’m a decent welder,” Reinie said. “If you ever need any help.”

“Fucking A,” said Charlie.

“Double fucking A,” said Lincoln.

“Let’s have another beer,” said Winston.

They did.

Reinie came home to big, big trouble. His father was off in the pickup scouring the roads for him while his mother shouldered the task of tracking all possible leads as to his whereabouts by telephone. Of course, Mrs. Bernhardt, a charter member of the Lutheran ladies’ telegraph, had seen him – with the Pushko girl. Explanations were demanded of Reinie and his answers fell far short of being satisfactory. He kept his eyes on the floor, claiming the Pushko girl was simply a new friend he had made at school. On the spur of the moment, her mother had invited him to supper. Yes, he was sorry his thoughtlessness had caused his parents so much anxiety. No, it wouldn’t happen again.

Then his mother smelled something suspicious on his breath. “Reinie,” she said, “have you been drinking alcohol?”

“I had a beer.” Reinie was not an experienced liar. He quickly added, “Just one.”

“And where did you get it?”

“Mr. Pushko gave it to me. To have with supper.”

“Imagine,” said Mrs. Ottenbreit, shaking her head. “Unbelievable how some people live.”

Mabel Ottenbreit was determined to nip this in the green bud. She pointed to the key hook on the kitchen wall and told her son to hang his car keys there and not to even
think about
touching them for two weeks. And stay away from that Mr. Pushko. If she didn’t feel so sorry for that man’s wife, she would call the police right this minute and report him for supplying liquor to minors.

The sullen, defiant look her son sent her before he placed the keys on the hook frightened her just a tiny bit. It was as if Reinie’s personality had altered in the blink of an eye.

After he had slouched off to bed, Mabel Ottenbreit brewed some strong coffee and sat sipping it, waiting for Karl to return. Reinie had denied there was any funny business going on with this girl, but she wasn’t convinced. Neither she nor Karl had ever told their boys
in so many words
that they weren’t supposed to have girlfriends, but she had assumed that because of the opinions they had expressed on the foolishness of pairing up at an early age that their message had been received loud and clear. But then Reinie had always been slower, more backward than Edgar. Certainly what she had made absolutely clear, no ifs, ands, or buts about it, was that her children had one obligation at this stage in their life and that was to get their education. That was the danger with dating. Distractions from schoolwork. At worst, even pregnancies, God forbid. And there was no surer way to pregnancies than young people dosing themselves with alcohol. And here was Reinie, taken to guzzling beer.

Last year, when her son had implored her to let him quit the choir and Luther League because he was falling behind in school, she had felt torn. Reinie had suggested that all the chores he had to do on the farm were cutting into his study time. Mabel Ottenbreit was a woman of her word and since she had said school came first she couldn’t backtrack. With Edgar gone off to the university, Karl had lost one pair of hands and couldn’t do without Reinie. So, reluctantly, she had agreed that her son could withdraw from church activities. Pastor Schneider had been disappointed because Reinie had a lovely voice (his one talent) and he had always been a stalwart of Luther League, not a leader certainly, but a steady attender.

Now, with graduation in sight, it appeared that her youngest, steadiest son was on the verge of making a bad turn in life. She had expected trouble from Edgar but never Reinie. Mabel Ottenbreit would never forget the day she had found those magazines tucked under Edgar’s mattress, the ones with women sticking their rumps out like monkeys eager to be mounted. But Edgar had come around after a good talking to. What worried her now was what Karl had always said, that it’s the quiet bull that hurts you.

The next morning when she got up for church, the car keys were no longer on the hook, and her son was nowhere to be found.

Reinie drove the countryside aimlessly until eleven o’clock, then dropped by the Pushkos’. Darcy was still in bed, so he
helped her brothers cut the box off a ’51 International half-ton. They intended to use it as a trailer. All five Pushkos praised his handiness with an acetylene torch. By mid-afternoon they had finished the job and went into the house for coffee. Darcy was up, sitting at the kitchen table in her pyjamas, smoking cigarettes. Reinie asked her if she would like to take a spin out to the lake.

“May as well,” she answered with her usual indifference.

Darcy didn’t appreciate the lake much but she liked the amusement park. They played minigolf and later Reinie watched her bounce on a trampoline until all his cash was gone. After that, they sat in the car before the dark blue lake splendidly enamelled with Indian summer sunshine, watching the crisp waves roll up onto the beach. The Chevy was parked under a big cottonwood and its shade gave the place a twilight, romantic air, which encouraged Reinie to screw up his courage and ask Darcy for a kiss.