Soar (14 page)

“Sue me,” Sandy says, without looking up.

He sets the skates aside and takes another pair. Size eight, blue-and-green laces, three red wheels and one white, probably a wheel that Sandy had to replace. That pair gives me blisters on my heels. “You ride that bike to the underworld and back?” he asks.

“That's why I'm here. You can fix anything. And you told me to find you if I needed something. Well, I need something.”

Sandy sprays the eights and sets them on the rack. He comes out from behind the counter and takes a long look
at my bike. He takes the handlebar and leans the frame away from us so he can see it better in the overhead lights.

“Careful,” I say. “The whole frame is loose.”

He laughs under his breath. “You got more problems than loose.” He sets my bike on its kickstand and walks behind the counter. He slurps from a Styrofoam cup covered in greasy fingerprints.

“Does that mean you'll fix it?” I ask him.

Sandy turns his back and walks away. Just when I think he's ignoring me, he motions for me to follow him. Relieved, I take a deep breath, guiding my bike with one hand on the handlebars, the other hand on the seat.

The back part of Jetz Skating Rink is a storage area, but Sandy uses it more as a garage. Tools cover the walls and fill every corner. Hammers, saws, levels, clamps, wrenches. A can of Roller Shine hangs above a workbench, and extra wooden planks lean against a storage cabinet. The planks must be extra pieces for the skating rink floor.

Sandy reaches up and yanks a long chain hanging from the ceiling. A light bulb flicks on. Under the light my bike looks like it belongs in a junkyard.

Sandy bends down and checks out the front wheel where it attaches to the bike frame. He pulls a wrench
from his toolbox and cranks the screw in the middle of the wheel a few times.

“Is that really going to work?” I ask him.

Sandy cranks the screw one last time. He doesn't bother looking up.

“Sorry,” I say. “I'll shut up.”

I don't blame Sandy for being annoyed. He's used to working in silence. No one's ever here during the day. But there's one question I have to ask him.

“Sandy, I really need to ask you something.”

He looks up at me, showing me his toothless grin. “What is it, Eddie?”

I look at my bike, remembering that night at Dan's Sporting Goods and how proud my dad was for buying it. He wanted me to ride it so badly that when we got home, he backed Hoopty into the driveway and lit up our street with the headlights so I could see where I was going.

I look at Sandy, wondering if he'd tell me the truth.

“Was my dad a liar?” I ask him.

Sandy takes a deep breath. He walks around to the back wheel and begins tightening the screw in the middle.

“A liar, huh?” he says, thinking about it. “Your daddy was the biggest liar that ever saw a bird.”

I
t takes a moment for Sandy's words to sink in. I can't tell if he's serious or joking. I can only hope he's heading toward a funny story about Dad lying once—only once—about something other than birds.

My response barely makes it out. “Really?”

“Sure. Your dad lied to me all the time. He'd say the food he brought me was just some leftovers from your mom's kitchen. Half the time he left the price tag on it.”

It's true. On our way home from birding on some nights, Dad would stop at the store and come out with a brown bag with hot food inside.

“What's Sandy going to eat tonight?” I'd ask, and Dad would say, “He's going to eat good.”

“Did he lie about anything else?”

“Why you asking me, Eddie? Did someone call your dad a liar? If so, you should tell 'em to stop stickin' their nose where it don't belong.”

I shrug. “It's nothing like that. It's okay.”

“ ‘Okay,' someone called your dad a liar, or ‘Okay,' you'll tell 'em to sniff elsewhere? Which is it?”

“Both, I guess.”

Sandy chuckles, showing his gap-filled smile. He takes a smaller wrench from his toolbox.

“Hold the handlebars steady,” he orders.

I straddle the front tire, facing my bike, holding the handlebars in place. Sandy begins tightening the screw that connects the handlebars to the frame. “Your dad was a tasteful liar. He only lied when the situation called for it. He lied about meaningless things, like bringing me food. He didn't lie about things that mattered.”

“Did he ever tell you about the golden eagle?”

“The golden eagle,” Sandy says, remembering out loud. “Yeah, I knew about it.” He yanks on the wrench. “Give those handlebars a tug.”

I pull up on the handlebars. They won't budge. They're even tighter and sturdier than before.

“Seems good to me. Thanks.”

“We're not done yet.” He pulls a tool from his back pocket and begins removing one of the links in the greasy chain. After he removes the link, he takes the chain off and drops it into a bucket filled with a blue cleaning solution—just like the cleaner Mom uses at school. The water turns from blue to black, I'm guessing from all the grease on the chain. Now it looks like a bucket of water from Miss Dorothy's pond.

“Do you think my dad lied about the golden eagle?”

“Did he have a reason to?” Sandy lifts the chain out of the bucket. Black water drips from it. But under the light the chain sparkles like it did on the day I rolled my bike toward the cashier at Dan's Sporting Goods.

Sandy lays the chain on a towel. “Can't let the chain sit in water for too long or it'll rust.”

“I don't think Dad had a reason to lie.” I try to keep the conversation going.

“Hold the handlebars again.”

I straddle the front wheel, holding the handlebars steady. With both hands Sandy twists the seat back and forth until it pops out of the frame. Then he puts my
bike seat in a different bucket—one that's filled with what looks like plain water. “Give it a few minutes. That stuff will clean mud off a hog.”

I decide to go for it. “Sandy, do you think the golden eagle is real? Do you think he actually saw it?”

Sandy sprays a rag with clear liquid and begins wiping down the silver frame. My bike begins to turn into a brand-new mode of transportation. It's still my Predator, but it's better than the Predator I've known for the last year.

“If the golden eagle is real, I wanna see it,” he says. “And if it's phony, I don't wanna know. Uncertainties make life more interesting.”

“What do you mean?”

“On Saturday nights I never know how many kids are gonna walk through that door. Could be ten. Twenty. Thirty on a good night. If it were always the same number, and the same kids, I'd get bored of this place real quick. I'll be here on Saturday night, that much is certain. But there's also the unexpected. Like the night you threw soda in Mouton's face. I laughed myself to sleep thinking about that.”

“You did?” I suddenly feel horrible about that night. Mouton was annoying me and pushed me to the limit, but I could've reacted differently.

The soda stain—a dark blotchy outline that looks like Texas—still covers the carpet where you enter the roller rink.

Sandy finishes cleaning my bike frame and tosses the rag onto his work counter. The light from overhead shimmers off the crossbar that holds the seat in place.

“Take this here bike,” Sandy says. “I'm doing my best to fix it up nice for you, but I don't know what's going to happen once you start riding it. It could fall apart and turn you sideways into a ditch. Or it could hold sturdy until you outgrow it. Uncertainties. They're all around us, but you don't realize it because they're quiet. They're not like tragedies or maladies. Those things hit you over the head. Uncertainties lurk. They can haunt you or surprise you. Guess it depends on what you expected in the first place.”

I've never heard Sandy talk like this.

He sounds like Mr. Dover during one of his stories about his property. But Sandy's words make a lot more sense, in a real-life kind of way.

S
andy even reupholsters the seat for me. By the way he checks everything twice, you'd think he was fixing the president's bike. I ask Sandy for a spool of string for my symposium project, and he gives it to me.

On my way out of Jetz Skating Rink, he says, “I never asked you, what happened to your bike?”

I swing the door open, and the welcome bell rings, only this time it's the good-bye bell. I stand in the open doorway, holding on to my bike. The smells of Indiana fall and Roller Shine hit me at once.

Sandy says “Maybe some other time” and waves me out the door.

I hop onto my Predator, feeling out the new seat cover, and begin pedaling.

The newness and sturdiness of everything takes me back to Dan's Sporting Goods and Dad, standing in the aisle, nodding his head, waiting patiently for me to pick out my birthday present. I still don't know where he got the money for it.

I tuck the spool of string under my shirt and pedal harder. I coast over to the Freeze Queen, hoping Mom has stopped there on her way home from work. There's a good chance she'll show up here. All the workers know her name, except the high school girl behind the counter who calls her Lizzie instead of Lisa. Mom's too sweet to correct her.

When I get to the Freeze Queen, I hop off my bike and guide it toward the entrance. I'm not leaving it outside again. I've run into Mouton here plenty of times. He always buys a sackful of Buck Burgers and then walks home, holding the sack in one hand, inhaling burgers with the other. That makes me wonder if Mouton has ever painted a Buck Burger. If he has, I bet all the details—the melted cheese, the juicy burger, the smooshed sesame seed bun—look mouthwatering and real enough to eat.

I look through the windows of the Freeze Queen.

Mom is not standing in line. She's not at the soda machine. She's not grabbing a sack of Buck Burgers for dinner. She's nowhere to be found.

But someone I know
is
sitting in a booth.

Gabriela.

And she's not alone.

Chase, the basketball player, sits next to her. He says something, and Gabriela laughs, covering her smile with her hand.

Gabriela looks like a movie star under the booth's lights. She and Chase are sharing a basket of fries and using the same ketchup cup.

I walk my bike through the front door and guide it across the black-and-white checkered floor. I stop in front of Gabriela's booth.

When Gabriela sees me, she smiles and acts like everything is fine. “Hi, Eddie. What are you doing here?”

Chase glances at me, then the bike. “Look, it's Mr. Muscles.”

Ignoring Chase, I focus on Gabriela. “I'm looking for my mom. What are
you
doing here?”

Gabriela looks down at the basket of fries and the paper ketchup container. “Chase has to do a country
report for his social studies class. He chose Brazil as his country, so I am here to help him get his facts straight.”

“Must be nice.” I glare at Chase.

“Chase asked to interview me as part of his research,” Gabriela says.

“It doesn't look like much research is going on here,” I say. “Where's the journal and the pencil? What about the voice recorder?”

“Eddie, we are only having a conversation about my home country. That is all.”

Chase reaches out and touches my bike tire. “Bike's looking good there, Wing Man. You should get going, though. There's a lot of baby robins to save before winter.”

I glare at him, but all I see are his broad shoulders and muscular arms. “For your information, I conduct real research on my subjects.”

“Real research, huh? I haven't heard anything about you doing research, but I heard you like to dress up like a baby ninja.”

My heart pounds, my face turns hot. I glare at Gabriela. “You told him about our mission?” How could she do this? Operation Ninja Bird was our special mission, never to be spoken about.