Tales of the Madman Underground (38 page)

None of the Toledo stations showed cartoons or old movies on Sunday mornings, and the further-away stations were fuzzy this morning.

Paul looked a lot better for having had a safe place to sleep all night.

He had choir at First UM for the second service, and they paid him eighteen dollars a week to do tenor solos, so he really couldn’t afford to miss it. He borrowed my razor, stuck in a new blade, shaved and combed his hair, and made himself semipresentable by borrowing one of my shirts and a tie; it was huge on him, but the choir robe would hide everything between his collar and his shoes. Just before he took off he said, “No more bullshit between us, okay? We’ve been friends all our lives, let’s be friends when we’re both eighty.”

“Well, okay,” I said. “But if she’s still around, dibs on Rose Carson. Old Browning says she’s a piece and a half.”

Paul got this smug look and said, “Yeah, well, in that case, dibs on Browning.” He could always gross me out
and
crack me up.

After he took off, I did the dishes, wiped the kitchen down, and decided to get going on the storm windows.

While I was in the toolshed, getting out the sawhorses and working my way through the stacked storm windows, I checked around, just casual glances ’cause you never knew which neighbor kids might be watching, and made sure that the four cash stashes I had out there were still in their places.

Only three storms needed reglazing—I’d kept up pretty regular, and last winter had been mild. Two more needed some dry spots in the glazing broken out and the gaps refilled. All five would need repainting, of course.

If I ate lunch late, I could probably have some real free time this afternoon. And Darla was off work at two on Sundays.

That got me moving a little faster. I pulled out the storms I was going to work on, stacked them by the shed, and set the first one on its sawhorses.

I was about to open the can of glazing compound when the phone rang inside the house. I locked the shed—no matter what, I always did that, after that sneaky little bastard Eddie Cockburn called my house and stole a stash while I was inside getting the phone.

I got to the phone before it stopped ringing. It was Rose Lee Nielsen, Marti’s mother, with a super-long super-complicated message for Mom. Apparently this afternoon the super super ladies were getting together to talk about Watergate and “the Bermuda Triangle connection to it,” which meant they’d get drunk and agree loudly that elves were good and grays were bad. Rose wanted to show Mom some new documents that would “really reveal something about what’s really going on,” before they got together with Judy and Jolene to get drunk and smoke pot out back of Judy’s place.

After I got all that taken down and read it back twice, she told me a couple more times what a nice young man I was, and how much Marti liked me. Luckily, a Saab that really wanted tuned rolled up in front of the house. Since it was old and ugly and barely worked, it had to be Wonderful Bill’s. “Uh, I think maybe she’s coming home now,” I said.

A minute later Bill and Mom came in. Her hair had the clean, full look it got when she took time brushing. She wore no makeup, and the sweater and jeans were nothing special, just some stuff I’d gotten her from Sears when she was complaining about being broke and her clothes wearing out (then she’d started complaining about wearing Sears clothing). She was wearing tight jeans tucked into her Go-Get-Laids, the way the college girls were just starting to do, and she had big sunglasses pushed back on her head.

Come to admit it, she looked like she had walked in straight out of a movie, but at least it was a happy movie. Wonderful Bill was in the same corduroy two-piece, but he’d changed his shirt. He was still wearing that Greek fisherman’s hat like a smashed pie on top of his head, and it still looked stupid.

He looked like he was trying to be either Peter or Paul, and failing, and Mom looked like she was trying to be Mary and nearly succeeding.

I handed off the phone to Mom and went back out to get those storms glazed and painted.

The thing I like about reglazing windows, it’s fussy and neat but you use your whole arm; you have to put that glazing compound in firm, in one clean stroke, and strike it off neat, or it looks like shit.

I had just broken the old dried-out compound out of the frame and laid down two of the sides of the new compound when I smelled something that was kind of like someone had stuffed old newspapers up an elephant’s ass, waited for him to shit them out, dried them, and smoked them. Bill. Puffing on a cigar.

“Your mother’s probably gonna be talking for a while,” he said.

“Yeah, once she gets rolling, she doesn’t stop.” I struck off another side, the fresh compound peeling away like dough, and wiped after with my vinegar-wet rag to leave the glass clean right up to the glazing.

“Like some help?”

“You’re in a suit.”

“It’s an old one, and I’m very neat. And I wouldn’t’ve offered if I thought I’d get any on me.”

It was less of a faggot-loser answer than I’d been expecting from an English professor. I shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

He moved one of the storms that needed a touch-up onto two more sawhorses. He busted out the bad spots in the glazing—didn’t need me to tell him which they were, or to tell him that that one just needed a touch-up. And at least now his cigar was downwind of me.

He didn’t overpush, letting the tool do the work, quick and clean and controlled. He was at least a step up from that dumbass Neil. Plus Mom had been smiling when she came in. He was still a fool and a liar, but Mom had been with a lot worse.

“So,” he said, “your mother says your dad taught you how to do all this home repair stuff.”

“Yeah, well.”

He borrowed my vinegar rag and wiped. On balance I decided I’d be willing to glaze a window with old Bill.

As he finished striking off, he said, “Um, you probably know that your mother didn’t say ‘home repairs,’ she said ‘ucky ucky Mister Fixit Man Things’ and complained that you spend too much time on them, especially on Sundays.”

“I bet she did.”

“She did indeed.”

“Indeed.”

“Oh, God, did I sound like an English professor?”

“Indeed.”

He laughed, which made a big cloud of foul smoke billow up and blow off toward the neighbors’ yard. “You know, every single mother I have dated, and there have been quite a few, has told me her kid is funny, and you are the first one who actually is. All right, I did sort of want to talk to you about something sort of serious, which does concern your mother, but you’re welcome to avoid that if you prefer.”

I shrugged. “There’s no ball game on the radio.”

“Good point. Well, Beth gave me what I think must be her standard sermon about how you should spend more time being free and that the house gets too much attention and so forth.” He finished laying in a side and struck off again; just the right pressure to clean off the excess, not enough to scratch or press the glass. “I said I thought there was something very fine about a man who took care of things, and did them right, and about being a craftsman in a world of bozos.” He laid in three gaps at the top.

I still wasn’t going to say anything to him that wasn’t a direct answer to a question.

After a bit he shrugged and said, “I noticed half a dozen jobs you’d done around here. The painted railings on the back porch. That patch on the roof. The tuck pointing on your chimney. You’re good at this stuff, Karl, real good, and what’s more, you insist on being good.

“Now, the reason why I’m blowing all this flattering smoke up your kilt here”—he paused to give his full attention to striking off—“is that I am a bit serious about your mother.”

“You like my mom?”

“I do. A lot. Unfortunately I have a lifelong habit of falling in love very quickly and then living in an intense state of regret afterward.”

“Well, Mom’ll get you to
that
pretty quick.” Something was making me ask, “What do you like about her?”

“Probably just that she’s the sexy J.D. girl that would never speak to a nerd like me in high school.”

“J.D.?”

“Juvenile delinquent. I guess I’m revealing my age.”

“Naw, I’d already caught on.”

He did have a pretty good laugh, for a fool. And at least he appreciated my sense of humor. “All right, then, so we have two things in common: we want your mother to be happy and we like to fix stuff. Thing is, there’s a third one you won’t like—we both go to AA meetings. Or I did. Anyway, last week I fell off that wagon pretty hard, and ended up at a bar in Lightsburg, and met your mother.”

“That would be the place to do it.”

He looked over his finished work, and so did I. We both nodded and he moved the window to the completed stack, next to the one I had finished.

“You’re good at this,” I observed.

“It paid for grad school.” He puffed on that horrid cigar again, and said, “Anyway. I’m going to a meeting this evening, and if I stay dry till tomorrow morning, I’m back to one day of sobriety.”

“I’ve got eighty-two days,” I said. “The first one’s the hard one, and then the rest are hard, too.”

“Amen. I had almost three years when I fell off.”

“You said you will have one day,” I said, calculating, “but you met my mother on Thursday night—”

“And then got so chickenshit-scared that I got drunk after work on Friday and didn’t wake up till ten A.M. Saturday. Scared she’d turn me down, scared I’d get there and she would have forgotten, mostly just scared. If there was ever a good reason to stop drinking it’s having done something that stupid. But then I already had plenty of good reasons to stop and stay stopped.”

“It’s staying stopped that matters,” I agreed.

We each set up a window on the sawhorses, both of us taking a complete reglaze this time, and worked so much alike we finished at the same time. He said, “Looks like one more to patch the glazing on, and then paint them all?”

“What I had in mind.”

Find a good work partner and there’s always something to talk about.

We moved the two finished storms to join the others leaning against the wall of the toolshed, and set up the last one on the horses.

Without saying anything, I started knocking out the old dry compound from the top pane, and he started on the bottom.

After a while he said, “You know what they tell you about dating somebody who still drinks. Especially somebody who thinks that your not drinking is criticism of their drinking.”

“They say it’s pretty stupid, sir.”

“Better call me Bill, on the off chance that we have to get used to each other.” He sighed. “Yeah, well. I know they say that. And I think . . . look, Karl, your mom told me a lot of stories and I can kind of piece things together. And I’m not exactly the right guy for this job. They say saving people is the biggest addiction of all. Besides, shit, I chickened out on Friday night and went and got drunk instead.”

“Should’ve called her, she’d’ve come along.”

“Yeah, well.”

We had that storm mostly done when he spoke again. “Something your mom said—it made me think, uh, for a while you went to Alateen? How is it?”

“A lot like AA. You thinking of Al-Anon?”

“One more meeting a week, in the life of a professor, is another grain of sand on the beach, Karl.” He bent to his work. When we finished glazing, he asked, “Think she’ll be in there a while longer?”

“Yeah, usually. She’s going out drinking with her friend tonight, so first they have to have the predrinking phone call, which takes an hour or two.” I was surprised at how blunt I felt like being.

“Yeah. Well, I got a meeting to go to tonight. And I sure shouldn’t be out with her when she’s that way. Looks like you’re planning to prime with oil, paint with latex?”

“Yeah.” That had always been what Dad recommended, and it did seem to last longer.

“Might like to help you out. Don’t suppose you have an apron?”

I grabbed him mine from the toolshed. We did the little bit of scraping that was needed, just where stuff was crumbly, and then painted. There didn’t seem to be much else to say, but he was stranded; he needed to talk to Mom before he went. And he couldn’t very well sit there for all the time she’d be on the phone talking about the elves who flew in on spiritual energy to inspire the Beatles and the pyramids, versus the grays who flew in on flying saucers to inspire Nixon and Vietnam, or whatever the mix was today.

We painted for a while. Then he said, “Your mom wanted me to talk to you about going to college, I guess because you’re thinking about the army.”

“Yeah, I am, it seems like the best way to be sure I’m out of Lightsburg, and I’ve had enough school for right now.”

“Hey, drop those shoulders and relax, man. I’m not doing a sales number on you. College is already full of kids who shouldn’t be there and we don’t need more. And I
was
in Vietnam—eight years ago—just driving a truck, though. Not as awful as your mom imagines but no fun. So I think you should do what you want, whether it’s college or the army.” The cigar in his mouth flipped up in a way that I was sure he told himself was “jaunty.” “There, now we have talked about your going to college versus your going into the army, which is what I promised I would do. We can have this conversation again as many times as your mom wants us to.”

“Thanks.” We finished the painting in silence, and I said, “Okay, I should clean up and lock up.”

He took off his apron carefully, even though he hadn’t gotten paint onto anything, folded it neatly, and handed it to me. “Thank you,” he said, “that was definitely better than sitting in there with all the cats.”

As he turned to go inside I said, “Good luck,” and he said, “Thanks.”

His hat still looked stupid. Probably she’d toss him within a week.