Chapter 7

 Tuesday, May 29, 1979

I get up early and go for my morning run. I go about five miles along the river. After I get home, I peel my clothes off and get in the shower. I let the water pour over my puny, scrawny body. Papa Riley — my grandpa — tried to teach me body positivity. “Love the skin you’re in,” he said. But I am not liking my skin these days. Zits are popping up all over my face. My voice cracks — going from high to low with every word I say. I sweat a helluva a lot more than normal lately. Hair is growing everywhere — under my arms, above my lip, over my wiener and on my balls. 

Books have told me to expect “startling changes” when puberty hits. Well, puberty is hitting me. Hard. As in, I get hard all the time. Boners. All the time. What the hell. … My wiener — Oh, that’s a little kid’s name for it. What would be better: my dick? My cock? My pecker? Be proper and call it my penis? I dunno. Hopefully, I’ll never have to talk about it. Anyway, it is getting bigger. My doctor (who’s kinda creepy) said I was an “early bloomer,” whatever that means. I look down at it. It feels so good when I … Well, I’d better take care of my schlong, my dong, my wang, my peter, my prick … right … now … 

Dad is sitting at the kitchen table as I enter the room.

“Morning, kiddo.”

“Morning, Dad.”

He rustles the newspaper — his newspaper, since he’s the editor. Mama is shuffling papers in a kitchen drawer. She slams it shut, opens another, and does the same. What has gotten into her, I wonder. I slide into my chair and pick up the cereal box.

“Hey, listen to this,” Dad says. “‘Skylab will come crashing out of the sky within the next few weeks or months, NASA said. The space agency said the orbital workshop, which had its last mission in 1974, is in a decaying orbit, despite attempts to keep it aloft. NASA could not specify when or where the space station would crash.’”

My eyes light up.

“What do you think about that?” Dad asks.

“Dang!” I say.

“Language!” Mama yells. She is now pulling odds and ends out of yet another drawer.

“Sorry,” I say. “Darn, that sucks. I wanted to go up there someday.”

Dad is well aware of my interest in Skylab and all things above us. He and Mama gave me a telescope for Christmas last year, and he helped me set it up in the back yard. I have a subscription to Astronomy magazine. I watch NOVA on PBS. I’m definitely a space geek.

“Too bad for the astronauts, though,” I say, “but it would be so cool to see it come down.”

“They’ll keep tracking it so they can warn people when it’s coming down.”

“When do you think that’ll be?”

“Well, NASA doesn’t know, but according to this article, I’d guess sometime this summer.”

“Cool, cool,” I say, crunching my cornflakes.

Mama sighs and turns.

“Did you have a nice jog, honey?” she asks.

I glare at her.

“I don’t jog, Mama,” I say. “I run.”

She chortles.

“Oh, what’s the difference?”

“I run very hard, very far, and very seriously. Jogging is, like, just trotting around the block.”

“Okay, okay,” she says. “Did you shower? I don’t want you go shopping all stinky.”

“Of course I did,” I reply, rolling my eyes.

Mama doesn’t take my joy of running very seriously. She thinks it’s a fad I’m going through. She just doesn’t get it. Ever since the Montreal Olympics three years ago, I’ve been hooked on long-distance running. I try to run every morning. Frank Shorter is my hero. He won the gold medal in the marathon in ’72 and the silver medal in ’76. A poster of the mustached marathoner hangs on my bedroom wall next to one of Ace Frehley of KISS.

“Now, Riley, this is the first day of summer, and I know you expect to have fun,” Mama says. “But your dad and I have been talking.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. He has talked me into letting you roam free. He says this is a safe town, that everyone knows everybody, and nothing will happen to you. …”

“Just don’t go roaming all over,” Dad says. “Stay in the city limits, and if you ever need anything, you know where I’ll be.”

“At the newspaper?” I ask.

He nods. Mama continues.

“There are certain rules, though, young man.”

“I remember. Watch out for traffic ...”

“Yes! For starters. I know you are going to go tearing all over town on your bike. Drivers don’t pay attention to boys on bicycles.”

“Okay, I’ll be careful. What else?”

“You will do your chores. Pick up the trash, clean your room …”

“And you’ll start mowing the grass,” Dad says. “For a boost in your allowance, of course.”

“Cha-ching!”

“Just don’t spend it all on comic books,” Mama says.

“Aww! They’re my favorite things!”

“You can buy some — but don’t spend all of your hard-earned money on them.”

“Fine. What else?”

“Don’t talk to strangers. Despite what your father says, there are some shady characters around — bums and riffraff.”

“Bums and riffraff?” I exclaim. “Our dinky little town has riffraff?”

“Yes,” she answers. “Stay away from them.”

“I know not to talk to strangers and not to get into strange cars,” I say while smirking. “I’m not a little kid. Anything else?”

“No riding all over town after dark. Make sure you are home before the sun goes down.”

“Dun-dun-dun! … That’s something they say in horror movies.”

“Well, don’t get bitten by a werewolf,” Dad says, smiling.

“A-roo-oo,” I howl.

We all laugh.

Dad gets up and scoots in his chair. “Well, gotta go. The news never stops.”

Mama swirls back around.

“Before you head off, answer me this: have you been into my drawers?”

Dad and I look at each other, smirking.

“Well, hon, do you really want to talk about that in front of our 12-year-old son?”

She scans out faces and realizes what she just said. Her face turns red.

“No, no, no, ha-ha,” she says. “I mean these drawers — the kitchen drawers, my desk drawers …”

“What are you missing?” he says.

She pauses.

“Well, it’s … Oh, never mind. I’ll find it.”

I shake my head.

“Bye, Dad,” I say. “Make good sausage.”

“The public will never know, buddy boy,” he says, kissing Mama on the cheek. He winks at me and exits through the back door. “Good sausage” is our private joke. He told me journalism — and politics — are messy and complicated. (I guess meat markets are, too.) Everyone complains, but they don’t know what goes into them. Nobody wants to see how the sausage — or laws, or the news — is made.

“You’d better get going, too, Riley,” Mama says. She is still poking into her desk drawers.

“What are you looking for?”

She pauses.

“… A little piece of paper … a newspaper clipping.”

“Well, I haven’t seen it.”

She sighs. Her eyes dart to the ceiling, apparently trying to visualize where the clipping might be.

“It’s got to be here somewhere.”

I’m not surprised she has lost this particular treasure. Mama is a bit of a clutter bug. So much so that I’m embarrassed to bring any friends over. Mama has accumulated many items for her “collections.” She has gathered old plates, porcelain figurines, and salt & pepper shakers. She even has a collection of barbed wire! She has nailed strands of it to a board to display on a wall. Who knew there were so many kinds of barbed wire?

She especially likes old vases. Several shelves of them in all shapes, sizes, and colors line the walls of our family room. Ironically, she hates housework — “Cleaning the house is something to do in a mad frenzy the night before company is coming from out of town.” So, a dust cloth has never touched them. I often swipe my finger across a shelf, leaving a trail. The vases look a bit dingy and dirty. I once picked one up to wipe it clean.

“What are you doing?” Mama shouted.

“I’m wiping it off,” I said. “I’m cleaning off this grimy dust.”

“Well, put it down,” she asserted. “You’re going to drop it!”

I quickly put it back on the shelf. She was furious. I’ve never tried to clean one of her precious vases again. They are still covered with a thick coat of sticky dust. But this is the first time I’ve ever seen her so concerned about a little piece of paper.

I finish my cereal and put the bowl and spoon in the sink.

“Okay, kiddo,” Mama says. “Let’s go buy you some clothes.”

“Ugh,” I groan. “What about your junk shop?”

“My ‘antique store,’ thank you very much!”

I snicker. The name of the store is “Trash & Treasures.” So “junk” is implied.

“I’m taking the day off. Hannah can handle things without me,” she says. “Now, come on, let’s get going.”

“Aargh!” I cry with my fists raised to the ceiling. “When will this hell ever end?”

“A bit overdramatic, don’t you think?” she says with one hand on her hip.

“Maybe so, but I need to practice being dramatic since I’m gonna play a pirate.”

She looks at me with narrow eyes.

“And I don’t care how Aunt Eva feels about it,” I say. 

She looks away.

“Oh, honey …” she says.

Curses! Is Mama planning to make me walk the plank? Is she gonna try to make me change course and alter my summer plans? She seems to be embarking on acts of sabotage. Of that, I am absolutely certain. First, a trip to the miserable land of Eva, and now a useless excursion to the shopping center of town. My summer of destiny will never get started at this rate.

We drive downtown. It’s a nice, cool morning, and we roll down the windows. As I look out, I see the sun shining brightly, its light fluttering through the tree branches. A soft breeze blows through the leaves of the giant elms that arc over Elm Avenue. 

“Psithurism,” I say.

“What?” Mama asks. “Did you say, ‘zitherism’?”

“Yes,” I answer. “It’s a word that describes the whispering sound that the wind makes when it rustles the leaves of the trees.”

“Oh, honey, you are such a nerd,” Mama says.

Wow, did my own mother just call me a nerd? Swell. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. It’s true, and I admit it: I am a nerd — a word nerd. Dad and I found out I could read when I was 3. While sitting in his lap, I began reading a newspaper article out loud. 

“Stella!” he called. “Come see what Riley can do!”

He and Mama were both astonished. I didn’t see anything big about it. It just came naturally to me. Only later did I learn about spelling and grammar and phonics. Since then, I have liked to learn new words. 

I continue to stare up at the trees as we pass them. The swaying limbs convey waves of welcome. If I were riding my bike under the canopy, the whispering boughs would bow to me, too. Branches would beckon me toward the fairgrounds, and the woods beyond would open up for exploration. Past the grove, the river below the dam would flow gently, encouraging swimming. Mother Nature is enticing me, but Mother Shrader is making me decline the invitation. No RSVP from me.

Mama does seem to be in a better mood. She continues to hum along to the songs on the radio. Her visit with Aunt Eva must have helped. I hope it stays that way. Her moods flicker back and forth. Sometimes, she is all happy and laughing with me, and then something changes, and she scolds me for the slightest offense. I never know which end of the spectrum I’ll find her in.

When she’s all happy and everything, Mama has a bit of a wild streak. And I like that. During those times, her motto ought to be “Life is an adventure.” Because she hates doing housework, we often jump in the car and take off to get a cheeseburger and an ice cream cone, or just drive around town. Apparently, that’s what we are doing today. Maybe she’s trying to make up for the boring couple of days I just had. She pulls into a spot at the Western Trails Drive-In Restaurant on the south end of town. 

“What do you want?” she asks.

“Not sure,” I say. 

We look over the menu board. There are some new choices: the Get-a-Long Little Dogie, a foot-long hot dog; the Vaya con Dios burger, which comes with jalapeños; and the Happy Trail, a burger topped with curly onions and a wiener. Mama orders the Best of the West burger — two beef patties, cheese, onions, tomato, lettuce, and a slice of avocado. I don’t know where she puts it all. Mama is thin, but she can always eat a lot of food in one sitting. I’m not very hungry — I did just eat breakfast, after all. I get the Dude Ranch — a grilled chicken patty with ranch dressing and coleslaw. 

“Look at all the cool kids,” she says, looking around the drive-in. 

Since it’s Tuesday, business is slow, and I don’t spot anyone I know. Of course, no one I know drives. Maybe I just don’t know any “cool kids.” As she says, I am a nerd, after all.

We eat and then start dragging Main. 

“I did this when I was your age,” she has said. I’ve always wondered about that. She repeatedly drove up and down Main Street when she was 12? I doubt it.

“Honk if you’re horny,” she says, honking the horn and giggling.

My eyes grow wide. What has gotten into her? She is in a really good mood!

She looks around for anyone she might know. Who is she looking for, I wonder. 

“Brakes!” I yell.

We nearly ram into the back of a car. 

“Don’t tell your daddy,” she says. I won’t, but I get the feeling there’s a lot she doesn’t tell Dad.

We go through downtown and drive past J.P. Barnard’s Department Store, Sanders’ Gas & Oil, Curley’s Lotsa Lasagna Diner, and the bank. We go clear to the north end of Main Street, where there’s a fork in the road. Go left to take the state highway to St. Augustine and Butler City. Go right to enter Lagoon Park. With a large lagoon (duh!), the park has a circular drive. You can loop around it and do the drag circuit again. And again. And again. In my opinion, dragging Main gets monotonous. We go through the park and head back downtown. Mama cranks up the volume on the radio when a song she likes comes on, “It’s My Party.”

I roll my eyes. 

“How about we listen to something a little more modern,” I say.

“The driver gets to choose the music,” she says. 

She likes the songs that she listened to when she was a girl, and I hardly ever get to hear any songs that I like. She tips her head toward me and starts dramatically mouthing,

“You would cry, too, if it happened to you …”

Her eyes twinkle. She winks at me. Though her erratic driving worried me earlier, I find myself enjoying her antics. Inevitably, she wins me over, and I join the sing-along. With the windows rolled down, we cruise down Main Street and croon as loudly as we can.

“My boyfriend's back, and you're gonna be in trouble.

“Hey-la-day-la, my boyfriend's back.”

We laugh and laugh. As we pass other cars, the people in them look over and shake their heads at us. A few give us a thumbs-up. We laugh some more. It’s a good time, I’ll have to admit. When a particular song comes on, though, Mama changes her tune. She doesn’t sing along to this one.

Teen angel, can you hear me? Teen angel, can you see me?

Are you somewhere up above, and am I still your own true love?

Just 16 and now you’re gone; they’ve taken you away.

I’ll never kiss your lips again. They buried you today.

Mama grasps the steering wheel tightly. She is shedding tears. I get that it’s a really sad song. But why does it make her cry?

“Are you okay, Mama?” I ask.

She wipes her nose.

“Yes, I’m fine,” she says. “This song, though, reminds me of … never mind.”

Mama grew up in this town, and sometimes, we take little tours of it. Today, we drive by the same places that we have passed several times over the years. She points to a building along the way. “There’s your Papa’s old diner,” she says wistfully. “He served the best chicken-fried steak.” 

“Yes, I think I’ve heard that,” I say, nodding my head sarcastically.

As we pass by an abandoned storefront, she informs me, “That’s where your Papa’s first antique store was.”

“Hmm, you don’t say,” I say, as if I had never known that fact before. “That’s amazing!”

“You are such a stinker,” she says, slapping my arm.

As I’ve said before, I am named after my Mama’s father, sort of. My first name, Riley, was his last name. He was famous in these parts. He was the town’s mayor for many years. A plaque on the bridge south of town says the span is named after him. So, me and the bridge have the same name. Ha-ha!

He was very popular. When Papa was a county agent, he knew all the farmers, and they helped get him elected. Before that, he held all sorts of jobs. When he was about 24 or 25, he worked as a National Park ranger, which explains his love of camping. Later on, he managed the town’s Rookie League baseball team — back when we had one. A few of his players went on to play in the major leagues. He also owned a diner, which, according to Mama, served the best chicken-fried steak. That all happened before I was born. When I knew him, he was an antiques dealer.

According to Mama, “When my daddy entered a shop, he would gauge the value of an item and start dickering with the owner. He would wear him down and get a lower price. He knew how to get a good deal.”

Papa’s last store — the one in his basement, the one he died in! — was north of town on the state highway. Travelers passing by were attracted by the colorful neon sign that said, “Riley’s Curiosities.” (I wish I had that sign, but it was lost a long time ago. Oh well.) Many of his customers dickered with him over prices, and they thought they were getting a good deal. Papa would chuckle as he rang up the sale on his old cash register. 

“There’s a sucker born, et cetera, et cetera,” he would say, emphasizing each syllable. “Cha-ching!”

It was in Papa’s basement that I discovered I like to open boxes, drawers, and glass cases to see the valuables inside. It was there that I found the greatest treasure ever. A broken, stained cardboard box revealed to me a stack of old comic books — Batman, Spider-Man, Superman, Journey Into Mystery, Archie & Jughead, Donald Duck, and many more. I heard an angels’ choir as I flipped open the flaps and thumbed through the issues. I was hooked, and I have been reading them ever since. 

My favorite superhero is Superman. I like the Man of Steel. He has the best powers, the best villains, and the best secret origin — rocketed to Earth when his home planet exploded. A kindly old couple took him in and taught him to be humble and brave. And then, they tragically died. He disguised himself so he could live among us mere mortals. He protects the world from evildoers and fights for truth and justice. The movie that came out a couple of years ago was excellent. Kendall and I have seen it about 10 times. We can’t wait for the sequel, which comes out in a couple of months. When Mama saw me reading an issue of Action Comics, she told me that Papa was her Superman.

“He helped a lot of people — when they needed money or a ride or a place to stay,” she said. “He was quite the hero.”

Mama likes to follow in the footsteps of her father — as an antiques collector. She opened her antiques store a few years ago. We go to lots of yard sales, garage sales, estate sales and auctions. She will pick up any gimcrack, gizmo, and gewgaw that catches her eye. She will turn it around and flip it over to see all sides. She will look at the bottom, peer inside it, and bounce it in her arms to judge its weight. 

Except for vases and barbed wire, most of what she finds at sales ends up in her shop. Unfortunately, she does not have Papa’s knack for knick-knacks. Most of what she buys and sells isn’t worth much. 

“It’s mostly junk,” Dad once said quietly to me. 

She brought home an old typewriter — “You can learn to type,” she told me. I tried, but it was a challenge, let me tell you. The shift key would randomly switch to uppercase mode, so WRitIng LoOked LiKE tHis. 

She bought a coffee maker with the words on the buttons rubbed off, so you didn’t know if you were switching it on or setting the time. And she got me a Batman board game with most of the pieces missing. Riddle me this, Batman: How can I get to the Batcave with no Batmobile pieces?

After our town tour, Mama is all business. We have several errands to run, including dropping off some clothes at the dry cleaners. She is particular about Dad’s shirts.

“No starch, please, Evelyn,” she says. “And see if this stain will come out, could you?”

“I’ll see what we can do, Stella,” Evelyn replies.

Mama seems to know everyone in town. At some places, she gets into long conversations. She and the bank teller, her friend Brenda, chat and chat over the intercom at the bank’s drive-through window. Brenda pops two peppermint candies into the vacuum canister. Mama hands one to me. I take it and pop it into my mouth. I’m not a fan of peppermint, but hey — it’s free candy!

We go to the hardware store. The owner, Jim Perkins, walks over to us.

“What can I do for you today, Stella?”

“I need to look at some color samples,” she says.

He leads us to the paint department.

“Here you go,” he says. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Thanks, Jim,” she says. “Tell Phyllis that I’m thinking about her and that I’ll call her.”

“I will,” he says. “She’s going through a lot right now.”

“I know, Jim. I’m praying for her,” she responds.

“That poor woman,” Mama whispers to me after he leaves. “Cancer.”

She gets several paint sample cards. Then, we go over to the lumber section and look at different varieties of wood. Evidently, she is on a recon mission to gather intel for future projects. Someday, she will paint a chair; someday, she will build another shelf for more vases. Today, she isn’t buying anything.

At the pharmacy, she picks up a prescription refill. At the shoe store, I try on some shoes because my feet have suddenly gotten huge — two sizes bigger than last year. Riley needs a new pair of shoes, baby! I take a gamble and slip on some cool running shoes — red Pumas. 

“Can we get these, please?” I plead. 

“Not today,” she says. “But your birthday is coming up, so …”

Score! 

We continue going from store to store. Regardless of where we are shopping, or “just browsing, thank you,” she always wants my opinion.

“This is cute. Riley, what do you think?” she asks in Barnard’s Department Store as she considers a mailbox shaped like a cow.

“I dunno,” I say, shaking my head. This shopping trip is taking way too long. I just want to get it over with. She puts it back and moves down the aisle to the next item that catches her eye. 

Barnard’s is our town’s biggest store. It’s huge — a whole block wide. On the first floor, they sell a lot of cheap stuff, like cow-shaped mailboxes, plastic picture frames, and novelty pens and pencils. Go up the escalator to the second floor, and you’ll find kitchen items, bed linens, and clothes. Their newspaper ads say they have “all the latest styles in all the latest sizes.” Of course, I don’t get to examine anything that interests me, like an action figure, a board game, or even a book. If I could look at them like she looks at her things, it would make this shopping trip worthwhile.

We could have just gone to the store, bought my clothes, and gone home. But no. Mama is making sure we cover it wall-to-wall and floor-to-floor. She looks at towels for the kitchen, blouses for herself, and shirts for Dad. To make matters worse, I am her designated purse-holder. Whenever she needs to look at something closely, she hands me her pocketbook. 

I sigh and take it. I read that once upon a time, a pocketbook was a small bag, like a backpack, that was used for carrying — books! Mama’s pocketbook, though, is huge. It’s the size of my bed pillow. It has long straps and several zippered compartments and flaps. I have no idea what is in it — I doubt it contains any books. I hate holding it. Not only is it heavy — it is a ladies’ purse! The possibility of being caught in the act of carrying it horrifies me. What if my friends see me? I’ll never live it down.

“Hey, Wile E. Coyote, what’s in your purse?” I hear, as the very thing I am dreading happens.