“Yeah,” Clem said. “But do you need to be the person who collects it?”
“Is the Dump all that bad?” Eric asked. “Is that the place they throw all the garbage?”
Clem laughed. “Naw — it used to be, maybe back in the forties and fifties. But see, it’s like a welfare neighborhood — social assistance or somethin’. All the Chamber of Commerce people — at least a lot of them live there, thanks to the Kyle Foundation.”
“Jay and Mex don’t live there — do they?”
“Jay MacAmon? You met him today — ?”
Eric actually started to say “Yesterday.” But he caught himself and nodded.
“He got a place on the island — but it’s the same difference. Almost.” She seemed to sense his discomfort, though she was probably not sure of its cause. “I mean, how old are you?”
Eric said, “I’m sixteen. I’m gonna be seventeen on Saturday.”
“You are?” Clem looked surprised. “Now, see — I thought you were already nineteen, like Morgan…even twenty-one or so. You’re just sixteen? You looked like you were a bit…well, older.”
“Naw,” Eric said. “I ain’t.” Since he’d been progressing with the Bowflex workouts, Eric had grown used to people giving him between two and five extra years.
“So — maybe it don’t make much difference. I mean, if it’s just for a summer job…I was gonna say, you could even ask Barbara’s friend, Ron, to see if he could get you a spot over in Runcible — you know, where you’d wear a clean shirt, a nice tie? And work in an office, like he does — with air conditioning.” She nodded deeply. “Don’t knock that air conditioning, son. Believe me that makes a big difference. I’d get it in here, if I could…”
When Barbara came back, with a brown paper sack of Granny Smiths for the afternoon’s cobbler, Eric told her that he was going up to the house — “No, not in the car. Don’t worry. I’m gonna walk — or jog some of it. At home, I’m gonna put my bike together and maybe ride down here again. Or — I dunno — around.”
“You could put your stuff away, out on the porch,” Barb said.
“Or do a workout. Or…yeah, put some stuff away.” Though he wondered where he was supposed to put it.
“At least,” Barb said, “move it out of the middle of the porch floor.” Then she frowned. “Going up there, you won’t get lost?”
Eric gave her a look, then laughed.
“All right,” she said. “But try to be there when I get home — would you? I don’t want to have to start worrying about you — not for the first few days, at least.”
“Okay,” he said. “That’ll be my first job. Not to worry you.”
[8] ON FRONT STREET, Eric started jogging, took the turnoff he thought would take him up to Barb’s, got twenty yards along it and, beside a bank of quivering Queen Anne’s lace, realized, in the passing breeze, it wasn’t the right one: it was the road that had put Mike out on Front Street when they’d been briefly lost. So he went back — the one he wanted was the next double rutted path. He set himself a medium gait — but after ten minutes, had to stop.
It was all uphill.
Following car tracks over a meadow, he did fine. (Clem had said it was between two and three miles, and even though he’d walked more than half of it rather than run, soon he was at the pine-wood slope up to the house. It had taken maybe forty-five minutes.) Well, he thought, pushing into the kitchen, at least now he knew his way into town — and back.
He didn’t put his bike together.
Eric lay down on his porch bed, jerked off, slept about forty minutes, woke logily, and decided, “Naw, this ain’t no good,” got up, moved some of the boxes up to the wall with the screen, then thought, “That’s stupid. Suppose it rains,” and moved them back against the other wall that was the house. He put the front wheel on the bike but not the back one, which was marginally more difficult because of the chain, set it in the corner, then did the last set-up needed for the Bowflex — and (finally) another workout.
It was hot, so he swabbed under his arms with yesterday’s balled up tank top, wet a towel in the sink and wiped himself down, then started a laundry pile in the porch corner.
After that he felt better.
At five minutes after five when Barbara stepped in, she wrinkled her nose and said, “Honey, did you burn something on the stove?” and walked across to the small television at the back of the counter to flip it on.
Eric sat in the chair by the table. “Burn what? No.”
“’Cause I smell something.”
“I cooked the chicken.”
“How?” she asked, surprised and automatically.
“I roasted it,” Eric said. “In the oven.”
Barb looked surprised.
Eric got up, went to the counter, where a tray was covered with a piece of wax paper. “I sliced up half of it — and made some tomato salad, too, like Grandma showed me, back in Hugantown. You remember. You always liked that. So did I.” He opened the refrigerator, and took out the bowl. “You got mayonnaise and mustard and stuff. We can make sandwiches — if you want. That’s what dad always liked, when I’d cook a chicken for him. Or we can have it plain, if you want.”
“Um…” Then Barbara smiled. “It smells…good,” she admitted. “I thought it was burnt ’cause I wasn’t expecting it, I guess. That’s all.”
Eric grinned back. “You’re forgiven.” He put the tray on the table, where he’d laid out silverware and napkins. “You said you wanted to eat a little earlier. That’s why I decided to try and have it ready when you got home.”
Barb said, “You didn’t set the table.”
“Come on. Sit down.” Eric said, “I was going to, when you walked in.”
Barb came to the table and — almost cautiously — pulled out a chair. “What did you do all afternoon?” She moved away suddenly, went to the sink, and turned on the water — to wash her hands.
“I took a nap,” Eric said, “actually. Then I did a workout, on the machine. You want some lemonade? I made a pitcher — it’s in the refrigerator. Do you have glasses? I couldn’t find ’em.”
“Oh — I’ve only got those ugly plastic ones.”
“Where?”
“You didn’t see them? In the cabinet under the drawers — over there.”
“That must be the one place I didn’t look.” Eric went to the refrigerator and took out the metal pitcher. Ice clinked against the sides as he brought it to the table. “You want to get them out?”
“Did you take a shower after your workout?”
“Um,” Eric said, carefully. “No.”
“You know you really have to start doing that.”
“Why?” he asked. “I’ll take one tonight, don’t worry.”
“Well, you’ll smell, honey.” She closed the tap on the back of the sink and turned around.
Eric stood there, smiling. He held his hands apart and open, questioningly. “Do I smell?”
She took in a deep breath that seemed more exasperation than an attempt to detect odor. “No…”
“Well, then?”
“But you might smell, sweetheart. And it would be a nice thing to do — especially when you’re going to cook.”
“I washed my hands,” Eric said, not sure, actually, if he had or not.
Barbara stepped around him and turned to the table.
On the little TV screen under the upper cabinet, the Weather Channel showed a tornado’s funnel, leaning, blurring, sending up a froth of dust and debris as it plowed along some horizon, beyond a truck with a dish antenna in the back, cameras, and — standing in the bed and staring toward the storm — young folks with binoculars, ponchos, rainhats, and knapsacks.