Memory Boy Read online

  Mr. Litzke looked up at me. “What if I went and had a little talk with Mr. Kurz?” he said. One eyebrow arched in a look that said, Your ass is grass, Newell.

  “If you have any doubts, then I think you should talk to him,” I said. I kept my eyes round and innocent looking.

  “I will,” Litzke said. “After school. Today.”

  The next day when I came to class, Litzke said nothing to me. In fact, he purposely would not look at me.

  I couldn’t resist. I raised my hand. “Mr. Litzke? Did you have a chance to speak with Mr. Kurz?”

  Litzke turned, gave me the world’s blackest look, then continued with our lesson. It was a major victory for me. Nathan Schmidt gave me a high five. We had great fun imagining Litzke—who, as a teacher, technically did work for the government—showing up at Buena Vista in his short-sleeved white shirt and skinny black tie, and quizzing Mr. Kurz about his life.

  However, sometimes a major victory is not all it’s cracked up to be. I felt bad about fictionalizing the memory book. Not bad as in guilt-ridden and sleepless, but bad in a low-grade, continuing way, like—kind of like a grain of sand in my sock. It was one of the reasons why I didn’t walk into Buena Vista to see Mr. Kurz. But there were other reasons. My friends, the ash fall, my father being gone all the time—something always got in the way. Then when the economy went belly-up and life in the suburbs turned scary, I spent all my spare time building the Ali Princess.

  It was during those late nights in the garage that I began to think again about Mr. Kurz. As I worked, sometimes I heard his voice inside my head.

  Maybe try a socket instead of that wrench.

  Are you sure you want to cut that off so short?

  Take your time. Rush and you’ll only skin your knuckles.

  We need a new bolt. This one ain’t worth a tinker’s damn.

  Sometimes his voice was so loud I would suddenly look up; it was as if he had been right beside me, or at least somewhere in the shadows of the shop. On one of those nights I promised myself that, when the Ali Princess was done, I would go back to see Mr. Kurz.

  Buena Vista looked just the same, only smaller. And dustier. Nobody sat outside in wheelchairs. I guessed the dust was too much.

  I thought of checking in at the main desk but decided against it. I would slip in and out, no commotion, no tracks. Mr. Kurz would approve. I eased around the corner and headed down the hall. The place had the same sickly clean smell, the same old-timers slumped in wheelchairs, the same moans and groans as I had remembered. I thought I’d take a chance and see if Mr. Kurz was in his same room. As I approached it, I took a deep breath. His door was open.

  I paused, then stepped forward. Inside was a jumble of chairs and a pile of mattresses. I stared. Mr. Kurz’s room was now a storeroom. I felt like somebody had punched me in the gut. I backed away, into the hallway.

  “Hey, don’t I know you?” said a passing voice.

  I spun around. It was the male nurse. His hair was much longer now but he still wore the same white outfit and white tennis shoes. He stopped and smiled.

  “Miles,” I said. “Miles Newell. I did my ninth-grade oral-history project with Mr. Kurz.”

  “Sure, I remember,” he said. We shook hands. Then he glanced to the storeroom, and back to me. His smile slipped. “Bad news, Miles.”

  I took a small breath and held it.

  “Mr. Kurz died about a month ago.”

  “Shit,” I said. The word just popped out—the same one that most airplane pilots say just before they crash—the same one that shows up again and again on cockpit voice recorders recovered from crash sites. Usually it’s their last word. Shit.

  “Yes, I hear you,” the nurse said. “As old-timers go, I didn’t mind Mr. Kurz one bit.”

  I stood there taking in little breaths and letting them out.

  “His family was worthless, though,” the nurse continued. “We called them several times, but in the end we had to do all the arrangements ourselves.”

  “Arrangements?”

  “Get him to the funeral home. Make sure he was cremated—that’s what he wanted—then bring him back here to the chapel.”

  I nodded.

  “‘Burn me up. Dump my ashes in the river. That way nobody will ever find me.’” The nurse did a very good imitation of Mr. Kurz’s raspy voice.

  We both smiled. Suddenly the nurse ballooned and tilted as water welled up in my eyes.

  The nurse put his hand on my shoulder. “You okay, kid?”

  “Sure,” I said quickly.

  There was a pause. “I won’t lie to you, Miles. It was sad. His family never even came for his ashes. And he never got around to telling me which river.”

  I blinked and blinked. Down the hall someone moaned loudly.

  The nurse hesitated. Then he said, “Sorry. I gotta go. The living, you know.”

  “Sure. Thanks,” I said. “See you around.”

  But he was already walking away toward the moaning.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  BIRCH BAY

  IN THE MORNING THE TENT was clammy and dewy inside. Sarah—as usual—had managed to angle her sleeping bag across most of the space. I quietly unzipped the tent flap and looked outside. Our cabin was tall and still. For a moment I hoped I had only dreamed the squatters—but the Harley remained parked on the front porch.

  I pulled on my shoes and slipped out. I’d always liked early mornings down at the beach, before the lake got busy with boats and whining little Jet Skis. I eased toward the back side of the cabin (a nest of fresh cigarette butts lay by the steps) and along its thick, reddish logs.

  Our logs.

  Our moss on our logs.

  Our spiderwebs shiny with dew on our moss on our logs.

  I suddenly felt ashamed to be sneaking along; I straightened up. I was almost down to the shore when the goats saw me. They began to lunge against their little corral fence and go “Baack-baack-baack” like crazy; I froze—and was still frozen when Danny the biker stumbled out the back door with a gun.

  I knew a little bit about guns, mainly from Mr. Kurz, and this gun was huge. It was long, with a big barrel and a wooden forearm: a slide-action shotgun of some kind. Danny was jacking a shell into the chamber as he came out the back.

  Then he saw me.

  We stared at each other.

  “What are you doing back here?” he growled.

  “I’m going down to the beach.”

  “Why?”

  I shrugged. I was usually fairly clever with words, but that gun shrank my vocal cords.

  “I don’t want you fooling around back here,” Danny said. “You’re making the goats nervous. They won’t milk right.”

  Somehow I doubted that—the goats seemed more like dogs that wanted to play—but I managed to say, “Sure, mister.”

  He stared at me, then lowered the gun. He nodded his head back toward our campsite and the Princess. “I meant to ask, what’s the story on that buggy with the sail? I ain’t ever seen one of those before.”

  “Probably not,” I said.

  “Your rich old man buy it somewhere?”

  “No. I made it.”

  “You made it? No bull, kid?” Big Danny said.

  “No bull.”

  “Pretty ding-danged impressive.” He leaned the shotgun against the back porch and smiled like we were pals. “You’re pretty handy for a scrawny little devil.”

  “Thanks,” I said. My natural sense of sarcasm was coming back fast.

  He stared at me for a long moment. “Too bad this cabin is full, else you folks could crash here for the winter. You’d be good around here, fixing things. Better than Rick, that’s for sure. He’s worthless with tools, and lazy besides.”

  I manufactured a weak smile. “I’m not that handy.”

  “Plus with five of them and four of you, there’d be one less mouth to feed.” He cocked his head to consider that.

  “Like I said,” I quickly began, but he didn’t hear me. Anot
her idea had arrived, and clearly his brain could handle only one at a time.

  “Except there’s the sheriff.” Then he added, “Plus Sheila would skin me alive.”

  “Well, there you have it, then.”

  He blinked, then bored his gaze back into me. “Listen. I got bad news. You tell your parents that you folks are gonna have to move on. That is, if they haven’t already figured that out. There’s no room here this winter for another family.”

  My throat stiffened. I stuck out my chin. “You’re the big man around here—why don’t you tell them?”

  His face went blank, then broke into a gap-toothed grin. “You know, I like you, kid. I do.”

  I vamoosed back around the cabin and headed for the tent. My parents were up and around now. The food pack was out. They were debating whether to set up our cookstove. “It’s a sign of defeat, us out here cooking, them inside,” my mother said.

  “On the other hand, we have to eat,” my father said.

  Sarah looked toward the cabin, then at the food.

  We ate breakfast behind our tent, out of sight from the cabin. I didn’t mention my conversation with Danny. I kept staring at the ground, at our shoeprints in the ash. My brain was spinning. Processing. Searching all databases. We clearly needed a new plan. The whole family was silent as we ate bread, peanut butter, and jam. Midway, a woman’s voice said, “Knock, knock.”

  Sheila poked her head around the side of the main tent.

  My mother’s face hardened. “What is it?”

  “I brought you some coffee, if you like. Real coffee.” She held two mugs.

  My father glanced at Nat, then accepted a cup. My mother shook her head curtly sideways.

  “I’ll take it,” I said. I surprised myself by saying that.

  “I didn’t know you drank coffee,” Sarah said.

  Sheila glanced briefly over her shoulder toward the cabin. “I wanted to invite you in for breakfast, but Danny said no. Says it would upset the children.”

  My mother bit her lower lip in a very obvious way. “Danny says,” she repeated.

  “Yeah, well, he is kind of the alpha male around here, if you know what I mean,” Sheila replied.

  “I’d noticed,” my mother said.

  “And I’m sorry to tell you this,” Sheila said, lowering her voice, “but he’s going to ask you to move on. I just wanted you to know that.”

  I looked at my father, and he at me.

  “I’ll talk with him after breakfast,” my father said.

  Sheila frowned. “I’m afraid there’ll be nothing to talk about. Once his mind is made up, well, that’s that.”

  “And what if we don’t want to move on?” Sarah said suddenly. Her voice was high-pitched and shaky.

  “Yes,” my mother said, stepping close to Sarah. “What if we don’t want to leave our own place, one that we pay taxes on, one that we—”

  Sheila interrupted her. “Danny’s been in prison,” she said softly. “Deep down he’s a good man, but he’s done some bad things, and he’s got a hair-trigger temper.”

  My father’s gaze went to my mother. “That’s good to know,” he said.

  Sarah looked accusingly at my father, as if he was on the wrong side.

  “So I guess,” Sheila said apologetically, “I’ll leave you to make your plans.”

  When she had gone, we all looked at each other. My father’s brown eyes went to the Ali Princess, then back to our cabin.

  “Well, gang,” he said cheerfully, “anybody got any ideas?”

  “I say go back home. We should have never left,” Sarah said, casting an accusing look my way.

  I expected my mother to second that opinion, but she pursed her lips. “I was listening to the Minneapolis news last night. The Fresh Mart store in Wayzata was looted by a mob. The police shot and wounded two people.”

  “Wayzata?” Sarah said incredulously.

  I thought of that “customer limits” sign.

  “Plus there were several house break-ins and assaults in the west suburbs. A family of three was shot to death on Greenbriar Lane,” she finished.

  “My God!” Sarah said.

  Greenbriar was only two miles from our house.

  My father stepped forward. “It looks like there’s a pattern developing. If you live in the suburbs and have a big house, then people think you must have stuff stashed away.”

  “It’s the more isolated homes that are being hit,” my mother said.

  “That would be us,” I muttered. I always knew our big house was trouble. Castles eventually attracted people with cannons and ladders; even I had read enough history to know that.

  “What we’re saying is that we can’t go back,” my mother said to Sarah. “Your father and I won’t put you children in that kind of danger.”

  At that moment Danny came around the corner of the tent.

  “Good morning,” my father said. More and more I admired my father’s style with people. I had never seen that side of him.

  Danny grunted.

  “I’ve been thinking,” my father said, stepping toward Danny. “Maybe there’s another vacant cabin around here. Let’s say we find a place, then we trade with you. We move in here like we ought to, and you move in someplace nearby.”

  “All well and good,” said Danny. “But there ain’t a vacant cabin for a hundred miles. I know: I’ve made the rounds on my bike. I’ve got friends in Milwaukee and Detroit who wanted to come. I told them to bring a tent if they do, and make it a mighty well insulated one, because you’re going to be sleeping outside this winter.”

  No one said anything.

  “Listen,” Danny began, “I’m gonna put it to you straight: You folks are gonna have to move on. It’s a dog-eat-dog world nowadays. Basically the deal is you got somewhere to go to and we don’t.”

  My mother swallowed. “A family was killed last night just a few blocks from our home in Minneapolis.”

  Danny stared.

  “That’s what you’re asking us to go back to.”

  Danny’s gaze remained steady. “Tell you what. I’ll give you a gun, teach you how to shoot it. That way you can defend yourselves. I’ll give each of you a gun. Hell, one thing I got plenty of is guns,” he said with a grin.

  “Our family doesn’t do guns,” my mother said quietly.

  Danny’s smile faded. He looked at my father, who only shrugged. Nobody asked me.

  “Well, don’t say I didn’t try to help you,” Danny said angrily. He turned on his big boot heels and stalked away. At the porch steps he stopped and looked back to us. “You can camp here one more night,” he yelled. “Then tomorrow I want you gone.” Then he disappeared into the cabin. Our cabin.

  Silence hung heavier than ever before.

  “Well, gang, as I was saying, any ideas for our next gig?” my father said.

  “You mean like where to be homeless?” Sarah asked. Her eyes were round with anger and fear.

  My mind had already gone to the hard drive of my brain. To search mode. An idea—a crazy plan—hit me like a meteor exploding inside my skull. Built it all myself, one log at a time. Plenty of trees around. Didn’t cut them all from one spot, because the warden would spot me. Maybe from the river or else the air. He was always spying. Trying to find me. Trying to catch me. But I was too smart for him. Cut one tree here, one there, then rolled them downhill. That was the only way I could handle them, seeing as I didn’t have a horse. Axe and a Swede saw and a block and tackle, that’s all you need to build a place. It’s not fancy, but it was mine.

  The idea was so far out that I clamped shut my lips.

  As a ninth grader I would have blurted it out, but not now. I needed to think more about it. And for it to work, everybody in my family needed to understand that we could not stay here at Birch Bay.

  After breakfast I went over to a stump and sat where I could look out on Gull Lake. Then my gaze went to our cabin. Made my own shingles. Plenty of white cedar in the swamp. Cut them in the winter
when I could walk on the ice. One here, one there, sawed ’em in blocks, then split off shingles with my axe. Wood don’t split well until it’s twenty below zero. Then it cracks like glass. Roof hasn’t leaked in sixty years....

  Suddenly my father sat down nearby. “Sorry—didn’t mean to startle you,” he said.

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  We were silent.

  He picked up a twig, spun it briefly around his fingers. “Well, Miles, what do you think?”

  “About what?”

  He smiled. “Our … predicament.”

  I shrugged. “In some ways, it’s kind of my fault.”

  “How so?”

  “I was the one who wanted to leave the city.”

  “And I was the one who wanted the big house,” he replied.

  We were silent.

  “You know, sometimes I think if I hadn’t seen that audition notice for Shawnee Kingston …”

  I looked down, picked up a pebble.

  “But I was teaching music to seventh graders. And it was killing me. All I ever wanted to do was play jazz, and there I was, stuck teaching scales.”

  I tossed my pebble hand to hand. This felt like a Talk, something we hadn’t had for years.

  “For me it was a question of either staying in my teaching job, and dying, or making a move to feel like I was living again,” he continued.

  I pitched the pebble hard into the water. “Yeah, but did you think about us?” My voice was surprisingly sharp and loud.

  He stared at the widening circles where my stone had hit. “I did. Believe me, I did,” he said. “What if I made the band and was gone a lot? What would this do to my family? What would it do to my relationship with you?” He turned to me. “I thought of all those things.”

  I was silent. I was determined not to make this easy for him.

  “But making the band seemed like a long shot at best,” he continued. “So I took my sticks and went to the audition. I waited in line like everybody else. There were thirty or forty would-be drummers there, did you know that?”

  “No,” I said. I purposely didn’t look at him.

  “Anyway, each person was supposed to do five minutes—no more—of a Brubeck standard. So I got started. And we clicked. There’s no other way to explain it. I found this rhythm. This groove. Jimmy and Carolyn and Shawnee kept playing and playing—probably fifteen minutes or more. I knew in my heart I was a good drummer, but this band—real musicians—brought it out in me. While we jammed, everything but the music went out of my head. When we finished, Shawnee and the others were laughing and clapping, and it was then I realized that I could give up anything—even my own family—for that kind of feeling.”