“OK,” Nat said. Sounding suitably panicky. “OK, I’m just gonna say it here. You know, just spit it out. I got fired from that job you got me.”
Nathan regarded the boy’s face in the soft glow that spilled in from the streetlamp outside their living room window. Neither had bothered to turn on the light.
“When did that happen?”
“A week ago Thursday LaPlante let me go.”
“And when were you planning on telling me?”
“When I got another job,” he said, fast and obviously prepared. “I was looking real hard. And really, really hoping I would find something quick. And then I was going to tell you both things at once. Like, ‘Good news and bad news. The bad news is, I lost that job you got me, but the good news is I already got another one.’ But it didn’t quite pan out. I put in two applications. The only two jobs I could find open. One was over at Watson’s market, but the produce manager just told me straight out I didn’t have a prayer. Said he had lots of applications from guys who didn’t have a record. The guy at the pharmacy said he’d call me back. But now that sign is down, and he never called me. I even went over to the employment development department and looked in their listings. But you have to have experience for what they had.”
“When did you learn that the opening at the pharmacy had been filled?”
“Couple or three days ago the sign came down.”
“So you might as well have come to me two or three days ago.” Long, aching silence. “What happened at the dairy?”
“It wasn’t my fault. I told you, the foreman had it in for me. He said I made a mistake with the numbers on one of the trucks. That I was short. Like I’d just kept some of the milk, or drunk it, or broke some bottles or something, and I was trying to cover it up. It was a total lie, but it was my word against his. Who do you think LaPlante was gonna believe? Nobody ever believes me.”
“I’m beginning to see why not,” Nathan said.
Nat glanced up anxiously in the half-dark, then away again. He did not reply. He apparently did not dare.
“What did you do for those three Wednesdays when you weren’t at work? Were you with that girl?”
The boy squeezed his eyes shut. “You talked to LaPlante. Huh? That’s what I was afraid of. When I saw that note you left me.”
“When a young man is your age—”
“That wasn’t it. I wasn’t with Carol. I was at Little Manny’s. My trainer. Training two days a week just wasn’t getting it. It’s just not enough. I was never gonna get where I was going. If I could train full-time I’d be ready in six or seven months. Maybe eight. But just weekends … It’s like spinning your wheels. You might as well not be doing it at all.”
A silence followed, a silence so complete that the sound of the refrigerator motor cycling on in the kitchen seemed startlingly loud.
Nathan pulled a long, deep breath before speaking.
“I’ll need a little time to think how I want to handle this situation. But one thing I do want to tell you right now. If you ever lie to me again … No. Wait. Let me start that sentence all over again, from the beginning. Don’t ever lie to me again. Are we clear?”
“Very clear, sir.”
“My name is not sir.”
“Very clear, Nathan.”
? ? ?
Eleanor had already turned off the bedroom light. Nathan closed the door behind him and found his way to bed by feel.
He was surprised that Eleanor had not closed the door. She always closed the door.
Then again, he supposed she might have wanted to hear.
“Are you awake?” Nathan asked quietly.
“What kind of training? Training for what?”
“Nat wants to be a professional boxer.”
“God help us all,” Eleanor said.
“I started to tell him that if he ever lied to me again … See, I can’t even finish the sentence now. If he lied to me again, then I would react how? Do what? Wash my hands of him? I promised him I never would. Throw him away? That would make three out of three.”
“Maybe there’s a reason everybody throws him away.”
“I find it hard to believe that he irreparably offended his mother in the first four or five hours of his life.”
She didn’t answer immediately. In the dark, he felt himself unclear as to whether the conversation was over. It didn’t feel over.
Then she said, “Are you trying to say that no matter what that boy does he will continue to have your support?”
“Why … yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“So whatever kind of trouble he brings into our lives, we just have to sit here and accept it?”
“I wish you hadn’t already made up your mind that he’ll be nothing but trouble.”
“Goodnight, Nathan.”
“Please try to have an open mind about the boy.”
“Goodnight, Nathan.”
A pause, while he weighed the potential benefits of saying more. Then a sigh, which he tried to keep silent.
“Goodnight,” he said.
25 November 1978
A World Without Boundaries
Nathan awoke to discover that the first good, deep snow of the season had fallen overnight.
He stood a few moments at the bedroom window, surveying the yard. All the boundaries of the world disappeared after a good snow. Nathan had always noticed that. The seemingly sturdy, dependable dividing lines between his yard and his neighbor’s yard, or the sidewalk and the street, simply disappeared. Erased by white.
As if the world were advising him not to put too much faith in such markings. That perhaps these lines had never been entirely real to begin with.
This morning, though, Nathan’s appreciation of the pristine scene was dulled by a graininess in his eyes and a slightly unsettled digestion, the reminders of a spotty and unsuccessful night’s sleep.
He looked down at Eleanor, still sleeping. It was early. Barely after five.
It’s a happy turn of events that this is a Sunday, he thought. Everyone can have a good, hot breakfast, read the Sunday paper, and wake up slowly before tackling the big shoveling jobs.
Nathan put on his robe and made his way to the kitchen for coffee.
He found Nat already sitting at the table in the half-dark, wrapped in the hunter green quilt from his bed.
“Nat?” Nathan turned on the kitchen light and the boy winced and blinked miserably, but said nothing. “Are you cold?”
“I’m always cold.”
“You can turn up the heat if you’re cold.”
“I can?”
“Of course. That’s what the heat is for.”
Nathan sat in the chair next to the boy’s. Leaned in a bit closer. “I was awake a long time last night …”
“Yeah, I was awake all of it.”
“… thinking what would be the most appropriate action to take regarding our situation.”
Nat’s face grew whiter. More miserable, if such a thing were even possible. “I think I’m going to be sick,” he said.
Nathan could tell he meant it quite literally.
“The sink, Nat.”
The boy jumped up and stumbled toward the sink, tripping over the quilt and catching himself against the kitchen counter. When he had made it to the sink, he stood a moment, frozen, hands gripping the edge. Blessedly, nothing happened.
Nathan walked over and put his hand on the boy’s back through the quilt.
“Are you OK, Nat?”
“OK, maybe I was wrong. Maybe I’m not going to be sick,” Nat said. “Oh. Uh-oh. Maybe I am.”
“I’ve decided to give you your six to eight months to train.”
A ringing silence. Over Nat’s head, another view of the white, boundary-free world of the side yard.
“What?”
“That’s how I’ve decided to handle our situation.”
“You’re giving me … giving me how? What does that mean?”
“The way I see it is this: I wasn’t planning on charging you for your room and board anyway. I insisted that you hold a job on principle. I didn’t want you lying around the house playing with your dog all day. It’s not a healthy way to live, in my opinion. I wanted to insist that you be working hard. Accomplishing something. Putting your energy into a good direction, to build something. But I was up last night thinking. And I decided, that’s exactly what you’re trying to do with your training. You’re trying to work hard to accomplish something that’s important to you. So I withdraw my insistence that you be employed while living under my roof. For as long as eight months.”
“I can’t believe you would do that for me.” Nat still faced away, over the sink and looking out the window.
“I know it means a great deal to you.”
“I … That’s … I don’t know what to say.”
“One thing will be challenging, though. I’m not going to give you any money. No allowance, no nickel-and-dime loans. I expect you to handle your own life, so your finances are your responsibility. You’ll have no money at all. Not even bus fare.”
“I can walk to Little Manny’s.”
“No money to take a girl on a date.”
“Oh,” Nat said. Deflating even as the word passed through him.
“Unless you find some way to earn a little. For example, when I was your age, I saw a morning like this one as a prime financial opportunity. I’d shovel our driveway, then sling the shovel over my shoulder and begin knocking on neighbors’ doors. Shoveling is a big job, and nobody really likes it. If an able-bodied young person is standing on your doorstep offering to take it off your hands for a few dollars, the temptation can be overwhelming.”
No movement. No reply.
Then the boy spun quite suddenly. Turned to face Nathan and threw his arms around him, startling the older man. The quilt fell to the kitchen floor, forgotten.
Nathan stood with his arms still at his sides, unable to react quickly. Before he could even decide whether or not to return the embrace, Nat had picked up the quilt and scrambled away.
“I’ll go get dressed,” the boy said.
“Nat. Wait. You can’t knock on anybody’s door at this hour.”
But it was too late. He was already gone.
No matter, Nathan thought. He would catch the boy on his way out the door.
He made a quick trip to the living room, where he turned up the thermostat by five degrees. Then he went back into the kitchen to start a much-needed pot of coffee.
Nat stuck his head back into the kitchen. “I thought you were going to tell me to get out,” he said.
“I can understand how you would be gun-shy on that score,” Nathan replied.
He looked up, prepared to say more, but Nat had gone.
? ? ?