Despite his height he’d been a talented, scrappy point guard on the junior varsity team, possessing a lethal three-point shot and a reputation as an elegant thug on defense. He held the league record in steals until he was benched with an ankle injury his sophomore year. Christine Fiskare allowed her oldest son a three-day pity party. It was all she could afford. She had sold the piano and now worked two jobs while pursuing a nursing degree. The bulk of her worry was allocated to her younger son, Peter, who was profoundly deaf after a childhood illness and stubbornly uncommunicative since his father had left.
Three days was also the limit of her patience. Even before the desertion, Christine had never coddled either of her sons. Nor had public hand-wringing ever been in her nature. Her pain as an abandoned wife was suffered in private, far from the boys’ eyes. As a single mother, she set the past aside and made plans. Shrewdness and self-sufficiency were the bedrock beneath her little family. Once Erik was in a walking cast and maneuvering easily on his crutches, she challenged him to find a new hobby, something to fill up the hours between dismissal and five-thirty. “Something accountable, Mister,” Christine said. “I need to know where you are. And no hanging around street corners, or I’ll find you a job.”
She ruffled his short blond hair, teasing. Erik wasn’t a troublemaker. He’d been making his own pocket money since he was eleven, when he became familiar with such terms as “willful desertion” and “child support,” and the need to check the “divorced” box on forms. He knew his Fiskare grandparents contributed to his and Pete’s upbringing. They lived far upstate near the Canadian border, a modest and self-sufficient couple full of Scandinavian reserve. They pledged support to their two grandsons, but it was a stoic assurance. Erik could never tell if they helped out of love, obligation or shame. They expressed appreciation through deeds, not words. No loving sentiments or warm embraces had ever marked Erik’s visits with the Fiskare elders. He got his fill of physical mush from Christine’s family, a close-knit Italian clan with no money to spare but affection on tap.
Erik was his mother’s apt pupil. He earned his degree in shrewdness and adjusted quickly. He learned to stay out of trouble and always let Christine know where he was. He knew how hard she worked, knew the basics were covered, and knew Peter’s needs took priority. If he wanted luxuries, either material or spiritual, he had to get them himself.
With sports out of the equation, though, Erik had no idea what to do with his time. Out of loyalty he presented himself at basketball practices and games, continuing to rally his mates and picking up some skills as an unspoken assistant coach. But his soul was lost, and his inner compass whirled in a desperate search for another True North he could align to.
He had a creative streak, an inherent desire for expression, one not easily channeled into the obvious mediums. He already played piano and a little guitar, taking lessons at the local Y for the former and banging away by ear on the latter. But neither of those were for public consumption. He played for himself, or in a small jamming group at most. His voice was legitimate, but he didn’t like to sing in front of people, and he most definitely didn’t dance. Truth was he was a much better tinkerer than creator, although it all felt like the same thing to him.
It was Mrs. Jerome, wisest in the school’s cadre of wise teachers and faculty adviser to the drama club, who casually suggested Erik come by the auditorium where The Man Who Came to Dinner was in rehearsal. As show time loomed, something always needed doing behind the scenes.