Chris Crutcher - Whale Talk

Simet sits beside Dan Hole. “Mr. Hole, you have the toughest job. You are going to make certain that, for the first time in his life, Andy Mott passes all his classes with a C.” He hands Dan a sheet of paper. “This is a list of Mott’s missing assignments. We will take a chunk of time on each road trip, and tack on forty-five minutes to our workout time each day until the end of the semester. I’d like you to go over his assignments before he hands them in. Mr. Jones, you will play backup to Mr. Hole. If Mr. Mott gives him any trouble, hide Mr. Mott’s leg.”

For the rest of the trip, the periodic table of elements and their valences bounce off the walls in Jackie and Tay-Roy’s voices, while Mott pumps Dan for answers and Dan tries for all he’s worth to make Mott figure them out for himself. Chris takes instructions from Simon, meticulously coloring pictures of opened-up frogs and worms and cats and cows.

For the remainder of the semester the first forty-five minutes of workout takes place in Simet’s classroom, and we get out of the water forty-five minutes later. When grades come out, though Mott has threatened Dan’s life daily, we have the second-highest cumulative grade-point average of any winter athletic team and are all eligible.

The first day after semester break I read that my times in the sprints are among the top five in the state, and Simet is beginning to think not only can I get us points at the state meet, I could actually win something. We don’t say that to anyone but each other.

“You’re going to have a houseguest,” Georgia says. I’ve been stopping over a couple times a week after practice to work with kids. I like that I always walk away from those sessions knowing something about myself I didn’t know before. Georgia says I’m a natural, which is probably true because almost every kid she works with is referred from Child Protective Services and so has a history of loss. “Connection,” she tells me over and over. “There is very little about humans that doesn’t have to do with connection.”

“What houseguest?”

“Heidi.”

“No kidding?”

Georgia nods. “Her momma screwed up. Turned all her kiddies over to Rich for an entire afternoon. The caseworker placed them all immediately. The family they found for the boys couldn’t take Heidi. She talks about you all the time. I called your daddy. You’ll be good for her.”

After all Rich has done, Alicia turns around and gives him the kids. Shit, Heidi isn’t even his . “Think she’ll be at our place a long time?”

Georgia shrugs. “That’s the caseworker’s call. Heidi was pretty freaked out after six hours with Rich and no one around to protect her. God knows what he said to her.”

“When will she get there?”

“I’ll take her in a little while,” Georgia says. “Don’t want to put any extra pressure on you, but she might be feelin’ needy.”

“Yeah, I’ll keep an eye on her.” I’m thinking this might be good for Dad. He always comes alive when there’s a chance to help a kid. After seeing him in the bedroom, I’m beginning to understand why.

I stop at Wolfy’s for a quick early evening Coke with Carly, so Heidi is home when I get there, sitting on the couch next to Georgia, facing the door, waiting. My parents have gone to bring back Happy Meals to celebrate.

Heidi is off the couch before I can get out of my coat, bounding across the room, leaping into my arms as if I’m her long-lost best friend. The impact almost knocks me over, and I’m choking in the tight grasp of her arms around my neck.

“Hey, Heidi,” I say through a semiclosed windpipe. “What’s up?”

“I live here,” she says.

“Oh, yeah? Great. I need a sister. My parents like girls better than boys. I can get you to ask them for things I want.”

Most of that goes over her head, and she glances back at Georgia.

“She was worried you wouldn’t come,” Georgia says. “She needs someone familiar. It’s going to take time for her to get used to your dad, who basically looks like a serial killer.”

I look at Heidi. “We’ll have him eating out of our hands before sunup. He’s the nicest mean-looking dad in the whole world.”

Heidi’s expression goes cold, and it takes me a second to remember, with Georgia’s help, that “dad” doesn’t exactly conjure up the best images when your “dad” is Rich Marshall.

Mom and Dad return from Mickey D’s with the Happy Meals, and Heidi wraps an arm around Georgia’s leg to watch Dad bring them out of the sack. When he holds hers out to her, Heidi watches warily, but the image of Ronald McDonald and the smell of the greasy fries win out, and she steps up and takes it. She says, “Thank you,” and seems to forget her fear once she gazes at the goodies inside.

Most kids have that same initial response when they first lay eyes on Dad, but he’s great. He opens his Happy Meal slowly, peers inside with the same delight he sees on Heidi’s face. She is meticulously careful, extracting one fry at a time, relishing each bite. Dad mimics her, but not in a disrespectful way, and soon she is smiling at him, sneaking peeks out of the corner of her eye.

And then it happens. As Heidi removes the bag of fries from the Happy Meal box, the sack catches on the edge of the lid and fries tumble onto the floor. She is instantly wide-eyed and horrified, glancing from the fries to my dad to the fries to Georgia. Tears squirt out of her eyes as she gasps, “I’ll clean it up! I’m sorry! I’ll clean it up! It will be okay!” and she is on her knees picking up the fries and putting them into the bag one by one, looking fearfully at my father.

Instantly he turns his fries onto the floor and drops to his knees with her. “We eat ’em down here all the time. That’s how they’re best.” The panic drains out of Heidi as fast as it washed over her. She watches him with true joy. “Mmm-mmm,” Dad says, picking up fries as fast as he can and stuffing them into his mouth. “I haven’t had my fries like this forever ! I’m glad you reminded me.”

Heidi starts to laugh, picks up a fry, and puts it carefully in her mouth.

What the hell, I dump mine, too, and suddenly the three of us are grazing over the living-room rug.

Mom shrugs her shoulders at Georgia, who says, “I think I brought her to the right place.”

I walk Georgia to her car, where she turns and holds me by the shoulders. “Baby,” she says, “it’s a tall order for you to have this kid around; she adores you. I wouldn’t do it, but she’s fragile and you’re the only other person to have made good contact with her besides me, though I think your dad may have made a big inroad just now.”

I say, “What inroad? He always eats off the floor.”

“She could stay at my place, but she has a real hard time letting me be with other kids; and if I can’t be with other kids, I can’t work.”

“Don’t worry about it. Dad and I’ll have plenty of time for her. Maybe I’ll get a Rich Marshall dartboard,” I tell her, “and we’ll have some fun.”

I don’t need a Rich Marshall dartboard because before I know it, I get the real thing. I guess he didn’t get the message that Child Protection Services got a temporary restraining order to keep him away from Heidi, because he bangs on the door after midnight, loaded to the gills and groveling like the bottom feeder he is. I have the room next to the stairs on the second floor, so, by default, I greet all strangers in the night. Rich is the first, and I meet him on the porch. Apparently Alicia dropped out of his sight when she lost the kids, because Rich thinks she’s here.

Man, these guys never fail to amaze me. They’ll call any name, exact any pain. They’ll humiliate and slap and threaten to kill. Then the minute she leaves, he loved her more than life itself, is repentant for every bruise and scar, inside and out. He’ll do any thing; the remorse is without condition. Until the second she says no. Then he comes after her like a gut-shot badger.