Dan Wakefield - Under the Apple Tree - A Novel

To Helen Brann

The hero came into the kitchen with a lurch. Bacon popped in the skillet like shots, and he grabbed his side, wincing.

“They got me,” he groaned.

“Redskins or Germans?” the hero’s kid brother asked.

“Whiskey and women,” Dad said, “if I know Roy.”

Mom waved a homemade biscuit stained with strawberry jam.

“It’s Sunday morning! That goes for all of you!”

“Water,” moaned Roy, as he bent his head and turned on the faucet.

Artie the kid squeezed his eyes shut, picturing the way his big brother had looked the night before, in his glory. Wearing the black and gold colors of Birney High, Roy led the Bearcats to one more win in their still undefeated season of 1941, vanquishing the dread invaders, the red-clad Demons of DeKamp. Pivoting and hooking, faking off defenders and dribbling the ball behind his back, Roy had seemed like a god.

Now he looked more like a refugee from a Bowery Boys movie.

He had on the T-shirt and Jockey shorts he had slept in, and a pair of dirty white sweat socks. When he finished slurping the water from the tap he straightened up, wiped an arm across his mouth, and scratched under one armpit. His face was pale and stubbly.

Dad looked up from his sunnysides and shook his head.

“Name of God. You look like Death warmed over.”

“No wonder,” said Mom. “He came home with the birds again.”

“Party after the game,” Roy mumbled.

“I can smell it,” Dad said. “The booze, and Beverly Lattimore’s bear grease perfume.”

Mom took a deep breath and waved her hand in front of her nose.

“Why don’t you buy the poor girl a nice little bottle of ‘Evening in Paris’?”

Roy made a rumbling belch and went to the icebox.

“Is everyone starting in on me now?”

“Try sitting down at the table for a change,” Mom said. “Join the family.”

Roy yanked the quart bottle of milk out and tipped it to his lips, gurgling.

Artie knew he had to act fast, like the Green Hornet disarming his enemies, or the morning would go down the drain. He stared into his bowl of Hot Ralston (the cereal Tom Mix guaranteed gave you “cow-boy en-er-gee”) so his folks couldn’t read his face when he told the fib.

“If you let Roy have the car today, he’s taking me up to Devil’s Foothills to hunt for the Phantom Caveman.”

As soon as he said it Artie braced himself for the possible thunderclap that God might strike him down with for telling a lie, especially on Sunday, but nothing happened. Artie figured God understood it was only a “white lie,” or at worst a “gray” one, since it was not for his own good, but only to help out his brother. They had cooked up the story the day before, so Roy had a good excuse for getting the car.

Mom puckered her lips and made a long, high whistle.

“Will wonders never cease,” Dad said.

Artie glanced quickly back and forth at his parents’ faces to see if he could read the verdict.

Each one looked as inscrutable as Charlie Chan.

“So does this mean yes or no?” Artie asked.

He tried to make his voice the way Mom called “nonchalant,” which meant you couldn’t care less. Roy was doing a good job of it, pretending he wasn’t even listening to them while he slapped big gobs of Peter Pan on a piece of Wonder bread.

“The Phantom Caveman,” Dad said. “First time I heard of him, I knocked the slats off my cradle.”

“Well, he’s back again,” Artie said. “I heard at the barbershop they saw these strange, amazing footprints in the snow—and at night, there’s this weird, mysterious blue light in the hills.”

Roy scraped a chair back and sat down at the table, gobbling his peanut butter sandwich.

“The mystery to me,” said Mom, “is Roy all the sudden finding time for his brother.”

“Dammit, you’re always harping on me to do stuff with him.”

“I suppose it has to be forty miles away in the next county,” Dad said. “On a wild goose chase.”

“In this weather,” Mom said.

Roy shrugged, stuffed the rest of the sandwich in his mouth, and went around the table to give Artie a friendly biff on the shoulder. Actually it stung a little, but Artie didn’t flinch.

“Sorry, old buddy. Would have been a great adventure up there, tracking those weird footprints through the woods.”

“Aw, please?” Artie said, pleading to both his folks.

Dad rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

“Oh, carry me home to die,” he said, like he always did when things seemed crazy to him.

Mom sighed.

“If they drop us at church?”

“All right,” Dad grumbled. “At least they can wave at it when they go by.”

“Shazam!” Artie yelled, and Roy grabbed him out of his chair and swung him like a sack of potatoes.

“But I want you home for supper,” Mom said. “And Roy has to hit the books tonight.”

Dad nodded, and aimed a finger at Roy.

“If you don’t have the car back by dark, Roy Garber, you might as well join the Army.”

Mom got up to get the bacon, and brushed her hand lightly against Dad’s cheek as she passed.

“Don’t even joke about the War, Joe.”

“It’s not ours, anyway. ‘There will be wars, and rumors of wars.’”

Roy set Artie down and slapped him on the rear.

“We’re off—like a herd of turtles in a snowstorm!”

Roy charged out of the room with Artie in hot pursuit.

The car crept around the corner after leaving Mom and Dad off at church and then Roy shifted into first and hit the gas.

“Wahoo!” Artie yelled.

They barreled down the street and screeched around a corner, burning rubber like regular gangsters. The town was Sunday empty, and Artie pretended the people were all inside behind their davenports cowering in fear of the renegade outlaw brothers in their getaway car.

Roy hit the brake, the car skidded and spun in a circle, then slowed, and moved on steadily, safe and droning.

“Is that all ?” Artie asked.

“I got to pick up the guys now. Where you want to be dropped?”

“Who all’s going with you?”

“Wings and Bo.”

Wings Watson and Bo Bannerman were part of the Bearcat starting five, along with Roy, not as great as he was, but real big dogs, all-’round athletes and helluva-fellas.

“Can’t I come along—if I keep my trap shut?”

“Artie, you’re not old enough.”

“I’m going on eleven.”

“You got to be sixteen or they won’t let you in.”

“It’s not fair.”

“Sure it is. You wouldn’t even like her.”

“ Everyone likes Bubbles LaMode—you said so yourself!”

“Not everyone . Girls don’t. Or wouldn’t. And guys got to be old enough. To appreciate her.”

“By the time I’m sixteen, she’ll be dead, probably.”

“Not Bubbles. She’ll still be bumpin’ and grindin’. Where you want to be dropped?”

“Home, I guess.”

“I’ll pick you up at the drugstore at five. Okay? And we’ll say we followed what looked like the Phantom Caveman’s footprints all afternoon, and we built a fire, and cooked hot dogs.”

“How ’bout we say we caught a glimpse of him—we could see his beard, and this big fur robe he was wearing?”

Roy shook his head. “Stick to the footprints. And throw in about the fire and the hot dogs, it’s sort of like camping. They’ll like that.”

“Hey, Roy. Will you answer me something honest?”

“Don’t I always?”

“Sometime will you really take me to hunt the Phantom Caveman?”