Thomas Pierce - Hall of Small Mammals - Stories

“This isn’t over,” Flynn says, giving his son’s foot a gentle squeeze, before going next door, to his wife’s room. The boxy television on the edge of her dresser flickers blue across her bedroom. They sleep separately because of the snoring. His snoring, not hers. She is asleep, or was, nestled in her mechanized queen bed with the hospital controls. She isn’t sick but kept the bed after Mookie died because, supposedly, it helps her back. He flips on her bedroom light, and she moans. She gives him a look like, Please, not tonight.

“He’s doing it again,” he says. “I don’t think he ever stopped. I think he’s been hiding it from us.”

She rummages for the control, and the bed vibrates into a sitting position. “We should call the doctor first thing,” she says.

“What, so he can squeeze another three hundred dollars from us?”

“The doctor said to call him.”

“He can’t fix the problem.”

“And the problem is — what?”

“The problem is a feeling. A feeling of not belonging.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means the boy needs friends. He needs to be included. You know, to really belong to something.”

Her bed vibrates backward into a reclining position.

“I’m going to sign us up,” he says. “For the Grasshoppers.”

“To be continued,” she says.

• • •

Grasshoppers aren’t allowed at the father-son Grasshopper Camp until they’ve been in the program for a full year and earned enough beads. Flynn learns this in one of their brochures. Unfortunately, he’s never even taken Ryan to a Grasshoppers meeting.

Flynn goes to see Bill Tierney, a malpractice attorney in town with an ad on the back of the phone book. Tierney’s son, Grayson, is older than Ryan, president of the student body at the elementary school — and a Grasshopper. Tierney is the Head Guide.

The attorney wears a tan suit and offers Flynn a seat on the other side of his desk. Bill Tierney wonders if maybe Flynn would like some pistachio nuts. Bill Tierney is crazy about them. Was Flynn aware that the nuts have been part of the human diet since the Paleolithic? That they’re one of only two nuts in the Bible?

“What’s the other one?”

“The other what?”

“The other nut in the Bible,” Flynn says.

“Hell, I don’t know. Noah? Sorry, bad joke. Let’s get down to business. Tell me about yourself.”

“I’m a father,” Flynn says. “And I love my son very much.”

“Yes, of course. Family’s got to be number one.”

“Right. And I want my son to feel like he’s a part of something bigger than himself.”

Flynn uncrosses his legs and reaches for a pistachio. The shell doesn’t want to pry. He admits that he should have signed his son up earlier and that he knows about the requirements for the father-son camp, but he’d be very grateful if the organization could make an exception in the case of his son, Ryan, who’s nine years old and who, Flynn thinks, would make a natural Grasshopper. His son is a good boy and loves the outdoors, and the camp would do him so much good. It would be a great fit. Flynn spins the chalky nut between his fingers.

Tierney squints, his mouth hanging open. “I’m sorry,” he says finally. “I was under the impression you were here looking for representation.”

“No,” Flynn says. “I was hoping you could help me. As the Head Guide.”

“Ah,” Tierney says.

“Right.”

Neither of them says anything for a few moments. Not many people know this, but Tierney has a brother named Herbie who’s an addict. Flynn has tried to help Herbie at the center, but Herbie doesn’t want to be helped. That’s how it is with some people. Flynn considers mentioning this now, as a way of creating a bond, but decides against it.

“It would mean so much to my son,” Flynn says.

“Sure, okay.”

“Okay?” Flynn didn’t expect it to be so easy.

“Done,” he says, and pretends to sign an invisible piece of paper suspended in the air between them. “The Grasshopper district office is in Charlotte. You can go there and fill out the paperwork, pay up for camp. I’ll take care of the rest.” He stands and smoothes the wrinkles from his suit pants.

“Thank you,” Flynn says.

“Glad I could help. Now I’m afraid I need to…” His voice trails off as he motions vaguely at his empty desk.

• • •

Father and son rise early to depart on a Saturday morning, shafts of sunlight through a rising fog, the birds tweeting in the sycamore tree on the front lawn, its bark hanging like strips of beef jerky. You couldn’t ask for a more suitable morning, Flynn thinks.

His wife comes outside in her bathrobe. “Couldn’t we just go to the beach?” she asks Flynn, a little upset because after three years without even using a sick day, Flynn is taking an entire week off from work, and he’s not using it to take his whole family on vacation. Instead he’s only taking his son to some mysterious camp in the woods. “Are you sure this is what he needs? He won’t know any of those kids.”

“This will be good for him,” Flynn assures her. “Kids make friends fast.”

When Ryan comes outside with a bowl of cereal, milk dripping down his chin, she gives him a cell phone. “Pay as you go,” she explains to Flynn. “I’ll feel better.” To Ryan, she says, “So you can call me if you want.”

The car is packed with sleeping bags, a tent, an electric lantern with the price-tag sticker still on it, and all the other equipment necessary for two human animals to live comfortably in the woods for five nights. Once they’re on the road, the boy is the navigator and is responsible for tracking their progress, his index finger across the atlas, and for calling out each step from the printed directions.

“Grasshopper Pledge,” Flynn quizzes him. “Go.”

“There’s a way,” the boy says glumly, “around every wall.”

“The beads you can earn and their colors.”

“Beads of Truth are the red ones. Beads of Mercy are the white ones.”

“And the third?”

The boy shrugs.

“They’re black…”

“Oh,” Ryan says. “Beads of Skill.”

“And how many beads does it take to move up a level?”

“Six beads.”

“Exactly,” Flynn says. “And you’ll have them in no time at all. Last question. The salute.”

Ryan points to his heart with his index finger, and then Flynn does the same.

“Aren’t you excited?”

The boy says he’s not sure if he’s excited. His brown shaggy mop — he hates haircuts — makes his small, narrow face seem even smaller. “What if it, like, rains?”

“That’s what the tent is for. We’re sharing a tent. That will be fun, right?”

The boy gives him an uncertain look. They drive into the mountains and then down a long road with thick woods the color of katydids and khaki: muted greens and browns. Ryan directs Flynn onto a paved road that turns to gravel, the rocks popping under the tires. Then the gravel road becomes a dirt one, a volcanic cloud of dust behind them in the rearview mirror.

Up ahead, rough beams form an arch over the road. The camp’s entrance.

“You should probably put on your uniform now,” Flynn says.

The shirt is yellow cotton with a white rugby collar and the Grasshopper patch sewn over the heart. It hangs loose on Ryan’s small, pale body.

Flynn pulls up in front of the director’s cabin, and a man in a green T-shirt much too tight for his potbelly comes out with a clipboard. He wants their names. He wants their district number. He’s got the pen top in his mouth, a small red ink stain on his bottom lip. What was that last name again? The man’s sweat drips down onto the pages. How do you spell that last name? He’s shuffling through the pages. That was with a C ? No, he doesn’t see that one on here. Wait, here it is, on the back. There’s a problem. Ryan hasn’t met all the requirements for camp. He still needs eighteen beads. That’s three levels up from where Ryan is now, which is nowhere, according to the information on the clipboard. Can Flynn show documentation that Ryan has earned even one bead? Flynn can’t, of course, but he explains that he’s cleared this with Ryan’s Head Guide, Bill Tierney, who can sort all this out for them. Special arrangements have been made for Ryan.