One Fat Summer Read online

Willie took his time finishing his cigarette. He flicked the butt at the ground near my feet. Joanie and I watched them swagger to the parking lot and pile into a souped-up blue-and-white Chevrolet. Willie gunned the car onto the county road. Long after we couldn’t see it anymore, we heard it roaring into the night.

  Pete was gone. My legs felt weak.

  “No more excuses,” said Joanie. “Call.”

  I had no energy to argue with her. A man’s voice answered on the second ring. “Dr. Kahn speaking. Yes?”

  “I’m calling about the lawn job. I saw your sign on the bulletin board at the snack bar.”

  “Are you experienced?”

  “Experienced?” I looked at Joanie. She nodded her head furiously. “Yes.”

  “Come over Sunday afternoon and we’ll talk. Do you know where I am?”

  “No.”

  “At the north end of Rumson Lake, toward Lenape Falls. My name’s on the mailbox. What’s your name?”

  “Robert Marks.”

  He hung up.

  “Well?”

  I was casual. “Sunday afternoon I’m going for an interview.”

  “See?”

  “That doesn’t mean I’ll get the job.”

  “He hardly asked anything about you. He must be desperate for someone to cut his lawn. He’ll hire anybody.”

  “Thanks a million.”

  “You know what I mean.” She hit my arm with the teddy bear’s leg. That was very affectionate for Joanie. “Now we can go eat.”

  We ran into her parents on the way to the hot dog stand. They seemed nervous and anxious to leave, and they wanted her to go home with them. Usually Joanie puts up a fight, and usually she gets her way, but this time her mother whispered something in her ear, and Joanie just nodded and followed them out. She asked me to stop by Sunday and tell her if I got the job.

  I ate about five hot dogs and drank two cream sodas before my sister caught me. Michelle’s always needling me to lose weight. She started up again, but when the loudspeaker blared an announcement for Pete Marino’s diving exhibition we followed the crowd to the dock. We watched him climb slowly to the top of the platform and step out on the twenty-foot highboard. I got a stomachache just seeing someone up that high. He smiled and waved.

  “He’s not conceited,” said Michelle. “He’s convinced.”

  “He’s a nice guy,” I said.

  “How would you know?”

  “I know.”

  “You never even talked to him.”

  “That’s what you think.” Usually when I say that she makes a face and walks away. Not this time.

  “Prove it,” she said.

  “Prove I don’t. You’re going to college next year, you know all the answers.”

  She sighed. “I guess you will be a writer when you grow up. If you ever grow up. You’re such a liar already.”

  “Okay, big mouth, listen to this.” I told her how Pete moved in so cool and easy when Willie and his gang were giving us a hard time. I made a few changes here and there, nothing too important. I didn’t mention the phone call to Dr. Kahn, and I made it seem as if Pete and I had stood side by side to face down the gang.

  “We should thank him,” said Michelle. She thinks she’s got such smooth moves, but she never fools me, not for a minute.

  “He’s just dying to meet you. He asked me who was that girl wearing the Ber-nard shirt, and I said it was the name of your steady boyfriend.”

  “You’re funny like a crutch.”

  “Take a hike, big mouth. And don’t use me to get yourself a date.” I didn’t say it loud enough for her to catch every single word.

  She made a face and walked away. I found my parents, and we watched Pete dive a few times. He was merely great. They said they were going home. I didn’t feel like walking up our hill, so I rode back with them. They were arguing about something, but I wasn’t listening. I was thinking about the job, and about the way Pete handled Willie. Let Michelle thank him if she wanted to. It was dumb. Thanking him would be like thanking the Lone Ranger.

  2

  The first time I ever saw Dr. Kahn’s lawn it looked like a velvet sea, a green velvet sea that flowed up from the gray shore of the county road to surround a great white house with white columns. The house looked like a proud clipper ship riding the crest of the ocean. As I trudged up from the county road I made out the figure of a man standing on the front porch, the captain on the bridge of his ship. As I got closer, I saw he was rocking an old-fashioned baby carriage. I could hear children yelling from somewhere behind the house, and the laughter of grown-ups.

  When I got to the porch I had to stand still and take deep breaths. My knees were quivering and my stomach boiling. My face was on fire. My tongue was swollen and dry.

  The man just stared at me. His eyes were black and deep and set close together, like shotgun barrels. His lips were so thin his mouth looked like a slit for old razor blades. Finally, he spoke.

  “You’re the boy who called about the lawn job.”

  “Yek.” My mouth was so dry it was the best I could do.

  He stopped rocking the carnage and leaned forward. He was wearing a white shirt without a tie, black pants and red-leather slippers.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Robert Marks.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Across the lake.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “I walked.”

  “On such a hot day. That shows enterprise. I like a boy with enterprise. Are you an all-year-rounder?”

  “I’m from the city. We come up summers.”

  “How old are you?”

  I had carefully rehearsed this answer. “Fever-teen,” I mumbled.

  “Speak up, speak up.”

  I swallowed and lied. “Seventeen.”

  The baby in the carriage began to cry and Dr. Kahn started rocking it again. I felt seasick. “You will receive seventy-five cents an hour. Dr. Kahn pays top dollar. But you’ll work for it. Oh, you’ll work for it.”

  A little girl in a blue playsuit ran past the porch chasing a rolling ball. She waved at Dr. Kahn and he waved back.

  “You’ll make this place look beautiful for the weekends. You’ll cut the lawn, trim the hedges, rake the gravel, weed the rock garden. You’ll wash the car, mop the pool deck, clean the garbage pails. And whatever else needs to be done.” His eyes snapped shut and open like window shades. “Of course, I have a gardening service come on Fridays for the skilled work. Any questions?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You’ll be here at nine o’clock sharp every weekday morning, beginning tomorrow. You’ll bring your own lunch. You’ll work until three o’clock sharp in the afternoon. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I will see you here tomorrow at nine A.M. Sharp.” The shotgun eyes became deeper, blacker, closer. “How old did you say you were?”

  This time I didn’t have to lie. “I said I was seventeen.”

  He began nodding his head in rhythm to the rocking. “You are extremely fat for seventeen.”

  Then he turned his back on me and looked into the carriage.

  I floated down the gravel driveway. If I had any breath to spare I would have sung as I walked on the shoulder of the county road that circles the lake. I was going to stop off at Joanie’s house to tell her the good news but something happened that made me forget. A car pulled up alongside me, a souped-up blue-and-white Chevrolet with a row of cherries painted on the door.

  “Hey. You. Got a license?”

  “Me?”

  “I asked you if you had a license, fats.” The car was packed with laughing faces, but the only thing I could see clearly was a long thin arm hanging out of the driver’s window. It was tat-tooed with a Marine Corps insignia and the name Willie.

  “A license?”

  “Yeah, for that trailer you’re hauling behind you.”

  The car rocked with laughter. Willie poked out his pointed rat fac
e. “Listen, fats, if I catch you around the lake again without a license for that big can of yours, I’ll run you right back to the city where you belong.”

  The car screeched off, and my nose and mouth were filled with the stink of burning rubber.

  3

  At breakfast my father asked, “Well, Robert, have you made up your mind?”

  “Not yet.” I drank my orange juice in two swallows. It’s the only way to drink cold, fresh-squeezed orange juice. You fill your mouth with it to wash away all the cotton from sleep, then gulp it down, feel it rush down your pipes and splash into your stomach, whoosh. It also drives my father up the wall, and I was hoping he’d start giving me the usual lesson in table manners and forget the cross-examination. No such luck.

  “When do you plan to reach a decision?”

  “Soon.”

  “That’s not soon enough.”

  “What’s soon enough?” I asked.

  “You’ll get shut out of everything if you don’t step on it.” He was making a big show of being patient. But his muscles were popping along his jaw. My father’s thin, but he’s got muscles and veins everywhere. “You’ll have nothing to do all summer. No camp, no swim classes, nothing. You’ll have nothing to do but hang around and feel sorry for yourself. And eat.”

  “Hot stuff,” said my mother, bringing plates of bacon and scrambled eggs to the table. Great timing.

  “Where’s Michelle?” snapped my father.

  “Here’s Michelle,” said Michelle. Her face was still swollen from sleep. She was rubbing her eyes. I wondered what time she came home from her counselors’ meeting last night.

  “This isn’t a restaurant,” said my father.

  “I’m glad to hear that,” said my mother.

  I started to eat. There’s really only one way to eat scrambled eggs, bacon and toast, and this is the way: First, you shovel a heaping forkful of eggs into your mouth, feel the butter run inside your gums, press the soft little clumps of egg against the roof of your mouth with your tongue, then poke in a crispy, crackly bacon stick, chew until the bacon is scattered through the mouthful of eggs, then jam in a bite of crunchy toast, and chew slowly, making sure your lips are closed so nothing leaks out. Soft and hard, buttery and burnt, all pressing against the inside of your cheeks. A full mouth. And it’s only the first.

  It’s even better when your father isn’t staring at you in disgust.

  “Robert. I don’t think you’re taking this seriously.”

  “Yesum.”

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

  I had to swallow ahead of schedule. “Why do I have to make plans all the time? I’m on vacation.”

  “A man has to do something with his life. The sooner you start the better.”

  “Let him finish his breakfast, Marty,” said my mother.

  “Well, Robert?” asked my father.

  “Maybe I’ll get a job,” I said.

  He snorted. “Be serious.”

  If I had any thought of telling him about Dr. Kahn. I cancelled it right then. Even if he let me do it, what a big deal. Robert, you will wear steel-tipped shoes so you don’t cut off your clumsy toes, and goggles for your eyes and heavy gloves for your fat little fingers. A helmet! Perhaps a complete set of armor. And I’d clank off to work, and get fired, and everybody would feel sorry for me, and be really nice. Poor Bobby, cut from the team again. I’d been through it all before. He didn’t have much confidence in me.

  “Personally,” said my father, “and it’s all your decision, I lean toward Mohawk Hill. There seems to be more physical activity there, and they don’t have ice cream in the afternoon.”

  “Marty, his eggs are getting cold, let him eat.”

  “It’s for his own good, Lenore. He’s not going to thank you ten years from now when he weighs three hundred pounds.”

  Michelle jumped up. “Hey. I’m going to be late, I’m going to miss my bus.” She kissed my father’s cheek. “Have a good week. See you Friday night.”

  I silently thanked her for changing the subject, but then she said, “Keep your chins up, Bobby.” She charged out.

  “I better get going, too,” said my father. He stood up. “Get on the stick, Robert.” He mussed my hair. He went back to his room to finish dressing.

  My mother said, “Ride into town with me. I’m going to do some shopping, we can have lunch out.”

  “No, thanks, I think I’ll walk around the lake, maybe stop off at Joanie’s.”

  “I’ll drop you.”

  “I’d like the exercise.”

  “You’ll watch the traffic, Bobby.”

  “That’s what I’ll do this summer. Watch the traffic.”

  “Lenore!”

  “Coming. Bobby, I’ll see you later. We’ll figure something out together.”

  She kissed me and hurried out to the driveway. My father was already on his way to the car. They always had a big good-bye scene at the railroad station. You’d think he was going off to war. Big deal. Five days sitting behind a desk in an air-conditioned office. He probably goes to the movies every night. And eats in restaurants where he can order anything he wants. Of course he never gains a pound. In his life, I’m sure he never held his breath while buttoning his shirt. Or had to wear his shirt outside his pants because the zipper wouldn’t come all the way up.

  I finished breakfast and cleared the table. My Monday-morning chore. Then I packed myself a lunch, a couple of salami sandwiches, an orange, an apple, a few cookies, nothing too heavy, and got dressed in sneakers, a long-sleeved shirt and dungarees that almost fit.

  Be serious, huh? A man has to do something with his life, huh? Betcha I work harder today than you do, Dad.

  4

  Rumson Lake is round with an island in the middle. The island has trees and an abandoned wooden shack. I’d never been on the island, but a lot of couples went there at night to make out. At night you could see the light of campfires. When there’s a full moon, you could see canoes and rowboats bobbing along the shore of the island.

  This morning the only action around the island was Vinnie and Pete Marino swimming their laps. Each of them had a red inner tube jerking along behind, tied to an ankle by rope. In case of a cramp, all they’d have to do is grab the tube and paddle in. Even great swimmers can get a cramp and drown.

  The Marinos became great swimmers because their oldest sister, Connie, got polio one summer. She spent months in the hospital, and when she went home she had to wear a brace on one leg. The doctors said she would never walk normally again. Mrs. Marino prayed for her recovery every single morning, in church. Then one day Mr. Marino, a big tough guy who owns a cement company in the city, went to church and told God that all he wanted out of life was to dance with Connie at her wedding, and if God did that for him then God could do anything he wanted with him.

  I heard this story from my parents who heard it from Mr. Marino at a Community Association meeting.

  Well, Mr. Marino heard a voice telling him to take Connie to the waters. Mrs. Marino thought it meant some place with holy waters, like Lourdes, but Mr. Marino said it meant Rumson Lake. And for the whole next summer every member of the family took turns holding Connie in the water; and first she could only float, and then she could kick her bad leg a little, and by the end of that summer she was swimming. The next summer she was walking by herself, and now she hardly has a limp at all. That was ten years ago.

  Because of all that swimming, everybody got to be pretty good. Vinnie was the star of his high school team, and Pete was the city butterfly champion. There’s another brother coming up who’s supposed to be the best of them all. If I do become a writer someday, that’ll make a good story for the Reader’s Digest.

  I watched the Marinos for a minute. They glided through the water like sharks, fast and steady, their arms cutting the water with every little splash. A light breeze stirred the water, and the morning sun glistened on the small, silvery waves.

  I felt really good striding ar
ound the lake on the county road. The breeze was in my face, and I swung my arms in rhythm with my legs. A couple of times I waved to truck drivers. They always waved back. Someday I might drive a truck, a big one, with my sleeves rolled up to my shoulders and a baseball cap pulled down over my eyes. Truck drivers have adventures. Jack Smith, who used to drive a laundry truck, once jumped out of his rig, ran into a burning house and saved a baby. When he got back to the garage the foreman started yelling at him for coming late. The way I heard the story from Joanie, Jack just stared at the foreman; he never said a word about what had happened, just sucked on his cigarette like Humphrey Bogart until the foreman was finished yelling. Then he threw his cigarette on the ground, rubbed it out with the toe of his boot, and knocked out the foreman with one punch. What a man! The boss was watching and fired Jack on the spot. Jack just turned and walked away. The next morning, when the boss read in the newspaper what Jack had done, he drove to the trailer where he lived and offered him his old job back, with a big raise. Jack told him what he could do with his job. I heard somewhere that Jack Smith has his own business now. I’ve got that story filed in the back of my mind, too. It would make a good short story for The Saturday Evening Post.

  I reached Dr. Kahn’s lawn at exactly 8:47 by my wristwatch. It was probably 8:48. My watch always runs a minute slow because of my metabolism. That’s the speed at which your body burns up energy. Once I took a test called a Basal Metabolism. I lay in a doctor’s office for an hour breathing into a rubber mouthpiece connected by a tube to a machine. My nose was clipped shut. Afterward, the doctor said I had a low normal Basal Metabolism, which means my body burns up food a little slower than most other bodies. That’s why I put on weight easily. The doctor made a joke about it. He said I could walk into a bakery, and if I took too deep a breath, I’d gain a pound. My father and Michelle have high Basal Metabolisms, which means they could eat a pound of cake and burn it right off. That’s why they’re always bothering me about my weight, they don’t understand the problem. My mother is a normal Basal Metabolism, so she sort of understands. The doctor told her that I’d probably start losing weight sometime in my teens, so she doesn’t make such a big fuss about it. She’s had a few arguments with my father about my weight. She thinks he needles me about it too much. I think my father’s sort of ashamed of having a fat son. He wants me to be lean and athletic like he is.