Eat and Get Gas, page 21
Grandma was quiet for a few seconds, and I thought I was in big trouble until she smiled and said, “I thought I told you to stay in the house.”
“You did.” I smiled back.
“This place is a pigsty,” Grandma said once we were inside Uncle Frankie’s house. “I might have it torn down. Not today, though. Today, I need to cancel my bread and milk order and get to the hospital to see Viv. And I might need to find a lawyer for my poor Frankie. I imagine I’ll know soon why they arrested him. If Perry Mason is right, he gets one phone call.” She began to weep. “I can’t run the gas station and café and care for Viv and worry about Frankie and everyone else. It’s too much.”
“Is it okay if I stay home from school today? I can clean the café,” I said.
“I don’t need a phone call from the principal asking where you are—not on top of everything else. You can do it when you get home from school.”
THE NEWS ABOUT THE FBI AT EAT and Get Gas spread fast. Everyone at school thought it was about the pot Uncle Frankie sold, and I went along with them. It sure made me popular. Even kids I didn’t know asked me to get Uncle Frankie’s autograph for them.
For the next two days, I was on my best behavior. I did my homework and anything Grandma asked me to without complaining. She split her time between the hospital and sitting by the phone, waiting for Uncle Frankie to call. She’d tried calling him at the jail in Seattle, but they wouldn’t let her speak to him. Then, on Thursday afternoon, three days after the FBI took him to jail, the phone rang just as I got home from school. Grandma answered on the first ring.
“What for? What has he done? Are you sure?” I heard her ask. She hung up after saying she’d be at his arraignment the next day.
Between wringing her hands and pulling curlers out of her hair, she told me she had to see Aunt Vivian right away, and she couldn’t ask Hal because he’d already driven her at lunchtime. “You’ll have to take me, Evan.”
When I told her I couldn’t drive that far, she put a finger under my chin and kept it there. “Our boy is in big trouble. He could go to prison for a long time. He’s been helping draft dodgers, and he’s going before a judge in Seattle tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. I need to be there. You’re going to take me. Understand?”
I nodded. “What about Paco?” I asked.
“They’ve moved him to another jail,” Grandma said. “He’s the reason the FBI came to my house. He’s a draft dodger. I never bought Frankie’s story about them being childhood friends. Did you?”
“No, not really,” I replied in a steady voice.
While Hubert filled the Studebaker gas tank, Hal cleaned the car windows, stopping at the passenger door when Grandma rolled her window down. She told him everything she knew about Uncle Frankie and Paco while I tried to untangle the two curlers still in the back of her head.
“We would be grateful to take you to the hospital now and to attend the arraignment with you tomorrow,” Hal said. “A departure time of 9:30 a.m. should be adequate.”
I saw Grandma smile and heard her exhale. “I think Evan can drive me now, but I’ll take you up on your offer to get to Seattle in the morning—thank you.”
I WAS ESPECIALLY NERVOUS DRIViNG WITH Grandma in the front seat. We almost went off the road when she grabbed the steering wheel, and she let out a big sigh when I finally pulled into the hospital parking lot. “You’re off the hook for tomorrow. You can go to school and skate after. We’ll pick you up from the Rollarena on our way home.” Grandma released her grip on the dashboard to pat her forehead with a tissue.
When we got to her room, Aunt Vivian was sitting up in bed, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper with a magnifying glass. She looked paler than usual and seemed surprised to see us. She waved us over, and Grandma sat down in the chair next to her bed and told her about the arraignment.
“I want to go, too,” I said. “I need to see Uncle Frankie.”
To my surprise, Aunt Vivian agreed that I shouldn’t go. When I complained, Grandma clapped her hands. “Enough is enough! You might not look like a child, but you are a child, and you don’t need to be involved. I’ll give Frankie a message from you, that’s all.”
IN THE MORNING, I HUGGED GRANDMA for a long time and told her I was sorry for being a brat. Then I gave her the note I’d written for Uncle Frankie, telling him I’d burnt everything. I’d used words from songs Uncle Frankie and I both liked and folded it in a triangle, the way I’d seen him fold small papers. Only he would understand.
CHAPTER 27
WHEN GRANDMA DIDN’T TURN UP AT the Rollarena at 6:00 p.m. as promised, I called her house at seven and then again at eight but got no answer. “They probably just forgot to pick you up. I’ve done that before with my kids.” Bernie put the phone back under the counter before handing me the key to the vending machine and telling me to help myself to a Coke and a bag of Fritos.
At nine, Bernie locked up and drove me home. I’d already told him Grandma had gone to Seattle to see Uncle Frankie. Now I added, “They weren’t after my uncle. They came for Paco. He’s a draft dodger. Uncle Frankie tried to get him to Canada, but something went wrong.”
Bernie shook his head. “I’m okay with it. If anyone knows why a kid shouldn’t go to Vietnam, it’s Frank. Too bad they’ll send Paco there after a stint in prison.”
“Jeez, I hope not. His real name is Patrick Richardson. He’s from Spokane, and he’s nineteen. The cops beat him up. It was scary.”
“It’s an awful thing we’re asking from these kids. I don’t know what I’d do if I had a son old enough to be drafted. Probably the same thing Paco’s mom and Frank did,” Bernie said. “Hey, I gotta get home, but you’re always welcome at the rink—on the house.”
There were no lights on, and Grandma wasn’t in the living room sitting in the dark watching TV like I thought she might be. I ate a bologna sandwich in front of the TV, trying to get interested in Room 222.
“We didn’t forget you,” Grandma said when I answered the phone not long after 10:00 p.m. “There was an incident at the jail, and Frankie died. I had to stay to identify his body. We’ll be home in an hour or so.”
“What did you say?” But she’d already hung up.
I went to my room, but I didn’t put on my pajamas, and I didn’t get into bed. I sat on the windowsill, watching for the Studebaker and trying to breathe away the knot in my chest.
WHEN I HEARD GRANDMA COMING UP the stairs at midnight, I ran to meet her. She was still wearing her coat, her purse was on her arm, and her face was red and puffy.
She tried but couldn’t turn the doorknob, so I reached out to help, putting my hand over hers.
“Just go to bed. I can’t talk about it,” she said.
I started to cry. “But why is he dead?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t,” Grandma mumbled and closed the door.
It was getting light out when I became aware of sounds downstairs. I tiptoed down and saw Grandma bent over the dining room table, polishing it with Crisco shortening instead of bee’s wax. When she spotted me, she sat down in a chair and slumped forward. “This table is so greasy. You know he didn’t have shoes. He should’ve had shoes. His feet were cold.” She sounded frantic.
“Should I run to his house and get them?” I asked.
“I’ve got to find them.” Grandma was shaking her head.
“I’ll go, Grandma. You stay here. I know where he keeps his shoes. I’ll be back in five minutes.”
“No, no. Not now. Later. I need to see Viv. You’ll have to drive.”
“It’s really early. Visiting hours don’t start until eight. I’ll make a pot of coffee, and while it’s perking, I’ll run upstairs and get dressed. Then, if there’s time, I’ll go to Uncle Frankie’s and get his shoes.”
GRANDMA WAS LYING FLAT IN AUNT Vivian’s chair, staring at the ceiling, when I returned with Uncle Frankie’s favorite boots. When Hal and Hubert began playing a song called “Ave Maria,” Grandma sat up.
“Open the door,” she said. “I want to hear this.”
The music gave me chills, and we were both sobbing as I helped Grandma into the car. I drove without crying or talking and without making one mistake, and since it was Saturday, there were plenty of parking spaces. I took two.
We were fifteen minutes early, but when I told the nurse at the front desk why, she looked up and said, “Go ahead, girls, it’s okay.”
Aunt Vivian was sitting up in bed, drinking coffee, when we walked into her room. She seemed shocked to see us and then scared when Grandma slumped against the wall. “Oh, Viv,” she wailed, “our poor boy is dead.”
Grandma needed to sit down, but there wasn’t a chair in the room, so I ran to the nurse’s desk to get one. When I returned with a chair and a nurse, Grandma was on the bed, holding Aunt Vivian, and they were sobbing. I knew if I kept looking at them, I would, too. I couldn’t let the sadness about Uncle Frankie sink in any more than it already had. If I did, I might not be able to drive Grandma home.
I looked out the window at the gray sky and took a few deep breaths, praying the nurse would tell us to leave. Eventually, Grandma released Aunt Vivian and got off the bed. The startled look on their faces told me they hadn’t realized anyone else was in the room. Aunt Vivian must have been embarrassed because she almost screamed at the nurse that her nephew hanged himself in a jail cell because of the goddamn war.
Hanged himself? That can’t be. I’d been thinking that one of the other prisoners had beaten him for something he said or did. I looked at Grandma for a sign that Aunt Vivian had been wrong, but she was sobbing too hard for it to have been a mistake.
“He was a regular American kid who did what he thought was his duty. He came back from that place so beat up, frightened, and hostile, it was hard to be in a room with him. And now he’s gone and done the worst thing,” Aunt Vivian said.
I pressed my back to the wall, slid to the floor, and shuffled over to Aunt Vivian’s bed so I could pull the corner of her bedspread over my face and become invisible.
When we got home from the hospital, Grandma tried to call Dad in Saigon but had to leave a message. The following day, someone from the army called and said Dad wouldn’t be available for weeks. Grandma told the person to tell my dad his brother had died, and she needed to know what to do about his funeral.
“That man on the phone was rude. He said he wasn’t a messenger, and I should call the honor guard agent at Fort Lewis Army Base with Frankie’s name, rank, and number. I’m not going to,” Grandma said when she hung up. “I think a military funeral service is the last thing Frankie would want. I don’t even know where his dog tags are.”
Later, when Grandma went to her room to rest, I walked to the garage to call Mom. I was crying when I told her what Uncle Frankie had done. She was quiet for a few seconds and then said it was a shame he never got help from the VA hospital. Then she asked me if I’d called Louanne with the news. When I said no, she said I’d better get off the phone and do it.
The next voice I heard was Teddy’s. He told me about his new friend, Bobby, and how they’d trained Leroy to catch a stick, chase a car, and dig a hole. Mom didn’t get back on the phone.
I DIDN’T CALL LOUANNE AS MOM HAD suggested. I wasn’t ever going to. I wanted to forget about her. But a day or so after Uncle Frankie died, when Grandma said Louanne needed to know, and she didn’t have it in her to call, I felt like I had to.
On my way to catch the school bus the following day, I grabbed the spare key to the garage to call Louanne from there. I started by telling her Velvet liked parsley more than lettuce, then burst into tears and blurted out that Uncle Frankie had killed himself.
“So soon,” she said.
“What?”
“I had a feeling he’d do it. I used to have the same feeling about myself until I met Dr. Lars.” She was crying.
Before our call ended, Louanne said she wanted to come to the funeral. “I’d like to say goodbye to my little brother. I’m tired of being mad at him. He should be with our parents and our sister, Kathy, in the Stevenson cemetery. He loved Kathy. I’ll arrange a plot for him. Can you tell Willa that, please?”
“Sure,” I replied. It seemed a long way for her to come to say goodbye to a brother she didn’t like.
HAL HAD OFFERED TO DRiVE GRANDMA to the hospital to pick up Aunt Vivian that day. I was happy that she was coming home because Grandma was getting weary and more and more confused, and I didn’t know what to do. Just the afternoon before, someone called, and I heard Grandma shout down the phone, “I don’t want a dead body in my house!” Whoever was on the other end calmed her down, and I heard her say, “Peace be with you, too,” before saying she’d call them back the next day with an address of where to send his body.
“I just can’t stop seeing his bruised and bloody face whenever I close my eyes,” she said.
“I keep expecting him to walk in and wink at me or complain about Dad,” I said.
“Me, too,” Grandma said. “Me, too.”
Aunt Vivian was on the living room couch, and Grandma was in her lounge chair when I got home from school. I knew they hadn’t heard me come in, so I stayed in the kitchen to listen.
“A casket, a burial plot, and a funeral service are going to cost a fortune,” Grandma said.
“What about the box of cash from Frankie’s house you told me about? It’s not as if we’re going to hand it over to the police now, is it?” Aunt Vivian said.
Grandma let out a tired sigh, and I moved closer to the living room so they could see me.
“How ya doing there, Too Tall?” Aunt Vivian waved me over. “I heard you might not want to call me Aunt Vivian. And what’s with you wearing a bra, now?”
I was so glad to have her back that I didn’t care if she teased me. She was the only one who could calm Grandma down, the only person Grandma relied on. Even with her leg in a cast, I knew she’d organize everything for the funeral.
“I’ve decided you can call me Aunt Vivian or Your Royal Highness. I’ll answer to both,” she said.
“Not Mrs. Pigge?” I asked, not sure of what I’d just done.
Grandma tipped her head back and roared. A second later, Aunt Vivian laughed, too, and for a moment, the dreariness that had been in the house disappeared.
“WE’RE NOT PUTTING AN OBITUARY IN the paper, and we don’t want an after-funeral gathering in the café. Viv says we’ll have something at the funeral home. And don’t tell anyone how Frankie died,” Grandma said the next morning.
“I’ve already told my mom and Louanne.” I swallowed hard. “But I won’t tell anyone else—I promise. Oh God, Grandma, I forgot to tell you that Louanne is coming for the funeral. And she’s getting a burial plot for Uncle Frankie in Stevenson so that he can be with their parents and sister, Kathy.”
“Oh, that’s awfully good of her,” Grandma said. “I’m feeling stronger now that Viv is home. I’ll call Louanne. You might need to clean the basement room for her.”
I didn’t want Louanne to come. And I didn’t talk to my friends about Uncle Frankie; I thought they’d ask how he died. If I told them the truth, Grandma might find out, or they might think it was gross and stop coming to Eat and Get Gas or tell their friends to stop coming. And then Grandma would go broke, and it would be my fault.
FRANKIE’S FUNERAL WAS HELD ON THURSDAY, June 1. Hal drove Grandma and Aunt Vivian (and her crutches) to the Hoquiam funeral home in the Studebaker, and Hubert took me in his truck. Not very many showed up for the service. Just Fisky and his wife; Mrs. Fine and her sister, Bella; four of Uncle Frankie’s girlfriends; three poker friends; the postmaster; Mooch; and Louanne and Dr. Lars Larson.
“How about you sit next to Louanne?” Grandma said.
“I’d rather sit next to you,” I replied.
“I understand, but just sit with Louanne this one time.” She patted my hand.
The man Aunt Vivian recruited to perform the service, Chester Tuffin, called the bingo games at the Eagles Hall. Aunt Vivian liked him; Grandma didn’t. When Chester started the service by saying Uncle Frankie could pump gas faster than the attendant at the Aberdeen Phillips 66 and was unlucky at bingo, but very lucky with the ladies, Grandma said, “Oh, for God’s sake!”
Chester didn’t notice or didn’t care. “Francis Arnold Stewart’s contribution to our great nation was his willingness to protect all Americans from the evil Communists. We all owe a thank you to President Nixon for his outstanding leadership.”
“That’s it, service over. Cake and coffee in the other room,” Aunt Vivian said loudly, motioning me over to come back and help her up.
After the coffee and cake were gone, Dr. Lars invited me to have an early dinner with him and Louanne at Lee’s Chinese restaurant. I still wanted to try Chinese food, but I wasn’t sure I should go. What if they wanted to talk about Louanne being my birth mother?
“I would if I could, but Grandma and Aunt Vivian need me at home. Maybe another time,” I said with a fake smile.
“I think we’ll be okay without you for a few hours,’ I heard Grandma say from behind me.
So, I went. Dr. Lars was a bad driver, even worse than me. He parked in front of the restaurant with a front tire on the sidewalk.
They ordered ten different plates of food for us to share, but I ate most of it. I couldn’t help it; everything tasted so good, and I was starving. It wasn’t until we were in the car heading back to Grandma’s that Louanne said, “I understand from Willa that you saw a letter I left for Frankie. He shouldn’t have left it laying around. But I shouldn’t have left it for him in the first place. I’m sorry I did,” she said.
I kept my head down and picked at my nails.
