Good Graces

Chapter Three

The first day back home, my sister and me and one of our best friends, Mary Lane, are having what Troo calls a rendezvous at Washington Park, the most important place to everybody in the neighborhood next to Mother of Good Hope Church. The park’s got everything.

Like the lagoon.

I used to love standing under the weeping willow and throwing in a hook, but I had to give that up. Instead of whiling away an afternoon dreaming about what I’m gonna catch, all I can think about these days are the innocent little fish swimming below the surface, so overjoyed to see that friendly worm waving in the water that they don’t even stop to wonder at their good luck. The lagoon is where the police found the two dead girls with pink undies tied around their necks in pretty bows. First one summer and then the next, Junie Piaskowski and Sara Marie Heinemann were laid out next to the rotting red rowboats you can rent for a dollar and I was almost spread out there, too. I could hear the muddy lagoon water lapping onto the rocks when Bobby Brophy ripped his shirt off over his head.

The park also has a swimming pool. I just about go dead in the water watching Troo climb up those silvery high-dive steps and run to the end of the board screaming, “Geronimo,” which she will probably do even louder now after all the practice she got at camp.

The Jack Hoyt Woods are a big relief. When you can’t take the sun beating down on you for one more second, you can eat a peanut-butter-and-marshmallow sandwich in a leafy branch or get your ankles wet when you look for leeches under slimy rocks in the Honey Creek that runs through it.

There’s also a band shell, but it’s not much good until after it gets dark. That’s why it’s called Music Under the Stars. Once a week you can lie out on a blanket and hear an orchestra perform something like Rhapsody in Blue by Mr. George Gershwin (one of Mother and Dave’s favorites) and drink cup after cup of Graf’s Root Beer (Troo guzzles it) while you search for the Big and Little Dippers in the western sky (Daddy went nuts for them). When the show’s all over, everybody in the neighborhood gathers their stuff and walks back home, laughing and calling to each other, or sometimes there’s a scuffle because they mighta had too much Pabst Blue Ribbon Under the Stars.

And it’s not only during the months of June, July and August when this park is the star of the show. When it gets cold and snowy, you can take a leap onto your flying saucer on Statue Hill. Or bundle up and go skating. I feel much better being around the lagoon once it freezes over. I can’t do spins or jumps or anything else fancy like that, but I like the feel of the chilly air on my forehead and the blades cutting through the ice sound like I mean business.

But the absolute best part of the park, no matter what time of the year it is, has always been right where we are. The zoo. Sitting on the bench under our favorite climbing tree in front of Sampson the gorilla’s enclosure. Daddy and I used to sit at this exact same spot together. He’d point at Sampson and say, “Some people say the lion is the king of the jungle, but I’d have to disagree with them. Just look at him, Sal! He is magnificent!” I would nod my head, but what I was secretly thinking was No, Daddy, you are the king. Of the land and the sky. It’s you who is magnificent.

That was in the good old days. Before the night Bobby the counselor set me down on the grass near the lagoon. Before I heard Daddy’s voice call to me from on high-Now, Sal, now… fly like the wind-and I ripped down the zoo path and jumped over the black iron fence in front of Sampson’s enclosure. When Bobby caught up to me, he gave me the same winning smile I loved when we played chess together at the playground. Only that night he didn’t say, “Checkmate. Better luck next time.” He ran the tip of his tongue over his top lip so slowly and whispered, “Gotcha,” and I was sure that he did. But when he leaped over the fence, the air came off his body and his arms became wings. I waited until the timing was right and I ducked. Bobby flew over my head like Sky King’s Songbird and crashed down into Sampson’s pit. He died, so the only one he’s playing chess with now is Lucifer.

The reason we came here today is so I can say one last good-bye to Sampson. On one side of me on the zoo bench this morning is Mary Lane. (We have to call her by her first and last name like that because around here if you just shout out “Mary” you could get trampled to death since it is the most popular name there is due to the Blessed Virgin.) Mary Lane is wearing her usual high-top tennis shoes and just like us, shorts and a T-shirt. She smells like stale potato chips. She always does. On my other side is my sister. Troo couldn’t care less about saying au revoir to Sampson if she tried. She only came along so she can bug Mary Lane. My sister’s got on her navy blue beret. It’s a flat hat perched high on top of her hair, which our beautifying half sister, Nell, has shown her how to put into a French twist.

“Just ’cause they’re movin’ the zoo doesn’t mean ya ain’t never gonna see Sampson again,” Mary Lane tells me.

She doesn’t take up much room on the bench. Even after Doc Sullivan pulled that tapeworm out of her, she is still the skinniest kid you’ve ever seen. She’d probably go invisible if her zookeeper father didn’t give her bananas for free. She is also a peeper. She lights fires, too. And I secretly think that she is the cat burglar that’s been prowling around the neighborhood for over two months now. (This is not a person who steals pets, which is what most people think until somebody sets them straight. A cat burglar is what you call somebody who gets dressed in black and comes into your house sneaky to steal something precious.) Mary Lane could easily slip through a barely open kitchen window, especially if she smelled a pot roast cooking on the other side, and she spends a ton of time at the zoo so she knows how tigers and leopards move like they’re doing you a big favor by setting their feet down and really, she is sort of hard up and doesn’t have a very big conscience so it makes sense that she is the one breaking one of the Commandments and coveting her neighbors’ valuables out of their houses. She could hock them at Gerald’s Pawnshop on North Avenue to get money for food.

I haven’t told my suspicions about Mary Lane to Troo. She would find some way to use that against her and make fun of my imagination while she was doing it. I know I should, but I haven’t told Dave either. He’s the cop in charge of hunting the cat burglar down. Mary Lane is one of my two best friends and I’m no stool pigeon, but even if I was, what a waste of time that’d be. Even if Dave caught her and threw her in jail, how would they ever keep her skinny self behind bars?

Mary Lane says, “My dad’s been goin’ out to the new zoo every day to get things set up for when it opens. He told me that Bluemound Road is pretty far away, but not that far.”

Mr. Lane, who works at the zoo feeding the animals and doing other odd jobs, told us that they will all be packed up by tomorrow and then the bulldozers will come and knock down the buildings to put in a new expressway. The birds are already gone. Of course, the swans put up a fuss. They always remind me of Troo. Gorgeous to look at, but what a mouth they got on ’em. While we were away at camp, the chimps got taken away from Monkey Island in black zipper bags after they got sleeping shots. The reptile house has been boarded up for a while, which is no skin offa my nose. Mary Lane kept telling me last summer that Bobby Brophy reminded her of a boa constrictor, which is a kind of snake that can swallow a kid whole. If only I’d listened to her.

“Hey,” Mary Lane says, flicking me on the arm. “Ya havin’ one a your flights of imagination?”

This is one of the reasons she is my best friend. Mary Lane understands that my mind flies around sometimes without me and I understand that she’s got a problem with getting her facts straight when she tells a story, so that works out good for both of us.

“Sorry?” I answer.

“I was just sayin’ that you’d probably need to take at least three buses to get out to the new zoo to see Sampson.”

“Really?” I ask. I’m never sure if what she’s telling me is the whole truth or not. You really do have to be careful with her. I used to think she was the biggest, fattest liar around, but she isn’t. Not exactly. Mary Lane is what my other best friend, Ethel Jenkins, describes as “a no-tripper.” That’s what Mississippi folks call somebody who doesn’t let the truth trip them up when they’re telling you a story.

“Yeah, at least three buses,” Mary Lane says, picking at a scab on her knee. “Maybe four, but it could be as many as seven.”

“What do ya think?” I ask Troo, who isn’t really paying attention.

Now that she’s done one-upping Mary Lane about getting to go to Camp Towering Pines this summer, going so far as to bring her Golden Tomahawk talent trophy in a shopping bag so she can shove it in our best friend’s face, my sister is paging through a book she got yesterday from the Finney Library. She’s not actually reading Around the World in Eighty Days because according to her, books are for boneheads like me. Troo’s looking at the pictures to get the idea of the story so she can tell it to Mrs. Kambowski. You can’t hardly go anywhere these days without hearing a joke about how dumb the Polacks are, so that’s why there’s not a doubt in my mind the librarian will fall for my sister’s plan. Troo wants to win the Billy the Bookworm prize this summer in the worst way. She got the free movie passes to the Uptown Theatre last summer even though she didn’t really win them fair and square; Mary Lane did. For some dopey reason, Mrs. Kambowski gave my sister the prize anyway.

“What do I think about what?” Troo says, turning the page.

“Could we take three buses or more to visit Sampson out on Bluemound Road?” I say, trying, but not able, to keep the shakiness out of my voice.

“H-E-double hockey sticks,” Troo says, slamming the book down on the bench. “I knew this was gonna happen. I just knew it! You bein’ a wet blanket at camp wasn’t bad enough, now you’re gonna be cryin’ and worryin’ about that dumb ape… and anything else you can dream up for the rest of the summer, aren’t you?” Troo laughs mean out of her nose that funny French way she does now. “Hunh… hunh… hunh. You’re goin’ loonier by the second, Sally.”

“Shut your trap, O’Malley,” Mary Lane shouts as she springs up off the bench. “Her missin’ Sampson is not any loonier than you tellin’ everybody to call you Leeze.”

Troo made Mary Lane and me go see An American in Paris with her during old-timey movie week up at the Uptown Theatre. My sister’s French problem got even worse after that. She wants all of us to call her Leeze now, which was the name of the girl star in that movie, and if we don’t, she’ll give you an Indian burn that’ll sting for days because that’s another thing she perfected at camp.

“Fuck you, Lane,” Troo says. She loves all words that begin with the letter f but this is her absolute favorite. “You’re always stickin’ your monkey nose in where it don’t belong.”

“Oh, yeah?” Mary Lane yells. “If my ma wasn’t already married, she… she wouldn’t be livin’ in sin the way yours is, I can tell ya that.”

Mary Lane’s not the only one, a lotta people in the neighborhood are saying that about Mother because her and Dave are living under the same roof and aren’t married. Not yet anyway. They were supposed to get hitched right after high school, but that wedding got called off because Dave’s mother, who was dying from tuberculosis at the time, thought that our mother was just another Mick in an ankle bracelet and wasn’t good enough for her Danish boy. Ignoring the orders of an about-to-die person is the worst thing you can do in life. I should know. Dave had to honor his mother’s wishes and not just because he didn’t want to be haunted; it’s the Fourth Commandment. So better late than never. They’re planning to say their I do’s right after the annulment letter from the Pope comes in the mail. They need the go-ahead from His Holiness because Mother can’t get a divorce. Not the way Lutherans do. The only other thing a Catholic woman can do if she doesn’t want to be married anymore to a louse like Hall Gustafson is to pray that he gets stabbed in the neck with a fork when he’s serving his time.

“Sorry ’bout that livin’ in sin crack,” Mary Lane leans in and says to me in a much nicer voice. She didn’t mean to hurt my feelings, just Troo’s. Mary Lane hasn’t figured out yet that’s impossible. On both counts.

Sampson is getting very riled up. He musta heard Troo calling me names because he’s started putting on a show. Beating his chest and waving.

I wave back at him like I always do, only much slower and sadder.

Troo swats my hand down. “How many times do I gotta tell ya? He’s not… he’s just a stupid gorilla shooin’ away flies and… and don’t start up with how he’s singin’ Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.”

Mary Lane pushes her flat face into my sister’s beautiful one and says, “You got the heart of a jackal,” and then she shoves Troo, who shoves her back and two pokes later they are rolling around on the grass behind the bench. Mary Lane can pound the snot outta most anybody and Troo likes to fight more than ever, so I can count on these kinds of wrestling matches happening at least once a day. I normally try to break them up, but I’m too busy being a captive audience. Sampson is singing to me loud and clear.

After she gets Troo to yell “Oncle,” Mary Lane plops back down next to me and says, “I’m gonna stick around and help my dad. Ya wanna?”

I run my hand across the part of the bench where Daddy rested his strong shoulders.

I’ve been meaning to ask Mary Lane, Do you know what they’re gonna do with this beat-up bench? If they’re just gonna chuck it out, we might have a place in our garden for it, but the words get stuck in my mouth, which is the first sign that I’m gonna start choke crying and if I do that, my sister’s gonna start hunh… hunh… hunhing again, so as much as I want to spend what little time there is left with my magnificent king, I tell her, “Thanks, but no thanks. I gotta”-I point behind me to my sister-“you know.”

Troo has already brushed the grass off her knees, adjusted her beret and is making her way down the path out of the zoo. The shopping bag with the talent trophy is making her lean a little to the right.

Mary Lane cups her hands and shouts, “Bon voyage, Leeze,” making it sound like the worst kind of insult.

When my sister stops in her tracks, I’m sure she’s gonna come barreling back to tackle our best friend around her knobby knees, but what she does instead is reach into the shopping bag and pull out her talent trophy. She lifts the Golden Tomahawk high above her head and with her other hand, she slowly, slowly flips Mary Lane the bird.

Our best friend doesn’t go after her, she’s not even mad. Mary Lane laughs and says, “What a card,” because even though her and Troo throw themselves on the ground faster than you can say Jackie Robinson, they are alike in more ways than one. “Ya sure ya don’t wanna stay and help out? We’re gonna load up the rest of the animal food and what not. It’d be a good thing to put in your charitable summer story.”

I really, really want to, but my sister is getting smaller on the path by the second. “I can’t.”

“Suit yourself,” Mary Lane says, skipping off toward the cage where they used to keep the grizzly bears.

After I catch up to Troo, I have to remember to tell her that she was right about one thing at least. Sampson’s not tapping his foot and singing to me Don’t Get Around Much Anymore the way he used to. Of course he’s not, because that’s not true anymore.

I can barely stand to leave him. I get up off the bench on feet that are having a hard time feeling the ground and shuffle down the zoo path. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t stop myself from looking back at him one last time.

He’s at the edge of the pit, down on one knee, serenading me with Daddy’s and my most favorite song of all: It’s one, two, three strikes you’re out at the old ball game… game… game… game.