4

Jack got off at Exit 5. He took 541 through Mount Holly and continued south on the two-lane blacktop through towns that were little more than groups of buildings clustered along a stretch of road like a crowd around an accident. The spaces between were all open cultivated field. Fresh produce stands advertising Jersey Beefsteak tomatoes “5 lbs/$1” dotted the roadside. He reminded himself to pick up a basketful for Abe on the way back.

He passed through Lumberton, a name that always conjured up ponderous images of morbidly obese people waddling in and out of oversized stores and houses. Next came Fostertown, which should have been populated by a horde of homeless runny-nosed waifs, but wasn’t.

And then he was home, turning the corner by what had been Mr. Canelli’s house; Canelli had died and the new owner must have been trying to save water because the lawn had burnt to a uniform shade of pale brown. He pulled into the driveway of the three-bedroom ranch in which he, his brother, and his sister had all grown up, turned off the car, and sat a moment wishing he were someplace else.

But there was no sense in delaying the inevitable, so he got out and walked up to the door. Dad pushed it open just as he reached it.

“Jack!” He thrust out his hand. “You had me worried. Thought you’d forgotten.”

His father was a tall, thin, balding man tanned a dark brown from daily workouts on the local tennis courts. His beakish nose was pink and peeling from sunburn, and the age spots on his forehead had multiplied and coalesced since the last time Jack had visited. But his grip was firm and his blue eyes bright behind the steel-rimmed glasses as Jack shook hands with him.

“Only a few minutes late.”

Dad reached down and picked up his tennis racquet from where it had been leaning against the door molding. “Yeah, but I reserved a court so we could warm up a little before the match.” He closed the door behind him. “Let’s take your car. You remember where the courts are?”

“Of course.”

As he slid into the front seat, Dad glanced around the interior of the Corvair. He touched the dice, either to see if they were fuzzy or if they were real.

“You really drive around in this?”

“Sure. Why?”

“It’s…”

“Unsafe At Any Speed?”

“Yeah. That, too.”

“Best car I ever owned.” Jack pushed the little lever in the far left of the dashboard into reverse and pulled out of the driveway.

For a couple of blocks they made inconsequential small talk about the weather and how smoothly Jack’s car was running after twenty years and the traffic on the Turnpike. Jack tried to keep the conversation on neutral ground. He and Dad hadn’t had much to say to each other since he’d quit college nearly fifteen years ago.

“How’s business?”

Dad smiled. “Great. You’ve been buying any of those stocks I told you about?”

“I bought two thousand of Arizona Petrol at one-and-an-eighth. It was up to four last time I looked.”

“Closed at four-and-a-quarter on Friday. Hold onto it.”

“Okay. Just let me know when to dump it.”

A lie. Jack couldn’t own stock. He needed a Social Security number for that. No broker would open an account for him without it. So he lied to his father about following his stock tips and looked up the NASDAQ listings every so often to see how his imaginary investments were doing.

They were all doing well. Dad had a knack for finding low-priced, out-of-the-way OTC stocks that were undervalued. He’d buy a few thousand shares, watch the price double, triple, or quadruple, then sell off and find another. He had done so well at it over the years that he finally quit his accounting job to see if he could live off his stock market earnings. He had an Apple Lisa with a Wall Street hook-up and spent his days wheeling and dealing. He was happy. He was making as much as he had as an accountant, his hours were his own, and no one could tell him he had to stop when he reached sixty-five. He was living by his wits and seemed to love it, looking more relaxed than Jack could ever remember.

“If I come up with something better, I’ll let you know. Then you can parlay your AriPet earnings into even more. By the way, did you buy the stock through a personal account or your IRA?”

“Uh… the IRA.” Another lie. Jack couldn’t have an IRA account either. Sometimes he wearied of lying to everybody, especially people he should be able to trust.

“Good! When you don’t think you’ll be holding them long enough to qualify for capital gains, use the IRA.”

He knew what his father was up to. Dad figured that as an appliance repairman, Jack would wind up depending on Social Security after he retired, and nobody could live off that. He was trying to help his prodigal son build up a nest egg for his old age.

They pulled into the lot by the two municipal courts. Both were occupied.

“Guess we’re out of luck.”

Dad waved a slip of paper. “No worry. This says court two is reserved for us between 10:00 and 11:00.”

While Jack fished in the back seat for his new racquet and the can of balls, his father went over to the couple who now occupied court two. The fellow was grumpily packing up their gear as Jack arrived. The girl—she looked to be about nineteen—glared at him as she sipped from a half-pint container of chocolate milk.

“Guess it’s who you know instead of who got here first.”

Jack tried a friendly smile. “No. Just who thinks ahead and gets a reservation.”

She shrugged. “It’s a rich man’s sport. Should’ve known better than to try to take it up.”

“Let’s not turn this into a class war, shall we?”

“Who? Me?” she said with an innocent smile. “I wouldn’t think of it.”

With that she poured the rest of her chocolate milk onto the court just behind the baseline.

Jack set his teeth and turned his back on her. What he really wanted to do was see if she could swallow a tennis racquet. He relaxed a little after she and her boyfriend left and he began to rally with his father. Jack’s tennis game had long since stabilized at a level of mediocrity he felt he could live with.

He was feeling fit today; he liked the balance of the racquet, the way the ball came off the strings, but the knowledge that there was a puddle of souring chocolate milk somewhere behind him on the asphalt rippled his concentration.

“You’re taking your eye off the ball!” Dad yelled from the other end of the court after Jack’s third wild shot in a row.

I know!

The last thing he needed now was a tennis lesson. He concentrated fully on the next ball, backpedaling, watching it all the way up to his racquet strings. He threw his body into the forehand shot, giving it as much top spin as he could to make it go low over the net and kick when it bounced. Suddenly his right foot was slipping. He went down in a spray of warm chocolate milk.

Across the net, his father returned the ball with a drop shot that rolled dead two feet from the service line. He looked at Jack and began to laugh.

It was going to be a very long day.