December Park(62)

The following Saturday morning, we all arrived at Scott’s house around nine o’clock to collect supplies. The Steeples’ basement was a cornucopia of items scavenged from yard sales, stockpiled by Scott’s crazy aunt Willa who had stayed a full summer with the Steeples while she sank deeper and deeper into the quagmire of dementia. When she began bringing home stray cats, Scott’s parents had sent her to a home, but the stuff in the basement had remained.

We sifted through the junk like archeologists. Michael donned an old World War II helmet, tied a fringed afghan around his neck like a cape, and climbed on a chair. He assumed a posture reminiscent of Washington crossing the Delaware in that famous painting. “I’m totally wearing this helmet today. In fact, I may never take it off again.”

We uncovered some pitted canteens that looked like they had been used during the Civil War, a pair of rubber galoshes, a pair of binoculars. I picked up the heavy binoculars and peered through them. Everything was blurry. I asked Scott if he knew how to work them.

“There’s a dial on the top,” he said. “Turn it to adjust the view.”

I cranked the dial slowly counterclockwise, and it immediately brought the wood-grain pattern of the far wall into detailed relief. “Holy shit. These are way cool.”

“Bring ’em along,” Scott said. “I’m sure we can use ’em.”

There were flashlights, too, though when we put batteries in them, only one of them worked. Peter found what looked like an ancient transistor radio with a hand crank on one side. He turned the radio over in his hands looking for the battery compartment.

“It doesn’t take batteries,” Scott informed him. “It works off something called a dynamo.”

“Yeah. That sounds made up.”

“Seriously. Turn the crank.”

Peter did, his tongue poking through his lips like someone taking a difficult math exam. The sound seemed to swell up inside the transistor radio like something in slow motion gaining normal speed until an AM station came through in surprising clarity. A disc jockey’s disembodied voice crackled out of the speaker.

Peter stared at the machine with a look of astonishment. “That’s awesome,” he said, still turning the radio over in his hands and looking for the battery compartment like someone trying to find the hidden panel in a magician’s magic box.

“What about these?” Michael held up a pair of walkie-talkies. They were the size and shape of bricks and looked equally as heavy. “Do they work?”

“I have no idea,” said Scott, “but you have to charge them up first to find out. There should be chargers somewhere around here. I saw them once before.”

“What do they look like?”

“Like plastic cradles that plug into the wall.”

“Cool.” Michael tossed me one of the walkie-talkies. I had been correct in estimating its weight. “Help me look, Mazzone.”

I helped Michael search, pausing only when I came across a package of unopened typewriter ribbon. Spools of ribbon were becoming harder and harder to find, particularly after Second Avenue Stationery had closed, and the one on my typewriter at home had begun to fade months ago. I held up the package and called over to Scott, “Hey, man, do you mind if I take these?”

He frowned. “What are they?”

“Ink ribbons for my typewriter.”

“Shoot, you’re still using that old thing? I’ve got an extra word processor up in my bedroom. You can have it if you want it.”

It was like telling an antiques collector to get rid of all his junk in order to make room for brand-new things. When I wrote, I entered a fantasy world. That old typewriter was the machine that took me there and brought me safely back. I didn’t know if I could get there from someone’s spare word processor. Moreover, I thought that once you stopped writing words and started processing them, those wonderful fantasy worlds became harder and harder to visit.

“No, thanks,” I said. “I’ll stick to the typewriter.”

Scott hoisted his shoulders. “Suit yourself. Sure, go ahead and take ’em.”

The entire morning, Adrian sat on the basement steps, Martha Dooley’s yearbook open on his lap, and scrutinized Courtney’s school photo. As I stared at him, he looked up and met my gaze from across the room. Magnified behind the thick lenses of his glasses, his eyes looked like two searchlights beaming into the fog of a wintry midnight.

After a hasty meal of pizza rolls, microwaved salami sandwiches, and Kool-Aid, we were on our bikes heading across town to the Dead Woods. We rode beneath the sun of midday, our backpacks heavy with items from Scott’s basement, the air warming up all around us with the oncoming spring. With Adrian perched once again on my handlebars and the binoculars swinging from my neck by a leather strap, their weight oddly comfortable, I pedaled twice as hard as my friends just to keep pace.

“Go, go, go!” Adrian shouted, clutching the handlebars.

The wind whipped my face and burned my skin. I hunched behind Adrian’s Incredible Hulk backpack to avoid the slipstream. Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes and carved burning paths toward my temples. Go, go, go, I thought, echoing Adrian’s sentiment. Go, go, go. I pedaled harder.

At Woolworth Avenue, Michael’s rattling Mongoose came up alongside us. His jacket billowed in the wind, and he still wore the World War II helmet. Without saying a word, he turned and grinned at me, his eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses. It was the biggest, stupidest grin he could muster, and I burst out laughing. Arching his eyebrows above the frames of his sunglasses, he gave me a thumb’s-up.