Chapter Four

Poppie’s in pretty good shape for an old geezer. Still, his knees are bad and we had to walk slowly.

“Hear it?” he asked.

“I do.” I said. It was that far away lonesome whistle of a train in the night. Poppie had been a train conductor for over forty years. It’s a job I wouldn’t mind doing, I think. Anyhow, he still hears every train for miles around even though he’s retired.

His retirement party was really something.

“These here are my sons, Chris and Julian,” he said to his buds.

“You mean your grandsons,” someone corrected him. They’d all had a bit to drink.

“Well, I guess they are at that,” he said. “But I only had girls so these are the sons I never had.” Then he squeezed us tight and kissed us on the forehead. In front of everyone.

The thing I like most about Poppie is he seems to understand how I feel without me saying everything. And he says a lot without talking things to death.

“Good day?” he asked.

“I suppose,” I said.

“Not used to having another man around, huh?”

“No.”

“You’ve had your mother all to yourself since you were a baby.”

“You think I’m jealous, Poppie?”

He shrugged. “Would you look at that place? Lord, what a lighting bill they’re gonna have.” He pointed to a house up ahead. Even the top of the outdoor gazebo and their birdbath was strung with white lights.

“That’s Anna Jenkins’s house.”

“Girlfriend?”

“I wish.”

“Looking forward to the ski trip with your Dad?”

“Totally. It’s gonna be awesome. Just Chris, Dad and me. That’s a first. I’m taking snowboarding lessons and everything.”

“That where they look like they’re all on surfboards on the snow? Then they turn ass over kettle in the air?”

“Yep. That’s’ it.”

“Cool, cool,” he said.

I laughed until he pushed me into a snow bank and rubbed my face with snow. Then he put me in a headlock. “Listen pecker-head,—you be fair with your mother, hear me good. She’s happier than I’ve seen her for a long time. He seems like an okay guy. Don’t forget, she’s still my baby girl! Now say uncle.”

“Uncle!”

“Louder!”

“Uncle!”

For an old guy, he’s pretty darn strong. Even though he joked the whole time, I knew he meant every word he said. I heard every word too.

“I suppose he can’t be much worse than Smokey,” I mumbled.

“Who the hell was Smokey?” asked Poppie.

“Numero Two,” I replied.

“Refresh my memory,” said Poppie. “You mean Kirk something or other?”

“Yeah. The guy reminded me of an ape. Nice enough. But when he walked he sort of dipped in the middle. His arms were so long that his knuckles almost scraped the ground.”

I did a great imitation. Poppie was wheezing, he was laughing so hard.

“Smokey had chest hair that looked more like fur. It grew all the way up to his neck and out his shirt collar. It grew on his ear-lobes. Out of his nose. Once, when we went swimming at the Y, I saw this fur also grew on his back.

“I called him Cave Man first time I met him. Chris called him Tarzan. When we learned he was a forest ranger we started calling him Smokey. As in Bear.

“Compared to the bug professor, Smokey was a cheery sort of dude. Almost too cheery. He laughed at everything. All the time. The way chimpanzees do that e-e-e-e o-o-o thing.”

“Come on, he wasn’t that bad, was he?” asked Poppie.

“Honest, Poppie, he was. And, he smelled. I guess because he was in the woods all the time for his job, he smelled like the outdoors.”

“That’s a good smell.” He took a deep breath to make his point.

“Not a fresh air smell. More… muddy. Like potatoes when you dig them out of the ground. Like rotten leaves. When I asked Chris how Mom could stand the smell, he came right to Smokey’s defense and told me Mom was going through a nature phase. You know Chris, Poppie, always the good guy.”

“You mother’s always loved the outdoors,” Poppie said protectively.

“Yeah, but she was going overboard. She even bought hiking boots. Then she got it in her head that we should all go on a camping trip.

“We begged and borrowed camping gear. We planned for two weeks. Mom said it was going to be a bonding time for us all. We even had our bicycles on a rack. Smokey had rigged it up. ‘Special for the trip,’ he giggled. A whole weekend of his laughing was going to drive me bananas. And that smell? In a tent?

“It was pouring rain the day we set off. Mom was convinced that the sun would be shining by the time we arrived. It was as if she thought she could control the weather.”

“I can,” interrupted Poppie, “can’t you?”

“Poppie!”

“Go on. Go on.”

“Well, sure enough, the rain stopped long enough for us to set up. Smokey, for all his years in the forest, didn’t even know how to put up the tent. He was only interested in drinking beer while Mom and Chris struggled with the tent. After three beers Smokey was ready to hibernate, but Mom insisted we go for a bike ride. The ride was fun until about halfway through. Then the sky seemed to bloom. Huge flowers of clouds surrounded us. They were the same color as pencil lead when you press tight.

“It didn’t rain. It hailed. And the lightening began. The hail hit us like bullets. We looked like we had the measles. Each pellet left teeny red welts all over our bodies. We were wearing our bathing suits.

“Smokey tried to get us to take cover under a tree. During a lightning storm! Mom was not impressed! We rode as if our lives depended on it. The hail had changed to rain before we made it back to camp. Smokey, the last one out of the tent, had forgotten to put down the front flap.

“The tent? Flooded. Our sleeping bags? Soaking, soggy, sopping.

“We spent the night in a cheap hotel room down the road. We ate fried clams and French fries for supper. That meal was the only good thing that came out of the weekend.

“When we asked Mom where Smokey was a week later, she started to cry. Then she laughed. Bizarre. To this day Chris refers to Smokey as the boyfriend who tried to electrocute us all. A forest ranger who instructs you to take shelter under a tree during a lightening storm? Makes you think his brother the chimp had more brains than him. Who could blame Mom for saying good-bye to Smokey? Not me. No way.”

“Always wondered what happened to that one,” said Poppie, wiping the tears of laughter away. I love making him laugh.