Bill grinned again and handed Drew an unopened Chap Stick. “Case you get to drive around in somebody’s convertible,” he said. Bill could never give anyone enough. As well as selling lottery tickets in the store, and buying them themselves, he and Lucille had also gotten into the cheering-up business. They were situated at the intersection of two highways, fifteen minutes from the middle of Palm Key, where they’d have more traffic. Bill had a sign in front of his cash register: WANTED: ONE GOOD WOMAN WHO CAN COOK AND CLEAN FISH. WITH A BOAT AND MOTOR, WHO CAN SEW AND FISH. PLEASE SEND PHOTO OF BOAT AND MOTOR.
Just then George the Second came in the back door, his voice high and fast like a soup pot set on high, boiling over. “Did Drew pass? Did you pass, Drew? You driving, Drew?”
Drew held up the car keys looped over his finger. I swear, the smile on his face could have rivaled a watermelon slice.
George the Second was four then, little scrawny, scraped knees. I could never get him clean. The insides of his ears looked like sweet potatoes. Both Lucille and I had just about given up. And I often dressed him in pinstriped overalls, like a tiny train engineer. I wanted him to look cute so he’d have a little protection. Because sometimes George could push just about anybody close to wanting to kill him. He was a walking contraceptive. Five minutes with him, and you might run out and get yourself fixed.
But given a choice, I’d still have five more just like him. (At least, after a good long rest.) Which, I guess, just proves for good how crazy I am.
“I want to sit up front with Drew,” George was saying, opening the car door.
“Fine.” I got in the back, wondering if the learner’s permit said anything about me not being in the front. But then, being in the back would be like giving Drew even more of my total vote of confidence.
“Buckle up,” I said.
The car was nothing fancy. A Ford sedan, sensible and not too fast. It was late Friday afternoon, and we had forgotten that the next day was the beginning of the Palm Key Shrimp Festival. Tourists from all over were on their way into the town, ready to fill up the hotels and get an early start on the booths of shrimp that would open the next day and fill up the main streets and the park. Shrimp pie. Shrimp salad. Fried shrimp. Boiled shrimp.
“Don’t worry,” I said to Drew, “you’re doing just fine.” His hands were tight on the wheel, and the side of his jaw was working. His ears had seemed to have outgrown his head—or his hair had been cut too short above them—those seemed to be already the ears of a man. I stared at the edge of his face, from what I could see from the backseat. I still couldn’t quite believe he had started shaving. Once or twice a week, but still, shaving. The traffic was bumper to bumper on the one highway that leads into Palm Key.
“Go ahead,” I said, “put on your lights.” My voice was low and calm. It was only dusk, the sky gray fuzz, but I figured having the car lights on would help everybody to see us coming. And if I sounded like I was trying to get into The Guinness Book of World Records for being the sweetest backseat driver, ever, my feet were putting on the brake plenty on the floor right behind Drew.
I put my dark glasses in the pocket of my suit and switched to regular ones. George pointed to three birds sitting on the wires between two telephone poles beside the road. “Why don’t those birds get ‘lectrocuted?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute,” I said. Then, “That’s fine, Drew; just let him pass. If he’s got the hots for shrimp that bad, let him go on around.” Drew had us so close to the right side of the road, I was afraid we’d fall off. We were close to the bridges now, the wide expanse of water on either side with marsh grass sticking up like swirls of fur.
“So come on, Mom, why don’t those birds get ‘lectrocuted?” George was riding face forward, but he was turning sideways to throw his voice back to me, and his little index finger pointed out the window.
“I don’t know exactly, George.” It was never my style to not say that I didn’t know something. And besides, speculation was my strength. “I guess it has something to do with insulation,” I said.
“What’s insulation?”
“A coating around something. Something that gives protection.”
George turned his head so he could glance at me. “If I get ‘sulation, can I sit on wires?” he asked.
“No, you’re too heavy.”
“How does the ‘lectricity get in the toaster?”
“Through a wire.”
“What does it look like?”
“You can’t see it.”
“Why can’t you see it?”
“It’s like one of those things you just can’t see, George. Like air. Or God. Or a virus.”
“Then why does it need wires?”
“I don’t know. We’ll have to look it up.”
“You never look it up. You always say you’re going to look it up.”
“I will, George, I promise. Right after supper.”
Drew laughed. “Why don’t you tell him the same thing you told him about the TV?”
“What did I tell him about the TV?”
“You told him Socrates made it work. Old Socrates.” He laughed again. The back of his neck was like a little tree, reaching up. He was trying so hard not to look nervous over the steering wheel.
‘’That’s a thought,” I said, which made George turn around in the seat and stare at me. Ever since he could talk, he’d driven me nearly to the end of myself with questions, and usually at the worst times. The year before I had written him a poem that, every once in a while, I’d recite, when my batteries were running low.
You are three, George.
And all day have queried me
with the intensity of Socrates.
And you know what happened to him.
The first time he’d answered: “I don’t know Socrates. He live in Palm Key?”
Quickly and without thought, as though George was fifty years old and sitting at my right hand in Hell as my punishment, I had thrown back: “Keep it up, and you’ll find out.” Which meant that immediately afterward, I bought him two packages of Oreos out of a vending machine, along with three packages of gum, which, when they ended up stuck to the living-room rug, I cleaned up without a bit of complaint.
But now I was brought back to thinking about the road and to what Drew was about to do to us. I screamed: “Slow down, Drew! Slow down! You don’t have to kiss his bumper!” Drew was gripping the wheel, his knuckles like clamps. “I don’t want to look like a wuss,” he said. “You’re not a wuss,” I said. “Yes, he is a wuss, “ George looked at Drew. “Pass him, Drew. Pass the old fart.”
For three weeks, George had latched onto the word fart with the same sort of attachment he had given to his pacifier. I had, with great calm, explained to him that it was not a word adults liked hearing little children use. That didn’t do it. I had, without calm, told him that if I heard him say it again, I would give him Time Out in his room and no cookies for a week. That didn’t do it.
Every time I brought attention to his using it only seemed to make it more attractive to him. It was a word I had decided I was going to have to just wait out. And meanwhile keep him out of public as much as I could.
“Why do the license plates have different colors?” George pointed in front, then whirled around and pointed in back.
“They’re from different places,” I said.
“Why