Allegiance and Betrayal: Stories

Booger’s Gift

134 Booger’s Gift Greg stood at the window, phone to his ear. He was watching a raccoon atop the bird feeder and talking to the same guy who called yesterday, a well-oiled baritone named Booger Siems. Booger lived about forty miles away and wondered if Greg could meet him just west of the city: Greg, I think we kin make us a deal. If it’s in the condition you say. The speed limit don’t hit fifty-five ’til you git out past the Walmart, and I need to put her up to sixty at least, without us gittin ’ stopped by the po-lice. . . . The squirrel-proof feeder was like a birdcage, seed tube in the center, but the raccoon figured out how to get his black paw in there for those sunflower seeds. Greg didn’t feel like driving twelve miles to accommodate this guy, but the ad had been running for more than a month, at a cost of seventy bucks. Only two or three inquiries, and not one of the callers ever showed up. Twice he had the newspaper drop the price, three hundred bucks each time. Having detailed the car himself, he was tired of keeping it clean, not to mention paying the insurance, especially since he was now driving a new Ford pickup. Booger Siems proposed a meeting place. “Okay,” said Greg, “two o’clock, Walgreens parking lot.” After hanging up, he watched the raccoon. Probably had little ones to feed. He tapped the window. The masked bandit looked right at him, slid headfirst down the pole, then wobbled across the yard, his thick ringed tail disappearing into the woods. Greg ground up some beans, started a pot of coffee, and stood by the window half listening to an FM classical music station that Booger’s Gift | 135 Linda used to play on Sundays while reading the newspaper. Waiting for the coffee, he sat down and started reading a piece from the Arts & Living section entitled “March Madness.” There was a series of interviews with fans from Duke, NC State, and Carolina about why they needed their fix. One fifty-year-old fan so loved his team he had a ram’s head tattooed on his shoulder. Another said he wanted to be buried in his Blue Devils sweatshirt. Another said Cameron Stadium was the only church he cared to attend. A Wolfpack fan confessed he had family members who were Carolina alums, and his relationship with them over the years had dissolved. Greg imagined Linda laughing, saying something like, I’ve heard of religion and politics getting in the way, but a bunch of guys tossing around a hunk of inflated rubber? More important than family? Please! Then that squint and the way she jacked up the side of her mouth always made him laugh. They laughed together, but they argued too. Greg didn’t want to think about the arguments. The electric coffeemaker let go with a final huff and sigh. He put down the paper and went to the kitchen. Titmice, chickadees, and cardinals were back at the feeder. No sign of the bandit. The lawn was empty. Pretty soon it would be green—he’d be mowing again. As a kid in a family where money was tight, he mowed lawns, delivered newspapers, shoveled snow. These jobs produced stories he probably told once too often to Billy and Marianne by way of letting them know their childhoods were soft compared to his. Billy would laugh, roll his eyes, and then start to bow an imaginary violin. When he opened the closet and grabbed his jacket, dozens of wire hangers clinked against each other. Coat hangers multiply faster than rabbits, his father used to say. Growing up, Greg enjoyed his father’s stories about the farm, about the Great Depression when he made and set snares to catch rabbits for the table. Dad could build or repair just about anything. Greg loved the smells of freshly cut wood in his shop where he learned about miter boxes, beveled edges, and dowels. Once in the car, he felt himself slowly becoming another person. He hated playing games about money, hated it when people dickered 136 | Allegiance and Betrayal with him about job estimates. Booger on the phone sounded charming but already had the upper hand—Greg driving twelve miles out of his way to show the car. Booger...