Unforgivable

The richest members of our church owned a racetrack up in New Hampshire, and as a favor to my father one summer they hired my brother Brian and me to help sell programs. I was 11-years-old and Brian 12. And as we schlepped the glossy magazines back and forth in front of bleachers teeming with be-leathered motorcycle enthusiasts, rednecks, and drunken ZZ Top look-alikes, I realized I had never been so scared in all my life.

It was the infamous ‘Motorcycle Weekend’ in Laconia, and as the sun pounded us and the Ducati motorcycles whined around the track, my brother and I each lifted a magazine meekly above our heads and mouthed the word “program” for any lip readers who might have been in attendance. The stink of gas and oil created its own weather system, leaving the air smelling both noxious and sweet.

To get our attention, a biker would jam a tattooed arm into the sky, and then either my brother or I climbed the shiny, aluminum planks to receive our newfound customers. Surprisingly, the gentlemen always said “Thank you” and “Please”, and never tried to shortchange us, patiently waiting as we counted out the bills from our aprons, tens and twenties sticking out all over the place and sometimes falling to the ground.

“Um, son, you seem to be losing a bit of your money there,” one man said who sported a Fu Manchu mustache and t-shirt that pictured a bride and groom with the words “Game Over” scrawled beneath. “No, no, you’re giving me back too much change, boy,” said another, his black vest festooned in buttons showcasing assault rifles nestled between an assortment of naked breasts. Looking back, I think they were so honest with my brother and me because we were painfully young and too easy a target. I mean, where’s the honor in rolling a couple of skinny and nervous-looking white boys who reeked of innocence and decent bedtimes?

When we sold our lot, we made our way back to a little trailer near the park entrance, past the copious beer booths and a line of port-a-potties that were more like cholera outbreaks in training, and dumped our cash in big piles on the trailer floor. My brother and I would then grab a new stack of magazines and enough cash to make change, and repeat the process all over again.

During our third trip back to the trailer Brian showed me a $20 bill he had stashed in his pocket. “Who cares,” he said. “It’s not like anybody’s counting.”

* * *

My mother and father had been divorced for about a year by this point, and my father had finally left the boardinghouse and moved in with his own mom back in Laconia. Things were, well, tense doesn’t really begin to describe the situation accurately. My mom was trying to raise four kids on her meager secretary’s salary while simultaneously paying off a newfound mortgage and my father’s bad debts. We didn’t have hot water that past winter, or even oil heat; to save money, my mom had to buy two cords of unseasoned wood. In fact, when the guy dropped it off in our driveway, he dumped a pile of logs that had been clearly sitting out in the elements for weeks; crusted in sleet and snow, the wood was as frozen as the icicles hanging from our roof. Brian and I were relegated to ‘digging duty’ as we pawed through the snowy heap and collected the best-looking specimens to stand next to the woodstove to dry. I can still hear the sound of all that wood sizzling as the ice melted into large puddles on the floor and my younger brother Josh and sister Liz asked for another blanket while eating cinnamon toast on the couch.

On a few occasions, my mom brought home a large, clear plastic bag filled with uncooked Kentucky Fried Chicken. We swooned, our plates that night overflowing with mounds of crunchy chicken we baked-off in our oven. We had no idea that my mom knew someone at KFC who snuck a bagful of chicken out of the restaurant to stash behind a dumpster for her to pick up after work.

We rarely saw our dad by this point. And his absence probably contributed in making him an even more mythical, god-like figure than he already was to us. When my dad wasn’t around, I could imagine him doing great things, or better yet, imagine that he was terribly unhappy without us, and was sorry for going away. I had one daydream in particular where I pictured him standing in my bedroom doorway, keys in his hand, asking if I wanted to go with him to Hampton Beach to play video games and get some fried dough. I always said yes and he always promised to never to leave again.

* * *

By the time summer rolled around, my dad announced we’d spend a week with him. He sweetened the deal by saying he got Brian and me a job at the track during Motorcycle Weekend. At last, I thought. I finally get to do something dangerous.

The day he came to pick us up, my dad drove Grampa’s old Cadillac. Long, red, and shark-like, the car had air conditioning powerful enough to run a city morgue. As we drove away, my mom waved from the picture window, cigarette in her hand.

“Is this Grampa’s car,” I asked, marveling at all the space and enjoying the cool leather seats. Comparatively, our station wagon smelled like yogurt and gasoline.

“Yep,” my father said. “I didn’t think he would mind.” Grampa had died of a heart attack two years previous, and the Cadillac had been just sitting in his garage.

My grandmother lived in a big house with an even bigger back yard, and to have so much space was liberating. After unpacking we decided to haul the croquet set out of the garage and smack the brightly colored balls throughout the yard, aiming for each other’s ankles.

We explored the creepy garage. One wall was lined with old New Hampshire license plates; seeing the words “Live Free or Die” up and down in little aluminum rows made me feel terrified. I wondered if Grampa’s ghost was hidden behind the dust and broken umbrellas stacked in the rear of the garage. Brian then accidentally broke a window by swinging a golf club around like a Musketeer, and we made a hasty retreat.

That night, after everyone went to bed, Brian and I snuck into the living room to watch HBO—our T.V. back home got six channels. We anxiously huddled before the TV's blue glow.

“What's this,” Brian asked, and the words on the screen said The Exorcist.

Two hours later, Brian and I lay sweating the dark, staring up at what we hoped was only the ceiling.

“Hey, do you think all that stuff in the movie happened?” I asked Brian. It was almost three in the morning.

“Sure it happened. Probably happens all the time.”

“Really?”

“That movie was based on real people,” he said. “Real events.”

We were then quiet for a bit.

“What was that?” I asked.

“What?”

“That sound.”

“Try to hold your breath,” Brian suggested. “They won’t know you’re here if they can’t hear you breathe.”

* * *

The next morning was our first day at the track, and after Brian’s revelation, we had pocketed over $80 each by mid-afternoon. We felt absolutely alive and in charge. In fact, that night, we treated everyone to dinner at the Tamarack Drive-in, and loaded up on clam boats, hot dogs, and French fries. After dinner, we skipped on over to Funspot and played some video games, the change machine emptying like a loose Vegas slot as Brian and I slid in one five dollar bill after another. We were better than rich, we thought. We were famous.

The next day at the racetrack, Brian and I took more money, high on the simplicity of it all, our hands electric as we folded one twenty after another into our dirty jeans front pockets. We found our voices that day, shouting out the word Programs! with such poise that the bikers in the stands grew anxious with our bravado, and changed their demeanor. Nobody likes a confident kid hawking over-priced magazines to hungover bikers in the middle of the heat.

Nobody.

* * *

After the week finally passed and our father dropped us off back home, Brian and I went to our room to secretly discuss how we’d spend our money. After a final tally, we hauled in about $300 each. I started thinking about all kinds of things I wanted to buy: BB guns, fireworks, maybe an Atari 2600 so we could play Pac-Man. I couldn’t believe our good fortune. I almost thanked God, but then, you know, realized I’d probably burn in hell if I did.

Right when I was going to mention the Atari to Brian, my mom walked in our room and asked again if we had fun and if we did anything ‘out of the ordinary’. Damn it, I thought. We’re caught.

“No,” I offered. “You know, just hung out and stuff. Watched TV.”

“Really? Didn’t do anything…different?” She sounded a bit like she was pleading, and her voice cracked, and I now felt less scared and just more confused.

I looked at Brian. “Ummm…nope,” I said.

That’s when I noticed my mother was shaking a little bit.

“You mean to tell me that you two big spenders didn’t think it’s ‘fun’ or ‘different’ to take everyone out to eat the other night?”

I was completely flummoxed until I remembered the Tamarack Drive-In and how Brian and I sprang for the meal.

“Your father said he had a great time out at dinner! Did you have a good time? Huh?”

“I, I guess so, mom,” said Brian.

“What about me!” my mother suddenly yelled, and Brian and I flinched. “You’ve never taken me out anywhere! All these things I do, how hard I work. What about something like this for me and not some man that doesn’t even love you enough to call you on your birthday!”

“Wait mom, we were gonna do this for you too,” I lied.

“Oh, you’re so full of shit!” she yelled.

“Well, excuse us for not knowing that love was something we had to buy from you!” Brian countered.

My mother’s eyes narrowed. “It has nothing to do with that. How dare you!”

The three of us just stood there, unaware of the next move.

“I hope you enjoy all your money and I’m so glad you were able to spend such quality time with your…your…father!” She said ‘father’ the way I imagine one might say Jim Jones. She then quickly left and went in to her bedroom, slamming the door behind.

Brian and I were thunderstruck. In awe, actually. Where was it written that spending money on our dad meant we didn’t love her? I mean, didn’t she know that we loved her most of all?

* * *

Any plans Brian and I had of buying up the world with our windfall faded very quickly: we were ruined by greed. When we returned from a downtown shopping adventure the next day with a new boom box, over a dozen albums, Ocean Pacific t-shirts, several bags of candy, and the promise to go back the following day to get what we couldn’t fit into our arms the first time around, my mom knew.

When she questioned Brian and me one at a time in the bathroom, we caved. We didn’t even put up a fight when she asked how we managed to buy as much as we did. The math didn’t make sense, she said. But the weird thing was, my mom wasn’t as angry as I had expected her to be. She just seemed…tired. Like she understood how we could be so easily seduced by all those piles of cash and wished she could just look the other way, but knew that would be unforgivable.

When my mom took the remainder of our money and mailed it back to the owners of the track, along with a long letter from both Brian and me asking for mercy, they responded by sending us a very chipper note saying that we shouldn’t worry about it. They even invited us to work at the track next year. We were floored. How, in the midst of such blatant disregard for trust and respect, could they respond by acting so kind?

How could they possibly forgive us for all that we had done?