Chapter Sixty-Three
Puck chomped through a ripe pear for breakfast that morning. And a peach yogurt. Crackers worked on the remains of a tuna can, remnants of the lunch we packed off with The Bear. I took the last hard-boiled egg from the fridge in a thin dish of salt. Sustenance for a Monday… Puck wasn’t happy that he would eventually have to review his entire phonics program with me when he completed the book, trying to convince me that…
“It will break my jaws!… It’s going to bree-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ak my jaw, man… I’m going to finish this on my 27th birthday. Right, Mom?”
“Uhm… a little before that.”
I switched on the soundtrack from Jodhaa Akbar, and Puck got busy. Then we cleaned his room, which was less of a painful exertion than I originally imagined. The whole thing only took a few minutes. Puck was eager to put away any dirty laundry, stuffed animals, and trash, and then he found a bug…
“Mom! Come quick! Come quick! Hurry! It’s crawling into the crack in the floor! Hurry! Hurry!”
I was washing my hands down the hall. Floor dust and other things. So while you’d think the A-bomb was about to drop in Puck’s room, I calmly assured him that I would be there as soon as I could. Also, we do not have cracks in our floors. His monster bug – at least you’d guess it by the urgency in his voice – was a small bug about a fourth the size of a ladybug, and looked like a ladybug, only black. With orange-y dots. I coaxed it up under my fingernail and escorted it to the front door…
“Don’t kill it!!!” Puck yelled after me. “Don’t kill it, MOOOOM!!!!”
“I wouldn’t, Puck. I’m just putting it out here on the brick…”
“But, Mom! He doesn’t have super grip legs!!!”
Funny the tremendous effort he puts into every sentence. He wasn’t even bothered by the bug. He just wanted it attended to. Hence the bucketfuls of exclamation points poured on every paragraph. He was soon busy giggling over Garfield in the living room anyway, tucked up hard against my ribs as shoulder support. Sometimes being a mother is a painful experience. We move on quickly… Soon Puck was bawling over another “Little House on the Prairie” at lunch. He’s got a soft heart in there. The squealing strains of more laughter floated out from his room over the library copy of Garfield. I love that kid…
“Crackers, it’s not time for feisty,” he admonished her. “At night when we’re asleep, it’s time for feisty time.”
He offered a dish of skim milk to calm her, which worked well. Celtic River, Celtic Mystery, old albums from the 90’s Target days of just fun things and times… Puck liked to talk about “Uncle Curly” getting married in May. He was making plans well in advance…
“I think that Crackers will need a babysitter, Mom. She might need some comfort. She might think a clock is a person. So she might want someone to comfort her and pet her.”
He got us busy dancing to some upbeat music, a sort of tug-of-war twirling with a fresh pillowcase, spinning around and around…
“Remember,” he informed me while twirling, “we’re not just doing this to play. We’re honoring God.”
This thinking translated further…
“I’m going to worship God with this backpack,” he announced, removing his school books from the green pack. “And that’s final.”
Even if true, we needed some discussion about flippancy. Puck transferred these school books to the pillow case to bring to Rose’s place…
“We can’t bring your school books in a pillowcase,” I informed him.
“Why?” he asked, hands on hips, eyes hidden under his army hat. “People will think we’re robbing town?”
“They probably will.”
Either that, or they’ll think we’re homeless.
“This proves I’m a worship of God,” Puck declared once again, holding out a small metal cross from his trinket box. “I worship GOD,” he told me somberly from under the army cap.
I put on red beans and rice, and cornbread. The windows were still open into the cool, blue evening. The Mazda snuffled up the driveway – because that’s what it sort of sounds like – before 6:30, early for The Bear. He had more Schnuck’s bakery cookies, sinus/congestion relief that actually worked, and time to read The Happy Hollisters to Puck before bed. A little Early Grey tea for the man in question. We hoped for rain in the night.