—Maniac Magee—
by Jerry Spinelli

Chapter 35

 

It took a while for everything to get straightened out.

First, Giant John had to be convinced that Maniac was not kidnapping his brothers. Then the brothers had to do some more trembling and clinging while John finished lambasting them for running away, which apparently they did about every other week.

Then, when the brothers found out that their pizza person was none other than the famous Maniac Magee, the very same one who had blasted their big brother's fastballs to smithereens and finished him off with a home-run frog, well, it took a good five minutes of rolling on the sidewalk to get all the laughing out of their systems.

Which, of course, got Giant John more than a little steamed.

Prompting Maniac, who didn't like seeing John disgraced before his little brothers, to say, "Yeah, but didn't John tell you what happened the next day?"

And the brothers said, "No, what?"

And Giant John said, "Huh?"

And Maniac winked at John and crossed his fingers. "Sure, John, you remember" --- (wink, wink) --- "at the Little League field the next day; you said I was lucky that all you threw me was fastballs, because you weren't ready to reveal your secret pitch, the one you'd been working on. Remember?" (Wink.)

McNab nodded dumbly.

"And so I said, 'Well, come on, I can hit anything, pitch it to me.' And you pitched it, and I missed it by a mile, and you kept pitching it to me all day long, and I never even hit a foul ball on it."

"What was the pitch? What was the pitch?" chanted the urchins.

"It was" --- Maniac paused for dramatic buildup --- "the stopball."

"The stopball?"

"Yeah, and you should've seen it. It comes right up to the plate, looking all fat and easy to belt, and then, just when you take your swing" --- Maniac got into his batter's stance and demonstrated --- "it sort of --- stops --- and your bat just whiffs the air." He whiffed at an imaginary stopball.

"Wow," said the brothers, gazing up at their big brother.

And so Maniac was invited to accompany the brothers McNab to their home.

 

Despite the cold, the front door was wide open, and Maniac could smell the inside before he could see it. The first thing he did see was a yellow, short-haired mongrel looking innocently up at him while taking a leak in the middle of the living room floor.

"Clean that up," John ordered Russell.

"Clean that up," Russell ordered Piper.

Piper just walked on by.

After closing the front door, which was surprisingly heavy, Maniac found a stack of newspapers in a corner. He laid some over the puddle to soak in, then gave himself a tour of the downstairs.

Maniac had seen some amazing things in his lifetime, but nothing as amazing as that house. From the smell of it, he knew this wasn't the first time an animal had relieved itself on the rugless floor. In fact, in another corner he spotted a form of relief that could not be soaked up by newspapers.

Cans and bottles lay all over, along with crusts, peelings, cores, scraps, rinds, wrappers --- everything you would normally find in a garbage can. And everywhere there were raisins.

As he walked through the dining room, something --- an old tennis ball --- hit him on top of the head and bounced away. He looked up --- into the laughing faces of Russell and Piper. The hole in the ceiling was so big they both could have jumped through it at once.

He ran a hand along one wall. The peeling paint came off like cornflakes.

Nothing could be worse than the living and dining rooms, yet the kitchen was. A jar of peanut butter had crashed to the floor; someone had gotten a running start, jumped into it, and skied a brown, one-footed track to the stove. On the table were what appeared to be the remains of an autopsy performed upon a large bird, possibly a crow. The refrigerator contained two food groups: mustard and beer. The raisins here were even more abundant. He spotted several of them moving. They weren't raisins; they were roaches.

The front door opened, and seconds later a man clomped into the kitchen. He wore no winter jacket, only a sleeveless green sweatshirt, which ballooned over his enormous stomach. Tattoos blued his upper arms. His hands were nearly pure black. Stale body odor mingled with that of fries and burgers coming from the Burger King bag he held. Dropping the bag next to the bird remains, he bellowed "Chow!" and took a beer from the fridge; he downed a good half of it in one swig, belched, doubled-clutched, and belched again. He had to know someone besides himself was standing in the kitchen, and, just as obviously, he didn't care.

Two floor-quaking crashes came from the dining room --- "Geronimo!"... "Geronimo!" Russell and Piper had taken the direct route via the hole. "Wha'd ya bring, Dad? Whoppers? Yeah - Whoppers!"

They tore into the bag like jackals into carrion. Plastic flew, fries flew. They both wanted the same Whopper. Mashed between their tugging fists, the Whopper splurted sauce and cheese and pickle chips; then it split. Russell lurched backward into the kitchen table with his half; Piper lurched backward in the opposite direction, and with nothing to stop him, sailed right through the cellar doorway and down the cellar steps. The final thud was followed by the truckhorn blast of Piper's laughter.

When Giant John ambled in, the father said, "Get the blocks?"

"No," grunted John, pulling out a pair of Whoppers. He tossed one to Maniac.

"We need more," growled the father. John didn't answer. "We need more."

"I heard."

McNab smashed the tabletop; three fries and a bird wing jumped to the floor. "Now!"

John walked out, nonchalantly munching. "I was busy."

The rest of the night was scenes from a loony movie.

Scene: McNab the father swaggers bare-armed out the front door, bellowing back, "Do yer homework!"

Scene: Maniac retrieves the wet newspaper from the living room. There are no wastebaskets in the house. He finds a trash can in the backyard, next to a pile of cinder blocks. He dumps the soggy papers in the can, which is empty.

Scene: Small turds of an unfamiliar shape appear here and there along the baseboards of the first floor. Please don't be rats, Maniac prays.

Scene: The Cobras come in. They glare at Maniac, but Giant John tells them to lay off. They raid the fridge for beer. They smoke cigarettes. They belch and fart. They curse. Russell and Piper, kiddie Cobras, pop their own beer cans, guzzle, swagger, belch, smoke, curse.

Scene: Football game, from the front of the living room to the back of the dining room. Except for space, it has everything a regular game has --- running, passing, blocking, tackling, kicking. There is little furniture to get in the way. Ordinarily, the windows wouldn't last five minutes, but the windows of this house are boarded up with plywood. Body-blocked Cobras fly into the walls. The house flinches.

Scene: A faint rustling noise behind the stove. Oh, no, rats! Maniac dares to look. It's a turtle, box turtle, munching on old Whopper lettuce. Whew!

Scene: The boys' bedroom. Russell and Piper lie prone at the hole. They fire toy submachine guns --- tata-tata-tata-tata --- at the Cobras heading out the front door. Piper jumps up and blows Maniac away, killing him at least fifteen times. "This is how we're gonna do it! Bam-bam-bam!"

"The guns'll be real," says Russell, still prone and firing, the stock of the toy gun tight against his cheek.

"Yeah!" squawks Piper. "Real!" He flops back to the floor, sprays the whole downstairs. "Soon's they start comin' in --- bam-bam-bam!"

"Who?" says Maniac.

"The enemy," says Russell.

"Who's that?" says Maniac.

Russell stops firing long enough to send Maniac a where-have-you-been? look. "Who do ya think?" he sneers. He points the red barrel of the submachine gun toward the bedroom door. Toward the east. The East End.

The heavy front door.

Scene: Darkness. Silence. Sometime early morning. Maniac lies between the two brothers, on the bed. Do cockroaches climb bedposts? Unable to sleep, asking himself: What am I doing here? Remembering: Hester and Lester on his lap, Grayson's hug, corn muffin in the toaster oven. Thinking: Who's the orphan here, anyway?

Hearing, as he at last lowers himself into sleep's deep waters, a door slam, a slurred voice: "Do yet homework!"

Fearing: Will I float?