4: Not Really a Date

My first year as a paper carrier, I won the "Carrier of the Month" award for January. I was the only carrier who didn't get a complaint that month. We'd had a heavy snowfall and getting through it on my three-and-a-half mile route was a pain. I abandoned my bike the morning the first big snow fell. There was no way I was going to pedal through this. I started walking and just kept trudging through the snow until I was back home. I was crying and had ice on my cheeks, but I finished the route. After school, I was surprised to find Mom home already. She took me to Shoppers' Fair and got me a new parka and a ski mask, then we went to Sears and I got a genuine pair of Sorel boots. Just putting my feet in those things made them warm. I thanked Mom over and over and in the morning, set out on my paper route with enough layers of clothing to stay warm.

I also kept earning the "scrip" Cary talked about when he hired me. Each point was worth a dime in scrip. I got ten points every week by taking my collections into the office on Saturday afternoon. The paper was a six day a week paper. Thank God I didn't have to deliver papers on Sunday like the city carriers did. I collected seventy-five cents a week from my customers which was fifteen cents less than they'd pay at the newsstand. I got to keep twenty-five cents out of that. It didn't take me long to figure out that if I had a customer that wasn't home, but I trusted to pay me, I could pull his receipt and put fifty cents into the kitty from my earnings. The customer would always make it up the next week. As a result, my receipt book was always current and paid in full every Saturday afternoon. I got my ten points.

I also got a hundred points for a new subscriber. I found out I could sell subscriptions pretty well, and only about a quarter of the houses along my route were current subscribers. The combination of new subscribers, customer compliments, and clean receipt books meant that I was acquiring scrip rapidly. Johnson's Railroad and Hobby was one of the stores that took newspaper scrip. In the past, I'd spent a lot of allowance getting my HO gauge train set up. But now that I was earning money, I had my eye set on the microscope they had. I couldn't use scrip to order chemicals at Edmund's but I could get other scientific stuff.

I was getting close to the amount I'd need for that microscope and was on an almighty sales binge. I determined that by the time school was out I would have contacted everyone who lived along my route and tried to get them to subscribe. Each week I was given five "extra" copies of the paper. They were for emergencies and promotion. I'd had a couple of emergencies. Dropped a paper in a mud puddle and couldn't deliver it—that sort of thing. But the only time I ever used one for promotion was sometimes I'd see Mr. Henderson out early in the morning on my way home and I'd ask him if he'd like a paper. It always made him smile and nod. He was really old and I think some of the other kids in the area didn't treat him very nice. The first time I asked him, I think he thought I'd throw the paper at him. After that, though, we got along fine.

On Saturday morning when I did my collections, I started visiting new houses.

"Ma'am, I'd like to offer you a free week of home delivery of the News. I'd like you to see what fine service you get from me, receiving your newspaper here on your doorstep by six-thirty every morning. At the end of that week, I think you'll want to continue this service at the regular rate of just seventy-five cents a week. That's fifteen cents off the newsstand price." I got four people to try the newspaper that week and the next Saturday three of them subscribed. Cary was impressed when I increased my order.

I kept increasing it every week. By May, I was leading all the other carriers in new subscribers and was in the running for carrier of the month again. More importantly, I had almost enough scrip and cash saved to buy that microscope.

That's when disaster struck in the form of Drew and the Kowalskis. I was riding my bike home after finishing my collections and before I could even react, they came screaming past me and stiff-armed me. I went sailing right off the bike and into the roadside ditch. The bike landed partly on top and partly under me. About six inches of water was draining through the ditch. I couldn't help it; I started crying. Damn those damn bastards. Damn them. Damn them!

I heard their tires skid on the gravel road and they spun back to look at me in the ditch.

"Aw. Poor Brian. He fell off his bike. Do you need training wheels, little Brian?" Drew taunted me.

"Damn you!" I yelled. I still wasn't coherent and I hurt. My foot was caught in the chain of the bike.

"Look, it's Cryin' Brian," a Kowalski said. I realized I didn't even know their first names. Damn them.

"Hey guys. There's money all over the road," the other one said. Their attention left me still struggling and screaming in the ditch as they started picking up coins.

"That's mine!" I screamed. "That's my newspaper money. Stop it."

"Finders keepers," Drew yelled back.

"Losers weepers," chorused the other two.

"You boys! Stop that. I'll call the sheriff," I heard old Mr. Henderson call from his porch. Drew made some rude noise and the three took off. By the time I managed to crawl out of the ditch, Mr. Henderson toddled out to the road. He had to be a hundred and was hard of hearing. I hoped he called the sheriff, but then I realized Mr. Henderson didn't have a phone. I found my money pouch. Most of the coins had scattered and been retrieved by the thieves. The folding money was still in the pouch. I was still out several dollars. My receipt book was a mess, having landed on top of me in the water. I found a few more coins the guys hadn't seen and then pushed my bike home, sniffling and waving Mr. Henderson back.

I threw my bike down at the back door and stomped into the house. Mom looked up from the kitchen sink and saw the state I was in. I was twelve years old. I shouldn't be crying like this. I just wanted to run into the bathroom and wash.

Apparently Mom thought the same thing and she made me take off my muddy shoes and clothes before sending me to the bathroom. When I shut the shower off, Mom called through the door.

"Do you have any cuts or scrapes that need to be tended to?"

"One. It's on my elbow." I put on my underwear and opened the bathroom door. Mom looked at my skinned elbow and got a pair of tweezers to pick out a couple of bits of gravel. Then she put Merthiolate on it and I danced around ouching and trying to blow on it.

"Get dressed and come to the kitchen," Mom said. When she sounded like that, I knew there was no sense arguing. I was going to get grilled and then Mom would go see the Barnes and Kowalskis and then I'd get called a cry-baby and tattletale in school and they'd have to get even with me. I went to the kitchen and Mom handed me a cookie and a glass of milk. Cookie? I hadn't even had lunch yet. This was serious.

"So what happened?"

"I ... uh ... fell off my bike."

"Just fell?"

"Um ... a dog chased me." I just lied to my mother. I just lied. I started crying again.

"What dog?"

"That big boxer up by Abrams." I was in it now. I couldn't unlie.

"I see. What else?" She wouldn't let it be and I was leaking tears again.

"I lost some of my collection money and I ruined my bike." I kept crying. It didn't make any difference now. I lost most of what I earned and I'd have to give up my paper route. It was all just a waste. It was going to take up all my savings to make up what I lost from the collection and fix my bike.

It didn't quite. We counted out my collections and I was twenty-two dollars short. I had to make up five dollars from my savings to pay for my papers, but that meant I didn't earn anything this week either. Worst of all, I'd have to guard myself all the time. I couldn't very well ask Carl or Doug to ride with me every Saturday.

On the other hand, Mom said she'd get my bike fixed. Only problem was that it would take until Tuesday which mean that I'd have to walk my route for two days. Well, I did it in the winter. At least I didn't have to worry about Drew or the Kowalskis getting up that early to attack me.

I got docked ten points for having a messy receipt book. Well, it fell in the ditch with me. Mom had carefully wiped and ironed every page, but there were mud splatters all over some of the pages. Cary gave me new pages for the book and watched as I matched the number of receipts and dates on each page with the page I was throwing away. At least when I was done, I had a pristine receipt book again, but I just missed being carrier of the month. One of the guys with a subdivision route had really got wound up when he found out I was selling more subscriptions than he was.

What really surprised me was that Monday morning Mom and Dad were sitting at the kitchen table when I got up at four-thirty. After I got my alarm clock, they never bothered me in the morning. I'd sometimes see Dad leave for work about the time I got back from my route. I pulled my bundle of papers onto the table and started rolling them and stuffing them in my bag. A disadvantage of getting so many new customers was that my bag was a lot heavier and was going to be a pain to carry without the bike. Dad casually grabbed a paper and after looking at the headlines, rolled it and snapped a rubber band around it.

"It seems that dogs are getting to be a problem around here," Dad said. "Nobody keeps them in their yards and some of them are looking vicious. You know that black and tan mongrel that was up at Cedar and McKinley? Saw it lying by the road yesterday after church. Must have chased a car and got caught under the bumper."

"Wow. He wasn't even a mean dog. He just barked a lot," I said.

"Well, we want you to be safe from ... dogs," Mom said. My eyes got big as she pushed a squirt gun across the table to me. It was pretty good size and I could tell it had a powerful pump. What good was a squirt gun going to do? "This is filled with ammonia, so don't spill it on yourself."

"But, if a ... dog ... should attack you again, shoot this in his face," Dad said. It was like they were using "dog" as a secret code word and I was pretty sure they knew it wasn't a dog that pushed me off my bike. "It's not a toy and you don't start anything with it, Brian. But if you get attacked again, squirt it in his face. He'll wish he'd never come close to you."

Of course, I wasn't bothered by a dog of any kind all week. I was almost hoping I would be just so I could try it out, but nothing happened.

By the middle of June, I had enough saved to get my microscope. I was psyched! I started putting anything I could find on a slide and examining it, including my dwindling supply of chemicals. Okay, this is gross, but I examined my own pee and discovered it looked more like my ammonia sample from my squirt gun than it did plain water. Cool! I had an unending supply of ammonia. If I hit a "dog" with that, he'd really get the message.

I was invited to the year-end party at Brenda's again along with the whole posse. Brenda and Carl had quit feuding and even though they weren't "going with each other" they were talking to each other and Carl had been invited back to our table. During the first week of June, though, Cassie Clinton started joining us at our table. I'd grown another inch and it looked to me like I was as tall as Cassie. She'd started as little as me and then in fifth grade put on a growth spurt that put her ahead of me. I was four-six and it looked like we were even again. I wasn't the only one who noticed.

"Look! Brian is as tall as Cassie again," Brenda announced. "Come on, you two. Stand up back-to-back. Let's see who wins." Reluctantly Cassie and I stood back-to-back. I started getting that antsy feeling when she pressed her back against mine so we were standing straight. I'd learned to recognize it as the precursor to getting hard. Oh please! Not right now! Brenda put a book across our heads. "I knew it! The same. I think we have a new couple."