happened out on the lake.”
Father said, “We weren’t out there for half an hour before the fog rolled in.”
Father was talking, but he wasn’t talking to us.
“I’d never thought about what a thtrange phrathe ‘pea thoup’ ith, but when that fog covered our boat I got it. The fog felt like it had weight, that you had to puth it away to even breathe.”
There was a long pause and I held my breath, hoping that Jimmie would be quiet too.
“We dethided to get back to thore, but when we pulled on the anchor rope we found the anchor wath gone and we’d been drifting. No one knew for how long.
“Then the thip came. Then everything happened.”
His voice changed, sounding like he was fighting to catch his breath, sounding wild and scary. “We’d drifted into the thipping laneth and the wake from a huge freighter hit uth and knocked everyone out of the boat.
“I was in such a thtate of thock that I didn’t even realithe I’d been hit in the mouth and all of my front teeth were gone, or how badly I’d been cut. Fear will do that to you, it will make you think about only what’th important, and all that wath important to me wath to get back to my family. That’th all I could think of. Truly.”
Most times when Father tells about how his day went he talks like he’s painting a picture, but this time there was no picture, just fog. If he was himself, Father would’ve said something like, “The fog was so thick it should’ve been spelled with two ‘G’s!”
But there was something more missing.
Father can’t open his mouth without a joke falling out and this story didn’t have any.
Maybe it’s because the story is so sad. But Father always tells us, “There’s a thin, blurry line between humor and tragedy.” When he was working regular at the mill he’d told me and Jimmie, “I’ll give each of you one whole nickel for every joke you find that isn’t cloaked in pain or tragedy.”
We’d tried as hard as we could to earn that nickel but couldn’t come up with a single joke that didn’t have someonegetting killed or hurt or made fun of or embarrassed or mocked.
Father told us, “And the more tragic something is, the more jokes you’ll find about it.”
I couldn’t think of anything more tragic than what happened to those poor men out on Lake Michigan, yet Father’s story didn’t have one smile or laugh in it.
And no alliteration. Something wasn’t right.
Father said, “The boat wath upthide down and they all were gone. I tied my writht to the boat with the anchor rope and hung on. That’th the way that thip found me and took me to the hothpital in Thicago. When I came to, they brought me to Gary. That’th the whole truth.”
There was another long pause. “That’th everything.”
Jimmie leaned his head on Father’s chest. “It’s OK, Pa, we’re all together now.”
Father didn’t sound like his heart was in it when he said, “You know, Jimmie, when it looked like I wouldn’t live, the thing other than my family that I thought about mithing would be theeing Joe Louith knock Max Thmeling back to the fatherland!”
That stupid fight! Father started blabbing about Joe Louis, and Jimmie blabbed right along with him.
I said, “Yuck!” And left them laughing and joking.
Chapter Fifteen
The Brown Bomber Hits Home
Finally Father made the bug about the fight grab hold of my heart. The big day had been postponed to the nineteenth because of rain and that made everything even more exciting.
Since the lake, Father had acted like he was listening when we’d talk about our days during Chow Chat, but we knew his mind wasn’t all the way with us. Just two days before the fight, something came alive in him.
We looked at Father to see if he was up to talking. Jimmie saw something that me and Mother didn’t. He said, “And what about your day, my Fine Friendly Father Figure?”
Father seemed surprised. “Not much happened.” Then he gave us his scary jack-o’-lantern
Jack L. Chalker
John Buchan
Karen Erickson
Barry Reese
Jenny Schwartz
Jimmy Fallon, Gloria Fallon
Denise Grover Swank
Meg Cabot
Kate Evangelista
The Wyrding Stone