By Monday we’d pretty well moved in. That morning, Dad and Mom each set out on their respective missions. Mom was car and job hunting, while Dad was off to the college.
Dad was, as usual, way too happy the early hour. “Da A.M. should find a body on the job or leading down da road,’ sez the Greek poet Hesiod and he oughta know. Yo.”
“I doubt if he said it like that,” I muttered.
“That’s my translation, Dad said. “Ya want I should rap in the original Greek? Hip hop Hesiod from Professor M.C.! ”
“No thanks, I’ll settle for corn flakes. It’s too early for Greek.”
“Suit yourself.”
He stepped cheerfully out the door. “Sharon? You’re still giving me a ride.”
Mom hurried by juggling her coat and purse. “Yeah I got it. I’ll drop you off before I return the rental truck.”
Then they were out of there.
That was the drill. The Swartz’s roll into town, move into their crappy apartment, Mom goes out and buys a crappy car, looks for a crappy job, Dad gets ready to teach his crappy classes, and I’m off to another crappy new school.
Hey, but I’m not bitter.
Anyway, since it was still the Christmas holiday, I’d have to wait a bit before I performed my part in our little family routine.
That suited me just fine. I like starting a new school about as much as I like going to the dentist. Besides, it meant I had more time to hang out with Zach. We spent the day hanging out. He gave me a tour of Gierman. Or he tried anyway. Mostly he was staring goggle eyed at all the changes that had taken place in the last hundred years and trying to explain how the town used to look.
It was late afternoon when Mom drove up to the apartment in our new old car: a battered Toyota wagon.
It had been red once, but the red had morphed into a kind of brick-rust color. If that wasn’t bad enough, the right front fender was a bright taxi cab yellow.
“Like our new wheels?” Mom asked. “Pretty sporty, huh?”
“Sure,” I answered, “if your sport is driving in demolition derbies.”
“Cute kid. Look, it was a good deal. I’ll have to put in new plugs and points, but the compression checks out okay, and there’s at least another twenty thousand miles on the tires.”
“All that and a snazzy two-tone paint job.”
Mom shrugged. “Hey, the price was right.”
“At least I don’t know anybody in this town. That’ll save me the trouble of having to put a grocery bag over my head whenever have to I ride in that thing.”
“Speaking of which…” Mom picked up a brown paper grocery bad and held it in front of her, posing like a model in some magazine ad. She flashed a hokey TV smile and pointed to the writing on the bag.
“Ernie’s Shop Rite,” I read. “Aw, you got me this groovy designer shopping bag to wear when we’re cruising in our new car. That’s great, Mom!”
“Dork!” Mom laughed, “I got a job.”
She whipped a green apron out of the bag and, quickly putting it on, went back into her fashion model pose.
“Ta-da. Your mother is now a full-time cashier at Ernie’s Shop Rite, your friendly neighborhood supermarket.”
I wiped an imaginary tear from my eye. “Golly Mom,” I sniffed, “I’m so proud.”
That night at dinner, Mom and Dad talked about their new jobs.
“Ernie’s Shop Rite,” said Dad, admiring her new apron. “Does this mean Ernie can’t spell ‘right’ right? Or does Ernie consider shopping to be some kind of sacred, holy rite?”
“I don’t know,” chuckled Mom. “I’ll have to ask him. He might even answer me, if he ever takes that smelly cigar out of his face.”
“Charming,” said Dad.
“Oh, he’s okay. I’ve got a good schedule and a ring-side seat at Gossip Central for the city of Gierman.”
I reached for the salad dressing. “Gossip Central?”
“Gossip,” Dad said, “what Homer called, ‘The windy satisfaction of the tongue.’”
Mom smiled. “Windy, huh, well then Ernie’s must be a veritable typhoon. It’s the place for all the blue-haired ladies of the town to gather and exchange information. Ah, the tales I could tell…”
“Such as…” I asked.
“Well actually I don’t have any good stuff yet, but just you wait. I’ll be keeping us all well informed about the ins and outs of this burg.”
Dad went on to describe his job. “Two sections of Greek drama and an introductory Greek lit. course. Can o’ corn. I’ve already got all the notes; I just have to type up a syllabus and order the textbooks.”
I listened to them prattle on as I picked through my dinner. I would have been cool I I could have shared what was new in my life.
But somehow it didn’t seem like such a good idea.
Christmas usually wasn’t that big of a thing at our house.
Being academic gypsies and all, we usually don’t have an especially full social calendar.
That suits me fine, though.
On Christmas Eve, Mom got out her guitar and we sang carols together.
It’s corny, I know, but Mom and Dad have nice enough voices, and they know some harmony parts they can do together. Sometimes Dad makes up weird lyrics and sings them in is fake opera voice.
“O little town of Gierman, how did we end up here?
I’ll teach Greek to geeks and freaks while Sharon sells them beer…”
It sounds lame, I know, but he usually has us all cracking up by the time he’s finished.
Just before we all headed up to bed, while we were singing Silent Night, I caught the sound of a high, pure alto harmonizing along with us.
It was Zach. He had a wonderful voice.
It was like hearing snow fall.
Too bad, I was the only one who could hear it.
That next week, Mom and Dad had an invitation to a faculty New Year’s party, “A chance to get to know our esteemed colleagues,” Dad called it.
Anyway it was just Zach and I left to bring in the New Year.
We watched music videos on YouTube, which was a really messed with Zach's head. “I reckon it’s music all right, but it ain’t like any music I’ve heard before.”
The commercials really threw him. “Now you say these little performances are expected t’make a body want to make some kind of purchase? I can’t say as I can tell what it is they’re tryin’ t’sell me.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I doubt that any advertising agencies are intentionally targeting dead people.”