Amerikan Eagle

The paper showed some sort of stick figure with a big head. There was a star drawn in the middle of the torso. “See? It’s you, Dad. Do you like it?”

“I sure do,” Sam said.

“Mom?”

“You made his head too small,” Sarah said.

Sam looked at his former cheerleader. “How about his heart?”

“Not big enough,” she said, smiling back, her gaze warming him despite all that had gone on before. Still… he had the feeling that all of this had been some sort of act, from the pleadings to the upraised skirt. The cast of her eyes didn’t match the brightness of her smile.

* * *

Toby sat next to him on the big front seat of the Packard, his school bag gripped with both hands, prattling on about a new lady at the cafeteria who kept on dropping mashed potatoes on the floor during lunchtime. Sam thought about the day ahead of him, about his John Doe, about Tony out there in the woods or maybe now in the city, and about their illegal guest coming tonight.

As they went down to the end of Grayson Street, there was movement off to the right at a house that had been empty for a month. It once belonged to the Jablonski family. One day the family vanished, just like that, and no one knew why. If anyone had seen a Black Maria come up to the house late at night, no one was talking.

There was a freight truck backed up to the house, a couple with two young boys standing nearby, huddled together, as three Long’s Legionnaires directed the movers bringing in boxes and furniture. That’s how it went sometimes, in other places. But not in Portsmouth, not until today. Somebody had been denounced to the authorities, and the denouncers got to move into the house of the deported as a reward.

Sam stopped at the yellow and black stop sign and looked into the rearview mirror, watching his new neighbors move in. Then he put the car in gear and drove on.

“Ask you something, Dad?”

“Sure, sport, go ahead.”

“You’re not a rat, are you?”

He turned. Toby looked up at him, his face serious.

“A rat? What made you ask that?”

“Oh, some of the guys at school say cops are all rats. That they put dads in jail for made-up stuff. That they take money from bad guys. Stuff like that. Some guys at recess yesterday, they said you were a rat.”

His wife, operating an Underground Railroad station in their basement. His brother, living God knew how five miles from here, and he, a sworn peace officer, letting him be. Family versus duty. Good guy versus rat. And just how did we get the money to buy our house? he thought.

“No, Toby, I don’t take money from anybody except from the city for my paycheck. I only put bad guys in jail, for real things, not made-up things.”

His son kept his mouth shut, toying with the buckles on his school bag.

“Toby, you believe me, don’t you?”

“Sure, Dad, of course I do.” Toby didn’t say anything more until Sam drove up to the squat brick building of the Spring Street School. Across from the school was a small grocery store. Glistening red on the store’s cement wall was a painted red hammer and sickle, and below that, in sloppy letters, DOWN WITH LONG. Toby looked out the window and said, “See that kid, Dad? Over there by the fence, the kid with the brown coat? That’s Greg Kennan. He told me you were a rat. I’m… I’m gonna tell him how wrong he is.”

“Don’t get into any trouble, Toby, okay?”

“I could take him, you know. If we had a fight.” The look in his eyes, the look of the devil that sometimes reminded him of Tony.

“Don’t have a fight.”

“I just want to stick up for you, that’s all.”

“And I want you to behave and do good, okay?”

Toby’s lips trembled. “I don’t like getting into trouble. I don’t. I… sometimes it happens. I can’t help it. Mom understands. Why can’t you?”

“Understand what?”

Toby opened the big door and climbed out, a little figure running toward the fenced-in asphalt courtyard. Two boys wearing short jackets and knickers were bouncing a ball off the side of the brick wall of the school. Nearby was a small parking lot for those teachers and administrators fortunate enough to own automobiles. Three girls were on the sidewalk, playing with yo-yos. Out in the yard was Frank Kaminski, the brother of the local agitator Eric. The owner of the grocery store came out with a bucket of whitewash and a paintbrush, standing in front of the red hammer and sickle, his shoulders sagging.

“No, Toby,” Sam said to himself, shifting the Packard into drive. “I’m not a rat. And you don’t have to stick up for me.”

* * *