Chapter 17

Kingston 76

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Chapter 17

When Timothy arrived at Charles’ house later that day, he was practically bursting to tell of his adventure.

“It was just like a real stake out,” he said, “I saw him with my own two eyes.”

“Saw who?”

“Luke Grafton.”

“Where did you see Luke Grafton?”

“Outside the County Jail.”

“Okay, you need to slow down. Start at the beginning...”

Timothy proceeded to tell him everything. About finding how the brook flowed into the Esopus and ultimately to the ocean, about his clever disguise with the newspaper and glasses, about the towering deputies with their guns leading Luke Grafton away in cuffs.

“He was smaller than I thought he’d be, actually,” Timothy said.

Charles looked at Timothy like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Timothy, you skipped school to do this? Don’t you know that’s a oneway ticket to the inside of that jail?”

This wasn’t the response Timothy was expecting.

“I thought I was helping the case,” he said. “I thought you’d be...”

“Impressed?”

“Well, yeah, sort of.”

Charles shook his head, his expression bordering between amusement and What am I going to do with this boy?

“Well, it was a daring maneuver, I’ll give you that,” Charles said. “So, solving this case is really that important to you?”

“Don’t you think it’s important?”

“I do but...”

Charles looked like he could go one way or the other, but appeared at least to be thinking it over.

“I’ll tell you what...” he said, finally. “I’ve thought of a couple of leads we can follow...but if nothing materializes within the next two weeks, we need to go head with the IPM case before they get permission to expand the facility...can we agree on that?”

Timothy was impressed with the way Charles had cantilevered his argument, he hoped some day he’d be able to make a case like this.

“Yes,” he agreed.

“And another thing, no more skipping school, you promise?”

Timothy thought about crossing his fingers. He still had two blank late passes in reserve and the first one had worked like a charm. Still, if he had to choose between role models, Charles was clearly a safer bet than Crazy Karl.

“Well, okay,” he said.

Thus agreed, Timothy got out the photos and added them to the other materials they’d already acquired. It was an impressive array, anyone would have to take this seriously.

“I think it’s time for some Thin Lizzy,” Charles said.

Charles got out the Jailbreak LP and put it on his stereo.

Timothy held the album cover in his hands, its artwork depicting the band like superheroes trying to escape from an evil comic strip universe. The music was both crisp and grinding at the same time, rocking Charles’ bedroom, with two guitars sometimes soaring next to each other. Timothy bopped his head, and Charles was glad to see that he liked it.

Charles let the whole first side play then, deciding Timothy needed a little more variety, played a few songs off Led Zeppelin III, then added the new Doobie Brothers and some Sly Stone for good measure.

The afternoon flew by, Timothy didn’t want to leave, but he still had a bike ride ahead of him. With their investigation advancing and his heart pumping with music, he was heading toward the front door, when Charles’ mom ducked into the hallway with a surprise invitation:

“Why don’t you join us for supper, Timothy?” she offered.

“Oh, that’s okay, I don’t think my mom would let me...”

“You’ll never know if you don’t ask,” Charles’ mom said. “What’s your number, why don’t I give her a call?”

With Charles’ encouragement, Timothy followed her into their kitchen, which had avocado green appliances with matching linoleum. The Lambeaus had a pushbutton phone that lit up when Charles’ mom lifted it off the cradle. She punched the numbers quickly and effortlessly.

“What’s your mother’s name?”

He almost said Denny, like the women called her in Group.

“Denise,” he said, and prayed that Cathryn wouldn’t answer.

“Hello Denise? This is Carolyn Lambeau, your son Timothy is friends with my son Charles...no, nothing’s wrong, the boys were just having such a nice afternoon together we thought it might be nice if Timothy stayed for supper...”

Timothy imagined his mom would say no because it was a school night, or for some other random reason, but amazingly, the conversation seemed to be going well.

After she hung up the phone Charles’ mom turned to the boys.

“Charles, why don’t you and Timothy wash up and set the table.”

“My mom said yes?” Timothy asked.

“Yes,” Charles’ mom said, laughing that Timothy was so surprised. “I told her it would be no trouble to drive you home after supper.”

Setting the table at Charles’ house was a lot like back at his house, but different in subtle ways. At Charles’ house they used cloth napkins. The glasses were more like goblets, and the silverware had a pewter look to it, like they’d acquired it recently to go with the recent craze for all things colonial.

Timothy began to put a place setting at the head of the table, the chair with the armrests, where he assumed Charles’ mom would sit.

“No, my mom sits at the other end,” Charles said, moving the place setting to the opposite end, leaving the chair with the armrests vacant.

When they sat down to dinner, they started by holding hands and saying a prayer, another thing they did not do at Timothy’s house.

At first, holding hands with Charles and his mom, seemed weird, touchy, Timothy’s first inclination was to recoil. Yet when he felt the sincerity and commitment in both their grasps, he began to give into it, and it didn’t feel so awkward.

“Thank you for bringing our new friend Timothy into our home,” Charles’ mom said, “and for the meal and all the other benefits we enjoy.”

Charles said, “Amen,” so Timothy said it too.

Then, Charles’ mom opened the lid of the casserole dish and revealed the most interesting sight: the chicken had pineapple on top of it.

“Timothy, may I serve you?”

“Yes please.”

She then served Charles, and finally herself.

When Timothy dug into his supper, he could not believe the flavor. It was both sweet and salty at the same time, he’d never tried such a thing. He was almost squealing with delight.

“You like my mom’s pineapple chicken, Timothy?” Charles asked.

“It’s amazing,” Timothy said.

Both Charles and his mom had to laugh at Timothy’s enthusiasm, it was like watching someone who hadn’t eaten in a week.

By and by, Charles’ mom began to initiate a conversation.

“So, Timothy, Charles says you live right uptown?”

“Yes.”

“It must be very convenient to be so close to the stores,” she said, as if she really thought living in town was a positive thing instead of a negative.

“Yeah, you can pretty much walk to everything,” Timothy agreed.

“And what does your father do for a living?”

“Um, my father left home a while ago,” Timothy said. “We don’t really know where he went.”

“That must be hard,” Charle’s mom said sympathetically. “We can relate to not having a dad around here.”

She nodded her head in the direction of the chair with the armrests at the opposite head of the table that remained empty.

“It’s okay,” Timothy said, “I guess you get used to it.”

“Has your mother found someone else?”

Timothy paused for a moment before answering.

“No, she hasn’t.”

On one level, this didn’t feel like a lie. As far as Timothy was concerned, the hole in his household created by his dad’s absence was still a hole, whether Cathryn had moved in with them or not.

And yet, on another level, although he couldn’t admit it to himself, it did feel like a lie.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked,” Charles’ mother said, sensing she’d touched a nerve.

“Mom,” Charles said, instinctively changing the topic to diffuse the situation, “did you know Timothy knows everything about old stone houses?”

“He does?”

“Well, not everything,” Timothy demurred.

“Don’t be embarrassed, Timothy,” Charles said, “Tell her about how President Van Buren lived right on Green Street.”

He felt a little put on the spot, but Timothy was nonetheless touched to discover that Charles’ had been listening to him carefully and knew more about him than he thought he did.

“Actually, President Van Buren lived up in Kinderhook,” Timothy said, “it was his uncle who lived on Green Street. But George Clinton lived there, and he was Vice President, on top of being Governor.”

“Clinton was the Vice President?” Charles’ mom said. “You know, I grew up in Kingston and somehow I never knew that.”

“And George Washington visited the Old Dutch Church once,” Timothy added, “but that was when he was still a General, he wasn’t President yet.”

Charles beamed with a sort of pride, watching Timothy step up and reveal his level of expertise.

“How wonderful to be surrounded by all that history during the Bicentennial,” Charles’ mom said, “it’s like you’re right in the middle of the action.”

It had never occurred to Timothy that his neighborhood had so many advantages.

“Yeah...I was going to do my Bicentennial report on the stone houses, but my teacher wanted me to do the Boston Tea Party instead.”

“Do you like the Boston Tea Party?”

“Not as much.”

“Well, that seems like a wasted opportunity, doesn’t it?”

Charles agreed.

Timothy appreciated their response, it was certainly a welcome contrast to what his own mom had said about how Mrs. Brenner was justified in wanting to push him to do something else.

When it came time for dessert, Charles’ mom said, “I had pineapple left over and didn’t know what to do with it, so I made pineapple upside down cake, I hope that’s not too much pineapple.”

Charles’ mom was actually apologizing for making pineapple upside down cake? This was the best meal of Timothy’s life!

After they cleared the table, Timothy was going to ride his bike home, but Charles’ mom had promised Timothy’s mom and insisted on driving. They had no trouble fitting Timothy’s banana saddle in the way back of their station wagon. Timothy sat in the backseat, and Charles rode up front with his mom.

When they pulled down Warren Street, Timothy at first directed Charles’ mom to drop him off in front of the Williams’ house, the freshly painted one with the matching chairs on the front porch.

Then, up ahead, there was Timothy’s mom standing in front of their house waving, like, This is the place.

While the moms introduced themselves to each other, Timothy’s mom was using her well-practiced I’m just a regular mom voice. Through some miracle Cathryn had not come out of the house.

Charles, meanwhile, helped Timothy get his bike out of the back of the car.

“So, that’s your house?” Charles said.

Charles was smiling as if the chipping paint, the messy porch and the beater car were somehow invisible or irrelevant.

But if Timothy knew one thing about Charles, it was that he was taking notice of everything.

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