He escorted me across the lawn. The front-door security camera whirred as it followed our progress. His feet tangled with my own and I noticed that his socks, as always, were stained green. To make up for the promotions and bonuses that he didn’t get at work, Dad mowed lawns on the weekends—town parks, cemeteries, even the football field at Saint B. High—and always dressed like a freak with goggles and gloves. It made me even more popular at school, believe me. He pushed me with a hand that smelled of grass.

“You’ll miss the bus, Jimmy. And if you miss the bus, I’ll have to turn around and drive you to school, and then I’ll be late for work.”

“Can’t I just walk?”

“And you know how hard it was to arrange my schedule so we could both leave at the same time. The boss gave me heck, Jimmy, real heck.”

“You didn’t have to do that. Only babies take the bus.”

He gave me a stern look.

“You can never be too careful. Look at my brother, Jack. How independent he was. How full of spirit. He used to tell me, ‘Jimbo, nothing can hurt me.’ But things did hurt him, despite the fact that he was—”

I recited it with him: “The bravest kid you ever saw.”

Dad turned around in front of his San Bernardino Electronics company van (a.k.a. “the safest vehicle in San Bernardino”), which doubled as transport for his mowing equipment, and sighed. I noticed his unbuttoned shirt cuff flopping outside of his jacket. He deserved to go to work like that if he wasn’t going to let me grow up and do simple things like walk to school on my own.

“Well,” Dad said after a moment. “He was.”

He walked over to the van and began to unlock it. I kicked the ground. He was right; the bus was coming. I could hear it over on Maple Street, and I was going to have to run if I wanted to catch it. But that wrist button stopped me. I kept imagining the younger guys at Dad’s office making fun of the disheveled, anxious man with the Band-Aid glasses who wore his Excalibur Calculator Pocket like a badge of honor. One victim in this family was enough.

I stepped over to the side of the van, yanked the shirtsleeve free, and in a few swift moves buttoned it. I offered a weak smile. He blinked down at me through dirty lenses.

“The bus, Jimmy.…”

I sighed.

“I’m on it, Dad.”

The school was lined with pumpkins. I tallied them and was up to forty-one before the bus pulled to its usual stomach-lurching halt. Lunch boxes and books went spilling across the grimy floor and kids took to all fours to fetch the runaway thermoses and escaping pencils. I sat back and stared at the sign outside San Bernardino High.

THE 102ND ANNUAL
FESTIVAL OF THE FALLEN LEAVES
ALL WEEK LONG
SHOW YOUR SPIRIT!