Boys Life

asked me to ride to the Woolworth’s on Merchants Street and pick her up a box of cake pans. I started out, Rocket easy beneath me. I went to the store, bought the cake pans, and started back.
    I stopped in front of the Bright Star Cafe.
    Mr. Eugene Osborne worked in there. Mr. Eugene Osborne had been in the Big Red One infantry division. And Mr. Eugene Osborne knew German curse words when he heard them.
    This had been nagging at me, like a small little demon’s voice at the back of my head, since the night we’d gone to the Brandywine Carnival. How could a parrot know German curse words if its owner spoke no German? And something else I remembered Mr. Osborne saying: Wasn’t just cursin’, either. There were other German words in there, but they were all garbled up.
    How could such a thing be?
    I left Rocket outside and walked into the Bright Star.
    It wasn’t much of a place, just a few tables and booths and a counter where people could sit on stools and jaw with the two waitresses, old Mrs. Madeline Huckabee and younger Carrie French. I have to say that Miss French got most of the attention, because she was blond and pretty and Mrs. Huckabee resembled two miles of bad road. But Mrs. Huckabee had been a waitress at the Bright Star long before I was born, and she ruled the cafe with an iron glance. The Bright Star was by no means very active this time of day, but a few people were inside drinking coffee, most of them elderly retired men. Mr. Cathcoate was among them, sitting in a booth reading a newspaper. The television above the counter was on. And sitting at the counter grinning at Miss French was none other than whale-sized Mr. Dick Moultry.
    He saw me, and his grin vanished like a ghost at dawn.
    “Hi, there!” Miss French said, offering me a sunny smile as I approached the counter. If it weren’t for her buck teeth, she might have been as lovely as Chile Willow. “What can I do for you?”
    “Is Mr. Osborne here?”
    “Sure is.”
    “Can I talk to him, please?”
    “Hold on a minute.” She went to the window between the counter and the kitchen. I noticed Mr. Moultry’s huge belly pressing against the counter’s edge as he leaned forward to get a look at her legs. “Eugene? Somebody wants to talk to you!”
    “Who?” I heard him ask.
    “Who?” she asked me. Miss French didn’t move in my circles, and I didn’t come into the Bright Star enough to warrant recognition.
    “Cory Mackenson.”
    “Oh, are you Tom’s boy?” she inquired, and I nodded. “Tom’s boy!” she told Mr. Osborne.
    My dad, like the Beach Boys, got around. I felt Mr. Moultry watching me. He took a loud slurp of coffee, trying to get my attention, but I didn’t favor him with it.
    Mr. Osborne walked through a swinging door. He was wearing an apron and a white cap, and he wiped his hands on a cloth. “Afternoon,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
    Mr. Moultry was leaning forward, all ears and belly. I said, “Can we sit down? Over there, maybe?” I motioned toward a back booth.
    “Guess so. Lead the way.”
    When we’d gotten situated, with my back to Mr. Moultry, I said, “I was at Miss Glass’s house when you brought Winifred in for her piano lesson.”
    “I remember that.”
    “You remember the parrot? You said it was cursin’ in German.”
    “If I know German, it was. And I do.”
    “Do you remember what else the parrot was sayin’?”
    Mr. Osborne leaned back in the booth. He cocked his head to one side, his hand with its U.S. ARMY tattoo on the fingers toying with a fork from the place setting. “What’s all this about, if you don’t mind me askin’?”
    “Nothin’ special.” I shrugged. “It just got my curiosity up, that’s all.”
    “Your curiosity, huh?” He smiled faintly. “You came in here to ask me what a parrot said?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “That was almost three weeks ago. How come you didn’t want to know before now?”
    “I guess I had other things on my mind.” I had wanted to know, of course, but with the escape of the beast from the lost world and Dad’s losing his job, I hadn’t given it the highest priority.
    “I don’t rightly remember what it said, except for the spicy words I couldn’t repeat to you without Tom’s permission.”
    “I didn’t know my dad came in here.”
    “Sometimes he does. He came in to fill out an application.”
    “Oh. Gosh,” I said. “I didn’t know my dad could cook.”
    “Dishwasher,” Mr. Osborne said, watching me