Delia gripped the steering wheel, perspiration glistening on her forehead and upper lip. “You sure you know how to drive?” Socko asked. She didn’t look exactly comfortable.
“I’m fine. Just keep us from getting lost, okay?”
Too late. They rolled past a convenience store called the Quick Stop. If the store had been Donatelli’s, the old guy coming out with a ribbon of scratch-off tickets in his hand would have been easy to name. But this was someone else’s neighborhood, someone else’s old guy.
“Right or left here, Socko?”
Socko turned the burger bag on his lap ninety degrees. It didn’t help. When it came to being a navigator, Socko stunk.
His mother sent him into two fast-food places for directions before they even got out of the city—she seemed to think they could trust anyone who flipped burgers.
As soon as they found the freeway—speed limit 70—Socko was sure Damien’s prediction was going to come true. Delia drove a car the way he and Damien piloted the Hurtler.
Socko twisted in his seat and watched the load. He didn’t trust the bungee cord job they’d done. With each lurching lane change he expected the sofa to go rogue and fly out of the trailer.
“Why are ya slowing down?” Delia yelped.
Socko whipped around. They’d be sitting in the backseat of the car in front of them if they got any closer—and they were getting closer! At the last second, Delia swung the Suburban into the next lane. Socko swiveled in his seat as the sofa careened right.
“Wide turns, wide turns,” Delia chanted. “Don’t roll the trailer.”
They’d been going along fine for a few minutes—Delia had just said she was getting the hang of towing a trailer—when Socko caught sight of the airport sign coming up fast on the right. “Exit! Exit!”
His mom cut across three lanes, hitting the exit just inches shy of the barrier. They were celebrating still being alive when the next set of signs appeared.
Arrivals.
Departures.
Terminal Parking.
“Which lane?” White-knuckled, Delia strangled the wheel.
“Parking! Go for parking!”
She swerved hard. They plunged into the dark hole called Parking. Just before hitting a wooden arm, Delia stomped the brake. “How can I park with that in the way?”
“Ticket, Mom.”
“Oh.” The machine next to her window spat out a ticket and she grabbed it.
When they abandoned the car and trailer, the rig sat diagonally across four spaces.
“My gosh, who knew an airport was so big?” Delia whispered as they walked from the glass-enclosed tube into the terminal.
Unsure what to do next, they stalled. “How will we even find him?” Socko asked, watching a swarm of impatient travelers rush by.
Delia threw herself on the mercy of a woman in a crisp white shirt at the Delta service desk. The woman leaned across the counter and pointed down the concourse. “You can meet your party at baggage claim, carousel six.”
“I don’t think meeting an old man’s gonna be much of a party,” Socko mumbled as they walked away.
“Don’t be such a smart-mouth. It will be a party. A family reunion!”
Delia chewed off the last of her lipstick while they stood by the silent baggage carousel. “I was way younger than you last time I saw the General. It’s been so long.” She pulled a little mirror out of her purse. “Sheesh! Why didn’t you tell me my hair was going crazy?” She tried to pat down a hairdo that had been whipped by wind blasting through the open windows of the SUV but quickly gave up. “What if I don’t recognize him?” she asked, staring down the concourse.
“What did he look like then?”
“Big. And scary.”
Socko surveyed his enormous mother. No matter how big General Starr was, she had to outweigh him. And no matter how scary he was, his mother had stood up to worse—dealing with the landlord when she didn’t have the rent, for instance, or convincing Mr. Donatelli to give them credit until she got paid.
“Hopefully he’s mellowed,” she said softly. “Anyway, he’s old now. How scary can an eighty-eight-year-old man be?” Suddenly she pinched his arm. “You don’t think that’s him, do you? Nancy didn’t mention a wheelchair.”
A skycap was pushing a shiny chrome wheelchair that made the shriveled old man who sat in it look like a prune served on a fancy plate. The skin on the top of his bald head was splotched with brown. His fingernails were long and yellow and his legs so thin they looked like they’d knife through the legs of his pants if he crossed them.
“Don’t let it be him, don’t let it be him,” Delia breathed.
The old man viewed his surroundings with just one eye. The left. The right one was covered by a black patch. The lone eye ranged over the crowd gathered around the baggage carousel.
Socko avoided the searchlight eye by stepping behind his mother and bending his knees, but the eye found her with no trouble. “Delia Marie Starr,” the old man wheezed. Though there was barely any real voice in the sound, it carried like a strong wind. “My, how you’ve grown.”
Socko saw his mother flinch—and right away he wanted to punch the guy. Was the old man starting right out with a fat joke?
Delia squared her shoulders. “Thanks for the house. We really appreciate it.”
She took one step toward the General, but he held up his hand. “No phony display of affection is necessary. What we have is a simple business arrangement. You get a house plus one old fart. It’s a package deal.”
“I was hoping my boy and me were getting a little more family too.” Delia paused, giving the old man a chance to say something nice, but he didn’t.
“Sir, what are we looking for?” asked the skycap as carousel six rumbled to life.
“One wheelchair. One valise. One footlocker.” The General scanned the first half dozen bags quickly, and then turned back to Delia. “Tell the kid hiding behind you to step out and show himself.”
“I’m not hiding.” Socko edged into view.
Delia put an arm around his shoulders. “This is your great-grandson.”
The old man squeezed the arms of the chair. “Where’d you get that red hair?” he demanded, as if Socko had shoplifted it.
“No place in particular.”
“No place in particular?” The answer seemed to anger the old man. “Well, you got too much of it. Makes you look like a sissy. You need to get those girl-curls buzzed.”
Socko almost commented about the General’s long, girly nails, but if he was going to talk him into letting Damien live in their extra bedroom, he had to be nice.
The old man’s single eye zeroed in on Socko’s shiner. “And if you can’t defend yourself, kid, don’t get in a fight.” The roving eye focused on the conveyor belt, assessing the latest additions to the luggage parade, then snapped back to Socko. “Name?”
“Socko.”
“Socko, sir,” the old man corrected. Then the name itself seemed to catch his attention. “Sock-o?” His laugh was just a shaking of his shoulders. “What are you, kid? Some kind of punching bag?” His shoulders shook again.
“His name is Socrates,” said Delia.
“Boy, oh boy, did you ever draw the short straw, kid! Might as well hang a Kick Me sign on him, Delia Marie.”
Socko had to agree. Some librarian had suggested Socrates when Delia had asked for help finding a “smart” name.
“I thought Nancy was pulling my leg when she said we had a dead philosopher in the family.” The General turned away. Frowning, he watched the emerging luggage shove the plastic strips aside. “That’s the chair,” he snapped.
The skycap retrieved and opened the wheelchair, then transferred the General to it.
“The boy can get my valise and footlocker.”
Shaking his head at the quarter the General slapped into his hand, the skycap hurried away, pushing the polished chrome chair ahead of him.
The General’s wheelchair looked as battered as the old man himself. Plastered to its vinyl back was a bumper sticker that read: VETERAN—I FOUGHT FOR YOUR SORRY HIDE. Tattered American flags were attached to the chair’s handles with gummy wads of duct tape. But Socko thought the General didn’t look as bad in his own chair. They kind of matched.
“The green one.” The General stabbed a yellowed nail at the latest suitcase to hit the belt. “Get it, boy.”
Socko got it. It wasn’t big or heavy, and it had wheels, although they squealed when he dragged it over to the wheelchair.
“And that.”
The footlocker that had just shouldered the hanging plastic strips aside almost pulled Socko’s arm out of the socket when he dragged it off the belt. “No wheels?” he gasped.
“Manufactured before the invention of the wheel,” the General croaked. “Suck it up, kid.”