When Principal Wheeler’s office door opens and they all come out, the grooves on Grandpa’s forehead look deeper.
Ms. Gloria sits down next to me and says, “We all agree that you need to go home with your grandpa today. Tomorrow we’ll discuss some next steps about a behavior plan that will help you manage your anger in school.”
“Tomorrow?” I shoot up from my seat. “I’m not suspended? What kind of school is this?”
“Robinson . . .” Ms. Gloria’s got that voice she uses when she’s trying to calm me down, soft and low and serious. But I don’t care.
“Isn’t it illegal in this state to punch someone in the face? Didn’t I break a Vermont law? What kind of message are you sending, letting me stay here?”
Grandpa puts his hand on my shoulder and pats it three slow times. “You’re lucky now, Robbie,” he says with that deep voice all full of gravel and split wood. “You’ll come with me today to cool off and get your head straight, because this is unacceptable.”
Grandpa thanks Mr. Danny and Ms. Gloria. And then, as if things could get any worse, Alex’s blond, flowy-haired mom shows up in black stockings and clicky high heels and a long black coat with big buttons. She looks like one of those prissy, snap-in-half-type ladies, but she has the same deep forehead lines that Grandpa does. I didn’t realize people as young as regular mom and dad age could get those.
“I’m sure you’d like to apologize before you go,” Mr. Danny says.
“No way—” I start, but Grandpa squeezes my shoulder hard like he’s tightening lug nuts.
“Sorry.” But I say it more to my untied Nike Air Griffeys than to Alex. “If you don’t call me Robin anymore, I won’t punch your face again.” I cross my fingers behind my back just in case.
Grandpa tightens the lug nuts on my shoulder. “Try again.”
This time I just mumble, “I’m sorry for what I did.” But my fingers are still crossed.
Mrs. Carter looks up from her sniffling sissy Alex and studies Grandpa’s hand on my shoulder for a quick second that she thinks no one notices. “You’re Robinson’s . . .”
“Grandpa,” I say. But I know what she’s thinking. That we don’t match. That Grandpa is the dark color of a motor oil leak and I’m light as power steering fluid on my darkest summer day. But it’s none of her business.
“That’s . . . very nice.” But she raises her eyebrows when she says it, like grown-ups do when they’re on to something, and it makes me wonder if she can see into Grandpa’s tired memory and if she knows that sometimes he leaves his keys in the refrigerator and the milk by the door. Because that’s nobody’s business except Grandpa’s and mine. But her raised eyebrows and long look make me feel hot and nervous, like we’ve got to get out of here fast because if someone finds out, they’ll make it a huge deal like grown-ups always do. Then what?
Mrs. Carter looks straight down at me. “Keep your hands off my son.” And when she’s walking away with her arm around Alex, I hear her mumble “old man unfit to raise,” but I can’t catch the rest. And even though it makes my fists clench tight and I think that she deserves a nose to match her son’s, before I know it I’m pulling Grandpa out the office door and away before he can mix up his words and anyone else raises their eyebrows and sees into our secret.
On the walk to the garage I stay one half step ahead of Grandpa so he just has to follow along in case his memory gets tired. I do that to him sometimes, make his memory tired. Whenever I’m bad he forgets more. That’s why I have to try to be better.
“You can’t be using your fists, Robbie,” he tells me. “You’re better than that.”
“Alex deserved it,” I say, because he did. “And not just for calling me a Robin bird. He’s mean to everyone all the time behind teachers’ backs, then acts all innocent when they’re looking again.”
“That doesn’t make it right. Violence will get you . . .” But he’s drifting off. And I know he means that violence will get me nowhere fast but he forgot the end of his sentence. And he’s shaking his head again. I hate that so much.
I wait for Grandpa to tell me about Jackie Robinson like he always does when I do something bad. But he just goes along, saying nothing, and it doesn’t feel right all quiet like that, so I tell it to myself in my head:
The man you’re named for was a great ballplayer. The first black player in the league. People taunted him all the time, but he didn’t pay no mind. He couldn’t. Even if they called him names, he just let it roll right off. He had to.
And that’s how I know I’m not much like the real Robinson. But Grandpa wishes I was.
He tells me about Jackie Robinson because he wants me to realize I have to do better. And that even when people are rotten, I shouldn’t fight back.
But he’s not even telling me today. He’s just walking quiet, side to side, side to side, on his bowed legs. Maybe he doesn’t know what to do with me anymore and he’s giving up. Or maybe he’s forgetting about Jackie Robinson too.
I want Grandpa to tell me about when he was five years old:
It was the first World Series televised in color and Jackie Robinson and the Dodgers beat the Yankees in seven games. The only World Series they won in Brooklyn.
But we just keep making small steps down the sidewalk.
Grandpa’s hand is swinging there beside me, and I kind of catch it for a second in the pocket of my baseball glove and squeeze. He looks down like he’s surprised I’m there, like he’d forgotten.
“I’ll be more like Jackie Robinson, Grandpa.”
He smiles at me and we walk on to the garage through the new falling snow.