Paper Rings (A Calvin Murtaugh Story)

Chapter 3: Moving Day

We left for Evanston on an early morning at the end of July. It was well before the school year, but Dad had to get to work on preseason training. He would go and have just a few weeks to earn the respect of the team and build them up into a cohesive unit. It was a lot of work, regardless of the teams past record of being solid. Any big change, like a new coach, often meant that even solid teams would undergo an overhaul, because if the team was really that solid, the coach would not have been replaced. Dad had his work cut out for him.

But that was just the problem he had with his new job. Unfortunately, the outlook on the home front was equally bleak. The only people who were taking the move with even a modicum of composure were me and Lorraine. Me because as the oldest in the house, and because of my talk with mom, I felt I had to. Lorrain because she was ecstatic to be out of hand-me-downs and Mom and Dad had promised her, her own bedroom and more bathroom time.

Despite two of the oldest kids being agreeable, Mom and Dad had to contend with the revolt of the littles, and the eternal silence of Charlie Baker. The littles, as led by one Sarah Baker, had taken their displeasure over the situation out in small but evilly vindictive ways that made life in the Baker household just that more unpleasant. They put my red shirt in with the whites so Dad would have to go to work in pink. They put peanut butter on his pillowcase. Eventually, a ceasefire was called after they took it a step too far and ended up destroying his entire defensive playbook. Fortunately, he kept a spare at the office, but at his devastated expression, the littles had promised to give the new house a try.

Unfortunately, that had done nothing to quell the brooding atmosphere that encompassed Charlie. He had suggested staying here with Beth and her mom, working at the garage, but Dad had put his foot down and Charlie had been sulking ever since. I got his frustration in a way that I don't think Mom or Dad quite understood yet. I don't even think Charlie even fully understood why he was so angry, or even why he was so attached to Beth when they'd only been going out for three months.

Sure, Charlie loved Beth and right now he was convinced that they'd be together forever. While I didn't have anything against Beth, I knew the idea of their relationship lasting that long was slim to none. But then, I knew why he was really so attached to home and Beth. Beth had introduced Charlie to her mom, or well more specifically, her mom's garage where Charlie had gotten his first job.

Before working at the garage, Charlie had been dedicated to football. He'd been the Quarterback for school, and he'd been relatively good. But he just didn't have that spark for his sport, the one that made it something you sacrificed for. The one that pushed you to become better and better. Dad had it. I had it. Charlie never did.

However, the moment he'd been handed a wrench and directed to an old Chevy, he'd been instantly at ease with a confidence I'd never before seen in him. I knew without a doubt, it was a job that Charlie was perfect for. Charlie belonged under the hood of the car. He had manual after manual of different makes and models stashed under his bed. He was constantly researching different ways to modify the Oldsmobile our family had to keep it running. He My brother was going to be a great mechanic one day, and when that happened, I would trust my car with no one else.

Thus, the last few months of the Bakers living in Midland were spent in a tense sort of truce. Which, lead us up to that day. Moving day. It was an early morning, the sun just beginning to come up over the trees. It was, as usual, humid out and a thin blanket of fog was still visible in the distance of the hills. It would have been a quiet morning in the Midwest, except, of course, that it was a Baker morning.

Charlie was kissing Beth goodbye. It was a dramatic scene, fit for a World War II period drama, as if he were going off to war instead of moving to the city. Henry and two of his bandmates from school were playing TAPs on the porch. Mark took Beans to say goodbye to Pork, his mother who was buried in the backyard. In the end, he couldn't bring himself to dig her up. Dad was struggling to get Gunner into the car. The rest of us were just trying to say goodbye to the only life we'd ever really known.