Hello

Hello

      

       By D. R. D. R. D. R. Rei

when the phone rings in your car

and you think you should respond

remember God is watching you

and giving you the nod

the world’s a terrible place they say

in the new Church of God

but that’s no reason to resist

the urge to drop your wad

Ricky Ritlen took his pills dutifully and went to school as usual on the day his father disappeared. When he got home from Sisbro High, his family was in an uproar. Sister Widget, brother Donna, stepson Stanley, nephew Paula, niece Gordon, grandmother Neddie, grandfather Gibraltar, uncle Danna, auntie Art, brother Wendy, sister Jamie, brother Zelda, sister Jonnie, brother Samantha, sister Arbuckle, and mother Terry jumbled into each other in their rush to be orderly.

       “Hello!” Ricky said when he entered the door. No one answered, so he called out again, louder. Then he got inside and found out the truth.

       “Your father’s disappeared!” his mother, Terry, said, not crying, but looking distraught. “Who will take care of us now!” She was addressing the oldest of them. In Spain at this time of the year it would have been a cold day in hell if the flowers were not blooming yet and the trees blossoming in the orchard. Here, in Barry, Ontario, snow still clung to the north side of things and not a dandelion had dared. In Broccolicilona they’d had a flower business and prospered, even father doing some of the work. Here things were tighter and money was scarce.

       “He’s probably at Chips,” Ricky said, automatic in his assumption that a beer might not have been the last thing on his father’s mind. In June, Ricky had twice been asked to fetch him from Chips, and get him home before mother Terry had to come herself. Each month, once, he got inside a pub with the express duty of extracting his dad. Chips, Drink-up’s, Billy Joe’s, Warmer By the Sea’s and a few other haunts made up the sum of those establishments where father tended to spend afternoons.

       “Okay,” he said, and left for Chips. He hurried. He got there quickly. He stepped in the door.

       “Hello,” the barman said to Ricky. “No minors!” But Ricky ignored him. He walked about the room looking at the tables in the near dark. The barman followed him, talking to him, warning him, and he spoke more sharply suddenly when he realized that Ricky was not listening. He shouted and then took Ricky by the arm.

       “Hello!” Ricky said and stomped hard on the barman’s toes with his heavy boots. The barman bent over at the waist and Ricky kneed him in the face and broke his nose. He had learned that move from brother Wyona.

       “Into the nose!” his brother had instructed him. When that worthy straightened up and held his nose in his hand, Ricky let him have it in the groin, just as hard as he could with his leather boot. The barman bent over again.

       “Then when he goes down to hold himself, slap him two or three times really hard, around the ears and the nose,” Wyona had taught him. “It’s not to hurt him, but to release your own need to humiliate him. Slap him so he knows you were displeased at his behavior and considered it an insult.” And that is what he did. Ricky slapped him once on each ear, and then again with the back of his hand across the nose. With that he walked around the bar one more time and, not seeing his father, he headed home. Father would return all right. He always did, to their despair. Whatever. It was all good. Hello! Anyway, who cared. Lotsa luck. See you next spring. Bien venu. Pack it in. Good riddance. He would come home, already. When he did get home, everyone had forgotten and gone about their business. Ricky sat down to supper and then got out Our Universe: Black Holes and Us. Stephen Hawkings. He read until his mother lit the candles and then went to sleep. His eyesight kept him from reading after daylight ended.