Swim That Rock by John Rocco

Author:John Rocco
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780763672249
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Published: 2014-10-19T21:00:00+00:00

It’s five thirty in the evening, and I’m at Deluca’s Pharmacy, picking up my mom’s pills. They’re called Valium, and she says they calm her nerves, but I think they just make her space out, and if anyone needed their nerves calmed down, it would be me. I mean, every time I turn around somebody gets hurt, and right now I’m still shaky after ditching those cops last night.

“How’s your mother feeling, Jake?” Mr. Deluca asks while squirting the cherry syrup and Coca-Cola mixture into a fountain glass.

“She’s good,” I lie with a smile. I wanted to say that she seems like she’s on another planet and that she wants to give up the diner and move to the middle of the freakin’ desert and get a job at a grocery store, but I don’t think that’s what he wants to hear.

“I worry about her working so hard.” He pulls the stem on the soda fountain and fills the glass with bubbly water. I watch as he stirs the concoction with a long silver spoon. He hands me the cherry Coke with one hand and uses the other to push back the quarters I set on the wooden counter. “This one’s on me.”

“Thanks, Mr. Deluca.” I lift the Coke from the counter and squeeze into one of the small booths by the window, waiting for Mr. Deluca’s son, Ziggy, to fill my mom’s prescription.

I drink the Coke and watch the cars through the window as they make their way down Main Street. I let the soda swish around my mouth before swallowing. I’m hoping Mr. Deluca ignores me because I really don’t feel like talking right now.

I hear the back door buzz and turn around to see Ziggy walking toward me with a small paper bag and a smile on his face.

“Here you go, Jake. This ought to last her through the end of next month.”

“Thanks.” I get up from the booth to pay for the prescription, but he’s standing in the way, like he wants to talk. Ziggy is a short guy, and it feels weird looking down at him like he’s a little kid.

“Boy, I could use someone like you working here.” He turns to his dad. “If Jake worked here, we wouldn’t need the ladder at all.” Mr. Deluca is smiling at us as Ziggy straightens up next to me and reaches his arm up as high as he can. “You got good genes, Jake, not like some of us.” He pretends to whisper in my ear, thumbing at his dad.

He hands me the bag and manipulates the antique cash register, and the mechanical numbers flip around until they’re all zeros.

“I have to pay you. Mom sent me with money to pay,” I say this, pleading.

“No money from you, Jake, not now, not ever. Your dad, God bless him, was one of my closest friends.”

“Thanks, Mr. Deluca.”

“I hear you’ve been fishing with Gene Hassard. How’s that going?”

“Everything’s cool,” I lie again.

“Drop a half a bag of chowders off sometime, will you, Jake? My wife wants to make some chowder.

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