One
The world record for rocking in a rocking chair is ninety-three hours and eight minutes, set six years ago, in 1957, by Mrs. Ralph Weir, of Truro, Nova Scotia. More than three days of nonstop rocking! Of course, Mrs. Weir never had to deal with my father.
“What are you doing in my chair?” Dad was standing across the living room with his hat still in his hand. “I’ve been on my feet all day. Move it.”
“I can’t,” I told him. “I’ve been rocking since I got home from school. Almost three hours.” You wouldn’t think rocking in a rocking chair would be physically demanding, but my legs were getting tired already. My calf muscles were starting to burn. Still, I figured I had to be able to rock longer than Mrs. Weir. She was in her fifties, after all. Old enough to be a grandmother.
My father gave an exaggerated groan as he hung his hat on the coat rack inside the door. “Don’t tell me this is another record attempt.”
Why else would anyone rock for three hours? I wondered. I didn’t say it out loud though, because Dad gets hopping mad if he thinks I’m being cheeky, and I couldn’t afford to annoy him. I needed his chair for at least another ninety hours. “I really think I can do this one,” I said instead. “I can break the record.”
He took off his coat and set his briefcase down. “How’s your mother?” he asked, lowering his voice.
“Really good,” I said. “She was up when I got home from school. And she’s making dinner! Sausages.” I could hear them sizzling in the pan.
“Thought I smelled something good.” Dad’s face relaxed into a smile. “You should be helping her, Jack.”
“I offered.” I rocked more vigorously. “She said I could do this.”
He took a couple of steps toward the kitchen; then he stopped and glanced back at me. “You do realize that you’re not eating dinner in that chair?”
“Dad! I can’t stop now. If I stop now, the last three hours was a waste of time.”
“As opposed to what?”
“Huh?” I didn’t know what he meant.
Dad frowned. “Pardon. Not huh.”
“Sorry. Pardon.”
“You can rock some more after dinner, if you must. Now come on. Get out of that chair and help your mother get dinner on the table.” He headed into the kitchen, calling my mother’s name. “Marion? Marion?”
I kept rocking.
“Marion? You know what your son’s doing now?”
Mom’s voice was soft, and I had to slow my rocking and strain to hear what she was saying. “It’s harmless enough. How much trouble can he get into in a rocking chair?”
There was a long silence, and I knew what Dad was thinking about. A few weeks earlier I had tried to eat twenty-four raw eggs in less than two minutes and eleven seconds but threw up after the first seven. Eggs, not minutes. Right on Allan’s shoes. Of course, Allan had to go and tell his mom, who told his dad, who told my dad.
“Your sister,” Dad muttered. “Sending him that book.”
Mom’s sister is my aunt Jane. She sent me the Guinness Book of Records for my eleventh birthday, which was a year and a half ago. All that time, and I still haven’t broken any records.
Mom actually laughed. It wasn’t much of a laugh, just a hmph with a hint of a chuckle in it, but the sound made me grin all the same. I rocked harder, the chair thumping a soft rhythm on the carpet. Out of bed, making dinner and now laughing: today was a very good day. Mom didn’t laugh much anymore, not since Annie had died, but whenever she did, I always felt this sense of relief. Like someone had lifted something heavy off me and I could suddenly breathe more easily.
“Jane couldn’t have predicted that he’d take it like this,” Mom said.
“Hmm.” Dad lowered his voice, but I could still hear him. “Good to see you up.”
I couldn’t see into the kitchen from the chair, but I didn’t need to. I could picture Mom standing at the stove, her shoulders hunched up all tense, like she was in pain, her hair limp and her face pale above the same old yellow dress and cardigan she wore practically every day. In the old days, she had always sprayed on perfume and put on bright lipstick right before Dad walked through the door.
I used to be embarrassed by how lovey-dovey they were—the way Dad used to kiss Mom when he got home from work, grabbing her and pulling her close, bending her backward as if they were movie stars. He’d put on his Perry Como voice and sing to her: “Till the end of time, long as stars are in the blue…” I used to think it was sappy. Now I’d give anything to have things go back to the way they were.
Maybe Mom would laugh again if I broke this record. I closed my eyes and imagined her telling her friends about it: My son Jack set a world record, can you believe it? He rocked in a rocking chair for three days! What a riot…I could almost hear the peals of laughter from Mom, the chuckles and admiring comments from her friends.
I rocked harder. My legs were starting to hurt. I grabbed the Thermos from beside my chair and took a sip of water. A very small sip. Peeing was going to be a challenge. I had put an empty bucket beside the chair, just in case, but it wasn’t going to be easy to pee into it without stopping rocking. I couldn’t imagine how Mrs. Weir had managed it.
“Jack! Come set the table.” Dad stepped into the living room. “You can go back to your rocking after dinner, if you really must.”
“I can’t stop. I already explained this, remember?”
He frowned at me. “Of course you can, Jack. You need to eat.”
“The record is for continuous rocking. You can’t just do an hour here and an hour there. Otherwise there’d be thousands of old people breaking the record every day. It wouldn’t mean anything.”
“And it is supposed to mean what, exactly?”
“It’s a record,” I said, exasperated. “It means you are the best in the world at something.”
“At rocking a chair? Hmm. And you have to do this for how long?”
“Ninety-three hours and eight minutes. Well, nine minutes, I guess. To beat the old record.”
He stared at me. “Ninety-three hours! Good Lord, that’s almost four days, Jack. You can’t sit there for four days.”
“I’m not just sitting,” I reminded him. “I’m rocking. It’s actually good exercise.” I thought this might help my cause, since Dad always wanted me to be more active.
He snorted, and Mom appeared at his shoulder. “You have school tomorrow,” she said. “Anyway, you can’t stay up all night.”
I looked at my watch. “I’m past three hours already,” I said. “I really think I can do this.”
Dad crossed his arms across his chest. “And I really think you’d better get your backside out of that chair and help your mother get dinner on the table.”
“But…”
“Now. And don’t you let me hear you arguing with your mother again.”
You would have thought he’d want me to succeed, but apparently not. I stopped rocking and the squeak-bounce of the chair was replaced by silence.
I stood up and staggered toward the kitchen. My legs were trembling like I’d run a marathon, but I knew I could have beaten the record if they’d left me alone. When was I ever going to get four days at home without anyone telling me what to do?
Never, that’s when.
