Hardscrabble Road Page 15

“You know, mute-like,” Jay added.

  Cecilia held my hand with her cool, coarse fingers. Unlike Darlene, she worked in her father’s fields. “Poor Bud,” she said. “After you knocked out Buck, I figured you could take on anybody. I forgot you’re still only seven.”

  Jay said, “He’s eight today.” At breakfast, he and Chet had given me eight pennies and two blood-red marbles. Darlene had given me a new, unsharpened pencil and an old storybook of hers about a Negro boy. She’d sounded out the title of Little Black Sambo for me, pointing at the letters while I moved my lips wordlessly, humoring her.

  “Eight? You’re catching up to me.” Cecilia gave my hand a squeeze. “Be thinking about what kinda present you want. Tell me, soon as you get your voice back.”

  When Fleming and I reached class, Miss Wingate was busy at the chalkboard, showing a couple of boys how to add six and five. Eleven, I mouthed on the way past. Glancing my way, she nodded. Her eyes scanned my face: the stubborn bruises near my left eye, the birthmark surrounding my right. She pursed her mouth at me and held up her index finger, shushing me and leaving a faint line of chalk on her lipstick.

  I’d tried and failed at humming or anything else that used my vocal chords, as if I forgot how to work them. I would’ve given anything to talk—even to stutter again, anything to avoid disappointing Miss Wingate by “playing dumb.”

  She sent the boys to their seats and dusted off her hands, which added to the faint white smudges on her dress. Glancing down at her fingers, she spread them like she was inspecting her nails. Never one to wear jewelry, she had on her left ring-finger a slim gold band with an icy-looking stone jutting out. She began the morning routines and then stopped in the middle of roll call, sparing me the embarrassment of not being able to speak at all, let alone stammer. She said, “I have an announcement, children. I’m engaged to be married to your principal, Mr. Gladney.”

  Many of the girls cheered and applauded. They whispered to one another with big smiles. The boys, including me, glowered.

  I hadn’t realized just how much I’d counted on her waiting for me to grow up. In another ten years, I’d have made a good husband: very nearly graduated from high school, since it only ran through grade eleven, tall and strong and handsome. From the left side anyway. I could’ve been hers; instead she was getting hitched to an old man; Mr. Gladney was thirty-five if he was a day.

  A girl called out, “When’s your wedding, ma’am?”

  “We were thinking about mid-December.”

  “Hog-killing time,” Fleming murmured behind me, echoing my thoughts.

  I imagined a great emptiness yawning inside me as if I’d been hollowed out. I wanted to feel nothing at all, just like when Papa was beating me in the truck. I wanted to be detached like Mama, whenever he whipped me in front of her. Instead, I felt everything.

  I felt my heartbeat; the warmth of blood in my face and ears and neck as I flushed; the dry, lifeless wood of the desk under my pressed-down palms; my bottom and back against denim and more dead wood; grit and the cold linoleum beneath my bare feet; the lump descending my throat like a ball inside a stocking. I tongued the twin gaps in my teeth where the new, adult me began to push through.

  Miss Wingate said, “You’re my favorite class, the best ever, and I wanted you to hear my news before anyone else at school. Now let’s continue with the roll. Bud MacLeod?”

  I looked at her and said, clear and loud, “I’m here.”

  *

  I tried not to think about talking. Tried not to jinx myself. Every time I had something to say, I imagined walking a tightrope. I did it again and again without fail, but I couldn’t take it for “granite,” as I was prone to say. Now I could blurt out, “Don’t take it for granite,” all morning long without a pause or a slip-up. Without a stutter. Like being able to snap my fingers when I was never able to do that before, now I couldn’t imagine not being able to.

  Of course, with my front teeth missing, I had a terrible lisp. But I was sure that would go away when the new ones came in. Miss Wingate asked me to stay inside a moment while everyone else went outdoors for dinner and playtime. She had me sit in the chair beside her desk and said, “Are you fighting with that older boy again?”

  “No, ma’am. My papa beat me for being mouthy.” I sprayed a little spittle with “mouthy.”

  “Your teeth. I hope he didn’t…”

  “No, ma’am. They was—were—loose anyway.”

  She sighed. “Well, you’ve been very outgoing today, putting up your hand to answer all the questions. You didn’t trip over your tongue once. I’m so proud of you.”

  I’d hoped she had noticed my newfound confidence. Already sitting up straight, I pushed my shoulders back and thanked her. I dug the buckeye from my pocket and put it on the desk near the ring on her left hand. “This is for your wedding, ma’am. It brings good luck.”

  She smiled and held it between thumb and forefinger, turning the buckeye around in the light the way I imagined that she did with her engagement ring. “I can’t keep your lucky piece, Bud. Little boys need them much more than grown women.” She took my hand and closed my fingers around the nut, her ring glittering above my fist.

  “I won’t be little forever, ma’am.”

  “That’s right. One day you’ll be sitting in your favorite place with your best girl, holding her hand, and sliding a ring onto her finger.” She gave my fist a squeeze and let go. “It’ll be the happiest day of your life, but don’t be so eager to grow up fast. When you’re older you’ll miss being a kid. Sure, you might get beatings and there are always bullies at school, but these are magical years too. Make sure you pay attention to everything that’s good and fun. Isn’t that right, Lucy?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Her maid had entered bearing the cloth-covered tray with Miss Wingate’s dinner. “When you get old like me, ‘good and fun’ is a scarce commodity, mm-hmm.”

  Miss Wingate set the tray aside after Lucy exited. I said, “I’m eight today. In nine years, I’ll be seventeen,”

  “Always looking ahead.” She shook her head, her lips a gentle crimson bow. “Eight plus nine, that’s right. A senior in high school. Then what?”

  “A train engineer. And a cowboy. And a soldier.”

  “You can do it all. I know you can. Go on outside and join your friends.” I retrieved my dinner sack and was headed for the door when she called, “Bud.” I stopped, and she said, “Happy birthday.”

  “Happy engagement-day, Miss Wingate.”

  *

  On the ride home, I sat between Cecilia and Chet, who were in the same class. She leaned forward so she could talk past me on the noisy bus. “Hey, Chet, could you help me with a math problem?”

  Chet squirmed and looked at his hands. “Which one?”

  “That multiplying one in the book, eleven times eleven.”

  “121, it’s easy.”

  “Not for me. Could you show me how?”

  “Figure it out.” He leaned back, sweat dotting his upper lip.

  On Chet’s other side, Jay tapped our brother’s shoulder with his fist and murmured, “Head full of stump water.”

  Chet dragged a sleeve across his mouth and stared at his lap. Cecilia continued to lean forward and look at him. I caught her eye and said, “I know what I want. For my birthday, I mean.”

  “Hey, you’re talking! What happened?”

  I shrugged. “It’s like I always could.” I didn’t tell her that heartbreak seemed to have done the trick.

  “Well you’re doing a bang-up job. I can’t give you as good a present as that.”

  “Yeah, you could. You could sit up with me when I’m fifteen.” Beside me, Chet started to choke and Jay pounded on his back.

  She whispered, “Law, Bud. You’re asking to court me in seven years’ time?” The light in her green eyes danced.

  “That’s right.”

  “I’ll be sixteen and already setting up housekeeping with a fella by then.”

  I shut my e
yes so she couldn’t see how wet they’d become. “I reckon everybody’ll be hitched before I catch up.”

  “You’re looking in the wrong direction.” She took my arm and turned me so I faced out the window. I hated that my birthmark was so close to her. She pointed at the farms and woods and untamed fields, her arm wavering in the wind. With a soft voice, her breath warming my ear, she said, “Somewhere’s a little girl just three or four right now that’s gonna be your wife, and she’s playing in the sand and thinking ‘Oh, I hope Bud waits for me.’ Honest and true.” She bussed my temple, a light peck right on the port-wine stain, and said, “Happy birthday, Bud. You’re sweet.”

  On our walk home from Hardscrabble Road, Chet said, “Come on, what’d she say? We all heard you talking. You can’t play dumb no more.”

  Darlene had told my brothers that Cecilia kissed me after whispering in my ear. I had half-a-mind to give her back the Sambo book and the pencil I’d already started chewing.

  Chet swept my legs out from under me and I sat down hard in the dirt, aggravating the aches that lingered. He said, “You better talk. That Ry gave me a bunch more ways to beat you up.”

  Jay said, “Save it. We’re going after ol Ry for cleaning Bud’s plow.”

  “He didn’t touch me,” I said, pushing to my feet. “Papa done it. But there’s more.” All three promised to keep the secret, so I told them about Papa almost shooting Uncle Stan and then Uncle Stan turning the tables. The story took a while to tell; the only thing I cut out was Ry becoming Rienzi.

  Chet scratched his head. “Sounds like Wanda shoulda been a-warning Bud to stay clear of Papa.”

  “Naw,” Jay said. “Then Uncle Stan would be dead and maybe Aunt Arzula too and Papa would be in jail or off and gone.”

  Darlene said, “Maybe Mama has Wanda’s second-sight. She’d told me something could happen to Papa and leave this big hole in our lives.”

  Papa seemed fine when we arrived home. He stood on the porch with our dogs at his feet. His white Stetson shadowed his face. He hollered, “School bus late?”

  “Yes, sir,” Jay lied. “Flat tire.”

  “Me and Bud are going to town for his birthday, so hurry it up.”

  I ran past him and dropped my used paper sack on the kitchen table for Mama to fill again on Tuesday. She sat there, shelling peas. “Don’t forget to wear your shoes,” she said. “I don’t want folks to think you was raised in a barn.”

  “Yes’m.”

  “Oh my stars, you decided to talk again. Well, don’t sass your papa. Maybe we can have a night without squabbles.”

  Papa kept rushing me, so I didn’t have time to shine my shoes from the drippings bowl. Once inside the truck and rolling down the driveway, he said, “Jay told me you’re talking again.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Just remember, no talking ’bout the other night.”

  “No, sir. I promised not to.”

  As we neared Uncle Stan’s house, Papa jiggled the grip of the Colt in his waistband the way he sometimes adjusted his crotch. Stan knelt over the gunshot floorboards, prizing them off with a claw hammer, leaving a larger, cleaner hole in his porch. Scrap lumber leaned against the wall, ready for nailing. He kept his head down as we drove past.

  Papa said, “All right then. I thought we’d get a bite to eat and see a picture show.”

  He didn’t ask for my approval, so I settled against the seat and swayed and bounced as we rattled toward the highway. When we reached Bainbridge, I judged from the sun that we were still a couple of hours early for supper.

  I said, “Papa, can we see the bikes at Western Auto, please?” With Christmas only two months away, my brothers and I had begun sharing our yearly fantasy of getting a Western Flyer.

  Papa drove halfway around the courthouse square and swung into a diagonal space facing the gazebo, benches, and mown grass. We were only a block down from the Western Auto store and the Roxie Theater. “Sure, sure. I’ll only be a minute. Stay in the truck.” He switched off the engine and left me there. Checking for traffic, he crossed the narrow street and went inside the Cottontail Cafe.

  The afternoon sun reflected off the glass fronting the diner, showing me a distant image of myself: the right side of my face, the port-wine stain. Before I glanced away, I thought I saw Papa and a redheaded waitress go through a door in the back. I looked again, focusing through my reflection, and didn’t see him anymore.

  I got out and climbed into the flat bed, hunkering down behind the tailgate so I could get a better view. No customers sat at the long counter and the tables were empty. With the waitress gone too, only the manager stood behind the counter, wiping it down. He wore a paper hat folded with a point in the front and the back, and had an apron with greasy, streaked handprints across the chest. He kept glancing at the backroom door and wiping the same spot.

  The door in back opened. Papa stood there, his head bare, sorting a handful of change while a boy looked up at him. The boy was a year older than me, with Chet’s brown hair and wiry frame. He dressed like other town dudes, in a long-sleeved shirt and tan trousers. With the money given to him, the boy bought a red Popsicle from the manager and came outside. He sat on the curb and nibbled the end of his treat, his pale lips turning cherry. Inside, the backroom door had closed again.

  I’d once split a Popsicle with my brothers, each of us taking turns, and now I recalled the smooth and icy sweetness, and how sticky the Popsicle made my fingers. I pulled off my shoes and leaned my elbows on the tailgate, watching the boy. He wore chocolate-brown socks and penny loafers. A pink trickle of melted ice dripped off his fist and plopped onto his trousers.

  He glanced across the street, peering at the little park and then at me. “Hey,” he shouted, “what’re you doing in Daddy’s truck?”

  I kneeled in the flatbed and yelled back, “This ain’t yours. It’s my papa’s. We drove here.”

  “Liar!” The boy pointed at me with his half-eaten Popsicle. “You get outta there before I tell.”

  “Tell all you want. I’m staying put.” I crossed my arms and sat back on my heels.

  The boy looked from me to his Popsicle and sucked hard at the remaining red ice, eyebrows pressed together. He gnawed off the last bit and threw the wood stick into the street. The manager had come out from behind the counter and stood near the door, watching us. After an old Chevy trundled by, the kid ran across to me. His mouth looked bloody from the Popsicle stains. Shaking his cherry-stained fist, he said, “Get down from there, peewee! I’ll put a whupping on you. Don’t think I won’t.”

  “You’re nuts. I’m waiting for Papa to come back.”

  “He’ll skin you when he catches you in his truck.”

  I said, “I’m in it all the time, dummy.”

  “You can’t be. Daddy’s on the road most every day—he ain’t here regular.”

  “We live up the highway,” I said. “What’re you, touched in the head?”

  “You’ve had it!” The boy clambered up the tailgate, rising to eye-level with me.

  I punched his nose before he could get inside. I didn’t want to believe what we both knew. If I could shut him up, it wouldn’t be true. He swayed, fingers still clamped on the tailgate. I hit him again and he let go.

  The boy sat down on the pavement, head bowed, hands in his lap. He cried hard, his shoulders shaking. Vibrations ran down his legs and caused his shoes to quiver. I’d never made anyone bawl before; I climbed down and crouched in front of him. His eyes squeezed shut during his crying jag, but soon he was blinking and hiccupping with sobs. When he raised his face, I looked into gray eyes identical to Chet’s. Same as Papa’s.

  I offered him the wadded up rag from my back pocket, but he wiped a white sleeve across the snot and tears on his face. The sleeve also soaked up a long streak of cherry Popsicle from his mouth. I asked his name.

  “Tommy.” He snorted, turned his head to the side, and spit.

  “What’s your last name?”

  “Same a
s Mommy and Daddy’s.”

  “Goddammit, Bud,” Papa shouted from the cafe doorway. “I told you not to get outta the truck.”

  I pulled Tommy to his feet, struggling to lift him since he was taller than me and didn’t try to help. I said, “Tommy what?”

  “Rush.” He looked at the diner and then back at me. “It’s your truck too?”

  “‘Fraid so.”

  Papa pushed his Stetson low over his eyes and marched across the street. Behind him, the man in the paper hat shouted from the doorway, “Hey, Mance, the least you could do is buy a damn burger or something.” Papa waved the back of his hand, like he was batting a fly from his ear.

  Tommy worked his jaw back and forth, same as I’d seen Papa do a thousand times. He whispered, “I ain’t gonna say nuthin.”

  “Me neither.”

  Papa dropped his hand on the boy’s shoulder and glared at me. “Tommy, get on home.”

  “Yes, sir.” He glanced at me. “Daddy, you gonna stay in town tonight?”

  “Can’t. Gotta drop this one off with his folks and get back on the road.” He turned Tommy around and guided him to the cafe, saying, “But I’ll be back real soon. You know I’m gonna miss you awful, kid.” Papa’s shirttail hung over the back of his trousers.

  “Me too. I love you, Daddy.” He said it loud, as if he meant for me to hear.

  “Me too.” Papa prodded him past the man and pushed the door shut.

  As he started back toward me, I levered my belly over the tailgate, snatched my shoes, and retreated inside the truck cab. He slammed the driver door and said, “That Tommy, dropped on his head one too many times. Poor kid treats me like his daddy. His mama and me went to high school together; I’ve helped her out ever since her old man skipped town.”

  The knuckles on my right hand had swollen; I covered them with my left and rubbed slowly, saying, “He was nice.”

  “Nice but real slow, know what I mean? We got another secret, you and me.” He stared at me until I nodded. He ran a hand across his chest and over his shoulder a few times in a curious loop. His revolver pressed against the shirt covering his flat stomach, but the shirttail rode high, pinned between his back and the seat, and exposed a sliver of taut, pale skin. His fingers trembled a little on the steering wheel as he said, “Let’s eat your mama’s cooking. I’m a little sleepy—maybe got some epizootic coming on. We’ll do town another time.”