Hardscrabble Road Page 4

  I took my Blue Cloud cigar box from under the bed. The pasteboard cover showed an Indian chief wearing a full feathered headdress, with a red kerchief tied around his neck like a railroad engineer. Inside I kept some flint arrowheads, a few marbles given to me by Jay and Chet, my whittling knife, and a train-flattened nickel—not worth one cent, let alone five—that Papa once paid me for washing his feet. I filled my pockets, hoping something there would bring good luck.

  My brothers propelled me down the hallway and into the kitchen, where Mama had set out a breakfast of fried side meat, biscuits, and cane syrup. Gray-blue smoke poured from the oven as coffee beans roasted. The bittersweet haze stung my eyes while we ate.

  On the table, she’d lined up four brown paper sacks holding our school dinners. Darlene sat at her place wearing a new dress bought for her in Bainbridge. Her blond hair was curled and styled with ribbons; she and Mama had worked on it for hours the night before.

  Jay said, “Grab another biscuit, fellas, and let’s get to our chores.” In the garden, my rabbit box lay on its side. Something had sprung the trap during the night, but the critter must have pushed over the wooden box and fled with the turnips I’d left as bait.

  Chet rapped my shoulder. “Better call that rabbit your pet, as much as you’re feeding it.”

  “Could’ve been a fox or c-coyote or something.”

  “Naw, look at them pellets it left behind, to let you know it was there. Like Zorro’s Z.”

  After we got done with our morning chores, Jay washed his face and neck in the basin on our back porch. I waited for Chet to finish and had to wring out the drying-towel so it wouldn’t make me even wetter. This towel had seen a week of use, and Mama would clean it that day along with the rest of the laundry. Monday was washday for as far back as anyone could recall. My shirt collar collected what water the towel could not.

  I’d hoped that Mama would send me off with a kind word, but she focused on the tabletop butter churn: milk burbled in the glass box as she spun a pair of beaters with a side-mounted crank. The coffee grinder sat near her elbow with tobacco-like flecks of milled beans scattered around it.

  “I’m g-gonna miss being here with you, Mama,” I said. The soles of my bare feet itched from the grit they’d collected in the barn lot. I scraped each one over the top of the other foot, bobbing from side to side, waiting for her reply.

  “I ain’t gonna miss the noise,” she said over the clash of beaters within the churning cream. Then she looked at me, really looked. I leaned closer, making sure I’d hear any nice thing she might say. She glanced down at the churn and murmured, “Reckon my hand’ll fall off afore this turns to butter.”

  I grabbed my sack and joined my siblings on the front porch.

  A mile-long hike over fields and down Hardscrabble Road brought us to the bus stop. Our hunting dogs followed us all the way. I worried about Sport and Dixie’s safe return home since stray dogs often got poisoned or shot. I used to be there for them when Darlene and my brothers would leave for school. Who would look after them now?

  Darlene stood apart from me and my brothers as we kicked up dirt with our wrestling. The bus pulled up in a swirl of dust that even she couldn’t avoid. “Morning, kids,” Mr. Clemmons said as we stepped up through the open door.

  I took a last look at our dogs; they sat upright in the grass and stared back with their yellow eyes. “Go on home,” I told them. “Git!” Sport gave me a small wag before the door closed.

  The bus had wooden benches that ran along both sides and a double-wide bench down the center. Pegs held open worn canvas shades above the window frames. Dirt outlined every plank in the wood floor, but the surface was as smooth as a frozen pond.

  The girls sat on one side of the bus and the boys on the other. Darlene joined her girlfriends, who were all beribboned and decked out in new-looking dresses too. Jay and Chet moved to where our six-year-old buddy Fleming sat with some older boys I didn’t know. I kept my head turned to the right while listening to them, to hide my port-wine stain against the window frame.

  Across the aisle, Darlene told her friends, “Mama says I can sit up with boys this December, when I’m thirteen.” She glanced at the ones near Jay and rolled her eyes. “Maybe they’ll start looking better by then.” She and her pretty girlfriends giggled, leaned in close, and commenced to whisper.

  Everybody had one hand clasped over the edge of their bench. I wondered why just before the bus lurched forward and I slid into Chet. He put me back in my place with a swift, pointy elbow to my ribs and grunted, “Don’t start, Bud.”

  As we rode to the next stop, Fleming told us about visiting kin in Columbus, a hundred miles north. “Everything’s electrified. They got streetcars and a bunch of picture shows. I saw the same Flash Gordon chapter at two different thee-aters.” He had a crush on Dale Arden, but then again, he had a crush on every girl. It was disgusting.

  The warm wind ruffled my hair while the bus bounced on its springs. Sunlight on my head made me sleepy. I drifted into a daydream of running to the other side of the bus and kissing all of Darlene’s friends. Unlike Nadine Asher, their skin would be warm and smell like talcum powder. They’d smile and kiss me back and leave overlapping red circles on my cheeks.

  The bus stopped and I shot halfway up the bench, which had been polished to a fare-thee-well by thousands of cotton-covered behinds. While everyone laughed and teased at me—“Check your drawers, Bud, they done growed wheels!”—I slid back to my brothers and wondered what other surprises awaited me. Why would I slide one way when the bus started and the other way when it stopped? I studied on this so hard that I didn’t notice when Cecilia Turner got on board.

  Cecilia was only nine but already starting to blossom into a real knee-weakener. She’d grown some over the summer and had just begun to pad her frame with curves that looked as soft as biddies. Her homemade clothes were now a half-size too small. The boys stopped talking as she paused at the front of the bus. I noticed the silence first and then followed their stares.

  Mr. Clemmons pushed his porkpie hat back with one finger and said, “Boy-hidee, Cecilia, you look purty as a speckled pup.”

  She thanked him with a smile and a little curtsy: pale fingers grasped the sides of her flower-print calico dress and gave a tug upward, exposing pale calves. Jay swallowed hard. She flicked an auburn wave behind her shoulder and crinkled her pea-green eyes at us. Fleming forgot to breathe until Chet punched his gut. Cecilia chose our side instead of the girls’ and walked down the aisle toward me. “Hey, Bud,” she said in her throaty voice, flashing teeth that must’ve been white-washed. She sat just a foot away, on my left side. I wouldn’t have to hide much of my face from her.

  I gazed at her and felt ashamed that I’d been kissing other girls in my daydream. I pledged once again to be true to Cecilia forever. Maybe she’d run away with me when I got a little taller. I wanted to ask for her promise to wait for me, but instead I said, “H-hey, Cecilia. You’re sure g-growing up all over.”

  Chet whacked my shoulder, hissing, “You gotta head full of stump water,” but Cecilia laughed and said, “This your first day of school?”

  “Yeah, b-but I’m not scared.”

  She seemed to be looking at me alone as she smiled again. Other kids had boarded and sat, and the bus moved forward. I bumped Chet again; this time he shoved me with both hands. I slid into Cecilia and my head settled against one of her new curves before she eased me away. For the rest of the trip, I was between a rock and a soft place.

  *

  The elementary school housed seven grades in a long brick building at the edge of Colquitt, across the street from the high school. Kids came from forty-leven directions, pouring off buses and wandering over from the nearby neighborhoods. As Cecilia fell in with her girlfriends and disappeared into a crowd, I began to get nervous all over again. Something in my bowels loosened. Jay took hold of Fleming, who was starting the first grade too, and told him to watch out for me. Fleming stopped looking
scared as he focused on my well-being, and I felt better because someone would be on my side. I said, “Thanks, general.” Fleming and I went inside.

  I lost sight of my brothers in the crush of people. The flow of children swept us along in a blur of overalls, shirts, and dresses. All of the girls—even the ones from the country—glowed in shades of white and pink, like the inside of the big conch shell Papa had hung from a nail in the barn. The town dudes’ skin looked rosy too, but every country boy had nut-brown hands and was toasted from the neck up and ankles down. We shuffled along aimlessly under the bright electric lights until a burly man in a dark suit and wide maroon tie shouted, “First-graders to the far end of the school.”

  Chet leaned against the doorway of his third-grade classroom, his wiry arms crossed and the usual scowl darkening his face. He called to us, “Don’t let anybody bully y’all. You let me know if somebody tries to crawl your frame.”

  When we entered our room, the first-grade teacher greeted us and introduced herself as Miss Wingate. She was in her early twenties with wavy shoulder-length blond hair. Her store-bought dress flattered a figure that had no apparent straight lines.

  She smelled like a field of gardenia and jasmine, and Fleming and I had no problem taking in all the air we could. We just didn’t want to give any of it back. Finally, he said his name and I had a bit more time to inhale greedily. She looked me in the eye and seemed to pay no attention to my birthmark, which temporarily made me forget about it too. I almost forgot my name as well, but managed to stammer it.

  “Welcome to your first day of school,” she said. “Take a seat on the rightmost row, beside the wall.” At a desk in front of Fleming’s, I put my paper sack under the chair, sat down, and stared at her. The girls in the class smiled in her direction and whispered to each other about her clothes, shoes, and perfume. The boys kept to themselves but flat-out gaped.

  I recognized her name. Valerie Wingate’s father owned dry-goods stores and groceries in Colquitt, Bainbridge, and Eldorendo. With all that money in her family, she didn’t have to work. I fantasized that she took the teaching job in hopes of finding the perfect boy to mold and one day marry. A quick look around the room took in all my rivals as they sat there slack-jawed and watching every move she made. I vowed to become perfect for her.

  Miss Wingate led us through our first morning, explaining the rules of the school and her class, and the penalties for disobedience. She told us when we would go outside for dinner and when the buses would take us home. I half-listened as I envisioned running up to her and—

  “I’ll call the roll,” she said. “As you hear your name, stand and tell everyone about yourself.” Neither of my brothers had warned me that I’d have to talk in front of more than two dozen strangers. Cold sweat scraped down my ribs like a hag’s fingernails.

  As Miss Wingate began to announce the first name, my legs twitched, almost sending me to my feet. Ronald Abercorn stood and gave a nervous account of his life. The next child, Mabel Atkins, followed his shaky lead.

  I couldn’t figure out the order of the roll call since I didn’t know my letters. Every time a child stopped jawing I thought it was going to be my turn. My hands pressed flat on the desk and my elbows stuck outward. As I remained in a constant state of being about to spring to my feet, I couldn’t focus on what I’d say. Instead, it occurred to me that Miss Wingate had me sit against the wall to hide my birthmark; it horrified her. She thought I was a monster.

  She said, “Fleming Harrison,” and he rattled off his age and where in the county he lived—“used to be near the Bradleys and now we live by Old Man Slaughter’s place”—his parents and brothers’ names, his three hunting dogs, two barn cats, and favorite picture show: Flash Gordon.

  About halfway through the roster, she called out, “Roger MacLeod.” Then she said it again. In my nervousness I didn’t recognize my own name.

  I almost pushed my desk over as I shot upright. “Everyone calls me ‘Bud,’” I got out with some stammering. The other children seemed poised to break up with laughter. They probably thought I’d flunked first grade in ’37. I faced forward to hide the port-wine stain as much as possible. A few girls snickered behind their hands.

  Miss Wingate prompted me from her desk, “Please tell us about your family, Bud.”

  Nothing came to mind. Who was I? Oh yeah, I was an orphan with a birthmark and a stutter. The furthest thing from her perfect boy.

  I decided to tell the truth. “I don’t know m-my real family, ma’am,” I said. “My papa brung me home af-af-after he found me in a g-gopher hole.” The dam burst and laughter echoed throughout the school and probably across Miller County. Maybe Nat and Lonnie heard it while they tended the cotton. Maybe they shook their heads and said a quick prayer for me.

  The husky man who’d directed us to class appeared at the doorway and hushed everyone with a hard stare. I remained standing, knees locked. He said, “Miss Wingate, does that boy need the paddle?”

  “There’s just a misunderstanding, Mr. Gladney. Everything’s going to be all right.” I recalled Nat and Lonnie promising the same thing and wondered when that day would come.

  Mr. Gladney looked at her for a few moments. When his expression softened into a smile, a pink flush crept up from beneath the collar of her dress and, like a thermometer rising, bathed her throat and face before she glanced away. He said, “I want you in my office—with that boy—if there’s any more trouble out of him.” His hard-soled footsteps echoed down the hallway.

  Our teacher patted her upper lip with a lace kerchief. She told me I could sit. Fleming pushed the chair behind my knees so that when I collapsed, I landed in my seat. Had I fallen to the floor, I would’ve died of mortification.

  As my ears rang and a chill raised goose bumps over me, another boy stood and babbled. Miss Wingate kept glancing at me with kind eyes and a gentle smile. I wondered if she had me sit beside the wall to protect me from teasing about my birthmark, to spare me the embarrassment I just brought down on myself.

  *

  The other half of the class recited their stories without a problem. Miss Wingate laced her fingers together upon her clean desk and said, “Do any of you know why I called you in the order I did?” We stared back at her; a few children gave exaggerated shakes of their heads. “It has to do,” she continued, “with what we call the alphabet.” She stood, brushed her skirt against her legs, and began to write on the chalkboard.

  When it was time for the class to go outside for dinner and playtime, she asked me to stay a moment and sit with her. She patted a straight-back chair beside her desk, as close to her as I’d been to Cecilia on the bus.

  My classmates took their brown bags, syrup buckets, or burlap sacks outdoors, just beyond the classroom wall. A few windows overlooked the sandlot where a waist-high fence of hog-wire kept the boys and girls separated. Miss Wingate and I were left alone. Together.

  With a V-like frown, she asked who told me about being found in a gopher hole. “Everybody I know,” I replied, which rearranged her expression. A dimple in her cheek like the letter C appeared as she tried to hold back a grin. My bloodhound of a nose sucked in a sweet ribbon of air. I forgot to turn my head so she couldn’t see the awful birthmark.

  “Bud, I know that you were not found in a gopher hole. You’re the fourth child of Mance and Reva MacLeod, and don’t let anyone tell you differently.” Why was I so ready to believe the worst story but not the best news? I must’ve looked doubtful, because she held my hands and said, “It’s a fact.”

  “Really, ma’am?” I wanted to stretch out that wonderful moment of acceptance, and the feel of her soft, gentle fingers, so unlike Mama’s.

  “I promise you, that’s the truth.”

  Eight boys from various classes watched us through the windows. No doubt they had a crush on her and hoped to see me get scolded or, even better, paddled. I enjoyed an unfamiliar sense of triumph as they scowled at me.

  A middle-aged Negro woman appeared in
the doorway holding a cloth-covered tray. Miss Wingate said, “Please come in, Lucy.” She introduced me and reported, “He’s going to be my star pupil this year.” I almost fainted with pride.

  Lucy congratulated me as she set the tray down in front of my teacher and removed the cover. I was surprised to see just a ham sandwich and a banana. I’d imagined that Lucy had a feast to deliver. The maid excused herself and withdrew.

  Miss Wingate apologized for the big show. “Father insists on sending his driver over with Lucy. I’m embarrassed enough without them bringing me a banquet too.” I couldn’t begin to imagine my teacher’s life, but I would’ve bet that she had a clean washrag and towel on her back porch every day of the week.

  I got up to let her eat in peace but she asked me to stay. She shouted toward the boys at the window, “Don’t miss your dinner and playtime. Class starts again soon.”

  A boiled egg and half of a baked sweet potato stained the bottom of my sack. I rolled the egg in my hand and peeled the brittle shell from the eyeball-slick egg white. While Miss Wingate nibbled her sandwich, I gulped down my dinner.

  She waved the banana like a dowsing rod, her red-painted fingernails gleaming despite the chalk dust. “Did you ever hear the one about the two country brothers taking their first train ride?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “They get on board, find their seats, and open the sacks their mama packed for them. Each has a surprise: a bright yellow banana, something they’d never tasted before. Well, the train starts off and is chugging across the countryside. One of the boys decides to try his banana. He peels off the skin and just as he’s taking his first bite, the train shoots into a tunnel and everything goes dark. He cries out, “Hey, Jim Ed, don’t eat that nanner! You’ll go stone blind!”

  I laughed hard, my love for her complete. Miss Wingate flushed a bit as I mooned over her. She said, “Go out and play. Make some friends.”