Hardscrabble Road Read online

  Outside, as Fleming described to me the Cadillac Phaeton that had brought Lucy, a teacher announced the end of dinnertime. We formed up to go inside, and somebody jabbed the back of my head. I spun around, shouting, “What was that for?”

  A thickset boy sneered down at me. “You better leave Miss Wingate alone, peewee. She ain’t interested in no red-faced shrimp.”

  The line began to move, and Fleming whispered, “That’s Buck Bradley. How’d you set him off?”

  Buck socked me a few more times before I could escape to my classroom. My head throbbed for the rest of the afternoon, making it hard to focus on Miss Wingate’s lessons. I’d figured that school was the one place I’d go where no one would hit me.

  When Miss Wingate released us for the day, she murmured personal farewells as we filed past her. To me, she said, “Goodbye, Bud. You tell me a joke tomorrow.” Her smooth fingertips grazed the back of my neck, taking away some of the hurt where Buck had pummeled me.

  In the hallway, children streamed from the classrooms. Bare feet and shoes trod on one another as we neared the bottleneck of the front door. I got jostled along with everyone else, but some big hands kept pushing me. When we burst through the doorway, Buck shoved me while Fleming, small and lanky, tried to hold him back. A ring of children soon surrounded the three of us. Boys and girls from every grade all shouted for a fight.

  Buck pried off Fleming’s fingers and slapped him away. Then he charged me, knocking me onto the dirt. I struggled to my feet and he pushed me down again as Mr. Gladney began making a path through the children. The buses drove up at that moment; the circle collapsed around us as everyone surged forward. The crowd carried us along like leaves on Spring Creek. When Fleming grabbed my arm, I almost swung a fist at him. He pulled me in the direction of our bus and got me on board.

  Mr. Clemmons looked me up and down. “Boy-hidee, Bud. Someone use you to sweep the yard?”

  We sat down and I lay my head back. It went past the canvas shade and out the open window. My skull bonked against the side of the bus, and the shade flapped closed against my neck.

  I heard Jay shout, “Who chopped off Bud’s head?”

  “What happened to your duds?” Chet added. “Mama’s gonna tear you up when she sees them.” He did try to help by pulling me inside, which scraped my head against the sill and my face against the shade.

  I bawled in huge gasps, not caring who saw me. One good thing about a hearty cry, though, was that my whole face turned crimson and my birthmark about disappeared. In great sorrow I looked almost normal.

  Across the two aisles, Darlene and Cecilia and the other girls stared at me, all of them looking as fresh as they had that morning. I stopped crying, straightened my spine, and tried to appear brave. Jay rubbed circles on my back and Chet cracked his knuckles while Fleming gave them a story about my day that was too sunny to explain my blues and didn’t mention his heroics at all. He said, “Buck went crazy. I can’t feature what got into him.”

  I knew the reason, but how could I tell them that Buck and I were in love with the same woman?

  Chet said to Jay, “He’s in your grade?”

  “Nope, still in the fourth. We was in class together up ’til this year. He got held back.”

  “He’s a big’un.”

  “Mm-hm.” Jay glanced at me and said, “Don’t worry. He messes with one of us, he’s gotta deal with all of us.” He and Chet discussed how many brothers Buck Bradley had, their ages, and sizes. They made the bus feel like a western saloon; the Earps were strapping on their six-guns to avenge their little brother.

  *

  On the walk home, a white coupe with a rumble-seat approached us at a good clip. Chet said it was a De Soto, but Jay had decided on a Plymouth. Darlene didn’t offer an opinion, while I tried instead to recognize the man behind the wheel. The stranger didn’t glance our way as he drove past, bathing us in dust.

  Papa’s Ford pickup was not beside the house. We waved at Nat and Lonnie in the cotton field and climbed onto the porch where we fended off our dogs. Sport and Dixie wiggled their whole bodies for us and barked hello. Tails lashed my legs with frantic wags.

  On the side yard, drying laundry stirred on a clothesline. Large galvanized washtubs were tipped over in the dirt to drain. A rubbing board leaned against the battling-block on which Mama had pounded water from the garments. My dirty clothes had to last me until next Monday.

  Looking through the open front door and down the hallway, I saw Mama in the kitchen. She faced away from me, dropping an apron over her shoulders. Her work-reddened fingers tied the two long apron strings behind her. They moved as fast and sure as Darlene forming a cat’s cradle with a skein of yarn. Seizing the two loops she’d made, she yanked the bow taut.

  The dogs kept yipping at us. Mama turned then and glared at me. Before I could step out of sight, she shouted, “What is it? Don’t you give me that fisheye. Get over here!”

  She stood with hands balled against her slender hips while I shuffled to the kitchen. Once I would’ve sworn that my mother was the most beautiful woman ever, but now I recalled how Miss Wingate had treated me with such kindness and how sweet Cecilia had been.

  I needed to distract Mama’s attention from my clothes, so I asked if someone had come to see Papa.

  “No, why?”

  “A str-str-strange man drove past us on th-the road.” As I drew closer to Mama, I smelled a musky odor I didn’t recognize and took in so much air that it hissed up my nose.

  Her face colored: not a gradual pinking like Miss Wingate’s delicate skin, but the violent red of hog butchering. I wondered if she knew: had she looked inside me and seen my disloyalty?

  She grabbed a wooden spoon from the counter and spun me around. The first lick against my dusty backside broke the spoon in half. The pieces bounced on the floor as Mama reached behind her for another weapon. She gripped my shoulder so hard that her fingertips pressed against my bones while her empty hand slapped the countertop. She had to settle for spanking me as fiercely as she could.

  At last I was propelled in tears toward the open back door with the words, “Get to your chores. And don’t you ever sniff me again!”

  Somehow I’d succeeded in distracting her—she didn’t even notice my clothes.

  CHAPTER 5

  Papa missed supper and hadn’t come home by Tuesday morning, but Jay got us up when That Goddamn Rooster crowed. A brief downpour during the night had left the air thick enough to stir. As we did our chores, taking a deep breath felt like trying to suck water through a burlap sack.

  Beneath the low clouds, nothing moved. Even the flies lay sprawled on the dung they ate instead of flitting away whenever we hustled past. Only the rain bird sang; its tune sounded backward from other birdsongs, jarring instead of musical.

  At school, we practiced our letters, but the paper was spongy and tore beneath the blunt-tipped pencils. Small tree frogs that only croaked when a storm was due joined the rain birds’ song. Miss Wingate had to shout to be heard over the warnings that came from every oak and cedar around the building.

  An hour before our noontime break, a secretary from the front office came by to announce an assembly in the schoolyard. Hundreds of children and a couple dozen adults gathered on the sodden field. We formed a half-circle around Mr. Gladney, who glanced down at the sand caking his black wingtips and stepped onto a tree stump. He kept his hands behind him, a posture which thrust out his stout middle and strained the button holding his suit jacket closed. From my place in the second row, I couldn’t tell what he hid from us.

  “Now all of you listen up,” he started, loud enough to drown out the rain birds and tree frogs. “Yesterday was the worst start to any school term I can remember. I had to settle down a class in one of the lower grades in the morning. In the afternoon, I had to break up a fight. Maybe some of you older students forgot about discipline and self-control over the summer. Maybe some of you younger children haven’t learned these qualities yet. Well, for t
hose that need reminding or require a good first lesson, I’m going to show you something.”

  I braced again, just like the morning before, waiting to hear my name called. My knees locked and I swayed in place.

  Stains darkened the armpits of Mr. Gladney’s jacket and his white shirt collar wilted as it drank his sweat. He brought his left hand around front to display a foot-long paddle that had three one-inch-wide holes drilled diagonally through it, like a giant domino. He swung it as he scanned our faces. The paddle cut through the air with a shrill whistle. We all shrank back a few steps, crushing each other’s feet.

  Mr. Gladney lowered the paddle and raised his right hand. He clutched two well-used boxing gloves by their graying laces. The rounded leather fists had faded to the color of his knuckles. “I work too hard to have time to beat each and every one of you that deserves it. So, if you want to fight, I will keep two pairs of these in my office. If you spar without the leather though—” he swung the paddle again “—you’ll get a licking from the wood.”

  After he dismissed us and we moved back inside the schoolhouse, Miss Wingate cut me out of the crowd. She stopped the front-office secretary as well and asked her to watch over the first-graders for a few minutes.

  My teacher led me down the hall, saying, “There’s nothing to be afraid of.” Whispers and finger-pointing dogged me as I followed her to Mr. Gladney’s office.

  She put me in a straight-back chair in front of his desk, pressed the long skirt against the backs of her legs, and sat beside me. Interlaced fingers rested on her lap; she composed her face with a gentle smile of curving red-painted lips. I remembered Mama beating me after I’d smelled her, but I couldn’t help inhaling Miss Wingate’s perfume. That sweetness almost calmed me, but my fear and the humid air oozing through the open window made my head feel like the dough that Mama would knead and punch.

  Mr. Gladney marched past us. He tossed the paddle and gloves on his desk with a jarring clatter and dropped into his leather chair. He said, “Please excuse me, Miss Wingate,” and mopped his face with a monogrammed linen handkerchief. I made out the stylized WCG, proud that I knew my letters already. He darted his gaze in my direction and said, “Boy, are you staring at me?”

  “N-n-n-o, sir. Your hanky.” I pointed at the monogram and stuttered, “Miss Wingate is learning us the alphabet.”

  “Maybe she can teach you not to point.” He unfolded the kerchief and held it up in both hands; it looked like a checkerboard of creases except that nearly every square was shaded with sweat. He said, “All right, tell me what you’ve learned.”

  “I r-reckon that says W-C-G, sir.”

  He nodded and refolded and tucked the linen into his back pocket. “You’re very lucky, Roger. For two reasons. You have the finest teacher in the school.” He smiled at Miss Wingate. “No, in this state. She taught you the alphabet just that fast.”

  Miss Wingate lowered her face as she flushed. Her left leg bobbed up and down and sent tremors through her body. The rapid heel taps on the floor raced against my heartbeat and almost won.

  Mr. Gladney continued, “Secondly, Miss Wingate interceded on your behalf after yesterday’s brawl. No one could say for sure who the other two boys were, but you were accurately described by twenty-three children. Don’t grow up wanting to be another Dillinger, son—your birthmark is a dead giveaway.”

  I covered the port-wine stain as if he’d hit me. Miss Wingate stopped tapping her heel, which brought my focus back to her. I wondered why she bothered to save my skin and how she’d done it.

  “Look at me, boy. I got my bad-eye on you, so watch out. If you want to fight, use the gloves. I normally don’t give someone a warning, but since your guardian angel asked me—” he smiled at her and held his hands up “—how could I say ‘no’ to an angel? Now go on. Have a pleasant afternoon, Miss Wingate.”

  She thanked him and led me out by the hand. As we walked down the empty hallway, my bare feet slapping the linoleum in counterpoint to her heel-taps, I shortened my stride so we’d take a long time getting to class. Voices of teachers, chalk clicking, and recitations by students echoed around us. I said, “Mr. Gladney sure th-thinks you hung the moon, ma’am.”

  “You think so?” Her fingers tightened around mine, but then she let go altogether. “All I did was ask him to give you another chance. Don’t mind all that angel foolishness.”

  My hand had dropped to my side, but I imagined that I could still feel her smooth, warm grip. Her closeness made me feel bold. “You probly hear that angel talk from a p-passel of fellers.”

  “My father keeps them away—nobody’s good enough to suit him.”

  I stammered, “Maybe you can sneak in somebody real short like me.”

  She laughed, quick and pretty like a whippoorwill song. “You did owe me a joke,” she said. Classroom doors opened on both sides of us; children streamed into the hallway with their dinners, heading toward the backdoors. Miss Wingate said, “I better not keep you inside with me again—I don’t want anyone to pick on you for being the teacher’s pet.”

  The secretary had just released our class to go outside for dinner. All of my classmates stopped and stared at me as I walked to my seat. Hopalong Cassidy riding his horse into the room would’ve gotten less attention. As I retrieved the paper sack under my chair, Fleming clapped me on the back. I was thankful for his friendship, but I envied him too. Nobody had remembered him, but no one could mistake me.

  *

  Outside, boys clustered in small groups to shoot marbles where the ground was firm. Jay and Chet hunkered shoulder-to-shoulder playing Box, trying to knock opponents’ marbles out of a square traced in the dirt. I didn’t want to risk the few I had. Fleming took Jay’s place when my brother trotted over to me. He said, “I talked to Ernie Bradley from the seventh grade. He doesn’t know what set Buck off.” He clicked some marbles together in his palm. “Maybe he just needed to blow off some steam, like Nat says about Papa.”

  “Wha-what if he keeps steaming at m-me?”

  “Then we’ll talk to ’im; I mean really preach good and loud. Don’t worry, ol Buck had first-day-back jitters is all.”

  On the other side of the hog-wire fence, most of the girls talked in clusters while they ate or danced across hopscotch squares drawn in the dirt. Some of them had brought skipping ropes made from clotheslines; girls on both ends sang while they counter-spun two ropes and a dozen girls were bunched in between, timing their jumps. “Bluebells, cockle shells, eevie, ivy, over…” The humidity seemed to press down their hair and skirts as they hopped in place. All around us, the tree frogs kept up their mournful croaking and the rain birds cried.

  Some boys not shooting marbles played Bullpen, which looked like the jump-rope games except a boy stood on each end and chucked a rubber ball at a dozen leaping classmates. Other boys wrestled: one would try to pin the other on the ground until the loser shouted, “I give, I give!” or “Uncle!” and the winner would immediately hop off and help him up. When Buck Bradley hoisted a wan-looking third-grader to his feet and looked for another victim, I retreated to the schoolhouse wall and ate my buttered biscuit.

  Beside me, a faucet provided water for drinking. As I straightened up, dragging my sleeve across my wet mouth and chin, someone slapped the back of my head. Buck muttered, “We ain’t done, shrimp.”

  I rounded on him, stuttering, “I ain’t gonna fight you and get a licking from Mr. Gladney too.”

  “I dare you to take a swing at me, mush-mouth.”

  “Uh-uh. I ain’t gonna.” Behind Buck, I saw a number of boys ambling our way. They smiled at each other and shadowboxed.

  Buck craned his neck like a turtle, sticking out his cleft chin. He stood almost a foot taller than me; his jaw looked like a boulder above my head. He said, “I double-dare you.”

  The tree frogs and rain birds seemed to take up the same taunt as the heavy air pressed me from all sides. “You can d-dare me all you—”

  “I double-dog-dare you.�
� He tipped his face down at me and grinned with yellow, crooked teeth. Two were missing.

  A dozen boys murmured around us. They’d never let me live it down if I refused a double-dog-dare. My shoulders slumped. “I’ll g-g-get the gloves.”

  “No gloves—they’re for sissies. Take the first punch.” He backed against the wall, lowered his hands, and said, “See, I got nowhere to run.”

  As the boys began to cheer for the fight, I pulled my fist back and thought about where to hit Buck. I decided on jabbing his stomach since I’d have to come off my feet to punch his face and if he dodged, I’d smack the brick wall. Sand slid under my foot as I stepped in close—

  And then I was lying on my side, pushed away by Chet. He bounced Buck’s head off the bricks with two fast punches. Buck hit Chet square on the breastbone, right over his heart, a lick that would’ve broken my ribs. Chet just kept swinging. The boys around us yelled for both sides since they wanted to see a long brawl. Buck snapped Chet’s head back with a punch that split open his eyebrow, but my brother didn’t even flinch. His fists landed again and again on Buck’s chest and face, leaving red blossoms that quickly darkened.

  A growl came from Chet’s throat that I’d heard when he fought boys other than me. Blood ran into his right eye and dripped from his jaw. His feet shuffled to keep Buck in front of him and his fists flew. Only Buck calling it quits or a point-blank gunshot would make him stop.

  Mr. Gladney shot him. At least the paddle sounded like that when it landed against Chet’s head. The principal shouted, “Stop this,” but Chet had already fallen at my feet.

  The crowd began to break up. Buck held his ribs and leaned against the wall. Blinking his untouched eye, Chet smiled up at me. Swollen lips slurred his voice. He said, “Papa’s gonna lay me out when he sees my face.”

  “Maybe he w-w-won’t come home again.”