by Lewis Nordan
Coach Heard held Roy Dale stiffly around the shoulder for a few seconds, propped a little to the left, as he normally did, to take some weight off his stump, which was often tender, though he didn’t complain.
Coach Heard said, “I read this book one time about archery and Zen, you ever hear about it? You ever heard of Zen? I got it around the house somewhere, if I can find it, maybe I’ll bring in, let you borrow it for a while, take a look-see. You’d have to return it, though, don’t lose it or spill nothing on it, okay?”
So Roy Dale had been sleeping with the bow and the cracked-leather quiver of arrows for two weeks.
Each night in his room he strung and unstrung and restrung the bow. Not for practice—he had done it perfectly the first time, it was a natural movement of his hand and foot and knee—but only to feel the powerful core of it, the grave potentialities of its heart, the unsung and waiting angel-music of its string.
The arrows, there were eight of them, he laid out on his bed like pick-up sticks. He stirred them upon the wool blanket with his hand, to hear the soft percussion of the wood.
He arranged them in a line, all the tips pointing in the same direction. He picked each arrow up, held it, ran his hand along the shaft, its whole length, ran his thumb upon the coarse plastic of each feather of the fletching, gripped the arrow tight in the middle of the shaft, held it high above his head like a prize.
He bought neat’s foot oil at Mr. Shanker’s Drug Store, a small glass vial for a quarter, and with his bare hand he rubbed the oil into the worn-out leather of the quiver, and softened it some, and made it dark, dark. He breathed the fragrant oil into his nostrils like a memory, or desire, he exhaled it like a prayer, he rubbed the oil from his hands onto his face, and into his hair.
Seven of the arrows were competition models, called “blunts,” especially designed for amateur catchers, with hard-rubber tips for safety. These Roy Dale shot in the direction of one of his partners, another kid who had made the team, an arrow catcher, usually Sugar Mecklin or Sweet Austin, whose job was to pluck the flash of thickened atmosphere from its element before it struck.
It was dangerous. Arrow catchers required a gift, a certain temperament, more than the archer, really, though the archer was important, too. It was a team effort, Coach Heard insisted, a sloppy archer could injure even the most skilled catcher.
Nobody ever got killed trying to catch a blunt, but concussions, a broken rib, these were possible. A law was pending before the Mississippi legislature to require protective devices for the eyes.
The other arrow, the eighth, was in the quiver by mistake. It was an old thing, with a slight warp in the shaft, left over from the olden days, before the war, when Arrow Catcher High still had a conventional archery program, with bullseye targets set up on hay bales. The eighth arrow had a steel tip—not a hunting blade, a “razor,” they were called, only a sharp point, but dangerous nevertheless.
This arrow, at night, sometimes, Roy Dale fitted into the nock and drew back on the string and, despite the warp in the shaft that must have made it wobble in its flight, drove it straight into the wall of his room, smack, deep in the wood.
Sometimes it was the Sheriff of Nottingham, his bedroom wall, and Roy Dale imagined himself wearing a green suit and a feathered cap and having a friend named Little John and looking like Errol Flynn, with good teeth.
And other times it was General Custer, and Roy Dale imagined a loincloth and paint and a spotted horse. He imagined wide deserts and cactus plants.
And sometimes it was something else, nothing that Roy Dale recognized, no person, and no thing, and even the arrow was not an arrow, but only something from inside himself, some abstraction requiring sudden and violent expulsion, expression, before it killed him, a representation of landscapes of the broken heart, hopeless dreams, a vastness of sorrow that outside of himself might be seen as beautiful and strange, but that inside of him was only poison and filth.
He laid the unstrung bow and the quiver of arrows, blunts and the tipped arrow together, lengthwise in his bed at night, his narrow cot, beneath the coarse blanket, and slept there with them in the comfort of shared dreams.
Roy Dale imagined, sometimes, in these quiet, hopeful hours, that one day he might lie like this, in intimate communion, with a wife, a partner of the heart.
On this particular morning, a school day, Roy Dale noticed that something was wrong with Runt, his daddy. Runt had visited Red’s Goodlookin Bar and Gro. already, and Roy Dale could smell alcohol on his breath, but he was not drunk, nowhere close. So that was not the problem.
Roy Dale said, “Hey, Runt.”
Runt was sitting at the kitchen table, with his head down on his arms, on the oilcoth. He looked up.
He said, “Hey. I called myself letting you sleep in.”
Roy Dale said, “I been up for a while. Coach Heard don’t let you practice if you miss school.”
Runt said, “Hey, Roy Dale?”
Roy Dale said, “Uh-huh.”
Runt said, “How much trouble would it be for you to call me something else besides Runt?”
Roy Dale said, “Well—”
Runt said, “I was just wondering if, you know, you reckon you mought start calling me by some other name than Runt. I done got tired of being called Runt.”
Roy Dale said, “You’re tired of being called Runt?”
Runt said, “Well, yeah.” He said, “Your mama’s coming home from Kosiesko tomorrow.”
Roy Dale said, “Uh-huh. Well—”
Runt said, “She can spell you and Alice with the young’uns, anyways.”
Roy Dale said, “Uh-huh.”
Runt said, “They already gone, the chillen. Alice got everybody off to school early this morning.”
Roy Dale said, “Well—”
Runt said, “Anyways, give some thought to what I told you, you know, that name business, see can you come up with anything, something else besides Runt.”
Roy Dale said, “Uh-huh, okay, yeah.”
Runt said, “My real name is, you know, Cyrus.”
Roy Dale said, “Cyrus, uh-huh.”
Runt said, “You knew that.”
Roy Dale said, “Uh-huh, yeah, I think I knew that.”
Runt said, “I’d appreciate it, sho would.”
Roy Dale said, “Okay.”
Runt said, “Mama’s gone start calling me Cyrus.”
Roy Dale said, “Uh-huh.”
Runt said, “It’s kind of a funny name, kind of old-fashioned, you know.”
Roy Dale said, “You don’t hear it much.”
Runt said, “I never liked it much, myself. It was my daddy’s name.”
Roy Dale said, “Your daddy was named Cyrus?”
Runt said, “I was going to name you Cyrus, that’s what your mama wanted to name you, call you Cy.”
Roy Dale said, “Well, I’m glad you didn’t.”
Runt said., “Well, see, that’s what I figured. I never cared for the name myself. I figured you wouldn’t much like it neither. Sometimes, though, I still kind of wish I had of give you my name. You mought’ve liked it, if you wont never called nothing else.”
Roy Dale said, “I don’t think so.”
Runt said, “If you’d of been a girl, we was going to name you janie.”
Roy Dale said, “Well, I’m glad I wont a girl.”
Runt laughed.
He said, “Well, yeah. Janie was my mama’s name.”
Roy Dale said, “I had a grandmama name of Janie?”
Runt said, “Well, yeah.”
Roy Dale said, “Uh-huh.”
Runt said, “Well, think about it.”
Roy Dale said, “I got to go to school.”
Runt said, “Honey, they was a body found down in Roebuck, out from the spillway.”
All of a sudden Roy Dale felt the arrows float up out of the quiver across his shoulder and float out into the air, away from him. He felt the re-curved bow disintegrate into a powder and scatter itsel
f lightly across the floor.
Roy Dale said, “I got to go to school.”
Runt said, “Maybe that’s why I want to change my name. I don’t know.”
Roy Dale said, “What time is it?”
Runt said, “You’re going to be hearing about it, it’s a murder, a terrible murder, I just thought I ought to tell you.”
Roy Dale said, “I got to go, I’m own be late.”
Runt said, “I love you, son. I don’t think I never told you that.”
Roy Dale said, “Really, I’m own be late.”
ROY DALE didn’t have an arrow catcher today. Sweet Austin didn’t come to school, and neither did Sugar Mecklin. He figured this out in first period study hall.
He leaned over to Baby Raby, who was about twenty-one years old, she flunked seventh grade so many times, and had large breasts.
He said, “Hey, Baby Raby, you seen Sugar or Sweet?”
Baby Raby said, “Roy Dale Conroy, have you ever washed your feet one day in your entire life? I could smell your feet the minute you walked on the school grounds.”
Baby Raby wasn’t dumb, she was smart. She flunked seventh grade three times out of spite alone.
Roy Dale said, “I washed my feet plenty of times.”
Truth was, he couldn’t remember the last time he washed his feet, or anything else, and he had to admit, he thought he smelled something a little foul hisself, before Baby Raby ever brought up the subject. Wonder why his aunt Alice didn’t mention it to him lately. Alice, look like she’s falling down on the job. Look like Coach Heard might of said something.
He turned the other way, to the other side of the aisle. Wesley McNeer was sitting there, he would be. Wesley looked like an ape. His hair grew halfway down his forehead and he walked stooped over and his arms were real long. His mama always packed Wesley a banana in his lunch. Look like Wesley’s mama was proud Wesley looked like an ape. Wesley’s mama ought to send Wesley to school with a tin cup and an accordion, put a little red hat on his head, just as soon.
Roy Dale said, “Hey, Wesley, you monkey-looking piece of shit.”
Wesley said, “Is that your breath or your feet?”
Roy Dale said, “You one of the purple-butted primates.”
Wesley said, “Get bent, Gravedigger Junior.”
Roy Dale said, “Let’s see your tail.”
Wesley said, “My tail?—well shoot, where’s my tail, I must of done left my tail over to your house when I was fucking your mama, bring it to school with you tomorrow, will you, Roy Dale, leave it in my locker.”
Roy Dale and Wesley were giggling their heads off and going shh, shh, shh.
Miss Coney was the study hall teacher, plenty mean, eyes like Flash Gordon ray guns. Don’t mess with Miss Coney.
Miss Coney said, “Maybe you two boys would like to share the fun with the rest of the study hall.”
Some teachers can say that and you know right off that you can mop up the school with their job. Miss Coney says that and you start worrying about what she gone be using for a mop.
Wesley said, “Roy Dale said I look like a monkey, and that hurt my feelings.”
Miss Coney was so mean nobody even giggled. Everybody thought Wesley looked like a monkey, even Miss Coney.
What was Roy Dale supposed to say to defend himself? Should he draw more attention to the fact of his smelly feet?
Roy Dale said, “I said I was sorry. I done already apologized.”
Wesley said, “That’s true, Miss Coney, he did apologize, and I accepted his apology.”
Miss Coney said, “Well, all right, then, let’s just leave it at that.”
Even Miss Coney couldn’t be sharp all the time.
Later on, Roy Dale whispered, “Where’s Sweet Austin?”
Wesley said, “He found a dead nigger.”
Roy Dale said, “He what?”
Wesley said, “They give you a day off from school if you can find a dead nigger. I’m own find me one this afternoon, might see can I find two or three, I been needing a little vacation.”
Roy Dale and Wesley giggled, they snorted, they said shh, shh, shh, they laughed their durn heads off, they was so tickled.
Miss Coney looked up, but she didn’t catch them this time, not a chance, they were too sharp for Miss Coney today.
So that was the way Roy Dale’s day started out.
There were all these jokes about the dead nigger, all day long.
The main joke had to do with the gin fan that was found tied around the neck of the body, the hundred-pound engine and propellor that had been fastened to the corpse with a strand of barbed wire.
The joke was that a nigger had tried to steal a gin fan and swim across the lake with it.
Kids were laughing about these jokes all day long.
Roy Dale sure did laugh, whoo boy, Roy Dale got a kick out of all these jokes. What was even better, though, was when he found somebody who hadn’t heard one of them, then he could tell the joke his ownself, make somebody else laugh, too. Now that was something. “Stole a gin fan and was trying to swim across the lake with it!” he would say.
Everybody was laughing. Roy Dale even made Baby Raby laugh, no telling what she’d be letting him do next.
Other new information crept in, from time to time, during the day. Lord Montberclair and Mr. Gregg had been arrested for murder.
Roy Dale kept on laughing so much he didn’t think about Lord Montberclair and Mr. Gregg. He didn’t think about his mama coming back home. He didn’t even think about the body in Roebuck being the same as the one Runt had told him about, which seemed like it must be a white person, for some reason.
About all Roy Dale thought about was that he wouldn’t have an arrow-catching partner at practice this afternoon.
Soon after the last bell of the day, the locker room in the gym, out behind the schoolhouse, started to fill up with boys, arrow catchers and archers.
Roy Dale looked around, hoping Sweet or Sugar might have come to school late, sometime during the day, after study hall, maybe Coach Heard would let them practice, after all.
Roy Dale’s quiver and bow lay in the bow rack of his locker, where he’d stored them first thing this morning after he got to school. He touched each with a secret intimacy, tenderness, and then he rattled them against the boards of the bow rack in a manly, careless way, just in case anybody got the wrong idea.
He sat down on the wooden bench in front of the lockers and started to take off his shoes. The weight-lifting set, barbells and dumbbells and extra iron plates and the wrench, lay in a corner nearby.
A bucktoothed kid name Phillip, the team manager, fussed around the players with an equipment kit, prepping ankles or wrists or rib cages with Tuff-Skin, sticky yellow stuff that he smeared on with a brush to protect the skin from tape burn, and then applying strips of adhesive tape, which he tore off neatly in short, uniform strips.
He changed broken cleats, if need be, he issued new equipment, bowstrings, or arrows, he arranged times with players who wanted analgesic rubdowns after practice.
The concrete floor of the locker room seemed always to be damp and to hold a smell of sweat and smelly feet and dirty socks and unwashed jockey straps, and maybe even urine, from the toilet, which sometimes got stopped up and overflowed. Somebody really ought to mop up this place with Pine-Sol, once in a while.
The shower stall, with its two drizzly spigots and no door or partition, stood just to the right of Roy Dale’s locker. Roy Dale knew he ought to take a shower after practice each day, like the other boys—he especially knew it today, because his feet smelled so bad, Baby Raby was right, there was no getting around it—but he was ashamed of the way he looked when he was naked. He had a bad hernia, and one of his balls hung down real low. There was just no privacy, good grief.
The locker room was crowded now, there was a lot of loud talk, some grab-ass and towel-snapping. Boys were naked, or getting out of their street clothes, or putting on the lightweight, loose-fitting pra
ctice uniforms for catching or shooting. Some were talking about the new eye-protection that might be required by law, others were talking about girls. Baby Raby’s name came up a couple of times, mainly references to her breasts.
Dress-out moved along, same old stuff.
Smoky Viner was there, as always, good Lord, a boy with a thick neck and a hard head. Nobody could stand Smoky Viner.
Smoky was ramming his head into the wall, like a bull, you never saw anything like it, blammo, the plaster was flying, smack, the doorframe splintered, bong, a metal stanchion rang like a farm bell. You couldn’t keep anything nice with Smoky Viner around.
Ramming his head into the wall just tickled the pure-dee shit out of Smoky Viner.
For a while nobody said anything, and then when Smoky didn’t stop for a long time, and the smell of plaster dust started to get stronger than the smell of sweat or piss, somebody said, “Smoky, for God’s sake, man!”
Smoky Viner was grinning like a billy goat.
Smoky said, “One time I butted down a shithouse, turned it over on its side.”
Somebody said, “Well, that’s good, Smoky, that’s real good, that’s something to be proud of.”
Everybody hated Smoky Viner.
Smoky Viner said, “They ought to be some kind of butting contest, they ought to be some kind of high school sport for butting.”
Somebody said, “Smoky, you gone end up in Whitfield, honest to God, boy.”
Smoky butted the stanchion again, bong. He said, “They ought to be some kind of high school sport.”
Before long the topic of conversation turned to the dead nigger, it was bound to happen, people had been talking about it, joking about it, anyway, all day long.
The same jokes started up again now, and they were still funny, too, vacation days for finding a dead one, one who stole a gin fan and tried to swim across the lake with it.
Roy Dale was having himself a good time. He was shy to tell a joke in a crowd, so he was quiet, he didn’t say much, but he was laughing, boy, oh yes sir.