Blossoms and the Green Phantom

by Betsy Byars

  Pap went down once, twice. He struggled up for one last breath. Then he was going down into the garbage for the last time.

  At that moment Pap was awakened by being hit in the head with a bag of garbage. “What—what?” he cried. He batted at the air.

  The plastic bag broke. Garbage rained around him. He reacted by trying to do what he had been trying to do in his nightmare—get his head above garbage.

  His arms were swimming frantically through the loose garbage, but as in his nightmare, he couldn’t get high enough. He tried to push to the surface with his legs, but they were useless.

  In a desperate move, Pap braced his hands on his knees. He forced himself to his feet.

  Then Pap heard a woman scream.

  That scream brought Pap back into the real world. He was in a Dumpster, but it wasn’t full of liquid garbage, just everyday real garbage. So the scream had to be real too. That meant someone was here! Someone was outside! Someone had thrown garbage on him!

  “Wait! Help! Help! Help!”

  Pap peered over the side of the Dumpster. A woman was backing away in openmouthed horror. When she saw his face, she screamed again and broke into a run for her car. He caught a glimpse of her terrified face as she ran through the car’s headlights.

  “Please help me, please! I ain’t gonna hurt you. I can’t hurt nobody.”

  The woman got into the car. She slammed the door and locked it. Then she peered at Pap through the windshield. She looked as if she’d seen a ghost.

  Pap realized then how unkempt he must appear. He attempted to smooth his hair. Then he extended both his arms. “Please, lady, oh, please. Do the Christian thing.” He smoothed his hair again. “Help an old man. I’m dying, lady. I tell you I’m dying!”

  The woman started the car.

  Tears rolled down Pap’s cheeks. “Please, lady, please! I meant it when I said I’m dying. I can’t stand to be in this Dumpster no more. Help me, lady, help me.”

  He had one last glimpse of the woman’s horrified expression as she turned the steering wheel. She drove out of the parking lot so fast that the tires spun in the loose sand.

  “I can’t hurt nobody,” Pap called after her. He stretched out one hand. “I’m helpless.”

  Pap watched until the taillights were specks in the distance. He kept standing there. He was so tired and worn down that he suspected he had told the truth when he had said he was dying.

  “Well, there went another one,” Pap told Mud. He made an effort not to let his despair show in his voice. Mud was sensitive to sounds.

  Then he sat down and told Dump the same thing in a lower, sadder voice. “There went another one.” Dump pawed Pap’s leg, asking to get back in Pap’s lap.

  Pap picked him up without even knowing he did so. In his mind was the thought that had begun when the woman drove away. It would be a terrible, terrible thing for a man to die in a Dumpster.

  CHAPTER 19

  Junior’s Move

  Junior had decided to make his move. The chickens had not clucked loudly in at least five minutes, and Junior knew it was time. He had to do something, because it seemed to him the sky was beginning to get light in the east. The last thing in the world Junior wanted to hear was the crow of a rooster. Then it would all be over but the words “Climb down with your hands over your head.”

  At last Junior had a plan. The plan came about because Junior remembered a wonderful thing. There had been a window on the side of the chicken house. He had seen it briefly on that incredibly fast boost up, but it was a window and Junior thought there was a little window ledge.

  Junior’s plan was to swing down, feel for the ledge with his feet, put his feet firmly on the window ledge, and step down to the ground. The plan was foolproof if, he added, the ledge was there.

  Junior knew there was a possibility it was not. Sometimes his eyes saw things that Junior wanted them to see. Like last Christmas, Junior had tiptoed down the steps in the middle of the night and his eyes had seen a red bicycle under the tree with his name on it. When he came down the next morning, the bicycle was not there.

  Junior began moving snakelike toward the side of the chicken house. He began to breathe easier. He was going to make it. He knew he was. He would be home in his bed before morning.

  In that moment of relief Junior realized that the lights had gone on once again in the Bensons’ bedroom. He glanced up, horrified. He had been so intent on his own silent, stealthy movements that he had forgotten about the house. He had been worrying about THEM, the chickens, when what he should have been worrying about was HIM. Was he coming back out? Had he seen Junior? Would he have his shotgun?

  The porch lights went on. Old man Benson was coming back out. He would spot Junior for sure this time. He might even shoot before—

  At that moment he heard something he had never expected to hear again in this world. He heard his mother’s voice. Then he realized that his mother was knocking at the door. “Open this door, Mr. Benson,” she was saying. “I mean to talk to you.”

  Junior heard the door open.

  His head was raised high now because he did not want to miss one single word of his mother’s wonderful voice. She had the most wonderful voice of anyone in the world, and her words were always perfect. These were more than perfect.

  “Mr. Benson, I believe my son is on the roof of your chicken house, and I have come to take him home.”

  Junior leaned over the roof and peered down. The window was there, just as he remembered, and it did have a ledge. His eyes had been right this time. Junior slung one leg over the side of the roof and got ready to swing down.

  “And what’s more,” his mother said. Junior stopped. What more could there be? Hadn’t she just said it all with her forceful voice. “I believe my son is on the roof of your chicken house, and I have come to take him home.”

  Not quite, Junior discovered.

  “And that thing over there is the Green Phantom, and I am coming back for that in the morning.”

  Junior swung himself off the chicken house. His feet felt for, and found, the ledge. Junior stepped down.

  He patted the chicken house. “Good night, ladies,” he told the hens, and then he ran across the moonlit yard and into his mother’s arms.

  Ralphie was in his bedroll, his artificial leg at his side, and he was very glad to be there. He had done all the running and bike riding that he could take. His leg hurt badly.

  He looked up at the stars. He had spread out his bedroll in the pine trees, hidden from Mrs. Blossom—who had told him in no uncertain terms to go home—and yet where he could see the stars. Gradually, the stars and the soothing sound of the crickets and tree frogs were making him forget his leg and a trying day.

  Just then he heard voices. He flipped over onto his stomach and lifted a pine branch. It was Mrs. Blossom and Junior returning from the Benson farm.

  Ralphie let the branch down so it hid his pale face. As they passed, Junior waved his arms triumphantly in the air. “Mom, the Phantom was sooooo beautiful. I just can’t describe it. It was absolutely, positively the most beautiful thing in the whole world.”

  Ralphie shook his head, lowered it, and fell asleep.

  CHAPTER 20

  Bless You, Officer

  A police car pulled into the Dumpster parking area at one o’clock in the morning. The blue light was flashing, but Pap didn’t see it. Pap was asleep, and this time it was a deep, dreamless sleep. Pap was snoring.

  He awakened with a snort when both policemen shone flashlights directly into his face. His eyes opened. He was instantly blinded, and he put one trembling hand up to protect himself.

  He heard the words, “What are you doing in the Dumpster, sir?”

  Pap couldn’t see the men, but from the official tone of the question, he knew they were policemen. Relief rushed through his aching body with such speed, it brought tears to his eyes.

  He had a desperate struggle getting to his feet, especially with Dump in one hand. “Bles
s you, bless you for coming,” he said. He reached out to them with his free hand. “I fell in and couldn’t get out. Don’t leave me. Oh, please don’t leave me.”

  “Here,” the policeman said. “Let me help you, sir.” Pap felt one policeman take his hand, and the other took his elbow. They steadied him.

  “Oh, I thank you.”

  When he was on his feet at last, he put the hand holding Dump over his heart to show how grateful he was. “Bless you. And if you’ll just hand me that little ladder that’s lying over there, I’ll be getting out of here.”

  The policeman got the ladder, folded it, and handed it up to Pap.

  “Thank you. Bless you,” Pap said.

  “If you tell me where your keys are,” the other policeman said, “I’ll back your truck over and you can step out onto the bed.”

  “Oh, bless you.” Pap had already started thinking with dread of that terrible moment when he would have to balance on the side of the Dumpster, reach down, pull the ladder up, and then climb down. Even with the policemen there to break his fall, it would be dangerous. “The keys are in the ignition.”

  The policeman went to the truck. When Pap heard the familiar rattle of the truck’s engine, he thought he was going to weep.

  He took the ladder in a hand that still trembled. “Can I trouble you to take my dog.” He passed Dump out to the policeman. “He’s how I come to get in this mess in the first place. Somebody left a dog in the Dumpster, and I was going to help him out, ended up falling in myself.”

  The policeman put Dump down on the ground. Mud had been watching for this with his good eye, and he did what he had been waiting ten hours to do. Mud smelled him. The puppy had enough sense to lie down and let himself be smelled.

  Inside the Dumpster, Pap brushed some garbage aside with his boot, and settled the ladder in a steady position. He began to climb out. Both policemen extended their arms and gripped him tightly as he went over the top.

  “I didn’t think I was ever—thank you both so much—going to be found. Thank you,” he said again as they supported him. He leaned back to get the ladder, but the policeman said, “We’ll do that for you, sir, you just step on over onto your truck.”

  “Thank you. I didn’t think I was—bless you—going to last the night. Thank you.”

  Now he was on the bed of his own truck, but he was so unsteady, he had to lean over and clutch the sides. “I’m all right,” he told the policemen. They were putting the ladder by the truck so he could climb down. “How did you ever come by the Dumpster? How did you find me? Thank you. Did you hear my dog howling or what?”

  “Some woman called us. You scared her to death. She threw in some garbage and you came up yelling at her.” The policeman laughed. “The woman said, ‘There’s a crazy man in a Dumpster on the Stone Church Road.’”

  “Oh, bless her heart. What a kind woman.” Pap snapped his ladder shut and shoved it in the back of the truck. He picked up the puppy.

  Mud wasn’t through smelling the puppy, and he followed Pap to the door of the truck, with his nose in the air.

  Pap put the puppy on the front seat. “Get in back, Mud,” he said. He turned once again to the policemen.

  “Sirs, I thank you once again for your help and I bless you with all my heart.”

  “You take care, sir. You find any more dogs in Dumpsters, you give us a call.”

  “I will. I will.”

  “If you don’t mind my saying so, a man your age shouldn’t be—”

  “I know. I know.”

  Mud was already in the back of the truck. He wanted to go home as much as Pap. When he got home, the first thing he planned to do was finish smelling the puppy.

  Pap was still trembling. He paused to grip the door for support. The policeman started forward, but Pap waved him away.

  “I’m all right. I just need to go home and get in my bed.” And then Pap climbed in the truck and drove away.

  CHAPTER 21

  The Back Half of the Dog

  Vicki Blossom lifted her head. She heard the rattle of Pap’s truck as it drove over the bridge, the backfire as it started up the hill. She got up and ran out on the porch.

  She could see the reflection of the dim headlights, and she put one hand over her heart in relief. It was two o’clock in the morning, and Vicki Blossom had not been to bed. She had been by the telephone all night, wrapped in a blanket, waiting for some news.

  “Pap!” she cried. She rushed down the steps, the blanket flaring behind her like a cape, and waited by the grease-stained weeds where Pap always parked. When the truck stopped, she said, “Pap, where on earth have you—”

  She broke off. She was struck by how tired Pap looked, how deep the lines in his face were. For the first time she thought of him as an old man.

  She leaned in the car and put one hand on his wrist. In a gentler voice she said, “Pap, are you all right?”

  “I’m as all right as I can expect to be,” he said.

  He turned off the ignition. The truck shuddered, the motor died, but Pap continued to sit there, staring at the dashboard. His whole body sagged with age and fatigue.

  “What does that mean—as you can expect to be?” When he didn’t answer, she squeezed his wrist. “Pap, talk to me. I’ve been frantic!”

  For the first time, Pap was aware of her hand on his wrist. He twisted free. “Don’t touch me. I’m too nasty to touch.”

  “What happened?”

  “Oh, it’s a long, sad story about an old clumsy man and a Dumpster.”

  He reached down and picked up Dump with one hand. Mud was already out of the truck, waiting by the door, wagging his tail in anticipation. Both eyes were open now.

  “Something happened at the Dumpster?” Vicki prompted him.

  “I don’t want to tell you.”

  “Pap, this is Vicki. You can tell me anything.”

  “I’d hate for this to get around.”

  “I won’t tell a soul, Pap, I won’t even tell the kids if you don’t want me to.”

  “It’s the kind of thing that could, well, make a man look foolish.”

  “Pap, you could never look foolish to me. You are the best friend I have in the world.”

  “Well …”

  He climbed out of the truck and put the puppy down. Mud rolled Dump over and began to smell him.

  “Pap, tell me! Talk to me! Pap, I have been frantic. I have called the hospital. I have called the police. I have called everybody I know in this county. What happened to you?”

  Pap took a deep breath. He wondered if he would ever get over smelling like garbage. With what dignity he could, he said, “I spent the night in a Dumpster.” He started limping toward the house.

  Vicki stepped over the puppy. She took the blanket from her shoulders and wrapped it around Pap’s. She followed him to the porch with one hand on his back. “How did you get in the Dumpster?”

  “Fell.”

  “How did you get out?”

  “Police.”

  “How—”

  “I would take it as a very kind favor, Vicki”—he paused without looking at her—“if that could be the end of our talk about the Dumpster.”

  “Well, of course it’s the end of the talk. I’ll never mention it again, only what, may I ask, are you doing bringing another dog home?”

  “I knowed that was coming.”

  “Well, we don’t need another mouth to feed. We—”

  “The dog’s name is Dump and I brought him home as a present for the boys.”

  “The boys have a dog—Mud.”

  They started up the steps. Pap was holding on to the rail with one hand, his blanket with the other. He went up a step at a time, like a child. As he paused on the third step, he said, “No, Mud is my dog, always has been, always will be. Over yonder is the boys’ dog—Dump.” He yelled, “Mud, let that puppy go. That puppy don’t need you holding him down on the ground. Let him up now.” Then he limped tiredly into the house.

  Juni
or and Vern found out at the breakfast table that they were the owners of a dog named Dump. It caught them by surprise because both of them had their minds on other matters. Junior was thinking of going with his mom back to old man Benson’s to get the Green Phantom, and he was planning how old man Benson would look when he saw Junior walking boldly in beside his mother. Vern was wondering how to ask his mom to call Michael’s mother and invite Michael to the second launch.

  “A dog?” they said together.

  “Yes.”

  “Why are we getting a dog?” Vern asked. “I thought Mud was our dog.”

  “Mud’s my dog. Dump is yours, and I want you to share this dog now.”

  “We will,” Junior said happily. Junior loved to share. He had never been able to understand people who didn’t.

  “The dog is half yours and half yours.”

  Again Junior nodded. He was just getting ready to ask where the dog was when Vern said quickly, “I claim the front half.” Vern was terribly pleased. He would never have thought of staking the claim if Michael had not told him that he had done this one time to his sister over their horse Daisy. He flushed with pleasure.

  Junior was so surprised that he said the first thing that popped into his mind. “I claim the back half.”

  He put his hands over his lips. Then he opened them like double doors. “I meant to say that I claim the front half too.”

  “Boys,” Pap said. “Now go on outside and see your dog. He’s spent most of the night being pestered by Mud and he would probably like to do something else for a change.”

  Junior got up so fast, his chair tipped over. He went out the door calling, “Dump, here, Dump.” Over his shoulder he said to Vern, “I’ll share my half with you if you’ll share yours with me.”

  “Oh, all right,” Vern said. He had had the pleasure of staking the claim. Now he wanted to see what he’d claimed. They ran out onto the porch together.

  “Maggie?” Vicki Blossom came into Maggie’s room.