Right by My Side

by David Haynes

  *

  Sam has been strutting around as if he owned the world. The big shots are up at the dump regularly—the bankers, commissioners, the environmental people. Sam carries his clipboard around and takes them on the tour. He’s got this slick black lawyer Gayle found for him guiding the way. Dude’s up there whispering in Sam’s ear, taking notes. Sam knows just what he wants. He’s just not saying yet. And, still, when he wears his overalls, he looks as simple as ever.

  The landfill is all covered over with black dirt, all except for a little notch by the Dorset entrance, right where the shed sits. Sam still receives some clean fill along with the shipments of dirt. He’s gonna leave that notch for a while. Tax day starts the day the last truck load of dirt comes in. So Slick says.

  Most of the old quarry has already sprouted—grass, weeds, wild-flowers. The scavenger birds have moved on. Sometimes you see Sam standing up there in the middle of that big field. He just stands up on that hill, grinning, turning in a slow circle.

  I watch him from the gate, and when he turns he doesn’t see me at all. He spreads his arms like propellers. He is turning and turning. He’s turning, the ground spinning under his feet. Who knows what is churning around down in that pit. Something gooey and evil, something that will seep out and get us all. Do you care, Sam? What goes on in your head? What you thinking about up there, anyway?

  Sam doesn’t care. Not a bit. He spins, he’s up there spinning some more.

  I expect one day he will take off and fly.

  He comes with us on the day of Todd’s emancipation hearing. He has his lawyer, Slick, look into the details. Slick says that it’s a good idea to have an adult present. He also says the hearing is Todd’s show. The judge will talk mostly to him.

  Sam looks so sharp this day. He’s wearing a real tough-looking sports coat—a dark gray one. He almost looks like one of those slick Clayton lawyers himself.

  Slick is right about the hearing. Social workers have done all the work. Todd’s parents have been invited to attend the hearing, but they don’t show up.

  A court appointed guardian does most of the talking for Todd. She reads from the social worker’s report. There’s nothing new on those pages. Using a lot of fancy language they say that Todd’s parents beat him up, threw him out, and don’t want him back.

  The judge asks Todd if the guardian has fully explained the process.

  “You are aware of the implications of being emancipated from your parents?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Your plans?”

  “I’ll finish at Eisenhower next year. Then I’ll go to college.”

  The judge nods in approval. All of this is on the papers. There are about an inch of them. Todd’s written some. The social workers. Probably Ohairy, too.

  “Mr. Finney,” the judge addresses Sam.

  Sam likes that “Mr. Finney” business, I can tell. His chest puffs up just a bit. “The minor child will be living in your home after emancipation. You’ve agreed to this? And you understand there will be no support unless provided by the parents?”

  “The arrangement is already in place, your honor,” Sam says. I bet he said it just the way that Slick told him to. It causes the judge to give Sam a strange look.

  The judge congratulates Todd. “You’re a lucky young man. Don’t blow this chance. Any trouble at school or with the law and we’ll have to reexamine this placement.”

  “You’d send me home?” Todd asks. “Cause I’m not going.”

  There’s a silence while we wait for the judge’s response to Todd’s boldness.

  “Just watch your step,” he says calmly. He smiles when he pats Todd on the back.

  Then the judge praises Sam some more for taking Todd in. That, of course, puffs his chest out even further.

  Sam takes us to Steak ‘n’ Shake for the celebration lunch. We can have anything we want he says. We eat like pigs.

  We pull the truck into the drive and Sam sends me into the crackerbox. He tells Todd to wait just a minute.

  A while later they come in. I ask them what they were talking about out there.

  They look at each other.

  “Mind your own business, why don’t you,” Todd says.

  He and Sam laugh, so I bet it was something good.

  I’ll bet Sam sat there for a minute with his hands running around the steering wheel, fishing for words. I’ll bet Todd sat there looking at his knees.

  Sam said something like, “I won’t try to take the place of them people down there. They’ll always be your folks.”

  Maybe Todd nodded and maybe Sam told him, “This is your home now. I got my rules and my ways, but I imagine we’ll get along pretty good.”

  Probably Todd was crying by then. Sam handed him the handkerchief from his sports coat, giving maybe a little laugh and telling him to go right ahead.

  “Everything’s gonna be all right from here on out. Welcome home.”

  I bet that’s just what Sam said.

  *

  Later, after Sam has gone up to the landfill, Todd’s in the room reading and I’m on the couch watching videos. I hear a bumping outside the door. I peek out of the draperies to see what it is. A hedge by the front door blocks the view, so at first I don’t see anything. Then I see a woman walking up the street—a white woman. When I recognize her, I realize it is Todd’s mother. She looks back every so often on her way down to the depot and back across the tracks.

  I open the door and there is a cardboard box on the porch. I reach down to root around in the box, on top of which is folded something that is gray and striped. I stop rooting when I see the note. Written on a sheet of notebook paper, it says, “FOR TODD.”

  I carry the box into my bedroom.

  “This got left for you,” I say. I sit the box down by the rollaway and stand there for a minute with my arms crossed to see what’s inside. Todd ignores me and the box, though later when I come get Todd for supper he’s wearing a brand-new striped vest.

  *

  In the mailbox that day is this letter from Rose:

  My dear Marshall,

  Still no change. Everyday life is the same here. I feel like I’ve gone around the board only to wind up hack at go. So I roll again.

  Well, bless her heart, Lucille couldn’t wait to tell me about Marshall Field Finney, the new TV star. She means well. Always has.

  Oh, to have seen that. You! Up on the TV! Were you scared? Did you show em your stuff?

  Lucille expected I’d fall over dead at the news. A few years ago, maybe. Not anymore.

  You’re your own person now. I told you that before.

  Lucille said something about some woman Sam’s got. Again expecting me to drop over. I had to smile out here in this desert.

  That daddy of yours is something else. You know that, don’t you.

  Sam, the man.

  Dear, sweet Sam. My man.

  I want him to be happy. When you love somebody that’s what you want for them. Don’t know if I want him to be quite that happy. The man is a catch, if you know what I mean. Yes, sir.

  You wouldn’t know what I was talking about.

  Still, I give him my best. Couldn’t of done that a year ago either.

  When you are alone, you find your strength, Marshall. Your power. Part of mine’s knowing Sam will always be right there. Some woman or no.

  You’ll have that power over people, too. That power to hold on come what may. The power to make people believe that, no matter what else comes along, there will never be anyone like you. I will that power to you. Like me, you will always be loved. Use your powers wisely. Enjoy yourself.

  You’ll be quite a catch yourself.

  The Nevada sun has dried me to a husk. I am fixed to be blown away. I could land almost anywhere. I’m gone.

  Forgive me if you want to. I wish you only the best. No more am I a lost and wandering thing.

  I choose where I land.

  We are linked tighter than fine gold chains. Who know
s when we’ll next be together. Expect it to be special.

  Rose

  *

  I crumple the letter. Then I straighten it to read it again. I think of Rose out in the desert spring, cherishing her supposed lock on Sam’s heart. A pathetic fantasy, that is. One that fills me with pity and sadness. Let her come back and find the truth. We got us a new family here. Me and Sam and Gayle and Todd. I smooth the letter and fold it in with the others. I decide to put her as far from my mind as I can. She is banished. Though the encyclopedia gapes open, I smash it back in there where it belongs, with the rest of them.

  *

  If I can help it Todd’s not going to get into Ohairy’s office alone. That is my late spring New Year’s Resolution. I have to be real careful, too, because this Ohairy is a crafty one. Todd says that Blondie took him to a meeting of “a new people’s coalition of adults advocating change.” I tell Todd that it is a shame that none of these “peoples” can speak English and have to resort to words like “coalition” and “movement.” That it would probably be better to call themselves a couple of pissed-off guys who want to blow up some buildings.

  Todd says that maybe I won’t take him seriously but Miss O’Hare will.

  Not without me there to keep an eye on her, she won’t. We go to her office during a Tuesday study hall. Ohairy congratulates Todd on his newfound freedom. “If there’s anything I can do to help you, you be sure and let me know.”

  “My dad and I are taking care of him just fine,” I say to her. I sit down right between the two of them.

  “I’m sure you are,” she says. She says it with a real fakey smile. She’s acting like I’m in her way or something.

  Todd can’t hardly wait to get started. He rubs his hands together and says, “Wait till I tell you about this meeting.” He goes on to tell her how Blondie and he went down to the “people’s coalition for big shit,” lodge or whatever they call it. He makes a whole performance out of it. He leans forward into her, his elbows rides his knees. He makes choppy little gestures with his hand in Ohairy’s direction. Now and then he brushes his hair behind his ears. When he gets to the so-called high points, Ohairy inhales and expands and her little tits pop right up. As he talks he leans closer and she moves closer, too. Her eyes glow like lightning bugs when he talks.

  “Mark tells me they’re an ambitious group,” she says. “You’re lucky to get in on the ground floor. You have more say that way. I know I plan to do what I can.” She pats him on the back, leaves her hand on his arm. They have to lean around me to do all this. The narrow office seems suddenly narrower, seems to hem us in.

  “It makes me kind of nervous,” Todd says. “Some of these guys want to do some really radical stuff.”

  Ohairy shakes her head and says not to worry about it. “Look at the lunch counter sit-ins. Look at the voting rights marches in Alabama. Sometimes you have to do radical things to get results. Sometimes people get hurt.”

  “That’s not necessarily true,” I say, before I know what I’m saying. “You could work with people. At a hospital or at a school.”

  “Marshall! Of course you’re right,” she says. She says it as if she’d forgotten I was even in the room. “That’s what the Peace Corps is all about. I think you’d enjoy something like that. You’re a one-to-one kind of guy. You’re a people person.” She says this with a lot of fake enthusiasm, with a warm smile that leaves me cold. She goes back to Todd.

  “There’s work for people like us here at home. Right Todd?” They exchange smiles, but they look more like sneers to me.

  *

  “You don’t like Kathy much, do you,” Todd says to me. This is later on, at home, after bedtime. With Gayle here, we even have bedtime again.

  “Duh,” I say.

  “I never met anyone like her before,” he says. “She’s smart. She’s got guts. She’s not afraid to take charge.”

  “She jerks people around,” I say. “She plays head games.”

  “Ah, come on. She just wants us to grow. She wants us to get involved with real life.”

  “Sure,” I say. “She wants suckers who are willing to do her dirty work for her.”

  “Well,” Todd says. “I guess that’s me, then.” He rolls over on the bed. His magazine dumps off the bed as he turns. He has sort of a sickly smile on his face. “Know why I go along with her. I admire her.”

  “Huh. You’re stuck on her.”

  “Yeah, I guess I’m that, too. You got some heroes, don’t you, Marshall?”

  “None that I know of. You got to be careful with that stuff. It’s easy to get screwed.”

  “I felt that way. Before I met Kathy. All I knew of life was pot-bellied, beer-guzzling white trash river rats.”

  “Thanks a lot,” I say.

  He throws a sock at me. “You know what I mean. People like me: we’re on a dead end. That’s what Kathy did for me. She showed me a way out. She showed me possibilities.”

  “There’s something sort of … slimy about that woman. Hey! You know what we need to do? We need to find you another role model. How about a musician. Or a movie star?”

  “I don’t know any rockers or any movie stars. I’m happy with what I got. You don’t like her because she’s different from other teachers. She respects me, and that drives you crazy.”

  “And it don’t hurt that you think she’s fine.”

  “Hey,” he says. “I told you a year ago I thought she was hot. Unlike you I’m not ashamed to admit my feelings. I like her. I like her a lot.”

  “Oh yeah,” I say.

  Another great comeback.

  “Well, I got somebody I’m thinking about, too,” I tell him. “I just don’t need all of Washington Park to know about it. And I don’t need to join some Red-Army-blow-up-the-world club to prove it.”

  “Kathy had nothing to do with that. I joined that group cause I wanted to.”

  “You wouldn’t know anything about that group if it hadn’t been for her.”

  “And I thank her for that. Kathy and Mark opened my eyes. About a lot of things. You know, Marshall, the world’s a lot bigger than what goes on down here in this hollow. You got to get out there into it.”

  “Why don’t you subscribe to National Geographic, or something? Give the rest of us a break.”

  “You’re a cynical bastard. If you say one more word, Marshall, I’m picking up your dirty underwear and smothering you with it.”

  “Just one more thing,” I say. “Do you think Randall is sticking it to Ohairy. I mean, I saw them getting down in her office …”

  I jump off the bed and grab the underwear before Todd can find his glasses. He’s saying I’m just like somebody’s fuckin old grandma.

  “They been living together since college,” he yells.

  But before he can finish I’m on top of him smothering him with the stretched out pair of Hanes underwear.

  I got him pinned. He can’t move. I’m so much stronger than he is.

  “Say ‘I’m a little red-headed commie,’” I taunt.

  “Get off of me you big fuckin moose.”

  “You have to say it,” I say.

  Just then Sam pounds on the wall. “Cut out all that damn noise in there.”

  We both jump back in our beds and under the covers. As if that would fool anybody.

  “See what you did,” I say.

  “You’re an asshole, Marshall.”

  “Takes one to know one,” I say.

  “Don’t make me have to come in there,” Sam yells.

  That’s all either of us needs to hear. We’re both under the covers and we’re both giggling.

  *

  I wake up that night for my usual 2:30 pee. And I hear them. For the first time I hear them. Sam and Gayle.

  It is different than with the others. The same squeaking, of course. But, it is in some way less … dangerous sounding. I grab on to the bathroom doorknob so as not to lose my way. I get a little weak at the knees when I’ve been sleeping.

&n
bsp; I wonder how it is she lets him do it. I had never thought she might.

  But they all do. Every last one of them.

  Sam must know the secret word.

  *

  Sam has planned a big celebration picnic for the Sunday before Memorial Day. He says we’ve got to celebrate double: the landfill, and also Todd joining our family. He frets over every detail—the right chips, enough soda to drown an army. You’d think we were planning the royal wedding.

  After we have packed up the picnic baskets and coolers, Gayle orders them loaded into the Toyota and tells us to meet her on the front lawn.

  Out front Gayle starts the big announcement with a fanfare. “Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-da.” She does this pretending she’s got a little trumpet held up to her lips. “Gentlemen: I present to you Missouri’s newest and certainly most nervous driver—Marshall Field Finney.”

  “Ta-da.” I whip my temporary license out of my pocket. Gayle tosses me the keys. Gayle and I worked almost everyday on this goal. I passed with an 84—that parallel parking gets you every time. As if you had to park that way at the mall anyhow.

  Gayle says we can teach Todd next.

  “I ain’t getting in the car with him,” Todd says.

  Sam gets a look on face—sort of a big spoiled baby look. “I was gonna show you how to drive.” He comes over and half-heartedly shakes my hand. He puts his hands on my shoulders and whispers in my ear. “Didn’t you think I was gonna teach you, son?” Then he says loud enough for the others to hear, “I was. But you know how busy I get. I was, though.”

  Gayle pats him on the back. Tells him to chill out. We get in the car and Sam sits right by me in the front seat. He’s got to give directions, since he’s the only one who knows where we’re going.

  Poor Sam. When I get a chance to look down I notice that he’s doing as much clutching and shifting and braking as I am. I miss a few turns because Sam is so busy helping me drive that he forgets to tell me where to go.