Uncle Sean

by Ronald L Donaghe

  “I was born here,” I said, getting a better look at the good side of his face, and I liked what I saw. He sure enough was old enough to shave, because it looked like he hadn’t shaved in a day or two. That was just about the only thing that made him look like more than a kid, except maybe his eyes. They had seen some hard times. He didn’t have Trinket’s innocent look—and maybe not even mine. “Since I haven’t really been anywhere else,” I said, “it doesn’t seem as bad as you say it is.”

  “Well, it is,” he said. “We drove for several days, and when we hit West Texas a couple of days ago, I ain’t seen not one fucking lake. Not a single god-damned drop of water. It’s just sand and dirt and rocks and heat.”

  “You didn’t see the Rio Grande River when you came through Las Cruces?” By now, we had relaxed with each other a little and I just sat down near his shirt to get a better look at it. Sure enough, there was blood on it, though it was dried and caked and brown.

  “That was the Rio Grande?” he said. “That was the river I heard so much about in those westerns? Shee-it! It ain’t nothing but a creek!”

  I didn’t know what to say, and when he cracked another grin and sat down by me on my left side, where I couldn’t see the bruise, I saw he was pretty. And I mean really pretty, like Uncle Sean, only with darker features.

  For a minute neither of us had anything to say, and I could feel my heart beginning to pound a little, as I looked off toward the plant. Then back at him, then back at the workers climbing around.

  “Is one of those guys your dad?” I asked.

  “My dad is dead and buried,” Lance said, sounding sad. “But yeah. One of those sons’a bitches is my stepfather.”

  I was reminded in another way of Uncle Sean—not just Lance’s beauty, but his anger and his sadness—and all the feelings I had once felt for Uncle Sean came flooding back as Lance and I sat there and talked while we gazed across the desert at the workmen climbing all over the smelter plant like it was some kind of metal anthill.

  He told me he was from New Orleans, though he pronounced it N’awleans, and I told him I’d never been that far east. Fact was I hadn’t ever been out of New Mexico, except when Daddy and I drove over to Phoenix one time to buy a tractor. But that was a long time ago, before Trinket was even born.

  “So is your dad—ah—your stepfather just here for the construction?” I asked.

  Lance was laying back on his elbows, and so was I, and he was squinting into the sun, and so was I. The light was becoming more golden by then and his face just seemed to glow. He actually grinned at my question, and just then his lips looked so luscious I felt myself getting a little stiff-on.

  “We fuckin’ moved here for good, as far as that son-of-a-bitch’ll tell me.”

  “So he’s going to work in the smelter?”

  “Shit, I don’t know,” Lance said.

  “Then you’ll be going to school? What grade are you in?”

  He laughed at that question. “I ain’t going to school. I quit last year, when I was a junior.”

  I was a little stunned at that. We occasionally had kids quit school, but mostly our families and the schools worked to keep kids from quitting.

  “But don’t you want a good education?” I asked, and wished I hadn’t, because Lance sat up like I’d slapped his face.

  “What’re you some kind of god-damned detective? It ain’t none of your business.” Then he sneered at me and I felt hurt. “You talk like some kind of college-educated snob, is what I think. You and your…” then he just kind of fell back on his elbows like his anger had escaped like gas through some kind of pressure valve.

  “I didn’t mean to make you mad,” I said, still feeling a little hurt, though why I should, I couldn’t say.

  “It ain’t nothing,” Lance said, smiling at me again. “You ain’t been nothing but nice to talk to. I shouldn’t of went off on you like that. It’s just my stepfather…he’s…”

  Again he kind of deflated.

  I took a deep breath, because I knew I could really make him mad, but I just had to know. “He’s the one that beat you up, isn’t he?” As soon as the question was out of my mouth, I cringed, waiting for him to blow up at me, again.

  But he sat up and curled his arms around his knees, just the way I’d found him, earlier. Then he looked sideways at me, and I could’ve died for as beautiful as his face looked, just then, and there were tears in his eyes.

  “I can’t take it, any more, Will,” he said. The way he used my name sounded so nice and familiar, like we were long-time friends. I sat up myself and moved up next to him, my heart pounding so hard, I just knew he could hear it, and I put my arm across his shoulders.

  At first, he drew back a little, looking at me like I had kissed him or something. But then he laid his head on my shoulder, and I thought I was going to die of happiness right there. All his tough talk and bad language, the way he jumped up and brandished his fists when I’d first come up on him were kid-like things that showed how desperate and emotionally wrecked he was. So I scooted closer to him and drew him tighter against me.

  I was awash in feelings that made me begin to shake, and I knew he could feel me shaking, but I didn’t care. He was trembling every bit as much as I was, and so we just sat there like that for a long time before he spoke again. “Thanks for that, Will. You’re like an angel. You look like an angel,” he said, sitting up and smiling at me.

  I was sorry when he raised up and pulled away. So I straightened up and looked him right in the eyes. “Maybe I am one,” I said, my voice catching in my throat. “Angels are supposed to help people.”

  Then I had an idea. “It’s kind of hot out here. You look like you could use something to drink. You wanna go for a Coke?”

  The way he hesitated, I was afraid he was going to refuse, and I felt like my life depended on him saying he would. Don’t ask me why. I’d just met the guy. But already, I liked the way he made me feel, like I was about to jump out of my skin.

  He was visibly shaking and, even though I wanted to hug him against me, again, I thought it was going too far.

  “When did…that happen?” I asked, indicating his bruises, willing him to agree and go with me, trying to get him to say something. Instead, he just kept shaking, as though he were freezing to death.

  “Yesterday,” he said, finally, in a voice so quiet it was hard to hear. “I ain’t been home since.”

  “You’re probably starved. Maybe we ought to go for burgers,” I said, getting up. “Did you run away from home, then?”

  He got up, as well. He was still shaking, but I think he really wanted something to eat. He picked up his shirt, and I could see that it was definitely bloody, but also dirty and sweat-stained under the arms. When we were both standing, he looked at me, right in the eyes, like he was trying to tell me something by his look, alone. “I was going to run away,” he said, “but when I started walking yesterday, I walked for hours and I saw I wasn’t getting anywhere. It’s like this desert just stretches wider and wider like some kind of trap.”

  “It does,” I said. “You’d die of exposure out here in just a couple of days.” I began climbing down the rock and he followed. So I kept talking. “My pickup’s just over that hill,” I told him. “I got plenty of gas and we can drive on into Hachita. You been there, yet?”

  “Fuck, no,” he said, behind me. “We got into Lordsburg, day before yesterday, then got directions to Playas, and came straight here. At least I got far enough so I can’t see it, today.”

  I told him it was just swallowed up by the small mountain to our northwest, and we wouldn’t see it at all going into Hachita. “But it’s not really all that far away. Maybe fifteen miles along highway 9.”

  When we got to the pickup, Lance stopped on the passenger side and, from the way he was standing (though all I could see was his shoulders from my side), I could tell he was taking a leak. I did the same, leaving a rain-drop shaped patch of wet on the sand. Then we both got into the pickup
, and the way we were sitting, about all I could see of his face was the bruised side.

  “So, are you running away? I mean, do you still want to? Won’t your mother be worried?”

  “That’s too many questions,” he said, softly. “I think I’ll have to think about the whole thing. Only, yeah, Mom will be worried, though she knows that son-of-a-bitch beats me, so let her.”

  I’d never known anyone whose father beat on them. At least not like Lance’s stepfather. My own parents spanked me when I was a kid, and my daddy slapped me a couple of times when I talked back, but I didn’t know anybody’s parents who hadn’t spanked them. And the only time I knew of some kid getting bruises was when the principal whacked kids on the butt for things they did at school. In P.E. they’d show off the welts like they were some kind of prize.

  But Lance’s face looked like hamburger meat, and him being out in the hot sun all day, the bruises were kind of filled with blood or something, because they looked sickening. I hoped it wouldn’t scar him. I knew it’d take a long time for them to heal. And then I was worried in case he decided to go back home because, what if his “son-of-a-bitch” stepfather slapped him around again, and hit him on the same bruises? I cringed at the thought and glanced over at him.

  He was sitting up against the passenger-side door, though still close enough that I could’ve easily reached over and laid my hand on his shoulder, just like Uncle Sean used to do me, and the way I used to do Uncle Sean.

  We drove over the ranch road I had followed to get back in here. When I got to our field road, I knew I’d have to drive past our house to get out the gate and I hoped Daddy wasn’t out looking for me. I’d been gone awhile longer than I had planned. It was already close to dusk, and the sky was darkening a little, turning from its washed-out heat blue to the deep blue of dusk. I also knew that it would take long enough to get into Hachita, eat, and get back home that I’d miss supper, and Mama and Daddy would be worried, and maybe a little mad.

  So as I was coming into the field, I slowed down on the north end. “You know what, Lance?” I said. “I just thought about it. But I think I need to tell my parents I won’t be home for supper. Do you mind if I stop at the house for a minute?”

  I don’t think he realized the fix I’d put myself into, because he just shrugged. “Naw, go ahead. But I’ll just wait in the pickup.”

  “Great,” I said, trying to be casual about it, as I picked up speed and drove the rest of the way to the house, my mind spinning with ways to explain why I wasn’t going to eat at home, how to avoid mentioning I’d picked up a runaway, especially a kid my own age. All kinds of things needed to be explained—or avoided. I hoped Daddy wouldn’t ask too many questions or be too mad that I wasn’t going to be home for supper.

  ***

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Mama said, as soon as I had told her and Daddy I thought I’d go into town and grab a burger. It just so happened that everybody, including Rita, was home and they were all in the kitchen getting ready for supper.

  Mama hadn’t put her foot down like that in a long time—at least not to me. So I felt stuck, because Lance was sitting out in the pickup waiting on me.

  “Well,” I said, facing Mama, because Daddy was just sitting at the table with Trinket and not really paying too much mind, “I got somebody in the pickup.” Then I turned to Daddy. “I was out looking at the work on the smelter plant, and I saw this kid sitting up on a ledge where I sometimes go. He was lost or something, so I was going to take him into Hachita and buy him a burger.”

  It wasn’t a very good way of explaining things, and sure enough the girls perked their ears up and Mama was spooning mashed potatoes into a bowl, then just stopped, looking out the kitchen door.

  “Well, go get him and bring him in here. No sense in wasting your money on a hamburger when I got chicken-fried steak.”

  That was not how I had wanted to handle things, but like I said, Mama was in one of her moods, and she wouldn’t have it any different.

  So I went back to the pickup, my heart beginning to pound, and I felt embarrassed, because as soon as they got one look at Lance’s face and his filthy shirt, I was sure both Mama and Daddy were going to hit the ceiling.

  I came up to the passenger-side window. “Uh,” I said, then kind of cleared my throat. “I had to tell them I had you out here, because Mama didn’t want me to leave since supper’s almost ready. Do you want to come in and eat?”

  Dusk was almost over and Lance’s features were softened by the hazy light, and I just sighed waiting for him to decide.

  “You didn’t tell them I run away, did you?”

  I couldn’t remember exactly what I’d told Mama. “I think I said you were lost.”

  Lance grinned at me. “Thanks, shithead. That sure makes me look stupid.”

  Lance’s remark hurt to the quick, but I tried to act like it didn’t. “Well, at least I didn’t tell them you were running away from home. So do you wanna come in?”

  Lance got out of the pickup, still grinning at me, though I don’t think it was from something he found funny, ha-ha, but maybe the predicament I had put us both in, because as soon as they saw his face, it was going to be over. There would be questions.

  I couldn’t have dreamt how things turned out, though.

  Seven

  ———————▼———————

  I should’ve figured Daddy knew everybody for thirty miles around Hachita, and probably all their kids, because as soon as I introduced Lance to everybody and he was standing in the kitchen with his filthy, bloody t-shirt on, Daddy said, “You’re a runaway, ain’t you? And I’ll just bet your parents moved in from somewhere to work on that smelter plant.”

  I was standing next to Lance. I couldn’t believe how quick Daddy honed in to the situation. In fact, Lance and I were standing so close together, I saw I was almost a head taller than he was, and he could have been my younger brother. That’s also probably what Mama and Daddy thought—that he was a young kid—because except for his beat up face and the grown-up look in his eyes, Lance was little. I could hear him swallow, and it made me feel bad that I’d got him in here.

  I was afraid Lance was going to run for it, because as close as I was standing, I knew he was shaking a little, and I knew he was scared, just like when I came up on him out in the desert.

  “Yes sir,” he said, finally, to Daddy. “I did run away.”

  “And you ran,” Mama said, “because somebody gave you a beating?”

  He just nodded at that. Mama was still standing by the sink in the kitchen, and Daddy was still sitting at the table, and the girls had stopped what they were doing and were staring at Lance, and I glanced from face to face, feeling awkward and protective of Lance, and feeling guilty, too, that I had brought him in the house.

  “Don’t matter,” I said, looking at Mama, then at Daddy. “Lance is hurt and hungry, which is why I was going to take him in to town.”

  “Then you better show him where the bathroom is so he can clean up a little,” Mama said. “And dab some monkey blood on his face, before those welts get infected. We’ll wait supper ’til you’re ready.”

  When we were in the bathroom and Lance had his t-shirt off and was standing in front of the sink, I said I was sorry for getting him into this mess, but he smiled at me. I was standing on his left side, and his smile looked as beat up as his face and I could feel the tears burn my eyes.

  “It’s all right, Will,” he said. He was holding the bottle of stuff Mama called “monkey blood,” and I was holding a box of cotton balls.

  “You sure?” I asked. “I don’t know what they’re going to want to do, though.”

  “Let’s at least eat,” Lance said. “I’m about to faint I’m so hungry.”

  I took a cotton ball out of the box and took the monkey blood from him and soaked the cotton ball. Then, as he looked up at me with his face to the light over the sink, I dabbed his bruises. Some of them were puffy and purple. He shut his
eyes and winced as I touched his face. I almost jumped when he put his hand on my chest and moved a little closer to me. And I did the same, so that in an instant, we were pressed up against each other, right there in the bathroom, as I dabbed his face with the cotton ball.

  A moment later, I set the box down and curled my arm around his naked back, so I could hug him to me. We were both shaking, and I could feel his heart beating against my chest, and that’s when I knew Lance was the boy I’d been hoping for, and he was like me and Uncle Sean.

  I hated to let him go, but I needed to get him a clean t-shirt, and if we didn’t get in to supper, somebody was going to come looking for us.

  ***

  Even though Daddy hadn’t been the same since he got his ulcers removed, and was looking worse every year, and even though Mama was more irritable than she had been, since she and Rita fought most of the time, they seemed to pull out of their own problems that night at supper, because Lance presented them a problem like they’d never had to deal with as far as I knew.

  Even Rita was involved more with the family that night than I had seen her for awhile. Of course May and Trinket were their normal selves. Except May was quiet and taking in things the rest of us probably didn’t notice; but Trinket was a little angel and wanted to sit by Lance at the dinner table, and I think he liked her attention. She was always the friendly little kid, and of course her size made her seem younger than she was, kind of like Lance’s small size made him seem younger than he was, too.

  So supper wasn’t subdued as it sometimes was when it was just me and the family. The thing I couldn’t have dreamed of is that both Mama and Daddy were reluctant to contact Lance’s parents—at least until they’d had a chance to think about it.

  “Let’s give you a couple of days to get to feeling better,” Daddy said, to which Mama agreed. “You can sleep in the girls’ old room,” she said. I would have called it Sean’s room, even if he had only been there a short time, because his absence still filled that room, just like it did my heart.