The Troubles of Johnny Cannon

by Isaiah Campbell

  She started to say something else, but my dadgum brain and dadgum ears picked up on some whispering coming from behind, and what was being said grabbed my attention something fierce. Dadgummit. If I could, I’d go back and slap myself to keep on listening to Martha.

  But, no. My brain decided to listen to Eddie.

  He was whispering to his little fan club of fifth graders.

  “I mean, can we really say he’s a hero if he couldn’t even fly a routine training exercise?” he said to the little people, and they all giggled under their breath so nobody’d hear them.

  I heard them.

  I snapped my pencil in half and stood up in the middle of Martha saying something about us seeing each other over the summer. I wish I would have sat back down. Heck, even Mrs. Buttke tried to get me to sit down. But I didn’t.

  Instead, I turned to Eddie’s desk and slapped it, just to get his attention.

  “What was you saying about Tommy?”

  He snickered and looked at his friends. “We was saying how much of a hero he is, to all of us.”

  His buddies covered their mouths with their hands to hide that they was laughing. I nodded at him and tried to think of what the right thing to do was. All the Sunday School teachers had always taught me about the Golden Rule, that you do to others what you want them doing to you. Well, if somebody ever heard me mouthing off like an idiot and badmouthing my brother, the way Eddie just had, I’d hope they’d smack me in the mouth.

  So that’s just what I did for him.

  I blasted my fist right into his nose, and it was like turning on a faucet, he was bleeding all over his desk. His buddies jumped up and tried to throw their own punches, but they wasn’t near fast enough, and they was all nursing black eyes and bloody noses themselves before too long.

  I was primed to give Eddie another wallop for good measure, but Mrs. Buttke grabbed my arm mid-swing and dragged me away from him.

  “See, that’s what socializing with Tiggers will do to you,” Eddie hollered, little blood droplets spraying all over my shirt. “You start turning into a dadgum savage.”

  I almost pulled back out of Mrs. Buttke’s arms, but she pulled me past Martha and out of the room to the principal’s office. On our way, we passed the trophy wall, where Tommy’s name was printed on half the stuff they was showing. I started to feel sick to my stomach.

  They called Pa, and he came to pick me up. He preached me a sermon on the way home, with an altar call and everything, and I couldn’t muster up the courage to explain myself. All I knew was that I missed Tommy like crazy, more then than anytime before. He usually had a way of letting me know I wasn’t alone when Pa was laying into me as bad as he was.

  I went up to my room and read all my comic books again, even though there wasn’t a one of them that I hadn’t read at least five times. After a while, I heard somebody at our door. I looked out and Mrs. Buttke was there. I was sure that she was telling Pa all about how bad of a kid I was, and maybe aiming to get me another whipping or something. She handed him a big book, and then she left.

  He came up to my room.

  “Your teacher said she wanted you to have this book.” He handed it to me. “She said she’s never had another student as interested in that as you’ve been this school year.”

  The book was called 365 Days in History. I opened it up. Every single one of Mrs. Buttke’s This Day in History posts was in there, along with ones for all the other days of the year. I couldn’t believe she’d given it to me. It was perfect, I could catch up on any of the days I might have missed.

  Pa left me alone with the book and I started digging in to copy things over into my survival guide. I corrected some of my dates, got some of the facts better, and even changed some of my notes after I saw that I’d gotten all the facts wrong. And I also read some of the other days’ events. And through it all, I was beginning to learn one really important fact. I even wrote it on the first page of my survival guide in big letters.

  There ain’t nothing, good or bad, that sticks around.

  I reckoned that was as good a lesson to learn that day as any, and I took it to heart. I had to believe that the next day would be a day further away from all the junk that had happened to me. And that might mean it was a day closer to good things.

  I woke up the next morning drooling on my best Superman comic, my flashlight dimmed out from being on all night. The first day of summer was coming in through my window, and it was the first thing I’d seen that told me everything was going to be okay. The birds was singing like they only do in Cullman County, the air had the smell of wildflowers, and there was a rooster crowing somewhere down the way.

  I rolled out of bed, breathed in the sweet breeze, and figured I’d get some chores done before I went to see what Willie was up to. I closed my eyes and tried to get my bearings on the day. I could hear Pa downstairs cooking onions and eggs for breakfast. The milkman was dropping off our milk outside, whistling “Dixie.” A little farther away, I could just barely make out the sound of that momma cat in our backyard screeching at her kittens.

  It was finally a normal day.

  I ran downstairs, fearsome hungry, hoping Pa might have made me a plate, but he didn’t. He’d only cooked enough for himself. I grabbed me a piece of toast and sat down.

  He was reading the paper, and the biggest news of the day was that the city had decided to start summer baseball sign-ups on schedule, which was that day. There’d been talk about postponing it due to the cleanup, but the mayor said we needed to get our lives back. So it was going to be a big event downtown. It’d be nice to get something going normal again, and there wasn’t nothing more normal than throwing fastballs like Whitey Ford.

  I hurried and finished my breakfast and asked Pa if he could take me into town, but he reminded me that our truck was still illegal to drive, thanks to me and the tree branch that busted up the windshield. I didn’t reckon Willie was going to the sign-up, since Colony had their own baseball team and he wouldn’t be one for playing on it anyway. So I hopped on my bicycle and rode into town.

  The sign-up was down at the courthouse, and I was looking forward to seeing all the boys there and arguing about baseball while we stood in line. I was the only Cincinnati Reds fan around, so we usually got into some friendly scraps. They liked to say that the Reds was a bunch of Commies, but I knew that wasn’t true. Anyway, a whole mess of them liked the New York Yankees, and the worst thing to a fella in Cullman was a Yankee. But it didn’t affect their loyalty to that stupid team.

  I was primed for the arguing to start. There wasn’t nothing like a good fight over baseball to set the summer up right. It might put all the conflict we’d had during school behind us.

  When I got there, nobody’d talk to me. We stood in line, and nobody tried to convince me to be on their team. There was a kid who’d been in a wheelchair up until a week before the end of school, they tried to get him, but not me. It didn’t make no sense.

  Then I got to the sign-up table and it dawned on me. The man in charge of the Cullman Baseball League was Bob Gorman. I tried not to look him in the eyes and grabbed the first clipboard I could get my hands on. He snatched it out of my hand before I could put my name down.

  “Boy, I think you best take this summer off. What with your loss and all.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “But, I really want to play. And there ain’t a better pitcher in Cullman, sir, and you know that’s a fact. You got to let me play.”

  He looked me square in the eye and laughed. “I ain’t got to do nothing but stay white and die. Now, move on so these good boys can sign up to play ball.”

  My ears was burning, but I couldn’t think of nothing to say. If he’d been closer to my age, I would have just called him outside so we could let our fists finish the talking. Still, there wasn’t no arguing with what he said, and even less with what he hadn’t. A
quick glance around the room at the eyes of all the dads that was trying to keep their sons far away from me proved what I already knew was true.

  I’d done been labeled a Tigger-lover.

  I left the courthouse and tried to find something else to do. I was able to scrounge a few pennies outside the Laundromat and took them to the soda shop for a root beer. It wasn’t near as much fun drinking alone, so I gulped it down and figured I’d head back home. The bike ride was real lonely.

  When I got home, Pa was still sitting in his seat, reading his paper. I looked at the kitchen sink and it dawned on me that nobody had done any dishes in a week of Sundays. Of course, dishes wasn’t one of the chores on my usual list, but I figured there needed to be a peace offering made between me and Pa, so I went to take care of them.

  While I was scrubbing the pots and pans, I heard something hitting the kitchen window. Then it happened again, and I saw it was pebbles getting thrown from outside. I looked and saw Willie hiding behind the tree in our yard. I wiped off my hands and went out.

  “What you doing over there? Just come up to the door,” I yelled at him.

  “Wasn’t sure if I was welcome anymore,” he said. “It’s been a real long time since we talked. And your pa said you needed space.”

  “I’ve had about all the space I can stand. What do you want?”

  “First I wanted to say that I’m sorry about your brother.” He actually looked sad, which was nice.

  “Seems like everybody’s sorry he died,” I said.

  He nodded. “I was also wondering if you was playing baseball this summer.”

  I shrugged. “Not this year.”

  “Why not?”

  “They didn’t want me. Ain’t no problem. I guess I’ll do some reading or something.” I winked at him. “Maybe some science books, for once.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, that’d be good.” He pushed a rock around with his foot. “But, the reason I was asking, if you still feel like playing baseball, my pa told me he’d love to have you throw for our team.”

  “On the Colony team? Ain’t that against the law or something?”

  “Nope. We can have whoever we want. And we want you to be our pitcher.”

  I had to admit, being a pitcher on any team was better than not being one at all. Of course, the Colony baseball team only played half the games Cullman teams did, but they played one big one at the beginning of the season against last year’s champion from Cullman. That’d be fun, but what if joining them got me permanently labeled a Tigger-lover?

  “Have you got any other white kids on your team?”

  “Cody Fannon. He’s on second.”

  That killed the deal. “Cody Fannon’s trash and everybody knows it. Anyway, y’all don’t need me. Russ is a good pitcher.”

  “He broke his finger,” Willie said.

  “In a fight?”

  “No, practicing piano. His cat jumped on the lid and slammed it on his hand.”

  I couldn’t help but chuckle. “I thought he wanted to be a boxer.”

  “He does, but his grandma wants him to play music in front of folks some day. Scares the bejeezus out of him. He’d rather get his brain bashed in than have folks hear him play the piano.” We both laughed at that.

  “Still, I don’t know,” I said. “Seems like, the more I try to ignore our colors, the more it blows up in my face. So, even if y’all do need me, I don’t think I need that.”

  He shrugged and started to leave. “Maybe. But Pa thinks maybe you do. He says you need somebody, and we might as well be the somebodies for you. If you change your mind, we practice down at the church field.”

  I watched him hobble his way back down the road and it struck me how much effort he’d put into coming up there after me.

  “Willie, stop!” I yelled.

  He turned around.

  “You’re right,” I said.

  “So you will join the baseball team?”

  “Well, I still ain’t sure about that,” I said. “But you’re right, we haven’t shown you how welcome you are around here. So, how about if you stay the night?”

  “Are you serious?” he said.

  See, in all the history of Cullman County, there hadn’t never been a time when a black kid and a white kid stayed civilly in the same house without one being a servant and the other a master. Heck, they couldn’t even be in the same city limits, let alone in the same residence. For him to stay up there with me was breaking all the rules folks had been following since forever.

  And the first rule of surviving history I ever wrote down was, If you want to stop history from repeating itself, stop repeating yourself.

  It made a lot more sense to me at the end of the school year than it had at the beginning.

  “Yeah, I’m as serious as sin,” I said.

  “Wow, that’s pretty danged serious,” he said. “I guess I need to call my ma and get her to say it’s all right.”

  We went inside so he could use the phone and Pa was still sitting, reading the paper. He looked up at us and smiled at Willie.

  “Good to see you, boy,” he said. “I hoped you wasn’t too put off when I said we needed space. I didn’t realize till I said it that it might have seemed a mite bit color-minded of me.”

  Me and Willie both had the same puzzled look in our eyes.

  “Well, you know, on account of the plantations and all that. Space, you see. Room. Land spread out that’s ours and ours alone. Like what the white folk had in the old days.”

  “Pa, I think you’re overthinking it.”

  He nodded. “Anyway, good to see you.”

  “Willie’s going to spend the night,” I said.

  Pa had the look on his face that every other person in Cullman would have had if they knew about it. “Don’t you reckon you ought to get some permission first?” he said.

  “He’s going to ask his ma.”

  “Okay, what about your pa?” he said.

  “Hadn’t thought about it,” I said.

  “Oh,” he said. “Well, it’s all right with me.”

  “Like I said, I hadn’t thought about it.” Don’t know why I felt like sassing him, but I did. He winced a little and I felt bad, but I wasn’t going to apologize in front of Willie.

  Mrs. Parkins gave the okay and I went over to get some of his things to take to my house. I made sure to get his tape recorder, which he’d said was working just fine except for a crackle in the speaker. I also grabbed his comic books so we could trade. And also his science book.

  When I came back, he told me he didn’t know how to shoot a gun. I decided it was time he learned.

  We unloaded all his stuff in my room and then I went and got my hunting rifle out of the front closet. We went out to the backyard and I showed him how to load it and how to keep from killing somebody unintentionally. I ran him through all the same gun safety lessons Tommy’d done. Don’t point it at nobody, carry it pointed down to the ground or up and away from you, if there’s a safety on it make sure you keep it on, blah blah blah. He was soaking it up, though.

  “Why ain’t you ever shot a gun?” I said.

  “I’m a preacher’s kid,” he said. “Folks don’t think preachers’ kids should be playing with guns. Especially black preachers’ kids.”

  That made sense. After I made sure he understood the safety side, it was time to get to the shooting side. With his bum leg, we was kind of limited in the positions he could be in to shoot from, but I made him a bench out of some firewood and he got to where he was aiming it proper. I took some limestone and drew a big X on our shed and told him to shoot it.

  First shot he took, he didn’t even hit the shed. The recoil from the gun knocked him plumb off the firewood. He looked like a dead deer with its legs stuck up in the air.

  I tried to hide my laughing, but I didn’t need t
o, ’cause he was busting his gut. He got up and got back on the firewood and tried again. He hit the roof of the shed.

  “Dadgum, if you keep that up we can give the woodpeckers and termites the rest of the year off,” I said.

  We kept it up for the next couple of hours, and by the end of it he was getting pretty good. He was actually hitting the shed, and he was getting pretty close to hitting the X. We both finally realized how hungry we was, so we went inside. Willie wasn’t yet ready to stop holding the gun, so I let him take it up to my room with us. I made us some sandwiches and we ate upstairs.

  We stayed up real late trading comic books and listening to Willie’s SuperNegro radio shows, and I had to admit that he made stories as good as any that was in the comic books. I also showed him my guide to surviving history and the book Mrs. Buttke’d given me. He thought it was interesting, but he said he had something to show me in his science book that was just as interesting. Maybe more.

  “You remember when you told me that history shows us how things ought to be? Well, science does just as good. Here, look.”

  He opened his book to a page that showed some flowers and the places they’d grow best.

  “See, this flower here can grow real good if you plant it in the right place, give it good sun and water, and even give it plant food. But, what do you think would happen if I took another of the exact same flower and planted it in the desert instead? Didn’t give it no water or food or nothing?”

  “It’d die, I reckon,” I said.

  “Does that mean that flower wasn’t no good? Got a bad seed or something?”

  I shook my head.

  “Exactly,” he said. “In science, we call that an environmental variable. And it’s pretty easy to see when you got two of the exact same flower. But let’s say the flower we planted here in Cullman was a yellow carnation and the one we planted in the desert was a red one. And the red one died. You know what some folks that didn’t understand environmental variables would say? They’d say that red carnations was more prone to dying than yellow ones.”

  Made sense to me.

  “Okay, so what’s the point?” I said.