The Essay A Novel

  “Goodbye, Nick Hickam,” I said.

  “Good riddance,” Edgel said.

  As we walked back to the house, I recalled an incident at the dinner table at least ten years earlier. “Edgel, I remember that night you gave mom that necklace that had been stolen from Mrs. Radebaugh, that woman who worked up at the truck stop. Do you remember that?”

  Edgel smiled with just the corners of his mouth. “Oh yeah, I remember that.” He looked at me and said, as though reading my mind, “So, if I didn’t do the burglaries, how did I get the necklace?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I was pissed at the old man because he kept using the Rocket to pull the burglaries. I told him to quit doing it in my car and he told me to kiss his ass. ‘It’s not your car,’ he said. He gave me a backhand upside of my head and said no snot-nosed kid was going to tell him how to live his life. A couple of days later, he gets into the trunk of the Rocket, digs around under the spare tire and pulls out that necklace. He gives it to me and tells me to take it up to Columbus and pawn it. I said okay, then that night I gave it to Mom just to piss him off. I knew it would make him madder than hell.”

  “You and Dad got into a fistfight out in the yard after dinner.”

  “You thought he was giving me a beating because I stole the necklace from Mrs. Radebaugh, didn’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Stealin’ didn’t bother Dad, little brother . . . Unless, of course, you were stealin’ from him.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I

  got up at 5 AM. The smell of coffee and bacon already filled the house on Red Dog Road. After pissing away my morning erection, I pulled on a T-shirt and staggered to the kitchen. Edgel was dressed, shaved, and looking sharp in a pair of khaki slacks, a blue Ohio Methodist University golf shirt, and one of my white busboy aprons from the truck stop. “You look good in that apron,” I said, pulling out a chair. “What time did you get up?”

  “It’s a big day,” he said. “You’ve got to get up and get rolling.” He slid a plate of bacon, three fried eggs, and white toast across the table. “Eat up. We need to be on the road by six thirty, at the latest.”

  “You know I’ve got to run over . . .”

  “I know. That’s why you’ve got to eat and get your ass moving.”

  It was the last Sunday of August 1974, the day that I was to report to summer football camp at Ohio Methodist University. Edgel was taking me to camp and could not have been more excited or more nervous. All summer he had monitored my workouts and asked on numerous occasions, “Do you think you’ll get to play as a freshman?” Each time he asked, I would point to a flexed bicep and nod. This always made him smile and he would yell, “Yeah, baby.” Edgel wanted a part in my success and I was happy to share it with him. We were now the only family each of us had. Virgil had called back the week after Edgel had shown me Dad’s watch and demanded that we file a police report. Edgel talked to him and said he didn’t care where the old man was and if Virgil was so damn concerned, he could call the sheriff and report him missing. “You want to call? I’ll give you the phone number.” Virgil called Edgel a selfish prick and was spewing other vulgarities when Edgel hung up the phone. We had not heard from him since. Mom called occasionally, but had not been back in the area since the day she had divorced, remarried, and deeded us the house on Red Dog Road. When Edgel had finished painting the house, he had the Farnsworth boys haul away the rusting junkers that lined the drive and the improvement to the property was impressive. In late May, after the property was cleaned up, he put a “House for Sale” sign along County Road 12, with an arrow pointing up Red Dog Road. A second sign was staked at the bottom of our drive.

  After breakfast, I showered and headed down the stairs. The keys to the Rocket 88 were on the brass hook by the back door. I snatched them on my way out. The rusty spring had yet to pull the screen door back against the jamb when Edgel yelled, “You be back here by six thirty. I don’t want to be late.”

  “I’ll be back in plenty of time.”

  Amanda Singletary lived about four miles from my house. I wanted to see her before I left for college. So, at a few minutes after six on this Sunday morning, I rapped three times on her aluminum storm door. Within a few seconds, I could hear someone stirring inside. The door cracked open and Miss Singletary squinted into the morning sun. “Jimmy Lee,” she said, clutching a pink, quilted robe closed with one hand and pushing open the aluminum storm door with the other.

  “Sorry to come over so early, Miss Singletary, but I’m leaving for college in about a half hour and I needed to talk to you.”

  She nodded and said, “Come in, come in.” She pushed the door shut and pointed toward the kitchen. “Let’s sit down in there.” She buttoned her robe as we walked. “You’re leaving for college already?”

  “Today’s the day we report to football camp. Two-a-day practices start in the morning.”

  “Goodness. In this heat?”

  I shrugged. “If I can get through Coach Battershell’s two-a-days, I can get through this.”

  She pulled a can of coffee from the pantry shelf. “Want some coffee?”

  “No, ma’am. I’ve got to get back. Edgel’s waiting on me and he’s more nervous about this than I am. We’ve got to check in at the stadium at Ohio Methodist by nine o’clock. “I just wanted to stop by and say good-bye and . . .” I choked up on my words. “You know, tell you thanks for everything you did for me last year. None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for you.”

  “Oh, Jimmy Lee, I appreciate that so much, but I didn’t do anything. This was all about you. You wrote the essays and you did it without my help. All I did was help get you the opportunity. You did the work.”

  “But if you hadn’t been there, they probably wouldn’t have let me even compete at the county competition. They would have found a way to take that award from me. You were the first person to ever stand up for me, and I’m very grateful.”

  “Well, I appreciate that, Jimmy Lee, but don’t sell yourself short. This was a great lesson for you and for any kid in that school who chooses to believe in himself. You are the one with the talent. No one can take that away from you.”

  “I would have given up without your help.”

  “I don’t believe that, Jimmy Lee. It’s not in your nature to quit. Sometimes in life we just need a little nudge. You just needed . . .”

  She frowned for a minute. “What’s the first guy in the backfield called, the one without the football who runs through the line first?”

  “The fullback.”

  “Yes, but you call him something else.”

  “The blocking back?”

  “Yes, that’s it. I was your blocking back, but you were the one who had to carry the ball and run through the hole. I appreciate you coming down here and thanking me, Jimmy Lee, I really do. It touches my heart. But you were the one who worked and those were your words and thoughts on that paper that won, not mine.”

  Miss Singletary promised to come to a game early in the season, and I left before the coffee pot had stopped percolating. Edgel was pacing the kitchen floor when I returned at six forty. “We’re going to be late, dammit.”

  He was wearing a white cap with a blue bill that he had bought when he had taken me to Ohio Methodist for my freshman orientation. It was pulled down close to the ears and the bill was flat across the brow. I took the cap from his head, rounded the bill and tightened the plastic strap in the back. “You’ve got to learn how to wear your cap,” I said.

  “Get your suitcases and get in the car,” Edgel said.

  I snagged the suitcases and put them in the trunk of the idling Rocket 88. I was proud to have Edgel taking me to school. He rolled down the driveway, leaving billowing clouds of dust in our wake. The Rocket squealed onto County Road 12, heading into the morning sun and leaving the dust to settle over Red Dog Road.

  Novel