Sweet Dream Baby

by Sterling Watson

  I look at her and at Mr. Tolbert, and he smiles, and I say, “Sure, if you’ll share it with me.” Delia puts her hand on the top of my head. “Travis, that’s sweet, but I don’t want any more.” She touches her middle. “As my grandmother used to say, ‘I have had a sufficiency.’” Mr. Tolbert laughs. I guess he remembers my Aunt Delia’s grandmother.

  We sit on our stools again, and the bell at the front door rings, and I know the boy in the black leather jacket is here. His thick boots bark and scuff on the floor, and I hear him slide into the booth where Sifford and Bishop sat. I spin around and look. He takes a pack of Camels and a silver Zippo lighter from his jacket pocket and starts tapping the lighter on the table. Delia doesn’t turn around, but she doesn’t tell me to mind my business. I like watching the boy. He’s big and his big hands are greasy. He’s got a silver ring with a red jewel on his right middle finger, and he’s wearing a white T-shirt under the jacket and his silver dog tags hang outside his shirt.

  Mr. Tolbert puts another malted in front of me and says, “There you go, Travis.” I turn around and look at my Aunt Delia, and she’s got that small tight smile on her face again, and I wonder if she’s thinking about Sifford.

  The Zippo keeps tapping on the table, and Mr. Tolbert says, “Griner, what can I do for you?” Mr. Tolbert’s voice is too loud. He sounds like my dad when I’m getting on his nerves. The boy in the black leather jacket says, “Jack, I’m sitting here waiting for you to bring me an ashtray.”

  Mr. Tolbert bites his jaw down hard and says, “Griner, I’ve told you you can’t smoke in here, and I’ve told you not to call me Jack.”

  Griner looks at Mr. Tolbert for a long time, and a drop of sweat comes out of his shiny black hair and rolls down his forehead. He ignores it and says, “Everybody smokes in here, Mr. Tolbert, and I seen you come round that counter quick as a monkey and bring them ashtrays. If them boys that just left out of here wanted to smoke, you’d sure-God bring them ashtrays.”

  Mr. Tolbert says, “Griner, you are sorely trying my patience.”

  Griner shakes a cigarette out of the Camel pack and lights it and draws in a big chest full of smoke and blows it at Mr. Tolbert. He says, “I’m just as good as any customer that comes in here.” He pulls out his wallet and takes out a five-dollar bill and slaps it on the table top. “I got money to spend just like them rich boys.”

  Mr. Tolbert bites his jaw and slowly shakes his head. “Griner, you’ll be legal to smoke in here when you’re twenty-one. Now put out that cigarette.”

  Griner takes another big puff and huffs it out and smiles. He pulls up his leg and puts the thick sole of his engineer boot on the red upholstery and sticks the cigarette in where he’s rolled up his jeans. It hisses, and a puff of smoke rises from the burnt cloth. He smiles bigger and says to Mr. Tolbert, “Now we’re legal. How ’bout you bring me a co-cola there, Jack?”

  Mr. Tolbert looks at my Aunt Delia, and his eyes tell all about his patience. He fills a glass with ice and Coca-Cola and just leaves it at the end of the counter. He turns his back and starts washing glasses. Griner looks at the Coke on the counter and then at Mr. Tolbert’s back. He shrugs and comes over to get his Coke. He puts a quarter on the counter and picks up the Coke and catches me looking at him. At first I think he doesn’t like it, but then I see he does. He winks at me and says, “What’s shakin’, Buddy?”

  My Aunt Delia spins on her stool. “Kenny Griner, you leave him alone.”

  Griner smiles and raises both his hands and the jacket spreads again like the wings of that big buzzard I saw circling over the pasture when Aunt Delia and me were driving in her white Chevy. Griner says, “I ain’t doing nothing, Miss Delia. All I done was say hello to the boy.”

  My Aunt Delia looks at him for a while, and he keeps smiling at her, and she says, “Well, all right then,” and turns around to face the soda fountain.

  Griner goes back to his booth and sips the Coke and says, “News gets around fast in a small town.”

  My Aunt Delia turns around again, and there’s something scared in her eyes. Something I’ve never seen before. “News about what, Kenny? Did you set a new speed record from here to nowhere and back?” She’s smiling, but her eyes are holding Griner’s, and they’ve still got that scared thing in them.

  Griner shrugs again. “Naw, I already hold that record. I’m talking about Mr. Flatland there. Him being in town for the summer an’ all.” I look at my Aunt Delia. I don’t know how I’m supposed to act. She’s not scared anymore.

  She gives Griner a tired look and says, “Last time I looked, Kenny, I didn’t see any mountains around here.”

  “We got hills though,” Griner says, “out there north of town, and we got the rock. Good old Widow Rock. Now that’s pretty high, ain’t it. Out where that boy comes from it’s as flat as your momma’s ironing board and just as hot.”

  My Aunt Delia says, “When’s the last time you were in Nebraska, Kenny?”

  Griner looks hurts. He takes out another cigarette and flips open the Zippo, but before his thumb scratches the lighter, he looks over at Mr. Tolbert and just holds the cigarette in his mouth. He says, “I know about Nebraska. I read about it in a book one time.” Griner reaches into the pocket of his black leather jacket and pulls out a paperback book and puts it on the table. On the cover, there’s a picture of a boy on a motorcycle. He’s wearing a jacket like Griner’s and a leather hat with a pair of silver wings on the front. He’s leaning over the handlebars and looking off down the road. Griner says, “See, I read a lot, Miss Delia. Just ’cause I ain’t still swallowing the crap they dish out in that high school don’t mean I don’t read.”

  My Aunt Delia looks at Griner now, and her eyes say she’s sorry. She says, “I wish you hadn’t quit school, Kenny. You didn’t have to quit.”

  Griner looks out the front window, squinting at the sun, at the cool blue and flaming red street rod out there at the curb. He looks back at my Aunt Delia and says, “I didn’t have to stay either. That’s one thing they couldn’t make me do.”

  My Aunt Delia shakes her head and slides down from her stool. My malted is only half-finished, but I’ve had enough. My stomach’s not that big. She says, “Come on, Travis.” I’m standing beside her. Griner’s looking at his book now, pretending to read with that cold cigarette hanging from his mouth. My Aunt Delia says, “Kenny, what are you gonna do with yourself? You can’t just stay around here and work in that box factory and fiddle with that stupid car for the rest of your life.” Now she sounds angry, but I know she’s not angry at Griner. Not exactly.

  Griner pulls his eyes out of his book. “Why can’t I, Miss Delia? A lot of folks do, folks that don’t live over on Bedford Street or out to Pleasant Hills with your friend Sifford.”

  Bedford Street is where I live now.

  My Aunt Delia says, “Bick’s my friend, Kenny, and so are you, or at least you used to be. I care about what happens to both of you.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Griner says. He taps his book with his greasy finger. He lifts the finger to his forehead and touches it there. “I’m getting an education. Worry about Sifford if you want to worry. He’d like it if you did that.”

  My Aunt Delia says, “If I worried about Bick, he’d just take it as a compliment. It’s you I’m worried about.”

  “Like I told you,” Griner says, “don’t worry about me. School ain’t the only way to be a success in life.”

  My Aunt Delia shakes her head once, slow, then turns to Mr. Tolbert behind the counter. She says, “Thank you, Mr. Tolbert. We’ll be in again real soon.”

  Mr. Tolbert smiles at my Aunt Delia and says, “Say hello to your daddy for me.” At that, Griner grunts and then laughs. “Me too,” he says.

  My Aunt Delia looks at Griner one more time, and I can’t tell what she’s thinking. She lifts her chin a little, and we walk out together.

  Ten
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  We drive through town, and it’s quiet, and the heat wiggles over the asphalt, and all the people we pass wave to my Aunt Delia. She waves back, and sometimes she calls, “Hey there!” through the open window. We drive to a park, and there’s a white church with a tall steeple at one end, and across the road from the church there’s a statue of a sol-dier leaning on a long rifle. At the other end of the park there’s a tennis court made of red clay with white chalk lines and a net that’s kind of droopy. There are oak trees on both sides of the court and green benches under the oaks so you can rest after you play. Two girls are playing tennis when we drive up and stop in the red dirt parking lot. My Aunt Delia turns off the engine, but she leaves the radio on. It’s Dion and the Belmonts again: “Why must I be a teenager in love?” One of the girls hits the ball into the net, and they both laugh. Then they turn and wave at my Aunt Delia.

  “Hey, Delia!”

  My Aunt Delia leans out the window and calls out, “Hey, Caroline! Hey, Beulah!” She pulls her head back in and says, “Aren’t they a couple of toads, Killer?”

  I can’t help it. I laugh real hard.

  We watch the two girls play for a while, and we listen to the radio. I’m waiting for Jerry Lee to come on, but he doesn’t. Finally, the two girls finish. I can’t tell who wins. I don’t think they care. They walk over to Delia’s window and lean in, and the blonde one says, “Hey, who’s the good-looking guy?”

  My Aunt Delia says, “This is my nephew, Travis, from Omaha. He’s spending the summer with us so he can learn how the gracious life is lived.”

  The two girls giggle. The brown-haired one leans in and says, “Don’t let old Delia here get you in any trouble, Travis. She’s known for that around here.” The two girls giggle again and they look at Delia, and she looks back at them, and it’s like they all know something they’re not telling. I don’t know what to say, so I just smile. I’m glad my Aunt Delia doesn’t giggle.

  It’s hot, and the two girls have sweat on their faces and dark wet patches on their white blouses. When they lean into the car, I can smell perfume and girl sweat mixed together, and it’s better than either one by itself, and it goes with the song on the radio: “Tell Laura I love her. Tell Laura not to cry. My love for her will never die.”

  Delia and the two girls talk for a while, and I listen to the radio and hold my new tennis racket on my lap and run my fingers over the strings and wonder what it’s gonna be like when I hit a ball. Finally, the two girls push away from Delia’s window and walk over to a brown Ford and drive away. Delia looks over at me and flutters her eyelashes in a funny way she has. “Beulah’s a great big pain in the butt. Her daddy preaches in that church right over there, and she thinks she’s got to be the baddest girl in town. Caroline’s okay, I guess, but she only knows three words, and two of them are ‘boy.’”

  Before we go out on the court, my Aunt Delia kneels in front of me and rolls up my jeans and looks at my shoes. I’m wearing the summer sandals my mom always gets for me. I hate them. I always ask my dad for combat boots, but he never lets me have them. My Aunt Delia says, “Killer, I don’t think these are quite right for tennis. You’ll have to play barefoot.” I take off my sandals and my white socks, and we go out on the court. “What do I do?” I say. I like the way my feet feel on the hot red clay.

  My Aunt Delia says, “Just be a good shortstop. That’s a start.”

  We hit the ball back and forth, and she’s good at it, and I’m not. Most of mine go into the net or out into the park or just into the back fence. Delia doesn’t care if I’m any good. She laughs and runs after my bad balls and hits them back to me, and, once in a while, she gives me a tennis tip. “Keep your eye on it, Killer, just like it’s a baseball and you’re Mickey Mantle.” “Follow through there, Killer, don’t hack at it. You’re not chopping cotton.”

  After a while I get the hang of it a little. I like playing, and I’m thinking maybe by the end of the summer I’ll be as good as my Aunt Delia, and then after that I’ll go on and beat Pancho Gonzales. I hit one out into the grass under the oak, and I’m waiting for Delia to go get it, and I hear loud music behind me, and I turn, and there’s the red Oldsmobile, and there’s Bick Sifford sitting in it watching me. The radio is loud: “Come on over baby, we got chicken in the barn. Ain’t fakin’. Whole lot of shakin’ going on.”

  I turn back, and my Aunt Delia’s standing beside me, and she puts the ball in my hand and says, “That’s him, Killer. That’s Jerry Lee Lewis, your namesake.”

  The song is jumpy and silly and I like it. I can’t figure out the words—they’re goofy—but I like the sound. It makes me want to shake and jump. Jerry Lee sings some, and sometimes he just whoops and hollers. Sifford’s arm rests on the windowsill of the red Oldsmobile, and he pats his hand along with the tune. “Shake, Baby, shake.”

  Aunt Delia puts her tennis racket in my hand and says, “Travis, do me a favor and sit down for a minute while Aunt Delia talks to her friend.”

  Before I say it’s okay, she turns me and points over my shoulder at the green bench in the shade and gives me a little push. Then she’s walking over to Sifford’s car.

  I don’t want to go sit in the shade. All of a sudden I feel mad, crazy mad. It’s like that song. I don’t know what it means. I don’t know how I really feel, but it’s got me, and it won’t let go. I want to turn around and shout, “No,” to my Aunt Delia. I want to go over and sink my teeth into Sifford’s arm, but that would be a girl thing, so I think of myself going over there and telling him to get out of that car and I’m going to stomp his ass. I want to be in a fight. I want to be a teenager in love, but I know I’m not. I don’t know what I am. Jerry Lee sings, “Easy now. Shake it one time for me,” and I sit on the bench and watch my Aunt Delia stand at Sifford’s window and lean in.

  They talk and their voices are quiet, but words blow over to me on the wind: “dance” and “summer” and “maybe later” and “why not?” I don’t know. I don’t get much. I match the two tennis rackets together and put them on my lap and lay the three balls on top of them and invent a game about making the balls sit still in the middle. Three balls touching, not moving. Then I try to move the rackets so that one ball goes to the edge and two stay in the middle. I look up at the hot high white sky. I look up into the oak tree—no squirrels or birds. I look at my feet. The red dust is all the way up my ankles to my jeans.

  I wait three songs, and after a while I’m getting sleepy in the heat, and I see my Aunt Delia lean over and put her head almost in the window, and I like the way her long legs look in the sun, and how she goes up on one toe and swings her heel from side to side. I like the way her black hair fans down the back of her white blouse, and I like the dark wet spot in the middle of her back. I can see her brassiere through the wet spot, and I like that. I can see Sifford’s arm close to her face, and see his lips moving and the way his eyes are when he talks to my Aunt Delia, and I know he’s trying to get her to do something, but I don’t know what.

  Once, he stops patting his hand with the music, and he reaches up to where my Aunt Delia’s arm rests on the roof of the car, and he touches her, and they stop talking. Then she steps back, and his hand falls back to the windowsill.

  The radio keeps going: “I’m just a lonely boy.”

  And: “Personality. Smile and personality.”

  And: “Alley-oop, oop. Oop. Oop-oop.”

  After Sifford touches my Aunt Delia’s arm, I know she’s going to stop talking to him. I don’t know how I know, but I know. She looks over at me, smiles and waves, and takes another step back from the car. Sifford tries to open the door, but my Aunt Delia reaches out and pushes it shut, and he laughs. After a while, he starts the engine and drives away. My Aunt Delia watches the red Oldsmobile until it’s out of sight around the corner by the church. Then she walks over to where I’m sitting on the green bench.

  “Hey, Killer, you want to play so
me more tennis? You’re getting pretty good at it.”

  I look away at the church, the trees. Everything looks stooped and bent in the sun. I say, “No.”

  My Aunt Delia sits down beside me. “Are you mad at old Delia?”

  I don’t say anything.

  She says, “I’m sorry I left you alone, but it wasn’t all that long, and Bick and I had some things to talk about.”

  “What?” I ask her. I turn and look at her, and her eyes are sleepy and warm, and I know she’s still thinking about Sifford.

  She says, “Oh, secret things. Grown-up things.”

  “You can tell me,” I say. I remember the storm and how the rain came in my window, and how I went to get the towel and heard my Aunt Delia crying and what we did then. I remember how I woke up that morning. I keep my eyes on hers, cool and quiet. Two little red spots start in her cheeks. She looks away.

  “No, I can’t.”

  “You can,” I say.

  She pushes at the grass with her white tennis shoe. There’s red dust up the sides and on the pink laces. Her white legs are getting red from the sun. She says, “Maybe I can, someday. Maybe I will. Because I like you, Killer.” She puts her arm across my shoulders and squeezes me hard. “But not now. Not today.”

  My Aunt Delia stands up. “Let’s go on home and see what Marvadell’s got cooking for lunch, what do you say, Killer?”

  I stand up too. “Neato,” I say. Then I say, “Grandpa Hollister told me not to say ma’am to Marvadell. Is that right, Aunt Delia?”

  My Aunt Delia thinks about it. She looks up at the sun, and over at the white church, and at the soldier leaning on the long rifle. She says, “That’s right, honey, but not because you don’t respect her. It would just…it would make Marvadell uncomfortable.”

  I don’t understand, but I say, “Okay, Aunt Delia.”