Sweet Dream Baby

by Sterling Watson

  It’s not cold, but I’m still shaking from my dream. I don’t know what hell is. I’m not sure there even is one, but I know you have to die to find out, and I sure don’t want to do that. I don’t hear anyone awake downstairs. The clock says it’s after midnight. My Grandma Hollister always goes to bed at ten. So does my Grandpa unless he’s out lawing around. Then he comes in at all hours. You never know when to expect him. I wonder what he does out there at night in a place as quiet as Widow Rock. I’m shaking.

  It’s earlier in Omaha than here, and I can picture my dad sitting at the kitchen table working with his law books and papers. He’s still got his suit pants and white shirt on from work, but his tie is thrown over the back of his chair, and there’s a cup of coffee and a pack of cigarettes on the table in front of him. He puts his pencil down and rubs his eyes, and then lights a cigarette, and I wonder if he’s thinking about my mom. I wonder if he can’t work anymore because he’s thinking about her. I wonder if he wants to go to that hospital and run away with her and bring her here and get me to run away, too. All of a sudden I have to talk to him.

  It’s dark downstairs, but I know my way around. I stand at the bottom of the stairs, and I can smell the ham and biscuits from dinner. Marvadell leaves the biscuits under a cloth on the kitchen counter. I could go have one with butter and blackberry jam. I can hear Grandma Hollister breathing from her and Grandpa’s bedroom. Sometimes she snorts in the middle of a breath, and it wakes her up, and she says, “What? What?” and then she goes back to sleep. I can see some of the yard and the street through the front windows. It’s quiet, and the moonlight glitters where it strikes the dew.

  The phone is on a table in the foyer. There’s a hall seat next to it. I stand there in the dark with my hand on the cold black phone wondering what to do. I’ve never called long distance before. I’ve only used the phone when my dad let me say hello to my mom at the hospital. I know my number at home.

  There’s a buzz when I pick up the phone. I’m supposed to dial, but I can’t see the numbers in the dark. I dial anyway, and nothing happens. I hang up. My hands are sweating. I dial again, and nothing happens. I’m about to put the phone down when a lady says, “Your number, please?”

  I know my number, but I don’t say it. I don’t say anything. She says, “Sheriff Hollister, is that you? What can I do for you, sir?”

  The back door opens, and I crouch down with the phone in my hand. I’m afraid to hang it up because it’s gonna make noise. The lady keeps talking, and her voice is like a wasp flying around me. Grandpa Hollister comes through the kitchen door. He lifts his hand to his mouth, and I know he’s got one of Marvadell’s biscuits. The phone in my hand is heavy, and my hand is sweating, and the lady keeps asking if she can help the sheriff. Then she says from far away, “Is everything all right there, Sheriff?”

  I stand up slowly to put the phone in its cradle. I know it’s going to make a click, but I’ve got to stop her talking. Grandpa Hollister lifts the biscuit for another bite, then he lowers it and looks at the foyer where I’m hiding. He stands very still for a second, and Grandma Hollister snorts and says, “What?” and I try to put the phone in its cradle, but it slips from my wet fingers and lands with a “Clack!” Grandpa Hollister hears me. He stands stiff still in the dark, listening, then he shakes his head and takes another bite of biscuit.

  He walks straight toward me, all the way to the foyer, and I’m crouching in the dark between the hall seat and the umbrella stand beside the front door. He stands there in the dark looking out through the little window in the front door, then he turns his back to me and bends down to the secretary.

  I crouch, trying not to breathe, but I’m shaking again like in my dream. I don’t know what Grandpa Hollister will do if he catches me here. I don’t know what I’ll say to him. I’m afraid I might lie, and then he’ll send me away to reform school. I’m afraid the lady on the phone will tell him I called. I’m afraid I’ll never see my mom and dad again. I hear him unlock the secretary and pull down the breakfront. He steps back, and his black boots stop one inch from my bare toes where I’m hunkered down in the dark.

  He empties his pockets, and I know the sounds. His wallet, then his keys hit the breakfront, then I hear a heavy sound I don’t know. I lean to the right, and I see it in a splinter of moonlight through the window. It’s the braided thong from out there on the highway the night Kenny Griner had his accident. Only it wasn’t an accident, because I see what’s attached to the leather thong. It’s a club, some kind of club. It’s leather, too, and it’s shaped like a big teardrop. It’s not a billy stick. That’s made of wood and wouldn’t fit in anybody’s pocket. I’ve never seen one like this, but I know what it is, and I know what happened to Kenny Griner’s eye. I remember my Grandpa Hollister saying, “That boy’s going to push me too far.”

  My Grandpa Hollister locks the secretary and stands straight and stretches, and I pull my toes back so he doesn’t step on them. He turns and tries the door latch to see if it’s locked, then he walks back into the living room. He stops to eat the rest of the biscuit. I hear a snort and then, “What? What?” Grandpa Hollister shakes his head and goes into the bedroom. I hear him undressing, and after a while I hear the bedsprings. I sneak to the foot of the stairs. I wait a minute there. Then I tip-toe up the ends of the risers so they won’t squeak.

  Fourteen

  When Bick Sifford’s Oldsmobile whispers in at one o’clock, I get up and look out. I can see the driveway from my bedroom window. Bick turns off the engine, and I see the sleeve of his white dinner jacket and then the glow of the cigarette lighter as he brings it to his face. Smoke drifts like words from his window up to mine. I can’t see my Aunt Delia. I wonder if she had fun at the dance. I wonder if seeing Bick Sifford’s big house was worth going there. I don’t think she told the truth about why she wanted to go. I remember the park and how Bick Sifford reached up and touched her arm just like she touches mine sometimes when I come into her room at night. I remember how she pulled away from him and how she waited a while before she did it. I watch them. Bick drops his hand out the window and flicks the ashes from his cigarette.

  After a while, Bick Sifford gets out of the Oldsmobile and opens my Aunt Delia’s door and walks her to the front porch where I can’t see them. I lie in bed listening. I think about sneaking down again to see what they’re doing, but Grandpa Hollister might catch me. He might be down there himself in the dark looking through the front door at my Aunt Delia and Bick Sifford.

  After a while, I fall asleep, but I wake up when my Aunt Delia tip-toes down the hallway. Her light comes on, and I get up and go stand outside her door and listen. The radio comes on soft like it does when she’s thinking or she’s sad. She’s humming low with the radio. It’s Del Shannon’s “Runaway”: “As I walk along, I wonder, what went wrong with our love, a love that was so strong.” When I knock, she says, “Come in, Killer.”

  She’s sitting at the vanity table in her white party dress, but she doesn’t look as pretty as when she left. Her hair is messed and tangled, and her makeup is mostly gone. She’s got dark places under her eyes that make her look sad. She says, “Killer, did I wake you up? I’m sorry. I tried to be quiet.”

  I say, “You didn’t wake me up.” There are so many things I want to tell her. There are so many questions I want to ask her. She looks at the clock in her radio. “It’s awfully late for you to be up. Is anything wrong?”

  “I can stay up as late as you can.” I don’t know why I said it. I just did.

  She turns back to the mirror. She gives herself a look in it like she wonders who she is. She says, “Okay, Killer. Stay up as late as you like. I’m tired, and I’m going to bed. Before you start your all-night vigil, help me get out of this dress.” She reaches back and pulls her hair out of the way. “Just start the zipper for me, Killer.”

  I pull the zipper down a little, and she pulls it the rest of the way. She s
tands up and shakes herself like she’s dancing, like she’s doing the shake, baby, shake. The dress slips down in a pile around her feet, and she side-steps out of it. She’s in her bra and underpants. I turn and start to walk out again. She laughs. “Hey, Killer, it’s all right. Come on back. All my vital parts are covered.” My neck is thick, and I can feel the two red spots growing in my cheeks. I swallow and turn around and walk toward her. She picks up the dress and turns to the closet, and I try not to look, but I can’t help it. I love the way her waist goes in, and her hips go out. I love the two dimples below her hip bones. I love how I can see her backbone. She hangs up the dress and turns, and I see the dark shadow between her legs through the white cloth of her underpants. For a second, I can’t see at all, and my throat is so thick I can’t breathe. Then I see a red scratch. It’s about five inches long, and it goes across the top of her chest and into her armpit.

  She sits at the vanity, and her long black hair pours down her back, and it shines bright. She hands me a brush over her shoulder. “If you’re gonna be here, you might as well brush me some.” I like the way she looks at herself in the mirror, knowing everything about her own face and seeing it for the first time. I like how she approves and disapproves. I think she’s the most beautiful girl in the world. I can see her chests in the mirror, but I try not to look.

  I take the brush and start pulling it through her hair. I pull it real slow and try not to hurt her.

  She turns to me. “So, Killer, do you think old Aunt Delia is pretty tonight?”

  My face is hot. I look into her eyes and clear my throat and say, “I think you’re prettier than the lady in the Black Lagoon.”

  She laughs for a long time. She laughs until she gets tears in her eyes, and she wipes them with a tissue, and she says, “I saw that movie. She is pretty. Prettier than me.”

  I say, “What’s that, Delia?”

  She says, “What do you mean, Killer?” She doesn’t look at me.

  I point at her chest. It’s a raw red line just above her bra and into her armpit. She touches the scrape with her fingers and says, “Oh, that. It’s just a scratch. Don’t worry about it.”

  I say, “Did Bick Sifford do that?”

  My Aunt Delia looks surprised. Then she looks sad. She hugs herself like she’s cold, and she gets up and goes to the closet and puts on her bathrobe and sits on the bed and says, “Come over here, Killer.” I do and she takes me by the shoulders and says, “I’m going to tell you something, but it has to be our secret. You can’t share it with anybody, okay?”

  I nod.

  She says, “Bick Sifford likes me. He likes me a lot. Oh, he acts stupid like all boys do, and sometimes stupider than most, but he likes me a lot, and he wants me to like him. And I would. I’d like him if I could. But I can’t.”

  I want to know why she can’t like Bick Sifford, but I don’t want to ask. I don’t want her to like him. “Did he hurt you?” I ask.

  She frowns and looks at me for a while. “Yes, Killer, he did, but it’s nothing for you to worry about. It’s just a little bitty hurt, and he didn’t mean to do it.”

  The Creature from the Black Lagoon had webbed hands and feet and big claws, and he caught the lady and took her under water. He never scratched her like that. I say, “Did he grab you?”

  My Aunt Delia lets go of my arms and pulls her legs up on the bed and lays her head on the pillow. She says, “Killer, go turn off the lights.” I do, and she calls me over to the bed again. She pats the place beside her and says, “Climb up here, and let’s talk.”

  We’re lying on our backs staring at the ceiling in the dark. The house is quiet, but the radio is playing soft. The disk jockey says, “This is for all you late-night lovers out there in radio land, and especially for the last of you crazy jalopy jockeys trying to get little Suzie home before Mom and Dad lock the front door.” The song is one I haven’t heard before: “Wake Up, Little Suzie.” I like it. I like lying here next to my Aunt Delia in the dark with the radio playing and the trees moving slowly in the wind outside.

  My Aunt Delia says, “Killer, how much do you know about boys and girls?”

  I guess I have to be honest. “Not much.”

  She says, “That’s what I thought,” and her voice changes, and I know she’s smiling in the dark. She doesn’t say anything for a while, and we listen to the radio. “The movie’s over. It’s four o’clock, and we’re in trouble deep. Wake up, little Susie. We gotta go home.” My Aunt Delia sighs, and says, “Bick Sifford did grab me, Killer. We danced and it was hot, so we went for a walk out in the garden, and there was a big ole moon, and we stopped under a magnolia tree, and he grabbed me. Bick’s what Beulah and Caroline call a foreigner.”

  “A foreigner?” I don’t get it. I thought Bick Sifford was born right here in Choctawhatchee County. He sure talks like it.

  My Aunt Delia says, “He’s got Russian hands and Roman fingers. That’s what they’d say, Killer. Do you understand?”

  I don’t, not exactly, but I say I do because I want her to keep telling me about boys and girls. “He grabbed you, and he hurt you?” I ask.

  She says, “He just got a little excited. We both did. But it’s not anything for you to worry about. It’s not going to happen again. I can’t get excited like that anymore, so I’m not going to.”

  “Are you going out with Bick Sifford anymore?”

  “No, Honey. Not if I can help it. And he’ll go off to Princeton at the end of the summer, and there won’t be any excitement for a long time after that.”

  “How come?”

  “Because Bick’s gonna meet a lot of rich girls from Vassar and Bryn Mawr, and he’s gonna forget about ole Delia Hollister back here in one-horse Widow Rock.”

  I don’t get it. I don’t see how anybody could forget my Aunt Delia. I know I never will. I say, “Is he a dreamboat?”

  My Aunt Delia sighs, and her arm rises up like a long white snake in the dark, and she reaches toward the window, and she drags one fingernail down the window screen, and it makes a long tearing sound. She says, “Yes, Killer, he is, but he’s not my dreamboat.”

  “Who’s your dreamboat?”

  “You are, Killer.” And she reaches over and tickles my side in the dark, and we both laugh, and she holds her hand over my mouth so nobody will hear, and then we’re quiet for a while, and I say, “Am I really your dreamboat, Delia?”

  She says, “Of course you are, Killer. Didn’t I just say so?” Her voice is slow and dreamy, and she’ll fall asleep soon, and I know I’m not staying with her tonight. She wants to be alone. I wanted to tell her about my dream and going downstairs to call my dad and the leather-covered club and Kenny Griner’s eye, but it’ll have to wait now. I push up and sit on the edge of the bed.

  “Are you going, Killer?” She wants me to go. “Good night, sleep tight.”

  “Aunt Delia, what’s hell?”

  “Why Killer, what a question!” She pushes up on her elbow and rubs her eyes. She looks at me for a while, and I’m glad she can’t see my face. She says, “That’s complicated, Killer. We’ll have to save that one for another time, okay?”

  “Okay,” I say, “but just tell me this. Is there really a hell?”

  My Aunt Delia falls back and stares up at the ceiling again. She thinks about it. Finally, she says, “I don’t know, Killer, but if there is, sometimes I think it must be a lot like Widow Rock.”

  I don’t know what to think now. I like Widow Rock. I like it better than Omaha. My Aunt Delia’s here. She can tell I’m confused. She sighs and says, “Never mind, Killer. I was just making a joke. We’ll talk about it later, okay.”

  I say, “Okay.” I go to the door and stop and look back.

  My Aunt Delia says, “’Night, Dreamboat.”

  In my bed, I can hear the radio in her room. It’s gonna play all night and make it hard for me to sleep
. I’m gonna lie here for a long time and think of all those boys like Bick Sifford out there in all those cars like boats drifting along the night highways, going home with girls like my Aunt Delia. Floating home so there won’t be trouble deep.

  Fifteen

  I wake up and my Aunt Delia is standing over my bed. She smiles and holds her finger across her lips and says, “Shhhh.” I sit up and rub my eyes and don’t say anything. She leans down close to my ear and whispers, “Let’s say we’re sick and skip church, okay?”

  I whisper, “Sure.” Then, “What’s wrong with us?”

  My Aunt Delia tilts her head to the side and thinks. Then she whispers, “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I ate some bad shrimp at the Sifford’s anniversary soiree, and I brought one home and gave it to you, and it gave us a tummyache.”

  “Okay,” I say. “I got a stomachache.” I hold my stomach and groan.

  My Aunt Delia watches me groan and stretch my face out of shape with the pain. She whispers, “Don’t overdo it, Killer. Don’t win the Academy Award. We want a little religious freedom, not a trip to the hospital.”

  So I add a little courage to the pain. My Aunt Delia watches and then gives me the thumbs-up. “Great. That’s just right. I’m gonna go arrange things for us.”

  I lie there looking at the ceiling and listening to the jays and mockingbirds in the big oak tree outside my window. When I hear Grandma Hollister’s footsteps on the stairs, I start my stomachache. She comes in and sits on my bedside. She’s got on her flowered housecoat and her hair is up in curlers. She’s got on too much perfume, so it’s not hard to act sick. She leans down and kisses my cheek and says, “Does my Travis have the misery? I don’t know what got into your Aunt Delia, feeding a little boy shrimp after midnight. Would you like a dose of Pepto Bismol?”

  I don’t know what Pepto Bismol is. We don’t use it in Omaha. I look at her and groan, then smile some courage and say, “No, ma’am. I think I’d just like to lie here for a while and see if I feel better.” I tilt my head in the general direction of the bathroom. “I think I might need to…” My Grandma Hollister understands. She says, “You poor, sweet thing. I suppose you’ll be all right here ’til we get back from church. If you’re not better then, we’ll take you to see Dr. Cohen.”