Sweet Dream Baby

by Sterling Watson

  I say it again. “Aunt Delia, we’ve got to go.”

  Griner says, “Don’t forget to talk to your daddy about me. Don’t forget your promise.”

  Delia takes a last look at the rows of Vs she’s made in the sand. She bends at the edge of the water and dips her hand in and scoops water out, then she washes them all away. It takes a while, but she gets rid of every trace, then she says, “I won’t forget, Kenny.”

  She holds out her hand to me. “Come on, Travis.”

  I take her hand, and we start up the bank toward the woods. Griner watches us. He’s watching our hands. How we touch.

  Thirty-six

  When we get home from the river, Grandpa comes out of the bedroom and watches us climb the stairs. We’re halfway up when he says, “Are you all right, Delia?”

  Delia turns and smiles. “I’m fine, Daddy. It’s just so hot. I can’t wait for the fall to come.”

  Grandpa Hollister looks at me and says, “Travis, your dad called while you were out. He’s got you booked on a flight next Monday.”

  I know I’m supposed to smile and say I’m glad. Say I miss my dad and mom, and I’m happy to be going home. But all I can think is: Thursday. Today’s Thursday. That means only four more days with Delia. I’m thinking too many things at once: about finding a way to stay here, about what I’ll do for my mom when I get home, about what Delia might do here without me.

  Grandpa Hollister says, “Travis, I’m talking to you.”

  I say, “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” I don’t know what else to say. I turn and look at Delia standing a few risers above me on the stairs.

  She says, “Daddy, he doesn’t know what to say. A summer’s a long time when you’re his age, and this is home to him now.”

  She looks at Grandpa Hollister like no one else in the world can look at him, and he looks back the same way. The first day I came here, Delia drove the white Chevy into the garage too fast. Then she jumped out and kissed Grandpa Hollister, and his eyes said she could burn down the house and he wouldn’t care. He’d do anything for another kiss like that.

  My Grandpa Hollister takes off his steel wire glasses and rubs them on the front of his white shirt. He puts them back on and looks at me. “His home is with his mother and father, Delia. You know that, and so does he.”

  • • •

  That night I go to Delia’s room. It’s late, and everything’s quiet downstairs. I stand by her bed and wait. I can tell by her breathing she’s awake. I wait, but she doesn’t speak. I reach out and hover my hand over her face, feeling the heat of her skin rise through the still air, feeling her breath. Finally, she lifts her arm to her eyes, and her hand falls on her neck, and I know she’s turning the gold cross in her fingers. She says, “I can’t tonight, Travis. I just can’t.”

  I say, “Please.”

  I’m thinking: Four days. Four days with Delia.

  She lets go of the cross and turns away from me to the window, and I hear her whisper, “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

  I stand there for a while looking at the dark pool of her hair on the white pillow, the curve of her shoulder in the moonlight from the window. I can smell her perfume and her shampoo and her secret skin, and I think this is the place on Earth I want to be when the Russians drop the big bomb. I’d die happy here.

  I walk out into the hallway and see dark motion to my right, something rising from the black well of the stairs. I turn toward the bathroom, walking quietly, slowly. I open the bathroom door and go in and turn on the light. I count ten, then flush the toilet, turn off the light, and walk out into the hallway. My heart booms in my ears like the bass drum in a circus band. I see it at the top of the stairs, the narrow comb of black hair, the shaved rails of white along the sides. It’s my Grandpa Hollister standing there with his eyes at floor level, skimming them at my feet as I step into my room.

  • • •

  The next night in my sleep I hear it, a whine and a Pop-Pop-Pop. It’s coming from the corner down by the Hatcher’s house, and that means he’ll be passing my window soon. I swim to the surface where asleep and awake meet like water and air, and I push out of bed and start for the window. When my feet hit the floor, I stop.

  Delia’s in my room. She’s standing at my window looking out. She’s in her bra and underpants, and she’s looking through the open window so hard she doesn’t hear me come up behind her. When I put my hand on her shoulder, she shivers, but she doesn’t look at me. I look over her shoulder at midnight-blue metal and red flames and a white T-shirt and a glowing red cigarette. I see his white face looking up at our window. When he hits the corner at the far end of our street, the rod’s engine backs down again, Pop-Pop-Pop.

  Delia turns to me, and her eyes are tired in the moonlight. She’s lost more weight. All her jeans are loose on her. I say, “He’ll never leave you alone now.”

  She nods. “I know.”

  • • •

  Beulah and Caroline come over to talk about Bick. Caroline says she never knew what death was until she saw Bick’s coffin. She says she’s sure gonna slow down and not drive so fast.

  Beulah says, “You better slow down a lot of things, Girl.”

  Caroline says for a week after the funeral her mother snuck into her room late at night to see if she was still breathing.

  Beulah says her father read in the Atlanta Constitution about a high school boy who went up into the north Georgia mountains and jumped from a cliff into the Chattooga River. He kept his clothes on, though.

  They both watch Delia. They want her to tell them what Bick’s death means, to make it as true as the radio. Delia looks at them, and her eyes go a little crazy, and she shakes her head slow. They think she’s too sad about Bick to say anything. I know she’s thinking how stupid they are, and how they don’t learn anything from what happens to them.

  Delia gets up and turns on the radio. It’s playing, “Dream Baby.” I remember asking Delia if Bick was a dreamboat, and her saying I’m one, too. Delia stands in the middle of her room with her eyes closed and Caroline and Beulah watching, and she starts to sway. She sways to the music for a while, and then she reaches out her arms like she’s dancing with someone. The radio says, “Sweet dreams baby, got me dreaming sweet dreams, the whole night through. Sweet dreams baby, got me dreaming sweet dreams, in the daytime too. How long must I dream?” She holds her arms out like that, swaying until even her fingers move like she’s holding someone. Some dance partner in a dream. I look over at Caroline and Beulah, and they’ve both got tears in their eyes.

  • • •

  Delia and I walk downtown to pick up some things for Marvadell at the mercantile. Walking back with our packages, we pass Tolbert’s. We go in for a Coke. Mrs. Sifford’s there. I know Delia wants to leave as soon as we see her, but it wouldn’t look right to turn and go. So we go to the fountain and ask Mr. Tolbert for Cokes and sit with our legs dangling into the room.

  Mrs. Sifford sits in the same booth Bick and Ronny used the first day I met them. She doesn’t touch the cup of coffee in front of her. She’s dressed up like she’s going to Panama City, or even Tallahassee, but she isn’t. The town talks about how she’s been acting since Bick died. Always dressing up in her best clothes but never going anywhere. Beulah and Caroline say she thinks nice clothes will keep bad things from happening to her. She’s wearing a pink suit with big covered buttons down the front, and pink shoes made of shiny cloth, and a pink hat that looks to me like a puff pastry. She’s got on a lot of makeup, but her face still looks like it’s coming apart.

  I’m hoping we can drink our Cokes and go before she sees us. It doesn’t look like she’s seeing anything but the black pool in her coffee cup. Delia hasn’t looked at her since we first came in. She’s drawing Coke through her straw, trying to finish fast.

  When Mrs. Sifford finally looks over at Delia, there’s no mistaking what’s in her ey
es. It’s recognition. She sees in Delia something she knows well. I sit there hoping it’s just sadness she’s seeing. Delia hasn’t looked at her yet, or isn’t going to show she has. I wait. Mrs. Sifford says, “Delia Hollister, I haven’t seen you since the dance at our house. I know you were at Bick’s funeral, but I…I wasn’t seeing very well that day. I couldn’t name ten people I saw there.” Her voice is so cheery and crisp, it gives me the creeps.

  Delia looks over at her, and the smile she drags to her face makes them look like mother and daughter. She says, “How are you, Mrs. Sifford?”

  Mrs. Sifford’s brittle smile gets bigger. Her eyelids flutter, and she says, “Oh, I’ve been…Well, you know, I…” Her hands shake as she picks up her purse and gets to her feet. She wobbles on her high heels, steadies, and starts toward us. Behind us, Mr. Tolbert backs away. The sink where he washes glasses with his back to the counter is his usual post when people need privacy. But there’s a little store room behind the fountain, and now I hear his feet sliding through the door and it closing behind him.

  Mrs. Sifford stands in front of Delia and me. “Delia, you knew Bick.”

  Delia nods looking into the Coke glass in her lap.

  Mrs. Sifford says, “For a while, I thought maybe you and he were…. Well, never mind that. But you knew him, and I wonder if there’s anything you can tell me. Anything you noticed about him. Anything he said that…?”

  It’s all coming apart. It’s still holding—eyes, voice, hair, hat, and suit—but not for long. Delia’s got to speak, but she can’t. I look over at her, and her face is coming apart like Mrs. Sifford’s. I’m going to have to do something, say something. I decide to wait a few more heartbeats before I do, but Delia pushes off the stool and runs for the door.

  I get up, dig in my pocket for some money, drop it on the counter without counting, and say to Mrs. Sifford, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’ve got to go.” Then, for some reason, I stop straining toward the door, the sidewalk where I see Delia’s long legs in faded blue jeans walking fast, and I say, “I’m just…sorry.”

  I have to pull myself out of her eyes before I drown. It’s so deep and far and sad in there, I hope I never have to see anything like it again. She starts to say something back, but I’m running, and I’m halfway caught up with Delia before I realize what I said to Mrs. Sifford. I said, I’m sorry.

  • • •

  That night I wake up late with the words, two more days, singing in my head. It’s a mad, sad song, and I can’t stand any more of it. I’ve been thinking maybe she won’t let me come to her again, and that will kill me. It’s like being born and then told you have to go back to what was before, back to not born, back to alive but not in life. That night we did it together was the beginning of my life. I go to Delia’s room for the thing I have to have.

  It’s a still, clear night with a big white moon, but I wish it was raining. I wish there was a storm, another big blue howler pounding up out of the Gulf of Mexico. I walk soft-soled to the head of the stairs and look down. The house is quiet. I don’t know if Grandpa is home or out patrolling. He makes it hard to know on purpose. He’s been coming upstairs a lot lately. Last night I heard his soft walking out in the hall, heard him go to Delia’s door and stop and listen, heard him at my door listening, then going back downstairs.

  At Delia’s door, I listen. The radio’s playing low: “When I want you, in the night. When I want you, to hold me tight. Whenever I want you, all I have to do is dream.” I go in and walk to her bed. She’s lying with her back to me. But she’s like a radio, and I know my song is coming through. I put my hand on her shoulder, and she turns. Moonlight falling through the oak branches shows me her face. I think I see a smile, but it’s hard to tell. I know now that a smile can say anything from hate to love. I whisper, “Can we tonight?”

  She looks at me for a long time. Her eyes are wide, and her cheeks are hollow, and her face in the moonlight might be made of bone. She says, “Travis, what we did wasn’t good for you. Don’t you know that yet?”

  I know she’s right and wrong. I know that growing and knowing are good and bad. I know what the preacher meant now when he said, “The end of man is knowledge.” I say, “I love you, Delia, and it can’t be bad.”

  She shakes her head on the pillow. Black hair thrashes around her face. She says, “I love you, too, and I wish more than anything in the world that we could have been your age together or my age together. You’d be my dreamboat then, but look at us now. We can’t keep doing this.”

  I know I have to go back to Omaha. I have to go back and take care of my mother, but I’m coming back to Widow Rock. I’m coming back for Delia. I say, “We can. We have to. I’m leaving on Monday.”

  She reaches out and touches my forehead. Her fingers are cool and light, and they burn the name of what we’ve done into my skin. She says, “I want you to leave with some good memories of me, Travis. If we…stay apart tonight, that’ll be a good memory, don’t you think?”

  I shake my head until her fingers fall from me. I take her hand and put her fingers to my mouth and kiss them. “No,” is all I say. I want her so bad I’ll die. I stand there holding her hand, sending her the message of my love. Finally, she sighs and moves over and says, “All right, Travis, my dreamboat. Just once more. Once more before you leave.”

  • • •

  I wake up in Delia’s bed. I don’t know how long I’ve slept, or what time it is, but I know what I have to do. I lift a handful of her fragrant black hair to my face and then kiss her once on the temple. She doesn’t wake. I slip out of bed and go to her vanity table and find her purse, then I go to my room and dress.

  Downstairs, I stand among the familiar shapes of the dark living room listening for any sound from Grandpa and Grandma Hollister’s bedroom. When I hear Grandma Hollister say, “What? What?” and hear her roll over heavy and unrested in their bed, I soft-sole through the dining room into the kitchen. The screen door groans like a man with a toothache, but I don’t care. Outside, the wind is rising, and the oak branches are singing about big weather coming.

  I push the white Chevy down the driveway and jump in. I back all the way down the hill to the Hatcher’s house before I start the engine.

  Thirty-seven

  I kill the headlights and let the Chevy roll to a stop a hundred yards from Griner’s old, tin-roofed farm house. Griner’s street rod is parked beside the house, but the other car is gone, the blue Plymouth that belongs to the blond boy, Randle. The house is dark, but there’s a light on in the barn. I slip out of the Chevy and walk past the house with the tattered window screens hanging down its sides. I stop beside the street rod and look inside at the fuzzy white dice that hang from the mirror and the knob attached to the steering wheel so you can steer with one hand and the white skull for a gearshift handle. There are some paperback books on the passenger seat, and I think, “His friends. He rides with these books, so he’s not alone.”

  From here on, I have to be careful. I walk along the two-rut track to the old barn and stop under the block and tackle. An engine hangs from it dead heavy in the night, even though the rising wind is moving the limbs of the big oak that supports it. I look up at the eight empty cylinders, then down at the puddle of oil on the ground. A few steps closer and I can hear the radio playing through the two big, swung-open barn doors. I can’t make out the song, but it’s something slow and dreamy. The kind of song Delia says you dance to late at night, just before they turn out the lights in the gym and send everyone home.

  I turn to my right, away from the music and the light that falls from the doors. In the moon shadows, I step slowly into a farmer’s field until my feet hit an old, rusted-down fence. There I turn again toward the barn. I crouch and crab-walk to a side window. I squat and then slowly rise to the windowsill. Through the dusty pane, I see a lightbulb hanging from a wire above the raised hood of an old black Ford. I think it’s a ’52, b
ut I’m not sure. There are benches along three walls covered with tools, parts, batteries, rags, stacks of oil cans, and old tires. Another wire runs from a socket above the bench to a light that hangs by a hook from the open hood, shining down on the car engine.

  The radio is loud enough to hear through the window: “When the night has come, and the land is dark, and the moon is the only light we’ll see. No I won’t be afraid, no I won’t shed a tear, just as long as you stand by me.” I squat at the window with the light cutting across the sill into my eyes, wondering what to do now. I can’t see Griner. Maybe he’s not even here. Maybe he left the light on and the radio playing and went off somewhere. Maybe it’s somebody else in there, the blond boy, Randle, or one of their friends.

  With my back pressed to the barn wall, I side-step to the front, turn the corner, and peek through the inch of light where one of the big doors hinges. I can see the rear end of the car and something on the floor beyond it, a boot maybe, but I can’t really tell. I come out around the door and side-step into the light that falls from the front of the barn. I’m sweating now. The wind from the storm that’s coming cools me, but the light on my skin feels even colder.

  Someone in the house could see me now. Someone driving by on the road two hundred yards away might even see me. Crouching, I move into the barn and stop. I see the radio on the bench across from the little window. Griner’s cigarettes, lighter, and a half-empty bottle of Coke sit beside it. I creep soft another two feet, and I see his legs sticking out from under the car. He’s lying on a piece of greasy canvas with tools and parts spread out around him, and I can see his stomach in the white T-shirt moving up and down with his effort as he fixes the Ford.

  Three more steps, and I can hear him humming with the radio: “If the sky we look upon should tumble and fall, and the mountains should crumble to the sea. I won’t cry, I won’t cry, no I won’t shed a tear, just as long as you stand by me.” I move quietly to the bench where the radio rests, and I listen for its message.