by Tony Earley
“Stupid lintheads,” Jim said.
“That’s an ugly word, Jim.”
“Don’t start on me, Norma.”
“I’m just saying they can’t help where they work.”
“Yeah, but they can help being stupid,” he said. He turned away from the school, dragging Norma behind him.
At Depot Street, they turned automatically toward Uncle Coran’s store. When they were dating, he had walked her home from his house by cutting between the store and the building where Uncle Coran kept fertilizer and feed. Norma lived on Raleigh Street, on the other side of the cotton gin. As they passed the shed where Jim parked the Major, he stopped and pulled Norma toward him and wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. When she started to say something, he kissed her again. To his surprise, she began kissing him back. She put her hand on the back of his neck. He had forgotten how good the lilac soap she used smelled on her skin and how soft her lips were. She was a good kisser when you could get her to do it.
He pulled her into the shed and opened the rumble seat of the Major. He helped her over the fender and into the back of the car. He climbed in after her and began kissing her again. Every time he started to think about running away from the lintheads, every time he remembered the look on Chrissie’s face as she told him to leave her alone, he kissed Norma harder. And every time he kissed her harder, she kissed him back. When he reached inside her sweater and rubbed the front of her blouse, she did not stop him. Back when they were dating, she would have slapped his knuckles raw for even trying that. That she would let him put his hand inside her sweater now, when she knew he loved Chrissie, suddenly made him sad. Whatever he had been trying to hold up by kissing Norma collapsed on top of him. He stopped kissing her and leaned back and stared straight up into the blackest blackness he had ever seen. He knew it was only the underside of the shed roof, but he imagined it was the sky, without form and void, the stars burned out for good. When he turned to look at Norma, he could see that she was looking at him, but he couldn’t make out her expression, only the whiteness of her skin, and the two deep holes where her eyes should have been.
“Norma,” he said. “I . . .”
“Shh,” she said, placing her fingers on his lips. “Don’t.”
“But . . .”
“Please don’t apologize to me, Jim. That would be the worst thing you could say to me right now. I know you don’t love me.”
“Then why . . . ?”
She shrugged. “Because I still love you, I guess.”
Jim miserably shook his head. “Oh, Norma,” he said. “You shouldn’t love me.”
“You don’t get to decide that, Jim. If I want to love you, I can. It’s really, well, none of your business who I love.”
“Why don’t you just find another boyfriend?”
“Because I’m going to college in the fall. I’m going to be a math teacher, Jim, and I’m going to marry somebody who doesn’t live in this little-bitty town. I’m going to learn advanced algebra and geometry and I hope trigonometry and calculus. And I’m going to live in a big town, like Charlotte, or Greensboro. But not here, Jim. Not in Aliceville.”
“But you were going to marry me.”
“You’re not going to stay here any more than I am.”
“I guess so,” Jim said. “But right now I can’t think of anyplace in the world I want to be. Here included.”
“You don’t have to think about that now.” She picked up his hand in both of hers. She inhaled through her nose and sighed deeply. “I know it doesn’t mean anything to you, but right now I wish you would kiss me some more.”
“I don’t understand you,” he said. “You always said no when we were dating.”
“Well, I’m going to tell you a secret, Jim, just this once. Saying no is the only power a girl has in this world. A girl who doesn’t say no doesn’t have anything at all.”
Jim nodded. Chrissie said only no to him, and she had all the power in the world; Norma saying yes just made him feel sorry for her. He helped her down out of the Major and walked her over to Raleigh Street. They didn’t talk on the way. Norma walked with her arms crossed but she refused Jim’s letter jacket. On her front porch they hugged awkwardly, patting each other’s back, just as the porch light blinked on.
“Well,” Jim said, “some things never change.”
Norma turned toward the door. “And some things do,” she said.
BOOK III
Unexpected News
Target Practice
DENNIS DEANE was acting strange, or at least stranger than usual. First, he missed an entire week of school, although the uncles reported seeing him riding his bicycle all over town. But whenever they asked him if he needed a lift somewhere, or why he wasn’t in school, or, finally, on Friday, why he had been riding his bicycle around in circles all week, he pretended not to hear them. He just kept pedaling. Then, when Jim drove to Dennis Deane’s house Sunday afternoon to pick him up, he found Dennis Deane crouched in the scraggly troop of malnourished cedar trees across the driveway from the Deanes’ mailbox. Jim stopped and rolled down the window.
“What are you doing in there?” he asked.
“This used to be my secret hiding place,” Dennis Deane said.
“I know. So, what are you doing in there now?”
“Hiding.”
“You know I can see you, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“So, who are you hiding from?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Are you alone?” Dennis Deane asked.
“What?”
“I said, are you alone?”
“Am I alone,” Jim said slowly.
“Did anybody follow you out here?”
Jim frowned at Dennis Deane.
“Damn it, Jim, I ain’t fooling around,” Dennis Deane said. “I’m trying to keep a lookout here. Did you notice anybody following you?”
“The Lone Ranger,” Jim said. “The Lone Ranger followed me. I think I lost Tonto, though.”
Dennis Deane paused, apparently weighing his chances against the Lone Ranger riding alone versus his chances against the Lone Ranger and Tonto together. Finally he hurried out of the trees and into Jim’s car. His hair was greasy and he didn’t smell particularly good. He slammed the door, slid down in the seat, and put his feet up on the dashboard.
“Go,” he said.
“Take your feet down.”
“What?”
“I’m not driving anywhere until you get your dirty feet off my dashboard.”
“There. You happy now?”
“You wanna ride over to New Carpenter?”
“I don’t care!” Dennis Deane almost shouted. “Just stop jawing at me and go somewhere!”
Jim popped the clutch, steered the Major sideways, and spun a roostertail of mud all over the mailbox.
“What in the world’s wrong with you?” Jim said. “You’re acting like some kind of idiot.”
Much to Jim’s surprise, Dennis Deane jammed the heels of his hands into his eyes and fell over onto the seat. His head lay almost in Jim’s lap; Jim shifted uncomfortably toward the door.
“Ohhh,” Dennis Deane moaned. “I am an idiot. And I’m dead. I’m a big dead idiot.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Deader’n a doornail, Jim. Deader’n hell. Deader’n dead people.”
“Why are you dead?”
“Because they’re going to kill me.”
“Who’s going to kill you?”
“The hillbillies.”
“What hillbillies?”
“All of ’em, Jim,” Dennis Deane said. “All the hillbillies. They’re probably coming down the mountain right now.” He sat up straight and looked behind the car so earnestly that Jim glanced in the mirror to see if anyone was following them.
“Why are the hillbillies coming down the mountain?”
“Hey, that sounds like a joke.”
“Dennis Deane . . .”
“They’ll be riding six white horses when they come, the hillbilly bastards. You just wait.”
“What did you do, Dennis Deane?”
“I can’t tell you. Can we go to the river? We go to New Carpenter every Sunday. I hate New Carpenter. All the people are tall. Did you ever notice that? Even the girls. All tall.” He lay down in the seat again and covered his eyes with his forearm. “Oh, God, I’m dead,” he said.
“We can go to the river if you’ll tell me why the hillbillies are going to kill you.”
“Can I shoot your .twenty-two?”
“If you’ll tell me.”
Dennis Deane looked up at Jim with one eye from behind his arm. “How many shots?” he asked. He loved to shoot Jim’s rifle, but he never bought shells. He didn’t have a rifle of his own.
“Six,” Jim said.
“Fourteen,” replied Dennis Deane.
“Fourteen? You’re crazy. Eight.”
“Twelve.”
“Ten,” said Jim. “And that’s all.”
Dennis Deane shook his head. “You always were stingy,” he said. “But all right.”
Jim turned the Major around and drove back through Aliceville. Nobody seemed to be roaming the streets looking for Dennis Deane, which Jim duly reported. East of town, he turned off the highway and followed the two muddy tracks of the farm road through the uncles’ walnut grove, across the branch, and around the edge of the corn bottom. The field was empty now, save for the shocks of fodder; the uncles and the field hands had pulled the ears earlier in the fall. Brown weeds scraped against the undercarriage of the car. On the far side of the bottom, Jim parked the Major and got his rifle and a box of shells from behind the seat. Dennis Deane sat up and blinked and looked around cautiously. He got out of the car and followed Jim along the narrow path through the woods toward the green smell of the river; they couldn’t hear it at first because of the noise they made walking through the leaves. The day was cool, but the sun shone on the large flat rock by the water. The river wandered in from the west but at the rock turned decisively to the south, as if it had received an urgent summons. The water in the elbow was deep and solemn and quiet; in the summertime it was a good place to fish and swim. Jim watched an oak leaf bump against the rock but catch again in the current; it spun slowly, then continued downstream. He watched it until he lost sight of it in the sunlight glittering on the water.
“Now tell me,” Jim said.
“Let me shoot the gun.”
“How do I know you won’t shoot the gun and then not tell me?”
“Have I ever lied to you?” Dennis Deane asked.
“Well, yes, Dennis Deane. You have. A lot.”
“So, I ain’t gonna lie to you today.”
“Ten shots,” Jim said. “That’s all.”
He handed Dennis Deane the rifle. He searched around in the underbrush until he found a dead limb, which he broke over his knee into several pieces. When he stepped back onto the rock, Dennis Deane levered a shell into the chamber.
“You ready?” Jim asked.
Dennis Deane raised the rifle to his shoulder and squinted down the barrel. “I was born ready,” he said.
Jim threw one of the sticks upstream and across the current so that it would pass them on the opposite side of the river from the rock. The first shot Dennis Deane fired at the stick didn’t even hit the water, but he immediately levered another shell into the chamber and fired again. This time he managed to hit the water, but nowhere close to the target. As the stick floated past them, Dennis Deane fired the rifle as fast as he could work the lever and pull the trigger. The noise of the shots clapped down the river and echoed back toward them; each of the bullets hit the river with a thoomp sound; they sent up small geysers of white water. In between the reports, the spent shell casings bounced off the rock with tiny, almost musical tinks. Dennis Deane always shot the rifle as rapidly as possible. No matter how many shells Jim let him shoot, he never made them last.
“Eight,” Jim counted. “Nine,” he warned. “Ten.”
By then the stick was perhaps twenty yards downstream, and hard to see in the reflected sunlight. Dennis Deane kept the rifle to his shoulder and squinted harder.
“I said that was ten, Dennis Deane,” Jim said. “Don’t do it.”
Dennis Deane pulled the trigger anyway. The report spat and clapped, and once again the shot seemed to miss the river entirely. The stick bobbed unharmed out of sight. Dennis Deane turned and smiled happily at Jim. A pale string of gun smoke moved out over the water and headed downstream.
“Eleven,” Dennis Deane said.
Jim pulled the rifle out of his hands. “Daggummit,” he said. “You always do that. You always lie to me. Always.”
“Yeah, I know. I don’t know why you put up with it.”
“Maybe I won’t anymore.”
“Oh, don’t get all huffy.”
Jim shook his head.
“How many times did I hit it?”
“None,” Jim said. “Two times you didn’t even hit the water.”
“You’re crazy,” Dennis Deane said. “I hit that stick eight times. At least.”
“You might’ve hit the river eight times, but that’s all. Actually, now that I think about it, you managed to hit the river nine times. But you never got close to the stick.”
“Well, if that’s how you want to be,” Dennis Deane sniffed, “making yourself look big by making other people look small, then go right ahead.”
“Don’t try to change the subject, Dennis Deane,” Jim said.
“What subject?”
“Why are the hillbillies going to kill you?”
The happiness that had come from shooting the rifle slid so quickly and completely out of Dennis Deane’s eyes that Jim instantly regretted saying anything.
“Oh, God,” Dennis Deane said, “I’ve got to sit down.” He collapsed onto the rock and lay there in the sun with his eyes closed.
Jim stepped off the rock, leaned the rifle carefully against a tree, then returned and sat down beside Dennis Deane.
“What?” he said softly. “What did you do?”
“What’s the worst thing in the world you can think of that could happen to you?”
Jim gave the question some thought. “I don’t know,” he said. “Your mama died?”
“Okay. What’s the second-worst thing?”
“You got somebody pregnant?”
Dennis Deane jerked, then turned and stared at Jim, his eyes wide.
“Boy,” he said. “You’re good.”
Jim felt his mouth drop open. “What? You got somebody pregnant?”
“One shot,” Dennis Deane said. “Bull’s-eye.”
“Who?” Jim said. “I mean, who?”
“Guess.”
“I don’t know, Dennis Deane. You don’t even have a girlfriend.”
“Well, I do now.”
“So, who is it?”
Dennis Deane hit his head three times against the rock. (The name was apparently lodged inside his brain and needed to be knocked loose.) But when he opened his mouth, no noise came out.
“You gotta tell me,” Jim said.
Dennis Deane swallowed hard and rubbed his throat. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely audible over the sound of the current.
“Ellie Something,” he said.
Jim leaned closer to Dennis Deane. “Did you say Ellie Something?”
“Yeah. Ellie Something. You remember that day on the steps before school when I said I could make any girl I wanted to fall in love with me? Well, it actually worked on her.”
“You’re kidding.”
“That’s what she told me. I didn’t believe it, either.”
“And then you got her pregnant?”
“Well, not right then.”
“How? I mean, I know how, but where? She lives on the mountain and you don’t have a car. And she’s only a freshman.”
“Big Day,” Dennis Dea
ne said. “Square dance. And apparently being a freshman doesn’t have anything to do with it.”
“But you went to the dance with me, and I talked to you in the gym. Where’d you go?”
Dennis Deane closed his eyes again. “Nurse’s office.”
“The nurse’s office, Dennis Deane? You did it in the nurse’s office?”
“Yep. The nurse’s office.”
Jim whistled. “Boy,” he said. “The nurse’s office. Man, you could’ve been expelled.”
“Yeah, that would’ve been real upsetting,” Dennis Deane said. He sat up and wrapped his arms around his knees. “I’m probably not even going to be alive to go to school tomorrow, and all you can worry about is the principal.”
“Oh, never mind,” Jim said. “You know what I meant.”
Both boys sat and stared into the water.
“How come people don’t fish in the winter?” Dennis Deane asked.
“What?”
“How come people don’t fish in the winter? Today’s a pretty nice day. How come people don’t go fishing? How come we ain’t fishing?”
“Fish don’t bite in the winter.”
“Don’t fish eat in the winter?”
“I don’t think so,” Jim said.
“What about up north, where people go ice fishing? Those fish must eat.”
“I didn’t think about that.”
“You ever tried it?”
“Tried what?”
“Fishing in the winter.”
“Never have. You?”
“Nope. We ought to try it sometime.”
“Okay,” Jim said. He picked up a twig and flicked it toward the water. “So, what was it like?”
“What was what like?”
“You know, with Ellie Something. What was it like?”
“You don’t know what it’s like?”
Jim looked away from Dennis Deane. “I guess not. No. Not really.”
“Huh,” Dennis Deane said. “I always thought that you and Norma, well, that you were doing it and just not telling me.”
“Lord, no,” Jim said.
“How far’d you get? Third base?”
“Dennis Deane, I really don’t want to talk about Norma.”
“Second base?”
Jim blushed miserably but didn’t reply. His recent, brief trip to second base with Norma didn’t feel like anything he should brag about.