by Watt Key
51
“How much farther?” I asked.
“About a mile.”
I sat up in my seat and stared ahead. The sun was setting outside my window, and the smell of soybeans and corn was strong in the cool dusk. We had skirted the outside of the city and were moving into the countryside again. To the east I could see the tall buildings of downtown Mobile standing against the horizon.
“How much farther now?”
Uncle Mike pointed ahead of us. “That house up there.”
The first thing I noticed about Uncle Mike’s house was that it was a one-story brick home backed up to a pecan orchard.
“I like pecan trees.”
“Well, we’ve got a bunch.”
They had put up a small banner on the fence that read WELCOME HOME, MOON, and my new family came out of the house and stood in the yard as we drove up. I felt my hands growing fidgety, and I looked at Uncle Mike. “What do I do?”
He laughed. “You’ll be okay. Just get out of the truck and meet everybody.”
I felt my face burning red as Aunt Sara knelt down and hugged me. My new brother, David, was only a year older than me, and my new sister, Alice, a year younger. They said hello and I nodded at them while my face was pressed into Aunt Sara’s bosom. She finally pushed me back by the shoulders and stared at me. “He looks just like his mother.”
“They say he doesn’t eat like her,” Uncle Mike said.
Aunt Sara stood and sniffled and wiped her eyes. “We’ll just have to see about that,” she said. “Are you hungry, Moon?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I can’t imagine all you’ve been through. I’m gonna have to feed you four times a day to get some meat on your bones.”
“I feel pretty good now, but I’d like four times a day.”
She laughed and turned around. “My Lord,” she said. “Let’s all go inside.”
David and Alice crowded beside me while we walked. David kept glancing over at me. “I heard you beat up grown men,” he finally said.
“I had to whip up on a couple. People were chasin’ me all over.”
“They said you had your own rifle.”
I nodded. “Me and Pap both.”
“I’ve got some climbin’ spikes Daddy gave me.”
“Climbin’ spikes!”
“Yeah! You can strap ’em to your legs and climb up a tree straight as a pole.”
“Man! I wanna see those. What else you got?”
Uncle Mike laughed and put his hand on my back. “You two’ll have time for all that later. Let’s go inside and get Moon cleaned up and fed.”
The house had three bedrooms. Uncle Mike and Aunt Sara slept in one and Alice had another. I was to share the last room with David. My bed hadn’t arrived yet, but Aunt Sara assured me that it would look just like David’s. She showed me the place where my bed would go and a closet where I could put my things.
“I don’t have much,” I told her. “Just some old traps and some clothes I made. Got Pap’s personal box.”
“We’ll take care of that,” she said. “You’ll have the same things that every other boy has.”
I looked at David and he smiled and nodded like they’d been talking about it.
We seated ourselves around the dinner table, and Aunt Sara served pork roast and creamed spinach and buttered sourdough bread. It was better than any food I’d had in the forest or in jail or at Pinson or even at Hal’s. At first nobody said much, but I could feel them watching me. I was uncomfortable at the table and did my best to hold my silverware the right way. Eventually, Uncle Mike reached over and took my bread and pinched my pork with it and held it out to me like a sandwich. I set my fork and knife down and smiled and took it from him. Everyone began to laugh, and before long we were all eating our pork in a sandwich.
“So show us somethin’, Moon,” Uncle Mike said.
“Like what?”
“Make an animal sound,” David said.
“What do you wanna hear?”
“Your best one.”
“It’s a loud one,” I warned them.
“Do it anyway.”
Aunt Sara set her glass down. “I don’t know if—”
“It’s okay, Sara,” Uncle Mike said.
I set my sandwich down and got out of my chair. I bent over so that my hands rested on my knees and sucked in my breath and twisted my face in the right way. I made the sound of a bobcat scream.
“Reeeowww!”
When I looked up, everybody was staring at me with wide eyes. After a second, Uncle Mike began to clap.
Aunt Sara scooted her chair back and wiped the corners of her mouth with her napkin. “My Lord,” she said.
“That’s a bobcat. Supposed to sound like a screamin’ woman,” I told her.
“A wolf!” David yelled.
Aunt Sara shifted in her chair and straightened her back. “Now, I don’t know about a wolf.”
“Me neither,” I said. “There’s no wolves in Alabama. I know a coyote, though.”
“Coyote, then,” said Alice.
I looked up at the ceiling, pursed my lips, and began barking like a coyote.
“Yip yip yip! Yi yi!”
When I looked down, David was sitting on top of his chair back and leaning forward towards me. “What else?” he stammered.
“Deer?”
David and Alice nodded. I tossed my head from side to side and snorted like a flagged deer.
“That’s enough for now,” Aunt Sara said. “Moon, you’re very talented.”
“They’re gonna love you at school,” David said.
I smiled and got back into my chair. “You think so?”
“Yeah. Nobody can do all those sounds.”
After we finished our meal, I told them about living in the forest. I described how Pap and I had built the shelter and the types of books that we studied. They wanted to know about the strangest things that we’d eaten, and I told them about armadillo stew and snake rolls. I told about the time that it rained real hard and a rattlesnake family tried to move into the shelter with us. They listened to me late into the night until Alice fell asleep against Uncle Mike’s shoulder.
“I think it’s time for all of us to go to bed,” he said. “It’s been a big day.”
After saying good night to David and Alice, Aunt Sara got a blanket from the closet and spread it over the sofa for me. When she was done, she put her hand on my back and asked me if I was okay sleeping in the living room my first night with them.
“It’s better than pine straw and ticks,” I said. “I like it just fine.”
She smiled and yawned. “I’m glad you’re so easy to please, Moon. Good night, you two.”
“Good night,” I said.
I lay on the sofa and pulled the blanket up to my chin. Uncle Mike sat across from me in a chair.
“You still okay?” he finally said.
I nodded.
“I know you’ve been through some tough times. I don’t expect you to just slide into things around here. There’s a lot to get used to.”
“I’m feelin’ better already.”
“It takes time to start a new life, especially when you’ve come from a background as different as yours.”
I felt the soft pillow under my head and listened to the ticking of the mantel clock. “I like everything about this place.”
Uncle Mike smiled. His eyes told me what I needed to know about the type of father he would be. They were Pap’s own eyes, but there was something more gentle and calm about them. I could tell that he wanted to say something that would make me feel better about all I’d been through in the last few months. But he didn’t need to say anything.
“I’m gonna be fine,” I told him. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
GO FISH
* * *
questions for the author
* * *
WATT KEY
When did you realize you wanted to be a writer?
I wrote my first story when I was ten. It was about a collie surviving a tornado. I was into Jim Kjelgaard, a writer of dog books, then, and I wanted to try and make stories like his. I kept writing short stories for fun throughout the rest of my prep school days. My high school creative writing teacher convinced me that I had talent as an author and this gave me the idea that maybe I was meant to be a writer. It wasn’t until my sophomore year in college that I knew this for certain. I was running the outdoor skills department at a boys’ camp in Texas. I was alone and far away from home, with lots of free time in a little cabin by the Guadalupe River. I wrote my first novel there. Although it was a terrible book that will never be published, it was the most satisfying thing I’d ever done. After that summer, I continued to write a novel a year without regard to whether it would be published or not. I’d written ten novels by the time Alabama Moon sold.
What was your worst subject in school?
I remember making an 88 out of 100 on just about every test I took in high school, regardless of the subject. So I wasn’t an outstanding student, but neither was I a poor one. At my school, 88 was about average. Before I went to college, my parents took me to see a psychologist in New Orleans. I went through a series of aptitude tests that were supposed to help us decide what profession I was best suited for. Basically, I scored an 88 on everything. The conclusion was that I would always have a hard time deciding what I wanted to be because none of my abilities seemed to stand out above the rest. This didn’t help me directly, but ever since then, I’ve been conscious of the fact that I need to specialize in one thing to be outstanding at anything. For example, as much as I would like to play a musical instrument, I don’t. I shun it like a bad vice. I know I would enjoy it too much and it would take away from my focus on being the best writer I can be.
What was your first job?
My brothers and sisters and I always had chores assigned to us that we didn’t get paid for. My first duties were emptying the wastebaskets around the house, feeding various pets (we had lots of animals), and raking and mowing the lawn. I landed my first paying job when I was about eight years old. I was the fly killer for the snack bar at a resort not far from my home. I killed them with a washcloth, stored them in a paper cup, and received ten cents per fly. As soon as I would get enough dimes, I would cash in my pay for a drink to quench my thirst.
How did you celebrate publishing your first book?
My wife and I went to the Mexican restaurant up the street. It was a fairly low-key celebration. It took a while for me to accept that I’d gotten a legitimate book deal. You may have seen the episode of The Waltons when John-Boy gets scammed by the vanity publisher. He told all of his friends and family that he’d gotten a book deal and they had a big celebration for him. Then he got a letter from the publisher asking him how many of his books he wanted to pay them to print. It was a scam. This exact thing happened to me years before I sold Alabama Moon and it was very embarrassing and eye-opening.
Where do you write your books?
After college, I built a small camp several miles into the swamp that you can only get to by boat. I made it from lumber that washed up on the beach after a hurricane. It took me nearly every weekend for a year to complete it. I develop and outline most of my ideas up there. The bulk of my actual writing is done at home in a spare bedroom that doubles as my study.
Where do you find inspiration for your writing?
I’m not always inspired to write. Fortunately, I have a backlog of stories in my head that I feel have to be written whether I’m in the mood for it or not. I often tell people that writing is like an addiction to me. I liken this addiction to people who jog every day. I don’t feel good about myself unless I’m doing it. Most of the time, it’s a very enjoyable process. Sometimes, it’s not. But I decided long ago that I was supposed to be a writer, so that’s what I do.
When you finish a book, who reads it first?
My wife, Katie, reads my first drafts most of the time. I’ve learned that if I don’t want her to read it, it’s probably not ready. Then my agent reads it, and finally my editor.
Are you a morning person or a night owl?
I’m a night owl. But to feel good and productive, I have to have eight hours of sleep, no more, no less. I usually write from about eight until eleven at night and get up at seven in the morning.
What’s your idea of the best meal ever?
Rib eye steak. Egg noodles with real butter and garlic. Real mashed potatoes without gravy. Cream cheese spinach. Brewed iced tea with lemon, real sugar, and mint. Lemon pie without the meringue for dessert.
Where do you go for peace and quiet?
My swamp camp.
What makes you laugh out loud?
Mark Twain.
What do you value most in your friends?
Honesty. Originality.
What is your favorite TV show?
I don’t recommend television. One day I was driving through Mississippi and came across a folk artist with a yard full of his scrap iron creations. Out front was a sign that read “Look what I did while you were watching TV.” I like his attitude.
What’s the best advice you have ever received about writing?
Continue to write even when you don’t feel like it. If you’re a real writer, that’s what you have to do. I knew this on an instinctive level for many years, but never heard it described as well as what a painter friend of mine told me. I was watching him create an oil painting of an outdoor scene. He was doing his work in a small, rocking boat, crouched beneath an umbrella in the pouring rain. I remarked that he was the most dedicated artist I’d ever met. He responded by telling me that he wasn’t an artist, he was a professional painter.
Moon ended up with a place to call home, but his friend Hal isn’t so lucky.
And the new place he’s ended up is so much worse than pinson.
Keep reading for an excerpt from
DIRT ROAD HOME
by Watt Key.
1
Late Sunday morning Officer Pete delivered me in chains to the Hellenweiler Boys’ Home in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I was officially “property of the state” and sentenced to live there until I was eighteen. This place would be hard time, especially since I was considered a problem case and an escape risk. But I figured I could handle it. I’d already done two years in the Pinson Boys’ Home. Besides, I didn’t plan on sticking around long.
There were two places a ward of the state could go after Pinson: Live Oak and Hellenweiler. Everybody talked about Live Oak like it was a vacation. Nobody talked about Hellenweiler. It was for the repeat offenders and trouble kids. I was both and I’d known for a long time that Live Oak wasn’t in my future. The only reason I was three months late was because it took them that long to catch me after my escape. And the only reason they caught me was because I turned myself in to help out a friend. Now he was gone and I had to face a whole new set of friends and enemies. Except this time I was no longer the biggest, oldest boy at the home. I was a new fish.
I shuffled toward the guardhouse ahead of Officer Pete, the leg shackles restricting my steps and bruising my ankles. In the distance I heard a church bell. Sundays were supposed to be the beginning of the week, but they’d always felt like the end of it to me. All I could think about were the days ahead as dread puddled in the pit of my stomach. This time the dread was so strong it made me dizzy. I blinked my eyes and swallowed against the awful feeling. Then I took a deep breath and savored the smell of the pines and honeysuckle in the spring air. I listened to the robins calling and rustling in the hedge beside me. It would be a while before I’d sense any of these things again.
When we got to the front gate I heard a buzz and then a click as the electronic lock released and the gate slid open. Hellenweiler sat in the middle of a five-acre yard of mostly bare dirt and a few small oak trees. Beyond the ten-foot wire fence was a field where nothing was planted. I guessed it was plowed to bare dirt to give the guards a clear view of anyone trying
to escape. There was almost two hundred yards of open ground before you got to the trees.
You would never hear an adult call Hellenweiler a prison. It was always referred to as a “boys’ home.” But to look at the one-story cinder-block compound from the outside, there was no question what the place was modeled after. I had an idea what I’d find on the inside as well, and it wouldn’t be pretty. I already had the feeling that Pinson had been a preschool compared to this place. This was a high-security jailhouse to lock down eighty bad boys.
I won’t tell you that I wasn’t nervous. I was, but not because I was scared of how they would treat me. I’d been through bad and I could go through worse. I was worried about my attitude. I knew I had it in me to be a problem. I knew I was hardheaded, with a temper set on a hair trigger. If I wanted to get out of there before I was eighteen, I had to play it cool. Real cool.
We passed through two more electronic gates before arriving in the receiving area. The sickening smell of disinfectant and bleach hit me like it did the first day I walked into Pinson. But I would get used to it again. I would get used to the hospital-blue walls and the rotten food and the buzzers and the snapping of wall clocks marking time in the silence. There was nothing natural about the place.
Officer Pete guided me to the counter.
“This the Mitchell kid?” the receiving guard asked.
“Yeah,” Officer Pete replied. “Henry Mitchell, Jr.”
The guard put some forms on the counter and Officer Pete completed them and slid them back. Then he turned to me and began removing my restraints. When he was done he tucked the chains under his arm and studied me. He was stern, but I knew there was a lot of good in him that he didn’t like to show. “Keep your chin up,” he finally said.
I nodded.
He stared at me a few seconds more like he wanted to say something else, but he didn’t. There wasn’t anything left to say. Finally he turned to the guard. “All yours,” he said.