Beethoven in Paradise

by Barbara O'Connor

  When he turned in to Paradise, he heard the thwack of a baseball hitting a glove. T.J. and Riley were throwing the ball to each other in the road.

  “Hey, Martin,” T.J. called without looking at him. Martin was impressed that T.J. could talk and still keep the smooth, even rhythm of throwing and catching.

  “Hey,” Martin said, sitting on the ground by the road to watch. He took his sneakers off and wiggled his feet around in the cool grass.

  “Where you been, Armpit?” Riley asked. Throw. Thwack. Throw. Thwack.

  “Pickens.”

  “What for?”

  “Just felt like it.”

  Riley grinned. “You ain’t two-timin’ Wylene, now, are you, Pitts?” Thwack went the ball.

  “Shut up, Riley.” All Martin’s worrying was beginning to make him irritable. “What ya’ll doing this summer?” he asked, to change the subject.

  “Vacation Bible school.” Riley laughed so hard he missed TJ.’s pitch. “I’m going to get my smokes,” he said and took off for the trailer.

  After retrieving the ball, T.J. came over and sat down beside Martin. “I wish I could get me a job,” he said. “Winn Dixie’s hiring bag boys, but Mamma says she needs me around to watch Becky. Having a little sister sure is a pain. How about you?” he asked, tossing the baseball from hand to hand.

  Martin shrugged. “I don’t know. Get some lawn-mowing jobs, I reckon. Maybe I’ll check out the Winn Dixie. I need to make some money this summer.”

  “You gonna buy that ole fiddle?” T.J. blew a bubble with his gum until it popped, covering his nose with pink film.

  “Naw,” Martin answered. He watched the baseball plop back and forth in T.J.’s hands. He didn’t dare look up. He could feel his eye twitching, knew his face was red.

  Why was he lying to T.J.? Why couldn’t he just say, I sure would like to buy it, if I could?

  For a minute Martin felt like he was going to cry. Felt like his feelings were just going to bust right out of him. He kept watching the ball, back and forth, back and forth, till he got control of himself and pushed his feelings back down again.

  Riley sauntered over, smoking a cigarette. “What you doin’ this summer?” he asked Martin. “Besides hanging around with Lard-Ass Lundsford, that is.” He snatched the ball from T.J. and tossed it straight up, catching it in his baseball hat. “What you two do in there all day anyways, Pitts? Practice the tango or something?”

  “We listen to music. There a law against that?”

  “Hey, don’t get all riled up now. I was just curious, is all. I mean, I hear ya’ll in there every damn day.”

  “What kind of music ya’ll listen to?” T.J. asked.

  Martin picked at the grass, wiggled dirt out from between his toes. “All kinds,” he said.

  “Mostly love songs, right, Armpit?” Riley said.

  “Actually, my favorite is Beethoven. Ya’ll like Beethoven?” Martin grinned at Riley

  Riley poked T.J. in the ribs. “Beethoven? Ain’t that a coincidence? That’s T.J.’s favorite, too, ain’t it, T.J.?” He hooted and lay down, covering his face with his baseball hat.

  Martin stood up. “See ya’ll later.” He headed for his trailer. He’d had more than his daily dose of Riley Owens. Besides, he’d let himself have ten whole minutes of normal life. Now the worry was starting to creep back in.

  Twelve

  THIS IS GONNA be the day. This is gonna be the day. This is gonna be the day, Martin said to himself when he opened his eyes Sunday morning. He said it while he brushed his teeth. He said it as he sopped his waffle in a puddle of syrup. Today was definitely going to be his lucky day. The day he’d ask his father about the violin. The day things started going his way.

  He’d lain in bed the night before and thought about the best way to do it. Should he wait till he and his father were alone? Should he talk to his mother first? Maybe it would be better to wait for Hazeline and have the whole family together. Finally he decided to follow his instincts. Martin had always had pretty good instincts. He would know when the time was right.

  “Why don’t you and Hazeline eat here today?” his mother said, turning a piece of chicken, golden and crisp, in the sizzling oil.

  “Fine with me,” Martin said, mopping the last drop of syrup off his plate with his finger. He watched his mother take the chicken out of the skillet and pour in milk. She scraped the browned, crusty chicken skin off the bottom of the pan and stirred until the gravy was thick and smooth. Martin’s mouth watered. The Prince of Wales buffet was good, but nothing could beat his mother’s fried chicken with cream gravy. To go with it, she’d serve all his favorites—potato salad, black-eyed peas, sliced tomatoes, green beans cooked all day with a ham hock. There was no way Mr. Howard Johnson could do better than that.

  Martin heard the Studebaker pull up and went to the door.

  “Guess what I got,” Hazeline called as she collected her bags.

  Martin knew better than to try. When he was little, he’d call out everything he could think of. A telephone, roller skates, a puppy. He had never in his whole life been right. Eventually he quit trying. At least, he’d tried to quit. Hazeline loved guessing games.

  “Aw, come on,” she would say. “Guess.” Or, “Come on. I’ll give you three guesses.”

  Martin held the door open for her. From the looks of it, one of the bags held something heavy. Martin decided to test his luck and give it a shot.

  “A bowling ball.”

  “Close.” Hazeline grinned. “Guess again.”

  “I give up.”

  “A watermelon.” Hazeline proudly plunked a round, green melon onto the kitchen counter. “But not just a ordinary ole watermelon.”

  Somehow that didn’t surprise Martin.

  “Anybody here ever seen a yellow watermelon?” She got a knife out of the kitchen drawer and sliced into the melon. “Look at this.”

  The melon fell into two pieces. Sure enough, it was golden yellow inside.

  “Well, I’ll be,” Martin said.

  His father came out of the bedroom, scratching his hairy white stomach.

  “Look at this, Daddy,” Martin said. “A yellow watermelon. Ain’t that something?”

  His father eyed the melon suspiciously. “Well,” he said, “I have to admit, that is something.”

  “How you reckon they do that?” Martin said.

  “Who knows?” Hazeline said, cutting a slice of watermelon and handing it to Martin. “Bunch of weird scientists sittin’ around playing God. Too bad they don’t invent something more useful, like a money tree. Wouldn’t none of us have to work then.”

  Martin tensed when he heard the word “work.” He closed his eyes and waited for his father’s angry outburst. He could hardly believe his ears when he heard his father chuckle. “And what would you do with a money tree, Mamma?” his father asked, cutting a piece of melon and eating it right off the knife.

  “Depends on if it was a big money tree or a little money tree,” Hazeline said, lighting a cigarette and climbing up on a barstool. “If it was just a little one, I’d get some new tires for that pile of junk called a car out there. If it was a big money tree, I’d push that thing off the nearest cliff and go to Hawaii with some cute young cowboy in skintight jeans.” She laughed her wheezy laugh and winked at Martin.

  They all laughed, all of them at the same time. That was a good sign. That was definitely a good sign.

  “You know, I saw me a violin in Pickens the other day.” Martin said it to the walls, the floor, the air. “I was thinking maybe that’d be a good instrument to have, being a good size and all. I mean, it don’t take up a lot of room like a piano … and I could play all kinds of music on it. You know, country and western, church music, maybe even some classical if I wanted to. I never played a violin before, but I bet I could learn. I wouldn’t need no lessons, though. I’m sure of that. I kind of got an ear for music. I bet anything I could learn to play it by myself, like I did the harmonica. And this here�
�s a real good violin. But it only costs fifty bucks. I bet most violins cost twice that. I was thinking maybe you could give it to me for my birthday and then I’d pay you back some of the money. Or all the money. I could pay back all the money.”

  When Martin finally stopped, he couldn’t remember a thing he had said. He wondered if it had come out the way he’d rehearsed it in his head. He took a bite of watermelon and concentrated on sorting out the seeds in his mouth. He watched a fly land in a puddle of melon juice on the counter. Suddenly his father did the worst thing he could have done. He laughed. Martin swallowed the melon, seeds and all.

  “Well now, don’t that beat all?” his father asked, looking around at everyone, smiling, shaking his head. “Martin wants a violin. Let me see if I can guess whose idea that was.”

  Martin stared at his father. “It was my idea,” he said.

  “Your idea.” His father jabbed the watermelon with the knife, letting the words hang in the air. “Yours and who else’s, Martin?”

  Martin had been prepared for an argument about the violin, but the conversation was taking a turn he hadn’t expected.

  “Just mine,” he said.

  His father narrowed his eyes to a mean squint. Martin looked away. “Martin,” his father said, “I’m gonna to tell you somethin’ and I want you to listen good ’cause I’m only gonna tell you once. I will not tolerate this. You spend all your time with some damn weirdo twice your age, and now you come home and start this crap. Well, Martin, what Wylene Lundsford does in her home is her business, but when she starts turning my son into some kinda damn queer boy, then it becomes my business. And I will not tolerate it.”

  “Oh, for cryin’ out loud, Ed,” Hazeline interrupted. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I think you’re straying from the subject a bit here. The boy just wants a violin. What’s so damn bad about that?”

  “All right, Mamma. I’ll get back to the subject. Martin ain’t gettin’ no violin.”

  Martin looked from one to the other. What could he say now? Could he, by some miracle, come up with a line that would change his father’s mind? Or was he just going to let that violin slip right on out of his life without ever having uttered a word? He looked at his mother. Why didn’t she say something? Why didn’t she help him?

  Hazeline’s angry voice interrupted his thoughts. “Why you just standin’ there like a bump on a log, Martin? You want that violin so bad, why don’t you take up for yourself?”

  Martin stared at her for a moment before dropping his eyes. He knew the answer to that question. Knew he’d put so much energy into pushing down what he wanted and who he was that he just didn’t have enough energy left over to fight back.

  But when he opened his mouth, the words that came out were “I don’t know.”

  Thirteen

  THE NOONDAY SUN was so hot that little bubbles of melted tar dotted the road. By the time Martin got to Sybil’s, the bottoms of his bare feet were crusted with the thick, gooey stuff. He went around back to the garden. Sybil sat in a lawn chair with her head down.

  “Hey,” he called.

  She looked up and waved a postcard in the air. “From my mom,” she said.

  Martin sat down in the grass beside her chair. “You miss her?”

  “Not enough to go to Texas like she’s trying to get me to do.” Sybil turned the postcard over and over in her hand. “Besides, I don’t need to hear how my clothes are too sloppy and my hair’s too stringy and my fingernails look ugly all chewed up.”

  “Do you think your mom likes you?” Martin asked.

  Sybil shrugged. “I guess so,” she said. “I never thought about it.”

  “I mean, do you think she’d like you better if you quit biting your fingernails or ironed your clothes or something?” Martin watched a dragonfly swooping around the backyard.

  “Naw. She’d just find something else I could do better.”

  “Don’t that bother you?”

  “Nope.” Sybil studied the postcard on her lap: an armadillo saying, “Wish you were here.”

  “How come?” Martin asked.

  “’Cause I think I’m fine just the way I am.”

  Martin looked at Sybil, sitting in the lawn chair like the Queen of Cool, her long legs stretched out in front of her. Something mighty admirable about a kid who could talk like that. He took his harmonica out of his shirt pocket and played “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”

  Sybil stood up and grinned down at him. “I never knew you could play the harmonica,” she said. “Where you been hiding that?”

  “I ain’t been hiding it,” Martin said.

  Sybil sat on the grass next to him. “I wish I could play an instrument.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Anything.” She looked at the harmonica in Martin’s hand. “What other instrument can you play?”

  Martin pulled at a blade of grass and threw it at his feet. “I don’t know. My dad won’t give me a chance to find out.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Means he don’t like nothing about me.” Martin could feel Sybil looking at him, but he kept pulling the grass, throwing the grass.

  Sybil lay back with her hands under her head and crossed one foot over the other. Martin put his harmonica to his mouth and played. “Amazing Grace.” “Camptown Races.” “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah.” Whatever came to mind.

  Every now and then he glanced over at Sybil. There wasn’t much in this world that could have made him feel good about himself right then, but her smiling face and rocking feet came close.

  Every time Martin started to tell Wylene what his dad had said about the violin, he got so weighed down with bad feelings he couldn’t talk. Just saying the words in his head was bad enough. Telling it out loud seemed nearly impossible. But he knew she was going to ask sooner or later, so one day he just up and told her everything that had happened on that day which was supposed to have been his lucky day. She sat in the La-Z-Boy in front of the fan, eating ice cream out of a Dixie cup. She had on her Hav-a-Hanky shirt, the armpits wet with perspiration.

  When he finished, she set the cup down and looked at him with an I-told-you-so expression on her face.

  “Am I supposed to be surprised?” she said.

  Martin felt a flicker of anger. “No.”

  “Well, what are you going to do?”

  “There ain’t nothing I can do, Wylene. I guess fate just dealt me a lousy hand.”

  Wylene sat on the edge of her chair and leaned toward him. “What are you talking about, Martin? A lousy hand. That don’t sound like you. Besides, this ain’t no big poker game of life or something. This is your chance to do what you’ve always wanted to do. To be what you’ve always wanted to be. If fate has dealt you a hand, it’s the hand of music. You are a musician, Martin. You just gonna let that slip on by like a ship passin’ in the night?”

  Martin wanted to leave. He wanted to lie in his bed with the covers over his head. Instead, he slouched down lower on the couch, his skinny legs stretched out in front of him, knocking the toes of his sneakers together.

  “You know, Wylene,” he said, running a hand over the top of his head. “It might sound crazy, but I don’t think my daddy likes me. I mean, I reckon he loves me ’cause I’m his son and all. But he don’t like me.”

  He looked down at his feet and hesitated a minute before continuing.

  “But you know what the worst part is? The worst part is I don’t think I like him, either.”

  There. He had said it. He hoped Wylene wouldn’t say anything. He waited. She didn’t. He felt a surge of fondness for her because she knew him so well.

  “I been doing a lot of thinking lately,” he said.

  “Thinkin’ about what?” Wylene said softly.

  “Oh, just about everything. Questions mostly.” He closed his eyes when the fan swung slowly in his direction and blew cool air in his face.

  “
You know what I’m beginning to think?” he said. “I’m beginning to think maybe the answer to most questions is ‘just because.’ You know what I mean?”

  Wylene nodded, not like she was saying yes but like she was pondering what he was saying.

  “Why’s my daddy so angry all the time? Just because. Why don’t he like it that I’d rather have a violin than a baseball bat? just because. Why don’t my mamma just bust him in the chops and get the hell outa Dodge? Just because. See what I mean?”

  Wylene pushed her damp, frizzy hair up off the back of her neck when the fan whirred in her direction. “I think there’s another question you should add to that list,” she said.

  Martin arched his eyebrows and waited.

  “Why do you keep trying to please somebody you don’t even like?” she said.

  “Aw, hell, Wylene …” Martin punched the throw pillow beside him.

  “I mean, pardon my ignorance, Martin, but I just don’t understand why …”

  “That’s just it, Wylene.” Martin pulled his feet in and sat up straight. “You don’t understand. Nobody does.” He dropped against the back of the couch again. “I don’t even know if I do.”

  They sat there for a minute, both of them staring at something but not seeing it. Then Martin sat up and took his harmonica out of his pocket. He cupped his hands around it and played slow and soft. Wylene pushed the La-Z-Boy back to a reclining position, folded her hands on her stomach, and listened. After a while Martin changed to a fast, lively tune. He rocked his body back and forth and tapped his toe on the floor. Wylene nodded her head and clapped her hands, a little smile on her face.

  “You know,” she said when he finished, “Beethoven believed that music could change the world. I don’t know about that, but it sure can change a mood, can’t it?”

  Martin said yes, but he was lying. His mood hadn’t changed a bit.

  Fourteen