ONE THING THAT could go a long way toward changing Martin’s mood was clearing things up with Hazeline. He hated thinking about her being mad at him, so he tried not to think about it. But a thought that big was hard to get rid of.
He dreaded and looked forward to Sunday. Dreaded having to see Hazeline, but looked forward to getting it over with. He hadn’t realized how much he counted on Hazeline to be on his side. Maybe she wouldn’t be anymore, after he’d let her down like that, standing there like a bump on a log, not taking up for himself.
Sunday morning, he got dressed and tiptoed into the kitchen. He didn’t want to wake his father up. He just wanted to get out of the trailer and be alone with Hazeline.
“Mornin’,” his mother said, coming in the door. “It’s hot as Hades out there. I don’t think them tomato plants are gonna make it. They’re just shriveling right up.” She set two flowerpots on the kitchen counter. “Look at these pots I got at the flea market. Brand-new, and only fifty cents.”
“Did Hazeline call?” Martin poured himself a glass of cold buttermilk.
“No. She supposed to?”
“Naw. I just wondered if she was still coming, is all.”
“Why wouldn’t she?”
“I don’t know. Just asking.” He tried to act casual as he buttered his toast. He scooped on a mound of peach preserves and hummed softly.
His mother sat on a stool behind the counter. He felt her eyes on him but he kept spreading and humming.
“Martin,” she finally said, “Hazeline’s not mad at you.”
“I know.” His eyes darted around for something to look at. He was relieved to hear Hazeline’s car pull up. He nearly tripped on his untied shoelaces as he raced for the door, carrying his toast with him.
“See you,” he called and jumped off the front steps just as Hazeline got out of the car.
“Well, hey,” she said. “Either you’re glad to see me or you’re starving.”
Martin tried to find a hint of anger in her voice, a twinge of disgust, a trace of meanness, but there was nothing. Just Hazeline being Hazeline, same as ever.
“Both,” he said, stuffing the last of the toast into his mouth and licking his fingers. “I hope they have corn on the cob today, don’t you?”
He hopped in the front seat, leaving Hazeline standing by the car. She got in and started the engine.
“Okay,” she said, driving out of the trailer park. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Martin played the drums on the dashboard with his hands.
“How come you were in such a hurry to get out of there?”
“No reason.”
“Martin Edward Pittman, don’t lie to me. Why you acting so funny?”
He quit playing the drums. “I can’t stand you being mad at me, Hazeline.”
She slowed the car down, pulled off the road, and turned the ignition off. She turned to face him, leaning her back against the door, her arm draped over the back of the seat. He forced himself to look at her—a quick little sideways glance. What he saw brought him instant relief. Her face was a mixed-up crazy quilt of things, but all of them were good. Affection. Kindness. Even a hint of amusement. Finally she spoke.
“I ain’t mad at you, Martin,” she said. He wanted to hug her, but Hazeline had never been much for hugging. “When I saw you just standing there, letting your daddy say them things to you and you not uttering one word in your own defense, I felt a lot of things, but mad wasn’t one of ’em. Peeved is more like it. Peeved at Ed, of course, but that’s nothing new, and so peeved at you I wanted to snatch you bald-headed.”
Martin wasn’t sure how far removed peeved was from mad, but he felt better anyway.
“You gonna keep running from yourself, Martin?” she said.
He looked out the window. A bent-up hubcap was half hidden in the weeds. It glistened in the sun like some kind of lost treasure.
“You know, you can’t change your daddy any more than he can change you,” Hazeline said.
Martin kept staring at that glistening hubcap. “So why’s he always trying to change me?”
“I wish I knew, Martin. Seems like I’ve spent half my life trying to figure out why he does anything. I never told you this before, but when I found out I was going to have your daddy, it kind of took me by surprise. Hell, I’d still be looking for babies under cabbage leaves if he hadn’t come along and set me straight. That was over thirty years ago, and he’s still surprising me.” She lit a cigarette and blew a stream of smoke up in the air. It hovered at the roof of the car like a swirling gray cloud.
“Maybe if his daddy came back, he wouldn’t be so mad all the time,” Martin said.
Hazeline laughed so hard tears ran down her cheeks. Martin felt foolish. He crossed his arms and looked out the window.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” Hazeline cupped his chin in her hand and turned his face toward her. “You might have a point there.”
“I want that violin, Hazeline.”
“You want a hell of a lot more than that, Martin.”
He nodded. He wanted his father to let him be what he wanted to be—and still like him. “Well, how am I going to get what I want, Hazeline?”
“If you’re looking to me for answers, Martin, I can’t give you any.” She started the car and drove on.
“Do you think Wylene’s crazy?” Martin asked as Hazeline turned the big Studebaker into the Howard Johnson’s parking lot.
She smiled. Her leathery face wrinkled up in every imaginable place. “I think Wylene knows a good soul when she sees one.” She patted Martin’s knee. “Ain’t nothing crazy about that, now, is there?”
Martin smiled back. “I sure hope they have corn on the cob,” he said. “Don’t you?”
Fifteen
IF MARTIN HAD to name the time of year he liked best, right down to the hour, it would have to be noon in July. Anyone who hasn’t spent any time on an asphalt road in South Carolina at noon in July could never appreciate just how unusual a liking that was. But to Martin, noon in July was the time he had the whole world to himself. Leastways, he felt like he did. At noon in July in South Carolina, people scurry into air-conditioned houses, fan themselves on covered porches, nap in folding lounge chairs in the shade, and drink ice-cold beer in dark, smoky bars.
This particular July was especially hot and muggy, which meant the air-conditioned movie theater across the street from J. H. Lawrence and Son Pawnshop was especially crowded. That made it harder for Martin to find a comfortable place to stand. He’d been coming here every few days. He had tried to stay away, but it was impossible. When his feet started walking, they just took over and carried him right to Pickens, right to the movie theater across from the pawnshop. But once his feet got him that far, they wouldn’t budge another inch. No matter how hard he tried, Martin couldn’t make himself cross the street.
His no-worry week had come and gone. He had lost the ten dollars. His leather pouch was practically empty now, but it had been worth it to have one whole week knowing for sure the violin would still be there. He had considered talking to Mr. Lawrence again, but what would he say? He didn’t have another ten dollars. He couldn’t expect the man to hold the violin for nothing. Martin had convinced himself no one was going to buy it—ever. It was just going to lie there, nestled among the radios and watches, and wait for the day he walked in and claimed it. But in the meantime, every few days Martin found himself standing on the sidewalk at noon in July—watching.
“Why you going to Pickens so much?” his mother asked one day. She was sitting at a card table working a jigsaw puzzle: the Smoky Mountains cut up into about a million pieces. Her hand hovered over the pieces while her eyes searched.
“Just feel like it,” Martin said.
He watched her and wondered if she was even thinking about the violin.
“Why don’t you see if T.J. wants to go to a movie?” she said. “I’ll drive ya’ll in.”
“Naw.”
“Alma Scoggins wants you to
cut some tree branches that’s scraping the top of her trailer. Why don’t you go on and do that now?”
“I’ll do it later.”
His mother looked up from her jigsaw puzzle and sighed. “Hazeline called. She wanted to know what we were going to do for your birthday. I thought maybe we could go out for pizza and miniature golf. How’s that sound?”
“That’d be okay.” Martin got a soda out of the refrigerator and watched his mother searching through the puzzle pieces.
“I still can’t believe you’re going to be thirteen,” she said.
As far back as Martin could remember, his mother had said that. “I can’t believe you’re going to be eight … I can’t believe you’re going to be ten.”
“I think I’ll ride my bike into Pickens, okay?” Martin said.
“Oh, Martin, it’s so hot.”
“I don’t care. It don’t bother me.”
“One of these days you’re going to have a heatstroke out there.”
Martin finished his soda and set off for Pickens. It was quiet in Paradise. Terry Lynn and Luke Scoggins splashed in a wading pool. A TV was on somewhere. But mostly it had that noon-in-July feel to it.
It was a sunny day, but the smell of rain was in the air. Sure enough, just as Martin got to Pickens, there was a sudden downpour. One of those quick thundershowers that was over almost as soon as it started. Puddles glittered in the sun, and rain-soaked Queen Anne’s lace bowed over the roadside. Everything looked clean and fresh and steamy.
Martin walked his bike down the sidewalk. Under the store awnings, the pavement was cool and wet. By instinct, Martin looked up as he neared the movie theater, then stopped suddenly. His throat squeezed up tight. His whole body went stiff. He felt it even before he saw it. The violin was gone. The watches were there, the diamond rings, the dented television. But right in the middle was an empty space so big it nearly killed him.
For the longest time, Martin stood there, looking at that empty space. Finally he crossed the street. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him. When he got closer, he’d see that the violin was there, had been there all along. But when he got to the window and pressed his face against the glass, that empty space was bigger than ever.
Martin dropped his bike and pushed the door open so fast it hit the wall with a crash. Mr. Lawrence looked up from his newspaper.
“Where’s the violin?” Martin demanded, willing his voice to be calm. Mr. Lawrence was going to say he’d just moved it. That it was over there, in a box, on a shelf, under a table. Anywhere but gone.
“Gone,” Mr. Lawrence said so matter-of-factly Martin hated him for it.
“What do you mean, gone?”
“Gone. As in ‘not here.’”Mr. Lawrence looked back at his newspaper. Martin wanted to snatch it out of his hands. To shake him. Make him say he was lying.
“Gone where?” Martin said.
“Sold.”
“To who?”
“I don’t know.” Mr. Lawrence kept his eyes on the paper.
“Well, what’d they look like?” Martin could hear the panic in his voice. He took a deep breath. “I mean, was it a man or a woman?”
Mr. Lawrence looked up, an annoyed look on his face. When he spoke, his voice matched his face. “I don’t think that’s any of your business, son.”
Martin felt like he’d been slapped.
“But if it’s that all-fired important to you,” Mr. Lawrence continued, “it was a woman.”
Martin couldn’t stop now. “What’d she look like?”
Mr. Lawrence chuckled and shook his head. “You don’t give up, do you? Well, let’s see. She was short. Bottle blonde. Skinny legs. Not your usual violin type, if you know what I mean.”
Martin had no idea what your usual violin type was.
“Did you get her name?”
“No reason to.”
“Did she write a check or anything?”
“Cash only.” He pointed to a sign behind the counter.
Martin’s mind raced. Who could she be? He’d seen short blond women with skinny legs, but he was pretty sure he didn’t know any by name. And so what if he did know her? What good would that do? It didn’t matter who the woman was. The violin was gone.
Martin felt so heavy he could barely stand up straight.
“I guess I’ll be seeing you, then,” he said, moving slowly toward the door. When he reached it, he was suddenly overcome with sadness. Not just for the lost violin but for leaving the shop for what he guessed would be the last time. Saying a final goodbye to Mr. Lawrence. He hadn’t even liked the man, yet here he was feeling bad about saying goodbye.
Outside again, Martin squinted in the bright sunlight. He pedaled toward home and thought about missing something he had never owned, hadn’t even come close to owning. He’d only held the violin once. But it had set the ball rolling for a heap of thoughts to come tumbling into his head that had never been there before. Or then again, maybe they had been there all along and he just hadn’t noticed.
He rode by Sybil’s house three times before she came out.
“I got something for you,” she called through the screen door.
He pedaled up to her front porch.
“What?”
She disappeared inside. Martin waited. Was he supposed to follow her in? He peered through the screen. It was dark in the hall, and he could smell vinegar.
“Sybil?” He lifted one foot and pulled his sock up, then ran his hand over his hair.
Her head appeared around a doorway. “You coming in or what?”
Martin stepped into the hall. It was hot and damp inside and the vinegar fumes made his nose wrinkle up. “Hooeee,” he said, waving a hand in front of his face.
He went to the kitchen where Sybil was. Glass jars covered the table and lined the countertops. Steam rose up out of a huge pot on the stove. Sybil’s hair was damp and limp around her face.
She handed Martin a jar. “Pickled okra.”
“You make these?” he said.
“Yeah.” And then cool, calm Sybil blushed. Martin looked away quickly, pretending to examine the rows of jars around the room. “Thanks,” he said. “Well, I guess I better go.”
But instead of walking out the door, he just stood there in that hot, vinegary kitchen.
Sybil brushed her hair out of her face. “Maybe we could go fishing sometime,” she said.
“Yeah, sure. We could do that.”
“Course, we’d have to find us a better fishing spot than that lousy ole lake.”
For a second, Martin felt ashamed. But when he looked up and saw Sybil’s smile, that bad feeling passed. He smiled back.
“Well, I guess I better go,” he said again. This time he forced his feet to take him outside, where he tucked the still-warm jar inside his shirt and pedaled off.
At the highway, he turned left, away from Paradise Trailer Park. He wasn’t ready to go home just yet. He pedaled slowly, steadily. The rhythmic whirring of the wheels was almost hypnotic. He tried to hum a tune instead of thinking about the violin. He picked up speed as he coasted downhill and onto Walhalla Highway. When he saw the Exxon station just ahead, he spotted Frank right away, rolling a tire out to a pickup truck. Same thin, brown arms. Same ponytail. Same crinkly-eyed smile.
Martin kept his head down and focused on the road as it whizzed under the front wheel of his bike. He wished he could pull in and say “Hi.” Wished he could wave. Shout out a friendly “Hey, Frank!”
Within seconds the gas station was behind him and he was still pedaling and thinking and wishing. Then he stopped so suddenly the wheels of his bike skidded in the dirt along the roadside. He turned around and rode back toward the gas station.
“Hey, Frank,” he called, waving a hand over his head.
Frank looked up. He squinted in Martin’s direction, then grinned and waved.
When the gas station was far behind him, Martin pumped his fist in the air and said, “Yes!” Then he put his h
and on the warm jar of okra and headed for home.
Sixteen
NEITHER MARTIN NOR Wylene had mentioned the violin in days. Finally, one day out of the clear blue, Wylene said, “You seen that violin lately?”
She was cleaning around her kitchen sink with a toothbrush, scrubbing away invisible particles of mildew from around the faucet. She was wearing a Hawaiian-print muumuu and yellow rubber gloves that came up to her elbows. Martin sat on the floor in the living room eating a Popsicle. They were listening to Vivaldi. Violin concertos.
“Nope,” Martin said. “It ain’t there.”
Wylene stopped scrubbing and came into the living room. “Ain’t there?”
“Nope.”
“What happened to it?”
“Some blond woman bought it.” The Popsicle was melting as quick as he could eat it. Purple juice ran down his arms and dripped off his elbows. He went to get some paper towels and finish eating over the sink. Wylene followed him.
“What’re you gonna do now?” she asked.
“Nothing much I can do.”
“Well, that’s a crying shame, Martin. I just feel terrible.”
Martin nodded, but he knew there was no way she could feel half as terrible as he did. Wasn’t he the one who had spent all those weeks seeing himself playing that violin? Hadn’t he heard the music, felt the smooth wood in his hands, moved the bow across the strings? He’d pictured himself playing in the little living room of his trailer. Mamma, Daddy, Hazeline all sitting on the couch smiling, asking him to play more. Then in one big swoop all that had disappeared and he was right back into real life again.
The summer seemed endless now, one long day following another. Southern summers are long. Not like winters; they just come in the front door and go right out the back door without so much as a ‘How do you do?’ in between. But summers come in and stay awhile.
On Martin’s birthday, Hazeline came over and they all went out for pizza and miniature golf. Afterward they sat on lawn chairs in front of the trailer, eating homemade peach ice cream and swatting mosquitoes. Martin’s mother invited the Scogginses over. Terry Lynn and Luke brought sparklers.
Beethoven in Paradise Page 7