He didn’t ask for my approval, so I settled against the seat and thought about my new brother. As we drove toward the highway, I wondered if he was the only other one.
CHAPTER 14
Zipping along US 27, I recalled the last time Papa and I headed north together, with blood in my mouth but two front teeth still in my head. I gripped the door handle and remembered my urge to jump out. If I had, I’d never have known about Tommy. Thinking about that hidden part of my father’s life put me in mind of the only secret I intended to keep: Ry was a girl named Rienzi. She was smart, maybe even smarter than Jay; I wanted to share secrets with her.
“Papa, please can you drop me at the Shepherds’ place?” I said. “Where that girl Rienzi is staying?”
“I told you I ain’t feeling good.”
“I’ll walk home, sir.”
“I don’t know how to get there.”
“It’s the next left turn, sir.”
He braked hard, squealing the tires. A horn blared from behind and a large truck swerved around us. Papa said, “Seeing as how you remember, go on and git.”
His short, hard jab against my mouth was still vivid, so I hopped out. Two cars honked and went around on the left, the second one nearly colliding head-on with a southbound driver. Papa yelled out the open passenger window, “Hey, ain’t you stuttering no more?” When I replied no, he said, “Goddamn, I must’ve knocked it outta you. Happy birthday, B-B-Bud!” He peeled away before another truck overtook him.
I made sure both lanes had cleared and ran across the highway. An hour of good light remained. Maybe Rienzi could walk me home since she didn’t mind the dark. I had to backtrack twice, not as certain as I’d been that I could find the Shepherd place. Finally, with the sun dropping past the tree line, I found the long dirt driveway that led to the white picket fence and gleaming house.
Rienzi’s grandfather, a bald man with a big, hard-looking gut, answered my knock. I said, “I’m Rienzi’s friend, sir. Is she around?”
“Went home, matter of fact. I took her and her trunk of books to the Columbus bus depot.”
“Home, sir?”
“San An-tone, where my son—her father—lives.”
“Texas.”
“‘At’s right. He telephoned that he’s back from researching his doc-to-rate and gallivanting all over the wide world.” I kept staring at him, and he said, “If you don’t mind now, the flies are coming in and my supper’s getting cold.” With a nod, he closed the door.
I shuffled off the porch and walked toward home, watching as the last of the color faded from the twilight sky. By the time I reached the highway, darkness had fallen. More traffic sailed by than earlier. It was hard to judge speeds at night; one car had to brake hard to keep from hitting me as I ran across the road. The driver pulled over to the shoulder, pinning me with his headlights.
His door opened but I couldn’t see him in the glare. Over the roar of passing traffic, a Negro man said, “I done flattened plenty of possums, but I ain’t hit a white boy yet. You fixing to get killed, sonny.”
“Sorry,” I hollered. “Everybody’s going lots faster than I think.”
He laughed. “Ain’t that the truth. Where you headed?”
“You know the MacLeod place, offa Hardscrabble Road?”
“Near Nat Blanchard’s?”
“He’s a friend of mine.”
“You said the magic words—hop in.”
I came around to the passenger side. The car was so dark that it blended with the night. If it wasn’t for the chrome highlights, I’d have had trouble finding the handle. The driver ducked inside and closed his door, and I climbed in beside him.
After I introduced myself, he said, “Name’s Bryson. Robert Bryson.” He lifted a bottle to his lips and made gulping sounds. With a sigh, he tipped his head forward and said, “Ain’t nuthin fancy—jest water. Seems like I can’t hardly get enough.” He pressed a stopper into the bottle and nestled it between his thighs. “There’s some Co-colas in the backseat if you want.” He checked for traffic and roared onto the highway, tires spinning.
I leaned over my seat and fished around in the dark until my hand found the rattling bottles in a wooden crate. I helped myself to one and accepted a bottle opener from Mr. Bryson. Pitching the cap out the window, I thanked him. “Wanda Washburn rides with you?”
“I show up at her place every morning. Imagine you knowing such a thing.”
I chugged the warm cola, enjoying the peppery fizz that tickled my nose and lingered in my throat. After a loud bullfrog burp, I said, “Nat done told me.”
He drummed the steering wheel with a half-dozen rapid taps and said, “And did Nat tell you about my Pierce Arrow straight-eight?” My body pressed back into the cloth seat as he accelerated smooth and fast. The engine hummed louder, sending a faint tremor up through my feet. “Wooo!” he cried. “Pushing that foot-feed’s like slipping on my favorite shoe.” Oncoming traffic flashed past as he chuckled. “Man oh man, seven years old and still running slick as a whistle.”
“I just turned eight, Mr. Bryson.”
“Do tell.” He eased off the gas pedal, ungluing me from the seat. “How you running?”
“Fair to middling.” It was the answer I’d heard adults give for years; I’d always thought they were lying too. I finished my drink and returned the bottle to its crate so he could get back his deposit.
Mr. Bryon braked hard and turned us onto Hardscrabble Road. “That’s the way to be. Don’t get too high, don’t get too low. You know how to shake off the blues, don’t you?”
“No, sir.”
“Sit in a fast car, sonny, something with lots of horses. What’chu don’t wanna do is walk everywhere, what they call ‘taking shank’s mare.’” He tapped his lower leg and said, “Know what I mean? Too much time to study on your problems. Only folk that take shank’s mare get the blues.”
“What if walking’s all I got, Mr. Bryson?”
“Then move like the Devil’s fixing to snatch your backside.”
Later that night, with our parents gone to bed, I swore my brothers to secrecy again. I hustled Jay and Chet into the woods like Satan was indeed behind me. Even with the screen of trees and the loud chatter of crickets to hide us, I whispered my story about Tommy and the Cottontail Cafe.
Chet said, “He was a lot like me, huh?”
“He couldn’t take a punch though.”
“Well, that’s something anyway.”
Jay said, “So either our name oughta be Rush, or he gave Tommy a pretend name or Rush is the name of that boy’s mama.”
Chet said, “Or the Tommy kid was guying you.”
“He knew Papa’s truck right off,” I said. “He aimed to throw me out of it.”
Jay yawned, giving his voice a spooky depth while he said, “‘Less he was nuts, like Papa told you.” I asked if we should tell Mama, and he said, “Leave it. Their fights are bad enough as it is. Mama might kill ’im in his sleep.”
Chet jabbed my shoulder, a surprise blow in the dark. “And if she doesn’t kill ’im dead, he’ll come for you. ’Member when you told us what folks was saying ’bout her and Uncle Roscoe? Nobody blabbed to Papa ’cause Mama woulda wrung our necks. Same thing here.” He snapped a branch in his hands, loud as a gunshot. “What they don’t know won’t hurt them or us.”
*
When we returned from school the following Monday, Papa’s truck was gone. Damp laundry hung on a line strung between two trees in the side yard.
The cotton field lay picked over and unattended. Nat and Lonnie had hired out to other farms where they hoped to earn enough to get them through the winter. My siblings and I passed through the kitchen and dropped off our wrinkled lunch bags, which were so worn they felt like moth-eaten cotton. While Jay and Chet started the chores out back, Mama took me aside. She said, “They learning you numbers in school?”
I boasted that I could already count to fifty, but instead of complimenting me, she pulled me outside
to the line of drip-drying clothes. Beside her beige foundation garments—with the amazing curves and pads and tucks that stymied my imagination about how women were shaped—Mama had hung my father’s undershirts. Six of the sleeveless whites swayed from their clothes-pinned straps like prisoners dangling by shackled wrists. She told me to count them out loud and then said, “There’s always seven. But in the week gone by there’s just six.”
I recalled seeing a pink triangle of Papa’s flesh shortly after he steered Tommy back to the cafe on my birthday. He’d rubbed his hand across his chest, maybe unaccustomed to the texture of the shirt against his bare skin, maybe wondering why something didn’t feel right. I couldn’t tell her about Papa visiting my secret brother and the waitress, so I stretched up toward one of her drying underthings and grasped a heavily stitched, protruding cup almost twice the size of my hand. Water drizzled from the squishy fabric and trickled inside my sleeve. I asked, “What’s this do?”
Mama slapped my hand away and said, “Never mind that. Tell me about your birthday.” She crouched to my eye-level. In a softer voice, she said, “Won’t you tell me? I know you got disappointed. No picture show. No supper even. That ain’t right.”
“Papa said he felt sleepy.”
“Yeah, I know what comes before his best sleeping.”
I said, “He was sick, some bug coming on.”
“He got over it right quick. Did you stop anywhere?”
“On the way back. I wanted to see my friend.”
“I gave ’im hell for putting you out halfway between home and Timbuktu. I mean, did you stop in town?”
“He, ah, I-I—”
“You’re stuttering again. I ain’t gonna hit you for telling the truth, Bud. What kind of mother do you think I am?”
“He took me to Western Auto. To look at the bikes.” She let go, her mouth twitching. I rushed through the rest of my story. “Then he saw the prices and felt poorly and we left.”
She stood, peering down at me. “That’s near what he said. Nuthin more to it?”
“No’m.” I decided to press my luck. “But I didn’t get a proper birthday.”
She glanced back at the dangling undershirts and said, “Get your chores done, and we’ll set things right tonight.”
Papa arrived home in time for supper, but Mama announced that he would get right back in his truck and take me and her to the picture show. “We owe the boy a proper birthday,” she told him.
His glare slid from her to me, and I faced my plate so fast that my neck popped. He said, “I’ll take ’im to the Ashers on Friday. He ain’t gone in a while.”
“That might be good enough for him, but it won’t do for me. Here I cook your meals and keep house and work outdoors—and wash your clothes. The least you could do is take me to a damn picture once in a blue moon.”
“You’re spoiling this boy,” he grumbled. “Outings two weeks in a row.”
“You feeling all right tonight? Nuthin off-kilter inside?”
“Fair to middling.” He speared an Irish potato through its eye.
*
Mama sat in the middle on the drive to Bainbridge that evening. She’d changed into her favorite muslin dress with the very low neckline. Her left hand rested on Papa’s thigh, her wrist touching the grip of his Colt. She said, “You no-no-notice how Bud ain’t stutterin no-no-no more?”
He chuckled and said, “His face clears up and he’ll be all set.”
I turned my back to them and rested the right side of my face against the cool metal door.
Mama murmured, “Now he can’t help something that runs in the family.”
“It don’t run in mine.”
“Maybe not, but other things do.” She must’ve touched a sensitive place because he jerked, shaking the whole bench-seat.
He said, “From what I seen, he missed out on that.”
“Well, he’s small yet.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
They laughed, and Mama kept a playful tone in her voice as she asked him about what kind of vacation they might take together.
I stared up at the night sky, hoping to see the only constellation I knew, Orion’s Belt. Not wanting to move my face from the door, I only saw a sliver of the heavens. I didn’t recognize any of the bright dots that scrolled past. A street lamp glare soon erased my view of the stars and announced that we’d arrived in town.
Papa parked in a space near the Roxie Theater. When he got out, he adjusted himself in his trousers, which prompted a giggling comment from Mama. I missed her remark as I slammed my door shut. She exited on his side and said, “I’m good for more’n laundry, Mance. Speaking of which, you’re missing a undershirt. I only washed six today.”
“That right? Maybe one’s under the bed.” He stared at me and said, “Maybe one of the boys is playing a prank. You acting out, Bud?”
“No, sir.” I walked fast to the theater door and waited for Papa to buy the tickets. He’d never gone inside with us before, so it was strange to see him under the bright lights of the lobby crowded with townies. The yellow glow made his hair look duller and emphasized the bent tips of his ears. He looked at the concession counter and all around, turning one way and then another as Mama kept walking toward the door that led to the seats.
I couldn’t read the poster for the showing that night, other than “The” at the beginning. It looked like a story with lots of cooing and kissing. I knew all about that stuff; I’d gotten a buss from Cecilia after all. I studied the poster, looking for signs of gunplay or a fistfight, until Papa clamped a hand around my neck.
He said, “I told you to come on. You always got your head in the clouds.” I had to trot to keep up as he marched me across the crowded lobby. In a low voice, he told me, “If you ratted me out, there’s gonna be hell to pay—for you.”
“I promised not to.” I felt like a rube in my overalls and wrinkled shirt and bare feet thrust into battered shoes. Papa’s hand on my neck caused the well-dressed town people to stare. The laughter I heard must’ve been directed at me.
Mama regarded my father alone, her smirking lips as red as Tommy’s Popsicle. Points of electric light glittered in her dark eyes like the stars I couldn’t name. Papa’s hand stayed on my neck as he yanked me past her. She said, “We always sit in the first row.”
He put me in a seat to his right. He’d originally sat me on his left, but switched me and Mama after noticing my birthmark and growling, “I can see that damn thing in the dark.” It didn’t matter, because a minute into the cartoon, he mumbled something to Mama and got up. He nearly crushed my toes before quick-stepping past the other people in the front row and disappearing up the aisle.
“Washroom,” Mama whispered to me, leaning across the seat between us. “Go on and see that he comes back.”
I couldn’t turn my attention from Popeye’s adventure, murmuring from the corner of my mouth, “If he catches me—”
Someone shushed us from the second row.
“Git!” She gave me a little shove.
I trotted in front of the audience and dashed up the aisle. The flickering pictures made the audience’s upturned, laughing faces glow bluish-white. In the colored balcony, which led down to a side door where they had also bought their tickets, the Negroes looked darker than usual, as if the magical light couldn’t reach them.
Papa was not in the whites-only washroom. I’d crept inside and kneeled to see under the stalls. Nothing but crushed cigarettes and crumpled paper. In the lobby, I described my father to the woman behind the concession counter. She said that he had left the theater a couple of minutes ago. I took my time strolling down the aisle as the newsreel played, upset that I’d missed the rest of Popeye and knowing that Mama would soon be angry too and ruin the rest of the picture show with her mumbled cussing.
She stared at me as I duck-walked in front of the other customers. I sat in Papa’s seat, hoping it would be enough of a clue. Her sharp elbow jabbed me. “So?”
I whispered, “He left us here.”
“I thought as much. Come on.” She took hold of my arm and stood me up. As people shouted, “Down in front,” she squared her shoulders and strode regally to the aisle. The music came on for the Flash Gordon serial, and she had to drag me out as I struggled to get a final glimpse of my birthday present.
On the sidewalk beside Papa’s truck, she said, “Got ’im all spun up—now let’s see where he unwinds.” She pointed to the Western Auto across the street. “That where you went before?”
A row of Western Flyers in red, blue, black, green, and yellow beckoned from behind the plate glass window. I’d have gladly taken even one of the cheap American Flyer bicycles parked behind them if she offered. Instead, she said, “Bud! Look at me. Is that—”
Her face turned down the block, in the direction of the town square. She mimicked a Negro man’s voice, “I sees your truck at da Cottontail Cafe lots a times.” In a regular tone, she said, “You remember what that V8 Harris asked him? He never once took me to eat there. Told me the food was shit.” Mama grabbed the shirtfront above my overall bib and raised the flat of her right hand. “I tried the sweet way earlier, child, but I’ll slap you to next Sunday if you don’t tell me the truth. Is that where your papa stopped on your birthday?” She jerked me onto my shoe tips and drew back her hand.
“Yes’m. He swore me to a secret.”
“I’ll give him some swearing.” She slapped my left cheek once, a sharp blow like a hundred beestings. Letting go of me, she said, “That’s for lying. Get in the truck.”
I didn’t want to wait for Papa to thrash me again, as he surely would. I shouted, “I can point her out, and Tommy Rush too.”
“Who the hell’s Tommy Rush?”
Hardscrabble Road Page 16