Hardscrabble Road

by George Weinstein

  Turning one way and tossing another, I couldn’t complete one thought before my mind drifted onto something else. I rubbed the tip of my thumb against the underside of the buckeye, worrying at the dimple. Its contours, solid, smooth, and unchanging, gave me comfort. Finally, I slept again.

  Mama and Darlene must’ve decided to stay for the late show—burning through the money we’d earned—because the sun had set for a number of hours before Sport and Dixie stirred on the front porch. I’d moved to the top end of the mattress after fits of sweating had swamped the lower half. I couldn’t see the driveway from this new angle, but the dogs told me someone was approaching.

  Our hounds didn’t bark, but they sounded uneasy, pacing the porch and baying. I heard footsteps and panting: somebody ran toward the house. Whoever it was had the good manners to latch the gate after crossing into the yard. The deep breaths sounded like a man’s. He vaulted the porch steps and stumbled into the dark house, bringing with him the rusty stench of blood.

  I shouted, “Who’s there?”

  My voice made him cry out. He bumped into the bed and felt the mattress before he sat down hard. Lonnie said, “Oh Lord, Bud, I need help. I need a miracle.” His silhouette rocked forward and back, hugging his chest.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No, no, not me. Unh-uh.” He couldn’t seem to slow his breathing. The dogs looked through the front door, raised their heads, and howled.

  I hushed them and said, “What can I do?”

  “Where’s your mama? I need her to take me away.”

  “I reckon she’s still in town. Where do you need to go?”

  “West of here. ‘Bama.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t ask me, Bud. Don’t!” He sobbed into his hands. Another odor leaked out of his sweat: whiskey. “There was a fight. That’s all I’ll say.”

  I apologized and coughed against my sleeve. “You gotta go right now? My Uncle Stan’s got a wagon and a mule.”

  “Too slow. I’ll run there through the woods if I can’t get a ride.”

  “Shank’s mare,” I said, thinking of Robert Bryson’s advice. “Better run like the Devil’s after you.”

  “Oh, he is, boy. He’s fixing to jab me good.” Lonnie stood up. “I’m gone, Bud. You never saw me tonight.”

  “I know where a car will be come sunup.” I started to tell him about Mr. Bryson offering a ride to Wanda Washburn every morning, but he knew all about it.

  “Ain’t your mama coming home? If I had my druthers, I’d pick her over that witch.”

  The hounds began to bark furiously. Soon, headlights swept the yard as a car came rolling up the drive.

  “It ain’t her,” I said. “Them dogs know Papa’s truck. Come on.” I was woozy the moment I got to my feet, but managed to stay close to Lonnie as we dashed down the hall and out the back. We fled into the moonlit woods, following the same path where my brothers and I had run so often from Papa. Lonnie ran and ran and I tried to follow until I almost fainted. I must’ve sounded pitiful when I cried out to him, because he stopped on a dime. I leaned against a tree to catch my breath, coughing into my hands. The lightheadedness finally passed, and I said, “Who was that?”

  “Deputy sheriff be my guess. You sure sound funny—you falling off?”

  “I got me something. Jay says maybe TB.”

  “Lord, that’s all I need. You oughtn’t be stumbling around these-here woods with the consumption. Git on home.” He crossed through a patch of moonlight and I saw blood on his right sleeve and all over the front of his shirt. It even stained his trousers. Blood speckled his face and neck and caked the back of his hands. He was awash in it.

  I pointed and said, “Any of that yours?”

  He pulled at his shirt, revealing a long gash that had split the breast pocket. “Maybe a little.”

  “I gotta make sure you’re safe.” Another coughing fit wracked me.

  “I am—now git!”

  I crossed my arms and said, “Nope. I lost my way. If you leave me here, I’ll die.”

  Lonnie turned in a circle, fists in the air, ready to pound something. “Damn it to hell, if you ain’t the most stubborn child. No wonder your daddy whupped you so much.” He stomped around and cussed and said, “Lord help me. OK, let’s go. But I might throw you to a gator if you make any more noise. Folk can hear you hacking over in Decatur County.”

  He led me through the forest lit with blue-white splashes of moonlight. Setting a fast-walking pace, he allowed me to keep up as long as I trotted. Over his shoulder, in a calmer voice, he said, “Never thought I’d come this way again.”

  “You had dealings with Wanda?”

  “Just oncet. Trying to court her daughter.”

  “Was she pretty?”

  “Tol’able. But they said she knew a thing or two…Um, she could cast this kind of spell over a fella. Make him feel good for a month of Sundays.”

  “Did she like you?”

  “She did, but ol Wanda said I was trouble.”

  “I reckon she was right.” I stopped to cough into my hands, almost passing out as my head throbbed.

  “Thank you much, Bud. You’s what they call ‘cold comfort.’ Lookee here.” He pointed to a wagon trail with very short stumps around and between two tracks of dirt and chewed up leaves. He pointed first to the north and said, “That leads to the highway. This-a-way takes us to Miz Wanda’s.”

  We followed the wagon trail for a quarter mile as it zigzagged around trees as broad as Lonnie was long. I asked who cut down all the timbers and Lonnie said, “The fella you promised would give me a ride. Bobby Bryson wanted to be durn sure he could get to Miz Wanda’s doorstep with his slick auto-mobile. Only way to do it was with a axe and big ol crosscut saw.” We emerged into a wide, moonlit clearing with a small wood cottage surrounded by gardens. Bunches of roots, withered leaves, and dried flowers hung upside down like bats from the porch rafters. He said, “I helped him do it—thought I was getting in good with Wanda that way.”

  “Did it help at all?”

  “All she said was—”

  “Lonnie Nugent,” Wanda called from behind us, making me yelp, “you mighty handy cutting things. That’s what I said.” She propped her unlit flambeau against her shoulder like a club. “What’chu doing strolloping around these woods with a sick child?”

  I said, “He’s hurt, Miz Washburn.”

  “He killed a man tonight. Isn’t that right, Lonnie? You done stuck a knife in Randy Stokes’ neck and got hosed with blood. It came to me clear as day.”

  Lonnie looked at his spattered buckle-shoes and murmured, “He cut me first, ma’am.”

  “Randy was even drunker than you, wasn’t he? You coulda knocked ’im cold with a matchbook.”

  “Didn’t seem like it at the time, ma’am.”

  I recalled the policeman at the cafe with his leather sap, afraid of what could happen if she sent him away and he got caught. Fear drained away what little stamina I had left. I collapsed at Lonnie’s feet.

  They carried me into her parlor where she lit a lantern. Lonnie mentioned TB and Wanda muttered to herself, walking outside again. Lonnie pressed a cold, wet rag to my forehead and cheeks. In no time I fell asleep.

  *

  A car horn woke me in the morning. I lay on a pallet made from an old quilt that smelled of cedar shavings. My clothes felt stiff from all the perspiring I had done the day before, but the night-sweats hadn’t come upon me at Wanda’s. Also, I was mighty hungry.

  Lonnie stood in the doorway, waving to the driver. Threadbare overalls covered his strong, bare chest, and a white strip of cloth nestled tight around his ribs. He’d cleaned his coffee-dark skin until it glowed. His waving hand suddenly snatched something buzzing beside his ear, shook it hard, and discarded the pest on the porch floor. As he listened to Wanda talking to Robert Bryson, I thought about how much I’d miss my friend.

  I sat up, coughed a little, and said, “Can I please have one more roof-slide?”
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br />   He laughed through his nose and shook his head. “Ain’t much pitch on this-here roof. It’d be faster to crawl down.” He faced me, slurping from a steaming tin cup. “You ’member drinking down all that nasty-smelling stuff Miz Wanda cooked up last night?”

  “Unh-uh.” I’d thought the tingling in my throat and chest had come from almost hacking my lungs out.

  “Let’s see how that fever of yours is faring.” He walked over to me and crouched like a catcher. His warm, dry hand covered my head, palm pressing my brow and fingers going all the way to the back like a helmet. I felt like I could go back to sleep that way. He said, “I think we got it on the run.”

  Mr. Bryson tooted his horn again and hollered, “Last call for the Fugitive Express.”

  “Lord, I ain’t never gonna be able to come back.” He shook his head.

  “Never?”

  “Unh-uh,” he said. “We’ll give you a ride back home.”

  “Won’t it be dangerous? Somebody might see you.”

  “I ’spect I’m gonna ride in Bobby’s trunk.”

  I took his tin cup and drank from it. As the hot, bitter coffee sizzled down my throat, I imagined how mortified my parents would be: drinking after a Negro. I gulped some more.

  Lonnie reclaimed the cup and toasted me, saying, “Sergeant.” He looked into my eyes, long and steady. Despite the danger—drinking after a TB case—he drained it.

  CHAPTER 18

  At the end of November, as I washed up for supper on the back porch, Mama took a slit-open envelope from her apron pocket. She said, “Bud’s been keeping a secret. It says so in your first-ever letter.”

  I cleared my throat, a remnant of my minor TB infection, and asked, “Is it from Lonnie?” I’d insisted on going with him and Mr. Bryson all the way across the Alabama border. We’d released Lonnie from the Pierce-Arrow trunk behind a Negro diner in Dothan. Mindful of my ailing lungs and his wounded chest, he’d given me a last, gentle hug that I could still feel across my shoulder blades. Like he’d given me wings.

  She shook her head. “I ain’t even sure he can write.”

  “How about from Papa?”

  “Oh my stars, no! Why would he—” She frowned at me and said, “Is there some other secret that man asked you to hide?”

  “No, ma’am. I made a bad guess is all.”

  She stared a little longer. “I don’t believe you, but I’m too tired to beat the truth out.” Fanning her cheek with the envelope, her voice became playful again: “I’m talking about your secret girlfriend.”

  “Cecilia?”

  “Do you have a crush on Bill Turner’s girl?” She giggled. “Since I sent you there to work?”

  “No! Unh-uh! I ain’t guessing right.”

  “Bud and Cecilia sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s…You sure take after me, falling in love as easily as you can fall out of a boat. Go on, guess again.”

  I wanted to ask if Miss Wingate had written to me—she knew I could read a little. Rather than get Mama stirred up even more, though, I said, “I don’t know nobody else.”

  “Rienzi? Rienzi Shepherd?” She withdrew the letter from the envelope, unfolded it, and indicated a name at the bottom printed in lettering much better than my own.

  “She ain’t my girlfriend.”

  Mama pointed at the page. “Here she says ‘I know you’re keeping my secret. I know I can trust you.’ And down at the bottom: ‘I hope my present is giving you good luck.’ Now, Bud. Presents? Secrets? Hopes and wishes? How on earth did you make a girlfriend in Texas?”

  Jay’s head popped around the doorway. He’d snuck through the house. “Bud’s got a girlfriend in Texas?”

  “Stop it!” I stamped my foot.

  Chet appeared beside the porch, having crept around from the front. “Ry Shepherd’s a boy. He taught me judo. Don’t you know the difference between boys and girls, Bud?”

  Mama laughed and said, “Rienzi sure sounds like a girl’s name.”

  “Can’t be a girl,” Chet said. “That Japanese kid threw me all over the place. He saw me naked.”

  “I’m a girl and I’ve—” Then she paused and a scowl burned all the humor from her face. “Aye God, she’s a Oriental. Where’s your head at, Bud? This little girl ain’t even white.”

  I said, “Quit it, everybody. Ry’s a boy, I swear! A half-white boy!”

  Mama shook her head and said, “Orientals are yellow niggers, Bud. Don’t you know that?” She rattled the letter in my face and said, “C’mon, out with it now. What’s the story?”

  I snatched the page from her and tore it one way and the other and again and again, shredding until my fingers weren’t strong enough to rip it into even smaller bits. The tinier I made the pieces, the more shame I felt at betraying my friend. The low growl I heard came from my own throat. I threw a fistful of scraps at her feet.

  Mama slapped my face, twice. She shouted, “You’re too old to be throwing tantrums.”

  Darlene stood in the doorway with Jay and said, “What’s got into him?”

  Mama crumpled the envelope and threw it at my feet. “I got no idea. But guess what? This Oriental boy-girl’s coming back here to see you. I ain’t saying when—that’s my secret.”

  *

  Half the pieces of Rienzi’s letter had blown away before I cleaned off the porch. I’d wanted to try to put back together what I could after supper but Mama wouldn’t let me burn the kerosene needed to see. In the morning, the bits of paper I’d left on the kitchen table were gone. At least I saved Rienzi’s envelope; she’d printed her address on the back.

  During class, Miss Wingate told us to write ten sentences practicing the words she’d taught us. I began to compose a letter to Rienzi. My tongue edged out one corner of my mouth as I focused on making each shape perfect, nearly snapping the pencil in my tight grip. My writing slanted upward on the unlined page as I wrote, “I AM SORRY RIENZI. I AM A BAD FREND COS I LET YOU DOWN. MY MAMA GOT YOUR LETTER.”

  Miss Wingate stopped beside Fleming as she made her way up my aisle. She murmured, “Dayl Rdin?”

  “Dale Arden, ma’am. Flash Gordon.”

  She recited the letters of her name and said, “Do some sentences with the other characters. Poor Dale will be tuckered out before you reach ten. Have Ming—M-I-N-G—chop wood and feed the hogs. It’ll do him good.”

  After checking another classmate’s work, she touched my back and whispered, “This is so sad. Why is everything always your fault?”

  “’Cause it is, Miss…ma’am.” With just a few weeks before her wedding day, I was training myself not to call her by name so I wouldn’t mess up when she became Mrs. Gladney.

  She sighed and told me how to fix my misspellings. “What will your next sentence be?”

  I printed SHE RED EVRY THING. I squeezed in letters as she made corrections. Slapping my pencil down, I said, “It’s baby talk. If I was older, I could spell better words.”

  “If you were older you wouldn’t be in my class.” She patted my shoulder and said, “Let’s enjoy our time together while we have it, OK?”

  After she walked farther up the row, I sniffed her perfume. Then I silently repeated her married name five times before returning to my apology.

  Miss Wingate accompanied me to the front office during the dinner break so she could go over my ten-sentence letter. She led me outside, where we stood alone to wait for Old Lady Boggs. Her eyes moistened as she scanned the paper a final time before handing it to me. “Please don’t send this, Bud. It’s too pitiful.”

  “Rienzi said she won’t ever talk to me again if I tell her secret. And I did.”

  “Talk to her about it when she comes knocking. She’ll give you another chance.” My teacher pointed at the bottom of the letter. “This makes it sound like you’re the one who never wants to see her again: ‘I am sorry I can not be your friend.’ That’s a heartbreaker.”

  The Wingates’ sleek black Cadillac turned a corner and cruised toward us. She said, “Written words aren’
t good enough sometimes. Face-to-face talking is better, especially when you want to explain and apologize.” I must’ve looked doubtful, because she added, “You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “What if she stays mad at me?”

  “You’re such a sweet boy—who could stay angry with you?” She returned Brooks’ greeting as he opened Lucy’s door and held her tray as she got out. Before Miss Wingate went inside, she said, “If I was Rienzi, I’d let you make it up to me.”

  I tore up my letter with practiced motions.

  *

  On the Turners’ porch that afternoon, I lived part of my daydream: drinking the sweet lemonade Mrs. Turner had poured for me while I sat on their whisper-quiet, freshly painted porch swing. Cecilia came out to sit beside me, which completed my fantasy. A mischievous smile dimpled her cheeks. She whispered, “I bet you’re good at keeping secrets.”

  I was good at lying anyway, because I said, “Sure am.” I wanted to see what would happen. She pinched my sleeve and led me off the porch like that, gripping the ragged cuff between her thumb and fingers. We circled around back to a rickety shed that housed what must’ve been Mr. Turner’s old, busted tools from before he prospered. Blunt plowshares, mattocks, grubbing hoes, and pitted ax heads littered the wormy floorboards, and brittle-looking leather tack lay twisted in the cobwebs like dried snake skins.

  Cecilia maintained a low tone, her breath warm on my face. “You like ooky things, dead critters in the woods and such, right?” The hinges of the door screeched as she opened it.

  I was getting scared but I loved her attention. Not trusting my voice, I nodded. She took me inside the shed and squealed and shivered at the lacework of webs that seemed to breathe all around us. We used sticks to knock them aside as she told me to head toward the far left corner. I went first, destroying the webs that could touch Cecilia’s face.

  A patch of sunlight illuminated junk in the corner: busted kerosene lamps, tin cans, and moldering flour sacks and burlap pokes. She pointed her stick at a bag that stood on end. She said, “Careful, it might bite,” and raced her fingers across my neck.