Which meant he was going to have me do it. Even though I wasn’t no teacher and had trouble talking to more than two people at the same time, somehow she and him both thought putting me in front of a classroom of sweaty teenagers was a good idea.
So there I was, sweating through my undershirt and leaving pit stains the size of Lake Martin, and the day had only just started. Mr. Braswell was sitting on his desk taking a drag on his cigarette. There wasn’t supposed to be no smoking in the school, but that’s how Mr. Braswell was. He’d already established that he played by his own rules.
My hand was shaking while I copied from my notebook.
August 29, 1756: Frederick the Great invades Saxony and starts the Seven Years’ War, aka the French and Indian War.
I put the chalk down, it was real damp from the sweat on my hands. I turned and started back to my seat, but Mr. Braswell stopped me.
“So, tell us, Johnny Cannon, why is this event so significant?”
He could have kicked me in the crotch and held my head under a waterfall and I would have been more calm than I was right then.
“Um, it was ’cause,” I mumbled to him, “see, Saxony was neutral, but—”
“To the class, Johnny,” he said, the cigarette hanging out of his mouth like James Dean usually had his.
I stared out at the classroom, all them eyes staring up at me. I felt like somebody’d stuffed a bag of cotton in my mouth and then made me swallow it. What made it worse was, that jerk Eddie Gorman, who’d grown about three inches and whose voice had dropped about two octaves, started chuckling at me.
Willie’d told me once, if I was ever in that situation, to picture everybody in the room naked, so I tried that. Bad idea. I had to look at the ceiling to get my brain back in order.
“Why should I care about a man who lived two hundred years ago?” Mr. Braswell said.
I cleared my throat and almost threw up. I closed my eyes and tried to force the words out.
“Music! Running! Beheaded! Cold-blooded!” I said.
“Breathe,” Mr. Braswell said. “And don’t make us all go deaf.”
I nodded and cleared my throat again. Dadgummit, I accidentally hocked up a giant loogie. Without thinking, I spit it in Mr. Braswell’s trash can. All the girls said, “Ewww.” Oh well, at least it calmed me down a bit.
“See, when Frederick was a kid, he was all into music and art and stuff, and he wasn’t the sort to go doing something as cold-blooded as invading a neutral country. And he didn’t want to be prince, either, so he and his friend tried to run off to England. But they got caught, and as punishment, the King of Prussia had his friend beheaded in front of him. And I reckon that’s when he lost part of his soul or whatever, and that’s why later on he didn’t care that them folks in Saxony wasn’t trying to get involved in the conflicts in Europe. Or that he started a war that would eventually kill over a million people.”
The class got quiet. Almost like they was interested.
“Good job,” Mr. Braswell said, and I felt all warm. I checked my pants to make sure I hadn’t accidentally wet myself. I was fine.
“What lesson can we learn from that?” he asked.
I started to say the answer, but Eddie interrupted me.
“Don’t get caught,” he said, and a couple of the fellas started to chuckle.
I shot him the evil eye. He shut up.
“Sometimes, even if you’re the one that deserves it, somebody else will pay for what you done,” I said.
“Great, excellent. I look forward to tomorrow’s lesson,” Mr. Braswell said. I took a bow, but nobody clapped. I tried to make like I was tying my shoe, then I went back to my seat next to Martha.
“That was great,” she whispered, and patted me on my back. Then she wiped her hand on her skirt ’cause it had my sweat on it.
“Now,” Mr. Braswell said as he put his cigarette out on his desk, “I sent everyone a letter forewarning you about the big project for this quarter. So, let’s hear it. Who did everyone pick?”
I’d read the letter and then forgot all about it. Mainly ’cause it wasn’t a new assignment, even though Mr. Braswell was acting like it was. It had been around for almost as long as the school had been in Cullman. The first seventh-grade teacher, Mr. Harris, had started it back when he was teaching the dinosaurs or something, and he’d kept it up until the tornado last year sent him packing. And now Mr. Braswell was keeping it going.
It was the big biography assignment. And every single person who’s ever lived in Cullman still has nightmares about it. The mayor even published the grade he’d gotten when he was campaigning for his job. That’s how big of a deal it is.
Basically, we had to write a biography of someone that was alive, and we had to do it by interviewing them and everyone we could about them, plus reading and researching and stuff. Rumor has it that there was a boy during World War II that defected to the Nazis just so he could avoid writing it. But then, Mr. Harris made him interview Hitler. I reckon that ain’t true, but it could be.
Right after Mr. Braswell asked who we’d picked, all the girls raised their hands. It didn’t take too long to figure out that that was how things was going to go in that class. No matter what he asked about, all them girls was going to be primed and waiting to volunteer. ’Cause Mr. Braswell was probably the closest thing to looking like a movie star we’d ever had in our town. He’d played football with Tommy at Cullman High back in the day, and he’d kept his body in shape ever since. Plus he had blond hair and blue eyes and everything else that made girls go gaga. None of us fellas could figure out why he was still single. Maybe he was so busy trying to look good that he didn’t have time to spend hunting after girls.
He pointed at Kristen, who hadn’t never done nothing in school ever. She stood up and batted her superlong eyelashes at him, but she didn’t say anything.
“Whom did you pick for your biography?” he asked her. He liked to say “whom” a lot. I reckoned he was trying to sound British or something. I hear they say “whom” all the time over there.
“Oh, right,” she said. “Well, I have decided that I’m going to write about the oldest man in the world, Methuselah.”
Mr. Braswell chuckled and dropped his cigarette on the floor so he could grind it out with his heel. Then he pulled out his pack, knocked out another one, stuck it in his mouth, and lit it with a match. All the while, Kristen stood, shifting her weight between her feet, batting her eyelashes at him like they was moths trying to catch the flame.
“Okay,” Mr. Braswell said. “I’ll give you five points for effort. But, I’m going to subtract five points because you missed the two most important parts of this assignment. One, you have to interview the person you’re writing about.”
“Oh, I’ll call him,” she said. “I’m sure I can find his number somewhere. My pastor talked about him on Sunday and he can probably get it.”
Mr. Braswell chuckled again, took a long puff on his cigarette, and then blew a little cloud of smoke up into the room.
“That brings me to the other issue. He’s dead. You’re supposed to write about someone that’s alive.”
She gasped a little, then sat back down.
“Did you guys know that Methuselah died?” she whispered to me and Martha. There wasn’t no point in answering.
“Kristen, you are such a birdbrain sometimes,” Martha said.
“Martha,” Mr. Braswell barked, “I’m going to assume you have picked someone slightly more alive?”
She stood up and smoothed out her skirt.
“Yes, I did,” she said, then she smiled at me. She’d told me that she was going to surprise me with who she’d be writing about. I was going to surprise everybody too, ’cause I wasn’t going to write about nobody. Which might not actually surprise anybody, but whatever.
“I am going to write about someone who is very brave and very heroic,” she said. “Someone who has dealt with the worst kinds of tragedies and has come out stronger. Someone who has
stared death in the face and survived. Someone who has crossed racial borders, overcome his own challenges, and who is now one of the kindest, most sensitive boys in Cullman.”
Boy, I sure couldn’t figure out who she was talking about. But whoever he was, we’d probably get along real good. He might even make a good hunting buddy.
“I’m going to write about my brother, Johnny Cannon,” she said, and then she pointed at me. Everyone turned around to look and then they started clapping for me. Or her, it was hard to tell. Even Mr. Braswell slapped his hands together a few times.
Meanwhile, I was sinking underneath my desk and wishing somebody from China would pop out of a hole in the ground so we could trade spaces. But that didn’t happen. Instead I had to sit there and act like I enjoyed the applause like most normal kids would. Which was hard, ’cause it felt more like a firing squad was shooting at me than that people was happy for me. The only person not clapping was Eddie. He was staring at my face and it almost seemed like he could read my mind.
“Who gives two cents about Johnny?” he asked. “Most of his story happened to him, and the only reason he survived the little bit he actually brought on himself is dumb luck.”
Martha and everybody stopped clapping. She got real mad at him, but I was relieved.
“Oh?” she said. “And I suppose you think your story is better?”
He looked at me again.
“You’ll never know, will you?” he said.
“All right, moving on,” Mr. Braswell said. I glanced over at Eddie and he smiled at me, like he’d just done me a favor or something. I looked back down at my book.
We got through the naming of biographies, and I somehow managed to not get called on, and then Mr. Braswell moved on to teaching about math. But I wasn’t quite ready to move on yet, ’cause something was bothering me.
“Where’d you get the darn fool idea to write about me?” I asked Martha.
“Willie suggested it. I wasn’t going to at first but—” She started blushing. “I mean, he really made it seem like he wanted to read about you. He’s even going to let me use his tape recorder and everything.” She stopped talking for a bit and chewed her lip instead. “Anyway, it’ll be nice to make something that he’ll be interested in.” She didn’t look at me while she said that. She was busy copying down the math problems Mr. Braswell was writing under my history fact. And chewing her lip still. I wondered if she had a cold sore or something.
“I thought you was going to start helping him with his SuperNegro stories,” I said.
“If I can help it, I’d rather do this. They’re not really my thing,” she said. “But, please, don’t tell him.”
So weird. She was almost acting like the way girls in movies acted when Rock Hudson would come around. But I didn’t figure it was for the same reason. After all, if we was in one of them love stories, then she was my girl. And Willie was my guy, like how them romance fellas always had a sidekick. Kind of like Robin, except not such a sissy.
Some folks might have raised the objection that he was black and she was white, but that was just racist. And not worth mentioning, since I’d already disproved it in my mind with that whole romance story argument. Like Willie always said, you can’t ignore scientific fact. If there was a Rock Hudson around, it was me. Not Willie. Some things just flat out couldn’t never happen.
After school that day, Pa was waiting for me in the truck with Sora. He said we needed to get her checked out at the doctor. I reckoned we was going to go over to Doc Brown’s, but we didn’t.
Instead, thirty minutes after I got out of school, I was sitting in a strange doctor’s waiting room with Pa. We was both as uncomfortable as a Jew on a pig farm, mainly on account that this was the dadgum female doctor. And I don’t mean a doctor that was a female. That’d be all right.
No, we was at a doctor that only worked on women. Which meant we wasn’t supposed to be there.
But there we was.
Pa was trying to chat up a couple of pregnant ladies that was sitting in there with us, and they was trying to not show on their faces how much they thought he was a kidnapper scouting out prospects. I didn’t even bother, I went to try and do some reading. But there wasn’t nothing in there that was fit for a boy to look at. It was all about feeding babies and women’s body parts and such. It was like being at the library in hell.
I got up from my seat and went over to the window, which had a real good view of the main street there in Cullman. And, since it was the middle of a Tuesday, folks was out doing their business. Lots of interesting things to watch so I could take my mind off all the female stuff that was surrounding me.
Dolly Pickler was out walking her dog and it peed on the fire hydrant right in front of a cop. She hurried to move on before he noticed. There was also some folks coming out of the grocery store and looking at their receipts, arguing with each other over something. Finally, one of them got some change out of her purse and threw it at the other, then she stormed off. Then there was Archie Dean, the town’s drunk, who was already off-kilter. He was trying to cross the street and kept timing it right to when he’d step in front of a car. The deputy came and grabbed him real fast, and Archie tried to punch him in the nose.
Basically, just a typical day in Cullman.
But then I spied a scene that took hold of my eyeballs and made me watch. Bob Gorman, the richest fella in town, was standing in front of his auto shop, hollering. And he was hollering at his son, Eddie. And, even though Eddie was probably about as tall as Bob now, he was cowering like a puppy that’d been kicked a few too many times.
Now, there wasn’t no making out what Bob was saying or nothing, but judging from the way he was waving his arms and how his face was getting fifty shades of red, you knew there was some choice words getting thrown out. Eddie was wincing from the words, and folks that was walking by tried to look away. Except for those that was breaking their necks to watch.
Just when I reckoned maybe it was time to stop looking at them, Bob snatched a paper out of Eddie’s hand and ripped it to pieces. Then he wagged his finger in Eddie’s face. All that time, Eddie didn’t say much of nothing, just hung his head in shame.
Bob got right in Eddie’s face, still screaming. It was almost enough to make me feel sorry for that mole rat. Almost.
Finally, Eddie reached out and pushed his pa away. I didn’t blame him none on that, Bob had the worst coffee breath of anyone in town. Still, it ain’t right to lay a hand on your own pa. I almost got mad at Eddie for it.
Then Bob punched Eddie in the face.
Just about everybody that was walking around stopped and stared at that, Eddie was holding on to his jaw like it was about to fall off, and my own jaw was halfway to the carpet. Bob must have only then realized all them folks was watching, ’cause he grabbed Eddie and dragged him into his shop.
I wondered if the beating was over or if it was just getting started.
Right then the nurse came out and told Pa that the doctor wanted to speak to us back where he’d just gotten done examining Sora.
We went through the hallways to the room where Sora was sitting on the doctor bed and the doctor was standing next to her, chatting with her. When we came in, he gave us both a smile while he patted Sora’s hand.
“Well, I have good news, certainly,” the doctor said. “The baby is very healthy, maybe a tad underweight, but overall very strong and healthy.”
Pa grinned. “Of course it is. It’s Tommy’s baby. It’s going to be as strong as an ox.”
I tried to not think about what Willie’d said, about maybe it wasn’t Tommy’s baby. I didn’t want to spoil the mood.
“There is some concern about Mommy, though,” the doctor went on. “She’s very underweight for this stage of her pregnancy.”
“Really?” I asked. “ ’Cause she looks as ripe as a Thanksgiving turkey to me.” I meant it as a compliment, but it didn’t seem like anybody took it that way.
The doctor cleared his throat
.
“Anyway, she’s malnourished. And, from the stories she told me about her home life, she doesn’t have a good support system to go back to. I would recommend that you spend the time between now and her delivery making sure she gets a lot of good food and fluids.”
“Her home life?” Pa said.
“She didn’t tell you?” the doctor said. He looked at Sora and she looked away. “When her family found out she was pregnant, they kicked her out. She’s been homeless for the last four months.”
Pa shook his head in disbelief.
“Why would anyone willingly push away their own child?” he asked, then he went and gave her a hug. “Well, you’re my daughter now.”
She started crying and that made him start crying. The doctor nodded and smiled and tried to hide that his eyes was watering too.
But it was like Willie’s voice was in my head. What if? I tried to ignore it so I could get as sappy as they was, but it just came across that I had to go to the bathroom.
The doctor gave us some vitamins to give her so she could keep growing the baby real good. He also gave us a list of all the food she needed to be eating. Oh, and he gave us a bill.
Pa paid the bill and we all three headed out to the truck. He handed me the list.
“You know our kitchen better than I do. How much of this do we got?”
I didn’t even have to look. Our pantry only had potato chips and peanut butter, and I didn’t reckon any of that was on the list. Feeding menfolk is a whole heck of a lot easier than feeding a woman with a baby in her belly. We needed to go grocery shopping.
Going grocery shopping with Pa was always my least favorite chore, mainly ’cause Pa didn’t never have no plan when he went for groceries. He’d sort of get an idea in his head while he was looking at noodles that he might like pasta one night, then head over to get some sauce and reckon chili might be better. Then, when he was picking up some onions, he’d change his mind again and we’d have a basket chock full of ingredients to make three quarters of five different meals.
The Struggles of Johnny Cannon Page 4