Spitting Image

by Shutta Crum

  Now, there’s a lot of stupid stuff I can take, but Dickie Whitten calling Robert Spaz Boy is not included. The way I see it, a person shouldn’t go around making fun of other people about things they can’t help, like Robert wearing glasses so thick he looked like he was always peeking out through a fishbowl. Last spring I’d punched Dickie and got sent home for it. But I didn’t care, because Dickie had to come to school the next day with a black eye and all the kids knew I’d done it.

  I let go of Baby’s hand, pushed Dickie off his bike, and lit into him, fists flying. I didn’t care if he was a boy and bigger than me. I didn’t stop to think about that, or what was going to happen if I got caught fighting again. I just saw red all over, and Dickie Whitten’s mean face right there in the middle of it.

  three

  “WHOA, GIRL. WHOA. STOP! Stop. It’s OK now. Shh, OK. It’s me—Adam.” I could hear the voice, but the words didn’t seem to have any connection to me, to right then, to my wanting to smash Dickie Whitten completely to smithereens.

  It took me a while to realize that Robert must have gone back into the store and gotten Adam. And now my fists were swinging uselessly through the air as Adam hauled me off Dickie and held me up off the ground.

  “What’re you trying to do, Jessie? Whup your way into The Guinness Book of World Records?” Adam asked. “What is this, the third, fourth fight already? Summer’s not even halfway over.”

  “It’s just Dickie and his bigmouth friends!” I shouted as Dickie got up from the ground and wiped at his split lip. I’d landed a good one.

  “You’re crazy, you know that?” he yelled, leaning down and yanking his bike up from the sidewalk. “You and that four-eyed ree-tard that doesn’t even know his own name, and his weird little brother. You’re all crazy.”

  “Oh, I’ll get you for that!” I screamed as I struggled to kick him.

  “Dick, you’d do better to watch that mouth of yours,” warned Adam.

  “Yeah, says who?” Dickie snarled, spitting some blood. He jumped on his bike and took off. He was halfway down the block, jerkily pumping back and forth, when he yelled back over his shoulder, “At least I know who my daddy is!”

  “Let me go,” I ordered Adam, still struggling. “Let me go!”

  “Whoa. Enough. You’re not going anywhere,” Adam said. He lowered me to the ground, keeping a firm hand on my shoulder.

  “But, but . . . Robert is not retarded. He’s the smartest kid I know.” I had to make Adam understand. “Besides, Dickie Whitten deserves it. You heard what he just said.” I gulped, yanked up on my jeans, and folded my arms. “So there.”

  Adam took off his baseball cap and brushed back his sandy-colored hair. He looked up at the sky and then down at me. “Jessie, Dickie may really rile you up good, but you’ve got to stop using your fists to make a point. There are better ways to deal with no-accounts like Dickie.”

  “Yeah. Well, right now, I can’t think of a better one than punching his lights out,” I said.

  I stared off down the street, where Dickie had gone, riding straight out of Hiram, and then over at Robert and Baby Blue, who were coming back out of the store. Adam motioned for them to stay put. He put his cap back on and leaned against Mr. Appleby’s old Ford truck. He gazed at my dirty clothes, at my scraped and bleeding elbows.

  “Well,” he said. He found a toothpick in his shirt pocket, put it in his mouth, and swiveled it around for a few moments. “Mirabelle’s not going to be happy about this.”

  I looked down and kicked up a little gravel by the curb with the toe of my sneaker. Adam was right. Mama would probably ground me until I was thirty. But it sure had felt good to land one on Dickie’s smirking face. “Robert’s my best friend,” I said. “And he does too know his own name.”

  Last year Robert had used Einstein as a middle name. Some of the kids, especially the older ones, had thought that was pretty dumb, and Dickie and some of his friends were still making fun of him. “He just likes to try on names and see how they fit, that’s all.”

  I didn’t want to talk about that other thing Dickie had shouted over his shoulder. Somewhere deep inside I was fighting back a sob. But I’d’ve died rather than have someone see me cry, even Adam. Especially here on Main Street with God-knows-who-all peeking out their windows. “Robert’s not a spaz,” I said. I concentrated on the toe of my sneaker. “And he can’t help it if he’s got to wear those glasses.”

  “I know that,” Adam drawled. “But punching Dickie isn’t going to stop him from saying mean things. Some folks are just plain mean, and nothing will stop them from being mean. They’re mean until the day they die.”

  “Well, then, I wish he would die!”

  “Now, now.” Adam took the toothpick out of his mouth and pointed it at me. “What you have to do is find a way to keep yourself from getting so heated up—not to let what others say get to you. Besides”—he smiled—“you’re almost a pretty young lady now, almost as pretty as your mama, I think . . . somewhere—under all those scabs. You can’t keep rolling around with boys in the dirt. Folks might get the wrong idea.”

  Had Adam gone round the bend? A pretty young lady? Me? And what was he thinking? That I liked to fight with boys? I squinted at him and said, slow-like, so he’d get my point real good, “You . . . are . . . as . . . crazy . . . as . . . Miss . . . Maybee’s . . . old . . . dog . . . Cooch.”

  “Yeah.” He laughed. Leaning away from the truck, he reached over and gave me a knuckle kiss on the top of my head. “Maybe I am. But you, young lady, have got to get control of yourself. And pretty quick, too, or you’re going to be grounded until you’re a senior citizen.” Then we both laughed. He straightened up, took another look at me, and said, “Come on into the store. Let’s see if we can clean you up a bit before Mirabelle sets eyes on you. Anyway, Uncle Joe owes me ten cents. He was betting on Dickie.”

  four

  WE RODE BACK TO Baylor with Beryl Ann and her friend Lucy, who always dropped Beryl Ann off when they got done with their shifts at the Piggly Wiggly supermart in Hiram. Robert and I sat in the back seat with Baby between us.

  “Why’d you have to go and do that?” he whispered.

  “You heard him call you a spaz,” I mouthed as quietly as I could so Beryl Ann wouldn’t hear.

  “You’ll get in trouble again. Besides, everyone knows Dickie’s an idiot.”

  “You can’t let people push you around,” I whispered back.

  Robert leaned over Baby’s head. “Dickie doesn’t push me around. I just don’t waste my time on him. I ignore him.”

  I leaned over Baby, too, so that Robert and I were practically nose-to-nose. “You’d ignore a Tyrannosaurus rex if it stepped on your foot!” I hissed.

  “No, I wouldn’t,” Robert said. “Tyrannosaurus rexes are extinct. And if something extinct stepped on my foot, I’d. . .”

  “I like dinosaurs,” Baby said.

  “Shh,” I said. “We’re not talking about dinosaurs.”

  “One couldn’t step on Robert’s foot, Jessie,” Baby said, looking up at me. “They’re dead.”

  Robert leaned back in the seat and laughed.

  “What is it?” Beryl Ann asked, looking over her shoulder at us.

  “It’s nothing, Mama,” Robert said. After Beryl Ann had turned back around, he shook his head and mouthed, “You’re gonna get grounded.”

  “So? You think you know everything,” I mouthed right back. And then we were at their house.

  To get home, I just had to cross the road from the Ketchums’ and cut across the vacant field where our old house used to stand. As I walked, I tried to figure out what I was going to say to Mama. I hoped I could get in and put on a long-sleeve shirt before she saw my scraped-up arms.

  I swung the kitchen door open and peeked in. I didn’t see Mama. But I’d only taken a step or two into the kitchen when she came round the corner with a basket of laundry and almost ran into me. She took one look at me and got that no-nonsense look on her face. �
��Jessica!”

  “Yes’m?”

  “Jessica, have you been fighting again?”

  “Well.” I cleared my throat. “I . . .” I looked at the floor and wondered if I could make Mama understand it this time.

  “Jessica, we’ve had this talk a hundred times, it seems like. When are you going to stop fighting?”

  “I know,” I mumbled. I took a deep breath and plunged in. “It was Dickie Whitten. He was picking on Robert again. And . . . and he said other stuff, too. I couldn’t stand by and let him call Robert Spaz Boy, could I?”

  Mama put the laundry basket down. “Robert has to fight his own fights his own way,” she said. “Besides, you shouldn’t stoop to Dickie’s level. Just ignore his nonsense. Control yourself. You know we agreed that—”

  “But it isn’t fair!” I shouted, throwing my arms up in the air. I had to get Mama to see my side of it. “It isn’t fair that Dickie can go around saying whatever in the world he wants to, even if it isn’t true and even if it hurts people! And I’m the one who has to control myself?” I stamped my foot as hard as I could to make the tears stay back.

  I guess Mama thought I was still hopping mad. “OK, young lady,” she said, putting her hands on her hips, “to your room to cool down. And you’re grounded for a week. No TV. No running over to visit with Lester or Robert.”

  Stomping down the hall, all I could think about was how sometimes life just isn’t fair.

  To make matters worse, it wasn’t more than a half an hour later that Mama poked her head into my bedroom and told me that Grandma had stopped by and I was to come out and say hello. The only thing worse than being grounded was visiting with my grandmother.

  “Is Chet with her?” I asked hopefully.

  “No.” Mama shook her head and whispered, “Grandma just finished up in court. They’re divorced.”

  “Oh, no.” I sighed. I’d liked this husband.

  Grandma was often the talk of the neighborhood. Even though she only lived a little ways away in Bartlettsville, the county seat, we never saw much of her while she was married. Unfortunately, she didn’t stay married. She had up and divorced every one of my step-grandpas. And my real grandpa, Grandpa Henry, had died before I was born. Some folks wondered if she hadn’t gotten rid of him, too.

  It was too bad that she was divorced again. It meant she’d be coming around to keep an eye on us, as she liked to say. For some reason we needed “keeping an eye on” only when the Ol’ Biddy was single.

  I shuffled out of my bedroom.

  five

  GRANDMA AND I HAD always rubbed each other the wrong way. From as far back as I could remember, she had always complained about Mama letting me run wild like a “regular tomboy.” She always hated every single pet I brought home. And the fact that everyone calls me “Jessie” drives her crazy. “What kind of a name is that for a girll” Grandma complains. “It’s a man’s name,” she says, and usually adds, “Jessica is a perfectly fine name.”

  When she caught sight of me, the first thing out of her mouth was, “Would you look at her, Mirabelle. She’s a mess.” No “Howdy, how ya doing?” Not even a hug. That’s my grandma for you.

  Grandma was always trying on new getups, and today was no exception. She’d dyed her hair again, and she reminded me of a white turnip with stiff red curls sprouting up on top. She had on a pair of pink stretch pants that clashed with her new color.

  “Hi, Grandma,” I said, slipping into a kitchen chair.

  “What mud hole have you been wallowing in?” she asked.

  “I’m too old to play in mud holes,” I said.

  “You can’t tell that from the looks of you,” Grandma said, and snorted like she was disgusted.

  Well, it wasn’t exactly smooth as gravy at our house right then, and it always went from bad to worse once the Ol’ Biddy got revved up. Fortunately, Mama cut in, and I managed to weasel out of the kitchen after a few minutes of being lectured about “ladylike” behavior.

  Back in my room, I tried to engage Mr. Perkins, my pet toad, in a conversation to drown out Mama’s and Grandma’s voices. But I had woken him up from a deep sleep and he wasn’t going to keep up his end of things. I could barely get a few blinks out of him.

  I knew Grandma would get around to her favorite topic sooner or later, and I just wasn’t in the mood. It usually went like this: Even though I’d had the misfortune to be born “without the benefit of wedlock,” I needed a father now, and what was Mama doing burying herself in a hick town like Baylor and working herself to death at a dead-end job at the Gas & Go?

  When she really got rolling, I tried to block it all out by singing to Mr. Perkins. “Swing low, sweet chariot,” I sang. But I heard little bits here and there—the usual thing. And all I was doing was putting Mr. Perkins back to sleep, so I stopped.

  “Maybe if we’d gotten you married quickly,” I heard Grandma say, “you’d be out of Baylor by now. Maybe you could have gone on and gotten your nursing degree, been somebody. Maybe you would have gotten to know some of the nice people at the hospital—besides that so-called doctor friend of yours.”

  “I am somebody, Mama. I’m happy here in Baylor,” Mama said. “And how many times do I have to tell you—Warren really is a doctor.”

  Grandma was well into her favorite subject now. I opened my bedroom door a crack and leaned my forehead on the door frame, listening. I’d heard it about a thousand times before.

  “Well,” Grandma said, “I’ve never seen the likes. All I know is, you followed him around all the time when he was here. And has he ever once offered to help you get set up up North someplace?”

  “Mother, I did not follow him around. Besides,” added Mama, “I don’t want to be set up up North. I’m set up just fine where I am. Maybe someday, when Lester’s ready to sell the Gas and Go, I’ll be able to buy it.”

  “That store!” Grandma yelped. “You can’t seriously be thinking about chaining yourself to a run-down gas pump and a few grocery shelves for the rest of your life! When I was married to Martin, we went to Las Vegas. Now there’s someplace I’d like to live, always something to do. You might like it there.”

  “I’m not interested in living in Las Vegas,” Mama said. I could hear her getting up and putting dishes in the sink. She was probably looking out the window and across the road toward the Gas & Go right now.

  “All right. Not Las Vegas, then. Even Bartlettsville is better than this excuse for a town. At least they’ve got a couple of decent stores and restaurants. Maybe you could meet people there, get out some, instead of hiding here.”

  There was a long pause. I knew Mama’s patience was wearing thin. “I don’t want to move,” Mama said. “I like the people here, now. It isn’t like it used to be. Besides, Lester’s not well, and he needs me.” I could just picture her shoulders slumping.

  I figured it was about time for the cavalry to come to her rescue. I picked up Mr. Perkins and walked back into the kitchen, making lots of warning noises along the way.

  Grandma was just saying, “Well, I’ve always been afraid that you’d end up here forever, since that old fool Lester let you live in this house. I know that after your daddy died—bless his soul—and that house of ours burned, I took the first chance I could to get out of here. You’ve got Jessica to think about, and she’s starting to grow up.”

  “Hi, sweetie,” Mama said as I came into the kitchen. She opened her arms so I could walk into them. I could tell right then that I’d made my appearance in the nick of time because she didn’t seem to be mad at me anymore. I’m getting way too old to be babied, but it sure felt good to be standing there leaning against Mama with her arms clasped about my waist—me and Mama, together, smiling at the Ol’ Biddy.

  Grandma looked at Mr. Perkins. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Is a frog any kind of a pet for a growing girl? Really Jessica!” she snapped.

  “Mr. Perkins is a toad,” I said, holding him out to her, “and Robert told me it’s a scientifi
c fact that toads are smarter than frogs. But if you don’t like Mr. Perkins, I think there’re a couple of baby copperheads in a Mason jar around here, someplace. Baby Blue found them by the creek yesterday.”

  Grandma didn’t even look at me. She just stood up and walked out, saying, “Lord, Mirabelle. What are you going to do with this little hellion?”

  I shifted Mr. Perkins, raised my right hand, and slowly waved goodbye as the screen door slammed. Then we heard her brand-new pure white Thunderbird start up. One thing you can say about my grandma, she sure knows how to get a new car out of each husband before he hightails it.

  “Jessie,” Mama choked, turning me around. She shook her finger at me like she was trying to say something stern but wanted to laugh. Finally, she got her voice back and said, “You know Grandma’s frightened to death of snakes.”

  Then she stopped shaking her head and brushed the hair out of my eyes. “You are the light of my life,” she whispered. I waited for her to kiss me on my forehead before letting me go. “But you’re still grounded, young lady. And you and your grandmother have to learn to get along one of these days. You know she only wants the best for us.”

  “The best for us is to stay here in Baylor.”

  “Oh, don’t worry.” Mama sighed. “We’re not going anywhere. And you are staying here in this house this week, doing chores, while you think about how to control your temper and your tongue.”

  six

  I TRUDGED BACK TO my room with Mr. Perkins. I thought about Grandma, my temper, and the fact that Dickie was right. I had no idea who my father was.

  Mama wouldn’t talk about it. When I was little, I used to ask her if I had a daddy like Robert and the other kids did. She always got really quiet and said of course I did and that someday, when the time was right, she’d tell me about him. I hadn’t brought it up in ages because I’d begun to think the time was never going to be right, and it always seemed to make Mama sad.