Spitting Image

by Shutta Crum

  “Salvation Army,” Baby said, smiling.

  “We just got back from the Salvation Army store. Got some clothes,” Robert said.

  I noticed that he had on some white sneakers that looked pretty good. “New shoes,” I said.

  “Yup.”

  “So what else’s new?” I asked.

  “Miss Woodruff and a social worker are coming today to make arrangements for Baby to go to that Head Start school,” Robert said.

  “Great.”

  “He’ll get a checkup, too, Mama said. They’ll pay for him to get his teeth and eyes looked at.”

  For some reason, Robert didn’t sound so happy about that. “That’s good, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “Guess so,” he said. “Only Daddy’s not doing so good today, and they said they’ve got to come out and see the house and talk to him, too.” Robert scratched at his bare shoulder, under the strap of his bib overalls, and pushed up on his glasses.

  Uh-oh. When Robert said “not doing so good,” it usually meant that Doyle was drunk. I could just picture Beryl Ann rushing round to get everything prettied up, and Doyle drunk on a bed in the front room. The Ketchums didn’t have but two rooms and a toilet. There was a big old kitchen with a wood-burning stove, and a front room that had two beds, a couch, and a small coal-burning stove. They did have a nice big front porch, though.

  “Maybe they’ll sit out on the front porch with your mama, and they can talk to your daddy later,” I said.

  “Maybe.” Robert didn’t sound very confident. “We gotta go back and meet Miss Woodruff and the social worker in about an hour.”

  “I can’t come out yet,” I said. “And I’m not going to be able to go to the raffle drawing tomorrow. Do you think you could go to represent us in case we win?”

  “Won’t Adam tell us if they draw one of the slips he put in?”

  “I suppose so.” I hesitated. “But if you don’t have to keep an eye on Baby, you could take my bike. Then you can get there and back really, really fast and let me know what happens. I’m just dying to know as soon as possible.”

  “I guess I could, if you got air in your tires,” he said.

  “I got air.”

  “You don’t always. Half the time I have to keep them pumped up for you.”

  “Well, they’ve got air now.”

  “OK,” he agreed, “if I don’t have to take Baby.” Then he pulled out a book from his back pocket and sat down on the back step to read.

  That’s Robert for you. Whenever he can, he opens up a book and loses himself in it. Most of the time I don’t mind, because he likes to tell me the whole story later. And sometimes he even acts the stories out.

  “That a good one?” I asked.

  “Yup.”

  I watched him raise the book up high to his eyes and swing his head from left to right. Almost a whole week had passed and I hadn’t yet come up with a plan to get money for Robert’s glasses. This wasn’t good. If I needed something really badly, I knew he would help me. And he had helped me by mailing out my secret letter to Dr. Harrison. So now I had to think of some way to help him.

  While Robert read and Baby sat in Mama’s freshly hoed garden and got his new pants dirty, I went back to my chores. But I was giving everything a hard think. I thought as I mopped the kitchen, and I thought as I scrubbed the bathroom walls for about the umpteenth time. Mama had sworn she could still see mold. I’d told her Mr. Prichard said that mold was a living thing, and maybe it had a right to live, too? But she wasn’t buying that. So I scrubbed and I kept turning the problem over and over in my head.

  After I finished scrubbing, I counted the change in my Smokey Bear bank: sixty-seven cents. I looked around my room. There wasn’t anything I could part with, or that would bring more than a dollar even if I did sell it. And then I looked at the seashell bed lamp with twelve different kinds of shells, two flamingos, and one toucan that Grandma had brought back from a trip to Atlantic City. Grandma. Hmm. I wondered what my chances were of getting any money out of the Ol’ Biddy.

  ten

  ON TUESDAY MORNING, after Mama had gone over to check on Lester, Robert stopped by. As soon as I came to the door, I knew something was up. I’d never seen him so twitchy in my life. He hopped from one foot to the other and kept hitching up on his pants and pushing up on his glasses.

  “I got a new picture from Miss Woodruff,” he announced. “Johnny Cash. I showed her the clubhouse and our collection when she was at the house yesterday. And she remembered she had a magazine in her car with Johnny Cash’s picture in it. She’s nice.”

  “That’s great!” I said. “We don’t have a Johnny Cash yet.”

  Robert and I had our own private clubhouse in the old tobacco-drying shed the Ketchums had out back. We’d furnished it with a couple of wooden chairs from my house and a red Coca-Cola cooler that we used as a table. It didn’t work anymore, so Lester had given it to us. Inside the cooler we kept our library: our club logbook, an old dictionary we found by the school incinerator with no cover on it, and the books that Beryl Ann sometimes picked up from the county library for Robert.

  Best of all, we had our collection. On every wall, as high up as we could reach, were pictures of movie stars and singers. So far we had seventy-eight. It was kind of hard to collect them, too, because Robert’s family didn’t get any magazines delivered, and the only one we subscribed to was Reader’s Digest. But any time one of us went to the doctor’s or someplace where there were magazines lying around, we always asked if we could tear out the pages with pictures of the stars. Most of the time they just let us have the old ones or tore out the pages for us. And every week Lester gave us his television guide from the Sunday Bartlettsville Bugle after he was done with it. On the very last page of each issue was a full-size picture of a movie star.

  My job was to write down the name of each new star in the logbook, and Robert’s job was to hang the picture. We’d pounded nails all over for the pictures. Doyle swore that place would never fall down because we had it so nailed up.

  “Johnny Cash can go up by Elvis and the Beatles,” I told Robert. “I’ll come over and write it in the logbook as soon as I can.” Then I waited, wondering what was upsetting him.

  “I can’t go into Hiram today,” he said, “because Miss Woodruff and the social worker are coming back. I guess my daddy’s got to sign some school papers for Baby, and he wasn’t up to it yesterday.”

  “Oh, no!” I groaned. “That means I’ve got to wait until tomorrow to find out if we’ve won anything.”

  I wondered if I could sweet-talk Mama into letting me go to the drawing myself. After all, tomorrow was the last day of my official grounding and I’d done almost all the chores on her list. I’d even found a few things she hadn’t listed and done them, too.

  Thinking hard, I drummed my fingers on the door frame as I stared at the peeling paint. Then I heard Robert say something about “fit living conditions.”

  “What’s that?” I asked him.

  “This Mr. Ritchey the social worker who was with Miss Woodruff yesterday, asked Mama if she thought she was providing ‘fit living conditions’ for us kids.”

  “What did your mama say?”

  “She got really quiet and told him it was the fittin’est we had. I didn’t like that Mr. Ritchey much. He tried to poke around the house. Then he kept asking if Daddy was really feeling poorly. He asked so many times that Daddy finally yelled out to the porch for him to shut his claptrap so’s a body could get some rest. Now they’re coming back today and I can’t go to Hiram. But I like Miss Woodruff. She said she might have some more pictures for us now that she knows we collect them.”

  Well, I didn’t like the sound of this Mr. Ritchey one bit. Who did he think he was, anyway? I was just getting worked up to tell Robert so when he leaned forward and whispered, “And Daddy—he took off this morning. I don’t know if he’ll be back in time to sign those papers. I’ve never seen my mama so mad!”

  My mouth dropp
ed open and I stared at Robert. I didn’t think anyone had ever seen Beryl Ann mad. She wasn’t born for it. My mama said Beryl Ann was born with a set of the sweetest bones God ever gave a body. She’s big and as towheaded and blue-eyed as Baby. And when she hugs you, it’s like being squeezed by the best-smelling pillows in the whole wide world.

  It’s kind of funny to see Beryl Ann and Doyle together, because Doyle’s as thin as a rake and has to wear his pants belted on tight to keep them up. Maybe that’s why he’s so ornery to everybody except Baby. Maybe there just isn’t room in him for any sweetness the way there is in Beryl Ann.

  “What are you gonna do?” I asked, stepping out on the porch even though I wasn’t supposed to. This was bad. Baby Blue would be crushed if he couldn’t get into that special school. “Where’d your daddy go?”

  “He waited till Mama went out to the vegetable garden, and told me he was just going up the road a piece. But that was more than two hours ago.” Looking kind of shaky, Robert sat down on the top step.

  I sat down next to him and put my hand on his shoulder. “If he’s not there, can’t they just come back again?” I asked, looking up into his face.

  “Miss Woodruff said the deadline’s real soon and we have to get all of Baby’s paperwork into Bartlettsville as quick as possible.”

  Robert shook my hand off and stood back up. He straightened his shoulders and started down the steps. “Where are you going?” I asked him.

  “Someone’s gotta find Daddy.” He looked up the road for a minute. “I’m going to the Howling Kitty.”

  “Robert! You can’t go there. You know what kind of place that is! There’s . . . there’s . . . naked ladies and . . . and bad people. It’s dangerous. You’ve heard Preacher Beaumont say so. Besides, kids aren’t allowed in bars. It’s against the law!”

  “They’ll be at the house soon, and Mama’s cleaning Baby up now. I have to.”

  I watched as he stepped off into the grass, took the shortcut across our vacant field, and headed up the road. I couldn’t believe it. Robert was going to the Howling Kitty!

  Well, I couldn’t wait for Mama to get home for lunch to talk to her. I zipped through the last chore she had listed. Then I grabbed the list, ran out, jumped on my bike, and rode over to the Gas & Go.

  Mama looked up, surprised to see me. I shoved the list at her. At the bottom I’d written all the extra chores I’d done during the week. I said, “Tomorrow’s my last day of being grounded. And since I’ve done everything on your list, and even some extra chores, I was wondering if I could get off a little early. There’s something important going on in Hiram this afternoon and—”

  “Honey”—she stopped me—“there’s never anything important going on in Hiram.”

  “The Rotary is drawing for its raffle, and I want to go see who wins.”

  “Is that all?”

  I hemmed and hawed, not really wanting to answer that last question, as she picked up the list and looked it over. “Well,” Mama said, studying it, “I’m not sure we can really count exercising Mr. Perkins as an extra chore.”

  “You’re always saying how he’s getting fat, so I made him jump ten times this morning. And—”

  “OK, OK,” she said, laughing and holding up one hand. “This is great, sweetie. I guess you have made a special effort. But no more fighting. We’re agreed, yes?”

  “Yes. I . . . I promise to count to ten before I get angry with anything someone says, even if it’s mean or stupid. And I’ll . . . I’ll ignore them and I won’t let it get to me. And I’ll try to use words instead of my fists if I absolutely must do something. And . . . and, I’ll try to say something helpful, if I can think of anything.” I put my hand over my heart and started to push open the Gas & Go’s screen door with my rear end.

  “If you’re riding your bike to Hiram, you be careful.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” I shouted, and raced over to my bike as I heard the screen door slam shut behind me.

  I truly was going into Hiram. I just had to go to the Howling Kitty first.

  eleven

  I WAS PEDALING SO FAST that the rear wheel of my bike slid over some loose gravel when I turned out of our driveway. At the same time, I looked over my shoulder to make sure no cars were coming and saw Lester waving from his front porch. I figured I’d go see him soon as I got things sorted out.

  I leaned low over the handlebars, my face slicing into the wind. At the fork in the road past the Ketchum place, instead of going straight on to Hiram I made a hard left turn and headed out along the river bottom toward Bartlettsville and the Howling Kitty bar. The Howling Kitty is at least three miles up the road, and I thought I had a good chance of catching up with Robert, since he was walking.

  The road along the Little Red River is about the flattest place in Beulah County, so it wasn’t hard pedaling. As I rode, I breathed in the sweet, heavy smell of growing things that always lingered there by the river.

  What if they wouldn’t let Robert in to talk to Doyle? What if he did talk to Doyle, but Doyle wouldn’t leave and go home? What if they called the police? That wouldn’t look good to Mr. Ritchey, the social worker.

  Finally I came around a curve and there it was, an old cement-block building painted bright pink, with a few scraggly bushes growing up along its sides. The sign reading HOWLING KITTY hung crookedly from a pole in a cement base out front, so that the woman on the sign with a tiger mask on seemed to be howling at the ground. There was a tipped-over garbage can just below. Doyle’s beat-up blue pickup truck with a missing front fender was parked by the garbage can. Around the back, a couple of old cars sat up on blocks, patiently waiting for some part that was never going to arrive.

  I lowered my bike onto the gravel and stepped around it. I hadn’t passed Robert on the road, and I didn’t see him now. So that meant he was inside, if he hadn’t changed his mind about coming here.

  I’d never been to a bar before. Was I supposed to knock? Would someone come to the door and peek out at me through a tiny window at the top of the door, like they do in gangster movies? I ran up to the door and stopped. I didn’t see a tiny window.

  I decided to open the door and look in. That way, even if they did kick me out, I could see if Robert was there. I took a deep breath and slowly pulled the door open.

  It was dark inside, like going into a picture show. For a few moments I couldn’t see a thing. Then I heard a deep voice. “Not another one! You stay out of here. You can’t come in here.”

  I stepped in, squinting in the darkness. “Is Robert here?”

  “Here I am,” said Robert’s voice. When I could finally see well enough to make out something, I saw him standing up front. And hunched over a table, about a foot away, sat Doyle.

  Well, there weren’t any naked ladies, and I didn’t see the devil “in-carnated,” as Preacher Beaumont says, but I sure was shaking all over.

  “If you’re looking for the other kid, you’ve found him. Now get the hell out of here, the both of you.”

  The gruff voice came from a man in a green striped shirt pulled tight over his big arms and bulging belly. He was standing behind a long shiny counter near Doyle’s table.

  “OK,” I managed to croak, “just let me get my friend.” Then I stumbled my way past empty chairs to Robert. “C’mon.” I grabbed his arm. “We gotta get out of here.”

  “I can’t unless he comes, too.” Robert nodded toward Doyle.

  “I’m busy!” yelled Doyle, lifting his head unsteadily from the table. “Ain’t I done told you already? I’ll be home later. Now git.”

  “You’ve got to come with me now,” said Robert. “Mama needs you at home.”

  “I’m your father, dammit! You’re supposed to do what I say. And I said to get your sorry butt home. You hear me, boy? Go!” Doyle turned round in his chair and reached out toward Robert.

  Robert scooted a little beyond arm’s length from his father and stood looking down at the floor with his hands in his pockets. I watched as he sl
owly and steadily breathed in and out. I held my breath. “No,” he answered.

  Oh, no. I thought for sure Doyle was going to jump up and take off after him with his belt. But he just groaned and put his head back down on his arms. Robert didn’t move a lick.

  “OK, that’s it,” shouted the bartender, slapping both his hands down on the countertop. “I’m calling the sheriff. They’ll haul all your sorry butts home. You’ll not get me in trouble for letting you in here.”

  The last thing I wanted, after just finishing a week of being grounded, was to go and get myself hauled home by the police. “C’mon, Robert,” I hissed. “He’s calling the police.”

  “That’s OK. You go,” he said. “I can’t.”

  “Kids,” I heard Doyle mutter to himself. “You try your dam’dest, and they still grow up without a bit of respect these days. Where’s my little Baby, huh? You watching out for him? He’s the only one . . . listens to me.”

  I backed up to the door. “You sure?” I asked.

  Robert nodded.

  So I turned and ran back out and jumped on my bike. I rode down the road a ways and into the cornfield across on the other side to wait. It wasn’t too long before the county sheriff’s car pulled in. A few minutes later Doyle came staggering out, held up by an officer and followed by Robert. I guess Doyle was too drunk to drive, because they all got in the police car and headed back toward Baylor. Robert looked out the window at me as they drove by.

  twelve

  I TURNED MY BIKE around and took off for Hiram, amazed at how calm Robert had seemed. I don’t know how he did it. If I had a father like Doyle and had to go to a bar to get him, I’d be spitting mad.

  Sometimes I wondered why Robert bothered with Doyle at all. I mean, even though I was hoping to meet Dr. Harrison soon, I had been doing just fine, so far, without a father. The only thing I knew that Doyle ever did for Robert was to let him use the old tobacco shed for our clubhouse. Also he gave us the nails to hang up our pictures. The way I looked at it, that just wasn’t enough.