by D. M. Pulley
CHAPTER 15
Did you do well in school?
“Hey! What’s your story, shrimp?” A huge sixth grader named Cecil Harding shoved Jasper in the shoulder that day at school. They were outside in the yard for recess.
Jasper didn’t answer. He scanned the school yard, hoping someone would intervene. Miss Babcock was still inside grading papers. The door to the school was open, but her head was down. All seven of the girls had gathered at the fence to admire Lucille’s new dress. The boys were scattered about playing games. Wayne was at the far corner with his buddy Mel, practicing walking on his hands.
Cecil pushed him again. “You deaf, boy?”
Jasper shook his head.
“Why don’t you talk? You stupid or somethin’?”
“No,” Jasper said softly. In fact, he was quickly learning he wasn’t stupid at all. Miss Babcock had already bumped him up to sixth grade math, and he could read some of the seventh grade books.
Cecil, on the other hand, was sort of stupid. He was supposed to be in sixth grade but had to do some of his math on the chalkboard with the third and fourth graders. He shoved Jasper again. “Why don’t you talk, huh? Is it true what they’re sayin’?”
“I don’t know,” Jasper mumbled. “What are they saying?”
“That you’re staying with Wayne Williams’s family instead of yours. That right?”
Jasper didn’t want to answer but finally shook his head. “Wayne’s my cousin.”
“Is it true your mama just up and left you there?”
Jasper studied his shoes and didn’t say a word. A couple of the other younger boys had wandered over to listen.
“My ma says she wouldn’t be surprised if she did.”
Jasper looked up at this revelation.
“She says Althea Williams was the most notorious hussy in all of Burtchville. A real hell-raiser. Ma says I ought to be nice to you ’cause you had the misfortune of bein’ the hussy’s son. So, what do you think?” He grinned. “Should I be nice to you?”
One of the older boys snickered at this, and Jasper could already see the song, Your mama’s a hussy! Your mama’s a hussy, dancing in their eyes. He didn’t know what the heck a hussy was, but he could tell from the smug smile on Cecil’s face it wasn’t good.
Jasper balled his small hands into fists. If getting beat up at school in Detroit had taught him anything, it taught him that you had to nip this sort of thing in the bud or it would haunt you all year. He was too angry to care that the boy was bigger. In fact, if he wanted to make an impression, he suspected the bigger the better. Besides, he’d been dying to hit something ever since Big Bill had left him with nothing. No answers. No hope of finding her. Just more goddamned questions.
You tell her to come see me when you find her.
Without a word, Jasper punched the boy hard in the stomach. The blow caught him by such surprise that Cecil doubled over to where Jasper could reach his big, stupid head. With a low growl, he slammed his fist into the giant boy’s nose.
Blood instantly came pouring out of it.
One of the girls at the fence screamed. The boys that had gathered took a step back. Jasper braced himself for Cecil’s retaliation, but the boy just stood there, eyes bulging, holding his bleeding nose.
“Jasper Leary!” Miss Babcock shrieked from the doorway.
He dropped his fists.
She stormed over to him and grabbed him by the ear. “What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?”
Jasper knew better than to answer. He looked out in the yard for Wayne. His cousin was staring at him slack jawed and holding up his hands as if to ask, Jasper, are you crazy?
As she dragged him back to the schoolhouse, he realized with a sinking heart that he must have been crazy indeed.
The other kids poured into the room after Miss Babcock and her hostage, taking their seats for the show. She pulled him over to her desk, grabbed the paddle off the wall, and slapped it down on her desk. “I do not tolerate fighting in this school.”
She left Jasper gaping at the paddle and walked around to her seat to pull a first aid kit from a drawer. “Cecil? Come here.”
The older boy obeyed. Blood was still running from his nose. He shot Jasper a knowing glance and took a wad of gauze from the teacher. She inspected his face and asked him a few questions. How many fingers am I holding up, that sort of thing. Jasper stood frozen at the front of the room, trying not to look out at the beady eyes of his classmates staring up at him and the paddle.
When Miss Babcock had finished with Cecil and sent him back to his seat, she turned her attention to Jasper. A breath caught in his throat. He knew better than to try to explain why he’d hit the older boy, and she didn’t ask.
“Cecil, how many lashes would be fair?”
Jasper’s jaw dropped. He couldn’t help but look at Cecil, sure he’d see a wicked grin spread across his stupid face. But Cecil didn’t smile at all. The boy didn’t seem to want any part of it. In the back, Wayne was shaking his head.
“Cecil?” she prompted again.
“Five.” The word was barely audible.
“Jasper, grab the chair.”
With shaking hands, he grabbed the wood. No one made a sound as the paddle whistled through the air and landed with a deafening thwack! It took all of Jasper’s strength to not cry out. Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
By the last crack of the paddle, Jasper’s legs were rubber and silent tears were streaming down his face. The tears were just as much from the humiliation as the pain. He’d been spanked plenty of times before but never in front of a whole school.
“Back to your seat,” Miss Babcock commanded. Jasper hobbled back to his chair with his head down, trying like hell not to snivel.
“Cecil?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Are you satisfied?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Do you feel any need to fight this boy?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Good. If I hear of any of you attacking this boy or fighting in any way here at school or on the way to or from, there will be ten lashes for each of you. Understood?”
“Yes, Miss Babcock,” the class said in unison.
“And Jasper?”
It took Jasper a moment to find his voice. He wiped his face with his sleeve. “Yes, ma’am.”
“If I ever hear of you starting fights at this school again, you will not be welcome back. Am I making myself clear?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I will be sending a note home to your family about this.”
A murmur swept through the classroom. A voice in the back muttered, “You’re dead meat.” It might have been Wayne.
“Enough!” Miss Babcock barked. “Now. I want you all to write a hundred-word essay explaining why fist fighting cannot be permitted in a civilized society. Little ones, you may draw a picture showing better ways to handle problems that don’t involve fighting.”
Jasper suffered through the rest of the school day with his eyes locked on his desk. As the pain in his rump faded, the feeling of dread grew in the pit of his stomach. Miss Babcock was sending a note home to his aunt and uncle.
What will they do to me?
The knowledge that he’d made the worst mistake of his life swelled inside him until he was certain he was going to throw up.
When the teacher dismissed the class at the end of the school day, the kids poured out in twos and threes, none of them looking at Jasper. He didn’t move.
“Jasper?”
Jasper looked up from his desk and realized he was the only pupil left in the room.
“Take this note home to your aunt and uncle.” Miss Babcock held up a crisp piece of paper that surely spelled his doom. “I don’t know what sort of school you came from, but we do things differently here. I trust you won’t make this mistake again.”
There was almost a hint of sympathy in her eyes as he stood up and took the paper from her hand. Almost.
The five boys were all bigger than Jasper. Three were sitting up on the split-rail fence. A huge boy named Bobby was standing next to Cecil. Jasper remembered something Wayne had said about them being cousins. He debated running the other way but figured there was no point. He was fast but not fast enough. Besides, his uncle was going to murder him when he got home anyway.
Jasper took a breath and walked straight up to Cecil. “What do you want?”
“Hey, kid. I just wanted to say sorry. I shouldn’t have said that stuff about your mom.”
Jasper couldn’t have been more surprised if balloons and fairy dust had shot out the boy’s ass. “What?”
“I didn’t know you’d be so bothered by it. It was pretty stupid.” The other boys sort of nodded. They were all at least two years older than Jasper, but they were looking at him with something akin to respect.
“Sorry about your nose,” Jasper said and realized he actually was sorry.
“Nah. I’ve had worse.” Cecil socked him in the arm hard enough to let Jasper know he could’ve whupped him something fierce. “You got a decent swing.”
Jasper shook the sting out of his arm and managed a smile.
“You gonna git killed at home?” Bobby asked as though he knew the answer. All the boys nodded.
“I’m not sure. Probably. Never seen Uncle Leo get really mad before.”
Cecil patted Jasper hard on the back. “Just grab the chair and hold on.”
CHAPTER 16
How did your parents punish you when you broke the rules?
Jasper took the long way home. He didn’t want to risk running into Hoyt’s bull, Nicodemus, but mostly he was terrified of what would happen when he arrived back at his uncle’s cabin. The dirt roads were deserted as he walked the two miles back to the tiny shack where his mother had left him without any explanation a month earlier. He tried not to think of their ’47 Chevy driving away.
The wind whipped up a chill in the air. Summer was over.
A huge oak tree towered over the far end of Harris Road. Squirrels chattered at each other, and acorns rained down, pelting the ground like hail with each gust of wind. Jasper stood under the great tree and gazed up at the leaves that would soon be dying. A few low, thick branches reached out over the road. Jasper considered climbing onto one and hiding there until the whole world forgot him. A broken tree swing hung from a frayed rope looped over one of the far branches. The other rope had snapped years ago. Jasper walked over to it and lifted the splintered board that had once been the seat. It might’ve been his mother’s swing back when she was small like him.
He dropped the board and wondered what she would do with him if she were the one to get the note in his hand. She’d spanked him before but never the way Miss Babcock had done. His mother always lost heart after two or three whacks. She’d end up looking like she’d been the one getting hit and didn’t seem to notice if he was crying or even breathing. It would take hours of him acting happy before she’d crack a smile again. Once she smiled, everything would be all right.
Acting happy wouldn’t cut it with Uncle Leo and Aunt Velma. Jasper could still see his uncle pointing a shotgun at his favorite cow’s head. The man hadn’t even flinched when he pulled the trigger. He’d loved that cow, probably more than he loved his good-for-nothing nephew.
Jasper trudged along the last bit of Harris Road and turned down the two-track drive to his doom. Wayne stopped him before he’d reached the door.
“Pop’s out in the shed,” he said. “You need to go talk to him. Ma already knows.”
“You told her?”
“Yeah. She usually knows how to break bad news, and I didn’t want you to go in cold. Pop can sometimes . . . well, he can get real mad if you don’t talk to him right.”
“What do I say?”
“Ma says he’s already in a mood because the damned tractor’s still leakin’. So what you gotta do is go in like a man. No snivelin’, no excuses. Just tell ’im what you done and don’t leave nothin’ out. If he reads somethin’ in that note you didn’t say yourself, he’ll whup you double hard.”
Jasper nodded, then dropped his eyes. “I didn’t read the note.”
“Give it here.” Wayne grabbed the note and read aloud:
Dear Leonard and Velma Williams,
I regret to inform you that your nephew caused a disruption in school today. Please discuss this issue with Jasper so that he may continue his education here.
Sincerely,
Miss Ellen Babcock
“So what do I say?” Jasper asked. Miss Babcock left out some major details.
“Tell ’im everything. You leave somethin’ out, I guarantee he’ll find out about it, and there’ll be hell to pay. Farmers talk, and I wouldn’t put it past ’im to go up to the school himself.”
Jasper nodded again and turned his feet toward the barn. For some horrible reason, he thought of Sally the cow and the sound of her screams. The spit dried up in his mouth.
“Don’t chicken out now.” Wayne nudged him. “Worst whupping I ever got, I lived through it just fine. Couldn’t sit for a week, but I lived. Didn’t even leave a scar.”
This didn’t make Jasper feel any better. By some inner machinery beyond his control, his feet started moving toward the shed.
The unforgiving smell of motor oil, metal, and sweat greeted him at the door.
“Uncle Leo?” he whispered to the pair of boots sticking out from under the tractor.
The boots didn’t respond.
“Ex—excuse me? Uncle Leo?” he said a little louder, crouching onto his haunches so he could see the rest of his uncle. The kerosene lamp lit up the undercarriage of the tractor. It was an upside-down metal labyrinth of a world.
“Hmm?” Uncle Leo dropped a hunk of metal with a clank. “Hand me that socket wrench.”
Jasper searched the toolbox on the ground. Socket wrench. He picked up something that might’ve been a socket wrench and set it in his uncle’s huge, greasy hand.
“Dammit, boy! This here’s a pipe wrench,” the man barked, sliding out from under the tractor. His face was spotted with oil, and his eyes were filled with disappointment. He flipped through the different metal things in his toolbox, tossing the unwanted ones down with a crash. Jasper felt each one drop. His uncle finally found the one he’d been looking for and pointed it at him. “This. This is a socket wrench. Got it?”
Jasper nodded, too terrified to speak.
The top half of his uncle slid back under the tractor with the wrench. He had to tell him, he realized. He couldn’t just sit there all day, stalling. Each second that ticked by was one more lick he’d have to take.
“Uncle Leo? Sir?”
“What is it, Jasper?” Uncle Leo started cranking on something. The whole tractor rocked back and forth.
Jasper swallowed hard. “I have . . . a letter here from my teacher.”
“Oh, yeah?” The tractor stopped shaking. “What’s it say?”
“It says I caused . . . a disruption in school today.”
There was a long silence. His uncle still had the wrench in his hand, but he was staying under the tractor for the time being.
“I—I punched somebody.” Jasper’s voice had shrunk to a whisper.
“Speak up, boy!” his uncle growled.
Wayne had said to be a man. Jasper straightened his back and said loud and clear, “I punched somebody. On the playground.”
Uncle Leo said nothing.
After a few agonizing seconds, Jasper decided to keep talking. “It was a bad thing to do. I realize that now, sir.”
Still nothing.
Jasper couldn’t h
elp it. The tears just came. “I’m awful sorry about it. I won’t do it again. I promise.”
After a full minute of listening to Jasper sniffling, Uncle Leo started working the wrench again. The tractor seemed to lurch even more than before.
Jasper was at a loss. He just sat there and tried to pull himself together, jumping every time his uncle shifted his feet, waiting for the man to come barreling out from under the tractor and take off his belt. But he just kept on working.
After what might’ve been an hour, Uncle Leo finally pulled himself out from under the tractor. He seemed surprised to see Jasper cowering there at his feet. “You still here?”
Jasper was too petrified to move.
His uncle stood up and brushed himself off. He put his tools away, all the while ignoring his nephew, still sitting there like a cornered mouse. After everything had been cleaned up, his uncle turned off his lamp and left the shed.
Jasper sat there in the dark for several minutes, debating what to do. The note was still hanging from his hand. He realized his fingers were stiff from holding it. Am I supposed to stay here? he wondered. Am I still welcome in the house?
Eventually, he stood up and felt his way out of the dark shed. The sun was setting over the fields, and the lights burned in the cabin windows. The smell of the pork roast Aunt Velma was cooking for supper wafted across the yard.
He crept up onto the porch and peered in through a window at the kitchen table. There were four chairs set around the worn wood tabletop. Ears of corn, bread, beans, and mashed potatoes spilled over plates. He could smell it all through the window, and his stomach tightened when he saw only three places had been set.
Uncle Leo was cleaning the motor oil off his hands at the kitchen washtub. Aunt Velma pulled a bubbling brown chunk of meat out of the woodstove. They were talking to each other too quietly for Jasper to hear. His uncle shook his head.
They were going to make him leave. He was sure of it. Jasper backed away from the window, stumbling off the edge of the porch. They never wanted him there in the first place, and now he’d embarrassed them and brought shame on their family. He really was rotten inside. No one wanted him anymore—not his dad, not his mother, no one.