“So, Mr. Hero, we’re the same age. But you have been staying in a orphanage.”
“I been staying in a home.”
“My daddy says being on the road ain’t fit for a dog, much less a kid, how come you don’t just go back to your orphanage?” She started up touching my hand too much again.
Deza Malone seemed like she was all right so I came clean with her. “Don’t tell no one, but I lit out from a foster home so I’m on the lam. And I wouldn’t go back to the Home even if I could. It’s getting so’s there’s too many kids in there.”
“So? That’s better than being cold and hungry all the time and dodging the railroad police.”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t think they just let people jump on the trains, do you?”
“Well, I guess I hadn’t thought about it.”
“See, I knew you were too nice to have been out on the road, you’re going to have a bad surprise tomorrow morning.”
“That won’t bother me too much.”
She said, “Oh, yeah, I forgot, you’re a hero to some folks.” When Deza smiled a little dimple jumped up in her brown cheek.
I didn’t answer, I just kept drying tin cans.
We got to the last four or five tin can plates and Deza said, “You ever kiss a girl at the orphanage?”
Uh-oh! “Are you kidding?”
“No. Why, you afraid of girls?”
“You must be kidding.”
She said, “OK,” and closed her eyes and mooshed her lips up and leaned close to me.
Dangee! If I didn’t kiss her she’d think I was scared of girls, if I did kiss her she might blab or Bugs might see me and tell strangers about what happened. I looked down the crick to where Bugs and the other boy were still splashing in the water. It was dark enough that I didn’t think they could see us too good.
I scooched my lips up and mashed my face on Deza Malone’s. We stuck like that for a hot second, but it felt like a long time.
When I opened my eyes and pulled back Deza kept hers closed and smiled. She looked down and stuck her hand in mine again and this time I let her keep it there. She looked out at the crick and the woods on the other side and said, “Isn’t this romantic?”
I looked out to see what she was talking about. The only thing I could see was the moon like a big egg yolk way up in the sky. You could hear the water and the sound of the mouth organ man playing a sad song back in Hooverville. I sneaked another peek at Deza’s dimple.
She said, “You hear that? That’s ‘Shenandoah’ he’s playing. Isn’t it pretty?”
“I guess so.”
“Do you know the words?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Listen.
It’s been seven long years
Since last I’ve seen her,
Way hey, you rolling river,
Been seven long years,
Since last I’ve seen her,
Way hey, I’m bound away,
’Cross the wide Miss-oo-ray.”
I said, “Yup, that’s a sad song.” I didn’t think it was pretty at all.
She squeezed my hand and said, “Isn’t it? It’s about an Indian man and woman who can’t see each other for seven years. But in all that time they still stay in love, no matter what happens. It reminds me of my mother and father.”
“Your dad’s been gone for seven years before?”
She looked out over the crick like the big eggy moon had her hypnotized. I pulled my hand from hers and said, “Well, that’s just about it for the dishes.”
She smiled again. “Bud, I’ll never forget this night.”
I didn’t tell her, but I probably wouldn’t forget it either, I’d practiced on the back of my hand before, but this was the first time I’d ever busted slob with a real live girl.
We loaded all the dishes in the box and walked down to Bugs and the other kid. We put their dishes on top of ours and headed back.
Bugs said, “How come you’re looking so strange, Bud? You look like you been chunked in the head with a rock.”
Deza Malone laughed, and for a second I thought she was going to rat me out.
I said, “I don’t know, I guess that song is making me kind of sad.”
Bugs said, “Yeah, it is kind of sad.”
Right before we got into the cardboard jungle we passed the white people with the coughing baby at their own little fire. I said to Deza, “How come they’re off alone, they aren’t allowed to sit around the big fire ’cause that baby’s making so much noise?”
Deza said, “Uh-uh, they been invited, but my daddy said you got to feel sorry for them. All they’re eating is dandelion greens soup, they’re broke, their clothes are falling off of them, their baby’s sick but when someone took them some food and blankets, the man said, ‘Thank you very much, but we’re white people. We ain’t in need of a handout.’”
When we got back to the main fire of Hooverville we put the dishes in another box. Deza made us turn them all upside down so’s if the rain got into them they wouldn’t rust.
I went to the woman with my suitcase. It was in the same spot I’d left it and the knots in the twine were the kind I tie.
I said, “Thank you very much, ma’am.”
She said, “I told you not to worry.”
I went back to the big fire to sit with Bugs.
The mouth organ man said, “I suppose you boys are going out on that train tomorrow?”
I said, “The one for Chicago, sir?”
He said, “That’s the one.”
I said, “Yes, we are, sir.”
He said, “Well, you’d best get as much sleep as you can. It’s supposed to be pulling out at five-fifteen, but you never know with these freights.”
We got in one of the shacks with some other boys. Bugs was snoring in two seconds, but I couldn’t sleep, I opened my jackknife and put it under my blanket.
I was thinking. Deza’s momma was right, someone who doesn’t know who their family is, is like dust blowing around in a storm, they don’t really belong any one place. I started wondering if going to California was the right thing to do. I might not know who my family was, but I knew they were out there somewhere, and it seemed to make a whole lot more sense to think that they were somewhere around Flint instead of out west.
I opened my suitcase to get my blanket. Even though I trusted the woman who’d guarded it for me I checked to make sure everything was OK.
I picked up the tobacco pouch that had my rocks in it and pulled the drawstring open. I shook the five smooth stones out and looked at them. They’d been in the drawer after the ambulance took Momma away and I’d had them ever since.
Someone had took a pen or something and had writ on all five of them, but it was writ in a code so I couldn’t understand what they meant. One of them said “kentland ill. 5.10.11.” Another said “loogootee in. 5.16.11,” then there was “sturgis m. 8.30.12” and “gary in. 6.13.12,” and the last one said, “flint m. 8.11.11.”
I put them back in their pouch and pulled the string tight. Then I pulled out the envelope that had the picture of the saggy pony at the Miss B. Gotten Moon Park. It was fine.
Next I counted the flyers again, all five were there, I slid all of them back, except for the blue one. I held it up so it could catch some of the light from the big fire. I kept looking at the picture and wondering why this one bothered Momma so much. The more I thought about it the more I knew this man just had to be my father. Why else would Momma keep these?
I used a little trick to help me fall off to sleep. I pulled my blanket right up over my head and breathed in the smell real deep. After doing this three times the smells of the shack and Hooverville were gone and only the smell of the blanket was in my nose. And that smell always reminded me of Momma and how she used to read me to sleep every night.
I took two more breaths and pretended I was hearing Momma reading to me about the Billy Goats Gruff or the Fox and the Grapes or the Dog That Saw His Reflecti
on in the Water or some other story she’d checked out of the library. I could hear Momma’s voice getting farther and farther away as I imagined I was in the story until finally her voice and the story all mixed into one.
I’d learned that it was best to be asleep before Momma finished the story because if she got done and I was still awake she’d always tell me what the story was about. I never told Momma, but that always mint the fun of the story. Shucks, here I was thinking I was just hearing something funny about a fox or a dog and Momma spoilt it by telling me they were really lessons about not being greedy or not wishing for things you couldn’t have.
I took two more breaths and started thinking about the little hen that baked the bread. I heard, “Not I,” said the pig. “Not I,” said the goat. “Not I,” said the big bad wolf,” then . . . woop, zoop, sloop . . . I was asleep.
I started dreaming about the man with the giant fiddle. He was walking away and I kept calling him but he couldn’t look back. Then the dream got a lot better, I turned away from where Herman E. Calloway was and there stood Deza Malone.
I told her, “I really like your dimple.” She laughed and said, “See you in seven years.”
A MAN SCREAMED, “Get up, they’re trying to sneak it out early!” I jumped straight up and banged my head on the top of the shack. I ran outside. It was still dark and the fire was just a pile of glowing sticks. The man was screaming at the top of his lungs. “Get up! They’ve fired the engine and are fixing to take off!”
Bugs and the other boys came and stood next to me. Bugs said, “Is it a raid?”
Someone said, “No, they’re trying to sneak out before we get up!”
People started running all over Hooverville. Bugs said, “Come on, Bud, get your stuff, we got to get on that train!”
I folded my blanket up and put it in my suitcase and tied the twine back. I put my jackknife in my pocket and Bugs and I ran outside. I hadn’t got six giant steps away when a boy stuck his head out the door and yelled, “Hey, Slim, is this your paper?”
I looked back. My blue flyer! I forgot to put it back in the suitcase!
Bugs said, “Hurry, I’ll wait.”
“I’ll catch you, go ahead.”
I ran back and took my flyer from the boy. “Thanks a lot!” I ran back out into the crowd that was tearing through the woods. There were a million men and boys running in the same direction.
I didn’t want to fold the flyer up so as I was running I slid it between the twine and the suitcase, I’d put it back inside once we got on the train.
No one was talking. All you could hear were the sounds of a million feet smacking on the trail and the sound of a million people trying to catch their breath. Finally a hiss sound started getting louder and louder and I knew we weren’t too far away.
We broke out of the woods and there in the dark sat the train. The locomotive was hissing and spitting coal-black smoke into the sky, every once in a while a big shower of sparks would glow up from inside the dark cloud, making it look like a gigantic black genie was trying to raise up out of the smokestack. The train went as far back as you could see, there must’ve been a thousand boxcars, but everyone had stopped and was just standing there watching. No one was trying to get on.
I pushed my way to the front to see if I could find Bugs and I saw why everyone had stopped. There were four cop cars and eight cops standing between the crowd and the train. The cops all had billy clubs and were spread out to protect the train.
The crowd kept getting bigger and bigger.
One of the cops yelled, “You men know you can’t get on this train, just go on back to Shantytown and there won’t be no trouble.”
A white man said, “This is the only train going west for the next month, you know we got families to feed and have got to be on it. You go get back in your cars and you’ll be right, there won’t be no trouble.”
The cop said, “I’m warning you, the Flint police are on the way, this here is private property and they have orders to shoot anyone who tries to get on this train.”
A man next to me said, “I’d rather be shot than sit around and watch my kids go hungry.”
The cop said, “This is America, boys, you’re sounding like a bunch of Commies, you know I can’t let you on this train. I got kids to feed too, and I’d lose my job.”
Someone yelled, “Well, welcome to the club, brother.”
It seemed like we stood looking at the cops and them looking at us for a whole hour. Our side was getting bigger and bigger and the other cops started looking nervous. The one who was doing all the talking saw them fidgeting and said, “Hold steady, men.”
One of the cops said, “Jake, there’s four hundred men out there and more coming, I don’t like these odds. Mr. Pinkerton ain’t paying me enough to do this.” He threw his cop hat and his billy club on the ground.
Everybody froze when the train whistle blew one long time and the engine started saying shuh-shuh-shuh. The big steel wheels creaked a couple of times, then started moving.
Four of the other cops threw their hats and billy clubs down too. The boss cop said, “You lily-livered rats,” and it was like someone said, “On your mark, get set, go!”
The engine was saying SHUHSHUHSHUHSHUHSHUH . . . and a million boys and men broke for the train.
I got pushed from behind and fell on top of my suitcase. Someone reached down and pulled me up. I squeezed my bag to my stomach and ran. The train was going faster and faster. People were jumping on and reaching back to help others. I finally got to the tracks and was running as hard as I could. I looked up into the boxcar and saw Bugs.
He screamed, “Bud, throw your bag, throw me your bag!”
I used both hands to throw my suitcase at the train. Bugs caught it and when he set it behind him the blue flyer blew out of the twine and fluttered outside the door. But it was like a miracle, the flyer flipped over three times and landed right in my hand. I slowed down and put it in my pocket.
Bugs reached one arm out and screamed, “Bud, don’t stop! Run!”
I started running again but it felt like my legs were gone. The car with Bugs in it was getting farther and farther away. Finally I stopped.
Bugs was leaning out of the door and stopped reaching back for me. He waved and disappeared into the boxcar. A second later my suitcase came flying out of the door.
I walked over to where it landed and picked it up. Man, this is one tough suitcase, you couldn’t even tell what it had been through, it still looked exactly the same.
I sat on the side of the tracks and tried to catch my breath.
The train and my new pretend brother got farther and farther away, chugging to Chicago. Man, I’d found some family and he was gone before we could really get to know each other.
There were six or seven other people who didn’t make the train, so we all walked back toward Hooverville. They must’ve lit the big fire again, the sky in that direction was glowing orange.
The cop that first threw down his billy club walked over to us and said, “He wasn’t lying about the Flint police coming, but they’re coming to bust up the shantytown, you all should get out of here.”
When we got close to Hooverville we heard four gunshots. We all spread into the woods and sneaked up to see what had happened. I peeked from behind a tree and could see a bunch of cops standing around with pistols out. All the men and boys and women that were left in Hooverville were bunched up on one side and the cops were on the other.
The fire had been lit and was burning bigger than ever, but now it was burning because the cops were tearing all of the shacks down and were throwing the wood and cardboard and hunks of cloth into the middle of it.
One of the cops dragged the big clothes-washing pot over to the side and stuck his pistol down in it and shot four more times. Whew, instead of shooting people they were shooting holes into all of the pots and pans.
A man was yelling, “You yellow-belly lowlifes, you waited till you knew most of the men was gone,
you cowards!”
The cops wouldn’t talk or nothing, they just kept piling Flint’s Hooverville into the fire.
I tried to see if I could spot Deza Malone but there were too many people.
It seemed like the only good thing that came out of going to Hooverville was that I finally kissed a girl. Maybe someone was trying to tell me something, what with me missing the train and the blue flyer floating back to me, maybe Deza Malone was right.
Maybe I should stay here in Flint.
I walked back farther into the woods and sat down. I pulled the blue flyer out of my pocket and opened my suitcase back up. I smoothed the flyer out and took another good look at it.
Maybe it came floating right back to me because this Herman E. Calloway really was my father. Wait a minute! I sat up. The names Caldwell and Calloway are a lot alike, both of them have eight letters and there aren’t too many names that have a C, a A, a L, and a W all together like that. I remembered what I read in that Little-Big Book, Gangbusters. It said a good criminal chooses a alias that’s kind of close to their own name. Except I couldn’t figure out who was a criminal here and why anybody needed a alias.
I wanted to stay and look for Deza and her mother but it was too hard to hear all the people crying and arguing. Besides, I was still on the lam. I started walking.
If I hurried I could get breakfast at the mission.
I GOT TO THE FOOD line in plenty of time, but my pretend family wasn’t anywhere around. I had to eat by myself, without the brown sugar.
After I was through I went back to the library and sat under my tree to wait for it to open. I couldn’t stop thinking about Deza Malone and her dimple. How could her father find them now?
Finally I saw people going into the library.
The same librarian was there again. I said, “Good morning, ma’ am.”
“Good morning, young man.”
“Could I please borrow a pencil and a piece of paper and see that book about how far one city is from another again, ma’am?”
Bud, Not Buddy Page 6