She said, “Of course you may. You know, after I went home last night I finally recognized you. Didn’t you and your mother used to come in here a long time ago?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She said, “And if I remember correctly you and your mother had quite different tastes in books. I remember your mother used to like mysteries and fairy tales, isn’t that so?”
Man, I can’t believe she remembered that!
“And you’re the little fellow who used to come in all the time and ask Miss Hill for books about the Civil War, aren’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She said, “I thought so!” She handed me the pencil and paper and the cities book, then said, “And when you’re done with the book bring it back and I have something special for you!” She had a huge smile on her face.
I said, “Thank you, ma’am,” but I didn’t get too excited ’cause I know the kind of things librarians think are special.
I went over to a table and found Flint and Grand Rapids in the lines of the book. I looked where the two lines met and it said 120. Wow! That was going to be a good little walk.
Next I wrote down 120, then divided it by 5, that came up to 24. That meant I’d have to walk for twenty-four hours to reach Grand Rapids, one whole day and one whole night.
I figured it would be easiest to do the night part first so I decided to stick around the library until it got dark, then head for Grand Rapids. I wrote down all the names of all the cities I’d have to pass through to get there, Owosso, Ovid, St. John’s, Ionia and Lowell, and put the paper in my pocket.
When I took the cities book back the librarian was still smiling. She said, “I’ll bet you’ve been dying to know what your surprise is, haven’t you?”
I lied. “Yes, ma’am.”
She reached under her desk and pulled out a thick, thick book called The Pictorial History of the War Between the States.
Wow! The book was gigantic!
“Thank you very much, ma’ am!”
She said, “Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!”
I took the book back to my table. I didn’t want to tell her that I wasn’t really interested in history, it was just that the best gory pictures in the world came from the Civil War. And this book was full of them. It really was a great book.
There’s another thing that’s strange about the library, it seems like time flies when you’re in one. One second I was opening the first page of the book, hearing the cracking sound the pages make, smelling all the page powder, and reading what battle the picture on that page was from, and the next second the librarian was standing over me saying, “I am very impressed, you really devoured that book, didn’t you? But it’s time to close now, you may start up again first thing tomorrow!”
I couldn’t believe it, it’d happened again! I’d spent the whole day reading. Her words snapped a spell that was on me, and my stomach started growling right away. I was going to be too late for the mission.
When she was walking me to the door the librarian stopped at her desk and said, “Now I know that knowledge is a food, but I couldn’t help noticing you never went to eat. You must be very hungry.”
She handed me a paper bag and gave me another smile.
“Thank you, ma’ am!”
She smiled. “See you tomorrow.”
I said, “Yes, ma’am. Thank you for everything.”
I went back under the Christmas tree and got my suitcase. By this time tomorrow I’d be looking at the face of the man who had to be my father. I started eating the cheese sandwich the librarian gave me.
And then I headed out for Grand Rapids.
IT’S FUNNY HOW IDEAS ARE, in a lot of ways they’re just like seeds. Both of them start real, real small and then . . . woop, zoop, sloop . . . before you can say Jack Robinson they’ve gone and grown a lot bigger than you ever thought they could.
If you look at a great big maple tree it’s hard to believe it started out as a little seed. I mean if you pick up one of those maple tree seeds and turn it over a couple of times in your hand there’s no way your brain will buy that this little thing can grow up into something so big you have to bend your neck back just to see the top of it. Something so big that you can hang a swing on it, or build a tree house in it, or drive a car into it and kill yourself and any bad-lucked passengers that might be taking a ride with you.
Ideas are a lot like that, that’s what the idea of Herman E. Calloway being my father started as, something so teeny that if I hadn’t paid it no mind it would’ve blown away with the first good puff of wind. But now here it was so big and important and spread out.
The idea first got started when I was looking in my suitcase at one of the flyers showing Herman E. Calloway and his band. That was like the seed falling out of a tree and getting planted.
It started busting its head out of the dirt when me and the other boys at the Home were getting our nightly teasing from the biggest bully there, Billy Burns.
He’d said, “I don’t even belong in this place. I been put here by mistake and it ain’t going to be long before my momma comes and gets me out.”
Bugs said, “Billy, how come it’s taking your momma so long to find out where you’re at? She must have a real bad rememory. Seems like since she was the one what dropped you off here she’d’ve remembered where she left you by now.”
Billy said, “Well, well, well, will you take a look at who piped up, Mr. Bugs. You know, I’ve seen lots of people who have roach-infected houses, but you’re the first person I’ve seen who’s got a roach-infected head. I wouldn’t expect a little ignorant roach-head like you to know nothing about folks coming back here to get you out, you don’t even have no idea who your momma and daddy is. Any fool you see walking down the street could be them.”
He looked at the rest of us and said, “Seven little boys in this room and not a one of y’all knows who your folks is. This is a sure-enough sad collection of souls here, boy.”
I said, “That’s not true, I know who my momma is, I lived with her for six years.”
Another boy said, “Me too, I lived with my momma for a long time.”
Billy Burns said to me, “Is that right? And what about your old man? How many years you live with him? I got a nickel here and you know what it says?”
Billy’d stole a nickel from somewhere and held it up so’s the buffalo on it was looking out at us. He pretended the buffalo was talking, it had a deep voice like you’d figure a buffalo would. It said, “Billy, my man, go ahead and bet this little no-momma fool that he don’t know who his daddy is, then I’d have another nickel to bang around in your pocket with.”
Even before I had a chance to think I said, “You owe me a nickel, my daddy plays a giant fiddle and his name is Herman E. Calloway.”
And with those words that I didn’t even mean to say that little seed of a idea started growing.
The idea got bigger and stronger when I’d sit up at night and wonder why Momma’d kept those flyers. It dug its roots in deep and started spreading out when I got old enough to understand that Momma must’ve known she wasn’t going to be around too long and was trying to leave me a message about who my daddy was and why she couldn’t never talk about him. I knew Momma must be too embarrassed about why he wasn’t with us and was trying to break it to me gentle. The only trouble was she waited too long.
I mean what other reason could there be for Momma to keep all these things I have in my suitcase and treat them like they were treasures, and why did I know way down in my guts that they were real, real important, so important that I didn’t feel comfortable unless I knew where they were all the time?
That little idea had gone and sneaked itself into being a mighty maple, tall enough that if I looked up at the top of it I’d get a crick in my neck, big enough for me to hang a climbing rope in, strong enough that I made up my mind to walk clean across the state of Michigan.
I opened my suitcase and pulled the flyers out before it got dark. I put the blue o
ne with the writing about Flint on it on the bottom and looked at the others. Two of them had the same picture of Herman E. Calloway and the two guys but the first was called “Herman E. Calloway and the Terminally Unhappy Blues Band,” they were called “Masters of the Delta Blues,” and the other one was called “Herman E. Calloway and the Gifted Gents of Gospel—Featuring Miss Grace ’Blessed’ Thomas’s Vocals,” they were the “Servants of the Master’s Salvation.”
The two other flyers just had little drawings. The first one was a drawing of a accordion and told about a band named “H. E. Callowski and the Wonderful Warblers of Warsaw,” who were the “Masters of the Polka.” The second one was of a picture of some mountains and it told about a band named “H. E. Bonnegut and the Boisterous Big Band of Berlin,” who were the “Masters of All We Behold.”
I put the flyers back in the suitcase and stood up. Just like Bugs, I was going west!
FLINT ENDED all of a sudden and I was in the country. It was like one of those days that it’s raining on one side of the street and not on the other. Here you have Flint and a sidewalk, you take one baby step, and here you have country and a dirt path. On the sidewalk side a sign said, YOU ARE NOW LEAVING FLINT, HURRY BACK, and on the dirt path side, YOU ARE NOW ENTERING FLINT—ENJOY YOUR STAY.
I jumped in and out of Flint around seven times before that got boring and I decided I’d better head for Grand Rapids. It was already very, very dark and unless things were different in the country it wasn’t going to be getting light anytime soon.
One hundred and twenty miles. It didn’t take too much time before I figured out that twenty-four hours’ worth of walking was a lot longer than I thought it would be. I must’ve only been walking for a couple of minutes when everything changed.
First off there were the sounds. Flint could be pretty noisy, what with cars honking horns and trucks with no mufflers on them shifting gears and people yelling out at each other so you couldn’t tell if they were happy or about to bust out fighting.
Out here in the country the sounds were loud too, but what I was hearing was the sound of bugs and toady-frogs and mice and rats playing a dangerous, scary kind of hide-and-go-seek where they rustle around and try to keep away from each other or try to find each other. Instead of being tagged and called “it” like the way human beans play the game, out here the ones that got got, got ate up. Every step I took toward Grand Rapids I could hear the sounds of mouse bones and bug skeletons being busted up by the teeth of bigger things.
Every once in a while a couple of cats would give out the kind of howls and yowls that would make the hair on your neck jump up if you were a human bean and your heart turn into a little cup of shaky yellow custard if you were a mouse.
I walked and walked and walked. Some of the time a car would come by and I’d have to duck into the bushes and wait till it had passed, so I don’t think I was doing any five miles a hour.
I felt like I’d been walking all night but I’d only gone through three little towns.
I was getting so tired that I started to forget to duck in the bushes when a car would roar by. Some of the time they’d see me and step on their brakes for a second, then speed off. Most times they never noticed me.
Another car bounced over the top of a hill. The lights blinded me for a second and then I ducked into the bushes again.
The guy in the car stepped on the brakes to slow down and I could see him twist his neck around.
He stuck the car in reverse and pulled to a stop about thirty giant steps away from where I was hiding. His door opened and he stepped out and started walking slow toward my bushes. He brushed his hand over his head and put on a black hat like the kind the police or some army men wear. But all the cops I’d ever seen were white so I knew this guy must be a soldier.
He stopped and put his fingers to his lips and whistled. The whistle was so loud that it made me duck down and put my hands over my ears, it felt like he’d blown it right inside my head. All the bugs and toady-frogs shut right up, they quit chasing and biting each other ’cause this had to be the loudest whistle they’d ever heard too.
Rocks were crunching as the man in the black hat walked a couple of steps up the road, then stopped again. For the second time he blasted my ears with that whistle. The noise-making critters in that patch of road got quiet.
He said, “Say hey!”
He waited, then yelled, “Say hey! I know my eyes aren’t what they used to be, but I know they aren’t so bad that they’d lie to me about seeing a young brown-skinned boy walking along the road just outside of Owosso, Michigan, at two-thirty in the morning.”
I couldn’t tell if he was talking to me or to hisself. I peeked up to see if I could get a better look at this man. He came closer to me, then stopped about ten giant steps away.
“And I’ma tell you, I’ve seen some things out of place before and a young brown-skinned boy walking along the road just outside of Owosso, Michigan, at two-thirty in the morning is definitely not where he ought to be. In fact, what is definite is that neither one of us should be out here this time of night.”
He squatted down and said, “Are you still there?”
I raised my head a little higher to get a better look at him and his big car. He’d left the door open and I could hear the engine of the car grumbling, it was saying, wugga, wugga, wugga, wugga, wugga.
“Son,” he said, “this is no time to play. I don’t know and I don’t care why you’re out here, but let me tell you I know you’re a long way from home. Are you from Flint?”
How could he tell I was from Flint just by seeing my face for a second in his headlights? I wonder how grown folks know so doggone much just by looking at you.
Something was telling me to answer him but I still wanted to get a better look.
He stood up. “You know what? I bet if I can’t get you to come out with talk I got something else that might make you show your face.
“From the quick look I got at you, you seemed a little on the puny side. I’ll bet anything you’re hungry. Just so happens that I’ve got a spare baloney and mustard sandwich and an apple in the car. You interested?”
Shucks. How did he know I was so hungry?
Then he said, “Might even have some extra red pop.”
Before my brain could stop it my stomach made my mouth yell out, “But I don’t like mustard, sir.”
The man could tell which bushes I was hiding in but he didn’t bum-rush them or try to get me, he just laughed and said, “Well, I didn’t check, but I don’t suppose the mustard’s been glued on, I’ll bet you we can scrape it off. What do you say?”
I was carefuller talking to him this time so he couldn’t track where I was. I turned my head and talked sideways out of my mouth like one of those ventriloquists. “Just leave them at the side of the road and I’ll get them. And please open the bottle of pop, sir, I don’t have a bottle key on me.”
He squatted back down again and said, “Oh, no, can’t do that. The deal is I feed you, you show me your face.”
From the way the man talked he seemed like he was OK and before my brain could stop it my stomach told the rest of me to slide my suitcase deeper into the weeds and walk out.
The man stayed squatted down and said, “I knew I saw something. A deal’s a deal so I’ma go get your food, all right?”
“Yes, sir.”
He stood up, turned his back to me, then ducked inside the car. A second later he came back with a brown paper bag and a big bottle of red pop.
“Here it is.”
He stood there acting like I was going to have to come over to him and get it.
“Could you put them down and I’ll eat them and you can keep driving, sir?”
He laughed again. “Thanks for your concern, but I’ve got a little time to spare.”
With him standing there in the dark dangling the bottle of red pop out of his right hand and the red taillights of the car behind him shining through the bottle it looked like the reddest red in t
he world. I walked right up to the man like I was hypnotized. I forgot all my manners and reached right out.
He raised the bottle over his head. “Hold on now.”
“Could I have some of the pop, sir?”
He smiled. “That’s not why I said hold on, I said it because we have some talking to do first.”
My eyes left the bottle and looked at the man.
His hat wasn’t a cop hat or a soldier hat, it was the kind of cap men wore who drive fancy cars for rich folks. And it wasn’t black, it was red.
He said, “I’ve got a problem and I need you to help me figure it out.”
Uh-oh. What he’d just said is another one of Bud Caldwell’s Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself. This was Number 87.
RULES AND THINGS NUMBER 87
When a Adult Tells You They Need Your Help with a Problem Get Ready to Be Tricked— Most Times This Means They Just Want You to Go Fetch Something for Them.
The man said, “My problem is I’m not quite as brave as you are. I’m feeling very, very uncomfortable standing on the side of the road just outside of Owosso, Michigan, at two-thirty in the morning, and the sooner you can put my mind at ease about what you’re doing out here the sooner we both can go about our business, OK?”
I nodded.
He waited a second, then nodded too.
I nodded back.
He said, “Well?”
I was too doggone tired and hungry to think up a good lie. “Nothing, sir.”
He looked disappointed. “What’s your name, son?”
“Bud, not Buddy, sir.”
“Now there’s an unusual name. Did you run away from home, Bud-not-Buddy?”
I could tell this guy was poking fun at me but I answered anyway. “Yes, sir.”
“OK, that’s a start.”
He handed me the bottle of red pop. He must’ve had it sitting in ice in the car, it was cold and sweet and delicious.
After a couple of seconds he pulled the bottle away from my mouth.
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