I pointed.
Em backed the truck several yards up the wide slash of the gravel shoulder so that it was parked well off the road, partly hidden by woods. We scrambled out and crept back through the front yard without speaking, skirted the side and knelt in the depths of the dark where the moon’s light didn’t reach, there near the back door’s kitchen stoop.
I tucked my hands in the fold of my legs to keep them from shaking.
When Emerson saw what I had, I could feel the air go dead around us and the stars batter down on our heads. Knowing my brother had now seen what I had made it more real than before, a key piece of evidence that perhaps after all the world was not a good and safe place, perhaps there were things—and people—you simply could not count on, despite what you’d been reassured, perhaps the sky would in fact fall. It was as if in one night, my childhood dropped away forever.
And then there were voices. We’d seen no one else—at least I hadn’t. But there must’ve been men, at least a couple of them, there further into the shadows of the scrub pine beyond the reach of the moon. I caught only snatches.
“It’ll save more trouble in the long run’s what I’m saying…. You don’t want to see nothing bad happen to these folks, now do you? Or to that mighty fine boy of yours?”
We couldn’t hear what Jimbo’s daddy said then, his back to us and his voice inclined to be soft. But whatever he said must have been short, or interrupted, since another voice picked up from there.
“You know how the boys can get to having themselves some fun and get a little toe over the line now and then. I been able to hold the boys back so far. But I said to them, ‘Now … fellas, we don’t want no trouble…. A little more friendly pressure on these here folk—for their own good, you understand … help them find their own kind down in the Valley. Or back wherever it was they come from.’ ’At’s what I told them.”
At one point, Reverend Riggs’ arms went up over his head as if he were shouting, although we heard nothing. The gesture reminded me suddenly of Jimbo’s way of throwing his arms over his head when he delivered the last line of our litany, the words of L. J.’s daddy’s new sign.
But whatever the Reverend said or didn’t, the only voices we could hear in the dark were the others:
“…Why, even tonight the boys was making a ruckus about wanting to just, you know, have themselves some innocent fun, not let nobody…. Just be making some points is all…. You just looking the other way is all I’m sayin’. To be keepin’ the peace, you understand…. People got to be brought along slowly…. Keepin’ the peace….”
“That sounds,” I whispered, “like Mort’s daddy.”
Em elbowed me hard to be quiet. But then put a hand on my arm to let me know he agreed.
Whether Reverend Riggs responded at all, I don’t know—I couldn’t hear. What I saw was his walking away, his shoulders slumped forward, his round body sunk down into itself so that I’d have sworn someone had taken a shovel to the top of his head and pounded it into the round flesh of his body. And he staggered, like he’d been given a load too heavy to carry.
“Oh, Em,” I whispered, thankful my brother couldn’t see the water that spilled on my cheeks. “Jimbo will die. He’ll just die.”
“Yeah,” came his response, my brother’s voice ragged. “Yeah. He will.”
Emerson and I sat there together with ragweed and clay the color of blood the only thing left holding us up.
17 Yellow Sphere of a Man
Best we could tell, Reverend Riggs and the others left soon after Em arrived. But the two of us sat in the pickup for a good piece of the night and dozed in between keeping an eye on the Moulavi house. And when it looked like dawn might be trying to gnaw into the night, I crept back into the house.
I dozed off once more in the bed beside Farsanna, and woke up in a sweat—not a glow, but a sweat sure enough. The house was swollen with sound, with notes—were they notes?—that wriggled and chanted and shook themselves loose of language.
“What language is that?” I asked from inside my pillow.
Farsanna was sitting straight up in the bed. “Arabic.”
Turning my head, I squinted at her. “He’s praying?”
She nodded.
I sat up too, groggily.
“I thought he didn’t observe all the … you know … I thought it was his parents—who were devout.”
She looked at me. “This means he cannot then pray?”
I thought about this. “What’s he saying?”
“‘I testify there is no God but God.’”
I waited. “What else?” I could hear there had to be more.
“‘God is great.’” Here she turned and nearly smiled at me. “And ‘It is better to pray than to sleep.’”
“Oh,” I flopped backwards, “I could never convert.”
And then I remembered what I’d witnessed outside Sanna’s house in the night. And I lay there thinking that maybe I’d only dreamed it. And praying I had. And wishing I knew how to pray.
_________
I was home the next day by mid-morning—and would’ve been thankful to have left sooner. Farsanna’s mother had fixed “hopper” for breakfast—a cooked egg burrowed down in a pancake. And likely it wouldn’t have been bad if I could’ve eaten.
At nine, Emerson swung by—without Jimbo—to pick me up, and I was fidgeting by the front door, my thank yous already said.
I was hardly through my front porch door before Momma was calling for my help with stuffed eggs.
“I’ll let you run these lunches out to the boys, sugar. Did you have a nice time?”
I gave her what she’d not wanted to hear, but still would expect: “Yes, ma’am.”
“I do believe Emerson said they’d be back at Miss Pittman’s again today. Bless her heart, she’s a little different, wouldn’t you say, hon? Shelby?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I was wading through my own weariness and confusion to get a clear thought. “They can’t come in and pick lunch up themselves? The boys, I mean.”
My mother turned, hands on hips. “Well, I swan. This is a first, your not just jumping at the chance to tag on after those boys—you and that ridiculous retriever of Emerson’s. Is something wrong, honey?”
I shrugged. “I’m … just tired, I reckon.”
“Well then, Shelby, hon,” Momma told me, “you can help me do three dozen more of these deviled eggs—hand me the paprika, sugar—and take them to the picnic supper over at the firehouse. And then you can get yourself some good beauty rest.”
I resolved right then that no matter how tired I felt, I’d be with the boys at Mollybird Pittman’s until the end of the day.
Mercifully, Miss Pittman appeared only once that day, marching out in her big straw hat just long enough to list our shortcomings—including the fact that Jimbo slouched sometimes when he walked—and then tooled away in her brown Oldsmobile for a trip to the doctor. We all three of us bent into our shovels and hoes and were careful not to meet her eye.
We worked hard and long that day. Though summer in the South is hardly the time to plant anything, there’ve always been those who think they can force the seasons to their own will—and Mollybird Pittman was one. Big Dog Lawn and Garden Beautifiers thrived on this type of person.
After the twelfth magnolia sat smugly settling into its hole, my back muscles were shredded.
Splayed on Mollybird’s fescue, I groaned for anyone who would hear me, “Got to get to the Hole.”
By four, we’d finished a six-pack of Coke and a full bag of peanuts. We packed up our tools and left to pick up the Pack.
We picked up L. J. first at the Feed and Seed, where he had just finished loading bales of pine straw into old Mrs. Barker’s trunk. We hauled new bags of cow manure, peat moss, lime, and cedar mul
ch into the back—then L. J. himself. He dropped to the floor of the truck bed. “So, Turtle … what’s new?” he asked, almost cheery. Heading toward the Blue Hole had that effect.
I felt Emerson listening through the window of the truck cab. He and I had agreed late last night to wait to say anything to anyone else about what we’d seen and overheard at the Moulavis’ until the two of us had a chance to talk and sort things out. It looked real bad for the good Reverend Riggs, and we knew we were dealing with Jimbo’s faith in his daddy, his dogged faith in his faith, and its power to change people and things, against all the evidence everyone else could see to the contrary.
I shrugged at my cousin. “Since yesterday, nothing.” A total lie. “What’s new with you?”
He shrugged, and we were done being nice. Which is the good thing about family: You don’t have to draw these things out.
We arrived at the Moulavis’ house, and through the plate-glass window, I could see Sanna’s mother limp toward the front door. Mrs. Moulavi held out her arms for her daughter.
It’s all she has here, I was thinking, watching Sanna’s mother stroke my friend’s hair as if she were afraid to let go of her girl.
“Mm-hmm,” Jimbo said, nodding.
“Did I say that out loud?”
He squeezed my hand. “Reckon so. Leastwise, I heard you.”
_________
Having found no one at home at Welp’s trailer, we made our way to the Hole and swam hard and lingered that day. I’d no idea what we would be telling Jimbo, or how, about his daddy. But there at the Blue Hole, the granite palm warming my goose-pimpled skin back to smooth, the craters of water thrown toward the sky, the rhododendron in layers of green reaching up to the rim of the world, the waves of terror I had felt swelling all day over confronting Jimbo slipped back now to only a slow current of worry.
I scratched both dogs’ ears as they stretched on the rock. All will be well, I told them, not convincing myself. And all will be well, and all manner of thing will be well. They drooled their thanks on my hand.
_________
On the way back up to the Clearing, Bo asked to be the first to be dropped off.
“For some reason,” he’d shrugged, “the good Reverend requested my presence this evening. Who knows.”
“Look, Bo,” Em began, “Turtle and I need to tell you—”
I landed an elbow square in his ribs. “That you’re welcome to be the first to get home.” I mouthed to Em, We said we’d tell him later. Not with anyone listening.
Em shook his head at me, but left it alone.
When we reached Jimbo’s house, Reverend Riggs was sitting on the porch.
“Hello there, children.” The Reverend approached the truck as Jimbo jumped out of the truck bed, with his hand held out, but without the usual beam. His suit was rumpled, his shoes off.
He offered his hand first inside the driver’s-side window. “One of these days you’ll have to join us again in church, Emerson, son. We’ve missed you and your sister. When was the last time?”
I knew then the good Reverend was thoroughly muzzied. He always invited us to church when he was at loss for something to say.
“Vacation Bible school,” Emerson said. “It’s been a few years. I was ten. Turtle might’ve been eight. We made Noah’s arks out of popsicle sticks. Turtle still has hers.”
“Too long,” Jimbo’s daddy was mumbling absently to Emerson, even as his hand offered itself to mine.
Against my will, I shook the Reverend’s hand. I was unsure about Jesus, but I knew it was what Momma would’ve done, and I could think of no other way to get his hand out of my face. I spoke too, but as coldly as I could manage: “Evening.”
He focused on me then for the first time, then turned—with a perceptible start of surprise—to Farsanna.
He looked from Bo to Sanna, then from me to Sanna, then Em to Sanna, his eyes always coming back to the new girl, and apparently startled each time she was still there. Slowly, the Reverend held out his right hand. “Reckon I’m not acting very neighborly.” With his left hand, he wiped the sweat that had sprung up on his forehead. “I’m Reverend Pete Riggs.”
Farsanna held out her hand in return. “I am Farsanna Moulavi.”
Reverend Riggs shook her hand, his pale eyes flickering up to hers, and then quickly away. His hand fell back by his side. “I been meaning,” he said, “to get by your house. Been meaning to pay y’all a howdy. You and your folks.”
The Reverend’s eyes, still lowered, shifted to the threadbare white towel Farsanna clutched about herself. “Well, now,” he said. I couldn’t read the expression on his round face. “Well, now, so here you are on Pisgah Ridge. You folks adjusting all right?”
The new girl tightened her scrap of a towel around her. She didn’t blink—though she didn’t immediately answer either. “My father’s work is not to him open now,” she said finally.
“You mean,” I asked, “he still can’t find anything in his field?”
She did not look at me. “The position that was open when we spoke of moving is now closed when my father arrived.”
Reverend Riggs studied the truck’s tailgate held shut with wire. “Well then,” he said. This seemed not to satisfy him as a pronouncement. “Well then, that’s not good news.” We all stared at him, waiting for more. He moved to the tailgate and idly tugged on the wire holding it up. “I’m real sorry to hear that,” he told the tailgate. He lifted his eyes just once more to us.
I loathed the man.
Reverend Riggs placed a hand on Jimbo’s arm. “Well then,” he said. “Reckon we ought to be saying goodnight.”
Bo kissed his father on the top of the head and followed him through the parsonage screen door. The Reverend turned back and reopened the door as if he might say something, but turned back again and walked inside.
I spit off the side of the truck like I could rid myself, rid us all, of whatever had happened so far, whatever was yet to come. Jimbo would have to be told, and so would the others. But for now, I contented myself in hating the yellow sphere of a man.
18 New York Yankees Alibi
The next day, with me in the back as ballast, wedged between bulky bags of mulch and plastic-wrapped cubes of peat moss falling onto my feet—Big Dog smiling and comfortable in the passenger seat—Emerson picked up Jimbo for the day’s work.
I looked back to greet him, and Bo smiled, winking. I wished all of a sudden I’d changed shorts like Momma wanted. Or brushed my hair better. I bent over, pretending to inspect a hole in the peat moss plastic, and pulled out from my ponytail a few wisps that maybe would frame my face. I could hear Momma’s voice: Must you wear your pretty hair so severely, Shelby Lenoir? There’s no call for ears to go sticking all out, is there, sugar?
“Top of the mornin’ there, lassie.” Bo handed me a Pop-Tart. “Gourmeted it myself just now.”
“Hey, Bo,” Emerson called back from the cab, “how ’bout we watch the game tonight at my house?”
Jimbo’s voice went decidedly weaker. “The Sox are playing?” Bo always knew when a game was on, if only because he was Em’s best friend. He was stalling for time.
“What do you mean, Are the Sox playing? Of course they’re playing. The Yankees. Remember? What’s wrong with you?”
“Just forgot what dadgum day was all.”
Jimbo reached to scratch Big Dog behind the ears. Then he pulled a Coke from the cooler and began popping peanuts, one by one, into his mouth.
Emerson glanced back over his shoulder. “Bo?”
“Yeah?”
“You fall out back there? You wanna watch the game or what?”
“Me and Turtle’s just hitting the bottle early today.” He fished out a Coke for me and pried off its top with his teeth.
I took the Coke, bu
t just held it—real tightly.
“Didn’t you hear, Em?” I called out, already regretting what I was about to do. “Poor old Parson Riggs doesn’t get to see many games with his boy.” I watched Jimbo’s face squint in confusion. “He’s planned for a father-son time just something like this.”
Jimbo met my look and raised one eyebrow.
Emerson turned his hat bill forwards on his head, which always meant trouble. “Ah, come on, Bo. It’s the Sox and the Yanks.”
I swung at the pitch myself, wishing Bo would just stop me. Wishing my gut feeling was plain wrong. But he let me go on: “What better time for a father and son? The Sox and the Yanks.”
Em scowled at me over his shoulder, but left it at that.
Just barely audible over the motor—to me, but not to my brother at the wheel, Jimbo said, “I don’t rightly recall planning to lie.”
“I know you didn’t.”
He patted my leg and squeezed it.
“But I didn’t see you jumping to tell him the truth, did you, Bo? That you got other plans? That you got a date?” I kept my head up.
His hand rested there on my knee. “Well, now, I don’t know as I’d strategized out my day much past this Coke….” He winked and grinned at me then, his green eyes squinting to slits.
We arrived at Mollybird’s place and discovered her waiting for us, all impatient for the spraying, fertilizing, pruning, and general all-out pampering of her precious hybrid tea and climbing roses.
In a black cotton dress—likely a remnant of the Big Apple years, since no one back home wore black outside funerals—Mollybird wreaked vengeance on us that day by joining us there in the blazing heat. Her straw hat—likely not from Manhattan—held silk roses in a black band at the crown and they bobbed as she peered over our shoulders at every prod of the trowel. She shook her head each time I measured the pellets of rose fertilizer.
“Wouldn’t it be faster,” I whispered to the boys, “if she just did it herself?”
Jimbo was more sympathetic to her: “Now, what’d be the fun in a general’s having no troops to boot in the bodacious?”
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