“Harley Buchanan,” he said, shaking the man’s hand, though he didn’t like the feel of it. “You said cheap. What’s the cheapest car you got?”
The man turned, briefly scanning the lot. “Got a fine little Henry J there, and I can do right by you on it.”
“I can’t afford that car. Besides, I don’t much like them.”
Shorty Magee grinned, pushed the aviator glasses up on his nose. “They do take a bit of getting used to, don’t they.”
“What’s the story on that little black Ford back there?” The car in question sat near the rear of the office. There was no sign on it.
“That little Ford?” The man squinted at Harley, squinted at the car, pursed his lips. “I’ll tell you for a fact, son, that’s a mighty fine car, but it’s a little old. Nineteen-forty-two, one of the last Fords rolled off the assembly line before they started making vehicles for the war.”
“How many miles on it?”
“I ain’t right sure. Let’s take a look.”
Harley followed him back to the car. The tires and the body looked pretty good. The brake and clutch pedals were worn down about right for the mileage—76,000—suggesting that the speedometer hadn’t been turned back. But that kind of mileage on a twelve-year-old car meant it was pretty much worn out. Harley got in and started it up. The acceleration was fair, suggesting decent compression, and while a little smoke blew out of the tailpipe, it was black smoke and not blue, which meant the gas was set too rich for the air intake. That could be adjusted with a screwdriver. Had the smoke been blue, it would have meant the engine was burning oil, the rings shot.
Harley stepped out and shut the door. “How much you asking?”
“How much you offering?”
“Not much.”
“Three hundred.”
“Two.”
“I can run that car through the auction and get twice that.”
“I can go to that auction and buy it for half.”
“Two fifty.”
“Two twenty-five. Cash. And you don’t have to fool with transportation or auction fees.”
“How old are you, son?”
“I was eighteen in February. Why, what’s that got to do with it?”
“Good. Under eighteen, somebody gotta sign for you.”
“YE GADS!” Sidney exclaimed. “Whatever do you want a car for?”
“Same as you. I might want to go somewhere.”
Harley had planted sorghum on a Farmall-12 when he was nine, driven the family pickup around Separation when he was eleven, and had gotten a hardship drivers license when he was fourteen—commercial. It wasn’t unusual for farm boys and girls; several his age had gotten hardship licenses. He didn’t bother trying to explain to Sidney how he’d felt bottled up in Dallas without his own transportation.
Even so, the car stayed in the garage for the most part. He drove to his sessions with Sidney, and sometimes he drove Sherylynne to the Dairy Queen for sundaes, and once they drove northeast of Dallas to White Rock Lake where they snuggled in the backseat after dark. But he continued to pay Berry each week for rides to and from work.
HARLEY STOOD IN the doorway to his room, watching Sherylynne sneaking up the staircase. Aunt Grace would be taking her afternoon nap. Sherylynne’s skirt amplified the motion of her body. Her every move weakened him. Drawing her inside, he closed the door and put his arms around her, his face in her hair, the faint odor of lavender-scented shampoo, her intimate womanly smell.
But she withdrew, her eyes on him, clouded.
“What’s wrong?” he whispered.
She looked away, bit her lip.
“Come on. What’s up?”
Her eyes rimmed with tears. “I’ve missed my period. Two months now.”
In the moment he took to absorbed what she was saying, his mind scrambled—images of Sherylynne and himself with a baby, his dreams of New York fading…
“I’m pregnant.”
“Pregnant,” he repeated.
She began to cry. “What’re we gonna do?”
Of course, there wasn’t but one thing to do.
“Don’t you worry about it,” he said gently. “We’ll get married as soon as possible.”
HE STOOD BEFORE a blank canvas in Sidney’s studio, very much aware, if against his will, of Sidney’s assemblage, Beaver Trap.
“Don’t think so much,” Sidney said. “Throw that canvas on the floor. Kick it around.”
Harley turned to see Sidney observing him from across the room. “What?”
“Either you intimidate the canvas, or it intimidates you.” Sidney slap-footed across the studio to his side, eyeing him from beneath one cocked eyebrow. “I think this is more than just a pushy canvas, eh?”
“I’ve been thinking about going out to Midland. A man offered me a job in the oilfields a year or so back.”
Sidney stood back, giving Harley an are-you-kidding look. “Ye gads! Are you mad?”
“Sherylynne’s pregnant.”
Sidney stared, then threw his hands up and shuffle-circled the room.
“We’re getting married.”
Sidney stopped. He hit the heel of one hand against his forehead.
“It’s the only thing I can think of where I might support a family.”
“Oh? And what about your art?”
“You know I can’t make a living at that.”
“A living? Ha! Art, that’s your work. You’re supposed to be dedicated. Obsessed. Art, that’s all that matters.”
Harley realized how much Sidney had invested in him, not just time, but trust, emotion, hope.
“What about Sherylynne and the baby?”
“My young friend, that is not your problem.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Oh?” Sidney said coolly. “Then perhaps you’re not an artist after all.”
Only barely aware that he was following Sidney’s advice, literally, Harley grabbed the canvas off the easel, slammed it on the floor and dropkicked it against the wall.
He was aware of Sidney staring after him as he rushed out.
Chapter 11
Vinton, Louisiana
HE AND SHERYLYNNE had gotten the results of their blood tests. As Sherylynne had only just turned seventeen, they were advised that a consent form must be signed by a parent or legal guardian in the presence of a county clerk. Both parent and child must show birth certificates. Fortunately, Sherylynne had brought her birth certificate to Dallas, as it was required for job applications.
Sherylynne had written her mother a week before, begging her to go with them to the county clerk’s office in Orange, Texas, to sign the consent papers. She didn’t mention that she was pregnant.
“I haven’t heard from her,” Sherylynne said.
“Call her,” Harley offered.
“She doesn’t have a phone.”
“You know what this means?”
“We have to…just drop in on her?” She looked troubled. “What if she won’t?”
“Even if she knows you’re pregnant?”
“She wants me to be happy. But my stepfather, he…” She trailed off.
“He what?”
“We don’t get along.”
Harley frowned. “He ever bother you?”
“No. Of course not!” she said, flushing.
He shook his head “No phone. Okay, we need to get this show on the road.”
EARLY SUNDAY HE placed his and Sherylynne’s bags in the trunk, then stood by as Sherylynne knocked on Aunt Grace’s door.
“Aunt Grace,” she said, “Harley’s taking me to visit my mom. We’ll be back tomorrow evening.”
“Well…” Aunt Grace said, a suspicious frown, one forefinger tugging at the collar on her dress. “Does she know you’re coming?”
“No phone. We’re going to surprise her.”
Aunt Grace lifted her glasses to her forehead, placed both hands over her eyes, then, inhaling deeply, she set her glasses back in place. “My, my. You y
oung people. Well, please drive carefully. I’ll be praying for God to watch over you.”
According to the map, it was three hundred and twenty miles from Dallas to Vinton, Louisiana. The weather was nicely cool, the sky a rich cerulean blue. It was an adventure, the fist time they had been so freely together. Sherylynne sat close, her fingers playing with the hair on back of his neck. He told her about growing up in West Texas, his mother and father, his twin sisters. He hoped he and Sherylynne could save a little money and eventually move to New York. He casually mentioned the job offer from Mr. Whitehead.
“Wait a minute… Somebody offered you a job? In Midland?
“A year or so back, yeah.”
“A year or— What makes you think he’s still got it now?”
“He’s an oil man. They always got jobs. I could make enough to support a family. You can stay home and take care of the baby.”
Sherylynne studied him, something working behind her eyes. “Harley, do artists really make a lot of money?”
“Best I can tell, good ones do.”
“Is Sidney a good one?”
“I think so.”
“He doesn’t seem to have much money.”
“Yeah, well. Sidney’s different.”
The one time she’d met Sidney, she’d gone with Harley to pick up a painting. The meeting was a little strained. She thought he was a kook.
“I know you’re gonna be a good artist. You’ll make a lot of money. I know you will.” She frowned. “Won’t you?”
She was less forthcoming about her own life. Her biological father had been killed in a sawmill accident when she was eight. Her step-father was a merchant seaman. “He ships out,” Sherylynne said. “Sometimes a hundred and twenty days at sea, then a hundred and twenty days at home.” Her mother had a pickup truck, but no phone. Sherylynne worried about her.
They drove into Orange, Texas, at 11:30 a.m. Harley pulled into Buster’s Burgers, then a 7-Eleven. With cheeseburgers, fries, a box of Fig Newtons, and a six-pack of Coca-Cola in the floorboard behind Sherylynne’s seat, they crossed the Sabine River into Louisiana.
“Another fifteen miles,” Sherylynne said. She sat forward on the seat, picking at the buttons on her shirtfront.
At first he thought she was tense with eagerness. But then she slid back down in the seat, hands clamped between her knees, glancing furtively, almost fearfully, out the window, watching the landscape sliding past—trailer houses, clapboard houses on piers, ditches of alga-green water, ragged pines, hackberry, cypress, underbrush smothered under kudzu—everything hazy in the heavy, humid air.
“You nervous?” he asked.
She half turned, looking at him aslant. “Of course I’m nervous. Who wouldn’t be?”
They passed a bank of grain elevators, then drove through Vinton itself—several blocks of decrepit one-story buildings strung out along either side of Highway 90—a post office, feed store, drugstore.
“I hadn’t realized how…” She trailed off.
“How what?” he said.
“I don’t know…how…how run down? Something…”
They left Vinton. A few miles farther she said, “Okay, slow down now. See that mailbox up there on the left? That’s it.”
A sandy, pot-holed track ran fifty yards off the highway to a little boxlike house with a screened-in porch on front. An older GMC pickup stood alongside.
Harley brought the car to a stop. Sherylynne sat for a moment, watching the house until he thought she might be waiting for him to come around and open the door for her. Then she got out. Harley followed. A shadowy figure appeared behind the screen door.
“Mama?”
The screen opened a little. A woman Harley assumed was Sherylynne’s mother eased her head out, tilted up to one side, mouth open. Harley was surprised that she looked older than he expected, her face small, hard, knotty.
“What in the world…?” she began, her little red face blooming into a smile of surprise. She stepped down from the porch onto the concrete step, arms open.
“Mama, it’s so good to see you!” Sherylynne said, clasped in the woman’s little birdlike grip.
“Sherylynne, honey…” her mother began, taking a half-step back, clutching Sherylynne’s upper arms, looking her up and down, her eyes wet.
Sherylynne stood back, half turning to Harley. “Mama,” she said, voice breaking a little, “this is Harley that I wrote you about. Harley, this is my mom.”
Her mother’s expression fell just a shade as she took him in. “Martha Riley,” she said distantly, offering her hand.
Harley stepped up alongside Sherylynne and shook her mother’s hand. “Nice to meet you,” he said. He could see she was sizing him up.
“Harley…yes…” Her mother looked briefly from one to the other. “Well, now. Y’all come on in.” She took another look at Harley, then they followed her inside the screened porch and on into the living room.
“I was just about to make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but I’ll thaw out some catfish and make us all a nice dinner.”
“No, no,” Sherylynne said. “We picked up some burgers and fries in Orange. They might need heating up a little by now.”
“Oh, you needn’t a-done that,” her mother said.
Sherylynne glanced toward the hallway leading off the kitchen. “Farrell shipping?”
“He’s prob’ly going through the Panama Canal about now,” her mother said with a little nervous giggle.
“Are you doing okay here by yourself?” Sherylynne asked.
“Oh, yes. My brother, Willard, he comes by now and then. He’s the one brought the catfish. He does that.”
“I wish you’d get a telephone.”
“Well, you know. Farrell says they cost too much, all the calls and whatever.”
“He still picking up jobs, hanging out at the union hall in Orange?”
“And sometimes Beaumont and Lake Charles, yes.”
“I’ll bring the food in,” Harley said.
“Can you carry it all?”
When he returned, Mrs. Riley directed him to the kitchen where he set the two bags of burgers and fries on the Formica table. “I’ll get the Cokes. They’re warm, though.”
“Cold burgers and warm Cokes,” Sherylynne said, smiling. He saw she was watching him, more relaxed now, the light of affection in his eyes.
“Not to fret,” her mother said. “I’ll fire up the oven and get out the ice.”
When they were well into their burgers, Sherylynne said, “So. You got my letter about the under-age form?”
Mrs. Riley stopped eating. She glanced one to the other, then lowered her gaze. “Yes. I got it.”
“You didn’t answer back.”
Mrs. Riley laid her half-eaten hamburger back on her plate, a furtive glance at Harley. “Honey, you didn’t expect me to agree to you marrying somebody I never even seen?”
“I respect that,” Harley said quickly. “I wouldn’t let my daughter marry some guy I never met, either.”
Her mother studied him from her slightly lowered face. “You seem like a nice-enough young man, but I don’t know anything about you.”
Harley set his own burger back on the plate. “Yes, ma’am. That’s one reason I was looking forward to meeting you. So we could get to know each other.”
“We’re hoping to get everything done in the morning and get back to Dallas before night,” Sherylynne said.
“Well, I couldn’t help you, even if I wanted to.”
“What do you mean?” Sherylynne said.
Her mother fingered the remains of her hamburger, turned it over on the napkin, turned it back. “Farrell said I wasn’t signing no such paper.”
“What?” Sherylynne said, her voice rising.
“You know how he is,” her mother replied.
“Yes,” Sherylynne said. “I know how he is all right! A sorry son of a bitch is what he is!”
Her mother gasped. “Sherylynne!”
Ha
rley was shocked, too. He stared as Sherylynne in open-mouthed surprise.
“I don’t care!” she shouted. “He’s sorry as the day is long, and you know it!”
Her mother drew herself up, chin trembling. “He’s a good Christian man, and he brings home regular paychecks! That’s better’n your own daddy did!”
“My own daddy’s dead. You shouldn’t talk about him like that.”
“Sherylynne, you don’t know nothing about it.”
“I know that release form is between you’n me. Not him!”
“Well…I’m sorry about that,” her mother said, withering a little, settling back into her chair.
“Mrs. Riley,” Harley said impulsively, “Sherylynne’s pregnant.”
Sherylynne’s stared, her mouth open, cheeks pale beneath her freckles.
Mrs. Riley seemed to shrink, withering before his eyes. “Oh, dear Jesus,” she whispered, so faint and raspy he barely heard.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Harley said. “Just trying to make clear why we need that release form.”
Mrs. Riley turned on Sherylynne, tiny, red-rimmed eyes glossing over. “I should’ve known! Pregnant!” She started to get up from the table, but her legs failed and she sat back down. “Dear Lord,” she whispered, leaning forward, face cupped in her hands, “what’re we a-comin’ to?”
Sherylynne turned on Harley. “You didn’t have to be so, so blunt!”
“Sorry,” he said. “But I don’t know how to soft pedal something like this. The fact is, here we are, off down here in Louisiana, and as far from being married as last year! Any suggestions?”
He was mad, he realized, not at her, but at the situation they were in, at her mother’s stubbornness.
“Would you’ve signed that paper if Farrell hadn’t objected?” Sherylynne asked.
“If I’d a-known you was pregnant? Of course I would.”
“Why?” Sherylynne said bitterly. “You afraid I might move back here to live with you? Not married and with a baby?”
Her mother drew a sharp breath. “Sherylynne, honey, please. Don’t talk like that.”
“Mrs. Riley,” Harley said, “I’ll be good to Sherylynne, try to make her a decent living and be a good father.”
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