Julia Watts - Finding H.F.

by Julia Watts

  Bo’s hands fly up in a panic. “I...I...I...”

  “Can you get on and talk like an old lady?”

  “I most certainly cannot! Look, just because I ain’t the captain of the football team, that don’t mean you can make me put on a housedress and a girdle!”

  “Not so loud, Bo. Memaw’ll hear you.” I stare at the phone receiver, which is still dangling.

  “Excuse me, boys,” a voice says, and I whip my head around to face whatever disaster’s about to strike next.

  But it’s not a disaster. It’s a sign. A sign in the form of a real, live old lady standing in front of us.

  “I’m sorry to trouble you fellers,” she says, and as I focus in on her, I realize she must be one of them bag ladies you see on the news sometimes. Even though it’s May and hotter than the hinges of hell, she’s got on layer after layer of clothes—probably every scrap of clothing she owns—topped off with a blue winter coat that looks like the big one Memaw bought me when I was little. When she looks at us, her eyes are unfocused, like she might be a few bricks shy of a load. “But I’ve lost my bus fare and was wonderin’ if you could give me 75 cents so I can get home?”

  My heart hurts because she’s asking for so little and because I’d be willing to bet she don’t have a home to get to. I glance over at the phone receiver and decide to take a chance. “Ma’am, how’d you like to make five bucks?”

  After I give her a quick rundown of who she’s talking to (including clueing her into the fact that, all appearances to the contrary, I’m not a boy), I pick up the receiver, suck in my breath, and say, “Memaw, you still there?”

  “I was startin’ to wonder if you’uns had done gone to Florida.”

  “No, ma’am,” I say. “Here’s Bo’s Aunt—” I look at the bag lady and mouth, “What’s your name?” She gives me her answer, and I say, “Bo’s Aunt Iris.”

  Against my better judgment, I put the phone in Iris’s grimy hand.

  Iris cradles the phone on her shoulder real comfortable-like and says, “Hello, Mrs. Simms? I’m sorry I didn’t get to the phone faster. It’s on accounta my arthur-itis. I don’t move as quick as I used to.” She laughs a little at whatever Memaw says back and kind of whoops, “Ain’t that the truth?”

  It’s funny. Iris was glassy-eyed and spacey when she was talking to us, but now, on the phone, she’s as animated as a preacher’s wife at a church social. “The younguns got here just fine,” she says. “I was just fixin’ them a little somethin’ to eat...pork chops and macaroni and cheese, a little kale. Nothin’ much, mind you, just plain of country food. I may have moved to the city with my husband, God rest his soul, but I’m still just a country girl at heart.”

  Me and Bo are standing there slack-jawed, listening to her talk. “Oh, you’re widowed too?” she says. “It’s a lonely life, ain’t it? Yessir, the only man I’ve got in my life now is the Lord Jesus Christ.”

  Bo catches my eye on that one, and I have to cover up my mouth so Memaw won’t hear me laughing. Since Iris managed to work the big J.C. into the conversation, I know Memaw will think we’re safe with her.

  “I’d love to stop by the next time I’m in Morgan,” Iris says. “And we’ll be real careful on the way down to Florida. I’ll tell your girl to call you to let you know we got there all right. Good talkin’ to you, honey. God bless you, now.”

  As soon as Iris hangs up the phone, her eyes glaze back over. I reach into my jeans pocket and peel a five-dollar bill off my roll of bills, then after I think for a second, I peel off another. She shoves both bills in her coat pocket, says, “Thanks, son,” and shuffles down the sidewalk.

  I look at Iris walking away and then at the gold globe in the sky and try to decide which one is a bigger wonder.

  “H.F.,” Bo says, “she did a great job and everything, but I can’t believe you give her ten bucks when all she was askin’ for was 75 cents.”

  “Bo, I know we ain’t got much money, but that little show she put on was worth ten dollars at least. If I could’ve pulled an Academy Award outta my pocket, I woulda gave her that too.”

  Chapter Eleven

  We stop at a rest area outside Chattanooga and eat peanut butter sandwiches. Squirrels circle our picnic table, hoping for a free lunch. I toss them some crusts.

  “Don’t you be givin’ your food away to them little varmints,” Bo says. “Just ‘cause they’ve got some fur on their tails, that don’t mean they’re no better than a rat.”

  I laugh as I throw more crusts at the squirrels’ little feet. “They might as well have ‘em. I don’t eat my crusts noway.”

  Bo nibbles at his sandwich, looking kind of like one of the squirrels himself. “When I was little, my granny always made me eat the crusts on my sandwiches. She said they’d make my hair curly. Now, what I want to know is where them little ol’ ladies get all that stuff they tell kids?”

  “It’s a sight the way adults lie to kids,” I say, feeling my momma’s address in my pocket. “And the thing is, if you lie to a person for years and years, they’re bound to find out about it one day.” I can tell by the look on Bo’s face that he don’t care for the way I took his idle chatter and turned it all serious, so to change the subject, I take out the road map and say, “So, Mr. Chauffeur, how far are you aimin’ to drive today?”

  Bo studies the map a minute, then grins sheepishly. “I ain’t never seen a city as big as Atlanta. Hell, Knoxville looked pretty big to me this mornin’. Why don’t we stop in Atlanta for the night? And I was thinkin’...maybe, if we like it, we could stay there a day or two, see what it’s like to be in a place where they don’t roll the sidewalks up at 4 o’clock in the afternoon.”

  “Stay there a day or two? Lord, at that rate, I could get to my momma’s faster ridin’ on a turtle’s back. Besides, big cities like Atlanta are dangerous. Memaw talks about that all the time. She says the streets just run red with blood.”

  Bo raises one eyebrow. “And of course, you believe everything your memaw tells you.”

  I’ve got to give Bo a point there. Why should I believe anything Memaw told me about the world? Besides, I’ve got to watch bein’ selfish. Bo’s the one wearing out the tires on his car, after all. And we do have a full week for this trip. “OK, OK. Tonight and tomorrow in Atlanta...as long as we’re back on the road by tomorrow night.”

  “Yes!” Bo jumps up and down and squeals, which causes some of the people at the rest stop to stare at us. “Oh, H.F.,” he says, “we’re gonna have so much fun!”

  “Yeah,” I say, but I’m not sure what kind of fun we’re gonna have in a city where we’ve got no friends and no money to speak of.

  Just the same, when we cross the Georgia line, I let out another “Wahoo!” I love the WELCOME TO GEORGIA sign with the picture of a peach so ripe and juicy looking, you just want to take a bite out of it. After we’ve stopped for gas in a town that seems like it don’t have anything in it but carpet outlets in big aluminum buildings, Bo says, “Let’s play a game.”

  “What kind of a game?”

  “Let’s take turns singin’ every song we can think of that’s got Georgia in it.”

  “You’re the musical one, Bo. I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.”

  “Good singin’ ain’t the object of the game. The point is to see how many songs you can think of.”

  “OK.” I think for a second, then launch into a croaky version of “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia.” I sing all the words I know, then sing “dum-de-dum” for a few seconds, then start laughing. “I told you I sucked.”

  “Hey, that wasn’t so bad. It had a lot of spirit. Not a lot of tune, but a lot of spirit.” Then he sings “Midnight Train to Georgia,” and it’s just beautiful, especially the part where he says he’d rather live in his world than live without him. It gives a whole new meaning to have a boy sing it about another boy, you know?

  After Bo’s finished, I talk my way through most of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” except I always
forget the part that comes before the devil starts playing the fiddle. Then Bo sings “Georgia on My Mind,” which is almost cheating because the name of that song’s on the WELCOME TO GEORGIA sign, but Bo sings so good, it’s hard to complain. I listen to him and look out the window at the low, rolling hills that are so different from the mountains I’m used to. I like listening to Bo sing, and I like being in Georgia. I like knowing I’m two whole states away from Morgan and Memaw and just one state away from my momma.

  After a while, we run out of songs. The car’s awful quiet, so I say, “Wanna play truth or dare?”

  “I never did like that game much.”

  “Oh, loosen up, Bo. You made me sing even though I sounded like a donkey in labor. Seems the least you could do is play truth or dare with me.”

  Bo sighs. “OK, I’ll play then.”

  I can hardly think of what to ask him first. It seems like ever since we was little kids, I’ve done all the talking and Bo’s done all the listening, so my head’s so full of questions, it’s hard to pick one out. “Truth or dare?” I say.

  Bo keeps his eyes on the road. “Dare,” he says.

  It’s hard to do anything too daring while you’re driving a Ford Escort, but I hadn’t really thought of that when I suggested we play the game. I guess I was just hoping we’d take turns telling each other the truth. “Uh...I dare you to honk your horn three times real loud.” It’s kind of lame, but it’s the best I can do under pressure.

  Bo honks his horn, and when we pass the driver who was in front of us, a middle-aged guy in a truck with a Confederate flag bumper sticker, he flips us off. “Well, that was certainly fun, H.F.,” Bo says. “Did you see the gun rack in that pickup? It’s a wonder he didn’t blow us to kingdom come!”

  I laugh. “It’s your turn to do me.”

  “You never quit, do you? OK...truth or dare?”

  “Truth.”

  “All right, then. You said you and Wendy kissed and stuff when you stayed all night at her house?”

  I swallow hard, afraid I might cry. “Uh-huh.”

  “Did you do more than just kiss?”

  I wanted to play the game to find out more about Bo, not to talk about the things I’d hit the road to run away from in the first place. I decide to joke it off, if I can. “I swear, Beauregard, for somebody who plays the piano in church, you’ve got the nastiest mind I ever seen.”

  “Truth or dare, H.F.”

  “OK, OK, you pervert. We did a little more than kiss. We kinda...messed around.”

  “Was it...nice?”

  I pound my fist on the dashboard. “What does it matter if it was nice or not? No matter how nice it was, it ain’t never gonna happen again. OK, my turn’s over. Truth or dare?”

  “Dare.”

  I can’t think of another dare to save my life. “Now, what fun is it for me if you just take ‘dare’ all the time, and I don’t never get to find out nothin’ interestin’ about you?”

  Bo rolls his eyes. “OK, fine. Truth, then.”

  “OK. Have you and another boy ever done what me and Wendy done?”

  “No.” He says it real flat, like it’s such a dumb question he can barely get up the energy to answer it.

  “Well, that was interestin’,” I say, real sarcastic.

  “That’s the thing about the truth, H.F. Most of the time it ain’t nowhere near as interestin’ as you’d like it to be.”

  “Well...have you ever thought about doin’ somethin’ like that with another boy?”

  “I’m only gonna answer one question at a time. That’s the way you play the game.”

  “That ain’t fair, Bo. You asked me two questions a minute ago!”

  “Yeah, but you only answered one of ‘em. Truth or dare?”

  I’m tired of throwing Bo big, meaty chunks of information about my life when he won’t even toss me a crumb. I fold my arms across my chest. “Dare.”

  For such a sweet-faced boy, Bo can sure turn on an evil grin. “OK, I dare you to pull up your shirt and flash whatever car pulls up by us next.”

  “What is this fascination with me takin’ my clothes off? What are you—some kind of closet heterosexual?”

  “Are you gonna take the dare or are you chicken?”

  Bo knows me well. Ever since second grade, all you have to do is call me chicken, and I’ll do whatever crazy-ass thing is supposed to prove I’m not one. I stand up on my knees in the car seat, and when a light blue van pulls up beside us, I lift up my T-shirt and display my white cotton bra in all its glory. Like I said a while back, I’m not much in the bosom department. My A-cups are half full or half empty, depending on whether you’re an optimist or a pessimist, so I doubt I’m giving much of a thrill to...to...I decide to pull down my shirt and see who I’ve exposed myself to.

  I read the writing on the side of the van: SAINT ANNE CONVENT, COLLIERS, GA. Half a dozen old ladies are looking at me like they’re condemning me to drop into hell any second. The nun behind the steering wheel floors it, and the van zips away at what must be at least 90 miles per hour.

  My face on fire, I sink into my seat. “Bo, that van was full of nuns.”

  This ain’t news to Bo. He’s laughing so hard, he can barely keep the car on the road. “You know,” he says between giggles, “I always wondered about the kinda woman that’d be a nun. I bet some of them liked you flashin’ em.” Then he collapses again, and I have to reach over and grab the steering wheel.

  “I’m glad you thought it was funny.” I take my hand off the wheel and sit and sulk for a few seconds, but then I feel a big gust of laughter moving up my throat. I try to pinch my lips together so it won’t get past them, but the force is too strong. I laugh and laugh until my stomach hurts, and I’m afraid I’m gonna have to ask Bo to pull over so I can pee.

  Finally, when I can talk again, I say, “I can’t believe it, Bo. Except for on TV, I’ve never even seen a nun before.”

  “Well, you’ve seen ‘em now,” Bo says, “and they’ve seen you.”

  “I guess there ain’t much point to playing more truth or dare,” I say, still laughing. “After you’ve showed your titties to a vanload of nuns, there ain’t much you can do for an encore.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “We must be gettin’ close to Atlanta,” Bo says, hunched over the steering wheel. “This traffic’s about to give me a heart attack.”

  I look at the cars crammed in close to us, listen to the honking horns. “You can’t die on me now, Bo. I ain’t got nothin’ but a learner’s permit. Of course, they do say you can drive with a permit if you’ve got a licensed driver in the car. I wonder if it matters if the driver is dead or ali—”

  What I see makes my mouth drop open. I’ve always heard about big cities with skylines, but hearing’s one thing, seeing’s another. The tallest building in Morgan has four stories. The buildings in front of us look too tall to be buildings. They look taller than the mountains back home. “Can you imagine bein’ on the top floor of one of them?” I say finally.

  “Lord,” Bo says, “I’d be scared to death. What if the buildin’ caught fire? It’d be like that old movie with O.J. Simpson in it...what was that called? The Towering Furnace?”

  “Shoot, I’d love to go up in one of them.” I point to one building that’s got a pointy top to it. “Don’t it look like King Kong ought to be up on that one?”

  “It’s somethin’, all right. Hey, you want me to take this exit so we can see the buildin’s better?”

  “Sure.”

  We drive between the buildings and just about break our necks looking up at them. I know we look like hicks for gawking, and for a second I think we ought to try to appear more sophisticated, but that’s hard when you’re riding around in a broke-down Ford Escort with Morgan County, Kentucky, license plates.

  Pretty soon I stop looking at the buildings and start looking at the people on the street: men and women in suits half running down the sidewalk like they’re in a hurry to get someplace importan
t; skateboarding kids about my age with hair dyed the color of the flowers in Memaw’s yard, wearing baggy shorts that hang so low their drawers is showing; a man in a dirty stocking cap pacing back and forth and hollering like he’s arguing with himself. White people, black people, Chinese-looking people, tan-colored people who could be Mexicans or Arabs or something.

  It’s not like Morgan, where all you see is white faces, and not only do you know those faces, but you know their daddy’s and granddaddy’s faces too.

  It’s only when I look over at Bo and see how tense his body is that I notice the traffic again. A clock on a bank says 5:15, and I think of a phrase I’ve only heard on TV: rush hour. “You doin’ all right, Bo?” I feel selfish. Here I’ve been, relaxing and enjoying the sights, just like I was riding in a limousine, never giving a thought to the chauffeur.

  “Um...I’d be a whole lot better if I could get out of this traffic for a while. I wonder if there’s someplace we could stop.”

  “I’ll look for one.” We creep along in the traffic for a while, past a Chinese restaurant and a Church’s Fried Chicken. I don’t know how I feel about the Chinese food, since I’ve never ate it before, but my belly growls when I think about that fried chicken, especially since I know it’ll be peanut butter and bread and water again tonight. It’ll be the same tomorrow and the day after, till we get to my momma’s house. I wonder if she’s a good hand to fry a chicken.

  We keep creeping along in the traffic past a hotel that must have 20 stories. A man in a red-and-gold uniform is standing outside the door, waiting for some rich people to walk up so he can open it for them. I’ve seen hotels like this in movies, where a boy carries your luggage up to your room and a maid turns down your bed for you and leaves a chocolate on your pillow. Shoot, for the right price, she’d probably read you a bedtime story too or crawl in the bed right beside you. It’s something to think about, all right, especially knowing that tonight I’m gonna be sleeping in the same seat I’m sitting in right now.