by J P S Brown
Maggie put Maudy's shiny hair up in Shirley Temple curls every morning the way Aunt Bea did little Bea's. Mikey appreciated it when Maggie, Bica, or Granny gave his little sister attention. He thought she was the prettiest human on earth and he loved the way she looked at the world. She was never at odds with him, but she had more sense about stunts than he. She was brave enough to say that she was afraid if she did not want to take a risk. She also knew that being afraid was an acceptable excuse for a little girl to give in order to stay out of trouble.
Mikey sat on the couch with Billy's little brother Spike. Spike was a serious child and no crybaby. He was like Maud; too smart to risk killing himself for a stunt, but fearless when he needed to do right. Even at the age of three, when he grew big enough to keep up with Mikey and Billy, he was strong enough to fend off criticism and stay out of the risk business. He could not be convinced that he should join in foolishness and would not be bullied. That day in Nina's front room Mikey realized that Spike already knew how to do right. He would never get himself run over by a car. Uncle Bill said that he would grow up to be an insurance man and be paid a lot of money by other people who did right and kept themselves away from accidents.
Uncle Bill was right about everything. He had predicted that although Africa was not nearby, Billy and Mikey would someday be trampled by elephants. He knew they would have done anything to go to Africa to swing in those trees and then the very worst finally happened only twenty bicycle lengths away from home. One of them finally got killed.
Mikey felt guilty to be alive and waited for his punishment. He and Billy had partnered in every adventure and every punishment that went with it. Now Billy had gone on to new adventures and Mikey was left alone to take the punishment. Any minute, some grown-up would turn to him and say, "Well, you were there and guilty of the same stunt. Billy is gone and we can't give him his whipping, but you are not. We held off because of your sorrow and ours, but we've had time enough for that. You, Michael Paul Summers, are gonna get a whipping."
The Summers and Shane families were probably surprised that Mikey had not been killed, too. Now they could be certain he would be killed if he went on taking risks, so they probably intended to prevent it by warming his butt so it would not cool for the rest of his natural life.
The alternative to a whipping was too awful for Mikey to contemplate. What if they hated him for being the one still alive, or did not care enough about him to tell Maggie to give him a loving beating? What if they never looked at him again?
"Ahijado, godson, you have to go home now," Nina said. Her face and hands were wet with tears. Mikey went home.
After Billy's rosary, wake, funeral Mass, and burial, Maggie packed a suitcase, told Mikey to say good-bye to Granny, Bica, Maudy, Baxter, and Pancho, loaded him in the car, and drove to Tucson. They unloaded the suitcase and Maggie's potted plant at the Kentucky Heights Boarding House at midnight and went to bed. Maggie walked Mikey two blocks to a street corner the next morning and put him on the bus for school. He was enrolled in Saint Peter and Saint Paul's summer school because he had missed so many classes that he had not passed second grade. She warned him that he needed to remember the way to the corner because she would not walk to the bus with him again.
Mikey had never even heard of Saint Peter and Saint Paul's School. He got off the bus when it arrived on the playground, followed the other kids into the main building, and presented Maggie's note to the first nun he saw. He was escorted to the principal nun's office, questioned, escorted to the homeroom of the second grade, deposited in a desk, and left for dead. He never talked to another nun as long as he was there. He followed his classmates outside at recess and back to class when recess was over. He made friends with two tough Mexican cuates, twin boys, and played with them at recess. He caught his bus after class and found his way back to Kentucky Heights. He discovered the routine and began to learn. His classroom was half empty and most of the other kids were there to have their rowdiness quelled by the nuns. Nobody at Saint Peter and Paul's had ever heard of Billy Shane.
After about a week Maggie took Mikey to see Dr. Smith, an eye, ear, nose, and throat specialist. The doctor was dressed to the floor in a stiff white gown, wore a round mirror on his forehead, and eyeglasses with a magnifying scope attached. He did not say more than "do this" and "do that" to Mikey and his magnified eye was as cold as an aggie shooter. He made Mikey come back three times for examinations and his medicine did not ease the earaches. Each time he made an examination he poked a metal probe into Mikey's ear and scratched the sorest place. Finally, he told Maggie that Mikey had abscesses on his eardrum and they would have to be lanced. When Mikey heard that, he worried that an abscess must be some kind of fangy worm that was trying to eat into his brain and its ugly head with the fangs would have to be cut off. All doctors' treatments had only seemed to make the parasitical beast grind its teeth and chew on Mikey's eardrum more.
The next time Mikey went to the office, the doctor wore rubber gloves and a mask over his mouth. He motioned for the boy to sit, gripped the top of his skull, stuck a cold, metal blade into his ear, sliced, and then quickly turned Mikey's head so the ear could drain into a basin. Mikey's ear belched stuff into the basin and the inside of his head roared like the Nogales train. Maggie took one look and fainted against the wall. The doctor held him over the basin until clean blood came out, then turned his head up, swabbed out the ear, stuck him with the razor tool again, and the ear belched out more stuff. After a while, the doctor swabbed the inside of his ear with iodine.
A nurse revived Maggie with smelling salts and she stood up and took Mikey's hand to steady herself. The doctor told her to bring him back the next day and turned them both loose so they could lead each other by the hand and wobble home. They could do nothing but hold their heads the rest of the day.
During the next week the lanced abscesses dried up and disappeared, but the doctor squeezed Mikey into the chair again and lanced another abscess that had been hiding underneath them. This time Maggie went away to the Santa Rita Hotel for a cup of coffee so she would not faint in the doctor's office. When she came back, the doctor said that Mikey would probably not have to come back. Right then, Maggie decided to forfeit the money she had paid for the stenographer's classes and Mikey's summer school and take them both straight home to Nogales.
When Maggie and Mikey stepped out onto the hot pavement in front of the doctor's office, Maggie told him that she had a surprise for him. If he did not mind a little walk, he would get to see some people who would make him happy. She led him into the cool lobby of the Santa Rita Hotel.
Mikey was no stranger to that swanky place for cowboys. The Santa Rita was the meeting place in Tucson for cattlemen who bought and sold thousands of steers from the easy chairs in the lobby, and cowboys who were ripe for a bath, a soft bed, and a good time. When Mikey and Maggie walked in, his uncles Fred and Buster, and Joe and Roy Adams and his wife Helen were sitting in the lobby with tall, iced drinks in their hands. During a drinking party the week before, they had discussed the trouble Mikey suffered, had called Maggie at Kentucky Heights during the week, and had come to Tucson to see him. Roy and Helen had also arranged another large surprise.
Mikey's ear stopped hurting the minute he saw his illustrious uncles. The only remnant of the ear trouble that ever remained was a bright, pleasant ring in the ear that did not go away. He shook hands with his grinning uncles and withstood a big, lush hug to soft titties and a kiss that tasted of whiskey and lipstick from Helen.
"Well, the little old kid didn't even beller the first time that doctor lanced him in the ear, but I fainted," Maggie told them. "Let me tell you, if a doctor ever lanced that close to my brain, they'd hear my squall all the way to Yuma."
Mikey realized that he had not enjoyed a happy moment since he and Billy last wheeled their bikes out of Mr. Wingo's yard. Then the actor Tom Mix walked up and shook his hand. "Mikey," he said. "I've heard a lot about you and always wanted to meet you. I've
been a friend of your dad and your uncles for a long time, and Roy and Helen told me that I would have a chance to meet you here today. I've heard you're the bravest and toughest of all the cowboys." He carried a box wrapped in string.
Mikey was surprised the actor was not pasty-faced the way he looked on the screen. His complexion was ruddy and healthy and his hair was as black as that of Mikey's Indian-looking uncles. He wore the same high-crowned Stetson, three-piece western suit, and tiny polished boots as Mikey's uncles did. He sat next to Mikey on a couch and asked about Pancho. He already knew stories about Mikey and Pancho in Mexico. He told Mikey that his horse Tony knew more about the movie business than he did. Tony knew that when the director shouted "action" it usually meant for him to go, and when he shouted "cut" it meant for him to stop. After a while the man untied the string on the box and brought out a new pair of fringed buckskin chaps. "Let's see how they fit you, cowboy," he said.
Mikey buckled them on and they fit down over his heel and instep as they should if he was to wear them on a horse. A wide cuff was sewn on the bottom so they could be let out when Mikey's legs grew longer. Mikey looked around and the whole family grinned at him. "What do you say, son?" Maggie said.
"Thank you, Mr. Mix," Mikey said, and he shook hands with the man again. He hoped this did not mean that he would have to give away the pair of old chaps his Uncle Herb had given him when he was born. Uncle Herb's chaps were bull hide strong enough to turn away a herd of horns. Tom Mix's chaps were thin and soft as cotton and would not fend off a calf's kick, but his autograph was branded across one pocket.
"Call me Tom, Mikey. I want you to know, I wish that I was the one who first had the idea to give you those chaps, but I wasn't. Your Uncle Roy and Aunt Helen called me in Los Angeles last week when they found out I was on my way to Arizona and told me you'd been sick and asked if I could find you something from my studio's wardrobe. I think I was lucky to find a present you could use. Smell them."
They smelled of campfire smoke.
"The buckskin was cured, tanned, and sewn by an Apache Indian lady friend of mine who works in the wardrobe department at the studio."
"They're awful nice," was all that Mikey could say. His Uncle Joe stuck his hand out for Mikey to shake so he would know what to do. Mikey shook hands with everybody again.
He realized then that his uncles had known how downcast he had been from missing his dad, having the earache, and losing the bosom pal of his life. His uncles had arranged the meeting with Tom Mix so he would know a victory. Nobody but a bunch of cowboys would have known how lonesome he was. Paul Summers was the only one missing.
The meeting with Tom Mix might have been the greatest event in the life of any kid in the 1930's. Mikey told people about it from time to time, but he decided that Paul, Roy Adams, his uncles Buster, Fred, and Joe had every bit as much style as Tom Mix. They were all as tall or taller than the actor. Roy was a world champion calf roper. Mikey's uncles and Paul found more to laugh about in their own exploits than anybody else could find in a thousand jokes or a hundred movies. Mikey was absolutely sure that his dad could ride the hide off any bronc and rope and tie down any animal alive because he had seen him do it with one hand and a laugh.
Tom Mix was a nice man, but he was only important because he did a good job as a make-believe player of men like Mikey's dad and uncles. Even though Tom Mix started out as a real cowboy, he did not mature in those skills and now was given importance and a lot of money to act like a cowboy. Mikey did not think anybody in the world was more important than a real cowboy. Paul and Uncle Buster had an uncanny talent for getting cattle to do what they wanted them to do when the cattle thought they were sure to get away. That was cowboy. Tom Mix even wore his hats and boots like Mikey's dad and uncles; only they were handsomer and more stalwart than he. Even so, after that day, Tom Mix held an esteemed place in Mikey's heart because his gift was generous and cowboy splendid. He might have made a living in make-believe, but his heart seemed to be true cowboy. He certainly had become a good representative of the cowboy in the movies. That evening, after a steak supper and many drinks, Tom Mix walked everybody out to the street to board their cars. Mikey and Maggie loaded in her car and she was the last to leave the curb. Tom Mix stood by himself in front of the Santa Rita. Mikey looked him in the eye and waved to him.
"So long, cowboy," the man said and waved back.
Mikey returned to his routine, but Billy was gone. Granny and Maggie had kept him on a routine since the day he was born, so he was comfortable with it. He hid in the routine from the specter of Billy's accident and did not cry for him. The load was too big to let go that way. He wanted help when he cried but was under orders not to cry. He had never grieved before, but he knew if he cried with the magnitude of his grief, he might not ever stop. This time, if he cried and was told to shut up, he would not make it.
Maggie was hired full-time as a clerk in the country assessor's office. All her money was gone, but Granny bought her a new Studebaker to drive to work. Mikey went back to school in the second grade at Lincoln. He was only there a week when Miss Lewis came for him and escorted him into third grade, which was taught by the beautiful Miss Ruth Gatlin.
Miss Gatlin was the sweetheart of another of Mikey's uncles, a cowboy named George Kimbrough, called El Zurdo, Lefty, by the Mexicans. Mikey was slow with arithmetic and Miss Gatlin often tutored him after school. George came on those days and took Miss Gatlin for a ride after he took Mikey home. George was a favorite of Granny's and often boarded with her. He was another cowboy who had been raised by Granny and Bert Sorrells. They had kept George with their own children since he was newborn.
Once Mikey asked Granny why George needed her to raise him and she said he was an orphan. That was when Mikey learned what an orphan was. Later, someone else in the family told him that George's mother was not dead; she had gone off and left him. Granny told that whole story in a way that did not sound true to Mikey. He knew that Granny did not want him to believe it, but she could not tell him the truth about it. Mikey's greatest fear was that someday his parents would go off and leave him. He felt a kinship with George because of that. Besides, George looked so much like his real uncles that he could have been their brother. Even the sound of his voice was the same. The shape of his nose and even the color of his eyes, the length of his legs, and the shape of his hands were the same as Maggie's brothers. He could have not been more like Mikey's uncles if he had been their twin.
Mikey was sad that whole year of third grade. Paul was in Mexico and Mikey knew better than anyone how absolutely lost to the world that could be. Maggie suffered from boils, one after another, under one arm and then the other, and she worked five days a week. Pancho was in Mexico with Paul.
Mikey did have his home and at least still owned his and Billy's haunts in which to roam, but he roamed little. Nina's house was wrapped in grief. His sweetheart Lorraine was gone and nobody would tell him where. Sweethearts were out of his life for no telling how long, maybe forever, now that Lorraine was gone, so he dismissed all sweethearts from his dreams. Now that he was in school and Maggie worked, he did not get to ride to town and sit in the car and watch the people go by. He was too big for that, anyway. He climbed his alamo, but he enjoyed no high, wild times up there anymore. He only climbed to its highest fork that would support his weight to be alone, secure, and undiscoverable. He did not look for faces and forms in the clouds anymore. He did not swing down from the top, either. Billy was not there to set the example and talk him into it, then appreciate his daring. Mikey waited to get some kind of hold on life again.
He did go to the shows with Granny on the weekends, played hard at school, and daydreamed. He was no great student, but he was clever enough to pass his tests. At home after school, he needed to daydream more. The Saturday and Sunday movies with Granny made daydreams better, especially the make-believe cowboy shows.
After the double feature on Saturdays, Granny would take Mikey to Walgreens or the Owl Dr
ugstore for hamburgers and milkshakes. Then they would load back into the Pontiac and drive to the middle of Arroyo Street so Granny could hail the paperboys without getting out of her car. She made the boys run to her with the Nogales Herald and the Nogales International newspapers. She dug nickels and pennies out of her coin purse, snapped the purse shut, and paid them with penny tips.
Granny's jewel-like little car tooled home at twenty miles per hour without a sound. The only place it ever went its entire life was three miles to Nogales and back. Granny would not even drive it the fifteen miles to Patagonia.
Mikey usually could not speak to anybody when he first came out of a movie. After a cowboy movie or a sentimental one about city people, he could not say a word for an hour. He savored what he had seen and heard in the theater of fathers, mothers, horses, dirt, dogs, cows, trees, grass, bosom pals, sweethearts, hats, boots, dust clouds, guns and gunfire, silver-mounted spurs, buckles, and saddles so much that afterward Granny sometimes watched him closely to see if he was all right.
He stopped using the elderberry tree for prayer and meditation. That tree made him sad. He had waited, yearned, and hoped in the elderberry too long for nothing. In spite of all the hours he perched there, his dad never came to get him and Billy never came out of his coma. Mikey cried too much on that perch, or he cried inside the house at the front window with his eyes on that tree with Baxter under it. In the year after Billy was killed, he climbed almost every day into the alamo as high as the limbs would hold him, lay in the fork with his back to the ground, and daydreamed.