Belle Prater's Boy

by Ruth White

  Mr. Collins nodded.

  “We saw this ad in the back of a Red Ryder comic book,” Woodrow went on. “I remember there was a picture of Little Beaver on the front cover.

  “And the ad said, ‘Want to become invisible? Learn the formula of the gods. Order your invisible recipe today!’ And it gave an address to order. I wanted it more’n Mama did.

  “‘Order it, Mama,’ I begged her. ‘I want to learn how to be invisible.’ ’Cause I thought it would be fun to go around the other kids at school and hear what they said, and go to them later and repeat it to them.

  “So just for fun we ordered the recipe. It was only seventy-five cents, and we took it out of our carnival fund. That’s another thing Mama liked—the carnival. We always went over to Grassy Lick when the carnival was there.

  “Then our recipe came in the mail, and some of the things it called for were so outlandish—like a vulture’s feather, a jack-in-the-pulpit petal, a squirrel’s toenail, a quart of dew from a graveyard, a pint of mother’s milk, a hair from the mustache of a man with a girl’s name. She got that one, by the way, from old man Leslie Matney before he kicked the bucket. Spit from a baby no more’n two hours old, and I don’t know what-all. I forget the rest.

  “Anyhow, I lost interest because it was too complicated, but Mama was so curious her nose like to twitched out o’ joint. She was determined to mix that brew. And she did.

  “She plotted and planned and went skulking about the holler till she found all the ingredients she needed. And she stirred them up and let ’em steep for three days like it said.

  “When Daddy complained about the smell, she told him she was making sauerkraut. If Daddy had been sober, he woulda knowed it wadn’t the season for cabbage.

  “Then, on the fourth day, I come home from school and Mama was nowhere … Well, she was somewhere, but nowhere that you could see. I searched the house and barn, and called and called her, but got no answer.

  “So I went to the kitchen and sat down to a bowl of corn bread and milk, and I heard Mama say, ‘I’m here, Woodrow. Right beside you.’

  “I about swallowed my spoon.

  “‘It’s okay, Woodrow,’ she said. ‘I drunk only a little, so I’ll be reappearing soon.’

  “And I felt a rush of air on my arm like she was touching me.

  “‘The more you drink, the longer you stay invisible,’ she said. ‘Maybe we’ll drink some together and go visiting next Sunday. Won’t that be fun?’

  “And I said, ‘Joe Palooka!’

  “It was about all I could think of to say.

  “Then she reappeared maybe an hour later, and she was so excited.

  “‘Next time I’ll drink more,’ she said to me. ’Lots more. Just think, Woodrow, you can go to the show and to the carnival and not have to pay. And you can go on buses and trains, or ships, planes even! Why, you can go anywhere!’

  “It was the next Sunday morning she disappeared, and we haven’t seen or heard from her since.”

  Woodrow sat down abruptly.

  Mr. Collins grinned. You could tell he didn’t believe one word Woodrow had said, but he was going along with the story.

  “And where, pray tell, do you think she went?” he said.

  “New York City, probably,” Woodrow said nonchalantly. “There’s a doctor there who operates on crossed eyes and makes them straight. I know she’ll send for me soon.”

  “What a lie!” Buzz hissed under his breath.

  “You have quite an imagination, Woodrow,” Mr. Collins said. “But let’s remember the difference between fact and fantasy. Who’s next?”

  About three people volunteered and told their things before I raised my hand.

  “I am Gypsy Arbutus Leemaster,” I said, “ … and I …”

  “Beauty is a short name for Arbutus,” Flo interrupted. “Don’t you think it suits her, Mr. Collins?”

  “Very much so,” Mr. Collins agreed.

  “Don’t you think we should call her Beauty?” Flo went on sweetly.

  I felt an angry flush creeping up my cheeks.

  “I can play the piano!” I blurted out.

  The class fell silent in surprise. I was agitated under their watchful gaze, but I felt like I had to say something about me—the me that was hidden under the golden hair.

  “Woodrow can tell g-good st-stories,” I stammered. “B-but I can tell good jokes. And I make good grades. And animals like me, and …”

  My classmates seemed puzzled. I took several deep breaths and tried to calm down.

  “So?” Buzz interjected rudely.

  I saw Woodrow bristle.

  “I live on Residence Street with my mother and stepfather, Porter Dotson,” I concluded quickly and sat down.

  “Porter Dotson?” Mr. Collins said. “Yes, he is one person I have met since I’ve been here. A very fine man.”

  “Not as fine as my real daddy!”

  The words came out of nowhere.

  “His name was Amos Leemaster. He died when I was five.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, dear. Was it an accident?”

  Suddenly my heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my ears, and my mouth was so dry my lips stuck together. I pushed back my hair with shaking fingers and felt sweat trickling down the back of my neck.

  “Yes, it was an accident,” I said.

  I glanced at Woodrow, and he gave me an encouraging smile.

  “He was a volunteer fireman,” I went on, and I could hear my voice trembling. “And … and he went into a burning house to save a baby, and … and he did save the baby, but he … he died.”

  “That’s a lie!” Buzz Osborne said out loud.

  “That’s a very rude thing to say!” Mr. Collins scolded Buzz.

  “Well, it is a lie. Let me tell you …”

  “Shut up, Buzz!” Woodrow shouted.

  I was gripped with terror. Buzz was going to say it. He was going to make me hear it.

  “My mother said that Amos Leemaster got his face so scarred up in that fire you couldn’t recognize him, and …”

  “I said shut up!” Woodrow hollered, as he stood up and moved toward Buzz.

  “Boys! Boys!” Mr. Collins tried to intervene, but his voice was drowned out by Buzz’s next words.

  “ … and he was married to the prettiest woman in the hills …”

  “We do not talk about this in front of Gypsy!” Woodrow screamed, and raised his fist to Buzz.

  “So he took a gun and shot his own self in the face!” Buzz continued. “Amos Leemaster killed himself!”

  So there it was. The ugly thing was out.

  Eighteen

  There was talk for months about how Woodrow Prater beat the tar out of Buzz Osborne on the first day of school. But I was not there to see the fight. During all the commotion I left the classroom on wobbly legs.

  I don’t remember walking home.

  Buzz’s words had stunned me so that my mind was like a record with the needle stuck in a crack.

  Shot in the face. Killed himself.

  Shot in the face. Killed himself.

  Of course I knew it all the time. I was there. I saw what happened. But how can you keep a thing like that in your head and go on talking and playing and eating and sleeping? It’s a thing you can’t look at every day, so you hide it away and pretend it never happened. You have to.

  People were good enough not to keep reminding me. It was like a black hole we tiptoed around, being careful not to go too close to the edge, or to peep into it. Sometimes folks almost let it slip, and sometimes they said it in whispers behind my back. But as long as I didn’t have to hear the hard, cruel words, I could go on tiptoeing around the edge of the black hole. Only, in my dreams the truth looked out at me through the lifeless eyes of the animal.

  Oh, Daddy! Daddy! Why did you do it?

  I was five years old, playing on Granny’s porch after church while Mama and Granny fixed dinner. It was a beautiful Sunday in autumn. The hills were golden. The apples
were almost gone, but their sweet aroma lingered in the air.

  “Go fetch Daddy, Gypsy. Tell him dinner is ready,” Mama called to me.

  I skipped down the steps in my black patent-leather slippers and crossed the lawn to our house.

  Daddy’s car was there in the driveway. He had stayed home from church ever since the fire. He hardly went anywhere.

  “Daddy … Daddy,” I called to him in my baby singsong voice as I went through the house.

  He was not in the living room or in the kitchen.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” I called.

  I tried to open his and Mama’s bedroom door, but it was locked.

  “Daddy?”

  I knocked.

  There was no answer.

  The house suddenly seemed so quiet I was afraid, so I ran back out on the front porch.

  “Daddy!”

  There was an eerie silence.

  It seemed like a voice told me then to look into the bedroom window, which was there at the end of the porch. It was low and open, and a white curtain was blowing gently in the breeze.

  Maybe Daddy was taking a nap.

  So I looked in.

  I could see only his head, face up there where he had fallen on the floor by the bed. It was in a puddle of blood.

  Now seven years had passed. I entered my empty house again. Porter and Mama were both at work. I knew Granny and Grandpa next door were gone to Wytheville to see Granny’s sister.

  I went straight to my room and sat down on my vanity stool.

  Oh, Daddy, why, why, why?

  I looked at myself in the mirror.

  “Promise me you’ll never cut my Beauty’s hair.”

  “But look what you did!” I cried out at him.

  An unspeakable rage began to rise in me.

  “WHY DID YOU DO IT? I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! YOU HAD NO RIGHT! I WISH I COULD HURT YOU THE WAY YOU HURT ME AND MAMA! I WISH I COULD KILL YOU! I WISH …”

  The scissors were lying there on the dresser just like they were waiting for me. And with all my rage rushing into my hands I began to whack away at the golden hair.

  Whack! Whack!

  I gathered up long strands and cut it close to my head.

  “WHY DID YOU DO IT!”

  Whack! Whack!

  Until it was all gone. Locks of hair lying in heaps on the hardwood floor. Nothing left on my head but ugly gaps and gashes and deep angry ridges. My scars were now visible.

  I was gasping with exertion, but my anger was not spent.

  “I HATE YOU, AMOS LEEMASTER! I HATE YOU!”

  I rushed blindly out to the linen closet, fetched a sheet, and covered my mirror with it. I never wanted to see myself again. Beauty was no longer there. She had gone away.

  “I am not your Beauty now!” I sneered at him.

  Then I flopped down on my bed and stared at the ceiling. My heart was hard and cold and miserable, but I had no remorse.

  The telephone began to ring. I could hear it echoing through the empty house, but I would not answer it. I knew it was Mama calling from school. No doubt she had heard everything by now.

  After a while I heard the front door open and close, and footsteps came down the hall. Somebody knocked on my door, but I didn’t answer. My door opened and there stood Porter.

  “Your mother asked me to find you,” he said.

  Then his eyes swept the scene—my head, the mess of hair on the floor, the sheet over the mirror.

  “Go away,” I said, and continued to look at the ceiling.

  He didn’t go.

  “So you cut it all off?” he said calmly.

  I didn’t answer.

  “Do you feel better?”

  “No.”

  He sat down on my vanity stool and surveyed the damage.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “Mean.”

  “Why? Because you did a naughty thing?”

  “No, because my heart is so hard and cold. I don’t care at all.”

  “About what?”

  “About him! About anything!”

  “Him? Who are you talking about?”

  “You know! Amos Leemaster!”

  “Oh, is that what this is all about?” Porter said.

  I didn’t answer, because I wasn’t sure. Everything was mixed up.

  “I don’t want to be Mama’s good little girl anymore, or Daddy’s Beauty. I want to be ugly and evil!”

  “But you are not ugly and evil,” he said gently. “You never will be. You’re wounded, that’s all.”

  Wounded?

  It was a word that touched a chord. I felt something give in my throat. A great choking sound came up from my chest. Porter moved toward me.

  “Go away!” I screamed at him.

  He halted.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll go away. But you need to cry it out, Gypsy. It wants to come out.”

  He paused at the door. “I’ll talk to your mother before she sees you.”

  Then he went out and closed the door behind him, but he didn’t leave the house. He stayed somewhere near while I cried.

  At first I cried only for me and all my years of pain and anger and grief. But then I cried for Mama and Aunt Belle, who loved him, too. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to cry for Daddy, whose wonderful face had been scarred beyond repair. I couldn’t forgive him for leaving us in the way he did.

  Then a great weariness and a deep sadness settled over me, and I slept.

  Nineteen

  Mama took it fairly well, considering. Of course, Porter talked to her for a long time before he let her see me. I had the feeling he put his foot down. At one point I heard him raise his voice, “You’ll do no such thing!”

  And whatever it was, she didn’t talk back. I had to admit things might have been lots worse without Porter on my side. When Mama finally did come to my room, she couldn’t hide her disappointment, but she didn’t fuss. She let out a pitiful whimper, then hugged me.

  “We’ll get it trimmed up evenly before you go back to school,” she said, as if my hair were the issue. “I’ll not have the kids laughing at you.”

  “Mama, I want to talk about Daddy,” I said quickly, before I lost my nerve. “We never have talked about … the way he died. I mean you and me … we haven’t.”

  Such pain crossed her face I nearly took it back. But she spoke.

  “He committed suicide, Gypsy.”

  It was almost a whisper.

  “He shot himself in the face. What more is there to say? We didn’t talk about it because we couldn’t bear to. Take those nightmares of yours … remember how you would say, ‘Why can’t I see its face?’

  “You just couldn’t stand to look truth in the face, that’s why. It was a tragic, tragic thing you had to see through the window that day. None of us will ever be quite the same again.”

  “Why did he do it?” I cried out. “Why?”

  Mama paused, breathed deeply, and searched for the right words.

  “He was in a deep depression. He couldn’t accept his disfigurement. Do you remember that?”

  “I remember he had scars after the fire, but he was my daddy. I loved him and I always saw him as handsome and wonderful.”

  “But that hasn’t stopped you from being angry with him, has it, Gypsy?”

  “Yeah, I’ve been real mad at him.”

  “Is that why you cut your hair?”

  “I think so. I think I was trying to get back at him for what he did to us. But it was more than that, Mama. I don’t know if I can explain it, but I felt invisible. The hair was like a veil or something that hid the real me.”

  I searched Mama’s face for a hint of understanding. Suddenly she took on that long-ago look, exactly like Granny’s.

  “Belle used to say that same thing,” she said softly. “‘Sometimes I feel invisible,’ she would say. ‘Nobody can see the real me.’”

  “Are you disappointed in me, Mama?”

  “Not much. Trying to ke
ep that promise to your daddy was getting to be a real burden to both of us.”

  “How come it mattered so much to him how we looked?” I said.

  “I’m afraid appearances were too important to your father,” Mama said, sighing. “That’s why the scars were such a crushing blow to him.”

  “Do you think I’ll ever get over being mad at him?”

  “Yes, you’ll forgive him in time, just as I did.”

  Later Grandpa came over to see me in my room and brought me a big piece of chocolate cake and a glass of milk. He didn’t even mention my hair, but he confided in me that Woodrow had thrashed Buzz soundly, and it was about time somebody did. We were proud of Woodrow, but we decided to keep it a secret, because you couldn’t let a thing like that leak out.

  Beginning that day Woodrow was confined to his room for two weeks for fighting at school. He could go out only to the john, to eat his meals, and to church and school. No phone calls or visitors. That was the hardest part for Woodrow.

  For cutting my hair I voluntarily took on the same punishment for myself, partly because I wanted to hide anyway, and partly to show my support for Woodrow, who had tried to shield me from hurt.

  That first night the sadness stayed with me. It sat on my chest like some dark parasite, feeding on my grief. I felt old. Tears would come suddenly and without warning. I tossed and turned all night long, then slept far into the morning the next day, which was Wednesday. Nobody disturbed me.

  That evening Porter made arrangements to take me to Akers’s Barbershop after hours when nobody else was around to see me.

  “Don’t worry none, Gypsy,” Clint said, patting me on the shoulder as I slid into the barber chair. “I think I can fix it so it won’t be so jagged. It’s gonna be real short, though.”

  I shrugged, wondering what Porter had told him.

  “You shore done a job on yourself, didn’t you?” Clint went on. “I hope you don’t ever get mad at me!”

  Clint winked at Porter, then started in with his clippers. When he was finished, he turned my chair back to the mirror. I was startled. Somebody else was looking back at me. It was short, all right, but not that bad, just different.