“These are my new friends,” Kelly answered. “Their names are Sara and Billie Jane.”
I was taken aback to see how emaciated Ace was. That’s a word I learned later from Kelly, who’d learned it from Ace himself. It means you’re so skinny you look like you’re starving.
Ace didn’t say anything at first. He just put the groceries down and pulled off his shirt, exposing an undershirt with holes in it. “It’s too hot in here,” he said. “Turn on the fan.”
Kelly walked to the other side of the room and reached up to a little metal fan on top of a dresser and switched it on. It hummed softly as it pivoted back and forth, blowing air on us.
Ace stood where he’d catch the fan’s draft. “Ah,” he said as the current blew on him, “that’s what I wanted.” Despite being so skinny, he had big, strong hands. They almost looked too big for his body. “Why don’t you put that shirt back on, Uncle Ace,” Kelly said snidely. “You don’t look good in your undershirt.”
“It’s my house,” he answered, picking up a pack of cigarettes from the kitchen table. “I’ll do as I damn please.” He lit the cigarette and coughed some, then studied the half empty package. “I believe there’s some missing here,” he wheezed to Kelly. “Have you been into these again? I told you they’ll stunt your growth.”
He took a big puff then suddenly went into a coughing fit. When he finally regained his breath, he puffed again and seemed to relax. He looked over at Sara and me, studying us through deep-set eyes. He had a long nose over a little black moustache and straight, black hair that was slicked back with grease. All in all, he was pretty unimpressive.
Kelly started to say something again, but Ace cut him off.
“I think I know who you are,” he said almost indifferently. “The little girl, she’s deaf isn’t she.” It was a statement, not a question.
“How did you know?” I said.
“Well,” he went on, “it don’t take much of a genius to figure that two mulatto girls, one of ‘em a deaf, would be pretty easy to identify. There’s a lot of talk about you two down at the county complex on Durango Street. I just got back from gettin’ my medicine there. The head nurse said Captain Sykes of the Highway Patrol called her up and asked her to be on the lookout. He gave her a pretty good description. He figured you might try to see your father. Wasn’t very smart to steal that car last night. After they’d tried to help you.”
Kelly narrowed his eyes like he was mad. “They didn’t tell me that stuff, Ace.”
I looked down at my feet, then turned back to Ace. “We weren’t trying to lie to you,” I said. “We didn’t have any choice.”
“How the hell can you steal a car and not have a choice?” asked Ace.
I looked at my shoes again. “We were scared,” I finally said. “His son came to the captain’s house after we were in bed. When he found out his old man brought us home he got mad. Then the captain got angry and hit him—I heard him do it. He told him to sober up and then clear out. Only he didn’t. After the captain had gone to work, he picked up the phone and called someone. I could hear him from behind the door. He was askin’ whoever it was to help him kill us.”
I looked down and started sobbing.
“Go on,” said Ace. “I’m listening.” Kelly still had his eyes squinted like he was mad at us.
I tried to choke back my tears, only I couldn’t. Finally Ace came over and put his hand on my back. “It’s okay,” he said. “No one’s gonna hurt you. Just tell me what happened.”
I finally managed to swallow a lump in my throat and speak. “They said they’d smother us and bury us out in the desert.” He was afraid we’d tell his dad that he and his buddy did those shootings. We saw ‘em right after my father and that lady got shot. I keep tellin’ people that Papa didn’t do it, but they won’t believe me.” I barely managed to get the words out between my sobs. Sara came over to me and hugged me tightly. I guess she didn’t understand what had gotten me so upset.
There was a long silence as Ace crushed out his cigarette, then lit another one. He coughed a little less this time, but he was still wheezing when he started talking again.
“So Tommy Sykes had a hand in it,” he said as he paced around. “Well, I’m not surprised. I thought there was something fishy about it. The town’s really worked up about a colored guy attacking Jessie Atkins. I thought it was a publicity stunt to help Johnny Atkins get reelected, but it sounds like something else. His daughter was hurt too bad. Even Johnny wouldn’t go that far. That son-of-a-bitch Tommy hangs around with Lenny Wells. Neither one of ‘em is worth the powder and lead to blow ‘em to hell. I’ll bet it was Lenny that he was on the phone with. Assuming you’re telling the truth about it.”
“I am,” I said quietly as I continued to sob. Sara started to cry, too.
“All right, stop your cryin’!” Ace said sharply. “I can’t stand bawlin’ kids. You’ll have to keep your wits if you expect to get out of this mess. There’s people lookin’ for you. Charlie Sykes has put up a personal reward of two hundred dollars for your return. The police want you too, for stealin’ that car. But it’s Tommy and Lenny that we need to worry about. And by the way, what the hell were you doin’ at the train tracks? Tryin’ to hop a freight, I suppose.”
When I told him about the man attacking Sara in the boxcar, I could see worry in his eyes. He sat silently as if rethinking things, then put his head down in his hands. When he looked up again, his expression was somber. “I hate myself for this, but I just can’t do it—I can’t take you in. It’s too dangerous, and besides, we haven’t got the means. I can hardly keep Kelly fed, let alone two more of you.”
“But you can’t turn them out,” Kelly protested. “They don’t have any place to go. Please, Uncle Ace, please!”
Ace was silent for a while longer. “Can’t be done,” he said with finality. “I’ll give you some food, but that’s it. I’m sorry, kids, that’s the best I can do.”
He got up from his chair, went over to the cupboard, and took down some cans of beans. “Here’s an extra can opener and a couple of old spoons,” he said. “You can catch that freight out tonight. I know I sound like a son-of-a-bitch, but that’s the way things are.”
He turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him. We all sat stunned and silent. Finally, I got up, gathered our things, and led Sara toward the front door.
“It’s okay,” Kelly said, standing up straight. “I’ll go with you guys.”
“No you won’t,” Ace snorted as he came back into the room. Then he opened the front door and herded us outside. “Like I said, I’m sorry, but you’re not my responsibility. Damn it, Kelly, we can’t help them! We can’t!”
Kelly yelled as Ace yanked him back toward the house. Then he looked at us sternly. “Now git!” he said. “Just go before I hate myself more than I do right now.”
Our blankets were still where we left them when we arrived back at Kelly’s makeshift clubhouse. I could hear Sara crying as we lay down on them. I tried to close my eyes and sleep but I couldn’t make my mind rest. The perspiration popped out on my forehead and rolled down my face. It was hot as a skillet fire. I began to think ahead to the freight train we had to hop come evening. We could board earlier this time. That way I’d have time to get us up into a boxcar before the train started moving. Then I thought about meeting Boomer and prayed to God he wouldn’t be there again. He’d probably made it Los Angeles, I figured, unless he’d gotten off at a closer stop. As I continued to mull things over, I finally started drifting into sleep. I was so tired I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
I dreamt that Mama and Papa were there with us again and Mama was trying to wake me. “Get up, Billie,” she kept insisting. “It’s us. We’re going home. Please wake up!”
“No Mama,” I answered sleepily. “I’m too tired. I can’t wake up. Just leave me alone.” She kept shaking me until I finally sat upright. A man was lifting Sara up into his arms and carrying her outside, but he wasn’t
Papa. He was too thin. As I started to get on my feet, I realized it was dark. There was a bobbing flashlight held by someone nearby.
“Come on, Billie, hurry up!” I heard Kelly shout. “Ace changed his mind. You’re coming home with us.” Still in a daze, I followed them out of the dump onto the gravel street. When we finally dragged ourselves into the house again, I collapsed onto the couch. I watched as Ace gently placed Sara on one of the beds in Kelly’s room. She was still fast asleep. When Ace came back into the living room, he picked up his cigarettes and lit one. Kelly was smiling ear to ear.
“Come over here, Billie,” Ace motioned to me. “Let me show you your new home. This house used to be a shotgun cabin like the ones next door. I built this room myself, and that front porch, too.”
The tiny bedroom had two beds on opposite sides of the room, with a dresser in the middle under a window. There were some books in a small bookcase, too. I scanned the titles. They were all “Big Little” books. I’d read them all when I was eight, then lost interest in them.
“Billie,” said Ace, “you are without a bed, I’m afraid. But I’m sure Kelly will give up his bed for you.” Then Ace looked around at Kelly, “You can sleep on the couch, Kelly.”
After Kelly eagerly agreed, Ace shook his finger at me. “I’m afraid you’re both gonna be holed up here for a couple weeks until the heat’s off. That’s the way it is with you desperadoes. And you’re going to have to cut off those curls, Billie. They’d be a dead giveaway.”
When he said that I was relieved. I’d be glad to see them go.
Ace kept staring at me. “Only that won’t be enough,” Ace went on. “If people see that I’ve got a couple of mulatto kids in my house, the cops will be here in a second. Not to mention that goddamn Tommy Sykes and his pal Lenny might see you. Thank God Lenny doesn’t live with his brother Jack anymore. He’s over on the other side of town.”
I wanted to protest but I knew he was right.
“We’re gonna give you a buzz cut,” Ace announced. “From now on, you’re a boy. You’ll wear a baseball cap and blue jeans from here on out. Every single day, at least ‘til things get calmed down.”
That was the best thing he could have said to me, though I kept quiet about it.
“And your name ain’t Billie anymore. It’s Will.”
I pushed my lips together into a pout, though I wasn’t very upset to tell the truth.
Then Ace looked over toward Sara. She was still sleeping peacefully. “Don’t your sister use sign language?” he asked me.
“No, she doesn’t,” I replied, “except for signs we made up between us.”
Ace seemed to be deep in thought, rubbing the stubble on his chin. “Maybe we can use this time in here profitably,” he said. “I got a lady friend who works with deaf kids. This is a good excuse to get her over here. She can teach all of you.”
“You mean Thelma?” asked Kelly. “I don’t like her.”
“Because she won’t put up with your shenanigans,” said Ace good-naturedly. “But I know we can trust her. The only thing that worries me is giving her the wrong idea. If I give her a single inch, she’s apt to take a mile.”
“Thelma has a crush on Ace,” said Kelly, smiling.
Ace didn’t answer him. “Another thing that worries me is money,” he went on. “Right now, I’m flat broke and I mean flat. Those groceries there will be all we have ‘til payday, a week from now. That’s when I get my pension check, but we can’t all live on thirty dollars. Even Kelly and me couldn’t do it. We’ll have to eat a lot of cantaloupes and lettuce from the sheds.”
I started to offer him the money I’d hidden in Sara’s doll, then thought better of it. If he knew I had all that dough, he’d think I was a thief.
“It’ll be hard on us,” Ace said. “Which is par for the course. That goddamn Governor Atkins ruined my life and now it’s gonna get worse. But only for a while.”
“The governor did that?” I asked. I didn’t understand what the governor had to do with Ace.
“Hell yes the governor!” he said angrily. “Him and the so-called authorities around here. I used to collect premiums for an insurance company. But they accused me of stealing and took my insurance license away. Only I got the goods on ‘em. I got into their files and found out they had a big scam going. Fraud, extortion, you name it. I got proof of it, too.”
All these years later, I can still recall how angry he was. Only at the time, his words fell on deaf ears. I was so worried about myself and Sara that I didn’t pay him much attention. Kelly didn’t look like he was listening, either.
“Go on an’ get some shuteye,” Ace finally said as he turned back toward the kitchen. “I’ll see you three in the morning and we’ll figure all this out.”
The next morning, we slept late. Ace finally came in and woke us, then made us all some oatmeal. He told us we’d have to stay in the house for a few days until he had a better idea what to do. We didn’t object. It was so hot in the daytime that we couldn’t have done much out there anyway. While Ace kept the old swamp cooler pumping whatever cool air it could make, Kelly taught us poker. It was Sara who was the best at it. Mama always said she was smarter than the rest of it, though you’d never know it because she couldn’t talk. When she’d want another card, she’d hold up her index finger. When she wanted two cards, she’d hold up her index finger and her thumb.
That afternoon Ace took me into the bathroom and clipped all my hair off. I wasn’t sorry to see it go. When I looked in the mirror, I almost couldn’t recognize myself. I looked just like a boy, and not a girly boy, either. I looked like I chewed nails. It made me smile.
At night we’d listen to the radio shows. Ace and Kelly would chuckle at Amos ‘n Andy. It annoyed me that they thought that stuff was funny. My papa and his family were all colored people, but not a single one of them talked that way. I kept my mouth shut, though. I knew that Ace and Kelly weren’t trying to be mean to us. They just didn’t understand.
Even though Ace said we’d be eating a lot of cantaloupe, he somehow had enough money to buy us meat. He’d fry up pork chops in the evening, or sometimes chicken. The smell of sizzling meat would draw us to the kitchen table, then we’d sit around and drink sodas while Ace told us funny stories about being an Army soldier.
After dinner, Ace would make us brush our teeth, then we’d all sit at the table again and play poker, even Ace. He was the only one of us that could beat Sara, though not every time. He’d show us his fancy shuffling and some card tricks after Kelly and I got tired of losing. Then he’d start asking me about what kind of life we’d had before we’d come to Arizona. I was shy about telling him, at first, then I started opening up. Finally I told him about Papa hitting a white man who’d broken into our house and thrown Mama down.
“Papa didn’t mean to kill him,” I said. “Only they said his hands are lethal weapons. I guess that means he can kill someone with his fists. But all he did was punch him once. The man fell backwards and hit his head. He never came to.”
Ace shook his head like he was sad about it. “They’re a lot harder on the colored people than the white ones,” he said solemnly. “I’d have broken out of prison if I’d been him, too. They make men into slaves in those Southern prisons. The ones in Arizona aren’t much better, I’m afraid.”
I looked away from him when he said that. It made me feel bad to think that Papa might go back to prison.
It was a couple mornings later when I came into the kitchen for my morning oatmeal and found Sara and Kelly sitting there. Sara was smiling at me for some reason. Ace was moody and silent, but Kelly started talking about all the things we could do in his cardboard shed.
“Not yet,” Ace spoke up. “You kids are still confined to the house. This is a damn scary situation we’re in. If those two psychos, Tommy and Lenny, find out about you bein’ here, we might all wind up dead. And if Sykes finds out I’m hiding you, he’ll throw me straight in jail. Then God only knows what would happen to you t
hree. For some damn reason Atkins is interested in you.”
“Governor Atkins?” I asked.
“That’s what I hear. They say he wants to talk to you.”
“I guess they don’t like it that we ran way,” I said. “They were nice to us at the hearing.”
“Oh, Jessie’s a good woman, all right,” Ace replied, “but I sure as hell don’t trust her dad. Not after what he’s done to me.”
Here we go again, I thought. He was about to start in on all the bad things people had done to him. I started to excuse myself from the table, but Ace held me back.
“Wait for me to finish,” he said firmly, “you three got to hear this whether you want to or not. It’ll explain why I’m so damned scared. It was bad enough before you came along, but now things are really screwed up.”
I sat back down in my chair and fiddled with my spoon.
“Your dad ain’t the only who was framed,” he went on. He stared at me intently. “Kelly knows all this but I’ll tell it again anyway. I’ve been thinking about this stuff all night. I want you to listen carefully to what I have to say. Will you promise to do that?”
I nodded my head, then looked at Kelly. He was staring at his cereal bowl.
“You probably remember me talking about how I lost my job,” Ace went on, “only I didn’t explain it all.”
I fiddled with my spoon again, then glanced up at him.
“The goddamn manager was stealing from the company. When it finally came out, he put the blame on me. He took it to the county attorney’s office and damned if they didn’t back him, even though my books were straight.”
“You got fired for something you didn’t do?” I asked. When I looked over at Kelly, I saw him roll his eyes.
“I’ve heard it a hundred times,” mumbled Kelly.
“Then you’ll hear it for the hundred-and-first,” said Ace. He pulled out another cigarette and lit it. “They took away my insurance license. I couldn’t work after that. I’ve been poor as a pack rat ever since.”
“There wasn’t anyone who could help you?” I asked.
Summer of the Guns Page 7
