by Tony Earley
“Jim, that’s my grandmother, Effie McAbee.”
“Hello,” Jim said.
The old woman nodded curtly at Jim and spat into the can again. Jim disliked her as instinctively as he had disliked the old man. She had the bright, appraising eyes of a small dog plotting to steal food from a bigger dog.
“The fog sure is thick out there today,” Jim said to the old woman. “Nobody can see much of anything.”
“It ain’t that thick,” Mrs. McAbee said.
“I knew your family, a long time ago,” Mrs. Steppe said. “I trust everybody’s doing well.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jim said. “Thank you. Everybody’s fine, about the same, I guess.”
“Business doing good, I hope?”
Jim felt his face tighten. He had learned from the uncles a long time ago never to discuss the family businesses with anyone outside the family.
“We’re doing all right,” he said. “Things seem to be picking up.”
“Picking up,” mumbled the old woman.
“That’s good,” Mrs. Steppe said. “I imagine they must be awfully worried about you, driving around up here in all this fog. You should probably head on back. It’ll be dark before you make it down the mountain.”
Jim backed up a step. “Oh. Yes, ma’am. I guess I ought to be going.”
“I’ll walk you to your car,” said Chrissie.
“Well,” Jim said. “It was nice to meet y’all.”
The old woman stared at him with her bright eyes. “Don’t run off,” she said.
“I need to get on.”
Chrissie’s mother’s smile suggested she remembered something funny that had nothing to do with the current conversation. “You tell your people Nancy McAbee asked about them,” she said.
“Steppe,” said Chrissie.
“I’ll do that.”
“And, boy,” said Mr. McAbee. “Whatever you do, don’t let ’em make you take up the fiddle.”
“I won’t,” Jim said. “Well, bye.”
“Don’t run over them dogs,” the old woman said.
“I won’t. I’ll be careful. Y’all take care.”
Chrissie took Jim by the arm and steered him toward the door. When he stepped outside he heard the old woman say, “If he runs over them dogs, there’ll be a world of trouble.”
“Hush, Mama,” Chrissie’s mother said. “He’ll hear you.”
Walking back to the car, Chrissie held on to Jim’s arm with both hands. Her clinging to him didn’t make him happy, however, because he could tell that she was unhappy.
“Hey,” he said. “What’s the matter?”
“Now do you know the answer to number three?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. Maybe. I think so.”
“Then, tell me what you think it is.”
“No. You tell me.”
“All right,” Chrissie said. “Number three. You see where we live.”
Jim nodded.
“And you know who owns it.”
“Bucky’s daddy.”
“Right. So, when me and Mama moved back here, Bucky just up and decided on his own that I was his private property. Before he went off to the navy, he told everybody up here I was his girlfriend. Now nobody else is allowed to talk to me.”
“And you just let him?”
She let go and stepped away from him. “You’re not thinking, Jim,” she said. “My paw-paw’s only got one arm.”
“So?”
“So, what if I make Bucky mad and Mr. Bucklaw runs us off? What do you think would happen then?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll tell you what would happen. We wouldn’t have any place to live, and we wouldn’t have any money, and nobody would hire my paw-paw because he’s dead old and was stupid enough to get his stupid arm cut off in the sawmill, and then we’d be up the creek so far nobody would ever find us. We’re poor as church mice as it is.”
“You can’t let them get away with that,” Jim said. “You can’t let Bucky do that to you.”
“I don’t have any choice in it.”
“What do you mean you don’t have any choice?”
“I mean that people with money can do just about anything they want to people who don’t have money.”
“That’s not true. I don’t believe that.”
“You’ve always had money.”
“You wait just a minute,” Jim said. “My family’s not rich, and nobody ever gave us anything. We’ve worked for everything we’ve got.”
“How many houses does your family own?” Chrissie asked.
Jim didn’t answer.
“How many?”
“Three,” he said, “not counting the tenant house, but it’s falling in.”
“Three houses. And how many people live in those three houses?”
“Five.”
“Five people in three houses,” Chrissie said. “So, let me tell you something. I sleep in a kitchen, so don’t you dare tell me you’re not rich. My family doesn’t have a pot to pee in, and I don’t know where my daddy is or when he’s coming to get us, and Mr. Bucklaw watches me like a hawk, and my mattress is made out of corn shucks and I can hear bugs crawling around in it, and then you drive up here in your dumb car with its dumb name like some kind of big shot and talk to me like I’m stupid and say, ‘Oh, I’m not rich,’ and tell me that I can just break up with Bucky Bucklaw pretty as you please?”
Jim stopped walking. “Whoa,” he said. “I’m sorry. Please don’t cry. I just wasn’t thinking.”
When he reached out and tried to take Chrissie by the arms, she slapped his hands away. “Don’t touch me,” she said.
“Shh,” Jim said.
“I mean it, Jim Glass. You can’t put your hands on me just so it’ll make you feel better. If you ever touch me again, I swear to God I’ll knock those nice straight teeth of yours right down your throat.”
“Listen to me.”
“Don’t you dare touch me. I’ll kill you if you touch me.”
“I won’t touch you. I promise. Just listen.”
Chrissie glared at him. “What?” she said.
Jim took a deep breath.
“I’m just sorry,” he said. “I’m really, really sorry. I don’t know anything about your life . . .”
“That’s right, you don’t.”
“And I’m sorry if I acted like I did.”
“Okay.”
“And I’m sorry Bucky has got you so jammed up, and I’m sorry you don’t have a nice house, because you deserve one, and I’m sorry you have a corn-shuck bed, and I’m sorry you got sick today, and I’m just awful sorry about everything, and I would change it all if I could so you wouldn’t have to be sad ever again, because I love you.”
Chrissie blinked, nodded curtly, turned, and continued down the path.
Jim fell into step beside her. “Why don’t you ever say anything when I tell you that I love you?” he asked. “I’ve been telling you that all afternoon.”
“I heard you,” Chrissie said without looking at him, “and I think you’re a very nice boy. But I also think you’ve never learned you don’t get to have everything you want every time you want it.”
“You make me sound like Bucky Bucklaw.”
Chrissie shrugged. “You are like Bucky Bucklaw.”
“I don’t think that’s fair.”
“It’s just the truth.”
“Are you in love with him?”
“No,” Chrissie said. “There’s your car.”
When Jim opened the door he noticed for the first time that the light was failing. It would be dark soon and he was a long way from home. Mama would be worried sick.
“Are you in love with me?”
Chrissie shook her head angrily. “Jim. Listen to me. If I lived somewhere else and had some different kind of life, I could lay around all day on my pretty bed and think about which boy I loved and which boy I didn’t and then I’d dress up all pretty and write about it in my diary. But
I don’t live somewhere else, and this life is the only one I’ve got. I don’t have time to think about things like that.”
Jim slid underneath the wheel, slammed the door, and rolled down the window. “Have you kissed Bucky Bucklaw?” he asked.
“You’re asking way too many questions.”
“I’m not going to get mad. I just need to know.”
“Bucky’s kissed me,” she said. “But I haven’t kissed Bucky.”
“What’s the difference?”
“There’s a difference.”
“Oh.”
“Do you know what I mean?”
“No.”
Chrissie leaned in through the car window and kissed Jim so quickly on the lips he didn’t have time to shut his eyes.
“Hey, wait a minute,” he said. “I wasn’t ready. Let me kiss you again.”
She shook her head and backed away from the car. “Have a nice trip,” she said.
Jim rolled up his window and drove carefully as he approached the Bucklaw house. He figured the dogs would be waiting for him to come back by and he didn’t want to run over one of them, no matter how much he thought it was a good idea. He was still searching for the dogs, his heart racing, when the fog to his left began to brighten. The brightening condensed into the circular glow of a lantern, and as he drew closer, the form of a very tall man squeezed into being out of the light. Two large dogs sat on either side of the man, their bushy tails curled around their haunches. The man held up a hand as Jim approached; when Jim stopped the car, he tapped on the glass. Jim looked into the amber eyes of the panting dogs and rolled the window down less than halfway. The man leaned slowly over, held the lantern up, and looked into the car.
“Hey, Mr. Bucklaw,” Jim said. “It’s me, Jim Glass. I played baseball with Bucky.”
“I know who you are,” Arthur Bucklaw said. “What are you doing up in here?”
“Christine Steppe got sick at school today and missed the bus, so I gave her a ride home.”
“You running a taxi service, then?”
“No, sir.”
“Then how come you’re driving a taxi?”
“I’m not driving a taxi. I just gave Chrissie a ride.”
The upper lip of the dog on Mr. Bucklaw’s right puckered slightly, exposing two long, curled fangs. Jim heard a growl bubble softly in the dog’s throat.
“Easy, Jackson,” Bucklaw said.
“Nice dogs,” said Jim.
“They don’t like strangers.”
“No, sir.”
“Did that girl ask you to bring her home?”
“No, sir.”
“I ain’t gonna have a bunch of boys sniffing around after that girl. She ain’t in heat. You understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“This is private property.”
“Yes, sir,” Jim said. “I know that.”
Mr. Bucklaw rapped twice against the roof of the car. “All right, then,” he said. “You best get on down the mountain, where you belong.”
October 5, 1941
Aliceville, North Carolina
Dear Mr. Dunlap,
I am writing to you today regarding my son Jim Glass’s recent mission of mercy up Lynn’s Mountain, about which I am not pleased. He did not return home until well after dark, by which time his uncles and I were beside ourselves with worry. (When he walked in the door, my brothers were preparing to drive up the mountain in search of him, expecting to find God knows what!) Once Jim learned that his Uncle Zeno had already contacted you and learned his whereabouts, he freely admitted that you had not asked him to take Christine Steppe home after she grew ill — as he had at first fibbed to his Uncle Coran — but that he had volunteered for the duty. (You may rest assured that he has since been punished for the lie, as well as for the adventure itself.) You, of course, had no way of knowing that I would have not allowed Jim to take that girl home under any circumstances. (Heaven forbid, what if he had run across her father?) That is why I am writing to inform you that should a like occasion arise in the future, Jim does NOT have my permission, unless you hear differently from me personally, to use his car to provide transportation to needy students, particularly if they live at the ends of the earth. Despite Jim’s opinion to the contrary, I do not think that at seventeen years of age he is ready for the medical mission field. In fact, I am no longer convinced that he is even old enough to drive, and only the intercession of his uncles has prevented me from throwing his car key into the river.
I am,
Respectfully yours,
Elizabeth McBride Glass
Uncle Zeno and the White Mule
JIM SLEPT late the morning of Big Day, a first for him. Mama twice opened the door of his room and stuck her head in. At the kitchen table Uncle Zeno rattled his newspaper and cleared his throat and set his coffee cup down in its saucer harder than was absolutely necessary. When Jim finally opened his eyes, sometime after eight-thirty, he smiled only slightly at the noise his uncle was making and still didn’t get out of bed.
Instead he stared at the ceiling and listened to the lonesome shush of cars passing on the highway. It had rained off and on most of the night, and ordinarily the threat of bad weather on Big Day would have worried him. But this year he had no desire to trudge up to the school and walk the same hallways he walked during the week, looking at the fresh Bible story paintings taped to the walls, while the little kids who had painted the pictures ran up and down, shouting to one another, and the teachers who had made the little kids paint the pictures snapped their fingers at them from the doorways as they ran by, and the parents of the little kids, decked out in their good overalls and Sunday dresses, the men with their hats in their hands, tiptoed up and down like they were coming in late to church and studied the pictures and introduced themselves to the teachers. And this year he had no desire to throw rings at hoops or baseballs at milk jugs or darts at balloons or footballs through holes in a wall, not even if girls from New Carpenter or Allendale were watching him do it. Most particularly he had no desire to ride the rides partnered up with Dennis Deane or — even worse — Mama or one of the uncles. This year he didn’t want to go to Big Day at all. He had gone to sleep thinking about Bucky Bucklaw and was still thinking about Bucky Bucklaw when he woke up.
Jim had never liked Bucky, not even before Chrissie had moved back. For three years he had played second base while Bucky played shortstop, an injustice if there had ever been one. Bucky had been the kind of baseball player who blamed his glove when he booted a ground ball, or his bat when he struck out. During double-play situations, when he did manage to field a grounder cleanly, he had always run over and stepped on second himself, rather than toss the ball to Jim. And when his throws didn’t arrive at first on time (which they never did), more often than not he had glared at Jim and told him to stay out of the way. (Coach Hamrick never said anything to Bucky about blowing all those double plays because he picked apples for Bucklaw Sr. in the fall — everybody knew that.) And now, as if claiming shortstop when he didn’t deserve it hadn’t been bad enough, Bucky had also claimed Chrissie, against Chrissie’s will, and seemed to be getting away with it.
Since their one trip up the mountain the week before, Chrissie had all but stopped speaking to Jim. In history class she stood frowning in the aisle, without really looking at him, until he moved his desk back so that her hair wouldn’t land on it. He waited for her every morning at the top of the steps in the vain hope that something had changed, but nothing ever did. He had, for all practical purposes, become invisible to her. Still, he believed that she loved him as much as he loved her — he could tell that by the way she didn’t look at him — only she couldn’t tell him she loved him because she would get in trouble. As a result, Jim carried around a knot in his gut that wouldn’t unravel, and his dislike of Bucky had blossomed into a fine hatred. Sometimes he daydreamed about finding Bucky hurting Chrissie somehow and shooting him dead.
When Jim finally made it in to breakfast, h
e didn’t eat much. The eggs tried to climb back out of his throat, the milk smelled sour, and even the biscuits didn’t taste good.
“You’re losing weight,” Mama said. “Are you sick?” She leaned over and tried to put her hand on his forehead, but he moved out of her reach.
“I’m fine,” he said. “I’m just getting in shape for baseball season.”
Uncle Zeno folded his newspaper and put it down beside his plate. “You’ll never grow hair on your chest if you don’t eat more breakfast than that,” he said.
“I’ve already got hair on my chest,” said Jim.
“I meant another one.”
“Humph.”
“I think somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” Mama said.
Jim glared at the eggs hardening on his plate.
“Ain’t you going to Big Day?” Uncle Zeno asked. “Corrie and Allie are already up there.”
“I doubt it,” Jim said. “I might go up with Dennis Deane this evening for the dance.”
“Come with me this morning and look at the pictures,” Mama said.
“They could put the same ones up every year and nobody would notice,” Jim said. “They’re always the same.”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Mama cast Uncle Zeno a meaningful look.
Uncle Zeno slid his chair noisily away from the table. “Then let’s me and you go for a ride.”
“Where are we going?” asked Jim.
“To see a man about a dog.”
At the stop sign on Depot Street, Jim couldn’t help looking up the hill toward the school. Despite the weather, the crowd at Big Day seemed as big as it did every year. Uncle Zeno pulled slowly onto the road, into a creeping line of traffic, and pointed the truck toward New Carpenter. Jim watched the Ferris wheel spinning on the playground, but only a thin memory of the happiness and excitement he used to feel stirred in his chest. He was glad when they finally passed over the railroad tracks and into the countryside, where it wasn’t Big Day at all, only Saturday.
Uncle Zeno cleared his throat. “Does Christine Steppe know how bad you’re in love with her?”
Jim started, then smiled a little for the second time that morning. “What makes you think I’m in love with Christine Steppe?”
