Special thanks to my editors, Frances Foster and Elizabeth Mikesell; my agent, Barbara Markowitz; Janet Zade, who keeps my school visits running smoothly; my two favorite boys, Willy and Grady; my Duxbury writers’ group; my good friend Nancy the Pool Girl Farrelly; and the Cherokee, North Carolina, Visitors’ Center.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Acknowledgments
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Also by
Copyright Page
For my dad, who sang “Sweet Jennalee” in the Smoky Mountains
One
Before Rupert Goody waltzed hisself into Claytonville, I nearly always knew how my days would start and how they’d end. Could’ve bet my last nickel on nearly everything in between. That’s how I like things—predictable. That’s how come I spend my days at Uncle Beau’s.
Let me explain right off the bat that Uncle Beau ain’t really my uncle. Ain’t no relation to me at all. Everybody in Claytonville calls him Uncle Beau. Always have, far as I know Uncle Beau’s General Store’s been around as long as Claytonville has, I reckon. Maybe longer. Anybody looking to find me might as well start at Uncle Beau’s cause there ain’t no other place I’m likely to be excepting school. It’s for darn sure I ain’t going to be at home.
It beats me how come the Good Lord plunked me down in the middle of a family like mine—all wild and unpredictable. My brothers are all the time saying the reason our family is named Helton is cause there’s always a ton of hell going on. Mama slaps them silly when they say that, leaving her red handprint on their cheeks. They start howling and holding their faces and she says, “Y’all hush up that bawlin’ before I give you something to bawl about.” Nine times out of ten at least one of them puts her to the test. “I swear, John Elliott, I’m gonna blister your hide,” she yells. Then she’s swatting and everybody’s ducking and carrying on and I’m hightailing it over to Uncle Beau’s.
When I complain about my ton-of-hell house, Uncle Beau listens and nods his head and most likely he’ll say, “Well, I reckon that calls for a PayDay” Then he grabs a candy bar off the shelf and tosses it my way. I wolf down that sweet and salty treat real fast cause that’s what I’m used to, eating the good stuff fast before somebody grabs it.
Uncle Beau always shakes his head and says, “Jeekers, Jennalee, slow down.” But he don’t have to worry about nobody grabbing food off his plate. Sometimes I peek into his little room back of the store. See all his stuff in there just the way he likes it. Nobody using his comb or getting dirt on his pillow.
Sometimes I pretend like I live there with Uncle Beau. Like I got my own little room back of the store. Got my stuff right out on the dresser and don’t nobody take it. Even got my own bed. My ton-of-hell house is so filled up with kids that if I don’t grab the daybed behind the kitchen, I get stuck with a creaky old cot or a lumpy bed that smells like pee, thanks to my sister Ruth. Imagine that. An eleven-year-old sleeping with a bed-wettin’ baby.
Only way to get that daybed is to go to bed real early, which I do. That’s how come I get up with the chickens. And that’s how come I got to know Uncle Beau so good. He gets up with the chickens, too. Turns that sign around in the store window so it says, “Open.” Puts the bargain table out on the porch. Starts the coffee to brewing.
Most of the time, it’s still dark when I head out for the store. I ain’t even to the front door good before I hear ole Jake’s tail thump-thumping on the wooden floor.
“That you, Jennalee?” Uncle Beau calls through the screen door.
“No, it’s Gravel Gertie,” I say, which sets Uncle Beau to laughing. I got no idea who Gravel Gertie is, but Uncle Beau says she used to be in the funny papers.
I help Uncle Beau put out the doughnuts, trying not to lick my fingers cause he hates it when I do that.
“You gonna give everybody cooties, Jennalee,” he says. “Then where would I be? No customers coming in my store giving me money cause they all home sick with the cootie fever.”
When the sun starts peeking over the mountains, Howard Harvey brings the newspapers and some bushel baskets of produce. He takes the shriveled-up squash and rotten tomatoes to feed his hogs and I help Uncle Beau sort out the fresh stuff. I act like I don’t know what time it is.
“Okay, Jennalee,” Uncle Beau says. “Time to get that head of yours filled up with something besides nonsense.”
“Shoot,” I say “Ain’t nothing at that school worth my time.”
Uncle Beau tries to hide his smile, but I see it. His eyes crinkle up and his whiskery chin quivers. He points his finger at me and says, “Don’t you go gettin’ too big for your britches.” His fingers are all crooked with arthritis and sometimes I stare at them. Uncle Beau says they’re “whomper-jawed” and cusses about them. “You get old, Jennalee,” he says, “your fingers get all whomper-jawed and it’s a damn hateful thing.”
I go on off to school to waste my time till three o’clock and then I go right back to Uncle Beau’s store. By then, there’s folks sitting around on the porch smoking and drinking soda. Ole Jake looks like he ain’t moved a muscle since I been gone, but his tail starts thumping again when he sees me.
“Want me to empty the bottle caps?” I ask Uncle Beau.
“That’d be good, Jennalee,” he says.
I take the key off the hook by the door and open up the soda machine. Uncle Beau likes bottles, not cans. “Tastes better in a bottle,” he says. I agree.
I empty all the bottle caps into a milk carton. I take the milk carton around back to the shed. Then I go back and sit on the front steps and listen to the grownups talk. Making jokes I hardly ever get. Telling the same stories over again for about the umpteenth time. Once in a blue moon a car pulls in, sending dust flying and making everybody stop talking and look up. If it ain’t somebody from Claytonville, it’s most likely some tourist asking directions to Cherokee, where the Indian reservation is. We stare, inspecting their car, eyeing their clothes. If there’s a kid in the car, I set my face hard and stick my chin up, acting like this is my store. Somebody on the porch always says, “Just keep headin’ that way and you can’t miss it.” As the car’s pulling away, Uncle Beau’ll holler, “Hold on to your wallet when you get there, Paleface.” We all laugh.
Cherokee attracts tourists like a horse attracts flies. The streets are lined with shops and motels and diners. The Tomahawk Inn. Big Chief’s Cafe. Running Wolf’s Souvenir and Gift Shop. For five dollars, you can have your picture taken with a real Cherokee Indian chief. For twenty dollars, you can buy genuine deerskin moccasins.
“Made in China,” Uncle Beau points out, showing me the bottom of the moccasins in his store. “All that Indian bullcrap stuff is made in China.” Uncle Beau’s got a sign in the store window says, “Why Pay Cherokee Prices? Buy Your Genuine Indian Souvenirs Here.” He’s got beaded belts and headdresses with colored feathers. Tom-tom drums and tepee salt-and-pepper shakers and wooden napkin holders with “Great Smoky Mountains, Home of the Cherokee” carved on them.
I love that stuff. I wipe the dust off, try on the moccasins, beat the drums. Uncle Beau don’t sell much of it. I guess most folks would rather pay more to get their souvenirs from real Cherokee Indians. Sometimes they ask Uncle Beau if he’s Cherokee. I know for a fact Uncle Beau ain’t got one drop of Cherokee blood in him. “One hundred percent pure North Carolina paleface,” he tells me. Course, that ain’t what he tells them tourists wh
en they ask if he’s Cherokee. “Son of a chief,” he tells them. After they leave, he looks at me and says, “Chief fry cook and bottle washer.”
At closing time, I help Uncle Beau bring in the bargain table. I turn the sign around. Closed. Uncle Beau tells me, “Button the door, Jennalee.” That means lock up. I eat a doughnut and give one to Jake. Uncle Beau opens the cash register and puts the money in a leather pouch. I do my homework while Uncle Beau listens to the news on TV He only listens, cause the picture’s all scribbly. Besides, he don’t see too good anyhow.
Then I say, “What time is it, Jake?” Thump-thump goes that tail.
“Quittin’ time,” I say.
Me, Jake, and Uncle Beau walk along the road. I have to try hard to walk slow. Uncle Beau breathes loud and wheezy and he don’t talk much. There ain’t much to look at along the way except trees and honeysuckle. Maybe some blackberries. Sometimes I find things beside the road, like whiskey bottles or hubcaps. Once I found a burlap bag with a squirrel’s tail inside. Uncle Beau nailed it to the shed behind the store and it’s still there.
If it’s warm, we might go down to the creek. Uncle Beau takes off his shoes and puts his feet in the icy mountain water. He says it’s good for his corns. I jump from rock to rock and hardly ever fall in.
When we get to Mountain Creek Baptist Church, I say bye and head on down Arrowhead Road toward my house, hoping my sister Marny ain’t got the good bed yet. I turn and watch Uncle Beau shuffling down the road, Jake ambling along beside him, sniffing at everything in sight and lifting his leg about a million times.
And there you have it, a day in the life of Jennalee Helton. Least, that was a day in the life of Jennalee Helton before Rupert Goody waltzed into Claytonville and upset the applecart.
Two
The day Rupert Goody came to town, me and Uncle Beau had oatmeal for supper. Funny how you remember little things like that when something out of the ordinary happens. And it was for sure out of the ordinary when the skinniest black man I ever saw walked into the store, looked at Uncle Beau, and said, “I’m your son, Rupert B. Goody” Talk about unpredictable!
I looked at Uncle Beau and Uncle Beau looked at me. Jake growled real low in his throat, fur all standing up on his back.
The man grinned at us and said, “That oatmeal sure smells good.”
He looked like he could probably use some oatmeal, but I didn’t say nothing. I just stared, too dumbstruck to think straight.
Then Uncle Beau, he staggered over to the couch back of the store and sat down, rocking back and forth and looking like he’d seen a ghost. His hands were shaking and his mouth was twitching and I just knew that any minute he was going to clutch his heart and keel over dead.
“Look what you done!” I hollered at Rupert Goody “Get on out of here before I call the sheriff.”
Rupert’s eyes got big and he started jerking his head like he had a bug in his ear and grabbing at his grimy T shirt.
“You deaf or something?” I stepped toward him. “I said get yourself on out of here.”
Uncle Beau pointed his whomper-jawed finger at Rupert and said, “Wait.” Then he held his shaking hand out to me. “Help me up, Jennalee.”
He grabbed my arm and darn near pulled me down trying to get up.
He squinted at Rupert. “Where you from?”
“Fletcher, sir,” Rupert said. “Other side of Asheville.”
“He knows where Fletcher is,” I said, moving a step closer to Rupert. I was delighted to see him move back a step.
“Who sent you here?” Uncle Beau asked.
Rupert stared at the floor. He was tall but he held himself like a little kid, all hunched over and shy-like. “Nobody,” he said.
“What you doing here?” Uncle Beau looked Rupert up and down.
“Come to see my daddy”
Well, now, that was about all I could take. “Tell him to git, Uncle Beau,” I said, throwing my arm in the direction of the door.
“Hold on now, Jennalee.”
Uncle Beau’s hands were still trembling and I could practically see the wheels turning in his head as he scrambled to think about this strange turn of events.
“You hungry?” Uncle Beau said to Rupert.
“I am.” Rupert’s long, skinny arms hung limp by his side. He darted a look at the oatmeal.
“All I got is oatmeal,” Uncle Beau said. “You like oatmeal?”
“I do,” Rupert said. “I like it fine.”
“Then come on over here and have yourself some.” Uncle Beau pushed his bowl of cold, half-eaten oatmeal along the counter. Rupert took one step forward and Jake growled. Rupert took one step back.
“Hush up, now, Jake,” Uncle Beau said, real mean. Jake must have been as surprised as me by the tone of Uncle Beau’s voice, cause he cocked his head, then slunk down to the floor and looked away
Rupert put down the grocery sack he’d been carrying and commenced to eating Uncle Beau’s oatmeal in slow motion, making nasty slurpy noises. Uncle Beau and I didn’t say nothing. We just watched Rupert eat it all except for one little bite. Then he set the bowl down on the floor next to Jake. Jake looked up at Rupert, then over at Uncle Beau, then started licking that bowl so hard it wobbled clear across the floor.
Uncle Beau chuckled and Rupert grinned. I glared at the two of them.
“Jake can’t eat oatmeal. It makes him puke,” I said.
Rupert’s grin drooped and he hung his head. Uncle Beau shot me a look that made me squirm a bit.
“Tell him he can go now, Uncle Beau,” I said.
“I think me and Rupert need to talk awhile, Jennalee,” Uncle Beau said.
I kept my feet planted on the floor.
“Why don’t you run on home now,” Uncle Beau said. If he hadn’t been looking at me, I’d’ve never in a million years guessed he was talking to me.
“But we ain’t emptied the bottle caps or brung in the bargain table,” I said. “We ain’t buttoned the door.”
“Maybe Rupert can help me do them things,” Uncle Beau said.
Rupert’s head shot up. “I can do them things,” he said.
I covered my mouth so Rupert couldn’t see and leaned toward Uncle Beau. “He don’t look like he could handle them bottle caps,” I whispered.
Uncle Beau smiled. “Then I’ll leave them for you, Jennalee,” he said. “For tomorrow”
Well, he might as well have kicked me in the pants. Here he was, my only friend in all the world, throwing me out of his store in favor of a half-wit black man claiming to be the son of a one-hundred-percent pure North Carolina paleface. If I hadn’t had such an ache in my gut, I would’ve been sure I was dreaming.
I couldn’t get my legs to move. Then I felt Uncle Beau’s hand on my back pushing me. That’s right—pushing me toward the door.
I looked at Rupert, all hunched over and smiling like he’d done something to be proud of. I looked at Jake, panting over that empty bowl. Then I looked at Uncle Beau. He made his eyes go soft and droopy and said, “Do like I tell you, Jennalee.”
I shoved the screen door with both hands, sending it flying open with a bang. I stomped out of the store and across the road.
I found me a comfortable spot in the gully by the road and I sat myself down and watched the store till it got too dark to see. Then I got up and headed for home, not even caring if I slept in a pee-smelling bed.
Three
I walked along the road watching my feet. My sneakers were wet with dew. The morning mist still hovered over the ground like a cloud of smoke. Somewhere up in the trees a bobwhite called his own name out. “Bob White!” I tried to answer him but I couldn’t do it nearly as good as my brother Vernon.
Just before I got to Uncle Beau’s, I stopped. I was afraid to look up. Afraid that things had been so crazy and mixed up the day before that if I looked up, the store might be gone. But I did look up and the store was still there, same as ever. Still, I had a strong feeling that, inside, things were different. As I walk
ed, I chanted to myself, “Please, Lord, let Rupert be gone. Please, Lord, let Rupert be gone.”
When I got closer, I saw the “Open” sign and the bargain table. I heard Jake’s tail thumping same as always. Then Rupert Goody came around from behind the store, carrying a bucket, and I felt like somebody punched me right between the eyes.
When he saw me, he smiled and waved like I was his friend. Water sloshed over the sides of the bucket.
“What you doing here?” I said, mean as I could.
“Washing milk crates.”
“What you washing milk crates for?”
“Uncle Beau told me to.”
“He ain’t your uncle.”
I stood between him and the door and gave him my best glare, but it didn’t seem to faze him a bit.
“How long you planning on staying?” I said.
Rupert lowered his head and looked down at the bucket in his hand. I leaned over and looked up into his face.
“You hear me?” I said.
He lifted his shoulders and let them fall back down. He had on the same grimy T-shirt as yesterday Smelled like tuna fish.
“Is that you, Jennalee?” Uncle Beau called from inside the store.
“No, it’s Gravel Gertie,” I said real low through my clenched teeth. When I got inside, first thing I saw was the doughnuts already on the plate on the counter.
Uncle Beau looked at the doughnuts and back at me.
“Jake ain’t had his yet,” he said.
I dropped my backpack and sat on the bench by the checkout counter. I looked down at my wet sneakers. Pulled my sock up. Licked my finger and wiped dirt off my knee.
“You and I need to talk, Jennalee,” Uncle Beau said.
“About what?”
“About Rupert.”
I could hear water splashing on the porch and Rupert making grunting noises. I kept my eyes on my feet.
“Rupert is my son, Jennalee.”
I made myself look at Uncle Beau. He had those droopy-dog eyes of his. I watched him rubbing Jake behind the ears.
“What you talking about, Uncle Beau?” I said. “You talking about that black man out there on the porch?” As far as I was concerned, it didn’t take a genius to see that Rupert Goody didn’t have one little bit of Uncle Beau in him. Sure, Uncle Beau’s name was Goody, too. Beauregarde Goody But having the name Goody didn’t mean nothing. Shoot, anybody could call theirselves Goody if they wanted to.
Me and Rupert Goody Page 1
