Inside, Uncle Beau turned on the lamp on the counter and I snuggled up in my blanket on the couch. Rupert was a mess. Clothes all dirty and wet. His shoes caked with mud. A stubble of beard on his face. He was skinny before, but now he was nothing but bones. And when my nose caught a whiff of him, I was hoping a bar of soap would be heading his way before long.
Uncle Beau sat on the stool by the counter and nodded toward the couch. “Why don’t you sit down, Rupert?”
Rupert sat down and stared at his hands in his lap.
“Why you wanna go and stay in the woods like that?” Uncle Beau said real soft.
Rupert didn’t say nothing. I pulled the blanket closer around me. I wished I could pull it over my head and disappear. Rupert was home. Why couldn’t Uncle Beau just let it lie?
“How come you run off, Rupert?” he asked.
Rupert lifted his head like it was a sack of cement. “You mad at me?” he said.
“Mad?” Uncle Beau reached over and put a hand on Rupert’s knee. “No, I ain’t mad. Why would I want to go and be mad at you?”
“For making you sick.”
“Now where in tarnation did you go and get yourself an idea like that?”
My insides squeezed up as I watched Rupert’s face. His eyes met mine for about a half a second that at the time felt like an hour. Then he looked back down at his lap and shrugged.
Uncle Beau’s eyes darted in my direction, then back at Rupert.
“It was the lightning made me sick,” Uncle Beau said.
Rupert lifted his head and looked at Uncle Beau with his mouth hanging open. “The lightning?”
“Sure. Recharged my batteries. That’s all.”
Rupert stared at Uncle Beau for the longest time. Then he said, “Oh.”
I pulled the blanket up under my chin and in my head begged Rupert not to look at me. I was already feeling about as low as a worm. If I got any lower, I was liable to sink right on into the ground. But Rupert did look at me. Too bad for me I didn’t sink into the ground. Just stayed right there on the couch, a lowly ole worm wrapped in a blanket.
“The lightning,” Rupert said, shaking his head in amazement.
Uncle Beau slapped Rupert’s knee. “Now, what say we make some popcorn?” he said. “If I can get that gol-dern hot plate to work.”
My stomach settled down some. That was just like Uncle Beau. Always knowing the right thing to say to set everybody at ease. Then, before I had a chance to pick my wormy self up and feel better, Uncle Beau put his arm on Rupert’s shoulder and said, “Welcome home, son.”
Funny how one little three-letter word can stab a heart right through.
Twelve
On the Fourth of July we cooked hot dogs on the grill out in the parking lot. Rupert ate four. We put marshmallows on coat hangers and roasted them over the hot coals. Rupert ate about a hundred. We tried to play horseshoes, but tourists in campers kept driving in, wanting ice or beer or hamburger buns. Uncle Beau would throw down his horseshoe and say, “Dang. Can’t a body have a gol-dern holiday for one blessed day in his sorry ole life.”
That night, Curtis Rathman came over with a truck full of kids and coolers and fireworks and Mrs. Rathman carrying potato salad. Rupert stayed in the shed and wouldn’t even come out for sparklers. One of them kids kept saying, “Why won’t Rupert come out of that shed?” and Uncle Beau kept saying, “Don’t you be worrying about Rupert.”
It was hot as all get-out, even when the sun went down and the lightning bugs came out. I marched around the parking lot in my flip-flops, waving a sparkler in big figure eights. Used to be, Uncle Beau loved that. He’d sit on the porch and laugh. “You in a parade, Gravel Gertie?” he’d call out.
But that night he hardly paid attention at all. Seemed like he had his thoughts back there in the shed instead of out front with me.
“What does this spell, Uncle Beau?” I called out, waving and swooping my sparkler in the shape of letters.
Uncle Beau didn’t even try to guess. Just shrugged his shoulders and smiled a sorry excuse for a smile. I was spelling my name, but I should’ve been spelling “Rupert Goody is an idiot.”
Finally, I gave up and sat on the porch steps, hugging my knees.
“What’s wrong with you, Uncle Beau?” I said, getting right to the point.
He looked kind of surprised for a minute, then he smiled and shook his head. “Oh, I don’t know. I was just thinking about that boy back there. Wondering what goes on inside that head of his sometimes.”
Well, I wanted to say, “Ain’t nothing going on in that head far as I can see,” but I didn’t. Kept my mouth shut for once in my life.
When Curtis and everybody left, Rupert came out and we sat on the porch smacking mosquitoes and listening to firecrackers going off somewhere up the mountain.
“Why don’t we take a walk on the wild side next week and go on over to Asheville?” Uncle Beau said.
I stared at him. “What for?”
“For my birthday.”
I shook my head. “No way.”
What was he talking about, going to Asheville for his birthday?
“Might be fun,” Uncle Beau said. “I know where there’s a trout farm. You can catch yourself a trout and they’ll fry it up for you right there.”
“But that ain’t what we do on your birthday,” I said. I could hear my voice starting to get whiny. Rupert was smacking his gum and getting on my nerves.
“I bet Rupert would get a kick out of trout fishing,” Uncle Beau said.
“But what about the do-it-your-own-self store and the Sara Lee pound cake and the whiskey?” I protested.
Ever since I can remember, on Uncle Beau’s birthday, he sits out on the porch and people who come to the store just wait on theirselves. Uncle Beau calls it a do-it-your-own-self store. He buys hisself a pint of Southern Comfort whiskey and sits out there rocking and talking and sipping out of that bottle the whole livelong day. Only day of the year I ever see him drink a drop of anything harder than apple cider. When the bakery truck comes, we get us a Sara Lee pound cake and I put candles on it, and that’s what we’ve always done. I couldn’t for the life of me see why Uncle Beau wanted to go and change things now.
I whirled around and looked at Rupert. “Rupert,” I said, “which one you like better, fried trout or pound cake?”
Rupert looked at me and he looked at Uncle Beau and he looked back at me and then he even looked at Jake, who started wagging his tail like he was happy to be included.
“Pound cake,” Rupert said.
Well, Uncle Beau started laughing so hard I thought he was going to fall out of his chair. Myself, I didn’t see what was so funny.
Then Rupert started laughing, holding his stomach and rocking back and forth like he was a dern comedian or something.
Uncle Beau wiped his eyes and shook his head. “Rupert, I swear you beat all.”
So on Uncle Beau’s birthday I strung crepe-paper streamers around the porch and blew up balloons and tied a bow on Jake. I put up the sign I’d made four years ago: Uncle Beau’s Do-It-Your-Own-Self Store.
A few folks came by to give Uncle Beau gifts. A load of firewood. An army knife. A crocheted afghan. I always feel bad that I can’t buy Uncle Beau something nice, but he always makes a big to-do over the things I make. I’m all the time coming across some of the crappy ole things I made when I was little. A clay ashtray (he don’t even smoke). A Popsicle-stick cabin. A crayon drawing of Jake (looks more like a dinosaur!).
Uncle Beau got out his pint of whiskey and sat out on the glider. (I guess he wasn’t worried about getting his gizzard fried again.) All day, he sipped and talked and even slept a little.
We had chili from a can for dinner and corn bread that Lurlene Macon sent over. Rupert tried to take the last piece, but Uncle Beau made us call heads or tails. (I won!)
After dinner, I gave Uncle Beau his present. Pot holders. He said they were the best pot holders he’d ever had. Perfect size. Nice colors.
Sure needed them. Then I’ll be danged if Rupert didn’t go out to the shed and come back with something wrapped in newspaper.
“Now, what in the name of sweet Bessie Marie could this be?” Uncle Beau said, feeling all over the package. He held it up to his ear and gave it a shake.
“It’s for you,” Rupert said (like Uncle Beau didn’t know that!).
Uncle Beau tore off the paper and what do you think it was? His hot plate!
“My hot plate,” Uncle Beau said, looking as delighted as if he was holding a new fishing rod or something.
“I fixed it for you,” Rupert said.
Uncle Beau’s face turned all soft. “You fixed it?”
“So it won’t get so hot no more.”
Uncle Beau laughed. “Well, now, ain’t that something? Where’d you ever learn how to do that?”
“At the lawn-mower shop.”
“The lawn-mower shop?”
“One where I worked.”
“You pretty good at fixing lawn mowers?”
“I can fix rototillers, too,” Rupert said.
“Rototillers?” Uncle Beau’s voice was starting to crack.
“And fans and toasters and hot plates.” Rupert smiled.
Uncle Beau’s eyes got watery and he blinked real hard. “Guess I never knew you could do all them things.” He looked down at the hot plate in his lap. “Guess there’s a lot of things I don’t know about you.”
The glider squeaked as Uncle Beau pushed it back and forth. We all sat there, looking at the hot plate and listening to that squeaking glider.
“Well, now,” I said, jumping to my feet. “Time for pound cake!”
I brought out the cake with four candles on it. (That’s as many as I could find.) Me and Rupert sang “Happy Birthday”. Uncle Beau closed his eyes and blew out the candles.
“Did you make a wish?” I said.
And then it happened. Uncle Beau started crying. Not big boohoo crying. Just chin-quivering, eye-blinking, tear-rolling crying.
“Yeah, I made a wish,” he said. “Wished I’d done things differently. Wished I could see Hattie Baker one more time. Wished I’d held Rupert in my arms when he was born.”
Me and Rupert didn’t move a muscle. Didn’t make a sound.
“Wished Rupert could’ve known his mama,” Uncle Beau went on. “Eyes like stars in the sky. A smile that could make a saint a sinner. Not that I was a saint, mind you.” He leaned forward and winked at me and Rupert, making another tear roll down his whiskery face.
He took a sip out of the whiskey bottle and looked up at the sky. “Hattie, Hattie, Hattie,” he said real slow, shaking his head. “I wish I could have just one more laugh with you, Hattie. Wish you could see your boy here, all grown up and fine as can be.”
Rupert gazed up at the stars.
“That’s all my wishes, Gravel Gertie,” Uncle Beau said, leaning back and pushing the glider again.
Well, I knew this was whiskey talk. That’s what Mama calls it. I’d heard it plenty of times from Daddy. Sad, weeping, loving-everybody kind of talk. “That’s the whiskey talking,” Mama always says, real disgusted-like. “I got no time for whiskey talk.”
But coming from Uncle Beau, that whiskey talk sounded like coming-from-the-heart talk. I sat beside him and held his hand and helped him push the glider back and forth. Somewhere up on the mountain, an owl hooted. We all watched the sky, not talking. The stars seemed extra-shiny that night. The crickets chirped extra-loud. The breeze blew extra-soft. And I knew that Uncle Beau knew that Rupert knew that I knew—that Hattie Baker was out there somewhere watching us.
Thirteen
It took a while, but Rupert finally figured out which chores were mine and which chores were his. I didn’t squawk about him putting the bargain table out, but he knew better than to touch the bottle caps or put out the doughnuts or sort the produce. We took turns dusting the Indian souvenirs. When it came time to stock the shelves, I let Rupert hand me the cans and boxes while I stacked them neatly, labels facing out. I showed him how to use the roll-on pricer, but half the time he’d get two or three price tags on one can and I’d have to peel off the extras.
Uncle Beau stayed busy with the summer tourists coming in and out all day. Sometimes he took a nap out on the porch and me and Rupert would mind the store. I wouldn’t let Rupert use the cash register, but he was pretty good at bagging. At least he had sense enough not to put the bread on the bottom.
After supper, me and Rupert and Uncle Beau played Parcheesi on the porch till the mosquitoes came out. Then we’d go inside and watch TV and eat ice cream. Uncle Beau liked to say, “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.” And every time Rupert would repeat it. “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.”
After I turned the sign and buttoned the door, Rupert, Uncle Beau, and Jake would walk me home. Rupert liked to pull the leaves off the rhododendrons beside the road. He’d spread them out like a fan and wave them in my face. (That irritated the heck out of me.) When we got to Arrowhead Road, Rupert would say, “Adios, Jennalee.” Every time. Don’t ask me where he ever learned that, but that’s what he said. Every time.
The end of July, I had to go to vacation Bible school at Mountain Creek Baptist Church. I’ve been going there since I was little, cause Mama makes us go there so she can visit her sister in Raleigh and know where we are till Daddy comes home. Now, except for Ruth and Jimmy, we were old enough to stay by ourselves, but Mama kept signing us up for vacation Bible school anyway. Vernon and Marny just flat don’t go. John Elliott goes just so he can talk to girls. Me, I go for the arts and crafts.
The first day, I sat at a picnic table in the shade and used a strip of rawhide to sew up a leather wallet with a bear carved on one side and an Indian chief on the other. Imagine my surprise when I heard Rupert’s voice say, “Hey, Jennalee.”
There was Rupert, peeking out of the bushes.
“Rupert?” I said, even though I knew it was him.
“It’s me. Rupert Goody.”
“What you doing in there?”
“Nothing.”
“You spying on me?”
“No.”
“Then what you doing?”
“Nothing.”
I looked around. I didn’t especially want Rupert Goody at vacation Bible school. Groups of kids were scattered around the churchyard making lanyards and wallets or painting posters of Bible stories. Nobody seemed to notice Rupert.
“Get on home,” I snarled into the bushes.
Rupert just stood there, staring at the wallet in my hand.
“What’s wrong with you? I said get on home.”
“What you doing?” he said.
“Making something. Now, go away.”
“What you making?”
“This here’s a wallet.” I jabbed the air with the wallet. “What does it look like?”
Somebody’s hand grabbed the wallet from me. I whirled around. Kevin Rochester and his gang of nitwit friends.
“What you doing, Jennalee?” Kevin said.
“None of your damn business.”
“Who’s that?” He pointed to Rupert, who ducked farther into the bushes.
“None of your damn business.”
“What’s he doing in there?”
“None of your damn business.”
I heard Rupert rustling in the bushes. Why did he have to go messing up everything I do?
Kevin tossed my wallet on the picnic table. “I know who that is,” he said. “I seen that retard over at Uncle Beau’s.”
To describe what happened in the next few minutes is going to be hard, cause it was a big jumble of craziness. I remember my fingernails digging into the palm of my hand when I made a fist. I remember the feel of Kevin’s shirt button on my knuckles when I punched him in the stomach. And I remember Kevin’s “oomph.”
When Miss Gainer came running over all hysterical, I picked up my wallet, tossed my hair out of my eyes, and headed off down the road. I coul
d hear her behind me, hollering, “You come back here, Jennalee Helton!” Kids were laughing and yelling and I didn’t even look back.
By the time I got to Uncle Beau’s, Rupert was sitting on the porch steps looking like a beat dog. I climbed the steps and looked down at him with my hands on my hips.
“You shouldn’t’ve done that, Rupert Goody!” I hollered.
I stomped into the store and told Uncle Beau what happened.
“You’re right, Jennalee,” he said. “Rupert shouldn’t’ve done that.”
“He should’ve stayed where he belongs. What’s he mean coming over there to church like that?”
Uncle Beau nodded. “He should’ve stayed put.”
All this agreeing was making me madder. “You should’ve seen him, Uncle Beau. Hiding in the bushes, spying on me!”
Uncle Beau shook his head. “I don’t know what got into him.”
“I told you he was crazy!” I stamped my foot, then dropped onto the couch. I looked at my knuckles all red and scraped up. What had got into Rupert? What had got into me, was more like it. Why on this earth had I done what I done? Hauled off and hit Kevin Rochester right in the stomach in front of God and everybody What did I care if he called Rupert a retard? Wasn’t no business of mine. Maybe I was the one who was crazy.
That night we played Parcheesi in silence. I could feel Rupert’s eyes on me, but every time I looked up, he looked away. Jake was having a doggy dream and whined and jerked in his sleep. Every now and then, somebody smacked a mosquito. When Uncle Beau said, “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream,” nobody said nothing.
I turned the sign and buttoned the door and we walked in single file down the side of the road. Jake, me, Uncle Beau, and Rupert. At Arrowhead Road, we stopped. I waited. Nothing. Uncle Beau pretended he was busy looking for ticks on Jake. Rupert shuffled a rock around with his toe. He looked at the rhododendron fan in his hand, then dropped it, watching the leathery leaves land on his shoe.
I thrust my bear-and-Indian-chief wallet at Rupert. “Here,” I said. He looked at it, not moving. Uncle Beau nudged him with his elbow and Rupert took the wallet.
Me and Rupert Goody Page 6
