“Do you think this is easy for me? I wanted to keep that ring!”
She began to cry. Her chest heaved with aching sobs and I took her into my arms.
“Mom found out about us. I told her, it seemed like the right thing to do.”
I patted her back and held her. From his haunches Rusty gave me a wink.
“You’re the only boy in school as smart as I am. I tried to tell her but she said—”
“I’m a Witcher.”
I felt her tears seeping into my shoulder.
“Myra, I don’t want the ring. If you won’t keep it, why would I want it?”
“Oh Jack, that’s so—”
She stopped. “What if someone comes along and finds them? Then they’ll be wearing my ring and my bracelet.”
“So what, let them.”
“But it could be anyone, some low-class person …”
The truth is, I was already feeling a little guilty. In my mind I saw Gladstein’s accusing eyes. Hadn’t he told me the ring possessed magic qualities? I had never really swallowed that line, but the story surrounding it, the heroic exertion, the triumph of the will, the stolen kisses, all that did give the ring a certain value.
I searched for a while through the dirt and the leaves, kicking things around. The bracelet I found immediately, but the ring seemed lost, gone forever.
“Oh well, I’ll look for it more after you’ve left.”
Myra nodded distractedly. Her mind was formulating a question, trying to find the horrible thing she needed to say.
“Do you think your brother could have…do you think he did something to Gaylord?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t tell her what I knew and what I knew I didn’t want to know and not wanting to know was, if you stretched it, as good as not knowing. Gaylord was gone, that’s all.
“If you knew where we could find him you’d tell us, right?”
I gave her a puny nod.
“Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Do you know anything that might help us?”
The words came from Myra’s lips, but they belonged to her mother. Her mother had designed all this, the meeting in the woods, the surrender of the jewels, maybe even her tears. Everything, all of it, the entire scene, it had been scripted by her mom! The notion made me rebellious and I studied Myra with suspicion.
She saw it in my eyes. Her lip trembled, and silently she begged me for mercy.
How could I do anything but sympathize? Her grief, her loss, her brother’s photograph in the papers.
“What if it turns out Stan did do something,” I said, “will you hate me forever?”
She considered the question myopically, straining to see her thoughts.
“It would be hard not to, but I wouldn’t hate you.”
“You know I really like you, Myra.”
“I know, and if it weren’t for all this…even though you’re a Witcher and all…I mean …”
I was staring at the tiny rise where her breasts were developing.
“Can I kiss you?”
“No, I couldn’t, not with Gaylord being gone.”
We looked at each other.
Her eyes kept digging into mine. Probably she thought I was holding out on her. And no doubt her mother was at home on tenterhooks.
“I have to go,” she said, “people are waiting for me. Come on Rusty, let’s go.”
But Rusty stayed.
She took the path that led to where the road curved. Before she stepped out she turned to look back.
I kicked at the dirt, brushing aside leaves and debris. But I couldn’t find the ring. It must have taken some erratic hop when it hit the ground.
After I left Rusty stayed behind, sniffing and pawing and trying to find it for me.
33
EVERY TIME I THOUGHT about Gladstein I felt pangs for my faithlessness; frankly, throwing away the ring bothered me more for his sake than Myra’s. I returned to the Pudding woods twice to search for the thing. I knocked on the Puddings’ back door to see if Dickie had come across it. (No one answered, which I found depressing, since I had heard voices inside just before I knocked.)
Gaylord Joyner’s disappearance was big news. Mrs. Joyner kept showing up on the TV, with Myra sniffling beside her. Search parties were formed. People spread out in groups to comb the woods beside Moccasin Road or they piled into flatbed pickup trucks and headed to the next county to look for Gaylord there. Rivers and lakes were plumbed. Tips came into the police department: suspicious noises in a basement, a white kid buying drugs in Jefferson Ward, a drifter in a motel room who looked like Gaylord. Mimeographed signs were tacked to telephone poles and taped to shop windows. A $1,000 reward was offered in the newspaper.
Eggs were thrown at our house. The rear tires on our Ford were slashed. Shouts and jeers from passing cars were a nightly event. Mom got accosted at the Ben Franklin by two ladies who denounced her for harboring a fugitive.
“I’m not harboring anyone. He’s my son, he lives with me.”
“He’s a murderer!”
The commotion nearly got out of control, until Mr. Harris unctuously ushered the ladies from the store.
Mom took to her bed with a headache.
Dickie Pudding had ditched me and I didn’t have a soul to call friend, unless it be Anya. I went to the Taylors’ pool twice that week, padding along the hot street to get there. Reedy would cruise past in his Plymouth, giving me a two-fingered salute off the brim of his cap. And then, on top of everything, I would remember Pop and Snead and what they planned to do, and in my mind I would see Pop behind bars, and Stan in the next cell, and Mom and me in the poorhouse.
Anya told us the detectives were coming to her door with questions. They had heard about the incident on the day of the pool party. They were canvassing the entire neighborhood and yet they never visited our house, which we found alarming. Such was our paranoia: it was bad news when the cops came and it was bad news when they didn’t.
One day I ran into Snead. I was flip-flopping along in my bathing trunks, on my way to the pool, when his truck turned the corner. This was down by the woods that ran to the Taylor house. He pulled up, inclining his face towards me. The cigarette was hanging from his mouth. “You going swimming with the rich folks?”
“Hi Snead. Yeah, my brother goes with the girl that lives here.”
“So I hear.”
“What are you doing around here?”
“Got a job on Stanley.” His cigarette gestured in that direction. “How come you ain’t been to Gladstein’s lately?”
“I don’t know, I just haven’t been there.”
“He asked about you yesterday.”
“Gladstein did?”
“He says you ain’t coming there no more.”
“I’ll go see him then.”
“I’m going to his house Saturday night. Man lives in Jefferson Ward.”
I felt the blood running to my face. “I have to go,” I said.
“I ain’t keeping you.”
Snead put the truck in gear.
I sat by the creek and smoked a cigarette and thought about what he’d just told me.
Saturday was the night, then.
I flicked away the cigarette and went to the pool. Anya and Tillie were there. (Basil was away lawyering.)
“How’s that good-looking dad of yours?” Tillie said. She was in her white bathing suit.
“He’s fine. So is Mom.”
Anya pulled me into the pool, giggling and splashing water. Tillie watched us, nervously tugging her fingers. “Where on earth could that Joyner boy be?” she shouted.
“Oh Mom, I’m getting so sick of hearing about that,” Anya said.
“We told the police Stan was here. You don’t have to worry, he has an alibi!” Probably now the whole neighborhood knew, the way Tillie was shouting.
Did she really believe Stan was inside her house when Gaylord vanished? But in that castle how would she have known if he�
��d left?
A rivulet flowed from Anya’s nose; she cupped water and tossed it at me. Then the phone rang. Tillie went inside and came out and hollered for Anya.
That left me alone in the pool.
I lifted my arms and let water cascade from them.
Up above, from a second-floor window, Tillie peeked out and waved….
Snead had never been sold on the scheme, that was plain. The whole thing was Pop’s doing, and it might not be terribly difficult to talk Snead into calling it off. Anyway, there was a wall between Pop and me. I couldn’t talk to him. Every time I tried to bring it up, the words wouldn’t come. Around Pop I was afraid of not being Witcher enough. But I was afraid of something else, too. I remembered how he’d been staring at me at Neuman’s that night, I remembered the coldness in his eyes….
I figured it wouldn’t be hard to locate Snead. But I had to leave right away. He had said his job was on Stanley, and all I had to do was stroll along ’til I found his truck.
I left without fanfare. I could hear Anya’s voice in the kitchen, talking on the phone. Tillie had never returned. Too wet to hoof it through the woods, I took to the streets. By the time I came upon Snead’s truck the sun had dried me off. This was two or three blocks past the Coghill house, beyond the turn into the Pudding woods. Snead was hauling old lumber from around the back of a house and loading it on the flatbed. He came stumbling along with both arms full and his cigarette poking out of his mouth. When he got to the truck he tossed the two-by-fours on the flatbed and slapped his palms.
He turned his cigarette to me. “What you doing here, Witcher?”
I was all fluttery from the butterflies in my stomach.
“We have to talk about something. All right? It won’t take long… .”
What was I saying?
The smoke from Snead’s cigarette burned at his eye, but he never so much as blinked.
“All right?”
“Well go on, I ain’t got all day.”
“I heard you and Pop talking the other night.”
“What night, what are you talking about?”
“I don’t know, some night. The fans weren’t on, I could hear you outside my window.”
“So?”
“Y ’all were talking about robbing Gladstein’s store.”
Snead’s eyes liked to bug out. I could see them through the cord of smoke climbing from his cigarette.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come on Snead, I heard you. You’re supposed to go to Gladstein’s and let Pop know the coast is clear. You know the combination to the safe in the back. I heard you.”
“Boy, you must be crazy. You must be on drugs.”
“I’m not gonna snitch. Gladstein doesn’t have to know anything. I just want you to call it off, that’s all.”
He turned to rearrange the boards in the truck, fanning them out so they’d rest against the tailgate evenly. “You better not be spreading tales, Witcher.”
“I won’t say a word to anyone. Come on Snead, you know it’s true.”
He spun around and set his mean brown eyes upon me.
“If you ain’t out of here in five seconds I’m gonna smack you upside your head. What right have you to come around here telling lies? You’re out of your mind, boy.”
I was backing off, holding his gaze. “You can’t do it, Snead. If you do I’ll call the cops. I don’t want to, but I will.”
“Boy, your pop is gonna kick your little ass. You keep your mouth shut. Now get out of here.”
“Just don’t do it, that’s all. I don’t want any trouble. I like you, Snead.”
I was moving away, wondering if he might hop in his truck and come gunning for me. I wouldn’t have been surprised if another rock had sailed past my ear.
I was walking fast, hoping to find some people in their yards. I figured Snead wouldn’t come get me if he knew people were around. When I got farther along I came upon Karla and Kitten on the Coghill porch, attended by a Pendleton or two.
I walked straight past with their eyes following me. I was chanting Gladstein’s syllable to keep my mind occupied. I was praying the way my atheist mother had taught me. All these damn eyes. Maybe getting beat up by Snead wouldn’t be so bad after all.
34
IT DIDN’T TAKE POP long to find out. The next day he flung open the bedroom door and stared at me and closed the door. He didn’t say a word.
At the supper table we were grim-faced, silent. Stan was just home from the Safeway, Mom from the Ben Franklin. I went to the living room and turned on the news and saw Lyndon Johnson’s face and left the room. Pop came in the bedroom behind me and shut the door.
“What’s this I hear from Snead?” He was yanking his neck, getting rid of the creaks.
“About what?”
“He says you came up to him the other day and started talking nonsense about him and me robbing Gladstein. What the hell is that about?”
“That’s what I heard.”
“Heard where?”
“I heard you and him talking outside my window one night. Your voices were so loud I could hear you.”
“So?”
“Y’ all were talking about robbing Gladstein’s store.”
“You’re hearing things, kid.”
“I heard it loud and clear.”
“You really think I’d break into a man’s store? That’s how low an opinion you have of me?”
“I heard what you said, that’s all.”
“You heard something, you got that right. You must have little green men in your head.”
“I heard what I heard.”
I wanted to be defiant. But I began to doubt myself. What if my imagination had been playing tricks?
“I don’t appreciate your going to Snead like that. You have something to say you say it to my face.”
“Yes sir.”
“Snead must think we’re a bunch of lunatics in this house.”
“We are,” I said.
He snorted grimly and left the room. While he was going out Stan was coming in. They edged past each other in the doorway.
Stan sat next to the desk and looked at me, on the bottom bunk. His shoulders drooped. He clasped his hands between his thighs. His hair hung near to his shoulders. His bosses at the Safeway had been getting on him lately about cutting it. He took off his sunglasses, played with them, walked them across the top of the desk. Then he stopped.
“What’s Pop’s problem?”
“I don’t know.”
“He seems mad about something.”
He kept looking at me with his murderous eyes. “Wanna come to the drive-in with me and Anya tonight?”
They were going to a Hells Angels movie.
I told him no, I didn’t want to go. I didn’t trust these overtures he was making. Probably he figured his generosity would keep me quiet.
“You’re a punk, you know that?”
“Why are you getting mad?”
“How come you don’t wanna go to the movie, what’s your problem?”
“I don’t like Hells Angels movies.”
“Punk. Fuck you punk.”
“I have a right to not go.”
“Fuck you,” he said, “I oughta put your lights out.”
I got up and left.
In the hallway I bumped into Pop, who was heading towards the room.
“I want a word with you,” he said.
“Let’s go somewhere else, I don’t wanna talk around Stan.”
We went to the back yard. I sat on one of the swings and Pop picked up a branch and tossed it so that it twirled through the air like a boomerang. There was still plenty of light, and several dogs came along to greet us.
“I’d like you to tell me what you think you heard that night.”
A spaniel I’d never seen before came up and greedily licked the back of my hand. I wiped it on my shorts.
“Just what you and Snead were saying. You wanted him to call f
rom Gladstein’s house so you’d know the coast was clear. I heard him say he had the combination to the safe. Pop, just the other day you were asking me questions about Gladstein’s burglar alarm.”
He grinned. “You’re a little fool, you know that? We were joking, that’s a standing joke we have, about robbing Gladstein. We joke about that all the time.”
“Okay, I didn’t know it was a joke.”
I was happy to play along if it would keep me out of trouble.
“You’re getting more like your mother every day. She doesn’t have a sense of humor either.”
“I guess I don’t,” I said.
“You really think I was planning on robbing Gladstein?”
“Not if you say you weren’t. Whose dog is that?” I wanted to get off the subject. I didn’t want to hear him lie anymore.
“I don’t know whose dog that is, I ain’t never seen him before. Come here pooch.”
Pop massaged the spaniel’s head and neck lavishly.
“Wanna go get some ice cream?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Come on, you’re getting too skinny, we gotta put some meat on those bones.”
“I’m not in the mood.”
“You’re still mad, aren’t you? You really believed I was gonna hurt that Jewish friend of yours. You’ve been mad at me ever since I lost my job.”
“Well it’s not as if you’ve been out looking for a new one.”
“There you go, that’s what this is about, me losing my job.”
“I didn’t say a word about you not having a job.”
I stood. I had seen Stan walking along the road, on his way to Anya’s, and now I could go inside if I wanted.
Pop watched me go. A few minutes later Mom came into my room, just as I had anticipated.
“Were you arguing with your father?”
“All I want is people to leave me alone.”
I folded my arms sternly across my chest, so she could see me wanting to be left alone.
“Me too? You want me to leave you alone?”
She was only being kind, but that was worse.
I threw a pencil across the room. I shoved past her and darted out the door. I ran outside. I was just waiting for the first taunt to come at me. I was liable to punch somebody. I didn’t care if my brother did do Gaylord in. I wasn’t going to take it anymore.
If Jack's in Love Page 19
