When Zachary Beaver Came to Town

by Kimberly Willis Holt

  “Who is your friend, son?”

  “I can’t tell you. I mean—he doesn’t even know I’m talking about him.”

  Reverend Newton looks like I told him someone drove over his dog. Disappointed, he says, “Well, tell your friend I’m willing to listen.”

  “I will.”

  “And I will be honored to baptize him.”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  The reverend stands.

  “Oh, Reverend Newton?”

  He smiles, hopeful. “Yes?”

  “What would my friend need to do to be baptized?”

  He frowns and after a long pause says, “First he should respond to our altar call. He can wait till the fourth stanza if he wants. He must confess he’s a sinner. Then we’ll schedule him in our baptistery. He’d be the tenth person to be baptized in our brand-new baptistery.” Reverend Newton says that as if Zachary would win a big prize. Kind of like the time the IGA grocery store gave Earline a color TV for being the ten-thousandth customer.

  Reverend Newton walks toward the door. “Otto, thank you for the coffee and the cookies.” Before leaving, he turns and shakes his finger at me. “Toby, if the Lord is knocking, you better let him on in. Otto, hope to see you in church Sunday.”

  “Good-bye, Reverend,” Dad says.

  The door closes and Dad stands before me, his arms crossed over his chest. I wonder what will be first—the baptism or the fire. “Toby, what is this about a fire at the Grand Ole Opry?”

  I shrug, doing my best to sound innocent. “I have no idea. Somebody must have misunderstood me. Look how the baptism thing got all mixed up.”

  “Speaking of which—I hope that you haven’t overstepped your boundaries as a friend. Someone’s spiritual life is their own doings.” He picks up the plate of cookies. “The reverend left before I could send him home with the rest of these. It would have been no trouble. No trouble at all.” He winks at me and takes the plate into the kitchen.

  I can’t believe Dad let me off so easy. Maybe he really believes me about the fire being gossip. But I don’t have time to figure out why. I’ve got to get the pearls back. With any luck, I’ll arrive at Scarlett’s house before she returns and finds them.

  I race over on my bike and park outside the fence. But it’s too late. Mrs. Stalling’s car is parked in the driveway. I wonder if they went inside through the garage and didn’t notice the package.

  Through their front window, I see Mrs. Stalling at the stove and Scarlett setting the table. The TV is on, and Tara sits in front of it wearing Mickey Mouse ears. Quietly I walk up the steps to the porch and open the screen door. The package is gone. I walk back down to the sidewalk and glance again through the window, trying to see if Scarlett is wearing them. She’s not. Tara stands and jumps like a kangaroo over to the table. Hop, hop, hop. Shiny pearls flop against her chest.

  That little brat. That little, sticky finger brat. There’s got to be a way to get the pearls back. I could wait for her to come outside in the morning and when she least expects it—

  A horn sounds from the street and I jump. Kate is behind the wheel, and Cal is in the back of the pickup, waving his arm. “Come on! The ladybugs are here!”

  For a second, the pearls vanish from my mind. I follow the truck on my bike to the train depot, where Kate signs a paper for the ladybugs. Then the three of us load the crates into the truck. Each crate holds two sacks filled with ladybugs. There must be millions of them. They’ll make a great sight tonight at the Ladybug Waltz.

  Seeing those crates stacked in the bed of the truck makes me think of Wayne. I look at Cal. He’s all grins. My stomach knots up because I’m thinking about that letter and wondering what Cal is going to do when Wayne writes back. He’s bound to mention it.

  While we load the crates, Cal asks, “What did you find out about the baptism?”

  I want to tell him the baptism has ruined my life. I’d have Mom’s pearls in my hands right this minute if Reverend Newton hadn’t visited me. Instead I tell him what the reverend said Zachary would need to do.

  “Think he’ll do it?” I ask.

  “Sure,” Cal says, always the optimist.

  Enough is going on in my life to give me ulcers, but right now I put everything aside because this moment only comes once a year. I race the truck back home and win. After all, Kate is driving. In their front yard, Mrs. McKnight is trimming her roses. “Ladybugs arrive?”

  “Yes, ma’am!” we holler together.

  “Cal,” she says, “you and Kate get washed up. Dinner is almost ready. And, Kate, sweetheart, set the table.”

  “See you in an hour,” Cal says as he runs into the house, Kate following him.

  I start to turn around, but Mrs. McKnight says, “Toby?”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “I was thinking about your mom today.”

  My stomach burns.

  “I know you must miss her. Goodness, I miss her. She always seemed to have a song in her head and a smile on her face.”

  I tuck my hands in my pockets and dig my heel into the grass.

  “It takes a brave woman to go after her dreams these days. You should be proud of her.” She wipes her forehead with the back of her hand, moving a few dark curls away from her face. “Sometimes people don’t feel complete until they go after their dreams. Even I have a few dreams of my own.”

  “You do?” I say, wishing I hadn’t sounded surprised.

  She laughs. “I know I don’t look like I would, but I do. It’s nothing glamorous like your mom’s. I’ve always wanted to travel around the southeastern part of the country, searching for old roses.”

  “Oh,” I say, nodding like I understand the greatness of it. But of course I don’t.

  She bends down and smells one of her perfect blooms. “I’d love to tromp through old graveyards and around neighborhoods where some of those roses grow. It would be exciting to discover a lost rose breed.” She trims a faded bloom off the bush.

  Just then a dark blue Chevrolet pulls up in front of the McKnight home and I’m grateful that Mrs. McKnight’s company will allow me to escape this conversation. But as I’m about to dash off, two men in army officer uniforms step out.

  Mrs. McKnight glances their way, and her face pales. She returns to cutting the blooms. “That would be nice,” she says, her voice small and quivering.

  I look at the McKnight house. Kate passes by the window, carrying a stack of plates, and I wonder if I should go get her. But my stomach is queasy, and my knees feel weak.

  The men step into the yard and walk toward us. Mrs. McKnight keeps trimming the roses, only now she is trimming the new blooms too. She is chopping away the blooms and the stems. And with each step the men take toward her, the bush gets smaller. Her hands shake and her breathing becomes heavy and she ignores the men who are now in front of us. “Mrs. McKnight?” one man says.

  She shakes her head and cuts, cuts, cuts, cuts. Thorns tear tiny scratches in her hands as the stems fall to the ground. Kate is staring out the window now, and I’m silently pleading for her to come and stand where I am standing.

  “Mrs. McKnight,” the man says, “is your husband at home? You might want to have him with you.”

  “No,” she says, not looking, just cutting away the bush. It is now so short she is bending over to reach it. “No!” she cries, falling to her knees. “Not my Wayne! Not my boy!” She drops the clippers and her hands cover her face, muffling her cries as she rocks.

  Both men exchange concerned looks. One officer steps toward her, then squats beside her. “We’re sorry, ma’am. We truly are.”

  Kate is outside, hurrying toward her mom, and I know that I have willed her here. Because I don’t know what to do. And, God, I want to know what to do. But all I can think of is to run home, close my bedroom door, and shut out the rest of the world.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The day after the news comes, I get up at dawn and look out my window. Outside, Mr. McKnight is pulling their flag up
the pole. With each yank of the rope, the flag climbs until it reaches the top. Then he lets it drop to half-mast. When he turns, I catch a glimpse of his face. His lips press tightly together and his thick eyebrows touch, forming a V in the middle of his forehead. Soon after, Dad, who has been drinking coffee on the porch, digs our flag out of the closet. By the time eight rolls around, every flag on Ivy Street hangs from its flagpole.

  The ladybugs stay sealed in their crates, stacked in the McKnights’ backyard. I worry that without water they’ll die. But later Cal goes out back and walks over to the garden hose on the side of the house. I hold the shade away from the window and watch him. He slowly unravels the hose until it stretches the length of the yard, then drags it over to the crates. After turning the water on full blast, he aims the nozzle straight up. Not one drop hits the ladybugs. A few moments later he throws down the hose and heads to the stack of crates. I hold my breath, hoping he’ll spray the ladybugs. But he leaves the hose on the ground and the water runs onto the grass, disappearing. Then he kicks one of the crates, causing it to thump to the ground. He kicks it over and over again like a soccer ball. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him angry. He didn’t even get mad when Kate punched him in the mouth. A moment later he returns the crate to the stack, turns off the hose, and goes back inside.

  It’s the day before the funeral. I haven’t left my house in three days. Like Zachary, I watch the world from my window. Billy and Mr. McKnight leave for the cotton fields each morning, but Cal and Kate stay home with their mom. I haven’t seen Mrs. McKnight since that day the men came. The wind has stripped away most of the petals on her roses, and the few blooms that remain are faded.

  It seems like our town has closed down these days leading up to the funeral. Old people still sit on their porches and talk, but their conversations aren’t sprinkled with laughter anymore. Since the news, little kids haven’t played outside, as if their moms are afraid someone might snatch them out of their yards and send them off to war.

  Every day the phone rings on and off, but I don’t answer it. This morning it rings fifteen times. I’m afraid it’s Cal, and I don’t know what to say to him. What do you say when your best friend’s brother dies? And what if Cal has found out about the letter I wrote Wayne?

  When the phone rings again, I yell out to no one, “Leave me alone!” and escape with a sack of food for Zachary. I place it on the trailer steps, knock, and hurry back home.

  At supper Dad says, “Your mother called a few minutes ago. She tried to reach you this week, but you didn’t answer.”

  I don’t say anything. I just concentrate on spreading the butter over my roll. But I’m relieved to know that it wasn’t Cal calling.

  “She’s concerned about you,” Dad says. “She knows about Wayne.”

  I look up.

  “Have you seen Cal?” he asks.

  “No.”

  Dad’s temples pulse and he stares at me like he doesn’t know me. Finally he looks down at his plate, shakes his head, and takes a bite of turnips.

  After dinner he watches the news, and when it shows a war scene, he clicks off the TV. Then he puts on a Mozart album and reads Field & Stream.

  At seven Dad is ready to go to the wake. He stands in front of me, dressed in a white shirt, black pants, and a striped tie older than dirt. “Aren’t you going?” he asks.

  I shake my head again.

  Dad snaps his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “He was Cal’s brother.”

  “I know that.”

  He starts toward the door, jiggling the keys in his hand. “Toby, do we need to talk about something?”

  “I just don’t feel like going.”

  His hand rests on the doorknob. “Sometimes we have to do things we don’t feel like doing.” And with that, he leaves.

  Sitting in my dark room, I shuffle Mom’s unopened letters like a deck of cards and listen to Dad’s door close and the truck drive off. For the next few minutes I hear car doors shutting and engines starting up and down the street. They’re all going to the same place. The place I can’t bear to go. I want to remember Wayne hitting baseballs at a Buck’s game, eating a Bahama Mama snow cone in front of Wylie Womack’s stand, releasing the ladybugs in the middle of the cotton fields.

  The ladybugs. I rush downstairs and out of the house, then sneak into the McKnights’ backyard. I unwind the hose, screw on the spray nozzle, and adjust the water for a gentle flow. In the dark, with only the light from a cloud-filtered moon shining down on me, I wet down the ladybugs, thinking of Wayne and last year’s Ladybug Waltz.

  Last summer, the ladybugs arrived in early July. That night Wayne and the others stood out in the fields with sacks above their heads, releasing the ladybugs. The waltz was Wayne’s idea. When he found out Dad liked classical music, Wayne asked him to pick out a song to play while the bugs took flight. Finding a new song for the past three years has become a tradition, but now when I think about it, I think it was Wayne’s way of getting Dad involved because he knew Dad was shy.

  I had always imagined going with Cal’s family to the airport to pick Wayne up when his tour ended. I imagined him walking off the plane, dressed in his uniform, hugging his mom and Kate, shaking all the guys’ hands, including mine. I guess I even imagined him taking me aside later and asking, “It was you that wrote that letter, wasn’t it, buddy?” It would be our secret, kind of like a secret between brothers. Only now it would never be.

  One foot into the house, I hear the phone ring, and without thinking I pick it up.

  “Hello?”

  “Toby?” Mom’s voice comes in as clear as if she were calling from across the street. “Oh, thank goodness, Toby. I had a feeling you might be there. Are you okay?”

  She doesn’t let me answer. “You’re like me. You can’t handle sad. Give us mad, give us happy, but don’t tear our hearts out. Oh, Critter, it’s so good to hear you … . You there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Your dad, now, he’s good at the sad things. But I always thought your dad teetered on being sad most days anyway. Some people are like that.” Nothing has changed. She still rattles on and on.

  “Critter, I’m thinking of you, honey. I know this is hard for you. I don’t know what I would do if I lost you. They might as well dig another grave for me.”

  I know she’s expecting me to say something, but I just stretch the phone cord across the room.

  I recognize the tiny thumps, and I can almost see her tapping her long fingernails on a table. “I want you to come see me while there’s still some summer left. Okay?”

  I don’t say a word.

  “You can ignore me all you want, Toby, but I know you want to see me almost as much as I want to see you. I know you do. A mother knows this about her kid.”

  I count the soldiers on my dresser.

  “I’m trying really hard here, Tob. Can’t you see that?”

  “I’ve got to go,” I say quickly.

  “I love y—”

  I press down on the receiver and listen to the click cut off her words.

  The morning of Wayne’s funeral, I put on my sixthgrade graduation suit and tie. The sleeves are too short, and the jacket fits tight across my back. I check myself in the mirror, and right now I’m not thinking about Wayne or Cal or anybody else except Scarlett and hoping she doesn’t see me in this monkey suit.

  Dad stands in my doorway. “You ready?”

  “I’ll be there in a minute. Go ahead without me.”

  He pauses. “Cal will need you, Toby.” His words are slow and deliberate, and I know he wants to add, You better be there, but he turns and leaves.

  As soon as I hear the front door shut, I walk to my dresser. Over two hundred soldiers stand ready for battle. I knock one over, then another and then another. One at a time. Until no soldiers are standing.

  A minute later I look out from our front porch. The sky is gray and lightning strikes through the clouds. A hearse from Landry’s Funeral Home is park
ed outside the McKnights’. The walk to the church should only take a few minutes, but I drag out my bike from the garage and hop on. And instead of turning right, toward the church, I turn left, lean into the wind, and ride. I jump sidewalk curbs and skim corners on the turns. My bike and I become one, and we don’t stop until we are in front of the Bowl-a-Rama.

  A sign posted on the door reads, Closed Due to Funeral. I stare at my reflection in the glass and watch Wylie Womack’s golf cart pull up behind me. “Hey, Wylie,” I say, turning to face him.

  Wylie’s hair is smoothed back neatly in a ponytail, and he wears a wrinkled suit with a daisy tucked in the buttonhole. He holds out his hand, offering the space next to him.

  I shake my head. “No, thanks, Wylie. I’m heading that way in a minute.”

  With a nod, Wylie takes off in the direction of the church, his folded wheelchair tucked in the back of the cart. Another streak of lightning branches across the sky, followed by thunder.

  I start to knock on the Bowl-a-Rama’s door, then notice it’s already ajar. Inside the dark bowling alley, I call out, “Ferris.” No one answers. Suddenly it dawns on me a thief could be walking around, taking advantage of an all-town-attended funeral. If he is, I don’t want to be here.

  As I’m about to leave, I hear someone clearing his throat in the cafe. A few steps closer, I discover Ferris sitting at a table in front of the window with the blinds closed, his head bent like he is praying over a bottle of Jim Beam.

  “Ferris?” I move toward him. “You okay?”

  He looks up. His eyes are red and puffy, and a clip-on tie hangs from one corner of the collar of his unbuttoned shirt. “Hey, Toby? Shouldn’t you be at the funeral?”

  “I’ll get there. What’s wrong?”

  He digs out a handkerchief from his pocket and blows his nose, sounding like a foghorn. “Got a nasty cold,” he says. He pours himself another drink. “Don’t ever start drinking, Toby. Next to money, it’s the root of all evil.”