by Nikki Loftin
My dad was afraid, afraid of Mr. King.
“Respect?” I almost yelled the word. “Do you know what kind of man this is?”
Dad practically sprang from the porch, reaching me in three long steps. He grabbed my arm and twisted it so hard I cried out. “Not another word,” he hissed between clenched teeth. “What’s got into you?”
I hissed back. “He did something to Gayle.” Dad’s fingers let go the smallest bit, and I wrenched away.
“What’s this?” Dad said, turning to Mr. King, but not meeting his eyes. “Was that little girl over to your house?” His voice shook a little, but I couldn’t tell if it was anger or something else.
“Yes.” Mr. King blinked at us, like the sun was too bright all of a sudden. “Your son brought her over like we agreed yesterday. In fact, he ran off so suddenly, I wasn’t able to pay him.”
“Pay him?” my dad growled. His gaze was back on me, full of anger and confusion. “Pay him for what?”
Mr. King stepped off the porch, too, his shiny black shoes squeaking against the waxed wood of the steps. He pulled out his wallet as he walked and unfolded a stack of bills from inside. “Here you are, boy,” he said, holding out more money than I’d ever seen, shaking it at me to take it. “Five hundred dollars, like we promised.”
“Five hundred dollars?” Dad asked. “What did you do, son?” His eyes were on me, and I felt the hot burn of shame wash across my face. I had to explain it wasn’t me who had done anything—but I knew better. I had left Gayle here, with this man with crow’s eyes.
“Ask him,” I said. “Ask him what he did.”
Mr. King just shook his head at me and my dad. “I wish I knew what you were talking about. You brought Gayle here to be recorded, in exchange for five hundred dollars. Like we agreed.”
“Why would you give him five hundred dollars for that?” My dad was still growling, but not at me. Maybe he’d figured out what I was too late in realizing—that a man like Mr. King didn’t give up that much money for nothing. “Recording what?”
“Her voice,” he said. “Her singing. And I’m not sure I like your tone.”
“That’s a lot of money, is all,” Dad said. “Too much.”
“Well, to tell the truth,” Mr. King answered, “I thought you could use the money. I know it’s been hard for your family since the funeral.”
“Oh,” Dad said at last. “I see.” He shot me a look that promised a beating when we got home.
“You saw? You don’t see anything!” I sputtered, but Dad’s fingers got tight on my arm again, and I stopped.
“Take the money, son,” he said, as Mr. King shook the bills at my face again.
“No,” I said, the word slicing through my throat.
“Take it,” Dad repeated, and shoved me toward Mr. King. The bills fluttered in the breeze that blew past our faces, warm and smelling of roses and crushed earth. The numbers at their corners teased me, all those twenties, even fifties. I’d never held a fifty-dollar bill, only ever seen one in the offering plate at church.
I wanted it, bad. But I knew I shouldn’t touch it.
For a second, I considered it. Maybe it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like I was going to spend it on myself. Taking the money would help Mom at least. Rent was due Friday, and maybe we’d have enough left over for her to buy a dress.
I could still apologize to Gayle, find some way to make it up to her. Maybe I’d buy her something.
I reached and took the money out of his hand, careful not to touch the man’s skin. Wondering if you could catch evil like the flu.
And then, as I was stepping back, the Emperor made his final mistake. He let the victory creep into his dark brown eyes, the corners of his mouth twitching upward in relief.
He’d done it. He’d bought me, and he knew it.
“You’re a bad man,” I said. “And I don’t want nothing of yours.” I took the clump of bills and flung them at his face, wishing they were harder, sharper, wishing I could cut him up the way I was cut up inside after hearing Gayle cry. But the bills just fluttered around his surprised face, like molting feathers, falling to the ground below.
“Little John!” Dad shouted. I didn’t listen. I turned and ran, ran back toward the road.
Away from the sycamore tree, and the nest, and the little girl I’d given up for money. Away from Mr. King, the man who had done something to make her shrink back from him, like she was afraid of his touch. Away from my father, too, the man who—as I was leaving—was already leaning down, scooping the money off the ground and shoving it into his pockets.
I left all of that behind. But the shame that tore at my insides like razor blades and broken glass?
It kept pace.
That night in my room, I lay in bed, wishing I really could run away. Of course, my butt hurt so bad after Dad had used his belt on it that I probably wouldn’t have made it across the yard.
At least I hadn’t yelled when he’d done it. Maybe Ernest and Isabelle hadn’t heard. I hoped not.
I still couldn’t believe he’d whipped me. He threatened to do it all the time, but I hadn’t been punished that way since I hit my growth spurt. Heck, even the other kids in my grade who weren’t big like me didn’t get whippings anymore. It was all about taking away their video games or cell phones. Of course, I didn’t have any of that, so maybe this was all Dad could think of.
I could have stopped him, I knew. “Lean over,” he’d said, and I’d done it, staring at the worn seat on the sofa as I waited for the first blow to fall. I was almost as tall as he was, and faster on foot. I could have gotten away, probably. But I hadn’t even tried.
I deserved to get beat for what I’d done.
I just wished I could return the favor, for what my dad did—taking that money from Mr. King—no, worse than taking it. He’d scraped it off his lawn like a dog with scraps, grateful for it.
We’d been poor a long time—pretty much my whole life. I had learned to live with it. But I’d always thought Dad was too proud to do something like that, even though things had gotten worse lately. I guess Dad wasn’t proud at all.
I’d learned a lot today, none of it good.
I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing I could sleep. Instead, I heard my mom’s voice, quiet and low in the next room. “You were awful hard on the boy. You could have hurt him.”
“Huh,” Dad said. I heard a clink. He was drinking again—Jack Daniels. He’d stopped at the liquor store after he’d picked me up on the road, and spent twenty bucks of Mr. King’s money on booze. I wondered if it was possible to drink enough to forget what he’d done. “Boy, nothing. He’s the size of a man. And he had it coming.”
“He’s still a boy, John,” Mom said, softer. “What could have made him go off like that, anyway? Why would he say such things to Mr. King?”
A silence, then Dad answered her. Lying. “I got no idea.”
My gut burned. I hadn’t been allowed to say my side of the story to Mom, hadn’t been allowed to talk. Dad had threatened me with worse than a whipping if I said anything to set Mom off. He was probably right; she was having so many bad days now, the slightest thing could send her into a state, rocking and crying for hours.
But it hurt, her thinking I’d just been acting crazy.
“Did you say Mr. King paid you extra?” Mom said, changing the subject. “That’s good. The landlord came by today while you were gone. I tried to pay him some of it, but he said no. All or nothing, John. He said he had somebody else who wanted to live here. Said we couldn’t have any extra days this month, after the last two. He needs it Friday.”
“You tell him he’ll get it Friday,” Dad said. “We got enough for rent right now, just about six hundred dollars total with what I got today. Mr. King pays me for the week, we’ll have enough for rent and the rest of the bills.”
I knew what Mom was th
inking as well as he did. She was trying to find a way to ask Dad to give her the money, so we’d have it safe at home instead of in his pocket and at the liquor store. But she didn’t have to say anything.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll give you the money in the morning.” Mom’s relieved sigh was punctuated by the clink of Dad’s ice cubes.
I wanted to burst in on them and demand the money back. I was going to take those bills and stuff every single one down Mr. King’s throat until he turned purple and died. I’d had a long time to think about Gayle, and how she’d looked. How she’d sounded sitting up in her nest. Broken.
She’d sounded like he’d broken something in her.
But the next morning, I wasn’t allowed to go to work. I was waiting in the truck cab when Dad climbed in. He didn’t look at me. “Get out,” he said.
“I’m coming today,” I said.
“No, you’re not,” he repeated. “Get out of the truck.”
If I didn’t come with him, how could I check on Gayle? It was almost five miles out to Mr. King’s. I had to find a way to get him to take me over. “You can’t cut that sycamore limb by yourself.”
“I can, and I will,” he said, gripping the steering wheel hard. “You insulted the man who’s paying me, and he told me not to bring you back over. You’re not welcome.”
“But Gayle—” I tried.
Dad cut me off. “Leave her alone.”
“But she needs me,” I yelled.
“Needs you?” He narrowed his eyes and said each word slowly. “Haven’t you done enough?” He shook his head. “Get out.”
I opened the door and climbed out. The door hadn’t even shut all the way when my legs were peppered by flying bits of gravel, and my face covered by a cloud of exhaust and dust.
I choked, but I didn’t think it was from the dust.
I wandered back inside, feeling my throat close up. Wondering what was happening to Gayle. Imagining my dad going out to Mr. King’s, smiling and laughing with him. Laughing at me, the dumb kid who couldn’t keep his cool.
I opened the front door and heard Mom in the rear of the house, humming. “Mom? Where are you?” I walked toward her. Maybe, if she was having a good day, I could help her out. I knew she wasn’t going to be cooking much; there wasn’t a lot left in the pantry. Some oatmeal, and a few cans of milk and corn. Maybe we could go to the church and help sort the food pantry. Lots of times, there were cans of stuff just past the expiration date, and the pastor let volunteers take them home. He said it was “hurtful to the dignity of the people who came to get food” to have to take expired cans.
I remember wondering what that must be like—to have so much dignity, you wouldn’t want perfectly good green beans on your plate.
Maybe there would be tuna fish.
“Mom?” I yelled again, but softer. “Where are you?”
“Folding clothes,” she called back. “Come on in. You can help put them away.”
I thought she was in my room, but she wasn’t. She was sitting on Raelynn’s bed, pulling a bunch of her old shirts out of a basket, one at a time, and folding them up. The pile of hair ribbons was hanging out of her pocket, and they looked freshly ironed. She’d been working on Raelynn’s stuff for a while, I supposed. Maybe she hadn’t even slept.
“Mom,” I said softly, worried. Was this what she did every day when Dad and I were out? “Mom, why did you wash Raelynn’s clothes?”
“Little John, what a question!” She swatted me on the arm softly as I sat down. “You know how dirty she gets. She’s all tomboy, that one. Probably because she loves you so much. You know,” Mom said, her face creasing with a thoughtful smile, “she’d follow you anywhere.” She laughed once. “If you jumped off a cliff, she’d probably—if you jumped—jumped . . .” She’d remembered.
She crumpled on the bed, wailing.
“Mom, stop!” I yelled and jumped up. I knew I shouldn’t—I knew it would set her off even worse, but I couldn’t listen. She’d seen Raelynn fall—Dad had seen it, too. We’d all been out in the yard that day. I’d hoped Mom had forgotten exactly how it had all happened, since she’d never mentioned it. But she’d remembered, I could tell. Her eyes filled with tears and blame, looking at me. “Why’d you do it, Little John? Why’d you have to go and jump out of that tree, show her that? Didn’t you know she always had to do what you did?”
“I know,” I croaked out. “I wasn’t trying to do anything wrong, Mom. I didn’t know—”
“You should have. Why can’t you do what’s right?”
What’s right? I knew what was right. What was right was to take that money and stuff it down Mr. King’s throat. To demand that he apologize to Gayle.
What was right would be if my mother knew who I was, could forgive me for what had happened. Or could forget.
At the very least, a mom who still loved me, even though I hadn’t been able to save my sister.
But one thing I’d learned in the past ten months was this: What was right didn’t have a thing to do with what was.
I tried anyway. “Momma, you don’t mean that.”
Mom stood up, and the ribbons slipped out of her pocket to form a messy heap on the floor. “Get out of here, now,” she said.
I stood, feeling the hot tears slip down my face, feeling my heart beat so loud, I couldn’t think over the sound. Couldn’t breathe.
“Here,” I said, picking up the hair ribbons. “Here’s her ribbons.”
But Mom wouldn’t look at me. She just turned her head away and said, “Go.” So I went. But right before I left the house, I took a detour. I went into her room, pulled the secret metal box out from underneath her dresser—Mom’s special hiding place I’d discovered with Ernest when we were six—and found the money, all five hundred filthy dollars of it.
It folded and fit into my pocket perfectly. I took it and went to do what was right.
At first, I ran too fast and got winded. Then I paced myself. Our house was a ways into the center of town, and I couldn’t afford to get tired too quick. The heat poured over everything like sap, sticking my shirt to my back and my hair to my scalp.
The grass in the lawns I ran past was dry and yellow this late in July, and the whole area hummed with cicadas and air-conditioner units cooling off the people inside the houses.
I ran past the church, the post office, and slowed down as I approached the only other store on the street: the Emperor’s Emporium.
It was the first one he’d built, and the biggest. Part of the logo was a giant crown on a head that looked a little like Mr. King’s. I wanted to put a rock through the window, right there, where his head was.
Why not? I thought. I’d never done anything like that before, but there wasn’t anyone to stop me. Was there?
I looked around. The street was empty, except for a black dog sniffing the curb a few blocks away. There, right in front of me, was a rock. I picked it up, wondering at how perfectly it fit in my hand. Like someone had left it there for me to find, to throw. I pulled my arm back, ready to let go right at the Emperor’s smiling face, when I heard a shop-door bell. Someone was coming out of the Emporium.
“Little John?”
“Isabelle?” I lowered my arm. It was her. But why was she alone? “What are you doing here?” I asked, stuffing the rock in my pocket.
“I was looking for a birthday present for Ernest,” she said, lisping the S sounds. “It’s his birthday tomorrow, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.” Ernest had a summer birthday. It meant he was one of the youngest kids in the class. Up to that year, it also meant he was about the same size as me—what with me being a runt, and him being so young—but then I grew.
“Are you going to come over to the party?” she said, eyes darting back to the store. Ernest must be in there, I realized. “You gave us that dead bird and all. I told him that mean
t we were all still friends. He is your best friend still, right?”
My cheeks burned. “I wasn’t invited,” I said. “I guess my ‘best friend’ Ernest forgot.” The words sounded mean, even to me. I knew it wasn’t Ernest’s fault at all that we weren’t friends anymore, but I didn’t care. I felt like being mean, like blaming someone else for once. I turned to run off, but a hand on my arm stopped me.
“No,” she said, her gray eyes wide. “He didn’t forget. He told your momma twice to tell you. Didn’t she say?”
“Say what?”
“You’re invited. He only got to invite four kids this year. You were the first name on the list.” She chewed her lip. “He came over three times last week, but you weren’t home. He said you didn’t like us no more. But then you were nice to me at church, even though you didn’t say yes to Ernest about the party . . .”
Last week I had been working at Mr. King’s. Ernest had come over. Three times. “Mom knew? Are you sure?” Isabelle’s mouth turned down at the corners.
“I went over with him once. She said she’d tell you.” She paused. “But she wasn’t . . . feeling very well that day. She kept trying to get me to play with . . . with . . .” She tucked her head down.
“With Raelynn?” I finished softly. Isabelle nodded. I swallowed the hot knot of fear and shame swelling up inside. I thought Mom had been able to hide it from everyone but Dad and me. But if Isabelle knew . . . the whole town probably did.
The knot grew bigger as anger started to balloon in my stomach. I’d given up everything—even my best friend—to keep my family’s secrets. And it turned out that maybe there hadn’t been a secret to keep.
Maybe it had all been for nothing. I felt like screaming, and I guess Isabelle noticed, since she backed up a step, concern in her eyes. It was time to change the subject. I faked a smile. “Did you find a present for Ernie, then?”
She wiped her face with one arm, nodded, and pulled something small out of her pocket.
