The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had

by Kristin Levine

  Doc froze, just as Elbert had done, and I remembered I’d promised not to say nothing. But surely Doc knew ’bout his own daddy.

  “Where’d you hear about that?” he asked, his voice serious and cold.

  Before I could think up a good lie, the front door jingled and Big Foot stepped into the store. Doc put down his scissors and wiped his hands on his white apron. “Afternoon, Mr. Big Foot, sir. What can I do for you today? Shoe shine?”

  Big Foot headed straight to the shelf, picked up a bottle of hair tonic and put it in his pocket. Then he walked back to the door.

  “Big Foot?” I called out from the chair.

  He paused in the doorway. “What, Dit?”

  “You forgot to pay for that,” I said.

  Big Foot’s cheeks turned as red as his nose, and I noticed a fine white scar down the left side of his face. He was completely clean shaven except for a few bristles sprouting out on each side of that scar.

  “No, sir,” said Doc quickly. “The boy’s mistaken. That tonic’s a gift to you.”

  Big Foot grunted and fished a quarter out of his pocket. He threw it into a bowl on Doc Haley’s counter. “You mind your own business, Dit,” he growled, and strolled out of the store.

  Doc Haley snatched the towel from my neck and shook it out, even though he wasn’t finished with my haircut. Little flecks of my red hair stuck to the tile floor like bits of dried blood.

  “What the heck you think you’re doing?” he asked in an angry whisper.

  “He was trying to steal from you.”

  “He’s stole from me for twenty years,” Doc snapped. “It’s no concern of yours.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You be careful, Dit. Big Foot killed a man in Selma.”

  “Really?”

  “In a bar fight. Claimed it was an accident, but everyone knew it wasn’t.” Doc Haley glared at me. A vein was pulsing on the side of his head. I ain’t never seen him so angry.

  “I said I was sorry.”

  “Sorry don’t help, Dit, if somebody ends up dead.” He took one of the towels he used for giving shaves, soaked it in a bowl of cool water and pressed it to his temples. “You’d best get along home now.”

  I slid slowly off the big chair. On the way home, I thought about what Doc had said about Big Foot. The sheriff did have a temper. He had fists the size of Mama’s apple pie pans. And the scar on his cheek I had never noticed before. I supposed it was possible that Big Foot had killed a man. And I wasn’t sure if I should be impressed or scared.

  25

  KITTENS

  SINCE I WAS SPENDING MOST OF MY TIME helping Emma with baseball, I wasn’t making much money collecting scrap metal. Besides, the iron dealer was a cheat. He was an old white man who put my metal into a basket and weighed it on a large scale. No matter how much I had collected, he would always say, “Ten pounds, three cents.” But there wasn’t no other buyer, so I took the three cents.

  Since I wasn’t gonna get my two dollars that way, I started running errands for the neighbors on Sundays. Mrs. Pooley was my best customer. One warm November morning I found her sitting in a rocker on her store’s front porch. “Anything I can do for you today, ma’am?” I asked.

  “Yes, Dit, there is.” Beside her was a large sack, tied at one end with a bit of rope. She kicked at the sack with her foot. “I want you to take this sack and throw it in the river.”

  I looked at the sack. The bag moved and meowed loudly. “There’re kittens in there.”

  Mrs. Pooley shrugged. “Maybe there are and maybe there ain’t. In any case, I don’t want them. You take them to the river and I’ll give you a nickel.”

  “No, ma’am,” I said politely. “I don’t like the idea of drowning no kittens.”

  Mrs. Pooley pouted. “Now, Dit, are you gonna run errands for me or not?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Then take this bag and throw it in the river.”

  “Aw, Mrs. Pooley, if it was snakes I wouldn’t mind, but . . .”

  Mrs. Pooley tsked loudly. “Buster’d probably do it.”

  “He’s not half as responsible as me!”

  “Chip, then.”

  “I need the money!” I protested. I rubbed the back of my head. My hair was growing in itchy and uneven, but I didn’t dare ask Doc for another haircut.

  “You drive a hard bargain, Dit,” she said with a smile. “I’ll make it a dime.” She reached into her pocket and pressed a coin into my hand. “Now you take that bag, throw it in the river, and that’s that!”

  I swallowed and picked up the bag.

  A few minutes later I stood on the bank of the Black Warrior, clutching the squirming sack. The meows got louder and louder till I couldn’t hear nothing else. I peeked inside and saw two small kittens looking up at me. “Meow?” said one of them. I quickly closed the sack. My hands were sweating as I set the bag carefully down on the ground.

  I shoved my hand into my pocket and pulled out the dime. It shined like an icicle in the sunlight. I hid it again in my pocket.

  Slowly I picked up the bag and turned my back to the river. I closed my eyes and with a deep breath hurled the sack up over my head and into the water.

  Took off running before I even heard the splash. Didn’t stop till I reached Emma’s. She and her family were just coming out the front door. “You going to church?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Walker.

  “Mind if I come too?”

  Mrs. Walker looked at me funny. “You already went to church, Dit. Saw you go with Raymond and the twins this morning.”

  I shrugged. “Feel like going again.”

  She nodded and I fell into step beside Emma. “Emma,” I whispered. “I think I did something bad.” I quickly told her about Mrs. Pooley and the kittens.

  “Aw, Dit,” Emma groaned. “Why’d you do it?”

  “Mrs. Pooley said she wouldn’t hire me no more if I didn’t.”

  “You promised not to kill any more animals.”

  “Not for fun. But I gotta earn money for the Fourth hunt.”

  Emma shook her head. “Those poor little kittens.”

  We walked the rest of the way to church without talking.

  26

  HOW LONG WILL HELL LAST?

  THE NEGRA CHURCH WAS A SQUARE, wooden building. It was small but neat and tidy, with colorful flowers all along its sides. Inside were long rows of wooden pews. A simple cross hung above the altar, and there weren’t no stained glass windows. Most of the worshipers were Negras, but there were a few white children here and there who had come with their maids. At my church, there were a lot more decorations and a lot fewer people. Puzzled over that for a minute as I squeezed into a pew with Emma and her family. Then I folded my hands in prayer and tried not to think about the kittens.

  “Our sermon today,” Reverend Cannon announced from the pulpit, “is entitled ‘How Long Will Hell Last?’”

  I gulped.

  “Those who have been unjust and have inflicted suffering on those smaller and weaker than themselves will burn in hell,” boomed the reverend.

  I gripped the edge of the pew and watched as my hands turned white.

  “Those who harm innocent creatures,” the reverend continued, “will suffer in hell as surely as those who’ve broken all of the Ten Commandments.”

  I looked up.

  “How long will this hell last?”

  I didn’t really want to know, but he went ahead and answered his own question.

  “As long as it would take you to drop one grain of sand at a time into the ocean and use up all the sand in the world.”

  It seemed like he was staring right at me.

  When a hat was passed around after Reverend Cannon was finally done, I didn’t even hesitate before giving him my dime.

  After church, I made Emma come with me to the river. “They’re dead by now, Dit,” Emma said.

  I ignored her and continued to look out over the water.

 
“Let’s go home. You won’t do it again.”

  “That’s what I said when I killed the buzzard,” I pointed out. “I did do it again.”

  Emma shrugged. “You can’t help it, Dit. You’re just good at killing things.”

  “Don’t say that!”

  I scanned the water desperately. There was a log stuck between two rocks, bobbing in place in the weak current. On the log were two dark bumps. Could those be kittens?

  I bundled Emma into a leaky canoe someone had abandoned on the riverbank. We quickly paddled out to the log. Sure enough, the two tiny kittens shivered and clung to the wood. They meowed loudly as we approached. God had worked a miracle in exchange for my dime.

  Emma leaned out of the canoe and picked up one kitten, placing it safely into the boat. As she leaned out to get the other, the canoe tipped and Emma fell into the water.

  I leaned over to grab her but couldn’t see her. “Emma?” Tiny bubbles broke the surface where she had fallen in. “Emma!” She can barely swim, I thought frantically.

  I was about to jump in after her when Emma finally surfaced, five or six feet away. She doggy-paddled back to the boat just like Pearl had shown her. I pulled her back into the canoe.

  She shivered uncontrollably. “You all right, Emma?”

  “Cold,” she mumbled. “The water’s cold.”

  I pulled off my jacket and handed it to her.

  “Dit?”

  “What?”

  Emma pointed. The log with the other kitten had broken free of the rock and was floating quickly away. Didn’t even give it a second thought before I dove into the water.

  Only took me four strong strokes to catch up with the log. Emma paddled the canoe over to me. I placed the kitten inside the canoe and then crawled back in over the edge. We stared at each other, dripping water.

  “My mama’s going to kill me,” she moaned as she shivered in my jacket. “My good dress!”

  “Least we’ll both be in trouble for ruining our Sunday clothes,” I said.

  Emma smiled.

  We took the kittens to our barn. Soon as I put them down in a pile of soft hay, they started to mew loudly.

  “I think they’re hungry,” said Emma.

  There was no way I was gonna sneak into the kitchen and get some milk without my mama noticing. Luckily, Betsy, our oldest cow, had a sore foot and we hadn’t driven her out to pasture that morning. So I went to her stall, sat down on the milking stool and squirted some milk into an old saucer. Soon as I put the saucer down, the kittens jumped on it, lapping away with their small pink tongues.

  When I turned around, Emma was staring at me, amazed. “Can I try?” she asked.

  “Ain’t you ever milked no cow before?”

  “No,” said Emma. “The milkman brings the milk in Boston.”

  I figured we really couldn’t do much else till our clothes dried, so I grabbed a bucket and sat Emma down on the stool.

  “This here’s the udder,” I said. “There are four teats. You put your hand on one like so.” I showed her how to pinch the teat with her fingers. “Then you pull down and squeeze and strip that milk right out.”

  Emma tried. Nothing happened. She pulled harder. Not a drop. Finally, Betsy mooed in protest and flicked Emma with her tail.

  “Let me show you again,” I said.

  “I can do it,” protested Emma. “Just stop mumbling. You’re distracting me.”

  “I ain’t talking,” I said.

  “Well, someone is,” Emma said, and we both stopped to listen.

  Sure enough, somebody was saying something, though we couldn’t quite make out the words. It sounded like it was coming from the other end of the barn.

  Me and Emma left Betsy in peace and crept down to the empty stall nearest the door. The kittens followed us too, hoping for more milk.

  The noises in the stall got louder as we approached. It sounded like two people, whispering and laughing. I threw open the stall door.

  There, sitting on a bale of hay, was my oldest sister, Della. And she was kissing Mr. Fulton’s oldest boy.

  “Della!” I exclaimed.

  Mr. Fulton’s boy was so surprised he fell backwards off the bale of hay, right into a pile of cow dung.

  I started to laugh. Even Emma had to fight back a giggle.

  “What are you doing here?” Della asked. Her hair had fallen down off her head and there was hay in her braids. Her work apron was bunched up on the floor.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. Della turned bright red, and that made me laugh even harder.

  Mr. Fulton’s boy jumped up and ran out of the barn so fast, he didn’t even notice he had a big glob of cow poop stuck to the back of his head.

  Della picked up her work apron and put it back on. She started to pick the hay out of her hair.

  I grinned. “Wait till Mama finds out.”

  “You can’t tell, Dit,” Della pleaded. “Please, you can’t.”

  “We won’t tell anyone,” said Emma.

  “Speak for yourself,” I said. “This is too darn funny to keep quiet!”

  “We won’t tell,” continued Emma, “but you have to get us some clean clothes and wash and press the ones we have on.”

  Emma always was a step or two ahead of me.

  For the first time, Della noticed that we were wet from head to toe.

  “Sure,” Della answered. “Give me half an hour. Only one question.”

  “What?” asked Emma.

  “What were you two up to?”

  The kittens peeked out from behind Emma’s leg and gave a little meow.

  27

  A NEW JOB

  TWO WEEKS BEFORE THANKSGIVING, DR. Griffith got a new Model T Ford sedan. It was a beautiful black car with shiny leather seats and a permanent top so you wouldn’t ever get caught in the rain. I stopped to admire it on the way home from school. It didn’t look nothing like my pa’s old Ford.

  Dr. Griffith came out of his house while I was standing there. “Hi, Dr. Griffith,” I said. “Need any help starting your car?”

  He shook his head. “You gotta be careful starting a car, Dit. You don’t do it right, the crank can reverse and break your arm.”

  I knew this. Ulman had showed me at home. “I’ve been practicing.”

  “On my car? You been cranking it to hear the engine run and then cutting it off?”

  “No.”

  “Your father’s?” he asked.

  “Maybe.”

  Dr. Griffith sighed. “Go ahead. Let’s see what you can do.”

  He climbed into the front seat. I bent over and cranked the engine. Did it pretty well if I do say so myself. The engine soon began to purr. I grinned.

  The doctor looked me over. “Get in, Dit,” he said finally.

  “Why?”

  “I drive into Selma once a month to pick up supplies. Takes about four hours each way. I could use someone to help with the driving. You interested in the job?”

  I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.

  Only took a couple of days for Dr. Griffith to teach me to drive. I catch on fast to things like that. Pretty soon I could start the car, drive it a ways and make it come to a jerky stop. But that wasn’t enough for Dr. Griffith. He lectured me on safety too, and when a man was killed three miles north of Moundville on the Tuscaloosa road, he made me go look at the body.

  “It was raining and he was going too fast for the muddy road,” Dr. Griffith told me. “I want you to see what happens when a car turns over.”

  The body was covered with a sheet. Dr. Griffith pulled the sheet back and I saw the man’s face. He lay perfectly still with his eyes wide open.

  It wasn’t the first time I had seen the face of a dead man. Once, before I even had my nickname, Pa had taken me to a funeral and lifted me up so I could see inside the casket. The teenage boy inside was all dressed up in a clean suit. I thought he looked real nice. “That’s Eli,” said Pa. “He’s dead.” I later learned Eli Howell had been cleaning his g
un when it accidentally went off. Least that’s what some people said. Others whispered he had killed himself but his mama convinced the doctor to say it was an accident so he could still be buried in the churchyard. So even though it wasn’t the first time I had seen a dead man, it was the first time I understood what I was seeing. And it gave me the creeps.

  Dr. Griffith wasn’t satisfied till I could change the oil, mend a flat and change gears as smooth as ice skating. But finally, he leaned back in his seat and smiled. “I think you’re ready. You’re a smart boy, Dit.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Why hasn’t your father taught you how to drive?”

  I shrugged. “We only got one car. Pa, Ulman, Elman and Raymond can all drive. We don’t need no more drivers.”

  Dr. Griffith nodded.

  But as I was walking home that afternoon, I didn’t feel as excited as I expected. Dr. Griffith was awfully nice, but he wasn’t my pa.

  28

  I MAKE MRS. WALKER

  REAL, REAL MAD

  I HATE TO ADMIT IT, BUT MRS. SEAY WAS A good teacher. I ain’t never worked so dang hard. While the old schoolteacher, Mr. Summons, just droned on and on, reading from notes that had yellowed with age, Mrs. Seay found ways to make me forget I was learning.

  On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Mrs. Seay invited Uncle Wiggens to come tell us about his experiences during the War Between the States. He stood at the front of the classroom, balancing on his one good leg and gesturing wildly as he spoke. “And then Sherman marched his army through Georgia and burned everything in his way. Churches, schools, even hospitals, just burned them up like they was kindling.”

  Everyone leaned forward, eyes wide.

  “Then the Union forces burned the University of Alabama.” Uncle Wiggens opened and closed his fists, wriggling his fingers. I think they were supposed to be the flames, licking at the buildings. “The Yankees didn’t want you to have no education. If it hadn’t been for General Lee, that’s Robert E. Lee, mind you, none of you would be here today!”