When the Crickets Stopped Singing

by Marilyn Cram-Donahue

  “It’s too bad what his injuries have done to him,” Artie said, and all the men waiting to get shaves and haircuts nodded their heads up and down.

  Eddie told me Willie Jack had been shell-shocked in the Great War. He was fighting in the trenches in France when a German bomb dropped so close it blew him out of the hole he was in, and it was a miracle he didn’t go to kingdom come. They sent him home to Messina instead. After all this time, he still jumped at loud noises and sometimes got the shakes. The worst times were what folks called his black spells. They didn’t happen so much anymore, but when they did, he talked out loud to himself and thought he was still in the war. When he got like that, Dr. Thomas would go and sit with him, and after a while he’d be himself again.

  I liked Willie Jack. He talked to me like I had a lot of sense, which was more than my brother, Eddie, did.

  “Do you think I need my hair trimmed, Angie?” he once asked.

  I told him he did. “When you let it grow long and it hangs over your ears,” I said, “you remind me of that actor, Gabby Hayes, in the Roy Rogers movies. Why don’t you go see Artie Longmire at the barbershop? He can give you a haircut and a shave, too.”

  He thanked me for the advice. What’s more, he took it, and he looked pretty good until it all grew back.

  When we got to the corner, Willie Jack wasn’t alone. He had his ugly old chow dog, Duke, with him. Duke mostly stood in front of Willie Jack’s old frame house and drooled when we walked past. But when Duke saw a bicycle, he opened his mouth and showed his pointed teeth and long, purple tongue. He always looked like he’d been chewing indelible pencils.

  Reba Lu said he looked harmless to her. My mouth dropped open when she walked right up and started petting him. “Nice Duke. Good dog,” she said, and he rolled over on his back like he wanted his stomach scratched.

  That’s the way Reba Lu was, always trying to see the best in people. And dogs, too. I guessed that was the way you got to be if you were a preacher’s daughter.

  Geraldine and I edged over to say hello to Willie Jack, but he had more important things on his mind. He leaned back against the whitewashed stucco wall of the Bank of America building, waved one arm in the air, and motioned for God to come on down. He patted the dusty window ledge next to him and scooted over a bit to make more room.

  “It’s a fine day, ain’t it, Lord?” he said to the empty space beside him. He always started his conversations with God that way, even if it was pouring rain. Then he would get right on with whatever it was that troubled him.

  “I smell something fishy,” he said now. Reba Lu stopped petting Duke and wiped her hands on her shorts. Geraldine and I sniffed the air, but Duke didn’t seem to smell any worse than usual. Not fishy, anyway.

  Willie Jack raised his paper sack to his lips, then changed his mind and put it down. “What I’m saying,” he explained, “is that somebody is up to no good.” He said somebody like he was sure God knew who he was talking about.

  He gave his dog a nudge. “Ain’t that right, Duke?” Duke didn’t make a sound, just lay on the sidewalk, hoping for more petting. Reba Lu sighed and began rubbing his stomach with the toe of her shoe.

  “What I’m asking, Lord,” Willie Jack continued, “is for you to protect your little lambs. I’ll do my part, but I can’t be everywhere at once like you can.”

  He raised the paper sack again, and this time he took a long drink out of the open bottle that was inside. I still hadn’t told Geraldine and Reba Lu that Willie Jack’s hooch bottle was full of water. I gave myself a little hug for being in on his secret.

  “Willie Jack Kelly got a medal for heroism in the Great War,” I’d heard Daddy say. “He saved a lot of American lives, including mine. Any time he wants to stand on the corner and talk to God, it’s all right with me.”

  Reba Lu gave Geraldine and me a poke. “This is not a good time to talk to Willie Jack about sin,” she whispered. I had to agree. I didn’t want to compete with God for Willie Jack’s attention anyway.

  We backed away slowly. As soon as we got out of earshot, Geraldine asked, “Who were the little lambs he was talking about?”

  “Don’t you ever read the Bible?” Reba Lu asked her. “God’s little lambs are young people, like us.”

  “Well, I don’t need protecting from anybody,” Geraldine said.

  I thought that wasn’t entirely true. It was just Geraldine, acting like she knew all the answers. But we didn’t have time to discuss it. The sound of drums was coming from the parking lot of the Congregational church across the street, and folks were hurrying over there to take their places in line.

  The parade always began and ended at the church, and if you missed anything, you could see it right there: Dr. Thomas in his black and yellow clown suit, wearing a big red nose; the Messina marching band, which gave Geraldine goose bumps because Johnny Henderson was in it; Old Man Snyder riding the dappled mare that lived in the shed over the cellar where we suspected he had buried his wife; Eddie and my father on the Harley Davidson that Mama hated.

  Jefferson Clement drove Mrs. Clement’s old Ford convertible with the top down. He had polished it until it was as shiny as black ink. He wore a shirt so white it must have been bleached twice. And his tie matched the red stripes in the American flag tied to the radio antenna. Mrs. Clement sat in the front seat with him, but she didn’t smile and wave her hand like he did. When they passed us, he took off his straw hat and lifted it high in the air. Some people behind us began to cheer, yelling, “Welcome home, Jeff!”

  Geraldine started to wave, but Reba Lu got hold of her hand and pulled it down.

  “What’s the matter with you, Geraldine? Have you already forgotten how Miss Emma cried and carried on when she saw him?”

  Geraldine shrugged. “She might have been mixing him up with somebody else. Anyway, you’ve got to remember that Miss Emma isn’t quite right. She said so herself.”

  “Just the same,” I said, “she’s on our list of people to love.”

  “So is he,” Geraldine reminded me. She was wearing one of her know-it-all looks, so I ignored her and went back to watching the parade. But I was beginning to wish we had left Jefferson Clement off our list.

  The highlight of this year’s parade was Reverend Adams dressed as Uncle Sam in red, white, and blue and wearing a fake goatee that kept slipping sideways on his chin. It didn’t slip all the way off, and I figured that God must be looking out for him, and if that didn’t give him a Sunday sermon, I didn’t know what would.

  When the parade was over, we all went to the American Legion Park east of town. Mulberry trees grew along the little stream that was fed by a spring. The berries were deep red, almost black. If we didn’t pick them soon, the birds would eat them. The stream emptied into Willow Pond, where the trees trailed long branches in the water and frogs hid and croaked their night songs.

  Tall eucalyptus trees stood along the north side. They were so old that their roots had risen far above the ground, making a kind of jungle that smelled like Mentholatum. Geraldine and I used to explore there, hunting for the little eucalyptus pods that looked like round heads wearing hats.

  Dodie was over there now, wandering around among the trees. I saw her pull off some leaves and sniff them, then stick them in her hair. It gave me a funny feeling to remember doing the same thing myself. Then she climbed over some roots to a place where two eucalyptus trunks grew close together and made a kind of slanting V shape. She leaned back against one of those trunks and put both feet against the other. I could tell by the look on her face that she was just soaking it in. That this was a place she loved. I watched her a minute, then went to help Mama with the picnic food.

  We were starting to set our potato salad and fried chicken on one of the long tables in the shade when Mr. Jefferson Clement came walking up with an angel food cake. He was wearing the same straw hat that he’d waved in the parade. It had a red band around it. And that white shirt of his just about made me blink when he stood in t
he sun. He came over to our table, smiled at Mama, and set the cake down. “The rest of my family will be along,” he told her.

  She gave Mr. Clement a smile before she said, smooth as silk, “Oh, Jefferson, Dr. Thomas and Miss Emma are eating with us today, along with Angie’s friends Geraldine and Reba Lu.” She began setting the table, then managed a little laugh. “You can leave the cake if you like.”

  Mr. Clement’s mouth looked like he’d bit into a lemon. But only for a second. “Maybe next time, Sally,” he said. Then he picked up his cake and walked away.

  I could see he wasn’t going to have any trouble finding someplace else for his family to eat. He started going from table to table, tipping his hat to the ladies and grinning from ear to ear, just like he was running for mayor. Mr. Flannery, the grocer, pumped his hand up and down and patted him on the back. And I saw Mr. Temple, our druggist, heading his way with a big smile on his face. Mrs. Hewitt started waving her hand at him and moving the plates at her table to make more room.

  But Mama wasn’t impressed. She leaned over and whispered to me, “Quick now! You go and tell your friends and the Thomases that we saved a place for them. Hurry up.”

  I hurried. But not so fast as to miss the look on Mama’s face. She wasn’t sorry she’d told a lie. Not a bit. There was something strange going on with Mr. Jefferson Clement, and I didn’t know why she didn’t just come right out and say so.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The day after the picnic, Reba Lu had to stay in her room until it was clean. Geraldine had a toothache, and Mrs. Murlock took her to the dentist. I sat on the front porch swing by myself, but it wasn’t much fun. After a while, I told Mama I was going up to the American Legion Park to collect some eucalyptus pods. “You know, the ones that look like tiny hats,” I said. “If I poke holes in them with a darning needle and string them on some yarn, I can wear them around my neck.”

  Mama smiled. “That’s a good idea. We could dip them in some beet juice to add a little color.” Mama was good at coming up with ideas like that. “While you’re there,” she said, “you could pick some mulberries. I noticed yesterday that they’re ripe enough.”

  Mama made real good mulberry muffins, and I was tired of oatmeal mush for breakfast. I took a pail with a long handle and started up the street. When I got to the park, it was so quiet I could hardly believe all the commotion that had gone on there yesterday. I started collecting eucalyptus pods in a paper sack I’d brought and nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw two feet hanging from a tree limb above me. I could tell they were Dodie Crumper’s feet without seeing the rest of her.

  “You’d better come down,” I told her.

  “Why?”

  “You could fall and break a leg.”

  “I could do that walking down the street.”

  “Maybe so, but it’s more likely when you’re in a tree.”

  Dodie jumped down and landed on both feet at the same time. “You’re a fearful kind of person, aren’t you?”

  “I am not, and that’s a rude thing to say.”

  Dodie shrugged her skinny shoulders. “I was only saying what I think.” We stood there a minute. Then she said, “That day we went to San Andreas … it was OK.”

  I nodded. “I love going to the movies. Too bad Messina doesn’t have a movie house.”

  Dodie scratched her head with both hands, then examined her fingernails for dandruff or something worse. “But then we wouldn’t get to take the bus. That’s the part I liked most. Going somewhere different. A place where nobody knows your name, and you can pretend to be anybody you want to be.”

  I had to think about that. I wouldn’t want to be anybody else, but maybe I would if I was Dodie. “Who would you be?” I asked her. “You know, if you could choose.”

  She picked up a handful of pods and dumped them in my sack. “That’s easy. I read about a girl in a book. She went to live at a farm where they expected a boy who could help around the place. But they kept her anyway. And she got to do all sorts of things and be outdoors a lot.”

  I didn’t say anything. I was surprised that Dodie had read a book all on her own. But I wasn’t surprised that she liked a book where the character lived with strangers instead of her mother.

  She squatted down and began to draw squiggles with a stick in the soft dirt at the edge of the stream. Then she looked up at me sideways. “I’ve got that Geraldine figured out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She acts like she knows everything, but she’s really the kind who likes to sit behind people in school and look over their shoulders to get the answers.”

  I felt my face turn hot.

  “Huh,” Dodie said. “I thought so. I bet you let her do it, too.”

  It was hard to keep from smiling. I was thinking about the time we had a spelling test and Geraldine copied my words. But she wasn’t careful, and she got some of them wrong. When Miss Harper passed back the papers with the grades on them, Geraldine’s face turned red, and she said, “This isn’t fair.”

  “Is that so?” Miss Harper said, and she sent Geraldine to the blackboard to write the words she missed ten times each. Some of the kids made chortling sounds, but Geraldine didn’t care. She never minded having to get up in front of the classroom, even when she didn’t know the answer. I wasn’t like that. I never liked going to the front of the room. Sometimes I thought Geraldine and I were more different than we were alike.

  She’d been mad at me for not writing clearer so she could cheat easier. She said she wouldn’t come to my house for a whole week, but she didn’t mean it. She was behind in writing her spelling sentences, and she needed my help.

  All this thinking about wrongdoing reminded me of something I wished I could forget. Whenever I thought about it, I wanted to go back and change things. To speak up when I had the chance. But it was too late.

  “What’s the matter?” Dodie asked. She moved a few feet away. “You look like you’re about to lose your breakfast.”

  I swallowed. I did feel a little queasy. I didn’t like remembering the time I had acted like a coward, but every now and then it came sneaking back into my mind like a slug in a pot of geraniums.

  I took off my sandals and went and stood in the cool water that ran through the park year round. I hoped my feet would get so cold I would have to sit down and rub them to get the feeling back. But they didn’t.

  “Did you ever do something you’re ashamed of?” I asked.

  Dodie scratched her head. “Maybe. Depends on what you mean by ashamed.”

  “You know. Something you feel really bad about.”

  Dodie scratched her head again. “You mean like stealing grapes from Mr. Flannery’s vines? I’ve done that lots of times, but I’m not really ashamed. It’s more like I’m sorry I got caught.”

  “This was different from stealing grapes.” I began to wish I hadn’t started this conversation.

  Dodie looked at me as if I had suddenly become a more interesting person. “So what did you do?” she asked.

  “Do you promise never to tell?”

  Dodie crisscrossed her fingers over her chest in the general direction of her heart. “Promise. Hope to die.”

  I shook my head. This was Dodie Crumper I was dealing with, and I needed more than her promise. “You have to tell me something back,” I said. “Like a secret thing you’ve never told anybody.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “OK.”

  So I told her how I had seen some mean kids teasing a new girl at school because she had a cheese and bell pepper sandwich. “Her parents were from another country, and I guess that was a normal lunch for them instead of peanut butter and jelly or baloney and mayonnaise like the rest of us had. But these kids dumped her lunch box in the schoolyard dirt. And they teased her about her name, just because it was hard to pronounce. I knew I ought to tell them to cut it out, but I was afraid to. She looked so scared. I’ll never forget it.”

  Dodie didn’t react the way I’d hoped she would. I h
ad wanted her to say that I was being silly about the whole thing. But she didn’t. She said, “I don’t like to see somebody get picked on.” Which told me right there that she would have done something, and I was a coward for standing by.

  I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “It’s your turn,” I said.

  She made me cross my heart and say “hope to die,” then as soon as she found a low rock next to the stream where she could sit and dangle her feet in the water, she began.

  “In the middle of the night, I had to go to the—you know—and I tripped over a chair and fell flat on my face. I stayed on the floor a little while. Stayed real quiet, just to make sure nothing but a chair had tripped me up. Then I got up and felt around on the wall for the light switch. But when I flipped it, nothing happened. I was in the dark. Totally. There wasn’t even a moon that night. That’s when I figured that Mama hadn’t paid the electric bill, and they’d shut our lights off again. I—I never went back to bed. Just pulled a cushion from the front room couch and sat in a corner. I held that cushion in front of me just in case something was waiting to pounce on me. I kept hearing noises in the walls.”

  I thought that wasn’t surprising, considering what the Crumper house was like. Those noises were probably mice—or worse. “So what finally happened?” I asked.

  “I sat there until the sun started to come up. I never knew how pretty the sky could be early in the morning, with all that light chasing the night away.”

  I stared at Dodie. Who would have thought she could say something almost like a poem. But I didn’t tell her that. Instead, I said, “Where was your mother?”

  “Out cold with her bottle.”

  Dodie said it like it was the most natural thing in the world to have a mother who was out cold with a bottle. I wondered if it was her bottle that made her feel poorly so much of the time, but I wasn’t going to ask.