by Louis Bayard
“Get him washed,” mumbled Earle.
Before I could say a thing, Janey caught him in the ribs. The very next second, she was dragging her big brother toward the house, and I was hauling the stranger into the store. It’s on account of we’re women, I guess, we didn’t need to plan it.
“That’s some grip you got,” the stranger said.
My fingers had left white marks around his wrist.
“I’ll go without a fight,” he said.
Sure enough, he followed me past the counter and all the way to the back of the store to where the steps were, and when I started climbing, I could hear his feet, soft behind. His breath, too. I waited on the landing till he caught up. Then I pushed open the door.
Mama used to call the place our guest suite but only when she was putting it over on somebody. Do not be fooled! It was merely a bare room—sixteen by twelve, maybe—with a single sash window that never opened but a crack and a tick mattress full of straw and corn shucks.
As I remember, on that particular day, there was an apple box in the corner. This box was empty except for some bottles of liniment, a Spanish-language dictionary, and the 1912 Spotsylvania County criminal code.
This was the one room that could break Mama’s will. Anywhere else, she’d have gone in with a broom and a rag and some vinegar and a burlap sack, and she’d have made it bend. But every time she come up here, she’d take one look and say, “Next week.”
The stranger took a few totters around the room—polite-like. Then he bent to read the cross-stitched sampler hanging by the window.
“Cheer up. It might be worse.”
He stood up and give his jaw a scratch.
“I’ll take their word for it.”
He spun in a slow half circle and, before I knew it, started tipping back. The wall caught him, but it was a near thing.
“You want some water, mister?”
“Just need a moment.”
I closed the door after me.
“Listen,” I said, “I ain’t gonna sugar it for you. Room’s hotter than damnation in the summer. Colder than an Eskimo’s ass in the winter. Tolerable nice in spring, but you can’t keep the window open too long or you’ll get all fumey from the gas.”
He didn’t say nothing.
“That bucket over yonder,” I said. “You can use it for your business. Saves going to the privy. The other bucket is where you can burn your charcoal. Being as there ain’t no fireplace.”
His mouth was forming words now, but I couldn’t make ’em out.
“Listen now,” I said. “This ain’t nothing you can’t walk away from. Ain’t no one here holding you captive.”
He walked toward the little rhododendron-root table in the corner. Which was the one thing in that room that seemed made for something better. In a nice house, it would’ve had a family Bible sitting on it or a couple of old tintypes in a silver frame. Would’ve been waxed once a week. Here it was all on its lonesome, thick with grease and soot.
“Maybe you can tell me,” he said, “what kind of mess I’ve gotten into.”
“It ain’t no mess. Least it don’t have to be.”
He set himself on the mattress. A puff of dust flew up.
“Go on,” he said.
“My mama’s name was Brenda Hoyle, and she got belly trouble in January, and one thing led to another, and she went over.”
Weird how it all came flooding back. Mama clawing herself so fierce she’d have blood on her hands. Or laying back in her sheets (wet with piss because we never could get her the bucket in time) and staring the bejesus out of the ceiling.
“Point is,” I said, “I ain’t old enough to be in charge of them two children. Which is the goddamnedest stupidest thing I ever heard, but that’s the state of Virginia for you. So what I’m proposing is—well, it’s a business arrangement, that’s all. Say some folks from the county come out here and they say, Whoa, now, where be the father to these here children? Why, all you got to do is step up and say, That’s me. I am the feller in question. Then these selfsame folks, they go away and leave us alone. It’s a romp in the clover when you come right down to it.”
“Oh, sure,” he said.
“Well, it ain’t hard.”
“It’s against the law.”
“Yeah?” I hocked a fleck of tobacco spit onto the floor. “Then I ain’t got time for your damned law. ’Cause that law’s what’s going to split the three of us up. So if you’re feared of a pack of old spinsters—”
“Could be a hell of a lot more than spinsters. Could be a sheriff.”
“If you’re so feared, then why don’t you just catch the next coal truck heading west?”
He looked down at his fingers. Long spindly things.
“I’m not your father,” he said. “I’m not anybody’s father.”
“That don’t matter. You just gotta be here when the spinsters come a-knockin’. Like, just pretend I’m, what’s his face, Coburn? And we’re in this play together, and I got lines, and you got lines, and we fool ’em into thinking it’s all true.”
“What about your brother and sister? Are we going to fool them, too?”
“They’ll think what I tell ’em to think.”
Though just then I was recalling the look on Janey’s face as she hustled Earle into the house. An old look.
“Like I said before, mister. If you got someplace else to be…”
He was quiet.
“Hell,” I said. “You ain’t got a bindle on you. Bet you ain’t even got a toothbrush. Less it’s in one of them holes you call pockets. Here I am offering you food and a bed and a roof over your head. I call that a square deal.”
Quieter still. I could’ve busted a head on that quiet.
“Well, goddamn it, mister, what’s it gonna be? You in or out?”
His eyes went straggling around the room again till they found that little rhododendron table.
“It won’t work,” he said.
“Well, if it don’t, it’s on me. And you don’t need to bother yourself about the sheriff or nothing. If things go south, I’ll tell ’em it was my idea.”
“Not sure they’ll believe you.”
“Sure they will. I got witnesses to my bad character.”
He come very near to smiling.
“So we got us a deal?” I said.
“We got us something, all right.”
I tossed him a packet of Lucky Strikes as I was walking to the door. And a book of matches.
“We don’t got no ashtray,” I said. “But you can use the bucket.”
“I thank you.”
“Listen, mister.” I give my forehead a scratch. “Maybe you should tell me what your name is.”
“Name?”
“Seeing as I should know it, probably.”
“It’s Hiram. Hiram Watts.”
I let the sound of it settle in my ears.
“Well,” I said, “reckon you can hold on to that. I mean, it ain’t like you and Mama got hitched or nothing.”
“In fact, no.”
“Keeping it simple is all.”
“Of course.”
“So make yourself at home, Hiram Watts. There’s food down in the store if you’re hungry. If you’re just fixing to sleep, that’s okey, too.”
He ran his fingers round the rim of that root table. Once, twice.
“All right,” he whispered.
I closed the door after me.
Now I was all set to go back downstairs, but instead I sat down on the floor and leaned my head against the door. A minute or two later, I heard his voice on the other side.
“Thanks for the smokes.”
Even then I stayed. Till I heard his snoring. Which was ’bout as high as his speaking voice was deep.
Hiram, I said to myself. Hiram Watts.
Chapter
SIX
I can’t say why, but I remember exactly what we had for breakfast the next morning. A jar of French’s mustard and a can of Del Monte
country gentleman corn.
In those days, it was just easier to take our meals straight from the store shelves—whatever hadn’t been bought or gone rotten. Mama used to say it was like eating your own profits, but when she took sick, there weren’t nothing else for it. And Janey and Earle, they was all in at first, but as time went on, I could see the sag in their souls every time the food come squooshing out, still holding the can’s shape. And on that particular Saturday morning, they was specially gray in the face.
“Melia,” said Janey, “don’t you wish you could cook?”
“Ain’t got the time to learn.”
“Reckon you could learn to heat something up,” muttered Earle.
“There’s the stove,” I said. “Be my guest.”
Janey poured out another glob of mustard. Studied it with one eye, then the other.
“Thing is, Melia, if you cooked, you could make biscuits like Mama’s.”
“Ain’t nobody can do that,” I said.
And this was the truth. Mama’s biscuits tasted fresh no matter how long they set out on the counter.
“Could be she’s making biscuits right now,” said Janey.
“I suspicion they’re letting her put up her feet awhile.”
“You reckon she still smells like blackberries?”
“Yes, ma’am. That’s how they knew who it was. Brenda Hoyle, we smelled you a-coming. Saint Peter’s very words.”
“He didn’t say no such thing,” said Earle.
“How you gonna know what Saint Peter says?” said Janey.
“I know as much as you two. Which is nothing at all.”
I had a certain speech in mind, but then Hiram Watts opened our front door and walked in.
And now that I look back on it, I can see this was the turning.
’Cause up to that point, I do believe I could’ve swerved back. Could’ve sent Hiram Watts and his thundercloud beard back to where they come from and schemed my way clear to some whole new future. All that could’ve happened—but then he walked through our door.
Like a man coming home to his family, I can see that now—only shocked to find a family there, and the family no less shocked to find him, and the future speeding toward them all.
“Morning,” I said.
“Morning,” he said.
The voice was even deeper with a little sleep in it. The color of oil out of the crankcase.
He stood there a second, like he was steadying himself against a wind. Then he closed the door behind him.
“Oh, look,” said Janey. “Somebody gone and dressed him.”
It was true, the rags from yesterday were gone. (I never saw them again.) He was wearing a gray cotton jumpsuit, which stopped about halfway down his shins but helped some. He’d also given his hair a rinse, which helped some as well.
“Found ’em in a corner,” he said.
“They was bought for someone,” I said. “Mechanic Mama hired last fall. He lasted ’bout three seconds.”
“’Cause he was a crook,” said Janey. “And a drunk and a lech.”
“Still, he left the clothes behind, and they ain’t too far off your size.”
“How come you don’t have no clothes your own?” asked Earle.
Hiram thought a bit.
“They must be in transit,” he said. “I expect you’re Earle.”
With great care, like it was the last time he was gonna see it, Hiram put out his hand. Earle’s didn’t budge.
“Shake it,” I said.
“I ain’t,” said Earle.
“Shake it or I’ll—”
“I ain’t gonna shake it, and nobody can make me.”
Hiram was just looking for an empty chair to fall in.
“Why the hell is he here?” said Earle.
“’Cause he’s kin, that’s why.”
“I don’t care who he is. We don’t need him. We was doing just fine on our lonesome.”
“Hush up now.”
“I won’t. I’m the damn man of the family.”
“That so?”
“Mama told me, and that makes it so.”
“She meant till a real one come along. You ain’t but eleven years old.”
“You shut up! I’m twelve next February, and I can hunt and fish and … and I know what a man and woman do when they love on each other, and I can … I can climb that hickory tree by Squabble Creek … ain’t nobody in the whole fifth grade can do that … so don’t you even…”
He jolted up from the table and run out the door. From somewhere in the vicinity of the front porch, he was heard to wish me dead.
“Earle’s strung tight,” Janey explained.
Hiram give a nod. “Coffee,” he whispered.
“Right here, Daddy Hiram.” I pushed the pot toward him, slid a tin mug his way. “Go ahead now.”
His hands trembled as they poured, and very little of that coffee made it into the cup.
“Apologies,” he said.
I ran to the kitchen for a rag, but when I got back, he was wiping up the spill with his hands.
“I’ll clean it, Daddy Hiram. Pour you another one, too, how would that be?”
He watched the brew rise up in the mug. Then he bowed his face over it and give it a good loud sniff. Then another sniff and another.
“He right in the head?” Janey whispered.
“Hey, Daddy Hiram, maybe you’d like a smoke, huh? I rolled one just for you.”
I lit the cig myself, with one of the Zippos from the store. He took a deep drag, then let out a single skull-rattling cough.
“Much appreciated,” he said.
“We got mustard left,” said Janey.
He give his head a shake.
“Sure is nice to see a man smokin’ at the table,” she said. “You ever been to California?”
Hiram said nothing.
“You seen an elephant?”
Nothing.
“What’s wrong with your eye?”
“It’s a little lazy,” he said.
Janey looked at him for a space. Then she carried her plate to the slop bucket.
“These dishes ain’t gonna wash themselves,” she said.
Hiram stayed in his room the rest of the day. That night, when I knocked on his door, he was setting on the edge of the tick mattress. Looking out the window, I guess, though there weren’t much of a view on that side. Just an old storage shed, falling over on itself, and the lean-to where Earle kept his Great Heap o’ Treasure till the junkman come around every month.
“Evening,” I said.
I laid out a pair of scissors, a Gem razor, and a can of Colgate’s Rapid-Shave Cream on the root table. A mirror and a washbasin.
“The beard’s gotta go, Hiram. It’s enough to scare a pack of horses.”
He rested the razor in his palm. “Can’t remember the last time I shaved.”
“I reckon it’ll come right back.” Though I had no idea if this was so. “After you’re done, you should feel free to come on downstairs. I got some Aunt Sally rolled oats, right out of the box. Reckon you’re mighty hungry by now.”
His hand curled round the razor handle. Shook a little.
“Listen here,” I said. “You ain’t gonna try something dumb, are you?”
“No, ma’am.”
“’Cause if that’s what you got in mind, I’ll take you to yonder railroad tracks. I got too much on my mind to be cleaning up some fool’s blood.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Don’t forget about the oats,” I said, and shut the door.
If I’d been the kind, I’d have sent up a prayer that Hiram Watts not take that razor straight across his neck, but all I could do was what I done the last time. Set against his door, listening. Till I heard the squeak of scissors.
He never did come for dinner, but next morning, he showed up at breakfast again, and it was near as shocking. From out that ratty old beard, a face had clawed its way. Half-dark from the elements, half-white from where the whiskers
had been. The biggest surprise was his mouth. Not the long full line I expected, but a small crimped thing, loath to unpinch.
“Morning,” growled Hiram.
He tucked into the stewed tomatoes, never mind they’d gone cold. Drank ’em down with Nehi and then went after a pair of old dinner rolls that were so hard, even Earle had given up on ’em.
“I believe it’s Sunday,” said Hiram.
“All day,” I said.
“I suppose you’ll be going to church.”
Earle and me, we shut up about it, but Janey said, “That’s ’bout the funniest thing I ever heard.”
“What’s so funny?” muttered Hiram Watts.
Now, Mama got each of her babies baptized—just in case—but from there, she figured, we was on our own. I got a business to run, she’d say. You think I got three hours to listen to some fool tell me I’m going to hell? Hell’s gonna be a lot more fun than church.
Which is when she’d start into her dance. A little Lindy, a little Charleston, dash of hoochie coochie. She did it only for us, but that didn’t matter, ’cause the folk of Walnut Ridge had long ago cottoned on that the Hoyle clan was not to be found in the pews of Free Will Baptist nor of Happy Creek Methodist. There was some thought we might be Catholic or Jewish, but since nobody ever saw us observe a single holiday, they drew the conclusion we were not much at all.
One afternoon, Mama was picking up some turnips and potatoes at M&L Produce when she caught sight of two ladies talking in the next aisle. Now, she’d never laid eyes on these ladies in all her life, but as soon as she heard the words “flame-haired hussy,” she knew who they was talking about. So she ducked behind the cucumber barrel and give a listen.
“Three children by two different fathers.”
“More like three fathers.”
“Weren’t married to a one of ’em, probably.”
“Spends her days in men’s clothes. Flirts with truck drivers.”
“Uses language’d make a miner blush.”
“I’ve even seen her working on the Sabbath.”
On and on it went, Mama grinning like a mule eating briars and just about ready to slip out the store when one of them ladies said, “Grace, as a Christian, you just gotta steer clear of them gas station pagans.”
Now there weren’t no help for it. Mama come tumbling out from behind the cucumber barrel, a-roaring with laughter. And when she caught a look at those two ladies’ faces, she roared even louder. Still laughing an hour on, telling us about it. But later that night—after her and me’d settled into the hickory split chair by the stove—she said, “Know what? Gas Station Pagans is ’bout the best name they could’ve given us.”
