Jim the Boy

by Tony Earley

  Uncle Zeno parked the truck on Trade Street and turned to Jim. He said, “You think you’re old enough to keep an eye on that courthouse clock and be back here by one?”

  Jim nodded rapidly. The uncles had never turned him loose in New Carpenter before.

  “All right, then,” said Uncle Zeno. He removed a dime from the bib pocket of his overalls and gave it to Jim. “You stay out of trouble, now, and don’t tell your Mama I let you go off by yourself.”

  “Yes, sir!” Jim said.

  Once Jim reached Main Street, his excitement at being there alone quickly chilled. Everywhere he wanted to go, he found groups of kids, New Carpenter kids, all strangers, already in possession of the place. Kids swarmed like flies around the drugstore counter, where Jim had wanted to get some ice cream; four tough-looking boys were squatted down in the hardware store beside the display case holding knives; a covey of girls giggled into the dime store just as Jim got there. Soon he began to feel that all the other kids in town were watching him, that they felt sorry for him because he didn’t have any friends. He grew angry at all the kids in New Carpenter for just being there, and angry at himself because he was not brave enough to go where they were and tell them who he was.

  Jim was wandering toward the courthouse when Penn Carson yelled his name from the other side of the street. Jim was glad to see someone he knew. He waved his arm back and forth over his head as if signaling a locomotive in a train yard. He looked up and down Main Street, but did not see a hole in the traffic that would let him cross.

  Penn pointed toward the courthouse, and they walked toward the intersection, Jim on one side of the street, Penn on the other. At the intersection, Penn waited for the light to change and ran across Main Street toward Jim.

  “Hey, Jim!” Penn said, as if they were the oldest friends. “Do you want to go exploring?”

  “Yeah! “Jim said, his appreciation of New Carpenter returning in a rush.

  He followed Penn across Trade Street and up the stairs leading to the courthouse lawn. A smoking gauntlet of mill hands lined the sidewalk that crossed the wide yard. Mama said that mill hands carried switchblade knives and got drunk and cut each other. Jim didn’t dare look at them.

  At the base of the courthouse steps, Penn stopped and looked around furtively, as if they were being followed. “Come on,” he said. “I know a secret passageway.” He walked to the right side of the steps, motioned for Jim to follow him, and ducked behind the wall of fat boxwoods that ringed the courthouse. Between the courthouse and the boxwoods was a space just wide enough for the boys to pass through single file. They hurried along the front of the building, invisible behind the thick bushes. After they turned the corner, Penn stopped Jim and pointed down at a man’s footprint, its heel mark deep and distinct in the soft ground.

  “Convicts!” Jim whispered. “We saw them on the way here. I bet one of them escaped!”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” said Penn.

  “There’s not enough sign to track him.”

  “He might be down there,” Penn said, pointing at a stairway leading into the basement of the court-house.

  “He might be,” Jim said. “Have you ever been down there?”

  “No,” said Penn, “but I’ll go if you will.”

  “You think we’ll get in trouble?”

  “I hope not.”

  They crept to the stairwell, crawled underneath the handrail, and dropped down in front of the basement door. They crouched to stay out of sight.

  “See if it’s locked,” Penn said.

  Cool, ammonia-smelling air rushed out around Jim when he opened the door. Ahead of him lay a dark hallway divided across the middle by a thin band of barred sunlight.

  “Look,” Jim whispered. “A jail cell!”

  “I don’t know,” said Penn. “Do you think we should look inside it?”

  “I will if you will,” Jim said.

  They crept down the hallway, their backs flat against the wall, almost to the boundary of sunlight on the floor. Jim was afraid to go any farther. He stared down at the shadow of the bars, at the dust motes suspended above the floor. He was about to tell Penn they should go back when Penn shoved him into the light. Through the cell door Jim saw a mill hand sitting on a bench beneath a barred window. He raised his head and looked at Jim with a sad, bruised face. One of his eyes was swollen almost shut. His lower lip was split, and the front of his white shirt was splattered with blood. Jim could not move away from the door, nor take his eyes off of the man. He stared at him the way he might stare at a strange, growling dog blocking his path. One corner of the man’s mouth twisted up in a crooked smile.

  “Boo!” he said, lunging suddenly toward the door.

  Jim stumbled backward, where Penn grabbed him by the arm.

  “Run, Jim!” he yelled.

  They ran down the hall, out the door, up the stairs, and across the lawn through the mill hands. They ran across Trade Street without waiting for the light. They did not stop running until they were halfway down Main Street, where they slowed to a jog, then to a breathless walk, their hands on their hips as they tried to breathe. When they finally plopped down on the bench outside the barbershop, Jim could feel his hands shaking, but he wasn’t afraid anymore — just excited. Strangely, he felt like laughing. Penn started to grin. “You should have seen your face,” he panted.

  “At least I didn’t yell,” said Jim.

  When they started laughing, it took them a long time to stop. Then they leaned back against the bench and sat for several minutes without talking. Jim turned his face up to the sun. He felt absolutely content.

  “I’m glad,” Penn said finally, “that the mountain boys …”

  “And the town boys,” Jim cut in.

  “… aren’t here.”

  “Me too,” said Jim. “They would mess everything up.”

  It was Jim’s turn to choose a place to explore. He led Penn to the alley between a ladies’ store and a lawyer’s office. The alley ran all the way to the unnamed street that paralleled Main. Jim stopped a few feet into the alley and pointed at the brick wall, where someone had drawn a skull and crossbones in chalk. Underneath the skull and crossbones was written the word “KING.”

  “Who do you think King is?” Penn whispered.

  Jim frowned. “He couldn’t be a pirate,” he said. “It takes forever to get to the ocean from here.”

  “Then why the skull and crossbones?” asked Penn.

  “Maybe he’s a murderer,” Jim said.

  They walked slowly toward the sunlit space Jim could see at the end of the alley. Every few steps they encountered fresh warnings, each more fierce than the one that preceded it: “NO TRESPASSING KING;” “BEWARE KING;” “IF YOU GO PASS HERE YOU WILL DIE KING.” Jim had always wanted to explore this alley, but now he wasn’t so sure. His feet felt too heavy to move. The alley had grown darker and colder, as if it were a canyon between two tall cliffs. He would have run all the way back to Main Street, but he didn’t want Penn to think he was afraid.

  Penn picked up a small, white rock and drew a circle around the word “PASS.”

  “At least he spelled his name right,” he whispered.

  Jim put his hand over his mouth to keep from giggling out loud.

  They tiptoed out into a small courtyard that opened onto the narrow, muddy street. The ground was littered with cigarette butts and broken bottles. On the other side of the street was the back of an unpainted shack almost overrun with blackberry briars. An enormous crown was chalked onto the wall. Underneath the crown was written “YOU DIE KING.”

  “I don’t know, Jim,” Penn said. “What if King really is a murderer? What if he’s not playing?”

  Jim considered the possibility. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  When Jim and Penn turned to go back the way they had come, they saw two older boys running toward them down the alley. Another two boys ran into the courtyard from the small street. They quickly found themselves su
rrounded. The boys wore dungarees, not overalls. They closed in around Jim and Penn until Jim could smell their hair oil, the cigarette smoke on their clothes. Jim guessed they were New Carpenter boys, mill-hill boys, seventh, maybe eighth graders. There was no way to get away from them. Jim wanted to tell Penn that if he didn’t fight, these boys would kill them.

  Almost as if reading Jim’s mind, Penn whispered, “I’m with you, Jim.”

  Jim felt a little better, but not much. He picked out the least scary-looking pair for when the fight came, but the idea of fighting the bigger boys — and of what they would do to him and Penn — made him feel sick inside.

  One boy was obviously the leader. He was stocky, bordering on fat, but his arms were almost man-sized. He wore a felt cap shaped like a crown. He stepped up so close to Jim and Penn that he was almost touching them. He had tiny black eyes set above big round cheeks.

  “I’m King,” he said, pointing toward the alley. “Can’t you hicks read?”

  “Better than you can spell,” Jim said.

  King shoved Jim hard against the wall. “Did I say you could talk, hick-boy?”

  Penn pushed King. “You leave him alone!” he said.

  “That was the biggest mistake you ever made,” King said, pushing up his sleeves.

  Over King’s shoulder Jim saw Abraham walk into the alley. Abraham didn’t look at Jim.

  “Hey, old man,” said King. “No ‘coons allowed back here.”

  Abraham’s eyebrows went up briefly and he reached into the pocket of his overalls. Jim heard a click and suddenly there was a knife in Abraham’s hand.

  “Hey,” said King, backing toward the street.

  Abraham stepped closer, his face a blank.

  All four of the boys took another slow, backward step.

  “Hey,” King said again.

  “Hey,” said Abraham.

  The boys turned and broke for the street. Jim could hear their feet splashing in the mud as they ran away.

  Abraham still didn’t look at Jim. He stared at the street where the boys had gone. He reached into his other pocket and pulled out an apple.

  “Hey, Abraham,” said Jim.

  “Sit down, Mr. Glass,” Abraham said. “Against that wall right there.”

  Jim backed up and sat down against the wall.

  “Who’s that?” Abraham said, indicating Penn with the knife.

  “He’s my friend,” Jim said. “Penn Carson.”

  “Sit down, Mr. Carson.”

  Penn obediently sat down beside Jim.

  “Slide over,” Abraham said, indicating with the knife that he wanted them to sit apart. He walked over to the wall, turned, and sat down heavily between Jim and Penn. Jim and Penn stared at the knife. With great formality Abraham began peeling the apple. Jim noticed that his hands were shaking.

  “Abraham?” Jim said.

  “Them boys was following you all over town. I followed them boys. They ain’t good boys.”

  “I know,” Jim said.

  “What are you doing back in this alley?”

  “We were just playing,” said Jim.

  “Well, you ain’t playing no more.”

  Jim stared at the apple as Abraham peeled it, at the peeling snaking toward the ground. Even though his hands were shaking, Abraham managed to keep the peeling in one piece.

  “Oh, Lord,” Abraham mumbled. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”

  Jim suddenly felt as if he were going to cry.

  “What’s going to happen to us?” he said.

  “Just hush,” said Abraham.

  Jim heard people coming down the alley.

  “All right now,” said Abraham. “If I say go, you go. Mr. Carson, you find the policeman. Jim, you find your uncle.”

  Jim and Penn started to stand up.

  “Not yet,” Abraham said. “We’re going to eat this apple here.”

  Hague the policeman stepped into the courtyard, followed by King. Hague carried a blackjack. Abraham reached up and took off his hat.

  “That’s him!” King yelled, looking out from behind the policeman. “That’s the nigger tried to cut me!”

  Abraham cut a slice from the apple and handed it to Jim. Jim took it and ate it. Abraham cut another slice and handed it to Penn.

  Hague stared at them a long moment.

  “Thy rod and thy staff,” Abraham whispered.

  Hague turned and looked at King. “Nobody here tried to cut you,” he said.

  “He did, too!” King whined. “He did try to cut me!”

  “You’re crazy,” Jim said. “That’s the craziest thing I ever heard. He was just peeling an apple.”

  King squinted his eyes at Jim in a threat.

  “What an imagination,” said Penn.

  “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever,” whispered Abraham.

  Hague pointed across the street.

  “You the punk been writing all this garbage on the walls?” he said.

  “What?” said King, his mouth and eyes widening. “What?”

  “Get out of here,” said Hague.

  “But …,” King said.

  Hague tapped King on the backs of his legs with the blackjack. King jumped each time as if the blackjack were hot.

  “I said take off,” said Hague.

  King pointed at Jim. “I won’t forget who you are,” he said.

  “That’s a dumb hat,” Jim said.

  Abraham handed Jim another slice of apple. Jim chewed it slowly while staring at King.

  “Don’t make me tell you again,” Hague said, tapping King’s legs again with the blackjack.

  King stared around wildly and disappeared up the alley. The policeman stared up the alley until Jim could no longer hear King’s footsteps.

  Hague turned to Abraham and pointed the blackjack at him. “Don’t you ever do that again. You understand me?”

  Abraham bowed his head and nodded.

  Hague pointed the blackjack at Jim and then at Penn.

  “And you boys,” he said, “might ought to go find your daddies.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Penn.

  Jim thought about telling Hague that he didn’t have a daddy, but thought better of it.

  “Now,” Hague said. “I’m going to take a walk down to Trade Street. And the three of you might want to follow me.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jim said.

  “Yes, sir,” said Penn.

  “Thank you, sir,” said Abraham.

  Hague led the way up the alley. Jim and Penn followed him closely. Abraham brought up the rear four or five steps farther back. When they reached the street, Jim saw King and his friends watching from a safe distance away. Jim stuck his tongue out at them, knowing that whenever he came to New Carpenter in the future, he would have to stay close to the uncles.

  When the four of them reached Depot Street, Jim saw that Mr. Carson had miraculously parked next to Uncle Zeno. Penn reached over and lightly punched Jim on the arm. Jim punched his friend back. Behind them Abraham began to hum.

  Blackbirds

  THE BLACKBIRDS come out of the northwest in a great, raucous, glittering stream. When the birds at the front of the flock begin to drop in a hooking curve and light in the walnut tree at the edge of the field, the rear of the flock looks as if it is only then crossing the dark hump of the mountain. Cissy has never seen anything like it; her face turned upward, she stares into the twilight until the last bird has passed overhead.

  The flock transforms the tree into a picture of its lush, summer self — only, instead of leaves, its limbs have sprouted birds. She realizes it is a thing she misses already, the fullness of a tree, and is thankful for the illusion. The day has been neither warm nor cold, fall nor winter; the weather lacked anything she could feel. It seems to Cissy that the din raised by the roosting birds is the only sound she has heard all day.

  The boy runs up breathless beside her.

  “Mama, how many birds do yo
u guess that is?” he asks.

  “I don’t know. Hundreds. Thousands. A multitude. I don’t know.”

  She sees him start to count, then abandon the idea as hopeless.

  “If Uncle Zeno shot up in there with his shotgun, how many birds do you think he would kill?”

  Cissy looks down at the boy, then back at the tree. It trembles in the failing light.

  “Jimmy,” she says. “Why would you ask me something like that? Why would you want Zeno to shoot those birds?”

  “I bet he could kill a hundred,” says the boy. “Maybe two hundred.”

  Cissy’s eyes begin to fill. She doesn’t know if the boy can even hear her; she doesn’t know if she has spoken out loud. She blinks so that she can see clearly.

  “What’s wrong, Mama?” he asks.

  Cissy waves him away, doesn’t dare look at him. She unties her apron and takes it off. She pushes her hair behind her ears. She takes a few hesitant steps toward the tree, then breaks into a run; she reaches down with one hand and pulls up her skirt so that she can run faster; she is surprised by how good running feels.

  The boy trots along beside her, his eyes wide. He has never seen her run before. She has not run a step in his lifetime.

  “Mama,” he says. “Mama, where are you going?”

  Cissy begins to wave the apron over her head.

  “Shoo!” she yells. “Fly away! Leave!”

  When she closes to within thirty yards of the tree, the flock lifts as one body with a percussive, ripping sound, as if the air itself is tearing. It moves away from the tree, a creature with a single mind; it flattens and stretches out and winds fluidly across the field, like water seeking a low place.