Muckers

by Sandra Neil Wallace

  “Nah. Not me.”

  “I’m serious. You see all the positions.”

  “The school’s closing, remember?”

  “It ain’t closed yet,” Cruz says. “And I don’t mean here. You’ll get out.”

  “And what if I don’t want to?”

  He pauses, looking serious for a second. “Then I’ll just have to make you,” he says, looking me in the eye. “Now let’s line these things up.”

  Cruz takes what’s left of his battered rock as I straighten the bottles. He hurls it into the air and hits the toilet. “Now, that’s something Rabbit would do.” He laughs.

  “If Rabbit was here, there’s no way he’d be doing this,” I tell him. “He’d be too scared of getting caught.”

  Cruz is quiet for a while. Then he says he’d have Rabbit take care of the food in his bowling alley. “Nothing fancy. Full-o-Flavor sandwiches on French loaf. Stuff like that. When he gets back from playing soldier and finally finishes school.”

  My bottle’s still got an inch of beer, so I down it. “You know that piano Mrs. Featherhoff got lowered from her house? I’d learn to play it.”

  I’m waiting for Cruz to tell me how crazy that is. How old ladies who’ll always be virgins are the only ones who play the stupid piano. But he looks at the horizon like he can imagine me playing.

  “I always figured when Mrs. Featherhoff got too old and they’d wheel out the piano in the Square on Christmas Eve, asking who can play, I’d go up and start into ‘Silent Night’ like there was nothing to it. Not making a fuss or anything, no matter how hard they’d clap after.”

  Cruz takes a swig from the tequila bottle and starts humming “Silent Night” real low.

  “I should have a piano in my bowling alley. And you could come and play it sometime.” He finds another rock. “Let’s go, double or nothing,” he says, and we lift our rocks and roll them down the jail at the same time. This time we aim for those Cottonville Wolves.

  All the bottles shatter, making a shotgun sound. Cruz looks up at the street to see if anyone noticed. “Can’t do nothing to us. We’re already in jail. Can you see Rabbit right about now if he was here? He’d be cleaning up the broken glass, feeling like a sinner. And you’d be helping him,” he says, watching me scrape the pieces into a corner with the edge of my sneaker.

  “You think I only brought two?” Cruz takes out a couple more beers from the gym bag.

  “Got any food in there?” I ask.

  He nods and hands me a burrito, or maybe it’s a taco. I keep thinking they’re the same thing. All I know is that it’s good. Very good. “How many of these things can your mother make?”

  “As many as you want.”

  “But no meat. Not before a game anyway,” I tell him.

  “Arroz and pintos,” Cruz says, “à la Villanueva.” He hands me a new bottle.

  “To Rabbit,” I say, lifting it. Then we get all quiet again.

  “They’ll be sending him home any minute,” Cruz says, “when they see how he can’t run.”

  “Looks like they’ve got the communists licked anyhow,” I say, hoping maybe it’s true and that this war will be a short one—that Rabbit won’t even get to see it. Maybe the mine will stay open, too. Because tonight I’d rather believe Cruz and all he’s saying. I’d rather be in this jail with a perfect record and the whole town all happy, even if happy means drunk.

  “Just wait,” Cruz says. “You’ll get that scholarship and I’ll start my bowling alley.”

  “We gotta win the next four games first,” I tell him.

  “That’s the easy part,” he says. “You, me, Tony, Coach. We beat Ruffner, didn’t we? If we can do that, we can take the state.”

  Chapter 14

  GOODNIGHT, IRENE

  THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14

  7:33 A.M.

  YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN MR. Mackenzie sweat yesterday, taking that stupid oath along with Superintendent Menary, having to prove to everybody that he isn’t a Communist (they’re putting a capital C on it now in the papers), and Sims right there holding the Bible up for good measure, though he couldn’t look Mr. Mac in the eye.

  This tree I’m under is as crazy as Sims is, growing up through the fire escape on the side of the school and reaching right up to the roof. Like it was natural as rain to be sprouting out of a flight of metal steps. I’ve been looking at its weepy leaves since the sun rose, and all I’ve come up with is that the tree’s just plain crazy going through all the trouble, twisting its way around the grate I’m lying on. But then there’s patches of craziness scattered all over our town.

  Father Pierre is mean crazy, and I think that’s the worst kind of crazy you can be. And I suppose Pop’s copper crazy and drunk crazy, too, though I never know which one will show.

  But Sims is crazy in a cowardly way, hiding behind that Commie box. Mr. Mackenzie says Sims hasn’t been the same since his father got killed in the mine years ago. Still, he gives that box such a violent shake, you’d think it would explode and blow somebody else’s life to bits right along with it.

  When it quiets down, he’ll show us pictures of Communists, lining them along the blackboard railing. Yesterday he put up a poster of the Weavers and my jaw just about fell on the floor. You can’t go near a radio without hearing them sing, and I really like the way they sound. But there they were, Pete, Lee, Ronnie, and Fred, smiling at me the entire class, so polite and neighborly, with Penny Bruzzi whimpering in the front row all shook up about it and me wondering if they really were Communists and maybe “Irene” was a code name they used to let other spies know what they were thinking.

  I grab hold of the gnarly branch—the one wrapped around the railing—and give it a good shake. Sims is like that knot, too, right in the middle of things, twisting them around until it seems normal to be hating people you’ve known all your life, just because they’re different.

  The moon’s gone and the satiny white moonflowers at the foot of the fire escape fold under the strengthening light of the day. But they’ve been blooming in front of Sims’s classroom window all night, and that’s crazy, too.

  I get out my jackknife and carve SIMS IS CRAZY right in the middle of that knot, cutting it deep and in capital letters. I feel better while I’m writing it. But as soon as I’m done I just get mad all over again. Carving those words in that branch won’t change Sims.

  And the morning’s starting off all wrong. I suppose the evening will, too. They play “Goodnight, Irene” on the radio at ten, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to listen without reading into those lines or seeing Penny whimpering, she’s got such a crush on Pete Seeger and she wears her hair like Ronnie Gilbert’s, too.

  There’s only one way I can get this day off to a better start, so I carve a few other words in the tree. This time the satisfaction lingers as I mouth what I wrote over and over again—MUCKERS WIN.

  * * *

  6:15 P.M.

  There’s a gentle knock at the bottom of the screen door—somebody tapping out the rhythm to “shave and a haircut … two bits.” I haven’t heard that since I was little, but I know who it is. There’s only one person who made that knock every time she came to visit, and that’s Faye Miller. She’s standing on the porch. We look at each other through the screen until Faye says softly, “I brought you this,” holding up a glass container that smells like our house used to smell.

  “It’s a casserole,” Faye says, fussing with the tinfoil on the edges, making them tighter with her thumbs. “It’s still warm,” she says, telling me it’s got beef and peas in it, but no carrots, since she remembered how I didn’t eat them because, well, I didn’t want people saying that’s how come my hair’s that way. And that she makes casseroles every week and it’s no trouble at all to throw another one in the oven.

  “Thanks.” I smile, taking the dish.

  “I saw you being kind to that little boy, Leon, in front of the furniture store after Father Pierre’s Buick went haywire,” Faye says, “and how the Fathe
r wasn’t very nice to you after, even though you were helping him out. I guess some things don’t change, do they, Red?”

  “Not when it comes to some people.”

  “You sure must miss him, huh?” Faye whispers.

  “All the time.” I bite at my lip. “Do you miss him, too?”

  “Every day.” Faye starts to say something else, but smiles instead and then tells me, “Good luck at the game Friday night.”

  “Thanks, but I won’t be playing quarterback.”

  “Well, I’m sure you will soon,” she says, stepping off the porch and onto the cobblestone road. “The recipe’s from your mother, by the way. She’s the best cook I know.”

  WEEKEND EDITION

  Mighty Mites Win Third Straight

  The undefeated Hatley Muckers, now nicknamed the Mighty Mites, are racking up points downing teams twice their size. But last night, minus the watchful eye of quarterback Felix O’Sullivan, their winning ways looked in doubt.

  Cruz Villanueva, speedy wingback, pulled the game out of the fire for Hatley by running a late punt back 83 yards for a touchdown as the Muckers defeated the Coldbrook Roadrunners, 12–7.

  Two unlucky breaks in the game kept the pesky Mucker 11 from chalking up a more impressive score. Early in the first quarter, Lupe Diaz, touchdown bound, fumbled the ball away just short of the end zone.

  The second was a Hatley touchdown called back when Villanueva illegally pushed away his interference. Later, Martin Quesada, subbing in for O’Sullivan at the quarterback position, plunged over from the three to hit pay dirt as Tony Casillas held the line. Muckers Coach Ben Hansen says O’Sullivan will be back to lead his team against Cottonville in a week’s time.

  SOCIAL NEWS & ARRESTS

  —Leroy Piggett was charged with obstructing Hatley traffic on Upper Main Wednesday evening. According to the citation, Piggett obstructed the road by sleeping on it. Fine notice of 25 dollars was pinned to Piggett’s flannel shirt.

  —Back to complete the visit interrupted by a call to Korea in July, S. Sgt. Buddy Ritz promptly asked Bernadette Cushman to marry him. They were wed the next day, before Staff Sergeant Ritz returned to duty.

  —Lee Fong was called in for questioning by Sheriff Doddy on two counts. The first was for complaints that food served in his restaurant had been scavenged from the back of Peila’s Grocer, which Fong hotly denied. The second was about registering as a member of the Communist party under the anti-subversive bill. Fong says he is not a Communist, nor has he contacted relatives in China since that country turned Communist last year.

  Allies Land Behind Red Lines at Inchon. Take Offensive for First Time, p.3.

  Chapter 15

  INDEPENDENCE DAY

  SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16

  9:28 A.M.

  I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO do without Rabbit. He’s always been here beside me at the fiesta for the Mexican Independence Day parade. It’s our only chance to laugh at Cruz and get away with it, watching him march by us in the band, since he doesn’t know how to play. And all Cruz can do about the ribbing is blast out more sour notes to the Mexican anthem, on the horn every Villanueva’s blown into since the first Mexican Independence Day 140 years ago. So I sit on the cement wall across from Penney’s to wait out the half hour until the parade starts, watching Tony singing on the Mexican Legion float.

  Tony’s standing next to his father, who’s commander of the post—which means Mr. Casillas gets to dress up as Father Hidalgo himself. (He’s the Mexican priest who planned the whole revolt against the Spaniards in the first place.) He’ll shout “¡Viva Mexico!” in the Square a little while from now and ring a bell that’ll start up the mariachis, which used to be my favorite part until this year, with Angie being in the pageant and all.

  Tony’s putting on a sombrero the color of holy wine. That thing’s the size of a Chevy tire and nearly grazes the banner stretching from Penney’s to Lee Fong’s Chinese Kitchen. You’d think Tony would be feeling foolish wearing a thing like that. He’s got to know there’s about a thousand sequins sewn onto it, glinting green and red in the sun. But he taps on the brim whenever a woman walks by, not feeling like a horse’s ass one bit.

  I’m the one who’s feeling foolish sitting here, nodding at the folks congratulating me on winning the game last night when I didn’t do much. And I’m sure glad Marty held on to keep us undefeated. But how am I gonna laugh at Cruz on my own when he goes by? That would just feel hollow. And I wonder what Cruz’ll do come Saint Patrick’s Day if Rabbit still isn’t back and it’s just him watching me out there marching in that parade.

  I spot a maroon letterman’s jacket with SOUTHWEST MISSOURI STATE on the back, so I know Coach Hansen’s here. And I guess I’m not surprised. Wallinger, yes, if he showed up. Which he won’t.

  “I was looking for you,” Coach says, walking over. Little Homer, his boy, is hoisted on his shoulders and keeps looking down at me with a great big tamale-sauce grin. I’m thinking maybe I’m not in for the next game after all, despite what Coach said in the paper, if he’s out looking for me in the middle of Mexican Independence Day.

  “If you help me with this, you’d be doing me a big favor.” Coach smiles, pointing to the tamale stuffed in the paper cone he’s holding. “Eleanor’s got a roast in the oven, and if I don’t eat half of it she’ll think there’s something wrong.”

  I unwrap the tamale and try not to shovel it in my mouth all at once.

  “Ever toss a beanbag?” Coach asks.

  “Not since third grade when the circus came to town and I guessed the number of marbles in a jar. I’m pretty good with numbers. Pop said I was his lucky charm.”

  Coach grins and takes Homer off his shoulders. “This’ll be the little guy’s first try.” He hands Homer a squishy green bag filled with rice and starts showing him how to aim it so it’ll go in the monkey’s mouth painted red on the board. Homer misses, but Coach keeps saying “Great try,” even when the second bag lands on Coach’s foot.

  Homer throws his last bag. It lands in the dirt but he claps, he’s so happy, and runs into my legs, looking up at me so I can tell him his throw was good, too.

  “Nice try, buddy,” I tell Homer, rubbing the top of his curly head. Then I remember how Quesada did last night—good enough to hang on to a win. I’m not sure where that leaves me.

  “Quesada did real well last night,” I tell Coach.

  “Yes, he did,” Coach says. “But Quesada’s even stronger at halfback. That’s where he ought to be and he knows it. Look, I know benching was a tough thing to have to endure, but you had a great week of practice, and you’re our starter. From here on in we’ll be challenged and we need you to lead this team. So let’s quit talking about football and get to the shooting gallery. Homer could use a prize.”

  I keep grinning all the way to the gallery, where Baldo Gallegos is manning the counter. He hands Coach a rifle, but Coach won’t take it and points at me instead.

  “Don’t you want to go first?” I ask.

  “No. That wouldn’t do,” Coach says. “I see double most days lately. And right now looks to be one of those times.”

  But I threw him a pass as hard as I could and he caught it an inch from his head. “How’d you do it?” I ask him. “Catching that football I threw you last time?”

  “Careful now. Homer’s got his eye on that straw donkey, so you’ve got to make all three shots count.”

  The metal ducks go by and I aim for the tail of the first one so I can hit the second mallard square on the jaw. It clinks and Homer jumps up and down while I wait for Coach to answer.

  “Whatever’s furthest to my left is a wash,” he says. “They’re just phantoms. Things like goalposts at night or moving targets are tougher. Come on now, Red. You’ve got two more.”

  “Hit ’em good, Red,” Baldo says.

  I take the gun and wait for a pair of ducks to pass, then fire at the next two, knocking them flat.

  Homer squeals with laughter.

  “
Is that the donkey you want?” I ask him, pointing to the pink sombrero sewn in between a donkey’s ears. Homer nods and says, “Oh boy!” when Baldo hands it to him, then he jumps into Coach’s arms.

  Coach winces, keeping his eyes closed longer than he should. “You mind taking Homer for a while?” he asks.

  I’ve never held a kid before, but Homer wraps his arms around my neck anyhow and tucks his head under my chin.

  “Where’s your girl?” Coach asks. “And don’t tell me there isn’t one.”

  “She should be in the Square about now,” I say, thinking about Angie and that contest in the gazebo.

  “Then let’s go,” he says. “What sort of things does she like?”

  “Pearls,” I say.

  “Uh-oh. I built Eleanor a flower garden and her carnations have a tough time of it, but pearls take more than digging. They need the sweat of working for pay. That’ll take you some time.”

  “She has to go out with me first.”

  “She will,” Coach says, like he’s sure about that, and I’m grinning again.

  We pass the food stands and see Mrs. Featherhoff collecting money from a bunch of little kids who want a crack at that piñata with Father Pierre’s cane. Father’s showing the kids how to use it and laughing along with them. I remember when we used to do that, too.

  When we get to the gazebo, Mr. Casillas is in front of the microphone. Rudy Kovacs is standing pretty near it on the curb, though I don’t know why. Rudy’s carrying a bottle and wearing his Muckers jacket, but he didn’t earn it. He starts laughing at Tony’s father. Holding the bottle lower, he tosses it at the gazebo. The bottle hits the lattice that’s hemming the platform, and Mr. Casillas stops talking and blinks.

  “You dropped something,” I tell Rudy, standing close behind him. Homer’s got his face buried in the straw donkey under my chin. I can hear him whimpering.

  Rudy turns around and smirks, looking up at the sky and acting all innocent. Coach grabs him by the shoulder. “A bottle can get slippery in the heat of the sun,” Coach says. “But it’s time to pick it up and leave.”