Knights of the Hill Country

by Tim Tharp

  It was past five o'clock in the afternoon when she come home from work, and there I was, still waiting on the couch. Now I had the lamp on, the light pointed straight down at that coffee table where I left her check for Tommy Don setting out.

  “Oh, hi, honey,” she said, all breezy and carefree. “I'm glad you're here. Tommy Don's having a cookout in his backyard tonight, and he said for you to come along too if you want. I think it'd be real fun to have us all there.”

  “His backyard?” I said. “Or his dad's?”

  “Well, he's staying with his father right now 'cause—”

  “How much is he charging for the food?”

  “What? I didn't hear you.” She closed the door to the hall closet after hanging her coat up.

  I set forward and rested my arms on my knees. “I just want to know how much money it's gonna cost us to eat over there.”

  “We don't have to bring anything.” She hadn't picked up on an ounce of the disgust I was putting out. “He's gonna have everything ready to go. There's gonna be grilled chicken and ears of corn and those little potatoes you like. All we have to bring is our appetites.” I swear, she sounded about as happy as a kindergarten girl on paste-eating day.

  I picked the check up. “Then what's this for?”

  “That?” Her eyes fixed on the check. Finally, it looked like my grim old tone was sinking in. “That's just for some work he's gonna do over at the dollar store for us.”

  “What kind of work?”

  “He's gonna paint the south wall. I'm giving him a check, and then I'll get reimbursed out of petty cash. Why? What did you think it was for?”

  I looked back at the check myself, eyeballing it over like a sheriff sizing up a murder weapon. “The outside wall by Sixth Street?” I said. “That wall don't need paint.”

  “Not like a regular paint job. It's gonna be a mural.” She was starting to sound a little wore out with me. “That's what he does. He's a painter. An artist. He paints pictures. And it was my idea. He said he'd do it for free, but I wasn't about to let him do that. Now, what's this all about?”

  “Pictures.” I just about spit the word out. Picture painting didn't sound like much of a living to a Kennisaw boy like me. “I don't think he's the kind of guy you oughta be going out with. That's what I think.”

  “You what?” Her face went red. “Since when do you tell me who I ought and ought not to go out with, young man?”

  Young man, she called me. Like them mothers you always hear getting on their kids over at the Wal-Mart. Only difference was my mom hadn't been around enough the last few years to start in on any young man business with me.

  “I guess since not soon enough,” I told her. “Maybe if I'd started sooner, you wouldn't have gone and got hooked up with a guy everyone else in town thinks is the biggest loser since Benedict Arnold.”

  “Who thinks that?” She planted her hands on her hips and gave me the squint-eye stare. “Who've you been talking to? Those numbskulls down at the Rusty Nail? Blaine's dad?”

  I didn't like the way she said Blaine's dad, like he wasn't nothing but a stupid nobody instead of a man who once played side by side with T. Roy Strong.

  “I'll tell you what,” I said. “First of all, you hear enough folks say something, you figure there has to be some truth to it. And second of all, Blaine's dad's sure been around for me to talk to more than you have.”

  Her shoulders slumped then. The red drained right back out of her face, leaving her about as washed out as an empty bottle. “I guess I deserved that,” she said. “No, I know I did.”

  She walked across and set next to me on the couch. It looked like she was fixing to reach over and pat my arm, but she dropped her hand back in her lap instead. “Look,” she said. “I know I haven't been here for you as much as I should. I know I've been out looking for the wrong things to fill up my life. But this isn't one of those things. Tommy Don Coleridge is a good man. Don't ask me how I know. I just feel it.”

  For a good long moment, I set there quiet, tapping that old check against the top of the coffee table. I didn't know the last time my mom said something to me that come straight out of her heart. Finally, I handed the check to her. “I ain't blaming you for anything,” I said. “I just don't want you to get taken in by somebody 'cause he knows how to say what you want to hear.”

  “I don't want that to happen either.”

  “So, are you still gonna go over to his house tonight?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I am. Are you going with me?”

  “No,” I said. “I guess not.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Monday, I skulked back and forth past the door to the school library a good three times without going inside. After the third time, I stopped dead in the middle of the hall and flat forced myself to walk in there. I had me two real good reasons for paying a visit to the library right now, but neither one of them had the first thing to do with studying.

  Reason number one had to do with Tommy Don Coleridge. I figured if he went to Kennisaw back once upon a time, then he was bound to be in a couple of the old yearbooks, and just maybe there'd be some clue in one of them about what he done to make everybody think he was such a loser.

  Reason number two was every bit as important as reason number one. Sara worked the afternoon shift three times a week as a library student aide.

  Ever since that stupid fight over at Wild West Days, she put her guard up anytime I got within ten yards of her, like maybe she thought I was liable to whip up another full-scale brawl just for grins. Morning, noon, and night, I kept trying to hammer out some kind of decent explanation about that durn fight, but as usual when it come to girls, I couldn't get nothing to take shape.

  But now at least I had me a good reason to go into the library and talk to her. I knew how she was. If I come in asking for help, wasn't no way she'd turn me down, even if I was an idiot who got sucked into fights I didn't know the reason for fighting.

  This library at our school wasn't no bigger than two classrooms put together, but she was sorting through a stack of books on a little pushcart and didn't see me come in at first. For a moment, I stood back and watched her. That famous pile of hair of hers nearly covered up her face, but that was okay. I knew them brown eyes by heart. And anyways, I liked all that hair and the way she moved, kind of herky-jerky, stoppy-starty, and the baggy way her sweatshirt and jeans fit. Comfortable and real was what she was. Not one stitch of fake anywheres on that girl.

  Right when I started walking over, she looked up and pulled her hair back from her face the way she probably had to do about eight hundred thousand times a day. “Hi,” she said, and maybe I was just imagining things, but her eyes looked a little bit wary—like it was a gorilla sidling up to her instead of a redheaded lunk in a black letter jacket. “Is there something you're looking for?”

  You don't know how close I come to blurting out, “Yes, there is. I'm looking for you!” But course, I didn't do it. Instead, I told her how I wanted to look at some old yearbooks on account of I was checking out the background of a man my mom had took up with. Now, a lot of folks might've made up a story about how come they wanted to comb through old yearbooks, but like I said before, I had a hard time lying to Sara Reynolds. Which didn't mean I went into all the details about the other men that'd come and gone through my mom's life. That was one sad country song I didn't feel like singing right now.

  But soon as the words dropped out of my mouth, every ounce of wary done evaporated right out of Sara's eyes, and that good old sad-soulful look filled them up again. She even admired the idea that I wanted to watch out for my mom like that. Too many kids got up into junior high and high school and quit caring about what their folks done, she said. They thought they lived in two different universes or something, but when you got right down to it, there wasn't but one universe for everyone.

  I was still mulling this over while she led the way through them canyons of bookshelves to the very back of the library where the du
sty volumes of Kennisaw High annuals was lined up one after another. I wasn't exactly sure how old Tommy Don Coleridge was, so we took us down several books and hauled them over to a table and started in searching.

  It was a funny feeling, looking back at the faces of them students from way back when, about the same as how I felt traipsing through the dark halls of Malcolm Hickey Elementary that night I went in for Misty Koonce's trophy. Here they was, the high schoolers of Kennisaw down through the years with their different hairstyles and clothes, all the bright eyes and smiles. Kids who was grown up by now, gray in their hair and lines on their faces, kids of their own grinning in other yearbooks somewheres up on the shelf. It was a good feeling and a sad feeling both at the same time. Everything and everyone changed, and that was what always stayed the same.

  “It looks like these were some pretty good times back then,” Sara said.

  I had to agree with that. “Yep, life looked like it was a whole lot simpler in them days.”

  She turned the page. “I suppose our lives would seem pretty simple too—if you just went by the pictures.”

  I thought of some pictures I had taken with Blaine and some of me and my mother. “I guess you're right about that.”

  I was enjoying setting there with Sara so much, I about forgot what we was doing, but then I spotted him. Tommy Don Coleridge in his junior year. That photo of his nearly jumped off the page. For one thing, he was probably the only boy in the whole book with long hair, but more than that, he just had a spark about him none of the others had. A real confident look in his eyes and a smile that made him seem like he was plotting up some mischief to do as soon as the camera got done clicking.

  “Boy,” Sara said. “He's handsome.”

  “You think so?”

  “Kind of. If you like the type.”

  I wasn't much on judging handsome, but I had to admit Tommy Don probably never hurt much for dates on Saturday nights. “Maybe there's a picture of him on the football team in the back.”

  Sure enough, there he was in the team picture, long hair and all. And right next to him stood T. Roy Strong.

  “Wait a minute here.” I grabbed the yearbook and looked at the date on the front. It was true. He never mentioned it once when he was over at our house, but he sure was. All them years back, he was right there on the greatest of the great Knights teams, a wide receiver, catching passes from T. Roy Strong hisself. There was even a separate picture of them together, along with a running back I hadn't never heard of. The caption at the bottom read “The Big Three— T. Roy Strong, Bo Early, and Tommy Don Coleridge— Kennisaw's triple threat.”

  “I can't believe it,” I said.

  “I guess he must've been pretty good.”

  “He must've been real good.”

  “You can't always tell a lot by that, though.” Sara turned to the back of the book and started thumbing through the index to see what other high school accomplishments he had. There was a lot. Newspaper editor, Latin club president, student council, National Honor Society, art club, basketball, baseball. They even had a picture of him wearing these raggedy overalls for a comical skit in a school hootenanny, a big giant cowboy hat cocked up on his head and a corncob pipe stuck in his teeth.

  “Wow,” Sara said. “Unless he's changed since then, it looks like your mom might've found herself a real good guy.”

  “I guess.” It did seem that way, all right, but something didn't add up. Why would Blaine's dad and the Rusty Nail boys have such low opinions of a guy like we was looking at here?

  “She's lucky.” Sara stared down at the hootenanny picture. “It looks like she's got two real good guys in her life.”

  “No,” I said. “Just one. She ain't seeing that car-lot guy no more.”

  She laughed. “I was talking about you. You're the other good guy in her life. I mean, going to this much trouble to watch out for her and all.”

  “Oh.” I looked down and rubbed my hand across the short bristles on top of my head.

  “It's just kind of hard to figure. I mean, the way you are now and the way you are in class and that night we went over to the café to study, and then how you were at the park. One second we were just talking away, and then the next second, you're in the middle of a fight with boys you didn't even know.”

  There it was. I knew it was bound to come up, but all I could think to say was, “I can't figure it neither. I ain't usually like that. It just started happening so fast.”

  “I like you this way a lot better.” She looked at me through a couple loose strands of hair, and it seemed like maybe she was trying to figure whuther I was glad she felt like that or not.

  “Well,” I said before I could think too much and throw myself off. “You know, if you wanted to go do something sometime, I could pretty much guarantee you I wouldn't get in a fight this time.”

  She gave it a little bitty smile then. “I'd like that.”

  “You know what I was thinking?” I charged right on ahead. “I was thinking about how you said you'd like to take a walk out in the country like we was talking about over there at Sweet's that time, and so I figured maybe we could do that this Saturday.”

  “Saturday?” Them little fingers of hers traced a nervous squiggly line on the tabletop. “I thought you'd be celebrating winning your last big game on Saturday.”

  “Naw,” I said. “I'd ruther do this. We could get up early to watch the sun come up and bring us along a picnic and everything if it's not too cold. I'll show you my favorite spot.”

  “I think it's supposed to be real nice this weekend, good and warm.”

  “So, you want to go? I'll borrow my mom's car.”

  “I'd love to,” she said.

  I couldn't believe it was so easy. Here we was setting side by side, talking about going out together as natural as grass growing. Nothing awkward about it. Course, the first instinct I had was to run out of there before something went wrong, but at the same time I could've gone on setting with her till winter come. Or at least till the janitor showed up and run us out.

  “You know what?” I said. “Maybe we oughta look at his senior yearbook too.”

  “That's a good idea.” She had her a big smile like she was thinking she wasn't in no hurry to get done neither.

  The senior yearbook was the next one on the stack, and this time I turned straight back to the football pictures. Same as before, Tommy Don and T. Roy stood there shoulder to shoulder, but this time Tommy Don didn't show up in one single other picture in that whole football section, and they had them a lot of football pictures in there too. That didn't necessarily mean nothing, and I sure ain't no detective, but what I found next seemed pretty strange.

  “Look at this here,” I said, pointing to a photo that took up nearly half a page. “It's a picture of the team the night they won state. They got the trophy setting out in front, and everyone's there, except Tommy Don Coleridge. Where's he? Why wouldn't he be in that picture?”

  “I don't know.”

  “I think I do. I think he got kicked off the team for something. Something they don't put in yearbooks.” I went on and explained what all I'd heard off Blaine and the Rusty Nail gang, but she didn't think that proved nothing.

  “Sounds to me like you need to talk to Tommy Don about it,” she said. “Hear his side.”

  “You mean just go over there and ask him straight out?”

  “Why not? It'd sure be a lot better than going on what Blaine Keller said.”

  There it went. The mood in the room changed about as fast as if someone flipped a switch on it. “Why's that?” I said, leaning away from her so's I could get a better view of what she was fixing to say. “It's not like Blaine's got any reason to make things up on Tommy Don.”

  “Well, I just don't know if Blaine's the best one to listen to.” She had a look in her eyes that reminded me of how a teacher will look at you when they're fixing to explain why the answer you just gave didn't have an ounce of right to it— front, back, or center. �
��After all, he's the one that got you in that fight.”

  “Hey,” I said. “Blaine would back me up if I got in a fight. That's what buddies do.”

  “But I witnessed the whole thing.” Now she sounded like a teacher too. “Blaine just walked right up and punched that boy without so much as saying hello, and then it was like he went insane. What are you going to do, get in a brawl every time Blaine Keller feels like hitting someone for no reason?”

  Boy howdy. I wouldn't have thought I could get mad at Sara, but this was hard to take. With all the deep ideas she had, it was hard to figure how she could be so dense about this. “Look,” I said, staring down at the stack of yearbooks. “You wouldn't understand how it is with good buddies like me and Blaine.”

  “Understand what? That you let Blaine do all your thinking for you?”

  I took me a deep breath on that one, trying to stay calm. “I'm talking about loyalty,” I said. “Sticking by the folks who's on your side. You don't go around asking questions about that. You just do it before it's too late.”

  “Well, that's dumb. If you don't ask questions you could end up doing all sorts of things. How do you think the Nazis kept going?”

  Nazis. You got to hate it when someone brings the Nazis in on you.

  The overhead lights glared down on that picture of the championship team without Tommy Don Coleridge. Damn, I thought. This is what you get when two people go to trying to open up to each other. You end up seeing sides of them you didn't never want to see.

  “You know what?” I said just barely loud enough for her to hear me. “Maybe we oughta forget about Saturday.”

  “What?”

  “If you think I'm so dumb, maybe you oughta see if you can't get someone else to take you on a picnic.”

  “That's not what I meant.” She put her hand on my arm, but I pulled away and shut the yearbook.

  “Look,” I said. “There's Benjamin Deal up there at the checkout desk.” Benjamin Deal was a sophomore, probably no more than five foot tall, with a big head. He was the only kid I knew that carried a handkerchief. “I'll bet old Benjamin would take you out any day of the week.”