Darnay Road

by Diane Munier

  I set Little Bit on the table even though I’m not allowed. I open that first paper and it’s from Ricky. In it is a ribbon he got from winning a race. Well I don’t want that. He writes he will never forget me. I open the second and it’s from Abigail. It says, “Darnay Spies forever.” It’s signed Abigail May Brody—Blood Sister.

  I gather up both papers so Granma will never see them and I go up to my room.

  I put Little Bit on my bed and I hurry to my window just in time to see that Cadillac disappear.

  It’s loud enough I hear it for the count of ten, then nothing. I feel her going away, like I’ll go to the mirror and my reflection will be gone. So I go there to check and my braids weren’t done over this morning. I can’t see any hope that my smile is there so I try Easy’s smile, just a half, but it’s so dumb, so I try a whole smile and it’s dumb too and I break out crying then, and there’s drops on the mirror, spit or tears or something. I don’t make it to my bed even, I fall on the floor and all the mystery comes out of me, the way I feel about Abigail I guess, all of it gushing like the fire hydrant end of the street when they open it up and you can’t believe the force.

  But I stop pretty quickly. I can stop it so I do. It just won’t do any good, that’s the thing about it. It just won’t change a thing.

  Darnay Road 24

  A week later I got my cast off and a week after that word came round it was Carl Caghan they found on the tracks. That was Easy and Cap’s dad. He’s been missing but the family said he’d go off sometimes so they didn’t know. He never made it home that fateful night so the police had been looking for him and they had reason to believe it was him.

  The paper said he left Don Kenny’s tavern about an hour before that train was due. What it did not say was how it happened. How he got on the tracks.

  He was watchman at the electrical plant and he got off work and went about having his beer and all the while that train was somewhere headed for here. Headed for him.

  He lived on Scutter. After the funeral Cap got sent to Tennessee Aunt May said. Well she said, “The younger boy.” And I knew. My ears were growing long and pointy out my head to hear any word of the other, the older boy with a half-smile and eyes that have sharp points of light that pierced me through in my memory.

  So here’s what Granma offers since Abigail May left me. Dance lessons.

  I say, “No thank you I am not a ballerina or something.”

  I could go to the pool, but I don’t want to go to the pool and watch some baby pee and some stupid boy swim too close under water and say bad things when he comes up close while his friends laugh.

  I was brave for her. Abigail May made me brave. But I went to Miss Little’s alone, with my cake. “Now how would a piece of your birthday cake get all the way to Miss Little’s? It can’t grow legs and walk,” Granma says.

  The police found that slice of cake I’d dropped at Miss Little’s. They asked up and down looking for the owner of that cake. They were looking for a witness and they believed it was possible the dead man came from that yard.

  But I say I don’t know. Granma calls me out on the porch and I just say, “I don’t know.”

  The Bad Seed. They never suspect you if you have pigtails.

  “Maybe Ricky,” I say.

  But Ricky doesn’t know. And I wait to be found out, but I never ever am. Without Abigail May I’m invisible.

  So Granma calls Dad and Dad sends the money and I get a nice new basket for my bike, and I can put Little Bit in there, on my pink sweater of course, and we ride and ride and ride up and down Darnay Road.

  But I never see Easy. Not even when I ride to the ball fields. Not even then.

  So I go to the library and you could fry an egg on the sidewalk. Abigail May and I tried once last year, and you really can it just takes a lot longer than a skillet. But I take my sweater in my basket, put it over the books I’m returning and Little Bit on top of that. I get in the library and I put my books on the return cart. I look like I’m just carrying my sweater, but it is a dog in a sweater but no one ever thinks it is possible.

  So the whole time I’m in there Little Bit is trembling against me. I find my new books and fold my arms over my dog while I check out. Then I put everything in my basket with Little Bit on top and I ride home.

  But I don’t hardly smile except for her. Little Bit that is. Cause none of this is her fault. And she deserves some happiness. She’s just a dog.

  But then one day I’m riding her up and down. I stop to watch some kids skating where me and Abigail used to skate, the L around Moe’s. I’m watching them take that corner, but they’re a bunch of babies the way they do it.

  I wonder what she’s doing right now, this minute. I look up at the sun, and even with my sunglasses I have to shield my hands over my eyes. That is the same sun over Florida. If she’s looking up right now our eyes are connecting sort of.

  “You’re gonna see spots,” he says. And right away I know.

  He straddles his bike beside me. He rests his arms on his handlebars and lights a cigarette right there in the sunshine. Then he sucks it in and I can’t look cause…I can’t.

  Well I don’t know what to do. Abigail May would. She’d say something and he wouldn’t be looking at me like this. His dad. I mean…his dad. Cap. She’d say something.

  Does he know about Abigail? Well…what’s it matter.

  “C’mon,” he says and he takes off a little. He stops then and looks back because…I ain’t moving.

  Little Bit sticks her head up then and yap, yap, yaps, and she hardly ever does, and then just once, but never three.

  “What in the world…?” he says and he sticks that smoke in his mouth and walks his bike backwards until he’s next to me. “That a rat?”

  I am pretty hurt for Little Bit. “She’s my dog.”

  Now he is laughing and laughing. Little Bit has on her pink collar and she is looking at him, holding her neck alert, her tiny eyebrows are twitching.

  He’s trying to say something, but he looks at me, takes one more pull and pitches that smoke. “Can I see?”

  “Well, she don’t like anyone but me,” I say putting my hand on her.

  “Oh.” He’s just smiling now. “Where’d you get a dog like that?”

  “For my birthday,” I say, then the guilt cause that was that day.

  Maybe he remembers. He gets quiet looking at my dog. “Well today’s my birthday,” he says.

  “It is?” I can’t believe he’s out here all alone in those same shabby clothes.

  “Yeah.”

  “How old?”

  “Twelve.”

  “I’m ten,” I say.

  “I know,” he says.

  “You’re eighth grade?”

  “Seventh. Got held back in fifth.”

  I nearly gasp. Just nearly. I never knew someone held back. I can hardly think of it.

  “I’m not stupid,” he says and he does that half smile.

  “Oh. No.”

  He laughs. “You don’t sound like you mean it.”

  Well I don’t know what to say.

  “I had trouble reading. But I’m getting it.”

  I can’t believe he told me that. I would never tell it.

  “C’mon,” he says again. “That dog like to ride?”

  “Yes,” I get out.

  “Well c’mon.”

  I know I should make an excuse. I’ve got to get home. That’s all. But I just go after him. I don’t know why. It’s like I don’t have a mind I guess.

  Darnay Road 25

  I can barely keep up with Easy even when he goes slow. Plus I’m careful so I don’t throw Little Bit out of the basket. I never know what I’m doing with Easy around, but I barely stop looking at him.

  We ride away from Moe’s toward Bloody Heart. I can only go this far with permission. Right now I just have the permission I’m giving myself.

  He slows down and I catch up, then he goes in the street so I can ride on the sidewalk
and unless there’s a parked car, we’re not separated by much.

  “You lost the cast,” he says.

  Well I don’t say anything like, ‘you lost your dad.’ Well I can’t talk about that.

  “What do you do on your birthday?” he says.

  Well this I know something about maybe. “What do you usually do?”

  “Nothing,” he says.

  “Not anything at all?”

  I have to slow down for a raised crack in the sidewalk so he gets ahead again, but he slows it down, so much he’s turning his front tire left and right.

  I figure I shouldn’t have said anything about him doing nothing for his birthday. I think of his house and I know there’s never been a party in there. And I think of the cake I held at Miss Little’s. It was embarrassing how it was. I know his face now, when he’s hateful.

  We’re just riding again. I pick up good speed.

  “We should take the alley,” he says.

  I stay out of the alleys. There are bad people in those sometimes, men who want to show their things. Granma and I used to take the alleys for a shortcut then it happened one time and Granma told me to close my eyes but I just looked down and Granma yelled, “You dirty old thing,” at him. But we never took the alleys again.

  But now I’m turning into the alley with Easy.

  We ride pretty quiet, past the backyards, the trashcans. These are places people rent so there are no dogs. Most the time you can’t have pets. We hit the street and Easy doesn’t stop, he looks left, right, then stands on his pedals and so do I. We make it across fine and we’re in another alley.

  “You eat cake,” I say, about out of breath. Surely he remembers how I brought that to Miss Little’s.

  “What?” he says.

  “Cake. For your birthday.” I lose one of my thongs then. I hate that. It’s so embarrassing.

  He notices I’m gone and he skids to a stop and comes back. “I’ll get it.” He goes back and gets my pink thong and hands it to me. I drop it near my foot and work my toes in there.

  He’s smiling and shaking his head. “Cake,” he says.

  I hate the word ‘dreamy.’ But he’s dreamy in the eyes. I wonder if he sees it when he looks in the mirror. But Granma says I’m like Natalie Wood and I look in the mirror and I don’t see it.

  “I got a quarter,” I say. I’m thinking of the little store near Bloody Heart.

  “What’s that mean,” he says.

  “We could get a pack of Hostess cupcakes and an orange drink.”

  He just looks at me.

  “Or a milk if you want,” I say. I just feel dumb saying, ‘milk’ to Easy.

  He smiles. “Where’s this?”

  “Little store by school.”

  “Who’s that?” he points at Little Bit.

  “Little Bit,” I say.

  “Little this, little that,” he says. “Lead the way little girl.”

  And I do, but I feel like he’s watching and I’m showing off a little, flicking my braids over my shoulders like I don’t give a care.

  We get to Hoagy’s shop and we pull up there and I am getting off and lowering my kick-stand and he says, “Go on over to the school and I’ll catch up.”

  “What?” I say. That doesn’t make sense.

  “Go on,” he says.

  Well I don’t want to do that, but he’ll need my quarter. “Here,” I say digging in the pocket of my cut-offs.

  “Keep it,” he says. Oh. He’s got money I guess.

  “Orange drink or milk?” he says.

  “Well orange drink I guess.”

  “Go on,” he says. “I’ll catch you there.”

  Why’s he so particular about getting rid of me? Is this a joke maybe where he’ll run off and leave me? I’m taking off then, kind of slow. I don’t want to be made a fool.

  He watches for me to go, and I’m kind of mad, but I push off and head for the school. It’s barely half a block away and it’s fronted by a really busy avenue with six lanes. But I don’t go that far. I go in the school lot from the back way, a quiet slice of street. It’s here where it hits me—Abigail May. I look at the building and that top floor. I suppose if I’m going to see Sister Sponza’s ghost it wouldn’t be so bad if Easy was with me.

  That’s if he’s really coming. I get off my bike and walk it along the building. Little Bit wants me to hold her now, so I lean the bike against the stairs and hold Little Bit so her nose touches mine. “How you doin’?” I say. I always say that to her and her little skinny tail whips around.

  Easy about scares me to death when he pulls up. He rolls two cartons of orange drink and a wee bit smashed package of chocolate cupcakes out of the front of his dirty shirt.

  There’s no bag. No small white receipt.

  “Why is it in your shirt?” I say because it just doesn’t hit me until I ask that stupidest question. “Did you steal this?”

  “They won’t miss it,” he says, waiting for me to take the carton of orange drink like I don’t have a care in the world.

  “No thank you,” I say. I am so disappointed to know he’s a thief. Too.

  “What’s the matter? You look thirsty,” he says, shaking that cool sounding drink.

  “I don’t steal,” I say. I just don’t.

  “You didn’t steal it, I did,” he reasons just as friendly as the devil must.

  It would hurt my Granma too much if I drank that. I’ve been bad, I know, but thou shall not steal and my very church is sitting right there in front of me like a big old ship run aground. I might do some venial sins, but the mortal ones I generally stay away from.

  “Did Mr. Hoagy see you?” I ask looking over where the rectory empties into the schoolyard we stand in.

  “Nah,” he says, putting one carton under his arm and opening the other, leaning back his head and drinking it down in a few interesting swallows.

  Then he opens the cupcakes and tries to hand me one.

  “No thanks.”

  “For my birthday?” he says.

  “I can’t. You didn’t pay.”

  His face falls a little. Didn’t he know that? Didn’t he know I don’t steal?

  Easy is pretty broken inside. He’s mystery all right. I know it’s been bad for him, and I got questions no one should have. But my Granma says they went through the whole depression and they did not steal. They would not. She said the girls wouldn’t. She was never so sure about the boys. I know it’s harder for boys to be good. It just is.

  I think it’s real hard for Easy to be good. He’s just wayward.

  “Not even for my birthday?” he says.

  “Is Mr. Hoagy going to arrest you?” I say.

  “That old buzzard didn’t see,” he says eating half that first cupcake with one bite.

  I am so thirsty. But I’m not going to hell for it.

  “Sure you don’t want any?” he says shaking the second carton.

  I swallow and it makes noise. “I’m sure.”

  He eats the rest of everything. “Where’d you get the dog?” he finally says.

  “Um…my dad.”

  “You got one?” he says.

  We are leaning against the building.

  “Doesn’t everybody have one?” I say, almost as clever as Abigail May would be. But I’m watching his eyes because we’re on that subject.

  He wads up the trash in his big strong hands and drops it in the stairwell near our feet.

  “Every Litter Bit Hurts,” I say going for that trash in that icky well.

  “What are you going to do with it?” he says.

  “Take it to a trashcan,” I say fumbling around trying to hold my dog and get the trash that leaks a line of orange drink on my hand.

  “Let me hold that dog,” he says.

  I straighten up still holding Little Bit. “She just likes me.”

  “Then give me the trash, girl.”

  “There’s a can in the school,” I say.

  He takes a few steps back and looks up. “T
hink it’s locked?”

  “Would that…stop you?” I ask.

  He grins at me. I am so happy to be grinned at by him.

  So we end up walking around and trying a couple of doors. I can’t believe he still holds the trash. We get in the building and it’s rules for me and memories that echo with our steps. So I’m breaking through everything even being here, this far from home and Granma not knowing, then walking wrong side of the hall, looking in rooms where I’ve served countless hours in all kinds of weather. And Abigail May.

  “Come on,” I say, Little Bit in my school it’s just so funny. But Easy will go anywhere I say. He goes in my old third grade room and dumps his trash in the can next to Sister’s desk.

  “I sat there,” I say. “When I was little.”

  “Little,” he repeats looking around like he’s never seen a school before. “It costs a lot of money to go here,” he says.

  It does? “That’s news to me,” I say.

  He laughs but he’s not loud. He knows how to move like a spy. So we go up, and up, to the third floor.

  “Why they always smell like this?” he says softly.

  I never know why that is. But it might be knowledge that smells.

  So we get to the top and no one is around. We stand there and right away it’s so different. One big room and the card table still set up where they take the money for the haunted house in the spring.

  There’s the big stage and the purple curtains.

  “Hey come on,” he says.

  “Easy,” I call, taking soft steps behind him.

  “What?” he says turning toward me.

  “It’s,” I swallow again cause I’m so dry and when he looks at you, it’s just…you feel it, “it’s haunted up here.”

  “Good. Let’s go find Casper.”

  He makes me laugh so hard I bend over some. He seems pleased with himself and he comes back for me, puts his arm around me and I straighten some and look at him. That’s when it happens. I know he does bad things, but he’s good too.

  Maybe I love him for real.

  So we look all around and it’s not long we take turns on the stage. He’s finally holding Little Bit, and she licks his face and he’s so kind with her. He can hold her in one hand. She sits there so polite and he’s so strong it’s like she’s a feather. He just loves Little Bit. You can’t help it.