Glory Be

by Augusta Scattergood

  “Thanks, Robbie” was all I could manage.

  The band was playing “It’s a Grand Old Flag.” All of Hanging Moss waved their little American flags in the hot yellow sunshine and sang along.

  Then that snake Frankie showed up.

  I had nothing to sing about now. This day was not grand. And there was nothing worth waving at.

  I walked straight over to Frankie, leaned against a pecan tree, and I glared at him.

  He said, “Everything’s wrong this summer.” Frankie looked worried about something. There was a question in his eyes, and the start of what looked to me like tears. “Why don’t those troublemakers from Ohio go back where they belong?”

  I didn’t care that Frankie was on the edge of crying. I got right up in his face. “Laura is going back to Ohio. She’s leaving. After people” — I looked hard at Frankie when I said that — “accused her of breaking into the pool lockers. She’s going home.”

  He kept his eyes on his lanyard whistle. “It’s good, then. Good that’s she’s leaving.” But he didn’t look happy about it. He looked upset.

  Then he blurted, “I wish that jailbird Robbie would go back to where he belongs. I wish my brother would stop yelling about everything happening this summer.”

  I leaned in even closer to Frankie and put a firm grip on his arm. “Did you tell anybody about Robbie?” I could hardly talk, the back of my throat was burning so.

  He yanked away from me and got quiet. The band’s drums banged louder. Frankie rubbed at the bruise on his arm that I knew for sure came from J.T. popping him. It was black and blue and ugly.

  “Why are you so scared of your daddy and J.T.?” I asked him. “Why don’t you stand up for yourself?”

  Frankie started to cry for real then. But I turned and walked back to my blanket.

  Laura, Jesslyn, Robbie, and me sat on our picnic blanket watching the Girl Scout troops and the firemen march by. Frankie had just up and left.

  I taught Laura a hand clap game. Clap-clap-knee-clap-knee-clap-clap.

  We both kept mixing up the knee-clap and the hand-clap. This made us laugh harder than hard.

  Jesslyn was stuffing Emma’s brownies into Robbie’s mouth, two at a time, giggling. A clown handed us red and blue balloons. Maybe this July Fourth celebration would turn out okay after all.

  I did a double clap with Laura to the band’s drumming.

  The parade was winding down. “That’s the last fire truck,” Jesslyn said. “Won’t be long before it’s dark.” She reached for the bug juice and started gathering up napkins and cups. “Let’s take this to the fireworks.”

  But before Jesslyn could put the leftover brownies into the basket, I heard the loudest voices ever.

  “Hey, you, big shot!” J.T. had his fists balled deep into the pockets of his blue jeans. His eyes were squinched tight. His friends stood behind him with their shoulders hunched up. Who’d given them an invitation to join the party?

  “Having fun at the parade?” J.T. wanted to know.

  Nobody, especially not Robbie, answered.

  “How’d life treat you down in the pen?”

  My heart jumped into my throat.

  Robbie’s jaw went tight. His mouth made a hard line. The boy standing next to J.T. leaned up in Robbie’s face. “Yeah, Mr. Football Hero. We heard you were in jail.”

  J.T. and his friends surrounded Robbie. J.T. said, “Since you like eating hamburgers with the coloreds, take a taste of this.” J.T. spat right in Robbie’s face! His spit landed on Robbie’s cheek.

  They all laughed so hard. Then, as they walked off, those mean boys poked each other and laughed some more.

  I’d never seen the likes of that kind of hateful.

  Robbie wiped off the spit with the back of his hand. He was gripping the neck of his Coke bottle and not saying a word.

  Jesslyn grabbed my arm. “Glory!” She pulled me up off the blanket and dragged me to where nobody could hear us. Her fingernails dug into my skin. Her eyes drilled a hole big enough to kill me. “Who told J.T. about Robbie?”

  “I didn’t tell J.T.,” I said. “Frankie must’ve said something.”

  “Who told Frankie?” But the look on Jesslyn’s face told me she’d figured it out. “You eavesdropped in the car going to Tupelo. You heard Robbie’s secret.”

  My face went red. My throat was burning with trying to choke back tears.

  Now Jesslyn was the one spitting — spitting angry words. At me.

  “You! Little! Brat!”

  She tore off, disappearing into the crowd of clowns and music and red and blue balloons.

  I sat by myself, unraveling a hole in the red plaid blanket. Most everybody had moved toward the big field where the sky would soon light up with fireworks. Jesslyn and Robbie had walked away from me without even saying a word, gone off to sit under the pecan tree. I wrapped my arms around my knees, trying to shut out what I’d done to Robbie. When I felt somebody drop down next to me on the blanket, I wiped away my tears and looked up.

  Laura grabbed my hand tight. She motioned in the direction of the library. “Glory, look,” she whispered.

  “Well, if it ain’t Elvis, alive and in person!” J.T. and his friends were back.

  One of the football players yelled out, “Show him what you got, J.T.!”

  Robbie pulled away from Jesslyn and stepped in front of J.T. “You got something for me?”

  J.T. glanced back at his friends. “Sure do, don’t we? We all got something for you, Mr. Football Hero.”

  Robbie didn’t move. Jesslyn stepped closer to him. I wasn’t breathing too good now. My heart was ready to jump out of my shirt.

  “Shouldn’t you be leaving town?” one of the football players yelled.

  “Maybe you should be going back to jail?” J.T. shouted.

  “Why are you still here?” called out another one of those mean boys.

  So many voices hollered at Robbie, saying bad things. How was he gonna get away from them all?

  J.T. took off his jacket, threw it down on the grass.

  “Why’d you come to Hanging Moss in the first place?” he shouted. “Trying to take over the team? Think you’re better than me?” J.T. was up in Robbie’s face now. “Or did you come down here because you didn’t like sharing your jail cell with a colored boy?”

  I held my breath.

  “Step away, J.T.,” Robbie said. “No need to cause trouble.”

  “Trouble? You caused trouble back where you came from.”

  J.T. leaned in close to Robbie, hauled off, and whacked him in the stomach! Robbie fell hard on the ground.

  Jesslyn screamed. Robbie tried to get up, but another boy pulled him down and started kicking. “See how tough you are now, Freedom Rider,” J.T. hollered. “Get off your butt and show me what you got.”

  I shut my eyes to keep the tears away. But I couldn’t stand there another minute doing nothing. I raced over and stood right next to Robbie.

  “If y’all don’t leave my friend alone, I’m running for the police!” I yelled.

  J.T. laughed like it was all so funny. “Look who’s gonna save your behind, Robbie.” His voice was quiet at first and I wasn’t sure what he was saying. “Little Miss Snotnose, my sissy brother’s girlfriend.” J.T. reached into his front pocket and pulled something out. Even standing in the near-about dark of the one dim streetlight, I could see a glint shining in his hand. Frankie’s brother had a switchblade!

  “How do you like this, Robbie Fox?” J.T. snapped the knife open. He waved it in Robbie’s face, closed it quickly, then stuffed it back in his pocket. “You go home to where you came from. We don’t like people trying to butt in where they ain’t welcome. And we sure don’t need you on our football team.”

  Then J.T. and his friends picked up their Hanging Moss Hornets jackets and walked away. Robbie had his head between his legs and was gulping air. Jesslyn sat on the ground next to him.

  I couldn’t stop shaking. “We gotta call the police,�
�� I said.

  Robbie spoke slowly, like it hurt bad to talk. “Not calling anybody. No police. Can’t let my aunt know.”

  After a while, Jesslyn and I helped Robbie up, but he couldn’t walk till he’d caught his breath.

  When I looked back, there was Frankie, leaning against a tree, holding his glasses in his hand. I could tell plain as day that he was blubbering. I didn’t care how hard Frankie cried. He could sob all night as far as I was concerned.

  Off behind the library, the first fireworks started to light up the sky in bright bursts of red and blue. Smells of cotton candy and too much butter on popcorn left over from the parade about made me throw up.

  I grabbed Robbie’s hand and squeezed it tight. “Come on,” I said. “We need to see if Emma or Daddy’s home. They’ll know what to do.”

  By the time we made it down to our house, Robbie was walking pretty good. We turned up the sidewalk, and right off Emma saw his bloody elbow and the scrapes on his cheek.

  “Lord, child, what on earth happened?”

  Jesslyn helped Robbie up the porch steps. “J.T. beat him up.”

  Emma held the front door open. “Come in the kitchen, let me look at you.”

  “Just got the wind knocked out of me,” Robbie said, taking slow, deep breaths, then settling into a seat. “It’s nothing. I’ll be fine.”

  But Robbie wasn’t fine, and Emma knew it.

  Jesslyn and I exchanged glances. I was trying to decide whether to tell Emma about J.T.’s knife.

  “Robbie wouldn’t let us call the police,” I said. “So we came here.”

  Emma opened the first-aid kit. She dabbed orange medicine all over Robbie’s elbow and blew on it.

  Robbie flinched. He looked from Emma to Jesslyn and back again. “Nobody can know about this.” He stood up like he was going somewhere.

  Jesslyn put her hand on Robbie’s arm to sit him back down. Her voice was full of pride. “Back in North Carolina, Robbie got in trouble for doing the right thing,” she told Emma. “J.T. found out about it, about him eating at a lunch counter with a Negro friend.” Jesslyn looked hard at me when she said that.

  Emma leaned close to Robbie. She gave his shoulders a gentle squeeze.

  Once Emma had taped a bandage on his elbow and cleaned up his face some, Robbie was in even more of a hurry to leave. “I gotta get going,” he said. “My car’s over behind the church.”

  “I’ll walk with you,” Jesslyn said. “You” — Jesslyn gave me a look that meant me helping Robbie was done with — “stay here.”

  Robbie eased himself up, real slow. He winked at me. “Thanks, Glory, for getting rid of J.T.” He followed Jesslyn out the front door.

  My sister hadn’t told him who had given away his secret. Knowing this all started with me telling Frankie, it made me sick inside.

  “That’s a big mess of trouble, that poor boy,” Emma said, shaking her head.

  I handed Emma the picnic basket. We folded the plaid blanket, hand to hand. I tried to think of what all to tell her. I started slowly. “J.T. and his friends didn’t like what Robbie did back in North Carolina.” By the way her eyes rested on me, Emma could tell I knew more.

  “Might make you feel better to talk.” She packed away our leftover brownies in the bread box, wiped off the kitchen table. Then she sat down and patted the chair. “Right here, Glory honey.”

  I spoke quietly, carefully. “Jesslyn’s real mad,” I said. “I wasn’t supposed to tell anything about Robbie, but I couldn’t keep it to myself. I told Frankie. Then Frankie blabbed to J.T. that Robbie got sent to jail.” I leaned back in the chair and looked at Emma. “I’m scared.”

  “Those boys were wrong.” Emma dropped her hands into her lap like the weight of the whole evening had just settled there. “They never should have done that. Beating up a boy who stands up for what’s right. Just a heap more of the trouble that’s all over the place this summer.”

  I told Emma how Frankie made me think the pool was open, and how he blamed Laura for something she never did. Now that I was talking, telling Emma the truth, the words spilled out fast. “The pool’s closed for all summer long. I thought everything would go back to the way it was. But even if that pool opens, it’ll never be the same in Hanging Moss.” I stopped to get my breath and leaned into Emma’s shoulder. “What’s the matter with everybody, Emma?”

  “Most folks just scared of losing something precious to them.”

  “You mean the pool?” I asked her. “The pool’s precious to me.”

  “No, something harder to describe. Something they need to hold on to, even when they might just need a step back. Other folks, they know the best time to let go.”

  Emma hugged me tight, rocked me. “Almost forgot, baby.” She reached into her apron pocket. “Got you a birthday present.”

  She handed me a wrapped box. Inside was the tiniest little book. “It’s like our Nancy Drews!” I said. “It really opens and closes.”

  “For your new charm bracelet.” She helped me snap it on.

  In a minute, Daddy came in the front door. I ran to him. “Daddy, something bad happened.”

  “What is it, Glory? Are you and Jesslyn all right?”

  “Robbie got beat up by J.T. and his friends.” I looked at Emma. “They were mad because Robbie took up for some colored people back in North Carolina.” Then I blurted, “J.T. had a knife.”

  “Where’s Robbie now — where’s Jesslyn?” Daddy moved toward the phone. “I’m calling the police.”

  “No, Daddy, please. Robbie didn’t want his aunt — or anybody — to know about the fight. He and Jesslyn walked over to get his car.”

  Daddy’s arms reached around me.

  “It was all my fault,” I whispered into his white shirt. “I got Robbie in trouble. I told his secret.” As a minister my daddy knew a lot about keeping secrets. He didn’t ask me one more question, just kept hugging me.

  When Emma left to go home for the evening, Daddy held the door open and we followed her onto the cracked sidewalk. “Enjoy your Sunday blessings, Emma. We’ll see you on Monday.”

  “No, sir. I’m coming in special, after church tomorrow, to make Glory’s birthday dinner.”

  We waved good-bye to Emma. Then Daddy stopped for a minute and looked at me like he was just remembering what day it was. “Happy birthday, honey!” We walked back up the porch steps to sit together on our swing and watch the end of the fireworks. He and I looked off beyond the library, to where the night sky lit up with color, and bright flashes exploded above the treetops.

  Daddy welcomed me into another one of his hugs. “Glory be,” he said softly.

  He carried his Bible and papers to his study and left me sitting, thinking about the whole day.

  When Robbie’s gold station wagon stopped in front of our house, the headlights went down. Jesslyn saw me as soon as she stepped up on the porch. “Why are you out here in the dark? Go inside.”

  I put my feet down to stop the swing. I stood up and reached in my shorts pocket. “I’m sorry about tonight, Robbie.” I handed him the Love Me Tender key chain. “You can have it back. I don’t deserve your present. It was my fault J.T. beat you up. I blabbed your secret to Frankie.”

  Robbie wouldn’t take the key chain. “Jesslyn already told me. But I don’t care about J.T. I don’t need that kind of trouble. After all that’s happened, I’m leaving. To live with my mother again.”

  “What about football — and Jesslyn?”

  “Robbie called his mama tonight. She’s coming tomorrow, early.” Jesslyn’s voice was so soft I wondered if I’d heard her right. She leaned her head on Robbie’s arm. She was crying, even more than before. “Who wants to stay where people are so horrible to you?” she was asking into the warm night. Jesslyn kept on talking, speaking to what seemed like only herself. “Robbie has promised to come visit me,” she said.

  But I couldn’t see Robbie Fox spending another minute in Hanging Moss.

  I sat on the top stair,
touching my new charm bracelet, thinking about how to make Jesslyn happy again. I looked down the upstairs hall toward the sewing room. That’s it! The sewing room! I snatched up all the clothes Jesslyn had piled on the daybed. I ran to our old bedroom, dropped her favorite blue sweater on the way, but I kept going. I went back for her basket filled with makeup and hair rollers. I stuck her fancy tasseled boots in the big closet in our old room. My Nancy Drew books and china animals were lined up in perfect order where they’d been ever since I could remember. I carried them to the sewing room. My room now.

  Next, I grabbed my Buster Brown shoe box. What did I need with that silly stuff — Cracker Jack prizes, a rusty skate key, my Jacob’s ladder string?

  I dropped every last piece of my old junk, one by one, in the wastebasket. When I got to the dried and crumbly grass from Elvis’s house, I put it back, next to the two shells I couldn’t bear to part with. Then I came to the faded pool notice, the lie Frankie had written about the pool. I wanted to rip it to pieces, but I folded it into a hard triangle and put it in the box as a memory of my twelfth birthday in Hanging Moss.

  I didn’t want to forget everything.

  I waited by the window, holding my breath till I heard Robbie’s car drive off and Jesslyn starting up the stairs. When she stormed into the bedroom and flung her blue sweater onto the bed, I jumped a mile.

  Her voice was low, but she was sure mad. “Who did this? Who destroyed my new room?” Jesslyn looked around and saw her hairbrushes and boots and mascara, all in our old room.

  “Emma’s sewing room is plenty big for me,” I told her. “You’re the oldest. You get the biggest room.”

  Jesslyn stared at the two beds, all the windows, the closet that my entire new room could almost fit into, like she couldn’t believe it belonged to her now. “You’re giving me this room?”

  “All yours,” I told her.

  Jesslyn got so still I thought maybe she was mad. “Robbie made me promise to forgive you for telling Frankie his secret.”