by Grant Farley
“Manny, I bet we could fit the Silverstream into this one room. And I bet there’ll be less people living in this whole house than live in my trailer.”
“Figuring there are seven people in your trailer, that’s a pretty good guess,” he says.
“Don’t that piss you off?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I don’t live in a trailer. Let’s get out of here.”
“We’ll miss the fireworks.”
“We can watch them on the way back.”
A fancy-colored window has already been framed into the second story. I grab a chunk of concrete and heft it, feeling an itch to throw it at the glass. Then the last sunlight touches it and it shimmers like stained glass in a church, so I don’t bother.
“Hey, you punks. What are you doing here?” a big kid calls.
“Now you done it,” Manny says.
We could run, of course. But no Slows are going to chase me out. We strut over to where they’ve turned the front of a slab overlooking the valley into party central, with beach chairs, coolers, blankets, and a sliced watermelon. Their radio is blasting the Bee Gees.
Three girls are waving sparklers, the sparks dancing off the slab and drifting on the evening breeze.
“You shouldn’t do that. You could cause a brush fire,” I say.
Two of the girls are tall, with frosted and feathered hair, hip-hugger bell-bottoms, and halter tops. They might be Charlie’s Angels wannabes, but they don’t look like no angels in this valley. The third is more of a Velma from Scooby-Doo. Short redhead with freckles and big boobs. Instead of a sweater covering them like in the cartoon, she wears a ruffly blouse with a gold crucifix nestled in the valley between the lacy edges of her bra. Now, that is a shrine if ever I saw one. I don’t care what Mr. Sanders would have said, I’d take a pilgrimage to that crucifix any day.
“What you staring at, punk?” The guy has a flattop that makes him look like Frankenstein’s monster. He’s not very tall, but he’s got shoulders and arms as big as Nino’s. And mean, squinty eyes. If he had grown up here, he’d be a Blackjack. But he didn’t grow up here, so he’s just some bully. The other two guys are a matching set to the Charlie’s Angels. They wear bell-bottoms and heeled cowboy boots. They got blond mullets and neat horseshoe mustaches. The flattop bully comes at us with a fake smile and two slices of watermelon.
“Eddy, no,” the redhead says.
The others laugh.
“Try some of this,” he says.
I shrug and grab the big slice from this Eddy guy, and Manny grabs the other. A kaboom shakes the valley. Perfect timing.
“Listen, Eddy,” the redhead says. “The fireworks are about to start. Leave the boy alone.”
Boy? She could at least have said “kid” or “dude” or “punk” or something. Boy? I stuff the watermelon in my mouth and the sweet juice trickles down my throat and then begins to burn.
“Go . . . go . . . go . . .” The guys laugh.
My mouth catches fire. Manny is choking. This watermelon is spiked. Tequila, maybe. But even Nino never let me have any, so I’m not sure.
A firework explodes and colors drip across the sky. I spit out seeds and shrug like the sting is no big deal. I take another bite. Another kaboom, but my eyes are shut, so I miss the colors. The taste is not so bad if you’re expecting it. Kind of sweet and not as hot as ’Buelita’s sausages. I hold my breath and shove that last big chunk into my mouth, sticky juices dribbling down my chin.
The girls grab the guys’ arms and pull them back to the fireworks show.
“I’m tired of this,” Manny says. “Let’s go.”
“Just one more piece of this watermelon,” I say.
“Bad idea, RJ.” He sighs. “But what else is new?”
That’s how come we’re still standing there when the finale slaughters the sky in color, and there’s no way I want to leave until that’s finished, and Manny was right, because those three Slows now have us surrounded.
“So what should we do with these trespassers?” Eddy asks.
“Leave my friend RJ alone.” The Ace steps out of the shadows. He’s backed by Jokers, including the ones that followed me at the Stardust. Buns stands behind them. He don’t look like a Joker yet, but he’s pretty much lost.
The redhead—I can’t take my eyes off that crucifix—is looking at me in a new light, thinking I’m with the Blackjacks. God, I’m ashamed that she thinks I’m a part of them. Then I’m even more ashamed because I am a part of them. Not in the way she thinks it. But in the way any victim is a part of his tormentor. Shame is a weird, sick feeling.
“Who the hell are these guys?” one of the blond guys asks through his mustache, pointing at Brent Keating.
“The Blackjacks,” I say.
The Slows are the same size as the Blackjacks, and probably more athletic. But if it comes to a fight, the Slows don’t stand no more chance than a golden retriever against hungry coyotes. No chance at all against something that dark and wild.
“You know you’re trespassing.” Eddy faces off against the Ace. He don’t get how much danger they’re in.
“And you’re not . . . trespassing?” the Ace asks.
“We got permission to be here. My uncle is the developer.”
“Ah, the developer,” the Ace says in a mocking voice.
“Eddy,” the redhead says. “Let’s go.”
“You guys don’t get it, do you?” the Ace says. “About who’s the trespassers.”
One of the Slows pulls Eddy’s arm. “He isn’t worth it.”
“Did you enjoy the watermelon, RJ?” The Ace is still looking at Eddy, not me. The Ace don’t care about that watermelon at all. He’s asking me just to show he’s been here since the beginning, just been biding his time.
“It was okay.” I shrug. “No big.”
“The watermelon and the trespassing remind me of a story,” the Ace says. “There was this old farmer who had a little watermelon patch. He loved those watermelons and didn’t share them with anyone. The boys in the valley loved that watermelon, too. It tasted all the sweeter being stole fruit, as they say. So that old man stuck a sign in the watermelon patch. What do you suppose it said?”
“no trespassing?” the redhead says quickly. I can tell she thinks their best chance to get out of this is to humor the Ace.
“Ya think?” the Ace mocks. “How is that old man gonna enforce no trespassing? Tell a cop? Would a cop bother about a couple kids stealing a watermelon? Those cops probably did it themselves as kids. They might even be thinking, Give it up, Gramps. Let them have one. You can’t eat them all. Or maybe the old man would shoot the kids himself? He could be that crazy. But this ain’t about crazy. No, the sign read: one of these watermelons has been spiked with poison.”
“Very clever,” Eddy says. “We’re done here.”
“Oh, that’s not the punch line. The next day the old man goes out to his watermelon patch. It looks like not a single watermelon has been stolen. Then he notices the sign. It’s been changed. The ‘one’ has been crossed out and ‘two’ has been scrawled in its place. God, I love the simplicity of it. You have five minutes.” The Ace never changes the tone in his voice. “Five minutes to get your shit out of here or you will regret ever hearing about this valley.”
As they gather their stuff, the redhead slips her crucifix back under her blouse. Then they’re dragging beach chairs and coolers through the slabs and frames, the girls wobbling on their platform shoes. Manny and me turn to slip away.
“Where you going, RJ?”
“Home,” I say.
“You haven’t forgot, have you?” The Ace still has that dead, flat tale-teller voice. “Your next delivery? After all, we just gave you some protection.”
“Nah. I haven’t forgot.”
“I have faith in you, RJ.”
Then they�
�re gone.
“Manny, what do ya think was the moral to the Ace’s story?”
“There ain’t nothing moral in him,” Manny says. “So why do you think the Blackjacks were out here?” Manny asks. “Were they following you?”
We’re making our way down Indian Trail in the dark.
“Nah. I ain’t that important. Life just has its twists.”
And one of those twists means another visit to Leguin. And another visit to him means having to finish a tale I should never have started.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Melting Blues
I’m sitting at the top of the hill on the Stingray, scoping the old man’s place from the same spot where Roxanne and I sat, it feels like a million years ago. Dark afternoon clouds lie across Big Mama, but it’s only a rain tease. There hasn’t been a drop since the downpour the day the old man arrived. My head still throbs from that spiked watermelon last night.
Mrs. Elliot had said that Roxanne brought that clock from Mr. Leguin’s. Had Roxanne stolen it or had he given it to her? And how much does he know about her disappearance?
I slalom down the hill, letting the tires slide and dig into the weeds and dirt with each turn as I take my own sweet time. I cruise round by way of the root cellar. The door is padlocked. I lean against the angled door, my cheek resting against the splintered wood, and listen.
Silence.
“Roxanne?”
More silence. A creepy feeling oozes up out of the air vent and slides down into my belly, trailing a sweet, musty smell. This is stupid. She’s not there. No one is down there.
I walk the bike past the barn and see Leguin sitting in his chair staring out through the screen door. I let the old bike drop and I hop up the steps. A bottle and two glasses sit on the table next to him like he knows I’m coming. How long has he been hunched over that cane, eyeballing that screen, waiting for me to show?
I open the screen and step in.
“Sit,” he says.
I plop down in the soft chair he won’t sit in because he can’t get out of it. He just gives me that stare, and I get that sudden creepy feeling, like he’s got me picked for something.
“No more sherry,” I say. After last night, I figure I’ll never try booze again.
Leguin nods and recorks the bottle, not even pouring some for himself.
“Did you enjoy a pleasant Fourth of July?”
“Sure,” I say, “how about you?”
“I celebrate the Fourteenth of July.”
It figures that he’d have to do things different. “Why the Fourteenth?”
“Bastille Day.”
“Bastille Day?”
“You might say it’s the French Fourth of July.”
I stare at all the antiques cramming the room. Why can’t I steal from him? What’s wrong with me? We can go until tomorrow just sitting here without talking. There’s a blank space on the mantel over the fireplace. It’s the spot where you usually see a clock in old movies.
“There’s this lady in town, her name is Mrs. Elliot.” I’m not sure how far I’m going with this, but now that I’ve jumped, there’s only the bottom. “She owns Mrs. Elliot’s Antiques and Collectibles Emporium.”
Leguin is quiet.
“She sells old stuff. You know, like antique clocks.”
“Indeed.”
“She had this clock for sale that she said was yours.”
“Did she?”
“She said that this girl named Roxanne stole it from you.”
“Roxanne, you say?”
“Yeah . . .”
“And you saw this clock?”
“Yeah. It was an antique that would fit perfect in that empty space over your fireplace there.”
I wait. No answer.
“She’s been missing more than a week and a day,” I continue. “Some people think she ran away. But I don’t believe it. And I think you know something about her.”
His melting blue eyes freeze up into cubes.
There’s a whole long silence.
“I believe you have a tale to finish, young man.”
So here we go.
“A tale?”
“Yes, something to do with that priest . . .”
“Father Speckler.”
“Yes. And a science demonstration, and your Mr. Sanders—”
“He ain’t my Mr. Sanders.”
He steeples his hands and stares through me.
How is it possible to need to tell something, yet not want to tell it, all at the same time?
“Okay, but we ain’t done with Roxanne. If I tell some, you got to tell some back.”
“Très bon.”
I feel kind of light-headed as the tale rises up out of me and I can’t stop it no more than a dry heave.
The Tale of the Love Souvenirs and My Old Soul
When I went to school that following Monday after Mr. Sanders had put the idea in my head for my demonstration, I didn’t mess up or say one “Father” before lunch ’cause I couldn’t handle that dark little closet no more. But the more Father Speckler figured I wouldn’t talk back, the harder he rode me. I went home for lunch and came back late, carrying baby Peanut, with the twins trying to keep up behind me. Amy and Charley, who also went to Our Lady’s, were waiting in that empty hall like I told them. I could hear Father Speckler inside going on with his God’s children number, and I waited for my cue, and it came when he said, “Just where is Mr. Armante? Truant in order to avoid his demonstration?”
That’s when we paraded in. I lined the sibs up in front of the class and had each of them hold up a picture of their father. Amy was the only one I had a hard time getting to do it. But if you’d seen her father, you’d understand.
Father Speckler demanded, “You have an explanation for all this?”
“Yes, Father,” I said. “They are my Science Project Demonstration. As you can see, each of them sort of looks like their prospect. Well, my dad left me this here Hohner harmonica and eight hundred dollars when he died. I tried to sell it once, but my mom wouldn’t let me.” I sucked in a few notes, sort of a blues tune. “I figure that eight hundred bucks lasted me till I was five years, seven months. So I owe my mom for three years, eight months. That’s ’cause my dad is the only prospect who don’t pay some child support. You see, Father, it all started with my mom’s streak of bad luck. Her first prospect, my father, died. Her second didn’t marry her officially on account of he was already married and forgot to tell her. The third beat her up. So she was three kids in before she knew what was going down. I guess that turned her off to getting married. Like she says, she don’t trust her own judgment.”
Father Speckler wrote a note and grabbed a kid to take it to the office.
“I like to call us kids ‘love souvenirs,’” I said. “It’s like my mom loves the prospect, and she wants something lasting to remember him by. Of course, marriage don’t last. But kids, they last—if you take good care of them. I guess she figures that if she don’t trust her own judgment and marry them, she could at least have a souvenir.” I blew some more notes.
Manny was sitting in the front row. He had his face buried in his hands and was peeking through the fingers like at a gross accident you don’t want to see but can’t help looking.
“But souvenirs ain’t cheap,” I said. “So I figure it’s only right that the prospects pay. And most of them don’t even mind, my mom being such a wonderful person and they love her even after they find out she don’t trust her own judgment.”
Father Speckler had stopped hopping. Standing still he looked even smaller. Just then, Mother Catherine walked in and stood in the back of the room with her arms folded across her chest.
“So you can see, there are six of us souvenirs,” I continued, “counting me and counting the twins as two. I’m the oldest, the
n there’s Amy, who’s three years younger than me, and right behind her came Charley, though you wouldn’t know it ’cause they’re so different. Then the twins. Finally, there’s Peanut, who’s only just one.” Peanut let out a gurgle in Amy’s arms right on cue. “My mom had thought her prospecting days were over, if you know what I mean.”
Mother Catherine started down the aisle and the whole class sucked air and I clutched Peanut for protection. She led us in a regular pilgrimage down to the office. First she called my mom at work to come down and pick us all up. Then she pulled me in the office while the others waited outside.
I just toed that line and grabbed the foot of Jesus and held on. But nothing happened. I looked back under my armpit and Mother Catherine was sitting behind her desk staring at my backside. I couldn’t understand it. I mean, I was a regular in that office for a whole lot worse. What was the big deal? She just sat there.
“Sister Phyllis had such hopes for you,” Mother Catherine said. “Didn’t you, Sister?”
“One of the brightest children we have ever had,” Sister Phyllis said. “An old soul, I like to think.”
Then Mother Catherine sighed and said, “You don’t seem to fit in here at Our Lady’s. I just pray that you do find a place to fit in. So very much promise. I’ll call down to Sixth Street Elementary and let them know you will be arriving on Monday.”
Sixth Street was actually uphill. But to Mother Catherine it was always down.
That evening I went to Mr. Sanders’s trailer to tell him how the demonstration turned out. I figured he should get part of the blame for putting the idea in my head. But he wasn’t sitting outside on his slab like usual. I knocked, but there was no answer, and so I opened the door. That’s how come I found his body. He’d stopped eating food, I guess, and so the booze had eaten his liver instead.
I was in that trailer in the dark with . . . with that thing. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t even find my way out of that little space. Then I saw one of those round Canterbury pictures hung on the wall. It was that fat Bath lady on a horse. I couldn’t remember her tale. Then I edged to the next pilgrim, a scrawny priest on a donkey. The Pardoner, maybe. And so I followed them all the way to the door and I was free.
