Pa jumped up out of his rocker laughing and clapped his hands together.
“Ooh boy, you see that poker face I put on? ‘I’ll have to think about it,’ I says to him.”
“Are you going to think about it?” I asked.
“Heck, no. Ain’t nothing to think about. This gets Sheriff Bardo off our backs! And we’ll have big money coming in. No more piddling half-pint sales, no more struggling to scrape by and having to share clothes. Our troubles are over!”
“I don’t mind sharing, Pa,” I said, but he was off in his own world.
He was skipping back and forth on the porch and I thought he was liable to dance a jig. I stood there silent, looking at the corn, and beyond it the dust cloud trailing Mr. Salvatore’s car. I thought of him being our new boss for the rest of our lives and hoped he crashed that fancy car of his a couple hundred times before he came back on Wednesday.
EVEN THOUGH IT WAS STILL DAYLIGHT, I went into my room and lay down on my scratchy red blanket and stared up at the crooked ceiling beams. This Mr. Salvatore said he could keep the sheriff away. So why did it seem so bad? Why had my gut seized up like that when Mr. Salvatore patted Pa’s leg?
That evening Pa and I ate our supper with barely a word between us.
I finally asked, “Is that man a criminal?”
He sighed and said, “I reckon he is. But he’s nothing I can’t handle.”
To Pa, there was nothing he couldn’t handle. You’d tell him he had to wrestle a grizzly and he’d say, “Only one?” But now I was starting to wonder if he really believed all his blustering or if he just acted so hard so I wouldn’t worry.
“He looks like one of the gangsters from the papers.”
Pa laughed. “I’m sure he’d be just pleased as pie to hear somebody say that.”
“What if we didn’t do it, Pa?” I said suddenly. “What if we told him no?”
Pa stared at me wide-eyed, chicken thigh still held up to his mouth.
“You hit your head or something?” he asked, then started talking fast. “So I tell him no, and then what? Then the sheriff puts me in jail? Puts you in some orphanage? What kind of plan is that?”
“It’s not a plan, Pa. It’s just I don’t particularly like having to listen to Mr. Salvatore or the sheriff.”
“I don’t particularly like doing a lot of things, but I reckon I’d like being in jail a lot less. Don’t you understand what would happen to me? To us?”
“I do,” I said softly.
“Or you don’t care?” he asked, then went back to his chicken thigh.
I did care. But I also cared that there was a difference between shining to get by and working for some crook from up North. I knew it inside me. As I looked at the chicken bones on my plate, I wondered about Mr. Salvatore’s offer. What if it had been like the sheriff’s offer to ride in the car—not something that could be turned down?
Pa got up and picked the bones off our plates and tossed them out the back door. He sat back down and patted my head. “Change is hard. But this is a good thing. And I’ll be the one dealing with him, you don’t have to worry.”
So that was his angle. He figured no matter how bad it was, as long as it was on his shoulders and not mine, it was all right. He still thought he had to do everything for us.
I forced a smile at him.
“I’m glad you understand. Now tell me: You liking school?”
The jump from thinking about gangsters and police to school and Miss Pounder threw me for a second and I didn’t rightly know what to say.
“Mmm, sometimes we learn good stuff, like about buffalo and the old days.”
Pa asked, “You getting along with the kids there?” He leaned back and gave me a big smile and added, “Besides that one fella you pounded on?”
“It ain’t exactly easy,” I said, then paused for a second. “I mean it wasn’t at first. Now I’ve got lots of pals.”
“I am glad to hear that. I was a touch worried I’d waited too long for your schooling and whatnot. Afraid you’d be like that coyote, acting all wild and ignorant.”
It’s not like that at all, I thought. People would probably want to spend time with the coyote.
“No, Pa. I’ve got lots of friends. Ten. A whole gang of ’em,” I lied.
He beamed at me and asked, “And are you doing okay with your learning?”
“Fair. Except for reading. Mr. Yunsen’s granddaughter said she could help me if I wanted.”
After I’d flunked my fourth reading test in a row, she’d offered to practice with me.
“Ah, Rebecca.”
In a high-pitched voice he squeaked, “ ‘Hi, Cub. I’m Re-be-cca,’ ” his voice cracking right in the middle of the impression.
“You’d make a terrible girl, Pa,” I said with a laugh.
I hesitated for a moment and then continued. “She said I could go to her house day after next so she could help me with reading.”
“I think that’s a fine idea. And I’ll tell you what. This morning I saw that the blackberries out by the clearing were still good for picking. I’ll bring you some and you can take ’em over there as a courtesy.”
* * *
● ● ●
That next morning in arithmetic, Jackson got caught talking while Miss Pounder was writing problems on the board and she lit into him like I couldn’t believe. Rebecca had warned me that Miss Pounder was known to fly off the handle when folks tried to talk while she had her back turned. I thought she had exaggerated quite a bit, but that morning I saw the fury myself as Miss Pounder stopped just short of body-slamming Jackson.
For once I was not the spectacle and actually enjoying the show, but Pounder finished with Jackson and set her sights on me. She barked out my name and rapped on the blackboard with her knuckles. She and the whole class watched me squint up at the board and try to figure on the problem.
Standing by my stump seat, I thought about the night last March when me and Pa filled 18 jugs before dawn. That was Monday. Two more nights of the same work and by sunup Thursday we had put 54 jugs in the tree. So three nights was 54. Double that to six nights and it’s 108.
“A hundred and eight jugs,” I said.
“What?” Miss Pounder asked.
“A hundred and eight, I mean.”
“When I call on you, you’re supposed to work it out on the board, but…”
She faltered, twisting her head back to the figures, then back to me, then to the board again.
“But let’s just show the class how you arrived at that,” she said, turning her back to the room and hacking away at the board. She finally stepped to the side to display a 108 in a small cloud of chalk dust. I took that as the sign that I could sit back down. The rest of the class stared at me as curious as ever.
Little Myrtle behind me whispered, “You knew that one before Miss Pounder did.”
I turned to nod to her, flinching slightly at the sight of her giant choppers.
“Thanks, Myrtle,” I whispered back.
“That’s not a good thing, ya’ dunce.”
School passed slowly that day, but I guarded the brown bag of blackberries close, not having but four myself at lunch. After classes Rebecca and I walked out of the schoolhouse together into a cool autumn day. As we cut into her yard full of rusted scrap metal, I thought that even her crumbling old house had a nice look to it and I began to grin like a buffoon. As I spent more time away from home and Pa, I would occasionally stumble upon these strange feelings of freedom. A moment of joy would hit me out of nowhere and I was eager for more of it.
“I’ll show you something neat,” Rebecca said as we neared the side of the house.
She tugged on the elbow of my shirtsleeve and led me around to the back. Where the front yard was all weeds and rust, the back was bare dirt, save for one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen in my life. It sat there grand-looking with its nose angled back toward the house. I approached it cautiously and respectfully while Rebecca opened a
back door and called inside.
“Grandpa, I’m home. I’m going to show Cub the Buick.”
The vehicle was spotless, long and slick, midnight black with a touch of gold trim racing around the body.
“It’s a ’27 Buick,” Rebecca said.
“It’s double size.”
“Has to be. For the caskets.”
I had heard of these special cars but never seen one before, not even in a postcard picture. I inched forward and peeked in between the white lace curtains hanging inside the back windows. Sure enough, there was a chestnut casket in the back.
“Why is it at your house?” I asked.
“Grandpa works here. He’s got a whole funeral parlor set up downstairs.”
“With dead bodies?”
Rebecca nodded.
“And that doesn’t scare you?”
She shrugged her shoulders and said, “It’s a part of life, Grandpa says.”
I frowned. I reckoned it was easy to think like that until someone close to you died.
She went on. “People spend so much time worrying about death, but it’s all just a big circle. He says to look at it as a reminder to enjoy life.”
I turned and asked, “Do you actually know anybody that’s died?”
She dropped her head and started smoothing out her dress. “Let’s go in. I should help you with the lesson.”
We sat at the same big table where we’d first talked to Mr. Yunsen, only now I was in my pa’s chair and Rebecca in her grandpa’s. Rebecca was real quiet and had that sad-angry look on her face like when somebody called her “gravedigger.” Before long though we had that bag of blackberries between us and were laughing and reading a story about a grandma and her pet wolf. I read out loud and Rebecca helped me sound out the longer words. Halfway through the story, our fingers, mouths, and the corners of the book’s pages were stained purple. Miss Pounder was going to pitch a fit, but at that moment I didn’t care.
“You’ve got such a big house,” I said, looking up at the ceiling. Two of my houses could have fit in that one room.
“It’s fun to play in. Except downstairs,” she said and giggled.
“Me and my pa have just got a little place. The woods are big but the house is small. Him and my ma used to live around here somewhere.”
“I’ve been by there,” she said, fluttering the book’s pages.
“You have?” I couldn’t believe she’d been there and I never had even once.
She frowned at me. “Sure. Grandpa showed me.”
“What’s it like?”
“You know, it’s just a normal place. Nice.”
“Normal,” I said, trying to picture it.
We finished up reading and I realized I hadn’t seen a single other person there at Rebecca’s.
“Is your ma home?” I asked. I looked around the giant room, like I might spot her sitting silently in a corner.
“No.”
“Your pa?”
“They don’t live here. They’re in Chicago so my pa could work. My uncle got him a job at a cigar factory. And my ma works too, washing clothes.” She quickly added, “They’re coming to visit soon.”
I was a little sorry I’d opened my big mouth. Having your parents live far away was almost as bad as getting sent off to the orphanage. I only said, “That will be nice,” and waited to see if she would go on. She did.
“You asked if I knew anybody that died and I do,” she began, then sucked in a breath so sharply it sounded like she was choking. “I knew my little brother, Arthur. He was just a baby.”
Her hands were trembling now and she was rustling the book’s pages. I thought she might burst into tears and run out of the room.
“He got sick. So sick he got blinded and there was no money and he was always cold and he just couldn’t get better. That’s why my folks went to Chicago. My ma said it was to make sure nothing like that ever happened to me.”
The tears were shining on her cheeks and my chest ached rotten.
She said, “I told ’em about a hundred times I didn’t want them to go, but they wouldn’t listen. With what happened to my baby brother…”
“My ma died too, a long time ago,” I said quietly. “But I still miss her.”
Rebecca leaned her head down so I wouldn’t see her cry but it was about as obvious as anything, especially when a fat tear plopped right down on the book. She kind of laughed through a big sniffle.
I smiled at her and said, “We ruined Miss Pounder’s book.” She laughed a little more and wiped her eyes.
We finished the blackberries and I looked out the window and saw the shadows had gotten long. I said goodbye and walked out into the afternoon. Halfway down the Yunsens’ gravel drive I realized that I now had a real friend at school.
Maybe it was a silly thing, but I couldn’t help but smile. Not even the revelation that I had never actually had a friend before could break my spirit, and I cut toward town with my head high. I felt alive and strong and thought about how with the sheriff and Mr. Salvatore out of the way, I could make a real go at this new life.
I felt like I wasn’t running scared anymore, and I was not afraid or even that surprised when I saw Mr. Salvatore’s automobile parked in front of Grady’s Soda Fountain. The first touch of fear did not come until I was standing beside his table watching him spoon vanilla and caramel parfait into his mouth.
MR. SALVATORE NOTICED ME at his elbow and slowly unhunched himself from over his ice cream dish. Even seated he was taller than I was and seemed to be growing by the second.
“Get lost, kid. I got nothing on me.”
“Excuse me, sir.”
“I said I don’t have any money. I gave my last two nickels to this swindler here,” he said, aiming his words at old Mr. Grady behind the counter. Mr. Grady pretended not to hear, but his wrinkled face flushed pink and I felt even worse for him. He smoothed out his white apron and edged away to the far side of the counter to wash coffee mugs. There was no one else in the room and the electric lights seemed too bright in there, everything shiny and reflecting off the mint-green countertops.
“Mr. Salvatore, this is about the other thing,” I said, the words coming out of me before I had time to second-guess them.
He started at his name and looked me in the eyes for the first time.
I spoke before he could.
“My father sends a message. Earl Jennings.”
He glanced around the room to see if anyone was listening, then leaned over.
“I was heading there now,” he said.
I whispered, “It’s okay, sir. He says no thank you.”
I braced myself for bellowing and maybe even for him to strike me, but he just scraped caramel down the side of the dish and into the white blob of melted ice cream.
He swallowed it and wet his lips.
“Thought you said your pop wasn’t foolish,” he said.
I hadn’t thought he was foolish before. Seeing how keen he was on working for this man, however, I didn’t know what to think. And for once, I was doing something about it.
I shrugged and said again, “No, thank you.”
“He is going to have a change of heart, kid,” Mr. Salvatore said.
“Excuse me.” I nodded to him and walked out before he could say another word.
The road no longer seemed a safe place to walk so I took the long way home behind several neighboring farms. I’d had no intention of seeking out Mr. Salvatore and telling him no, but I’d somehow found the guts to do it. I’d gotten the nerve to finally make things happen myself, and yet I felt a hundred times worse than before. Why hadn’t Salvatore just said okay? What if I’d made things worse?
Of course, I hadn’t even considered what I’d say to Pa. I needed time to think, but my legs were filled with a nervous energy and the three and a half miles were finished too fast.
I got home and found Pa sitting on the front porch rocking just as furiously as he could. I had always thought rocking chairs were for
relaxing, but Pa would jump on that thing and ride it like he was breaking a horse.
“Hey. I’m still waiting on Salvatore. I’m gonna negotiate him like you wouldn’t believe.”
Pa had on a pair of trousers he normally reserved for the Easter service and some fancy wingtips I’d never seen before.
“Where’d you get those shoes?”
He popped up with a grin and turned his feet side to side.
“Traded Old Man Weatherbee. I rubbed the scuffs out with a piece of coal. My negotiating shoes.”
It was time to tell him what I’d told Salvatore. If not, Pa was liable to spend the whole night in the rocker waiting for him. Or until Mr. Salvatore came tearing up the drive and ran us both over.
“I don’t think Mr. Salvatore is coming, Pa. I saw him in town. Leaving town, in fact.”
He looked up from his new shoes with a hurt in his eyes that almost made me choke on my words.
“How do you know he was leaving?”
“I talked to him. He said the deal was off.”
Pa dropped right back down into his chair like he’d been gunshot. He closed his eyes and put his fist to his forehead.
I said, “Maybe it ain’t so bad. We don’t need him, Pa. We’ll be all right.”
He shook his head, his carefully combed hair now falling all around his face.
“No, no, no. I’m so sorry, boy.”
Don’t say that, I thought. I feel bad enough.
He pounded his fist into his palm, still shaking his head back and forth.
“Me and my negotiating. I should have told him yes when I had the chance. I let you down.”
“No, Pa. Not at all.”
He got up and went into his room. I sat in the rocker and heard a pair of thumps that sounded like negotiating shoes being flung against the wall. Off in the distance I saw an automobile speed past our drive and I wondered if I’d ever feel safe again.
When it got dark I begged Pa to let me help him at the clearing, even though it was a school night. He was so distraught that he gave in without much fight. I felt a duty to him for not having been real honest and thought maybe my company would lift his spirits, but he just sulked down the trail as it got dark. He had changed out of his fancy clothes and looked normal again, but somehow twenty years older.
Moonshine Page 6
