A Fine Dark Line

21

NEXT MORNING, after breakfast, I let Nub out. He ran to the projection booth and started barking. I thought maybe a coon or a possum had crawled in there. It had happened a couple of times when Buster left the door open, or so Daddy told me.

Daddy said he had to run the critters out with a broom, chase them until they climbed the fence and headed back into the woods.

I had yet to make such a discovery, and was about half excited to think I might have finally done so. I was a little scared too. A coon or a possum can turn nasty when cornered.

I picked up the poking stick we used for picking up trash, and went out there. The door was closed. Coons and possums didn’t close doors behind them.

Buster?

If it was Buster, Nub wouldn’t have barked.

Still, I called Buster’s name.

He didn’t answer.

“Nub,” I said. “You sure?”

Nub scratched at the bottom of the door and growled. I said, “Whoever is in there, I got a gun. You better take it easy.”

I started backing away, ready to get Daddy.

I heard a voice from inside. “It’s okay, Stanley. It’s me. Don’t shoot.”

“Richard?”

“Yeah. Don’t get your daddy or mama.”

The door cracked open, and Richard poked his head out. There was dirt crusted on one side of his face.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” I said.

“You don’t have a gun.”

“No,” I said. “What are you doing in the projection booth?”

“I climbed the fence when y’all closed down. Slept in here.”

“Get back inside. I’m coming in.”

Inside, Richard said, “I slept on the floor on that piece of carpet. Wasn’t too bad. Best place I’ve slept in over a week.”

Richard was wearing a pair of overalls, no shirt. The overalls looked as if they had been washed in mud and dried in sin. There were bumps on his face from mosquitoes and his nose had run and dirt was crusted on his upper lip like a Hitler mustache. One knee of his overalls was ripped and the kneecap that poked through it had a scab on it. He didn’t have shoes on. His feet were caked with red clay and I could see scratches on top of them and along the ankles where he had outgrown his overalls.

“Your daddy was looking for you,” I said.

“I know,” he said.

“He and my daddy had words. They had more than words.”

“When was this?”

I told him what happened and said I was really sorry.

“Don’t be. I ain’t been home since before that happened. It must have happened mornin’ after the night I run off. He was lookin’ for me ’cause I run away and he wasn’t through whuppin’ on me. He run me out in the middle of the night, and if I hadn’t been sleepin’ in my overalls I wouldn’t be wearin’ nothin’.”

Richard turned. His back, bare except for the overall straps, showed long crusty red marks. “He got in some good licks, but I wouldn’t gonna take no more, so I took off.”

I noticed there were white scars next to the red marks. I knew his father whipped him more than I thought was right, but now I knew how bad he whipped him.

“Heavens,” I said.

“He took a horsewhip to me. Belt’s bad enough, but when I run, he grabbed up the whip, caught me out in the yard. It hadn’t been dark, I don’t know I’d have got away from him. He chased me a mile through the corn and then on out to the woods. Said he’d kill me if he caught me.”

“What started it?”

“Comic books. He said all that readin’ was makin’ me think I was better’n him, and he wasn’t gonna have that.”

“That started it?”

“Yeah. Sort of. One thing led to another. I told him I thought maybe I ought to finish high school. He wanted me to quit. Said the law wouldn’t do nothin’. Not around here. They didn’t care.”

Richard melted onto the carpet on the floor. I sat on the projection booth stool. I said, “Where have you been all this time?”

“Here and there. Out in them woods. Hid in a nigger’s barn outside of town. Stole some food out of a house. Just enough to eat, mind you. Some old corn bread was left on the stove and I got a piece a chicken out of the icebox. Left them a thank-you note, but I didn’t put my name to it.”

“Good grief, Richard.”

“Just couldn’t stay home no more. Daddy told me he was gonna kill me.”

“Surely he didn’t mean it.”

Richard laughed, but he didn’t sound all that amused. “You got it so good you don’t know a thing about how it is. I didn’t know it was any different till I met you. Just thought that’s the way it was. Beatin’s and all. Mamas havin’ black eyes and a swollen lip all the time . . . Stanley, think maybe you could get me somethin’ to eat?”

“I’ll get you something.”

“Maybe you can wrap me up a little somethin’, some bread maybe. Let me have that old canteen of yours. You know, the army one? I’m gonna try and catch a boxcar out later.”

“Where to?”

“Where my old man can’t find me. I started to catch me one last night, but it wasn’t slow enough. May need to walk up to the next town. I think they got a switchin’ station there. Might go where I can get me a job of some kind. Workin’ on a farm. I know how to work, and if they hire them little wetback kids, they’re sure to hire me.”

“What about your mother?”

“She don’t care about me neither. Thought she did, but I finally come to think she don’t. She lets him beat me.”

“He beats her too,” I said.

“I know. But . . .”

“What?”

“She kind of likes it.”

“Likes a beating?”

“Uh huh. That’s how come all this.”

“I thought it was reading, wanting to go to school.”

“That’s what set him off finally, but it’s because I run in on him beatin’ her the other day, and I fought him. He whupped me good with his fists, and my mama told me to mind my own business. That it was the way they did things.”

“She said that?”

“Yes.”

“She could have been trying to help you. Keep you out of it.”

“I wanted to think that, but way she looked . . . It was like she was havin’ fun. Ain’t nobody ought to like that, should they?”

“I wouldn’t think so.”

“I been stupid, Stanley. I been stayin’ home for her, and she don’t want me there.” Richard started to cry. “I’m so tired.”

“Come on, Richard, you don’t need to stay out here.”

“I don’t want your parents to know. I don’t want to tell nobody.”

“It’s all right, Richard. Really. Come on. Let’s get Rosy to fix you a big breakfast. You know how she can cook.”

I held out my hand and he took it, and I helped him up. He sniffed a few times and quit crying. We walked to the house. Richard walked with his head hung, and his poor wrecked feet lifted no more than they had to.

———

WHEN WE CAME IN through the back, Rosy saw Richard and looked at me. I said, “He needs something to eat, Rosy.”

“Well, we gonna fix that,” she said, and pans started clanging. Mom came into the kitchen a few moments later. She had slept late. She was still wearing her robe, and hair hung in her eyes.

“You sound like you’re trying to tear down the house, Rosy . . . Oh, hi, Richard.”

“Hi, Mrs. Mitchel.”

“You look a mess, son. What have you been doing?”

Richard put his head on the table and started to cry again. Mom pulled a chair up next to him, put her arm around him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“It’s not that,” I said.

“What is it?” Mom asked.

“Let him eat now, Miss Gal,” Rosy said. “That’s what a growin’ boy needs.”

So Rosy cooked and Richard ate. When he was finished Mom didn’t ask him any questions. She showed him where he could bathe and I went upstairs and got some of my clothes for him.

When Richard was finished, he dressed, except for shoes, and came back to the kitchen. Rosy and Mom were waiting on him. They had him perch on his knees on a chair in front of the sink, and they washed his hair, using strong soap and turpentine to kill lice. When they finished that, they rinsed his hair, dried it, combed it for him. Exhausted, he ended up on the living room couch.

Instantly, he was sound asleep.

Daddy came in for breakfast, and while Rosy cooked it, Mom guided him to the living room to see Richard sleeping on the couch.

“What’s this about?” Daddy asked.

“Stanley?” Mom said.

In the kitchen, at the table, I explained.

———

I’VE HEARD OF PEOPLE like that,” Daddy said. “They call them masochist, and the one does it to them a sadist.”

“That’s sick,” Mom said.

“I suppose,” Daddy said, “anyone wants to hurt someone and likes it, or someone likes or thinks they deserve being hurt, is, yeah, a little sick.”

“You liked slapping Chester around,” I said.

“I did. Liked slapping Chapman around, for that matter. Like it better now I know what he’s done to that boy. But for me, not just anyone will do. James Stilwind would do. I’d like to slap him around.”

“What are we going to do with Richard?” Mom asked.

“Nothing,” Daddy said. “He can sleep in Stanley’s room for now. By the way, where in the hell is Callie?”

“Still sleeping,” Mom said.

“I hope she can get up when school starts,” Dad said.

“We were late ourselves,” Mom said.

“Yes,” Daddy said, smiling at Mom, “but we weren’t sleeping.”

Mom reddened a little. “What if Mr. Chapman comes for him?”

“He won’t,” Daddy said. “He doesn’t want to come around here. If he does, he gets another slapping.”

“You can’t solve everything by slapping someone around,” Mom said.

“I know,” Daddy said. “But some things you can. At least temporarily. Haven’t seen Chester around here lately, have you?”

“We could call the police on Chapman,” Mom said.

“They’d just take Richard back to him,” Dad said. “Way the law works when kids run off, darn near no matter what the reason, law takes them back. There’s folks believe kids belong to parents and they can do what they want with their own kids. Law wouldn’t help, Gal.”

“The law does that?” Mom asked. “Gives beat-up kids back?”

“Afraid so,” Daddy said.

“What if Chapman calls the police?” I said. “He could call them on us.”

“He could,” Daddy said, “but he might be thinking we know more than he wants us to know. And we do. Law might give him Richard back, but Chapman wouldn’t want us spreading his business. Town like this, his business would burn through it like a wildfire. Wouldn’t be anyone didn’t know it. When it comes right down to it, he and Stilwind aren’t all that different.”

“Do you think Stilwind will bother us, Daddy? You know, with regulations and all that?”

“That’s his style, son. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

———

ON A HOT STICKY NIGHT with mosquitoes, the Friday starting off the weekend before school was to begin, I went out to visit with Buster.

I did that when the concession was slow, and it was slow right then because the first run of the movie, The Cry Baby Killer, was near the end and everyone was waiting to see the climax. Or have a climax; I was now old enough to understand why some cars parked out near the fence were rocking.

Richard stayed to help with concessions. He seemed comfortable around the family, and right now, comfort was good.

Pretty soon, I found I was telling Buster all about Richard and his daddy without even being asked. It jumped out. Maybe it was information I shouldn’t have shared, but I couldn’t help myself.

Buster shook his head sadly and clucked his tongue.

“Older I get, Stan, more I wish I had a family and hadn’t messed up the one I had. Drinkin’ didn’t do me no good. You know, I haven’t had me a drink since that day . . . with you and Bubba Joe.”

“Do you feel better?”

“I feel miserable. I think about drinkin’ all the time. Near come off the wagon least once a day every day. Make that least every hour. It ain’t easy. Main thing with me these days, is I’m finally startin’ to feel old.”

Buster removed from his shirt pocket a folded piece of yellow paper. He gave it to me and I unfolded it. It was the chief’s report on Susan Stilwind and her father.

“Why are you giving this to me, Buster?”

“Old Man Stilwind starts to give you trouble, it might come in handy. Guess you could say it’s a kind of insurance. You might want to make a copy of it and show it to the old man, tell him the real copy is put away and you got another copy written out and with a friend. That would be me. Here’s the address where he’s stayin’. I had Jukes get it for me.”

“Is there anything Jukes can’t find out?”

“My exact age, and that’s about it. You do this thing, I think your problems with that old Stilwind cracker will be over.”

———

NEXT MORNING, I awoke to find Richard lying on the floor of my room, twisted up in a blanket, clutching his pillow. Nub had taken his spot on the bed, and was lying on his back with his feet in the air, his tongue hanging out.

I got up, grabbed some clothes, went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, combed my hair and got dressed. I came back to he room to find Richard sitting up, looking bewildered.

“Don’t like sharin’ a bed?” I said.

“Nub kept licking me.”

I got the piece of paper Buster had given me out of the sock drawer and took a pencil and paper and copied down word for word the police report. I put the original back in my sock drawer.

“I got to go into town today,” I said, folding the copy, poking it into my pants pocket. “I’m going to go before Daddy or Mom asks about me. I’ll be back soon as I can.”

“I’ll go with you . . . If that’s okay?”

“I guess . . . Listen, maybe I ought not tell you this, but if you go with me, you ought to know. I need to have someone else who knows anyway, as a kind of backup.”

I took the folded piece of paper Buster had given me out of my sock drawer, gave it to Richard to read.

When he finished, he said, “I don’t get it.”

I explained it to him. I told him a lot of stuff. One thing that can be said about me, I’m a regular blabbermouth. But I didn’t tell him about Buster and Bubba Joe. I didn’t even remind him of the night we had been chased together.

“So, you’re gonna give him this, way Buster told you?”

“I’m going to give him a copy of it. That’s what I was writing.”

I took the paper from Richard, folded it, and returned it to the sock drawer.

“Well, let’s get to doin’.”

“First, you go wash your face, brush your teeth, and comb your hair. I’ve got a toothbrush and a comb for you. Rest is in the bathroom downstairs.”

———

AS USUAL on a Saturday, the town was bustling. Since Richard didn’t have a bike, we walked. We went by the picture show, and I walked fast as we went, tried not to look through the glass doors to see if I could see James, but I couldn’t help myself.

I didn’t see him.

We walked over to the hotel where Mr. Stilwind lived. In the lobby, we looked around and wondered what to do. A young man behind a counter smiled at us and beckoned us over. He wore a black suit and white shirt and his hair was slicked down flat against his head. He looked like the kind of guy Callie might find attractive.

He said, “May I help you boys?”

“I need to see Mr. Stilwind.”

“Are you kin?”

“No.”

“I believe I should call him. May I tell him what this is about?”

“Tell him Susan and her baby.”

“Susan and her baby?”

“Yes.”

“Should I elaborate on that?”

“No. He’ll know.”

“Very well.”

He called up, spoke what I had told him over the phone. When he put down the receiver, he said, “He’ll be right down. Would you like to make yourself comfortable.”

We went over and sat in some big soft chairs. After a moment, the elevator dropped, opened, and out stepped Stilwind, all dressed in black, looking as if he were about to go to a funeral. The only thing missing was his hat.

He saw me, startled, then came over. “You,” he said.

I hadn’t really noticed before, and maybe it was the harsh sunlight slipping between the great hotel curtains, but up close his face was as marked with wrinkles as a henhouse floor with chicken scratches. He looked ten years older than I had first thought him to be, and I hadn’t thought him to be a spring chicken then.

“I got something for you,” I said.

“An apology from your father . . . He decide to take my offer? It’s still open, you know.”

“No, sir. He would want me to tell you to cram your offer where the sun doesn’t shine. I have a copy of something. This was written by Chief Rowan. It has to do with you and your daughter Susan. We have the original put away in a safe place. This is a copy I made.”

I gave it to him. He read it. His face turned pale. He held the paper in his hand as if he had suddenly discovered a snake there.

“That’s your copy,” I said.

“I assume this young man knows about it?”

“As well as others.”

“If everyone knows, why should it matter to me?”

“Not everyone knows. Me and a few others.”

“Adults?”

“Yes. I told enough people so I’d have backup. I want my family left alone.”

“Your father put you up to this?”

“No. If my father wanted to do something about this, he’d come over and beat you and throw you down the stairs and drag you through the street and set you on fire. He doesn’t know about it.”

Stilwind’s face moved, tried to find an expression, settled on a sneer.

“How do I know you have the original?”

“How do you think I made this copy? Think I’d give you the only copy?”

“How did you come by it?”

“That’s my business.”

“You know the chief?”

“Never met him, never heard of him until recently.”

“He isn’t in on this?”

“No.”

“You want money, of course. Money for your silence.”

“No. I want you to leave my family alone. No made-up safety problems for the police or the fire department to inspect out at our drive-in. No problems from you of any kind.”

“I can’t be responsible for anything you think might be my fault.”

“That’s your problem.”

“You sound awfully grown-up for a kid. Awful mean.”

I did sound grown-up, and I was proud of it.

“I’m not mean. You made a threat to my family. This is a way of keeping things where they belong. The only thing left is your son, James. He better never come within fifty feet of any of my family.”

“And what about this boy?”

“You don’t need to know who he is, but he counts too. You stay away from him.”

“Gladly. Is that all, you little worm?”

“Yes, sir. That’s it. The Worm has spoken.”

———

OUT ON THE STREET, in the hot sunshine, I was ecstatic. What I had done had been Buster’s idea, not mine, of course, but I was proud of myself. I liked the way I had talked, the sound of my voice. Richard was very impressed, and told me so.

“Man, you had him by the short hairs.”

“The short hairs? What’s that mean?”

“I don’t know exactly, but I’ve heard it. You were really good in there.”

“Thanks.”

As we walked past Harriman’s Feed and Seed, Mr. Chapman came out. He was wearing a sweat-stained brown hat and was carrying a large bag of fertilizer. He didn’t see us at first. We froze. He eased down the steps to the curb and dumped the bag into the back of his old rickety black pickup, made it companion to a half dozen other bags there.

When he looked up, he saw us. There was something about his face that I can’t describe. A kind of blankness as far as his features went, but his eyes, they were as dark and nasty-looking as a dying animal’s.

“You,” he said to Richard. “You had a punishment.”

“I ain’t gonna take no more of that,” Richard said.

“Say you ain’t?” Chapman said. “Say you ain’t?”

“No, sir, I ain’t.”

Beside me, I could feel Richard tense.

Chapman glared at me. “And you and your high and mighty daddy, and that little Jezebel of a sister—”

“Shut your mouth,” I said. “I’ll tell Daddy if you lay one hand on me or Richard. And he’ll come to your house and beat you like a dirty rug.”

“He will, will he?” Chapman said.

“He sure did the other day,” I said, “and he wasn’t even trying.”

“I ought to whip your proud butt with my belt,” Chapman said.

“You ain’t gonna whip either our asses,” Richard said. “You laid your last hand on me, old man.”

Chapman glared. “By the Lord Jesus Christ, you ain’t no son of mine. Not no more.”

“I never was,” Richard said.

Chapman cackled like some kind of creature out of a storybook, turned, got in his truck, and drove away.

I peeked over at Richard. His chin was nearly on his chest, his shoulders slumped. He looked as if he were being held up by an invisible noose around his neck.

I took him by the elbow. “Let’s go home.”