OK. I’LL TELL YOU, SAVE you the trouble of asking. My grandmother married her first cousin. Had two sons never grew no teeth and three daughters, one leg six inches shorter than the other. Youngest one, that was my mother. She married her great uncle, on my grandfather’s side. Had two sons never grew no teeth, one daughter, leg six inches shorter than the other one, and me. My only problem is, I don’t got no money and I don’t got no whiskey. Tide’s coming out though. Figure on raking me some clams, and soon’s I get paid, you can bet where I’ll be going. You want to know about my son Russell, I’ll tell you.
First day Russell goes to that school over there, he’s real happy. Riding the bus and all. Comes home and tells me he needs a lunch box. “Every other kid in his class got a lunch box,” he says. “Every other kid in his class got a dad that don’t rake clams for a living,” his mother tells him. “You carry your goddam brown bag and be glad there’s Spam in it.” Next thing you know, he’s got a note in his pocket. Teacher wants to talk to his mother and me. Says our son don’t know his alphabet letters. Don’t he watch “Sesame Street”?
First problem is, I tell her, we don’t got no TV. Next problem, no electricity. Is she beginning to understand?
Russell, it takes him longer. He wants to go play with these kids, over in Lancaster. Wants to join some kind of team they got over there. Wants a dollar for a field trip, a dollar-fifty to have his picture took. Wants to sell me a Santa candle, come Christmastime. Wants a goddam shirt with some kind of cartoon character on the front, don’t ask me why. He says his class is singing these songs over there in the gymnasium, and can we go listen. And what am I supposed to wear to this concert of yours, says his mother. You ever think of that?
Now my boy may not be no egghead, but he finally figures it out. That school over there, they don’t have nothing in it for him. What they teach him over there I can tell you in two sentences. Shit happens. Life’s a pisshole.
Fourth grade, maybe fifth, note comes home. Ain’t I concerned to know my son’s been skipping school? Can’t say I been losing sleep over it. Red tide now, that’s a problem. Two months, clams all over the flats, but who’s going to eat them? Then the tide clears and the rain starts. Ever try Purina Dog Chow casserole?
Seventh grade some girl gets knocked up, and they say Russell done it. Boy takes after his old man. At least it’s not his sister. Not his cousin, even. Baby’s legs come out, both the same. “Not bad,” says his mother. “Keep up the good work.”
Russell, he’s just been marking time till he’s old enough to quit school and get his clamming license. And when he does, he won’t get no grief from his mother and me. All my boy ever got out of school was a bunch of letters from the principal. That and this TV reporter woman, thinks she can get a couple of young boys to do her dirty work for her, do old hubby in and leave her hands clean for counting the insurance money.
I’ll say one thing about Russell. Ain’t no liar. Reporter’s husband kicks the bucket around February, I guess. Ten days, maybe two weeks later the cops start sniffing around, asking questions. Murder took place on the good side of town, but it don’t take long before they make it out to the flats naturally, on account of the reputation, and of course my boy’s a prime suspect on account of he’s got a record in the first place, plus he knew the guy’s wife.
So I ask Russ what’s the story here. We may not have your regular father and son talks, but we got our moments, and he tells me straight. “Ernie,” he says. “Could be I was in on this murder business.”
“Spit it out,” I say. So he does. Maybe it was my boy pinned the poor sucker on the floor, but it wasn’t my boy that pressed the gun up against his head. Alls he did was rough the guy up a little and drive the car, afterwards, just like she told him to.
And the way I figure it is, someone’s gonna tell. And whoever it is that gets to the cops first, that’s the one they lay off of, before they start screwing the others. “It’s every man for himself out there,” I say. “Don’t you go treating that buddy of yours any better than he’d treat you, because if you don’t squeal on him he’s sure to squeal on you.”
I take him over to the cops myself. Seemed like what you might call the fatherly thing to do. Of course I knew when we walked in the door what they was all thinking. Here comes a Hines. What’d they do now?
So Russ, he told them. Told them about the girl there, getting her mother’s gun, and Jimmy, that fired it. And how the TV reporter dame put them all up to it for her old man’s insurance money. For Russ it was money. Jimmy, he got his payment between the sheets. He was sticking it to the reporter, if you can believe it. A college graduate and all, but when the lights go out she’s no different from nobody else. Fucks like a mink.
They put a warrant out for Jimmy, and they took my boy Russ into custody too. Well, we figured on that. He’d of ended up there sooner or later, the way he was going. Maybe they’ll go easy on him, on account of confessing, and let him out sooner. Not that it’s any picnic out here neither.