When the first day of high school came, Samuel put on the clothes he had chosen a week before and went upstairs from his basement bedroom to where breakfast was being made. His father stubbed out a cigarette and looked at his boy. His mother was dressed for her job at the elementary school and stood at the stove stirring sausage gravy. The familiar aromas of the kitchen filled Samuel with a sudden remorse, as though starting in the high school meant the loss of something he hadn’t realized was precious.
Oh, my goodness, Alfredia said. Don’t he look like a little man, Randy? Don’t he?
He ain’t so little no more, said Samuel’s father, reading the words on his son’s tee shirt. Def Leppard, that a rock group?
You drove me to their concert in Nashville.
I thought that was Dolly Parton.
Randy, don’t tease him on the first day. He’s nervous enough.
Where’s Uncle Rusty, Mom?
His mother plated the scrambled eggs, then lifted a platter of hash browns from the oven.
Probably still in his room.
Samuel’s father unfolded the morning newspaper. Licking his wounds, I expect. I had a word with him yesterday about the whole thing. He’ll get over it.
Samuel peered at the soft yellow mound on his plate but did not start to eat.
I’m sure he understands deep down, Alfredia said. In fact, I know he does. He’s my older brother after all. We’ve been together our whole lives.
Then why is he still in his room?
Randy lit a cigarette. He’s just a little disappointed, son. You know what he’s like.
He’s proud of you is all it is, going to the high school.
Samuel pushed the plate of food away. It’s just better I go with kids I knew from middle school on the first day, Mom. I mean, if I can’t go with Eddie.
The high school was a neat brick building on the other side of town. Too close to take a bus, but twenty minutes on foot. A few of Samuel’s old classmates from middle school were meeting at Druthers’ Pharmacy, where they would make the journey as a group on their first day. It had all been arranged at the arcade, between winning and losing on the flashing and beeping machines. Samuel had asked if he could walk with them.
A week ago, however, when Uncle Rusty heard that Eddie would not be at school on the first day, he hatched an idea. Samuel was on the back porch trying to fix the steering on a radio-controlled car.
For a few moments, Uncle Rusty just stood behind the screen, watching his nephew fiddle with a mini-screwdriver.
That you, Rusty? Samuel asked, catching a glimpse of his uncle in the doorway.
Yup, right here, Samuel. It’s me.
Ain’t you at work today?
Not today.
How come?
’Cause I’m here.
Even after turning fifty, Uncle Rusty still worked at the local Walmart as a greeter, giving children yellow stickers with happy faces and telling everyone to have a nice day or come back and see us when they had finished their shopping and were laden with goods.
Samuel, I want to talk to you, he said, opening the screen door just enough to slip through. Samuel turned to face him, but Uncle Rusty was looking down at his sandals. There were soft hairs on his toes. Everything about his body seemed gentle.
Samuel, I’m gonna walk you to the gates of high school on your first day.
Samuel put down the tool in his hand. He didn’t want to hurt his uncle’s feelings. You don’t need to do that, Rusty. I’ll be fine.
I’m here to serve and protect, Samuel.
Protect from what?
Rusty pointed to his face. From people looking at your eye.
Samuel blushed and let his gaze fall upon the broken toy car that he was trying to fix.
But I don’t care about it anymore, Rusty. I can’t change who I am.
Well they’re gonna stare at it, Samuel. You betcha.
I’ll be fine, buddy.
With me there, I could tell them to have a nice day like I do at Walmart. I even got stickers. As many as you want. I borrowed a whole roll.
A few weeks after the final operation, when the bandages came off, Rusty couldn’t stop looking at it and kept asking how come it didn’t move with the other one.
That’s a kind offer, Uncle Rusty. Can you let me think about it?
Okay. I went with my sister Alfredia on the bus to school on her first day. Did you know that?
No.
Well, that happened. It was Alfredia’s first day of school. I went with her on the bus and was forgotten about.
When Alfredia came home from a staff meeting at the same elementary school she had attended almost thirty-five years ago, Samuel told her everything that was going on.
He’s jus’ so proud you going into higher schooling is all. Rusty never had but two grades’ learning.
I know, Mom, but it’s the first day.
Alfredia’s face softened. Is it because he’s special?
No! It would be the same if you or Dad walked me! That’s what I’m trying to say!
Did you tell him that?
I said I would think about it.
Maybe he’ll forget the whole thing. Then she chuckled. But I doubt it . . . you know his mind, Samuel.
When Samuel’s father took him to buy school supplies at Walmart, Uncle Rusty left his post at the entrance and followed them through the aisles in his blue vest with the roll of smiley-face stickers in his hand.
Gonna help us pick out some pens and pencils, Rusty? Randy asked him.
Yup. We’d better leave early, Samuel. Can’t be late on the first day.
Samuel and his father exchanged a glance.
Say, Rusty, Randy said, I need you to help me with something on the Ford next week. Why don’t you walk Samuel to school another day?
Uncle Rusty turned the roll of yellow stickers in his hand, eyelids fluttering as he searched for the words he wanted.
Well, now, I think I’d sooner not help you with the truck, Randy, ’cause Samuel, he got to get to school. He’s gonna be afraid ’cause of his eye, so I got to take him. I have to. I’m his uncle.
Randy sighed. That so?
Rusty nodded. It’s actually a fact.
Samuel prodded the eggs, releasing folds of steam.
His father lit another cigarette. Ain’t you gonna eat your breakfast, Samuel? Gonna need your strength for the first day.
I don’t have much appetite.
Alfredia took her hands from the pocket of her green apron and set them on her hips. You want a hot biscuit then? Grandma Carol’s recipe?
Sorry, Mom, I’m just not hungry.
Well, grits are good when you’re nervous. Maybe ’cause they’re plain.
No, Mom, really, thank you. I don’t want any grits.
Alfredia fiddled with her strawberry oven gloves.
You wouldn’t turn down a waffle if I made one?
Alfredia, sweetheart, said her husband, folding his newspaper, the boy ain’t hungry. But I’ll take a waffle with me to the plant, if you have a mind to fix some.
Alfredia looked from her husband to her son.
Guess I could try and eat one, too, Mom.
Within a split second, the waffle machine was plugged into the wall, and out of the refrigerator came eggs, butter, and milk in rapid succession.
What time you meetin’ your buddies? asked his father.
In about twenty minutes, outside Druthers’.
Wow, Druthers’, said his father. That place still goin’?
Alfredia was mixing the batter briskly in a white bowl. That’s where Rusty had his first job, she said. And you know something? They paid him in bottles of Coca-Cola.
That’s illegal now, Mom.
Well it was a long time ago, but he was over the moon about it. Free Coca-Cola, can you believe that?
Randy pulled a fresh pack of cigarettes from a green carton in the refrigerator.
He must have been in heaven, Alfredia.
He was. Anyone we met in the street that would talk to him, he promised to share it with ’em if they would only come by and sit at the counter. Eventually word got around, and the place was full of people drinking Rusty’s wages.
Samuel was watching the whisk go around. Next to the bowl on the counter, sitting empty, was his uncle’s Winnie the Pooh donkey mug.
He must be waitin’ until you leave to come out of his room and have some breakfast, said Randy.
Alfredia glanced at the door that led down to Rusty’s small apartment. Her brother had moved in fifteen years ago when she was pregnant with Samuel and Randy was away for weeks at a time on a military base. Rusty learned to take walks by himself in town and got a part-time job setting spokes onto bicycle rims.
After Samuel was born, Randy converted the garage into a one-room apartment to give his brother-in-law a sense of independence. Outside there was a Coca-Cola welcome mat and a Coca-Cola open sign that Rusty would flip around to closed when he was going to bed.
When it was finally time to go, Alfredia put Samuel’s waffle in plastic wrap and tried not to comment as he stuffed it into his bag with the new pencils and pens from Walmart.
There were many cars going by on the street now, and when the diesel engines of school buses rattled the hall mirror, Samuel turned toward it instinctively.
You’d better go, said his father. Your friends might leave without you.
But it was too late.
He’d caught a glimpse of himself in the glass—a distant reflection, but enough to feel foolish and vain, a coward who, above all, feared the judgment of others. He stood there in his rock tee shirt and new Converse, on the first morning of high school, burning with the shame he had hoped to elude.
He rolled the backpack off his shoulders and moved quickly.
His uncle must have heard feet on the stairs because Samuel didn’t even get halfway down before a door opened and a head appeared.
Did you come to say goodbye, Samuel?
No, I came to ask if my uncle would walk me to high school.
Rusty pointed. Because of your eye?
Just c’mon Rusty. Hurry up.
But I haven’t had breakfast.
There’s no time for eating, we’ve got to go.
Okay then, Rusty said, flipping the Coca-Cola sign to open, then stepping out onto the staircase.
Samuel grimaced at the sight of his uncle’s Coca-Cola pants, Coca-Cola sweatshirt, and Coca-Cola Velcro sneakers. Is that what you’re wearing, Rusty? All red?
Rusty looked down at himself as though confused. Yes, he answered. It’s what I’m wearing.
In town, disorderly clusters of children drifted toward the squat brick building surrounded by sports fields and parking lots. Many people passed them in station wagons and trucks. The road winding up to the entrance was a yellow chain of buses.
Uncle Rusty walked quickly without speaking. It was a warm, cloudless day. They could hear their rubber-soled shoes on the sidewalk and the rhythmic sigh of breathing. Samuel tried to keep his eyes fixed on the path ahead and not look to see who might be watching.
When they got close to the gates, vehicles were lined up waiting to release the children inside.
Samuel stopped walking at the end of the line.
Okay, this is good enough, Rusty.
His uncle pulled a roll of yellow stickers from his pocket.
Do you want these to give out?
Jesus, no, put those away, Rusty. Then he pulled the waffle from his bag. Eat this on the way home and don’t tell Mom I gave it to you.
Uncle Rusty looked at the brown square in his hand, still warm from the machine. What if I drop it?
You won’t drop it.
It could slip from my hand.
Well, keep it in the plastic wrap.
That’s what I mean. Rusty turned the waffle over. Where did my sister put the syrup?
I’m going now, bye.
Okay, Rusty called after him, still transfixed by the waffle, come back and see us.