I REMEMBER I WAS LYING in bed the next morning, in this god-awful state of not wanting to get up and not being able to fall back asleep, when Dad appeared in the doorway and told me to get up. I told him to get the hell out and leave me alone. I knew that he was going to expect me to fill those size-twelve rain boots that Toby had abandoned out on the back stoop.
Dad strolled in, snapped up the window shade, tugged me out of the cocoon I’d made for myself, and sat me up. When I finally dragged myself out into the living room, Mom was lying on the sofa in her rumpled nightgown watching The Donna Reed Show. It wasn’t until nine thirty that she trudged off to the kitchen, complaining about a crick in her neck. Dad picked up the pillow and bedsheet from the sofa, fluffed out the crater-sized indentation in the cushion, and grumbled something about it being her own damned fault.
I sat down at the kitchen table and delicately propped my cast up on it. I decided that I needed to level with Dad.
Pop. I know this is the first summer I’m not just getting in the way, and how proud you are of me for it. Because even little boys have to grow up sooner or later. Like you did, when you were my age. But—but—I just wanna say . . . If . . . I mean. You let Toby go because of what happened the other day—in Mister Noonan’s orchard, I mean—I just want you to know . . . Well—for the record—that it had nothing to do with him. I swear. I know how every time Derrick lights something afire, next thing you know, one of the Orbachs’ hands gets the ax. But Toby wasn’t even there. It was all me. You gotta believe me. That can was just lying there in the grass, and one thing led to another, and Derrick started daring and double daring me, and the next thing you know, we’d drank the whole thing. I dunno. I guess I was just trying to act like a grown-up. Aw, I don’t know what my hurry is. But I learned my lesson and I promise it’ll never happen again. I’ll do whatever you need me to to prove my boozing days are behind me. I swear. Just please please please please don’t expect me to pick up Toby’s load, is all I’m asking. There’s no way I’m ever going to measure up. Please. Because after two hours of sorting, stack poles all start to look the same to me. I get confused looking out at all those different piles. I forget which is which. I know I’m supposed to be better than Toby. But I’m not. Never will be, probably. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Pop, but I’m not. Okay? I’m just not!
I hid my face behind my cast and quit while I was ahead. It wasn’t easy telling Dad the truth about something I knew he wouldn’t want to hear. Especially when just two days earlier, I was complaining about him never letting me do anything, and here he was about to hand me the entire kit and caboodle, and I was trying my damnedest to wash my hands of it.
When I peeked up, the look on Dad’s face was halting. It took a second before I realized that he was looking over my shoulder. Mom came up beside me with a hot skillet in hand and slid an egg down onto my plate. Dad just sat there with his fork upright and a stunned look on his face. Mom wiped her hands on her apron, pushed my plate forward, and sat down. She pointed at the uncooked eggs sitting in the stew pot on the counter and told him that he could cook for himself.
Dad didn’t seem to care. He just snapped open his newspaper and pretended like he always cooked for himself. After what felt like a very long time, he lowered it.
I swear to the good Lord, a lunatic could walk down Main Street, taking potshots at every man, woman, and child in sight, and the first thing you’d want to know was what people had done to make him do such a thing.
Mom had set her plate aside and was catching up on paperwork. She glanced up from her ledger.
What does that have to do with Toby?
Dad reached over, took a sip of my red drink, and turned back to his newspaper. Mom got up, went to the stove and returned with the coffee pot. She set down a cup in front of him and filled it. Dad smiled and took a sip, then spit it out. Mom sat down and didn’t look up from her tapping fingers. She scribbled some numbers in her ledger, then tap tap tapped on her calculator some more. They started bickering about how stingy Mom was with the sugar, then about the cost of sugar, and eventually about the cost of anything and everything, including sugar. Money was a topic that engulfed all other topics. Everything led back to money—and, sure enough, like a dog chasing its tail, it led back to Mister Abrams’s pool, Toby, and those college kids who’d shown up on that damned bus.
Don’t pretend like you can’t understand why the police are wondering if the colored boys caught in Mister Abrams’s pool aren’t just the tip of the iceberg!
That’s all just an excuse for a bunch of bigots to take down a man they’ve always seen as being too kind to colored folks, and you know it! Besides, he was kind enough to let Huey swim in his pool, wasn’t he?
I slammed down my fork. He was nice to everyone. Not just me! I glared at Mom. And if you’d have ever bothered to go, you’d know that!
I kicked out my chair and stormed out the back door. I sat down beside Toby’s rain boots and jabbed at the dirt with the frayed end of a broken stack pole. The island of shade elms standing out in the middle of our field was smudged out by thick black smoke. A little to the left, but further out, a pale dust cloud trailed a tractor moving across the horizon a good half mile away. It was the Orbachs’. I would have gladly sought refuge at Derrick’s house if I thought there was a chance in hell of not being chased off by his mother.
There was a moment of quiet. I wasn’t sure if they’d stopped arguing or if I just couldn’t hear them. When I got up and returned inside, they were both gone. The screen door clicked shut behind me, and muffled voices emerged from behind the bathroom door.
He only did it for the money!
So now you’re siding with the police?
I went back to my room to see how Snowflake was holding up. I had unlatched her cage, taken her out, and told her not to pay any attention to all the arguing when something crashed. The shattering sound came from the kitchen. I peeked around the doorjamb to see what had happened. Mom was at the sink emptying the dish rack, with her back to me. She’d dropped a dish. Which was a relief—for a second there, I thought they’d stooped to throwing things at each other. Mom pulled the cupboard open with several dinner plates in hand and looked over her shoulder.
You smell like piss.
It’s not me. It’s Snowflake.
Dad was on his hands and knees, picking up the broken pieces of Mom’s favorite mixing bowl, chiding her for being materialistic.
Materialistic? Me not being materialistic is the only reason I’ve held on to that rotten old hand-me-down.
All their bickering about money was starting to worry me—not about Toby but about us. It used to be like a bus station in our kitchen, what with all those old ladies trooping through at all hours of the day. It had been a while since Miss Della or Aurelia or any other of the other old ladies from Aurelia’s Bible study had come to have their hair done.
Dad stood up. Listen. If I had to stand up in a court of law I’d say that I refuse to believe that Stanley Abrams let a couple of colored boys in his pool after hours just for an extra buck—impossible. I wouldn’t do that unless I was dead sure. But standing here, in my house, I know damned well he would. And you do, too. Christ, Pea. It ain’t a stretch to think he’d entertain a backroom deal with a few niggers just so long as no one else was any the wiser. It’s in the man’s blood.
I was having second thoughts about wanting to ever step foot in that pool again. It didn’t seem worth the headache.
Who was I kidding? Of course it was. That pool was like having our own private water park. It was outta this world.
I returned Snowflake to her cage, which I moved over to the windowsill. On the way, I explained to her that it might be a touch warm in the sun but it wasn’t to be helped. She stank. I slumped off into the hallway, past their bedroom, one door beyond which was the bathroom. I undressed and, knowing full well that a tub was a lousy substitute for a pool, slipped on my dive mask and got in.
When the water had cooled down some, I submerged my head only to discover that my dive mask had sprung a leak. I snatched it off and rubbed the sting out of my eyes. I must have been under for longer than I thought: Dad was tapping on the door, hollering for me not to make a career of it. I jumped out as soon as I realized that my cast was dissolving. Yikes. I thought it was waterproof. I salvaged the soaked remains of my cast and mopped the water from my face. Everything was so peaceful I could hear the lonesome scratch of hens milling around beneath the stoop, out front. They must’ve gotten out again.
I wrapped myself in my towel and headed for the kitchen. No one was there. So I poked my head into the den, thinking that Mom must have been folding clothes, but she wasn’t there, either. The laundry line creaked out back. I figured that she was hanging up clothes. I hopped down from the back stoop and checked. It was Miss Della. She was standing beneath the clothesline strung from the side of the Orbachs’ house.
I headed around the side of our house, pissed at having to return all the hens scurrying around to their coop. I stopped at the corner with the drain pipe in my hand. An unfamiliar sound gave me pause. I knew every creak and moan of that house—but this was new.
Dad stored a ladder on its side beneath their bedroom window. I teetered up it and peeked in over the sill. Dad was in bed, grunting like he was in the middle of a calisthenics routine. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the shade of their room. When they did, I noticed that Mom’s legs were poking out from beneath him. I keeled over backward from the ladder and landed right smack in Mom’s petunia bed.
• • •
TWO HOURS LATER, Mom was sitting on the edge of her bed, asking me for advice. She wanted to know if she should wear her blue or black pumps with her fancy flower-print dress. It was another hour before she was ready. When she finally stepped out the front door, you’d have thought she was heading down a red carpet. Didn’t matter where she was going, even if it was just down the road. And Dad didn’t mind one bit. Her getting all done up was one of the few things that he had no problem waiting for.
Dad pulled the truck around, and we all piled in and headed for town. We sat in silence. The puttering of the engine and the buzz of mud tires over pavement was peaceful. I preferred it to their constant squabbling about how cheap Mom had been with the sugar in Dad’s coffee, giving it to him black and bitter.
We turned onto Cordele Road and an endless span of peach trees crisscrossed the foothills. Some were jammed in so tight against the narrow road I could practically touch them. One of Mister Noonan’s flitted past at eye level, and I lurched out the window and snatched at it. Mom snapped at me to get my head back in before it got lopped off. Dad barked out asking if I’d lost my mind. They sighed in unison. It was the first thing they’d agreed on all day. I pulled my head and arms in and kept quiet.
The peach and apple and pecan orchards that sat between us and town were dotted with wide-open fields separated by thin tracts of acacia trees. We passed the familiar procession of dusty side roads strewn with the rotted wall boards of gutted barns and abandoned feedlots peeking out from the low-lying trees. The muffler backfired, and Dad pumped the gas only to discover that the engine had cut out.
He pulled over and got out. He pitched the hood up with his shirttail and a plume of smoke billowed out. That truck was one of the few things that we had that was worth anything. It didn’t matter that I had to tug on the inside door handle with both hands in order to open it. Or that the window roller didn’t work. Or that springs poked out of the seat cushion. Or even that it stalled out from time to time. I loved it.
I got out and stood beside Dad. I held my palm as close to the engine as I could without touching it. It was hot. Never mind an egg, I could have cooked an entire breakfast on it. Dad shook off the heat of the radiator cap at every quarter-turn, then poured in water from a jug amid all its hissing and sputtering.
Goddamn that Nestor. He gave me his word that those points were new—swore up and down on his mother’s grave. Next time, I’ve got a mind to try out that nigger on the other side of the river. You know the one I’m talking about.
Mom was inside the truck, I think tending to her needlework. Please don’t use that language around Huey.
You suppose it’s the first time he’s heard it?
Mom’s face appeared out the passenger’s-side window. Dad shook the jug empty and let the hood slam shut.
Okay, okay, okay. Fine. But you know the one I’m talking about, right? Missing three fingers. Damned fine mechanic, though. Better with seven fingers than Nestor is with all ten. Next time, I’ve a mind to have him install them. What’s that boy’s name? Doesn’t he have a girl’s name? Lesley, or something? Remind me when we get home to call him.
Dad got back in the truck and gave the ignition another try. The engine sputtered, then died. We were encircled on three sides by a vast expanse of peanut fields that were bordered on the distant horizon by a wall of evergreens. A narrow band of blacktop stretched out in front of us as far as I could see. I spotted three people creeping steadily over the cresting road, so far up ahead that all I could make out was the faint bobbing of their heads in the shimmering distance.
I nudged Dad. Pop.
His head was down and he was squeezing the key tight in his hand. He said, Not now. The ignition was whirring round like he was trying to will the truck to fix itself. So I turned back to the road and leaned forward. I wasn’t sure that I was seeing right. But I recognized his gait.
I nudged Dad again, urgently this time.
I said, not now. She’s almost there.
I remember eyeing the scuffed crease at the ball of Dad’s brogan as it rolled off the gas pedal. He let go of the key and looked up. Neither of us said anything—there was nothing to say. We just sat there, listening to the ticking sound of an overheated engine, quieted by the sight of Toby heading straight for us.
Dad nudged me. Ask him for a push.
Why me?
He likes you.
I hesitated. Dad turned to Mom.
She didn’t respond to him so much as to her needlework. You ask him.
Dad smacked the steering wheel so hard I blinked. He cranked the ignition a second time, but it just wheezed. And wheezed. And wheezed.
Toby walked past.
Dad rolled down his window and poked his head out. That the thanks I get?
Toby kept walking. Dad reached for the door. Mom leaned over and grabbed him. Dad overpowered her and got out anyway.
Fine way to treat the family that gave you the only opportunity in life you’ve ever known!
All was quiet except for the sounds coming from the fields. They were rhythmic and seemed to punctuate the distant footsteps.
I leaned out the window and slapped the door. Run, Toby!
Mom snatched me in and boxed my ears. She demanded to know what in the hell had gotten into me. When I screamed that Toby was right to walk off, she wrestled me down into my seat and leaned out the window.
Buck, get in.
Twenty years! You don’t expect me to just sit here and watch him walk by like he’s too good to lend a hand, do you?
Dad picked up a rock and threw it.
You dumb ox! You ain’t one of them! You’ll never be one of them! They ain’t your friends—ain’t even your kind! So help me God! Whites do not serve niggers. Never have and never will. I don’t care how fancy you dress up, you hear me?! Niggers serve whites. Always have and always will. Haven’t you read a goddamned history book, you stupid nigger?
Toby turned around and began walking toward us.
I shivered so bad a drop of piss squirted into my underwear.
Pop! Get in!
I locked the door and rolled up my window. Toby walked up beside us with his eyes deadlocked on Dad. Dad stood frozen before him in the middle of the road. Neither man moved. Not their eyes. Or their hands.
The only reason this damned truck has lasted this long is because of me. You know that, right?
You want me to thank you for all your work, is that it?
Too late for that.
The peanut fields surrounding us were wide-open and flat. Several of the field hands stood from their work to watch. One of the two well-dressed colored men accompanying Toby called out from farther up the road. His accent made him hard to understand.
Come, Brother Tobias. A man curses because he doesn’t have the words to say what’s on his mind. Ignore him, and let us move on.
Toby leaned in and looked at me. Looked me dead in the eye. His eyes were still, but not resting—they were searching over my face for something. God knows for what. He spoke through the glass.
Your papa’s whole family thinks that good woman beside you is nothing but a cheap hussy who’s been counting on his religion to keep them under the same roof. You deserve to know that, buddy.
I rolled down my window and spat. I fell short by a good two feet. Toby walked off. Something soured inside me as I listened to the fading sound of his shoes gripping pavement. The whole ridiculous idea of truth. The issue that Toby had with Dad wasn’t about work or pay or even our broken down truck. It was about the truth of whatever Dad seemed to lord over Mom. I could see that now. And, strangely, none of that mattered to me in that moment. All that mattered was that Dad was just standing there, dumbstruck, powerless to do anything about it. I leaned out the window.
I hope you rot in hell, Tobias Muncie!
The tirade that I unleashed upon Toby would have made Miss Della blush. I didn’t stop until Toby and those two men accompanying him were well out of earshot. Dad reached in and put a hand on my shoulder.
It’s okay, son. You did good. A little late to the trigger, but you did good. You can calm down now. He’s gone. You’re safe now. Just settle right on down. He’ll have his day. You’ll see. He hasn’t gotten the last word yet.
I was having difficulty breathing. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d just lost something that I’d never get back. After all the years that Toby and I had spent working side by side, it wasn’t until that moment that I had somehow stumbled on the courage to admit to myself how much he meant to me. It was only as the hateful words left my mouth that I could see how untrue they were. The door groaned and Dad got back in. After what felt like an eternity, he turned to Mom.
All you had to do was ask.
Mom might as well have been made of marble, pinioned under a frown as she was. She gazed out over the cresting road ahead. Toby and the two clipboard-toting bookish types with him disappeared in the distance.
Whose side are you on anyway?
Mom reached down for her needlework. It was lying in the foot well, crumpled and dirty. I lifted my foot from atop it. She picked it up.
He’d probably have done it for you.
Mom wiped off the fabric. I told you not to get rid of him, didn’t I?
Dad gave the ignition another go. The engine groaned, then cut out—pfft. Only the fan belt showed any sign of life, and then even its screeching came to a hissing stop. Mom tucked her needlework into her purse and made as if to get out.
Dad stopped her. I hope for your sake that he doesn’t have anything to do with those clowns on that bus being here.
The only place that Mom ever went was to Aurelia’s Bible study. That was practically the only time she ever got out of the house. I’d even asked to go with her once, but she’d refused—said Aurelia was funny that way. She didn’t like kids; all we did was break stuff. Which was ridiculous—I couldn’t have told you the last time I broke anything.
Mom closed the door and sat back down. Dad looked her straight in the eyes. Does he?
Mom took off her sheer white gloves and, doubling them, bared a finely chiseled jawbone. She fanned herself. Maybe he does. Maybe he doesn’t.
The heel of Dad’s hand bumped the shifter. He got out and ordered me into his seat and showed me how to shift the transmission from outside his open door. I wiped at the tears streaming down my face and slid over into the driver’s seat. I took the shifter into my hand and carefully slid the neon-orange slit below the speedometer over two notches to second gear, just like he said. I waited for his next instruction, hiccuping as I struggled to compose myself, all the while smearing the tears from my face.
Mom got out. I could see her in the rearview mirror bickering with Dad. I bumped the shifter again by accident and the truck started rolling backward. Jesus Christ. Even I knew it wasn’t supposed to do that. And here I hadn’t wanted to give Dad any more of an excuse to be mad.
I’m going backward, Pop!
Dad hollered out for me to step on the brake. I didn’t know which pedal that was, so I slid down and stomped on both. The truck bucked and stopped at a sharp angle to the road. A cloud of dust hovered all around. Dad came over and told me to please get out.
Mom was leaning against a stretch of rail fencing in her twisted-up flower-print dress, gazing out over the field. She put a hand on my shoulder and said that I probably couldn’t tell, but the sacks slung over the backs of the field hands working in it were very heavy. She’d worked in fields as a kid; she’d once told me with a prideful swagger that she knew how to raise a stack pole and use a posthole digger better than Dad. Her swagger was gone now, though. Mom looked strange to me, dressed up as she was, with those black pumps that I told her to wear all dusty out here in the middle of nowhere. And after all the trouble she’d taken to look nice. She stood like that in the foreground of all those rows of peanuts stretching out as far as I could see.
Her hands were covered in grimy rust from the truck’s tailgate. I wiped them off and hugged her. We stood there in each other’s arms, looking out over the wide-open field. The hundred or so field hands scattered around in it were so distant they appeared to be still. Mom stroked my hair and told me how dreamy it was. It was in a soft whisper that she conceded her admiration of it. I looked up at her beautiful brown eyes, sparkling through tears.
You know what I’d have given to have hair like this when I was your age?
I shook my head no.
You have no idea. It’s so soft and wavy. Doesn’t even need straightener.
Mom seemed to be able to find a silver lining in anything. It didn’t matter how bad it was, she would find a way to claim that it wasn’t. Frankly, it was starting to bug the shit out of me. I wiped my face clean of tears and tried to smile. Running her fingers through my hair seemed to calm her. She smiled through her tears and asked what was on my mind.
Is it true what he said?
Toby?
I nodded.
Never you mind him. He’s just upset, is all. People say the most unimaginable, hurtful things when they get upset. I’ve told you that a million times. And if Toby’s not careful he’s going to turn into a bitter old man one day. And I don’t want that for you.
It was just as I had suspected. Her answer seemed to explain away the childhood picture that Toby had shown me and all that he’d said the day he’d shared it with me.
Mom let go of my hand and picked a flower growing along the rail fence. She held it up to her nose and, twirling it, mused that her big sister had once, when she was about my age, shown her how to sip nectar from a honeysuckle.
Sister?
Mom looked startled. She dropped the flower, took off her heels, and started off up the road. I had no idea what I’d said. She didn’t answer when I called out after her. She just walked on down the road’s narrow shoulder in stockinged feet and headed off without me.
Mama!
She didn’t look back. I started to run after her, then stopped about halfway. Dad was loading up a duffel bag with stuff from the truck bed.
Never mind her. Dad rolled up the windows and locked the door. You leave your window cracked?
Uh-huh.
How about your door?
Locked it.
Attaboy.
Dad headed after Mom with the duffel bag slung over his shoulder. I stopped in the middle of a dust cloud settling in the wake of a car that had sped past. Dad stopped and shouted out for me to hurry up. We didn’t have all day.
• • •
STARS SPECKLED THE sky. The spring-loaded arm of the storm door felt heavy. Dad had a migraine—said it was from having to deal with Nestor on the phone, but I think it was because Mom walked ahead of us the whole way home with her purse and needlework and shoes clutched in her folded arms. I guess she was upset about not getting her stupid damned tin of bergamot. I couldn’t imagine that anyone had ever gone to greater lengths trying, and I thought she should be at least a little happy for that.
Dad went over to my dresser, set my alarm clock, and ordered me into bed. I got undressed and slid under the covers and asked what the hell was up with Toby. He told me to watch my mouth. I told him that dumb nigger had left us stranded on a barren stretch of road, ten miles from town, and without a sympathetic soul in sight, and that I never wanted to see him again. Dad put a finger over his lips and told me to quiet the hell down. I didn’t want Mom to hear, did I?
It was disturbing, having someone I’d thought of as family turn on me like that. It didn’t sit well with me. In fact, it was eating away at me—how that son-of-a-bitch turncoat had looked at me with those searching eyes of his. Lies. Lies. Lies. It was nothing but a pack of lies. The way he made me feel small and helpless with every little thing that came out of his mouth. The meaning of all the years that we spent together being undone in a single afternoon. And after all I’d done for him. It was disorienting.
This isn’t over, is it, Pop? It’s not the last he’ll hear from us, right? We’re not through with him yet, are we? Why, I bet he couldn’t fix a faucet if he had a full set of socket wrenches, could he? And his leg, you think he was lying about that, too? I do. I don’t think he ever said a truthful word in his life. Lies. Lies. Lies. Just goes to show—you can’t trust them any farther than you can throw them. Can you, Pop?
Dad told me to calm down—said I was just worked up. When I pointed out that Toby could have fixed the truck with his eyes closed if he’d wanted to, like he’d done that one time with nothing but a safety pin and a book of matches, Dad stroked my hair back and explained that Toby was just being a pigfuc—
He took a deep breath and said that it was no big deal, really. Toby must have been stressed about things being harder than he’d envisioned. Who knows? He could have been in a terrific hurry to get somewhere important, for all we knew. Can’t fault the man for being in a hurry.
In a hurry?
That took the cake. When I asked if Benedict Arnold was suddenly a hero, too, because that no-good son of a bitch Toby had probably abandoned us for Fat Cat Mister Orbach, he said for me to watch my mouth, and no. So I asked if the turncoat had quit us for Skinny-as-a-Wafer Mister Schaefer, and he said no.
Pushy Mister Peterson?
No.
Follow-the-Herd Mister Bradford?
No.
Don’t tell me he’s working for Dumb-as-Nails Mister Snales?
Jesus, Huey. No.
Well, who’s he working for, then? Don’t just stand there and take it sitting down, like some goddamned pushover! You know just as well as me that Mister Orbach hired him away from us. Don’t deny it! Because I heard him talking about Toby like he was the goose that laid the golden egg—laughing and joking and saying how our goose was cooked if he ever left us. Saying we were nothing without him. He’s gotta be working for somebody, and I wanna know who! I have a right to know. Because they’re probably paying him double, for all you know. And Mama told you that was gonna happen—told you over and over again he was gonna get stolen from us if you didn’t watch it. But you didn’t listen! And now he’s gone. Goddamnit, Pop! And after what he said about Mama, and here you didn’t even have what it took to sock him one!
I buried my face in my pillow and sobbed.
All you had to do was hit him. You should have at least hit him. To show him who’s boss. You can’t let him get away with stuff like that. Who does he think he is?
I peeked out from behind my pillow. Dad got up from my bed and stood quietly looking out my bedroom window. Our field was wide-open and moonlit. He drew the curtain and said that Toby wasn’t working for anyone. It was just as he’d said a few days back: Tobias Wetherall Muncie was, in every sense of the word, his own man.
I don’t like it any more than you do. But that’s just the way it is. And the sooner we accept it, the better.