When Mama called us for supper, it meant we best have clean fingernails and a fresh dress on. Our hair should be brushed and pulled away from our faces. Of course, Beanie wasn’t one for cleaning up so well, but she did her best. Mama wanted her family to be presentable at the supper table.
Mama’s last stand against the invading filth.
But between Mama setting the table and all of us arriving at it, scrubbed pink, a fine layer of dust had covered over everything. It was why Mama had put the dishes and cups upside down.
“Now, come on, y’all,” Mama called, rushing between the kitchen and the table. “The food’s not getting any warmer.”
Mama believed that letting food get cold was as much a sin as dancing and playing cards.
We gathered around in our usual seats. Beanie between Meemaw and Mama. My parents together. I was between Daddy and Meemaw. We never changed seats, and I liked that a good deal.
I could hardly resist running my finger across the tabletop, tracing a flower into the dust. I would have gladly made a whole field of them if Mama hadn’t hollered at me.
“You’re just making more of a mess, Pearl.” She swatted at my hand with her washrag. “You stinker.”
“Well, I had an interesting day.” Daddy took the washrag from Mama and got to wiping the bottoms of each plate before putting them right-side-up. “We got some folks who set up a Hooverville out to the other side of the tracks.”
Ray had told me about Hoovervilles. Camps full of people who didn’t have any other place to rest their heads. Most of them were on their way west and needed somewhere to stop at for a day or so to get off the road. I’d heard that sometimes the folks held a square dance at the camps. And every night the kids got to sleep out under the stars.
I bet old Herbert Hoover liked having camps named after him.
“Can I go see it?” I asked, hoping Daddy would say I could. Seemed to me it would be the most exciting place on earth.
“Don’t even think about it, Pearl,” Mama said from the kitchen. “They don’t need you going down there to stare at them. It might make them feel bad.”
“Did you go out there with Millard?” I asked, handing Daddy my plate.
“Pearl Louise, mind your manners,” Mama scolded. “You’re to call him Mayor Young.”
“But he told me to call him Millard.”
“I know what he told you.” Mama shook her head. “But I’ll have none of it.”
“Yup,” Daddy said. “Mayor Millard E. Young, esquire, went along with me to check out the Hooverville.”
“I seen a man eatin’ a jackrabbit.” Beanie rocked in her chair. “It smelled good.”
“Now, Beanie Jean.” Mama pursed her lips. “You haven’t been down to that camp, have you?”
Beanie nodded, her eyes full of wonder. “They all eat jackrabbits.”
I wished she would stop saying that word. Thinking back on the rabbit drive killed my appetite.
“I want you staying away from that camp. You hear me?” Mama carried a couple water glasses to the table. “Nothing good can come from you being down there. You’ve got no business bothering those folks.”
“The man was drying out the rabbit skins. Said he was making himself a hat. He let me pet the fur.” Beanie smiled, showing her crooked teeth. “It wasn’t soft as it looked, though.”
A picture of the rabbit bleeding out of its mouth flashed in my mind.
“You washed your hands didn’t you?” Mama asked, making a sour look on her face. “Those rabbits have got mites.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Beanie answered. “Can we eat a jackrabbit?”
“Not so long as I’m alive you won’t.” Mama looked to Daddy. “They aren’t really eating the rabbits are they?”
“Some are.” Daddy crossed his arms. “They don’t have anything else.”
“They shouldn’t be eating them.” Mama put the baking dish on the table. “You’ve got to stop them.”
“Now, I’m sure them rabbits are just fine if they get cooked through.” Meemaw spooned goulash onto Beanie’s plate. “Worse thing is they’re probably real tough and gamey.”
“Tom, you can’t let people eat those things.” Mama pulled out her chair.
“I told a couple of them the rabbits weren’t good for eating.” Daddy spread the cotton napkin over his thigh. “A couple kids over to Boise City got rabbit fever a week or two ago from eating the meat. Problem is, a man can’t hear things like that when he’s got hungry kids. He’s gonna take a chance just to see his family fed.”
Mama made a noise that was part sigh and part grunt.
“Mary,” Daddy said, leaning forward. “They’re starving. Folks in the Hooverville will die if they don’t eat. Those rabbits are the first thing they’ve had in a long time that’s stuck to them.”
Mama didn’t say a word for a couple minutes. She busied herself with making sure Beanie held her fork right before she sat in her chair and put her napkin on her lap.
“I’ll take a couple loaves of bread out to them tomorrow,” Mama said, looking at her own plate.
“It’ll take more than a couple loaves. A couple dozen wouldn’t even stretch.” Daddy took my hand for grace. “There’s a lot of people living down there.”
“The Good Lord ain’t never been held back on account of too little bread.” Meemaw bowed her head. “Jesus Almighty fed the multitude on just a couple loaves and some fish.”
Daddy said grace, and I imagined Jesus in His bleached white robes and blue sash, His soft hair dancing in the wind. He stood on top of a dust mound and handed out loaves of bread to hobos and drifters living out in the Hooverville. He never called them “Okies” or “trash.” He just did a lot of smiling and hugging of necks. Then He asked all the little children to come to Him and held them on His lap, telling stories about lilies of the field and sparrows of the air. The kids looked up at Him and smiled, their bellies fuller than they’d been in a year or two.
Full of bread from a crop that couldn’t be buried under dust no matter how hard it rolled in.
As Daddy blessed the food for our family, I prayed that Jesus would come to Red River to make Mama’s bread be enough for all the folks. I prayed extra hard but still held a crumb of doubt.
For all I knew, bread miracles didn’t work on cursed people.
Daddy and I sat on the front porch after dinner. He busied his hands, rolling a cigarette. I cooled my toes in the late evening air.
Curling his fingers to block the wind from scattering the loose tobacco, he pinched and folded the paper, rolling it snug as a bug. He licked the edge, smoothing it down. Then tap, tap, tap against the heel of his hand he packed it. Once he put one end in his mouth and lit the other, he relaxed his shoulders, letting down the weight of the world he’d carried all day. After a few puffs, he kicked off his boots.
“Did I ever tell you about Jed Bozell’s traveling show?” he asked, pulling on his cigarette again.
He’d told me about that show a hundred times or more, but each time with a different attraction. A big fat pig that wore a top hat or a man with tattoos he’d make dance by flexing his muscles. Even a bull named Misfit that could jump over a house.
I didn’t believe a single one of those stories was true. In fact, I never could find anybody else who had ever heard of Jed Bozell. But I liked the make-believe of it just fine.
“Well, one time when Jed Bozell’s traveling show rolled through town, he had this lady with him. A lady like none of us had ever seen before. She had on a beautiful dress, and she wore her hair all piled up on top of her head.”
“What did her face look like?” I asked.
“That’s the thing nobody knew. She had this mask she wore all the time. I imagine she even slept with it on. It looked like the face of a porcelain doll, all painted and shiny.” He knocked a bit of ash off into the dust. “All the young fellas in town fell all over themselves to meet her and get a peek under that mask. They were just sure she was the world’s most beautiful woman.”
“What did she do in the show?”
“That’s another thing nobody knew. Not until they went into her tent and paid her their nickel.” He leaned in close and half whispered. “Turns out she was the Incredible Cussing Woman.”
I giggled, covering my mouth with a hand to catch it. Daddy laughed out his nose and smoke puffed out behind it.
“A fella would pay, and then she’d say all kinds of cuss words. Enough to make even a cowboy blush.” He finished off his cigarette and tossed the still-burning end into the yard. “Now, I was too young and curious for my own good. I got myself a nickel. Told Meemaw that I wanted to see the stinky pig or something like that. Then I waited for my turn in the tent.”
“Did Meemaw ever find out?”
“No. And she isn’t going to, right?”
I nodded, and Daddy winked.
“Before that woman started cussing,” Daddy continued, “I asked if she wouldn’t mind taking off the mask. She said if I could hear all her cussing without blushing or getting mad or crying, she’d let me see her real face. We shook on it and she started in on the most foul words I had ever heard.”
“What did she say?”
“Well, darlin’, if I repeated any of those words, Meemaw would wash my mouth with soap. Even now.”
I tried my hardest to keep my giggle from turning into a big old laugh.
“Anyhow, she kept cussing, and I breathed in deep and didn’t let one of them words get me worked up. Turns out I’ve got myself a good poker face.” Daddy made his face blank and blinked twice. “When she was finished, she was stuttering, trying to think of more dirty words to say.”
“Then what happened?
“I’m getting there, darlin’.” Daddy grinned at me. “She agreed to make good on her end of the handshake promise and reached behind her head to unfasten the mask. She pulled it off, and I about fell out of my chair.”
“What did she look like?”
“Under that mask and all the golden hair piled on top of her head was the face of a goat. She even worked her jaw around, chewing the cud.”
“What did you do?”
“The only thing I could do. I ran fast as I could.” He made a face like he was terrified. “She was the second scariest person I had ever seen.”
“Who was the first?”
“What’s that?”
“Who was the first scariest?”
“Oh, I don’t know, darlin’.” His smile fell, and his face turned serious, the way it did when something bothered him. He started to roll another cigarette. “It was just an old story.”
“Was it Jimmy DuPre?”
Daddy didn’t answer. He focused on rolling.
“I saw a newspaper with Jimmy DuPre in it.” I rubbed my eye, working out a grain of dirt. “It was the story about him and you.”
“That so?”
“Was he the scariest person?” I asked, knowing that if I asked enough Daddy would tell me eventually.
“I reckon so.” His deep voice was just above a whisper. “Don’t mind if I never meet another man like him.”
“You shot him, though,” I said. “You won.”
“I had to shoot him, Pearl. Hated to do it. He was real young. Maybe all of twenty years old. That’s still a boy, really.” Daddy tipped his hat to the back of his head and rubbed at his forehead. “He was just a boy who never worked out how to be a man. Never got a chance, either.”
Daddy lit his cigarette and smoked for a bit without saying anything else. A baby cried somewhere from the direction of the Hooverville. Daddy looked over that way but didn’t seem worried about it.
“I tell you, the way that boy Jimmy looked at me, like I wasn’t even there, I knew he’d kill me without thinking twice about it. It wouldn’t have bothered him one bit.” The calluses on the palm of his hand scratched against his stubbly face. “Killing him brought me no satisfaction. It wasn’t justice. It never feels good to shoot a boy in the chest.”
“You had to, Daddy.”
“Maybe. But killing Jimmy didn’t make things right. It didn’t fix what he’d done.” Daddy smoked that second cigarette down to a stub. “He had his pistol pointed right at my head. If I’d waited, he would have ended my life. That wasn’t my day to die.”
“I’m glad you did it. I’m glad it’s him that’s dead and not you.”
He turned toward me, his eyelids closing and a long, deep sigh pushing out his mouth. He reached his arm around my shoulders, pulling me close. “I shouldn’t be filling your head with nightmares. Your mama would holler at me if she knew I was telling you about that man.”
“Can I tell you something?” I whispered from the safety of tight-in-his-arms. “There was a man who scared me, too.”
“Who was it?”
“A man who jumped off the train.”
“Fella got here just the other day? Blue eyes and shorter than me? Little guy?”
I nodded. “He killed a jackrabbit.”
The words to describe what had happened were out of my reach, and I stumbled over the sounds in my mouth.
“At the rabbit drive?” Daddy asked. “You seen him there?”
“Yes, sir.” Swallowing, I closed my eyes, remembering how bad it felt when he touched my face. “He hit it so hard.”
“Darlin’, all the folks there were doing that. Killing jackrabbits is what those drives are for.”
“But, Daddy—”
“Don’t you worry about him,” he said. “I’ve already talked to him. He’s just here looking for a little make-work so he can move along to California. He’s all right, if you ask me.”
“But—”
“Nah, darlin’. Don’t give him a second thought.” He let go of me. “He won’t bother you.”
I opened my mouth to tell him that the man had known my name and that he’d looked at me in a strange way. But no sound came out.
“Now, don’t you tell your mama we’ve been talking about old Jimmy. She’d be sore at me for a week.”
I nodded.
“I hope you never have to be so scared of a man like that in your life.” He helped me to my feet. “I’d give my life to make sure of it.”
Daddy scooped me up and carried me inside, all the way up to my room.
He left his boots on the front steps.
Jimmy DuPre visited my dreams that night.
He pointed his gun right at my head and said every cuss word he knew. His rat face was held in a tight grimace, and he worked his jaw around, chewing on something.
Blood gushed from a hole in his chest. Still, he aimed the pistol right at me.
“You don’t know how close I got to you, Pearl,” he growled. “You nearly were mine.”
His cornflower-blue eyes pierced right through me.