NORRIS
A few days later, I told Raynelle about the tomato plant up at the old house, so she let me off from my chores to dig it up.
Of course, afore I even went to the old vegetable patch, I headed up to the cemetery to check Mamaw Pickens’s grave.
Walking along the cemetery road, carrying a bucket and shovel, I heard footsteps behind me. I spun around to see Norris Shortwell.
“Hey, Norris, ya scared me a mite. I thunk ya might be Corky Danfield.”
“Why’d ya be scared of Corky?”
“He ain’t too happy that Jane Louise Heckathorn took up with Chester Putney, and since Jane Louise and me used to be friends, he ain’t too happy with me neither.”
“What ya mean you and Jane Louise ‘used to be friends’?”
“Jane Louise don’t come around no more.”
“Oh,” he said with a knowing nod.
“She talks like folks with money is the best kind of friends for her, but she was friends with me even though I never had none. I don’t know what changed her. Or why she was friends with me in the first place.”
“Don’t ya?” He squinted at me.
I squinted back. “What ain’t ya telling me?”
“It ain’t easy knowing that folks is nice on account’a they want something you got.”
“But I ain’t never had nothing for nobody to want.”
“Not no more. But ya did have what Jane Louise wanted.”
“You don’t make no sense, Norris.”
“Jane Louise might’a kept company with Corky and Chester for what they has. But the boy she liked deep down in her heart was your brother. Being friends with you put her closer to Pick.”
My mouth flew open. “Oh! So now that Pick’s gone, she don’t need to be my friend no more.” I waited for tears, but there wasn’t none. I reckon losing a body who was jist using me wasn’t a deep hurt like losing a brother.
“Somewheres inside I knew me and Jane Louise wasn’t true friends, but I plumb didn’t know why. You answered a question that pecked in my brain, Norris. Though I confess it don’t feel so good knowing I ain’t got no friends no more.”
He smiled. “Ya still got me. We’s friends, ain’t we?”
“I reckon, but jist friends. Ya ain’t goin’ kiss me or nothing, are ya?”
His smile stretched into a grin. “Not unless ya want me to.”
I glared at him. “Why is boys such lugheads?”
“It’s girls what make us that way,” he said. “You’s the one brung up kissing, not me.”
We stood in an awkward silence for a minute, him looking like he had more to say. “Ya know I’m doing errands for Mr. Putney,” he finally said. “He lets me drive his truck sometimes.”
“That’s nice, Norris,” I said, afore the silence fell betwixt us again. It was strange seeing him so wordless.
He broke the quiet by asking, “Where ya headed with that shovel?”
“The cemetery.”
“Digging up loved ones or strangers?” he said with a laugh.
I smiled. “Jist digging up truth.”
“Speaking of truth, I plumb forgot to tell ya something Pick said.”
“You heard from Pick?” A seed of hope dropped into my mind.
“Something he said afore he left. He wanted ya to know that he said some things to ya back then, things about your daddy, things said in anger. But they was all bunk. Ya shouldn’t believe ’em.”
“I knew it! I knew that Daddy …” I didn’t say more, not knowing if Pick told Norris what them things he said to me was. I didn’t reckon Pick would go around telling folks he thunk Daddy kilt Mama, but Norris wasn’t jist folks. Him and Pick was true friends, not like me and Jane Louise.
“Thanks for telling me, Norris.”
“Ya want I should go to the cemetery with ya?”
I shook my head.
He seemed reluctant to go, but eventually he headed one way whilst I headed t’other.
I turned and watched him, seen the way his feet shuffled through the dirt like he was dragging something heavy behind him. He was Shovel with no Pick, and he must’a hurt considerable. I wasn’t the only one with an empty place on account of my brother.