A Fine Dark Line (28 page)

I did that when the concession was slow, and it was slow right then because the first run of the movie,
The Cry Baby Killer,
was near the end and everyone was waiting to see the climax. Or have a climax; I was now old enough to understand why some cars parked out near the fence were rocking.

Richard stayed to help with concessions. He seemed comfortable around the family, and right now, comfort was good.

Pretty soon, I found I was telling Buster all about Richard and his daddy without even being asked. It jumped out. Maybe
it was information I shouldn’t have shared, but I couldn’t help myself.

Buster shook his head sadly and clucked his tongue.

“Older I get, Stan, more I wish I had a family and hadn’t messed up the one I had. Drinkin’ didn’t do me no good. You know, I haven’t had me a drink since that day . . . with you and Bubba Joe.”

“Do you feel better?”

“I feel miserable. I think about drinkin’ all the time. Near come off the wagon least once a day every day. Make that least every hour. It ain’t easy. Main thing with me these days, is I’m finally startin’ to feel old.”

Buster removed from his shirt pocket a folded piece of yellow paper. He gave it to me and I unfolded it. It was the chief’s report on Susan Stilwind and her father.

“Why are you giving this to me, Buster?”

“Old Man Stilwind starts to give you trouble, it might come in handy. Guess you could say it’s a kind of insurance. You might want to make a copy of it and show it to the old man, tell him the real copy is put away and you got another copy written out and with a friend. That would be me. Here’s the address where he’s stayin’. I had Jukes get it for me.”

“Is there anything Jukes can’t find out?”

“My exact age, and that’s about it. You do this thing, I think your problems with that old Stilwind cracker will be over.”

———

N
EXT MORNING
, I awoke to find Richard lying on the floor of my room, twisted up in a blanket, clutching his pillow. Nub had taken his spot on the bed, and was lying on his back with his feet in the air, his tongue hanging out.

I got up, grabbed some clothes, went to the bathroom,
brushed my teeth, combed my hair and got dressed. I came back to he room to find Richard sitting up, looking bewildered.

“Don’t like sharin’ a bed?” I said.

“Nub kept licking me.”

I got the piece of paper Buster had given me out of the sock drawer and took a pencil and paper and copied down word for word the police report. I put the original back in my sock drawer.

“I got to go into town today,” I said, folding the copy, poking it into my pants pocket. “I’m going to go before Daddy or Mom asks about me. I’ll be back soon as I can.”

“I’ll go with you . . . If that’s okay?”

“I guess . . . Listen, maybe I ought not tell you this, but if you go with me, you ought to know. I need to have someone else who knows anyway, as a kind of backup.”

I took the folded piece of paper Buster had given me out of my sock drawer, gave it to Richard to read.

When he finished, he said, “I don’t get it.”

I explained it to him. I told him a lot of stuff. One thing that can be said about me, I’m a regular blabbermouth. But I didn’t tell him about Buster and Bubba Joe. I didn’t even remind him of the night we had been chased together.

“So, you’re gonna give him this, way Buster told you?”

“I’m going to give him a copy of it. That’s what I was writing.”

I took the paper from Richard, folded it, and returned it to the sock drawer.

“Well, let’s get to doin’.”

“First, you go wash your face, brush your teeth, and comb your hair. I’ve got a toothbrush and a comb for you. Rest is in the bathroom downstairs.”

———

A
S USUAL
on a Saturday, the town was bustling. Since Richard didn’t have a bike, we walked. We went by the picture show, and I walked fast as we went, tried not to look through the glass doors to see if I could see James, but I couldn’t help myself.

I didn’t see him.

We walked over to the hotel where Mr. Stilwind lived. In the lobby, we looked around and wondered what to do. A young man behind a counter smiled at us and beckoned us over. He wore a black suit and white shirt and his hair was slicked down flat against his head. He looked like the kind of guy Callie might find attractive.

He said, “May I help you boys?”

“I need to see Mr. Stilwind.”

“Are you kin?”

“No.”

“I believe I should call him. May I tell him what this is about?”

“Tell him Susan and her baby.”

“Susan and her baby?”

“Yes.”

“Should I elaborate on that?”

“No. He’ll know.”

“Very well.”

He called up, spoke what I had told him over the phone. When he put down the receiver, he said, “He’ll be right down. Would you like to make yourself comfortable.”

We went over and sat in some big soft chairs. After a moment, the elevator dropped, opened, and out stepped Stilwind, all dressed in black, looking as if he were about to go to a funeral. The only thing missing was his hat.

He saw me, startled, then came over. “You,” he said.

I hadn’t really noticed before, and maybe it was the harsh sunlight slipping between the great hotel curtains, but up close his face was as marked with wrinkles as a henhouse floor with chicken scratches. He looked ten years older than I had first thought him to be, and I hadn’t thought him to be a spring chicken then.

“I got something for you,” I said.

“An apology from your father . . . He decide to take my offer? It’s still open, you know.”

“No, sir. He would want me to tell you to cram your offer where the sun doesn’t shine. I have a copy of something. This was written by Chief Rowan. It has to do with you and your daughter Susan. We have the original put away in a safe place. This is a copy I made.”

I gave it to him. He read it. His face turned pale. He held the paper in his hand as if he had suddenly discovered a snake there.

“That’s your copy,” I said.

“I assume this young man knows about it?”

“As well as others.”

“If everyone knows, why should it matter to me?”

“Not everyone knows. Me and a few others.”

“Adults?”

“Yes. I told enough people so I’d have backup. I want my family left alone.”

“Your father put you up to this?”

“No. If my father wanted to do something about this, he’d come over and beat you and throw you down the stairs and drag you through the street and set you on fire. He doesn’t know about it.”

Stilwind’s face moved, tried to find an expression, settled on a sneer.

“How do I know you have the original?”

“How do you think I made this copy? Think I’d give you the only copy?”

“How did you come by it?”

“That’s my business.”

“You know the chief?”

“Never met him, never heard of him until recently.”

“He isn’t in on this?”

“No.”

“You want money, of course. Money for your silence.”

“No. I want you to leave my family alone. No made-up safety problems for the police or the fire department to inspect out at our drive-in. No problems from you of any kind.”

“I can’t be responsible for anything you think might be my fault.”

“That’s your problem.”

“You sound awfully grown-up for a kid. Awful mean.”

I did sound grown-up, and I was proud of it.

“I’m not mean. You made a threat to my family. This is a way of keeping things where they belong. The only thing left is your son, James. He better never come within fifty feet of any of my family.”

“And what about this boy?”

“You don’t need to know who he is, but he counts too. You stay away from him.”

“Gladly. Is that all, you little worm?”

“Yes, sir. That’s it. The Worm has spoken.”

———

O
UT ON THE STREET
, in the hot sunshine, I was ecstatic. What I had done had been Buster’s idea, not mine, of course, but I was proud of myself. I liked the way I had talked, the sound of my voice. Richard was very impressed, and told me so.

“Man, you had him by the short hairs.”

“The short hairs? What’s that mean?”

“I don’t know exactly, but I’ve heard it. You were really good in there.”

“Thanks.”

As we walked past Harriman’s Feed and Seed, Mr. Chapman came out. He was wearing a sweat-stained brown hat and was carrying a large bag of fertilizer. He didn’t see us at first. We froze. He eased down the steps to the curb and dumped the bag into the back of his old rickety black pickup, made it companion to a half dozen other bags there.

When he looked up, he saw us. There was something about his face that I can’t describe. A kind of blankness as far as his features went, but his eyes, they were as dark and nasty-looking as a dying animal’s.

“You,” he said to Richard. “You had a punishment.”

“I ain’t gonna take no more of that,” Richard said.

“Say you ain’t?” Chapman said. “Say you ain’t?”

“No, sir, I ain’t.”

Beside me, I could feel Richard tense.

Chapman glared at me. “And you and your high and mighty daddy, and that little Jezebel of a sister—”

“Shut your mouth,” I said. “I’ll tell Daddy if you lay one hand on me or Richard. And he’ll come to your house and beat you like a dirty rug.”

“He will, will he?” Chapman said.

“He sure did the other day,” I said, “and he wasn’t even trying.”

“I ought to whip your proud butt with my belt,” Chapman said.

“You ain’t gonna whip either our asses,” Richard said. “You laid your last hand on me, old man.”

Chapman glared. “By the Lord Jesus Christ, you ain’t no son of mine. Not no more.”

“I never was,” Richard said.

Chapman cackled like some kind of creature out of a storybook, turned, got in his truck, and drove away.

I peeked over at Richard. His chin was nearly on his chest, his shoulders slumped. He looked as if he were being held up by an invisible noose around his neck.

I took him by the elbow. “Let’s go home.”

T
HAT NIGHT
, as Richard lay on his pallet on the floor, I heard him whimpering, and now and then he would sob. Nub, lying beside me, sat up, looked at him.

I rose up and took a look. I called Richard’s name softly, but he didn’t answer.

I pulled Nub close to me and went back to sleep.

———

S
UNDAY
, Drew came by, asked if Callie could go for a drive. Daddy studied Drew for a moment. He looked very different from Chester. He was neat, with a white sports coat, tan slacks, and a dark shirt and white shoes.

Dad said, “She can go, if you take Stanley and Richard.”

Drew tried not to show it, but his face fell like a cake.

“Daddy,” Callie said, “I don’t want them to go.”

“Be that as it may, I want them to.”

This, of course, was just Daddy’s way of messing with Drew, making sure that Callie and Drew were not alone all the time. It was a losing battle, but one caring fathers all over the world participate in.

Still, this deal had to have our cooperation. “You boys want to go for a ride?” Daddy asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think I’d like to just stay here and play chess with Richard. I’m going to teach him how.”

“Richard?” Daddy said.

“Yes, sir. I think I’d like to play chess. I mean, a ride would be okay, but I don’t know.”

“Looks like it’s the couch and television,” Daddy said.

Drew knew a bribe was in order. “I’ll treat us all to a sundae at the Dairy Queen. Then we’ll just ride around awhile.”

Richard and I looked at one another. I said, “Sure.”

“I don’t want Callie in too late,” Daddy said. “Tomorrow’s school.”

“Yes, sir,” Drew said. “I thought we might go to the movie downtown.”

Before Daddy could answer, Callie said, “I don’t believe I’ll be going there anymore.”

“Why is that?” Drew asked.

“I’ll tell you sometime,” Callie said. “Just not right now.”

“All right,” Drew said. “We’ll just have a soda and drive around.”

“And you know to respect my daughter, of course?” Daddy said.

“Yes, sir.”

In the car, Callie sat on her side, but when we drove up from the drive-in, made the corner into town, she slid over beside him.

I looked at Richard and we snickered.

Callie looked over the seat at us. “You won’t think it’s so funny when you start dating.”

“I hope that isn’t any time soon,” I said.

“Well,” Callie said, “in your case it may be never.”

We stopped at the soda shop and had sodas. Tim wasn’t working. A fellow with pimples was. I kept thinking one of them might have popped in my malt, and the idea of it sort of put me off the drink.

When we finished, we drove through town a couple of times, then on out to the lake. The sun went down and up came a beautiful night with the moon hanging high. The light of it spilled all over the streets and woods like milk froth.

Callie and Drew were sitting very close now, what Daddy called the two-headed monster when he saw kids in cars pass us sitting close together.

After a while, I said, “You know, at the top of the hill where you live, that old house? They say the old lady comes back there.”

“How’s that?” Drew asked.

“They say Mrs. Stilwind comes back,” I said. “She lost her mind and comes back. Her daughter died in a fire right behind where the drive-in is now. But Mrs. Stilwind saw her ghost in the house on the hill. Guess she comes there hoping to see her again. She leaves the old folks home when she wants and goes there. We could drive over and see if she comes home. There’s a hill behind the house, and some woods. If there’s a road—”

“There is,” Drew said, and he seemed happy about the idea.

We drove over there, went up a red-clay road and wound around amongst some trees and came out on a hill that overlooked the great house.

In the moonlight, from that distance, you couldn’t tell the
house was run-down. The swimming pool, with the light of the moon filling it, looked to have water in it.