The Promise of Jesse Woods (29 page)

“It’s all about the speed,” he said one day as we rode through town. “It doesn’t matter what you put under him,
a tank full of rattlesnakes or a line of cars—if you’ve got the speed and the right incline, you can jump anything.”

Jesse rode with Daisy in the back, the girl’s chubby cheeks jiggling with each pothole. With all the pain she’d been through trying to keep her big secret, riding with Dickie felt like a respite. But Dickie was going through his own changes, and we could see subtle differences in his moods. He would get quiet suddenly or get angry at something Jesse called “piddly.” Things boiled over on us that day.

“People who have to jump things are trying to prove something to somebody,” Jesse said.

“How you figure that?” Dickie said, an edge to his voice. “He gets paid a lot. I’d rather jump school buses once a month than go to work every day and sell insurance or work at the glass factory.”

“There’s going to come a day when he gets killed and everybody’s going to be sad—”

“He’ll never be killed. He’ll always make those jumps because he plans it.”

“People don’t watch to see if he makes it. They watch because he might not.”

“Exactly. And he’s got the broken bones to prove it. That guy has courage.”

“It don’t take courage to jump a motorcycle over stuff when they’re paying you. Courage is something different.”

Dickie put on his brakes and swung his bike around. “So you don’t think Evel has courage?”

“I think he’s a daredevil who doesn’t want to make a living like the rest of us.”

“He’s a showman,” I said. “He takes chances in front of others like the guy who sticks his head in a lion’s mouth at the circus. But his risks are calculated. He knows how fast he has to go to hit the jump and land on the other side. It’s math and physics. The only question is whether he can pull it off.”

Dickie looked at me like I had two heads. “So you two think there’s nothing to it? Why don’t we make a jump and see if it’s so all-fired easy?”

“I didn’t say it was easy,” I said. “I just said it was calculated—”

“Fine,” Jesse said. “What do you want us to jump? The reservoir?”

Dickie cursed. “You two couldn’t jump a mud puddle.”

Jesse stood her ground. “Come on. Whatever you jump, I’ll jump.”

“On that thing?” Dickie said. “It’s too heavy.”

“It’s like Matt says: it’s just speed and physical.”

“Physics,” I corrected.

“Whatever. Pick something. I’ll jump it.”

Dickie thought a moment, then snapped his fingers. “I got it. The creek in front of Matt’s house. There’s a wide place just down from the curve in the road. I can set up a ramp right now.”

“You’re on,” Jesse said.

“That’s crazy,” I said. “You two are going to break your necks.”

Dickie took us to his house and rummaged through the garage. He came up with a wide plank of wood that was
long enough for a ramp. He carried it under his arm and rode to my house, and we searched the barn. Dickie found two cinder blocks and chose the spot where the creek was widest. There was a telephone pole nearby, and as Dickie began to construct the ramp, I had a sinking feeling he might crash into it.

“I think you ought to start with something smaller,” I said. “You know, just to get in the rhythm.”

Dickie shook his head in disgust, but I could tell he was becoming intimidated by the jump. The bank here was higher than on the other side and fell at least ten feet because of the last flood. He pulled the wood and cinder blocks further up the creek where it wasn’t as wide and both sides were level. Daisy sat in the grass and watched, eating a bag of chips.

Jesse added some rocks from the creek underneath the plank because she said the wood would sag when the bike hit it.

Dickie went first and started on the road, then came through the field and hit a muddy patch that slowed him. He put on his brakes and slid to the edge of the creek.

“It’s harder than it looks,” he said.

Jesse rolled her eyes. “Get off and let me try.”

“No, just watch.”

He pedaled farther up the road and entered the field at a different spot, his hair blowing. Instead of slowing, he picked up speed and hit the ramp squarely. When the tires left the ramp, the wood flew up and followed him, splashing in the shallow water. Dickie didn’t elevate much, but
his momentum carried him across the chasm and he landed in the tall grass on the other side.

Daisy clapped and I whooped.

“Now you go, Matty!” Daisy said.

I laughed nervously. “I don’t think I want to be Evel Knievel today.”

Jesse wasn’t as impressed. “Pull it back yonder. This part of the creek is for babies.”

I picked up a cinder block and a rock or two and Dickie brought the rest. Jesse put Daisy in the bike and pushed her past the telephone pole. The basket always seemed to subdue the girl and allowed us to continue.

“Now you stay there and watch,” Jesse said to Daisy Grace, sitting her in the shade of a scrub oak.

There wasn’t much water in the creek, but we had seen snakes chasing minnows. The more troubling aspect of the jump was landing. The ground was hard and rock-filled. The bank on our side was higher, so the rider had to get altitude and let gravity work. At least that’s what Jesse figured.

“How fast you think you need to go to get across?” I said.

“Fast as I can,” Jesse said, pushing her bike up the hill.

“Don’t take that one, Jesse,” Dickie said. “If you crash it, you won’t be able to ride with Daisy to the store.”

“Take mine,” I said. It was in much better shape and could go a lot faster than her heavy bike.

“You two are worrywarts,” she said. She pushed her bike out of the way and came back for mine, but when she reached for it, I held on.

“I got a bad feeling about this.”

“Grow a spine, Plumley,” Jesse said and her words cut to the quick.

She took my bike and ran up the hill to the road. She would get speed coasting down the hill, but I wasn’t sure it would be enough. Once she moved out of sight, Daisy stood and craned her neck. Then we heard the tires on the dirt and furious pedaling. Jesse appeared at the edge of the road, gravel and dust flying, and raced down the hill at an incredible speed. She was focused like a laser on the jump, pumping and leaning forward.

My heart pounded. I couldn’t watch her kill herself, so I moved into her path and waved my arms.

“Stop!”

She was concentrating so hard she didn’t see me at first, and she got spooked. The bike wobbled and she applied the brake, the front one, flipping the bike over. Jesse fell hard, the bike careening over the embankment and into the creek. She landed dangerously close to the phone pole, Daisy laughing.

Jesse bounced up, holding a bloody spot on her elbow and cursing. “You trying to kill me?”

“I was trying to stop you from killing yourself,” I yelled.

She jerked away, her face contorted. Dickie climbed down the embankment and got the bike.

“I swear, Matt, you’re just like your brother,” she said.

Her words stunned me. I turned away, not knowing how to respond.

After climbing up the bank, Dickie handed the bike to
me. The handlebars were crooked. “If we take it back to my place, I can fix it.” He looked at Jesse. “How is Matt like his brother?”

She had grabbed Daisy and put her in the basket. “He’s chicken. Go on and tell him, Matt.” Her face was red and she was limping. “Tell him where your brother is and why he’s there.”

“Jesse,” I said, pleading with her to stop. “Don’t leave. Look, I’m sorry.”

“I would have made it if you hadn’t got in my way,” she said, wincing as she pushed her bike.

“Where’s your brother?” Dickie said.

I watched her climb on the bike and pedal away, Daisy licking salt from her fingers. I thought Jesse might yell, “Draft dodger,” but she kept her promise and didn’t reveal any more about my brother. As she made it to the road, I thought I heard her crying, but I wasn’t sure.

“I was trying to help,” I yelled.

When I turned around, Dickie was staring at me. “Where’s your brother?”

“Look, I don’t know where my brother is. I haven’t talked to him in a long time.”

“Don’t lie to me, Plumley. Where is he?”

I knew I needed to tell Dickie the truth, but that didn’t make it any easier. I explained that he was supposed to go in the military but decided to move to Canada. I left out the part where he moved there with his girlfriend.

“He got drafted?” Dickie said.

“I guess.”

“And he didn’t go?”

I shrugged. “Dickie, I’m not my brother. He didn’t ask my opinion about what he should do.”

“And if he had, what would you have told him?”

“I don’t know, Dickie. What’s your problem?”

Dickie clenched his fists and the veins in his neck stood out. “My problem is, my dad went to fight for our country. Laid down his life. He went because they asked. Your brother ran. That’s my problem.”

I wanted to say something to appease him, but nothing came to mind.

“Jesse was right. You’re just like him. You’re yellow, Plumley.”

It was painful to watch Jesse get off the bus each day and then pass our house on her bike as she rode home. Sometimes Daisy would ride in back of her holding a shopping bag. I stayed upset at her for about a day and then the old feelings crept in and I spoke to her on the bus. She held up a hand and moved to the back even though there was an open seat beside me.

Dickie stopped talking to Jesse on the CB because of me, and Jesse didn’t respond to my clicks of the microphone. Two days later I brought some leftovers and snacks to her house as a peace offering.

“One day your mama’s going to notice and she’s going to drag the truth from you about me.”

A few days later my mother did notice a missing box of Little Debbie cakes, so I decided to be more discreet.

The strange thing was, nobody saw Jesse’s plight. Dickie hadn’t, the lady who watched Daisy every day hadn’t, and for everyone up and down the road it seemed common that Jesse took care of her sister.

Every so often she would ask me to make a phone call for her. Once, my mother gave the two of them a ride to Goodwill so Jesse could buy clothes for Daisy. I went with them and asked my mother if we could pay. My mother had a kind heart.

“Jesse, let me take care of that,” she said like it was her idea. And I felt proud for the ten dollars she spent.

We had a close call one day in late September. I was in English class and our teacher, Mrs. Gibson, was taking a break from her Nazi-like sentence diagramming to put together our ninth-grade play. She had enlisted the help of Mr. Lambert, the high school drama teacher, who had a calming effect on both Mrs. Gibson and the class. We were auditioning for parts and I assumed I would be a townsperson or perhaps the milkman. But when I spoke, Mr. Lambert looked up from the page and watched me.

“I think we have our George,” he whispered to Mrs. Gibson, but I heard every word.

The school secretary, Mrs. Stewart, spoke over the loudspeaker in our room and called me into the office. I walked on air, having heard such encouraging words from a man who would become pivotal in my high school years.

“Matt, we have a situation with Jesse Woods and no way to contact her mother,” Mrs. Stewart said gravely when I walked into the office. “She said your family might help.”

“Sure. What’s the problem?”

She searched my face. “I think it best if Jesse spoke with your mother, if that’s okay.”

“I can call her if you want.”

“Why don’t you go to the nurse’s station and call from there? That’s where Jesse is. But don’t get too close.”

I walked to a series of partitioned rooms at the back of the office. I didn’t even know our school had a nurse. I found Jesse alone in a room, sitting on a plastic chair, her legs pulled up and her head down.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

She looked up with red eyes. “Girl behind me in home ec said she saw something crawling in my hair. Teacher sent me down here and the nurse says I have lice. She won’t let me go back to class and said I couldn’t ride the bus. How am I supposed to get Daisy?”

Lice was the great stigma, the great leveler of haves and have-nots. If your family contracted it, everyone kept their distance. Anybody with a locker next to yours abandoned ship, just like people in the lunchroom.

“You probably caught it from somebody else,” I said.

She gave me a look that I ignored and I picked up the phone. I dialed home but no one answered and I realized it was the day of the ladies’ Bible study. I couldn’t remember where the study was held, so I called the church office. It went unanswered as well.

“What happens if I can’t reach them?”

“Guess I have to wait until you can,” she said.

“I’ll come back after English and call again,” I said.

“How long you think it’d take me to walk?”

“Jesse, that has to be six or seven miles.”

“If I start now, I can make it. They’re not going to let me ride the bus. If your mom doesn’t come, you need to get Daisy Grace. Just don’t tell the lady who cares for her about this, you understand?”

My mind whirred with the responsibility. “It won’t come to that. I’ll get in touch with my mom and she’ll come pick you up. You sit tight, okay?”

She shook her head. “If I got it, Daisy’s got it. The nurse gave me this handout that says I have to stay home until it clears up.”

“How do you treat it?”

She held out the sheet. “There’s stuff you got to buy. I can’t afford that.”

I thought I might be able to find some information in the school library.

“My cousins had it once,” Jesse said. “But I ain’t asking them.”

“I’ll ask.”

“Elden is the one who would know, but he’s meaner than a snake.”

I knew Elden Branch, Jesse’s first cousin, from gym class. He would jog behind people as they ran laps around the baseball field and trip them. On the court, inside the gym, he would stand and bite his fingernails, staring at girls like they were pieces of meat on a smorgasbord. He looked like a series of bones held together with rubbery skin, but he had a wicked mouth.

I found Elden in the lunchroom after English and went through the line, weighing the best approach. I decided to play a part—the lunchroom would be my stage. I put on a confident look and walked past him, stopped as if I’d just recognized a long-lost friend, and spoke.