The Struggles of Johnny Cannon (20 page)

“I'll do it,” I said. Couldn't believe it myself when them words came out of my mouth. Mr. Thomassen hit a sour note. Short-Guy started laughing. Even my own pa giggled a little at that.

“What?” I asked. “I've watched Mr. Thomassen do it a thousand times. And y'all know he's the best there is. Plus I'll do it for free.”

“There's a difference between watching and doing,” Carlos said. “I've watched the birds every day of my life, but I still haven't learned how to fly.”

“That's 'cause you ain't got wings,” I said. “I'm a man—”

“A boy.”

“A man. And shaving comes naturally.”

“You got whiskers I don't know about?” Pa said.

“Not yet, but still.”

Short-Guy went back to the chair.

“Free shave is nothing to sneeze at,” he said. “Besides, what's the worst you could do to me?”

I hurried over to grab the equipment before he changed his mind. I got the shaving soap and the brush and the leather strap and the razor blade. The supersharp razor blade. So sharp it could probably slice through skin and maybe even bone.

I reckon you ain't supposed to think like that when you're fixing to shave a fella.

I took it all over on a tray and got started.

“You gonna take off your jacket?” I asked.

“Nope,” he said. “So don't make a mess.”

I gulped so loud I figured they'd probably all heard it, and then I picked up the dish that had the shaving soap in it and used the brush to work up a pretty good lather.

“Ain't you going to do the hot towels first?” Pa said. I looked over at him, he was hiding a smile behind the newspaper. And here I thought parents was supposed to support their kids.

“Uh, yeah, let me get them.”

Short-Guy grabbed my arm.

“No time for that, just shave my face,” he said. “But be mindful of this mole here under my cheek.” He pointed to a ripe bump under the jawline on the right side of his face. “Make it fast but not too fast.”

I nodded and started slapping shaving cream on his face. I got some in his eye.

“Ow!” he hollered. He reached up to rub his eye and his sleeve got into the lather.

“Oh, here, you got some on your coat. Go ahead and take it off and we'll get it cleaned up,” I said.

“No,” he said. “It's fine. Just shave me.”

There wasn't going to be no getting him out of that jacket, not without drastic measures. But I wasn't real sure yet of what those drastic measures was going to be.

After I got the lather all over his cheeks and such, I picked up the straight razor to start scraping his stubble off. I touched my fingertip to the edge. It was danged sharp.

I started working around his face just like I always saw Mr. Thomassen doing, scraping the lather off along with the whiskers. I got all the way done with the left side and started working on the right, and then I figured out exactly what my drastic measures was going to be.

I closed my eyes and asked the Good Lord to have mercy on me for what I was fixing to do, and then I moved the razor down right next to that mole on his jaw.

“Yeah, that's where that mole is, so—” he started.

I flicked my hand and the razor sliced right through it. It went flying over his shoulder and then it was followed by a squirting stream of his blood.

He started screaming like I didn't reckon CIA agents was supposed to and he grabbed at his face.

“Oh, dadgum,” I said. “Here, let me help you.” I squeezed on his cheek and directed the stream of blood so it got all over his jacket. He kept on screaming.

Mr. Thomassen jumped up from the piano and ran over, and so did Pa and Carlos.

“Here, I've got a first aid kit in the back, let's go fix you,” Mr. Thomassen said.

“Better get this off of you,” Pa said, and took the jacket off. He threw it over onto the counter and they all went to the back.

I jumped over and grabbed the envelope out of the pocket. I emptied them keys into my hand and put them in my pocket. I looked around for something to put back in it so he might not notice that the keys was missing, and I landed on a stack of spare blades for the razor. I shoved about four into the envelope and put it back in his pocket.

“What were you doing?” Carlos said. He'd just walked back into the room right when I was doing that.

“I was looking for health insurance,” I said. “Just in case he needs surgery or something.”

Carlos didn't say nothing else, but he grabbed the jacket and took it to the back with him.

My heart was racing as I left the building. Knowing that I'd just stolen from anybody would make me panic, but that I'd just robbed a CIA agent after I lopped off his favorite mole made me think I might die right there on the sidewalk. I looked over at the soda shop across the street to see if maybe Short-Guy had a band of other agents that was watching or something. The only person over there was Martha. She was sitting outside, sipping a root beer float through a straw. I reckoned she was the opposite of interested in whatever I was doing, so I hurried off toward Snake Pond. Of course, I had to find a way out there, but I reckoned I could borrow Molly Turner's bike again. After all, if you're going to be a thief, you might as well be a good one.

I went over to their house and grabbed the bike, and I'd already started riding it when I realized that Molly's brother had left his bike out there too. Oh well, it was too late to be concerned about looking manly. Them tassels was sort of fun to look at while I went, anyway.

I rode out of town and started along the road to get to Snake Pond, and every once in a while, I felt like somebody was following me. But I didn't hear no cars behind me and there weren't very many people who could keep up with me on a bicycle, so I reckoned I was just being paranoid.

It took me a good twenty minutes of riding, but I finally got over to Snake Pond and Rudy and Eddie's campground. I parked the bike and hurried through the woods.

“I got them,” I said. “I got them keys for you.”

Rudy was smoking a cigar and as soon as he heard that, he tossed it into the fire and ran over to me.

“All of them?” he asked. “Did you get them all?” He held out his hand and I dropped them all in there.

“One's missing,” he said. “A square one.”

I dug in my pocket and found the one Short-Guy had said went to a federal building. I put that one in his hand too.

“What's that to?” I asked.

“Don't worry about it.” He went straight over and started packing his stuff into a backpack and was folding the tent up. He did it real fast, like it was a habit or something.

“Wow, you're good at that,” I said.

“Not my first time packing on the run,” he said with a smile. “Now we just need to go get the car and then we're home free. Let's get a move on, Edward.”

“Edward?” I asked.

Eddie shrugged.

“New start, new name.”

“You should come too, Jonathan,” Rudy said. I shook my head.

“It's Johnny,” I said. “There ain't no amount of trouble that'd make me go by Jonathan. Besides, I ain't got no reason to leave. And who'd watch out for Sora?”

Rudy acted a little funny when I said that, but he kept right on packing. Meanwhile, Eddie grabbed me for a great big hug.

“I ain't never had no friends like you, Johnny,” he said. “You really got my back.”

“I reckon so,” I said, and tried to wiggle out of his grip. He smelled like wintergreen, just like Rudy, and I was beginning to think I was allergic.

They didn't say no more, but they hurried and took their things and left. I sat down by what remained of their fire and took a breather. They was about to be out of my hair, and it felt good to see them go.

A twig snapped behind me. Did they forget something? I got up to see what they needed.

But it wasn't them.

It was Martha.

And she was as mad as the devil himself. Or herself, I reckon.

My day was just getting better and better.

Y
ou've—you've got his
back
?” Martha said. She looked like her red hair was about to ignite into flames. “You know that some people have started thinking he's been kidnapped or killed or something, right? And you know that people are taking it out on the Parkinses, right? But you're watching out for Eddie?”

“Look, it ain't exactly—”

“Don't start,” she said. “How long have you known he wasn't in danger?”

“The whole time, I guess, but you got to understand, I took an oath.”

She rolled her eyes.

“What you mean is that you did some bullheaded boy promise that you'd take care of him, and now your pride won't let you do the right thing because you're worried it'll make you look like less of a man.”

“No,” I said, though it was hard not to see how she might have been right. “I'm just doing this 'cause it's the right thing to do.”

“This is the right thing to do?” she said. “Helping a juvenile delinquent is the right thing, but helping your best friend when he's in real trouble, that's totally optional?”

I groaned.

“You're painting it all wrong.”

“I'm not painting anything, I'm taking a photograph,” she said. “And you just don't like looking at your picture.”

“You're only seeing one side of this whole thing.”

She shook her head and backed away from me.

“I was wrong when I called you a pig,” she said. “You're a snake.”

Dang, that hurt. I started to follow after her.

“What are you doing?” she asked. “I don't want to be with you right now.”

“But it ain't safe down here at Snake Pond. Let me walk you out.”

“What did I tell you? I don't need you to protect me. I don't want you to protect me. I don't even want to look at you again, ever.”

She kept walking toward the woods that was around Snake Pond. Away from the road.

“But you ain't going the right way.”

“And if we were still friends, I would be listening to you right now.” She kept on walking.

“But you're probably gonna get bit by a snake!”

“I already did.” She disappeared around the trees.

Tommy once told me that there ain't no worser place to be than on the receiving end of a girl's anger, 'cause they'll say things they don't mean. Then when you don't listen and do what they really need, they'll get real mad at you for it. But if you do listen, they'll get mad at you for not doing what they really wanted in the first place. It was like the opposite of having your cake and eating it too. It was getting punched in the face and kicked in the gunnysack at the same time.

But, you know what, maybe the reason girls kept on doing stupid stuff like that was 'cause boys was always swooping in to help them. Like, maybe Lois Lane would be a little more careful up on them building ledges if Superman made her sew her own parachute first. Though I ain't so sure she knows how to sew, but still. It's the principle.

Besides, Martha'd find her way around eventually. And snakes only bit you if you was getting in on their dens. And, anyway, you'd have to be pretty dadgum stupid to get bit by a snake.

I headed to the road. If she wanted me to let her alone, then I'd let her the heck alone. That'd teach her.

I got out to where I'd put the bike and saw that the boy bike was parked next to the one with tassels. Martha must have ridden it out there. Explained a lot. One thing everyone in Cullman could agree on was that stuff always went wrong when girls tried to act like boys.

I hopped on the boy bike and left the girl one behind for her. It was my way of bringing balance back to the world. Then I headed on over to the Parkinses' house, 'cause I wanted to see if what Martha'd said was true.

When I got there, Willie and his ma and his sister was scrubbing a whole mess of busted eggs off their front porch. Yeah, I reckoned it was true.

I didn't say nothing, just grabbed a rag and started wiping up.

“Where's your pa?” I asked.

“Went into town to find Bob,” Willie said. “Wants to make sure he knows he didn't mean what it seemed like he meant with that letter.”

“I'll bet that's going to go real well,” I said.

Mrs. Parkins threw her rag into the bucket of soapy water and went inside. Willie sighed.

“Anyway, I talked to Short-Guy about the cipher,” he said.

Dang, he was still working on my mess. I wondered if that was 'cause he was a better friend than me or if focusing on my stuff helped him take his mind off his own. Either way, I reckoned I'd let him.

“What'd you figure out?” I asked.

“He told me it seems like the code needs a key to solve it. Like a code word.”

“What you mean, like ‘abracadabra' or something?”

“No, that wouldn't work, there's too many repeated letters.”

I blinked a few times, hoping my brain's vision would clear up and I wouldn't seem so stupid. Didn't work. He could tell.

“It's like this,” he said. “Whoever is writing the message and whoever is getting the message will both agree on a code word.”

“Me and Tommy never agreed on no code words.”

“That's beside the point. The code word has to be a word or a phrase or something that don't repeat no letters. Like ‘Quick as brown' or something. So you put that down on paper, then you put the rest of the letters of the alphabet that don't fit after it. You do all that on one line, then on the next line you put the alphabet down like normal. And that's how you figure out how to substitute the letters.”

I nodded like I understood, but he knew me well enough to know I didn't. He set down his rag and pulled a paper out of his pocket.