The Escape of Bobby Ray Hammer, A Novel of a '50s Family

  "My money better not end up in Wayne's pocket."

  "I'm talking about getting some from him, not giving it. Besides, he's not such a bad guy. I know he's just a time bomb waiting to go off. That's what makes it kind of fun to be around him. He's always ticking. I don't know why you don't like him." Then he puts his ear to the door. "You better scoot, Bobby. Daddy's been telling me I can't go out tonight. And this our homecoming game. Shoved me up against the wall. Accused me of stealing from him. Can you imagine that? Accusing his own kid of stealing from him. That isn't possible, is it? I mean, everything we have belongs to all of us in a family, doesn't it?"

  I don't know why Leroy got so worried all at once. He has been stealing money from his daddy's wallet for years.

  "Go on. Get out. Daddy sees you here, he'll know I'm going to the game."

  I don't like loaning Leroy money. Feels like something has come between us now, like maybe he's mad at me. Besides, how will I get it back? I start to open the door.

  "Wait a minute," he says. "I've been meaning to ask you. Charles Kunze's back in town? Uncle Jess says he's seen you with him."

  "It was his jeep I fell out of a while back."

  "No shit? Everything's a secret with you, isn't it? How come I have to find out from someone else?"

  "We just hunted rabbits together when I was kicked out of school. I didn't know you were interested in Charles."

  "Well I want to go next time. Shit, man. I'm always missing out on the big stuff."

  "Besides, I don't run around with him anymore."

  "Why's that? I hear he makes things happen. Why would you back off from a guy like that?"

  "He's a bad influence."

  "Since when did you get so self-righteous?"

  "Leave it alone would you?"

  "You don't have to get pissed. You and Brenda going to the dance after the game?"

  "What do you think, Leroy? Is she a girl? You think she likes to dance?"

  "Dumb question, huh. But I don't know that you can dance."

  "Let me take care of that."

  "Tell me something, Bobby. Really. Don't you think she's fat?"

  "Leroy."

  "Yes, I know. She does have a body. What an ass and she's got the best tits in town."

  "Leroy..."

  "Yeah?"

  "How would you know?"

  "Yeah. How would I know?"

  "She's my girl anyway. I'll do the talking."

  "Okay. I'll do the shutting up. But you know how long it's been since I had a date? I don't want to hear about it if you get some."

  As I close the bathroom door, I smell black-eyed peas in the fresh air. I peek in the kitchen, see Leroy's mother, still in this ragged nightgown, working over the stove. She has the baby in one arm, balanced on her hip and stirring the pot of peas with the other.

  I hit the front door and make a run for my car. I'm going to be a late for sure. As I go past, Jess calls out after me. "Don't forget to keep your pants zipped."

  CHAPTER 16: Hot Night Out with Brenda

  Brenda has lost a few pounds. She's sitting close enough that I feel the warmth of her thigh coming through my Levis. She's been pushing me about what I'm going to do when we graduate. When I told her I was thinking about a junior college, she just screamed. "Bobby! You're coming, coming to college! Finally. Somebody cute's coming to college with me." She hasn't let up since. She keeps tickling me and rubbing up against me. "You've got to go to Fresno State. Why haven't we done it before? Gone out before, that is? We've gone to school together for years." I have on my red corduroy coat because it's a little cool, and she sticks her hand down inside to get to my ribs. "I was so glad to see you came back to school. I was afraid when you got kicked out that you'd quit. And now you're coming. Coming to college!"

  The stadium lights are so bright I have to shade my eyes to see the crowd. I have the ragtop down on my candy-apple Chevy, and we're driving the dirt track around the football field. Phyllis Thompson, the senior candidate for homecoming queen, is sitting over the backseat of my Chevy, waving as I pull in front of the stands. Three other girls are in cars following us. They'll name the winner just as soon as they introduce the four girls to the crowd. Bev is running right in front of my bumper, her black hair pulled back in a big fluffy ponytail, and I have to let off the gas to keep from running over her. She and the other two cheerleaders are dressed in white with a red Indian chief on the front, covering up all those tits. They wave their pom-poms to pump up the crowd. When Bev jumps and twirls, I see her legs all the way up to her panties. Leroy is walking along in front of the stands waving to me with one hand and giving me the finger with the other down on his pant leg.

  When Thomas Powers heard I was taking Brenda to the homecoming game, he looked me up special just to ask if I was studying up for her. Said she liked to talk about her honors classes. Acted a little like he was mad about something.

  Brenda keeps throwing her long blond hair up over her shoulders. I didn't know her eyes were so big and brown until I picked her up. But I think she was scared of me, and disappointed. I held her hand when she walked me into her living room to introduce me to her father. Her hand was cold and the wettest thing this side of a fish. I hear she goes out with guys from college. Maybe I'm a little slower than the ones she usually introduces to her father.

  I couldn't believe her old man. He's a carpenter, builds houses one at a time around town. He looked like a big kid with gray hair. Had on a striped T-shirt with the start of a beer belly hanging over his buckle. Set me down and started talking my leg off. He was watching the Friday night fights. Claims he actually saw Joe Lewis fight, in person. He used to be a golden gloves champion. I was so nervous about Brenda, I'd have rather stayed and talk to him. She's too pretty and too smart. Her mother was a sight to behold too. Had on a tight skirt with a low cut blouse. I can see where Brenda gets her tits. Her mother stayed and talked while Brenda was getting dressed. Kept smiling and looking me over like there was something she was expecting. I wonder what Brenda told her? She's good looking for an old lady.

  Brenda turns to look back, both knees out from under her skirt punching me in the hip, and asks Phyllis if she's excited. Phyllis is about to wet her pants. Phyllis is the girl Leroy has been pining over, when he isn't pining over Bev. She doesn't say anything, just sits there over my backseat wringing sweat into her handkerchief and waving to the crowd when she needs to. Her old man's been dead two years. Got killed hooking a tractor up to a plow when his hired hand's foot slipped off the clutch. Squashed his head. She has been a pretty quiet girl since. Leroy was planning to ask her to the dance but Thomas beat him to the punch, started going with her about the time Leroy wanted to ask her out. Chasing Bev cost Leroy a little time with Phyllis. Thomas keeps telling everybody how skinny she is. She'll grow out of it though, he says. Tall as a bean pole. Should be Thomas driving her instead of me, but he's in the gym with the rest of the football team getting his ass chewed by the coach. At half-time we're down by fourteen. Brenda talked Phyllis into letting me drive her. Can't say Thomas was too pleased.

  Across the field is a big wood tower where the PA announcer stays, and he's introducing the girls now. Cheerleaders sweep past my car because he's starting from the back. As Bev goes by she gives me a go-to-hell look. The crowd quiets a little, and I hear him announce Becky Wynsum. She's a sweet little kid, just a freshman, lives over on Defender Street. Her old man doesn't have anything. That's why they live on Defender Street. He works at the Oil Mill where they process cottonseed. Every dollar he makes at the Oil Mill, he drinks up in whiskey at the Cotton Club. Papa knows all about him.

  This time the crowd is making a fuss over Billie Wade. She's our family doctor's daughter. We've been going to him ever since I can remember. Mama says he delivered me, Trish and Curt. She's a little too heavy to be pretty and not very smart either, but since her father is who he is, she gets around.

  While we are waiting for the crowd to get quiet again, Brenda turns
to Phyllis.

  "Don't worry, Princess." Brenda has been calling her Princess all evening. "You're going to be queen."

  "Oh, Brenda. I don't want to be. I just can't do it."

  "Yes, you can. Don't worry about it."

  "I just want it to be over."

  "It's not going to be over, Princess. It's going to happen."

  It's Cindy Brown's turn. She's sitting on top on a new Pontiac convertible right behind us. Now there's a girl for you, and the crowd goes crazy this time. Trish says she had hormone shots that caused her to pop out like that.

  When the announcer introduces Phyllis, I feel the eyes of the crowd. Phyllis quits wringing her handkerchief long enough to stand with her feet in my seat and give them a good wave. But then the announcer is saying she won, so she is the queen. I can't hear anything for the crowd. Phyllis has started crying, so Brenda jumps in the back seat to hug her. I don't know what to do next, so I just sit here running my hands round and round the steering wheel. When Brenda sits back down, she hugs me too. With my face buried in all that fresh hair and the floodlights in my eyes, I'm feeling pretty good myself.

  *

  Washington beat us 33 to 6. We're in the gym now and the boards are still up for basketball with the little nets around the rims. Most of the lights are off except for the ones back up over the seats. I'm in my stocking feet, like everyone else, and Brenda is trying to get me out on the floor just as Elvis starts on the phonograph.

  "No," I say and I mean it, but she has both palms on my chest and every time I say no, she shoves me a little further out on the dance floor.

  Then she comes up close, puts her arms around me, kisses me on the neck.

  "You just take my hand and let me dance," she says.

  God knows I want to dance to Hound Dog but I'm telling her I've never fast danced before.

  "You'll have done a lot of things you've never done before, before this night's over. I have to teach every guy I go out with."

  So I'm out here anyway, trying to keep up with Elvis' Hound Dog, and I have my arm out high for her to twirl under and then she's away from me and I pull her back again, kick my leg a little. So much for Leroy's nervousness. Brenda is laughing and talking to Phyllis who has just been crowned and is happier than I have ever seen her. She's dancing with Thomas right here beside us. Thomas hasn't said anything to me. I have the feeling he keeps sneaking a peak at Brenda.

  Bev is dancing a little ways off and Phyllis is standing against the far wall looking tall and lonely. Bev has slipped out of that cheerleading outfit into another white dress and has that dark hair down on her shoulders. She's having trouble believing this is me, watching out the corner of her eye until she trips and almost falls. Last year she tried to get me to fast dance and I wouldn't. Strange thing is, she doesn't seem to have a date tonight. Melvin came in with some Mexican girl from Madera, and they're over in a corner and if he keeps loving on her, old man Sonnett will throw them out because Clyde, he's been eyeing them ever since they got here.

  Since Brenda has gone to the bathroom, I talk to Leroy. 

  "I need a couple of bucks."

  I smell something on him. "Where'd you get it?"

  "What?" he asks.

  "What you're drinking."

  "Wayne. You owe me a couple of bucks."

  "I owe you nothing."

  "I asked you for five this evening and you only gave me two. I need the rest."

  I turn away from Leroy, listening to that new song by Guy Mitchell, Singing the Blues, and here comes Trish with that pair of glasses she calls a boyfriend.

  "Hey, Eugene," I say, pointing at Trish. "Where did you get this?"

  Trish is quicker than Eugene. "Same place Brenda got that dog-meat she's out with," she says.

  I can't take my eyes off Bev, remembering her thighs when she jumped and twirled. Leroy has asked her to dance three times now. Not that I am counting. Can't take no for an answer. What could Brenda be doing in the bathroom? Thomas is talking to Eugene about track so Trish turns her back on me. Eugene went to state in the mile his sophomore year and Powers wants to know if he'll make it back. Eugene is talking about training methods used by some guy in Australia named Herb Eliot, and all the time Trish is hanging on him like she's growed to his body.

  Sure enough, Wayne has a mouse above his left eye. I keep trying to get a better look but can't see too good in the dark.

  "Looks like you've got something hanging on your face there, Wayne," I say. "Piece of hamburger meat?"

  "It's called a lump, Bobby. You get little ones in fights, unless it's you. Then they're like pumpkins."

  It's real easy to get under his skin, and since he's drinking, I figure that's enough for now. He got the mouse in a fight he had just after the game with Brenda's little brother, Keith. Brenda found out about it as soon as we got in the dance. Wayne said some things about Becky that Keith didn't like. Keith has a temper. He's just a freshman, but I hear he was kicking Wayne's ass good when they broke it up. After the talk I had with Keith's old man this evening, I think Keith could be tougher than he looks. They had to break it off before the police got into it. Wayne isn't as tough as he thinks.

  Wayne's father is the undertaker. He buried Lenny. Wayne is the one that shouted for Melvin to cut me when we were fighting out on Beacon Road. He thinks he's a baseball player and some say he is a pretty good catcher but the way he chews on the pitchers when they don't have good stuff pisses off the coach. Standing there next to Leroy, Wayne looks like a fat midget, short and stocky like he is, and Leroy is no giant next to me.

  "No shit, Bobby," here's Leroy back begging, "I need three dollars if you can let me have it. I bet Melvin I could take his Chevy and he cleaned me out. I owe him a little."

  "Come on, Leroy. You didn't really think you could take that new '57?"

  "Close, the first time through," says Wayne. "That truck engine makes that Ford haul."

  "Leroy," and now I'm trying to shame him. "Have you done something to your car?"

  "Papa helped me soup it a little. That's why I'm short on cash. But Melvin's '57 Chevy is the fastest thing I've ever seen, Bobby. And you should see the new strip out on the Old 99. You're going to want to try it. A new quarter mile marked off south of Farnesi's."

  "Try the strip against Leroy's '52," says Wayne with a grin.

  Goddamn what an asshole Wayne is, him even suggesting that. Leroy's piece of junk against my machine. "Why?" I say, looking over at Leroy. "It's a Ford. No use wasting the rubber."

  Wayne's grin gets bigger. "Another Bobbyism," he says to Leroy. "Lives in fantasyland."

  Leroy laughs, backs off a step or two. He knows there ain't no sense in that. Wayne's trying to say my car is a piece of shit, but afraid to come out with it. And I'm thinking, I would like to screw Wayne up right here. Good thing I'm with Brenda. I'm beginning to think she skipped out on me.

  Now Wayne starts on something else. "Heard you've been running around with Charles Kunze," he says.

  "What's this," I say. "How does everyone know about me shooting rabbits with Charles? What the hell is so strange about that?"

  "Charles likes to fight," and he's smiling at me now. "That doesn't seem like a guy that you'd buddy up to."

  It's like everybody is looking at me. "So shut up, Wayne. He used to be good friends with Lenny. Leave it alone." And I turn to walk off. I'm tired of them and looking for Brenda. But Wayne won't let up on me, has me by the arm. I sling his hand off. "Don't touch me again. I'm warning you," I tell him. He still has that grin and I'm beginning to think I'm going to have to get rid of it. God, I get mad easy. It is like I carry this mad dog around with me. Might just jump out and bite anybody, anytime.

  "I hear Lenny and Charles weren't as good friends as you say," he tells me. "Melvin's brother, Johnny, went to school with Charles. He's surprised you're running around with him. Says Lenny and Charles used to steal together, but argued all the time. Leroy's Uncle Jesse says he saw them fight once when he used to
milk cows for Karl."

  "Everybody has somebody that knows something about Charles." I face off against him. Put my hand on his chest, shove him back a step. Kids scatter. "Look, Wayne, stay out of my business. I know more about it than you think." 

  But here comes Clyde, so Wayne doesn't say anymore. That grin is still there but changed, like he's having trouble holding it. I hope his old man has a nice casket ready, cause he's not living a full life. Won't take a tall tree to make the box he's going to rest in.

  Someone bumps into me from behind, and I jerk around, but it's just Brenda back from the bathroom cutting up with Phyllis about her crown that keeps falling off. Brenda is a little afraid of me at first. Wants to know what's wrong. "I get concerned about you," she says.

  Leroy tugs on my sleeve.

  "What's it this time?" I say.

  "How about it, Bobby? I really need it." He has his head down, looking at the floor.

  I don't want Brenda to see this, so I turn my back, feel bad about that. All I have in my wallet is a ten and a twenty, so I give him the ten.

  "This is great, Bobby. It'll help pay back that other you owe me."

  "Hey, come back here," but he's already gone.

  Now Brenda has me out on the floor for a slow dance, Elvis crooning I Want You, I Need You, I Love You, and I have one arm around her waist and her hand cupped in mine on my chest and she's up against me so tight I feel her heat all the way down to my knees. Her mouth is up against my ear so close it tickles with her singing the words to the music real low. I love the smell of lipstick. She gets stuck on "I need you, I need you, I need you."

  "What are you giggling about," she asks.

  "You're tickling me again."

  And she pulls that long hair blond hair back, puts her ear up to my mouth so she can hear because I'm not talking too loud. My lips touch her smooth skin. She raises her shoulder, squirms against me. She whispers she'd like to go now, so we head for the door.

  We come out of the dance, put our shoes on out in the hall where we left them. Just as we leave the floor, I catch old tall Phyllis looking back at me. We're just about the first ones to leave, except for the guys that came stag and are leaving to get some beer. Lots a talk of going to Farnesi's.