Do I have a choice, I wonder? Do I have to pay Leroy's bill?
"Wayne was telling me you want to know about Charles," says Melvin.
"If you've got something, I want to hear it."
"Well I'm not sure I've got it straight. Maybe I shouldn't say anything. You two look like pretty good buddies."
"Suit yourself. Wayne's the one harping you knew something."
"Johnny was telling me sometime back, about a fight between Lenny and Charles." Johnny is Melvin's older brother that he lives with. "But it wasn't like a street fight. Not like they had something to prove in front of a crowd."
"But I never heard about a fight between them until tonight. Wayne said Leroy's Uncle Jesse saw them fight too. But it doesn't make sense. You know how word of a fight travels around Chowchilla."
Eugene tells the waitress to get him another cherry Coke and some French fries. When he eats, he keeps his cheeks full of food like a chipmunk. I ask her for some more coffee, fiddle with Leroy's check. I can't afford to eat and pay Leroy's bill too.
Melvin rolls another cigarette, like he wants the practice. Wets the seam with his tongue.
"It wasn't a street fight," he says, thinking real hard. "More like they really hated each other. Something they were carrying around and couldn't get rid of. Like maybe they were mad at each other all the time, like maybe they argued all the time over the same things."
"I don't know, Melvin. I can't remember a lot of what happened around that time."
"Oh, wait a minute. It had to do with the transmission in Lenny's car."
"So Lenny threw his transmission. I know that. I was helping him and Papa put in a new one."
He looks deflated for a minute, then perks up again. "Yes, but it wasn't Lenny that threw it. It was Charles. Now it's coming back. Johnny said Charles threw it dragging. He was driving instead of Lenny. But that was only part of it. There was something else galling them for a long time. Maybe it was a girl. I'll have to ask Johnny."
"That would be Helen," I say, thinking that now we're getting somewhere. I brush some sweat off my upper lip. The red haired girl with the bloody nose at the Cemetery is what I'm thinking about.
But Melvin is looking up and isn't even thinking about Charles and Lenny anymore.
"Jesus, Bobby. You know who that is standing in the door?"
I turn my head a little. "Those two guys from Mountain View," I say. "Looks like I get my first shot at the new drag strip."
"Hey, Waitress. Cancel those French fries," shouts Eugene.
*
The porch light is off. Trish always does that for me so Mama and Papa will think I'm home. I'm sneaking down the hall in the dark to my bedroom with my shoes off. Curt's in bed fast asleep. I shove him, tell him to go to the bathroom. He'll pee the bed if he don't. I grab some clean shorts out of the chest of drawers, feeling like I really should have my own bedroom. He's been lying in my spot and the covers are so warm I can tell how cold my feet are.
I'm just a little worried whether Mama will like Brenda or maybe if she'll like Mama. Sleeping with Curt seems strange tonight. Doesn't seem like I should have to sleep with my little brother.
Before I go to sleep, I go through it once more. First, it is Brenda on her back with her clothes off and me on top of her. Her moaning. Hard to believe. Then I'm in the right lane, revving my motor, pealing out. Three times Herman has to see it because he can't believe it. Three times he stays with me in low gear. Three times I get a half a car on him in second. Then he sees taillights. The first time he wanted to talk about it. Wanted some more. The last time, he didn't even slow. I let off and followed him out of town on Robertson with the full moon overhead. On my way home. They turned off west at the 152. Headed back to Mountain View. They're probably passing through Los Banos about now.
But the last thing I see, before my mind conks out, and maybe I hear it too, is Helen slapping Charles at the Cemetery.
CHAPTER 17: Breaking Ground at Night
"I can't stand it! Bobby. I can't stand it!"
"Well, I don't feel too good about it either."
"But how could you do this to me? Do you know what a predicament this puts me in? Do you know how I feel about you? Do you know what a deviate is, Bobby?"
"Yes. I know, Brenda. But it just doesn't even seem like I did anything."
"But the girls knew, Bobby! They knew for sure! Do you know how I can't stand that? I'm going to sue you. I'm going to sue your ass off. There's laws against people like you. You pervert. You weirdo."
"But I didn't do anything. I never told anybody."
"Somebody told Beverly Morrini! That's for sure! You could have told anybody but her! Anybody but her. I can't stand it! How can I live with it? Get some strange thrill out of it? Telling the guys and your ex-girlfriend give you a sexual thrill? Huh, Bobby, huh? Did it? You degenerate."
"I didn't tell Bev. I didn't tell anybody. Those bad words you're using don't apply to me. It just seemed like the guys in Farnesi's already knew what we'd done."
"My mother found out, Bobby! That's the worst part, the part I can't live with but have to. The part I'm going to sue you for." Her voice breaks and a few sobs come through. "Now I've got it at school and I've got it at home. No escaping it. And it's your fault. Do you know how I feel about you? How I feel about that thing you keep in your pants, that thing you carry around with you all the time? I'm going to sue that thing off you." Her words keep breaking off and coming through all those tears and snot sniffing. "You degenerate."
"I'm sorry, Brenda. I'm really sorry. Does this mean we're not going out tomorrow night?"
Clang!
Bet she broke the phone. I hope no one tells Mama.
*
I'm coming out of the old front door, through the screen that used to bang to but now just hangs off to the side on one hinge, going to do some custom work with the tractor for Mr. Grissom. I'm not feeling so good. That phone call from Brenda last night still has me shaking. Before I get to the tractor, here comes Papa home from town where he's been all afternoon. Mama's been worrying about him because he was only supposed to be gone an hour. I can tell he has been drinking by the way he's driving, the pickup kind of coasting in real slow, then the brakes lock and the wheels slide a ways on the sand driveway. I see through the windshield that he has a grin from ear to ear and when the door opens, he comes with it, hanging on and swinging from it like the tail end of a whip. When he turns loose, he takes three falling steps and hits the cottonwood tree and that holds him up. So he starts rubbing on it, bending up and down at the knees, scratching his back up between his shoulder blades like that was what he intended to do all along.
"If you were half the boy Lenny was, you'd kick my ass for coming home to your mama like this," he says.
I wince.
He gets a real strange look on his face with his eyes pointed up at that overcast sky like maybe there's an airplane, but then I notice a dark spot growing in the crotch of his pants and realize that he's peeing. But here he comes over to me, slinging his arms around like they are a couple of old ropes and damn if he doesn't take a swing at me then falls on the ground, and as I try to help him to his feet, he vomits on my boots.
Mama comes out of the house talking something about the Lord and what He's going to do to Papa, the way he acts. Papa's afraid of Mama when he's drunk, so he doesn't say anything more, just rolls over on his back, eyes going off in different directions like they are both made of glass.
But I hear the front door slam again and here's Trish. She goes crazy when Papa gets drunk.
"Mama, he's not worth it Mama," she says and stomps the ground with her left foot. "Just leave him there, let him rot. Dumb old goat. Better yet, let's just haul him out to the backyard and put him in the trash barrel. He's nothing but a piece of trash anyway. Light fire to him. Haul the ashes off to the junkyard."
Damn him. I can't be Lenny.
*
It's cold. The sun's already down, the light fading an
d I'm about to start breaking ground over at Grissom's. I got the old tumble bug hooked up behind the little Ford tractor and as I pull back on the throttle, the old motor hums and I feel the vibration under my feet and in the steering wheel. The sun's just going down but since tomorrow is Saturday, I can work all night if I want. Papa lets me make a little money for myself like this and doesn't charge me anything for gas or the use of the little tractor. He just loves to keep me working, and sometimes it feels good to be out here all alone, sort of like I'm all grown up and with everyone else asleep late at night, feels like my troubles are not so big.
Just about the time I get the plow in the ground, here comes Johnny, Melvin's brother, driving up on a big John Deere tractor that I saw a few minutes ago working the next field over. I hop off and we walk toward each other, walking through the cornstalk stubble. He has on a long heavy coat and gloves. I wonder if I should have brought mine? Could be it's going to get even colder than I thought.
"Hi, Johnny," I say, but he's looking around at the ground like he lost something down there. He's wearing old city-slicker shoes that don't have strings in them. He gives me a nod, then hoiks and spits. Johnny's face is always redder than it should be.
"Melvin tells me you've been asking questions about Lenny and Charles." He gives me a quick glance. "That true?" His eyes look all bloodshot.
I give him a nod. His hair's coal black and sticks out in all directions.
"I've known Charles a long time and I'm going to give you some advice." Then his voice goes straight up in the air in this big whine and shout, even raises his chin like he's looking up in that overcast sky for a big V of geese. "Just shoot that sonofabitch!" he says, and he's turned his side to me so that he's not facing me anymore. "He's a rotten asshole and doesn't deserve to live."
"What's he done, Johnny? What's he done? I don't know Charles that good."
"Just lots of things!" And he keeps shouting. "I was always too old to still be in high school but he didn't have to say the things he did about me." He keeps pulling that heavy coat to and now I see that it's lost all its buttons down the front. He looks up at me so I see he's crying a little. "Lenny was always good to me. I liked Lenny. He used to take me out with him once in a while when Charles wasn't around."
"Did you know about the two of them fighting?"
"Goddamn, Bobby, and this is the truth. They didn't even like each other. That's what people don't know. They hated each other." And now he's so mad I'm afraid he is going to throw a punch at me. "Charles wouldn't leave that girlfriend of Lenny's alone. I thought they were going to kill each other over her just before Lenny had his accident. And that was no accident, let me tell you. I told your papa and he believed me. But the police wouldn't. I bet it was over Lenny's girl. But I don't know for sure. Charles got to my girl too. Goddamn him. Got her pregnant. I just might kill that sonofabitch myself yet. My oldest kid is really his. But Charles killed Lenny, Bobby. I bet you he did."
And then he just turns around and walks off. Doesn't say good-by, just pulls that black wool coat up tight around his neck, pulls a stocking cap out of his pocket, slips it down low over his ears and walks off.
*
My right front wheel is off on the unplowed ground and the left is in the rut cut by my last pass. It's getting dark fast now, but by the backlight on the fender, I see the plow blade slice through the earth, laying it over like smooth chocolate. I can't get over Papa throwing it up to me that I don't stack up to Lenny. I'm trying to think what I can do to be better. Maybe if I could copy the way Lenny was, Papa would think more of me. But I don't know how Lenny was anymore. All I remember is how it was when he died. Still, I have a little time missing.
The cotton was early that year. I'd been out chopping with Delbert after school. Seems like I was a little late getting started chopping, but I can't remember why. I don't remember why Papa sent me out to chop anyway. But Papa caught me doing something, and he made me go chop cotton. So Delbert and me were in the field and Papa, he was supposed to pick me up at sundown, but he didn't show up and that was unusual because Papa was reliable then. So we chopped another round when it was almost too dark, and then we waited for him at the end of the field for a while and then in Delbert's pickup. Delbert talked some about the Fair coming up. His oldest boy had a heifer in the stock show that year. He talked about what a good man my papa was. How Papa had helped him when he first came from Oklahoma. They had relatives that knew each other. But then Delbert got real quiet. I could tell he was worried too. Finally he had to take me home. It was out of his way, but he didn't mind. Delbert seemed to know that something was up, but he wasn't talking about it either.
No one was home. Even Mama was gone. It wasn't like her not having dinner ready for us when we come in from the field. Fried potatoes were still in the skillet full of grease and a pan of cornbread half cooked still in the oven and it turned off and the door open. The only thing that was done cooking was the beans. But there was raw meat laying out unwrapped. Mama never let meat lay out. And where were Trish and Curt? It just looked like something was wrong. I walked around inside the house calling for Mama, but when I didn't find her, I went outside in the dark and waited for them on the porch.
When they did show up it was late, about nine o'clock, and I was standing at the living room window watching the car lights go by on the road out front. I recognized the dim lights of Papa's pickup half a mile away. They looked like pale orange lanterns. I went out in the front yard to meet them. Mama walked right on past me crying real hard and telling Papa to tell me because she couldn't. Then Papa called me over to the side of the house.
"Get a hold on yourself," he said, cause what I'm going to tell you will kill you." He walked me back out of the light coming from the front window.
Right away I knew Curt had been killed, at least that was the thought that ran through my mind, and the thought choked me and my teeth just fell together. Curt was always with Mama.
Then Papa told me, standing there in the dark. "Lenny's been run over and killed," he said. He didn't just say "killed," he said "run over and killed."
I remember his words hitting me like bullets. Somehow I thought he said it like it was my fault. And I had a vision of Lenny being hit and knocked to the ground and then a car going over the top of him, banging his head on the oil pan, then the ground, then the back axle, maybe the rear end housing. That wasn't what really happened. I was just thinking. The only thing I can remember after that was that now I'm the oldest and right then I felt grown. I remember thinking that things were going to be different then. I'm ashamed to say it, but I thought maybe Papa would notice what I do more. I had a sense of satisfaction. I didn't realize that he'd want me to be like Lenny more than ever.
I couldn't see Papa's face because it was so dark, but I knew he'd been crying even though his voice was smooth and soft while he was telling me. When he finished, he didn't say anything for a while, but then he started to wail, almost like a siren off in the distance. I didn't even know he was making the sound at first. Then he walked off away from me a piece and wailed real loud like a wild animal. I took a couple of steps toward him and asked where Trish and Curt were. Papa never heard me, I don't guess. I went into the house but Mama was in her bedroom with the door locked, crying and scolding God like He was in there with her. I stood at her door listening and had an image of Jesus, all dressed in white with His long woman-like hair and the little white halo just over His head, standing in the room with Mama. His head was down like He knew He'd done something wrong.
The phone rang and it was Aunt Loretta asking when we were going to pick up Trish and Curt. Papa had told her that Lenny was in an accident, but Papa didn't know how bad it was then. Papa hadn't told Trish and Curt anything, just dropped them off like it was just the most normal thing in the world. Truth is, no one in their right mind would leave even a dog with Aunt Loretta. And they knew something was wrong all along. Now Curt was crying and asking for Mama in the background. Aunt
Loretta asked how Lenny was. I told her he was dead. She didn't say anything for a long time. Then her voice shook a little as she asked if she should tell Trish and Curt. I told her no, I'd tell them when I got over there.
Poor old Curt was really crying by the time I drove the mile to her house on the tractor. Trish was just real quiet and standing off in the doorway to the kitchen like she was afraid of me.
"You better tell me what's wrong," little Curt said. "Cause I can't stand it any longer."
"Well it's not going to make it any easier, Curt, cause it's Lenny."
"Is he hurt?" Curt asked.
"He's more than hurt, Curt," but when I said it, I looked over at Trish. Her arms started moving in all kinds of strange ways like she'd lost control of them.
"You mean like dead?" And Curt seemed real puzzled.
I said, "Yes," and Trish, she was just nine and little too then. She looked away from me.
It was just the three of us standing in Aunt Loretta's living room feeling like we were carrying out grown people's business. Then Aunt Loretta said something strange. It was the only thing she said while I was there, and it was strange.
"Remember, Ray," she said, "you always have a place here with me if things get too tough for you over there."
I didn't know what to make of her.
So Curt quit crying and Trish started crying and the three of us went home alone on the old tractor in the dark, them sitting each on a fender with the one headlight shining in the front at the side of the road where we were going and the back light on the right fender shining a beam behind us on the road where we'd been. And everything in the world seemed real important.
I lost something that night riding that tractor home. I don't know what it was. But it wasn't like a pocketknife or a yo-yo or things like that that I kept in my pocket then. I have been looking for it ever since.
The next morning just before sunup, Papa got the claw hammer that he had used to build the little shed that he keeps the tractor in and beat the newborn bull that we were going to raise for beef to death.
*
It's midnight. Birds flying all around me in the dark now. They come in behind the tractor looking for the live things in the fresh earth after the tractor passes. It's a strange mixture, mostly blackbirds, killdeers and seagulls, a few sparrows. Seagulls and we are 150 miles from the coast. They're not afraid of the tractor at all as long as it's moving. I could kill all I wanted if I had a pistol. Wish I could remember what I was hunting with my .22 the day Lenny got killed. But I've been feeling strange about killing lately. Seems like Papa always taught me to kill anything that's wild. Particularly anything that's pretty or unusual. Like the only oriole I've ever seen. Papa shot it. And the fox we saw in the barn that time. Didn't kill it, but wasn't for the lack of trying. And him buying me my first BB gun to kill birds with when I was just eight years old. It's like, if you really like something, think it's special, you kill it. Same as when I was out with Charles rabbit hunting. I'm just needing to treat things different than I have been.