"So you only miss Leroy a little, huh."
I don't say anything.
"I have some cousins in Arizona that I go see from time to time. They're the best friends I've ever had in my whole life." He stops and thinks a little. "But I've got to be going. I promised to help my brother with a car he has in his auto shop. He asked me to check out the Slough bank. He's concerned that a flood could wipe out his business." And then it's like he wants to say something to me but can't find the words. Instead, he puts his hand on my back squeezes me from shoulder to shoulder. He always smells like garlic. "Come see us sometime, Bobby. We've been missing you too."
Jess walks off then turns, looks back at me, starts to wave me off again, comes back. "You're family," he says. And I see a real sad look in his eyes, like maybe there's something he's not saying. "We need to see more of you. Especially now that Leroy's gone. You're family."
I walk back over to Papa and Mr. Grissom. Keep my head down. They're talking about whether they'll have to pre-irrigate this year. It's beginning to rain more now. Drops streak through the air and ripple in the water where they hit. I'm family? Now what did Jess meant by that?
This time I think maybe Lenny's pistol won't be powerful enough and the bullet just goes in Charles' head but doesn't go through and maybe there's no blood at all so the police have trouble figuring out what Charles died from, just dropping dead like that.
I have mud all over the bottom of my good shoes. God, Papa could talk the neck off a giraffe.
*
I just spotted Charles. He's going into the Sierra Theater with this girl, only she looks like a woman. Could be thirty years old and with dark hair. I park my car in the vacant lot across the street, then high-step it through puddles to get to the outside box office. Have to keep my hand on the pistol in my coat pocket to keep it from jumping out. The thing is heavy and pulls my coat down on the right side. Just two blocks from here's the Danish Creamery, and on the other side of it is the Ash Slough where they're still trying to hold back the flood. In the distance I hear the workers shouts and the clang of machinery.
Phyllis Thompson is selling tickets. "Where's Bev, Bobby?" she asks.
I don't rightly know what to say for a second. I forgot about her. I think I was supposed to call her today. So that's what I say. "I don't know."
"Did you two break up?" And she smiles at me like I am her best friend.
"No." Why's she asking that? I'm wondering of maybe Bev's mad at me for something. Maybe I'm not taking her out enough for us to be going steady. But if she has a problem with how often we have been dating now, wait until after tonight.
"Did you hear that Thomas got expelled for a week?"
"Thomas Powers?"
"Yeah. Too many tardy slips. You could hear him screaming about it all over school. Wants to get Mr. Sonnett fired. His father's going to the board." She gives me my change.
"I saw Thomas last night. He didn't say anything about it."
"He's ashamed of it. Have you talked to Brenda lately?" she asks.
"No!" I say and it comes out a little more forceful than I wanted.
Phyllis jumps back like I hit her. "Well," she says, and she turns her head away from me, "you might think about it."
Why's stuff like this always happening to me? Here I am trying to kill someone, and I got all these girls I have to worry about. So I'm thinking about doing it and the first shot to the head doesn't kill him and he doesn't even know he's been shot. Just feels a sting and has to rub the back of his head a little, maybe sticks his finger in the bloody hole. His mind is confused like mine gets sometimes when I can't figure things out, so I have to shoot him again to be humane like he had to help me with the rabbit I gut shot.
Just off to the right of the lobby as you come through the door is this room called the Sweet Shop. I buy a bag of popcorn and a Coke from Phyllis Thompson, making sure to keep my right hand in my coat pocket. Phyllis is just so pretty. I like to watch her hands move. They're always so quick and sure of what they're doing. Then I find out that my eats and drink will take both hands, so I hold my pocket closed with my elbow as I walk out. I get almost out the door.
"Bobby," she says.
I jerk a little, thinking my gun's showing, turn around real slow.
"You forgot your change," she says. "Is some thing wrong with your arm?"
The lights are already dim and the movie's just starting. It is called "Tarantula." I can hear the rain falling on the roof. I see Melvin and Eugene on the other side of the theater. They're trying to get me to come sit next to them, but I wave 'em off. I bought a ticket for down stairs, which cost 75¢. I'd have bought a loge but they cost $1.25 and I'm trying to save a little money. But I can't smoke down here. That's where Charles and his woman will be sitting though. In a loge. I'll have to sneak up there after the movie starts. But this is it. I'll kill him here. After I eat my popcorn.
I turn to look up above and sure enough there's Charles and his woman sitting about three rows from the top. I could tell just before the lights faded that she has dark red hair, almost black it's so red. I see a couple of empty seats above them. Down front, shining in the dark, there's a red exit sign on each side of the theater and a little blue clock on the right wall that says 7:20. It's always fifteen minutes fast. The theater's crowded with kids for this movie. A bunch down front can't keep their mouth shut. Some are from high school. Oh, shit! There's Brenda. She jumps up, goes to talk to some girl sitting just across the aisle from me. They're talking about the flood. Look scared. She's squatting in the aisle to talk. Her light blond hair hangs to her shoulders. She has dark eyebrows. Brenda always wears a blouse and a skirt. Never wears a one-piece dress. She looks at me, then laughs just as the lights go out.
"Bobby," and it's Brenda, right by my ear. She just scared the shit out of me because I thought she went back to her seat. "I'm still talking to Helen for you," she says, and she doesn't seem to be mad at me anymore. "But I'm concerned about her." Then she turns and looks up into the loges. "She's not acting right. She doesn't seem like Helen. There's something really bad going on. I don't know what to do about it. That's Helen up there with Charles. I need to talk to you, about a couple of things." And I'll be damned if she doesn't kiss me right quick on the cheek, then runs back to her seat, settles down for the movie next to Becky Wynsum, looks back at me. God, she sure runs hot and cold about me.
So Charles has Lenny's girl with him tonight. The night I'm going to kill him. And I'm still worried about not having Bev here with me, too. I bet she's sitting home wishing she could see the movie. I should have called her today. I wonder who all saw Brenda kiss me?
About halfway through the movie, while this scientist and a policeman are investigating these large white puddles of tarantula venom, I figure it's time to make my move. I walk up through the loges and as I pass Charles, either he doesn't notice me because he's saying something to Helen or he's just ignoring me. I take a seat on the right in the last row, where the seats end because of the projection room. The door to the room is just behind where I sit. I don't like that door being there. I don't know who might come out of it. I look down at Charles as he leans over and says something into Helen's ear that she's not too pleased with.
At the start of the movie that tarantula was about as big as a hand and in the middle of the movie, the size of a house. Now it's big enough to step over mountains, and I don't want to think how big the puddles of venom are. The scientist just said, it's "fiercer, more deadly and cruel than anything that ever walked the earth."
I get to wondering if I have any bullets left in the pistol. I haven't checked it since we shot up Fairmead. My hands have been sweating so much my whole pocket is wet, so I take my hand out, wipe it on my Levis. This is it, I keep saying, but my hand won't move. The thing that bothers me is that all these kids around here know me. What're they going to think? If I just stand up and shoot, they'll start screaming. They won't know why I'm doing it. And I have to do it. I just can't w
ait any longer. But what will Brenda think of me? I think maybe it's cowardly to shoot him in the back. Maybe I should go down and shoot him from the front. I guess using a gun on an unarmed man is being a coward anyway so it doesn't matter. Besides he's a lot older than me.
While I've been sitting here, I have been thinking about all the reasons I have for killing Charles and not able to work up the courage. Used to, I hated Charles for what I though he did to Lenny, but now my reasons are my own. Well, Prissy and the hog are part of it too. Maybe I'm not thinking enough of Lenny. So I pretend that I'm Lenny sitting in this seat looking down at Charles and Helen sitting there enjoying the movie, and I try to think the same thoughts Lenny must've had when he looked inside Charles' car and saw Helen on top of him. And Charles being the kind of guy he is. Lenny must have known a lot more about Charles than I do. Maybe Charles has changed some but, god, the stories I hear about what happened five years ago sound so much like what's going on now. I just wonder what kind of girl Helen is that she would go anywhere with Charles? Brenda seems to think a lot of her though.
And then I think about Papa. He wishes he'd killed Charles five years ago. Is that the real reason I think I should kill Charles? Is it just because I think Papa would kill him if he knew what I know? I should quit all this thinking and rethinking and just kill him. Just pull the pistol out and shoot him. If he just wasn't sitting with a girl. If I shoot him in the head, I might blow brains all over Helen. And all these kids in here. I'll scare the shit out of all these kids. What'll they think about me?
Here comes the Army, Navy, and the Marines. They have the tarantula caught in a fireball. Now the Air Force swoops in low. If I just had one other person that thought he deserved killing, I could do it. Anybody except Papa. Maybe that's what I should do. Find somebody else that agrees I should kill him. I could never tell them what Charles did to me though. I just need to be sure I'm doing the right thing. Maybe it's the right thing, but this is the wrong place. Maybe I should wait and get him when he goes home. Maybe I'm feeling this way because the place is just not right. Maybe I'm just a coward. But that's what I'll do. I'll follow him home, shoot him dead right out front of his little shack just as he gets out of his car.
*
I kill the headlights, leave the park lights on and get out of my car with the windshield wipers still flapping. I feel the cold rain on my face. Charles has just crawled out of his car and I have my hand in my coat pocket on my pistol, but he still has Helen with him. That must be her car parked at his front door. He says something to her and she goes on in his shack. I'm cold and the wind drives the rain through my clothes. Damn. After the show, I thought he'd take her home. I followed him. But he went over to the Slough where there was a big commotion, flashlights, caterpillars and men stacking sandbags. A couple of police cars. Water was coming over the Slough bank washing a hole in it. They were piling old car bodies, tree stumps and sandbags in the hole but it just kept getting bigger. Looked like even the train track might go. Mr. Grissom came running over to my car, motioned for me to roll down the window. He still had the same cigar in his mouth. Told me I better get out of there because they just lost it. As I pulled out, the sirens went off and they were starting to evacuate the town.
Now I'm thinking that the reason I'm doing this is to keep Charles from killing someone else. Like maybe shooting a colored in Fairmead. Dogs and baby dogs is what he called them. And he shot a dog over there by the 99 just because it made a run at his jeep. He'd shoot one for laying in the shade if he had a chance. So as he's coming toward me in the rain, I have all my reasons lined up. I can imagine what kind of fear will run through him when he sees me pull this pistol on him, knowing he's about to die. He slapped me the other night too.
He stops a ways away and waits for me to say something.
I'm just cold and wet and can't think of anything.
"What are you following me for, Bobby. What is it this time?"
I just wish I hadn't thought about him being the only boy in the family, wish I hadn't thought of him having a family. And now he has Helen with him and if I shoot him, what's it going to do to her? She'd be in his little shack all alone and him laying out in the yard dead. If he didn't have all these connections with other people.
"I've got a girl with me. If you're looking for trouble, I don't want any."
We stand there for a while longer. Maybe what he did to me wasn't that bad. Who ever heard of a boy getting raped?
"You're losing it, Bobby. You know that? You're really losing it." Then he turns and walks off.
That's it. I'm not going to do it. What a worthless piece of shit I am. I've brought every bad thought I can find to this, and I still can't do it. What else does it take? I think again about that little baby dark boy I shot, pull out the pistol, take a look at my car all glistening with rain and the radio going. Kick in the side of my car. Put a bullet in my taillight. Red glass flies everywhere. Now the light shines bright. Everything is covered with rain.
CHAPTER 33: Dog Rescue
This morning, half the world is one big puddle. I have my Chevy parked crossways in the middle of Robertson Boulevard halfway to town. The rain's coming down in huge drops. I'm standing on the white line and the water starts at my feet and goes off in the distance as far as I can see. Off toward town, fence posts on each side of the road gradually disappear below water level. Palm trees still mark the road on both sides all the way into Chowchilla. Out in the open fields, only trees and houses stick up through the flat shiny surface. No bridge in the world is big enough to fit over all this water.
I've seen two rats, a rabbit and a snake trying to make it to high ground. Right now, I'm watching a dog, a scraggly looking sucker, try to make it to me. Looks like he thinks I'm going to save him. Guess he has some catching up to do on me.
I can't go out with Bev anymore because I might have a disease. What if I give it to her?
I couldn't sleep last night after I got home. Kept wondering why I couldn't kill Charles. Think maybe I'm a little glad I didn't this morning. I was dreading going to Texas. Then after I finally got to sleep I woke with a start. Decided I should go back to the police and tell them I killed Leroy. Somehow, in the middle of the night, it seemed so clear that I did. I kept trying to remember how it was when he let off the gas and I was coming up fast behind him. His car was making some strange moves, kind of a rocking motion, back and forth. And then I was on him. I think I heard something then. Was it a bang when I clipped him or was he off in the ditch and hit a chug hole? Last night, seems like I clipped him. This morning, I'm not so sure. Seems like maybe I should keep my mouth shut. Even if I did kill him, I'm not so sure I want to go to jail for it. Why can't I just leave well enough alone? Anybody else would be glad they'd been cleared. Me, I keep wanting to convince them I'm guilty. Sometimes I feel like I'm not even on my own side.
Then, laying there with dark all around me, I started worrying about my car. Got up at daybreak just to see how bad the dent was where I kicked it in. Maybe I can take off the door panel on the inside and push it out. My taillight looks really bad though. That pistol really took care of it.
The dog's not going to make it. So I'm a going out to get him. I walk the white line till it goes under water then I follow where I think it is. The water is cold and when it gets up to my waist, I start to freeze. Wish I'd left my wallet in my car. The old dog is making a turn and coming toward me and paddling like he has new hope. I remember when I learned to swim. I held my head above water just like him. I grab a hold of him and he's trying to climb up on me with his old stiff legs. He tries to shake off in my arms, feels like trying to hold a lawn sprinkler. I turn him over so he lies in my arms like a baby. He's just a small dog. And then he takes a swack at the side of my face with his tongue. He has a collar. Belongs to Mr. Grissom. He's tried to bite me before.
PART V
Chasing Down Lenny's Journal
CHAPTER 34: A Little About Bridges
"So why haven't you
called me. Did I do something wrong?"
"No, Bev. I told you. I've just been busy cleaning up from the flood and all lately." Bev is the unhappiest person I have ever known.
"The flood didn't even reach your place, besides you went to the movies the other night and didn't take me."
"I know, and I feel bad about that, but I had other business that night."
We're walking between classes, just came from English, and my physics class that Mr. Wood teaches is next. Today's the day we start on bridges.
"Business at the Sierra Theater?"
"Oh, jees. You're not going to understand this."
"You've got that right," says Bev. We stop at the door of the physics class, and Bev turns toward me.
Thomas gives me a wave as he goes in the door. Brenda's with him, but she doesn't hang on him like she used to. She's the only girl in physics. She gives me a look out the corner of her eye as she cuts inside the door. If I don't get in there, I'm going to be late.
"But what you said about me not wanting to go steady is not true," I say. "I do want to go steady with you, and I still want you to keep my ring."
Whoa! I see Chelsey, Prissy's brother, standing with three more colored guys not ten feet away. I've been avoiding him lately. What a glare I'm getting now.
"But I heard you've been asking questions about Brenda again. Look at me, Bobby. God, you've had the attention span of a tree lately. Look at me when I talk to you!"
"I'm listening, but I haven't ever asked questions about Brenda. Can't we talk about this later? I've got to get in class."
"That's not what I heard."
"Yeah? Well, who'd you hear it from?"
"I can't tell you that."
Chelsey is coming toward me. I always notice his shoes. He wears these brown two-tone jobs that have the tongue missing.