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

  I know that I am capable of anything. When I was cutting hay and Tangi, my little orange dog, came bounding through it to see me, she didn't know the mower was off to the right side of the tractor. It was hidden in the falling hay. I didn't see Tangi until she yelped. I screamed at her, but it was too late. She already had her legs in it. She'd run a step and turn a yelping somersault. She dragged herself under an old trailer that was slumped over in the weeds and had a wheel off. Papa saw her too and came running with his pistol. I crawled under the trailer. It was just me and her. She'd whine like she wanted me to help then growl at me when I got close. She looked like she had a bone she was chewing on. She did. Her leg bone that was hanging by a flap of hide. I touched her and she bit me. She was just fine inside, just wasn't a whole dog on the outside. "Move back, let me see, Bobby Ray," Papa said. I could smell Papa because he'd been working hard and it was hot under that trailer. The sun'd been shining on it all day. "No, Papa," I said. "Give me the pistol." I was eleven. Papa used to let me target practice with his pistol. He always held my hands steady while I pulled the trigger. "Do you think it has to be done?" he asked, like it still might be possible to fix her. I had to use both hands to get the hammer back. All I'm saying is that it wasn't like I said before. Papa didn't shoot Tangi. I did.

  None of this land will ever be mine. I feel a lump in my jacket. I thought I left that pair of pliers in the toolbox. I reach in my pocket and it's not the pliers. It's Lenny's pistol. I thought I hid this in the trunk of my Chevy. I pull it out, hold it off to the side. I'm not saying how. I'm seeing how it feels with me looking out toward the open field, but that doesn't do it. So I turn around and face the house. I see it all real clear now. I have them all right were I want 'em. I look across the rows of cotton to Mama's garden that hasn't been touched since last year. Then there's the lawn that they don't keep mowed anymore. Off in the corner of the lawn is the burn barrel. Now they use two and still they're over flowing because they won't take 'em to the junkyard. Then there's the house, sitting silent, as if nothing's really happening, sort of like a scream that won't come out. I feel the cold barrel of Lenny's pistol on my neck, just below my ear.

  CHAPTER 38: Gretta's Baby Girl

  Curt thinks Trish is pregnant. He overheard her and Mama arguing in the washroom this morning. He said it had to do with the laundry and what Mama found on Trish's underclothes.

  It's afternoon. Bev and I are going to the fairgrounds because her little brother needs help with a sheep he's entered in the Fair.

  "Look, Bobby, if you'd just talk to Mr. Watkins, I'm sure he'd help you with Civics. The class is just not that difficult."

  "But, Bev. The last time I talked to him, he was acting like it's curtains for me unless I get all Bs from here on out. I just can't go from Fs to Bs."

  The fairgrounds are still mostly empty, but the big wire gate's rolled back so people can get in. As we drive through, off to the left I see the Little Theater where they'll have the Miss Madera County beauty pageant Wednesday evening.

  "I can't believe he would keep you from graduating. He's just trying to scare you into studying."

  "Sometimes I think that it's not even worth keeping going. Maybe I should just drop out right now."

  It was a shock to see in the Chowchilla News that Brenda has entered the pageant. Her picture was in the paper with six other girls and even her measurements, 37-24-36. When I was looking at her picture, it was like I had X-ray vision because I kept seeing through that swimsuit. I can't get rid of my memories of being on top of her. I feel that way about Brenda, even with Bev all scooted up against me. I haven't seen Brenda with Thomas a whole lot lately either.

  "If you want to drop something," Bev tells me, "get out of that physics class. You spend so much time on it. You don't need it to graduate. I don't know what you think you'll do with that stuff anyway."

  "That's the one class that means something to me. Civics is just a pain."

  Before I veer off to the right to go to the livestock pens, Bev points to the Ferris wheel sticking up above the big auditorium. All the rides are going up now. I hope they have the tilt-a-whirl. That's my favorite and last year a gang of us rode it all day Saturday. I don't know about the Hammer. I couldn't bring myself to ride it last year. I never have. Every year, just before the Fair starts, I have dreams about it. Last night I dreamed a wild animal was chasing me, had me cornered there by the Hammer. I climbed inside that basket because it was the only way I had of escaping.

  "So what if you don't pass civics, Bobby? It's just one class. You could take it next year to graduate. You'll still go through the ceremony with the rest of us. Besides, you're planning on being a farmer anyway. What about our plans."

  "I don't know. I was still thinking a little about one of those junior colleges they have in some places. I just can't quit thinking about it. I really don't want to live the rest of my life in Chowchilla."

  I think maybe I do see the Hammer going up. That guy that runs the Hammer—I never notice people that work the Fair, the carnival people—but that guy is different. Every year it's the same guy, a skuzzy sucker. He watches me all the time. Maybe someone else will run the Hammer this year.

  "You're building a future," Bev tells me. "The rest of our lives will depend on the decisions we make in the next couple of months. This is our life together we're planning."

  The livestock building is a long open shed with wood walls that only go part way up, about to my waist, and a galvanized roof. Inside they have all these little square pens for animals along each side with an aisle down the middle. We look through several rows of these sheds and find Steven in the middle of one on the far side, spreading straw from a block of oat hay. Their mother's leaning over the wall of the pen talking to Steven. She's a short little woman with dark rimmed glasses. The sheep's over in the corner, sitting up and looking around like this pen is the best thing ever happened to him.

  "I was hoping you two would to get here in time to help," their mother says as we walk up. She's smiling and looks like she's having a good time even if Steven is not. "I'm trying to convince Steven that Lambchops 'll be okay here overnight."

  Steven has this hard-looking face that didn't change even when he saw us.

  "What's the matter?" asks Bev. "You're not concerned someone will take him, are you?"

  "No," says Steven, "and I want you to stay out of this. You wouldn't understand. Lambchops is afraid. I can see it in his eyes. He's never been away from his mother."

  "I don't know, Steven," I say. "Lambchops looks calm enough to me. I'd say if anything, he's enjoying being away from her. Maybe she gets on his case all the time."

  Then Steven's face breaks. "You really think so?" and he's taking me serious, like maybe he thinks I'm an expert sheepherder. His mother laughs a little, and Steven takes a quick look at her and then back at me. "He's really a sensitive lamb," he says.

  "Good lord, Steven, you act like that dumb sheep's a human being," says Bev.

  "You wouldn't understand, Beverly."

  "He's just an animal."

  "He's a lamb," says Steven. He unlatches the little board gate, swings it open to come out of the pen and damn if that sheep doesn't look like that is just what he has been waiting for. He makes a break for it and beats Steven through the gate. So the sheep's running down the aisle, headed for open country, and we're all after him, Steven shouting, "Come back, Lambchops," but a woman with a little girl coming down the aisle heads him off.

  The woman is kind of stocky with these thick legs and big arms and has on sandals and a plain blue dress with no sleeves. She looks familiar.

  Steven has his sheep and is headed back to the pen with it, but I'm just standing and staring and I'm not staring at the woman or Bev or anybody else except that little girl who has moved in close to her mother and grabbed her leg through her dress and is peaking a look at me from behind that plain blue skirt.

  "Well," she says. "I haven't seen this face in a while. It's you isn't i
t? Bobby Hammer?" She has this long blond hair pulled straight back with a rubber band around it.

  I know I should be saying something back, but I'm just thinking that that little girl has this long brown stringy hair and a thin face like only one other face I've ever seen on a little kid in my life. And she's thin like she's never had enough to eat.

  I hear her mother's words without even looking up. And it's something I already know.

  "You do remember me, don't you? I'm Charles Kunze's sister, Gretta. You do remember me, don't you?"

  I'm looking at her now, and, god, do I remember her. She was at Lenny's funeral, and I remember all that blond hair and the black hat she had on. Maybe it was the hat that made her hair stand out so much. "Is this your little girl?" I ask, and I want to know the answer to that question real bad. I never made the connection between her looking fat at the funeral and what Charles said under the bridge until right now. All Charles' lies are coming true.

  "This is my big girl," says Gretta, then she picks her up and sort of bounces the little girl on her left arm. "You've never seen her. She's four years old." Gretta uses her finger to push the little girl's hair out of her face and hooks it over her ear. Gretta is a little shorter and a little bigger than I remembered. But not so big around the middle. It has been a while.

  "This is your Uncle Charles' friend, Samantha. His friend that he shoots rabbits with. Can you say hi to Bobby?"

  "And you should be 'shamed," is what Samantha says to me. Didn't take her long to figure me out.

  Gretta has to laugh. "Why do you say that, Sammy?" she asks.

  "Cause he shoots bunny rabbits," she says, then adds, "That's why." Boy, she's sure not too pleased with me.

  I'm thinking about Charles and trying to remember exactly what he told me under the bridge. I'm still looking at Gretta, and I know I've been staring at her for a long time but I can't quit. "Charles told me about something once and I didn't think it was true," is all I can come up with.

  "You mean about Samantha."

  "Well, about a baby."

  "It is true, Bobby."

  I feel my legs getting weak, and I have this burning in my throat that I can't seem to swallow, but I don't know for sure that Gretta's saying what I'm thinking. I'm trying to get myself to bring Lenny's name into this but I can't. "What's true?" I ask.

  Gretta smiles. "Samantha," she orders, "tell Bobby about your father."

  "He's gone to hea-ven."

  "And can you tell Bobby what his name is?"

  "It was Leonard, and he wan't post to drive fast." But she's not saying it to me anymore, she's talking like it's something she's memorized. She squirms to get down now and takes off running. As she goes by me, I reach out to grab her and she screams real loud so I jump back.

  "Don't go too far," calls Gretta.

  I turn my back on Gretta to watch Samantha running away and I guess with my back turned, Gretta's not afraid to say it out loud.

  "She's Lenny's daughter, Bobby. And she reminds me so much of him. She's so wonderful."

  And that hits me really hard, like I've never heard words as good as that from anybody before and that burning in my throat is coming up fast, but then Samantha turns around and runs straight at me, jumps into my arms.

  I've never felt a little girl's body before and she's real hot and has all these arms and legs that are in a hurry no matter where they are, and she has on this little short dress with legs underneath that have this real smooth skin all over and her mouth has little white teeth and a tiny breath that puffs in my face every time she says something. And she's telling me about a hurt she has on her knee where she fell on the sidewalk and she's pointing at it with her finger but I can't see anything. So she wants down real bad and I can't get her down fast enough and she almost jumps out of my arms, then pulls at me for a little bit, and runs off screaming, "Hogs! Hogs!"

  "She wants you to see the hogs her cousin has entered in the Fair. But we're on our way to her grandfather's. We're supposed to be there by three o'clock. If you're at the Fair on Saturday afternoon, we'll see you then. Just look for us on the Midway. We won't be hard to find."

  *

  I want to talk about this deep breath I just took. It felt like a drink of water I got once. I'd been out in the hot sun chopping cotton all day and I walked across the dirt lane to the irrigation ditch that was running full. I just laid down on my stomach, blew aside a little brown foam and a few floating sticks, stuck my face through my reflection in the cool water and drank until I thought I wouldn't be able to get up. And now I'm taking another deep breath, just like that.

  CHAPTER 39: Rumors of Chelsey

  Bev and I are over at Phyllis Thompson's house on Ventura Street. Phyllis is tall and thin and has a little girl's body even though she's a senior. You can really tell it in a bathing suit. But she has the prettiest face and is very nice. We're in Phyllis's heated swimming pool and I'm out in the middle, just treading water, and since I've been doing it for a while, I'm getting tired and wondering which bank to go to. They have these trees and bushes all over the backyard so that the neighbors can't peek in. I want a home like this and a job in town so I won't have to come home dirty all the time.

  Bev's treading water just in front of me. "At least you could've helped. Good lord! That's why we went to the Fairgrounds in the first place. To help Steven." She's bobbing up and down, pushing pieces of hair under her swimming cap to keep it from getting wet. Her head looks too small without all that hair.

  I have to spit a little water. "I thought I did help." And I start to the side because I can't tread water forever.

  "Not much though. And you left me alone again. That's just the way it is so much of the time now. You're always leaving me alone."

  "But I came back."

  "I had to hunt you down. And all of this over that little girl that you think might be your dead brother's daughter. I know how much you think about Lenny, but you have to have some sense about it. I had to wait until even my mother was ready to leave. Honestly, Bobby."

  "I thought you were interested in Lenny."

  "I was, before I found out how obsessed you are with him." And then she swims off. Becky and Billie Wade, the doctor's daughter, are at the other end of the pool. Billie still seems a little peeved about me coming to their house the other day and not talking to her.

  Phyllis walks along the deck to get to me. "How do you like the water?" she asks. Phyllis' mother comes up and sits down not too far from us. She's with a guy that looks kind of young. But she is a widow. Guess that's her business. He is Corbin Smeal, the new barber in Olin Davis' barbershop.

  "Better than swimming in an irrigation tank. A little warmer too."

  She lays down flat on the cement so she's closer to me. "I like the pool best in July. Come visit then." She has her arms under her chin, and her face is up close to mine as I hang on to the edge.

  "I overheard Bev say something about your niece."

  "Sort of," I say, feeling uneasy talking about this. She's prying into my life. Here I go again, keeping secrets. I haven't told anyone about my new mother.

  "You must have an older brother or sister. I always thought that you were the oldest."

  "I have a dead brother."

  "I'm sorry. Guess I shouldn't ask so many questions."

  "He's been dead five years. But, turns out he wasn't my brother. He was my cousin."

  "You mean, like your parents adopted him?"

  "They adopted me, I just found out. The woman I thought was my aunt is actually my mother."

  "Oh, god! Bobby. How can you stand it? I'd die if I found out I'd been adopted." She rolls over on her back and looks up at the clouds. "That's every kids nightmare. You seem to be taking it so well."

  "Hard to get used to. You can believe me on that one."

  "Your niece is really your dead cousin's daughter."

  "That makes it sound like she doesn't mean anything to me."

  "I'm sorry. Nothing ever happens to
me. I'm just getting caught up in your family intrigue. You could look at it like you have two sets of parents, like having a fairy godmother."

  "I don't quite see it like that."

  "But now you know who your real mother and father are?"

  "I'm not ready to talk about my father. Not yet."

  "Okay. I'm sorry. I think I hurt your feelings again."

  "Well, I just feel real strong about that."

  "So who was your brother married to?"

  "He wasn't. That's the other problem."

  I hear the sliding glass door open and Phyllis turns around to see who it is. "Oh good," she says, "there's Brenda." Then she turns to me again. "Do you mind if I ask who the mother of your niece is? Or should I keep my big mouth shut?"

  "Well, this is all kind of new to me because I didn't know I had a niece until today." And now I see Thomas coming through the sliding glass door and Brenda right behind him. She has on the same bathing suit she had on in the paper. "Bev'll tell anyway. It's Gretta Kunze."

  "I know her. She's Charles' sister. She's smart, Bobby. Did you know she's graduating summa cum laude in mathematics from Stanford this year?"

  "I don't even know what that means."

  "Well, trust me. That means she's smart. I saw her picture in the Chowchilla News a few days ago. She's gorgeous too. God, what a mess of blond hair."

  "Bev didn't think too much of her."

  That brings a laugh out of Phyllis. "That's Bev alright." And now she turns back on her stomach to face me because she needs to whisper. "From the picture in the paper, Gretta reminded me of Brenda. Brenda's always had everything Bev wants. Blond hair and brains. Bev's always been smarter than she thinks, but she'll never be blond. With that Italian blood, her complexion's too dark to bleach her hair. All she'll ever be is a knockout brunette." I like to watch Phyllis's mouth when she talks. Her words come out through a smile.

  "When I saw Gretta today," I say, "she didn't say anything about going to college."

  "I'm sure that was her though. You don't get into Stanford unless you have brains and money. Are you going to college next year?"

  "I wish I could. I definitely don't have the brains."

  "Me neither. That's why I'm going to Fresno City College. It'll be less expensive there too."