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

  "That's another thing I'm worried about. Money."

  Now I see Melvin and that Mexican girlfriend of his coming through the sliding-glass door. Melvin has on dark sunglasses. I hear a ruckus over by where Bev and Brenda are standing. I didn't know Brenda was so much taller than Bev.

  "Just shut up about Bobby and physics!" is what Bev is shouting. "I don't want to hear any more about physics."

  Brenda says back, "But Bobby is doing great in physics. Mr. Wood is very proud of him. He thinks Bobby is good college material. Mr. Wood looked up his Iowa Test scores and got the shock of his life."

  "Bobby!" and now Bev is shouting at me all the way from the other end of the swimming pool, "Tell them you're not going to college. Tell them about our plans."

  I'm having a hard time finding the words. Think I'll just let my head sink down under the water.

  "Say something, Bobby. Tell them."

  "Well, Bev. Farming sounded like fun a few months ago, but a lot has happened since then." How come everybody is looking at me?

  Bev comes walking over to where Phyllis and me are talking.

  "Are you trying to make a fool out of me?"

  "I'm sorry, Bev. But I'm backing up again on this one."

  "Bobby," and Bev just won't shut up, "can we go now?"

  "We just got here."

  Bev takes me by the hand, pulls me up on deck, and we're heading for the sliding glass door. I'm still dripping water. I stop for a second to talk to Melvin, thinking I see something on the other side of those sunglasses. When he saw me coming, he turned his back on me.

  "What do you have behind those sunglasses?" I ask.

  He pulls them off for me.

  "Whoa!" He has two big-time black eyes, and now I see a split lip. I thought that was a fever blister.

  "Chelsey got me yesterday after school," is he says. "That nigger's got it in for us poor white folks. He's looking for everyone that's a friend of Bobby Hammer."

  "I thought you wanted a piece of colored action," I say.

  "He was mighty accommodating. I don't think I even got a punch in."

  Thomas has walked up, smiling. "We had to pull Chelsey off him."

  "Come on, Thomas," says Melvin, "it wasn't that bad." I see a dark red split in the gums between his upper teeth. He is lucky he didn't lose some teeth.

  "It was worse. A whole lot worse," says Thomas.

  "I guess he's someone to stay away from," I say. "He pushed me up against the wall the other day."

  "You're next," says Melvin. "He just wanted to toughen up his fists a little on me."

  "Stay away from him, Bobby," says Thomas. "I don't know why he's so up in the air about you, but give him a chance to cool off. Melvin's right. You're the one he's really after, and he doesn't mind talking about it either."

  CHAPTER 40: Papa in Trouble with Mama

  It's late afternoon and I'm in the kitchen trying to find a way to talk to Mama about Samantha. I don't feel at home over here. I've been wanting to talk to Papa about what he's paying me because I hear it's less than other farm hands are getting. But Papa's been acting like he's not too pleased with my work since he started paying me for it. I ask Mama if she knows where Curt and Papa are?

  "They went to town early this afternoon to get some pump oil, and I haven't seen 'em since." She answered real quick, like that's just what she's been wondering too. She's standing over the counter drying her hands on a dishtowel. I feel the heat from green beans and bacon she has cooking in this big pan on the stove with all this steam coming out of it. Every time she lifts the lid, the steam fills the kitchen again. But she's not thinking about me. She has something churning on that mind of hers, and I bet it's Papa and she's wondering if he's drinking again.

  "I just don't know what I'm going to do with Trish," she says real quiet, as if she's talking to the wall.

  "What's she done now," I ask, hoping she'll tell me about that argument over Trish's underclothes.

  "None of your business," she says. "Don't concern you." Then she stops for a bit, but she's not finished. "If you ever see her with Eugene again, I want to know."

  "What's wrong with Eugene?"

  "That's not any of your business either, just if you see them together, I want to know."

  I guess that's all of that. If she thinks Eugene's bad, as good of a kid as he is, wait till she finds out about Trish and Charles.

  "Mama," I say, and now I'm trying to be real careful, "I was talking to some people downtown and you know what they're saying about Lenny?" 

  This gets her attention real fast. "People 'll say most anything. What've you heard this time," she says, just like I'm bringing a story to her every day.

  "Well," and then I have to swallow some spit, "some people think Lenny has a daughter down there." And I don't know what "down there" means exactly, but it seems like I need that part of it. The same time I say that, I hear Papa and Curt come in the front door.

  "There's not any truth to that story, Bobby Ray. Don't even think about it, and if you can't quit thinking about it," and now she's turned toward me and pointing a fork, "I can help you stop, that's for sure."

  Wow, I think, that's a hornets nest that needs to be stirred a little, so I'm sorry Papa's coming in. He looks tired and dirty, not like he's been to town, and I can tell by the glare in his eyes that I've done something wrong again.

  "Where've you been," is the way he starts with his little beady eyes glaring at me, and then his voice goes up, and he doesn't give me a chance to find an answer. "Don't you know we're short handed out in the field since Delbert up and quit on us? What do you think I'm paying you for?"

  This is real strange, him still talking like that because he knows he fired Delbert, so I know there's going to be no talking sense to him. But I've got to try.

  "I thought after what you said this morning about us being caught up, that we were. So I went to town."

  "Yeah, well, not only are you lazy but you're stupid. Didn't take you long to start acting like a goddamn hired hand. Doesn't matter that I've raised you. You know farming can't all be forecast in the morning. Maybe that goddamn turkey farming is what suits you." Papa hasn't ever called me stupid before, and that hurts so bad I can't hardly stand it. If he's going to treat me like this, maybe I'll just get myself a job up town. Mama looks surprised too.

  "Don't call him stupid, Hershel," she says, like it's an order, and Mama just doesn't put orders on Papa, she only asks questions. Then she adds, "He's not stupid," and she sounds mad. She's never been mad at him unless he's drunk.

  "Oh! So you want to get in on it too, do you? Well let me tell you something, woman."

  There's so many firsts going on in this house right now that I want to leave real bad because Papa doesn't call Mama "woman" and he's just being real sassy, so I don't know what either one of them might do.

  "I've been... well let me get this straight now," he says. "Me and Curt here, the only boy I've got that's worth a damn, at least I guess Curt is my kid if I have to believe you..."

  Oh no, I think. I hope I've heard him wrong. What he just said about Curt, I hope he didn't mean something against Mama, because no one has ever questioned Mama's... Mama's... and I don't know what to call it, but they just don't question it.

  Papa's still talking. "...have been out in the field working our butts off while this lazy other thing over there, I don't want to call a son but I guess I have to because I raised him, has been off to town messing around with the female trash of Chowchilla."

  Doesn't seem like Mama's even heard him, because she's turned her back and working to get dinner ready. Papa's standing there like he's a little taken back by his own words, maybe a little sweat showing on his wrinkled brow, and maybe working up to the first apology I've ever heard come out of his mouth. If we're going to have a bunch of firsts, we might as well have one on this too. Mama's grabbed a paring knife and the biggest potato I've ever seen and cutting it as fast as she can, can't really say she's peeling it beca
use it's coming apart in chunks.

  Papa says, "Louise, now don't you go getting..." Then his voice just trails off and he turns to Curt like he is dying and needs some help bad, but Curt's on his way out of the kitchen, and Papa sure as hell knows he's not getting help from me on this one, and then out the corner of my eye I see a quick movement from Mama and something hits Papa with a thud and then something hits the floor. It flashes through my mind that Mama just threw the knife at Papa and maybe it chopped off his hand and maybe that hand just hit the floor. But that's not it at all. It's that big potato and it's followed by a drinking glass that misses him and takes out the kitchen window with a crash and Papa's moving on into the living room pretty fast and then a plate, and a part of a peanut butter sandwich left over from lunch, and then a Mason jar full of peaches that shatters and splatters just behind Curt and just ahead of Papa, so he knows that the front door is the right place for him.

  Mama's puffing like a steam engine and I'm afraid of what she might do next but she just ignores me and grabs a broom, starts sweeping the already-clean floor, faster and harder than it's possible for a human being to sweep. And I'm even wishing Trish was here to see this power sweeping, but I'm just moseying on out the back door.

  CHAPTER 41: Papa Wants to Shake Hands

  I'm out back in the field of short green cotton. I closed the door behind me real quiet and grabbed a hoe that was standing up against the house, figuring I'd chop a row. If I could work up half the energy of Mama sweeping, I'd finish this twenty-acre field before sundown. But I see Papa coming around the corner of the house real fast. He stops to grab a hoe too, but he's still walking like he has important business, and I can tell he's not mad at me or anybody else because he's in bad trouble with Mama like I've never see before. He skips the first part of the row, starts in chopping beside me, chopping something close to the way Mama was sweeping and he starts talking to me, real serious like.

  "You and me've got to talk. This isn't right."

  I don't know. There's just something real funny the way he's talking about the two of us talking.

  "Look," he says, and he has to catch a breath, "I know this is tough on you having to turkey farm and then come over here to help me. Maybe I was a little hasty about having you leave. Maybe you should move back in over here. It just doesn't seem right, you not living with us anymore."

  I look up at him, and our eyes touch for a second. He's so serious. And I try, but I can't help it. I laugh. And he laughs too. A real quick, hurting laugh. And then he starts to cry. And he's talking about him and me being the men in the family, and how we've got to try to get along better and that he's willing, and that we have the future to think about and us farming together.

  But I'm not talking. Papa just has so much to learn.

  So he stops hoeing, takes a deep shuttering breath with his chin in the air so he can quit crying. And this is the damnedest sight I've ever seen. Papa wants to shake my hand. "What do you think?" he asks.

  I take his hand because he's never offered it to me before, take his hand and give him a good firm shake. His hand is hard as a board. "No," I say. "I'm sorry, Papa, but I just can't do it. I'm going to stay with my new mother."

  Then Papa wants to know if I'd be disappointed if he asked Delbert to come back to work with us.

  *

  Papa asked me to go with him to see Delbert, and now we're standing out front of Delbert's trailer house with the sun going down again. Papa is standing real casual like with his hands in his pockets and his chin in the air. Delbert's standing facing him with his head down. He clears his throat, then spits it on the ground in front of Papa. Both of them have hats on.

  I'm standing off to the side. I don't wear a hat.

  Papa has just said he's sorry for the way he acted the other day and wonders if Delbert would like to come back to work.

  "I've got work, Hershel," Delbert says. "So, no thanks." But he winks at me just as he says it, and Papa sees him. Then Delbert turns his head a little, puts his finger to the side of his nose and blows a stream of snot on the ground.

  CHAPTER 42: The Fight Without End

  "What so interesting about Phyllis?"

  "I'm not interested in Phyllis, Bev."

  "Can't tell by looking."

  It's lunchtime and I'm standing with Bev in the schoolyard over by the gym, eating a cheeseburger wrapped in wax paper that I just got from the little house across the street. Eugene and Trish are with us. "We enjoy talking. She's going to a junior college next year. One in Fresno."

  "You like to talk to every girl but me."

  These people on the corner of Humbolt and Tenth Street put a serving counter in their living room and made it into a stand for us kids to get hamburgers during lunch. Stays so crowded at noon the line extends out onto their lawn.

  I spot Chelsey standing on the grass next to Humbolt Street and he's talking to another little colored kid, Stanley. It's not like two coloreds to be out here on the lawn at lunch. They're usually off by themselves. I don't know where they usually stay but they're out of sight. Something funny going on between them anyway because Stanley's backing up now and looking afraid. Chelsey's pointing at Melvin who's standing just a few feet away.

  I punch Eugene with my elbow. "Look at that," I say. "What're those two coloreds up to with Melvin."

  "Nigger stuff, I guess."

  A couple more coloreds're standing just a ways away but they're staying out of it. One of them is Jim Broden. I've seen him lay people out cold on the football field. He wears those baggy khaki pants just like Papa. The other one's not quite as big but he's the blackest colored I've ever seen, and I don't know his name. Stanley has big fat cheeks on his baby face and is a little big around the middle. Melvin gives him a shove and he stumbles out into the street. But Melvin is after Stanley and has a hold of his shirt with one hand and hitting him in the back with the other. Then Chelsey steps in, pulls Melvin off him.

  So I start to walk on over. No sense in a bunch of coloreds ganging up on Melvin.

  "Where do you think you're going?" asks Trish.

  "I want to see what this is about."

  "Don't go, Bobby," says Bev. "I don't know why Chelsey's mad at you but he is."

  "Stay here," is what Trish says again.

  "Why's my little sister messing in my business?" That's what I want to know.

  I going on over, a few white kids starting to gather. Eugene comes up from behind and puts his hand on my shoulder, tries to pull me back.

  "Watch it, Eugene," I say. "I don't like that," and I can tell my temper's coming up a little.

  "Bev's right," he says, backing off. "Chelsey's father's a professional boxer. Chelsey's had a few amateur fights himself. Don't screw with him."

  Now the other two coloreds get mixed up in it. Jim Broden helps Stanley up and the big black one is trying to pull Melvin off him, and Chelsey is shouting something about "Uncle Tom" to Stanley, but here comes Thomas and he's no one to screw with either.

  "Now just wait a minute here," says that black nigger, and he is acting like he just took over the world. And it looks like everybody thinks he has something worth listening to because they all stop. "We got two men here that want to work out a problem, so what do you say we all just stay out of it and let them hammer it out. Is that okay with you two?" he says turning to Jim Broden and Thomas Powers.

  And I'm thinking someone could get killed here if those big guys get into it.

  "Sounds good to me," says Broden.

  Everybody stands back and I see a few more coloreds and I don't know where they came from, but they're really coming out of the grass I guess. Stanley's face is lank and his eyes are big like the crowd is starting to bother him.

  Now here comes Sonnett striding across the lawn and into the road. It's not just that Clyde's face is red, it's his entire baldhead, so he must be mad as hell. We're not even on the school ground now, we're over by the dirt parking lot on Ninth Street. He doesn't have anything to say that
means anything here, but his chin's up high like he is the boss. I wish somebody would take that sonofabitch out. I think maybe I want to be in on this, so I run a little, push past a few kids, crowd in, get just as close as I can to that asshole, stand behind Clyde, breathing hard and fast.

  "Just look at you two," he says. And he's talking like they're in the third grade. "I know the both of you well and yet hardly recognize you. Two fine kids like you should be friends instead of enemies. You should know by now to settle your differences by talking. Violence settles nothing. It just leads to more violence..."

  I'm wondering how much of that is sinking into Melvin's hard head, but Clyde just keeps going on about friendship and getting along and all of us being brothers under the skin.

  All the time I'm standing right here behind Clyde looking down at his wing tip shoes and black wool slacks, up at the back of that white shirt, and I know that just in front under his chin is that bow tie, and that's what I want to get my hands on, just my left hand, feel my fingers go in through his collar and around that black bow tie so I can pull his face into my fist over and over and over. I didn't get to play football this year because of that sonofabitch. He's just screwed up my life.

  Clyde finishes his speech, Stanley walks one way and Melvin another and the crowd starts to break up. Just as I start to leave, Sonnett turns to walk back to his office like he's the president of these United States, and has just solved the world's most pressing problem and bumps into me because I'm still right behind him. He's scared at first, then he sees it's just me and gives me a push like he's going to walk through me. It's like my arms are working on their own, and I feel my fingertips touch that bow tie when somebody spins me around by my right arm that I had drawn back to bust Sonnett's head open, and slings me down the road so hard that I have to run to keep from falling, and then he's right behind me pushing me so that I can't regain my balance and up the road I go into what's left of the crowd and onto the sidewalk. Finally I get a chance to stop and look back. There's Sonnett still standing in the middle of the road looking at me real confused, like maybe he's a little disappointed about something, but then he turns and walks on off.

  "You're a stupid shit. You know that, Bobby?" It's Thomas Powers. "Don't you have any thought of the future?"