The Escape of Bobby Ray Hammer, A Novel of a '50s Family
CHAPTER 51: Charles in Danger
Papa's in his pickup doing seventy through a stop sign. I'm right behind in my Chevy with my front bumper almost touching his. He swerves from side to side to keep me from passing. I have to back off a couple of feet as we go through the dip at the Berenda Slough, where Lenny was killed, and I see the old pickup's wheels leave the ground just before mine do, then up the other side and they leave the ground again. At the left turn onto County Road, Papa's going too fast and has to swing wide, then loses it. I take the turn on the inside and have to go part way into the bar ditch but when I come out, I'm okay. Papa's pickup is looming big in my rearview mirror now and I hear the engine whining like he has it revved out in low gear.
I scatter a bunch of chickens and slide to a stop in the dirt yard in front of Charles' shack with his little barn off to the left and step out into the cloud of dust I've raised. I hear a calf bawl. Charles comes out of the shack quick, as if he's been expecting us, letting the screen door slam. I see Gretta and Samantha peek out the screen door.
"What the hell you doing coming in here? This is my place."
"Papa's come to kill you, Charles. Better make a run for it."
"He can't chase me off of my own place."
"He found out you've been messing around with Trish."
"Who told him? Tell me that."
Papa steps out of his pickup slinging the chamber to his pistol closed and Charles starts to go back inside, then knows it's too late.
"So this is it," Charles says. "You've come after me with your papa and with pistols."
I have no interest in Charles now. I turn my back on him, face Papa.
"Come on," Papa says to me, "let's kill him together, Bobby Ray. Just you and me."
I get an image of Charles lying on the ground, us beating off parts of his body with our fists, blood and flesh flying. I shake my head. "I won't, Papa." I feel the tears start to come.
"Stand back then," he says. "I aim to finish my business." He has his black pistol in his left hand because his right one is quivering and dripping blood.
"No, Papa, I can't let you."
"I'm warning you. I'll shoot through you to get him."
"I'm not thinking of Charles. I'm thinking of Lenny, Trish and Curt. I'm thinking about you, Papa. So I'm not backing off."
"Charles," says Papa, "here's a ring that belonged to your mother." But he throws the ring in the dirt over by the little milk barn. "I've got something for you that comes with the ring. I should have done this five years ago, but I thought I'd let Lenny deal with you in his own way. But you're messing with Trish now. So I'm stopping you my way this time." Papa keeps trying to see around me. "Bobby Ray, it's time for you to step aside." He raises the pistol, and points it right between my eyes. I hear a rooster crow. I try to imagine how it'll feel when the bullet goes in my head. I see the hammer move back, the cartridge turn. He fires a shot. I feel the sting of a powder dusting me. Smell the smoke. I hear a rustling behind me, think maybe Charles has moved. "Go get the ring, Charles," Papa says.
"Stay behind me," I say. "He'll kill you, Charles, if you move."
"Jesuschrist, when are you going to wake up? That man behind you is the devil himself."
"I don't want you behind bars, Papa. He's not worth it."
"I can't live any longer with him alive. Five years ago I saw him with Lenny's wife. I have lived with that long enough."
"Killing him won't solve the problem. It's not him, Papa. It's us. We're the problem."
Then Papa turns that pistol toward my car, shoots out the windshield, a couple of clean holes in the side. Just when I think maybe he's through, he turns that pistol on Charles' shack, dumps three shots into it. Gretta and Samantha are in there. I hope no one is hurt. Papa throws the black pistol into the side of my car. "He's all yours then," he says to me and walks to his pickup. He revs the motor when he starts it, slides a hooker with that old pickup peeling dirt all the way, and when he hits the black top, it squalls and leaves black smoke rising off the road.
"Your old man's crazy," says Charles.
" I don't blame him a bit for wanting you dead." I walk over to pickup Papa's pistol.
"Leave it," says Charles. "You owe me a pistol."
"Don't push me, Charles," I say. "Just don't goddamn well push me. You have the ring. Papa gave it to your mother years ago when they both lived in Oklahoma."
"You mean Hershel Hammer knew my mother in Oklahoma? You're a lying son of a bitch."
"They were engaged. I don't care if you believe me or not. But that's the reason Papa took it off of Lenny's finger. The ring belonged to Papa."
"You lying sack of shit."
"I may not let Papa kill you, but I have to keep telling myself that you didn't do anything with Trish. If I thought you did anything to her like you did to me, I'd kill you right now easier than a mosquito."
"You really talk tough with a pistol in your hand," he says.
I hop in my Chevy, I drive back to Papa's place in a hurry. No telling what he'll have done by the time I get there.
CHAPTER 52: When Words Fail
I slide to a stop in the dirt out front. Soon as I crack my car door, I hear Mama scream. When I open the front door, I hear a back bedroom door slam. Loretta comes into the living room hollering at me, "Ray! Hershel and Louise are having a fight. They've locked themselves in the bedroom and it sounds like they're tearing out the walls." Curt's sitting in the corner of the dining room with his head between his knees like he's afraid to even move.
That's when we hear the screech of tires out front like someone is braking real hard, then whatever it is takes off again followed by a crash like two cars have run together, and we run to the front window to take a look see. Charles has followed me home in his father's old '49 Ford pickup. Looks like he's rammed the side of my Chevy, backed up and just as I throw back the curtain to get a better look, he rams the corner of the house so that it feels like an earthquake. Stuff falls off Mama's cupboard onto the floor, plates, cups and saucers breaking, and I hear the house even shudder off in the back bedrooms. I feel the same quake go through me like something just broke open my chest, except nothing even touched me.
"Hey, you crazy sonofabitch," I yell through the window, then I'm out the door like a shot. But I have to run for it because Charles is about to back over me. Charles and that pickup disappear around the corner of the house, wheels spinning, just tearing the hell out of the lawn, and me running right after him. I get around the corner just in time to see Charles heading for the lawn mower, take out the two rusted fifty gallon drums used for burning trash, then on around to the other side of the house where he runs over Mama's garden which doesn't matter because it's just last years and everything dead, but I guess Charles wants it anyway, so he takes out a few dead sweet-corn stalks and then goes on around to the front of the house again, runs over the red water hose then back-ends Papa's pickup but this stops him because the two pickups lock bumpers and his motor dies. So here I am, huffing and puffing, right on top of him opening the door and dragging him out by the front of his shirt.
Charles' blood is everywhere. I don't have any trouble dragging him out of the pickup because he's out cold as a wedge with big gashes across his forehead and nose. Mama comes out the front door screaming. I think at first that it's about Charles but Loretta is right on Mama's heels telling me that her brother has taken the shotgun and headed toward the far side of the field. Mama screams. "Hershel's going to kill himself!"
So I dump Charles on the ground, pile in my Chevy, and Trish and Curt jump in the back. I try to stop them but the top is down and there's no keeping them out of a convertible if they really want in. We're bumping along the old lane that goes down the side of our pasture, doing about forty miles per hour, looking for Papa off in the hay field. Maybe Papa's cotton is failing but this is the best crop of hay he's ever had, stands about waist tall and just right for mowing. I think I see the top of
Papa's head sticking out above the alfalfa in the far corner of the field.
"Hurry, Bobby Ray, hurry," is what Trish screams in my ear but there's no way I can go faster and keep from killing us all. I turn at the end of the field and head west for a ways, then stop because the lane ends and we can't get any closer to Papa in the car. Then we're high-stepping it through the hay and when we get close to Papa, I see something really strange, so I stop Trish and Curt.
"Listen, Trish," I tell them. "The two of you stay here. Papa's just real mad at me. I've done some really bad things to Papa lately, so let me talk to him. Maybe I can talk some sense into him."
Trish has already started crying. "Don't do it, Papa," she shouts. "We love you, Papa."
Her words just break my heart. Curt looks more afraid than I'd have thought it was possible for a human being to look. But the two of them stay put. I think they're more afraid of seeing Papa like this than just minding me, and I walk slow through the fresh alfalfa to where he's sitting. I look back toward the house, and standing in the backyard, I see Mama and Loretta staring across the hundreds of yards of alfalfa to where we are.
Papa's sitting with his knees on the ground, his head bent forward and his arms stretched out in front of him. If it wasn't for one more thing, I'd think he was preying. But the thing is, he has that shotgun with the butt buried a little in the earth and the end of both barrels stuck in his chest. He has a stick in his left hand resting on the triggers. His right hand is wrapped in a dishrag and is hanging at his side quivering because it's all broken to pieces. Just a little nudge from that stick and no more Papa. He could be praying too because as I walk up I hear him mumble something.
"Papa, don't do this, Papa. Everything's going to be all right," I tell him. But it's as if Papa hasn't even heard me. I'm standing off to the side, a little in front, looking back at him but I've never seen such concentration on anyone's face. His forehead is just a mass of large sweat drops, some running down the side of his face, some dripping off his nose. "I'm sorry, Papa," I say, "I didn't know what trouble I was causing everyone. I'll stop all this stuff about Lenny now, Papa. It's going to be okay."
I think maybe he heard me because he just let out a big breath of air. It's just then that I see all the alfalfa flowers Papa is sitting in. White ones and violet ones and yellow ones and bees just a humming all over this field. I think I even notice the fresh smell of honey. Then I hear the worst sound a human being ever heard. That shotgun goes off, the two barrels almost at the same time, and I catch a look on Papa's face as he's being forced backward, as if he just realized what he's done, that he's made a terrible mistake. I shut my eyes because I can't look at this and I hear a sudden noise, like wings flapping, and I turn toward the west to see a pheasant that jumped up right by my feet when the shotgun went off, the pheasant flying about shoulder high off across that alfalfa field, flying a beeline into that old blood red sun sinking down on the far side of the earth. I hear Trish screaming.
When I get the courage to look back, I hope that it will have changed, that Papa will still be sitting there with that shotgun in his chest and I'll have another chance to talk him out of it. But that's not the way it is. The words I used will be the words that plague me the rest of my life. Why weren't they enough? Papa, who looked so large in life, now looks so small in death. The hole in his chest is just a small one, I think. Maybe we can still save him. But then I see the red bits of Papa strung out across that alfalfa field toward Trish and Curt, and I know that Papa is not a whole person anymore. Papa is dead.
Trish and Curt are walking toward us, so I go stop them. "You don't want to see this, Trish," I tell her. She has some bloody stuff on her forehead that I wipe off. "You don't want to see Papa like that." I put my arm around her and I grab Curt who has the sniffles now, and pull him in with us, put all our sweaty heads together. I remember how it was when I told them about Lenny being dead. That night we drove home on the little Ford tractor, the three of us all alone, three kids doing the things that should be left for grownups. When the times get really rough, it seems like it has always been just the three of us. And here we are again trying to face something that it isn't possible to face.
I hear Mama and Loretta in the distance shouting for us and then screaming. The screams are getting closer because Mama is coming to see what has happened to her husband, to find out what she already knows. But I just want to hold Trish and Curt as close to me as I can for as long as I can. There isn't going to be any peace in this world for me after this. My papa is dead. How can I have a life beyond his?
"Hershel! You get up, Hershel." It's Mama scolding Papa for the last time. She walks around him talking to him like he was sitting at the kitchen table reading the Chowchilla News. Then she rants on about all the good things that he did, as if she's still trying to talk him out of doing it. "You're just a good man, Hershel," she says. "You were just one hell of a good man. You had your weaknesses, but you were much more than just weakness. This farm is testament to that. Just look around you, Hershel. Look at what you've done with this farm in the twenty years we've lived here. Look at the fine children we've raised. Think of all the people you fed with your crops. Think of all the clothes you've put on people's backs with the cotton you chopped by hand, irrigated and cultivated with the tractor. Don't tell me you were a mean man, Hershel. I won't have any part of talk like that."
So while Mama is still ranting, I pull off my shirt and cover Papa's face and chest. I put one arm around Trish and the other around Curt and we walk back to my car and go to the house where I'll call Mr. Hickman to come get the latest Hammer to die by his own hand. We'll let Mama and Papa be alone together for the last time.
CHAPTER 53: Bonfire
We buried Papa two days later. Word of him dying spread like bad news always does. But Mama kept the time of the funeral a secret, begged Mr. Hickman to work on Papa through the night, and we had Papa in the ground by noon. Just the six of us. Jess made it too. His being there sure helped me a lot. Plus Reverend Hensen and his new wife, the former Grace Magdalena. He said some real nice things about Papa. Plus, of course, Mr. Hickman and Wayne. Wayne asked me if it'd be okay for him to be there to help his father. I said, sure.
Loretta had already called the ambulance for Papa by the time me, Trish and Curt got to the house. So when the ambulance got there, it picked up Charles instead of Papa. Charles was still unconscious. I hear he had a concussion and needed a few stitches, spent the night in the hospital, but Charles will be okay, okay to rape and pillage another day. I called Mr. Hickman and asked him to come pick up Papa. And then there were the police. We told them the truth about how Papa died, but Mama asked them to list it as a farming accident. They let it go at that.
I'm still struggling toward graduation. It's hard to study for final exams now, and I'm trying to think of a way to clean up the rest of my unfinished business. It's been two weeks since Papa died. Already I can't remember what it was like to have him alive and with us. It just seems like the pain of his death has always been a part of my life. And I keep wondering about what I've done. Why did I bloodhound this thing about Lenny so hard? I blame myself for Papa committing suicide, but then, so does Mama. And Loretta cries all the time about the part she played in it. Trish wishes she could take back some of the things she said, and Curt, well, he feels guilty about everything all the time anyway.
Right now, I'm sitting beside a little fire I have going out back of our turkey shed. An old filled-in slough bed runs through the back of our place, and the only thing that will grow back here is a few cottonwood trees and scraggly bushes. I've broken up some dead limbs, piled them in a little depression and struck a fire. I always have enjoyed a fire at sunset. I take a stick and move a few coals around. Seems like the smoke always wants to blow in my face.
This thing about Lenny's journal just won't stop. Gretta has hounded me about it again. I would like to keep it, but it just weighs so hard on my mind. That's the reason I have buil
t this bonfire. Maybe that's the thing. As long as I have that journal, I won't be able to turn loose of the past. Seems like the reason I had to find it was so I could destroy it. Maybe burning it will return the past to the past, and people will think more about the future. So I set that little spiral notebook of Lenny's on the fire, watch the edges turn brown and curl. The sun has been set long enough now that it's starting to get dark. The fire spreads its light all around me. Nothing I like better than the red glow of a fire.
CHAPTER 54: Bobby Gets a Haircut
I need a haircut. I'm in Loretta's pickup because Pistoresi's has my Chevy. I pull into a parking place here on Robertson Boulevard just down from the police station. In front of me is Davis' Barber Shop. It has a red and white striped barber pole outside, looks like a big stick of candy, and it's turning so that it corkscrews like it's going to drill right through the sky.
All three barbers are out of work when I hit the door, and they're each reading a different section of the Fresno Bee, sitting in their own barber chair. Olin Davis has the funnies. He's sitting in the middle chair because he owns the place. He's been here so long, claims to have cut Orlando Robertson's hair back in the late '20s. Corbin Smeal, sitting in the first chair, winks at me as I come through the door. He's still going with Phyllis' mother. I don't like him. He's young and fills the spot given to the new barbers that come and go. I smell aftershave.
"Who's it going to be this time, Bobby?" says Olin, looking up from the funnies. "You taking me again or feeling reckless. Want a good haircut from one of these young punks?" Olin looks a little sadder today than usual.
I stand here for a second smiling. Grant Pierson, on the far end, gives the best haircuts in town. I've always wanted him to cut my hair. I can see his bald spot in the mirror behind him. But maybe another time. "Oh get up, Olin, if you think you can cut it good enough for graduation," I tell him.
He's the only one ever cut my hair besides Papa. He always lets me choose my barber though. When I start to get in the chair, Olin puts the padded wood shelf he uses for little kids across the chair arms for me to sit on, like I'm a kid again. Then he laughs and takes it off. He hasn't pulled that on me in years. He gave me my first real haircut twelve years ago. Papa used to cut my hair before I started school.