‘The man doesn’t use the few brains God gave him. He can’t even make a proper delivery. How hard can it be to drop off a crate of Bibles?’ said Carlene in her deep, gravelled voice.
‘It’s not hard to sell coffee. He should’a just done that,’ the older voice of Rhonda snapped back. ‘You never did know how to take care of my boy. What he saw in you, I’ll never know.’
The voices sounded like they drifted back to me from the front of the bus over an intercom linked directly to my brain. I knew that no one other than the deliveryman had got on the bus except us kids, and I was pretty certain that no one else could hear what I was hearing.
I dropped my forehead to my knees and rocked my head from side to side, trying to concentrate on the texture of the pale yellow fabric of my special-occasion dress against my skin, trying not to listen to the bickering old bats as they continued to blame each other for the deliveryman’s misfortunes.
I had no idea how much time passed as the bus thundered and rumbled up the highway. It felt like hours. I could see the sky go by outside the windows above me and watched an unending parade of telephone poles flick past like the ticks and tocks of a clock. Silos and water towers marked the distance between towns along the highway, but every time I rose up high enough to look out, all I saw was the same seemingly endless, sleeping landscape – field after field of last summer’s dead brown cornstalks and rows of lifeless, skeletal irrigation equipment, all waiting for the earth to wake up with spring and ask for a drink of water.
My backside began to fall asleep and a cramp started to pinch my leg as the late-afternoon sun slanted low and long and bright through the windows of the bus, casting big rectangle shadows off the boxes of Bibles.
It was just about that same time that Bobbi got bored. With a nasty smirk, she lifted one foot and kicked Fish off the end of the cot. Temper flaring, his face contorted, unable to control his savvy as vexed and tense as he was, my brother let loose.
Magazines flew up into the air like an angry flock of helter-skelter, yellow-winged birds, caught in the updraft of Fish’s fury. Cardboard lids from boxes and crates flapped and fluttered, and the windows of the bus steamed up and shuttered with the force of Fish’s frenzied squalls. Bobbi covered her head with both her arms as the magazines jetted over her, threatening to dive down as the heat inside the bus became downright tropical. I imagined Bobbi getting shredded up by paper cuts from those flailing, flying magazines, and I jumped up from the floor to grab on to Fish, who had his eyes locked on and burning at Bobbi. I took my brother by the shoulders and gave him a right hard shake. I thought for one ghastly grim moment that I might have to slap him or slug him or twist his ears – anything to get him to stop storming.
‘Fish!’ I hissed his name and shook him again, feeling desperate. Suddenly Samson was at my side. As calm as calm, without a smile or a frown or a blink of his eye, Samson put one pale hand on Fish’s arm. He didn’t squeeze or pinch or smack or cuff. Samson just touched his dusty fingertips to our brother’s wrist and the whirlwind stopped.
Fish broke his fiery gaze away from Bobbi and looked down at Samson, shaking his head a couple times, as though to clear the last gusts of rage from his brain.
‘Sorry,’ he said, looking cross and fuddled, red-faced in his apology to Samson or to Bobbi or to himself. Will Junior had got up from the floor during Fish’s outburst, dropping the pen set and accidentally kicking it beneath the cot as he batted at the attacking magazines. Now he and his sister were looking at my brothers and me like we were aliens just landed green and mean in their backyard. Everything had gone quiet… and I mean everything. It took me a moment to realize how quiet things had got… and how still.
The bus had stopped. The engine had been turned off. The rattling and bouncing had halted. The deliveryman was standing in the aisle, fists on hips, arms akimbo, staring at us all, his lost-dog look replaced now by something a bit more nettled – something a lot more cross.
‘She’s knows she’s in trouble now,’ said Bobbi’s angel in my ears.
She’s not the only one, I said to myself.
10
In the deafening silence, the deliveryman looked at us as though deciding what to do about finding baby mice nesting in his Bibles – would it be poison or drowning? Would he feed us to a cat or stick us in a trap? He looked at us and we all looked back at him, hardly daring to breathe.
The man had removed his wilted carnation and loosened his pink tie. He had his sleeves rolled up at the cuffs, and when he folded his arms over his narrow sunken chest across the front of his faded overalls, Carlene and Rhonda, the sassing and squabbling ladies, finally showed their faces – or rather, their places.
Carlene was tattooed in fancy letters on the man’s right arm above a black rose with thorns like nails. Rhonda was tattooed on the man’s left arm beneath a red heart with the word Mom inscribed inside it. As I watched, the letters of each name eddied and jived; my stomach turned over as the lines began redrawing themselves into the likeness of women’s faces. Their argument started up again.
‘You’re his mother, Rhonda. What did you do to make Lester grow up so soft? The man’s got no fight.’
‘Don’t blame me! Lester takes after his useless fool of a father, the weak man. But maybe, Carlene, if you didn’t insist that my boy give you every nickel and dime he makes from delivering those Bibles for your cousin, Lester would have a chance at getting ahead for once in his life, instead of suffering to support your lifestyle.’
I watched the two women, animated from the lines of their own names like comic strips in the Sunday funnies come to life, and I felt my head go filmy and fuzzy again. I took a step back, weak-kneed and shaken, trying to remind myself that this was not my savvy. This was just my mind playing tricky, tricky tricks on me. I still had to get to Poppa and wake him up, because that was what was supposed to happen. I wanted to sit down on the cot before my jelly legs gave out, but Bobbi was still stationed there and Will Junior was standing in the way.
Then Samson was in the corner of my eye like a ghost, his tender touch brushing my back. I no longer felt like I would fall, and I could blink my eyes against the yammering women and begin to scumble their voices to a slightly lower volume by relaxing and taking some deep breaths.
‘What are you k-kids doing b-back there?’ the deliveryman said, his voice galled and glum yet surprisingly tuneful, like a country and western singer yodelling from the top of a cactus. None of us said anything, not knowing what to say or who should say it.
‘Now, don’t make me repeat myself,’ the man said, still musical but jittery, as though talking to kids gave him the heebie-jeebies.
‘That’s right, Lester,’ said Rhonda from the man’s left arm. ‘Show them your backbone.’
Oh, like he’s got some kind of gumption,’ scoffed Carlene. ‘He’ll make a good short show of it before he crumbles. These kids’ll be driving this bus and telling him where to sit in less than ten minutes’
Swallowing hard, I took a small and careful step towards the man. ‘Are you headed back down to Kansas any time soon, sir? We were just trying to get to Salina.’
Lester looked down at me, arms still crossed, straining to keep his thin shoulders still as he did his best to stand his ground. His mouth worked like he was chewing on a strip of Bobbi’s gum and trying to keep wrong words from forming in it. He struck me as a fellow whose gears might turn a bit slower than those of other folks, a man whose thinking cap had shrunk in the wash and now fitted on his brain a notch too tight.
‘You k-kids can’t be on this b-bus,’ the man said finally, extending one arm with a finger pointed our way. But the finger shook as Carlene laughed and Rhonda scolded, ridiculing Lester’s attempts at grit and fortitude, and the man’s eyes held no real spite or spleen.
‘Please, sir.’ I took another step forward. ‘We’re just trying to get to Salina. We’ll keep out of trouble and out of the way. Surely it couldn’t hurt for us to hitch a ride with you.
You’ve got plenty of space. You’re going back there, aren’t you? The sign on your bus says –’
‘I could get into a mighty b-big heap of trouble having k-kids on my bus,’ Lester stammered, taking one step back and tucking his pointing finger back under his dampening armpit as though he couldn’t trust it. ‘My b-boss wouldn’t like it one bit. He’d fire me, that’s what he’d do. Do your folks know where you are?’
‘My momma and poppa are down in Salina right now, sir. My poppa’s in the hospital. You’ll be doing them a great big favour bringing us down to them. I swear.’ I raised one hand in the air like I was taking an oath; surrounded by all of those Bibles, I thought it had to count for something. Lester rocked back and forth on his heels, shoulders still wiggling, gears still grinding.
‘Here he goes. That’s Lester Swan,’ Carlene said. ‘Caving in like a dunkle-head to a little girl.’
Rhonda clucked her animated tongue in motherly disappointment. ‘It never did take more than a feather to knock my Lester to the ground. If only he’d turned out more like me. I’d show these kids what for.’
Lowering my hand, I took another step forward; Lester Swan took a second step back as though he thought I might bite him if I got too close.
‘Please, sir?’
Lester ran his right hand through his thin hair, scratching at the bald head underneath and making the bit of tuft he had left stick up like the feathers of an ugly duckling; Carlene rolled her cartoon eyes as she rocked up and down and upside down with the motion. For a moment I thought Lester would kick us off the bus right there and then, leaving us on the side of the highway in the middle of nowhere. But after an awkward, wordless standoff, the moment passed, and Lester sank down to sit on the edge of the nearest seat with an extra slump and sag to his shoulders.
‘So, where are you all from?’ he asked with the sorry voice of a man who’d just lost the last of his pluck and knew it.
11
It turned out that Lester Swan enjoyed having people to talk to. Clearing off the first rows of tatty, ratty seats, he got us all to sit up at the front of the bus while he drove. Bobbi and Will Junior sat on one side of the bus, just behind the driver’s seat, suddenly none too sure about us Beaumont kids and the funny, funny things that happened around us. Me and Fish sat together across the aisle, both anxious to get back on our way. Samson preferred to keep to himself in the back, slipping again underneath the cot with the bag of crisps, the Peperami and the pile of magazines at his fingertips.
‘This ol’ gal may have some faulty p-pistons, and her c-carburettor may need replacing, but she’s still got some miles left in her,’ said Lester, rambling on to us about the big pink delivery bus as he drove. He talked about that bus like it was a delicate, niminy-piminy thing that depended on him for its constant care and looking after. Of course, I do well to remember to keep her b-below fifty-four miles an hour.’ Lester grimaced, screwing up his face like he was remembering all the times he hadn’t remembered. ‘Anything over that and this old b-bus just quits. I remember one time when –’
‘Just how long till we get to Salina?’ Fish wanted to know, interrupting Lester’s ramble impatiently. ‘Our poppa’s in a bad way. We need to get down there soon.’ My heart skipped and my stomach twisted as I remembered Momma’s words: The doctors say we’ll have to wait and see. Will and Bobbi shifted nervously, as they too recalled the reason we’d all climbed aboard that bus in the first place.
‘Well,’ said Lester, flustered by the bugaboo of having to change mental road maps mid-sentence. ‘Let me think. I have to get on up to Bee b-before five.’ Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, Lester pulled a watch with a broken strap from the pocket of his overalls.
‘Doggone it!’ he said, nearly driving off the road as he stared at the watch. ‘I’m late.’ The bus heaved and rattled as Lester stepped harder on the gas. Remembering everything he’d just finished telling us about the big pink bus breaking down if it went too fast, Fish and I kept a close and nervous eye over Lester’s shoulder at the speedometer.
‘So then,’ Fish continued. ‘After Bee? Will you be going back to Salina when you get done there?’
‘Hmm?’ Lester looked back at Fish distractedly, as though he hadn’t been listening. ‘After Bee? Naw, I still have to go on over to Wymore, then I have to make a quick stop down in Manhattan to p-pay some money to a lady friend – it’s her cousin Larry who’s my b-boss and she gets real mad if I don’t bring the money by. After that, we’ll be headed back to Salina.’
By this time, Bobbi had slid to the edge of her seat; she was peering intently around the barrier between her and the back of Lester’s seat and scowling at the deliveryman. ‘Just how long is all that going to take? Exactly when are you planning on getting back?’
‘Oh, no later than tomorrow afternoon, I s’pose,’ said Lester absently as he took an exit off the motorway and headed still further north, further from Salina, on to a small rural highway.
‘Tomorrow?’ we all shouted. ‘Tomorrow?’
‘That’s too long!’ I cried.
‘Well, there’s nothing I can d-do about that,’ said Lester, trying hard to end the conversation. ‘I can’t afford to lose my job. If I go b-back now, I’ll be fired for sure. Then it will be no Bibles, no b-bus, and no future for poor old Lester.’
I swallowed hard, caught between that rock and that hard place I’d heard mentioned so often, and understanding fully now what a bad spot that truly was. How could I ask a man I didn’t even know to risk his livelihood on my account? But, how could I possibly wait another day to get to Poppa?
‘Tomorrow. That’s just great.’ Bobbi turned and looked at me, her eyes bulging in disbelieving voodoo vibes. ‘Tomorrow,’ she repeated once more, nodding her head and leaning back against her seat. ‘That’s wonderful.’
Fish and Will Junior were looking my way too. I cringed and sank down in my seat, feeling wretched and troubled over our new situation. To my surprise, Will winked my way with a crooked smile, making me feel a bit better. Out of everybody on that bus, Will was the only one who looked like he might be having fun.
The itty-bitty town of Bee, Nebraska, was just about the size of a yellow-striped bumbler; it could buzz right by you if you blinked too slow. As though the situation wasn’t bad enough for us already, things went even more catawampus and cockeyed once we got to that teeny-tiny town.
There was only one church in Bee. It was built boxy and angled like an accordion, but the windows of the church were dark and the doors were locked up tight.
Lester Swan looked from his watch towards the sun – now barely visible on the horizon – all the while tugging the door handles and pacing the bright green Astroturf leading up to the side door. He sat down on the cement step of the church and scratched his head. I wandered away to avoid listening to Carlene and Rhonda blister and bellyache over Lester’s latest blunder. Those two gals pickled me, they were so sour. Thinking about my own momma, I felt sorry for Lester. Rhonda’s voice was nothing like what a momma’s ought to be. Of course, my momma was extra-special, I reminded myself. My momma was perfect.
‘It took months for me to figure out my savvy when I was your age,’ I remembered Momma telling me one day. We had been in the kitchen, me and Momma and Gypsy, and Momma had been trying to teach me how to make perfect pastry. But my pastry was far from perfect. Gypsy had been more interested in squishing her fingers deep inside her own small lump of soft dough, pulling out pinches and eating them when Momma’s head was turned.
My pastry had kept on crumbling and breaking, or sticking and tearing; I’d smash it back together and try rolling it out again and again, while Momma’s pastry lifted up clean and easy, spreading out across the bottom of the dish as soft and smooth as silk – perfect as perfect.
‘How did you know, Momma?’ I’d asked, flour tickling my nose and falling like snow from the edge of the table where I stood with my own large rolling pin. ‘How did you figure out your savvy? When did you fi
rst know that you were perfect?’
Momma looked down at the mess on the table and laughed; the sound was like the church bells in Hebron on a clear morning. At first I thought Momma might be laughing at my wounded and weary blob of dough, then I remembered that my momma would never do such a thing. She pulled one of the kitchen chairs up close and sat down, setting aside my rolling pin and taking my floured and dusty hands in her own. She smiled up at me with a sweet smile.
‘I’m not perfect, Mibs. Nobody’s perfect. I just have a knack for getting things right. Maybe that looks a lot like perfect sometimes. Besides,’ she continued, her smile faltering a bit as she squeezed my hands, ‘you’d be surprised at how many people dislike spending time with someone who constantly gets things right. It’s not always an easy way to be.’
I nodded at Momma as she hugged me. I was hardly able to imagine anyone not wanting to spend time with her.
‘In most ways, Mibs, we Beaumonts are just like other people,’ Momma said, letting go of me and adding a bit more flour to my dough as she recited the words I’d heard so many times before. ‘We get born, and sometime later we die. And in between, we’re happy and sad, we feel love and we feel fear, we eat and we sleep and we hurt like everyone else.’
I thought about Momma as I walked around the side of the church and up the rutted dirt road a short way, listening with relief as the voices faded and an ensemble of crickets began warming up their evening act – maybe I’d woken them up, I mused to myself. Kicking at rocks, I crossed the road and headed towards an old boarded-up and falling-down house that looked as though a truckload of white paint had dropped on it from top to bottom once upon a time ago. Fish had stayed on the bus with Samson; he was still stewing and grouchy and was now almost as quiet and broody as our little brother. Bobbi was outside the bus chewing on a new length of Bubble Tape and cursing under her breath, so we all gave her plenty of distance.