THE NOONDAY SUN was so hot that little bubbles of melted tar dotted the road. By the time Martin got to Sybil's, the bottoms of his bare feet were crusted with the thick, gooey stuff. He went around back to the garden. Sybil sat in a lawn chair with her head down.
“Hey,” he called.
She looked up and waved a postcard in the air. “From my mom,” she said.
Martin sat down in the grass beside her chair. “You miss her?”
“Not enough to go to Texas like she's trying to get me to do.” Sybil turned the postcard over and over in her hand.
“Besides, I don't need to hear how my clothes are too sloppy and my hair's too stringy and my fingernails look ugly all chewed up.”
“Do you think your mom likes you?” Martin asked.
Sybil shrugged. “I guess so,” she said. “I never thought about it.”
“I mean, do you think she'd like you better if you quit biting your fingernails or ironed your clothes or something?” Martin watched a dragonfly swooping around the backyard.
“Naw. She'd just find something else I could do better.”
“Don't that bother you?”
“Nope.” Sybil studied the postcard on her lap: an armadillo saying, “Wish you were here.”
“How come?” Martin asked.
“'Cause I think I'm fine just the way I am.”
Martin looked at Sybil, sitting in the lawn chair like the Queen of Cool, her long legs stretched out in front of her. Something mighty admirable about a kid who could talk like that. He took his harmonica out of his shirt pocket and played “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”
Sybil stood up and grinned down at him. “I never knew you could play the harmonica,” she said. “Where you been hiding that?”
“I ain't been hiding it,” Martin said.
Sybil sat on the grass next to him. “I wish I could play an instrument.”
“Really?”
“Sure.”
“Like what?”
“I don't know. Anything.” She looked at the harmonica in Martin's hand. “What other instrument can you play?”
Martin pulled at a blade of grass and threw it at his feet. “I don't know. My dad won't give me a chance to find out.”
“What does that mean?”
“Means he don't like nothing about me.” Martin could feel Sybil looking at him, but he kept pulling the grass, throwing the grass.
Sybil lay back with her hands under her head and crossed one foot over the other. Martin put his harmonica to his mouth and played. “Amazing Grace.” “Camptown Races.” “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah.” Whatever came to mind.
Every now and then he glanced over at Sybil. There wasn't much in this world that could have made him feel good about himself right then, but her smiling face and rocking feet came close.
Â
Every time Martin started to tell Wylene what his dad had said about the violin, he got so weighed down with bad feelings he couldn't talk. Just saying the words in his head was bad enough. Telling it out loud seemed nearly impossible. But he knew she was going to ask sooner or later, so one day he just up and told her everything that had happened on that day which was supposed to have been his lucky day. She sat in the La-Z-Boy in front of the fan, eating ice cream out of a Dixie cup. She had on her Hav-a-Hanky shirt, the armpits wet with perspiration.
When he finished, she set the cup down and looked at him with an I-told-you-so expression on her face.
“Am I supposed to be surprised?” she said.
Martin felt a flicker of anger. “No.”
“Well, what are you going to do?”
“There ain't nothing I can do, Wylene. I guess fate just dealt me a lousy hand.”
Wylene sat on the edge of her chair and leaned toward him. “What are you talking about, Martin? A lousy hand. That don't sound like you. Besides, this ain't no big poker game of life or something. This is your chance to do what you've always wanted to do. To be what you've always wanted to be. If fate has dealt you a hand, it's the hand of music. You are a musician, Martin. You just gonna let that slip on by like a ship passin' in the night?”
Martin wanted to leave. He wanted to lie in his bed with the covers over his head. Instead, he slouched down lower on the couch, his skinny legs stretched out in front of him, knocking the toes of his sneakers together.
“You know, Wylene,” he said, running a hand over the top of his head. “It might sound crazy, but I don't think my daddy likes me. I mean, I reckon he loves me 'cause I'm his son and all. But he don't like me.”
He looked down at his feet and hesitated a minute before continuing.
“But you know what the worst part is? The worst part is I don't think I like him, either.”
There. He had said it. He hoped Wylene wouldn't say
anything. He waited. She didn't. He felt a surge of fondness for her because she knew him so well.
“I been doing a lot of thinking lately,” he said.
“Thinkin' about what?” Wylene said softly.
“Oh, just about everything. Questions mostly.” He closed his eyes when the fan swung slowly in his direction and blew cool air in his face.
“You know what I'm beginning to think?” he said. “I'm beginning to think maybe the answer to most questions is âjust because.' You know what I mean?”
Wylene nodded, not like she was saying yes but like she was pondering what he was saying.
“Why's my daddy so angry all the time? Just because. Why don't he like it that I'd rather have a violin than a baseball bat? just because. Why don't my mamma just bust him in the chops and get the hell outa Dodge? Just because. See what I mean?”
Wylene pushed her damp, frizzy hair up off the back of her neck when the fan whirred in her direction. “I think there's another question you should add to that list,” she said.
Martin arched his eyebrows and waited.
“Why do you keep trying to please somebody you don't even like?” she said.
“Aw, hell, Wylene ⦔ Martin punched the throw pillow beside him.
“I mean, pardon my ignorance, Martin, but I just don't understand why ⦔
“That's just it, Wylene.” Martin pulled his feet in and sat up straight. “You don't understand. Nobody does.” He dropped against the back of the couch again. “I don't even know if I do.”
They sat there for a minute, both of them staring at something but not seeing it. Then Martin sat up and took his harmonica out of his pocket. He cupped his hands around it and played slow and soft. Wylene pushed the La-Z-Boy back to a reclining position, folded her hands on her stomach, and listened. After a while Martin changed to a fast, lively tune. He rocked his body back and forth and tapped his toe on the floor. Wylene nodded her head and clapped her hands, a little smile on her face.
“You know,” she said when he finished, “Beethoven believed that music could change the world. I don't know about that, but it sure can change a mood, can't it?”
Martin said yes, but he was lying. His mood hadn't changed a bit.
ONE THING THAT could go a long way toward changing Martin's mood was clearing things up with Hazeline. He hated thinking about her being mad at him, so he tried not to think about it. But a thought that big was hard to get rid of.
He dreaded and looked forward to Sunday. Dreaded having to see Hazeline, but looked forward to getting it over with. He hadn't realized how much he counted on Hazeline to be on his side. Maybe she wouldn't be anymore, after he'd let her down like that, standing there like a bump on a log, not taking up for himself.
Sunday morning, he got dressed and tiptoed into the
kitchen. He didn't want to wake his father up. He just wanted to get out of the trailer and be alone with Hazeline.
“Mornin',” his mother said, coming in the door. “It's hot as Hades out there. I don't think them tomato plants are gonna make it. They're just shriveling right up.” She set two flowerpots on the kitchen counter. “Look at these pots I got at the flea market. Brand-new, and only fifty cents.”
“Did Hazeline call?” Martin poured himself a glass of cold buttermilk.
“No. She supposed to?”
“Naw. I just wondered if she was still coming, is all.”
“Why wouldn't she?”
“I don't know. Just asking.” He tried to act casual as he buttered his toast. He scooped on a mound of peach preserves and hummed softly.
His mother sat on a stool behind the counter. He felt her eyes on him but he kept spreading and humming.
“Martin,” she finally said, “Hazeline's not mad at you.”
“I know.” His eyes darted around for something to look at. He was relieved to hear Hazeline's car pull up. He nearly tripped on his untied shoelaces as he raced for the door, carrying his toast with him.
“See you,” he called and jumped off the front steps just as Hazeline got out of the car.
“Well, hey,” she said. “Either you're glad to see me or you're starving.”
Martin tried to find a hint of anger in her voice, a twinge of disgust, a trace of meanness, but there was nothing. Just Hazeline being Hazeline, same as ever.
“Both,” he said, stuffing the last of the toast into his mouth and licking his fingers. “I hope they have corn on the cob today, don't you?”
He hopped in the front seat, leaving Hazeline standing by the car. She got in and started the engine.
“Okay,” she said, driving out of the trailer park. “What's wrong?”
“Nothing.” Martin played the drums on the dashboard with his hands.
“How come you were in such a hurry to get out of there?”
“No reason.”
“Martin Edward Pittman, don't lie to me. Why you acting so funny?”
He quit playing the drums. “I can't stand you being mad at me, Hazeline.”
She slowed the car down, pulled off the road, and turned the ignition off. She turned to face him, leaning her back against the door, her arm draped over the back of the seat. He forced himself to look at herâa quick little sideways glance. What he saw brought him instant relief. Her face was a mixed-up crazy quilt of things, but all of them were good. Affection. Kindness. Even a hint of amusement. Finally she spoke.
“I ain't mad at you, Martin,” she said. He wanted to hug her, but Hazeline had never been much for hugging. “When I saw you just standing there, letting your daddy say them things to you and you not uttering one word in your own defense, I felt a lot of things, but mad wasn't one of 'em. Peeved is more like it. Peeved at Ed, of course, but that's
nothing new, and so peeved at you I wanted to snatch you bald-headed.”
Martin wasn't sure how far removed peeved was from mad, but he felt better anyway.
“You gonna keep running from yourself, Martin?” she said.
He looked out the window. A bent-up hubcap was half hidden in the weeds. It glistened in the sun like some kind of lost treasure.
“You know, you can't change your daddy any more than he can change you,” Hazeline said.
Martin kept staring at that glistening hubcap. “So why's he always trying to change me?”
“I wish I knew, Martin. Seems like I've spent half my life trying to figure out why he does anything. I never told you this before, but when I found out I was going to have your daddy, it kind of took me by surprise. Hell, I'd still be looking for babies under cabbage leaves if he hadn't come along and set me straight. That was over thirty years ago, and he's still surprising me.” She lit a cigarette and blew a stream of smoke up in the air. It hovered at the roof of the car like a swirling gray cloud.
“Maybe if his daddy came back, he wouldn't be so mad all the time,” Martin said.
Hazeline laughed so hard tears ran down her cheeks. Martin felt foolish. He crossed his arms and looked out the window.
“I'm sorry, sweetheart.” Hazeline cupped his chin in her
hand and turned his face toward her. “You might have a point there.”
“I want that violin, Hazeline.”
“You want a hell of a lot more than that, Martin.”
He nodded. He wanted his father to let him be what he wanted to beâand still like him. “Well, how am I going to get what I want, Hazeline?”
“If you're looking to me for answers, Martin, I can't give you any.” She started the car and drove on.
“Do you think Wylene's crazy?” Martin asked as Hazeline turned the big Studebaker into the Howard Johnson's parking lot.
She smiled. Her leathery face wrinkled up in every imaginable place. “I think Wylene knows a good soul when she sees one.” She patted Martin's knee. “Ain't nothing crazy about that, now, is there?”
Martin smiled back. “I sure hope they have corn on the cob,” he said. “Don't you?”