Paperboy (14 page)

I heard the cart outside going back and forth like it might be lining up to come in. Then the cart burst through the tarp and crashed into the back wall. Shovels and mops and hot plates started falling. The person who pushed the cart into the shed was still outside. With the tarp knocked down from the opening I had enough light to see the old doll’s head on Ara T’s cart.

I knew I was trapped and the longer I stayed in that shed the more trapped I would be. I picked up a short-handled shovel that had been knocked to the ground near me. The end of the shovel was as big as any I had ever seen. Holding it in front of my face I eased up to the door opening. When I heard the first footstep coming toward me I took off out of the shed like my life depended on it.

I hit smelly Ara T somewhere in the chest with the shovel and we both went tumbling. He fell backwards and I went forwards. I somersaulted farther than he did into the alley and that one step was all I needed to get to my feet and take off running like all the Haints in the world were after me.

I didn’t stop until I was almost home. I didn’t go up my driveway until I had gotten back some of my breath. I saw Mam at the stove in the kitchen so I sneaked in the door that led to the back stairs. I felt so stink dirty that I went straight upstairs to take a bath.

When I came down for supper Mam asked me why I was taking so many baths without being reminded.

s-s-s-s-Just feeling s-s-s-s-dirtier.

You seen Ara T hanging around any?

I shook my head but didn’t dare look at Mam because she could see in my eyes when I wasn’t telling the truth.

You mind what I said about them Haints being close.

I nodded.

Mam would be coming up to sleep on my other twin bed after she finished in the kitchen. My parents had left early that morning in the plane for one of my father’s business meetings in New Orleans and a vacation. They would be gone until the next Saturday.

I tried to make myself think about Mrs. Worthington but Ara T’s dark shed and the rat eating a red onion and the cans of Vienna sausages wouldn’t leave me be. A kid should be able to choose what he thinks about and to say any word he wants. Neither one worked for me.

During the night I thought I heard Ara T’s cart jangling in the alley behind the garage but I couldn’t tell if it was him for sure because the attic fan was roaring and pouring in air that smelled of my mother’s mothballs.

Mam was asleep in the other twin bed when my eyes opened for good early Sunday morning. I had never woken up before Mam.

The sun was starting to come through the big trees outside and that was good because I still was having a hard time getting Ara T’s dark cave out of my mind. I had tried to wash away that dirty feeling in the bathtub the night before but I can scrub something off my skin a lot easier than I can scrub it out of my head.

I came around to the feeling that I didn’t care so much about losing my knife because I had plenty of money in my desk drawer to buy a new one. What I hated was that Ara T had tricked me out of the knife and my fifty cents because he probably thought I was just some kind of a dummy who talked funny. The stuttering dummy with the shiny bicycles and a yellow-handle knife.

Mam groaned and turned over in bed. She usually never made much noise but she was still having trouble breathing out of her busted nose. I reached over in my desk drawer and pulled out my billfold that held Mr. Spiro’s three pieces of a dollar. Mam moved again.

s-s-s-s-If you’re s-s-s-s-awake can we s-s-s-s-talk?

Mornin’, Little Man.

The way Mam said Little Man always made me feel good. It was a good way to start the day.

Why s-s-s-s-do you think these three words s-s-s-s-go together? Student. Servant. Seller.

Mam took a while to answer. She always tried to give me her best answer even though I could come up with some strange questions.

I reckon each can be a person.

What s-s-s-s-else?

They all starts with the same sound.

There’s s-s-s-s-another word that s-s-s-s-goes with s-s-s-s-them. I’ll find it out s-s-s-s-Friday.

Who you finding all this out from?

Mam was already out of bed. She could go from sleeping to wide awake faster than anybody. It wasn’t time to tell Mam about Mr. Spiro. I had to sort things out a little more before I shared my new friend with her.

A s-s-s-s-friend … in my s-s-s-s-head.

Mam knew that meant that I wasn’t ready to talk about it.

When’s Mr. Rat comin’ home?

s-s-s-s-This Saturday. When I s-s-s-s-collect Friday s-s-s-s-night I’m done.

You worked right hard on Mr. Rat’s route. I’m proud of you.

I looked at Mr. Spiro’s three special words again.

When I got the fourth word I was going to cellophane-tape all the pieces together and have a full dollar bill. I would always keep it in my billfold and never spend it because I knew the words were somehow more important than money. A plain dollar would buy a malted milk and a Baby Ruth at the drugstore. Mr. Spiro’s dollar bill was meant for something more important.

Mam went to my parents’ bathroom to put on her Sunday clothes even though she wasn’t going to morning church. Mam would never take me to her church on Sunday mornings because she said that was when the preacher talked to the grown-ups. But we would go to the singing part that night. My parents took me to church sometimes but the people never seemed to be having as much fun as they did in Mam’s church.

When I came down for breakfast Mam had on her black dress with a white collar under her apron. Her lips and eye were looking better but her puffy nose still made a whistling noise when she breathed.

Make us toast, Little Man, whilst I finish the bacon and eggs.

s-s-s-s-Do you want it s-s-s-s-cut?

You knows we do.

My job was always the toast because I liked to butter it after it came out of the toaster and then cut it on the bias like Mam had taught
me.
Bias
was a word I thought a lot about but had never been able to say. Even with a truckload of Gentle Air.
Bias
has only four letters but my dictionary says it has five different meanings. If you get right down to it talking is more complicated than people think. One little word can mean five different things. Once I filled up a whole page of notebook paper by typing BIAS because I liked it so much. When I showed the piece of paper to Rat he said I was losing my marbles.

Mam and I were sopping up the last of our bacon and eggs when she said she hadn’t seen my newspaper bags inside the back door where I usually left them.

I got that heavy feeling and bad spaghetti taste in my mouth again. I tried hard not to act out of sorts but Mam knew something wasn’t right with me.

I had put down the bags in the alley the day before when I was trying to find something to poke into Ara T’s shed door.

s-s-s-s-Left them s-s-s-s-under some hedges … s-s-s-s-maybe.

I could tell Mam knew I wasn’t telling the whole truth but she let me get away with it.

s-s-s-s-Need to go s-s-s-s-g—retrieve them … s-s-s-s-pronto.

I tried to walk out the back door and down the back drive like everything was hunky-dory but when I got to the street I took off running like I was stealing second.

I didn’t slow down until the corner of Ara T’s alley. My side was hurting and I thought my breakfast might come up. I leaned against a fence to get my breath and to try to calm down. Ara T’s shed was about three houses from the corner of the alley. I peeked around a fence to see if the bags were still there on the ground. All the garbage cans in the alley had been moved around since the day before. The bags were gone. I eased forward for a closer look. Nothing.

When I got back home and told Mam that somebody must have taken the bags she asked first thing if I had seen Ara T hanging around where I had left them. I shook my head. Too hard and too quick. Mam gave me that extra long look of hers but I knew better than to open my mouth about anything else.

I would have to ask Rat’s mother if I could borrow the extra bags that Rat kept at his house. Losing the bags was not a good way to start my last week on the route.

Knowing that Ara T had something else that belonged to me stuck in my mind and it would be the devil to get it unstuck.

That Sunday afternoon I figured that reading might help me stop thinking about Ara T so I got my Babe Ruth book and went to the back patio. I got more interested in the book after reading that Babe Ruth started out as a pitcher instead of a right fielder.

As I turned a page a granddaddy longlegs spider climbed on the arm of the Wicked Chair and then onto my book. I watched it do its herky-jerky crawl all the way across my open book and then onto the other arm of the chair.

I had gone with Rat to his grandparents’ farm last summer where his cousins showed us how to play a game with the granddaddy spiders we always found in the hayloft. The cousins would pick up a spider by one of its legs and ask: Granddaddy Granddaddy which way’d the cows go? If it pointed with one of its legs they would put it down and let it walk away. If it didn’t point they would smush it in their hands.

I never played the game with them because I knew I could never say two Granddaddys in a row and at the right time. Rat’s cousins thought I was just afraid of spiders.

I picked up the granddaddy longlegs from the arm of the chair and walked over and put it on one of my mother’s rosebushes. I liked the funny-looking spiders and was glad I had never smushed one even though it made Rat’s cousins think I was a sissy. I made sure I busted Rat’s cousins with a dirt clod every chance I got.

When I went back to reading my book a word in the middle of a paragraph almost jumped off the page at me.
Unknown
.

I had seen that word on my birth certificate and wasn’t sure what it all meant but I knew I was going to have to change up my way of thinking about the man who I thought was my father.

I ran back over to the rosebush to try to find the spider. I was going to pick it up and whisper as best I could. Granddaddy Granddaddy. Which way’d my father go?

I wouldn’t have smushed the spider no matter if it pointed or not. But the spider was long gone.

The only time on Sunday I could get my mind to be still was when Mam and I were at her choir practice that night.

Somebody had hurt Mam and she had been quiet and moving slow all week but she was smiling when she sang with her choir about angels with wings and about going to heaven. Seeing Mam happy always led me into a calmer way of thinking. I sat out on the wooden benches so I could watch Mam. She mostly kept her eyes on the man who was leading the choir but she smiled every time she looked over at me and I gave her back a good smile.

I thought about how Mam never got to go on trips or do anything special because she was always taking care of me and cleaning my parents’ house and washing clothes and sewing on buttons. When she did get to leave for a few days she came back with her face all busted up.

On the ride home on the bus I tried to trick Mam into telling me who hit her by asking if it was a sin to get mad at somebody because they had hurt you. All she would allow is how a Vengeful Heart didn’t do anybody any good.

Another question I had been wanting to ask Mam came to me. I knew part of the answer but it didn’t make any sense.

s-s-s-s-Why do they s-s-s-s-make you ride in the s-s-s-s-back of the s-s-s-s-bus?

We can ride up front if you’s wanting to.

I knew that bus drivers would let Mam ride in the front as long as I was with her but that sounded even more stupid.

s-s-s-s-I like to s-s-s-s-ride in s-s-s-s-back but the s-s-s-s-rules don’t make sense.

Rules is rules. Don’t mean they don’t need changing but best to abide by them till they is changed.

I know a kid is supposed to respect grown-ups who make the rules and also respect God who knows how everything is supposed to work but I couldn’t get over the feeling that neither one of them was doing a very good job.