Soup (5 page)

“Let’s go!” I yelled.

“Yowie!” said Soup.

“Not so fast,” said Mama. “You left your valve in the pump.”

“I’ll get it later,” I hollered over my shoulder as Soup and I headed for the open meadow of flat grass.

As we ran, we threw the ball back and forth, dropping it almost every time. It sure felt great to be alive on Saturday morning. Like the whole world knew it was Saturday and there was no school. It was cold and clear,
and the sound of a badly kicked football punctured the air. The wind was as ripe as apples, so full of fall that you could almost bite every breath.

I could still taste the silver.

“Y
OU’RE AFRAID
,” said Soup.

“No, I’m not.”

“Then what are you just standing there for?”

“Well, it looks like kind of a steep hill. Maybe we should try it on the level.”

“I knew you’d be scared.”

“I ain’t scared.”

“Then why don’t you get inside the barrel?”

“Here’s why,” I said, showing Soup a bent nail inside the old apple barrel.

“It’s just an old nail.”

“Yeah, but if it rips my sweater, my mother won’t like it.”

My mother already took notice that I look worse when I come home from school than when I start out. I never see a difference, but she always does.

“You’re afraid.”

“I’m not afraid of rolling down Dugan’s Hill in a barrel. Just afraid of tearing a rip to the sweater.”

“What do you care?” said Soup. “After all, it’s
my
sweater.”

“Used to be,” I said. “Your mother gave it to my mother for some of us to wear. Reckon it’s
my
sweater now, since you outgrowed it.”

“That’s because,” said Soup as he gave me a punch on my arm for emphasis, “I’m bigger ’n you. I can’t even get into that old sweater.”

“And I can’t get into that old barrel.”

Soup looked around for a rock and found one. Rolling the barrel so the nail was against the ground, he
pounded it flat against the raw, splintery wood.

“There,” said Soup. “I fixed the nail.”

With a doubtful eye, I got down on my hands and knees to inspect the barrel’s newly improved interior. I noticed then that some of the staves were rotten and loose.

“Get in,” said Soup.

I started to back into the barrel, feet first, taking one last look down the full length of Dugan’s Hill. I backed in only an inch or two, until I felt Soup’s restraining hand tug on my belt.

“Head first,” said Soup, “not feet first.”

“How come?” I said, happily exiting on my hands and knees.

“Because,” said Soup.

I knew better than to ask Soup “because what?” As far as Soup was concerned, his one-word explanation—because—was enough for me. It would be a waste of good time to offer further documentation for his decision that proper barrel-entering was performed head first. Argument would now be useless. Soup never made a moot point. And so with a sigh of resignation, Soup’s sweater and I occupied the barrel in the approved manner.

The barrel, prior to my entry—or rather re-entry—
had been light inside. Now that I filled it, it seemed dark. To make matters worse, the inside bottom of the old apple barrel that I now faced still carried a few overripe remains of its recently emptied cargo.

“You see?” said Soup, “now when you roll inside the barrel, nothing can hit your face. There’s a reason for everything.”

I was about to add, “Nothing can hit my face except rotten apples.” But I didn’t. It would be folly to talk back to Luther Wesley Vinson when your arse end is pointed shoe-level in his direction and within his range, especially in such an undefended position. You had to know in this world when to keep your mouth shut and your behind inconspicuous.

“Ready?” said Soup.

“Ready.” I really wasn’t ready at all, not prepared in the least. But what good would it do to say I wasn’t?

“Now,” said Soup, turning the barrel with precision, “make sure you stay on the road. ’Cause if’n you don’t, you’ll roll off down the meadow and through a fence into Biscardi’s hen coop.”

“I will?”

“Not if you stay on the road,” Soup said.

“How do I do that?”

“Rob, don’t you know anything about rolling in a barrel? Any jackass can do it.”

“That’s me,” I said. “I’m in there somewhere.”

“Remember this one thing,” said Soup, his voice assuming his I-know-and-you-don’t attitude, rather like Miss Kelly. No one ever questioned Miss Kelly. Her words were dipped in bronze.

“Remember to keep your weight even in the barrel. The important thing is balance,” said Soup.

“Balance,” I said in a hollow voice, as if it came from deep inside a barrel. It did.

“Brace yourself,” said Soup. “And don’t tear my sweater. I may want it back.”

“No, you won’t. It’s got apple on it.”

“You’ll go on the count of three,” said Soup.

“Why three?”

“That’s the way you do it. As I holler out the number, you’re supposed to say the same number. Okay? One!”

“One,” I said.

“Two!”

“Two.”

“THREE!”

On the final number, I never got a chance to answer.
Soup gave the barrel a heck of a push and also what sounded and felt like an extra kick, to insure I reached maximum rolling speed. Soup was a perfectionist in so many wondrous ways.

Down we went; the barrel, Soup’s sweater, and I—down Dugan’s Hill. I put fear out of my mind in order to concentrate on balance. Faster and faster the barrel rolled, so fast that some of it came apart. Around and around I went; my head was spinning, and I forgot what little I knew on the topic of balance. I did try to brace myself, but it didn’t really matter anymore. When you walk
up
Dugan’s Hill, you’re not fully aware of its many and countless bumps. Yet rolling down it inside an apple barrel, each bump seems to make itself known.

Around and around, faster and faster and faster the barrel rolled. I figured there had to be
some
fun to it; and yet my mind seemed to be asking: when would the fun start? I tried to tell myself that it was great sport.

It didn’t work. It wasn’t fun. There was no joy to it at all. Not one bit. It hurt, it was scary, it made you so dizzy and weak that you wanted to cry, scream, and throw up all at the same time. And you got wood slivers in your hands.

Some people might call this fun. I sure don’t.

There was a loud noise, and then another. It sounded like a barrel with a fool in it, going at great speed, smashing through the side of Biscardi’s chicken coop. I was thrown out of the barrel, but still moving, rolling, and sliding through a thick and slippery carpet of straw and hen manure. My last thought, as I slid into a hysterical group of Plymouth Rock matrons, as if they had been second base, was of Soup’s sweater.

I’d have to be careful, I thought, as I tried to slow myself down by grabbing a chicken, or I’d really do more damage to the sweater than just a little old nail hole. Several staves out of the barrel and a rusty hoop seemed to be sliding along with me. It sure was a long hen house.

There was another crash, a chorus of excited cackles, and one very angry yell as I finally came to a stop just as Mrs. Biscardi dropped the eggs.

My first thought, as I lay on the floor of the chicken coop and looked up at Mrs. Biscardi with broken eggs dripping from all ten of her fingers, was that I hoped I didn’t get any yellowy egg stuff on the sweater. Soup was a regular guy, but he could be right fussy about certain matters that concerned
his
property, both present and past. I put my hands on my chest to feel if the sweater was still in one piece.

All I felt was my shirt and part of an eggshell. To my dismay, I wasn’t even wearing a sweater. And yet my arms were wearing a sweater and so was my neck. I was about to ask Mrs. Biscardi if she’d seen a brown wool sweater, but I decided she had other things on her mind. One thing that seemed to occupy her thoughts was a large, gaping hole in the side of her chicken coop. The hole itself wasn’t so bad. The real problem was that most of the hens were running out through the hole and down the road.

I looked through the hole for Soup. No sign of him. Soup had evaporated as mysteriously as had most of his sweater. Mrs. Biscardi seemed to be even more emotional than even her most excited hen. There was at least a dozen hens flapping around and cackling their heads off. The air was a snowstorm of chicken feathers, and so was the inside of my mouth. Mrs. Biscardi was saying things to either me or the escaping hens, and they didn’t sound very friendly. But seeing neither the chickens nor I could understand even one word of Italian, none of us really took offense at the remarks that seemed to tumble from her lips without so much as a breath in between.

Mrs. Biscardi was dreadfully upset over something. She was so busy trying to guard the hole and trying to
catch six or seven screaming chickens at once, while holding one hen firmly between her chubby knees, that it seemed to be an excellent time for me to scram. Getting to my feet, I ran out of the chicken-wire door. A piece of brown yarn was around my neck and I gave it a yank, but it didn’t come loose. As I ran around to the other side of the hen coop, more yarn caught my eye. It was a long piece of yarn, starting from inside the hen house and stretching straight up Dugan’s Hill.

I climbed the hill, following the strand of yarn as I retraced the route that I had rolled inside the apple barrel only a minute earlier. The yarn came to an end, snagged around a rotted barrel stave and wound around a nail.

It’s not easy to believe how anyone could walk home smelling of rotten apple, broken egg, and chicken manure and be as happy as I was. I even whistled, despite the licking I’d probably get for the mess I’d turned myself into. But now I was a full-fledged member of that brave and fearless group of adventurers who had the courage to roll down Dugan’s Hill in a barrel.

In my pocket was a large wad of brown yarn. So if Soup wanted his sweater back, I’d give it to him.

But he’d have to knit it all over again.

“S
OUP
?”

“Yeah.”

“How come you do that to a bug bite?”

“I always do it.”

“You make a X on each one?”

“Sure,” said Soup. “See? I use my thumb nail and press a line into the bug bite that goes up and down. Then I press in a line that goes across.”

“It’s a funny thing to do.”

“What’s so funny about it? Cowboys brand their cows that way.”

“No they don’t.”

“I just pretend that I own a big cattle ranch out west, and it’s branding time whenever I see a bug bite. My ranch is going to be called the Itchy X. I’ll name it after a bug bite.”

“If I had a ranch,” I said, “I’d put wings on an R and call it the Flying R. The R is for Robert.”

“Or you could put the R lying down and call it the Lazy R.”

“Speaking of lazy,” I said to Soup, “you and me are supposed to hoe the potatoes. Your ma said she’d give a penny for every row we hoe.”

“I did half my row,” said Soup.

“Well, I guess I did about half of mine. That’s half a penny for you and half for me. How will she ever pay us half a cent? She’ll have to axe a penny in half.”

“She probably won’t pay us at all if she comes out,” said Soup, “and sees us sitting here in the shade with our backs leaning against the toolshed.”

“Maybe we ought to go back and hoe the potatoes, Soup. At least we ought to hoe one row, so we can each get a whole penny to our name.”

“Rob?”

“Yeah.”

“What you going to do with your penny?”

“Save it, I guess. How about yours?”

“I’m going to save mine too. And when I get enough pennies saved up, I’ll go west and buy the Itchy X.”

“Next year. I’ll be saving up for an airplane,” I said, “but right now I’m saving up for the goggles.”

“What do you want an airplane for?”

“Maybe when I get my pennies all saved up, I’ll buy an airplane and fly out west to visit you at the Itchy X Ranch.”