Sweet Dream Baby (15 page)

It's Wednesday night, and Beulah's at church. Caroline's gone on vacation to Yellowstone with her family. She's gonna see Old Faithful. She's gonna send me a postcard. Me and my Aunt Delia are at the Dairy Queen in Warrington getting Cokes and french fries. We drive on through Warrington and then turn around and drive back. My Aunt Delia says, “Same old Warrington.” She looks at the Coke in her lap. “Same old Coke and fries.” The radio is playing The Drifters' “Under the Boardwalk.” I like the Coke and french fries. Back in Omaha, I don't get to go out like this at night.

We drive back toward Widow Rock, and when we pass Luby's Roadhouse, my Aunt Delia slows down and says, “Whoa now, son. Look at that.”

I look, but I don't see anything. She points, and I see Ronny Bishop's white pickup truck way at the back of the parking lot. My Aunt Delia pulls in, and we stop next to the red neon sign that blinks on and off: Whiskey. Dancing. Whiskey. Dancing. We can hear the jukebox booming inside and people laughing. It's hillbilly music. My Aunt Delia and Beulah and Caroline call it shit-kicker music. They don't like it, except for Patsy Cline. They like rock 'n' roll.

My Aunt Delia pulls around back, as far from Ronny's truck as we can get. We don't see anybody in the truck. We wait, and a man comes out the back door of Luby's. When he opens the door, the music jumps out with him loud, then it stops when the door closes. He's wearing a white cowboy hat, jeans, and a blue western shirt with pearl buttons. He's holding a brown paper bag. He stops and looks around the parking lot. That's when Ronny and Bick stick their heads up.

They jump out of Ronny's pickup and walk over to the man. Bick takes out his wallet and gives the man some money, and the man hands Bick the bag. The man gets into an old Hudson and drives away. We watch his red taillights disappear off toward Warrington. Bick and Ronny throw back their heads and whoop at the moon, then they jog-trot back to the truck.

Ronny drives the white pickup out to the county hardroad, and my Aunt Delia says, “Come on, Killer, let's give 'em a scare.” She pulls out, and we follow the pickup back toward Widow Rock. About a mile from Luby's, she charges up close behind the pickup and starts blinking her brights on and off. The pickup slows down. It goes slower and slower, and then the brown bag flies out Ronny's window into the ditch. We go another half mile, and the pickup pulls over. My Aunt Delia pulls alongside and leans out the window. “What you boys got in that car?”

I can see Bick's face. First he's scared, then he's angry. Ronny leans over and looks at us. “Shit, Delia,” he says, “I thought it was your daddy.”

My Aunt Delia says, “You're dumb, Ronny. My daddy has red lights.”

Bick's not saying anything. His face is stuck angry.

My Aunt Delia says, “What was that I saw flying out your window, Ronny?”

Ronny says, “Why don't you go back and see.”

Bick just looks at my Aunt Delia and shakes his head.

She says, “You go back and get it. If it's not broken, bring it to Widow Rock.” She gives the Chevy hard gas, and the tires burn, and we're gone. I look back, and the pickup pulls out and turns around, and Bick and Ronny go back to look for the thing they threw out the window.

• • •

It's exciting going to Widow Rock at night. We leave the Chevy and the pickup down below and climb up by the light of the moon. Sometimes we slip, and Ronny falls once and says, “Shit fire!” and my Aunt Delia says, “Ronny, if you can do that, light our way.”

Bick takes out his cigarette lighter, and the flame shows us the way until the lighter gets too hot to hold anymore. It takes a long time. When we come out on the big shelf of rock, it's a creamy white in the moonlight, and the gorge is just that empty nothing, a lake of cool black air out there above the river. We can smell and hear the river, but when I take little half steps out to the edge of the cliff and look down, all I see is dark. My stomach drops like when I took off in the airplane.

We stand looking at the moon and listening to the river below. The trees behind us rub and fuss in the wind, and my Aunt Delia says, “I wish we had Beulah's radio.” Bick reaches into his back pocket and pulls out the brown paper bag. “We got this. No thanks to you, Delia.”

My Aunt Delia says, “Well, what do you know? It didn't break.”

She walks over and takes the bag from Bick and rolls the paper down, and I see the whiskey bottle. She wads the paper bag and wings it out over the gorge. When she pulls out the cork, it makes a little pop, and she wipes her palm across the mouth and takes a drink. “Cheap whiskey,” she says, and hands it back to Bick.

He laughs, and it sounds hard. He says, “You wouldn't know Rebel Yell from panther piss, Delia Hollister.”

My Aunt Delia tilts her head to the side and watches him from one eye. “Mr. Sophisticated. His daddy gives him one drink every Saturday night to train him for Princeton.”

Bick shakes his head again and raises the bottle and drinks. Ronny says, “Come on, Bick, give me a bite of that. We wouldn't have it if I didn't have friends in low places.”

My Aunt Delia looks over at me. “Travis, have you ever seen two bigger jerks in your life?” She's smiling, and her face is white in the moonlight, and her eyes look like they've got stars in them. I say, “I guess not.” I look at Ronny and Bick, but they don't look at me.

Bick goes out to the edge of the cliff and lights a Salem. My Aunt Delia puts her finger across her lips and says, “Travis, Bick's gonna have a coughing fit.”

Ronny puts the bottle down on the rock where my Aunt Delia and me sat the first time we came up here. He reaches into his back pocket and takes something out, something dark and gleaming. He says, “Hey, Travis, Boy, look what I got.”

I look, but I can't tell what it is. I go over close. It's a pistol. He holds it out to me, and before anybody can stop me, I take it, and it's so heavy my hand falls a foot before I catch it. I've never held a real one before, only toys, and I can't believe how heavy it is. Behind me, my Aunt Delia's voice is slow, careful, and angry. “You fool, Ronny, why did you bring that up here?”

Ronny looks up at the moon. “I don't know. Snakes, I guess.” He and Bick laugh.

I turn with the pistol in my hand. My Aunt Delia stands with her hands on her hips looking at Ronny. The moon's behind her, so I can't see her face, but I know she's mad at him and maybe at me.

Ronny says, “Relax, Delia. You know how kids love guns. I thought me and Travis here would do some target shooting tonight. I bet he'd like that, wouldn't you, Travis?”

There's nothing in the world I'd like more, but I don't say so. I keep my voice quiet and say, “I guess so. Is it okay, Aunt Delia? I'll be careful. I promise.”

Ronny looks over at Bick. “What do you think, Bick? Should me and old Travis go down and do some target shooting?”

Bick turns from the edge of the cliff with the red glow of the cigarette hanging from his lips. He says, “Every boy loves a little target shooting. I don't see how it can hurt anything.”

My Aunt Delia says, “Travis, I don't like the way you're holding that thing. Point it at the ground.”

My face burns hot in the night air. I didn't know I was pointing the pistol at her. I know better than that. I point it straight down. She comes over and says, “Check and see if it's loaded.” I look up at Ronny, and he nods, and I find the catch that releases the roller that holds the bullets. It flops open against my palm, and I can see six bright brass circles with dark little eyes in their centers. I say, “Yes, ma'am. It's loaded.”

My Aunt Delia says, “Ronny, unload that thing right now.”

Ronny takes the pistol from me. He pours the bullets into his hand.

My Aunt Delia looks over at Bick. He's standing with his back to us looking at the moon. I can see a halo of cigarette smoke around his head. The wind pulls the smoke out toward the empty nothing. My Aunt Delia says, “Now don't you reload that pistol until you're all the way down to the bottom. And be careful.” She looks at Ronny. “You hear me, Ronny?”

Ronny looks at her and smiles. He takes a big drink of whiskey from the bottle and puts it down on the rock. “I hear you, Delia.”

• • •

Ronny turns on the pickup's headlights. He gets some Coke and 7-Up bottles out of the truckbed and sets them up on stumps and in the crotches of pine saplings. He hands me the pistol. “All right, Travis, Boy,” he says, “light 'em up.”

The bottles glitter in the headlights. The dew is coming down, and the trees are starting to drip. The bed of pine needles under my feet is wet. The pistol is cold and heavy in my hand. I hand it back to Ronny. “You better go first.”

Ronny laughs. It's more of a giggle, and I know if I saw his eyes they'd look like Mr. Latimer's eyes when he called me a half-nigger. Ronny says, “S'matter kid, you scared to cap an old Coke bottle?” He takes the pistol and holds it down low between us. I hear him cock the hammer. He says, “This here's a double-action piece, Travis, Boy. You don't have to cock it, but you'll get more accuracy if you do.”

Ronny turns to the side, aims the pistol straight-armed, and closes one eye. The 7-Up bottle disappears before the bang hits my ears like a hand slapping my head. It makes me yell, and I jump back a step from Ronny. Pieces of glass rain down through the dripping trees. There's a little ring of smoke around Ronny, and it smells strong, and like nothing I've ever smelled before. I like the smell. He's holding the pistol down by his leg again and looking at me. “Travis, I bleeve you just squealed like a girl. Ain't you ever heard a gun go off before?”

I say no, but I can't hear my own voice. The bang hurt my ears or something. I look up at Ronny and say, “Now it's my turn,” and hold out my hand. Ronny laughs. “You sure you want to? I don't want to let no girl shoot my pistol, now.” I stand there with my hand out, and for some reason I'm remembering how Ronny and Bick Sifford looked at each other when Ronny said he'd take me down here to shoot, and how Bick said, “I don't see how it can hurt anything,” and then he turned away to the gorge.

Ronny hands me the pistol, and this time I push my hand up so he can't tell it's heavy for me. I lower it to my knee and cock it with my thumb, and my hand is sweating. I'm afraid my thumb's gonna slip off the hammer and the pistol's gonna shoot my foot. But I feel it cock, and I raise it and hold it out straight toward the Coke bottle in the crotch of a little cypress about twenty feet away. Ronny says, “Now line up that little notch with the sight at the end of the barrel.”

I'm not listening to him. I'm trying to remember my Aunt Delia's eyes when she looked at Bick Sifford. When she looked at him just before she said I could come down here.

I guide the pistol back and forth until the white letters that spell, “Coca-Cola” come into the sight, and then I pull the trigger and the bang is not so loud this time, but the pistol jumps in my hand, and the shock of it goes all the way back to my shoulder, and it's like Jimmy Pultney hit me in the arm with his fist.

I open my eyes, and the Coke bottle is gone, and Ronny Bishop says, “Damn Kid, you got some beginner's luck.” I turn to look at him, but he's looking down at the gun. I look down too, and I'm pointing it at his stomach. He reaches out and slowly puts his hand over the barrel.

“Take your finger off the trigger, Travis.”

I do.

He takes the gun from me by the barrel. He says, “What did your Aunt Delia tell you about pointing guns at people?”

I don't say anything. I just nod. I'm thinking about my Aunt Delia and Bick Sifford up there on Widow Rock. I'm thinking about how she came home with that scratch on her chest. I'm thinking about how he touched her arm at the tennis court and how she let him do it for a while before she pulled away.

Ronny Bishop takes the pistol and walks over and puts it on the hood of the pickup. He says, “Travis, I got to go take a leak. Wait here for me and don't touch that piece 'til I get back, okay?”

He walks off into the bushes singing, “Hard-Headed Woman.” It's Elvis's new song. It's a hit. They're playing it every half hour, all day long on the Birmingham and Jacksonville stations.

When Ronny's gone into the bushes, I turn and run for the path that goes up to Widow Rock.

When I come to the top of the hill where the path isn't steep anymore, I stop running. I'm out of breath. I rub my knee where I scraped it on a root and try to hear over the sound of my breathing. I don't hear anything, so I go closer. Through the ragged opening in the trees, I can see a space of white stone in the moonlight. I can feel the cool air from the river on my face. Then I hear them. Bick Sifford says, “Come on, Delia. Please, Delia,” and his voice sounds like the Reverend Laidlaw's voice when he closes his eyes at the end of the sermon, asking Jesus for something. Something he really wants. Something we're all supposed to want. It makes the hair go up on the back of my neck.

I listen for my Aunt Delia's voice, and I hear hard breathing, and I can't tell whose, and then she says, “Stop it, Bick. I want you to stop it.”

I come out onto the white rock shelf and see them lying where my Aunt Delia and me sat in the sun that first day we came here. Bick's on top of her, and I can see him holding her wrist with his left hand and touching her with his right. My Aunt Delia's got her left arm around his neck, and he's got his leg between hers. I stop ten feet from them, and she says, “I mean it, Bick. I want you to stop.”

I reach down and feel at my feet. I find a piece of loose rock, and I wing it side-arm right into the middle of Bick Sifford's back. Bick Sifford squeals, “Oww! Shit! What's that?” He rolls off my Aunt Delia, and she turns away from me and pulls her jeans up and her white blouse down.

• • •

Bick Sifford jumps up and faces me. He pulls up his zipper and takes a step toward me. He says, “Get out of here, you little turd.”

My Aunt Delia sits up, but I can't see her face because Bick's in the way. Bick Sifford takes another step toward me and stamps his foot like he's trying to scare a cat. His bare foot slaps on the white rock. “Get!” he says. “I mean it.”

I stand my ground. I say, “You were hurting her. I saw you.”

Bick says, “You sneaky little shit. Standing over there in the trees watching us? Where's Ronny, anyway? Did you shoot him?”

I say, “You leave her alone.” I want to say, you rich boy Princeton shit turd. I want to say all the words Jimmy Pultney says that I don't say. I just say it again, “Leave her alone.”

Bick says, “I'm not gonna tell you again, Travis. Get out of here. Me and Delia want to be alone.” His face is big and white and jaw-clenched, and his hands are tight fists at his sides.

From behind his legs, I hear my Aunt Delia say, “Stay, Killer.” She sounds tired. She sounds sad. She gets up and tucks in her blouse and runs her fingers through her black hair, twice on both sides. I'm glad I can't see her eyes very much. I'm afraid they look like they do at night when it storms and I come into her bedroom. She walks around Bick and comes to me. She says, “Bick, you leave Travis alone.” She takes my hand and pulls me toward the opening in the trees. I can hear Ronny calling out to me down there, “Travis! Hey, Travis, Boy!”

My Aunt Delia and I pass through the tree door, and I hear Bick Sifford behind us, “Goddamn cock-teasing bitch,” and I let go of my Aunt Delia's hand, and I start back fast. I'm gonna hit him. I'm gonna find a big rock and hit him in the throat. I'm gonna stomp his ass. My Aunt Delia catches me by the shirttail. I pull, but she holds on, and then I stop seeing the hole in the trees through my white rage. It goes buttery moonlight yellow again, and I hear her behind me saying, “Come on, Killer. You don't need to do that. You've done enough already. Let's just get out of here.”

We pass Ronny on the way down. He's slipping and falling and fighting the whiskey as much as the rocks and roots and the dark. He looks up and sees us coming and says, “What the…?” and we pass him fast, and my Aunt Delia doesn't say anything. Behind us I hear him call out, “Bick? Hey Bick, you up there?”

My Aunt Delia drives to Dr. Cohen's office and parks where we can't be seen from the main street of Widow Rock. There are no lights on in the doctor's office. There are lights in the doctor's house, and we see Mrs. Cohen come into the kitchen and get something from the refrigerator and then go out again. “Are we going in?” I say.

My Aunt Delia says, “No, Killer. We're just gonna sit here. I feel safe here.”

I say, “You're safe with me, Delia.”

She looks at me and smiles her sad smile. She reaches over and touches my face and pushes the hair out of my eyes. “I know, Killer. You're sweet. You did the sweetest thing for me tonight.”

I want to tell her I'll stomp his ass. One way or another I'll do it. But I don't say it. She doesn't want to hear that now. We sit for a while in the dark car with the windows open and the warm air full of my Aunt Delia's perfume and the spicy smell of the river and her secret skin. She says, “We forgot to turn on the radio.”

She reaches over and turns it on low, and the light comes on inside the radio, and I see that the back of her hand is scraped from fighting Bick Sifford. The song comes out slow and sad: “Tonight the light of love is in your eyes, but will you love me tomorrow?” My Aunt Delia leans her head back on the seat and listens. When the song is over, she says, “He's going to talk about me now, Killer.”

I don't know what she means. I know it's Bick, but I don't know what she means about talk. She says, “My reputation is shot now,” and I remember the song “Wake Up, Little Suzie.” “The movie's over. It's four o'clock, and we're in trouble deep.”

“What's he gonna say?” I ask. “You didn't do anything.”

Her head is still back on the seat. She's staring at the gray cloth that lines the roof of the Chevy. She says, “You don't know how it is in a town like this, Killer. It doesn't matter if you did anything. If they start to talk about you, there's nothing you can do to stop it. They can make your life hell.”

I don't know what to say. I'm thinking about the joke we played on Bick and Ronny. About how they threw the bottle out the window and then had to go back for it. I'm thinking it made them mad, and that's why Bick Sifford did that to my Aunt Delia. But then I know that's not it. He did it because he had to. Because he's Bick Sifford, and his daddy owns the box factory, and he's going to Princeton, and my Aunt Delia's the prettiest girl in Choctawhatchee County. I say, “Are you gonna tell Grandpa Hollister?”

She looks over at me like I'm crazy. She shakes her head and leans back again and stares up at the gray lining, and I wonder if she's thinking about Kenny Griner's eye. I think about the braided leather thong that disappears into Grandpa Hollister's pocket. I think about Bick Sifford with his eye busted like that. I say, “Are you gonna leave town?”

She gives me that same look again, and says, “No, Honey. I'm stuck here until I graduate from high school.”

We listen to the radio for a while and watch the Cohens' house. Nobody comes into the kitchen. Mrs. Cohen's cookies were good. There's a light on in the living room, and I remember all those books. Grandma and Grandpa Hollister just have the Bible and
Life
,
Look
, and
Time
. They've got the newspaper from Panama City and
Reader's Digest
. The radio plays Dion and the Belmonts: “Stay away from runaround Sue.” Some headlights come around the corner and stop. When they start moving again, I reach over and turn our radio off. But we keep hearing the same song, and I know it's Ronny and Bick in Ronny's pickup. We hear the rest of “Runaround Sue” as they go down to the traffic light in front of Tolbert's Rexall and then move on. My Aunt Delia hugs herself and says, “I'm scared, Killer. I'm scared of what's gonna happen now. I don't want them to talk about me.”

“Don't worry. It's gonna be all right.” I want to say I won't let him hurt her, but I can't stop anybody from talking.

My Aunt Delia doesn't look over at me again. She just watches the light in Mrs. Cohen's kitchen window and listens to the radio. Jerry Lee, the Killer, comes on. It's “Breathless.” I listen close because it's my name. Maybe he'll tell me what to do now. He sings it like he's whispering to someone in the dark. “My heart goes round and round, my love comes a tumbling down. You leave me breathless. I shake all over, and you know why. I'm sure it's love, Honey, that's no lie. 'Cause when you call my name, you know I burn like wood in flame. You leave me breathless. Come on baby now don't be shy, this love was meant for you and I. Wind, rain, sleet, or snow. I'm gonna be wherever you go. You leave me breathless.”

My Aunt Delia always closes her eyes and swings her shoulders to the Killer, but now she doesn't. So I say, “We'll just stay away from them. We don't have to see Bick and Ronny.”

My Aunt Delia laughs, but there's no fun in it. She says, “We have to see them. That's what you do in Widow Rock. You go see who's there.”

• • •

One day after supper, I'm in my room reading John R. Tunis. My Aunt Delia's in the bathroom getting ready to go out with Beulah. I hear the phone ring, and then my Grandma Hollister comes to the bottom of the stairs and calls up, “Travis, come on down, Honey. It's your dad on the phone.”

I just keep reading. I don't want to talk to him. I don't know why. She calls me again, and I don't answer. She says, “Just a minute, John. I'll go up and get him.” I hear her coming up the stairs, and I hide behind the book. I'd go out the window, but there's no way down. I'd go out the window in my Aunt Delia's room, but my Grandma Hollister would see me. I hear her footsteps out in the hall.

“Travis, did you hear me call you? Are you asleep already?”

She opens my door, and I hide behind the book. She says, “Travis?”

“I don't want to talk to him.”

I hear her breathing. The words in front of my face run down the page and spill their ink. She comes into the room and sits on the bed. She reaches out and pushes my book down. She wipes my face with her fingers. “Honey, your daddy loves you. I know he does. He loves you very much. He didn't call before because it's hard for him.”

“It's hard for me, too.”

“I know that, Honey. He should have called before now, but I want you to go down and talk to him, and I want you to be a big boy and not upset him. Will you try, Travis?” Her face looks tired. She looks like she's gonna cry. She's squinting like she's got a headache. She loves my dad and me, too.

“What's the matter, Mother?”

My Aunt Delia stands at the door. She's in her bathrobe, and her hair is wet, and she doesn't have any makeup on. She's beautiful, and I want to run away with her. My Grandma Hollister says, “Lloyd's on the phone, and Travis won't go down and talk to him.”

My Aunt Delia comes in and sits on the other side of my bed. “Why, Travis, you're crying.”

“I didn't want to,” I say. I promised myself I wouldn't cry anymore. I just didn't think my dad would call.

My Aunt Delia hugs me. “I know, Honey. I know. But you have to talk to your daddy. Think how he'll feel if you don't.”

“I don't care how he feels. He doesn't care how I feel.”

My Grandma Hollister says, “That's not true, Travis. You know it isn't.” She sighs, and I know she's gonna tell me something she doesn't want to. I hope it's not about my mom. She says, “Your daddy's just…he's just one of those men who can't admit it when things hurt them. And it hurt him to have to send you here, and right now things with your mother are very hard for him. The important thing is that he wants to talk to you. Can't you go down and talk to him?”

I look at my Aunt Delia. She nods. She smiles. I'd do anything for her.

• • •

“Hello, Dad.”

“Hello there, Marine. How are you doing?”

“Fine, sir.”

“Are they taking good care of you? Are you eating plenty of Marvadell's good cooking?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Grandma says you and Aunt Delia are big friends. I'm glad to hear that, Son. I always wanted you to get to know my family.”

“Yes, sir.”

I hear my dad sigh, or maybe he's taking a puff on a cigarette. If he is, it's a big one, and he draws the smoke way down into his chest and blows it out hard. He says, “I went to see your mom today, Travis. She's fine. She's getting better. She wanted me to tell you how much she loves you and how much she misses you.”

I want to tear the phone out of the wall. I want to take the black cord that connects the part you hold to your ear to the part you dial and wrap it around my neck. I want to run away with my Aunt Delia. I want my mom.

“I miss her too, sir.”

“Well, they've sure got you sirring down there in Widow Rock, don't they, Travis?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right, Son. You take care, and try not to worry about things. We're gonna be all right.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Put Grandpa Hollister back on, will you, Son?”

“Yes, sir.”