The Moves Make the Man (17 page)

Nothing but. You could see if you watched him close. You saw him laugh but keep his eye on the person laughing with him though THEY were laughing completely and not watching HIM. You noticed how he used the same tone of voice for different sentences and touched people's arm at the same place in the song, like James Brown always falling to his knees so upset when he sings Please, Please Please, so sincere, but the exact same every show. It was not so plain you would have seen it if you were paying attention to the whole conversation and eating and all. But I was not, I was sitting out there checking it out, and I saw it clear as the moon at night: Bix was putting on some moves. They were good moves, no question, they were putting everybody in the air, everybody but me and I just sat there watching. I didn't even eat. If you want to know, the thing made me kind of sick, to tell the truth.

I guess I had caught it at the my man stage, and probably I could have told him to come off it, made him knock it off and come straight and cut the mess, but I had blown it by not setting him straight then. Even in the middle of the meal I wanted to tell him how wrong it was and how rude, it was very rude to put on for people and let them fall for you like that, especially when you did not have to, they were good people and so were you and would have liked each other fine anyway. But it was too late now. I waited too long.
Because if I said anything now, it had gone too far and too deep with everyone too involved. Henri and Maurice and Momma were sincere, taking the fakes but giving back for real, and they would have had too many laughs to take back and cancel too much they had felt when they believed his charm. They would have to be shocked and very embarrassed, and Bix too, and could not begin to apologize once it was out, for the whole flow would be broken and nobody would have anything to stand on, feeling like fools every which way.

All of this I just could not bring on. So I sat tight and angry and picked at my food and they all leaned further away and closer together and forgot about me which was for the best because I could not have faked being involved at all.

It could not go on forever, fortunately. After a while dinner had been so over it was silly to pretend it was still going, so there was a break and Bix and Henri popped up to clear the dishes. Bix insisted when Momma said he should stay put and her clear, him making her sit and saying it was the least he could do. I thought for a minute this would be it and we could get through dessert normally once the spell was broken and then he would have to go home and nobody would ever be wise. I was thinking this and hoping for it, when he and Henri came back in carrying the dessert. Henri was carrying the big bowl of ice cream. Bix was carrying a pie.

A pie. A pie with an A pricked in the top crust. Just a plain looking fresh pie, nice and warm. A good old American white-boy apple pie.

It hit me all of a sudden and I sat up straight and looked at him, but he snapped a look over at me very quick, like
taking quick stock to see if I would give it away and deciding I would not and then ignoring me again. So I knew he was going through with the big move of the night, and he intended to take it all the way.

Umm, said my momma, and he watched her closely. Umm, she said, I love the smell of cinnamon in an apple pie.

Yeah, said Bix, shooting me a look and then back to her, yes it is good stuff.

What could I do? What I wanted to do was push his face into the pie and knock him all the way to Duke loony ward by myself only pausing long enough to make him apologize for such a slimy trick and bringing nothing but tricks into our home and pulling such needless crapola on my brothers and Momma who would have given him anything. I wanted to kick ass and take names. But of course I could not.

I could not for the same reason as before. The pie thing was so strange everybody would never understand why in the world this weird white boy would pull such a number. I did not want Momma to be hurt by his rudeness and have to wonder why someone would pull such a thing. So I sat there and actually had to hope that the pie would fool everyone so Bix could get out of the evening as smooth as he came in.

Momma was holding the pie knife over the thing. Mmm, she said, I do love homemade apple pie.

Me too, said Henri, but I like it best on my plate.

You can wait your turn, Momma said. It so happens that Bix has asked me to do the honors of tasting the first piece, so there! She stuck her nose up and Mo and Henri laughed and I tied a knot in my napkin.

Bix was changing very fast right now but nobody was watching him, they were all watching the pie and Momma
as she cut it. He was watching her too, but all of the charming boy was fast gone from his face and instead while she cut it, while the big move came closer, he started looking excited like in Home Ec almost, but on the other side now.

Hah, he said, unable to hold it back when Momma finally had the piece of pie on her plate. And he stared hot while she lifted a forkful. He nodded, his eyes pretty nuts. Taste it, taste it, he said.

All right, Momma said, you won't have to twist my arm. Eat your hearts out, boys!

She put it in her mouth. Bix watched and made a noise in his throat and twisted his hands in his lap. Mo glanced at him.

Hah, Bix said. Hahaha.

Momma was chewing and saying Mmmm, so Henri grabbed the pie knife and started hacking a couple of slabs and Maurice stuck out his plate and they started to elbow and jive each other Hey! The biggest for me! and such as that, Bix watching them and nodding. But Momma had realized by now. She stared at Bix and her eyes were sadder than I ever saw them in my life. Oh you poor kid, her eyes were saying, why in the world did you have to do this? I did not want to smash him any more after seeing her eyes, I just wanted to cry for him because if I ever made her understand ME that sadly I would not know where to hide. She just watched him urge Henri and Maurice on, as they took second slices, heaping on the peach ice cream and slabbing it away. Bix did not eat any but he cut more for them and laughed with them while they jived each other, getting all the dessert they could take for once because for some reason Momma was not stopping them and they were not about to ask why.

Momma watched Bix, sad and yet still open with love,
and she swallowed her bite of pie and just shook her head once, very slight. We just watched, her and me outside it all, both of us knowing and both hoping it would all be over before anybody else found out. Then she looked up at me and her face stayed sad but it was showing me she understood. We just looked at each other while Bix said Yes, haha, and Mo and Henri took more and pretty soon the whole pie was gone, Momma and me just staring at each other understanding together the whole sad time.

Then all of a sudden the whole big show ran out of steam and as Henri and Maurice sighed and groaned and patted their stomachs and pushed up from the table, all of the jive vanished out of Bix and left him sitting there like a banana skin. But Mo and Henri did not notice, feeling grand with so much dessert, slapping him on the shoulder and moving on out of the room to go do something to make the ice cream settle. But Momma and I saw him fall, like a balloon toy you let half the air out of, from the wild laughing snap dude crash into the slinky pale scared kid in two seconds flat. We sat there while Mo and Henri slammed out into the backyard and it got quiet. Bix was not looking at either of us, just staring into the table in front of him, his forehead wrinkled and eyes confused like he almost did not know what was going on here. His color changed, his shoulders slumped, he drooped all over. But his eyes would not go out. He frowned and his eyes kept a little heat in them, like he would not give up trying to figure something out. So he looked hard at the empty pie plate and set his mouth and fought in his mind like there was something important he was about to forget or something. But Momma moved in. She slipped her arm through his and took one of his hands and stood him up very gentle, and he came up with her and his eyes cooled
a little. Momma walked him very soft away from the table and he did not look at me until they got to the door. Then he turned around and looked right in my eyes.

I just could not be all noble. I could not tell him it was all cool and everything was fine because we were so big-hearted and dug him in spite of his mean nonsense. Instead I looked him right back in the eyes, which were wide open and no defense, ready for something deep. Maybe I could have used the moment better by shooting something helpful into him but I was hurting so I said:

You are too screwed up for words, man.

It hung in the air for a second and he thought about it, staring at me straight, no shakes. He gave one small nod, a corner of his mouth twitched up like something you see teachers do sometimes when you say something they already knew and were waiting for. Then he said:

Which is why I'm such a good buddy for you, isn't it?

Then he turned and walked out of the room and Momma followed. I kept sitting and listened to them go out the front door and heard their steps go down the street in the direction towards his house. After a minute I got up and flicked off the light and went back to sitting and thinking.

I sat there thinking directly about what Bix said. Right away it hit me—sometimes you say a thing and do not think about what you have really said—Too Screwed Up For Words. It was a sharp phrase and Bix was right not to let it just get away, for I had told it like it was: There really were no words for Bix when he went off my map, and maybe that WAS what kept me coming back to him, maybe I WAS just puzzling all this time and could not let go, like a math problem you cannot solve but keep hauling out your notebook to work at even though not liking math worth a hoot.

But then a new thought sort of shook itself in. The thought was, maybe Bix was not strange beyond words—maybe my words had just not caught up with Bix. Instead of him being the big weirdo and me all cool in the catbird seat, it might be he was doing things I SHOULD understand but could not keep up with as long as I sat pat on my smarts. Maybe I needed to draw a new map.

While I was sitting there, shivering a bit for the hawk was out and coming cool in the window, something happened that you usually do not notice until it is over. It was one of those times when your thinking itself does not come in words anymore like packages of meaning. Instead the thoughts pass ever having seen the printing. These times are always pretty peculiar to me but also pretty certain, and so by the time I snapped out of it I was sure of a few new things.

I snapped out because I heard Momma's footsteps coming very faint from far off, so light you didn't know you had really been hearing them until they got louder. I sat in the dark until she had turned the corner and was tapping slowly up the street, the only sound out there. Then I got up and did not turn on a light and climbed up to my room.

Henri was snoring off the Ritz crackers. I climbed into bed and rolled so I could see out the window where the moon made the eaves white above the black hole. I heard the front door open and close. Then I didn't hear anything until the door to my room cricked open and I knew Momma was looking in at me but I gave no sign I was awake. Usually I would roll and wave and she would wave and that would be goodnight, but tonight I kept to myself.

There was one question left in what Bix had said. True, I had decided, he was right about the beyond-words business being the big thing pulling me through our friendship. That
much I could see now. But whether or not that made him good for me I was not so sure. That would be something it took a while to work out, and now that I had started on it I did not want to go after it in words, in talk, with Momma or Bix or anybody else.

I waited out on the street for them to pick me up the next afternoon. I was wearing my good gray pants and my blue jacket and a white shirt and a silver tie that has got little blue frogs on it. I don't especially like frogs, but I don't like ties either and so who cares what is on them?

I did not know what kind of car it would be, so every car that slowed down I jumped at it ready to hop in but it wasn't them for quite a while. I guess I was a little nervous, waiting out there so jumpy and ready and going at every car. I had a queer feeling about the whole day. Too many things had happened leading up to it, and instead of fading they seemed like they were sticking around to add up to whatever was going to happen.

Finally they came. It was a huge red and black car but old. The windshield and windows were tinted dark green so you could not see there were people inside, and when the thing came toward me and slowed down I felt like one of those Japs in the horror movies who has just caught the eye of the giant man-eating bug crunching by. I did not feel any better when the back door swung open all of a sudden, slow
and heavy like a mouth very sure of itself. I peeked around the door, and there was Bix, sitting alone in the backseat over on the other side. His stepfather was looking over his shoulder and said Hi boy to me but Bix said nothing.

I got in. We pulled away. Nobody spoke. I said. So this is an Oldsmobile. There was a long sort of rope across the back of the front seat and for some reason, nothing else to do, I gave it a couple of tugs. Nice, I said. Thanks, said the man. That was it for talk for a while.

I sat back and looked at Bix. He looked kind of blank but okay, like he looked a lot of the time. He was dressed up too, almost the same as me but his tie was red and his shoes were shinier. In his lap he held his baseball glove.

Okay, I thought. Here we all are with ties on and our shoes shined, and if we're going to act like nothing has happened between us in the past two days it's not up to me to stir it up. This is Bix's big day and I am here because I said I would, but I'm not the one to make things happen anymore. From here on in it's his move.

Suddenly he perked up and looked out the window at a house we were passing and his stepfather said. There's Braxton's house, and I looked too and saw a nice old brick house with a screen porch and carving over the door which I could not tell what it was and then we were past. Bix looked back at it as long as he could, twisting all the way in his seat until we passed over a hill and then he turned back. His face was plain.

We drove on out of town and got on the road that goes north. It is a straight flat road through the sandy plains and off on both sides far back there are scrub woods but nothing else to see. There were no cars but us. There was nothing to look at or do and nothing to say. I flipped open an ashtray.
There was an old licorice wrapper in it and I almost pulled it out just so I could read the writing on it to be doing something. But then Bix spoke.

You should have brought something to do, he said, looking at me.

Nobody told me, I said.

He shrugged. I brought my glove. He held it up. I noticed it was tied up with rawhide thongs all around it, very strange indeed.

It's almost spring, he said.

Yeah, I said, staring at the glove all tied up.

It's time to do gloves, he said. Every year, when it gets to this time, you have to get your glove out and fix it up.

What do you mean? I asked, looking at him. He was looking down at his glove.

This is always my favorite day after the winter, he said, every year this is my favorite day. Then very fast for one second his eyes got soft. Then the soft look shrunk back and he was plain and cool again and said, So, want to watch me do my glove?

Better than looking in the ashtrays, I said.

Frankly I did not think it would be much better than that, but it turned out to be one of the best things I ever watched somebody do. What it was was every year when it got cold and baseball was over, Bix stuck a new ball in the pocket of his glove and tied it shut over the ball very tight with rawhide and stuck it away in a plastic bag in the deep freeze. And then every year just before spring he took it out and thawed it and then he had to work on it. The freeze kept the oils in, he told me, but then you had to go through about a hundred steps to condition the whole thing back into playing shape. He proceeded to do every one of these steps exactly
and patiently like the glove was a person and him a doctor operating and the glove would die if he did not do it right. Every step he did he told me about it, talking soft and even all in one tone like he was almost talking to himself.

First he untied the thongs and opened the glove up very carefully like he was not sure he would find the ball inside though he put it there himself six months ago but maybe a bird instead and he did not want it getting loose. He told me once he hit his only ball into a creek on the last day of the fall and so instead of a ball he stuck an orange the same size into the glove and tied that in. He didn't used to stick it in the freezer but just in the attic and next spring when he got it he opened it up and the orange had rotted and the whole face of the glove was covered with a blue fuzzy fungus. He said he rubbed some of the fuzz into the leather and thought maybe it improved the flex in that spot.

He handed me the new baseball that spent all winter in the deep freeze inside this glove and I held it. Next he reached down beside him on the floor and pulled out this large cigar box, and then this little leather bag. Inside the cigar box he had about fifteen bottles and tubes and tins of ointments and pastes and oils and soaps, some of the bottles and tins looking very old, one green tin with much paint scratched off given to him by Gil McDougald a few years back, the shortstop for the Yankees when they came through and played the Carolina baseball team an exhibition, and Bix went down to the dugout late in the game and talked glove with him and it was the secret to flex, Bix said. In the leather bag which he opened and pulled out a little hook thing he had all kinds of strange tools I had never seen, scrapers and wooden sticks with blunt ends and such.

Then he was set and he went at it, as I said, talking all
the while. I cannot remember any of the details. It all went so quickly from one paste for flex in one part of the glove to a soap and then scrape clean and oil in another and then wax to keep it stiff for shape, and on through mink oil and balsam paste and beeswax and hickory ash ointment, here and there all over for each part of the glove had its special way of moving and had to be treated just right for that particular job.

It could have been very amusing, very fun, and it probably was most years but now it was cut with a serious feeling, being there in the car, rolling down the road to the loony place with a crazy mother at the end, instead of out on a sunny field where the first grass was greening its way up, which is probably where Bix usually did this number. Still, it hit me as funny a few times, such as when he made me smell it to tell it was too stiff and then note the difference after he had rubbed in the softening gunk, and I laughed for the kookiness and yet the fineness of the ceremony. Bix looked at me like I was doing something very odd and the laugh sounded queer in that car and I snapped off fast. After that I was as serious as Bix and made sure not to crack a smile. In a way this was a sad thing, but still it was interesting.

Finally it was finished and Bix put the glove on his hand and took the ball in the other and sat there popping the ball into the glove very hard from very short away, popping it back to his bare hand almost as hard, then back in and out and so on. All this time he studied the action, starting out frowning like he doubted it was ready. But the frown went as he felt it, until finally he was almost smiling, it was okay now for another season, and he stopped and held the ball in the glove and closed it and said, One of my favorite days, every year. It is always the day the things I like start. It's
the first day.

And I was right with him, I was sucked right into the hope that things were starting, watching him an artist and a kid at the same time, working his glove and checking it out and full of hope for a new season of nice, straight ground balls. I felt right then that I was the only one remembered all the weird bad stuff that had gone on before, leading up to this point. It was like everyone else had forgot, Bix had his eyes up ahead and he was not going to turn around—it was the day things began, the day you fix your glove up to catch the new balls coming at you, and if bad had pushed you from behind you did not care, for you had made it through.

But I knew deep down that the stuff behind could not just be dropped like it had nothing to do with what was ahead of him. There was just too much, too many strange angles and things left jaggedy open so you did not know they would ever shut right. I looked at Bix and he was pretty and bright. He looked over at me and gave me a smile, like a shy happy kid. My throat choked and I nodded, and he said, Hey, everything will be cool. Then he just looked out his window for a long time, and I just sat there, nothing to do but smell all the oils in the air and try to see how long I could keep them apart until they blended all together, and then I just sat and waited.

After a long time Bix started making little movements and peering up the road. Then he said, You don't know Jeb, do you?

No, I said, I don't believe so.

Jeb's this really good guy, Bix said. He runs this station, you know, gas, and has this little diner there too and we stop there every time. It's just about in the middle of the trip. We stop on the way up and on the way back unless we
leave too late Sunday and he's closed. Bix looked up at the back of his stepfather's head like this was a touchy matter Bix did not want to see happen again. His stepfather said nothing, just drove.

He makes really great hot dogs, said Bix. Wait till you taste them.

Braxton…said the man, very low, then cleared his throat and said it again, Braxton…

I always get two, Bix went on. You can have two if you want. I think today I'll get one with chili and slaw and one with mustard and onions. No, wait! I'll probably get both with chili. You got to get one with chili too, you'll love this guy's chili. Maybe no slaw, though, sometimes I don't like the slaw—

Listen, Braxton—

There's pecan divinity bars too, and pepsi in the old kind of bottle, it tastes better out of the old bottles, Jeb says.

Braxton, I don't think we will be stopping at Jeb's today.

Bix ignored his stepfather. Wait till you meet old Jeb too, what a nice guy. He wears this paper hat, you know, kind of like the old army caps that fold up like an envelope. One time he gave me one. It had LANCE CRACKERS written on it in blue and red letters and I wore it. Then his face tightened up. One of Maysie's kids out where I stay the weekends got it wet and it fell apart. They take their bath on Friday night, they are always bathing when I get there, running around naked snatching anything you got. He looked up at his stepfather's head.

Braxton, we are not stopping at Jeb's, do you hear? I'm sorry, but we just can't today.

Bix started singing, very loud, Oh, Jeb has the greatest hot dogs, and the greatest gas and stuff. And if you come
to see him, he'll even give you stuff. Oh—

Braxton! I don't want you to get wild about this—

Jeb wears paper hats, you see, and if you're ver-y nice…He stopped singing when we passed a sign that said GAS THRE MILES. That's Jeb's sign. He left the E off on purpose, he says more people read the sign that way, on account of they see it's wrong and it gets them. Then all of a sudden Bix stopped chattering so happy and smacked the back of the seat very fierce and his face got red and angry and he said WHY?

I don't really want to explain why, Braxton, but we are not stopping and you have to believe me it is best. You just have to trust me sometimes, Bix. You won't listen about the hospital, but at least let me—

WHY? We HAVE to stop at Jeb's! We HAVE to! Bix was smacking the seat every time his voice rose, and getting so mad I thought he was about to smack his stepfather, whining and saying WE HAVE TO WE HAVE TO while the man tried to calm him down but it would not work. We came into sight of this little filling station and Bix was bouncing up and down and whining so bad that it was like a tantrum. So the stepfather finally slammed on the brakes at the last minute and we skidded over with a squeal and made it into the station. Bix dropped the tantrum and went back to humming his little Jeb's song, cool as could be. His stepfather was mad though. He stopped the car and turned around and stuck his finger in Bix's face and said, Okay pal, but you remember that I warned you.

Bix ignored him completely, looking happy out the window. I'm bringing my glove, he said. Jeb'll want to see it.

The door of this little diner building opened and a kid about sixteen walked out. That's Jesse, said Bix, he's Jeb's
kid. He's dumb as a stick.

We got out of the car and while we did the kid hollered out Fill it like usual? and Bix's stepfather said Yes. The kid, trying to look like he was doing a very difficult and dangerous thing with great smoothness, jerked the gas nozzle out of the pump and slammed it on the side and then jerked the meter handle very hard, because as anybody knows the harder you hit things the more intelligent and skilled you are. I got out and was stretching my arms up over my head when the kid turned around and saw me. His face went like at a horror movie and he squeezed the nozzle trigger and squirted a big line of gas out into the dust.

Sheez, he said, looking like he had never seen a real live black human being before. I finished stretching and walked a few steps behind Bix and his stepfather.

Bix went in the open door first, yellow light in a rectangle and smells of onions and peppers and coffee coming out, then his stepfather and me behind him. The stepfather sort of shuffled down to a crawl once inside and I was right smack against him almost and could not see past but I heard Hey, Mickey Junior! in a rough old voice I guess was Jeb, and Bix giggling. Hey, boss, the voice said and the stepfather said Hello, Jeb. Then he went to hang up his coat off to the left and I got a look at Jeb, standing behind the counter talking to Bix, who was sitting down at the other end and laughing. Jeb was a big dude with square shoulders and a flat chest and stomach underneath his white apron, sleeves rolled up and tan arms with tattoos. I couldn't read the tattoos but I tried. He was gesturing at Bix with one hand and in the other he held his spatula, loose and kind of confident like it was his best companion and he was always ready to flip a burger for a pal.