Three Sides of the Tracks (9 page)

8

Enlightened

The sound of singing woke him. Danny looked at the nightstand clock.
Almost nine o’clock. “Geez,” Danny moaned and covered his head with the pillow.
He tried to doze back off but it was no use, so he swung his legs off the bed
and pulled on his blue jeans.

He was drinking orange juice out of the carton when Belinda came in.

“How many times do I have to ask you to stop that?”

Danny grinned. “Once more should do it.”

“Well, stop that then, right now.” Belinda smiled.

“Where you going all dressed up?”
“Where do I usually go on Sundays all dressed up?”

Danny’s eyes grew big. “You mean you’re going
back
to that
church?”

“I sure am. The likes of Jessie Whitaker certainly isn’t enough to make
me stop going to the church I grew up in. Why don’t you come with me again?”
Belinda asked with narrowed eyes.

Danny cocked his head. “The likes of Jessie Whitaker certainly isn’t
enough to make me start going to the church I despise,” he said and chuckled.

Belinda laughed. “You’re hopeless. You should go with me, and we can wait
till your friend Jessie gets there, find seats right beside him, or perhaps
behind him. Then, in the middle of the service, you could whisper in his ear
whether the seating arrangements suited him?”

“Gosh, Mom, aren’t you the bold one all of a sudden.” Danny smiled though
his forehead was creased inquisitively. “Who put the fire in you?”

Belinda laughed again. “Oh, I just realized how foolishly I reacted to
that nincompoop.”

She covered her face with her hands as if embarrassed, but she was still
smiling. “The old biddies will talk about that for years.”

 “Does this sudden change have anything to do with your visitor this past
Wednesday?”

“You mean, Martin?”

Danny nodded.

“A little, yes. Jessie Whitaker came very close to getting . . . let’s
say ‘ruffed’ up a bit. Martin was pretty angry.”

Danny couldn’t help but notice the light come to his mother’s eyes and a
slight coloring to her cheeks.

“How close were you and Martin, Mom? I’m old enough to understand things
now. Tell me, did you love him more than Dad?”

The smile left Belinda’s face. She looked her son squarely in the eye.
“Martin is your father, Danny.”

Danny didn’t bother with a chair. He sank to the floor. Belinda gave up
thoughts of church and sat down at the kitchen table. She waited for Danny to
speak.

“Who all knew?” was the first thing Danny said.

“Just me, and, maybe, your father . . . um, Robert. I think Robert might
have suspected, especially these last few years. You look more and more like
Martin the older you become. But you know Robert: some things wouldn’t even
cross his mind. And he stayed so tired all the time from working two jobs. The
poor thing probably was too tired to think about much of anything he didn’t
have to.”

“And Martin? He must have known. How could he not?” An angry tone crept
into Danny’s voice.

“No, don’t be angry at Martin. He left the next day for the Air Force
Academy. We hardly saw each other after the night you were conceived. It was
just all so awkward. Martin and I were inseparable until that time. There was
no doubt in my mind or Martin’s, or anyone else’s in this town for that matter,
that we were meant for each other. What everyone calls ‘soul mates’ these days.
Destiny. Whatever you want to call it. But one moment can change all that. It
doesn’t seem real, or fair, that one bad decision can change so much, so much
of what could have been.”

A single tear slid down Belinda’s face.

Danny reached over and squeezed his mother’s hand.

9

Point of View

Danny saw the pain on his mother’s face. How different her life would
have been had she married Martin. Her family ostracizing her, and him too for
that matter, would never have happened.

“Bunch of assholes,” he said and slammed the door behind him as he left.

His mind a million miles away, he ambled to Bernard’s shed and took out
his lawnmower. Bernard’s grass was ankle high. Danny had planned to cut it but
kept putting it off.

As he pushed the mower through the thick grass, anger became bitterness
at the way his grandparents had turned their backs on his mother. And all
simply because she had not married “well.” The word stuck in Danny’s mind from
a conversation he overheard years ago. They were petty, narrow minded. The
anger flared again because they didn’t think his dad was good enough. And who
in the hell was this Martin—

“Danny, Danny,” a voice yelled.

Danny looked up. Bernard stood on the back porch, aided by his crutches.
They had bands that wrapped around his forearms and a handle on the
stainless-steel legs that he gripped.

“What’n the Sam Hill you think you’re doin’?”

Danny shut off the mower so he could understand what Bernard was saying.

“What?”

Bernard waved one of the crutches—“sticks” he called them.

Danny looked around. Then laughed. He’d missed huge swatches of grass. In
fact, he’d missed more than he’d cut.

“C’mon up here and tell me what’n the hell’s got into you. Damned Hari
Krishna with a robe over’iz head do better’n that. Sheeit. Better get me some
dangburn goats, I reckon.”

Danny plopped down in one wicker rocking chair, Bernard in the other.

They rocked in silence for a moment then Bernard said, “What’s got you
weavin’ round the yard like a broke wing butterfly?”

“I’m not telling this to anybody else but you Bernard.”

“Okay then, so go ahead.”

“My daddy ain’t my daddy. That man who owns the big bank is my daddy.
Martin. Martin Townsend.”

Bernard rocked silently.

“Well, aren’t you gonna say something?” Danny said.

“Ain’t much to say. I kinda figured that might be. For a couple’a years
now.”

Danny stared at Bernard, whose long thin face was covered in several days’
growth of whiskers. A round, broad-brimmed straw hat sagged to his ears and
half covered eyes that shined with intelligence when he wasn’t drinking or
taking too much of his medicine. A thin bony nose with a high ridge gave him a
hawkish appearance, added to by his frail, undernourished frame.

Bernard’s eyes looked clear, so Danny asked, “What gave you that idea?”

“Well, hell’s bells, boy, what’n the devil you think gave me the idea?
Your looks, of course.”

“You mean you saw me and knew what Martin looked like and automatically
thought—”

“Boy, you can be plumb ignorant sometimes. Damn. No, what I mean
is
that I knew all about your mother and this Martin fella growin’ up together and
bein’ all sweet on each other. Then all of a sudden, BAM, here she goes and
marries up with Robert. Now, this here’s a right small town when it comes to
some thangs. And y’all, well, her and Robert set up housekeepin’ next door and
was real friendly and all, then you come along. Well, I didn’t think much ‘bout
it really. Then you got older, and I’d see you outside and you with that
peculiar lip and not looking a ding dong damn like your mother or Robert. Got
me to thinking; it shore did. And I ‘membered that Martin’s uncle—I think he
was—or great uncle, somethin’ like that; anyways, he had a bad lip like yores.
I said to myself, yep, that boy sho’ does take after that Martin. Then a’course
I got on my computer and looked it up, and, shore ‘nuff, that bad lip condition
is geenitechs.”

“Is what?”

“Geenitechs, boy. Things what run in the family. Geenitechs.”

Danny looked puzzled then his face lit up. “Oh, genetics. You’re talking
about genetics.”

“That’s what I said, ain’t it?”

“Yeah, yeah, Bernard; I didn’t get what you meant at first.”

 A few silent minutes ensued then Danny mumbled, “I just can’t understand
why mother and Martin didn’t get married.”

“Heh, heh, heh. Boy, I know you drink a little bit ‘cause I seen you come
home wobbly like sometimes, throwin’ up and what not, but I bet you a silver
dollar you ain’t never smoked no weed or done no dope, have you?”

“Well, I tried to smoke some pot one time but it hurt my lungs so bad I
got to coughing and, well, I just didn’t like it. Why?”

“ ‘Cause gittin’ high opens yore mind up, boy. I’m tellin’ ya; it helps
ya see thangs in a different way. Bullshit don’t mean so much; you see right
through it. Now, I ain’t saying stay high all day like I do half the time. Just
once in a while to keep yourself stable, grounded. Hell, you’ve got somethin’
to do. Me, I done mine, and I’m just waitin’ around.”

“What do you mean, Bernard? Do what? Waiting on what?”

Bernard chuckled. “Everybody’s got one great thing to do in their life.
Some people’s got more than one, but everybody has at least one. Somethin’ you
really put yourself into. All of yourself. You feel alive, boy. Feel alive. I
don’t know what it might be. Might be training for some big, big race and
overcoming lots of odds to just be in the race. Could be savin’ somebody’s life
or going after that great beauty and you catch her and you both fall in love
like all git out.” Bernard exhaled a cloud of cigarette smoke. “Yep, could be
anything. Mine was the Nam. Bunch of shit happened over there, boy, but we
ain’t talkin’ ‘bout me.”

Danny sensibly stayed silent while Bernard rocked. His eyes seemed to be
looking far, far away.

Bernard broke the silence.

“Take your momma, for example. You see, it’s like this, or this is how I
got it figured anyhow. Yore momma and Martin being real close and all, probably
got real, I mean real friendly one night, and then he went off to school or I
think it was the Air Force. Anyway, it don’t matter; he went off somewhere and
never knew that your momma got pregnant from that real fine night they had
together. Then one day she felt a little different than she normally did and
one thang led to another and she knew she was gonna have a baby. Now, you got
to think and get your mind around to understanding that she wadn’t even as old
as you are right now when all this happened. Think ‘bout that when you’re
trying to picture all this in yore head. What does she do? She don’t want to
call Martin, ruin his plans and all that. She’s thinking more of him than of
herself ‘cause she loves him. And she loves you too. Soon as she found out you
was in her, she started lovin’ you. That’s the way women is. Can’t nothin’ come
‘tween a woman and her child, boy; you best believe that. Anyhow, I ain’t sure
how Robert come into the picture, but it worked out time wise good enough for
everybody to think you was his kid. And ole Martin never suspected a thing.”

Bernard chuckled. “He was probably mad as hell your momma didn’t wait on
his butt. Wait till he got outta the service.”

“Yeah, yore momma had it pretty rough there for a while, pretty rough.
Plus, they all ganged up on her for marrying Robert, and them sneakin’ off and
gettin’ married. But, hell, what was she gonna do? Them relatives of hers
would’ve show nuff had a shit fit if she’d come up pregnant without bein’
married. Heh, heh, heh,” Bernard chuckled.

Bernard looked at Danny, who sat transfixed, staring into Bernard’s whiskery
face. “Quite a story there, ain’t it, Danny boy?”

Danny—wide eye’d and mouth agape—nodded.

“Want my advice?”

Danny nodded again.

“Go in the house, in the bedroom and look behind the Bible in my
nightstand drawer. There’s a bag of pot in there. Go git it, and I’ll fix you
up a little magic smoke that’ll make all this easier to take. Help you see it
straight, so you won’t have no bad feeling towards nobody. Sheeit, boy, yore
momma went through a lot of hell for you. Go on in there. Ole Bernard ain’t gonna
steer ya’ wrong.

“Oh, yeah, they told me what you done for me the other night. You might’a
kept me from gittin’ kilt. Damn cops love to have a chance to shoot somebody;
hell, anybody; don’t matter none to them. Unless you some rich cat, that is.”

“Bernard, I really don’t want—”

“Well, we’ll see. Go git it for me anyhow. All this goin’ on has me kinda
foggy headed. I share your pain, buddy, share your pain.”

Danny found the marijuana and handed it to Bernard. The rolling papers
were in the bag, and Bernard had a joint rolled in less than a minute.

“I got a idea. You say the stuff made you cough, so I’m gonna take care’a
that problem. When I motion for you, you put your mouth close to mine and I’m
gonna blow smoke out for you to inhale. That ought’a take the sting out of it
for ya.”

Danny looked doubtful.

“C’mon, just do what I tell you. Great gosh a’mighty, you’d think I was
asking you to put a diaper on a cat.”

Bernard lit the cigarette and carefully put the burning end in his mouth,
then motioned for Danny.

Danny reluctantly put his mouth close to Bernard’s and took a deep breath
as Bernard blew the smoke out.

To his surprise, the smoke didn’t bother him, and he held his breath as
he’d been told to do when he tried it before.

Bernard motioned for him again, but Danny shook his head and sat down in
the rocker.

A few seconds passed, and Danny felt light headed. He closed his eyes and
rocked. He heard Bernard get up and go in the house then come back out, but
that seemed irrelevant, like it was something happening on TV.

“Here, this’ll make it even better. Does me,” Bernard said as he thrust a
bottle of Budweiser into Danny’s hands.

Danny gratefully accepted the beer. His throat was dry as dirt.

Something Bernard said seemed important. “What did you mean when you said
you were ‘waiting,’ Bernard?”

“One more hit before it gets too short and I’ll tell ya’.”

It didn’t seem to matter so much now, so Danny leaned forward in the
rocker and Bernard again blew on the joint.

Danny inhaled deeply and held his breath. When he exhaled, almost nothing
came out. He leaned back in the rocker and grinned.

“Um, hmm,” said Bernard and grinned back at him.

 “Well, Danny boy, when you’ve had your time at the big show and you
figure you’ve done ‘bout all there is to do at least once or twice or all you
care anything about doin’ anyways, you slowly begin to not give a shit ‘bout
nothin’ anymore. Kinda sneaks up on you. One day you’re raisin’ hell; the next
day you find yourself talking with your old buddies about ‘remember when.’

“Then you just kinda get into a routine, maybe go out once in a while,
but you just find things that interest you and you spend your time doin’ that;
that is, if you’re single like me. Married guys got it different. Anyway, every
so often, something happens or comes along to spark you up, and you jump back
in the mix again; what I hear the blacks call a ‘player.’ Heh, heh, heh. They
got a name for everything. If me and you wust to act like they do havin’ fun,
they’d lock our white asses up for crazy. If I come back, I wanna come back a
black man.

“Oops, got off the subject a little, didn’t I? Anyways, when I say
waitin’, I mean I see something happen that gets my blood up a little. Makes me
take’a interest. Like your situation. I get the feelin’ you’re in the middle of
somethin’, somethin’,  . . . somethin’; hell, I don’t know what to call it.
Just somethin’ big, I reckon. Important to you. You and the rest’a your life.
So I’m payin’ attention ‘cause your my friend, and maybe, just maybe, I might
be’a part of it or you might need somebody with some sense. Somebody to make
sure you don’t drive off the road.”

Bernard saw Danny’s big eyes. “Hey, don’t worry ‘bout it. Might just be
me. . . . Then again, . . . maybe not,” he said and let out a big laugh and
patted Danny on the shoulder.

The screen door from the kitchen burst open. Bernard and Danny jerked in
their chairs.

“You boys startin’ kinda early, aren’t you?” Slink said as he reached and
took the unlit marijuana from Bernard’s fingers. He lit it and took a deep
drag. “Got another one of those—?
Damn
, what happened to the yard?”