A Cry of Angels (25 page)

When we were finally settled in the dining room, I had to start all over. Farette got her stove fired up and put the coffee pot on, dashing to the door every two minutes to catch what she could.

When I was all done, and every minor point covered to everyone's satisfaction, they all sat quietly, mulling over this new turn of events. "Well," said Mrs. Porter, patting my hand, "we'll write Esther and tell her not to worry about a thing. We'll take good care of you. You're our little boy now."

I put down my cup. "I've been thinking about that," I said. "I thought about it all the way home. I just turned fourteen. I'm not anybody's little boy anymore. And I sure can't ask you to keep me."

"What?" she said.

"Why that's nonsense," said Mrs. Metcalf.

"Hey, sport," said Mr. Rampey, "you don't have to worry . . ."

"No, I mean it." I cleared my throat and tried to sound as mature, as deliberate as I could. "I appreciate everything you've done for me, you and Miss Esther. But it's time I was on my own. It's going to be hard enough on you as it is, and now that they've upped your rent . . ."

"By God!" snorted Mr. Burroughs, "first we're disabled—now we're paupers!"

"Mr. Burroughs, I mean no disrespect, but I can't be a burden any longer, not to you or anybody. Let's face it, we're all on our own now. Can I do less than you're doing?"

"But where will you stay?" asked Mrs. Bell.

"I'll move out in the garage loft with Em, if he comes back, that is."

Farette spoke from the door. "You'll get a fever in that place!"

The others started in with their protests. I got up and walked to the door. "Please understand, my mind's made up. I've got to do it. I've got to try."

They were silent for a while. They looked at each other anxiously, each waiting for the other to speak.

Finally Mrs. Metcalf said, "You
would
come to us if you needed anything . . . ?"

"If I need you. I promise. And please don't tell Miss Esther, it would only worry her more." I started out.

"Boy . . . !" Mr. Burroughs got up and came to the door, his long fingers closing tightly on my arm. "You do what you've got to do," he said, "but you get in trouble, you need anything, and you don't come to us—I'll take a stick to you."

"Yes, sir."

In dead seriousness, he leaned close and confided, "You can trust us. We're not family."

"Yes, Mr. Burroughs."

As I passed by Farette at the stove, her cordy little hand reached out and snagged my belt. "You still comin' for yo' meals, I expect."

"No, Farette, don't you see, it would be pointless if I did that."

She turned back to the stove. "Do what you want, then. Make no difference to me."

I started to leave, then stopped, and reached over and kissed her quickly on the cheek. She stiffened, but quickly busied herself again at the stove. I picked up my suitcase and walked out of the kitchen, stepping carefully over the roses.

I awoke the next morning in a new world. It was raining, and water leaked through a crack beside the window and splattered on the sill. It took several moments to realize where I was, and then I lay on Em's cot listening to the rain drumming and fighting the empty feeling inside me. I pulled the footlocker up to the window and sat looking up through the trees toward the boardinghouse. It sat still and gray in the rain, the warmth, the look of life still lingering. It wouldn't be for long, I thought, without Miss Esther. I stood up and shoved the footlocker back in place. Enough, she would have said. There wasn't time for that. There were too many things to sort out. Too much to be done. One step at a time, Mr. Whitaker. Just one single step at a time.

When the rain let up I bounded out of the loft and went looking for Tio. And once out again and moving, I felt better. I broke into a run, skimming along the familiar ridges. At last I spotted him struggling along Cabbage Alley, his basket loaded and a kerosene can on the handlebars with an Irish potato plugging the spout.

With a shout and a running dive off a high yard I caught him around the neck and we, the bike and the groceries went piling into the gutter. The hollering and wrestling brought out the neighborhood dogs, and they danced around the mud puddles rejoicing with us until one of them found a broken package of bologna and led the others away.

Finally Tio shoved me away. "Hey man! What's the matter with you? Help me get this stuff!" and he scrambled to replug the pouring kerosene. I tried to help him, but I couldn't. All I could do was sit in the mud and laugh. A woman came around the corner leading a little girl in pigtails and stopped and stared at my condition. That was even funnier. I jumped up and started grabbing canned goods and shoving them in her arms. She hurriedly dragged the child away. I couldn't stop laughing. I was drunk, and could not be responsible.

"All right," Tio said firmly, "now get a hold of yourself. What you doin' back here?''

I told him, as best I could, about the break from the Cahills, about leaving the boardinghouse.

"I'm a man," I said.

"Yeah. Right. Now get your head about you. You hungry? You had anything to eat?" I shook my head and Tio unwound a can of Vienna sausage. I wolfed it down, along with a wedge of cheese. "Where you gon' live now?"

"In the loft, I guess. Where's Jojohn, have you seen him?"

"Some of 'em said he was hittin' the joints down river toward Cedar Crossing. Said they seen him in Birdsong's the other night, tyin' on a drunk that'd put all his others in the shade."

"Birdsong's? I heard the sheriff had closed him down."

"The sheriff's always closin' him down. But somehow he gets open again. You goin' after Jojohn?"

"No, I don't think so," I said.

Tio looked at me. "How come?"

"I don't know. I've just got this feeling . . . No, if he's still around, and he wants to come home, let him. If not, well, that's okay too."

Tio shrugged. "Suit yourself." He kicked up the stand and got on his bike.

"Hey," I said, "let's go take a dip in the river."

"What? I got work to do, I ain't got no time to go swimmin'!"

"Aw, come on, Tio, just one . . ."

"And you ain't neither! You got to start figurin' how you gon' live now your aunt's gone! Where you gon' eat? You thought about that?"

"Aw, Tio . . ."

"Naw, man, you got to think about them things. You're on your own now, you got responsibilities."

"Tomorrow!—I'll work it all out tomorrow."

"Tomorrow! You don't even know where you gon' eat tonight! You talkin' 'bout bein' a man—you're more like a newborn baby! Now you get that playin' out your head and start tendin' to business."

"Well, I don't
know
how to—I don't know where to start!"

"That's what I figured. All right, you start with Jayell. He just back from his honeymoon, maybe he's got some work you can do. And school! Tomorrow mornin' you get yourself up there and get checked back in that school 'fore you lose a whole year."

"Oh! Yeah, hey, guess what I heard on the radio . . . !"

"Tonight I'll bring you sump'n to eat," he continued, "enough to last you a couple of days anyway, in case Jojohn ain't back before then. And if he's gone for good, well, we'll just have to work sump'n out. But right now you get down to Jayell's and see about that job." He shoved off and pedaled down the street. "It's close to dinnertime, he ought to be around the shop now. Get goin', man. You're grown now. No more good times."

"The school," I yelled after him, "didn't you hear? We may be goin' together. They've passed a law!"

Tio threw up a hand, but I knew he didn't hear me. He was pushing away hard, his whole body pumping on the strokes.

I found Jayell sitting in his truck behind the shop, lunching on a can of tomatoes. "Where the hell did you come from?" he said.

I explained that I couldn't be a burden on the Cahills anymore and had decided to come back, and wondered if he had any work for me.

Jayell rummaged in his pocket. "Hell, I'll spot you some money, Early boy."

"I didn't come begging," I said. "I come looking for work."

Jayell looked at me. "Well, things are about as bad for me as they can get right now, Earl. That damned house of Gwen's has just about put me under; drained off most everything I had in the bank, I'm behind on two loans now, and business is about as bad as I've ever seen it. I've got one house under way right now, and after that—I don't know what we'll do." Jayell shook his head. "And to have to take time off for a honeymoon!"

"Well, look, I don't want to put you out. I know I'm not too good at building, and if you don't need any help right now . . ."

"Help, sure I need help," he said quickly. "I need all the help I can get! You feel like doing some painting?"

I was confused, as I usually ended up when I tried to follow Jayell's thinking. "But I thought you said . . ."

"Kid, you want to talk or you want to work? I asked you about the painting."

"Sure, I like to paint . . ."

"Okay, then, get in. You can free up Skeeter so he can get back to the shop. He hates a paintbrush anyway. You're slow but you're careful, and that's what counts." Jayell tossed away the empty tomato can and cranked the truck. "Come on—you going? Get in, get in!"

The house was for a young black quarry worker named Ruben Johnson who had just moved down from Salisbury. Jayell was building him a drum-shaped two-bedroom on telephone poles sunk in the marsh of Fletcher Bottom. The house stood about twelve feet from the ground with a walkway running to the bank of the street. Skeeter gladly turned over his paintbrush and I took his place on the ladder.

How fast things had settled back down, I thought. Here I was an orphan one day, with no place to go, and a working man the next, with a full-time job and a place to live. Who needed more than that? Maybe a painter was what I was cut out to be. Certainly I was no good at carpentry, and the thought of a quarry gave me the shivers. Even Jayell said I was a good painter. Well, he came as close to saying that as Jayell could get to a compliment. Maybe I'd have my own van truck some day—and hire a couple of helpers! The only drawback I could see was I hadn't any experience with liquor. Well, I'd just have to learn the trade a step at a time.

Around six o'clock, when the sun was slanting over the rim of the Ape Yard and we were racing to finish against the oncoming dark, one of the boys on the roof said something and pointed. I looked down and saw a car pulling to a stop under the chinaberry trees.

It was a dark green Lincoln Continental.

Doc Bobo and Clyde Fay got out and stepped quickly along the planking, followed by a little man who hurried along behind them clutching a shirt pocket bulging with ball-point pens. I recognized him as the man who had been selling the cheap, prefabricated little homes around town.

"Who's building this house?" demanded Doc Bobo.

One of the boys pointed to Jayell on the roof. Doc Bobo lifted his hat to shade his eyes. "I'm told you're building this house for Ruben Johnson," he said.

Jayell pulled a shingle into place. "That's right. Why?"

"There must be some mistake," said the salesman. "He told me when he got ready for a house he was gonna let me build it for him."

"Oh? First I heard about it." He looked at the man. "You got a contract?"

"He was to sign today," said the salesman. "We was just out looking for him."

"Well, he must have changed his mind," said Jayell.

"He can't do that," said Doc Bobo. "We had an agreement. I was to co-sign his note."

"The bank said he didn't need a co-signer. And I guess he figured he could do without your kickback and this guy's rate of interest."

"We had an agreement," repeated Doc Bobo angrily, "and it still stands. Ruben Johnson wouldn't do this to me—he's indebted to me at the present time."

"I suspect a lot of people are. That has nothing to do with me. I'm just building a house."

Doc Bobo looked over the house, the movable walkway that was built on the order of a drawbridge. Ruben's young wife especially liked the drawbridge, Jayell said. When it was raised the house was safely isolated above the ground. Ruben moonlighted nights at the mill. "We don't need your peculiar structures in the Ape Yard, Mr. Crooms. You make my people look ridiculous. A house on stilts! Who wants a thing like that?"

"Anybody in this bottom would be glad to have it when that creek backs up next spring. And talk about peculiar structures!" Jayell stood up and pointed. "From here I can see a whole hillside of what I'd call very peculiar structures: roofs caving in, rotted porches, falling pillars—there's one without even a door, just a burlap curtain! You own some downright strange-looking houses yourself, Doc! Besides, my houses never seemed to bother you until that prefab crook started coming around with his kickbacks. Why don't you quit sniffing the air for a new scheme and stick to what you're good at—burying people."

Doc Bobo tugged on his hat and looked about the job. He walked over to the nearest group of shop boys and said something to them. They immediately dropped their tools and walked off the job. Jayell stepped to the edge of the roof and shook his hammer. "Quitting time is five o'clock!" They quickened their pace down the red clay road. Doc Bobo turned to the others, and one by one they followed. Jayell whirled on Bobo in a rage. "You son of a bitch!" He flung down a handful of roofing tacks and sprang for the ladder.

A moment later I heard Jayell yell.

Positioned against a circular roof, the ladder was not secure enough to bear Jayell's weight thrown on It in a fit of anger. Once it started sliding there was nothing to grab hold of. Jayell came off the front of the house kicking away to jump free, but the momentum carried him and the ladder down an embankment into a pile of lumber and vines.

"Get to him! Get to him!" cried Bobo.

When we reached him he was pushing up on his elbow, blood streaming down his face. Doc Bobo tried to get an arm under his back.

"No!" gasped Jayell, "the leg, goddamnit, the leg!"

Then I saw the bone, white as a chicken's bone, sticking out above his sock. His foot was wedged under some timbers and I tried frantically to pull them away. Clyde Fay bent silently to his work, lifting away the heavy timbers with ease.