Carry Me Home (21 page)

LJ looks up at me and sniffles his snot back up his nose.

“Go on, LJ,” I say. “You winned it, fair and square.”

Eva Leigh looks like she’s gonna cry when LJ snatches that ribbon and holds it right to his nose to look at how shiny and pretty it is. She reaches up and gives me a kiss, right on the cheek, and whispers a thank you in my ear. Jimmy, he slaps me on the back, and he looks so proud that I don’t hardly care that I ain’t got a blue ribbon no more.

Chapter 26

I
t ain’t more than a night later when Molly Franks comes into the Ten Pin before the teams start bowling. I can’t hardly believe my eyes when I see it’s her everybody is staring at, ’cause she’s dressed up like a movie star.

She stands just inside the door, takes off her hat, and looks around like she’s looking for somebody. It don’t take no smart guy to figure out who she’s looking for.

Eva Leigh looks over at the door to see what I’m gawking at.

“It’s Molly Franks,” I say. At first that name don’t seem to clank no bell in Eva Leigh’s head, but then must be it does, ’cause all of a sudden her face droops. She looks over at the bar where she thinks Jimmy is, but he ain’t there.

Molly goes up to Bottoms Conner and asks him something. Bottoms looks around a bit, shrugs, then points over to where I’m standing.

I get the nerves when Molly starts walking over to me. She is still tiny and cute like a piece of candy.

“Hi, Earl,” she says, and when she smiles a little I can see that her teeth is still lined up in a neat row like buttons. Eva Leigh, she is busy renting out shoes to the Texaco team, but I can see she’s watching us outta the corner of her eye. I want to say hi to Molly, but I don’t want Eva Leigh thinking I’m a two-timey friend.

“My, I just can’t get over how much you’ve grown. You were a boy when I moved to Chicago, but now look at you. How are you, Earl?”

I don’t wanna say nothing, but Molly, she just stands there waiting for me to answer, so finally I say, “I’m okay.”

Molly looks around a bit. She’s biting her pink lip. “Earl, I was hoping Jimmy would be here. Do you know where he is?”

I ain’t even got time to think up a lie, ’cause Jimmy, he steps out of the shitter right then. Molly sees him too, and her breath sucks in like a wind has caught her in the face. Jimmy goes straight to the counter and picks up the three pop bottles Ruby Leigh’s set out for him. He starts heading our way, then stops all of a sudden and goes back to the bar.

“Excuse me, Earl,” Molly says. And then that two-timer, she marches right over to the bar and puts her hand on Jimmy’s arm.

I wanna say something to Eva Leigh, ’cause she’s standing there looking at me like she don’t know what to do next, but I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say nothing. I go over to the bar and I sit myself right down on the stool next to Jimmy’s. Ruby Leigh, she is looking like maybe she wants to dig Molly’s eyes right out of her head.

Jimmy is fumbling in his shirt pocket. He pulls out his Camels and matches and calls to Ruby Leigh to bring him a beer. Ruby Leigh, she pours Jimmy a beer and plops it down so hard that some slops down the outside of the glass. She looks at Molly and says, “You want something?” Molly shakes her head and says no.

“I’ll bet,” Ruby Leigh says. She goes to the other side of the bar and lights a cigarette. She watches Molly and Jimmy through squinty eyes.

“You look good, Jimmy,” Molly says. But Jimmy, he don’t look so good to me. His face is turning red, and you can see his heart beating in his neck.

Molly is holding a tiny purse that’s got beads stuck all over it. She starts picking at ’em while she waits for Jimmy to say something.

“What are you doing here, Molly?” Jimmy finally says.

“I came back to help my mother with my father. You heard he had a stroke, didn’t you?”

“No, I mean, what are you doing
here
?”

Molly looks ready to cry ’cause Jimmy’s voice sounds mad. I can’t help feeling a little sorry for her, even if she is a two-timer.

“Is there someplace we can talk?”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing?”

“Jimmy, please. You know what I mean.”

I take a swig from one of them bottles of Coca-Cola Jimmy’s got sitting in front of him, ’cause my throat has got the nerves. I look over at Eva Leigh’s counter.

Jimmy takes a swig of his beer. “I don’t see that there’s anything to talk about.”

“I just want to explain some things, Jimmy. Please.”

Jimmy takes a suck off his cigarette. He sits there a minute, then he turns right to Molly and looks her square in the eyes. “Let me get this straight. I went off to fight, got stuck in that hellhole for almost four fucking years, and while I was gone, you ran off to Chicago to marry some rich asshole. And now you want to explain? What the fuck is there to explain?”

Molly’s eyes are watery. “I’m not married, Jimmy. I called off the wedding when Dad had his stroke. I told everyone I wanted to wait until Dad got well enough to walk me down the aisle, but that wasn’t the real reason. Jimmy, I never loved Peter.”

Jimmy grinds his cigarette out in the ashtray. He puts his hand up, the same way Dad does when he wants Ma to shut up. “You can stop right there, Molly.”

Molly, she gives me a quick look. “If we could just talk for a minute.”

I cross my arms right across my chest. Now I’m getting pissed, ’cause I know what Molly’s up to. Ma says women who try to break up a couple, they is nothing but troublemakers. I used to like Molly, but I don’t like her so much no more. She breaked Jimmy’s heart, that’s what she did, and now she wants to break Eva Leigh’s heart too.

Molly breaks out in big baby tears. “Jimmy, I’m sorry. I was scared and lonely.”

“And I wasn’t?”

“I thought you were dead! For godssakes. I was young and scared and—”

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Jimmy says, and Molly stops talking. She stands there for a minute, them tears pouring outta her eyes fast now. She digs in her purse and takes out that little ring Jimmy gived her and sets it down on the bar.

Jimmy looks at the ring for a minute. He picks it up, real slow-like, and rolls it around with his fingertips. Then all of a sudden he jumps up and whips that sucker so hard you can’t even tell where it go’d. Jimmy picks up his beer and one of them bottles of Coca-Cola and heads to Eva Leigh’s counter.

Molly, she looks over at me then, and her eyes sure is smeared up from tears. I don’t even wanna look at her.

Molly stands there for a bit after Jimmy leaves, then she says, “I’m sorry, Earl. I really am.”

I get up to go over by Jimmy and Eva Leigh, but Ruby Leigh tells me it’s time for me to get to work. Skeeter’s already back in our room and the Texaco team is lined up to bowl, so I gotta hurry to lane one and lane two.

I lean up to my little window and I take a peek over by Eva Leigh’s counter. Eva Leigh is busy handing out shoes to bowlers, and damn if she don’t look like a wilted flower again. And Jimmy, he’s just sitting there, drinking his beer, and looking at nothing. Next time I get a chance to take a peek over there, Eva Leigh is just standing there, like she don’t know what to do next, and Jimmy is gone.

“I told Eva Leigh to go on home, that you and I would close up,” Ruby Leigh says after we get the lanes closed up. I get the broom and, while I’m sweeping, I see Molly’s sparkly ring laying on the floor under a table. That ring was suppose to be a promise but, shit, turned out it weren’t a promise at all. I sweep that ring up with the rest of the dirt and throw it away.

Chapter 27

N
ext morning, I got a screwdriver and I’m fixing a shelf that come loose on one end. I got a bunch of canned goods waiting on the floor ’til I get the shelf back up. Mrs. Pritchard, she is walking right past me to get to the stool. “Be careful there, Mrs. Pritchard,” I say. “I got canned goods all over the floor and if you ain’t careful you’re gonna trip on ’em.” I tell her this ’cause I don’t want her falling on me, squashing me like a bug.

“I think she can see that, Earl,” Ma says. I am on the floor looking up at Mrs. Pritchard. I can’t see her face, just her wiggly belly and her hangy-down tits. I know damn well that if I can’t see her face then it ain’t real likely she can see me. “No, Ma,” I say. “I don’t think she can.”

Mrs. Pritchard sits down with a big whoosh. “How are you today, Eileen?” Ma say’s she’s got a bit of a headache, but she’s okay.

Mrs. Pritchard opens her purse, takes out a hankie, and dabs at the sweat puddles under her eyes. “Well, it sure was nice having our Founders Day picnic back again, wasn’t it?” Mrs. Pritchard gets a grin on her face. “I couldn’t believe that I took first place in every baking category I entered, but, as so many have said, there isn’t a better baker than me this side of Ripley.”

Ma gets the dishrag out and wipes the counter, even though it looks plenty clean to me.

“You know, Eileen, you’d have done better if your rolls were more uniform in size. You have to watch where you set your dough to rise, dear, or sure enough, some won’t rise as high as the rest.”

“Thanks for the tip, Edna,” Ma says, but she don’t sound grateful at all.

“Eileen, I hesitated coming here. I knew you’d feel a little jealous of losing out to me, but I didn’t come to gloat. I came as a friend to give you that little baking tip and to give you another little piece of advice.”

Ma, she stops washing the counter. “Oh?” she says.

“You know, Eileen, I’ve raised four boys myself, so I know how boys can be when they’re sowing their wild oats. Still, my boys always made sure to use discretion and never conducted themselves in public in ways that would stimulate gossip.”

“What are you getting at, Edna?” Ma says.

“Well, dear, I’m talking about Jimmy taking off into the woods with Eva Leigh, the way he did at the picnic. People noticed, Eileen. And they
are
talking.

“Now, I’m not much for catering to gossip, but I did hear that Molly showed up at the bowling alley last night to talk to Jimmy, then left in tears. How desperate that girl must have been to go into an establishment like that, unescorted no less. She still loves your boy, Eileen. Even Judith admits that. And although Judith doesn’t exactly approve, she realizes she can’t live Molly’s life for her. I hope Jimmy realizes what he could have with Molly. Granted, young men often let their heads turn when a willing girl like Eva Leigh comes along, but in the end it’s the good girls they want to marry, or it
should
be.

“Don’t get me wrong, Eileen. Eva Leigh has always been friendly to me, and I don’t have a thing against her personally, but she
is
a Leigh, and I don’t suppose one person at the picnic forgot that for a second. It was bad enough when that son of hers behaved the way he did to my Dieter. The icing on the cake, however, was when Eva Leigh was bold enough to sneak off into the woods with Jimmy right in broad daylight in front of everyone in town.”

It’s funny how them mean thoughts are. It ain’t like you get the notion to have a mean thought, then work hard to think one up. It’s more like one minute you’re just fixing on a shelf and feeling fine, then some fat lady starts talking bad about your brother and your friends, and that mean thought just slices through your head like an ax through fat. I gotta press my lips together tight to keep myself from saying the mean things I’m thinking.

Mrs. Pritchard starts to say something else, but Ma cuts her off. “Eva Leigh is a wonderful person. And as mean as that husband of hers was, she stayed true to him while he was in the war. That’s more than I can say about Molly Franks.”

“Well,” Mrs. Pritchard huffs, “Molly thought your Jimmy was dead. You must admit, Eileen, that there were times when you wondered the same thing yourself.”

“Edna.” Ma slaps her rag down hard. “I think it’s best we end this conversation right now.”

“Good heavens, Eileen. I don’t see why you’re getting so huffy. I came here to talk to you as a friend about your son’s future and his reputation and to give you a baking tip. If you don’t care that people are gossiping about your son, then I guess I shouldn’t care either. Perhaps I judged you wrong, Eileen.”

Boy, I’m having lots of mean thoughts now, and them mean thoughts, they bubble up out of me so hot there ain’t nothing I can do to stop ’em. I scramble to my feet.

“I shoulda axed that big mouth of yours while I had the chance!” I say. “There ain’t nothing that comes outta your mouth that’s nice!” Mrs. Pritchard gasps so loud it sounds like she’s gonna choke on her tongue.

“I don’t appreciate you talking about Jimmy and my friends, Mrs. Pritchard. Eva Leigh, she’s good as anybody, and Ruby Leigh, she might be the town whore all right but she’s got a heart of gold, just like Eva Leigh says.” Ma is gasping now too, and I know I should shut my big mouth, but I am so pissed off I can’t stop.

I lift my fist and start shaking it at Pritchard. Her eyes about bug out of her head when they look at the screwdriver I’m still holding. I can tell Pritchard thinks I’m gonna poke her with it, but I ain’t, so I drop it.

“You ain’t got no business saying you see’d Jimmy and Eva Leigh going off into the woods, like they was going off there to do something bad, when they weren’t. But even if they was, you ain’t suppose to repeat them kinda things. You don’t hear me repeating what I see at the Ten Pin, ’cause Ma says hurting people’s feelings by repeating what you see ain’t nice. Them guys that come into the Ten Pin to get some free milk from Ruby Leigh, most of ’em is married, so I don’t say nothing ’cause I don’t wanna make their wives feel bad. Yep, I coulda telled you lots a times that I see’d your mister sneaking a feel from Ruby Leigh, but I don’t say it ’cause I don’t wanna make you feel bad, even though you make people feel bad all the time.”

Mrs. Pritchard chokes out, “Eileen! Did you hear what your son just said to me?”

For a minute, Ma looks back and forth between Pritchard and me, like a deer in the road that don’t know which way to run.

I don’t wait for the good bitching and cuffing I know is coming. I run out the back door and down the street, going like a bat out of hell. Lucky sees me leaving without him, and he jerks so hard on his chain that he snaps it and catches up to me. I don’t know where to hell I’m going, but I know I ain’t going back to that store. Not ever!

Near midnight, Jimmy finds me down by the millpond, sitting on a rock by the water, getting chewed to shit by skeeters. He says Ma is worried sick.

“I ain’t going back there, Jimmy. And if you know’d what I said to Pritchard, you’d know why I can’t.”

Jimmy slaps me on the back and sits down. He starts to laughing. “Oh, I know what you said to Pritchard, all right. Ma told Dad and me at supper. Shit, Earwig, she was laughing so hard I thought she’d piss her pants! She kept saying, ‘I know I shouldn’t be laughing, but, oh, did that old bat have it coming!’ ”

I can’t hardly believe my ears. “That right, Jimmy?”

“Yep,” he says, and he slaps me on the back again.

“I didn’t mean to say them things, Jimmy. But that fat-ass sure did have it coming, talking bad about you an’ Eva Leigh and Ruby Leigh like she was and bragging up that Molly like she is something special.”

Jimmy lights a cigarette, and his smoke floats out on the water.

“Jimmy, I know why you and Eva Leigh went off into the woods like that. It weren’t to sneak a feel or to do some hosing. It was ’cause you got skittery from that starter’s gun going off. Ain’t that right? You had to get away from people ’cause you got skittery, just like I gotta get away from people when I get skittery. I know’d Eva Leigh was just helping you, like Dad helps me sometimes.”

“Don’t worry about what people think, Earwig. Long as you know what’s true, that’s all that matters.”

“Jimmy? Eva Leigh, she done being upset about Molly showing up at the Ten Pin?”

Jimmy blows more smoke across the water. “She wants me to take a few days away from her, Earwig. She said she knows it wasn’t my idea to break things off with Molly, and now that Molly wants me back, she thinks I need some time to sort out my feelings.”

This makes me scared. “You told her you didn’t need no time to do any sorting, didn’t you, Jimmy?”

Jimmy, he don’t answer, so I ask all over again.

“Earwig, Eva thinks maybe I turned to her just because she was there when Molly wasn’t.”

“But you telled her that wasn’t true, didn’t you?”

Jimmy don’t say nothing.

“Jimmy, that ain’t true, is it?”

Jimmy flicks his cigarette into the swirling water. “I don’t think so, Earwig. I just don’t know.”

I feel a lump of sad drop into my guts when Jimmy says that. I always liked Molly ’cause she smiled pretty, but Eva Leigh, there’s something extra special about her. It’s like she knows how you feel and she always makes sure to let you know that you ain’t dumb for feeling it.

“Hey, I got a couple beers in the car. You want one, Earwig? I know I sure could use one.” I tell him I want one, even though I don’t.

Jimmy gets the beers and hands me one as he sits down. “Sometimes I think I’m just as fucked up from the war as Floyd is.”

“You ain’t fucked up as Floyd, Jimmy.”

“Yeah, I am. Some days, I want to take that loan the bank says they’ll give me, buy a decent car, put a down payment on the Williams place, and marry Eva Leigh and raise a family. The next minute, though, I just wanna get in my car and drive just as far as I can go, never looking back.

“When Molly showed up at the Ten Pin, there was a second there when all I wanted was to take her in my arms and go back to the way things were before. The war has me all fucked up. I don’t know what I want anymore.”

“Jimmy?” I say, after we sit awhile.

“Yeah?”

“Is Floyd gonna be okay?”

“I hope so. He’s messed up in the head right now, but he’s doing all right. He’s had a lot a shit to deal with in his life, with his ma dying, and his dad being a drunk all those years. He’s got a lot of shit to deal with from the war, and new responsibilities on top of it. Still, he’s trying, Earwig. He’s doing the best he can.”

“Jimmy?” I say again, even though I know I’m being a real earwig, asking so many questions.

“Yeah?” Jimmy says.

“When you was in that war, did you shoot some Japs?”

“Yeah.”

“How many Japs?”

“I don’t know. Dozens, I suppose.”

“Was it hard doing that, Jimmy? Killing them guys that was just people like us?”

“At first, yeah. Then after a time it wasn’t no harder than killing a deer.”

“That right?”

“Well, no, it probably ain’t right, Earwig. But that’s how it was.”

Jimmy flips his head back and downs the rest of his beer, then he tosses the empty bottle far into the water.

“I see’d dead Japs in some pictures Eddie swiped outta his dad’s drawer. Some guy took ’em and sent ’em to Eddie’s dad. I thought them Japs was different. You know, like not people or somethin’. Their eyes are different, I could see that on the one picture where the guy was staring, even though he was dead, but that’s all I could see that was different. They ain’t really no different than us, though, are they, Jimmy?”

Jimmy scrapes his hand over the ground, scooping up a handful of little rocks, and he starts tossing ’em into the water, one at a time. For a while, he don’t say nothing, then he says, “When I was at O’Donnell, this Jap guard handed me the rest of his cigarette. I didn’t know what in hell to think at first. I thought maybe it was some sort of trick, so I wasn’t going to take it. Then I looked him in the eye and I saw he wasn’t up to anything. He was just being a decent human being, and I realized that him and I were nothing more than little pawns in a big game.”

Jimmy gets up and brushes off the back of his ass. “Come on. We’d better get back before Ma puts together a posse to go looking for you.”

We just get pulled in the driveway when a car comes off the street and pulls in behind us. I turn around and look, wondering who in the hell’s coming this time of night, and hoping to hell it ain’t got nothing to do with Floyd wanting to blow his head off so I gotta hear some more screaming and howling. I twist around and look out the back window. It ain’t nobody saying somebody’s gonna blow their head off, but I think maybe there’s gonna be some screaming and bawling anyway, ’cause it’s Molly.

I look at Jimmy soon as we step out of the car. He don’t look like he’s gonna be doing no screaming, though. He just looks tired. Jimmy tells me to go on in the house, but I tell him I gotta wait for Lucky to take a piss before I can take him in.

Lucky is barking at Molly, probably ’cause he don’t like two-timers either, and Jimmy tells Lucky to shut up. Lucky takes a leak on Jimmy’s tire, then runs off to the backyard and starts sniffing around, running in them little circles he always makes when he’s looking for a good place to take a shit. Jimmy tells me to go on inside and he’ll let Lucky in when he’s done, but I don’t. I circle ’round the back of the house, go up them three porch steps, then stand flat against the house, hoping I can hear something. I don’t hear nothing, though. When I lean over to take a peek to make sure they’re still there, Jimmy tells me again to go inside. “If I do that, Ma’s gonna be poking her nose out here,” I say, so Jimmy says I should just wait on the porch.

I don’t stay on the porch, though. I go in the backyard where Lucky is, his butt crouched, taking his crap. I’m so mad at that two-timer, I’m wishing I could pick up a turd and throw it at her.

That Molly, she’s talking so soft a guy can’t hear her, and Jimmy, he ain’t talking at all. He’s leaned up against his car, his ankles crossed, his head down while he smokes. They don’t talk long, then Jimmy crushes out his cigarette and pulls his butt off the car like he’s gonna leave. Then Molly, that troublemaker, she puts her hand on his chest and leans over and gives him a kiss right on his lips. Jimmy keeps his hands in his pockets, and he don’t even move when Molly does that. Molly hurries to her car, and Jimmy, he heads to the house. I wanna chase after him and find out what that two-timer said, but Lucky won’t come in. By the time I get that damn dog inside, there ain’t no Jimmy downstairs, just Ma, and I gotta sit down and listen to her harp at me about how I better never run off like that again.