The Lost Songs (18 page)

He was basically alone in the house with a lot of cereal boxes.

“That child blind!” Train’s mama would shout at him if they crossed paths.

“I didn’t do it!”

“You didn’t stop it!”

It was not true that your mother would love you no matter what. His mother had stopped loving Train. She, like his teachers at school, was waiting for him to go away.

Doria served more plates. A woman hugged her. “God bless you,” she said.

God had definitely blessed Doria.

But Train—no. God never thought of him.

He considered hurling the plate of hot food at Doria or Miss Kendra or the Ford Explorer and watching it spatter. It was a satisfying vision, and somehow enough. A little of the rage seeped away. Train took a bite of rice. It had a soft, spicy flavor and there was a bit of sausage along with the chicken and onions.

He saw that, around her waist, Doria wore one of those little hiker purses, a sort of zip pocket on a belt. The purse part had worked its way around her back. It was not all the way closed. The brass treble clef that held her keys was visible.

There was another volley from Quander’s house. Doria whirled toward the sound, banging her arm and the serving spoon against the car. Train lurched into her, spilling the contents of his plate on her arm and the back of the Explorer. He reached out to steady her and instead got hold of the slotted spoon, flicking bean water over them both.

“Sorry,” he said, taking her towel to mop up.

Miss Kendra was back from praying. Her eyes were narrow with suspicion, but she was not sure what to be suspicious of.

The inner burn that was stealing his flesh caught fire again.
Remember
, DeRade had said,
you’re not going away. They can’t get rid of you. You’re in their face. You’ll always be in their face
.

Train stood in Miss Kendra’s face.

“Hop in the car, Doria,” said Miss Kendra. “We’re ready to drive to the next block.”

Miss Kendra paused in front of a house that looked worse than any on the street. Debris poured out of it as if it were a garbage can, not a home. Two men sat on the porch, trash around their ankles. They were in shadow. Doria could barely make them out.

Doria wondered where Quander’s yard was, and whether Miss Kendra was driving out of range, or into it. She thought of all the kids who’d decided against volunteering in Chalk. She thought of things she would not tell her parents about volunteering in Chalk.

“Good evening!” called Miss Kendra in the direction of the dark porch. “I got a fine hot dinner here. Y’all want a plate?”

The men cursed her.

Doria flinched.

Miss Kendra said softly, “They always say that, but I pray every week that their hearts will soften. The angrier you are, the sadder you are. I hate to see anybody that sad.” She yelled out the window, “I baked the cookies myself. I iced ’em!”

The men said nothing.

Miss Kendra drove on. “Lord,” she said, as if he were in the passenger seat, “guide their steps in your word. They want to walk worthy, they just don’t know how to start. You help ’em out a little. If they can come get a plate, and know they have friends and neighbors, that would be a start. Wash their hearts, Lord. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

Doria let the prayer repeat in her mind. She was beginning to see what Miss Kendra was up to. She was saying, I’m your neighbor. I’m glad to see you. Let’s have dinner.

Doria had not tried to show kids at Court Hill High that they were worth her time and she was glad to see them. She had been waiting for
them
to do it. She was the new person, right? It was
their
responsibility.

She watched Miss Kendra.

No, she thought. It’s always your own responsibility.

Train had never picked a pocket before. Or in this case, a purse.

He felt the weight of Doria’s key chain in the deep pocket
of his sagging pants. Doria hadn’t noticed a thing. And Miss Kendra, narrowing those old eyes and believing she knew something. Well, she didn’t know anything.

It usually took Miss Kendra about two hours to work her way through Chalk, what with serving, chatting, praying, packing up and parking on the next street to do it all over again. Train figured he had an hour.

He changed his clothes fast. His mama hadn’t bought him Sunday best for quite a while, but he’d gotten so thin, he could wear the old ones. A minute later he had crossed Tenth and was strolling through the CVS parking lot where Miss Kendra’s volunteers would have left their cars. A person like Doria would be careful not to take up a slot meant for shoppers, so her car would be one of the three parked off to the side. And sure enough, there sat a Honda Accord, silver-gray, like half the cars in the lot. There on the front seat was Doria’s ugly yellow plastic case. Train unlocked the car, got in and drove out Hill Street. With his right hand, he opened the plastic case. It was filled with music. Louis Vierne, said the top one. Symphony No. 1 for organ.

Train decided there was not a big secondary market for organ symphonies. He closed the case.

Five minutes later, he was at Home Depot. He checked himself in the rearview mirror. Clothing was fine. Hair, not so much. Nothing he could do about that now. Speech was the ticket now. You talked like them, they figured you were like them.

Train waited for the poky automatic doors to let him in and he walked down the wide front aisle, past lamps and tiles, appliances and plumbing, shelving and ladders, all the time separating the keys on Doria’s key chain. He left the car keys on the ring. They weren’t going to copy car keys for him.

He stepped up to a high desk where a pleasant-looking man in a cotton shirt didn’t quite smile, wasn’t quite sure.

Train smiled broadly. It actually felt kind of good, stretching his face sideways and letting the anger lapse. “Afternoon, sir. May I please have a copy of each of these?” He handed over what he assumed were church keys and a house key.

Now the man felt comfortable. “Weather still nice out there? I felt a bit of fall in the air when I drove in this morning.”

“It’s beautiful out,” said Train, who never gave weather a thought and could not remember when he had last used the word “beautiful.” “My mama thinks we might get a freeze,” he added.

The man measured the keys against blanks, looking for matches. “My word. A freeze this time of year. I’m against it.”

Train chuckled.

When the man was finished, he handed Train the copies.

“Thank you, sir. Y’all have a good day,” said Train, smiling a second time, which was some kind of record.

Two male employees flanked the exit doors beyond the checkout lines. Train had not planned to pay but thought better of it. Receipt in hand, he walked sedately out of the store. Then he replaced Doria’s keys on her key chain, started her car, drove back to the CVS, locked the Honda, trotted back to his house, yanked off his Sunday clothes, put his regular stuff on and jogged across Chalk toward Miss Veola’s.

Miss Veola had an interesting set of visitors.

Train took another detour, avoiding them.

Lutie joined the little kids crowding around the back of the big red Explorer. “Hey, Doria,” she said.

“Why, Lutie! It’s so nice to see you!” Doria beamed at her.

“I’ll have a plate, please,” said Lutie. Lutie could lay claim to a bedroom at Miss Veola’s, which was in Chalk, and she owned MeeMaw’s house, which was sort of in Chalk, just across the creek. But since she really lived with Aunt Tamika and Uncle Dean, in a handsome development of massive brick houses on tiny lots with three-car garages and a clubhouse with a pool, Lutie taking a free meal from a do-gooder was just the kind of thing that made donors grumpy.

But Miss Kendra didn’t care who ate what. It was like she was having a dinner party on the road and wanted company. “Lutie?” said Miss Kendra. Her deep accent turned it into
Loooo
-dih. “How you doin’ in school, Miss Lutie?”

“Yes, ma’am, school’s fine.”

“Detail!” demanded Miss Kendra. “You applied for that magnet school, I know you did. You get in? You still studying science? I never took those classes, I don’t even know how I graduated high school. I couldn’t do it now.”

“I didn’t go after all,” said Lutie, meaning the magnet school.

“What? Lutie Painter, I will have to follow this up. Why didn’t you go?”

Lutie just laughed.

“Lutie here is a science scholar,” Miss Kendra told Doria.

“Guess what,” said Lutie. “Doria’s ten times the scholar am.”

“My word! Doria! And you took time off study to help me serve? The Lord bless you and keep you.”

Lutie’s smile tightened. She had a bad feeling about this afternoon. And she didn’t trust the Lord to bless and keep Doria.

Train made it with time to spare.

Miss Kendra had reached the farthest block, and was now visiting Miss Elminah, who lived alone. She’d painted her windows shut for safety, making her place so musty she spent all her waking hours outside, calling “Hey” and hoping for visits.

It was getting dark.

In the dark, on a Saturday, when the men had been drinking and losing at cards and doing drugs, it was stupid for Miss Kendra to be here. Train figured she had lost track of how early it got dark these days.

Miss Kendra said, “Why, hello, Train. You come for seconds?”

“No, thanks,” said Train, who hadn’t said thank you in two or three years. He raised Doria’s key chain. “Found this in the road. Anybody here lose it?”

“Why, those are mine!” cried Doria. “Oh, my goodness. I didn’t think I was that careless. Thank you so much, Train! I’m so grateful!”

He set them neatly in her outstretched hand.

“We got one more street to visit,” called Miss Kendra briskly. “We got to see Miss Veola before it’s full dark. My team, get in the car now. Train, you flirt with Doria Monday in school.”

Train was horrified that anybody could think he was flirting with Doria. He almost fell over his feet backing up.

“We got to get to Peter Creek,” said Miss Kendra, bundling Doria into the backseat of the Explorer.

Half the roads around here were named for the creeks that ran through narrow gullies. The streams were shallow or dried out in midsummer, but there had been lots of rain this year, and they ran fast and full. It was Peter Creek that divided old Miz Painter’s house from Chalk. Miss Veola’s little pink church sat on a tiny gurgly branch of Peter Creek, which liked to
flood and tear soil from tree roots and then settle back to a trickle.

“Who is Peter Creek?” asked Doria, getting in the car.

What a loser, thought Train.