The Struggles of Johnny Cannon (15 page)

“And we were as thick as thieves,” Mr. Braswell said.

I glanced over at Sora's driver.

“Apparently so,” I said. “Was this here stranger the Sub-Mariner?”

Mr. Braswell stumbled over and put his arm around the fella's neck.

“We didn't know him back then,” Mr. Braswell said. “But we do now. This man is Rudy.”

Rudy gently pushed Mr. Braswell off of him and pulled out his hanky to wipe off the sweat that Mr. Braswell had left behind. He reached out his hand to shake mine.

“Well, I'm Johnny Cannon,” I said. “Captain America's little brother.”

“He's his sidekick!” Ethan hollered. “He's Bucky!”

“No, I ain't nobody's sidekick,” I said. “I'm just Johnny.”

“Well, Just Johnny,” Rudy said, “it's nice to finally meet Tommy's brother. And nice that Captain America brought this team together.”

Ethan and Mr. Braswell both nodded like he'd just said something profound. I waited a second to see if it would sink into my brain, but it didn't.

“What's that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“Your brother,” Rudy said. “He connected us. Just like good ol' Scott Rogers—”

“Steve Rogers,” I said.

“Right, just like Steve Rogers, Captain America himself, did for the All-Winners Squad.”

Ethan stumbled forward and embraced Tommy's gravestone.

“Thank you, Cap,” he said. Them other fellas laughed.

I wasn't laughing.

“You're saying you was mixed up with Tommy?” I asked Rudy.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “We became friends in Mobile last year. Drinking buddies, even.”

Mobile. Why was everything coming up from Mobile?

“Why was you in Mobile?”

“I was checking on a military operation for my father's business. Tommy was involved and we quickly became close.”

“A military operation?” I asked.

“The Bay of Pigs invasion!” Mr. Braswell blurted out. “Our own Captain America flew in the Bay of Pigs invasion.”

“And he died doing it,” Ethan said, rubbing the gravestone like it was a dog or something. “Can you believe it?”

Of course I could, but I couldn't let on.

“Really?” I asked. I tried to get my sad eyes on. It was easier since it was so late.

“Oh, gee,” Mr. Braswell said. “That's a lot for you to take, isn't it?” He grabbed the bottle of Jack from Rudy and came over to me. “Here, have a sip.”

He shoved the bottle in my mouth and tilted it up in the air, and before I knew it, my mouth was full of that disgusting, burning, halfway-to-poisonous junk.

Worst. Teacher. Ever.

As soon as his back was turned, I spit it out all over the ground. And my shirt. Rudy noticed but didn't say nothing.

“So,” I said, and wiped my mouth off. Wished I had some water to drink or something. “Why was the Bay of Pigs invasion any of your pa's business?”

“Let's just say he has a professional interest in seeing Cuba liberated,” Rudy said. “But I'd really rather not talk about it. I'm done working for him, and I'm not about to get involved again.”

What was that supposed to mean? I tried to move past it.

“Then why are you here?” I asked, hoping them other two fellas didn't notice. They was both singing again in front of Tommy's stone. Something about all the girls they'd loved before or something. “Keeping tabs on her?” I pulled out that picture of Sora I'd found at the tent by Snake Pond and showed it to him.

He looked really shocked and grabbed the photograph.

“That's a really long story,” he said. Then he put the picture into his back pocket, pulled out a flask, and took a sip. “But right now? Right now I'm helping the Whisper over here—”

“The Whizzer,” I said.

“Right, the Whizzer . . . forget about his troubles and see that he'll live to pray another day.”

Ethan fell back against the ground, covered his eyes, and groaned.

“Ugh, I screwed up the sacraments,” he said. “Y'all don't have any idea how big a deal that is. I mean, I'm probably cursed now. And not just me, but my kids, too. It's like Deuteronomy 5:9 says, God visits ‘the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.' So even my grandkids are screwed.”

“That's a lot like what my father says,” Rudy said. “ ‘The children shall pay for the sins of their fathers.' That's his motto, I believe.”

“That's a pretty creepy motto,” I said. “I hope he didn't say it while he was holding you in the hospital.”

“My father is a pretty creepy man,” he said. “However, thankfully, he wasn't around when I was born. So I at least had a few months before I inherited his brand of creepiness.”

“God, I hope that verse isn't true,” Mr. Braswell said. “My grandfather was arrested for public lewdness. I'd hate to get pinned for that myself.”

I think Rudy was about to say something, but right then, Ethan puked all over Tommy's gravestone. Mr. Braswell started laughing like a maniac. He pulled Ethan up to his feet once he was all done.

“Well, you hurled first, so that means you're driving,” he said. “Let's get going. I have to make an appearance at the Labor Day shindig tomorrow and my hangover's already going to be worse than death.”

Ethan mumbled something and his eyes started drooping. Mr. Braswell slapped his face a few times.

“Come on, wakey-wakey.” He grabbed the flask from Rudy's hand and poured some into Ethan's mouth. Ethan's eyes jerked open. “There we go,” Mr. Braswell said. “Down the ol' rain pipe.”

He went to hand the flask back to Rudy, but Rudy told him he could keep it. Then Mr. Braswell and Ethan staggered off down the hill to the truck. Ethan fumbled with his keys a bit and turned on the engine. Mr. Braswell rolled down his window.

“See you at the lake tomorrow, Johnny!” he said. Then he raised up, pulled down his pants, and showed off his bare backside. He kept it hanging out the window while Ethan made a cloud of dust as he drove off down the hill.

I suddenly remembered the motto the teachers at school had decided on that year,
Training the Leaders of Tomorrow
.

Rudy chuckled.

“Well, I think I'll be going too.” He pulled his keys out of his pocket, couldn't quite keep hold of them, and they went flying through the air. They landed in Ethan's vomit. He cringed.

“So, I'm walking.” He started to stumble down the hill.

I closed my eyes. I needed to learn to keep my big mouth shut, I knew that. I knew I shouldn't do things or offer things or be there for folks the way I had been lately. But I wouldn't be a Cannon if I did what I knew I should do all the time.

“Would you like a ride?” I asked.

“No, I'll be fine,” he said. “I'm in a tent just five miles from here. Of course, you already know that, don't you? Anyway, I can walk it.”

“Or I could drive you,” I said. “Ain't no skin off my teeth.”

It only took a little more convincing until he gave in and got into my truck. We started down the road. And, just like Tommy used to be, he was awful chatty with all that whiskey in his system.

“So, what do you remember about Cuba?” he asked. Tommy must have told him.

“Not much,” I said. “Just the bad stuff, mainly.”

He sighed.

“That's too bad,” he said. “But there's got to be something you remember that's good. What about
Batidos
?”

Batidos
was like a milk shake in Cuba. And he was right, that was a good memory.

“Heck yeah,” I said. “
Batido de Trigo
was my favorite thing in the whole world. I'd drink them by the dozen when I could.”

“Mmm, mine was
Batido de Guanábana
.” He sighed. “What about the dancing? And the music? And friends? Surely you had friends.”

I shook my head.

“I remember dancing, but if I had any friends they done got erased from my brain.” I thought for a second. “But, wait, you was in Cuba?”

He nodded.

“Lived there all the way up until Castro's chumps drove my family out,” he said. “Cut my teeth on the banana trees.”

“And now you're here,” I said. “And you still ain't told me why you're tracking Sora like a dog.”

“I made a promise,” he said. “And I'm working to keep that promise.”

“A promise to who? To Tommy?”

He nodded.

“And Sora,” he said. “A promise to keep her safe.”

I stared up at the road that was getting shined on by the headlights and mulled that in my brain for a bit.

“It's pretty plain and clear from your outfit and your car that you got money. Why are you stealing groceries, then? Why not just go in and buy them?”

He groaned. “My father has eyes everywhere. And I need to make sure he doesn't find me. Because once he's found me, he won't let me get away again so easily.”

“Well, if you've been taking care of her so blamed good, why is she so skinny?”

“Feeding a pregnant girl is hard,” he said. Brother, he could say that again.

“Well, I got to say that your promise to Tommy and Sora must have been a powerful strong one,” I said. “To get you staying in a tent out in the middle of nowhere. Stealing groceries and risking getting arrested or dragged back to your pa and all that. Don't reckon I'd do it.”

He stared out the window at the darkness.

“I'm trying to avoid paying for the sins of my father. To find penance for the scars on my soul. So, yes, it is a powerful strong promise.”

I shivered. That didn't sound good.

“Which sins you talking about?”

“Take your pick,” he said. Then he pointed up ahead of us. “You can park up here.”

I pulled over and he went to get out. He had one leg out of the truck and then he looked back at me.

“You want to come see my tent? Or, see it again, I guess?” His eyes was halfway closed. He pulled a mint out of his pocket and put it in his mouth, then he offered me one.

In case you're wondering, there's only one right answer to give to somebody if they ask you if you want to see their tent. You tell them no. Just like that. If you want to add a kick to the knee or a sock in the jaw, that's up to you. But no matter what, you ought to always say no. Saying anything else is dadgum stupid.

“Sure, I guess,” I said. Never said I was smart. Plus, like he said, I'd already seen his tent, so it was different. “But then I got to get on home.”

I got out and followed him. He almost toppled flat over into a pile of weeds that probably was hosting a family of snakes. I went and let him lean on me and we walked through the woods. He still smelled like wintergreen, but with whiskey thrown in. Wasn't the worst thing I'd ever sniffed, but it wasn't apple pie either.

We made our way through the trees to the clearing and headed toward his tent. There was a lantern on inside of it and what looked like another person, sleeping.

“You brought somebody with you?”

“No,” he said, “I picked up a straggler.”

He opened the flap to the tent and kicked the sleeping bag as he went and collapsed on the other side. The person sleeping jumped up. He wasn't wearing nothing but his skivvies.

“Eddie?” I said.

“Johnny?” he said.

“Oh good, you two know each other,” Rudy said as he pulled his blanket over top of himself. He started to say something else, but the whiskey finally set in, and instead he went to snoring.

“What are you doing out here?” I asked Eddie. “Where's your clothes?”

“I told you, I'm running away,” he said.

“From your pants?”

“No,” he said, blushing.

“Why are you with him?”

“ 'Cause we're”—he looked over at Rudy and his voice got softer—“kindred spirits. We're both running from the sins—”

“Of your fathers, got it,” I said. “But I got a feeling you'd be better off running on your own than camping out with him. Your pa isn't going to take too kindly to you running off in the first place, let alone hanging with a vagrant. And when Rudy finds out your pa is up for sheriff, well, I reckon he'll want to be as far away from you as possible.”

As soon as I said that, he pushed me out of the tent and shushed me.

“Listen, about that, I need you to keep a secret for me. Just from Rudy, if you ever talk to him again.”

I didn't figure I'd be talking to Rudy much more after that night, so I said I would.

“Okay, see, I might have lied to him when he asked me who my father was,” he said.

“Probably smart,” I said. “Though I don't reckon you can keep that lie up if you stick around here any longer.”

“I know, I know, but listen,” he said. “Here's the deal, at first he wasn't aiming to let me stay with him, so I needed to come up with some reason he might want me to stick around.”

“And?”

“And after you left me here on Friday, I went through his journal and stuff and I came across some entries that he was looking for a fella.”

“Okay, so?”

“So, if you're ever talking to him again, my name ain't Eddie Gorman. It's Eddie Morris. And my father is Captain—”

“Richard Morris,” I said, and my gut clenched up something fierce.

“Yeah, how did you know?” he asked.

I peeked back into the tent and could see Rudy breathing real hard in his sleep and I wondered if he was dreaming about the reward money Mr. Trafficante had put on the Morris blood. On my blood.

“Word spreads fast,” I said.

“Well, anyway, as soon as he heard me say that, he said I needed to stay with him and to not go nowhere or nothing. Said it was for my own good.” He grinned a big fat grin. “So, from now on, I'm Captain Morris's son.”