The Struggles of Johnny Cannon (16 page)

That'd make my life quite a bit easier. But it might not be the best turn of events for Eddie. And, since I'd already done stopped hating him and started caring about whether or not his life went off okay, I couldn't let him walk into a bear trap like that.

“Listen, you can't ask me how I heard about this, but I think it ain't exactly safe to be Richard Morris's son at the moment.”

“On account of the price tag on his head?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said, and I eyed him as suspiciously as I ever had. “How'd you know that?”

“Rudy told me,” he said. “Said that's exactly why I needed to be right by his side, 'cause that was the only way I could guarantee that I'd be safe from anybody that might be hunting for me.”

I peeked back in the tent again at Rudy, grinning while he snored like he was dreaming about finding Shangri-La or something.

“But wasn't he hunting you?”

“Sure, but he was after me to keep me safe from them folks that's aiming for me,” he said. “Well, for the Morrises, but whatever.”

I really hoped he was right. I sort of thought it might just be easier to spill the truth, but I wasn't sure. It was one of those situations where you feel like the kid who saw the magician practicing before the birthday party and you knew all about the trapdoor in the box and such, but you wasn't sure if you wanted to say nothing 'cause you didn't want to be that guy that messed up the magic show. Especially when you was the one that might get sawed in half. I decided to keep my big mouth shut.

We talked a little more about his lies and about what he and Rudy was going to do and whether they was going to stick around for a bit or not. He didn't know nothing, to tell the truth, so it was a waste of spit and wind. Finally, I decided it was time to go home. I was heading out the camp when he stopped me.

“You got to swear you won't tell nobody.”

“Sure, whatever,” I said.

“Johnny,” he said, “I'm serious. You saw what my pa did to me before, and that was him trying to restrain himself. Trust me, if he finds me now, well, I ain't so sure he'd know how to hold back.” His eyes almost started tearing up. “From here on out, I'm a Morris, not a Gorman. And you didn't see me out here at all.”

He was scared. There was something about it, something about him being as scared as a little kid, without one ounce of meanness or even a shred of a prank or nothing. I hadn't never seen it on him before. So I swore I'd keep it secret, and not just any old oath you'd take on the schoolyard. I took an Alabama blood oath, the sort that only gets paid back once you've burned in hell for a few years. That was serious business.

I wondered how long you had to burn for lying about who your father was. Hopefully not as long. I probably already had a few centuries' worth of sins saved up that I'd have to simmer in brimstone over, I sure didn't need no more.

I went back to the truck and headed on home.

I
t was right before five in the morning, and I was powerful grateful that I could sleep all day. Before I laid back down, I wrote a note and pinned it to my door asking Pa to let me sleep until at least after lunch, and then we could head over to the picnic.

He must have gotten my note, 'cause he didn't come into my room until late. But, when he did finally come to wake me up, he did it by turning my mattress over and dropping me on the ground like a flapjack with a fly cooked into it.

I jumped up, hopping mad.

But he was even madder. He was furious.

“What is this?” he asked, and held out the shirt I was wearing before I went to bed, which I'd thrown on the floor right next to the door.

“It's my shirt,” I said. I still wasn't ready to stop scowling at him.

“I know it's your shirt,” he said. Then he pointed at some stains going down the front. “I mean this. What is this? And don't try to lie your way out of this, I know whiskey when I smell it.”

Ah, dang. I stopped my scowling and started stuttering.

“It's . . . It's . . . it ain't like what you think,” I said.

“Oh, sure.” He threw my shirt at me. “It ain't never like what I think, is it? Ain't that just what Tommy used to always say? And then we'd find out he'd beaten some poor soul to a pulp, or he'd wrecked somebody's car, or he'd been out with some girl and couldn't remember her name.”

I peeked out at the hallway. Sora stood, dazed, with her mouth open. She saw me looking, so she ducked away.

“Yeah, that's how it used to be with him, but it ain't with me. I ain't aiming to be like that.”

“Of course you ain't,” he said. “But that don't mean you ain't going to hit it if you keep on going.”

“You don't understand.”

“Okay, fine.” He sat on my desk. “Tell me, did you or did you not go out after bedtime last night?”

I took a deep breath.

“Yes sir, I did.”

“What time did you come home?”

I closed my eyes. This wasn't going to be good, but lying would be worse.

“About five.”

He looked like I'd stepped on a kitten or something. He took a couple seconds before he said another word.

“Were you alone or with people?”

“I was with people, but it—”

He held up his hand and stopped me.

“Was there drinking involved?”

I took another deep breath.

“Yeah, there was, but—”

“Don't you ‘but' me,” he said, then he put his finger in my face. “Now, you answer this question honest or so help me. Did you drink anything yourself?”

I looked at that finger and remembered a time that Tommy'd smacked Pa's hand away for doing it. I didn't understand how he could do that then. I did now.

“Well, it really depends on what you mean by drinking.”

Pa got real mad at that and smacked my desk, loud as a pistol.

“Damnation! Don't you go splitting hairs with me! Did a drop, a single, solitary drop of whiskey make its way over your lips? Did you taste alcohol? How else can I say it?”

Unfortunately, there was only one honest answer to those questions.

“Yes,” I said, “but that ain't a fair line of questions.”

He stood up, his face fallen down like an old barn.

“You're grounded,” he said. “No more hanging around with Willie or Martha, no more hunting or fishing, none of it. No TV. You ain't going to do nothing but go to school and then sit in your room. And you'll only be doing homework in here too. No comic books.”

He started to head out of the room.

“Mr. Braswell made me do it,” I said. He stopped in his tracks.

“Mark?” he asked. “Used to hang around with Tommy and Ethan?”

“Yeah. Mark did it. He forced me to drink.”

Pa grabbed me by the arm.

“Either you're lying or Mark is going to be out of a job.”

I wasn't lying, so I hoped Mark had his résumé ready to go.

Pa dragged me downstairs and put me in the truck. Didn't let me brush my teeth or fix my hair or nothing. I was still in my sleeping shirt, though he did let me throw on pants and my shoes, which I was thankful for. Then he drove us real fast into town and over to Mr. Braswell's mom's house. But she wasn't there. She and everybody else was out at the one place I sure didn't want to be right then.

They was all out at Smith Lake Park for the Labor Day picnic. And, 'cause he was fixing to embarrass me in front of every single person that lived in or around Cullman, Pa drove us out there so he could give Mr. Braswell a piece of his mind.

The whole way there, I was begging and pleading with him to turn around and head back home. I tried bargaining with him, offering to spend the rest of my days working in our house, even tried threatening to tell folks his most embarrassing story, when he sleepwalked and thought the trash can was the toilet and we all woke up to the worst smell there'd ever been, but it didn't do nothing. He was bound and determined to ruin my life, and there just flat wasn't no stopping him.

The park was so full that people was parking on the road, and we pulled up behind about twenty-five cars. Which meant we was going to be walking from the far end of the park over to where everybody was congregating. Me still in my pajama shirt and my hair still matted from my own drool. I ain't never wanted to die so bad in my life.

We marched along the grass, Pa stabbing the ground with his cane like he figured he was knocking the devil in the head or something. The park was a sea of noisy people, but as soon as we stepped foot in it, the sea parted and we walked along on the dry ground of silence. Every single pair of eyes snapped on us and followed us as we moved deeper and deeper to find Pa's target.

We passed Martha and Kristen, sitting on a blanket, watching some fellas from our class playing Frisbee. Or they was until we passed by. Then they was watching us. Which is why I've always hated Frisbees, 'cause they can't keep folks' attention for nothing.

There was folks over barbecuing, and I was afraid they was going to burn their weenies 'cause they stopped tending to them. Some folks was playing volleyball and one fella got an easy point 'cause the other team noticed us first.

Finally, we got deep in the heart of the crowd and found Mr. Braswell. He was standing with a whole mess of girls, just gabbing away like he knew they all wanted to be his girlfriend. He was in swim trunks and didn't have no shirt, which made all them girls keep glancing at his chest. He had on big sunglasses and was holding a beer in one hand and his cigarette in the other. He didn't see us coming.

Poor fella.

Pa got up behind him and picked up his cane like a baseball bat. Then he swung it and whacked the drink right out of Mr. Braswell's hand, all the way over onto Doc Brown's backside.

Mr. Braswell spun around, cussing and sputtering like a drowning sailor. His sunglasses slipped off in the ruckus and it was pretty amazing how bloodshot his eyes was.

“Mr. Cannon? What the”—cussword—“are you doing?”

“Mark, what's this I hear about you getting my boy drunk last night?”

All the people around us gasped like they was watching Perry Mason and he'd just pointed out somebody had a gun hidden in their pillow.

Mr. Braswell rubbed the bump that was rising on his hand from Pa's cane.

“I—I—” he stammered. “I honestly don't know what you're talking about.”

Dadgum liar.

“Yes you do,” I said. “You and Ethan was drinking together last night and you made me take a swig of Jack Daniels.”

The crowd gasped again. There ain't too many scandals in Cullman, so this was as big as Elizabeth Taylor stealing Debbie Reynolds's husband. I got half a smile that died as soon as Pa saw it.

“Is that true, Mark?” Pa said.

“Look, I'll admit I was drinking last night,” Mr. Braswell said. “With Ethan. He'd had a rough time at church yesterday and he needed some consoling, so he came over to my house and we had a few glasses of Scotch.” He stopped and looked back at me, almost like he felt like he was forgetting something. “But then I went to bed.”

One of them girls came and grabbed his arm and started looking at the bump on his hand like she was worried it might be broken.

“You're a liar!” I said. “You and Ethan was at the cemetery getting plastered at Tommy's gravestone.”

“Wow, that's an active imagination you have,” he said. I peeked at the crowd again. They was hanging on every single word. But I realized real quick that I was a kid and he was the teacher. Which meant I was probably going to lose the argument.

“You was with Rudy,” I said, trying one last time at the truth.

“I don't even know who you're talking about,” he said. He looked at Pa. “I'm sorry, this sort of thing happens. A kid wants to find someone to take the heat off and their teacher seems like the likeliest of candidates. So, no hard feelings, sir.”

Pa was changing from being mad at him to believing him, I could tell that by his eyes. He was probably fixing to apologize for beating him with his cane, too. Which meant Mr. Braswell was better at telling lies than I was at telling the truth. So I decided to change plans and play the game his way. 'Cause there wasn't a better liar in all of Alabama than Johnny Cannon.

If I couldn't blame it on Mr. Braswell, I had to pick somebody that everybody would believe would do wrong like that. And there probably wasn't nobody in Cullman folks liked to judge more than Eddie Gorman. Now, I'd swore that I wouldn't tell where he was at, but I didn't say nothing about telling I was with him. See, you got to find them loopholes if you're going to take an Alabama blood oath. Otherwise you'll probably get lynched on your own words.

“Fine,” I said, and tried to act relieved that I was finally spilling the beans. Adults loved it when they felt like you'd changed your wicked ways. “It wasn't Mr. Braswell. It was Eddie. I was out with Eddie and he made me drink some whiskey.”

“Eddie!” a voice boomed from the other side of the crowd. I looked over to see who it was.

It was Bob Gorman and Bull Connor.

Dadgummit.

They came rushing through the crowd at us.

“You were with Eddie last night?” Bob grabbed me by the collar of my sleeping shirt. “Where is he? What is he doing?”

Bull Connor pulled him off of me. “Calm down, Bob. Calm down.”

“What's going on?” Pa said.

“Bob's son, Eddie, ran away,” Bull Connor said real loud so everyone could hear. The whole park gasped even louder. This was the best day of the whole year for folks in Cullman. Too bad nobody was taking pictures.

“Where was he?” Bob said. “Where did you and he go to drink? Is he okay? Did you leave him passed out somewhere?”

Sheriff Tatum made his way over to us.