The Struggles of Johnny Cannon (9 page)

I read it, and my voice wasn't able to go above a whisper.

“ ‘Keep your blood safe from harm.' ”

We both stared at the letter like it was a snake that had fallen asleep on his desk. He folded it back up and pinned it back to his wall, then he sat down on his bed.

“So, what do you think he meant?” he asked.

I thought for a bit.

“Maybe he's talking about the price tag,” I said.

“The what?”

Even though it was probably the sort of thing I was supposed to keep secret, I went ahead and told him all about the meeting and Santo Trafficante and the price tag on Captain Morris and everything.

When I was done, he sat down on his bed and let out a whistle.

“Wow. This is serious,” he said. “For real, this ain't good.”

“Yeah, but maybe it ain't as bad as we're thinking,” I said. “I mean, as long as nobody finds out about me being his son, I'm probably safe.”

He didn't look too convinced.

“And here I thought Captain Morris was the biggest bad guy we'd ever meet,” he said. “Ain't that just how it is?”

“What you mean?”

“Like in the comic books, the hero goes and he beats the bad guy and everybody thinks it's all amazing. But then he finds out the bad guy he beat was just the messenger boy or something, and he's got to fight an even scarier, bigger, meaner bad guy in the next comic.”

“Except I ain't ever going to have to fight Mr. Trafficante,” I said.

“As long as he don't ever find out the truth about you,” he said.

“Exactly.”

“But that's why I'm worried,” he said. “ 'Cause if there's one thing I've learned, it's that the truth has a pesky way of getting found out, whether you want it to or not.”

I tried to brush him off, but deep down, I knew he was right. Lies never last as long as you want them to, and the truth never stays buried no matter how deep you dig the hole.

Except for this time. Hopefully.

I
t was only lunchtime on Friday, but it was already a really bad day.

First of all, I'd overslept, which meant I didn't get to eat no breakfast, so I was about ready to faint when it was time for me to do the This Day in History thing for the class. Then, while I was telling them all about how September 1 was the day that Narcissa Whitman and Eliza Spalding became the first white women to cross the Rockies back in 1836, I got all mixed up and said they rocked the Crossies and everybody laughed their heads off.

Which then meant I failed the math pop quiz 'cause I couldn't stop thinking about it. And then I missed hearing Mr. Braswell call my name for extra credit, so I missed that, too.

And now it was lunchtime, and it should have been perfect, but it wasn't. I was sitting at a table alone with Martha, and it was sort of like how I'd always wanted it to be. Except she had Willie's tape recorder and she was getting ready to ask me all about my life's story.

And I just wasn't feeling up to doing no storytelling.

It was also tuna surprise in the lunchroom, which was icing on the cake. I couldn't catch a break at all that day. Oh well, at least we had a three-day weekend, thanks to Labor Day on Monday. And there'd be a fireworks show. Maybe I'd get blown up or something.

I sat there, poking my food with a fork, and I was so hungry I almost was willing to eat it. Martha got the microphone set up in front of me and was fiddling with the tape.

“Okay, I think I've got this set up now,” she said. “Are you ready?”

“I guess,” I said. “Why can't you do your biography on somebody else? Like your ma or something?”

She laughed.

“My mom? Yeah, I'm going to do a biography on the single most boring person that's ever lived.” She shook her head and started the tape recorder. “I mean, if I want to learn how to bake cookies or dress so I don't attract boys or something, sure. But otherwise, no. There's not any good reason to do a biography on my mother.”

“I'd do one on mine, but she's dead,” I said. Sometimes, if I played the dead mom card, I could get out of stuff like this interview.

“Don't even try it, Johnny,” she said. “We're doing this interview because you want me to get a good grade. Right?”

I let out a really long, painful sigh.

“Fine, fire away. In fact, if you could shoot me in the head, that'd be great. Put me out of my misery.”

“Golly, and they say
girls
are overdramatic,” she said. She pulled out her notebook and flipped to a page where she'd made up a list of questions. Looked like there was Willie's handwriting on it too. I was beginning to wonder if he was working with me or against me.

“Okay, I guess let's start at the very beginning. What's your earliest memory?”

“Well, there was one time when I got up at four in the morning to go fishing. I think that's probably the earliest.”

“No,” she said, and she tapped the pencil on her notebook for a couple of seconds. “What's the first thing you can remember about your childhood?”

“Ain't I still in my childhood?”

“I'm beginning to think so,” she said. “Look, everybody remembers something from when they were little, and it's the thing that sort of sets up the stage for the rest of your life. Like, for me, the first thing I remember is when I was three and my cousin's dogs attacked my teddy bear. My mom saw me crying and she turned the dining room into an operating room. Even had me wear a mask, and she did surgery on my bear. She sewed him back together and even put a Band-Aid on his chest.”

“And that set the stage for your whole entire life?” I asked. “A fake surgery?”

She was getting frustrated, I could tell, 'cause she breathed real hard out of her nose.

“Yes, because I always know my mom will fix anything, no matter how big or small it is. Now, what's yours?”

I had to think real hard. It was difficult, 'cause my memories wasn't exactly set out in a proper timeline in my brain, but they was sort of lumped together like a box of photographs that don't got no dates on the back and you ain't real sure what order they go in. And, since there wasn't no way I could figure out which one was the earliest, I just grabbed the first one I could think of.

“I guess it was when Tommy left home in Guantánamo to move up here with Grandma, back around '53,” I said. “I remember crying real hard about it and running to Ma, and her just crying too. And the whole time, Pa was begging him or anyone to explain why he was doing it, but nobody would. And he left.”

“Wow,” she said, and she made a few notes. “Did you ever find out why he left?”

“Yeah, he'd figured out that Ma was cheating on Pa.”

“Oh, yeah. Right. With Captain Morris.”

I real quick reached over and turned off the tape recorder and then I snatched the pencil out of her hand.

“Hey!” she said. “Don't be a jerk.”

“You can't say that name, the Captain's,” I said. “And you sure can't put him in this biography.”

“What in the world are you talking about?” she asked. “He's part of your story, so I have to. Why are you acting so weird about it?”

I didn't want to tell her 'cause girls get real scared about things, and plus they can't keep no secrets.

“It's just . . . ,” I said. “I don't want that part of my story getting told.”

She studied my face.

“What if I don't use his name?” she asked.

“Nope, won't work. You just got to not tell that part.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Then why am I even writing a biography on you if I can't tell your whole story?”

“I don't know,” I said, maybe a little louder than I should. “Why are you? I didn't ask you to do it.”

She got real quiet, but not like you do when you feel bad, but more like you do when the only words you can think of is cusswords.

I stood up.

“You know what, I think Willie needs his tape recorder back,” I said, and I grabbed it and packed it up.

“No he doesn't,” she said, and she tried to get it back from me. “He said I could use it.”

“Well, he's my blood brother, and I'm saying he needs it back. Like now.”

“Okay, fine, I'll take it back to him after school,” she said.

“No, he needs it now,” I said. “
I'll
take it on up to him.”

That got everybody in the lunchroom looking at me, but it didn't much matter. I needed to go talk to Willie 'cause I was starting to realize just how hard it was going to be to keep my blood safe from harm, like Tommy'd warned.

I went outside and found a bike nobody was watching. I'd return it before anybody noticed. I put the tape recorder in the basket and rode the bike on back to the Parkinses' house.

Their car was gone when I got there, so I hoped he was home. I went to the front door and banged on it, partly to get somebody to come open it and partly to get my stress out. So it was real loud.

The door swung open and Mrs. Parkins stood behind it. Holding a shotgun. Aimed at my chest.

I threw my hands up in the air and she saw it was me, so she lowered it.

“What in tarnation are you doing?” I asked.

She looked out at the yard, like she was checking to see if anybody was hiding in the bushes, and then she let me come in. Willie was sitting on the couch with his sister. They both looked as freaked out as I was.

Mrs. Parkins closed the door and stood behind it, shotgun pointed at it again.

“Mama, can Johnny and I go to my room?” Willie said.

She nodded.

“Just stay away from the windows.”

We hurried and went down the hall to his room. Once we got inside, I just about lost my mind.

“What in the name of all that is good and holy is your ma doing with a shotgun in your living room?”

“Pa bought it for her after that whole Captain Morris thing,” he said. “And I taught her, same way you taught me.”

“I don't recollect teaching you to stand armed and ready at the door to kill the mailman.”

He laughed at that.

“She ain't. Not usually,” he said. “But there was an incident in Colony that Pa's checking into and it's got her freaked out.”

“What you mean ‘an incident'?”

He sighed.

“We reckon it's on account of that integration that happened in Georgia. Folks want to make sure the black community here doesn't go getting any fancy ideas.”

“What happened?”

“There was a lynching,” he said.

I felt my heart drop into my ankles.

“Oh no,” I said. “Who'd they go after? How come I haven't heard nothing about it?”

“They didn't lynch no humans, that's why you haven't heard nothing.”

“Then what'd they lynch?”

“Dogs,” he said, and his voice got real sad. “They went through Colony and stole every single dog out of all the yards, and then they strung them up. Off the roof of the schoolhouse, so all the kids got to see them when they showed up this morning.”

There wasn't nothing either one of us could say right then, it was just too horrible a thing to think about. After a bit, he went on.

“My pa went down to check on things. Russ Conner is in a bad way, he was the first one to get to school and tried to cut them all down before the little kids showed up. Got six down, but then it got to him. He went home and ain't come out of his bedroom since.”

“You going to go down there and talk to him?” Russ was one of Willie's good friends. Plus he had a mean left hook, which I knew from experience. To think of him hiding under his bed or something, it just wasn't right.

“Wish I could, but Ma's convinced this is all part of the Klan's plan to hit us again. That's why she's guarding the door. And why she won't let me go get involved.”

“Dang,” I said. “This probably doesn't help too much on convincing her that Cullman's a decent place to live, does it?”

“You don't have no idea,” he said.

We heard a car door slam outside and we both jumped.

“Papa's home!” Mrs. Parkins hollered, which made us both relax. We went back out to the living room and Reverend Parkins came in. The first thing he did was give his wife a big hug, then his kids. Then me, which was a little weird.

“Sheriff Tatum is down there now,” he said after that. “He's going to investigate.”

“Yeah, right,” Mrs. Parkins said. “I'm sure he'll trace the blame to some drunk Tigger from farther south.”

Now, just to be clear, she didn't say “Tigger.” She said another word that I ain't supposed to say but I reckon she can 'cause she's black. So, whenever folks say that word, I substitute in “Tigger.” Although, if Tigger ever did get drunk, I'll bet he'd cause a whole mess of trouble. But not like what had happened in Colony.

“Coretta,” Reverend Parkins said. “Language.”

Mrs. Parkins stormed off to put her gun away in her bedroom. Willie went over to his pa.

“How's Russ doing?”

“Not good,” Reverend Parkins said. “He and his grandma are going to go up to Memphis, stay with some relatives for a little while till this whole thing blows over.”

“Really?” I asked. “They're leaving?”

Mrs. Parkins heard me.

“That's what we need to do too,” she said as she came back into the living room. “Because nobody here is going to take care of us.”

“I think you're wrong,” he said. “Sheriff Tatum has some leads, he said.”

“Really, like who?”

Before Reverend Parkins could answer, or maybe while he was and I just didn't pay no attention, a tow truck drove up onto the yard.

Bob Gorman's tow truck.

Bob got out, adjusted his suspenders, and came up to the Parkinses' front door. I was the only one that saw him coming, and I opened the door before he knocked so he didn't get a gaping hole shot through his chest.