The Wanton Troopers (21 page)

Without knowing quite why, he giggled. His mother laid her palm on his forehead.

“What's wrong, Scampi? Are you feverish or something?”

He was giggling so hard he had difficulty in getting the words out. “Oh, I was jist thinkin' about how the things that are funny and the things that are sad are all mixed up together,” he managed to blurt at last. “I mean, well, things happen — and you don't know whether tuh cry or tuh laugh.”

And he giggled so loudly that he did not hear what his mother answered. He awoke without remembering how or when he had fallen asleep. It was night still, but he did not know if he had slept for hours or only for minutes.

From the open door of their bedroom came his parents' voices.

“Get away from me, Judd,” Mary was saying. “For God's sake, get away from me!”

Judd's voice was as weird and chill as the wind that raked the window near Kevin's head.

“Git away from me, she says! Git away from me says the cheatin' little bitch! Eh! I'n jist hear her a-tellin' Ernie Masters tuh git away from her. A fat chance of her a-tellin' him that! No, what she'd be sayin' tuh him would be, Ernie darlin' would yuh please —” And here in a sniggering burlesque contralto, Judd inserted an obscenity.

“You'll wake Scampi, Judd. Please go and lie down, Judd. You're drunk and you'll wake Scampi.”

Her words were half command, half supplication.

“You'll wake Scampi, Judd. Please go and lie down, Judd. You're drunk and you'll wake Scampi,” he parroted. “Listen tuh the little bitch! Listen tuh her, will yuh! A helluva lot she cares about the boy — a helluva lot she cares about anythin'. Cheatin' little bitch! Dirty cheatin' little whore!”

Kevin strove to cover his ears, but his hands would not respond.
Oh, please God, make them stop and I' ll never ask you for anything
again. I promise I won't, God. Only make them stop, please.

“And a lot you care! He's your son too! He's just as much yours as he is mine!”

The light streaming through the door staggered and weaved so that Kevin knew Judd held the lamp in an unsteady hand.

“Eh! I ain't so damn sure of that! I allus say that when yuh been cut by a crosscut saw it's damn hard tuh tell which tooth did the most damage!” Again he cackled in a hideous parody of laughter. “I got me a damn good idea that there brat's got a helluva sight more Masters blood in his veins than anythin' else. The snivellin' little bugger don't act much like no O'Brien!”

“Judd!”

Oh, please God, don't let him say anything more. Please, God.
Please!

He heard the lamp being set on the floor or on a table.

“Mar.”

Judd's voice was abashed, almost diffident.

“Go away! I hate you!”

Now Mary's voice was harsh and arrogant, Judd's plaintive and faltering.

“I guess mebbe I shouldn't oughta said that, Mar. I guess mebbe I didn't have no call tuh say that.”

“Get out!”

“All right, Mar, I'll go back out tuh the kitchen and lay down and go tuh sleep. I won't drink anythin' more, Mar.”

“I don't care what you do. Drink yourself to death if you want to. Go jump in the creek if you want to.
But get out and leave
me alone!”

“Look, Mar — in the mornin' I'll git me some more money and I'll see that you and Kev have the best Christmas yuh've ever had in yer life. I promise I will, Mar. There weren't no need of me gittin' drunk like I did. There weren't no need of it a-tall. I guess I'm gittin' tuh be jist nothin' but a drunkard. I don't know how yuh put up with me. But I'll go tuh the store in the mornin', Mar and I'll —”

“Just get out, Judd.”

“Mar, I'll buy yuh a new dress. I'll git me some more money and in the mornin' I'll —”

“Just get out, Judd,” she repeated wearily.

“All right, Mar.” His voice was contrite, defeated.

A moment later, Judd lurched out of the bedroom, the lamp bobbing in his hands, and staggered into the kitchen.

In one part of Kevin's mind hate was an overturned lamp, spilling flaming kerosene. He did not fully understand Judd's accusation. But he had said that the blood of Ernie Masters flowed in his veins. This dark and inscrutable riddle frightened and shamed Kevin more than it would have done had its meaning been made stark and plain. He almost prayed that God would strike his father dead where he lay. Then he remembered how the man had begged and promised.

Never before had he heard his father so abase himself. To Kevin this was almost equivalent to a reversal in the laws of nature. It was like a total eclipse of the sun, like hailstones falling in May . . .

Twenty-Three

During the whole of the following day, neither of Kevin's parents spoke to the other. But Judd made much of Kevin. He called him “Kev,” a name he used only when he was seeking to be expansive and friendly, and smiled almost shyly as he asked him little tentative, self-effacing questions about his reading and his schoolwork. This humility and strained heartiness embarrassed Kevin. Every day the gulf between him and his father widened, and Judd's attempts to bridge the gap were so pitiably inept that Kevin almost wept for him.

“Let's see now, Kev,” Judd said, biting off a chew of tobacco, “I guess yer still makin' out good at school, eh?”

“Yessir, I guess so.”

“What duh yuh like best — I mean which subjecks?”

“Hist'ry. I guess.”

“Well, now. Well. I guess yuh've learnt about Wolfe and Montcalm and alla them there fellers, eh?”

Ever since Kevin's first year in school, his father — when he wanted to show that he shared his son's interests — had mentioned Wolfe and Montcalm. They were the only historical characters he remembered.

“Yeah,” Kevin answered. “We learnt a little bit about them.”

“I guess you'n remember where they fought that big battle, eh?”

“No, I guess not,” Kevin lied. To repay his father for his friendliness he wished to give him this little honour.

Judd grunted with satisfaction. “Why, it were fought on the Plains a Abraham,” he asserted. He smiled with the expression of one scholar conversing with another.

Kevin slapped his forehead. “Gosh, sure! I remember now!”

“Oh, the old feller still remembers a few things, Kev. I usta kinda like school. Graded ever' year I went.”

He chewed tobacco, wiped his lips and blinked.

“Eddication's a mighty fine thing, Kev. Yuh can't git too much eddication, I allus say.”

“I guess that's right.” Each year it became harder for Kevin to call his father “daddy.” But shyness and uncertainty kept him from changing the title. In recent months he had skirted the issue by calling him by name only when he had to.

In the afternoon, Judd announced that he had decided to sell the red cow. “The old bitch ain't worth a-nothin' anyways and I figger mebbe I'n talk old Biff Mason intuh takin' her off my hands. If I'n talk fast enough I might even get me a pretty fair price fer her.” Rather sheepishly, he shuffled his feet and tugged at his cloth cap.

“Don't do nothin' foolish now,” Grandmother O'Brien cautioned.

Judd's eyes widened comically. “Now, Ma, who said anythin' about doin' anythin' foolish?” He winked at Kevin, as though enlisting him as his co-conspirator.

The old woman shook her head vigorously and increased the speed of her rocker.

“Mark my words, son, yuh keep on a-drinkin' an' a-runnin' up store bills an' a-sellin' hens an' cows an' pretty soon yuh ain't even gonna have a shirt tuh put tuh yer back. Wilful waste means woeful want, son. We're poor folks — poor as dirt — an' we gotta remember it!”

“Now, Ma, yer livin' in the past. Times is changed.”

“Some things ain't never gonna change, son. Yer poor — allus was an' allus will be. There ain't nothin's gonna change that. The Good Lord meant it tuh be. The Good Lord meant fer folks like us tuh take what's handed out tuh us an' be grateful fer it.”

“This ain't got nothin' tuh do with what yer talkin' about, Ma. I'm jist gettin' rid of an old no-good cow. I been thinkin' a tradin' her off fer a long time now.”

“There ain't no use in a-talkin' tuh yuh when yuh got yer mind set on a thing, son! I might jist as well save my breath tuh cool my porridge. Answer not a fool accordin' tuh his folly, the Good Book says. There ain't no earthly use in a-talkin' tuh yuh a-tall.”

“Yuh wanta come with me, Kev?”

Kevin stared at his father in amazement. Normally, Judd would never have dreamed of issuing such an invitation.

“Huh? Gosh. Yes, I guess so. Sure,” he stammered.

“Git on yer duds then, me laddie. Me and you is goin' cow tradin'.”

Making a halter from a piece of clothes line, Judd led the red cow out of the barn and onto the road. There were only two colours in the world: the grey of the sky and the white of the snow.

“Break off a lilac switch, Kev, and switch her backside ever' time she gits balky.”

Fetching a switch from the hedge, Kevin grinned; Judd slapped the cow's dropping ears lightly, almost affectionately. It was incredible that this same man had once seized a pitchfork and —

“Geddap up there, yuh old red fool!” Judd bellowed.

Judd leading the cow and Kevin trotting behind her with the switch, they went down the dry, white canal that was the road . . .

Biff Mason wore red garters on his sleeves and a pencil stub behind his ear. His lips were flaccid, perpetually moist, and his voice was a lugubrious singsong punctuated by whinnying laughter. Once, in the previous summer, Biff had caught Kevin pilfering peppermints and since then he had said often, in Kevin's hearing, that all of the mill hands' children were unblushing little thieves.

But, today, Biff ignored Kevin. While the men dickered in the yard, prodding and poking the cow, making her open her mouth and lift her feet so that they might examine her teeth and hooves, Kevin stood inside, imbibing the atmosphere of the store. The building was scarcely larger than the O'Briens' woodshed and, like the woodshed, it was built of unbarked slabs and raw, unpainted boards. But the smells, sights, and textures were inexhaustibly intoxicating. Crates, cartons, and barrels stood on top of one another in grotesque, teetering towers. The smell was a compound of a thousand aromas, sweet and salty, vapid and pungent. There were the scents of kerosene, vinegar, molasses, ham, bologna, cheddar cheese, butter, clean new denim, tinfoil, chewing tobacco, and waxed wrapping paper. At this season, crates and shelves overflowed with oranges, grapes, nuts, and a dozen kinds of multi-coloured, fruit-scented candies. And, as always, there were big boxes full of gum rubbers, jeans, and black-and-red checked lumber jackets, and little boxes containing mechanical pencils, hairpins, playing cards, and pocket watches.

After thirty minutes of talk and gesturing, the men led the cow away, and Kevin, watching through a little clear space made by his breath in the opaque frost on the window, knew that the sale had been made.

A further ten minutes passed. Then Biff and Judd came back from the barn and entered the store. Kevin knew from the reek of his father's breath that he had drunk of the vanilla flavouring extract which Biff sold to the men as though it were liquor.

“This here young feller a yers is sproutin' up jist like a bad weed, ain't he, Juddie?” Biff whinnied.

“Yeah, I guess mebbe yer right, Biff,” Judd said shortly, dismissing the subject. There were occasions, such as today, when Judd tried to be friendly with Kevin while the two of them were at home or alone together. But it was his unshakable conviction that small boys should be barred from the company of men. When they could not be excluded, Judd's etiquette demanded that they be ignored. Kevin had long ago been taught that the quickest and surest way to earn a strapping was to impinge on the conversations of men.

He sat on an orange crate, his mittened hands in his lap, as Judd and Biff transacted their business.

First, there was the question of a payment on the bill. Judd called credit buying “dealing on tick.” Having been jobless for two months, he now owed Biff Mason $200 “on tick.” A substantial part of the price of the cow was to be applied against this account.

“It ain't that I'm tryin' tuh dun yuh or anythin', Juddie — yuh know that, boy — but I gotta have cash tuh stay in business. Them there wholesalers wants their money ever' thirty days. Why, Juddie, iffin it hadda been anybody but you that owed me that there two hundred bucks, I'da cracked down on 'em long ago. But yer a friend a mine, Juddie, and I trust yuh. I'd say that behind yer back jist like I'd say it tuh yer face. Juddie O'Brien allus pays his bills, yessiree, Juddie O'Brien allus pays his bills!” Biff rubbed his hands together and licked his wet, flabby lips. Kevin squirmed with contempt for the storekeeper's slyness and greed. But Judd, warmed by the vanilla extract, seemed pleased.

“Yeah, Biff, I guess there ain't nobody in Lockhartville can say that Judd O'Brien don't allus pay his bills,” he boasted.

“That's right, Juddie! That's right!” Biff neighed like a stallion. “And I'm the man tuh say it! Ever' man in Lockhartville will tell yuh that Biff Mason has allus said Juddie O'Brien is a man that pays his bills. I've allus said it, Juddie. Yessir. Yessir. Yessir . . .” Biff's voice trailed away as if he had exhausted this subject and could not think of anything more to say.

“Yeah, I've paid ever' cent I ever owed, Biff — ever' damn cent. I've paid ever' cent since I went tuh work — and that's twenty-six years ago.”

“That's what I allus say, Juddie. That's what I allus say . . . Now, how much was yuh figgerin' tuh pay on this little bitty bill here, Juddie, eh, hay?”