A Wayward Wind
By John W. Huffman
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2009 John W. Huffman
This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.
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Chapter 1
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step,” Miss Powell once said from the front of my high school literature class, going on to explain that some ancient Chinese scholar made that sage observation many centuries ago. Embarking on a grand adventure was the furthest thing from my mind as I parked my new Camaro in the drive. I wanted nothing of the sort, tranquility being my most palatable quest at present. I retrieved the mail from the box next to the street and walked absently to my half of the rented duplex as I separated the bills from the junk. I stopped abruptly to study a slim, hand-addressed envelope addressed to Jay Harte, General Delivery, Jasper, Texas. The return address read Oliver Freeman, care of the Angola State Penitentiary, St. Francisville, Louisiana. I opened the envelope with some trepidation, having not heard from Ollie in years.
Hi Jay,
I don’t know if this will get to you since I don’t have your address. I was afraid to write you in care of your mother because I am in prison and she probably still thinks poorly of me anyway. You were my friend once. You and Hattie were the only true friends I ever had. Now they are going to kill me because they say I killed a man. I hope you don’t mind that I write to you and that you will write back to me. If you don’t I will understand.
Your friend,
Oliver
I stared at Oliver’s note trying to visualize him a killer. The image did not fit. The Oliver I knew was a gentle soul. What happened between then and now to provoke him into taking another man’s life? I’d learned during my recent tour in Vietnam that I didn’t know anything about anything anymore, but the one thing I still knew for certain was the Oliver Freeman I knew was incapable of murder.
Oliver’s short note set me to thinking of the incredible thousand-mile journey we once took together. Our friendship began in the eighth grade in the late spring of 1960 when we were fourteen years old.
* * *
I sat on the sloping side of the cement drainage ditch behind the Esso station across the street from our junior high school, our designated secret place to smoke on our lunch break. A small group clustered near me, remaining respectfully distant since I had made few friends following my arrival in this small sawmill town in the piney woods region of East Texas.
A frail kid approached me hesitantly. “Jay Harte?”
The chatter around me quieted as all watched the nervous little guy, pegging him as a nerd because the cuffs on his Levis were rolled up to his ankles above black and white tennis shoes and his too-large shirt was buttoned to the top with the collar turned down and the shirttail tucked into the waist. The drainage ditch was a tough-guy area and dangerous territory for nerds.
I drew deeply on my Lucky Strike and released the smoke slowly. “Who wants to know?”
“I’m Oliver Freeman.”
I thumped my cigarette onto the cement near his toes. “So?”
The little guy pulled a quarter from his pocket. “Do you want my lunch money?”
I ignored the extended quarter. “If I did I’d already have it.” I shook out another cigarette, flicked my Zippo along my leg, and whipped it up to light it in a cool imitation of James Dean.
He quivered. “You can have it if you’ll be my friend.”
I nearly singed my eyebrows as everyone around us chortled. “You looking to get your ass kicked, Ollie-boy?” I asked as I blew a stream of smoke at him.
He kept his hand out with the quarter extended. “No. I just want to be your friend is all.”
From my sitting position slightly above him on the slope of the cement wall, I reached out, grabbed a fistful of his shirt, and jerked him to me. “Now why would you want to be my friend, you little shit?”
The quarter bounced and rolled down the embankment. “S-so Kenneth won’t beat me up anymore. You can h-have my lunch money everyday. He t-takes it anyway.”
Kenneth Farrow, a real bad ass from the slums of East Jasper, had whipped every boy in our grade—except me. On my second day of school after moving to Jasper, as I elbowed my way through the hall half lost trying to find my next classroom, he suddenly appeared in front of me, his wiry, dark complexioned body looming an inch above me, topped by a scrunched up face adorned with hazel-green snake eyes fixed coldly on my own. When I moved to pass, his hand flashed out to my chest and shoved me back against the lockers lining the hallway as he leaned forward, his menacing jaw inches from my face.
“Do you know who I am?”
“No.”
He poked his finger in my chest. “You’ve got ’til lunch to find out, dip shit. Meet me at the Esso, and I better not have to come looking for you.” He shoved me aside and swaggered off down the hall.
“That’s Kenneth Farrow,” a short, barrel-chested boy beside me advised as I stared after Kenneth in alarm. “Hi, I’m Percy.”
I swallowed. “I’m … Jay Harte. What was that all about?”
Percy fell in beside me as I worked my way through the crush of bodies. “He’s gonna beat your butt at lunch.”
“Why?” I asked as we shrugged our way through the throng.
“Because he’s the boss,” Percy advised.
“Boss of what?”
“Of the eighth grade,” he replied.
I’d had two fights in my life and managed to lose both of them. The first occurred when I was ten years old and in the fourth grade. I was sitting on a stone wall surrounding our elementary school in Pineland with Billy-Bob Jordan on a lazy Saturday morning when a Negro boy approximately our age came riding idly by on his bicycle eating an apple. As he drew abreast of us, Billy-Bob yelled, “Nigger, Nigger, Nigger!”
I was in gleeful mid-snicker when the black boy skidded around in a half circle to face us. In a flash Billy-Bob swung his legs over the fence and high-tailed it across the schoolyard as I stared after him in surprise. An instant later, the half-eaten apple caught me flush in the solar plexus in an excellent imitation of a Satchel Paige fastball, bowling me over the wall backward. With Billy-Bob fleeing in panic and me gasping for breath, the boy then hopped over the rock fence, landed on my chest, and pummeled the hell out of my now non-sneering face. To make matters worse, when I went home battered and bawling afterward, my old man beat the living hell out of me a second time for letting a Negro boy whip my ass in the first damned place. I learned two valuable lessons from this encounter: don’t call black boys Nigger, and always try to get the first lick in.
At the lunch recess Percy hurried to join me as I walked off the school grounds to the Esso station across the street. “When he hits you, just plop back on the ground and don’t get up,” he counseled. “If you make him mad he’ll really give it to you.”
I choked down the lump in my throat. “I’m not looking to fight him.”
The second fight I had engaged in occurred when I was twelve years old and involved the same Billy-Bob Jordan, who by then had established himself as a loud-mouthed lout. I was secretly in love with blonde-haired, blue-eyed Sharon Hainesport, who inexplicably decided she was in love with Billy-Bob. Knowing Billy-Bob to be the coward he was, I elected to impress Sharon with my superior machismo so she could see the error in her choice of men and elect to be in love with me instead. I chased Billy-Bob all over the playground for two recesses before I finally pinned him in a corner against the wall of the schoolhouse. When I looked over my shoulder to ensure Sharon was watching in the gathering crowd of schoolmates, Billy-Bob charged, knocking me over backward and slamming my head against the ground, causing me to chomp down on my hapless tongue and thereby erasing any amorous designs I had on the aforementioned Sharon Hainesport. When I went home afterward, battered and bawling, my old man again took his belt off and beat my ass for allowing a loud-mouthed lout to kick my ass in the first damned place. I learned two other valuable lessons from this encounter: cornered loud-mouthed louts cheat, and if I got my ass kicked by anybody, my old man was going to kick it again when I got home. On this note, faced with no other alternative, I approached Kenneth Farrow, who stood in the midst of a sizable crowd gathered around him to await my arrival.
His lips twisted in a sneer. “What took you so long, dip shit? I’ve been waitin’.”
“I’d just as soon not have any trouble with you,” I mumbled.
He smirked. “Oh yeah? Well, that’ll cost you, dip shit.”
“Cost me what?”
“Fifty cents a week and I want it every Monday morning before school.” He twisted his fist into the front of my shirt and jerked me to him. “And I don’t ever want to have to come lookin’ for you, dip shit. You come find me. Got it?” He shoved me away.
I didn’t have fifty cents a week to give him, so prolonging the inevitable served no purpose, which in turn made getting the first lick in a high priority. As he beamed triumphantly at the crowd around us, I caught him flush in the mouth with a solid right that sent him staggering back in surprise. I moved in quick and popped him twice more, once on the cheek with a glancing left and once on the nose with another solid right. He collapsed onto his knees with his hands covering his face. I hovered over him warily with my fists clenched while blood dripped through his cupped palms, but clearly the fight was over.
Percy hurried from the now mute crowd to my side as I turned back to the schoolyard. “You whipped his butt, Jay!”
“Aw, he wasn’t so tough,” I allowed, my stomach still flip-flopping in giddy gyrations.
“Now you’ve got A.J. to contend with,” he added.
I flexed my right hand as needles of pain danced across my wrist and up my arm from the blow I’d delivered to Kenneth’s nose. “Who’s A.J.?”
“His brother. He’s a sophomore.”
A new wave of apprehension engulfed me. “I’ve got no argument with him.”
“If you fight one of them Farrow’s, you gotta fight ’em both.”
A.J. indeed felt duty-bound to avenge Kenneth’s honor. An inch taller than Kenneth and stouter, with the same mean-green eyes fixed on me as I exited the school grounds that afternoon, he stood in the forefront of a large crowd gathered just outside the gate.
“Harte! I wanna talk to you!” A.J. moved to confront me as the crowd milled around to get advantageous spots. “You busted my brother’s nose!”
“He gave me no choice,” I reasoned.
He balled his fists. “He says you hit him first!”
I braced myself. “I don’t want no trouble with you, A.J.”
“Well, you got it!” He caught me a glancing blow on the side of my head as I ducked and then flush at the corner of my left eye as I went down. I scrambled back up and mixed it up with him for a time, with me getting the worst of it, before he knocked me down again and jumped on my back to finish me off. As we wrestled around on the ground in a swirl of dust, I jerked around and caught him across the bridge of his nose with my elbow. I got to my feet gasping for breath and peered anxiously down at him through my two swollen, blackening eyes as I licked at my split lips, but with all the blood gushing from the broken cartilage in his nose it was obvious he was out of the fight, thanks to the lucky elbow.
Now firmly established as a certified bad ass, nobody fooled with me from that day forward. I had come to realize the downside of being a bad ass is that you are required to maintain the image at all cost, which was the situation I now found myself in some six months later as I released Oliver’s shirt and he stumbled backward down the slope.
“I t-told him he could h-have my lunch money if he wouldn’t b-beat me up, but he d-does anyway.”
“Go on, get out of here,” I scoffed, having no heart to humiliate him further.
He hurried away as those around us hooted in glee. Kevin, a fat boy we let hang around because he stole cigarettes from his old man for us, scooped up the quarter and handed it to me. I turned to toss it after Oliver and saw him running for his life with Kenneth Farrow hot on his heels. Kenneth shoved Oliver down onto his hands and knees, jumped onto his back, and rode him like a horse as he slapped the back of his head. I hurried over as others rushed to cluster around them.
“You little wise ass,” Kenneth panted. “I told you I better not have to come lookin’ for you! Gimme my money, punk! I want double tomorrow ’cause I had to come looking for you. You understand me, punk?”
“Please, I’ll give it to you, Kenneth!” Oliver wailed as he collapsed onto his chest. “I won’t make you come looking for me again, I promise!”
Kenneth jerked him over onto his back. “Gimme my money then, punk!”
Oliver covered his face, cowering. “I don’t have it now! But I’ll get you some more, I promise!”
“Did you spend my money, punk?” Kenneth drew back his fist to punch him in the face. “If you spent my –”
I stepped forward. “I got it, shit face.”
Kenneth blinked up at me in surprise as he sat astride Oliver’s chest with his fist drawn back. I held the quarter aloft for his inspection. When his eyes narrowed in a calculating fashion, I stepped forward before he could jump me and kicked him in the face. He rolled off Oliver cupping his mouth as blood leaked through his fingers.
I stood over him with my fists balled. “Ollie’s my friend now, Farrow. From now on if you got a problem with him, you got a problem with me.” I kicked him in the stomach for emphasis and he curled into a fetal position, whimpering.
I turned to Oliver. “Get up, Ollie!”
Oliver got to his feet and wiped at his tears.
“Quit bawling and go wash your face.” I handed him his quarter before turning back to the drainage ditch with the others following after me in an admiring, deferential mob as Kenneth staggered up and lurched off in the opposite direction.
Percy slipped up beside me, flushed with anticipation. “A.J. ain’t gonna like this, Jay.”
My stomach fluttered at the distant, lurking danger of A.J. “Done fought him once. If I have to, I will again.”
The appreciative crowd settled around me to light up their smokes as Oliver hurried up with two sodas and moon pies, handed one of each to me, and held out a nickel.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“The change.”
“You keep it, it’s your money. Thanks for the Coke and Moon Pie, though.”
He pocketed the nickel, his eyes worshipful. “Boy, you really beat that Kenneth Farrow’s tail, Jay! Are we really friends now like you said?”
I scowled, realizing my choice of words may have been a tad hasty. “If you’re going be my friend, you’ve got to look cool. Roll your pant legs down and fold them up inside so they’ll be smooth at the bottom. Pull your shirttail out, unbutton the top three buttons, and pull your collar up. Have you got any other shoes to wear besides those dumb kid’s tennis shoes?”
Oliver worked on his cuffs. “These are all Auntie’s bought me to wear. I’m sorry, Jay.”
“Want a cigarette?” I shook one halfway out of the pack.
He grabbed it as he pulled his shirttail out of his pants with his other hand, the shirt so large for his small frame it hung down almost to his knees. I lit the end of his cigarette as he turned his collar up and worked on the top three buttons.
He coughed as he drew on the cigarette. “Sorry, Jay, I ain’t never smoked before.”
“Just take small drags until you learn how to inhale,” I advised. “And quit saying you’re sorry. That ain’t cool. Do I need to teach you everything?”
“One thing you better teach him real quick is how to fight,” Percy warned. “Here comes Kenneth and A.J., and A.J. looks steamed.”
I watched A.J. and Kenneth approach at a fast clip as those around us edged away. “When I get into it with A.J., you keep an eye on Kenneth, Ollie. If he tries anything jump him, understand? I don’t need both of them on me.”
Oliver shrank back, trembling so hard he dropped his cigarette. “Let’s just run, Jay!”
“No! You run on me, Ollie, you better keep on running! Just do as I say!”
“But, Jay! He beats me up every day!”
“His mouth is already busted so he ain’t got much fight left in him,” I advised grimly. “Try to get him in the eye or the nuts to slow him down some. If nothing else, just grab him and hang on.”
“Harte!” A.J. challenged from ten feet away as Kenneth struggled to keep up with him. “My brother said you kicked him in the face and stomach!” A.J. drew up in front of me panting, a crazed look in his eyes.
“He was picking on my friend here, A.J.”
“He said you hit him first for no good reason!”
“He was trying to take Ollie’s lunch money. That’s good enough reason for me. Do you and I have a problem now too?”
A.J. clenched his fists. “You damned right we do! You got a lucky punch in on me the last time!”
“Well, okay then,” I said and thumped my cigarette in his face with a shower of sparks. When he yelped and clutched at his face, I kicked him in the crotch. He clasped his groin as his eyes bulged out and sank to his knees as he sucked air into his lungs. I grabbed the back of his head with my cupped hands, jerked it down, and brought my knee up hard. He flopped backward with a weak yelp as I spun and punched Kenneth squarely in his already bloody mouth as he gaped open-mouthed at A.J. rolling around on the ground. He stumbled back and landed on his butt, leapt up, and sprinted for the school grounds at a fast gallop.
I turned back to A.J. “Do we still have a problem here, A.J.?”
A.J. struggled to his feet with blood trickling down his face and hobbled after Kenneth, clutching his forehead with one hand and his groin with the other. The others surrounded me to slap my back amid a chorus of excited clamor.
“Man, he whipped both of ‘em!”
“He whupped Kenneth twice!”
“He never even got hit once!”
“Harte’s the baddest bad ass in Jasper!”
Somebody shook out a cigarette for me as another hurried to light it and yet another offered me his orange soda.
I took a long swallow and handed the remainder to Oliver. “Thanks for backing me up, Ollie.”
He beamed with pride in the milling mob and eagerly took the cigarette I extended to him. “I’m going to be the best friend you ever had, Jay! You wait and see …”
Chapter 2
As I stood in my yard with Oliver’s note in my hand, a pickup truck with a rowdy group crammed into the cab drew up behind my Camaro.
“Jay! You old son of a gun! Welcome home!” Percy yelled from the driver’s window. He jumped out and grabbed me up in a bear hug. Two inches shorter than my five-foot, nine-inch frame, built like a beer barrel and stout as a bull, he easily swung me around in a circle of raucous jubilation. “Why didn’t you tell us you were back home?” Charlie and Robert, my other high school chums, tumbled out behind him to pound on my back as Percy deposited me back on the ground.
In our senior year of high school the president of our great country elected to commit troops to Southeast Asia to stop the steadfast communist expansion under the long-touted domino theory, which incorporated the ominous belief that if we did not stop them overseas, we would be fighting them in our own backyards. Caught up in the groundswell of our country’s budding patriotism, I duly enlisted in the paratroopers when we graduated. I chose to be a sky-trooper chiefly because they were tough and elite, which befit my enhanced image of myself at the time. I also admit I was acutely aware that they got paid fifty-five dollars a month more than regular soldiers, which I was certain I could make use of while combating the forces of evil on foreign shores in my forthcoming grand adventure as a soldier. However, if the truth be known, the main reason for my choice was that my father had served in the Infantry in World War II, where he earned a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, and I figured I could damn well do anything he had ever done, and a damn sight better, too.
I hastily jammed Oliver’s letter into my pocket as they encircled me. “How the hell are you guys?”
Robert’s bulky six-foot, two-inch frame loomed over me. “So when did you get home?”
“A couple of weeks ago.”
After six months of paratrooper training I marched off to Vietnam, where I extended my normal one-year combat tour by six months in order to qualify for an early out and thereby carve eleven months off my remaining time in service. I had received my discharge just short of half a month ago.
“We hear you’re a big hero now!” Charlie raved. Charlie, my height with narrow hips and broad shoulders as opposed to my slim build, was the ladies’ man of our group, with dark eyes and coal black hair to contrast with my own blond hair and blue eyes. “They say you’ve got all kinds of fancy medals and stuff! I knew you’d do good!”
In my eighteen months in Nam I had been awarded three Purple Hearts and half a dozen other sundry decorations for valor, including two Bronze Stars, a Silver Star, and the Cross of Gallantry—as I said, Dad didn’t have shit on me. This all came about fairly easily for me: I would dutifully tiptoe out into the jungle, the VC would obligingly shoot the crap out of me, and someone would inevitably appear to pin a medal on my robe while I lay in a hospital feeling poorly and stupid. I mastered this system rather quickly, given the fact that most of my military chain of command considered me something of a slow learner. Prior to the tribute my three friends were now paying me, my fifteen minutes of fame was limited to the standard Army news releases issued to every soldier’s hometown newspaper when he accomplished anything noteworthy. The last article had been printed on the inside page of our local paper three weeks previously announcing my honorable discharge and listing all of my awards and decorations, leaving me hoping like hell no one would ever know I had not been nearly as brave and daring as the citations made me out to be. The article did not mention that I had also brought back one lavishly bad attitude toward our society in general and my fellow man in particular.
“Have you got a job yet?” Percy asked.
“Not yet,” I replied. Currently I was preoccupied with deciding what I wanted to do with the rest of my life and living off my savings from the military. With all the time I logged in the hospitals I hadn’t had a lot of time to blow it, so the modest bit of reserves left over after the extravagance of buying the Camaro would hopefully sustain me for a couple of months—if I lived a frugal lifestyle.
“What the hell you been doing since you been back?” Robert demanded.
“Just kicking back and taking things easy,” I replied.
The truth was most of the job openings I’d interviewed for required more experience than I had to offer, the ones offered involved more hard work than I was willing to put forth, and both paid far less money than I was desirous of receiving. Dad thought me finding permanent employment was taking longer than necessary because I had a go-to-hell attitude and an annoying tendency to talk down to the prissy frigging piss ants interviewing me for their little insignificant shitty jobs. Conversely, I had already seen what wisdom he possessed in working for the same freight company for over twenty years, at the end of which his claim to financial independence was the ownership of one small, shabby house on the bad side of town. Then again, Dad and I never saw things eye to eye.
“Hey!” Robert shouted. “Let’s go by Black Jack’s! We can go to Rocky Fjord and have a party!”
Black Jack, a notorious Negro bootlegger who everyone knew paid a monthly tribute to the police chief in our fair community in order to ply his illegal trade, lived on the east side of Jasper, but getting drunk with my old high school chums was not a pleasing proposition. I knew for certain we no longer had anything in common due to the intervening months I’d spent in combat, which had expanded my world far beyond anything these three could ever imagine.
“Thanks, but I …”
“Yeah!” Charlie seconded. “Let’s call Linda and get a few of the girls to meet us there. We’ll have a coming home party!”
Percy hedged. “Bess’ll raise hell if she finds out there’s women along …”
“Then don’t tell her!” Robert derided. “This is Jay’s coming home party! You can’t miss that! Besides, Bess is as big as the side of a house and gonna pop that kid out any day now.”
Percy frowned. “That’s another reason I need to stick close to home, guys. She’s a week short of her due date and feeling sickly these days.”
“Aw, Bess’ll be all right for a few hours,” Charlie cajoled. “Her mother lives next door to you guys. This is Jay’s coming home party! He’s been off to war for over two years now!”
Percy shuffled his feet. “Well … I guess for just a couple of hours …”
My stomach sank. “Guys, I really don’t think …”
“It’s settled then!” Charlie shouted.
“Let’s go!” Robert yelped as he jumped up into the back of the truck.
We stopped at a phone booth for Charlie to call Linda and then proceeded to Black Jack’s for beer and whisky and from there on to Rocky Fjord for my belated coming home party. In due course Linda showed up with a gaggle of girls, none of whom I knew, and we soon had a free-swinging celebration of sorts going. Other guys and girls I didn’t know appeared on the scene, forcing Percy to make a second run to Black Jack’s before begging out of the impromptu party to rush back home to check on Bess. Shortly afterward Robert threw up on himself and someone took him home. Charlie soon disappeared with one of the women, and I ultimately found myself sitting on a rock off by myself while those remaining sat around a fire drinking and carousing. As far as parties went, it wasn’t much. My biggest concern was how to get home now that all of my friends had left. I fingered Oliver’s letter in my shirt pocket and tuned out the group of merrymaking strangers behind me.
* * *
The principal summoned me to his office shortly after the lunch recess. Mr. Keller, a short, balding man with a protruding belly and perpetual frown, who wore gray slacks, a white shirt, and a yellow bowtie as custom, was not in a merciful mood.
“I understand you’ve been fighting,” he accused as I stood before his desk.
“Yes, Sir, but I wasn’t given much choice. Besides, it was off campus.”
“It was during school hours,” he intoned righteously. “We don’t allow that sort of thing here in Jasper. Bend over and grab the edge of my desk.” He pulled an eighteen-inch hardwood paddle from his drawer and walked around behind me as I bent forward to grip the desk. Intense pain encased me as he swung the paddle against my backside fifteen searing times. I swiped at the tears in my eyes as he walked back around his desk and sat down.
“A.J. had to go to the nurse’s station and be driven to the hospital,” he said, his beady eyes fixed on me in cold disapproval. “Several stitches will be required to close the cut over his eye. You are suspended from class for three days. You will have your parents sign this disciplinary form and bring it back when you return to class on Friday. You will make up all assigned work during your suspension. I don’t expect to see you back in here for another remedial infraction. You may go now.”
I walked Oliver home from school that day, where I discovered he lived with his spinster aunt in a large, two-story white Victorian house in the affluent western section of Jasper. Wrap-around porches protruded on both the ground and second-floor levels. Rosebushes, set in a perfectly trimmed and edged sea of green grass, dotted the yard. As we walked through the house to the kitchen, pictures of Jesus watched me from along the walls, interspaced with at least three large crucifixion crosses. I was envious of the space the two of them shared compared to the narrow, weathered, three-bedroom shotgun house with the weed-infested front yard that I lived in with my parents, three brothers, and four sisters in Milltown, the working-class southern side of Jasper. I was especially jealous of Oliver’s large, private bedroom with double bed, since I shared one bedroom and a double bed with my three brothers.
Ollie’s diminutive, primly proper aunt appeared out of the gloom sporting a pinched mouth encased in thin lips below brittle eyes. She did not appear enamored in the least with my victory over the Farrows in defense of her meek little nephew. In fact, she seemed appalled as Oliver described the fight in graphic detail. She placed a quarter of a glass of milk and one Oreo cookie in front of him before sweeping out of the kitchen indignantly with her starched apron rustling, offering me nothing in the way of cookies or milk. Oliver split his Oreo in half and gave me the bigger piece. We each dunked a cookie chunk in his milk and downed it in one bite. He then led me out to the swing on their porch.
“Why do you live with your aunt?” I asked.
Oliver’s expression grew pained. “My mother’s looking for a job. She’s gonna send for me when she gets settled.”
“How long has she been gone?”
His expression sagged further. “Since I was six.”
“Eight years is a long time to find a job,” I observed.
“Well, she’s got to get settled in too,” he advised defensively.
“Where’s she looking for a job at?”
“Houston.”
“Is that where you lived before you moved here?”
“No, I lived in Odessa, with my Uncle Bob.”
“So where does your dad live?”
“He died before I was born.”
“So why did you move here with your aunt?”
Oliver lowered his head. “Uncle Bob said he’d did his part and now it was time for my Auntie to do hers, especially since their paw gave Auntie everything and didn’t give him nothing.”
“Did you like living with your Uncle Bob better than you do with your aunt?”
He shrugged his puny shoulders. “He was okay, except for saying my mother don’t want me no more. But I know better. She’ll send for me when she gets settled, just wait and see.”
“What’s your aunt say?”
“She says my mother lost her way when my dad died and that she expects she’ll find Jesus one of these days.”
“Jesus?” I asked.
“My Auntie makes me get down on my knees and pray with her every day. She says I better take Jesus in my heart or I’ll spend all of eternity burning in hell.”
“Is she some sort of a religious freak or something?”
The screen door opened and Oliver’s aunt peered out at us with narrowed eyes. “You need to get on home now, boy. Oliver’s got his chores to do.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” I said, mortified that she had been spying on us. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Ollie.”
“How you gonna do that?” he whispered. “You’re expelled for three days, remember?”
“I’ll meet you in the ditch at lunch,” I whispered back.
I spent the three days hanging out in the woods behind the service station meeting with my admirers in the cement drainage ditch at lunch so my parents wouldn’t know I was suspended. The talk was that I was a superman on campus, and there was great speculation as to what the Farrow’s would do when I got back. During this period half the boys at the ditch swore loyalty to me with assurances they would allow only one of the Farrow’s at a time to fight me when I got back. Under the circumstances, I consoled myself with the fact that I had already taken Kenneth three times and A.J. twice, although A.J. was still a good deal larger, which begged for caution. In any case, I figured I could somehow use A.J.’s tendency to talk and bluster before he fought to get the first lick in, which, if done properly, would almost certainly be the deciding factor in the looming fight. It was the best I could hope for under the circumstances.
However, I need not have worried at all, because when I went back to school on Friday the principal called Kenneth, A.J., and me into his office first thing.
“I want to make my position perfectly clear to you three lads,” he said as we stood in a row before him. “I will not tolerate fighting during school hours, on or off campus. Whatever feuding you three have brewing will be addressed outside of my jurisdiction. Bend over!” He pulled his paddle from his drawer and walked around behind us as we bent forward to grab the edge of his desk. He whacked us smartly ten times each, the blows reverberating down the empty hallway for every student in junior high to hear and heed. He sat back down at his desk.
“If I hear of a scuffle between any of you during school hours, all three of you will be suspended,” he threatened as we three exchanged menacing glares. “You two may go now,” he instructed Kenneth and A.J. before focusing on me. “Where is your signed disciplinary form?”
“I … didn’t bring it,” I admitted.
He snatched up his paddle. “Bend over and grab the desk.” He gave me another resounding ten whacks as I stood braced against the pain, but I figured that was better than facing my dad, who would kill me if he knew I'd been suspended.
My dad was gone most of the time hauling produce, but when he was home, discipline was high on his agenda, and my mom never neglected to tell him anything we kids did while he was away that needed straightening out. Though poorly educated, he was a proud workingman who did not countenance kids acting up. In fact, he was a serious disciple of the “spare the rod, spoil the child” philosophy. “Boy, I’m gonna cut your ass!” was one of his favorite sayings as he ominously drew his leather belt threw the loops of his workpants for one of my reprehensible infractions of his ironclad rules. I once made the mistake of running from him in an ill-advised attempt to escape one of those imminent beatings. It took him three blocks to catch me, but when he did, he whipped my butt every step of the way back home with that belt. Then he whipped me again for what he was going to whip me for in the first place before I ran. Then he whipped me a third time for running to begin with. The old man had a way of making a point.
I walked Oliver home again that evening. His aunt was as frosty as on my first visit. As we sat at the kitchen table, she again placed a quarter of a glass of milk and one Oreo cookie in front of Oliver before departing from the room. He broke the cookie in half and handed one end to me, which I promptly popped into my mouth and swallowed before she could come back and catch us sharing.
“I don’t think your aunt likes me, Ollie,” I allowed, wondering what I had ever done to earn her disfavor.
Oliver drained his milk and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “Auntie says Uncle Bob was supposed to send her some money to help feed me, but he never has. She says I gotta earn my keep this summer by mowing lawns.”
“We can be partners and mow lawns together, Ollie,” I offered.
He sighed. “She says I gotta bring all the money home to her.”
I scowled. “Well, I sure hope she lets you buy some new tennis shoes with some of your money so you won’t look like a nerd anymore.”
He tucked his feet under his chair. “I sure hope so too, Jay.”
“I’d ask her if she will, Ollie. If she says no, then maybe I can earn enough mowing yards this summer to buy them for you myself.”
“You’d do that for me, Jay?”
“We’re best friends, ain’t we? Besides, you can’t wear them stupid kid shoes in the ninth grade. We’d be in fights every day because everyone will make fun of you.”
His aunt swept into the room. “What’s wrong with the shoes he’s got on?” she demanded, placing her hands on her narrow hips. “The Lord provides for those who provide for themselves! I paid good money for those shoes. You need not be putting such frivolous thoughts in this boy’s head. You better get on home now so Oliver can get his chores done.”
“But, Auntie, it’s Friday,” Oliver wailed. “Can’t Jay stay for just a little while longer?”
“Don’t you dare sass me, young man!” she scolded before turning on me. “And you get on home like I told you! Oliver never back-talked me until he started hanging around the likes of Godless Crackers like you! I won’t have him fighting and stealing and lying like a soulless heathen from the depths of Hades!”
“But, Auntie …”
“Not another word out of you!” She fixed her flashing anger on me. “You go on and get like I told you to!”
I stood up. “I fight when I have to, Ma’am, but I don’t lie or steal, and I would appreciate it if you never called me a Godless Cracker again.”
“Why, I never! You don’t bother to come back here with your sass! I’ve a mind to have a word with your mother about you!”
It was tough getting in the last word with the old biddy. “Whatever churns your sour milk, Ma’am—just don’t ever call me a Godless Cracker or compare me to a liar and a thief or even a heathen again. My Daddy taught me to never take that from nobody!”
She gasped and reached for her broom as I skedaddled out the door with my last word intact.
Chapter 3
“Hey, soldier boy, want some company?” a feminine voice teased as her dark form approached me where I sat brooding on a rock by the gurgling stream feeding into the larger pool before me. “Brought you another beer.” She handed me the bottle and sat down beside me. “Feeling abandoned?”
“Just thinking,” I replied cautiously. Charlie had pointed her out earlier, but I couldn’t recall her name. Blonde, attractive, slim of build, sad blue eyes, married, in her early thirties, the older sister of one of the other young women, but I couldn’t remember her name either.
She measured me in the darkness. “I guess after traveling the world this all seems a little juvenile to you, doesn’t it?” She indicated the fire in the distance with the mostly drunk, motley group of teenagers scattered around singing off-key to Roy Orbison’s Only the Lonely playing from a boom box.
I laughed, surprised at how harsh it sounded. “The world I traveled was mostly limited to triple canopy jungle.”
She took my beer from my hand and sipped. “Was it bad over there?”
“I’m not in a rush to go back.”
“They say you have a bunch of medals and were wounded. Do you have scars?” She hesitated. “I’m sorry if I said something dumb.” She handed my beer back. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“Forget it,” I grated.
“Would you rather not talk about it?”
“There’s nothing to say,” I replied. And there wasn’t. Anything I could say about Nam would be meaningless to someone who had not been there. I fought the familiar, haunting sensation as I thought of my buddies still over there, imagining them on a dark night such as this slipping down some trail, their senses strained to the breaking point as they placed one tentative foot in front of another, praying each step would not be their last.
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
I pulled my thoughts back. “No.”
“You’re a handsome young man. Some lucky girl will scoop you up in no time.”
I bristled, not in the mood to be scooped up and sure as hell not feeling handsome or young. “Why are you out here with a bunch of kids instead of home with your husband?”
She took my beer, sipped, handed it back as the group behind us dispersed amid shouts to meet at Randy’s house, and stood. “You’re right, I really shouldn’t be out here in the first place, so I need to be going. I just brought my little sister out and didn’t expect to stay …”
“It looks like your little sister is ditching you.” I indicated her sister hanging off one of the guys as they headed for his car. “Would you mind giving me a lift back? All my friends seem to have disappeared as well.”
“Why don’t we take a quick dip first?” she suggested. “That would feel good on a hot night like this. I’ll get us a few beers.” She hurried to the group piling into their cars and returned with a six-pack, opened one for each of us, and set the remainder in the stream at our feet. “Are you coming in?” she asked casually as she stripped off her clothes and slipped into the pool, her pale skin contrasting with the dark water.
I undressed, grateful for the darkness, and eased into the pool with her, where she draped her arms around my neck and pressed the length of her body against mine.
“This could lead to trouble,” I cautioned as she nibbled my ear.
“My husband is out of town for a few days,” she breathed against my cheek. “We haven’t been happy together for a long time now.”
“This won’t make things better.”
“It will tonight …” Her lips found mine in hungry swirls, her tongue thrusting, teasing as she pressed her pelvis against me, her taut breasts meshing against my chest. She pulled back, her fingers searching the mass of wrinkled tissue on my upper torso. “What’s this?”
“One of the scars you were so curious about,” I replied curtly.
She disengaged from me. “Oh, my god … I had no idea. I’m … so sorry …”
I climbed out of the water. “I’ll find another ride home.”
I grabbed my clothes and two of the remaining four beers before I faded into the night, my soul as naked as my body. I’d had the same experience once before when I was so lonely and desperate I picked up a whore in Saigon, determined to be intimate with a woman, any woman, before going back out into the jungle. When I removed my shirt, her eyes widened, registering dismay. Since then I had never removed my shirt around another woman, until now.
After dressing, I sank down against the base of a tree, opened one of the beers, and allowed my mind to wander freely to Oliver and our youthful innocence in that magical bygone era.
* * *
On Monday, Oliver sought me out at the ditch. “I’m sorry about what my Auntie said about you, Jay. Are you mad at me for it?”
“Naw, Ollie, you ain’t responsible for her ignorance. She’s just a wild-eyed Jesus freak. Forget about it, man.”
“I spit in her milk when she wasn’t looking for saying that about you.”
“She deserved it. Liar and thief are mighty big words. A proper Christian person ought to be careful about who they apply such to. We might be poor, but we ain’t Godless Crackers or heathens. I don’t know what the old witch’s problem is with me.”
Oliver scuffed his foot on the cement slope. “I don’t think it’s anything you did, Jay. She said your uncle was in prison for stealing stuff from a store he broke into and that you come from poor stock.”
“My uncle did that, and he’s serving his time for it. But that don’t make me a liar and a thief, and I’ll bust anybody’s butt who says different.” I glared at the others around us as they ducked their heads.
Oliver cleared his throat. “So are we still friends, Jay?”
I scowled. “Yeah, but I ain’t never going home with you again.”
“How are we gonna be friends then?”
“You can crawl out your window after Prune Face goes to bed and meet me.”
He stared at me in wonder. “Are you allowed to stay out late?”
I grinned. “I’ve got a window too, Ollie.”
We established that “Prune Face” went to bed by nine o’clock each evening and arranged to meet under the oak tree at the back edge of his yard. True to his word, Oliver slipped around the corner of the house shortly after the appointed hour and we moved into a narrow stretch of woods nearby to settle down on a moonlit patch of grass in a little hidden cove near a small brook.
Oliver flopped back to stare up at the stars. “Jay, you’re the best friend a guy could ever have.”
I handed him a cigarette. “You’re a good friend too, Ollie.”
“Gretchen says she likes you ’cause you beat up those Farrow boys.”
I rolled over on my side with my heart pounding. Gretchen, with her ink-black, curly hair, a pair of the bluest eyes this side of the Pacific Ocean, a cute little turned-up button nose, and wide, sensuous lips, was about the prettiest girl in school. Even more significant, she already had mounds on her chest.
I slowed my heart rate, remembering she dated Joe Sheffield, a sixteen-year-old sophomore in high school. “When did she say that?”
“Today. She said I was lucky to be your friend ’cause you don’t have much to say to nobody. She said she wished you were her friend too so Kenneth would leave her alone like he does me now.”
“What’s he doing to her?”
“He bumps into her in the hall between classes and stares at her chest and licks his lips.”
“Heck, Ollie, I stare at her chest too, when she ain’t looking. But I don’t lick my lips. Why doesn’t Joe stop him from bothering her?”
“I expect Joe’s scared of A.J. He ain’t no bad ass like you are. Gretchen asked me if you ever went to the Saturday matinee.”
“Why?”
“’Cause she goes might near every Saturday and she’s never seen you there.”
“So?”
“I think she wants to sit beside you. Why else would she ask me that?”
My heart rate elevated to a rapid rhythm as I thought about it for a careful moment. “You tell her Kenneth won’t never bump into her again, or even look at her chest funny after tomorrow. No, wait, don’t say chest, Ollie. Just say he won’t look at her funny anymore or bump into her.”
“I told her you would probably say that, Jay, ’cause she’s my friend and I’m your friend. That’s when she asked me if you ever went to the movies. I bet she does want to sit beside you.”
Goose bumps sprang out on my arms. I lay back to ponder this for a while, imagining sitting next to her in the darkened movie, maybe even holding her hand. I’d probably have to fight Joe afterward, but that would be okay. “Ollie, if you’re putting me on …”
Oliver rolled over to face me. “I’d never do that, Jay! I’m your friend, remember? What do you want me to tell her about the movie Saturday?”
“Tell her I’ll be there. Ask her if she wants to sit with me, but don’t tell her I asked you to ask her. Just find out on the sly for me.”
“Can I come along with you too?”
“Sure.”
“Are you going to kiss her if she sits with you?”
Shivers ran through me. “Naw, you gotta be cool with girls at first, you know? You can’t be too anxious.”
“But what if she wants you to?”
Fear leapt through me. What if she did want me to? “Did she say anything about kissing?”
“No, I was just wondering, is all. Some girls expect it. I expect Joe’s been kissing her, don’t you?”
A flush of jealousy flashed through me. “Some girls get mad if you try to kiss them too soon, though, Ollie.”
How was a guy supposed to know which girls wanted to be kissed and which ones didn’t, and when was the right time to kiss them in the first place? I stumbled home at midnight with love-struck visions of Gretchen and me entwined in the darkened movie kissing passionately.
The next day when I passed Gretchen in the hall, she smiled as our eyes met, sending my heart hammering so hard I was positive she could hear it. At lunch I found Kenneth eating a cupcake in front of the Esso station.
He watched me warily as I approached and tapped my finger against his chest. “Gretchen is my friend. You bump her again—or even look at her wrong and lick your lips—you and I are going to tangle. You get my drift?”
He contrived righteous innocence. “What the hell you talkin’ about, man?”
I leaned into him as he took a step back. “You got my meaning, shit face. You just remember you’ve been warned.” I stalked away.
“Well?” I demanded that night when Oliver slipped out to our meeting place and stretched out beside me.
“Everybody in school heard that you threatened Kenneth about Gretchen. She’s excited you’re going to the movies on Saturday. She says she hopes you’ll sit by her.”
My nerves frazzled. “What about Joe?”
“She ain’t dating him no more. He likes Susan Wheeler now.”
“Who’s Susan Wheeler?”
“She’s in the tenth grade, but her boobs ain’t as big as Gretchen’s. In fact, she ain’t hardly got any at all.”
“What about kissing her? Am I supposed to or not?”
“I didn’t ask her that.”
I grimaced. “Why not, Ollie? How am I supposed to know if she expects it?”
“I was too scared to ask her.”
“She’s just a girl! She ain’t going to bite you or nothing.”
“You’re going to have to ask her that yourself, Jay.”
“Some friend you are!”
Oliver shrugged. “I’d rather fight Kenneth than ask her something like that.”
“Well, I ain’t going to try and kiss her then. I think it’s safer. Don’t you?”
“Probably so, but you better be prepared in case she does want you to. Have you ever kissed a girl before, Jay?”
I paused. I didn’t like to lie. “No.”
“Me either. I’m glad it’s you then and not me. But I wish it was me.”
The next day Gretchen and three of her girlfriends met me in the hall. She smiled. “Hi, Jay,” she called sweetly, leaving me speechless as they swept by giggling. That evening Oliver was waiting when I slipped into our meeting place.
“Gretchen gave me a note for you, Jay! It’s even got some of her perfume on it. Smell!” He thrust it under my nose, the faint scent of rose and lavender sending tingles through me from head to toe.
I snatched it from his hand. “What’s it say?”
“She made me promise not to read it.”
I flipped on my Zippo and squinted at the neatly looping lines, taking pains to stay turned in such a manner as to ensure Oliver could not see the script as he danced around trying to get a glimpse.
Jay,
Thank you for protecting me from Kenneth. Everyone knows about it. You are so brave. Oliver says you like me. I like you too. Oliver says you want to sit beside me at the matinee on Saturday. I think I am the luckiest girl in Jasper if that is true. You can write me back if you want to. I hope you do and that Oliver is not teasing me about you.
Gretchen
I yelped and danced a jig in delight.
Oliver snatched the note from my hand. “Give me your lighter!” I struck the lighter with trembling fingers so he could scan it. “Oh, man! She really does like you. What are you going to do now?’
“Write her a note back! Go get me some paper and a pen!”
Oliver hurried off into the night and returned with his notebook. We huddled down with the white pad in front of me glowing in the moonlight.
My mind went blank. “What do I say?”
“Tell her you love her,” Oliver counseled. “Women like to hear that stuff, don’t they?”
“Are you crazy, Ollie?” I demanded, mortified. “Do you want me to look like a fool?”
“Ask her if she wants you to kiss her Saturday then,” he offered.
I groaned. “That’s even worse! Just be quiet and let me think before you get me into trouble.” After some deep thought, I wrote:
Gretchen,
Kenneth is just a big bully. He better not bump you again. I am glad you like me.
Jay
P.S. I like you too. I hope you sit by me Saturday at the matinee.
I struck the Zippo so we could review the note together. “What do you think, Ollie?”
“It don’t exactly say much, Jay. Women like a little more romance than that, I think.”
I ripped the note out of the pad in exasperation, balled it up, and put pen to paper again, and again, and again. Twelve notes later, after numerous arguments, we settled on:
Dear Gretchen
Don’t worry about Kenneth. He knows you are my friend now so I don’t expect him to bother you again. But if he does, just let me know and I will take care of him. I am glad you like me. I like you too. I think you are the prettiest girl in Jasper. It is me that is the lucky guy to be sitting next to you on Saturday at the matinee. I count the days and the hours.
Jay
We read the note together. “You should’a left the seconds and minutes in there too, Jay,” Oliver insisted. “It kinda gave it deeper meaning.”
“It sounded too eager, Ollie. It’s un-cool to be too eager. Girls like for their men to be real cool. Give it to her first thing in the morning. If anybody else sees this, I’ll kill you, Ollie. I mean it!”
The next afternoon I met Gretchen and her friends in the hall and smiled as they approached.
She smiled back. “Hi, Jay, see you on Saturday!”
I stood frozen as she and her friends passed, unable to find a single word to say. But I had my first date, and with the prettiest girl in Jasper County, if not the entire state of Texas, or even the whole world! And I owed it all to Oliver Freeman and those Farrow boys.
On Saturday it seemed like every fourteen-year-old in Jasper was at the matinee to watch Gretchen and me. Oliver and I seated ourselves halfway down the aisle on the far left row where all the kids our age sat. I made Oliver sit at an angle so he could watch the door and tell me when she came in. Just before the lights dimmed, Gretchen and one of her friends came strolling down the aisle toward us. When she got close, Oliver nudged me. I stood up on trembling legs with my heart pounding in my chest.
She flashed the sweetest smile I’d ever seen. “Hi, Jay, I’m so glad you came. This is my friend, Patsy.”