Authors: Diane Munier
Darnay Road (20 page)
But
then Grampa had that same problem. But Grampa turned. Sort of.
“Well
what about those older girls? Like at the Quick Shop?”
“Those
girls? Look, I’m way older than you,” he says.
“Two
years,” I say.
“You
can’t have a boyfriend now and I don’t have any money for a girl. I have to get
older and go in the army then we can think about getting married and stuff.”
“But
what if you fall in love with someone else?”
“I’ll
tell you,” he says. “And you have to tell me. But don’t talk about it anymore.
You’re too young. And you’re innocent. You have to remember not to let boys get
around you. They’ll want to because you’re pretty. They’ll probably all be
around you. But you have to not let them get close.”
“I
don’t let them get close. Just you.”
“I
mean when you get older. Does your Granma tell you stuff? About boys?”
“No.
I mean, I don’t want to know it. I mean…what kind of stuff?”
“Well,
she’ll tell you. You need to listen. Boys are disgusting,” he says. “You can’t
let them around you. C’mon, let’s get my bike.”
One
thing, I don’t have the hic-cups anymore at all. He is holding my hand and we
go around the house to get his bike. He pulls the door and it’s on the stairs.
He says he doesn’t know why I did it that way and I must be stronger than I
look.
I
am.
Darnay
Road 37
A
new schedule begins and it interrupts our usual schedule but me and my Granma
do not mind at all. Easy comes at eleven and Granma gives him work to do around
the house. I did not realize there was so much needing a ‘man’s’ or boy’s
touch, which comes from Granma always singing, ‘It’s So Nice to Have a Man
Around the House,’ whenever Easy is working here, just like she loves, loves to
sing, ‘I’m Gonna Wash that Man Right Out of My Hair,’ when she washes my hair.
But anyway, I thought our house looked fine but there is a long line of
projects it seems.
Sometimes
she gives him a job that lasts for two or three days but mostly it’s a lot of
different things. Sometimes she comes up with the job, sometimes he makes
suggestions.
And
one day she gets out Grampa’s tool box and everything in it is in fine shape
and well-kept even after all the years he’s been in heaven—if he made it, and I
think he did.
Grandma
opens that toolbox and she shows Easy. Easy looks at Granma and she gives the
go ahead and he takes the hammer first and looks it over.
“He
always took good care of things,” Granma tells him.
So
after that Easy can use the tools without asking but he always has to put them
back where they belong which is in the garage on the workbench, second shelf.
And he does that.
I
love, love to watch Easy work and I get him lots of drinks. He makes me feel
kind of safe and definitely happy. There’s nothing he can’t do. He even fixed
our toilet from running water all the time—kind of embarrassing, but kind of
really nice, too. He cleaned the gutters up high on the ladder which about
scared me to death and he put putty around the attic windows and I sat near him
and handed him the putty knife or screwdriver when he needed them.
He
white washed the old garage in the back of the yard and it put me in mind of
Tom Sawyer so I told him the entire story while he did that. He shored up the
fence and cleaned the debris from every corner. He trimmed the big branches on
the bottom of the trees and once I screamed because a branch came down and
nearly hit him and he grinned and grinned.
He
taught me how to climb the big tree and we sat up there in the Sycamore until I
really wasn’t afraid then he helped me down. Then he cut up the big branches so
Aunt May could use them for firewood cause she still likes fires and Granma
does not, and he tied the smaller ones in bundles and set them out for the
trashman. I still have my red wagon so I helped him pull those loads, well
watched him pull them mostly.
He
scraped the bottom of the porch and painted, even the latticework. I read him
the first Hardy Boys while he did that, top of my lungs almost cause I sat on
the porch stairs while he climbed around with his brush.
He
dug up all the rocks around the flowerbed and put them back and they look so
pretty. I helped on that until a cricket got on me, then no thank-you.
He’s
a wonder, he’s a marvel. He’s Easy. I sing that to him sometimes and he laughs.
I don’t even mind singing to him at all.
Pretty
soon Aunt May gives him work too, then Nettie further down. They are the three
on our block besides Miss Little without husbands around to take care of
things. It makes me feel something—jealous. I guess that’s what it is all
right. Granma says so. I say, “Why they have to take Easy when he’s ours?”
Granma
just laughs and sings, “Jealousy is taking over thee. There goes your
fingernail…into your gingerale.”
I
hate that song but Granma loves Frankie Laine and this is the funny version of
his song “Jealousy.” It makes me smile and I don’t want to.
Jealousy
feels like a green heartache.
But
mostly Easy is still ours.
Trouble
is I don’t see him as much with all his jobs. And the things I used to do that
were fine-and-dandy just don’t seem like enough. I have plenty to read and I
know he’ll be around. And Granma says to stop moping I should not be so
attached to Easy. She still says I’m not his right-hand man. But it doesn’t
stop me.
It’s
unbearable to think on it. And Easy will be at public. His reading isn’t so
bad. He finally let me hear and he does pretty well. His problem is he doesn’t
finish his words all the way through sometimes. He just reads the beginning
then makes up the rest. I heard that right off and he thought I was a magician
to be able to tell him what he’s doing wrong. But all I had to do was listen.
“What
you doing?” I ask Granma on the very last day of vacation. She’s got the box of
recipes out.
“Looking
for that yellow butter cake,” she mutters, glasses perched on the end of her
nose as she sorts through one section of her file.
She
is a cooking fool since Easy. He loves, loves my Granma’s cooking and who
doesn’t. But she never cooked like this. We’ve had about everything she ever
made in her life in the past few weeks with Easy around.
But
that last night after supper we’re sitting on the porch eating butter cake, me
and Easy. My new school clothes are upstairs hanging in my closet and folded
neatly in my drawers. They all came from the JC Penny catalogue.
Easy
says, “Got me a paper route.”
Disbro
Peak rides by with Bobby and Mike. They were starting to do that thing where
they make fun of Easy for being here with me, but Easy took off after them on
his bike one night and they haven’t done it since. But Little Bit lifts her
head where she lays on my lazy stomach while I try to fit another bite of cake
down my throat cause why in the world would a boy that works so hard get a
paper route?
“How
you going to do that with everything else?” I ask, licking my fork. He goes
sun-up to sundown. He’s become the handyman of Darnay Road. Pretty much. Yep.
“I
worked harder than this in Shoehorn. Worked those fields.”
“Not
when I met you. You and Cap were just doing what boys do all the time.”
“It
was supposed to be better up here. But I was taking care of them, so….”
I perk right up. He never as in ever talks about
himself like this. “Cap and your mom?”
“Yeah
it was…supposed to be different.”
“Your
dad…?”
His
eyes shift to mine. “Got killed,” he says and I figure he’ll end it now.
“I
won’t tell,” I say. He should know that by now.
“Tell
what?”
“Whatever
you tell me,” I say.
“She
was gonna have a baby…but um….” His eyes fill with tears so quickly. He’s
staring off poking his tongue in his cheek like he does. He breathes in and I
wonder if he’s not holding so much in there’s no room for air.
Granma’s
program is playing in the background beyond the screen door. I know she’s
already sipping from the glass so it’s not likely she’ll come out here. It’s
time he told me something.
“Easy…go
on and tell me,” I say.
“You
know anything about babies?” he says.
“Well…I
guess so. I mean…I know people have babies,” I say like I’m insulted but I’m
not.
“I
mean…sometimes the mother loses a baby,” he says.
“Oh.
I never thought much about it.” Losing a mother, yes. But losing a baby…I just
never looked at it from that end I guess.
He
looks at his empty plate like he’s trying to find some words in-between the
yellow crumbs.
“Thing
is…she lost the baby.” Then he looks at me, his eyes reddish and he sniffs, but
it’s kind of mad maybe. “She lost more than one.”
“You
mean your mom.”
“Yeah.”
“Were
they born? Or….”
“They
weren’t born,” he says angrily. “They didn’t get a chance even.”
I
am barely breathing. “How…did it happen?”
He
looks away from me. “It just happened. I wasn’t sorry when he died. I wasn’t a
bit sorry,” he says.
“Your
dad?”
He
nods, his mouth so set. “Cap was. Sorry. But not me.”
I
decide to stay quiet then. I truly don’t know what to say.
“Guess
you think that’s pretty strange,” he says.
“No,”
I lie. I mean it’s strange but I know he’s speaking the truth.
“It
is. It shouldn’t be that way. I know that. I told you I’m not good.” He looks
at me, he’s pretty fierce now. “Cap is. He’s good. But not me.”
“He
went back home with your mother, didn’t he?” I say. Oh Lordy I didn’t mean to
say it. Not a hundred percent.
He
is looking at me, burning me up.
“I
won’t tell Easy. I would never tell,” I say.
“That
why you have me around here? You feel sorry for me?” he says unkindly.
“No,”
I say. “You know I love you Easy.”
He
gets sad then, so sad. He puts his plate on the little table. “If you got to
tell, let me know ahead,” he says.
“No.
I don’t have to tell. I would never tell. But I always knew.”
“How?
They won’t let me stay if they find out.”
“I
just felt it. I just knew,” I say.
“Does
Granma know?”
“No.
She’ll pretty much stay with what you tell her,” I try to comfort him.
“I
ain’t going into a home,” he says. “They try that they’ll never find me.”
Fear
just runs through me. He can’t go away, just disappear. “You wouldn’t just go
off, would you? You wouldn’t just….”
He
shakes his head. I love him so much I can’t breathe. He’s all alone. But then
he isn’t. He’s got me. And my Granma.
“I
can’t go back there—to Tennessee,” he says.
“Is
your mother coming back?”
“I
don’t know. She says she will, but there’s no money left-over . I been trying
to earn but I got bills on the electric. Twenty-four dollars. Sixty dollars
rent.”
“You
can’t pay that. You have to live here.”
“Don’t
say that. Your Granma don’t want another.”
“She
would if she knew.”
“I
got to keep the house so Mom and Cap can get back.”
“But
how will they pay, Easy? If your Mom can’t get them back, how will they help
you?”
He
is quiet for a while. “I ain’t going back to school this year,” he says.
“You
have to go to school Easy,” I say.
“I
have to earn money,” he says. “I can’t leave Mom and Cap down there. My Grampa
is mean and my uncles….”
“Easy,
I have eighty-six dollars and forty-seven cents in my passbook. You can have
it,” I say. It’s money from my whole life—birthdays and my baptism, first
communion, good grades even. I thought it was a fortune, but comes to Easy it’s
just a drop in the bucket.
He
stares at me for a minute, then he bows his head and covers his face with his
hands. It brings me right out of the lounger.
I
didn’t mean to make him cry. I’m so, so sorry.