Fragile Beasts (33 page)

Klint’s begun winter workouts with the team, and I took over his job at Hamilton Dairy so we could still keep paying for the truck. The truck is one of the best things that ever happened to me—even though Klint’s the only one who gets to drive it—so I’m okay with the arrangement.

In warm months, people come from all over the place to sample the Hamiltons’ famous homemade slow-churned ice cream, and the dairy is always busy. Winter is a different story. We have our regular customers who get their farm fresh eggs, milk, and butter here, but most of them come in the morning. During the hours I work, there’s a flurry of activity between four and six when people stop by on their way home from work, but by the time I’m closing up around eight, the place is pretty dead and I’m working alone.

I’ve been bringing the Sorolla book and a sketch pad with me and drawing when I’m bored. I know I’ll always have time to put it away since I can see the headlights of anyone pulling into the parking lot.

Tonight is worse than usual. Winter’s finally kicked in, and people aren’t used to the cold yet. No one wants to go out if they don’t have to.

I’ve been able to spend most of the night working on my sketch at the front counter, and I’ve become so engrossed that I don’t notice anyone approaching until I hear the tinkle of the bell over the front door.

I look up and see Chad and Danny Hopper walk in along with their ever-present sidekick, North Campbell.

The Hopper boys live out by our old house with their grandma in a double-wide trailer that receives frequent visits from Social Services and stray dogs drawn by the smell of the hundreds of old pizza boxes stacked around the perimeter of their yard like a fortress wall. They’re both in Klint’s grade. Chad should’ve graduated last year, but he’s been held back twice. Even though he hasn’t been able to earn a diploma with his brains, I think he should be awarded one based on his size and facial hair. Danny’s claim to fame is that he was sent to juvie for beating up his own mother when he was ten. She forgave him but shot his father, saying he was the one who taught him to be violent. She’s been in jail for as long as I can remember.

No one knows what grade North’s in.

“Hey, fuck face,” Danny calls out when he sees me, which means he recognizes me.

“Hey,” I reply.

I close my notepad and book and shove them under the counter, but I haven’t been quick enough. Chad saw me. I’m dead.

“I need some eggs,” Danny tells me.

“You know eggs are cheaper at Bi-Lo,” I inform him, foolishly hoping I can get them to leave before Chad’s brain finally computes what he just saw and he’ll want to know what I hid from them.

“You have a problem with me buying eggs here?” Danny asks menacingly.

“No.”

“You think I can’t afford your eggs?”

“No. Nothing like that.”

“Bi-Lo’s not on my way home tonight so I’m going to get my eggs here. Got it?”

“Sure. Okay.”

He leans across the counter, and I can smell chewing tobacco and hot sauce on his breath. I see his whole life summed up in his stained, crooked teeth, the lazy eye he was born with, and the shiny pink jagged scar on his cheek where no stubble grows.

Chad and North join him, and I’m faced with the dumb brute mentality of a trio of bears in ball caps.

“So get my fucking eggs,” Danny says.

I rush off to the freezer. Out of the corner of my eye I see Chad heft his bulk over the counter and pull out my book and sketches.

“Why are you even working here? We thought you were rich now,” Danny asks while Chad starts paging through the book with North looking over his shoulder already snickering.

“The person we’re living with is rich,” I explain, returning with a carton of eggs. “Not us. We don’t get any of the money.”

“What about your brother’s truck? Did he have to fuck the old lady to get that?”

Danny bursts into laughter at his own joke, then realizes the other two stooges aren’t joining in.

“What are you doing?” he asks them.

“Look at this shit,” Chad says gleefully.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

He grabs the book, rifles through it, then looks over at me.

“Are you a fucking fairy?”

“You gotta ask?” North comments.

Chad flips over the cover of my sketch pad.

“Look at the shit he’s drawing. Hey, this kid is naked.”

“He’s a baby,” I explain.

“Christ, he’s a fairy and he’s one of those … what do you call those guys who fuck kids?”

“A pedophile,” I provide without thinking.

“Yeah,” Danny and Chad say together.

I step around the counter realizing the futility of what I’m about to do, but I can’t stand by and watch them destroy my work and Miss Jack’s beautiful book.

“It’s just some stuff I was drawing for art class. You know. Can I have it back?”

“It’s just some stuff I was drawing for art class,” Danny mimics me in a high-pitched lisp.

“Come on, you guys,” I plead.

I reach for the book and Chad holds it over my head while North gives me a shove in the chest.

I’m still considering my next course of action when the bell over the door tinkles again and in walks Klint.

“Hey, Klint,” I call out, maybe a bit too enthusiastically.

If I had been cornered by anyone else, Klint’s presence would have immediately diffused the situation. Just about everyone at our school knows who he is and has some level of respect for him. Unfortunately for both of us, the very qualities that make most people admire Klint are the same ones that make these three hate him.

Klint sizes up the situation and puts on his most inscrutable game face.

“Hey,” he greets them with a nod. “What’s going on?”

“We’re looking at your fag brother’s artwork,” Chad announces.

Klint flashes me a look full of exasperation that I was dumb enough to get caught, but he doesn’t look angry at me for being who I am.

“Give him his stuff back so we can close up and go home,” Klint tells them.

“Or what?” Danny says, stepping up to Klint. “What are you going to do if we don’t?”

“You don’t want me to do anything. Give him his stuff.”

I try reaching for the book in North’s hands, and he tosses it to Danny. Chad tears out one of my sketches and rips it down the middle.

“Don’t!” I cry and dive at him.

He pushes me away and I fly into one of the freezers.

“Leave him alone,” Klint yells at him.

He hauls off and smacks Chad in the face. Blood gushes from his nose.

Danny’s all over Klint instantly. I watch his fist connect with Klint’s face and his head jerk back. I throw myself on Danny’s back.

Someone tries to drag me off. I see Chad get in a solid punch to Klint’s gut while North pins back his arms. Klint doubles over for a moment, then stands up and runs backward as fast as he can, smashing North into shelves of empty glass milk bottles that rain down on his head as he collapses to the floor.

Chad charges at Klint. I don’t see what happens next because Danny flips me over his shoulder. I hit the floor hard, and he kicks me in the ribs. All the air rushes out of me. I can’t move because I can’t breathe.

“You’re a dead fairy,” he promises me.

He pulls me up by the front of my shirt and hits me in the face. I spin around and see the edge of the counter come rushing toward me.

Surprisingly, I don’t feel anything. I just hear a dull thud and crunch that seems to come from inside my head before I fall to the floor.

A sound like rushing water fills my ears until it’s cleared away by the crash of the front door being thrown open.

Through my blurred vision, I’m able to make out the figure of a large, angry woman.

“What the hell’s taking so long in here?” she shouts. “Where are my goddamned eggs?”

We are saved by Grandma Hopper, who got tired of waiting in the car.

W
E PUT THE
store back in order and assess the damage to ourselves. I have a gash on my forehead and a black eye. Klint has a torn lip that won’t stop
bleeding. His right hand is swollen and his knuckles are skinned. We both know we can’t let Miss Jack see our faces in their current condition.

We need someone who knows how to deal with fight injuries, someone who isn’t squeamish and can keep a secret. I think I know the perfect person.

Hen is the only member of Miss Jack’s house staff who lives on her estate besides Luis and Jerry. She has an apartment over the garage, which doesn’t sound like much but since the garage is bigger than most people’s houses, it’s not too shabby.

Sometimes she works late and sometimes she helps Luis clean up after dinner, but usually she’s done for the day by early evening. We see a light in her window and slowly head up the outside stairs clutching the railing and wincing in pain. Our internal injuries are probably worse than the ones we can see.

She reacts exactly how I thought she would. She’s not shocked, flustered, or appalled by our appearance. She invites us in and eyes us clinically.

“How many were there?”

“Three,” I answer.

“Weapons?”

“No.”

“Ambush?”

“No. They came right at us.”

“What was it about? A girl? Money?”

“Destruction of personal property,” Klint provides.

“Sit down,” she motions at an immaculate room where everything glows with cleanliness.

She leaves and returns with a first aid kit, an ice pack, a steaming bowl of water, a couple washcloths, and a plate of Luis’s
marquesitas
.

It’s weird to see her in regular clothes, although she still looks as neat and tidy as she does in her uniform. She’s wearing a long tan corduroy skirt, a pink sweater, and white satin slippers embroidered with pink roses.

She looks me over first while telling Klint he better ice his throwing hand.

“This cut on your forehead could probably use a stitch or two but don’t worry. I’m a wiz with butterfly bandages. It won’t even leave a scar. But who cares if it does? Right? You’re a boy. Chicks dig scars.”

“Not the kind of chicks he’s interested in,” Klint chimes in. “The kind he likes are interested in trips to Paris and little Beemer sports cars.”

“You mean Shelby?” Hen asks.

“Shut up, Klint.”

“She’s nice and pretty, but I think she’s too immature for you.”

“She’s too
immature for
me
?”

“I don’t know her all that well, but she’s obviously spoiled and sheltered,” Hen comments while dabbing some kind of cream on my cut that burns like crazy. “You’re very worldly.”

“I’m worldly? What do you mean? She’s the one in France.”

“Some of the worldliest people you’ll ever meet are sitting over at my dad’s bar right now, and a lot of them have never been any farther than Centresburg. I’m not talking about knowing how to travel around the world; I’m talking about knowing how the world works.”

She applies the first bandage to my forehead using so much concentration that the tip of her tongue pops out the corner of her mouth. She steps back to appraise her work. Satisfied, she puts on one more.

“You’re going to have to tell Miss Jack what happened,” she informs us. “You can’t hide from her, and she’s going to know right away you were in a fight.”

“No way,” I tell her. “She’d probably call the cops or even worse, she’d go to the Hopper house and give them a lecture about their barbaric use of violence.”

Klint laughs at this. I’m surprised. I wasn’t expecting to even get a smile out of him for the next six months.

“Nah,” he says. “There’s no way she’d set foot in a trailer park.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Hen says, smiling slyly like she knows a juicy secret. “Do you want to hear a great story?”

Before we can answer her, she plops down on the couch beside us, and we’re all squeezed together as she begins her breathless narrative.

“Miss Jack advertised for a maid, and I applied for the job. I didn’t come from the best background and I didn’t have any experience, but I told her the only thing I was good at was cleaning and she gave me a chance. Things were going great until one day my dad showed up here. I was twenty. I was old enough to be on my own, but he didn’t see it that way. He thought I should take care of him and work at the bar for the rest of my life whether I wanted to or not. He waited for me outside the house in his truck, and when I went out to talk to him, he kidnapped me. He had a gun!”

“Holy crap!” I exclaim.

She nods excitedly at us. Her normally rosy complexion has grown even pinker, and her blue eyes are sparkling.

She lowers her voice.

“I don’t know how she found out what happened, but later that night Miss Jack showed up at the bar.”

“Miss Jack went into The Mine Shaft?” Klint marvels.

Hen grins.

“She walked right in. Everyone went dead quiet. I’d never seen anything like it. She went straight to the bar and said to my dad, ‘I’m looking for the owner of this establishment.’”

Hen does an excellent impression of Miss Jack.

“My dad stared at her like she’d just got off a spaceship and he said, ‘That’s me.’ Then she said, ‘Mr. Henry, in the future I would like to ask you to please refrain from trespassing on my property and interfering with my employees. If it happens again, I will have to contact the local authorities.’”

She pauses and claps her hands together in delight.

“Then she looked right at me and said, ‘Marjorie.’ At first I didn’t know who she was talking to. I’d been Hen since I was a little kid. I’m not even sure my dad knew Marjorie was my name. I followed Miss Jack out the door, and the rest is history. My dad never bothered me again, and no one else has ever called me Marjorie.”

Her story ends as abruptly as it began. She jumps up from the couch, dips a cloth in the bowl of hot water, and starts cleaning Klint’s lip.

We thank Hen and leave the moment she’s done fixing our faces. We’re late for dinner and we have to explain what happened. We want to get it over with.

We stop at the truck to get our backpacks and Klint’s team bag. I left my sketchbook on the seat, and Klint gets to it before me. My instinct is to grab it from him but after what happened tonight, I don’t feel like I have the right to do that. I’m still not sure if he was defending me or my drawings. I wonder if he understands it’s the same thing.