Not-Just-Anybody Family (10 page)

Junior was in the backseat of the yellow cab with his legs resting on Maggie’s lap. Ralphie put the folded wheelchair in the front seat and squeezed in beside it.

“Courthouse, please,” he told the driver.

The driver nodded, and the cab moved out from under the hospital awning.

“Good-bye, Hospital,” Junior called with a happy wave.

The cab made the turn onto Main Street. It began to pick up speed.

Maggie spent the first few minutes of the cab ride admiring Ralphie. For those few minutes she watched the back of his shaggy head and returned his love wholeheartedly.

Ralphie was a man of the world, the first Maggie had known. She remembered with admiration the quick, assured way he had maneuvered them out of the hospital. It had been like something out of a movie.

“Hold the elevator, please,” he had called. Someone held it.

Ralphie swirled Junior’s chair around and guided it in the elevator backward. “Thank you,” he said in the same tone of voice Maggie heard hospital workers use. “Everyone going to the lobby?” he asked, pushing the L button.

The nurse at the desk yelled, “Where are you taking Junior, Ralphie?”

“Gift shop,” Ralphie called back cheerfully as the doors began to close.

“Bring him back this—”

The word was cut off, but inside the elevator Ralphie supplied it with a smile: “—instant.”

Everyone on the elevator laughed, and they were swept down to the lobby. It was like a miracle. Maggie kept taking sidewise glances at Ralphie. He kept his eyes on the elevator doors.

“Coming through,” Ralphie called as they came off the elevator. People in the lobby made way for them.

“Cab!”

And the cab pulled up in front of the hospital. It was as if the cab had been waiting just for them. This was the way things went for celebrities, Maggie thought: instant service.

“Courthouse, please.” Ralphie said it as if he went daily to the courthouse.

Maggie sighed with pleasure. She was beginning to appreciate people who knew how to handle themselves in this increasingly complex world.

She leaned back and admired the way the city of Alderson looked through the window of a yellow cab.

The story of Vern’s jailbreak was picked up by every newspaper in the country, and the picture of Vern and Pap was on every front page, including the front page of
The Pecos Daily News and World Report
of Pecos, Texas.

Vicki Blossom was coming out of the TexiMex Motel with two girlfriends she was sharing a room with. Another friend was waiting for them. This friend was leaning against the fender of the pickup truck they were driving to the rodeo; she was reading the newspaper.

“Hey, Vicki,” she called, folding the newspaper against her so the front page was hidden, “isn’t Pap Blossom your daddy-in-law?”

“Yes.”

“Does he still live in—” She opened the paper and checked the name of the town. “—Alderson?”

“Last I heard,” Vicki said cheerfully. She was swinging her hat in the air.

“And have you got a little boy about ten or eleven?”

“Vern’s eleven, Junior’s seven.” She stopped swinging her hat.

“Have you talked to them lately?”

“The lady at the motel said Vern called about four days ago—this was when we were at the Paisano—but the only message was that everything at home was all right. I didn’t get to talk to him because I was sharing a room with you guys and my name wasn’t on the register.” She came forward with her hat in both hands. “Why?”

When her friend was slow in answering, Vicki said again, sharply this time, “Why?”

“Because according to this newspaper everything is not so all right.”

“What? Let me see. Gimme.”

Vicki Blossom took the newspaper with hands that had started to tremble. “Oh, my Lord,” she said, “look at that. My daddy-in-law and my oldest boy are in jail.”

She started back into the TexiMex Motel reading the little print. “Go on without me,” she told her friends. “I’m going home.”

The courtroom was packed. Twelve reporters from state newspapers and representatives from NBC, CBS, and ABC were there with cameras. Both David Hartley and Bryant Gumbel had expressed an interest in interviews.

There were also 347 interested citizens who were trying to get into the courtroom for the hearing. Some of them had been interviewed by the reporters, and they all agreed that Pap should go free.

Pap, Mr. Bowman, Vern, and the two cardplayers who were defending drunk and disorderly charges sat on the front row. Pap had on a clean shirt and pressed pants which the lawyer had furnished him. Vern’s hair had been wet and combed down flat. They both looked honest, respectable, and miserable. They couldn’t wait to get out of court and look like themselves again.

The judge rapped his gavel.

The room got quiet. The bailiff announced that the Blossom case would be heard first. “Yes, there seems to be an unusual amount of interest in this matter,” the judge said.

Pap got up in a stoop, rose, and followed his lawyer to the table. “You may be seated.” They sat.

The judge told the lawyer prosecuting the case to begin. “I’d first like to call Officer Mahon,” he said.

Officer Mahon was sworn in and the prosecutor asked him to describe what occurred on the afternoon Pap was arrested.

“Well, sir, we got a call about three-thirty Monday afternoon to go to Spring Street. The call came in from a citizen who reported a man with a gun had threatened some pedestrians. Also that the street was unusable, being completely clogged with beer and pop cans.”

“What did you do after you got this information?”

“We went to the scene.”

“And what did you observe?”

“We observed Mr. Blossom there on Spring Street with a weapon.”

“Did you determine what kind of weapon it was and whether or not it was loaded?”

“Yes, sir. It was a single barrel shotgun and I could tell by the temperature of the barrel and the powder marks near the hammer that it had been recently discharged. From the evidence at the scene and based on my past experience, I could tell that a traffic light had been hit by a shotgun discharge.”

“After you made these observations what did you do?”

“I arrested Mr. Blossom.”

“What was his attitude at the time of his arrest?”

“Mr. Blossom appeared confused as to the reason for his arrest. He did not think he had done anything wrong. We put cuffs on him and got him into the patrol car. After that, he never said a word or gave us any trouble.”

“Thank you, Officer Mahon.”

Mud was on the median strip of I-85. He had managed to cross the southbound double lane, and now faced the northbound. He had intended to run straight across both of them, but there had been some nice pine trees planted in the median strip, and Mud was so exhausted he lay down under the low branches.

He closed his eyes. A flea crawled in the dusty fur behind his ear. He was too tired to scratch. The steady drone of traffic seemed far away.

Without opening his eyes he settled his body into a more comfortable spot in the pine needles and fell asleep.

Mr. Bowman was on his feet. He was an inch taller than Abraham Lincoln, and he had the same kind of old-timey eyeglasses. He looked around the courtroom over the top of them.

The judge said, “Mr. Bowman, it’s a little unusual to see you taking an interest in this county’s criminal court.”

“I know, your honor, but my interest in justice is not limited to civil matters.”

“Well, we’re pleased to have you in court today. You may proceed.”

“Thank you, your honor. I’d like to begin by calling Pap Blossom.”

Pap got up in a stoop, rose, and took the stand.

The yellow cab pulled up in front of the courthouse. In the backseat Maggie had taken out her package of money and was unwrapping it carefully, preparing to count out the $4.65 cab fare.

“I’ll get it,” Ralphie said casually, as if he paid for cabs every day of his life.

“Why, thank you.” Maggie folded up her money.

“It’s nothing,” Ralphie said. Then he surprised himself by adding something he had heard only on television: “Keep the change.”

Actually he was extremely relieved that he had had enough money. If his mother had not left him five dollars to pay for his TV rental, he wouldn’t have.

Ralphie got out of the cab and skillfully unfolded the wheelchair. Maggie and the cabdriver helped Junior get in.

Junior was so excited over going to court and being in a wheelchair that he couldn’t stop grinning. He kept closing his lips over his teeth because he knew it wouldn’t be proper to grin in criminal court, but he couldn’t help himself. He didn’t want to grin, but his lips did.

He glanced at Maggie to see if she was giving him a disapproving look. It made him feel a little better to see that Maggie was smiling too.

“Let me push him up the ramp for you,” the cabdriver said.

“Thanks,” Ralphie said quickly.

Now that the money crisis was over, Ralphie had started worrying that he wouldn’t be able to push Junior up the ramp without asking for help. His own leg hurt so bad, he wouldn’t have minded having a wheelchair himself.

“Be careful with him,” Maggie said.

“Don’t worry. I was in a wheelchair myself for a year after the war.”

A reporter who had arrived too late to get into the crowded courtroom was sitting on the courthouse steps. He watched their slow progress up the ramp. There had to be a story in these people.

The reporter got up. He said hopefully, “Do you three have anything to do with the man who got arrested and the boy that broke into jail?”

“We sure do,” Maggie said. “The boy is our brother, and the man is our grandfather.”

The man took their picture twice. He already had his caption: “Blossom family arrives at the courthouse.”

“Wait, let me help you inside. I’ll take them the rest of the way,” he told the cabdriver.

They went through the double doors and made their way down the hall. The doors to the courtroom had been left open so that the overflow crowd could hear the case.

“Could we get through, please,” the reporter asked. “This is the rest of the Blossom family.”

Ralphie did not bother to mention he was just a friend. He was honored to have been mistaken for a Blossom. He crowded through behind the wheelchair.

It was four o’clock and Mud awoke. He was rested. He lay for a moment without moving, his bright golden eyes watching the traffic below him on I-85.

He got up. He discovered with pleasure that the lowest limb of the pine tree was just over the part of his back that always itched. He moved back and forth, back and forth, scratching the spot on the convenient pine limb. He closed his eyes, blocking out the traffic and the noise in the pleasure of scratching the spot that only he and Pap knew about.

Pap was always good about scratching Mud with his shoe. Mud would see Pap’s foot dangling at just the right height, and he would go over and stand under it. Pap never failed to move his foot exactly where it itched.

The pine limb was a good substitute, though. The loose bark rained around him.

When Mud’s itch was satisfied, he moved out from under the pine tree. The traffic had thinned, but Mud wasn’t thinking about that. Mud had just smelled water, and Mud was very thirsty.

He moved to the right, nose up. The smell seemed to be this way. He went over the slight hill that bulldozers had created between the highways. The grass was soft and had just been mowed.

Mud skirted another stand of pine trees. The smell of water was stronger. He turned his nose down like a divining rod.

In a deep grassy ditch a small stream of water trickled into a drainage pipe. Mud’s eyes shone, and he bounded down the slope.

He drank lustily, his rough tongue brushing against the corrugated pipe. He had never tasted better water in his life, not even from the family toilet.

He drank, and when that little puddle of water was gone, he moved deeper into the pipe. Another small pool of water between those ridges. Mud drank. He moved deeper into the pipe, drinking between each ridge, enjoying it more because it was cool and scarce.

Mud moved through the pipe in a stoop, drinking as he went. There was not a sound of the traffic overhead until he came out the other side. Then he heard it—the cars and trucks behind him.

The air smelled familiar this way, so he ran up the embankment. There was a chain-link fence there, blocking his way. Mud didn’t hesitate. Mud knew what to do about fences.

Mud began to dig.

Maggie, Ralphie, and Junior got through the crowd at the back of the courtroom. The first thing they saw was Pap walking back to the table with his head down. His face was as red as a beet.

Pap was in misery. His head was pounding. His throat was dry. He took out his worn handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his face. His hands were trembling.

It wasn’t the fear of going to jail that was making him miserable. He’d been in jail and it wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t the fact that he could be fined five hundred dollars. A man couldn’t pay what he didn’t have.

It was being questioned. Pap had never been able to abide people asking him questions. Nobody in his family could. It was a family trait.

And here he had to sit as if he were in chains, and let anybody ask him anything they wanted to—the prosecutor, the judge, and Henry Ward Bowman, who was trying to act like Lincoln.

A dozen times he had wanted to interrupt and say, “Just send me to jail and get it over with.” It would have been a relief to be led back to his corner cell.

The only thing that stopped him was that out of the corner of his eye he could see Vern’s feet, Vern’s worn tennis shoes. Above all, Pap didn’t want to make Vern’s jailbreak seem like it had been in vain.

“In conclusion, your honor,” Mr. Bowman was saying, “Mr. Blossom has had an absolutely clean record. He has a high and respected reputation in this community. He has never been arrested; he has never gotten a traffic ticket; and it is only through the series of unusual and bewildering events which he testified about this afternoon that we are even here today. Mr. Blossom is not a criminal and he should not be found guilty of a criminal offense.”