One Mississippi (10 page)

It seemed to me that we were no more stupid than on any other day. But Mrs. Passworth had become suddenly unable to tune out our stupidity. We had no hope of understanding what she was trying to teach us, and it was really getting to her.

Jimmy Yelverton spoke up: “Miz Passworth?”

“What?!”

“Can I go to the bathroom?”

She flung the laminated pass at him. Jimmy picked it up from the floor and ambled out.

Mrs. Passworth burst into tears.

We all looked at each other. You don’t often see a non-substitute teacher break down and cry.

She went to her desk, turned her chair to the wall, and made little mewling sounds. When at last she turned to face us, her eyes were all smudged. “Y’all will just have to excuse me,” she sniffed. “Things have been very strange lately.”

“We’ll try harder, Miz Passworth.” Mindy Maples was a cheerleader in every sense of the word.

“No, it’s not you. You’re children. What do you know? You can’t help it if you’re ignorant — no, and it’s not just this terrible thing with the Beecham girl. Let’s face it, it’s me.”

“Ma’am?” Mindy cocked her head to one side.

“There are lights, you know, in the nighttime. Very bright lights around my house,” Mrs. Passworth said.

“Do you think you’re having a nervous breakdown?” asked Mindy. A couple of boys tittered but the rest of the class sat dead quiet. This was no joke. Mrs. Passworth was rumored to have spent time in an actual loony bin, some years back.

“No, Mindy, I don’t think I am,” she said, “but thank you for asking. I’ve been under a lot of pressure but so what? We’re all under pressure.” She folded her hands on the desk. “Labor Day weekend, I decided I would make myself a little barbecue, you know, it being the holiday, and there I was thinking, Oh how sad, all alone on Labor Day, cooking up my little hamburger patty in the backyard, when all of a sudden — let me stop here and ask, has anybody in this class ever been attacked by a blue jay?”

To judge from the stillness in the room, no one had.

“Well you see there, how unusual it is. How astonished I was when the first one came down from a tree and struck me on the head. Right here.” She touched her brunette pouf. “And then another one. And a third. Three separate blue jays came from out of nowhere to attack me.”

“Like in that movie,” said Kevin Donohue.

“
The Birds,
”
I offered.

“Exactly,” said Mrs. Passworth. “I had to leave my patty on the grill and run for cover! It wasn’t like I was disturbing them — I was minding my own business! Can anybody think of a reason why three blue jays would suddenly decide to attack an innocent person?”

“Maybe they wanted your burger,” said Kevin Mayhew.

Our laughter exploded down the hall and died away. Every eye went to the clock: eighteen minutes to go and the second hand crawling so painfully slow.

“Miz Passworth?” That was Beverly DeShields, a plump Christian girl, a total brainiac. “Is any of this gonna be on the test?”

“No, Beverly. None of it.”

“Cause I had a question about last night’s homework. The binomials?”

“Save it, Beverly,” she snapped. “I am done for one day. Class dismissed.”

We bounded out of our desks. By lunchtime, the whole school knew Mrs. Passworth had flipped out in first period and gone home. Mr. Hamm took over her classes and showed filmstrips of the national parks. I couldn’t wait to tell Tim — chicken bastard that he was, hiding at home.

I went to the pay phone in the courtyard. Tim let it ring twelve times before picking up. “’Lo.”

“What the hell are you doing at home?” I said.

“I’m sick.”

“Oh yeah, I’ll bet. Don’t you think it looks a little strange, you going AWOL today of all days?”

“Yes, Mother. Quit worrying. Everything’s fine. What’s the news?”

“Apparently, that person is still in intensive care.” Other kids were filtering past from the cafeteria. “Look, I can’t talk here. I’m coming over to your house after band. You better be there.”

“I will. Jeez. Calm down, Skippy. Everything’s fine. Okay?”

I let out a breath. “Okay.”

“Stop worrying, you’ll give yourself a heart attack.”

“I thought I would have one in algebra this morning,” I said. “You won’t believe what she did.”

“What?”

“No. I’m not telling. You don’t deserve to hear, you stay-at-home traitor!”

“Fine. Be that way. I’ll see you after school. Later —”

“Gator.” I hung up first.

Dropped in another fifteen cents and called Mom to tell her I’d be home late.

“Honey, remember Daddy’s coming home tomorrow. You’ve still got to finish the grass.”

“I’ll get up early and cut it.”

“That’s what you always say. You be sweet at Miz Cousins’s house, you hear?”

Be sweet. What would Mom say if she knew the truth of what we’d done? She would march me straight to the cops to confess the whole thing. If Tim wouldn’t go with me, I’d still have to tell the whole story. Including him. That’s what Mom would say.

It would be big trouble, oh yes, the worst of my life, but in time you could get beyond trouble. Even trouble that bad. Trying to hang on to a secret like this, on the other hand, was the kind of mistake that could mess up the rest of your life.

Tim was not my master. He was not in charge of me. I would tell him straight out — either he went with me to the police or I’d go alone. He wouldn’t like it, but that’s how it was going to be. Take it or leave it.

Once I made up my mind, I felt better. Anxious but better. I saw a glimmer of possibility in the darkness.

“T
AKE IT OR LEAVE IT
,” I said. “I am not going into my senior year with this thing hanging over my head.”

“I understand how you feel,” he said. We sat cross-legged in his mystic cave of a room, with its thick maroon shag, the lava lamp, the twirly lantern scattering silvery light across the bed. Tim’s art-class drawings covered the walls. He specialized in elaborate renderings of fairy-tale castles, fortresses, ruined temples, a few tiny people here and there on the ramparts.

“We’ll go to the police together,” I said. “Right now. Before we lose our nerve.”

“That’s a really noble impulse, Dogwood. Do you think Red Martin would do the same for you? If the situation were reversed?”

“I don’t care what Red would do. This is what
we
have to do.”

“I just want you to think through the logic of what you’re proposing.”

“It’s really simple, Tim. We tell the truth. We don’t have to hide anymore, or cut school to sit around wondering when we’ll get caught.”

He propped up on his elbows, studying me. “They charged Red with drunk driving, right? Not with hurting Arnita, or anything to do with her. Think about it. He
was
drunk. He
was
driving. He got busted. Case closed. How is that our fault?”

“Everyone in school thinks he’s the one who ran her over.”

“Who cares? The police must not think that, they haven’t charged him with it. So your big confession won’t change a thing for Red — or for Arnita.”

“But Tim. It’s just not right.”

He jumped up to pace the floor. “Look. If I thought the cops would believe us? I might go along with you. But Skippy, why should they? If we tell, we end up doing a few months each in the juvy home. Where, you know, we will get fucked, because that’s what they do to the new boys out there. If I ever get out, my father won’t let me back in the house. I won’t get to go to college. I’ll end up working in some auto parts store. All because you had this bizarre urge to help Red Martin.” He put his head down and kept talking. “Meanwhile Arnita still got hurt, Red still got his DWI, and we’ve got a felony record for the rest of our lives.”

“That’s not necessarily how it would go,” I said.

“That’s the
best
it could go. The best possible outcome. You think the cops are going to give you a prize for honesty? Believe me, they won’t.”

“If you won’t go with me,” I said, “I have to go by myself.”

“Look Skippy — you want me to admire your principles? Okay, I admire ’em. But don’t ask me to confess to something I didn’t do. I didn’t hurt Arnita. She ran into our car. I never laid a finger on her. And if we happen to be the only two people who know Red had nothing to do with it, I can live with that. Really.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think I can.”

“Fine. Just wait. Don’t do anything now. Let’s see what happens. Maybe she’ll be okay.”

Tim knew me so well. I didn’t really want to go to the cops. I didn’t want to confess. I came over here so he could talk me out of it. He only had to persuade me a little. I did not want to hear my mother’s voice when I called her from jail.

“Arnita is gonna nail us,” I said.

“If that happens, we’ll deal with it,” Tim said. “Now tell me about Passworth. Don’t leave out a single detail.”

That was my last chance to put everything right. I walked right on by.

6

E
VERY COUPLE OF DAYS
Mr. Hamm read a hopeful report from the hospital: Arnita had moved her toes. She drank from a straw. She recognized her name.

The Frillinger twins went to the hospital with a group of girls bearing flowers, teddy bears, and balloons. Arnita’s mother intercepted them in the waiting room. “She was kind of standoffish,” Dianne reported. “We’d practiced a song for Arnita, but the mother wouldn’t let us anywhere near her.”

“What song was it?”

“‘We’ve Only Just Begun,’” Dianne said.

“My God, were you trying to kill her? Don’t you know the Carpenters can be fatal?”

“It’s not a joke, Daniel. It’s so sad. They say she might have permanent brain damage.”

“She’s gonna be fine,” I said. “Don’t ask me why, but I have this feeling she is.” That was pure wishful thinking, of course. If I kept wishing hard enough, I might help it come true.

Red Martin came strutting into physics on Thursday sporting a brand-new crew cut and a tight yellow T-shirt that showed off his muscly chest. It was his first time at school since Prom Night. He was cracking gum, grinning, enjoying the stir he had provoked just by showing up. “Watch out, ladies, steer clear of the jailbird!” he crowed. His buddies laughed. Red faked a pass with his chemistry book, did a graceful linebacker pirouette, and swung into his desk.

The black kids in back put out a silence so cold you could feel it. Gradually the rest of the room fell quiet. It wasn’t all that smart of Red to come in cutting up, cracking gum, just after Mr. Hamm had read out the latest medical report on Arnita.

“What?” he said. “What did I do?”

“Just shut up, Red,” said Emily Pickens, a do-gooder in barrettes and a pink sweater. “You’ve done enough.”

When Red realized she was speaking for most of the room, the light went out of his smile. This was Red Martin, remember, in his third big year atop the Minor High jock-popularity pyramid, and now suddenly he was the jerk who ran over the Queen of the Prom.

His face slowly turned the color of meat. “Well hell, people. Y’all got it all wrong. I didn’t hit her.”

I felt almost sorry for him.

He whirled on me sharply, as if he had detected it. “What the hell are you looking at, Five Spot?”

I glanced to both sides. “Me?”

“You’re the only Five Spot I see. You like my new haircut? I got it so I could look more like you.”

His buddies snickered. It took a moment for Five Spot to register, then I understood, with a flood of shame, that he meant the five tiny patches on the back of my head where hair stubbornly refused to grow. Mom said with my blond hair no one noticed, but I begged the barber to leave it longer back there.

I said, “Why’d you really have to cut it, Red? Can’t get rid of those pesky head lice?” It wasn’t the greatest comeback ever, but a few kids gave me a laugh.

The rest of that day, wherever I went, there was Red. “Hey, Five Spot, how’s it going?” “Five Spot, lookin’ goood.” He and his henchmen called me Five Spot so loudly and often, kids I didn’t even know began saying, “Hey, Five Spot!”

I thought back over my Prom Night encounter with Red and Larry in the men’s room off the lobby at the Holiday Inn, searching for something that might account for this sudden, all-out campaign of harassment. I couldn’t come up with anything.

“Red hardly ever noticed me before, and suddenly he’s my worst enemy,” I told Tim. “I don’t get it. Maybe he did see us that night. Maybe he knows what we did.”

“Look, he’s in deep trouble,” said Tim. “Twisting slowly in the wind. Everybody turns against him, he starts looking around for a target, and the first person he sees is you. Tomorrow, you watch — it’ll be somebody else.”

He was right. The next day, it was Tim. Red decided Tim should be known as Stinky in honor of his fondness for English Leather cologne. All morning Red made comments about Stinky’s hair, Stinky’s dorky black high-tops, Stinky’s embarrassing wide-wale bell-bottom corduroys. He made kissy sounds when Stinky got called to the blackboard in chemistry. By lunchtime all of Red’s cronies were crooning “Hey, Stink-ayyy” when Tim walked by.

“Maybe he does know,” Tim said. “Why else would he go after the two of us?”

“We’ve gone from being nobodies to the world-famous Five Spot and Stinky.”

“Yeah, what is he talking about, anyway — Five Spot?”

“These little places on my head,” I said.

“What? Let me see —”

I turned my head so he could see.

“Look at that.” He touched one spot with his finger. “What happened?”

“Nothing. My hair won’t grow there anymore. No reason.”

But there was a reason.

Last December in Alabama, our first visit to Granny and Jacko since we moved to Mississippi. Granny asked me to ride along in her old Rambler wagon to buy worms for an afternoon of fishing.

We were driving to town, talking. From nowhere a huge truck roared up behind us, blasting its horn, whipping around in a storm of flying gravel. Granny cried, “Whoo, honey! Where did he come from?”

The truck dwindled quickly in our windshield, flinging rocks that pecked at our glass.

Granny’s fingers fluttered around the rim of the wheel. “Daniel, if it’s all right with you, I think I’ll pull over for a minute.”

“You okay, Granny?”

“Oh yes, I’m just . . . a little shaky, I reckon. That truck was going so fast!” She eased the Rambler to the shoulder and switched off the engine.

All the color left her face. Her hand came over her mouth.

“Granny? What is it?”

A mysterious flicker in her expression — a wince. Or a smile. “Oh my!” she said, then slumped against her door and died.

Just like that. That’s how fast she died in the seat beside me, with cars whizzing past. The sweep-second hand on the dashboard clock ticked off the seconds. Traffic rushed by
whoom whoom
like the Indy 500. Oh God, Granny, please!

I opened the door. A string of blackbirds flew up from the field by the highway. The word Help rose in my throat. Somebody Help.

I started waving my arms at oncoming traffic. Many cars flashed by before a white pickup slowed and crunched onto the gravel shoulder. I ran up as he was getting out, a tall slender man in a cowboy hat, a glint of gold in his smile. “What’s the trouble?”

“It’s my — my grandmother, she’s — sick or something!” I couldn’t bring myself to say
dead.
“You gotta help us, please! Hurry!”

The man peered into the Rambler. I hung back, squeezing my arms to my sides, fighting the urge to take off into that field of weeds and keep running.

He pushed Granny out of the driver’s seat, started the engine, and barked at me to get in back. He drove the Rambler faster than I knew it could go. In a few minutes Granny lay on a stretcher in the emergency room in Pigeon Creek, with a doctor pounding her chest.

I waited in the hallway with the tall man, and listened to her dying all over again.

“It’s my fault,” I said.

“Don’t go blaming yourself. Wasn’t for you, she’da been out there all alone with nobody to help her. She’s lucky to have you.” He ruffled my hair. “Poor kid.”

And then he did something I still can’t believe, something so swift and unexpected that it was over almost before I knew he was doing it. His hand slid around, cupping the back of my head. He bent down and pressed his mouth to mine, kissing me hard on the lips, gripping my head to hold me there.

I shoved him hard with both hands. “Get
away
from me!”

He leaped back as if I’d bitten him. “Sorry,” he said, with a strange, painful smile. He lunged for the door, nearly running over a pair of nurses.

I never told anybody what he did. The only sign of it was those five little spots on the back of my head where his fingertips touched me. Where the hair wouldn’t grow.

And now Red Martin had pointed them out to the world.

Tim said, “Listen Dumwood, I’m getting really sick of being tortured by him. We need to start up a counterinsurgency.” He aimed his index finger and squeezed off a shot. “Hey, isn’t that your mother’s car?”

Indeed it was. “That’s strange,” I said. “I’ll give you a call — later, gator.” I loped over to the green Country Squire wagon. “Hey Mom, what’s up?”

“Hey honey, get in but don’t put your feet on the cake.”

I breathed in the warm sugar smell. “Who’s it for?”

“I’m taking you to the Beechams’ house, remember?”

“What? Mom. No.”

“I managed to get that mower in the back of the car all by myself, so you can unload it. Mrs. Beecham said she’d be delighted for you to cut their grass.”

“You called her?”

“Just as nice as she could be. She and her husband have been at the hospital day and night, they’ve had to just let their yard go. I told her how much you wanted to help.”

“Mom, I didn’t say that.”

“Well, I said it for you.” She turned right on Bridge Street. “So you might as well smile and be gracious about it.”

“Mom —”

“No backtalk. I’m dropping you off and taking Janie to the doctor. We’ll pick you up around five.”

Our tires roared crossing the iron bridge above the Yatchee, a sluggish little river with steep weedy banks. A passel of East Minor kids hung out at the railing, throwing rocks in the water.

I said, “Where’d you get the idea I’m this big friend of Arnita’s? I barely know her.”

“Doesn’t matter. You can still do her mother a favor,” said Mom. “I’m surprised at you, Daniel. I thought you’d be eager to help.”

“Okay! Sheesh!” I glared at the falling-down houses and house trailers of East Minor, the barbecue sheds, mangy dogs, half-naked kids running through sprinklers.

“Your brother finally called this morning. He broke his foot a second time, so at least they can’t send him . . . overseas. I told him he’s a fool to keep riding that motorcycle, but he won’t listen to his old mother.” She glanced at the paper in her hand. “Help me look for it. Three twenty-two Forrest Street. Why can’t they get some street signs on this side of town?”

I spotted an aging frame house, peeling paint, a large weedy yard, and a chain-link fence. “There’s 322,” I said. “Nobody home. Can we go, please?”

“She said let ourselves in the gate if they’re not there.”

“Mom, if they’re not home I don’t wanna —”

“Daniel?” Her sharp gaze pinned me in place. “Take this cake to the porch before you get your hands all greasy taking the mower out of the back. Ring the bell. She’s home. I’m sure they don’t have a car.”

I carried the plastic-wrapped cake, still warm from the oven, across the yard and up two steps to the porch. I placed it on a little table beside the front door. There was no doorbell. I knocked.

The porch floor shifted under approaching footsteps. A large brown woman peered out.

“Mrs. Beecham?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I’m Daniel Musgrove. I think my mom called you. To come cut your grass?”

“Hullo, Musgrove. I been waiting for you.” Mrs. Beecham must have been beautiful like her daughter once, the same delicate line to her face. Time and a lot of food appeared to have widened her out. She filled the doorway in her crisp white uniform.

“My mom baked you a cake,” I said.

“Well here, give it to me.” She opened the door with her elbow, reaching for the platter as she squinted past me. “Does she want to come in?”

“She’s gotta take my sister to the doctor,” I said, but Mrs. Beecham was already waving to Mom to crank down her window.

“Don’t you want to come in?” she called. “I can make coffee.”

“Oh, no, thank you so much, I’ve got a million things to do,” Mom said. “Daniel, come get this mower.” She was glad to bring me over, but she couldn’t wait to get out of there.

After she was gone, Mrs. Beecham stayed on the porch to watch me gas up the mower. “So this is the famous Musgrove,” she said. “How do you know my Arnita?”

“We’re in the band. And we’ve got a couple classes together.”

“Because after your mother called, I asked Arnita about you,” she said. “She’s never even heard of you.”

“She’s awake? That’s great! I mean, the last I knew she was in a coma.”

“No.” Her eyes never left my face. “So if she doesn’t know you, what are you doing over here wanting to cut my grass for me?”

“It was my mom’s idea. When she heard about the accident, she wanted to make you a cake. And she thought I could give you a hand with the yard.”

“You look like somebody who knows something, Musgrove. Like maybe you know what happened to her that night. She has a hard time recalling exactly.”

“Oh, no ma’am,” I said, “I don’t know anything about it.”

“Maybe you had something to do with it,” she went on, gently mocking. “You got to feeling guilty, came around here thinking you could do me a favor, that would help you feel better about the whole thing.”

I had expected Arnita might nail us. I was not prepared for her mother. “I’m sorry. That’s not how it is. I just came to help. If you want me to go, I will.”

“Aw Musgrove, try and look a little bit indignant when you are wrongly accused. Unless you just want everybody to
know
you’re guilty.”

“But I’m not!”

“Tell you what.” She swept an arm across her unruly yard. “You cut all that grass. Rake up what you cut and put it in them bags yonder — see that roll of yard bags where I’m pointing? Don’t be leaving grass clippings all over my yard.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“And then I’ll let you know what else.” She opened the door and went in.

“Yes ma’am!” I held off saluting until she shut the door.

I yanked the mower to life. The big Yazoo roar drowned out everything.

I threw myself into cutting that yard, sending up a green fog of pulverized grass. My heart pounded, not just from the effort of pushing the mower. Mrs. Beecham was onto me even before I set foot on her porch. More psychic than Jacko! Jumps to conclusions faster than a speeding jackrabbit!

But the news was wonderful: Arnita was not in a coma. She was not going to die. She didn’t know who I was, had never even heard of me. She wouldn’t accuse me or Tim. Our Lie would not be found out. I felt a great selfish flood of relief. I could already hear Tim saying
I told you so.