The Boy on the Porch (6 page)

O
ne day, John, Marta, and Jacob returned to the town where they'd bought Jacob's clothes. In a thrift shop, Jacob wandered to the back, picked up a pair of drumsticks, and rapped on the nearby drum.

“That there boy has talent,” the shopkeeper said. “Will you listen to that? How old are you, son?”

Marta answered. “Six. He's shy. Won't talk to strangers, you know.”

“Is that right? What's your name, son?”

The boy rolled the drumsticks against the drum.

“Jacob,” Marta said.

When John joined them, the shopkeeper said, “Been listening to this fine young man take a run at these drums. This your boy?”

Jacob turned his head ever so slightly toward John. Marta glanced down at her feet.

“Sure,” John said. “Sure, he is.”

“I can see the resemblance,” the shopkeeper said. “You play the drums yourself?”

“No.”

“Who taught him then?”

“Nobody. Will you take a couple dollars for this old drum set?”

Back at their truck, Marta elbowed John. “Did you hear what he said? He could see the resemblance between you and Jacob.”

John reddened. “Sure, I heard him. Sure, I did.”

Next, they visited a general store, full of everything from canned peaches to cow balm, from shovels to sheets. In a dusty corner, on a dusty shelf, they found art supplies, marked down in price.

“Lots of paper,” Marta suggested, “and a few brushes and some of those watercolors, and . . .” She was happily immersed in selecting supplies when she heard someone say, “Hello, again.”

When Marta and John quickly turned toward the voice, they saw that Jacob had settled himself on the floor beside a young girl. Her mother, standing beside them, said, “Our kids met—last week, was it? You were buying clothes, remember?”

“Oh,” Marta said. “Of course, I remember.”

The adults regarded the girl and Jacob, shoulder to shoulder, flipping through a book together.

“His name is Jacob,” John offered.

“And that's Lucy. She's six. Nearly seven.”

Marta cleared her throat. “So is Jacob. Six. Nearly seven. Hard to believe!”

“Oh, I know,” the woman said. “Time sure whips by, doesn't it?”

“Weird,” Marta said, “running into you again.”

“Oh, I don't see anything
weird
about it at all! It must be fate. Maybe our children are meant to be friends. We're at that park over there”—she gestured toward the window and the park beyond—“nearly every Saturday morning if Jacob ever wants to join us.”

“Oh, sure. Okay.”

On their way home, John said, “Marta, that's a long way to go so that Jacob can have a friend.”

“Shh,” Marta said. “Ears.”

“What?”

“We all have ears. Everyone in this car can hear, John.”

“Well, of course we all have ears. Oh.”

The next Saturday they returned to town and met Lucy and her mother at the park. The adults sat on a bench as Jacob and Lucy raced from swings to slide.

“Lucy can be a little bossy,” her mother said. “I hope she doesn't do that with Jacob. He seems such a nice boy.”

“Oh, he is,” Marta said, but then regretting that she sounded as if she were bragging, she added, “but he can be a little bossy, too, sometimes.”

John said, “Bossy? I don't think—”

Marta said, “See there, John? He's trying to get Lucy to follow him back to the swings.”

“But that's just—”

“Bossy, bossy,” Marta said. “But not often. Mostly he is such a sweet boy, wouldn't you say so, John?”

“Don't think you should call a boy ‘sweet'—”

Lucy's mother laughed. “You two tickle me. I tell you what—I could never get Lucy's father to sit here and watch her play in a park.”

John stood. “Oh, but I'm not—I mean, I don't usually—I was just keeping—if you two are fine here with the kids, I'll go on and, you know—”

“Sure!” Marta said. “You go on.” To Lucy's mother, she said, “Aren't men funny? Once they become fathers—”

“Oh, I know, I know,” Lucy's mother agreed.

“Well, John's not really a father.”

“What do you mean?”

Marta pulled a tissue from her pocket. “Goodness, I don't know what—” She dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose. “We're just watching Jacob.”

“Oh! I thought he was your boy.”

“Mm.”

“So tell me what happened.”

“‘Happened?'”

“Yes, why he doesn't speak. I've not heard a single sound out of him.”

“Oh, that. We don't know.”

“You don't know? Aren't you curious?”

“Well, sure, but the people—the people we're watching him for—they didn't say.”

“That's a little odd, don't you think?”

“Yes,” Marta admitted.

That night, after Jacob was in bed, Marta told John about the conversation with Lucy's mother.

“John, I do not know what has come over me. I feel so happy when we're around the boy, and then all of a sudden, I want to bust into tears.”

“I know,” John said. “I know.”

J
acob learned to play the drums as swiftly as he had learned the guitar. He seemed to know a hundred different rhythms, and he could make the drums sound like so many different things: horses' clopping and cannons and footsteps. He could sound the beating of a heart, the beating of wings.

When he wasn't playing the drums or the guitar or riding the cow or running with the beagle, Jacob painted scenes of the pasture, the house, the animals. He painted trees and flowers and birds. Sometimes he painted explosions of color and line, unlike anything Marta and John had ever seen before.

“Marta, I still think he needs to be learning some other things,” John said.

“Like what?”

“Chores.”

“Fine, then,” Marta said. “Show him how to do some chores.”

And so John showed Jacob how to feed the cows and goats. “Each day, you do this. I'm counting on you, Jacob. Understand?”

Jacob nodded, just once, which was his way, and some days he remembered to feed them and some days he didn't.

“How come he doesn't remember, Marta? How come I have to keep reminding him? Should I be hollering at him?”

“Oh, no, you shouldn't do
that
.”

“Well, that's what
my
father did when I forgot to do something.”

“And did his hollering help you remember?”

“No.”

“Well, then—”

“But his whippin' did. Should I whip the boy?”

“Oh,
no
, John, you wouldn't—”

“No, no, I couldn't.”

Another day, John asked Marta what else he should be teaching the boy.

“How to use a hammer and saw and all,” Marta suggested.

That afternoon, John asked Jacob to follow him down the drive. “Going to mend the fence, boy. You could help with this.” The beagle followed the boy. John carried a hammer, pliers, and a sack of nails. “You could—”

John stopped abruptly. The sheriff's car was turning off the road into the long dirt drive.

“Jacob—run on up to the house, quick,
now
, go on, fast as you can, it's okay, go on—”

Jacob took off for the house, with the beagle trailing him.

The sheriff pulled up alongside John, dirt swirling up in John's face. The sheriff leaned out the window.

“Howdy there.”

“Howdy, Sheriff. What can I do for you?”

The sheriff lifted his hat, smoothed his hair, and replaced the hat on his head. “About a cow. Old man Krankins lost his cow—he says it's an old Angus. That the kind you found?”

“No, sir, it's not, sorry to say.”

“You're sure about that?”

“Sure as sure can be. The one that ended up here ain't no Angus, not by a long stretch. Heck, it's got—”

“Okay, then, sorry to trouble you.” The sheriff rubbed his hand over his badge.

“No trouble. No trouble at all, Sheriff.”

The sheriff turned his car around, but stopped again and leaned out the window. “Was that a boy I saw running up there?”

“Yep. We're watching him.”

“That right? He must like it here.”

“Yep. I guess he does.”

“That the boy that rides cows?”

“Yep. That's the one.”

“Well, I'll be going now. You let me know if you see Krankins's old Angus cow.”

“I will. Sure, I will.”

M
arta and John watched Jacob riding the cow across the pasture, trailed by the beagle.

“That's some boy,” John said.

“I know it.”

“He's not your usual sort of boy, is he?”

“Well, I don't know what a usual sort of boy is, to tell you the truth.”

“All that music and art stuff he does, how does he know how to do that? And is that good for him?”

Marta didn't answer. Sometimes John needed to toss questions out into the air, but he didn't always expect an answer. It had taken her a long time to learn that about him, but when she did, she was vastly relieved. It had been exhausting trying to answer all his questions. Sometimes she made up answers just so she wouldn't have to say “I don't know” one more time.

“What about school?” John asked. “That's going to start up soon. What are we going to do then? What if the sheriff comes back? What about the people? Are they coming back or not? We can't keep the boy forever, can we?”

After Jacob and Lucy had played together on the playground the previous week, Lucy's mother had suggested they meet regularly, every Saturday. Marta had agreed before checking with John.

“You should have checked with me, Marta. I'm not sure we should be getting so cozy with—”

“Oh, John, shoot. The boy has to have a friend—beyond a cow and a dog and a couple goats. He needs a
human
friend. What possible harm could there be?”

On the third Saturday, Lucy's mother asked, “Do you watch Jacob every weekend?”

“For the time being, yes.”

And then Lucy's mother asked where Jacob went to school. “Lucy's over here at Shady Vale Elementary. Second grade next year. Jacob, too?”

“Too?”

“Second grade?”

“Oh, no, no. I mean, he might be, but—”

“Oh, I'm sorry. Is it because of him being, you know, mute, that—”

“Mute?”
Is that what people would call Jacob
? Marta wondered.
People who did not even know him
?

“Isn't that what—oh, I'm so sorry—have I upset you?”

Marta wanted to grab Jacob and race back to the truck, where John would be waiting. She wanted to speed away. But she could not. Instead, she said, “No, no, not at all. Sometimes, well, it is so sensitive, you know—”

“His parents? They're sensitive about it?”

“Well—”

“Who
are
his parents? Relatives of yours?”

“No—”

“Shh, shh, I'm sorry. I think I've been a little too nosy. Look, Jacob's showing Lucy how to use those twigs like drumsticks. How cute is
that
?”

And now, nearly a week later, Marta was dreading their Saturday outing, dreading the questions that might surprise her.

“John,” she said as they watched Jacob lean forward on the cow, resting his head against the cow's neck, “September will be here before we know it. Maybe we should find out about school.”

John felt his feet sinking into the ground. He was going to be swallowed up. Whenever Marta said “Maybe we should,” what she really meant was “Maybe
you
should.” And he did not know the first thing about putting a child in school.