Weeping Willow (3 page)
Authors: Ruth White
“‘You are beautiful. You are remarkable,’ Lila would say to the child. ‘You are my bright and shining star. You have silken curls, big sparkling eyes, a rosy complexion,’ things like that all the time. You know, she actually shaped that child.”
I sat in silence, thinking about her story.
“You see,” she went on, “we come to believe what we tell ourselfs over and over, and hit’s our beliefs that shape things.”
Could it be true?
“Well, that’s something to think about, Aunt Evie,” I said.
“You’re a smart girl, Tiny,” Aunt Evie said and grinned. She had teeth missing all over the place, and I felt sorry for her.
“I’ll bring the brown sugar to you,” I said and touched her arm affectionately.
She squeezed my hand.
I went down the hill talking to myself: “Tiny Lambert, you are wonderful and beautiful. You are smart and popular and …”
When Vern came home shortly after five, it was obvious he had had something to drink. He was always in a good mood after two or three drinks, and loud and obnoxious after four or five. Then he would curl up somewhere and go to sleep. He didn’t get mean like some men do. I knew kids who were whipped regular pretty hard. But Vern didn’t hit us except for a rare swat on the butt. Sometimes he did get so mad you thought he was bound to kill somebody, but he got over it after storming and raging for a while. Or he just drove off in the pickup real fast and came back calm.Vern was fifteen years older than Mama, and real short and stumpy. He put you in mind a whole lot of the movie comedian Lou Costello, except he wore denim britches and plaid shirts. He was getting a bald spot on the back of his head, and what hair was left was turning gray. His eyes were all the time bloodshot from too much bourbon, and the veins alongside his nose were broken. Vern’s hands were rough and dirty from working in the mines. Even after he washed them good with lava soap, they were lined with coal dust in the wrinkles around his fingernails and knuckles.
That day he was in rare form. He was telling jokes and pinching Mama on the fanny. She was aggravated with him but she didn’t let on. She hit at him playfully and bit her lip. We went out to get in the pickup to go to the store in Black Gap. I started to climb into the truck bed with the kids as usual when Vern said, “No, no, Tiny, you’re in high school now. You ride up here in the cab with me and your mama.”
A feather would have knocked me over I was so pleased. Mama smiled.
“Come on, honey,” she said. “You can set in the middle.”
I climbed in between them, grinning. Did this mean I was going to be treated like a grownup from now on? Vern backed the truck down the hill.
“Can you imagine what this child asked me for today, Vem?” Mama said.
“What in the world?” he said.
“Another pair of shoes!”
“Oh, Mama!” I protested. “Not just any shoes. Everybody at school had on white bucks today, Vern. Everybody but me. I just want to be like everybody else.”
Vern didn’t say a word.
Mama said something about everybody jumping off a cliff, but I wasn’t listening. In about ten seconds flat she had ruined my ride in the cab.
“I’m going to the hardware,” Vern announced when we were parked behind the A & P. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Mama, the kids, and I went into the store. Every single time we went to the A & P, Phyllis started begging for something. It never failed, and you could hear her all over the store.
And Mama, every single time, would start up with, “Hush now, Phyllis. Be nice. Look at that pretty display. Hush now, Phyllis. Be nice.”
Of course Phyllis would get worse, and it nearly drove me fruity. Then Luther would start in.
“Can I have a bottle of pop, Mama? Can I? Huh? Can I, Mama? Can I have a bottle of pop?”
Next Beau would whine for suckers. And all three of them were dirty and barefooted as usual.
I always lagged behind like I didn’t know these people, and Mama would fuss at me, “Quit dawdling, Tiny!”
Dawdling? I’ll declare she made that word up.
But that day Beau dawdled with me and he didn’t say anything. I guess he was growing up because you could tell he was embarrassed, too.
When Phyllis began her high-pitched squeal, I knew there was no shutting her up, so I headed for the door, hoping I wouldn’t see anybody I knew. I climbed in the truck and started to fantasize about Mr. Gillespie.
We are at a ball game and he offers me a ride home. My hair is long and blond and shiny. I am wearing a pink evening dress with yards and yards of chiffon because I am the homecoming queen. Mr. Gillespie notices I am shivering.
“Here, take my coat,” he says to me …
Vern climbed in the truck and tossed a shoe box my way. The lid was off that box so fast, and yes it was! Vern had gone and bought me some white bucks.
I squealed almost like Phyllis, and Vern grinned. Now, I am not a kissy person, never have been. It was years since I kissed anybody; and then it was Mama, and the kids when they were babies. But at that moment I threw my arms around Vern before I realized what it was I was going to do. Everything happened fast and I’m not sure how it came about, but what I meant to be a kiss on the cheek turned into something else. He squeezed me till I couldn’t breathe, then stuck his tongue in my mouth and wiggled it around. I about gagged because his old tongue tasted sticky and rank with tobacco and bourbon.
I struggled and he let me go.
“Ugh!” I said, rubbing my mouth hard against the back of my hand. I wanted to spit, but I didn’t want to insult him that bad. “Vern, what’d you do that for?”
Vern laughed a funny laugh, and he looked around at everything else but me.
“Well, try ‘em on!” he finally said real loud. “I’ll take ’em back right now if they don’t fit.”
I put on the shoes. Perfect fit, and beautiful! I could picture me wearing them in band tomorrow. Mr. Gillespie would see me.
“Well, I gotta go and pay the grocery bill,” Vern said and left.
I placed the saddle oxfords inside the box and wore the white bucks. Then I spit out the door of the truck a few times, and wiped out the inside of my mouth with my dress tail, but I could still taste Vern’s spit.
Ooooo … what got into him anyway?
“Tiny Lambert!” Bobby Lynn hollered my name all the way down the hall the next morning, and I was secretly pleased because just about everybody heard her. I waited for her to wade through the crowd to me.“Hey, girl,” she said. “Come on out and let’s sit on the fence with Rosemary till homeroom.”
“Who?”
“Rosemary Layne. You know her. She plays clarinet, too, and she sat on the other side of you yesterday in band.”
“Oh,” I said, but I didn’t remember anybody in band except Bobby Lynn and Mr. Gillespie.
Bobby Lynn was wearing a summer dress and sandals, because it was still as warm as summer, and I learned that day that even though her mama worked at the Black Gap Style Shoppe, she didn’t give a squeak who wore what when.
“Hey, Bobby Lynn,” everybody called as we walked down the hall together. You could measure a person’s popularity by the number of heys she got, because the morning hey was designed to pay homage. It seemed everybody knew and liked Bobby Lynn, and she was with me! We went out to the front campus, where I met Rosemary Layne. She was tall and dark, in contrast to me and Bobby Lynn. She had very large gray eyes and the longest, thickest lashes I ever saw. She was slender and elegant in a simple blue sheath. She was also warm and friendly.
“Hey, Tiny,” she said sweetly, smiling. “Sit here by me.”
I was surprised she knew my name. In fact I was surprised at nearly everything that morning. Somebody had actually hey’d me in the hall, and now somebody else was inviting me to sit with her. It seemed Tiny Lambert, who never had a real friend in her life, suddenly had friends coming after her! Did I have a sign on my back—PLEASE LOVE ME—or something?
Oh, well, I thought, as I perched on the rail fence between Bobby Lynn and Rosemary, they won’t like me when they get to know me. Nobody ever does. But Aunt Evie’s story about Lila’s beautiful baby flashed through my mind. Maybe I would give it a chance. “I am a very nice person,” I said to myself emphatically.
What followed was the Black Gap High School morning ritual. It went like this: first you perched on the fence for a while and watched other people strolling by. Then you strolled by the others while they perched and watched you. Sometimes you stopped to chat while you were strolling. The boys stayed perched in clusters here and there, but they could stroll, too, if they wanted.
Strolling and perching went on for a while, then all too soon the bell rang and it was time for homeroom. Bobby Lynn and Rosemary were in two of my other classes—English and history. I hadn’t even noticed them the day before. Sixth period, I went flying up the stairs with my clarinet knocking against my knees. I opened the door to the band room, and there he was!
Mr. Gillespie looked right at me and said, “Hello.”
I swallowed hard.
The music he handed out was “The Thunderer,” and he walked in front of me, close enough that I could have reached out and touched one of his arms if I had wanted real bad to make a fool of myself.
Playing with the high school band for the first time thrilled me right down to my toes. There was a rich vibrant energy that I had never felt when I played with the beginners’ band. Bobby Lynn and Rosemary felt it, too, and we played from the heart. Mr. Gillespie grinned like a pleased pup.
“I’ll have to say it,” he said when we finished “The Thunderer.” “That was wonderful. I never expected you to be so good.”
Even the seasoned upperclassmen bubbled over with pride and joy.
“He didn’t know hillbillies could play like that,” Jimmy Ted O’Quinn, always the clown, bellowed.
We all laughed. It was a special moment.
“Well, I must be in hillbilly heaven!” Mr. Gillespie responded. “Again! From the top!”
And he raised those arms.
Bobby Lynn, Rosemary, and I played the third and fourth clarinet parts while the upperclassmen played first and second. I decided I was going to be the best clarinet player Mr. Gillespie had ever heard. I planned to practice an hour a day, and two hours a day on weekends. My goal was to move up to first chair in one year.
I got my band uniform after school and carried it home on the bus. It was royal blue with a gold stripe up the leg and gold braids on the shoulders. Everybody on the bus had to admire and touch it, and at home the kids couldn’t keep their grimy hands to themselves. So I hid my uniform way back in the closet.
I went outside to see Nessie, and she was waiting for me with her long bushy tail swishing, and her beautiful face pushed against the wire fence. I sat and told her all about my day at school. She was a good listener.
It was after six when Vern came home in his loud and obnoxious stage. He yelled up the stairs for Mama to come down; he had something to tell her. Beau, Luther, Phyllis, and I gathered around the kitchen table, silent and expectant. Mama appeared in her ratty housecoat, her brown hair standing straight up and her eyes all puffy from sleep. She looked awful.
“It’s Maw,” Vern said. “She’s real bad off, and she wants to see the young’uns.”
“Oh,” Mama said.
“So git your clothes on!” Vern yelled. “And let’s go.”
“Can’t she wait till tomorrow?”
That was a silly question and everybody knew it. When Vern’s mama wanted something, she wanted it right now. She was always threatening to die on us, and she almost did die during the summer. We couldn’t afford to take her threats lightly.
“Just get dressed, and shut up!” Vern said.
Mama was aggravated. I could tell she would rather be skinned alive than go see Maw Mullins, but she said nothing. She went up to her bedroom.
Vern turned to me.
“Tiny, you stay here and fix supper.”
I knew that was coming. Maw Mullins never wanted me near her. I had four counts against me: (1) I was illegitimate; (2) I was female; (3) I was a Lambert; and (4) I had none of her blood in me. I was useless. But I didn’t care. I never did like Maw Mullins, and I felt sorry for Beau and Luther the way she drooled over them. They didn’t like her either. She didn’t have much use for Phyllis because she was not a boy.
Mama came back in an almost clean dress, and her hair was plastered down.
“Just fry some taters, Tiny, and heat up the ham,” she said to me. “There’s corn bread in the Frigidaire.”
Mama was always putting things in the refrigerator to keep the bugs out of them.
“We’ll be back directly,” she said.
The kids didn’t even pretend to wash their faces or comb their hair, and nobody seemed to notice. They were barefooted, too, and it was getting nippy outside, but nobody noticed that either. They all piled in the pickup, ready to drive to Loggy Bottom, about sixteen miles up the river. I stood in the doorway trying to look solemn until they were out of sight. I was glad to be rid of them.
I took my clarinet into the kitchen and started my hour of practice. I squeaked a lot because my reed was bad, and I got tired of practicing real quick. After only twenty minutes I was making excuses for not practicing anymore, and I quit.
I went out on the porch and sat in the swing. The light was leaving the holler fast, but I could still see the road winding between the hills up toward Ruby Mountain.
Our neighbors were having supper. I could smell cabbage and pork, and somebody was frying onions. I could hear Cecil laughing, and his little sisters were squealing. I could hear spoons clanging against dishes.
Suddenly I thought about how much my life had changed in just two days. I was in love with Mr. Gillespie and I was a member of the high school band with a uniform and everything. I had two friends, and two pairs of school shoes, and we were getting a telephone.
This is nice, too, I thought, just sitting here in the twilight by myself and listening and smelling good smells.
I began to sing:
Come home, come home, it’s supper time,
The shadows lengthen fast.
Come home, come home, it’s supper time,
We’re going home at last.
I sang about ten more songs, enjoying myself immensely. After a while I went in to fix supper, still singing. I peeled and fried the potatoes and set the ham and corn bread in the oven, but I wouldn’t turn on the heat until everybody came home. I decided to open a can of peaches for dessert. Then all I could do was wait. I sat down at the kitchen table, propped my history book in front of me, and started studying. But I couldn’t keep Mr. Gillespie out of my head.
We are coming up the holler in Mr. Gillespie’s car —a red Chevy convertible. His coat is all wrapped around me and it smells like Old Spice. Suddenly, bam! Blowout. I am thrown against him. We can travel no farther.
“Oh, my dear,” he says to me. “Forgive me for placing you in this trying predicament.”
I turn to him slowly and the moonlight …
My face settled onto my history book as I drifted away.
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