A Fine Dark Line (4 page)

Aware of my pondering, Daddy said, “I just want you to know I haven’t got a thing against Rosy Mae.”

I thought, other than her being a nigger. I went in the
house, upstairs, lay on my bed and felt . . . odd. I don’t know any other way to describe it. The information I received that day had struck me like a bullet, and it felt like a ricochet, meant for Rosy, received by me.

———

I
HAD LEFT
the door open, and while I was lying on the bed, Nub wandered in, jumped up next to me. Shortly thereafter, Callie came to the door. After the balloon incident, Daddy and Mom had swapped rooms with her, moving her upstairs, next door to me.

Callie was barefoot, had her hair in a ponytail, was wearing pink pedal pushers and a white, oversized man’s shirt. Like most girls that age, she wore too much perfume. For that matter, three years later, I would wear too much cologne.

She leaned against the door frame, said, “Mom catches you with your shoes in the bed, and that dog, there’s going to be some trouble.”

“You ought to know about trouble,” I said. “And she doesn’t care about Nub. She lets Nub in their bed.”

“Maybe she does, but you don’t know a thing about me being in trouble, Stanley Mitchel, Jr. Not a thing. I didn’t do anything. Now I’m grounded at the best time of my life. I’m supposed to be having fun.”

“You aren’t supposed to have those balloons in your room.”

I rolled my head to look at Callie, saw that she had turned red.

“I’ll have you know that it isn’t what you think.”

I wasn’t sure what to think, but I didn’t give away my ignorance. I said, “Yeah, whatever you say.”

“Jane Jersey dropped that through my window . . . Well, at
least I think she did. Someone mean that likes Chester and doesn’t want us to be together and wants to give me a bad reputation. Jane Jersey already has a bad reputation. Not to mention an ugly hairdo. You could hide a watermelon in that hair of hers. Actually, it looks like one of those wire fish traps.”

“Why would you like Chester? He’s creepy. He looks like a spaceman. I think I saw him in
Invasion of the Saucer Men
. He was the little monster on the left.”

“You’re just mean, Stanley.”

“And you’re telling me Jane Jersey came by and slipped that balloon in your window on a stick? I’m supposed to buy that?”

“Most of the girls I get along with, but a few are jealous. Jane is the most jealous. She used to go with Chester. I didn’t break them up, though. They were already broke up. I met him at the Dairy Queen and we hit it off. It’s nothing serious. He’s just kind of fun. Different. Jane’s been ugly to me because of it. Always frowning, telling me to leave her boyfriend alone. Her putting that rubber—”

“Rubber?”

“That’s what the balloon is called, Stanley. It’s not called a balloon. Politely, it’s called a prophylactic. But her putting that in my room, or having one of her friends do it, that’s just mean. I don’t really know she meant Mom or Daddy to find it, but I think she wanted to show me she was getting what she thought I was getting. But I’m not. And if I was, I’d be smart enough to pick it up and get rid of it. And if Chester is getting what she says he’s getting, I don’t want any part of him.”

I finally gave in. “And what is she getting that you’re not?”

“Do what?”

“Jane Jersey. You said she wanted to show you she was getting what she thinks you’re getting. What were you and her getting?”

Callie closed the door. “You really don’t know about this, do you, Stanley?”

“I got some idea.”

“No you don’t. You keep calling it a balloon.”

“Well it is a balloon. Kinda.”

Callie laughed. “You don’t have a clue.”

“Well, I know Daddy’s real mad. I know that much.”

Callie sat down on the end of the bed. “Daddy’s wrong. I think he knows he’s wrong. He’s just waiting to be sure.”

“Waiting for what?”

“To see if I come up pregnant. To see if there was a leak.”

“Pregnant? A leak in what?”

I know it’s amazing, but I actually had no idea how pregnancy occurred. It just wasn’t talked about then by parents or in polite society.

Callie, however, was versed in all this, and was not as skittish about it as Mom and Daddy. She said, “You want to know how a girl gets pregnant?”

“I guess.”

“Well first, let me straighten you out on something. I’m not getting anything from anybody . . . Remember that part. You know those dogs out in the yard? The ones Daddy turned the hose on?”

“The ones with their butts hung?”

“Their butts weren’t hung,” Callie said. “The boy dog had turned, and that put them rear end to rear end, but it was his thing that was hung.”

“His thing?”

“That’s right. His doodle.”

“In her butt?”

“In her pee-pee.”

I was growing very uncomfortable.

“Let me explain it to you,” Callie said.

When she finished, I was amazed. “People do that?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because it feels good. Or so I’m told.”

“Does it feel good with one of those balloons on? Is that what makes it feel good?”

“I wouldn’t know if it felt good with one or without one.”

“Ooooh, you and greasy Chester?”

“I didn’t do anything. Let me tell you something, Stanley. I don’t really like Chester that much. I mean, I like him, but not that way. He’s a little on the stupid side. I like riding around in his car, but to tell the truth, I like Drew Cleves.”

“Never heard of him.”

“He’s quite the big dog at the high school. He’s a year ahead of me. He’s handsome. On the football team. Very popular. Of course, I hate football. Even if I want to be a cheerleader.”

“You haven’t even started to school and you know all that?”

“Yes. Unlike you, I’m not obnoxious. People like me. Well, most of them. I guess I’d have to mark Jane Jersey off the list.”

Since Callie was so forthcoming with information, I thought I’d slip in a question that had been bothering me.

“Callie?”

“Yeah.”

“Daddy says Rosy Mae is a nigger. Is she?”

“That’s a terrible word,” Callie said. “Mom says never to use it. Daddy shouldn’t say it. Rosy Mae is a Negro. Or colored.”

“He says we shouldn’t be around Rosy Mae unless she’s working here.”

“It shouldn’t be that way, Stanley, but I guess it is. I haven’t
a thing against coloreds, but I doubt I’d be very popular hanging around Negroes.”

“Is that why they don’t go to our school? Because they’re niggers?”

“Stanley, I’m going to spank you myself if you say that terrible word again. Coloreds do not like being called niggers. I may not be brave enough to spend time with Negroes, but I know it’s wrong, and I know calling them nigger is wrong. And you should too. The world just hasn’t caught up with the way we ought to be treating people, Stanley . . . What’s that?”

“What’s what?”

“That rusty old box poking out from under your bed.”

“I found it.”

Callie pulled the box out. “What’s in it?”

“Just some letters.”

“Where did you find it?”

Callie opened the box.

“It was buried in the backyard. Me and Nub found it.”

“Buried? Wow.”

I sat on the edge of the bed and watched Callie take out the bag, remove the letters, and untie the ribbon.

“Those are mine,” I said.

“They belong to whoever wrote them. You just found them, you little goober.”

“They’re just love letters.”

Callie read the first letter. When she finished, there were tears in her eyes. “That is so sweet.”

“I thought it was mushy.”

“It’s very sweet. And so old-fashioned. Did you see the date?”

I shook my head.

“It was written during the war. First year of it.”

“That’s a long time ago.”

“I was born during the war. Nineteen forty-two. So it’s not so long ago. It reads like a woman writing to her lover.”

“You saying a guy kept those letters?”

“Well, it reads that way. I suppose they could be letters from a guy to a girl. Initials are used. M to J, so I don’t know for sure. Maybe if I read more.”

“How did it end up buried out there?”

“I don’t know.”

Callie pulled out another envelope, removed a letter. “It’s signed M as well. I guess it was a pet thing with them. Just using the initials. Did you notice there are no stamps or addresses on the envelopes?”

“What does that mean?”

“To me it means these were probably not mailed, but hand-delivered.”

Callie began looking through the entire bundle. “Hey, not all of these are letters. Just the top four. The rest of these are torn-out journal pages, written on the back and front. And written crosswise too.”

“Crosswise.”

“They are written the way you normally write, front and back, then the pages are turned and written across. See?”

I took a look. Sure enough. I said, “How can you read something like that?”

“People used to do this to save paper, especially way back. You get used to reading it, I suppose. Where exactly did you find this?”

I told her.

“Let’s go look.”

I didn’t have anything else to do, so I agreed. Callie put the letters and the journal pages back, pushed the box under the bed.

She put on shoes and we went outside. Out back I showed
her where I had found the box. Nub dug at the hole as if something might still be in it, then quit suddenly, charged into the woods, after who knows what.

Shortly thereafter, we heard Nub barking.

I called him, but he didn’t come.

“It is strange that it would be buried right here,” Callie said, “at the edge of the woods . . . Nub, shut up.”

“Don’t talk to Nub like that.”

“He’s giving me a headache.”

I called him again, but he still didn’t come. “Let’s look,” I said.

The woods were thick with pine trees and brambles. It was hard to follow Nub, but shortly we found him. He had his front feet against an old oak, his head thrown back, barking at a squirrel. All you could see of the squirrel was its tail blowing in the breeze.

I grabbed Nub by his collar, pulled him off the tree. His sharp little barks were making my back teeth hurt.

I said, “Hush, Nub.”

“My goodness, Stanley, look.”

I turned, didn’t see anything other than Callie, but as I looked closer, I realized there were some old porch steps half submerged in the earth. Then I saw the outline of a house, a large house.

Looking closer yet, I saw where lumber had rotted and fallen to the ground and was mostly covered with pine straw and oak leaves.

Callie glanced up. “My God.”

I looked. Shredded, rotted lumber hung from limbs like ugly Christmas decorations. There was a window frame with a broken piece of glass still in it, supported by a pine limb. A large piece of the roof frame was up there too. Even a
blackened door where a limb had grown through where the doorknob had been.

Most peculiar was a circular iron staircase that began at the earth between two pines and wound upward to a height of thirty feet, intercepting pine boughs along the way, mixing between the railings until trees and stairs were one.

I examined the rusted stairway, saw that it was not actually touching the ground. It had been lifted several inches from the earth. I took hold of it and tugged.

“Don’t,” Callie said. “You’ll pull it down on your head.”

I climbed up a couple steps. “It’s firm, Callie. I could go all the way to the top.”

“Well, don’t.”

“You think a tornado got the house?”

“I don’t know. This didn’t happen a short time ago, but not a long time ago either. That big oak has been here for no telling how long, but those pines are young. The oak was probably in the side yard, but the pines, they’ve grown up since. Look.”

Callie bent, picked up a fragment of lumber that had been partially hidden under the pine straw.

She handed it to me. It was less than a foot of jagged, blackened board. It crumbled in my hand, leaving my fingers black.

“A fire, Stanley. The house burned down, and pieces of the house were slowly pushed up by the trees as they grew. Isn’t it amazing?”

“It’s creepy.”

“It was a big house, Stanley. I bet this is the center of it. The heart of the house.”

“You mean it was a mansion?”

“Seems that way. If it was, could be the box wasn’t buried at all. But in the fire it dropped through the burning floorboards and in time got covered. Grass grew up around it, water
washed dirt over it. Everything shifted. And there it lay until you and Nub found it.”

Nub had fixed his mind on the squirrel again. It was running along a limb, looking down at Nub, making that peculiar chattering noise they make, slashing with its tail.

Nub managed to run up the slight slant of the oak’s trunk, and was now perched on a low-hanging limb barking at the squirrel.

Callie laughed, said, “Get that fool mutt down from there before he falls on his head.”

I called Nub, but he wouldn’t come. I finally climbed up and got him, swinging by my feet from the limb and handing Nub to Callie. I squirmed back onto the limb and climbed down.

“You’re such a bad dog,” I said, petting Nub on the head.

As we went out of the woods, the squirrel chattered loudly, calling for me to return his playmate.

C
ALLIE WANTED TO EXAMINE
the letters and the journal more closely, but it was almost time for supper, then it would be time to get ready for opening up the drive-in.

Saturday was our biggest night. It was the night Daddy was the most nervous. He took to wringing his hands and drinking baking soda mixed in water for his stomach.

If we had a big Saturday, we sometimes had our money for the week. Everything else, Monday through Friday, was just icing on the cake. But Saturday you had families and dates, the masses turned out to worship the gods on the big white screen.

Since Rosy Mae was off Saturdays, it had become our custom to have TV dinners, or hot dogs, or fried chicken from the concession stand. But this night, perhaps because Mom didn’t want us to forget she could cook when she had to, we had a big dinner of roast ham, bacon-dripped green beans, brown gravy, and mashed potatoes so light and fluffy you could have tossed them skyward and they would have floated like a cloud. It was
as if Mom were trying to compete with Rosy. And as amazing as Mama’s food was, competing against Rosy was like trying to play against a royal flush with a busted flush.