Bluefish (13 page)

Travis peeled off his damp sweatshirt and tied it around his waist. A couple of potato trucks passed, loaded to the top. He'd just passed the county line when the pickup pulled over on the opposite shoulder.

"Get in," Grandpa called out the window.

Travis kept walking.

"You've got maybe fourteen miles to go. Give or take.

And you'll never find it if I don't show you. Get in."

Grandpa puttered along in the gravel, matching his speed.

"God, you're a stubborn shit."

He stopped, got out, slammed the truck door, and crossed the road. He didn't light up. He just walked alongside, keeping pace, even though Travis was going at a good clip.

"Look, I know I knocked you off your pins this morning. I'm sorry."

Travis had never heard those words out of Grandpa's mouth.

"Get in the truck and I'll take you there, right now."

Travis's feet hurt, especially his right heel. He felt like the skin might rot off if he didn't get it dry.

"Please? Get in the truck? I brought a sandwich along in case I found you."

Please? He'd never heard that word before, either.

Travis made a sharp right, cutting Grandpa off. He crossed the road and walked back toward the truck. The lighter flicked behind him as Grandpa lit up. Travis got in the truck, took off his shoes, and peeled off his wet socks. The muscles in his legs twitched and quivered.

Grandpa came along, walking slowly now, dragging on his cigarette. Finally he got in and started the engine without a word. Travis grabbed the peanut-butter sandwich. Rammed it down and wished for some water, but not enough to say anything out loud. No sound in the truck but the tires on the road and sometimes the blinker.

Everything sparkled from the rain. That storm had washed out the last of summer, and now it was really fall.

The leaves showed patches and runs of color. Sharp reds and bright yellows, breathing through the green.

The roads started to turn familiar, the ones Travis had ridden on the school bus for eight years. A couple of miles from the old place, Grandpa turned onto a dirt two- track with a line of trees on one side and a cornfield on the other.

The corn had been cut, and the chopped- off stalks poked up out of the dirt, stretching in a wide pattern of yellow and brown. All dead. Grandpa stopped the truck.

"Look," he said. "You know I loved that hound, right?

You don't really think I did that on purpose."

One time when Travis got up in the night, Grandpa had been sitting on the floor with his arms around Rosco, saying how much he loved him. He was sloppy drunk, but still. He never said that to Travis, drunk or sober. And as much as Rosco had loved Travis, it was Grandpa he obeyed.

Travis put his shoes back on with no socks, pulled on his sweatshirt, and got out of the truck. The birch and aspen alongside the field were on their way to yellow, and the patch of sumac had gone completely red. The leaves rustled and rattled in the wind.

"There's the spot." Grandpa pointed.

The dirt was still in clods, not settled. No grass growing. A big rock sat in the middle of the fresh dirt. Big enough that Travis wasn't sure he could lift it.

Must have been hard for Grandpa to move.

Travis walked over to the grave.

"You want some time alone here?" asked Grandpa.

He nodded, and Grandpa got in the truck and backed out the two- track. Travis didn't have any more tears in him, just the big empty hole.

Somewhere under the rock and the dirt were those long, soft ears. Travis used to put them across his face, the way Velveeta did with her scarves.

He missed the smell, the dog hair on his clothes, and Rosco's deep row- wow bark. Most of all, he missed the way Rosco acted every day when he got home.

Like nothing better in the world than Travis Roberts could come out of that school bus.

He knelt down and drew in the dirt. He outlined a hound like the one at the beginning of chapter two.

"I miss you, buddy," he said. "So much."

He'd been there just long enough to get chilly when the truck came bouncing back. The sad was all over

Travis, inside and out, and it drowned out any mad he had left. Grandpa came over and sat down on the other side of the grave.

"Funny how this goose egg makes me feel better," he said after a while, touching his jaw. "Guess I felt like I needed to be whupped for what I did. I thought you were going to do it that day on the steps."

"I didn't touch you that day."

"Maybe not, but it felt that way. Lying there in the dirt, I had that AA moment of clarity thing. The one where you know the jig is up. Quitting time."

So that was it. That's why everything started changing that day. AA meetings and moving. If Travis had known Rosco was dead, the moving would have been different. If he'd known Grandpa did it ... Well, who knows?

"It's harder than I thought," said Grandpa. "I figured once I detoxed, it'd be cake, but then it got harder in a different way. Guess I started feeling sorry for myself, and that's poison in the head. I'd be drinking now if you hadn't clobbered me."

"That's not why I did it," said Travis.

"I know. Doesn't matter. Same result. Travis, I swear to Christ Jesus I want to do right by you. Better than I did with your dad, anyway."

Grandpa's face sagged into tired wrinkles. Like an upside- down clown face.

"Did he drive into that tree on purpose?" Travis asked.

"I don't know. I've asked myself that a few times."

"Because of me?"

"Good God, is that what you think?" said Grandpa.

"You're the only thing that mattered to him after your mama died. Never saw anyone love a kid like he loved you."

"Not enough to stay."

The words hung out there, vibrating. The breeze came through and knocked a few yellow leaves down.

"It's not that," said Grandpa finally. "The booze had him by the throat, same as me. It twists everything. Makes it all somebody else's fault."

Travis rolled a sharp pebble against his thumb, pressing hard so it hurt.

"Rosco's my fault," he said. "If I'd taken him, he wouldn't be dead."

"No!" Grandpa barked. "Shut up with that. Not your fault."

Travis rolled the pebble harder, making a dent- trail in his skin.

"This is, though." Grandpa tapped his chin. "Lucky I don't have a glass jaw, or you'd've shattered me all over the kitchen floor. You can't go around hitting people like that."

"I know," said Travis.

"I mean, if you have to, it's okay. But you can't just do it because you feel like it."

"I know."

Travis poked the pebble into the dirt on the edge of the grave, pressing it in deep. The wind came colder through the cornstalks, and the sun dipped behind a cloud.

"Okay." Grandpa pushed himself up. "I gotta move before my knees rust so bad I can't get up again."

Travis waited until Grandpa was in the truck with the door closed. He ran his palm across the grave, smoothing over the hound drawing and the pebble hole.

Then he stood and walked back to the truck. He hunched against the wind, his hands jammed in his pockets. Rosco was under there, under the dirt.

Never coming back.

Everything was different now.

Banished on WEDNESDAY

After school I told Connie about getting banished, and the way she looked at me, my eyes got wet. Especially when I told her my scarves were in there. She handed me a Kleenex and said I should ask for them and maybe I could apologize for trespassing.

I told her Sylvia would kill me and stuff my body in a rental truck, and then she'd have to get a new library lackey.

On the way home, I practiced saying I was sorry and please give me the scarves.

Sylvia opened the door just as I put my foot on the bottom step and everything I'd practiced saying melted out of my brain. I just stood there on the doorstep, half chokey and pathetic. I thought I might throw up. She stepped back and told me to come in. I didn't want to, but I wanted the scarves.

We stood there toetotoe in your kitchen, and she started slugging lawyer questions at me like we were in a courtroom, only there wasn't anyone on my side to object.

"What did you have to do withmy father?"

"He kind of watched out for me."

"He was your babysitter?"

"Nobody paid him."

"Did you know he had a daughter?"

"Yes."

"What did he say about me?"

"Th at he was a bad dad and you won't forgive him for it."

"He said that?"

"More than once."

"He was."

"Not to me."

She almost rocked over backward when I said that, like I'd smacked her hard.

But she came back with her voice slicey- sharp.

"I think you should go now. Where do you live?"

"Next door. I come here sometimes because I miss him."

She leaned against the wall then, staring at me. I stared back. I figured if it was a stare- down, I'm good at that. I stared and she stared and neither of us blinked for a long time.

"What is it that you want from me?"

"I want the scarves. He gave them to me - they're mine."

"Why would he give you my mother's scarves?"

I stared at her without any words like I was Travis. She turned her back on me and looked out the window like I wasn't worth beating in a stare down.

"Go home."

"What about my scarves?"

"He didn't put anything in writing. You could be lying for all I know."

"But I'm not. He was right when he said you've got a mean streak."

"Get out of here before I call the cops."

I hate her.

A few kids were scattered around the lunchroom, eating breakfast, but Velveeta wasn't there. Travis wandered past her locker a few times.

Maybe she was still mad at him for walking out on her at the library Monday.

That seemed so long ago now.

She didn't show up first period, either. Where could she be? Something must be wrong. He kept Haunt Fox tucked inside one of his textbooks and worked on it all morning. He went over and over the words he knew and circled the unknown ones farther ahead.

"Hey, Travis." Bradley came up behind him in the lunch line. "Where's Velveeta?"

"How should I know?" Travis pulled away. "Ask her yourself."

"I can' t - she's not here."

Travis got his food and sat at the usual table, kitty-corner from Amber and her book. He pulled out Haunt Fox. Amber's eyes roved back and forth over the pages quickly, and she flipped a page. Travis tried to move his eyes fast over the first line, but he lost words.

He was headed back to his locker after lunch when Chad Cormick shouldered up next to him.

"Hey, Roberts, want to fight me?" he asked.

He nudged Travis, then danced back, both fists up, grinning.

"No."

"Yeah, you do. Come on, show me how it's done."

He tapped Travis on the shoulder again, fake- punched toward his head, and kept his feet dancing. Travis turned away, and Chad danced around in front of him.

"Come on, dude! Why you gotta be so like that?" He pointed at his chin. "Right here, come on, just one."

Travis shifted the book to his left hand, brought his fist up, and dinked Chad on the jaw. Hard, but not mean.

Chad twirled, fell to the floor, and popped back up.

"Check it - you didn't even put your book down to deck me. Roberts, you are the moolio."

He lightly slapped Travis on the side of the head, hopped backward, and spun away. Like a fox puppy, bouncing down the hall. Velveeta would have loved that.

Where was she, anyway?

After the last bell, Travis poked his head into Room 134. Grandpa had gotten a letter from school about parent-teacher conferences. He'd never gone to one before, but he'd been talking as if he might actually do it.

"What's on your mind?" asked McQueen.

"What do you tell parents at conferences?"

"We go over your work and your grades on assignments and talk about any problems or anything that's going especially well. Why? Is there something you do or don't want me to tell your parents?"

"My grandpa," said Travis. "If he comes. He might not. But if he does. He doesn't know, you know."

"Doesn't know you have trouble reading?"

"Not exactly."

"And you don't want him to know?" McQueen raised his eyebrows to the ceiling.

"Well, I want him to know I'm doing good. If he comes."

"I'll tell him you're doing well, that you're one of my best students. I won't go into specific detail about the work unless he asks. But if he asks, I'll answer every question honestly. How's that?"

"That's good."

Travis pushed out the double doors and into the cold breeze. One of my best students. The sky was sunny- sharp blue, and leaves skittered along the sidewalk. A good day to lie on the merry- go- round and watch the trees spin.

Travis headed for the park but stopped short in the alley.

Hard, mean laughter smacked out from a huddle by the slide. He flattened against the building and peeked around the corner. Three of the guys from the picnic table had Bradley backed against the ladder. The tall guy with long dark hair - Maddox? - laughed again. Chilson said something in a low voice, and Travis caught a glimpse of Bradley's face. He was scared half to death, actually crying.

He'd been nice to Travis in the locker room, didn't even say a word about it later. And anyway, three on one was too much for anyone.

Especially Bradley. Travis dropped his backpack off of his shoulder and pushed away from the building.

"Whistler!" he yelled.

"Look, Chilson," said Maddox. "It's Skinny boy from the bridge! What you want, Skinny boy?"

Travis pushed through and grabbed Bradley by the front of his jacket, jerking him away from the slide.

Bradley was so startled, he almost fell over, but Travis hauled him upright and gave him a hard shove.

"Did you think I was kidding?" yelled Travis. "Pay up or I'll kill you."

"Oh look," said Chilson. "Bradley's popular today.

What do you want with him, Skinny boy?"