Lost in Clover (2 page)

4. DIRECTIONS

After the scrawny pig was devoured and more beers knocked back, the rhetoric escalated. It seemed that Crazy Eddie had given everybody their lot in life. All personal failures were accounted for by a fifteen-year-old giant. Everybody had a grievance against Crazy Eddie whether they had met him or not, and now was the time to take care of the situation. Beer cans were crushed, and new ones opened. Voices grew louder and more impassioned.

Buzzed, Jeremy enjoyed the anger. Crazy Eddie had this coming. He had never apologized for the tackle, and he had refused eye contact for the rest of the school year. Jeremy felt he knew Crazy Eddie better than anybody else at the barbeque. He’d been to the Coopers’ property years ago and witnessed the awful conditions Crazy Eddie and his sisters endured. It could drive anybody nuts. Jeremy had tried to be nice to him, but stopped after the concussion. It didn’t matter—Crazy Eddie disdained the world and everybody in it.

After the last case of beer had been finished, somebody brought out a baseball bat, and then a couple of two-by-fours were pulled from under a trailer.

“Let’s do this thing!” Randy shouted, swinging the two-by-four. “I’m serious.”

The voices blended into a soup of noise and emotion in Jeremy’s mind. “Crazy Eddie Cooper’s going down.” “I’ll open a can of whoop-ass on him.” “Going kick that boy’s ass.” “I’m sayin’ it’s us or him, you know.” He didn’t know who was saying what anymore. He finished his fourth beer and shouted in agreement.

Then Jeremy heard truck ignitions start and found himself squeezed in the cab of a truck with Randy and two other foul-smelling dudes heading down the highway towards the Coopers’ property. Jeremy, bewildered and enthused at the beginning, began to feel an ache grow in his belly. The beers were having an effect on his usually teetotaled body, but there was something more. Cooper, as big as he was, would be slaughtered if these guys didn’t back down. It was an ambush of overwhelming and unfair power.

While flying at 70 mph down a rural road, Kevin, in the lead truck, leaned out his window and gave out a long howl, like a coyote caught in an electric fence. Everybody in Jeremy’s truck shouted and the truck behind them honked and flashed their lights. This was a football team ready to storm the field, rebels charging the Union line. The caravan drove for a few minutes longer, and then Kevin pulled over.

Though the windows were open in the cab of the truck, Jeremy felt overheated and nauseated. Kevin walked over and stuck his head inside.

“I think we passed it. Not sure. Any of ya’ll been to Crazy Cooper’s?”

Jeremy bit his lip, not wanting to say anything. Kevin walked to the other truck, asking the same question. Jeremy’s mind reeled back to the third grade, the one and only time he had visited Crazy Eddie’s property. It seemed like a forgotten dream.

“Nobody knows where. Really?” Kevin leaned inside the window again, his breath reeking of alcohol. He looked directly at Jeremy. “Rogers, don’t you know him?”

“Yeah, I think it’s a couple miles up,” Jeremy said, coming back to the present. “You’ll see a row of mailboxes on the right.” He stopped; he didn’t want to say any more.

“Which house is it? I’d hate for us to knock on the wrong door and scare some old lady.”

The three guys in the cab laughed. Jeremy swallowed, trying to keep the information inside. But the intense stares, the heat, the odors, and the anticipation of those guys wanting to confront Crazy Eddie was too much. He tried to keep his mouth shut, but words came out.

“It’s…it’s down the dirt road for another mile or so. The Cooper house is the last one… Where the road ends.”

“Alright. I knew somebody had been there. Let’s do this thing.”

Kevin let out a holler. Randy and the others shouted as well. The noise inside the cab was deafening.

5. LITTLE EDDIE

As the caravan sped up, Jeremy vividly recalled his only visit to Crazy Eddie’s house. It was Eddie’s ninth birthday party, and Jeremy didn’t know how many third grade classmates were invited, but he knew some parents weren’t allowing their children to go. He had sat in the passenger seat looking out the window at passing decayed houses surrounded by scraggly-yellowed weeds while his mother, Gail, navigated through a treacherous potholed dirt road. She wanted to turn around as soon as they entered the Coopers’ property. The house had exposed tarpaper walls and mismatched shingles on the roof. It looked worse than anything they had passed on the way. There were at least five malnourished dogs on chains that barked incessantly. Tractors, cars, and appliances were dismantled and rusting to varying degrees all over the property.

Gail pulled to a stop and sighed. “Well, you’re a good Christian boy by being friends with the less fortunate.” She looked at him with wary eyes as if telling him it would be okay to go back home. Jeremy smiled, crawling out the seat with a present in hand. “I’ll be back a little early to pick you up. Okay?”

“Sure,” Jeremy said, shutting the door.

The dogs strained against the chains, snarling at Jeremy who clenched his teeth, trying not shiver. He had been told that you never want a dog to know you are afraid of it. He walked up to the filthy screen door and peered inside. It was dark, but he heard a television.

“Come on in,” a woman yelled from inside.

Jeremy waved to his mother who was still watching from her car. She nodded and slowly crept down the road. He pulled open the screen door and found Eddie sitting in a Camaro bucket seat in front of the TV. He stared absently at static-ridden cartoons on a rabbit eared TV with the volume cranked up. He didn’t acknowledge Jeremy at all. His classmates Carrie Ward and Michael Gross sat on a Buick vinyl bench against the wall, looking confused. The living room had torn lime green carpet and water-stained walls with more car seats spread around.

“Hello,” Jeremy said.

“Hey,” Carrie said with a nervous smile.

Jeremy sat between them.

“What’s happening?”

“We’re just sitting here. Eddie hasn’t said anything to us,” Michael said.

Jeremy looked at Eddie who hadn’t moved his head an inch since he arrived. Just staring at the TV. Weird.

Jeremy looked at Carrie, who shrugged. He had known her since kindergarten. She was athletic, smart, and always cheerful with a big smile. If Jeremy had to marry anybody from Clover, he hoped it would be her. Michael was a new student from Denver. He didn’t have many friends, though he tried. His problem was that he was too different: his clothes were the expensive name brands you couldn’t buy at Walmart, his parents both drove Mercedes Benzes, and he was too direct, saying whatever he felt. And Eddie, who didn’t have the moniker Crazy yet, was taller than anybody else his age and was usually quiet. Most kids didn’t play with him at recess because there was a high probability of getting hurt.

“He hasn’t said nothing at all?” Jeremy asked. Both Michael and Carrie nodded. “Hey Eddie, how is it going?”

Eddie didn’t turn around. Michael and Carrie shrugged.

“He’s upset cause of Daddy,” a voice whispered. They turned to see a short kindergarten girl with patches on her pants and pigtailed blond hair. She had crawled to the edge of the seat from a darkened hallway. She put a finger to her lips. “Don’t say anything to Eddie or he might flip his lid.”

So they sat with the girl, Ashley, laying by their feet, watching cartoons until Eddie’s mother, bony and tall, strode into the room and turned off the television. She wore a short sleeveless dress with a grimy apron over it. She had bruises on her arms and what looked like swelling on her cheek.

“Why don’t ya’ll come into the kitchen and have some cake,” she said with a forced smile.

They filed behind Eddie and sat at a plywood table around a lopsided cake with four candles and smeared white icing. Two more sisters appeared and sat at the table without a word.

“You’re only four years old,” Michael said, laughing.

Jeremy smiled, but didn’t laugh. He could tell something was amiss as Eddie shot him a glare and his sisters dropped their eyes.

“Hey, it’s all the candles I could find and cigarettes would be too hard for Eddie to blow out. So why don’t you just shut your trap,” Eddie’s mother said with a dead serious face. “Not everybody is loaded with money in this world.”

Michael looked stunned, and Carrie and Jeremy glanced at each other in shock. Eddie’s intense eyes narrowed at Michael, as if he wanted to kick his butt right there.

Eddie’s mother walked around the table and bopped the top of Eddie’s head. “Why don’t you blow out the candles? You don’t want this house to catch on fire, do you?”

“Shouldn’t we sing happy birthday?” Carrie asked.

Eddie blew out the candles before anybody could start. The smoke wafted slowly to the top of the ceiling. For a moment it seemed everybody at the table was watching the slow, eddying gymnastics of the white apparition.

“Let’s eat up. I didn’t slave away like a nigger over this cake for nothing” Mrs. Cooper said.

One of Eddie’s sisters laughed, but Jeremy felt as if he had been slapped in the face. That was a word you never said, ever.

Even though Jeremy thought the cake was too dry and the icing was lumpy, he ate three slices. It was still sweet, and it passed the time as everybody sat quietly. Eddie smiled for the first time when he opened his gifts: a pack of Hot Wheels from Jeremy, a superhero action figure from Michael, and a Kansas City Chiefs hat from Carrie. His sisters looked on in envy.

“Thanks,” Eddie said to nobody in particular.

Jeremy sensed Eddie’s mother was annoyed at something.

“Daddy should be along with your present some time today. Why don’t you get back to watching your kiddy shows?”

But it was the early afternoon, and only sports were on the airwaves. So they watched golf through the electronic snow. Eddie played with the Spider-Man action hero while his sisters watched like hungry wolves. Wynona, the second oldest girl, reached out to take one of the new Hot Wheels, but Eddie grabbed her hand.

“Ouch, you’re hurting me, Eddie.”

“Then don’t touch what ain’t yours. Got it?”

She nodded, and he released her hand.

Jeremy and Carrie looked at each other, shaking their heads slightly.

“What are you two doing?” Eddie asked.

“What?” Jeremy asked innocently.

“You looked at Carrie like you we’re saying something about me that wasn’t nice.”

Jeremy glanced at Carrie’s concerned face and then back to Eddie. “I didn’t say nothing, Eddie.”

“If you don’t like being here, then you can get the hell on outta here, ain’t that right, ma?”

“What’s that?” she called from the kitchen.

“If anybody thinks they are better than me they can shove it up where the sun don’t shine.”

Eddie’s mother walked in with a cigarette between her fingers.

“Yep. You grab ’em by the back of the ears and tell ’em to hit the road Jack. And don’t you let the door hit your ass on the way out.”

The girls laughed, and Eddie smiled for the second time. This time it was a more empowered, satisfied grin.

“Your guests are giving you some trouble then, son?” Mrs. Cooper said, focusing a pair of accusing eyes on them.

“They’re thinking they’re better than me and this family,” Eddie said, imitating his mother’s glare.

Jeremy, Carrie, and Michael looked at each other, flushing red.

“I haven’t said one word against you or your family, Eddie,” Michael said. “That’s just a lie.”

“But you’re thinking it.”

“Oh yeah, this one is a little shit, I can tell. You’re the worst of them,” Mrs. Cooper said, pointing at Michael with her cigarette. “You all can just pack up and leave. Just go on out the door and follow the dirt road to the highway.”

“That’s several miles,” Michael said.

“Our parents don’t get here for another two hours!” Carrie said, her voice breaking on the edge of a sob.

“I knew I scheduled this party for too long.” Mrs. Cooper shook her head. “Won’t be doing this again.”

At that moment a rusted truck careened into the front yard and braked to a skidding halt with a wide trail of dust following it. The dogs went nuts outside yelping. Jeremy felt the room grow even tenser. It was quiet for several seconds before Mrs. Cooper broke the silence.

“Look what the cat drug in.”

“Should we go to our room?” Ashley asked with wide eyes.

“Not sure yet, hon,” Mrs. Cooper said. “Let’s see the state he’s in.”

All eyes looked outside the screen door, waiting for the man inside the truck to step out. He seemed to be nodding and talking to himself.

“He’s in a bad way, looks like,” the eldest, Naomi, said. She was a fifth grader.

The rusty truck door creaked open. One worn boot, slowly followed by another, hit the ground. A tall, lean man wearing a filthy Royals ball cap and flannel shirt, half tucked in, stood by the door of the truck, holding on to the side for support. His knees shook slightly. He reached into the truck bed and grabbed hold of something.

“Come here, son. I got something to show you,” he shouted at the house.

Eddie looked at his mother, who shrugged. He walked to the door cautiously, while nervously twisting the Spider-Man action figure.

“What is it?” he called.

“Come on out here and take a look.”

Eddie hesitated.

“Go on out there,” Mrs. Cooper said, shooing him with one hand while taking a drag on a cigarette with the other. “You don’t want to piss him off.”

Eddie stepped outside. His sisters surrounded the screen door as if anticipating a fireworks show.

“What’s happening?” Carrie asked Jeremy.

“I don’t know,” he whispered back.

Eddie shuffled up to the truck.

“Yeah?”

“I got you something?”

“What is it?”

Mr. Cooper pulled out a compound bow with a quiver full of arrows. Eddie stood only a few inches taller than the bow.

“You can shoot deer with me during bow season now.”

“That’s awesome,” Eddie said with pure delight. Jeremy had never seen that expression on Eddie’s face.

“What’s that?”