Roseflower Creek (12 page)

    "Why's it hurt so much, Mama? You'd think the pain would get better by now."

    "They gotta peel the dead skin right off a' him, Lori Jean, so they can graft new skin on, honey." Later I heard Mama and Uncle Melvin talking.

    "He don't remember the fire, Melvin. How it got started or nothin'. I think he's lost his mind."

    "Shoot, Nadine. He's out of his head with the pain is all. Once they git them skin grafts all finished, he'll be a new man."

    "I don't know…"

    "He might end up a sober one before it's all over," Melvin said. "There's no liquor in him now."

    "Maybe so, but they got him plumb shot full a' painkillers. I read me somewhere that kin be just as bad."

    "You worry too much, Nadine. You gotta look on the bright side."

    "I guess."

    "I got Jenkins talked into givin' Ray full-time work soon as he's ready."

    "His hands is all burned, Melvin. How's he gonna move them trailers?"

    "They'll heal."

    "Hope you're right. We gotta get our own place, Melvin," Mama said. "With the baby almost here, there's no room for Lori Jean and me. It ain't right, our being in your way."

    "I'm working on that. Jenkins got an old trailer needs work. It'd be right perfect for starters. Set it up right here next to ours," Melvin said. I heared him with my own ears, I did! We was getting us a trailer. Probably nothing fancy like Melvin and Lexie's, but still it'd be ours. I sure hoped Ray'd heal up good, get to work, and show Mr. Jenkins he could pay on that trailer right regular.

    Mama said Ray didn't remember about the fire. I wondered if he remembered about the money. I hoped not. I dragged that sack behind the outhouse before the ambulance come that day. It was still there, buried under as much dirt and scrub brush as I could muster to cover it with, being my hands was all tore up and bleeding from the fire. I was gonna move it to a good hiding spot, soon as I thunk up one. Then I was gonna find a way to get it back to the Scottsdale Cotton Mill clear on over in Decatur. I even had a note all writ up telling them the person who took it near died from pain in a fire and was plumb full of sorrow probably, too, if 'n they could only remember and realize what they done when they was drinking too much whiskey. I asked 'em to forgive him like the Bible says to 'cause he weren't really a crook; he just didn't have no money, so's he took theirs in a weak moment. I told 'em how me and my ma's whole rest of our life depended on it, and we hadn't done nothing so's we'd appreciate it real kindly if they'd forgive the one done it. I didn't sign my name, though. I was a coward for sure. But I reckoned they'd be so glad to have their money back maybe they wouldn't notice or care none.

    I planned to put that note in the money sack and set it outside the back door at night when no one would see me. Trouble is, it was 'least ten miles over and ten miles back, so I had to work me a plan. All during the time my back and hands was healing up I worked on thinking me up a plan, but my brain couldn't think one up. I talked to Carolee at her grave spot even, hoping that would help me, but it didn't.

    I healed up pretty fast. Turned out I weren't hurt real bad from the fire, even though it looked like I was. My hair got burned good and Wanda cut it off 'cause she said I looked like Orphan Annie. I didn't know that girl none, but I felt right sorrowful for her on account of her hair being burnt up like mine and her being a orphan to boot. Now I had me a bowl cut; looked like one a' them boys. If that little orphan girl looked like me, she was one pitiful sight 'cause I looked like the dickens, I'm tellin' ya'.

    The part hurt the worst was my fingers. They was blistered bad, but the nurses fixed them up at the hospital and the doctor bossing them around sent me home that same day. My back got burned some, but that same doctor told me I'd probably not have any scars from it. Fancy that.

    All during that time Mama was plumb wore out worrying about Ray healing up. She was fussing on Lexie and Irl, too. Lexie wan't supposed to be having a hissy fit about anything, her growing the new baby and all, but Irl's fever, it got real bad so they took him on back to the hospital. He just got worse 'stead of better. He couldn't breathe even. They took him over to Grady Hospital in Atlanta to this special doctor who only takes care of kids, and he told Lexie and Melvin that Irl got the terrible virus kids was getting all over the land and his lungs was paralyzed. Polio! That was the scariest word in the whole world for folks with little childrens. Doctors was going plumb crazy trying to find a vaccine or something and one of them, he said he found one. Whatever it was he found, he put it in these tiny little bottles and they started shipping that stuff all over the place. Mz. Pence said we was all gonna get vaccinated for it at school as soon as more of that stuff made it to Georgia. They run out. A really good doctor named Jonas Salk is the one found it and he got a prize for it and everything. I think them doctors had theirselves a contest over who could find a vaccine first. All of them wanted to be the one to win the prize. Then they'd get famous, too, 'cause that Jonas Salk doctor, he got hisself famous for sure. He was in the paper all the time.

    What he done was take some of that virus he found and give it to these monkeys and growed it in their bodies. Then he got that virus out of them monkeys somehow. Guess he made 'em throw it up or something and then he cooked the virus up while it was alive, I think, and then he put it in these little bottles and some nurses stuck a needle in the end of them bottles and got the medicine out so they could stick us good in the arm. I read all about it myself in the paper, but most of it was pretty confusing, so don't hold me to none of the facts.

    Cooking up that virus and putting it in a needle to shoot into my arm scared me worse than just taking my chances.

    "I ain't gonna git me one a' them shots, Mama," I said. "They done took that polio they give them monkeys and cooked it down 'til it fits on needles. Now they wanna stick them same needles got that polio on it, right in ta' our arms."

    "Oh hush, Lori Jean," Mama said. "Them doctors know what they're doin'."

    "I don't know," I said. "Sounds right stupid to me. MeeMaw said somethin' don't make sense, be careful, it's probably a duck."

    "Lori Jean! What in the world are you talkin' about?" Mama said.

    "I'm talkin' 'bout that polio medicine they cooked up and what MeeMaw said about them ducks."

    "What in thunder?"

    "Don't you 'member, Mama? MeeMaw said if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, must be a duck."

    "Well, she weren't referrin' to no polio vaccine."

    "Well, she was talkin' 'bout usin' common sense to tell what was what, that's for sure," I said. "And I don't rightly know if them doctors know what they's doin'. So alls I'm sayin' is, I'm not havin' me one a' them shots, 'til they do."

    "You're takin' that shot, Lori Jean, and I don't want ta' hear no more nonsense, ya' hear?" Mama said. "You want to end up in one of them iron lungs? Stuck in a long metal tube with jist your head stickin' out? Is that how you want to spend the rest a' your days? Huh?" she said.

    Since she put it that way, I reckoned I best git me one of them shots. That doctor fella, Jonas Salk, he might could know what he was doing. He got hisself a prize and everything. Maybe if they woulda had some of that medicine ready for Little Irl he wouldn't of got so sick. Later that week they put him in that iron lung. Lexie got so hysterical the doctor give her a shot so's she wouldn't go having the baby right then and there.

    That night I seen a picture of one a' them contraptions in the
Decatur Daily Press Melvin brought home. It was terrible. The pictur
e was kinda fuzzy, but I could still see it pretty good. It showed a little boy no older than Irl stuck in a long silver thing, looked like a bullet. His little head was poked out one end. He had light curly hair and nice pudgy cheeks, but the saddest eyes I ever seen. The headline said March of Dimes to Aid Victims. The article said to give everything you could when the volunteers come to the door. I only had me seven dimes from helping Maybelle, but I put 'em in a jar by the front door, so's I'd be ready when they come. I wanted to call the paper and tell them to please send the March of Pennies people, too, 'cause I had me a whole fistful of pennies. I wanted to let them know lots of folks round here don't have theirselves many dimes left once they buy groceries, but most got plenty pennies they might could give. I set out for Mz. Hawkins's place so's I could use her phone to call 'em, but it wasn't working, so I couldn't. Somebody pulled the phone line off her house and it weren't fixed yet. She showed me where it connected right up near the porch and where somebody pulled it out. She was real mad about it.

    "When I get my hands on who done it, Lori Jean, I'm callin' the authorities, I am!" she said. I knew she would, too. She called the law Halloween when Stubby Painter and Clarence Jackson egged her windows after she wouldn't give 'em any candy. She told 'em to go back to their own kind for candy and stay away from white folks' houses. The law come to get 'em, but Mz. Jackson, Clarence's ma, she talked the sheriff out of taking them in when she promised to wash Mz. Hawkins's windows for free. She did the inside, but Odell Jackson, her husband, had to do the outside and he weren't none to happy 'bout it. I think he would of rather they hauled Clarence on off to jail. He didn't like Clarence much. Odell and Miss Pearlie had themselves about twelve kids. Every time I seen Miss Pearlie she was having herself another baby. I figured she must really like kids or something, but Mr. Jackson he sure didn't like Clarence none. He whipped him bad all the time, he did. Later Mr. Jackson whipped him with a cat-o'-nine-tails for throwing them good eating eggs at Mz. Hawkins's house, which weren't no surprise. Sometimes Mr. Jackson whipped Clarence for no reason a'tall. Sometimes just 'cause he didn't like the grin on his face, Clarence said. Clarence had these scars all over his back on account of those whippings.

    "Mz. Hawkins," I said. "I sure hope it weren't Clarence Jackson done it. He been whipped so bad by his daddy, he got scars all over his back."

    "If that boy's got scars, he must have earned them," she said.

    "I don't think so. Clarence said sometimes his daddy whips him jist 'cause he don't like the grin on his face," I said.

    "Well, there you go, Lori Jean. That boy give his daddy some smartmouth grin, he ought to be whipped. Teach him a thing or two."

    "No, ma'am," I said. "He weren't bein' smart. He was jist bein' happy."

    "Is that so? Is that what he told you?"

    "Yes, ma'am."

    "And you believed him?"

    "Yes, ma'am."

    "Lori Jean, don't believe the half a' what you hear from them kind a' folks."

    "But Mz. Hawkins," I said. "Them's right nice Christian folks. Go to church and everything. They's jist black, is all."

    "Church indeed! You call that clapboard shack they do their jive jumpin' in a church?" I didn't answer. I didn't mean to get Mz. Hawkins all in a tizzy over white folks and colored folks. Seems people in Georgia was always having themselves a hissy fit over what color a body's skin was. I only come by to use the phone to call the paper on account of the pennies I collected. I reckoned people collecting money didn't much care what color a body's hand was that passed it to them. So why in thunder did it matter so much the rest of the time?

    I decided the thing to do was put them pennies in a separate jar and keep 'em next to the dimes, case them March of Dimers would take those pennies and pass 'em on. So that's what I did. I put them in a jar of their own and left 'em by the door.

    Weeks went by and Irl never got better. We finally got some of that polio vaccine at our school. They lined us up in a row to get our shot. Some of the kids cried and carried on when they stuck the needle in their arm. Made me lightheaded when my turn come. I gritted my teeth and shut my eyes so tight, I seen them star things like when ya' bump yer' head. It was over 'fore I knew it. Shucks, it weren't near as bad as the bee sting I got down at the creek last summer. Even so, I was glad it was over. The next day I felt a bit feverish and Mama kept me home from school. The nurse who give the shot said some of us might feel a bit poorly and she was right. I didn't even want to eat anything the next day, and here Mama made biscuits dripping in honey. She weren't too worried about it, 'til Melvin come home from Mr. Jenkins's with the evening paper. Then she got near hysterical.

    One a' them batches of polio medicine they mixed on up was a bad one, and that one give two hundred fifty little children polio when it was supposed to protect 'em from it. And it killed eleven of them dead already! Fancy that. Here it was supposed to help 'em not get it and it give 'em the polio for sure. It was terrible; in all the papers day after day. Made me plumb afraid Georgia got a bad batch, too, and I was probably getting that polio any day. I went to school and pretended I was fine so's not to scare Mama, but I knew my days was numbered for sure. I wrote up a list and left most of my stuff to Alice, since she was a girl and all I had was two school dresses with patches and the party dress Lexie got me, which didn't fit no more 'cause I growed too tall. And I had me a doll MeeMaw made me, stayed on my bed, that didn't look like a doll no more 'cause it was a rag doll and lived up to isself through the years 'cause I dragged it everywhere I went when I was a little kid. I had three marbles; one was a cat's eye, real pretty, so I left them to Irl, 'case he lived and I prayed he'd make it even if I didn't. I left Mama the quilt MeeMaw made for my bed and I left a note for Melvin and Lexie telling them why I didn't leave them nothing; there weren't nothing left to leave, but I put a P.S. on the end of the note to tell them what I would of left them if I could of bought something to leave 'em. For Melvin, I said I'd leave him some of the white gravel stones from our trailer lot if we had us a trailer, so's his lot would look better, and for Lexie, I said I'd leave some seeds from our flower beds if we had a flower bed round the trailer, if we had a trailer, so she'd have pretty flowers round her trailer. And for Mama I left another P.S. giving her all the money in the jars, 'case the March of Dimers and Penniers never come. Then I was ready, even though I didn't want to go.