Seeing Red (5 page)

I ran up the steps of the What-U-Want and burst inside. Thomas was handing a shopping bag across the counter to Beau, which was weird because it should’ve been the other way around.

“Hey, Thomas,” I said.

He flinched, like he’d been caught, but he turned to face me. He looked as if he’d grown taller and thinner just since June. He was wearing his new clothes – a peace-symbol T-shirt and jeans – and the MIA bracelet he got to support a missing soldier in Vietnam. It wasn’t anyone he knew, but it was a black soldier who was some kind of technical specialist, like Barney in
Mission: Impossible
, and Thomas said he wanted to honour him.

Rosie had caught up with me and stood real close. “Hi, Thomas,” she said, crossing her arms. “I haven’t seen you in a long time.” She said it the way a teacher would talk to a kid who’d been skipping school. She even raised her eyebrows at Thomas like she expected an answer.

Thomas’s grandaddy stepped up to the counter with some cereal and milk. “Oh, that’s because young Thomas here has his bags packed already even though he doesn’t leave until next week. Now that he’s fourteen, he thinks Stony Gap is an ignorant little town not worth visiting any more, don’t you, Thomas?”

Thomas hung his head, but his hands were on his hips, kind of like he was split between feeling bad and feeling angry.

Mr Jefferson sighed and his voice was softer. “There are ignorant people everywhere, Thomas. Sure, we got our share, but most people here wouldn’t…aren’t like that.”

Beau tugged at his hair, and Rosie looked at the floor. We all knew what he was talking about. It was the reason Thomas quit hanging out with me. Someone had tried to burn a cross in the Jeffersons’ front yard just because they happen to be black.

Sheriff Scott called it an “isolated incident”, which meant it was some crazy person and it wasn’t going to happen again. But it was like someone told Thomas we couldn’t be friends any more, since I was white and he was black. Mama said she didn’t blame him for being unsettled and that she’d want to move her entire family away if that happened to us. But that was Mama for you. 

Thomas raised his head and looked his grandfather square in the eye. “I’m still going to find out who did it.”

I watched Mr Jefferson’s face turn hard. When he spoke, it sounded like his teeth were clenched. “It’s time to go, Thomas.”

“ ’Bye, Thomas,” Beau said. “Don’t be a stranger, okay? I sure do miss your laugh.”

Thomas gave him a nod and followed his grandfather out of the store. I stared at the back of his head, noticing that his hair was longer than it used to be, like one of those new styled Afros that Reverend Benson said were the slippery slope to crime. Thomas said everyone had Afros in the city. He said he could do anything he wanted there and nobody stopped him just because he was black. We’d argued about Stony Gap, Virginia, versus Washington, DC, but he said I wouldn’t understand because I was white. I reminded him that we’d done that Black Power salute together for years. He said I really didn’t get what it meant.

I wasn’t ignorant. And Stony Gap wasn’t an ignorant town. Sure, there were a few folks like Mr Dunlop and Reverend Benson. But not us Porters. That’s why I was still mad that Thomas wouldn’t be friends with me.

Beau walked over to me with the shopping bag. “Thomas brought this for you.”

I took the bag and looked inside. It was our Rock’Em Sock’Em Robots game.

“Thomas said you might could play it with J,” Beau said. “Hey, Rosie,” he added, “how are you today?”

“I’m fine, thanks. How about you? And your mama?”

“Oh, she’s not too good…”

I only half heard their conversation about how sick their mamas were because I was busy staring into the bag. It was his year to have the game. Now he was giving it back? Did that mean he was too old for it now or that he never wanted to be my friend again?

Rosie waved the Hershey’s bar she bought for her mama in my face and smiled, but when she looked in the bag, her lips drooped. “You and Thomas used to play that nonstop.”

I shrugged. “It’s a kids’ game.” But as I looked in the bag, a part of me sure wished Thomas would hang out and go another round of Rock’Em Sock’Em Robots with me. Why did he have to change so much?

CHAPTER FIVE

The Lawyer

I watched Rosie crunch her way through the gravel over to our shop, then disappear behind the pines as she turned onto the path that led to the Dunlops’ shed. I put the Robots in my closet, hiding them from J. I didn’t care what Thomas said, I wasn’t playing with J. Thomas was two years older than me and he didn’t want to hang out with me any more. What made him think I’d want to play with J, who was more than four years younger than me? I gave the bag a kick to send it to the back of the closet, and also because I felt like it. I went back to the What-U-Want to help Beau stock the shelves, but not before I heard Mr Dunlop yelling at Rosie, which made my heart start pounding and my feet start wishing I could go over and kick Mr Dunlop.

While I was putting the cans on the shelf, I thought about the only times I saw Daddy’s temper flare. It was at Mr Dunlop. Once it was about Mr Dunlop shooting his rifle off willy-nilly when he knew me and Thomas were playing
Mission: Impossible
in the woods. Once it was because Mr Dunlop was saying nasty things about Miss Georgia, and Daddy couldn’t abide anyone poor-mouthing Miss Georgia. But the third time was around Easter this year, and it was the maddest I ever saw Daddy.

Daddy and Mr Dunlop were talking to each other across the creek, so I didn’t catch everything they said, what with the gurgling water and my hanging back, since I wasn’t supposed to be spying on them, but it was something to do with land and great-grandaddies. Daddy raised his voice after a time, saying Mr Dunlop didn’t know what the h-e-double matchsticks he was talking about, and Mr Dunlop, a sly look on his face, actually walked into the creek so he could hand Daddy an old brown piece of paper. “Now that’s what I call history!” I hated the smirk on Mr Dunlop’s face, and when he turned his back on Daddy I wanted to yell at him and at Daddy to go after him. But Daddy just stood there a long time, staring at the piece of paper with his mouth hanging open. Finally he slowly folded it into thirds and marched home with his jaw muscles bulging.

The next morning Daddy wasn’t in the shop like he usually was. Beau was tugging at his hair with both hands and said Daddy had headed up north along the creek. I had a feeling I knew exactly where: the same place he and Mr Dunlop had that argument.

I ran up there, and Daddy was standing, hands on his hips, gazing across the creek at the Dunlops’ property. His eyes were all squinty and fixed above the horizon, so I could tell he wasn’t really looking at anything. His jaw was clenching and unclenching, and sometimes he’d flinch, like he was seeing some kind of horror movie in his head.

I didn’t want to scare him, so I tried to make a lot of noise with my feet and my breath as I walked up beside him. “Daddy, what’s wrong?”

He didn’t move but kept gazing across the creek towards the Dunlops’ land. “There’s a lot wrong out there, Red.”

“Well, can I help?”

It seemed like it took a while for my words to sink in. Slowly he turned to me, eyeing me like he’d been away somewhere. His face crinkled into a smile, but his eyes were still sad. I remember how the red sunrise shone off of them. “Maybe you should, son.” He put a hand on my shoulder and took a deep breath.

I stood up tall, because I could feel that he was about to say something real important, when we heard a shot and Mr Dunlop’s rebel yell.

“Take that, you dang coon!”

Daddy’s jaw tightened, and his face screwed up so he looked like he might be sick. He clutched my shoulder hard and even grabbed his stomach with his other hand. I thought he was going to puke.

“Are you okay, Daddy?”

He looked across the creek, his face still all clenched. “Let’s get to the shop. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

As we walked in silence, I was mad at Mr Dunlop for ruining the moment. I looked at the sign on the shop as we walked in,
PORTER’S: WE FIX IT RIGHT
, and I wondered if I’d be able to fix whatever Daddy was feeling so sick about. I tried bringing it up a couple of times that day, but the first time Beau walked in and interrupted us, and the second time Daddy didn’t even answer, just looked across to the Dunlops’, clenching his jaw. Soon after that, Daddy was gone.

Now I’ll never know what it was. And that made me madder than ever at Mr Dunlop. Because it must’ve been serious. Daddy even said
should. Maybe you should, son.
Not
maybe you could
or
if you want to
. He said,
Maybe you should
.

I heard a car drive up outside, but it didn’t really register because I was still thinking about Daddy and what I
should
be doing. When the engine made a last rev before cutting off, I thought about me and Daddy identifying cars by their sounds. By the time the car door shut, I dropped the cans of soup I was stacking because I knew that it was a high-performance car. I ran to the front porch of the What-U-Want and, sure enough, I was right.

It was a brand-new ’73 red Mustang convertible. I didn’t even know those convertibles were out yet. Sometimes we got lucky and rich folks came for a drive in the country, and we got to see some pretty cool cars. Until now, I’d seen this Mustang only in
Motor Trend
, but here was the real thing. Right in front of me. Live. The engine still hot. All shiny red and gleaming chrome, looking like it could eat up the road in one fell swoop. Daddy would’ve loved it. It was the most beautiful thing I’d seen in my entire life.

What was weird was the guy who stepped out of the Mustang. He looked like that nerd called Poindexter in the dumb Barbie board game Rosie made me play when we were little, even the red hair on top of his thin milk-carton head. He was so skinny that Miss Georgia would say if you saw him from the side, you might miss him altogether.

Mr Harrison drove up, too, but I hardly noticed him. I was too busy gawking at the Mustang and wondering why a nerdy guy like Poindexter had such a cool car. Until Mr Harrison pointed at my open mouth and said, “Watch out, or the bugs will fly in!” and laughed like he was the funniest guy ever.

Mr Ha-ha Harrison headed on over to our house, and I shut my mouth but I kept looking at the Mustang. I heard Mr Harrison, though.

“Betty, your house is looking lovely, as always. I’m sure we’ll get you a buyer in no time. In fact, I believe I might have one snagged already!”

What? I felt myself gritting my teeth, but what I heard from Poindexter, inside the store, made me even madder.

“So all this property is for sale? The store, too?”

I whipped my head around and was in the What-U-Want before Beau had a chance to speak. “Who wants to know?” Was Poindexter the buyer Mr Harrison had snagged?

Beau’s eyes went wide. “Wh-what he meant to say, sir, is he’d like to know your name. I-I’m Beau, and this here is Red.”

Poindexter held his hand out to Beau, who touched the bill of his Quaker State cap with one hand and shook with his other.

“I’m Bill Reynolds. From Richmond.” He puffed out his chest. “I’m a lawyer.”

Right then I knew I didn’t like him. I remembered what Daddy said about the only thing slimier than Mr Harrison was a big-city lawyer, so I squinted my eyes at Mr Reynolds from Richmond. “Why do you want to know about our land?” I scared him, too, because he stepped back and stuttered. I realized that he was pretty young, at least for a lawyer.

“I-I’m inquiring on behalf of a
client
.” He emphasized the word
client
like that made him the most important guy in the world. I’d seen
Perry Mason
on TV. I knew a client was just someone who hired a lawyer. So if Poindexter wasn’t the buyer, who was?

“Well,” I said, “I don’t think any
cli-ent
of yours would be interested.”

“Oh?” said Poindexter, looking at Beau, who was tugging his hair and staring at me wide-eyed.

“Yeah,” I said slowly, giving myself time to think of a good reason. “Yeah, we got termites and wood rot. Everywhere.”

Beau looked at me, shaking his head. “I don’t think—”

“And,” I said, talking over Beau, “it’s too dangerous for another reason. You see, Mr Dunlop – he lives behind us – he doesn’t take kindly to folks who are strangers to these parts. Heck, he doesn’t even take kindly to us, and we’ve lived here for thousands of years.”

Beau coughed.

“Well, hundreds of years, anyway.”

“I’m aware of Mr Dunlop,” Mr Reynolds said.

How did he know about Mr Dunlop? “Well,” I said, “are you
aware
that he’d just as soon shoot you as look at you?”

Mr Reynolds flinched, and Beau was tugging his hair with both hands now.

“I see. Where, exactly, is his house?”