Seeing Red (6 page)

I pointed behind the store. “Right back there. Shotgun distance.”

His Poindexter face went even paler. “Well, thanks for that information,” he said, heading for the door.

I figured I’d gotten rid of him for good.

He took a deep breath and said, almost to himself, “I’ll have to go pay Mr Dunlop a visit.”

What? It took me until he got in the Mustang before I remembered what Rosie had said and found my voice. I ran out to the steps. “Mr Dunlop’s gone hunting and won’t be home for two days!”

“Thank you,” he said, giving me a wave, “I’ll be back.”

Maybe
, I thought,
but when you get here you won’t like what you see because our repair shop is going to be a spray-painted mess and your client won’t be wanting this place any more!

CHAPTER SIX

Kenny’s

Through the pool-hall window I could hear Kris Kristofferson’s voice singing “Help Me Make It Through the Night”, and I felt like he was singing for me. Kenny’s stank like beer and sweat and maybe something else but I don’t know what. Looking through the glass door was like staring at a smoky bad dream. All I could think about was how Daddy always told me not to come here.

I could barely make out Darrell and his gang over by the rack of pool cues. They wore cool clothes, like Grateful Dead tank tops or black T-shirts with rolled-up sleeves. I looked down at my own clothes and wished I wasn’t wearing my striped T-shirt and too-short jeans. I tugged at my jeans, trying to make them stretch down to my sneakers, but it was no use. I looked like that kid Opie from
The Andy Griffith Show
, skinny and freckled, with the same red hair.

I yanked open the door and stepped inside like I belonged there. I looked around quickly to see if Kenny was in the main room and breathed a sigh when I realized he must be in the kitchen. Daddy said Kenny was all right, unless you hurt him or his property and then you were a goner, but Kenny kind of scared me. He was the size of Beau but as hard as Beau was soft.

“Quit gawking like a little kid,” Darrell hissed in my ear.

I hadn’t even seen him walk up to me.

“Follow me,” he said.

I tried to walk with a swagger like Darrell did, but my legs felt more like a couple of loose pistons slapping. When I finally made it over to the group by the pool table I was glad to slink against the wall even though the stucco poked my back like a bunch of tacks. I didn’t much like how the smoke was stinging my eyes, but I appreciated the fog it made so I could hide in it.

Darrell was standing across the table from me, at the edge of the group of guys, all high schoolers. If he didn’t feel out of place, he sure looked it. The other boys seemed cooler than Darrell without even trying. While they were talking quietly, Darrell would laugh real loud all of a sudden and they’d all look at each other or shake their heads, but Darrell didn’t seem to notice. Even when he slapped Glen on the back, Darrell didn’t see the dirty look Glen gave him.

Glen Connor wasn’t the kind of guy you should slap on the back, especially if you were Darrell. His daddy was some local politician, I couldn’t remember what, and Glen was the spitting image of him, only not as wide. He even had the same slicked-down blond hair and stuck-up voice. He and his daddy came by our house at election time and Daddy had said, in a nice way, that they were wasting their time because we were dyed-in-the-wool Democrats. Mr Connor had grinned, but it was the kind of grit-your-teeth grin that you do when you want to stop some bad words from coming out. Glen didn’t bother to even fake a smile. I didn’t care for them much, but Daddy said to watch myself because Mr Connor had a lot of power. Judging by how the guys in Kenny’s were flocking around Glen, he seemed to have power, too, even though he hadn’t been elected to anything.

The other guy I knew was Larry, who just happened to be both Kenny’s and Mr Harrison’s nephew. Right now, I didn’t feel too kindly towards him because of Mr Harrison. Other than that, Larry was okay. The rest of the guys I’d seen in and out of the What-U-Want, but I didn’t really know them.

But I sure knew the guy who yanked the glass door open and hesitated for a moment, just like I had, before stepping into Kenny’s like it was the principal’s office. Thomas! The line between his eyebrows as he stared at Darrell’s gang reminded me of that same look of concentration when we played Rock’Em Sock’Em Robots. Even though I was mad at him I was still relieved to see him. He was the best friend I had in that place.

“Hey, Thomas.”

He did a double take when he saw me. All the guys stopped talking, too, and stared at Thomas, then at me, like they were noticing me for the first time.

“What,” Thomas said, his face grim, “are you doing here?” He was talking to me like he was the daddy and I was the little kid!

I guess the gang agreed, because they snickered and one of them said, “He don’t belong here.”

I felt my fists clench. I jerked my head in Darrell’s direction and made my voice tough. “Meeting my boys.”

The gang laughed more at that, which made me even madder.

Thomas shook his head. “You’re just a kid, Red. You shouldn’t—”

“I’m the man of the house now!” I said, drawing myself up as tall as I could.

“The man of the house, huh?” Thomas looked at the gang and walked over to me, lowering his voice. “Hanging out here with Darrell?” He shook his head and almost sneered at me before turning and reaching for a pool cue from the rack. “Yeah, Big Red, your daddy’d be
real
proud of you right now.”

Something like fireworks went off inside of me, and I’d punched him before I even realized what I did. All I knew was that my right knuckles hurt, Thomas was doubled over clutching his stomach, and the whole rack of pool cues was clattering to the floor like a bunch of giant pickup sticks.

I heard the chanting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” but overtop of that I heard Kenny’s voice boom, “Stop right now!” and I looked at the ground.

“What are you thinking, boy?” Kenny said.

“Sorry,” Thomas breathed.

I jerked my head up and tried to say it was me who started the fight, but Glen was already talking – and pointing at Thomas. “He shouldn’t be in this establishment, Kenny.”

Kenny’s left eye twitched because you didn’t tell Kenny Rae Campbell how to run his place. I was slowly taking in the fact that the gang had been talking about Thomas, not me, as the one who didn’t belong.

Kenny held his snake-tattooed arm out to Thomas. “Let me see your money, boy.”

Thomas sighed, and I saw his shoulders slump before he pulled his wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans. He hesitated, but Kenny snapped his fingers, still staring at Glen. Thomas pulled a five-dollar bill out and slapped it in Kenny’s hand, harder than I would’ve dared.

Kenny didn’t flinch. He held the note up to the flickering fluorescent light and squinted at it. “Yep, it’s genuine American money.” He looked at Thomas, who was putting his wallet back in his pocket. “You planning on causing trouble, boy?”

“No,” said Thomas. I noticed he didn’t say “sir”.

“You planning on paying for your sodas?” Kenny asked.

“Of course.”

I held my breath because Thomas sounded almost like he was sassing.

Glen Connor folded his arms and lifted his chin.

Kenny gave the five bucks back to Thomas. “That’s all I care about.”

I don’t know who was more surprised – Thomas or Glen, who glared at Kenny and then at Kenny’s nephew. Larry was too busy gawking at Kenny, so Glen had to elbow him.

“Oh, yeah,” said Larry. “Uncle Kenny, my boys here wanted—”

“To play pool?” Kenny interrupted him. “Play darts? Drink you some Cokes? Well, that’s fine.”

Glen looked hard at Larry, who opened his mouth again. “But we—”

“But,” Kenny went on, “any one of you boys mess with my property? I will personally throw you out of here so hard your hiney will have skid marks.”

Darrell was the only one who laughed.

“And then I’ll call the sheriff,” Kenny said, “and maybe all y’all’s mamas and daddies, too.” His narrowed eyes swept across all of us. “Are you hearing me?”

Some of the gang nodded or murmured yes, but Glen didn’t blink and his face was stony. Kenny noticed and put his hands on his hips, staring Glen down. The room was so quiet all you could hear was the buzzing of the fluorescent light.

I was real surprised when Darrell cleared his throat and said, “Hey, Thomas. How about a game of pool?”

Kenny switched his gaze to Darrell, who looked everywhere around the room except at Kenny, or at Thomas for that matter. He bent down and picked up the fallen pool cues, setting them all against the wall except one. He chalked the head of that thing until it was raining blue dust.

Thomas brushed past me, saying softly, “Go on home, Red.”

“But… I didn’t mean… I—”

“Forget it,” Thomas said, looking over at the door. “Someone’s waiting for you.”

I saw the Quaker State cap through the smoky haze. Beau knocked on the glass door and waved. I looked back at Thomas, but he was ignoring me, racking up the balls on the pool table, so I went on outside.

“What do you want, Beau?”

“You to come home.”

“How did you know where I was?”

“Sometimes things just pop in my head. When they do I know they must be right because they ain’t had a chance to run around my brain and get stupid.”

“You’re not stupid, Beau.”

“How come you here, Red? Your daddy told me never to go inside this place. Didn’t he never tell you that?”

I squirmed on the inside but cleared my throat like Clint Eastwood. “I had some business to take care of.”

Beau tilted his head like he was sloshing all his brains to one side. “Business?”

“With Darrell and his gang – I mean, his buddies.”

Beau’s mouth fell open like the hinge busted. “Darrell? Darrell Dunlop?”

“Well, of course, Darrell Dunlop. What other Darrell is there?”

Beau reached a hand up to tug his hair. “Darrell and his buddies was the ones who threw rocks at Miss Georgia’s house last winter, even broke two of her windows.”

Oh, yeah. I’d forgotten about that. It was hard to keep up with everything Darrell did.

“Just because Miss Georgia’s brown,” Beau said.

“You mean black.”

He shook his head. “No. I don’t know why people say that because I ain’t seen anyone with black skin. There’s dark brown and medium brown, like Miss Georgia, and light brown and even lighter brown, and then there’s this darkish tan colour and—”

“Okay, Beau. I get it. Anyway, sometimes Darrell can be useful.”

“Yeah?” Beau stopped tugging his hair and looked at me like a little kid. “How?”

“Never mind. We’d best be getting home, huh?”

I kicked every stick and stone out of my path as I headed back. I was mad for a lot of reasons. I was mad at Beau for chasing me down at Kenny’s. And I didn’t like the way Glen seemed to have it in for Thomas. What had Thomas done except come by to play a little pool? But I was also mad at Thomas. It was like the first day I met him, when I realized he understood more about the store than I did because he could read, even though it was my store. Now did he understand more about Kenny’s, about Darrell’s gang, than I did, even though this was my own town?

I felt bad for punching Thomas, but I didn’t like him saying what Daddy would think of me, either. What I hated most was that when I thought about what Thomas said, I saw Daddy’s face, the hurt-disappointed face that he hardly ever gave me because when he did I felt so bad I swore I’d never let him show it to me again. It only happened a few times in my whole entire life. But it was happening now. So I started getting mad at Darrell for talking me into going to a place that would make me see Daddy’s face that way. And on top of everything, he never even talked to his gang about how to destroy things just enough that no one would buy our place, so we could stay right here in Stony Gap.

When I got home, that stupid For Sale sign was staring me in the face like it had won. I was so mad I kicked that dang sign and it tilted just a little, but enough to give me an idea. I decided to pull it clear out of the ground. Maybe next time old Poindexter drove by in his hot red Mustang he wouldn’t feel so hot.

But it was harder than I thought. I had to go into the shop and get a shovel. Once I dug around it, though, the soil being pretty loose since Mr Harrison had put it in recently, I hauled it out of the earth and dragged that thing behind the shop. I dug a hole back there, which was also hard work, except the hole didn’t have to be very deep because I laid the sign down flat. I said a few words over it that weren’t exactly a prayer.

Who would know that it could actually feel good to bury something?

CHAPTER SEVEN

Miss Georgia

I must’ve been tired from my work of burying that sign because I slept later than usual. I woke up and Mama was on the phone to Mr Harrison, asking him for another For Sale sign. Shoot.