Soup (4 page)

Filling my acorn to the brim, with tinder and oxygen in full measure, I was now prepared. In my mouth, the blue daisy stem tasted bitter between my teeth. Someday, I thought, our pipes would be real, each briar bowl packed with a store-bought blend.

Soup struck a match!

As he put the flame to the open bowl of my acorn, my face puckered with the power of that first lung-filling puff, breathing in a subtle mixture of dry weeds, oak fruit, cornhusk, heat, and sulfur.

I had cut the stem a bit too short, and I had to look cross-eyed to watch the small crater that devoured the entire contents of my acorn in one raging drag.

“Inhale,” said Soup, lighting his.

I inhaled. And in that one blissful moment of shock, I knew. As my entire soul converted from boy to blast furnace, active juices of my stomach (along with breakfast) surged upward to quench the fire that was now sweeping my respiratory and digestive systems. In all corners of my heart and soul (not to mention eyes, ears, nose, and throat) I really
knew.

I was smoking.

“I
DON’T THINK
we ought to do it, Soup.”

“We don’t have to do it every time, Rob. But let’s do it just this once.”

“Well, I’m against it.”

“How come you’re against it all of a sudden? Didn’t Ally Tidwell get away with it?”

“He said he did. Maybe he was lying.”

“Ally don’t lie,” said Soup.

“Yes, he does.”

“Name one.”

“Well, he told me he caught a ten-pound catfish in Lake Champlain. And then a week after, his pa said it didn’t even weigh six.”

“Okay,” said Soup, “so Ally fibbed about the catfish. Don’t mean he lies all the time.”

“I never said he did, Soup.”

“Then why don’t we try it once?”

“Just once?” I said.

“Just once, Rob.”

“Okay, I’m game.”

“I figure the whole trick is to find the right stone.”

“Here’s one,” I said.

“Too small,” said Soup. “That old pebble wouldn’t weigh enough to make any difference. We got to get the price up to twenty cents at least, or it’ll be one heck of a long trip into town for nothing.”

“You’re right,” I said to Soup. “If our tin foil brings only eighteen cents, we both can’t go to the picture show.”

As we walked into town, Soup and I were silent for
a while. The very thought of missing the double feature was a Saturday afternoon tragedy. We both knew what was playing and had known for a week. The first movie was Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy that had a gorilla and a piano in it. We’d seen the Previews of Coming Attractions on the Saturday before. The second feature was a cowboy movie with Dick Foran, the singing cowboy. Only in the movie he wasn’t Dick Foran. He was a cowboy named Chip.

Neither Soup nor I could have missed seeing the double-bill of the day. To miss seeing those two shows would have been next to heartbreak. We just had to have twenty cents, as each ticket was a dime.

“We better hurry, Soup. We have to walk all the way to Mr. Diskin’s and get our money and then all the way back to the movie theater.”

“We need a stone,” said Soup.

“It’s wrong, Soup. Let’s not do it.”

“We could miss the show if we don’t.”

“You win. We’ll do it. But I don’t feel right about it, Soup. The only reason I’ll go along is that we need twenty cents. Why in the heck didn’t we ask Mama for a couple of pennies?”

“We should of,” said Soup. “But it’s too late now.
We’re almost to Diskin’s Junkyard.”

“Almost.”

“He’s a Jew,” said Soup.

“Who?”

“Old Mr. Diskin is. I heard somebody say so.”

“Who told you?”

“I know who it was. It was the man who told Ally Tidwell that it was all right to put a stone in the middle of a ball of tinfoil and cheat old Diskin, because it wasn’t really so bad to cheat a Jew.”

“It’s bad to cheat anybody. If we had twenty cents worth of tinfoil, Soup, I wouldn’t do this.”

“Neither would I. But I heard that guy say that there was no such thing as a good Jew.”

“Maybe not,” I said. “But if there was a good Jew, it sure would be Mr. Diskin. He’s the only Jew I know, and he’s been great to us.”

“Yeah, he has,” said Soup, letting out a sigh. “Hey! Here’s a stone that’s just the right size.”

“How can you tell?”

“It’s small, but it’s heavy. Here. Heft it.”

I hefted the pebble in my hand. It wasn’t a very big stone, so I figured we really weren’t cheating Mr. Diskin out of more than a penny or two.

“I’ll do it,” said Soup.

We unrolled our ball of tinfoil, planted the pebble inside at the very core, and wrapped layer upon layer of shiny tinfoil so it resumed its original appearance of a small cabbage.

Ten minutes later, Soup and I ran through the gate that was under the sign “Diskin’s Junkyard.” Mr. Diskin saw us coming and got up out of his rocking chair. He was smiling, just like he always did. Deep inside my stomach there was a small hard place, as if I had hid the stone inside my soul. I hated the whole business so bad I wanted to turn and run. But instead I handed the ball of tinfoil to Mr. Diskin. I noticed his hands as they took the ball from out of mine. His hands were old and white and seemed to be more like claws.

He put the ball of tinfoil on the old red scales that he weighed things on; and while the scales were balancing, he did his little trick—the one he always did. Pulling an old handkerchief from his pants pocket, he held it over his eyes. He pretended he was Justice, blindfolded with the scales. He always did it, and we always laughed. It was so absurd that it was funny, because it was Mr. Diskin’s way of telling us that he was honest and that he gave everybody an equal price.

Soup and I both liked Mr. Diskin. We liked anyone who enjoyed a chuckle or two. He never talked. Mr. Diskin never said a word, just took your stuff and weighed it up on the balance, and then paid you the ten cents. Seems like he always knew that kids wanted a dime for the Saturday movies.

Soup and I held our breath. Mr. Diskin took our ball of tinfoil out of the balance and shuffled inside his old shack to get his money. That’s where he kept his supply of dimes, but we didn’t know exactly where. He must have had a thousand dimes back inside the darkness.

He was gone longer than usual. It seemed to Soup and me that he was inside for almost a year. Then he came out. But on this day he wasn’t smiling. We held out our eager hands for the money. Inside my sneaker, my toes were moving around a lot. That was because I was looking at my feet. I didn’t want to look at Mr. Diskin, and when I finally did look at his old face, he wasn’t smiling.

Mr. Diskin handed us three things. Two dimes and a stone. It was the stone that Soup and I hid inside our ball of foil.

“Thank you, Mr. Diskin,” said Soup.

“We’re sorry about the stone,” I said.

Looking at Mr. Diskin, I expected to see tears roll down his face or see him use his old hanky and wipe his cheeks. But he didn’t cry. He just stood there looking at the little stone and moving his head back and forth a tiny bit as if his old hat was saying no.

On the way to the movies, Soup said, “I never felt as bad as I do right now in my whole life.”

“Neither do I,” I said. “I feel like a hunk of dirt.”

“Me too,” said Soup.

“M
OM
?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s my valve?”

“Your what?”

“My valve. You know, my silver blow-up valve. I just can’t seem to find it.”

“Well, I don’t have it. Robert, I don’t even know what a valve is.”

“It’s silver. It’s to blow up my football. Look. All the air leaked out of my ball, and it won’t kick worth a hooey. Soup’s here. We want to play football, but we can’t until we find my little silver valve.”

“Why don’t you ask Soup if he has a valve?”

“I already did. Soup said he used to have one but it disappeared. His mother helped him look this morning, but she couldn’t find it either. We
got
to find one or we can’t play football. Please help look.”

“Can’t you see I’m baking biscuits? Whenever you lose something, it’s always when my hands are white with flour.”

“Hurry, Mom. Soup’s waiting.”

“I’d hate to keep Soup waiting. Someone as important as that. All right, where did you have it last?”

“Have what?”

“Your football.”

“Soup’s got that. But it needs air. What you have to find is my valve—please.”

“Can’t you blow up your football without a valve?”

“No. It’s what you put the air in with.”

“You used to have a football that had laces like a shoe. All you did was untie the laces and blow up the ball with your mouth through a little rubber stem.”

“That kind is old-fashioned. The new kind blows up with a valve, but I guess you lost the valve.”

“I didn’t lose it. I’ve never even seen your valve. What color is it?”

“Silver.”

“You mean it’s the color of my good teapot?”

“Yes. Only it’s little. It’s only this long, about as long as my finger. It’s like a needle.”

“Did you look up in your room?”

“No.”

“Then go look there, and I’ll look downstairs. As I recall, you lost your valve before, didn’t you?”

“Yes. But I found it in your sewing basket.”

“Maybe that’s where it is now.”

“I already looked in the sewing basket, Mom. It’s
gone. Maybe somebody just walked off with it.”

“Who’d want one of those things?”

Mama was still talking, and I could hear from way up in my room. The valve was not under my bed nor in my chest of drawers. I looked up on my closet shelf. No valve. My throat was starting to tighten. Suppose we really couldn’t find it and it really was lost. Or worse, some careless or unthinking person had stumbled on it and thrown it out. How could anyone do that?

“Is this it?”

My mother’s voice rang out like a shiny beacon in a darkened world—a lighthouse upon desperation’s lonely and rocky shoal. I almost broke both ankles jumping down the stairs. And there was Mama holding my silver football valve.

“You found it!”

“Yes, I found it. In the pocket of Aunt Carrie’s apron. Robert, you are just going to have to take better care of your things. Learn to have a place for everything. That way you’ll always know where your valve is.”

“I will. Where’s the pump?”

“Isn’t it out in the shed?”

“Oh, I remember. Soup’s got it. We were trying to
blow up the ball without a valve. It doesn’t work.”

Soup brought the pump into the kitchen from the back porch. We screwed the tiny barrel of silver into the threads of the pump hose. It was ready to be inserted into the football.

“You have to wet it first,” said Soup.

“I know.”

I put the pointed end of the valve (the one with the little air hole on the side) on my tongue and licked it several times. It tasted like silver. When somebody’s mother blew up a football, she’d never wet the valve until we reminded her it was part of the ritual. And then she’d never lick it. Instead, she’d always wet the valve under the cold water tap. Mothers didn’t seem to understand that the best part of finally finding your valve to blow up a football was to taste the silver. There is no taste in the world quite like it. It’s the taste of an early morning in September, a Saturday when there’s no school. The fields are still wet with morning, and some yellow leaves are already sprinkled on the pasture dew.

The taste of a silver football valve is all of that and more. It’s the flavor of knowing that you had a pal like
Soup who was just as anxious to boot that old ball as you were. Neither one of us could kick it twenty feet, but that was of no matter. What mattered was that it was autumn, and Saturday.

Soup was holding the ball and I was working the pump with Mama helping. I was afraid we’d put too much air in and the football would explode. That’s why Soup held the expanding ball. I stopped pumping.

“More,” said Soup.

We gave a few more downward pushes in the old tire pump, and Soup yanked out the needle. The ball was perfect—swelled with air to the point that you could see the clean white part of the dirty threads along the seams.