Soup (7 page)

“H
EY!
I’
M BACK
,” said Soup.

It was Saturday evening, and he’d been gone all day. But now he was standing at the kitchen door in his
store clothes and his hair was still combed. Not actually so slicked as to have a part, but it wasn’t all mussed up and curly like usual. For Soup, that was combed.

“How was it?” I said, as he came in.

“Great.”

“Was it as big as they say?”

“Bigger,” said Soup.

“Honest?”

“It’s my guess that Burlington has got to be about the biggest place in the whole world.”

“How many people did you see, Soup?”

“Oh,” said Soup, leaning back in the kitchen chair and looking at the ceiling for guidance, “I must of seen a thousand or a million.”

“Gosh, you must have been so busy saying hello to all those folks, you didn’t have time to get new shoes.”

“Oh, no?”

Soup unbuttoned his coat and took off his hat (the plaid one he always wore in winter with the red ear-lappers). Then he slowly unbuckled his left overshoe.

“Wait’ll you see, Rob. They cost almost three dollars.”

“Hurry up. I want to see ’em both.”

Soup had a way of taking his time, especially if he
knew you wanted him to hurry. It was a trait of his nature that could drive those who waited half crazy. Everybody except Miss Kelly. There was a lady that you’d hardly list as one of your favorite friends. But give Miss Kelly this—she sure could handle Luther Vinson.

A day or so ago, she’d sent some of us up to the blackboard to do a sum. The rest of the kids merely erased the computations left by the previous scholar. But not Soup. He pulled out a wet rag from his pocket and
washed
his section of the blackboard until it was all black and shiny clean. He then had to let it dry. I wasn’t up at the blackboard but in my seat where I could see Miss Kelly’s foot under her desk. The way her foot was going tap-tap-tap, I knew that she was not as amused at Soup’s standards of cleanliness as I was.

Miss Kelly kept Soup after school. She made him erase every square of the blackboard and dust the erasers. Then he had to wipe out the chalk tray; and on top of all that, wash every single square of blackboard all around the room. After that he had to empty the waste basket.

I’ll say this much for Miss Kelly—she wasn’t mean. Her role in life was not an easy one, with Soup and me
around. So afterward, when the waste basket was empty, Miss Kelly told Soup what a good job he did. She said that she liked him a lot. Then she said that when she liked somebody, she called him Soup. But if she didn’t like someone, he got called Luther
no matter who was listening!

I know all this happened, as I was listening right outside the door. I’d sneaked back inside after we marched out, so I could watch Soup work or maybe get the ruler. But no such luck. There were no yelps of pain. Soup said, “Good night, Miss Kelly.” And she said, “Good night, Soup. And you may wish the same to Robert.”

Anyhow, getting back to Soup’s trip to Burlington, this was what I was thinking about while Soup took his own sweet time to unbuckle both his overshoes. Then he put a toe on a heel and kicked off one, then the other.

“Wow!” I said. “Orange shoes.”

“They’re supposed to be tan,” said Soup, “but I’m glad they look a bit orange.”

“They sure do,” I said.

“That’s not all. Wait’ll you hear the music they make.”

“They make music?”

“Listen,” said Soup.

He got up from the chair and walked around the kitchen. Every step he took in his new orange shoes made notes in sort of a squeaky melody. The left shoe played one tune and the right another. And when he stood stock-still on the floor and moved both, it sounded like some sort of an all-leather orchestra.

“It’s like having birds between your toes,” said Soup.

“Boy!” I said.

“The best part,” said Soup, “is how you
buy
shoes like this. You get to look at your own feet down through an x-ray machine.”

“What’s an x-ray machine?”

“A machine that lets you look at your own bones.”

“For real?”

“Honest,” said Soup. “When you try on a new pair, the man at the shoe store takes you over to this machine. You climb up on a platform and put your feet into a little place inside the machine. Then you look down and see your own feet, and they’re all green.”

“Green?”

“Yeah. There’s two other places lower down for the shoe man to look into and also one for your mother
to look in. Then the shoe man points at the bones of your feet with a black pointing stick that’s inside the x-ray machine.”

“What’s he do that for?”

“He does that while he tells your mother to see how much room your toes have to grow inside the shoes.”

“What’s it look like, Soup?”

“You can see all the bones of your toes. They look like a bunch of twigs. And when you wiggle your foot, the bones wiggle too.”

Soup took a few more turns around the kitchen in his new orange footwear, making squeaky music with every step. It made me look down at my old shoes, which I’d had a long time. So long they hurt a bit to walk in. My feet were almost as big as Soup’s.

We went upstairs to my room and fooled around with Tarn, my dog. Then we played lotto, which was something like bingo, until my mother came in and told us how late it was getting. It was almost eight o’clock. So I got on my coat and boots and walked halfway home with Soup. At the halfway point, we said good night. It was real dark. Soup ran for his house and I ran for mine. We always did this for each other, whenever he came to my house or if I went to his.

On Sunday, the next day, we had a thaw. A real hot March day that chased away much of the snow. Above our farm, the hillside that faced south had big round spots of brown earth that got bigger as the day wore on until the meadow was a giant brown-and-white cheese. Holes all over. And all the gray rocks were bare and dry. They looked like sleeping sheep.

Monday morning was warm, too. Seeing as the road to town was dry and not muddy and the sky was clear, Soup and I got packed off to school in just our coats and hats. No mittens, no boots. I had my old shoes, and Soup sported his new orange pair.

“I’ll race ya,” I said.

We ran down the road. For a while, I was ahead of Soup. Looking back over my shoulder to see how close he was getting, I didn’t see the root. It caught the toe of my shoe, and I turned around just as I pitched forward onto the still-frozen gravel of the dirt road. Both my hands were burning, as that’s how I broke my fall. Just as Soup caught up to me, I turned my hands over to see all the gritty blood. Trying to get up, I saw that my right shoe was torn. It was damaged so badly that half the rotten old sole was flapping around like the mouth of an alligator we saw in a Tarzan movie. And
I could look down and see almost all of my red sock.

Maybe it was because I didn’t outrun Soup or because my hands hurt too much to even wipe off the bloody dirt, I started to cry. And seeing Soup’s new shoe—standing next to my old one that got all torn up—didn’t help. I just sat there in the dirt and bawled.

“Hey,” said Soup, squatting down beside me as I blubbered away, “don’t cry. Don’t cry, Rob. I got a clean hanky.”

Soup dried off my eyes and cheeks. I tried to talk, but all that came out of my heaving chest was sob after sob.

I couldn’t say anything. Soup was about as careful as he ever could have been as he blotted the blood off my hands. He didn’t even rub. He just did it the way my mother would, as light as an angel.

“Why did you have to go and get new shoes, Soup? Why did ya?”

“Don’t cry, Rob. Please don’t cry. It wasn’t my idea to get new shoes. My cousins just took me to Burlington.”

“You always get everything,” I said between sobs, covering my face with my burning hands. “I don’t get nothing. I just get hurt.”

“No, you don’t,” said Soup.

“Yes, I do. If we play baseball, you always get to be batter. And then when we’re prize-fighters, I always wind up with the bloody lip.” I was ashamed that I was crying so hard, but I just couldn’t stop.

“Don’t cry.”

“I hate you, Soup. I don’t want to go to school with you anymore, and I won’t play with you anymore.”

“Hey, Rob. What’s the matter?”

“Look at my shoe. I’m going home. I can’t go to school with this old shoe on my foot.”

“Sure, you can.”

“No, I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.”

Now I was really crying and couldn’t quit. It was like somebody was shaking me all over, and I couldn’t see or talk or even walk. It would have been all right with me to just lie there in the road forever.

“Well,” said Soup, taking off his new orange shoes, “maybe you can’t wear your old shoes to school, but I sure can.”

Soup gave a good yank to the heel of both his shoes, and off they came. Then he took off my old ones and put them on his feet and put his new orange pair on me.

“Get up and walk,” said Soup, “or we’ll be late for
school. You know how Miss Kelly takes on when we’re not on time.”

“We’re always on time, Soup. You and me, we’re almost always the first ones there.”

“Yeah,” said Soup, “and we live farther uproad than just about anybody else.”

“We better hurry,” I said.

“How do you feel?”

“Okay. Your shoes are a little bit big for me. How do mine feel?”

“Well,” said Soup, “one is awful tight, and one is awful loose.”

“You didn’t have to swap shoes with me, Soup.”

“Maybe I just wanted to.”

“Yes, but you were looking forward to wearing your new shoes to school and telling everybody about Burlington.”

“I know. Hurry up, Rob. Why are you walking so careful?”

“So’s I don’t scrape your new shoes. I’d feel terrible if I knocked some of the orange off.”

“I suppose the orange will come off sometime. Don’t matter who does it.”

“Gee, Soup. I can’t believe it.”

“Can’t believe what?”

“I can’t believe I really got your new shoes on my feet. Boy, are they ever big.”

“Won’t be long before I outgrow ’em, Rob. I’ll even tell my mother ahead of time that they pinch my toe. While they’re still orange.”

“You will?”

“Sure I will, Rob. And as soon as I outgrow ’em, you know who gets ’em next.”

“Me? You mean me, Soup?”

“’Course I do. That’s what pals are for.”

“We’re pals, Soup. I’ll always be
your
pal.”

I don’t know how it happened. We were just about to go up the steps into the school, when I started to cry again. So we had to stop while Soup wiped my face into a smile. Then he looked me over to see if I was presentable enough to confront Miss Kelly.

“You look fine,” said Soup. “Real fine. Your red socks go real good with my orange shoes.”

“Thanks, Soup. Thanks a lot.”

We ran into the schoolhouse and to our places. I felt like the whole world was looking at my feet. Miss Kelly noticed and smiled at me. And I was one of the very first that she sent up to write. All the way up to
the blackboard, the shoes squeaked away like they were as happy as I was. I just felt orange all over.

Soup was right. It was just like having birds between your toes.