Stumptown Kid (3 page)

“That’s okay,” Luther murmured. “He didn’t mean anything bad.”

Petey walked into the yard and stopped. He was still staring at Luther, and he scratched his cheek. “How come he’s all brown, Charlie?” he asked again.

“Some people just are,” I said.

“Oh.” He stared a couple more seconds. Then he nodded and galloped off again up the street.

I didn’t know what to say to Luther, so I said, “Sorry.”

Luther closed his eyes and held the lemonade glass up to his face, feeling the cold. “It’s all right. I guess you don’t have many colored people living here.”

“No,” I said. “We don’t have any.”

I wondered about that. Why didn’t Holden have colored people? The town had a population of more than two thousand, but even with that many people, we didn’t have a lot of things. One drive-in movie but no indoor theater. One bookstore. One dime store. Two markets and one elementary school. The high school kids were bused into Mt. Vernon. If we wanted clothes other than Sears & Roebuck, we usually drove to Cedar Rapids.

A sign on the highway coming into town says “Welcome to Holden: Population 2,100. The Town of Flowers.” Somebody wrote BLOOMING IDIOTS on it in big letters, which made people really mad. The mayor ordered the sign to be repainted and offered a ten-dollar reward for anybody who would tell who did the vandalism. Nobody’s spoke up yet. So anyway, I guess not everybody thinks highly of Holden.

Mom called us in to supper after a while. Luther took off his baseball cap when he came inside. The kitchen smelled like tomatoes and spices.

The kitchen table is small, and I hate being so close and bumping knees when Vern’s over. But with Luther sitting there, it felt kind of cozy. The oilcloth on the table was clean, and the daisies were standing in water in a canning jar on the middle of the table.

We sat down, and Mom and I reached for food: spaghetti with tomato sauce and meatballs, bread, and green peas. We took some and passed the bowls to Luther.

“I can take you down to the egg-buying station tomorrow,” I told Luther. “Mr. Landen’s nice.”

Luther looked at Mom, and she didn’t say I couldn’t, so he said, “Thank you, Charlie. I’d appreciate that.”

I liked the idea that Luther might settle down around here. Maybe he’d give me some more pointers about baseball, and maybe sometime he could show me how he built his lean-to.

It was good having him here.

But that good feeling didn’t last long. Because right then, Vern Jardine walked through the front door.

Hello! Mary?” Vern called from the living room.

Mom froze a second. Then she cleared her throat. “In the kitchen, Vern.”

I whispered to Mom, “Why don’t he knock?” and she waved at me to be quiet.

Footsteps clomped across the wood floor in the living room. “Thought I’d surprise you. I didn’t think I’d get here tonight, but I sold all the—”

Vern stopped in the kitchen doorway and his smile faded. He was wearing the wrinkly tan suit he wore a lot, and his hair was messed up. He stared at Luther.

Mom stood up and her hand went up to her collar. “Oh—Vern, this is a friend of Charlie’s,” she said. “Luther—what did you say your last name is?”

“Peale, ma’am,” Luther said. He looked back and forth between Mom and Vern.

Mom was nervous. Her hands fluttered around her neck and hair like a couple of butterflies. “Yes, that’s right, Luther Peale.”

I realized that I was feeling jittery, too, and it made me mad. What was I nervous about? So what if Vern didn’t like colored people? This wasn’t his house.

Mom’s smile at Vern was crooked. “And Luther taught Charlie some things about baseball today.”

Vern stared at Luther, his jaw set hard. “Can I talk to you privately, Mary?” he asked.

“Sure.” Mom hurried after him into the living room. The front screen door banged shut, but we could hear them talking fast and whispery clear out on the front stoop.

Why did Vern have to show up now, just when we were all having a good time?

I tried to drown out the sounds by talking, and the words were flying fast out of my mouth.

“So I’ll take you to the egg-buying place tomorrow,” I told Luther. “It’s not very far from here. Maybe six blocks or eight blocks away, so we’ll just walk down there—”

“I better be goin’, Charlie,” he said quietly. He stood up and picked up his cap that he’d put on the table next to him.

“No, Luther, don’t go.”

Vern’s voice was getting louder, and we could hear what he was saying to Mom. “You asked him to sit right down and
eat
with you?”

“Vern, he’s Charlie’s friend,” Mom said.

“I’m just concerned about you and the boy,” Vern said. “You know that.”

Luther picked up his bag near the table. “You tell your mama I’m much obliged for the spaghetti.”

“But you hardly ate any!” I said, jumping up from the table. “Luther, don’t go. I hate Vern.”

The gears in my brain were whirring around like crazy, and my head was pounding with the banging of my heart.

“It was good to meet you, Charlie,” he said. “I’ll see you.” Then he was gone out the door.

“Luther!” I yelled. “Come back!”

But Luther was already walking across the grass and into Mrs. Banks’s yard near the shed at the back. I ran out the door and followed him.

Mom yelled from the back door. “Charlie! Where’re you going?”

“I’m going to talk to Luther!” I yelled at her.

“No, Charlie!” she hollered. She came running and caught up with me in the yard behind ours. She took my arm, but I shook her off. I was so filled up with anger I couldn’t hardly talk.

I saw Mrs. Banks standing at her back screen door, but I didn’t care.

“I hate Vern!” I yelled. “I hate him!”

A look of misery came into Mom’s eyes. “Charlie, you come back now. Vern left.”

“What about Luther?” I looked back over my shoulder and saw that he was nearly a half block away.

“Honey, Luther’s a grown man,” Mom said. She glanced over at Mrs. Banks’s back door and lowered her voice way down. “He can take care of himself. Maybe Mr. Landen will give him that job at the egg-buying station. Come on, Charlie. Let’s go in the house now.” She glanced over again at Mrs. Banks’s house.

“Mom, he’s hungry.”

“Lower your voice,” Mom murmured, giving me a hard look, “and go inside.”

She nudged me and nodded toward our back door.

I walked inside with her. I kept my voice low. “Mom, I don’t think he’s had any food since he caught a fish in the river last night. We gotta help him.” I saw her eyes go soft, so I kept on. “When Vern was talking about him, Luther heard him, and you shoulda seen his face.”

“Ohhh.” Mom looked miserable again. She put a hand to her mouth. “I’m so sorry.”

“We can take him some spaghetti,” I said. “I’m pretty sure I can find him.”

“Oh, Charlie …”

“Please, Mom? He don’t know anybody in Holden, and he don’t have a job yet.”

It was a second before she took a deep breath and said, “Okay. Put some spaghetti in a bowl and cover it with tin foil. The rest can go in the Frigidaire. I’ll get the keys and back out the car.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“And get a fork and a napkin from the drawer.”

“Okay.”

In a few minutes we were in the old Chevy heading out of Stumptown. I had the bowl of spaghetti on my lap and a fork and napkin in my hand.

“He said he was staying down by the river,” I said. “He set up camp down there.”

“Set up camp?” A frown worked onto her face. She slowed the car, then stopped.

“What?” I said.

“Oh, honey,” she said. “I don’t think this is a good idea.” She turned to face me. “You mean he’s a drifter?”

“No, he came here looking for work,” I said, talking fast. “I told you! He’s just camping out till he gets a job. But he’s hungry, and he heard what Vern said, so he left before he had a chance to eat. Please, Mom.”

I could see she was softening again. She nodded. “Okay, we’ll take him the spaghetti. And that’s that.”

She started driving again.

I wasn’t sure exactly what Mom meant by “that’s that,” but at least we were going to get Luther some food tonight.

“He said he caught a catfish last night,” I told her. “Said it was pretty good. But I bet he’ll be glad to get the spaghetti.”

We drove along the edge of downtown and headed toward the river. We passed a big warehouse, a tavern, and the corner market.

“Charlie,” Mom said, “I don’t want you to think bad things about Vern. He’s—”

“I don’t want to talk about him,” I said. “I hate him.”

“You shouldn’t say that,” Mom said. “It’s not right to hate a person.”

“Well, tell Vern not to hate colored people then.”

“Charlie, we need to talk.” She was saying the words slow and careful, and she slowed the car down to a crawl. “Vern and I might be getting married, you know.”

“What?”
I said. “How can you even
like
him?”

“Honey, he helped me feel better after your dad died,” Mom said. “I still miss your dad something terrible—you know that—but sometimes when I’m with Vern, I can forget for a few minutes. Just a few minutes.” She turned a corner. “It’s hard being alone.”

I didn’t see what was so hard about it. And she wasn’t alone. Mom and I were doing fine. She had the job at Woolworth’s, and I helped out a lot and did some of the jobs around the house that Dad would’ve done if he was here. I mowed the lawn and shoveled the snow, dried the dishes every night, and I helped Mom lift heavy things when she needed it.

“Has he asked you to marry him?” I said.

“Well, no, not yet.” Mom was still driving real slow. “I just have a feeling.” She frowned. “Unless …” Her voice trailed off.

I knew what she was thinking. “I hope Vern’s so mad, he never comes back,” I said. “I don’t want him living in our house.”

“Well, if we get married, Charlie, we’d probably move out of Stumptown into a nicer place.”

“We’ve got a nice place,” I said.

It scared me to think about moving. Sometimes I’m sure I’ll look up one day and see Dad walk through the front door. I mean, what if he wasn’t really killed in Korea and they sent somebody else’s body home by mistake? Everyone told Mom not to open the coffin, and she didn’t. What if he’s alive in a prison in North Korea? The war has to end someday, and then he could come home.

Sometimes I believe that, and other times I don’t know.

But what if it really
did
happen that way, and Dad came home and someone else was living in our house? How would he find us?

I couldn’t let that happen.

Mom turned onto a street that would take us along the Red Cedar River to our left. The Red Cedar’s a pretty big river, and deep, too. I’ve been swimming in it, but I’d never tell Mom. She’d scream if she knew. Will told me that people drown in the river every couple of years. Last year, it was a guy from over at the high school. He was goofing off with friends and jumped off the Rock Island railroad bridge and never came up again. His body washed up downriver two days later.

As we drove, I wondered if we might pass Luther’s camp and not see it. Trees and brush grow right up to the water’s edge in most places. Luther could’ve built a camp in the brush and we’d never spot it driving by in the car.

But then we came even to where the clearing is. You couldn’t see it from where we were, because the road backs away a little and the ground slopes down.

“Stop the car,” I said.

“You see him?” Mom asked, staring hard at the woods across the street.

“No, but I bet he’s down there,” I said. “Park right here, at the side of the road.”

Mom stopped the car and looked at the dense trees growing on the slope that dipped out of sight. “You’re not walking through that timber,” she said. “There’s bound to be lots of ticks in the grass. They’ll run right up your legs.”

“Mom, Luther may be down there,” I said, pushing open the car door. “Besides, the timber’s not deep. There’re just a few trees.”

She frowned. “Well, let’s see.”

“Come on,” I said. I brought the bowl of spaghetti, the fork, and the napkin.

She crossed the street behind me, and I led her to the top of the slope.

“See?” I said. “It’s not so steep. And there’s a path down to the river right here.”

“Okay,” Mom said. “But be careful, Charlie. You want me to hold that dish of spaghetti?”

“No, I’ve got it,” I said.

I led her along the path as it wound down the slope. The sunlight was thinner now as the day eased into evening, and the trees sieved what was left of it into tiny flecks of gold that splashed over the green. Our footsteps tromped on the soft ground, crunching leaves and twigs.

At the bottom we came to the clearing. I saw Luther’s catfish line first. It was tied to a stick about two feet tall that was jammed into the sandy ground next to the river. The line stretched out into the water and looked pretty limp, so there wasn’t a fish on the other end.

Then I saw the lean-to built with brush. It stood up against some bushes, making a great shelter for someone underneath. It wouldn’t have kept all the rain out, but maybe it’d keep off a few sprinkles if they weren’t coming down too hard.

A circle of rocks made a place for a campfire. Off to the side, a wire about a hundred feet long was tied between two trees. I figured Luther was using that to hang out his clothes after he washed them in the river.

It was a great camp.

“Luther’s staying here?” Mom said in a low voice. “Oh, Charlie. He seems like a nice man, but maybe we should—”

“Luther?” I called out, ignoring her. “It’s Charlie. Me and Mom came to see you.”

Luther’s head popped out from the lean-to. “Charlie?” he asked.

I held up the dish in my hands. “We brought you some spaghetti ’cause you didn’t get to eat.”

Luther stepped out of the lean-to, looking surprised. “What?” he said.

“We didn’t want you to be hungry,” I said.

Luther walked toward us slowly. “Oh, you didn’t have to do that,” he said in a shy kind of voice.

I went to him and handed him the dish and fork. He nodded. “Well, that’s real nice of you.” He smiled a little at Mom. “Mrs. Nebraska, you do make good spaghetti.”

Mom nodded back. I wanted her to say thank you to his compliment, but she didn’t. She kept staring at the lean-to. Then she’d look over at Luther and back at the lean-to. Something was working hard in her head, like maybe worrying that Luther was an escaped criminal or something. I kept searching through my mind for the right thing to say. But it seemed like there was so much noise going on in her mind, she wouldn’t hear me, anyway.

Luther was watching Mom, too. “Come and sit down,” he said. He waved at a fallen log. “It’s not fancy, but it’s pretty comfortable.”

“Thanks.” I sat on the log. “You made a great camp.”

“Thank you, Charlie.” He looked at Mom, who was still standing stiff next to the circle of campfire rocks. “Mrs. Nebraska,” he said in a soft voice, “I’ll only be stayin’ at this camp till I get a job and can get me a room.”

“Come on,” I said to Mom. “Sit down.” I patted the log next to me.

Mom stepped carefully over the rough ground. “Tell me, um, Luther …” She brushed off the log and sat down. “What brings you here to Holden?”

He looked down at the spaghetti dish in his hands. “Oh, I was ready for a change, I guess you could say.”

“Go ahead and eat,” I told him.

Luther smiled. “Thank you,” he said. He nodded at Mom. “Ma’am.”

He sat down on a tree stump and took the foil off the dish. He scooped up spaghetti with the fork and crammed it into his mouth. The noodles, covered with red sauce, dangled from his lips. With a combination of sucking them in and using his fork, he got it all into his mouth.

He wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

“Charlie,” Mom said, “did you bring Luther the napkin?”

“Oh, I forgot.” I still had it rolled up in my hand. I got up and gave it to Luther and stood next to him, watching him eat.

“I swear, I’m hungry enough to eat the south end of a northbound polecat,” he said between bites.

The edges of Mom’s mouth twitched up into an almost-smile. “Where do you come from, Luther?” she asked.

“Tennessee, ma’am,” he said.

“You must be about—what?—twenty-four years old?”

“Twenty-five, ma’am.”

“And what work did you do in Tennessee?” she asked.

I wished she wouldn’t ask him so many questions, especially while he was trying to eat.

Luther swallowed the mouthful and said, “I played baseball, ma’am.”

“No,” Mom said. “I mean, how did you earn your living?”

“Baseball, ma’am. I played with the Memphis Mockingbirds.”