The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis (2 page)

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Popeye was beginning to hate that clock. He was sick to high heaven of watching it turn minutes into hours and hours into days.

Every day the same.

So
what
if the rain stopped? Popeye thought.

It would still be boring.

It would always be boring in Fayette, South Carolina.

Every day would always be the same.

Popeye was certain about that.

But Popeye was wrong.

Because that very day, that day with the rain dripping out of the heart-shaped stain on the ceiling and that fly sitting there on Dooley's big toe, things changed.

Elvis came to town.

POPEYE PUSHED the screen door open and went out on the porch.

The rain had stopped.

Finally.

The dark clouds were drifting apart, and a sliver of sun poked through, making the raindrops glisten on the leathery leaves of the magnolia tree out front.

The water in the rainspout still made gurgling noises, but the little river snaking down the driveway was slowing down and spreading into puddles.

Popeye jumped off the rickety wooden porch, sending up a spray of muddy water. He went out to the road and walked along the edge of the drainage
ditch. Every now and then, he picked up a few pieces of gravel and tossed them into the murky water.

Plunk.

Plunk.

Plunk.

Boo ambled along behind him, his head hanging so low his floppy ears dragged on the wet gravel.

Then Popeye rounded the curve in the road, and right there in front of him was the last thing he would ever have expected to see.

A motor home.

A
big
motor home.

Big as a house.

Almost.

It tilted precariously to the side, one of its giant wheels sunk deep down into the gloppy red mud of the road.

“Dang, Boo,” Popeye said. “Wouldya look at that!”

The lopsided motor home sparkled like tinfoil in the sun. Glittery gold lightning bolts zigzagged along its sides. On the front, under the enormous windshield, was a painting of a coyote, howling up at a round yellow moon.

Bumper stickers and decals were stuck every which way all over it. Above the door. Along the roof.

 

SEE ROCK CITY

 

CAN'T DRIVE IN THE RAIN?
GO BACK TO CALIFORNIA.

 

I ATE CATFISH AT COUNTRY BILL'S
ON HIGHWAY 14

American flags and smiley faces and peace symbols bordered the curtain-covered windows.

Just looking at that big silver motor home was pure entertainment.

Popeye wondered if there was anybody inside it. He put his ear up against the side and listened.

Silence.

He walked around behind it. Beat-up bicycles of every size were tied to a rack with bright orange rope. A narrow metal ladder led up to the roof.

Popeye stood on his tiptoes, trying to see what was up there, but it was too high. Maybe he could climb up that little ladder and just take a quick peek.

Popeye looked up the road.

Then he looked down the road.

He looked at Boo. “Tell me if anybody comes,” he said.

His heart raced as he climbed up the ladder and peered over the top. Aluminum lawn chairs and a rusty barbecue grill were strapped to the railing that ran along the sides.

Popeye looked up the road.

Then he looked down the road.

Then he crawled out onto the top of the motor home and stood up, his knees shaking and his stomach fluttering.

In one corner was a big metal toolbox. Popeye tiptoed over and opened it. Inside were footballs and baseballs and badminton rackets. Jump ropes and Frisbees and croquet mallets. A pair of stilts. A pogo stick.

“Hey, you skinny-headed ding-dong!”

Popeye let the lid of the toolbox slam shut with a clang.

“You want me to come up there and give you a knuckle sandwich for lunch?”

Popeye peered over the edge of the roof. A whole
passel of scruffy-looking kids glared up at him. The oldest one stood in front of the others with his fists jammed into his waist. His hair was long. Dark, wavy curls flopped over his eyes and covered his ears.

Popeye didn't know what to do.

A couple of the kids gathered around Boo, hugging him, stroking his back, lifting his ears.

Popeye felt a little irritated at Boo for not warning him about these kids.

“I was just looking,” he said, his voice coming out all trembly.

“You wanna look at something, you come down here and look at this.” The boy shook his fist at Popeye.

“Yeah,” one of the other boys said. “You come down here and look at
that
.”

“This your dog?” the only girl in the bunch said. She kissed Boo right on the mouth and hugged his neck. A wild halo of curls bounced around her head, like little springs.

Popeye nodded. “His name is Boo.”

The smallest boy kept saying, “Shake,” and holding his grubby hand out for Boo to shake hands with him.

Boo was not interested.

“What kinda dog is he?” the boy asked.

“Oh,” Popeye said, trying hard to make his trembly voice sound cool and casual-like, “Part this, part that, and part the other thing.” That was Velma's line, but Popeye figured some humor was called for now. He grinned at the kids, hoping to calm things down a little with that oldest boy still glaring up at him.

Popeye glanced from kid to kid. They all had the same curly hair. The same dark eyes. The same skinny legs all covered with scabs and mosquito bites. The boys were barefoot and shirtless, their shoulders sunburned and freckled. The girl wore a camouflage T-shirt over a bathing suit and tap shoes. Black tap shoes tied with yellow ribbon and covered with mud.

“Get yourself on down here,” the glaring boy said, his fists still jammed into his waist.

Popeye put one foot onto the ladder.

Then he put the other foot onto the ladder.

And then he went down.

Down.

Down.

“WHAT HAPPENED to your eye?” one of the boys said.

“My uncle, Dooley, shot it with a BB gun.”

The boys looked at each other with eye-widened, jaw-dropping glee and said, “Cool!” and “Awesome!” but the girl said, “Eeeyew!”

“Turn your pockets inside out,” the oldest boy said. The other kids gathered in a bunch behind him.

“What for?” Popeye said.

“We got checkers and stuff up there.” The boy jerked his head toward the roof of the motor home.

“Yeah, and some good rocks,” one of the other boys said.

The girl squinted at him. “Did you take our good rocks?” she said.

Popeye turned the pockets of his shorts inside out. Two quarters and a Tootsie Roll fell onto the wet gravel.

The girl darted over and snatched the Tootsie Roll.

“You can have it,” Popeye said, picking up the quarters.

“It's all mushy,” she said, tossing the gooey candy into the drainage ditch.

It made a
ploink
noise and disappeared beneath the muddy water.

“What were you doing up there, anyways?” the oldest boy said.

Popeye shrugged. “Just looking.”

“Ain't you ever seen a motor home before?”

“Not one like that.” Popeye looked over at the shiny, tilted motor home. “At least, not up close,” he added.

“It's a Holiday Rambler,” the boy said.

A Holiday Rambler?

Popeye loved the sound of that. “You on vacation?” he asked.

“Heck, no,” the boy said. “That's where we live.”

“All the time?”

The boy nodded. “All the time.”

Popeye had never heard anything so glorious. This gang of scruffy kids
lived
in that silver motor home with the howling coyote and the lightning bolts.

“Why'd you come to Fayette?” he said.

Elvis shrugged. “Took a wrong turn.”

“Where'd you come from?”

“Come from all over.”

Popeye remembered one of Velma's vocabulary words.

nomad:
noun
; a wanderer

Popeye tried to imagine being a nomad in a Holiday Rambler instead of waking up every livelong day in the same old place where nothing ever happened.

“You wanna be in our club?” the girl asked.

The boy whirled around and yelled, “
I'm
the inviter of this club!” He punched her in the arm with a knuckle, making her jump around and holler.

Loud.

When she was done hollering, she kicked him in the shin with the metal toe of her tap shoe.

Then they scuffled around in the gravel road for a bit, calling each other names and yanking hair until the girl held her arms up in the air and made peace signs and hollered, “Truce!”

The boy turned to Popeye. “You wanna be in our club?” he said.

“What club?”

“The Spit and Swear Club.”

“What's that?”

“A club where you spit and swear,” the boy said, tossing his head back and spitting in the ditch.

All of the other kids spat in the ditch.

Popeye spat in the ditch.

Then the boy let loose with a string of the most amazing and wonderful swearwords, and all the other kids did the same until the air was filled with the swearingest words Popeye had ever heard. He had always thought his uncle Dooley was pretty good at swearing, but these kids made Dooley look like a harp-strumming angel.

So Popeye joined in, calling swearwords out into the steamy air beside the ditch.

That seemed to please the oldest boy. He looked solemnly at Popeye and said, “Okay, you can be in our club.”

Then he pointed at the other kids one by one. “Calvin, Prissy, Walter, Willis, Shorty.” He jabbed a thumb at himself and said, “Elvis.”

Popeye jabbed a thumb at himself and said, “Popeye.”

All the kids started hooting and hollering and poking each other with their elbows and holding their sides and saying,
“Popeye?”

Popeye's face grew hot.

Elvis ignored the other kids and slapped a hand on Popeye's shoulder. “I'm making you senior vice president,” he said.

“Hey!” Calvin hollered. “
I'm
senior vice president.”

“Not anymore, you ain't,” Elvis said.

Calvin clamped his mouth shut tight and glared at Elvis.

Popeye didn't want to make Calvin any madder
than he already was, so he tried hard to keep his face serious and not all smiley like he was feeling inside.

He had started this day as a fly-staring, clockwatching, bored boy.

And now here he was, senior vice president of the Spit and Swear Club.

POPEYE SAT on the side of the road and waited. The door of the motor home stayed shut. The curtains stayed drawn. No sounds came from inside.

“Guess it's too early,” he said to Boo.

Boo's tail brushed back and forth in the weeds, still damp with the morning dew.

Popeye wanted to see inside that motor home more than anything.