Sharyn McCrumb - Foggy Mountain Breakdown and Other Stories

Junior Mullins was the kind of big, loud kid that other boys hate but nobody stands up to. His father was a manager down at the railroad, working steady, so Junior had clothes that weren’t hand-me-downs, and meat sandwiches and an apple or an orange in his lunch box, while everybody else had corn bread and a cold potato. Junior Mullins had a store-bought bike, a shiny red one, brand-new, that his dad had bought in Johnson City for his birthday. Junior thought that he was better than the other boys in the neighborhood because his father was the boss of everybody else’s father, because the Mullins family lived in a brick house, and because Junior got a toy truck and a model airplane for Christmas, instead of just an orange, a stick of rock candy, and a new pair of shoes. Junior enforced his superiority with the ruthless cruelty of a ten-year-old tyrant. His weapons were scorn, derision, taunting, and, as a last resort, his fists. Davy tried to stay out of his way, and most of the time he succeeded, but nobody could escape Junior Mullins’s notice forever.

Davy’s turn came in Wells’s pasture, when Junior Mullins showed up just as the boys were starting a game of polo. Charlie Bestor stopped the motorcycle a few yards away from the group, and Junior climbed down, his red face curled into its usual sneer. He was wearing a pair of blue dungarees without a single patch on them and a leather jacket. “You babies still riding bikes?” he said. “We’ve got a real set of wheels.” He jerked his thumb toward the motorcycle.

Charlie Bestor patted his motorcycle and called out, “You fellows want to race?”

Johnny Suttle scuffed the toe of his shoe in the dirt. “We were just fixing to play polo,” he mumbled.

Junior Mullins hooted. “Hear that, Charlie? They were fixing to play polo! You sissies don’t know how to play polo,” he announced, swaggering over to the gaggle of bikers. “I reckon I’ll just have to teach you.”

“You can’t play without a bike,” Dewey Givens pointed out. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wished he hadn’t said them, because Junior’s face lit up with spiteful glee, and he stepped back to survey the taut faces of his victims. He was showing off for his big-shot friend now, which would make him more vicious than ever. He let the boys squirm in silence while he pretended to consider the matter.

“I believe you’re right about that, Dewey,” Junior said at last. “Yep. I got to agree with you. I sure can’t play polo without no bike, now can I? I reckon I’ll just have to borrow me one.” He surveyed the knot of squirming boys, each one carefully looking anywhere except in Junior Mullins’s face.

When he couldn’t stand the suspense anymore, Davy spoke up. “You could go home and get yours,” he said.

Even Charlie Bestor laughed at that. Everybody knew that Junior Mullins wouldn’t risk scratching up his brand-new bike in a rough-and-tumble game like polo, where crashing your bike into the other players’ mounts was inevitable. All the other boys had beat-up second-hand bikes, or scrounged homemade ones. His was store-bought, too good for the likes of them. Junior grinned at Davy. “No. I think I’ll just borrow one,” he said. He eyed the polished blue bike at Davy’s side. “Yours is new, isn’t it? You make it yourself?”

Davy nodded, proud of himself, despite the threat of Junior Mullins, looming within punching distance and sneering at him like he was a night crawler in a fishing bucket. Junior made a great show of examining Davy’s bike, inspecting the garden-hose tires, the flawless paint job, the Coca-Cola cap brakes. Maybe he’ll see how much pride I took in it, and he’ll leave it be , Davy thought, hoping that respect would win him what mercy could not.

“Nice job,” drawled Junior, fingering the railroad-spike pedals. He glanced back to make sure that Charlie Bestor was watching. “For a homemade bike, that is. It looks sturdy enough. I guess I’ll try it out for you so we can see what kind of job you did.”

Davy gripped the handlebars tighter. “You’re too big for it, Junior,” he said. “You’d break it”

Junior’s face turned a deeper shade of red. He was a stocky boy, verging on fat, and he didn’t like comments about his size, however innocuously intended. He jerked the bike out of Davy’s hands. “We’ll just have to risk it, won’t we. I’ve got a polo match to play.” He snatched up a croquet mallet, hoisted his bulk onto the smaller boy’s bicycle, and teetered off into the center of the pasture. “Let’s get this show on the road!” he yelled to the other boys.

One by one they wheeled their bikes onto the playing field. Some of them gave Davy a look of apology or commiseration as they went past, but Davy didn’t care what the other boys thought of Junior or how sorry they were that he had been singled out as victim. He wanted his bike, and nobody was going to help him get it back. If he tried to fight Junior on his own, he would end up with a bloody nose and a torn shirt, and Junior would destroy the bike.

He stood on the sidelines with clenched fists, watching as the teams pedaled up and down the pasture, swatting the softball back and forth. Above the thwack of the wooden mallets hitting the ball, and the shouts of the players, Davy thought he could hear the creaking of his overloaded bike. Junior Mullins was playing with a vengeance, going out of his way to collide with the other boys, whether they were close to the ball or not. He seemed to have no interest in scoring goals or in affecting the outcome of the game. For Junior the polo match was an excuse to hit something. Davy winced at every crash, thinking of the dents Junior was putting in the bike, and the scratches scoring the new paint job. A few yards away Charlie Bestor leaned his motorcycle against a tree and watched the game with the wry amusement of a superior being, sometimes shouting encouragement to Junior, and egging him on to more reckless playing.

After nearly an hour Junior tired of the game. He threw Davy’s bike down in the weeds at the far end of the pasture, and loped back to Charlie Bestor’s motorcycle. “Let’s get out of here!” he said. “It’s no fun playing with this bunch of babies.”

As Junior climbed into the saddle behind the grinning Charlie Bestor, he called out to Davy, “Nice bike! Maybe I’ll try it again sometime.”

It was more than a threat. It was a promise.

Davy waited until the motorcycle roared out of sight, over the railroad track, and around the first curve, and then he hurried across the field to inspect the damage to his bike. The other boys hung back. One by one they drifted away from the pasture, and Davy was alone.

He reached into the briar-laced grass and pulled on the handlebars to his bike. After a few tugs, he was able to jerk it free. He set it down in the dirt, and ran his fingers along the shredded length of garden hose that had been the front tire. The frame was scratched and dented, and the handlebars were twisted out of alignment where the collisions and Junior’s weight had combined to over-stress the metal. Long gashes scarred the bike’s paintwork, and the battered brakes needed much more than a bottle cap to repair them. Davy wheeled his wrecked creation home, across the empty pasture, half carrying it across the rocky creek, picking his way along the rougher parts of the path. Davy’s face was pinched, and his jaw was set tighter than a bulldog’s, but his eyes had a faraway look as if he was somewhere other than the road to Foggy Mountain. He never once cried.

No one saw Davy from that Saturday until the next. Nobody stopped by to see how he was doing, because they knew how he was doing, and there wasn’t anything anybody could say. Best to let him be for a while. He’d come back when he was over it, and things would go on as before.