Percival Everett - Suder

One by one, Lou, David, and Martin excuse themselves. And so, I’m all alone with Thelma and the stuffed dog.

Thelma starts clearing things off the table.

“I suppose Peter’s at your mother’s,” I says.

“Yes.” She takes the dishes into the kitchen and comes out pulling her sweater on.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

“For a walk,” she says.

“This time of night?”

“It’s not late.”

“Where are you going?” I step in front of the door.

“Craig,” she whines.

“I want to know where you’re going.”

She starts taking off her sweater. “Noplace.”

“Who are you going to meet?”

“I’m not going anyplace.” She sits.

“Who have you been seeing?”

She picks up a magazine. “You’re being ridiculous.” She gets up and shuts off the music. “You’re not well, Craig.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This music, this paranoia. You’re like your mother.”

I open the front door.

“Where are you going?”

“For a walk.” I leave.

Ma draped the wool blanket all over me. This was after she made me curl up on the floor in the back of Daddy’s Mercury.

“Stay down,” Ma said.

“Ma, it’s hot.” I was already sweating profusely. I started to rise.

She pushed me down. “Stay. Craigie, I’m depending on you. When your daddy stops at the drugstore, you get out and sneak in and then you’ll see. You’ll see them in the act.”

I could taste the salt of my perspiration in my mouth and all I could see were a couple of stripes of light crawling under one edge of the blanket. “But—”

“I’m depending on you. You’ll see. That Lou Ann Narramore.” She closed the door.

All the windows of the car were rolled up tight and I was good and soaked. Then the driver’s-side door opened and Daddy got in. I wanted to get up and tell him of my presence, but Ma’s words echoed in my head: “in the act.” It was a short, uncomfortable ride to the drugstore. After Daddy got out I waited a few seconds and then I tiptoed from the car to the drugstore door. I opened the door slightly and pushed my hand inside, grabbing the bell which dangled from the inside door handle. I slid the rest of me inside. I crawled down the aisle of colognes and hair tonics to the end so I could see the prescription counter.

Daddy was standing there, waiting. Then a pretty young woman with a bright smile came from the back room with a couple of bottles. Daddy looked at the bottles.

“Thank you, Miss Narramore,” Daddy said.

“By the way, Dr. Suder,” Lou Ann Narramore said, “Mrs. Jordan came in earlier today and she said—”

“She’s not to have that prescription refilled,” Daddy said.

I retreated into the aisle. They hardly knew each other. I was relieved, and shocked that Ma could be so wrong. Then I heard the bell on the door and I looked back at the counter to find Daddy gone. I knocked something off a shelf and became afraid. I ran for the door, threw it open, and plowed right into someone.

It was Virgil Wallace. He fell back and hit his enormous head on the sidewalk. His hands moved quickly up, grabbing his skull. I was on top of him. I stood to find the lower front of my shirt and the front of my pants covered with a milky substance. I rubbed the stuff between my fingers and screamed. I felt sick. Virgil Wallace was rolling all over the ground now, still holding his head. I could see a little blood creeping out from between his fingers.

I ran all the way home, through the front door, and up to my bedroom. I sat on my bed, out of breath and scared.

“Well?” Ma asked, bursting into the room.

“Nothing,” I panted.

“What do you mean?”

“They hardly even know each other.”

Her eyes caught the front of my clothes.

I glanced down at the mess and began to shake with fear.

Ma walked to me and stroked the front of my pants and then rubbed the thick substance between her fingers. For the most part it had dried. She looked at me through narrow, angry slits. “Craigie!” she screamed. “I thought you were a good boy!”

“I am a good boy.”

“No, you’re not. You’ve been pulling on yourself.”

“No, I haven’t. Really, I haven’t,” I cried. “I ran into Virgil Wallace, the waterhead boy.”

She didn’t hear my words. She looked at my clothes again. “Come, you have to take a bath.”

I agreed.

“If we don’t hurry, you’ll go blind.” She looked at me, shaking her head. “Undress.”

I pulled my clothes off and then she led me by the hand into the bathroom.

“Sit!” she screamed, pointing at the tub.

I sat in the dry tub. Then Ma turned the cold water on full through the shower. I yelled and tried to crawl out, but she pushed me back.

“You must learn to be good!’’, she screamed. Then she made the shower very hot. “Promise me you won’t do it again!”

“I promise! I promise!”

A couple of days walk by and most all I’ve been doing is listening to the song.

I’m walking around downtown and I pass a music store. I look through the window at the saxophones and then I go inside.

“What can I sell you?” asks the clerk.

“I’m interested in a saxophone.”

“What kind?”

“The kind Charlie Parker plays. I think it’s an alto.”

“An alto.”

“How much do they cost?”

“There’s a whole range of prices. How much are you willing to spend?”

“I hadn’t thought about it.”

“They start at about three hundred dollars.”

“Can I see one of those?” I asked.

“Sure can.” The clerk turns and looks at the saxophones in stands on the shelf behind him and pulls one down. “This one is four hundred dollars.”

“Is it hard to play? I mean, to learn?”

“Piece of cake.”

“I’ll take it. Do I need anything else?”

“Just a reed.” He puts a reed on the mouthpiece. “Goes right here. You just tighten these.”

I nod.

“You gotta remember to suck it, though.”

I look at him.

“The reed. Get it soaked.” He pauses. “Bite down and don’t blow out your cheeks.”

I look at him.

“The mouthpiece.”

“Should I have a book?”

“Naw, you don’t need a book.”

I write him a check for four hundred dollars.

He looks at the check. “Craig Suder, the ballplayer?”

“No.”

“I’ve seen you on television.”

I leave. I go to the park and spend a few hours trying to blow through the horn. Then I head home.

When I get home I don’t see Thelma or Peter. I look out the window and across the street at that white guy’s house. Bill, that’s his name — I remember it now, Bill. His front door opens and out steps Thelma and my jaw drops and I watch as she walks toward the house. I open the door.

“So, I was right,” I says. “Jesus, Thelma, why him? Why some white guy?”

“What are you talking about?”

“What am I talking about?” I’m pacing. “I’m talking about adultery, fooling around, you carrying on with the neighbor, Bill.”

“I’ve never seen you just this way before.”

“You’ve never seen me just this way?”

“I was borrowing some paprika, see?” She holds up a little tin.

“Paprika? You can do better than that. Paprika? What kind of single man keeps paprika in his house?”

Thelma walks to the kitchen. “He’s very nice.”

I follow her. “I’m sure. Who borrows paprika?”

“Are you through?”

I don’t say anything. I just walk out of the kitchen and pace around the living room. Then I go back to the kitchen. “I know how to get to the bottom of this.”