Joe Lansdale - A Fine Dark Line

I looked blank.

“He was a colored man. Invented bull-doggin’, like you see in the rodeo. But Bill done it with his teeth. He’d leap off a horse onto a bull, bite its lip, take it to the ground. Some folks called him the Dusky Demon.”

It occurred to me we had lost sight of what Buster had originally started our conversation with.

“What about the flying saucer?”

“Well, this fella told me this little body he seen was buried in the graveyard there in Aurora. He described it to me, and I painted it on the fence there like he told it. But the green color, well, I did that ’cause later folks started callin’ them little green men. Fella said he seen the critter, told me it was actually kinda gray-lookin’.”

“You believe that man’s story?”

“Naw, but it’s a good story, ain’t it?”

“How come you didn’t paint more things on the fence?”

“Got tired and shy of paint. Just had the green stuff left.”

“Do you paint at home?”

“Just the shack I live in. Painted it last week.”

“You have a family?”

“Had a wife. Way back in the nations. Indian gal. Pretty thing, if a little stout. She come down with smallpox and died. I had another. A colored girl named Talley. We had a daughter. Talley run off with a lighter-skin nigger and took my daughter, Helen, with her. I gave up on marriage after that.”

“Your wife and daughter live here?”

“Mineola. Helen’s got her a husband and family. Man she’s married to treats her good. Works some kind of way for the railroad.”

“You know a lot about her.”

“I check on her. My grandbabies, they eight and four and two. All boys. I ain’t never seen them but from a distance.”

“Maybe you should introduce yourself.”

“Helen be proud to meet me. She thinks I knocked up her mother and run off, but it was her mother who left, not me. But she ain’t gonna believe that . . . Well, it ain’t gettin’ no earlier or any cooler, so I ought to see I can finish up.”

———

INSIDE THE HOUSE, I sat at the table, holding my book, but not reading it. I decided to fix myself some tea, but no sooner had I got my crutches under me, started for the refrigerator, than Rosy Mae was on her feet. Her magazines went into her bag faster than a frightened armadillo darting into a hole.

“What you want, little Stanley? Some tea? Let me get that for ya.”

“You don’t need to do that,” I said.

“I know,” she said, and winked. “But I hear yo daddy’s car out there.”

I grinned, sat at the table. She poured me ice tea, put the remaining cookies in front of me on a bright yellow plate.

“You won’t tell I gave that nigger cookies and tea, will you?”

“I don’t care.”

“I ain’t sure yo daddy would like it.”

“I won’t tell.”

True to Rosy Mae’s sharp hearing, I heard the door open, and Callie, Mom, and Daddy burst inside laughing. They had a number of sacks. They brought them into the living room, put them on the couch.

Mom, carrying a small brown bag with grease stains, greeted us, came into the kitchen, Callie and Daddy following. Mom said, “You won’t believe the sale we got down at K-Woolens. We bought all kinds of things for school. I got you some things too. I know you don’t like to shop, so I got you some jeans and shirts. We can go tomorrow and fit some shoes. I want you to get some tennies and some nice dress shoes. We might as well get you a winter coat too. They’re on sale.”

“We bought me a coat,” Callie said, “but it’s so hard to want to buy one, hot as it is right now. I did find a pretty one, flares at the bottom—I’ll try it on for you later, and I got the cutest clothes. And Mom found some for herself. She made Daddy buy some nice pants, a shirt, and some shoes, and we went to lunch at the drugstore cafe.”

Daddy grinned. He had that beleaguered look of a man who had shopped well beyond his wants. Which was pretty much like my wants. Little to none.

Glancing at the Tarzan book, Daddy said, “Monkeys carry Tarzan off in this one?”

“No, sir. This one’s got dinosaurs in it.”

“Dinosaurs? Guess I haven’t got a clue what Tarzan’s about.”

“I brought you home somethin’, dear,” Mom said. “A nice hamburger and some fries from the cafe. There’s one in there for you too, Rosy Mae.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Mom put the greasy sack on the table in front of me. I opened it, got out the hamburger and fries, put them on the plate next to my cookies. I pushed the sack over to Rosy Mae, who without hesitation sat at the table and began to eat.

Mom said to me, “You eat the hamburger before you have anymore cookies, you hear, dear.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Rosy Mae said, “You know, my cousin Ju William cooks there at the drugstore cafe.”

“Well, it must run in the family,” Callie said. “Our lunch was so good.”

Daddy looked out the screen door, saw Buster painting the projection booth. “What in the hell is Buster doing here this time of day? I don’t pay him overtime.”

Daddy looked at me.

“He was here when I got up.”

“Well, he better not expect more money, ’cause I don’t have it . . . Though that old booth does need painting . . . I don’t know. Maybe I can work something out with him. Least I won’t have to paint it myself out in this horrid, hot sun. But good God, that green. I’d have bought him a better color paint. Blue maybe.”

Daddy went out the screen door, walked toward the projection booth. He seemed to be pushing heat waves before him.

Buster looked up at Daddy, stopped painting, laid the paintbrush down gently on the edge of the paint can.

Daddy met him without shaking hands. I could hear Daddy talking, but couldn’t understand him. Buster nodded as Daddy talked, and I thought, the man Daddy’s talking to talked to Daddy’s childhood hero, Tom Mix. I wondered what Daddy would think about that.

When Rosy Mae finished her hamburger, which didn’t take long, Mom and her went into the living room and Mom showed her what they had bought.

Rosy Mae shrieked, said, “Oh, this so pretty, Miss Gal.”

It was a big dress about the size of a campaign tent, and it was all the colors of the rainbow. It was called a muumuu, and Mom had gotten it for Rosy Mae.

“I thought this would be a nice surprise,” Mom said. “A colorful house dress.”

“Well, it’s certainly colorful. Thank you, Miss Gal. You so sweet.”

“You’re more than welcome, Rosy Mae.”

While this was going on, Callie came over and whispered in my ear. “Let’s talk.”

9

WE WENT OUT on the veranda, Callie holding the door for me as I crutched outside. We stood in the shade of the overhang, Callie next to a support post, me leaning on my crutches.

“I’m free. I don’t have to stay at the house anymore.”

“How did that happen?”

“You don’t sound happy for me.”

“I’m happy . . . It’s good. Yeehaw.”

Callie gave me the hairy eyeball. When she did that she was almost scary, way she slitted her eyes. She favored Daddy then.

After a moment of scrutinizing me, she said, “Mom was talking to some other mothers, and guess what, their daughters all came up with those nasty things in their bedrooms, and they were daughters who dated or at least knew Chester.”

“So they were all doing it with him.”

“No they weren’t. And Stanley, don’t try and talk like someone who knows something. You had never even heard of such a thing just a few days ago. Several girls had those in their rooms, or in their houses. I don’t know all the details. But they all believe they were planted, and we all think we know who did it. Jane Jersey. She has a grudge against any girl who’s pretty and might attract someone she might want, even if she couldn’t have them. She pretends it’s about Chester, but believe me, not that many girls really want Chester.”