Joe Lansdale - A Fine Dark Line

We ate, gave up our tray, and drove away from there, the rain pummeling us harder than ever.

16

SUMMER VACATION was winding down. I was nervous about the prospect of starting a new school, and I had Bubba Joe on my mind. At night, when I tried to lie down, I no longer thought of something ghostly. I thought of Bubba Joe. The way he had looked at me just before the light went out of his eyes and his soul fell down that long tunnel to hell.

Bubba Joe had deserved it. Buster had saved my life. But it wasn’t that easy. Someone cleared their throat, the water gurgled down the sink, it sounded like that gurgle Bubba Joe had made before he let go and went away.

Even some of the movies we showed bothered me. The way people died on film was not the way Bubba Joe died. No last words, dramatic moments. Just bloody and dead.

I tried to stay busy, and one thing I stayed busy with was mine and Buster’s mystery. I guess it was Callie’s mystery too. I kept her informed but she didn’t show much interest.

She started dating Drew Cleves. He seemed nice enough. He had treated me well enough that day on the hill.

Mama liked him.

Daddy didn’t. Then again, he wasn’t crazy about any boy who dated or even wanted to date Callie.

Because of Drew, Callie was out on dates a lot, driving away the summer, going downtown to the indoor movie, hanging out at the drugstore over hamburgers and malts.

The family still thought about Bubba Joe now and then, but not much. It was assumed he had moved on since the cops hadn’t heard of nor seen hide nor hair of him.

I, of course, knew he was dead, and every day I woke up as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. A big shoe. Bubba Joe’s body found somewhere along the creek. In time, though, even I thought less about him.

Daddy had gotten used to me going out to the projection booth to spend time with Buster, and I think, in the back of his mind, he thought I was learning better how to run the projector. It was a practical consideration for him. For me it was fun.

We had still not talked to Winnie.

I asked Buster about that.

“I’m holdin’ back,” he said. “This is a game to us, but that was her daughter got killed.”

“I really do care who killed her. I’d like to see the police nab him.”

“That may be, Stan, but this woman, she don’t understand that.”

“What is there to understand?”

“She gonna believe some boy and a nigger gonna get her daughter justice? That’s hard to buy, even if we are sincere . . . And you know, I don’t think there’s a chance in hell we’ll solve anything. I’m doing it to keep from thinkin’ about whiskey and what I ought’a have done and didn’t and won’t never and can’t never do. You understand what I’m sayin’, boy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I ain’t sayin’ your heart ain’t in the right place, I’m just tellin’ you life ain’t fair. Just ’cause you want somethin’, don’t mean you’ll get it. It ain’t like them Sherlock Holmes stories. They help you to think. Why I gave the book to you—You keep it. I don’t want it back. Anything happens to me, all them books are yours—”

“Nothing is going to happen—”

“Just listen. Life ain’t fair, and it don’t always have everything fit together like a puzzle. Some things just are and there ain’t no explainin’ them. You can come up with maybes, and sometimes you’ll find the real reason. But a lot of what happens don’t never make sense and don’t never jibe together. Hear me?”

“Yes, sir . . . But, isn’t there some way we can talk to her?”

Buster grinned at me. “You ain’t no quitter. I give you that. Maybe there is. I been thinkin’ on it. If I do talk to her, it ain’t gonna be we. It’s gonna be me.”

“But you said—”

“Don’t remember what I said, but I ain’t gonna drag no little white boy off to a whore’s house to chat about her dead daughter. Now how you think your daddy feel about that? You think that’s gonna do my job any good?”

I was disappointed. I thought I was going to be in on it. Not only the investigation, but meeting Margret’s mother, and a live whore. I sat there for a while and listened to the reel clatter in the projector. I knew pouting would get me nowhere with Buster. Finally, I said, “Well, when are you going to do it?”

Buster pursed his lips. “Tonight, when I finish here.”

“Won’t that be late?”

“Not for her. I’ll report to you tomorrow mornin’, if you’ll come over to the street alongside the grocery. We can sit on the curb and visit. Let’s say nine in the mornin’.”

“If I’m not there, Daddy or Mom hung me up. Okay?”

“I understand.”

———

NEXT MORNING I was up early. I left a note saying I was going to buy comic books at the drugstore with my allowance.

Rosy caught me on the way out.

“Where you runnin’ off to this mornin’ without yo’ dog?” She was sitting up on the couch, scratching her head.

“I’m going to buy comics. I thought I might be in town for a while, so I left Nub in my room. Will you let him out later?”

“Them comics won’t be there after breakfast?”

“I don’t want breakfast.”

“Don’t need to go without yo’ breakfast. Let me fix you toast and eggs.”

I started to beg off, but didn’t want to seem too hasty.

Rosy made eggs and toast, prepared some for herself, along with coffee. She had gotten a lot more sure of herself around the house, and had even taken to giving Daddy orders. Which he took.

While I ate, Rosy said, “I can read gooder now. Gonna start workin’ on the way I talk next. Don’t want to sound like no field hand all my life. You can help me on that.”

“I don’t have perfect diction either.”

“You don’t sound ignern’t, though.”

“Well, you might say ‘I can read better’ instead of ‘gooder.’ There really isn’t a word called gooder.”

“Gotta be. Been sayin’ it all my life.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I ain’t so sure you ought to be goin’ out there with Bubba Joe around. I ain’t like yo’ daddy. I ain’t so sure he’s not gonna bother no white boy.”

“I think I’m all right, Rosy. Really.”

“Yeah, well, I ain’t one to tell you nothin’, but you watch yo’self, hear?”

———

I RODE MY BICYCLE to the place Buster asked me to meet him. It was Saturday, and the town was jumping. I saw Buster standing at the far end of the street. He had a pop bottle and was sipping from it.

As I got closer, I noticed just how old he was. He had quit putting shoe polish on his hair, and it was white at the roots. He was tall, but slouched, as if the world were on his shoulders and it had grown too heavy.

I leaned my bike against the curb and sat beside him. A white lady carrying a shopping bag of groceries came by and saw us sitting there. She gave us a kind of smirk and kept walking.

“What she got to sneer about,” Buster said. “She was any uglier they’d have to hire someone to guide her around while she wore a sack over her head.”

I laughed. He grinned, reached inside his shirt pocket and took out a PayDay candy bar. “Thought you might like one. I got myself a plain Hershey’s. My teeth don’t like them peanuts in a PayDay.”

“Did you see Margret’s mother?”

“I did. It was kinda interestin’, Stan. And we got to rethink a few things.”

I had unwrapped the candy bar and, in spite of Rosy’s breakfast, dove into it.

“Now, I couldn’t just go out there and say howdy, I want to talk about your daughter got her head run over by a train, or whatever the hell happened to it. Took some of them letters you had, Stan, and I gave them back to her.”