Joe Lansdale - A Fine Dark Line

“I’ll get you something.”

“Maybe you can wrap me up a little somethin’, some bread maybe. Let me have that old canteen of yours. You know, the army one? I’m gonna try and catch a boxcar out later.”

“Where to?”

“Where my old man can’t find me. I started to catch me one last night, but it wasn’t slow enough. May need to walk up to the next town. I think they got a switchin’ station there. Might go where I can get me a job of some kind. Workin’ on a farm. I know how to work, and if they hire them little wetback kids, they’re sure to hire me.”

“What about your mother?”

“She don’t care about me neither. Thought she did, but I finally come to think she don’t. She lets him beat me.”

“He beats her too,” I said.

“I know. But . . .”

“What?”

“She kind of likes it.”

“Likes a beating?”

“Uh huh. That’s how come all this.”

“I thought it was reading, wanting to go to school.”

“That’s what set him off finally, but it’s because I run in on him beatin’ her the other day, and I fought him. He whupped me good with his fists, and my mama told me to mind my own business. That it was the way they did things.”

“She said that?”

“Yes.”

“She could have been trying to help you. Keep you out of it.”

“I wanted to think that, but way she looked . . . It was like she was havin’ fun. Ain’t nobody ought to like that, should they?”

“I wouldn’t think so.”

“I been stupid, Stanley. I been stayin’ home for her, and she don’t want me there.” Richard started to cry. “I’m so tired.”

“Come on, Richard, you don’t need to stay out here.”

“I don’t want your parents to know. I don’t want to tell nobody.”

“It’s all right, Richard. Really. Come on. Let’s get Rosy to fix you a big breakfast. You know how she can cook.”

I held out my hand and he took it, and I helped him up. He sniffed a few times and quit crying. We walked to the house. Richard walked with his head hung, and his poor wrecked feet lifted no more than they had to.

———

WHEN WE CAME IN through the back, Rosy saw Richard and looked at me. I said, “He needs something to eat, Rosy.”

“Well, we gonna fix that,” she said, and pans started clanging. Mom came into the kitchen a few moments later. She had slept late. She was still wearing her robe, and hair hung in her eyes.

“You sound like you’re trying to tear down the house, Rosy . . . Oh, hi, Richard.”

“Hi, Mrs. Mitchel.”

“You look a mess, son. What have you been doing?”

Richard put his head on the table and started to cry again. Mom pulled a chair up next to him, put her arm around him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“It’s not that,” I said.

“What is it?” Mom asked.

“Let him eat now, Miss Gal,” Rosy said. “That’s what a growin’ boy needs.”

So Rosy cooked and Richard ate. When he was finished Mom didn’t ask him any questions. She showed him where he could bathe and I went upstairs and got some of my clothes for him.

When Richard was finished, he dressed, except for shoes, and came back to the kitchen. Rosy and Mom were waiting on him. They had him perch on his knees on a chair in front of the sink, and they washed his hair, using strong soap and turpentine to kill lice. When they finished that, they rinsed his hair, dried it, combed it for him. Exhausted, he ended up on the living room couch.

Instantly, he was sound asleep.

Daddy came in for breakfast, and while Rosy cooked it, Mom guided him to the living room to see Richard sleeping on the couch.

“What’s this about?” Daddy asked.

“Stanley?” Mom said.

In the kitchen, at the table, I explained.

———

I’VE HEARD OF PEOPLE like that,” Daddy said. “They call them masochist, and the one does it to them a sadist.”

“That’s sick,” Mom said.

“I suppose,” Daddy said, “anyone wants to hurt someone and likes it, or someone likes or thinks they deserve being hurt, is, yeah, a little sick.”

“You liked slapping Chester around,” I said.

“I did. Liked slapping Chapman around, for that matter. Like it better now I know what he’s done to that boy. But for me, not just anyone will do. James Stilwind would do. I’d like to slap him around.”

“What are we going to do with Richard?” Mom asked.

“Nothing,” Daddy said. “He can sleep in Stanley’s room for now. By the way, where in the hell is Callie?”

“Still sleeping,” Mom said.

“I hope she can get up when school starts,” Dad said.

“We were late ourselves,” Mom said.

“Yes,” Daddy said, smiling at Mom, “but we weren’t sleeping.”

Mom reddened a little. “What if Mr. Chapman comes for him?”

“He won’t,” Daddy said. “He doesn’t want to come around here. If he does, he gets another slapping.”

“You can’t solve everything by slapping someone around,” Mom said.

“I know,” Daddy said. “But some things you can. At least temporarily. Haven’t seen Chester around here lately, have you?”

“We could call the police on Chapman,” Mom said.

“They’d just take Richard back to him,” Dad said. “Way the law works when kids run off, darn near no matter what the reason, law takes them back. There’s folks believe kids belong to parents and they can do what they want with their own kids. Law wouldn’t help, Gal.”

“The law does that?” Mom asked. “Gives beat-up kids back?”

“Afraid so,” Daddy said.

“What if Chapman calls the police?” I said. “He could call them on us.”

“He could,” Daddy said, “but he might be thinking we know more than he wants us to know. And we do. Law might give him Richard back, but Chapman wouldn’t want us spreading his business. Town like this, his business would burn through it like a wildfire. Wouldn’t be anyone didn’t know it. When it comes right down to it, he and Stilwind aren’t all that different.”

“Do you think Stilwind will bother us, Daddy? You know, with regulations and all that?”

“That’s his style, son. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

———

ON A HOT STICKY NIGHT with mosquitoes, the Friday starting off the weekend before school was to begin, I went out to visit with Buster.

I did that when the concession was slow, and it was slow right then because the first run of the movie, The Cry Baby Killer, was near the end and everyone was waiting to see the climax. Or have a climax; I was now old enough to understand why some cars parked out near the fence were rocking.

Richard stayed to help with concessions. He seemed comfortable around the family, and right now, comfort was good.

Pretty soon, I found I was telling Buster all about Richard and his daddy without even being asked. It jumped out. Maybe it was information I shouldn’t have shared, but I couldn’t help myself.

Buster shook his head sadly and clucked his tongue.

“Older I get, Stan, more I wish I had a family and hadn’t messed up the one I had. Drinkin’ didn’t do me no good. You know, I haven’t had me a drink since that day . . . with you and Bubba Joe.”

“Do you feel better?”

“I feel miserable. I think about drinkin’ all the time. Near come off the wagon least once a day every day. Make that least every hour. It ain’t easy. Main thing with me these days, is I’m finally startin’ to feel old.”

Buster removed from his shirt pocket a folded piece of yellow paper. He gave it to me and I unfolded it. It was the chief’s report on Susan Stilwind and her father.

“Why are you giving this to me, Buster?”