Norman Partridge - The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists

And Jimmy laughed, singin, “Sickly child, sickly child… ”

I was last. The spool of wire was heavy and I was wearin gloves and two coats to keep from gettin scratched and I didn’t like to think what Pap was gonna do when he found out the barbed wire wasn’t in the barn no more like it was supposed to be. But Jimmy said to me, “Little Pete, your daddy is just a stupid nigger so he ain’t even gonna know it’s gone, and even if he does know it he’s gonna know better than to holler that someone stoled it, cause God knows where that kinda yellin gets a nigger round here, Little Pete.”

Little Pete. That’s what they call me cause I’m hunched up like Ygor. But I wish they would call me like they did the little boy in the picture. Peter. That’s what Mama used to call me before she went off to the sportin life. And I wished I was like Peter in the picture too, all brave like nobody’s business and off huntin rhinocerasses and alligators and havin adventures bout the giant who stoled my storybook and that soldierman with the rubber arm who rescued me.

But this wasn’t no adventure like that. Like I said, it was hot. Not cold and rainy and gloomy like in the picture. The witch’s shack was a teeny bit of a place out behind the big house and it was all leanin sideways and ready to fall over like the big house was too and like the houses in the picture. Jimmy said that she wrote him in a note that we had to meet her in that shack cause the big house was too grand for the likes of us little folks and little folks got to meet her in a little place. So we climbed up from the creek bed over the hot fryin pan rocks that was real smooth even though, like I said, there wasn’t no water in the creek. This was before the aqua duck, cause since we got that there is always water there and you can’t walk down that way no more and there ain’t even no stones in the bottom of it accordin to what people say and now there ain’t no grand house or even little house there no more, either, cause I guess them houses finally leaned over too far and just fell down and somebody hauled them away. But back then there was still a creek and two houses and when us kids come up through all that manzanita and then through the rusty barbed-wire fence what was all tangled-busted and needin fixin bad we was practically on the little porch which belonged to the shack. It was pretty rickety with a hole in the roof and I thought bout the picture and the hole in the labboratoree roof where Ygor pushed a boulder through and almost hit Jimmy.

But it wasn’t Jimmy he almost hit it was the doctor in the two-tone coat. Jimmy said the man was Frankenstein’s son, like the picture’s called. I said that Peter was Frankenstein’s son but Jimmy just said I was stupid cause Peter was the grandson. But then when I asked him how come the picture wasn’t called Grandson of Frankenstein he couldn’t even give me a right answer. It’s the same way as when he tried to tell me that Ygor was the same fella as Dracula and that the Frankenstein Monster was really the Mummy.

Anyway, “You bring it all?” was what the witch asked and Jimmy allowed how we had. “Boy, you better not be lyin,” was the next thing she said.

“I ain’t lyin,” was what Jimmy said.

Jimmy lied all the time, though. He always said we should go to the picture together but then he wouldn’t sit with me when we did go even though we went plenty of times cause it was the only picture they showed for weeks and weeks. He told me he was my friend plenty of times and then throwed rocks at me when he seen me walkin by myself while he was with Rusty and the other fellas. I knowed he did it cause I was a nigger and I was always gonna be small like Ygor, anyhow. Even though back then I used to pray it wouldn’t be so, specially when Jimmy and Rusty called me a nigger dwarf circus clown.

And for sure Jimmy lied bout that stuff with Mary Hannah too, even though he said that he really didn’t hate her cause of what happened though after it happened he said she was just like the witch.

“I had to say it,” was what he said bout that back when I was still talkin to him. “I had to make up that story bout us kids runnin into that barbed-wire fence that was covered up with weeds and manzanita. You don’t want folks to know what really happened out there, now do you, Little Pete? You don’t want that man comin after us, or talkin to your pap, do ya?”

“No.”

“Well that’s thinkin straight. Cause you and me know we got to keep that a secret tween us, just like Ygor and the Doctor kept their secret bout the Monster in the picture.”

I didn’t say nothin to that even though I wanted to say that Ygor and the Doctor didn’t keep their secret too good. But I didn’t say it cause I knowed that Jimmy didn’t understand bout that witch and her barbed-wire man and it wouldn’t do no good to argue bout them if he didn’t even understand bout Ygor and the Doctor.

Anyhow, us kids was in the shack with the witch and Rusty was still coughin and snifflin because of the itchy dusty brambles and the witch asked, “He ain’t got TB, does he?” and Jimmy just laughed and said bout the brambles. So she forgot bout that and then she started lookin over our stuff, checkin the tubes in Jimmy’s daddy’s radio and twistin up Mary Hannah’s stoled lipsticks to make sure them lipsticks wasn’t empty Next she got hold of Rusty’s belt and pulled him up close right tween her legs with her red dress all wrinklin up round him. “These keys go to a car now, don’t they, little man?”

Rusty nodded quick and she just laughed and laughed with her rosy lips a big circle and then a big man stepped out of the shadows and he was laughin too. He looked like a nigger but he looked just like the Monster too — I mean to tell you he looked like Frankenstein but Jimmy always said that ain’t right cause the Doctor is the one who’s Frankenstein and the Monster ain’t got a name at’all cause he’s dead and nobody gives a name to things that is dead— and the Monster Man was grinnin at the way the witch had a hold of Rusty’s belt and the way he was squirmin. And then he stepped up to us kids and said over his shoulder “Hey now Viletta this un ain’t even no boy” while he ran a big thumb over Mary Hannah’s war paint.

Jimmy piped up, “She’s as good as a fella. She does everything that us fellas do.”

The Monster Man just laughed some more when he heard that. Real hearty, he laughed. He pulled Mary Hannah toward him by her overalls and then commenced to smearin her war paint into two rosy circles.

“No,” I said, and I grabbed hold of his arm just like Ygor did in the picture and it was a hard arm like a fence post. “She’s my friend and you ain’t gonna make her a circus clown.”

He looked at me sort of puzzled and then he made questionin eyes at the witch and shrugged his big shoulders. She said, “Leave the little gal be. When I was young I used to like to run with the fellas too.” She winked. “And you see how good I turned out.”

He allowed how she had turned out pretty good. She said that as everythin seemed right we might as well get down to brass tacks and me and him should run along and might as well take the radio up to the big house and enjoy it for a spell. And then later we could come back cause she didn’t spect Jimmy or Rusty to last very long and then it would be my turn since I didn’t bring nothin that was so grand as a radio or keys to a car, but I already done that thing that Jimmy and Rusty wanted to do anyway even though they didn’t know bout it so I didn’t mind even though I still didn’t feel growed up like a man. But still I couldn’t figure out why the witch said that bout comin back since she knowed I already done it cause I done it with her.

Anyway, the Monster Man said okay and bent down and the witch kissed him with them rosy lips of hers and even her tongue. Later on Jimmy said that was the worst part of it. Seeing that a white woman was in love with a nigger. I said that maybe the Monster Man wasn’t really a nigger cause his skin just happen to be black like the Monster’s skin just happen to be green (you can tell that from the poster at the picture show). Maybe he was part nigger and part Monster, I said. Like Ygor was part Dracula and the Monster was part the Mummy. But Jimmy just wrinkled his nose at that and said, “jumpin Jesus Christ, Little Pete, that fella wasn’t nothin but a big dumb buck nigger. Next you’ll be tellin me that you seen a coupla bolts stickin out of that dumb coon’s neck.”