The Lesser People Page 13

  Ben’s face paled for a split second and he nodded to me. I didn’t know what that meant other than he knew he had a close call and maybe he was grateful that I’d tried to call out and save him. He squeezed Sarah’s hand gently and she leaned her head against his shoulder and her mom gave them a funny look. I guess I gave them a funny look too. It was strange to see Ben being so nice to people. He was like Uncle Tommy, who wasn’t acting like he was supposed to either. His girlfriend knelt down by me and said, “You feeling okay little man?”

  “I’m not little,” I said.

  “You’re littler than me,” she said.

  “Not by much.”

  She laughed. It was nice to hear her laugh for once. I thought about my mom and wanted her there. I asked Uncle Tommy if we could go back to the jail and break them out and he shook his head. He said, “I thought about doing that. I’d have to hurt your dad to make him leave. He can be a fool when it comes to his principles. He keeps forgetting that not everybody has a code they live by.”

  “Do you?” I said.

  He shrugged again, saw that his girlfriend was looking at him like the question was really important, and he just shrugged like it shouldn’t be a big deal if a man has principles or not. He studied his boots. They were black cowboy boots and they were rundown. He said, “We need to get back and I’ll go talk to Bordeaux.”

  He smiled at his lady and gestured her to him. He wrapped an arm around her and said, “You mind keeping an eye on them for a bit while I take care of fixing all this?”

  Ben said, “How you going to fix it?”

  “I don’t know that I can,” Uncle Tommy said, “but I’m going to try. It all depends on your father, really. But I’m going to try. For all of you.”

  His lady said, “They can stay at the house a while. Me and Sarah won’t mind, will we, honey?”

  Her daughter blushed, looked radiant there in the noonday light, in the open lot, her eyes reflecting all the cars around us as she turned to my brother and smiled. She said, “I wouldn’t mind. Do you want to come back to our house?”

  She looked from Ben to me. I said that I wanted to go home. Ben said, “Right now we don’t have a home, Eli.”

  “Yes we do,” I insisted. “It’s just empty without us there. It’s just waiting for us to come back and do the things that make it a placed lived in.”

  “It won’t be home again until Uncle Tommy gets Momma and Daddy out of jail.”

  “Preacher too,” I said.

  Uncle Tommy said, “Yeah, Art too. He’s not cut out for jail. He’ll go stir crazy in there.”

  He waved us into his car and said to his woman, “We can all ride together. I’ll bring you back for your car later. Okay?”

  She said it was and all of us climbed in, the three of us kids in back. That motor roared even though our uncle barely touched the gas pedal. Dust bloomed behind us, covering the lot in something like smoke-screen, but I thought I saw the Conover’s huddled among a straggle of pickups and a long black hearse.

  Chapter Sixteen

  We rode north for a long while, circumventing Forksville by way of back roads, the tires crunching gravel and the radio playing softly, the interior of the car humming with the blues. I told Uncle Tommy that Daddy loved the blues too. He said, “I know. We used to play in a band together before he had you runts.”

  He cranked the radio loud and pulled his girl close to his side and curled his arm around her. Ben held Sarah’s hand like they were born that way and it’d be hell or high water before they separated. I cupped my hands in my lap, thirsty and a bit hungry again, but enjoying Howlin’ Wolf belting Smoke Stack Lightning. Uncle Tommy tapped his hand on the back of the bench seat. His fingers looked as long as my forearm. Ben smiled at me. He put his hand on my leg and tapped along to the music which made me smile and feel warm inside. His girlfriend’s eyes were big and soft. She whispered something in his ear and he wiped his face and we whipped up the road with the music singing a chorus full of hurt.

  My uncle’s girl lived in a big two story farm house. A squat and long building was out back and fields hugged the lawn on either side. They were brown and overgrown. Uncle Tommy parked up near the door and we tumbled out of the car with our bones still humming to the music. Dust settled on our clothing and on the windshield. Uncle Tommy leaned on the driver’s door and his woman leaned over it to kiss him. I looked away, checked the windows of the house to see if maybe there was a boy my age inside that I could play with while Uncle Tommy was talking to the sheriff and visiting Daddy. I didn’t see anybody inside at first, then I saw a shadow pass the window to the right of the porch. I said, “There’s somebody in your house.”

  The lady said, “I know it,” then she kissed Uncle Tommy again and told him to be careful. He said he would and told Ben to take care of me and the ladies until he returned.

  My brother grinned from ear to ear and promised he’d do his best. I told Uncle Tommy to tell Momma and Daddy that we loved them. He promised he would, said they were probably going to send the same message back and with a little luck maybe he’d be bringing them with him. My heart grew heavy in my chest, realizing for once how much it hurt to hope since I always thought hope was supposed to feel good. But sometimes it hurts to hope when what you’re hoping for is what you want most in the world.

  A moment later the car backed out of the driveway and onto the road and disappeared behind a stand of trees, the music quiet but the motor revving even as its bark dulled in the distance. The woman approached me and I wanted to run from her since I thought she was going to try and hug me. She said, “We ain’t been properly introduced, have we?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t think we have.”

  “I’m Jessica O’Malley. My friends call me Jessie. You can call me that if you want.” She nodded at her daughter, said, “That’s Sarah. She likes your brother.”

  Sarah said, “Mom!”

  I smiled. I said, “He likes her too.”

  Ben laughed, scratched a shoe in the dirt. Miss Jessie said, “I think it’s okay they like each other, what do you think?”

  “I think it’s okay,” I said.

  “What about me and your uncle? That okay too?”

  “I guess so,” I said. “He’s nicer around you than he is not around you.”

  “Really?” she said. “I imagined him to be the type of man who would be himself no matter who’s around.”

  Ben said, “He’s the same. Just more thoughtful.”

  Miss Jessie said, “What about Benjamin? He different around Sarah?”

  I nodded, stared at my brother. “He’s more thoughtful, too, like Uncle.”

  “Seems to me,” she said, “that there’s nothing wrong with being more thoughtful. Lord knows all of Mississippi could use more of that, don’t you think, Eli?”

  “I guess,” I said. I looked back to the window, expecting the shadow to pass behind the glass again. I said, “Who’s in your house?”

  I hoped she’d say that it was her son. Instead she said, “Why don’t you boys come in and relax for a bit. Then in a while I’ll show you around the farm, what’s okay and what’s off-limits.”

  Ben said, “Sounds good. Thank you, Miss O’Malley.”

  “You can call me Jessie too, buster.”

  “His name’s not Buster,” I said. “It’s Ben.”

  She laughed at me. So did her daughter. Ben just said, “Come on.”

  I followed them inside. The house was very old and smelled like the girls and it smelled like old books, which I found comforting. The hallway was crammed with shelves, the shelving crammed with pottery and magazines and yellowed newspapers. The hall fell into a dining room with a scarred table. The table was nearly buried under more pottery and books that looked like they’d been read so many times they were ready to fall apart. Ben said, “I like it.”

  Miss Jessie said, “This is just my work. You live it and breathe it.”

  “Same mud, same blood,” I said, “li
ke that?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. She cocked her head at me. I didn’t know what I said and tried to remember. It didn’t seem important or I would have remembered easy enough. I pointed at the table and said, “Momma says that messes make bad work areas.”

  Miss Jessie pulled a chair back from the table and sat down. Her fingers toyed with a dark glass vase. She said, “Life’s not all about being orderly, you know? This is how I work best.”

  “Momma doesn’t always know best,” Ben said, sounding confident and ashamed at the same time. I was about to correct him but Sarah said, “She just knows what’s best for her. Just like this is best for Momma. It helps feed her muse.”

  “What’s a muse?” I said. I liked the sound of the word.

  Miss Jessie said, “Those blues you like, that make you beam, there’s some kind of magic in them, isn’t there?”

  I nodded. I figured magic could explain what the blues did to my body and to my heart and to some deeper part of me. “Yes,” I said.

  “The muse is the magic. It’s the inspiration, the emotions, the beauty in something that may even appear ugly at first. The muse helps you create what’s never been or cast new light from a different angle on something that’s been in plain sight forever.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t get that last part.”

  She pulled a chair out and patted the cushion. “Have a seat.”

  Ben told me to go ahead. Then he asked if him and Sarah could sit on the porch. Miss Jessie said, “Why don’t you two fetch us all some drinks.” She looked at me, said, “Do you like chocolate milk?”

  “I ain’t ever had it,” I said. “What’s it taste like?”

  “Sarah,” she said, smiling. Her daughter grinned back like they were in cahoots. Ben looked lost. Sarah pulled him along to the kitchen in the back of the house, whispering, “I can’t believe you never had it.”

  Her mother said, “Eli?”

  “Yes ma’am?”

  “Do your parents ever create anything?”

  I thought about it for a moment. Nothing came to mind and I told her so. She said, “But did you hear what your uncle said? About him and your daddy playing music a long time ago?”

  “Yes,” I said, trying to imagine my father playing guitar like the men we heard on the radio. It just didn’t fit. He was a sheriff. I said as much. She stared at me for a while, quiet and intensely.

  At last she said, “Don’t do that.”

  She tapped a hand on the table. “Don’t base who someone is on their job, you hear me?”

  Spittle flecked her lips. Her eyes kinda bugged out. I nodded. I said, “Okay,” just to get her to put her other face back on.

  She sighed and then smiled as Ben and Sarah came back into the room carrying two drinks of dark milk each. Ben handed me one. He had a mustache from already sipping his and he was grinning again. When I took the drink and looked at Jessie she was grinning too, but it looked colder than before, the tone of it matching her expression a minute ago before Ben came back. I thought she was mad at me but didn’t know why.

  Sarah tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and said, “Try it, Eli. You’re in for a treat.”

  Ben said, “It’s really good.”

  The glass was very cold in my hands. I raised it slowly to my lips, watching my brother over the top of the glass. That first sip was like the music, smooth and full, and for some reason I thought of Uncle Tommy and his drinking in the bar and I figured if his beer was like this to him then I couldn’t really blame him for drinking it no matter what me or Momma thought. I smacked my lips together and lowered the glass, staring down into it. I didn’t want to drink it all in one sitting so I’d have some for later, maybe right before bed. I looked around. They were all smiling at me. I said, “There’s magic in this.”

  Ben giggled. Sarah squeezed his hand. She said, “I knew you guys would like it.”

  I said, “Where are we sleeping?”

  The old house creaked softly as if trying to answer me. I sipped more of my chocolate milk, and it felt wonderful going down my throat and amazed me how the taste of it lingered on my tongue. I smacked my lips again.

  Miss Jessie said, “Well, I haven’t decided where you boys will be sleeping yet. It depends what time Tommy gets back and if he’s going to take you back to his trailer.”

  “There’s no room for us in his trailer,” I said.

  Ben nodded. He said, “There’s really not. And I don’t like sleeping in the kitchen booth in his trailer. It’s uncomfortable.” He blushed again as if being honest was something to be ashamed of. Or maybe he didn’t want to think that he whined too much. I remembered how small the booth was in Uncle Tommy’s kitchenette and it would have been uncomfortable for me and I was more than a foot shorter than Benny.

  Miss Jessie stood. She sighed again, thinking about something as she moved to the front door. She watched the road. Ben looked at Sarah, some question in his eyes. She shook her head. I thought maybe they were thinking that her mom was crazy. When she wasn’t smiling she was kind of a downer. I wondered if she did like Uncle Tommy and Ben and didn’t let some people see her serious side. I wondered why any of them did that. It didn’t seem honest.

  I drank more of my dark milk. I was a little mad that Momma and Daddy had never told us about it. I got to thinking about Uncle Tommy at the jail house. Wanting to get my mind off it because I knew there was no fixing it or making time speed up, I asked if we could see the place, and I thanked them for the drink which I’d finished even though I’d tried my hardest to make it last.

  Miss Jessie stood in front of the door for a long time, like she was sleeping standing up. Eventually her daughter waved for me to follow her and Ben. We went out the back as quiet as we could with her closing the door behind us. The gray shack was real long and took up a hefty portion of the back yard. At the rear of the field a stand of trees cast shadows across the unmarked earth. I said, “Do you have chickens?”

  Sarah shook her head. “Nah,” she said. “My mom doesn’t like chickens.”

  I glanced back at the house, at the upstairs and thought I saw somebody glancing at us from behind a curtain. I swallowed hard. I thought it a trick of light that cast a brightness like long metal teeth that filled the lower half of the apparition’s face. It stared down at us its large metal mouth still, blurred and hidden by the yellowed curtain.

  I whispered, “Who is in your house?”

  Ben glanced up too but the shadow was gone by then. Sarah didn’t seem to hear me. She walked lazily toward the barn. Ben ran to catch up with her. He said, “Eli thought he saw somebody upstairs.”

  Sarah twirled her arms. I thought she might be a little like her mom just like me and Ben were a little like our parents. I ran to catch up with them and said, “Does your dad live here?”

  She turned her head and looked at me with hollow, sad eyes. I thought she was going to tell me that he’d died, been hit by a train or something, but she pressed her lips tightly together and shook her head.

  Ben tried to hold her hand and she let him but she didn’t hold his back, her arm limp and wobbly as she moved forward and the sun etched its way further west.

  We stopped outside one of the doors—I could see that there were four of them, each leading into its own quarters, each of the four buildings joined to make one large building.

  We entered the door of the building on the left. The darkness inside yawned wide and deep. Sarah found a kerosene lamp, lit it and adjusted the wick. She asked Ben for help as they lit others down the length of the quarters, all of them open and connected, dusty pillars holding the roof up and running to the walls in front and back. There were cots littered about and moldy dressers that smelled like rot.

  Sarah said that most other men that lived when her grandfather lived would have made the servants sleep on pallets or on the hard earth floor, but he loved them and he spent the money, though he was somewhat a stingy man, on the cots that the men could rest well
during in the night.

  I could almost see the ghosts of slaves long dead sitting on those cots, stooped over those dressers, lounging among each other, brothers and sisters in the same turmoil, their brows bent with the days long work in the fields which would have been healthy and alive with more than weeds back then. Ben stuck his hand out to the nearest dresser and slid a drawer open. He pulled some kind of album from inside and offered it to Sarah. He said, “There’s all kinds of odds and ends in here.”

  I moved closer to them, wondering why everything was left behind as I skirted behind a partition and saw dingy overalls on one wall hanging limp and lifeless with a row of identical shoes beneath them, and starched clean work clothes across the way.

  I said, “They just left everything.”

  I got to thinking of the rapture that Preacher sometimes spoke of, of bodies floating off toward heaven and Jesus’ face filling the sky, his arms spread wide as if to gather all those he loved to his breast. I said, “Where did they go to? Why’d they leave their belongings?”

  Sarah sat on a cot and a plume of dust rose around her narrow hips. Her shoulders pitched forward and she held the album in her lap as if it held special meaning for her.

  She said, “Momma’s daddy scared them all away when he got sick, when she was still a young girl, maybe thirteen or fourteen. I guess it would have been back during the beginning of World War 2. My grandpa never did get better, just slowly faded out of his mind, and he didn’t want the help to catch whatever he had. He didn’t know how to tell them they were free to move on, and he was a little out of his head so he killed some of them in their sleep and the rest ran out.”