“I know I put ’em down the chute.”
“They’ll turn up. Wear your old ones for today.” She shut off the water. “Miz Wilder called a minute ago. Her husband’s gone away on business, and she wanted to know if you could stop by there this morning and move some boxes for her. I said you could.”
Move some boxes, I repeated silently. “Sure,” I said, “I’ll stop by there before I go to work.”
“Bring me a pig’s head from the grocery.” She took down a dish towel and started drying her hands. “We’re having Brunswick stew tomorrow.”
“I’ll bring you the dead pig,” I grinned, “but I’ll need some dough.”
“Take a five out of Daddy’s cash kitty.”
“Daddy won’t like that.”
“You do like I tell you,” she advised, “and let me worry about your daddy.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Easy for you to say, I thought. He doesn’t ever hit you.
She finished drying and hung the towel back up. The house around us was Saturday silent. Bill was working overtime at Ford’s; Daddy’s schedule at Kerns Casket was four on and two off, causing his weekends to rotate around; Libby was out somewhere. My mother looked me over, and she seemed to decide. “Set down, Benjy. I got something important to talk to you about.”
Nervous and uncomfortable, I sat. My mother took the chair across from me. Her squarish face was tired and her eyes lacked their usual fervor. Her blue housedress was already limp from early heat and humidity and work. She folded her hands, looked at them, then at me. “You probably ain’t aware of it,” she began quietly. “You got your own life these days. But there’s trouble in this house.”
I was afraid even to breathe. “What kind of trouble?”
“Your sister,” Ma said, “is still seeing that boy. That Jimmy Herndon.”
Inside I sighed, and thanked my lucky stars that it was Libby’s ass in a sling this time, and not mine. “How do you know, Ma?”
“Just a feelin’,” she said. “Your momma ain’t a total dern fool, you know. I know a lot about what goes on in this house.” I wasn’t about to touch that one. After a pause, Ma went on. “For example, I had a feeling that William knew more than he was lettin’ on. So I asked him last night, and I was right.”
“William” was my big brother Bill on the wrong side of Ma. “Right about what?” I asked.
Her lips drew back from her teeth for a minute and her eyes were steely. “Up till Wednesday, William was picking Libby up from summer school classes and driving her to meetings with that boy.”
I couldn’t believe it. “So Bill was helping her?”
Ma nodded grimly. “Your brother is weak. Libby asked him to, and he didn’t have the gumption to say no. Last night he spilled everything. He told me that Libby didn’t meet that boy Wednesday, like she said. They met two weeks ago. She brought him here Wednesday night because she was going to ask us to let him stay in the extry bedroom till he could find a job. Supposably he was quitting the carnival so he could stay in Detroit.”
“Wow. Daddy ain’t heard all this, has he?”
Ma held up a work-worn hand. “Your daddy must never know. He is very poorly. He don’t need aggravation.”
And God knows we don’t need him aggravated, I thought. “What are you gonna do, Ma?”
“I thought about forbidding her to see Herndon. But Jane Lee says if you forbid a teenager to date someone, she’ll turn right around and do it anyhow.”
Jane Lee was a local advice columnist whose counsel Ma ranked just below that of the Gospels. “Jane Lee knows best,” I said, echoing what Ma herself had said down through the years.
She ignored the sarcasm. “Bill swears he stopped helping Libby as of Wednesday. That’s all the help I can expect out of him. For the rest, I’m looking to you.”
I gaped. “Me?”
“You,” Ma said in a cold voice. “I want you to find out for sure if they’re still seeing each other. If they are—” She stopped abruptly and took a deep breath before going on. “If they are, then you will find a way to break it up, and get him out of Libby’s life for good.”
I sat there in our kitchen, listened to the silence, felt the pressure, impaled on a dilemma. On the one hand, I’d been brought up to obey my parents instantly and without question. On the other hand, I wanted no part of Libby’s messes. And I was not, as Uncle Dan said, a punk kid any more. I was practically a grown man now, tired of taking orders. Plus, I only had a week before I went to work afternoons at the Rouge. My free time was running short, and I didn’t want to waste any of it making like some kind of half-assed Richard Diamond, Private Eye.
Forget it, old lady, I said silently. Find yourself another patsy.
My mother said, “I’m not asking you for your daddy’s sake, or for my sake. It’s for Libby’s sake.” She pressed her lips. “That boy is trouble. I just know it. Libby’s too young. She’s strong-headed. Rash. Reckless.”
Here goes, I thought. “Ma, I’m — I wouldn’t know where to start.” Good going, big man, I thought, disgusted. Good thing Fast Eddie and the Bubbas weren’t there to hear me.
She smiled at me. “You’ll find a way. You’ll do it because you’re my boy, and because I’m asking you to, hear?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You do as I say, now.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Take care of your baby sister.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I locked up my Ford and joined Fast Eddie walking with a cluster of other customers up the long grassy meadow toward the carnival entrance. Thin-as-a-straw Eddie wore all black, as usual, and carried his Gibson acoustic slung by its black embroidered strap over his shoulder. He surveyed the sky with his dark eyes and held out his hands tentatively. “Think it might rain?”
“That’s the chance you take, dummy, carrying that guitar around. What’s it for, anyways?”
“Chicks,” he said, his thin face wolflike.
“Well, you’re on your own on that. I’m here to track down this Jimmy Herndon fella.”
“I still don’t get it, Benjy. What’s talking to Herndon gonna get you?”
“I’m going to ask him if he’s gonna hang around or leave town. If he’s leaving town, our troubles are over. If he’s hanging around, well — I’ll have to figure out what to do then.”
We got in line at the carnival admission booth. Fast Eddie studied me. “What’s with you and the chicks department, Benjy? Having yourself a celibate summer?”
“I’m doing just fine, thanks,” I growled, digging into my pocket for money.
Fast Eddie laughed. “You mean Debbie Miller? Your momma was telling me little Deb’s got the hots for you. What a howl!”
“Forget it, man. She’s ugly, she’s stupid, and she’s only fifteen.”
“So, what’s the problem?”
As such operations go, the carnival wasn’t very big. Its dozen rides included a rickety roller coaster, dodge ’em cars, a merry-go-round, a couple of pivoting saucer rides, and the inevitable Ferris wheel. Organ music shrilled from worn-out speakers, and the humid air was drenched with the scent of sawdust, beer, and animal dung.
We hit the midway, which stretched out colorfully the length of a football field, flanked with booths manned by loud, practiced carnies. There weren’t many customers. Some of the booths had none at all. It was perfect, but I didn’t feel all that good. I was hung over, for one thing; as usual, Fast Eddie, the Bubbas, and I had put away a case of tall boys the night before. On top of that I was nervous. I’d never done this kind of thing. I didn’t know where to begin. Oh well, I thought, just dive in and fake it.
“Over here, Fast,” I said, gesturing us toward one of the carny booths. This was a sort of ring-toss game. You threw rubber rings at cases full of long-necked bottles. If you got a ring to stick over a bottle neck, you won a prize. The catch, of course, was that the rings were just barely big enough to fit over the necks, and the bottles were not seated solidly in the cases.