“Did you come across anything else?” Sam asked, setting his pole down that afternoon.
I said, “No, there wasn’t… oh yeah, there was.” I went into detail about what else I’d found not by the well, but in the well. If I’d known Sam was going to go even further deflated, I wouldn’t have just blurted it out.
He also asked, “Was there… did you find-” I closed my eyes and shook my head. He was asking about the note. Again.
“Sam?”
“I see him, E. J.”
A boy in a shiny white convertible has come flying into the Triple S. Skidding to a halt in front of pump two, he lays on his horn, and yells our way, “I ain’t got all day. Hop to.”
I’ve never actually seen Sam hop to. Mostly he stays on the porch and stares at whoever pulls into the station until he’s sure they’ve reached the worst part of uncomfortable before he decides to sashay their way.
“I’ll go,” E. J. says, starting to get up. “It’s-”
“I know who it is,” Sam says, unfolding his six-foot-and-more self.
It’s Remmy Hawkins. He’s what you’d call the bad boy of our town. A regular James Dean minus the good looks. Remmy’s built like a doorway, but his face is squashed in like he ran into a wall. And he doesn’t hardly ever wear a shirt and won’t care if you just about toss your biscuits looking at his spotty back. Worst of all? The boy’s got red hair. Not that Howdy Doody kind that’s not so bad. Remmy’s is more like Clarabelle’s and he’s just as honking dumb. The kid could throw himself on the ground and miss. His grandfather is the mayor. Remmy works for him doing this and that. Errands and such. And his aunt, Abigail, is the one that keeps bringing food to our place.
E. J. and I watch all atwitter from the porch. Even Woody seems on the edge of her crate when Sam sashays over to the side of the car. He reaches in and turns down the radio that’s blaring “Stand by Your Man,” which I really love and now I can’t anymore because this moron seems to like it, too. Sam says, “What can I do you for today, son?”
Remmy spits out, “I’m not your son, nig-”
Good thing he cut himself off. Woody and I used to settle disputes by playing Eeny Meeny Miney Moe Catch a Nigger by the Toe until Sam taught us, “You can catch a colored by the toe. You can catch a Negro by the toe. Even getting hold of a spade is not all that bad, but calling somebody a nigger? That’s not only behind the times, it’s hurtful.”
Remmy doesn’t look up, but says, “Ya sell gas in this dump, don’tcha?”
“Ya know, Mister Remmy,” Sam says, changing his usual educated voice to sound very much indeed like he just fell off the back of a turnip truck, “I don’ believe there’s nuthin’ I druther do more in the whole wide world than fill up this fancy go car with a tank of gas, no siree, Bob. That’d be a real privilege.”
“I ain’t got all day,” Remmy says, still not looking up.
“Why, I’m sure ya don’t, an important fella like you,” Sam says. He turns to us and gives a wink. “But… well… much as I’d like to oblige ya, Mr. Remmy, my pumps is actin’ up. Coulda swore they was topped to the brim this mornin’ but they up and run dry not more’n two minutes ago. Don’ that beat all?”
I can see Remmy biting his tongue from twenty yards away. Acting a whole lot smarter than he is, he revs up his engine and throws his car into gear. But before he takes off, he smiles real ghastly up at Sam with teeth that are buck enough to eat corn on the cob through a picket fence, then he calls over to the porch, “Heard from your mama lately, twins?”
I hop off my crate and shake my fist at him, shouting, “Get your dumb ass outta here, Remington Hawkins.” I don’t want Sam to get into trouble and he will if the mayor’s grandson shows up at supper with a black eye. Mama was Sam’s best friend and he won’t put up with that sass. “I mean it.”
With a beep of his ah oooga horn, Remmy dusts out of the Triple S, his wicked laugh not reaching our ears until it’s too late for me to do a darn thing about it.
I say, “Ohhhh… I’d like to… I’d like to…” I wasn’t counting on something like this. The station being off the beaten path the way it is, mostly only the lost and the colored stop by and none of them would tell Papa they saw us. What if Remmy goes yakking to somebody, “You know who I saw this afternoon? The judge’s girls, shootin’ the breeze with Moody over at the Triple S.” And what if that somebody is a meddler of the highest order and answers, “You don’t say,” and rushes right over to Lilyfield to tell Papa? Like I told you before, nobody in town but a few know that Papa is keeping Woody and me prisoners, but everybody knows that we’re not supposed to be hanging out with the coloreds unless they work for us. Being the most prominent family in town, we are expected to set a good example. Grampa is one of those people who believes that Negroes should be hardly seen and never heard. That’s something that Mama and Papa never have come to terms with. When she would tell him that this sort of prejudiced thinking is nothing but Southern ignorance born out of fear, he would respond with, “Feel free to take your enlightened Northern attitude back where it belongs, Mother.”
Sam steps back onto the station porch after his tangle with Remmy and he’s smiling. Smiling!
I’m still fuming! “For two cents, I’d… I’d take a garden claw to Remmy and once he was down on the ground writhing I’d-”
“Shen,” Sam admonishes. “Watch yourself.” He gets after me all the time to remember that a temper like I got can only lead to me doing something I might regret. I think of Stumpy or The Maggot lying beat to death in that Decatur back alley when he says that, and I can’t help but wonder if he is speaking from experience. “Now, what were we discussing?”
I say with a fed-up snort, “You can be super-infuriatin’ in a real calm way, you know that?”
Sam picks his glove back up and gets back to softening it, but what he’s really doing is ignoring me until I can get a grip on myself.
“Fine. If that’s the way you’re gonna be.” I take in air to the bottom of my lungs the way he taught me and count to ten. “I believe we were at the part where you’re about to agree to help me look for Mama and if you could do that sooner rather than later I would appreciate it,” I say on an exhale. “It’s gettin’ on in the day, and well, we got to get back before Papa-”
“Bawwwk… bawwwk… bawwwk.” My head swivels to my sister. She has started making a fox-in-the-henhouse racket. “Bawwwk… bawwwk.”
How absolutely brilliant!
Maybe she’s not quite as bad off as she seems. Woody’s got to know that Sam’ll feel sorry for her. Believe me, no matter how hard-boiled he seems, he’s over-easy.
E. J. pops up off his crate to soothe my sister and I flip my palms up to Sam like-see? This is all your fault. She’s never going to stop squawking unless you agree to help us find Mama. You better speak up before we all go deaf as a post.
“I’ll…,” Sam says.
“But…” I’m sure he’s about to give me another one of his excuses.
“Hear me out, Shen.”
“I would if I could.” I shout, “That’s enough now, Woody.” Instead of feeling proud of her the way I was a few minutes ago, I feel like wringing her neck. “Will you pipe down!” E. J. is doing all the right stuff, like patting her and crooning, but he’s not having much luck.