Chapter Four
When he was a small child my father stuffed a June Bug beetle so far up his nose my grandmother had to take him to the emergency room to have it extracted. The next day at Houghton Elementary he was christened with the nickname that would follow him through his life, Beetle. He hated the name Beetle then, and as time passed he came to despise it to a degree few of his peers ever despised anything.
Mom believes that is why he started drinking so bad. Maybe she’s right, but I suspect he would have found another excuse to chum up with the corn squeezings if Beetle hadn’t come along.
As I skipped up the front porch steps that Sunday, I considered addressing my father as Beetle. I could say, “bug of a day, Beetle.” Maybe I would tell him about the time I caught a June Bug and tied it to my finger with a piece of string. It just flew around in ever smaller circles as the string spindled on my finger.
I said, “Beautiful day, Dad.”
“You speak to Jesus for us all this morning, son?”
“Didn’t have a chance.” I took a seat in the swing on the far end of the porch. “I guess Jesus left a little early today, if he was there at all this morning.”
“What in Sam Hill’s ass are you talking about?”
“If Jesus had been there, I don’t think Brother Stevie would have done what he did.”
I jumped to my feet and was about to head to the kitchen in search of some ice tea, but Dad was for once interested in what went on at church.
“Sit it back down and finish your story.”
“Brother Stevie run Vesta out of church –”
“That black boy of Ellen’s that girl used to work here?”
“That’s him.”
“What the hell was he doing there?”
“Talking to Deborah Jean Troop.”
“That boy trying to get himself killed?” Beatle launched a brown stream of tobacco juice that flew over the porch rail and crash landed on one of Mom’s white roses. “Dumb bastard’s trying to commit suicide. Where’d they take him?”
“Didn’t take him anywhere,” I said. “He took off on that big Schwinn bike of his and nobody’s seen him since.”
“Looka here,” Beatle motioned for me to come closer. “You stay away from that boy. He ain’t no friend of yours just ‘cause ya’ll work together down at Del Yee’s. He’s goan get himself whipped, or maybe killed acting like that. And you don’t need any part of that.”
This seemed like one of those conversations that the less I said the better I would fare. So I nodded my head and went to the back of the house and found the little sleeping porch that was my room. I changed into some dirty blue jeans. Today was a good day for drowning red wigglers in the ponds behind Dismal Brothers Brick Yard. If I came home with a few bream then all would be the better.
Chapter Five
Soon I was out the back gate, across the Boatwright place, and behind Dismal Brothers with a worm twisting on my hook. I put out two lines each attached to a cane pole. The depths were set with barn red corks at about two and a half feet. I was certain the pan fish could resist only a minute or two. Two minutes became a couple of hours without a single bite, and fishing began to seem like a poor idea.
Maybe I would look for some croaker sacks to sell to the coal company. The Dismal Brothers trash burn was a good place. They took perfectly good burlap bags that you could sell to any of the coal companies for a nickel apiece and burned them in a pit out back with the worthless trash like old boxes and such. The good thing was they all didn’t burn. I could sometimes find as many as a dozen fully reusable croaker sacks in an hour or so of digging through yesterday’s burn. One month I made twelve dollars cash in the recycled sack business.
The trash burn consisted of a pit scooped out of the earth behind the Dismal Brothers warehouse. Over the top of the pit was steel mesh floor supported by brick columns beneath it. This allowed air to be sucked up from below by the fire’s heat. A twelve foot tall brick wall surrounded the pit on three sides. The fourth side was left open so a bull dozer could shove in fresh trash and drag out the burnt for burying.
Early on in my trash excavation business, I learned you needed to be careful or your pants could catch afire before you knew it. Those fires were hot and would sometimes smolder for days.
After an hour of rummaging all I found was lots of sack pieces, what must have been some false teeth, and a burnt up Timex. Business can’t be good all the time.
When I got back home I saw the Sheriff’s car parked out front, so I came in the back door. As I went by the kitchen, I heard voices and stopped to listen. Through the half open door, I could see Mom and Sherriff Bonner sitting at the kitchen table. His lanky limbs were askew across the floor and table as he slouched in his chair. His head tilted chin on chest. His eyes looking up at my mother past his great hawks bill nose. This was a posture I had seen many times, and it allowed Sherriff Bonner to stare without seeming to look down on you.
“Bertram is resting at the moment Terry, but I guess I could wake him if it’s important,” my mother said.
“Well Violet, it’s about that boy Vesta,” Sherriff Bonner said. “He’s in a bit of trouble. Nothing that can’t be fixed right now – ”
“So why is it you come here with this, Terrance Bonner?”
“Now Vee.” Bonner held up a giant hand. “I know Cliff is friendly with the boy. Maybe he knows where the boy got off to.”
“Cliff doesn’t know where Vesta is.”
“Anybody ask him?” The Sheriff placed his paw over Mom’s hand on the kitchen table. “With old John Whigby missing for almost two weeks, I’m concerned about Vesta.”
“You think something has happened to John?”
“Well looka here!” Dad eased into the kitchen dressed in his dirty boxers and socks. “You figure I was in ST Lois or somewhere Terry?”
“I’m here hoping for a lead on where Vesta got off to.”
“Yeah, and you figured Vee had him trapped under her hand there did you?”
Sherriff Bonner and Mom flushed red. Dad belched and scratched his backside through his shorts. I didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or pissed.
“Maybe.” Bonner straightened in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. “Maybe you ought to have a cup of coffee.”
“What you doing snooping around here?” Beatle looked at me through the kitchen door window pane almost as if he were staring into a mirror. “Always snooping around. Best you get to your room.”
Mom was on her feet brushing past Beetle like a Chevy passing a mule. She opened the door and drew me into a one armed bear hug that left an arm free to fend off Beetle if required. She need not have bothered since his attention was again focused on his backside.
“Violet is it all right if Cliff talks to us a while? He’s the one that was at Faith Baptist this morning.”
Mom hesitated looking at me and said, “I guess he’s old enough to speak his mind.”
I recounted the story in as much detail as possible and when I finished Sheriff Bonner shook his head as if I had spun out a tale of great mystery.
“Did Vesta think he would be welcomed at a white church?”
“Vesta says Jesus said we should love everybody, but I don’t reckon Jesus ever went to Augusta
“How about clearing up your meaning there?” Bonner said.
“I mean, and maybe it’s like this everywhere, but in Augusta Georgia
“Why did he need to see her?”
“I don’t know, but maybe I saw him give her something. It was hard to see. Maybe he gave her something small.”
“Where do you think he went?”
“Like I said before, I don’t know. He might have gone home.”
“Nope, I got a deputy sitting with his momma. He hasn’t shown up there.”
“Don’t you lie to the Sherriff, boy.” Sometime during the conversation Dad must have quit mining his backside and started listening. “Don’t matter what he’s done to me he’s still sheriff –”
“Shut up, Bertram.” Mom was steaming. “How much are you planning to embarrass your family in one afternoon?” She turned her back on Beetle and faced the Sheriff. “I apologize for my husband Terry.”
“No apology necessary.” Terry Bonner stood to his full six feet four inches. “I’ll not be troubling you folks any more today. One thing though Cliff, if you hear from Vesta tell him to come see me. He is not in trouble yet, and we need to keep it that way.”
Mom and I walked Sheriff Bonner out to his car. When we came back in, Beetle was asleep in his chair in the living room.
Later that night as I crawled between deliciously scratchy muslin sheets Mom came and sat on the side of my bed.
“Cliff, I got the idea you know more about this thing with Vesta than you told today.” She pushed her fingers through my hair as only your mother can do. “I’m not asking you to tell me or anyone more than you already have. What I want you to know is . . .”
“What Mom?”
“What I want you to know is these things with the coloreds.” She paused again then pulled me to her and kissed my forehead. “These things burst into a hot flame faster than you can believe it then cool down almost as fast. The thing you have to remember is that there are coals smoldering underneath long after the surface is cool. So if you do see Vesta, tell him to be careful. Tell him to stay away from Deborah Jean.”
She stood up, and then picked up the Timex I found in the Dismal Brothers burn pit.
“What’s this?” She continued to inspect the watch.
“It’s just an old watch I found.”
“Where? Where did you find it?”
“Down at the Dismal Brothers burn pit. You think it’s worth anything?”
“No, but can I keep it? I want see if it’s like one my friend has.”
“Sure,” I said. I wanted to talk more about the burned Timex, but sleep overtook me.
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