Darnay Road (10 page)

Darnay
Road 20

I am clutching what’s
left of my bag of candy in my bad hand, and holding Abigail May’s hand with the
other. Well I’m pulling her along and her candy machine ring with the pretend
pink pearl is digging into my palm and she keeps stepping on the backs of my
Keds but I don’t even care cause Miss Little might come out and she is so
frightful. She looks like Betty Davis in
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane
.
I said that when we watched that movie and Granma said I must not ever say it
again it is so unkind, she said it’s even unkind that Betty Davis looks like
Baby Jane.

But
I do think it anyway—about Miss Little I mean.

So
I pull Abigail May along and I would rather do this than go up on the trestle
bridge, and she did that, and at night. So I give her a yank and we move to the
side of the house and I squint my eyes so I don’t see the whole thing at once.
There’s a dead bird and I nearly step on it, and something rustles in the
overgrowth that keeps the neighbors from being able to see how badly Miss
Little keeps her yard.

I
wonder if we can even get through the backyard, and the gate is hard to see
it’s so covered with thick vines. We are very close to the house now and
Abigail May is so quiet, and there’s a window and I make myself look and it’s
more horrible than looking under the altar, when Abigail pulled that door wide
open, but there sitting in that window for all the world is that yellow kitty.
And that’s not all, hanging in the center of the window, from the lock is my
pink pom-pom. The kitten is batting at it, first all by his lonesome, then
another kitten appears. It’s one of the grays.

The
kittens are in Miss Little’s house. Miss Little has kidnapped my kittens and my
pom-pom.

I
am pointing, but Abigail May already sees.

“It’s
them, it’s them,” she says nearly squeezing my good hand with both of hers and
her bag of candy. “Holy smokes!”

“Come
on,” I say. I pull her to that gate but she’s pulling back.

“We
have to go tell your Granma. We need the police I’ll bet!” she says.

But
I’m not going to the police. My dad Stanley is a policeman. I don’t want anyone
like him on this case. “We’re going through this yard and we’re going across
the tracks and we’re going to find Easy. He’ll get those kittens back.”

I
sound like Flint McCullough on
Wagon Train
having just scouted the road
ahead and unwilling to take another trail even if there is a war-party of
Sioux.

Abigail doesn’t fuss.
She already knows Cap and Easy are better than any old policeman who can scold
us or take us to jail. So we pick our ways through that back yard that has
never ever seen the spinning blades of a lawnmower. Or not for a while. But there
is a well-worn path through the weeds that leads to a back gate in the
tumbledown fence. I have not been so happy to push a door open since my last
confession. It is like a different world when we get out of Miss Little’s yard
and onto the tracks. This is what we see from Abigail May’s yard anyway, this
bleak and dangerous timber and rail that eventually leads to the trestle bridge
and after that it goes clear across the United States of America or at least to
the next town.

Our
legs itch so we stop to scratch and go on and on about the kitties and my pink
pom-pom. Abigail is crying and I am too a little and I didn’t know. Those
little kitties are alive, but I still don’t have them back. And crazy Miss
Little, all we know she is cooking them one by one and eating them for dinner.

But
my neck is stretching as I look at the back fence leading to Easy’s house. He’s
that close. Maybe.

So
I take off running, holding my cast which itches all the time but doesn’t knock
me off balance as much as it used to. Abigail is behind me sniffing while she
runs, and she passes me up and reaches the gate and we pull it wide and a big
German Shepherd comes running and I pull Abigail back and shut the gate and
click the latch and the dog hits the wood and it looks like it’s coming open,
but the latch holds.

“Saints
and mercy,” I cry, wanting to yell at Abigail, but I can’t, I’m just so glad
she’s alive.

Abigail
May is really crying now but I know she cries easy but she doesn’t give up,
it’s just she’s so small she has to cry to let the steam off so she can go
again.

“Neighbors,”
she says. Just that. And she takes off running and me too so we can get away
from Easy’s fiercesome dog.

So
we open the tall wooden gate at the next house and look first and no dog, just
a yard with not much grass cause this is Scutter and they don’t grow grass over
here I guess. So with that dog of Easy’s running the fence and barking we walk
quickly through this yard and get out soon as we can and go around the front of
Easy’s tired looking house and up on his porch with the creaky steps and we
knock on his beat to death door.

Cap
opens the door. He’s holding a plate of noodles with no sauce at all, just bare
noodles. He has one partway out of his mouth and he sucks it up. He is looking
at me and Abigail and it’s probably almost a surprised look but he never seems
to be excited, not even when he was looking ready to catch that shirt filled
with cats Disbro nearly dropped from the trestle bridge.

He
is a tall boy, and wearing blue jeans and one of those shirts him and Easy
wear, sleeves torn off. His feet are bare and if you look back up on top his
head is shaved and that’s pretty different.

He is skinny so it’s
good to see him eating I guess. The house behind him is dark and it smells like
Granma’s cellar some.

“Your
dog is me-ean,” Abigail says.

“Yeah,”
he says and laughs a little, but it’s not the laugh you do when something is
really funny, more like ‘what are you doing here?’

I
am not expecting Easy to pull Cap back and step in front. He really can’t believe
his eyes. Well I can’t either. I haven’t seen him for days and days, no sign of
him at all. But it’s the worst. His head is shaved like Cap’s, and it’s all
right, just different.

But
his eyes, well one is bruised around it. He has no shirt, but tape around his
ribs, and his arm is wrapped, and his shoulder is blue and cuts and scrapes,
red lines of broken skin.

“Oh,”
I say. I put my good hand over my mouth. Cause his hands are the worst,
knuckles split and red.

“Why
did you come here?” Easy says, and it’s worse than anything. He is not happy to
see me at all. Not at all. He is angry. I have not seen him angry before, not
even when Disbro took the kittens. Not even when Ricky hit him. I didn’t think
he could ever be angry. But he is angry now. At me.

He
comes on the porch and pulls the door some, but Cap stops him from closing it,
but he’s a little bigger than Cap, a little heavier and bossier, and he pushes
Cap back and Cap says no and they stare some, then Easy limps, yes limps like
Chester out onto the porch, and all I can do is notice all of this. I don’t
care that he’s even more grown looking than last time I looked, or I know
there’s the man-hair under his arms. I don’t care about any of that. He’s hurt.
And he doesn’t want me here. He hates me I think.

Abigail
tries to tell them about the cats.

“No,”
I say to her. “We’re going now.” I have her with my good hand. I’m pulling her
toward those rickety stairs.

“Don’t
come around no more,” Easy says. “Don’t ever come here. Hear me Georgia? Don’t
ever come here again.”

He’s
so stern and so mean.

“I…what
happened?”

“It
ain’t your business. You stay away.”

“I
will,” I say, but it sounds shaky, even to my own ears.

Abigail
pulls away though, shrugs away and stays on the porch. “But Miss Little has the
kittens,” she says, and she’s looking mostly at Cap and he doesn’t give one way
or the other. “We saw them in her window. She took the kittens.”

“It
don’t matter,” Easy says. “Get on home.”

“What
happened to you?” Abigail May says, still not moving. “You used to be a nice
boy.”

“I
ain’t nice,” he says. “You go on home little girl,” he says.

“We
will,” I say, and it’s stronger, but I want to run from here. Run and never
stop.

“But
she took them,” Abigail says cause she pushes Ricky, but these ain’t Ricky. “It
ain’t right.”

“You
don’t know anything,” Easy says. “Let her have them.”

Abigail
is still going to fight, but I get ahold of her and finally she comes my way.

“You’re
the meanest boys ever!” Abigail yells.

But once we get on the
ground I pull her along and we go down Scutter in the direction of Abigail
May’s house. I don’t know where we’ll cut back, or when, but we have to get
away from here. From them. From Easy.

Darnay
Road 21

They
finish singing and now they are clapping for me and saying, “Hoo-ray.”

And
who are they? They are Granma, of course, Abigail May, Ricky, Aunt May and
Abigail’s mother Gloria Sue, but I call her Mrs. Brody and she keeps correcting
me, it’s Mrs. Figley now.

Absent,
of course, are my dad, and Abigail May’s new special ‘uncle,’ that Gloria Sue
upped and married. He looks to be right out of Mayberry and I don’t mean
Sheriff Andy. I mean the deputy. That’s what Abigail thinks and I agree. The
deputy with a suntan and a Cadillac.

Well
they cut my cake and put a slice and one scoop of hand-packed cherry ice cream
on each plate. I am served first for being the birthday girl. Granma bought
pink party hats but now that I am ten years old for really real I do not think
a hat is so becoming. Not a paper cone shaped one because isn’t that what
dummies wear?

Gloria
Sue is wearing a hat. “I’ll just take a small, small one. Watching my figure,”
she laughs, and Aunt May appears to bite her tongue.

“Georgia
Christine, Ricky just asked you a question,” Granma nudges me.

I
look at him. He is having a growth spurt Aunt May says. Had to get new jeans
even. He’s always been comely like Abigail May, but it’s hard for me to really
see it since I find him so angry and bossy and generally about as delightful as
a mosquito bite.

“I
said you should open mine first,” he says.

I
honestly didn’t know I was supposed to open my presents.

“Okay,”
I say and he picks up the one wrapped to look like a stack of comics. I remove
the paper and yes, inside are
Casper the Friendly Ghost
, and two
Richie
Rich
my very most favorites.

“Thank
you,” I say.

Granma
nudges me again. I frown at her because she has the sharpest elbows ever and I
don’t know what I did wrong.

Gloria
Sue is holding a Barbie doll-shaped box toward me. I so very dearly do not want
it from this thief of my best friend and blood sister Abigail May.

I
take the box before I get the elbow again. I quickly and sloppily rip the paper
off and the box says Midge. I don’t want Midge now. I was only getting Midge
because Abigail May was getting Midge for her birthday in August, mine with red
hair and hers with blond, mine named Midge and hers named Madge. We were going
to play like they were friends. But what good is she to me now when her friend
will be in Florida? Anyway, I’m thinking of not playing with dolls anymore.

“Thank
you kindly,” I say.

Abigail
May gives me stationary so we can write letters, and a friendship bracelet with
a heart dangling from it that says Abigail May and Georgia.

I
don’t ever want to see a heart again.

“Thank
you,” I say, then she starts to cry but I can’t. I just can’t. I’m just mad.

So I act like I don’t
see her cry and she lets Gloria Sue put her arm around her. Granma gets me new
skates with red pom-poms. But I won’t skate alone. I never would. And I know my
pink pom-pom is in Miss Little’s dirty window with my kittens and Easy told me
to let her have them and never come around. I can’t feel that heart on my cast
anymore. It’s just a shadow now.

“Thank
you,” I say.

Lastly
Aunt May goes in our house and comes out with a box with holes in it. I take
the box and it’s moving and little clawing sounds inside so I open it up and
there’s a little wiggling puppy in there, a little Chihuahua like on the back
of our comics that Abigail and I have admired forever, the dog who can fit in a
teacup.

I
lift her out and she licks my nose. Everyone laughs, but I don’t.

“She’s
from your Daddy,” Granma says.

I
look at her. I don’t care who she’s from, I love her anyway. I know I
shouldn’t, I should give her back, but it’s not her fault. None of it is.

That
evening when the sun goes down they light the sparklers. I ask Granma if I can
take Little Bit inside because all the popping and whistling from the fireworks
is making her shake.

Abigail
May is running around like
Sky King
with a sparkler in each hand. Mostly
I would do that with her, but I don’t want to now. Granma says, “Go on then.”
And I do.

I
put a pillow in the bathtub, put the plug in the drain, then set Little Bit in
there with my teddy bear for company. I put her little saucer of water in there
too and my clock wrapped in a towel so she thinks it’s her mother. Then I turn
out the light and close the door. Then I take off my shorts and put on my blue
jeans and my Keds. I’m getting really good with one hand.

In
the kitchen I get a paper plate and put on a piece of cake and cover it over
with waxed paper.

I
go out the back door and yard after yard is neighbors lighting fireworks. It
strikes me how they are all in families. I don’t know why it never mattered
before, but I always had Granma and Abigail, even Aunt May and Ricky. I guess
we had everything and I didn’t know it.

I
sneak off then, go around the front and Granma is on the porch but she don’t
even notice how I go out the gate and just keep on going toward Miss Little’s
house. I’m taking her a piece of my cake. I just want to see if they are all
right. I just want to know she is taking care of them.

He
said to let her have them. I know he meant it. I don’t hold it against him, but
I want to understand. I can’t take anyone’s word for it, that they’re all
right. I have to see for myself. That’s all.

So
I go down the street, the boys in the street throwing black cats that pop and
pop so loudly. I can just imagine Disbro Peak at the trestle lighting M-80’s
and cherry bombs the only cherry thing I never liked.

I
get to her house and right away you can see the cold and silence. I’m afraid
but not so much I won’t do this. So I go in her gate. Not a light on anywhere.
I am walking up the broken walk toward that eerie spooky blackness where my kittens
live.

But I hear it then,
side of the house, fireworks going off all around us, but I still hear it, the
awful sounds, and I know what they are. I heard something like them once when
Ricky fought with Easy. But I walk around there and I’m not sure what is
happening, I can’t think. It’s Cap, it’s Easy and they are working awfully hard
in that tall grass, bent over, dragging….

Cap
sees me first but it’s Easy who charges me like his dog that day, fast and
mean. He is telling me to go on, to get home little girl. Don’t you come around
here. I must say something about the kittens but he puts his hands on me, turns
me around. I get to the porch and set the cake there, on the part where the
floor hasn’t fallen through, but he is there and takes that cake and tries to
make me take it back and I say no, it’s for her. “Why are you being so mean?”

But
he don’t say, his eyes so big in his face with his hair gone like that. He
don’t answer, sets his mouth in a line, sees me to the gate, pushes me out.

“Easy,”
I say.

“Go
home,” he says, in a terrible voice.

And
I do.

“Where
you been?” Granma says when I come in the gate, up the porch. “I thought you
were upstairs with Little Bit.”

“No,”
I say. And that’s all.

“Abigail
May is looking for you. They ran up the street to watch the fountains.”

But
I go inside and let the screen door close so quietly I barely notice myself.

Next
day Abigail May comes running over in the morning. I am sitting on the last
step watching Little Bit sniff at the grass. It’s almost as tall as she is.

Abigail
falls on her knees by Little Bit and picks her up and kisses her all over. She
didn’t spend the night last night. I slept in the bathroom, in the bathtub with
Little Bit. Granma knocked and I said I had a tummy ache and to tell Abigail
May I’d see her tomorrow, which is today.

“Too
much birthday cake,” Granma said through the door. But I never ate my cake.

I
am holding so much sorrow. I recognize it now. It’s not just over Abigail, it’s
over Easy. It’s over Cap. It’s over whatever they were doing at Miss Little’s.
It’s over Miss Little and me not knowing if she’s safe. It’s over my kittens
and my pom-pom. It’s over me I guess, a girl her own father doesn’t love even if
he did give her the best dog in the world.

But
this is the first time I am full of a secret so big it outgrows the edges of
myself and I can’t share it, I don’t grab Abigail and head for the shelter so I
can spill.

I
don’t even want to.

The
Darnay spies are already broken. Abigail May is moving to a street called
Seagull Lane and I picture her riding on the back of one of those giant birds
and leaving me here, by the tracks, with a cast on my arm with a name wearing
away into memory…like our friendship…like my childhood left on the other side
of a cherry cake.

I
am ten years old. Two handfuls. It’s me and Granma now. And Little Bit.

There
will be more mysteries, there already are—two boys at the side of a house in
the dark night. There are questions I will have to carry alone.

Long about evening the
first police car pulls up in front of Abigail May’s house. We are on the porch
playing with Little Bit and eating tuna fish sandwiches. Abigail sees that car
she stands up and boys come from nowhere on their bicycles to stop and be nosy.

The
second car comes soon after. The policemen walk along Abigail May’s house and
go in the backyard. Abigail goes running over there and I stay with Granma. We
are on the porch and I’m holding my dog and we are looking at the growing
crowd, the dads mostly who are still home from the holiday.

It’s
a few minutes and Abigail comes, Aunt May behind her. I know by the way she
walks that Abigail is on the job. But it doesn’t matter now. She’s leaving me.

“A
man on the tracks,” Abigail says. “They don’t know who.”

“The
engineer reported hitting him. Must have been the ten fifteen,” Aunt May says.

“They
don’t know who he is,” Abigail says. “Probably some old bum.”

“Well
how could they tell if he was hit by a train?” Granma says.

“They
couldn’t,” I say. “They couldn’t tell. They could never tell that.”

Everyone
is looking at me. Well I just put in my two-cents, that’s all. But they keep on
looking, and I pick up Little Bit and run up to my room where they can’t look
anymore.