Part 43 (1/2)
”Wouldn't want that.”
”She also says I have to cut my hair again.”
I sat next to him and touched his golden hair, right above the ear. ”I like it a little bit long.”
Brad shrugged. ”Grown-ups rate moral fiber by hair length.”
”That's just Freedom and Granma. Not all grown-ups are crazy.”
”Show me one who's not.”
”Me.”
Brad laughed. The notion was too bizarre even to argue. He reached down a step for a large manila envelope. ”I made you a going-away present.”
It was the picture of me helping Shane up a curb in Memphis, only this one had been done in pastels. ”Brad, it's color.”
”Shane wanted me to try it. He said everything isn't shades of black.”
”I think he was speaking symbolically.” Shane had lost weight from the original, but my mouth was still open. Every picture Brad drew of me, my mouth was open. I don't know why.
”You never could tell with Shane.” Brad blew a single note, then lowered the harmonica. ”Everything he said came out sounding like he meant something else. That's why I like Granma. There's only one way to take her.”
Granma and the pot-bellied man were arguing over the horse trailer. I'd given it to her in hopes she'd buy a horse to make the farm a tad cla.s.sier, but all she wanted was a better tractor. After a summer in and around her fields, I had to admit a tractor might be handier here than a horse.
Brad and I stood up and hugged. He'd grown two inches over the summer and put on twenty pounds of muscle. Farm work may be a pain, but it's a lot healthier than sitting on the couch watching hippies fall down.
I felt the muscles in his back. ”Come to Wyoming when you grow up. I'll give you a job.”
He shook his head. ”I'm going to Paris to be an artist.”
”Where'd you get that idea?”
Stupid question. Together Brad and I said, ”Shane.”
Marcella handed me Hugo Jr., then hugged me with him between us so her arms were around me but mine were busy with the baby. She looked right at my face, which I was still a little self-conscious about because of the scar.
”What'll Andrew do without you? What'll I do without you?”
”Andrew'll be in love with his second-grade teacher within a week. And you've got Hugo Sr.”
She nodded toward the house. ”He's got the trots again. Working with kids always gives him the trots, I don't understand why he does it.” Hugo Sr. had a job selling children's shoes at a Kinney's shoe store in Gastonia. He was supposed to give me a ride to the bus station if he could ever get off the pot.
Hugo Jr. reached up and pulled my hair. His head was getting boxy, just like his father's, and his ears seemed to be growing faster than the rest of him.
”Remember what I told you,” I said to Marcella.
She set her mouth in a line and recited, ”Accept no s.h.i.+t from my man.”
”That's the spirit. If he ever takes you for granted, remind him what it's like to drive cross country alone. Did you look at that book I bought you?”
Her neck reddened. Even though she could say s.h.i.+t, Marcella still had modesty limits. ”I can't believe people do those things to each other. What if they got stuck and had to call an ambulance?”
”Getting stuck is physically impossible. I think. All I'm saying is, if you introduce a new position or game every three months, he'll stay intrigued and won't go nail any sleazeball with cotton flowers in her hair.”
”Hey!” Andrew leaned way out of the barn loft and aimed Charley at me. ”Bang, bang-bang. Bang!”
I pointed a finger at him and hollered, ”Bang back at you.”
”Your finger's not loaded.”
”I still can't believe Shane gave him that gun,” Marcella said.
”Me either, it's my gun.” Before he went comatose Shane had removed the firing pin and trigger and presented Charley to Andrew as some kind of heirloom. I spent the summer arguing with Andrew that Charley wasn't Shane's to give, and Andrew spent the summer ignoring my arguments. Not that I missed Charley-surrogate p.r.i.c.ks were no longer cool-but I'd rather give the kid the gun.
”If you go away, I'll track you down and shoot you,” Andrew shouted.
”Be careful you don't fall out that loft until I'm gone.” This was one h.e.l.l of a loft, too. Built by hand, one board and one nail at a time, by Lloyd Carbonneau and Maurey Pierce. My dream was to drag all my friends and family down here and say, ”Look what I did, doubters.” They would fairly swoon at my competence.
Andrew went back to Bang, bang, then he threw a chunk of lumber at Merle-missed by two yards.
”Bye, Andrew,” I yelled.
”Bye, Murray.”
”Maurey.”
I walked over and kicked the soles of Lloyd's bare feet until he slid out from under Moby d.i.c.k. He probably wasn't even fiddling with ambulance underbelly parts down there but hiding from me because he knew I'd try to guilt trip him into coming to Greensboro.
”Sharon's just as likely to be in North Carolina or even back in Wyoming as Florida,” I said. ”You have no reason in the h.e.l.l-b.i.t.c.h world to think she's in Florida.”
He stood up, wiping grease onto his overalls leg. ”I have a feeling in my gut,” he said.
”What if I need you? After you leave here I won't even have a phone number. I bet you're the kind who says 'Sure, I'll write letters' and never writes.”
His eyes avoided mine. ”I'll write, I promise. I'll send postcards, and after I find Sharon we'll have you over for Christmas some year.”