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In which the boys become rivals for the attention of Nettie Schallert. |
9. "Come on, Elroy, let's go," she yelled back at the shepherd, who trailed along behind us more-or-less obediently, occasionally stopping to examine something he found interesting along the creek bed. We made our way slowly around the bend in the creek, mostly because of Toadstool but occasionally because Festus would test Nettie's restraint. At a certain point the trees cleared out along the left side of the creek and there was a path that opened up to a tall grass field that ran up a hill. Nettie maneuvered Festus into the clearing and the rest of us followed, Elroy trailing the pack. At the top of the hill we could see an old brown-and-white single-wide trailer with a long TV antenna sitting on top of it. "Is that yours?" I asked while we made our way up the deceptively steep hill. "Yeah, that's the place. Daddy says it ain't much but it's a place to stay until we can get something better." "It don't look that bad," I lied, because while it wasn't a complete mess, I couldn't imagine one person living in a cramped little place like that, much less a family. "Don't your feet hurt you?" "No. Why?" "Well, you ain't wearing any shoes. I mean, I don't mind going around barefoot myself, but with all those rocks and stuff down by the creek, I know I'd be hurting pretty badly." "I'm used to it. Daddy buys me a new pair of sneakers every year but in the summertime they're mostly useless. It's just more natural to run around barefoot, I mean we weren't born with shoes. . .hey, be careful!" Toadstool had stumbled coming up the hill and was laboring to get back on his feet. Nettie couldn't really help him because she was still trying to rein in Festus and I didn't really want to help him because I was trying to make time with Nettie. He got up okay on his own, though, even with Elroy sniffing around him as if he was trying to figure out what was wrong with Toadstool. "Are you going to be okay?" Nettie asked. "Yeah, I'm fine. I've been through worse than this hill over the last couple of days." "You're puffing like a steam engine. We can stop for a minute if you want. . ." "No, keep going. I'll be okay." The tall grass had been mowed down in the area around the trailer home and the yard had an old, rusted swingset in it, an old Chevy truck with rust that matched the swingset, a Bel-Aire that kind of reminded me of my dad's car and various toys and other playthings that were littered around the yard. There were a couple of iron posts holding up a clothesline from which several shirts and a couple of pairs of jeans were waving like flags and a couple of plastic lawn chairs that didn't match sat underneath a double-window beneath a metal awning. To the left of the trailer was a small area fenced in by chicken wire held up by unpainted wood posts, gated off on one side with a hinge. Nettie pulled Festus up to the fence and reached over to unlatch the gated side, then pushed the dog into the pen and shut it quickly. She yelled at Elroy who came along relunctantly but obediently, then accomplished the admirable feat of pushing Elroy into the pen while keeping Festus from escaping. By the time she had finished that juggling act Toadstool had finally reached the top of the hill and sat down as he got there, huffing and blowing and trying to catch his breath. "You sure you're going to be okay?" Nettie asked for the umpteenth time. "Mom probably has some Kool-Aid or Shasta in the house if you need some. . ." "That'd be good," Toadstool said in between gasps for air, "just give me a minute here. . ." "Toadstool there was never the most athletic person in the world," I said with a grin on my face. "What's a toadstool?" Nettie asked. "That's what we call Joey there." "Why do you call him Toadstool?'" "Well, look at him. Doesn't he look a little bit like an upside-down toadstool?" "That's kind of cruel, don't you think? I mean, we weren't all lucky enough to be born skinny." Nettie didn't show the slimmest smile at Toadstool's nickname and I realized then and there that this girl wasn't your average type of girl, that she wasn't the type to try to find faults in people and look down her nose at those people for having their faults. In hindsight, I'm not sure how she came to treat people as kindly as she did, I'm certain that her environment didn't have anything to do with it. I'm thinking that maybe the fact that she avoided a public education kept her from having such a judgmental attitude towards other people. Whatever, somehow it made her that much more appealing to me. While Toadstool sat there another gal came from behind the trailer, a girl that looked like an older version of Nettie but a little more worn somehow. She had the same red hair and green eyes as Nettie but she had a little extra weight on her. Not fat, mind you, but not skinny-as-a-rail like Nettie. Her hair was long and straight and looked a little unwashed and she looked like she'd made an attempt at makeup but given up on it. She had on a plain brown t-shirt and an old pair of bluejeans and was holding a can of Shasta orange soda in her hand. "Where you been, Nettie?" she asked. "Mom's been looking all over for you." "I took the dogs down to the creek like I said I was going to do," Nettie said. "I haven't been gone more than an hour." "More like two. Who're they?" she asked, pointing at me and Toadstool. "A couple of guys I ran into at the creek. They're lost and need some help." "You're not supposed to be going around and picking up strangers. Especially boys. Mom's got enough to worry about as it is." "Yeah, but they need help. They got lost and they're a long way from home. . . where did you guys say you were from?" "Garen, IL,," Toadstool answered. "Don't know where Garen, IL is," the older girl replied. "Well, that's where they're from and they need to get home. You know that old Denilson probably ain't at the station today, so I thought daddy might be able to help them. . ." "Daddy ain't going to be in a good mood when he gets home. I don't know if I'd be asking him to do anything unusual." That caused Nettie to get quiet for a moment and I thought we might have to head to the police station after all. But finally she said, "Well, it won't hurt to ask him." "All right. Your funeral," the older girl replied. "I just don't want to be here when he gets home." The older girl went by us and started to look for something in the Bel-Aire. Nettie waved us on towards the other side of the trailer. "That's Hope, my sister. Never mind her. She's dating somebody that daddy don't really like so she thinks daddy's always in a bad mood." The front side of the trailerhome had a small deck area that led to the front door and that was also littered with all sorts of toys. A dirt driveway lay in front of the trailer which led to a gravel roadway that trailed off into the woods in either direction and I got the impression, as remote as the place seemed to be, that not a lot of visitors ever came out this far to visit the Schallert household. "You might want to button up those shirts before you come in," Nettie said, and me and Toadstool started buttoning up our shirts as hastily as we could. Behind the screendoor the front door was open, and even before she opened the screendoor Nettie yelled out, "Mom!" We walked into the living room and it was as cramped on the inside as it seemed it would be on the outside. The walls were all fake wood paneling and the carpet, what you could see of it, was this thin gray-brown stuff. A green couch sat underneath the double window on the back wall and to the left was one of those small Sylvania black-and-white sets that you'd usually see in some kids bedroom sitting on an old coffee table. Another unmatched coffee table sat in the middle of the living room and everything had toys, games and comic books scattered on them this way and that. On the floor was a couple of boys, one dark-haired and the other with close-cropped sandy-colored hair, about seven or eight years old and not more than a year apart, playing some sort of board game but mostly arguing about the rules of the game in a physical way, each one claiming how bad a cheater the other was. Four electric fans of various sizes attempted to keep the room cool, but they were being thwarted by the heat and smoke that was coming from the kitchen to the left. The smell of frying hamburgers and onions came from that kitchen, and you could hear the meat sizzling in the pan on the tiny stove. There Nettie's mom was standing over the frying pan, flipping the burgers while trying to keep her sweat and her long stringy hair out of her face, another small electric fan twirling uselessly on the kitchen table behind her. She was definitely the source of Nettie and Hope's red hair, hers now spotted with bits of gray though she didn't seem old enough to be that gray. She might've been somewhat good looking for an older woman if she had done something to keep herself up. Instead the fact that she had no makeup on only seemed to bring out the small crinkles and crevaces that were developing on her face and the old dress she was wearing did nothing to hide that her figure was quickly slipping away. "Mom," Nettie said a bit more quietly as she entered the kitchen. "What is it Nettie?" her mom asked in an exasperated tone, then louder towards the boys in the living room, "Denny! Lloyd! I told you two to knock it off and go outside!" The boys' wrestling had knocked them into the coffee table, then landed them within a couple of inches of Toadstool's bad leg, which is when Nettie's mom noticed us. "Nettie, what are you doing bringing company in here on a Sunday?" she asked, keeping one eye on the hamburgers. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about, mom. This is Joey and. . .and. . ." "Phil," I said helpfully. "Yeah, Phil. I met them down by the creek. They're lost and they need somebody to help them get home." "What? Nettie, what have your father and I told you about talking to any strangers, no matter where you are, and especially down at the creek." "But they're just kids. And they need help and I thought daddy might let them use the phone. . ." "I don't think that's going to happen, Nettie. Your dad will not be in a good mood when he gets home." Her voice kind of trailed off when she said that and I swear I thought I saw a little tremble in her lip. "Are these your boyfriends?" the boy with the sandy hair asked Nettie, finally taking notice of us. "Nettie's got boyfriends," the dark-haired boy said with what I can only describe as an evil squeal. "Shut up, Lloyd! Come on, mom, they don't have any place to go, and even daddy says that old Denilson is useless on a Sunday." "Nettie, I really don't need this. . ." "Mom," Hope yelled just then as she came in the door, which was unnecessary as we were all standing in pretty close proximity. "What is it, Hope?" "Glen's waiting for me outside. He wants to see if I can go to the demolition derby with him. His brother has a Thunderbird entered that he says is going to destroy all the other cars." Nettie's mom looked up out of the kitchen window and saw a white Duster sitting in the driveway. "Oh, for Christ's sake. Hope, what has your father said about letting us know before you plan to go out." "I know, I know, but Glen thought he was going to have to work out at the farm today but Leland let him have the day off and he just talked to his brother about his car and he really wants to take me to see it. . ." "And you know that your dad isn't going to happy when he gets home. I don't think it's a good time to go pushing his buttons." Hope got quiet for a minute and I thought that maybe that was the end of it, but then she said, "Then don't you think it would be better if I wasn't here?" This time Nettie's mom got quiet and she started to concentrate overly hard on scraping the hamburgers off the pan with her spatula and arranging them on a plate covered with a paper napkin, and I started thinking that the conversation was over when Hope let out a whining, "Please. . ." "Just get," the mom said suddenly. "Just go. I need some peace from you for a few hours. But you're dealing with your father when you get home. . ." Hope stopped for a minute and I don't know whether she was going to say something or if she was thinking of changing her mind, but finally she flew through the screendoor and sprinted towards the Duster. As the mom turned back to the hamburgers we could hear the sounds of the Duster speeding down the gravel road. "Mom, what about. . .," Nettie began to ask. "Just. . . just let it be for a few minutes Nettie. Your father is late, you can discuss it with him when he gets home. Find something to do until then, okay?" Nettie turned towards the other side of the living room, giving Toadstool a soft chuck on the shoulder as she passed to indicate we should follow her. We went off into a short hallway then followed her into a door on the right. That opened up into what was apparently Nettie's bedroom, which looked smaller than a lot of closets I've seen. There was barely enough room to fit her twin bed lengthwise against the wall, and a couple of beanbag chairs and a small dresser pretty much filled up the room. There was a single window above the bed covered with venetian blinds which were closed to keep out the sun but which moved occasionally because the window was open behind them. The walls were the same type of wood paneling that was in the living room and were covered with music posters that featured bands like The Bay City Rollers or The Hues Corporation and also with some TV posters which looked like they were taken out of magazines. The biggest one was a poster that showed the cast from Star Trek which covered half the wall beside her dresser. Her bed was unmade and filled with the usual girl things like stuffed animals and dolls, but among the dolls I noticed action figures, both the super-hero type and the science fiction type. Above the head of her bed was a poster of a map of the galaxy that looked like it had come out of some sort of science magazine, and along with the usual junk there were all sorts of those types of magazines laying on the floor, the pages of which were fluttering this way and that because of a small fan on the dresser that was just as useless as the ones in the living room. "Sorry about my mom. She gets kind of cranky when daddy has to work late," Nettie said as she plopped herself down on her bed, then almost as quickly sprang back up. "Hey, I promised to get you guys something to drink, didn't I? You want something?" After we both mumbled a yes Nettie said, "We got orange, grape or root beer Shasta or I think mom has some cherry Kool-Aid made up." "I'll take an orange," Toadstool said. "A root beer, please," I said. I'd wanted an orange too but I didn't want to copy Toadstool. Nettie left and I sat down on one of those beanbag chairs and started examining an Aquaman figure that had been laying on the floor beside it, one of those old cheap types where all the limbs were connected by an elastic rope in the middle of it. The rope had broken on the inside of this one which made it look like it was a parapalegic or something. Toadstool had, of course, noticed the science magazines laying around on the floor and had picked one up and started thumbing through it. Outside we could hear Nettie's mom complaining loudly to her and Nettie answering her back, finishing up with a loud and sarcastic, "Okay, mom," just as she opened the door to her room. She had three sodas, one of each kind she'd mentioned, wedged in the crook of her left arm and a plate with a hamburger and some chips on it in her right hand. She put the plate on the dresser and gave Toadstool his orange and me my root beer. "Sorry I couldn't get you guys anything to eat," she said as she grabbed her plate and sat down on her bed again. "Mom says we have just enough for us and with dad working late all she wants to make sure there's enough for him. You guys want to hear some music?" Again we mumbled our agreement, Toadstool so completely caught up in the article he was reading that I'm sure he didn't even hear the question, and Nettie reached down to a small transistor radio on the floor at the foot of the bed and flipped it on, the sound of middle portions of Elton John and Kiki Dee's Don't Go Breaking My Heart pouring out of the tiny mono speaker. "Man, they have played that song to death," Nettie said as she leaned back against the wall and started nibbling on her chips. "Seems that every time you turn on the radio you're hearing it." "Yeah, time to move on to something new," I said, meaning that I would've rather listened to anyone but Elton John right then. "Did you see this picture of the 'face on Mars?'" Toadstool asked, still staring into the magazine and completely ignoring the music that was playing. "Yeah, isn't that cool?" Nettie asked while she nibbled on her chips. "It looks like there's a face sticking out of Mars. I guess the Viking took that picture last month." "Viking 2 is supposed to land on the planet some time next month. They're supposed to get pictures from the surface of Mars." "Won't that be amazing? Like getting vacation pictures from another planet." "Maybe some little green men will want their pictures taken," I said, being as completely uninterested in anything Martian as I was. "There's no life on Mars," Toadstool said with a tone that it sound like he thought I was a complete dunce. "You've been watching too many Bugs Bunny cartoons." "It's too cold for anything that resembled a person to live up there," Nettie said in a little kinder tone. "Not enough oxygen either. And its weak magnetic field means it doesn't have the same type of seasons we have here. At least I think I read something like that." "No water, either, at least none that anyone can find. It's just a red dustball, but a pretty cool red dustball." "It'd be nice if we sent people up there instead of just cameras. It'd be worth it if we weren't going to go to the moon again if we decide to go to Mars instead." "We're going back to the moon, it'll just take time. From what I've read they're going to use the space shuttle program to build space stations like Skylab so that we can launch our rockets that much easier frorm space. Then you're going to see nonstop trips to the moon and beyond." "Wouldn't it be nice if we were sending astronauts to Titan or Triton, or maybe even Alpha Centauri. . ." "That's probably going a little too far, we'd probably be lucky to make it out of our solar system by the time we're old. Besides, wouldn't Proxima Centauri be closer?" "I know that, I read up on this stuff all the time. Daddy says I eat it up like candy, he's always buying me science magazines and books and that if I keep up with my studies maybe I can study stars for a living some day. He says we're going to the planetarium in St. Louis some time next summer so that maybe I can talk to some real astronomers. We were going to go this summer but the Pinto's been acting up and he said he doesn't want us to get stuck down there." "My mom would kill me if I ever said I wanted to be an astronomer or a scientist. She says I can do whatever hobby I want to do in my spare time as long as it's legal but the only thing I need to be studying is something that'll make me money." "Scientists make money. . ." "Explain that to my mom." "All I know is that I'd like to be one of the people involved when we finally meet up with the Skrull Empire." "You know who the Skrull Empire is?" Toadstool asked with a laugh. "I don't buy Captain Marvel, but I haven't read about them in a story for a long time." "I like The Fantastic Four, or I did until they replaced the Thing with Power Man." "That was only for an issue or two. They're fighting Galactus again now." "I don't know, I only get comics when daddy makes a run down south so I guess I'm a little behind the times." "My mom got me a subscription to Spider-Man and The Fantastic Four last summer for getting straight A's in the second semester. They keep mixing up the artists and I don't like that too much but the series is still cool. . ." I had barely been holding on to any interest in what those two were talking about and when it turned to comic book geek stuff I was completely gone. I mean, think about how stupid that stuff is. You're given some sort of power with which you can do anything you want so, of course, you're going to put on a goofy-looking costume and fight bad guys. Wouldn't happen in the real world. What was holding my attention was Nettie. She was sitting up against the wall behind the bed, her knees up to her chest, her dirty feet resting on a wadded-up comforter. The remains of her lunch sat beside her, which included about a third of the chips she'd brought in and all but a couple of bites of the hamburger and she looked as if she'd completely lost interest in it. She had this thin, natural smile that stayed on her face at all times, no matter what she was talking about or even if she wasn't talking at all, and the way her chin sort of came down to a point and her red hair and all made her look like a leprechaun princess. She had these tiny, delicate hands that were constantly moving, tugging on her shirt or on the bottom of her shorts or twirling her ponytail. She laughed easily and quietly, like the laughter was a natural part of her conversation instead of an afterthought. But of course, the thing that attracted me most were her eyes. Even in the dim light of her bedroom those eyes sparkled, and while she was talking to Toadstool those eyes would look straight at him as if he was the most amazing thing on earth, which, of course, he wasn't. But when they looked away, when she glanced at something from the corner of her eye, she'd take your breath away, kind of like that lead singer for the Bangles, only without the mascara. I was dying to sit next to her, maybe to hold her hand or put my arm around those delicate shoulders of hers, and I definitely wanted to plant a kiss on those smiling lips. Obviously I couldn't do any of that with Toadstool in the room, and at the moment he was hogging all the conversation. ". . .from what I hear they're planning a movie some time in the future," he was saying, referring to the Star Trek poster on the wall. "I hope so. I don't get out to see movies too much but I watch the reruns on Channel 30 every Saturday afternoon. Daddy says I must've watched each episode so many times I've got them memorized." "There isn't that many of them. They cancelled the show way too soon." Nettie got up on her knees and looked over at the poster. "Sulu's my honey. When I get older I want to be Mrs. Sulu." "Sulu? Really? You got a thing for Asian guys?" "No, not really. It's just that he's a cutie. And there's that one episode where's he's running around shirtless. He'd kind of like Bruce Lee, only a little less severe." "His real name's George Takei. He's not in a lot of the episodes, I think about half. He spent part of one season doing The Green Berets. " "I know, I hate it when they show one that he's not on. I'll watch it anyway, though," "I met George Takei once," I said, feeling that I had to get in on the conversation somewhere. "Really? When?" Nettie asked excitedly, those green eyes of hers staring directly into mine. "You did not," Toadstool said after her, sounding like he was really getting exasperated with me. "Yeah, I did. Last summer, when Derek was home on leave, he invited us to stay with him out in California. Remember, those two weeks I was gone? Anyway, there was this big thing and some of the Star Trek people were at it, and George Takei was one of them." "You mean you went to the comic convention out there?" Nettie asked. "Yeah, I guess that's what it was. Anyway, he was in a line giving autographs and Derek took me up there to meet some of them." "What was he like?" "Short. You know, and Asian. Derek kept asking him questions about John Wayne, so I didn't get to talk to him that much, but he seemed friendly enough." Luckily I'd seen The Green Berets, and since Toadstool had helped me out by bringing up the movie earlier, it helped me out with my lie. Of course I had been nowhere near California in the summer of 1975, Derek wasn't there either and I'm pretty sure he wasn't on leave then. And I knew absolutely squat about Star Trek or what a comic book convention was, I just knew that I was working my way into the conversation and working Toadstool's way out of it. "That would be so cool," Nettie was saying, her smile growing ever-wider. "Was his voice as deep as it sounded on TV? How about that smile, was his smile that incredible in real life?" She pumped me for information for a little bit, and I kept giving her answers vague enough to not show off my ignorance of the whole thing. As much in love as she was with the guy, I wonder how she reacted when she discovered that there'd never be a Mrs. Sulu. The whole time Toadstool stood by the dresser with an expectant look on his face like he was waiting for me to slip up so he could call me on it, which he didn't because I was that good. Finally, he just looked off towards the door and cleared his throat loudly. "Hey, I hate to be rude," he said, "but all this soda's just gone straight to my bladder. . ." "Oh, sure, here," Nettie said, springing off of her bed again and opening up the door. "Bathroom's right here around the corner. Towels are in the cabinet up there." She waited a minute until Toadstool closed the door, then plopped down on her bed again, smiling at me with what I can only decscibe as a mischievious grin. I think I might've had her, right there and then, and as long as Toadstool usually took in the bathroom, even when he was just peeing, I might've had time to steal at least one kiss. But the sound of gravel crunching underneath a car's tires suddenly came from outside the window, and Nettie pulled a couple of the blinds apart far enough to peek out of them.' "Daddy's home! C'mon," she squealed, and sprang out of the bed one more time and rushed out the bedroom door. By the time I'd worked my way out of the beanbag chair I could hear the front screendoor slam. As I walked out of the bedroom the sound of the toilet flushing came out of the next room and Toadstool walked out and, noticing me, followed me out the door. As we walked outside we could see Nettie running up to this old white Pinto with peeling paint and more than a couple of dents in it. Her dad was pretty short and wiry, in pretty good shape for a guy who had to be in his forties. He was wearing a gray uniform shirt with the name "Ray" on a patch of one pocket, opened up so that it showed off an undershirt underneath, and a pair of jeans with a couple of faded stains blotching it here and there. He was just getting out of the car when Nettie arrived, and she stopped and stood in front of him, hands held behind her back. "Hey, daddy," she said in a semi-pleading voice, "can you do me a favor?" "I don't know, Nettie," the man said with a tired smile on his face. "What kind of favor do you want?" "I had the dogs down by the creek and I ran into these two guys here and there from. . . where did you guys say you were from?" "Garen. . . Garen, IL," Toadstool said. "Anyway, they got lost and I found them in the woods and I thought that maybe we could let them make a phone call so that they could get home." Her dad looked at me and Toadstool for the first time. He had short, wavy black hair and Nettie's elf-like features, only a lot more wrinkled and tired-looking. He had this expression on his face, like he was trying to figure you out but kept a half-smile on his face to look friendly, only it just made him look cynical. He looked us over for a couple of seconds, then turned his attention to Nettie. "You're picking up strangers in the woods?" "Well. . .maybe. . .but they wouldn't hurt me. . ." "You know that?" Nettie didn't say anything to that but she was on his heel as he walked towards the trailerhome. Me and Toadstool were standing on the deck kind of looking around and feeling pretty uncomfortable. "How'd you boys get lost," Nettie's dad asked us as he got to the deck. "It's kind of a long story," Toadstool mumbled. "What?" Nettie's dad asked. "I can't make out a word you're saying, son." "We were. . . we were riding up here on a train and missed our stop," Toadstool said, which was true enough. "Anyway, we need to make a phone call to our parents. . ." Toadstool's voice trailed off there and what was left was an uncomfortable silence as Nettie's dad wiped off his face and stood staring into the distance for a bit. Finally, he said, "Phone calls are expensive, Nettie, especially long distance ones. And I'm sorry, boys, but I don't know you from Adam. The police are better for handling this. . ." "But, dad, you know that Denilson is never there on Sunday. . .," Nettie interruped, but then her voice trailed off, too. "Yeah, I know," her dad said after another hesitation. "Right now I need to go in and talk to your mother. Why don't the three of you find something to do and we'll see what happens from there." He walked up the stairs and went inside and, as he did, the two boys pushed past him and went running behind the trailerhome. Nettie seemed a little relunctant to do anything, standing there in the driveway rocking back on her heels a bit and chewing at her bottom lip, but finally she said, "C'mon," and followed her dad into the trailerhome. When we got in Nettie's dad was settling in at the tiny metal kitchen table that they had sipping on a Schlitz beer and her mom was taking the remaining hamburgers out of the oven where they'd been keeping warm. Nettie walked over to the TV and turned it on, then turned the tuning knob for a bit until she came across channel 30. "Good, we didn't miss all of Flash Gordon," she said as she jumped on the couch. Toadstool followed her and sat beside her on the couch, which kind of made me mad but there wasn't anything I could do about it. I sat on the other end, trying to keep as far away from Toadstool as I could on that small couch. On the TV was one of those old moviie serials from the thirties or forties that they used to sometimes show on weekend afternoons, which I'm pretty sure would've been in black-and-white even if the TV had had color. It was cheesy, what with the obvious costumes that were supposed to make the actors look like monsters and rocket ships that looked like they were powered by firecrackers. Of course, Toadstool ate this sort of thing up and he and Nettie were pretty much hypnotized by it. Me, I was bored and wished that maybe they could find a baseball game on or something, but with one TV I knew that I would by outvoted, so I just sat there and stared into space for a bit, listening to Nettie's mom and dad talk. "Where's Hope?" her dad was asking. "She went out," her mom said in kind of a distracted tone. "She went out? Where'd she go to?" "They're having the demolition derby out at the fairgrounds today. She wanted to go see them." "She go with Glen?" "Well. . .yeah. He was with them, at least. I think they went out as a group. . ." "I told you I don't want her being with Glen. That boy's been nothing but trouble since the day she met him. Why can't you do what I ask you for once?" "It's. . . it's hard when you're not here. I mean, I can't just tie her down and keep her here." "You can put the fear of God into her. You're her mom, for Christ's sake. Start acting like it. I can't be here twenty-four hours a day, somebody had got to put food on the plate. It's your job to control these kids." "I try." There was a silence between the two of them, and all you could here was cheap sound effects coming from the TV as Flash Gordon fought some sort of bird men or something. "I tried to call home today to tell you I was going to be late," Nettie's dad finally said with a muffled voice that sounded like his mouth was full of hamburger. "I couldn't get through. Lady on the other end told me that the line wasn't in service." "I was going to tell you. . ." "You were going to tell me what? That you didn't pay the phone bill? Again?" "We. . .we ran short this month. I was going to tell you, but I. . . you don't give me a lot of help with these things. There was the rent and the groceries and then Lloyd had to have that cavity filled last week and you know that your insurance doesn't take care of those things. . ." "So now it's my fault?" "No, I didn't say that. . ." "I work 52 hours a week in that hole on the end of town in order to give you the money to take care of these things and all you've got to do is manage. That's it. Just manage." The argument was making the three of us feel uncomfortable and at the moment I'd wished we just stayed outside. Nettie was staring intensely at the TV screen and chewing on her bottom lip hard and you could tell her mind wasn't on Flash Gordon anymore. "I try to manage, Ray," Nettie's mom said, "but I'm just one person. . ." "So how much do we owe to get the phone back on?" "We're behind a couple of months, they say we own ninety dollars." "Ninety. . .? How on earth did the phone bill get that high?" "It's a courple of months, Ray. . ." "A couple of months shouldn't equal ninety dollars. How do you expect me to come up with that much to turn to the phone back on? How many hours do you expect me to work? Do you even care what I have to go through to pay these bills you keep racking up?" "Do you care about me, Ray? Do you care about what I go through to keep this place going?" You could hear a little bit of crying in the woman's voice when she said this and all of sudden everything went silent again. A McDonald's commercial was playing on the TV and you could hear the two boys screaming outside. I was desperately trying to think of ways I could go outside without being noticed but couldn't think of anything. Finally, Nettie's dad broke the silence. "Get to the bedroom." "But. . .Ray. . .," and this time the sobbing in her voice, while it wasn't dramatic or anything, was fairly clear. "I said get to the bedroom. Now." Nettie's mom didn't say anything else, but you could hear the sound of her laying down whatever she'd been cleaning in the sink and then the bedroom door closing at the other end of the kitchen. After a few seconds you could hear the chair scrape on the floor as Nettie's dad got up from the table, and as he passed by the doorway you could see him pulling the belt off of his pants. Once again the bedroom door opened and shut, and a couple of minutes later you could hear the sound of leather slapping against flesh coming from the room. In reality it probably didn't last that long, but for us it seemed to last forever. I'll have to give it to Nettie's mom, it sounded like he was hitting her pretty hard but you couldn't hear a sound of a whimper from her, at least not from where we were sitting. I looked over at Toadstool for a second and I could see that he was really agitated by what was going on but couldn't figure out what to do. I don't know if he was so upset because it reminded him what the farmboys had done to him the night before or if he was mad because he couldn't figure out how a man could do that to his wife. I mean, his mom was more likely to pull as strap on his dad than vice versa. For that matter my mom was much more mellow than his but it would be a cold day in a hot place before she'd ever let a man abuse her like that. Nettie was still glaring hard at the TV, but after a minute or so it was almost like she had to say something just to break the uncomfortable silence. "Daddy always says that women and children should be spanked on a daily basis, whether they deserve it or not, just to keep them in line," she said with a nervous smile and a hint of a laugh in her voice, but without looking at either one of us. You could hear her dad's low, muffled voice from the bedroom, and at length he came out and sat back down at the table as it sounded like he was finishing his beer. A couple of moments after that Nettie's mom came out and you could hear the sounds of her washing the dishes. Other than that nothing else was said, and it was almost like the entire argument had never happened. Flash Gordon gave way to some old western starring Jimmy Stewart which I might've been interested in but Nettie wasn't because she had hopped up off the couch and started flipping channels. Back in those days we only had six or seven channels to flip to, so you could check out everything that was on pretty quickly and Nettie made the rounds at least once before settling on a Doctor Who rerun on the public television channel, which was just another choice I wouldn't have made. "You ever watch these?" Nettie asked towards Toadstool. "They're kind of cheap but they're fun to watch." "No," Toadstool said and you could tell his mind wasn't on the TV. "Now, what's the deal with these boys?" Nettie's dad asked from the kitchen doorway, a fresh can of Schlitz in his hand. "They're lost," Nettie said somewhat less boldly than she had before. "They just need a. . ." "A phone call. That's not going to happen," he said, looking back towards Nettie's mom. "Well, can we do something? I mean, we can't just leave them. . ." "It's okay," Toadstool said without looking at Nettie or her dad. "We can still just go to the police station." "No, Nettie's right, Denilson's probably at home watching a ballgame on TV," her dad said. "The best thing we can do for you boys is to give you a ride into town and, if we can't find the old man at the station, then we should be able to use a pay phone to get ahold of the dispatcher. I'd love to know how someone could wind up in your situation in the first place." We didn't say anything to that, and Nettie's dad just stood there for a minute looking at us with a curious look, then back into the kitchen. "Head outside. I'll finish my beer and we'll head into town." It was the biggest relief in the world to get up off that couch and we more or less burst our way out of that trailerhome. I think if Toadstool had his way we would've left right there and then, but Nettie had been so nice to us and she was so sweet I don't think either one of us wanted to leave her. It was still hot outside, but some dark clouds had started to gather overhead and it looked like a little rain might be getting ready to fall. We kind of stood around the Pinto waiting for her dad in kind of an uncomfortable silence, not really knowing what to say to each other anymore and certainly not wanting to talk about what just happened. Finally, Nettie started to say, "Hey, it looks like it might rain," but her dad came out of the trailerhome just then with the car keys in his hand. He got in the car first and Nettie sat shotgun beside him while me and Toadstool slid in the back. It was definitely a work car, filled with odds and ends and we had to move a bunch of junk over just to make room to sit. Finally we were all settled in and Nettie's dad went to turn on the car, but all it did was sit there and grind for a minute before he gave up on it. He cussed really loudly, then slammed his hands on the steering wheel before popping the hood and shoving the driver's side door open. He spent a second under the hood while Nettie slowly got out of the car and we left even more cautiously after her. He cussed a little more, then looked back up towards Nettie while continuing to fiddle under the hood. "The starter's out," he said loudly. "This is what I get for being a good samaritan. One of you get me a screwdriver out of the back seat." Toadstool was unfortunately the closest one to the back seat, and as me and Nettie hesitated to move he was actually the first to the back seat to pull out a screwdriver and hand it to him. "I need a flathead," he said tersely. "This is a Phillips. Ain't going to do me any good." Toadstool reached back in and shuffled around for a minute, then came up with a small flathead and handed it to Nettie's dad. "What am I going to do with this? It's to small for anything. You want to get home, find me the right screwdriver," he said, and threw the screwdriver at Toadstool, hitting him in the cheek. Now. to say that Toadstool wasn't the most aggresive person in the world was an understatement. Of the ninety-seven boys who graduated in the Garen High School Class of 1980, the class Toadstool should've graduated with, in a fight I'd probably choose ninety-four of them ahead of Toadstool to stand beside me in a fight, including Gary Rafer. But Toadstool was pushing just over 200 pounds and once you got his heft to moving it was hard to stop him. I'm not sure what came over him at the moment, it might've been what he got from the farmboys the night before or what he'd just heard coming out of Nettie's parents' bedroom or a combination of everything that had happened that weekend, but he took a run at that guy and hit him as hard as any football linebacker might, knocking him clean to the ground. That was pretty impressive when I thought about it later, but what might've been just as impressive was the small missile that hit Toadstool immediately afterwards. Now, there was no way Nettie's ninety-something pounds was going to move Toadstool's bulk, but it did take him by surprise and he stood there for a minute with this dumb shocked look on his face. "Get away from him, Nettie," her dad said as he got back up to his feet. Nettie moved over by her dad and for a moment me and Toadstool stood there at a standoff with them. Nettie's opinion of us had immediately and thoroughly changed and she glared at us as she moved closer to her dad. Having witnessed what he was capable of we didn't know what to expect from him, but, a little to our surprise, he simply started dusting himself off and moving towards the trailerhome. "If that's the way you boys want it, we're done here. You can leave our property now." For a minute we stared at them, realizing that we'd wasted an entire afternoon and we were still no closer to going home. Inside, though, I think we were both relieved that we were done with this guy, even though it meant leaving Nettie on bad terms. As much as I hate to say this, because my wife, Sherry Ann, may be reading this, I have thought a lot about Nettie Schallert over the years. In these days of social media I have sometimes typed her name into the computer, but sometimes it can be hard to find a woman you once knew because the change their name with marriage. Sometimes, when I'm reading the newspaper I'll turn to the science section to see if anyone named Annette Schallert may be included in those who may have found a new star or planet or what not. But, of course, it's unlikely that any of those dreams ever came true. Probably, if she's still around, she's stuck in the middle of Illinois somewhere in some sort of boring humdrum life, hopefully not with a guy like her dad, but you know what they say about cycles. The thing that always sticks in my mind about Nettie, though, is those beautiful green eyes of hers, and how the looked as we left that trailerhome. Those eyes were the most hateful pair of eyes I'd ever seen in my life.
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