A Fine Dark Line Read online

  “Chester, by the way,” Mom said, “was innocent.”

  “I’ve said it before,” Daddy said. “Chester was bound to do something eventually, and he probably did something before, so he had it coming.”

  “That’s a silly way to think,” Mom said.

  “I suppose it is,” Daddy said. “But it’s my only excuse.”

  “Mr. Chapman had it coming,” Callie said. “Whap, whap, whap. And Daddy hit him with a stick too. And he cussed.”

  “Stanley, what kind of talk is that around the children?”

  “Pretty foul, I suppose,” Daddy said. “It was a strained moment.”

  Daddy said this as if it were the only time he had ever let go of a string of colorful expletives.

  “I can’t imagine what that poor little Richard goes through,” Mom said. “It has to be horrible. Where’s his mother during all this? What’s she doing about it?”

  “Mr. Chapman beats her,” I said. “He slaps Richard around too. I’ve seen them with knots and fat lips and black eyes.”

  “What a man,” Daddy said.

  “This time he got slapped around,” Callie said. “Did you see him try to melt into the ground? He was looking for some kind of hole to go into.”

  “Weasels like holes,” Daddy said. “Any place where they can’t see the light of day.”

  “I can’t imagine why Mrs. Chapman puts up with such,” Mom said. “Your daddy ever did that, I’d be gone. After I killed him.”

  “I only slap guys around,” Daddy said. “When they have it coming, of course.”

  “Nub bit him,” I said. “He tried to protect me.”

  “Poor Nub got hit with a stick,” Callie said.

  “He’s all right,” Daddy said. “He’ll have a knot and a headache, but he’s all right. Good ole Nub.”

  “I’ll give our brave hero dog a can of dog food, right now,” Mom said.

  “What about the rest of us heroes?” Callie said.

  “Nub first,” Mom said. “Besides, I haven’t enough dog food to go around.”

  “That’s funny,” Daddy said.

  “I’ll bake some cookies for the rest of you. No. This is a real celebration. Rosy will bake the cookies and I’ll help.”

  This was a special moment, I thought. Mom had accepted that Rosy was the better cook, and that was the end of it.

  “It gettin’ right around dinnertime, Miss Gal,” Rosy said. “Why don’t I fix some dinner. Some fried chicken and greens, corn bread and mashed taters. Then I’ll fix some oatmeal cookies make your stomach wish it was twice its own size.”

  “I won’t fight that idea,” Daddy said.

  19

  THREE DAYS BEFORE SCHOOL, a Saturday, Mom sent me and Callie to town to buy some school supplies. Callie, who had been learning to drive, took the car. Back then, though you had to have a license, the cops didn’t check them much. Fewer people, looser rules. You could drive around when you were thirteen, no problem.

  Daddy wasn’t quite that loose with the rules, but he had started to let Callie drive at sixteen. With him in the car at first, and finally, now and then, alone.

  We shopped, got the few things we needed. Mostly pens and pencils. They had a new kind of fountain pen you put little plastic cartridges full of ink into, and when those wore out, you replaced them. We bought a couple of those and lots of replacement cartridges. We bought Big Chief tablets, colored map pencils, two small dictionaries, and lots of writing paper and composition notebooks.

  I loved all of that stuff. It was exciting. It was a great way to end a summer and prepare for a school year. I was actually starting to look forward to school.

  Of course, within a month to six weeks I’d be sick of all of it and anxious for Thanksgiving, and then the Christmas holidays.

  We finished around noon, put our booty in the car, then walked to the drugstore for a hamburger. Tim was working. He was still brooding over Callie’s last appearance there with Drew. We sat at the counter and he took our order, trying not to show any interest. But Callie’s green eyes and that glossy mane of a ponytail melted him.

  “So,” he said, after writing down our order on a pad. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

  “I’m not sure,” Callie said.

  “He like a permanent thing? I mean, are you going steady?”

  “No,” she said.

  “You dating other people?”

  “Not just now.”

  “I see. But you might.”

  “Sure. I might.”

  “What about Stilwind? You still interested in him? He’s too old for you, you know.”

  “I’m not interested in him.”

  Hope had returned to Tim’s breast. He said, “I’ll get this stuff going.”

  He took the order back to the cook, shoved the slip through the service window.

  We ate our hamburgers, Tim checking on us inordinately. Callie was very nice, smiled a lot. Tim looked as if he might break down and cry. He felt he had a chance now. We got extra Cokes with our meal.

  When we finished, started outside, I said, “You like him too?”

  “Not really. But I didn’t want him to spit in our food. And we got extra Cokes.”

  “I think you just like messing with him.”

  “You know I do.”

  Callie walked over to the theater’s pay booth, examined the times posted there for the double feature. She came back and looked at her watch. “Movie starts in about fifteen minutes. Want to go? At least see the first feature?”

  “Tim reminded you of James Stilwind. Well, I’m not interested in James Stilwind anymore.”

  This wasn’t entirely true, but the nearness and excitement of starting school, the events of the other day, the whipping Daddy had given Chapman, had sucked some of the curiosity out of me.

  “You were just nuts about finding out more about him the other day,” Callie said.

  “I know,” I said. “Not now . . . You don’t want to see a movie that bad, Callie. I know you. You want to mess with Stilwind.”

  “Just a little,” she said. “By the way. I got the time, but I forgot to see what’s showing.”

  What was showing was Frankenstein—1970, starring one of my favorites, Boris Karloff. The main show was Touch of Evil, starring Charlton Heston and Orson Welles. Looking back, it was a strange mixture, but the Palace hadn’t quite gotten down the art of arranging double features. Frankenstein—1970 would have been better served at the drive-in.

  We used the free passes James gave us, and once inside, Callie immediately tried to spot James, but he was nowhere to be seen.

  I could tell she was disappointed, but the idea of seeing a new movie for free was exciting enough to make her forget about it. The air-conditioning was welcome. The day had already started to swelter.

  We sat in our seats waiting for the lights to go down and the movie to come up. I said, “Did you really kill a blue jay?”

  “I did,” Callie said. “I really didn’t think I would hit it. I wanted to try. I love baseball, and I wanted to see if I could throw. I don’t know why they don’t have girls’ baseball. Mom said during the war they had women’s baseball. She said she saw a game. Another thing, Drew said girls didn’t play baseball because it was hardball and girls could get hurt. That doesn’t make any sense. Boys get hurt.”

  “Girls are weaker than boys,” I said.

  “You’re weaker than me.”

  She was right on this matter. I decided to be silent.

  The lights went down. A newsreel was shown as part of the Saturday morning kid show. It was an old reel from the war, well dated. I have no idea why it was shown. All I remember about it was the announcer saying “. . . Japs come out of their holes on Iwo Jima . . .”

  Next came cartoons. Road Runner and Coyote. We laughed our way through that one. Then came the kids’ show, Frankenstein—1970.

  Then came Touch of Evil. Unlike today, the price of one ticket took care of it all. You could sit through the kid
s’ show, the main feature, usually a double feature (not this time since Touch of Evil was lengthy), and when it played again, you could sit through that, watch whatever was shown until the show closed up. That way you could see the kids’ feature, a double feature, and another cartoon twice. It was a great way to spend a day and thirty-five cents.

  When the movie was over, I stopped by the rest room. When I came out, there was James talking to Callie. James was grinning so wide his teeth looked like a piano row.

  “Jim says he’ll show me how the projector works,” Callie said.

  “We have one at home,” I said. “I can show you.”

  “This one’s a little different,” James said. “It’ll only take a minute. Why don’t you go over to the concession, get whatever you want, tell them I said so. You want anything, hon?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  Hon? That was quick. He was already talking to her like she was a steady date.

  “Just be a minute,” Callie said.

  “All right,” I said.

  I went over to the concession, realized I wasn’t really in the mood for anything. I was still full and there was plenty of this stuff back at the drive-in. I stood near the wall next to the door and looked outside.

  It was bright out there, and after the darkness of the theater, it was like a white-hot slap. I blinked until I could see again.

  A light drizzle had come while we were watching the movie. It was long gone, but the streets steamed with condensation. Cars rode over it as if they were floating on cotton or clouds.

  Bored of watching, I finally went over to the concession for something to do. I asked the girl working there if I could have a Coke. I told her James had sent me and that he said it was okay.

  She went about drawing the Coke quickly, as if it was the foulest thing she had ever done. When she set it on the counter for me to take, I realized she was the girl who had been behind the counter before.

  “He with your sister?” she said, smacking gum.

  “He’s showing her how the projector works.”

  She snorted. “That’s not all he’s showing her.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She snorted again. “You’re too young.”

  I wasn’t as young as I was supposed to be. Not anymore. Not after this summer. I had a feeling go through me like red-hot needles. I left the Coke where it was and started walking to the door that led into the projection area.

  The girl called, “You want this Coke, or not?”

  I opened the door and found myself in a short dark hall with stairs in front of me. There was one little light there, and it was just enough you could see the stairs.

  I went up the stairs. On the right was a wall, on the left a little runway and the booth. From the runway I could look down and see people in the balcony. Even in the shadows, I could see they were all colored people. I could see beyond the balcony and the front of the white customer rows. I could see the screen and I could hear the projector hum. Inside the projection room I could hear a muffled sound and something banging against the wall.

  I stood there not knowing exactly what to do, but I finally made an executive decision. I went over to the booth and tried to open the door, but it was locked.

  I said, “Callie.”

  “Go away,” James said. “We’ll be out.”

  His voice was barely audible, sounded as if it were muffled by pillows. The booth was near soundproof.

  I kicked the door, kicked it hard.

  “Get Daddy,” Callie said. “Get—” and then her voice was muffled.

  I banged my shoulder against the door, and I started to yell Callie’s name.

  I did this two or three times, then the door opened quickly, and James grabbed me and pulled me in and shut the door.

  “Shut up. You’ll disturb everyone. I ought to knock the shit out of you.”

  I looked and saw the projector clicking away, its little light glowing blue in there, and in the blueness of it I saw Callie against the wall. The front of her blouse had two buttons snapped off. I saw then that James had marks down his face. They ran from just below his eye to the bottom of his chin.

  “What are you doing?” I said.

  “You’re too young to know,” he said.

  Callie hustled toward me. When she got to the door, she said to him, “Don’t ever come near me. You hear? My daddy finds this out. And he will. He’ll break every bone in your body.”

  James moved closer, laughed a little. “It probably wouldn’t have been any good anyway. Some cross-the-tracks stuff. Drive-in trash. You little tramp. You’re nothing but a tease.”

  Callie slapped him and stomped on his foot. He bent down and tried to say “bitch,” but it didn’t come out right.

  Callie grabbed my arm and we went out and down and into the lobby, her holding the top of her blouse against her.

  As we went by the concession, the girl there said, “Hey, girlie. He likes it rough, don’t he? And let me tell you something. He gets it once, he doesn’t want it twice. I know.”

  The Coke was still on the counter. Callie picked it up, flung it in the girl’s face. “It doesn’t surprise me you know,” Callie said, and we went out into the sunshine.

  We walked to the car, and when she was behind the steering wheel, she put her head on it and began to cry and shake.

  “Did he hurt you, Callie?”

  “He put his hand inside my blouse, the bastard. I scratched his face and I kicked him in his things. What hurts, Stan, is he thought I would let him. He always thought that, from the first time he saw me. I guess I did lead him on, teasing like that. But I didn’t tease about . . . Well, you know. I just flirted. I . . . Oh, Stan. I don’t know what I did.”

  “Whatever it was,” I said, touching her arm, “he didn’t have cause to do that.”

  She sat up and wiped her face with the back of her hand and drove home.

  ———

  BACK AT THE HOUSE, in the drive, Callie collected herself.

  “Are you going to tell Daddy?” I said.

  “I don’t think I should. I don’t want him to know I was—”

  “You weren’t doing anything. He offered to show you how the projector worked.”

  “I don’t care how a projector works. I wanted to be with him . . . Not that way . . . He’s older and cute, and I thought, well . . . I don’t know what I thought. Oh, Drew isn’t going to like this either. I like Drew. I shouldn’t have been playing around like that. I wanted to prove to you I could get the information you wanted. But I don’t know I really meant to do that. I was . . . I feel so . . . cheap.”

  “You’re not cheap. You fought him, didn’t you?”

  “I did.”

  “Did it surprise him when you fought back?”

  “Sure did. He tried to kiss me and I didn’t let him. Lots of guys try to kiss me, so that was nothing, and I wasn’t mean about it. I just said something like, ‘Uh uh.’ Then he put his hands on me and I slapped him. He didn’t like that. He slapped me and I clawed his face. He grabbed my shirt, tore the buttons, said he’d do what he wanted. But I kicked him, and he went to his knees. He just got up when you came. I was ready to fight some more, but I’m glad you came and I didn’t have to. It was near soundproof up there. That’s why he took me up there. That way if I yelled, wasn’t a thing anyone could do about it. They wouldn’t hear me unless they were standing right outside the door. I’m glad you came, Stanley. I’m really glad.”

  “Me too.”

  Callie took a tissue from the glove box and worked on the makeup that had run from her eyes. She wiped her smudged lipstick off. She put on fresh makeup and pulled her blouse together where the buttons had come loose.

  “I never knew things were like this,” she said.

  “Me neither.”

  “I look okay?”

  “Except for the blouse . . . And you look a little hangdog. I was you, I’d go straight for my room.”

  “That’s what
I plan.”

  ———

  INSIDE, Rosy was on the couch reading a magazine. She stood up when we came in, realized she was caught not working. She smiled, then her smile went downhill. She studied Callie.

  “What happened to you, Miss Callie?”

  “Happened?” Callie said. “Oh, nothing. You mean my blouse? I caught it myself. With my hand. Stupid thing. I—”

  “Miss Callie, you lyin’ to me.”

  “Rosy. How dare you.”

  “Some man done had his hands on you.”

  “What are you talking about, Rosy? I can’t believe—”

  “I know, ’cause I been there enough I can tell. I can tell jes’ the way you hold yo’self. You ain’t at yourself, and I can tell.”

  “Rosy, you’re being foolish.”

  Rosy stepped forward and lightly slapped Callie on the side of her face.

  Callie looked up in astonishment, put her hand to her cheek.

  “I don’t mean to do more of what’s already done, but I’m doin’ it for your own good. You don’t be keepin’ this to yo’self. Don’t do what I done. Man don’t need to be puttin’ his hands on you. You ask yo’ mama. Yo’ daddy don’t treat her that way. Was it that Drew?”

  Callie suddenly burst into tears. “No,” she said.

  “He hit you?” Rosy said, taking Callie in her arms.

  “It wasn’t him,” I said. “It was James Stilwind.”

  Rosy nodded, guided Callie to the couch. Daddy came into the room, looked at me standing by the door, Callie on the couch with Rosy. Rosy was holding Callie, rocking her, saying, “It gonna be all right, girl.”

  “What in hell happened?” Daddy said.

  No one answered.

  Mom came into the room. “Why is Callie crying? Callie?”

  Mom went over and sat on the couch so that Callie was between her and Rosy. Callie came loose of Rosy and hugged Mom.

  Mom said, “Tell me, Callie.”

  “Listen to your mother,” Daddy said. “Tell her . . . Who ripped your shirt? Callie?”

  “Leave her alone, Mr. Stanley,” Rosy said. “She got to take her time.”

  Daddy looked at me. “What happened, Stanley? You damn well better tell me. One of you better.”