now we’re beside this mobile home, and some gap-toothed old hag is sitting on the little wooden steps in front, staring at us.
I finally get back in to keep him from getting rear-ended by some of the maniacs around here. We go to the little store in the middle of town, and we sit in the truck and talk.
“The folks that are keeping you said you could stay here if you want to,” he tells me. “I told them I could get you all straightened out about summer school. And they already talked to the man you stole the sunglasses from.”
I’m crying by now. He goes in the store and comes back out with a couple of Cokes, and we sit there in the shade and talk. He tells me how proud he’s always been of me, and I wonder how anybody could be proud of me right now. He tells me how much I remind him of his brother Lafe, who he says was the good-looking one, and the smart one, in the family. Some family, I’m thinking. He says that he’s never forgotten how I could read when I was five, and he tells me the story, for the first time since I’ve been old enough to understand it, about how he didn’t learn to read until he was like forty years old. He says he still has the story I wrote for him when I was nine, about the little boy who saves his father’s farm by planting magic seeds given to him by an elf that blossom into full-grown pizzas in just three days. Pretty heavy stuff.
He tells me this is as far as he can go, because he’s not supposed to drive his truck any farther than the store and the church down the road. He probably shouldn’t be driving that far, I’m thinking. He tells me that he has a friend who’s a teacher at the local high school, and he might be able to helpme get into summer school down here and maybe get that much back in Mom’s good graces before she comes home. He’s already called the guy, and summer school classes began like today, so I wouldn’t miss by starting tomorrow. If I want to, he says.
Well, there isn’t much choice, short of just chucking it and starting my lucrative career as a street person. I am not so sure this is going to work out, but at least maybe I’ll meet some good-looking fox to take my mind off Marcia, who I only think of every five minutes. Granddaddy says this guy will even give me a ride every morning, good news since that august institution of learning, Sandy Heath High School, is, as Granddaddy says, a right good ways from here.
Next morning, we go through the usual routine. Granddaddy asks me don’t I want to dress up a little more the first day, and I point out that my good suit wouldn’t fit in the backpack. He kind of chuckles at that. I think maybe he’s getting used to the fact that his only grandchild is a wiseass. He says maybe he can get Jenny, my second cousin who’s older than Mom, or Harold, her husband, to take me into town, to Belk’s or somewhere, to get some clothes. He says he’ll pay for them, which is fine by me.
I see this car come tearing down the road, some low, mean machine from the 1960s, it looks like, but in real good shape for something that old.
“That’d be Kenny,” Granddaddy says. He’s already told me a little about this guy. His name is John Kennedy Locklear, after the old president Mom and Dad think was so great. He seemed like a neat guy—JFK, I mean—but if I see one more television documentary on how the world might just aswell have crawled up its own asshole and died after his assassination, I might puke.
This guy, who goes by Kenny but is Mr. Locklear to me, teaches agriculture at the high school, and Granddaddy lets him farm several rows out back of what Granddaddy calls the carhouse, because the guy like lives in a mobile home and doesn’t have any land of his own. Granddaddy says Kenny’s family used to work for the McCains and lived in the shack down at the edge of the woods. He says Kenny gives him vegetables from what he grows, and that he has gotten more out of the land than any of the McCains ever
I finally get back in to keep him from getting rear-ended by some of the maniacs around here. We go to the little store in the middle of town, and we sit in the truck and talk.
“The folks that are keeping you said you could stay here if you want to,” he tells me. “I told them I could get you all straightened out about summer school. And they already talked to the man you stole the sunglasses from.”
I’m crying by now. He goes in the store and comes back out with a couple of Cokes, and we sit there in the shade and talk. He tells me how proud he’s always been of me, and I wonder how anybody could be proud of me right now. He tells me how much I remind him of his brother Lafe, who he says was the good-looking one, and the smart one, in the family. Some family, I’m thinking. He says that he’s never forgotten how I could read when I was five, and he tells me the story, for the first time since I’ve been old enough to understand it, about how he didn’t learn to read until he was like forty years old. He says he still has the story I wrote for him when I was nine, about the little boy who saves his father’s farm by planting magic seeds given to him by an elf that blossom into full-grown pizzas in just three days. Pretty heavy stuff.
He tells me this is as far as he can go, because he’s not supposed to drive his truck any farther than the store and the church down the road. He probably shouldn’t be driving that far, I’m thinking. He tells me that he has a friend who’s a teacher at the local high school, and he might be able to helpme get into summer school down here and maybe get that much back in Mom’s good graces before she comes home. He’s already called the guy, and summer school classes began like today, so I wouldn’t miss by starting tomorrow. If I want to, he says.
Well, there isn’t much choice, short of just chucking it and starting my lucrative career as a street person. I am not so sure this is going to work out, but at least maybe I’ll meet some good-looking fox to take my mind off Marcia, who I only think of every five minutes. Granddaddy says this guy will even give me a ride every morning, good news since that august institution of learning, Sandy Heath High School, is, as Granddaddy says, a right good ways from here.
Next morning, we go through the usual routine. Granddaddy asks me don’t I want to dress up a little more the first day, and I point out that my good suit wouldn’t fit in the backpack. He kind of chuckles at that. I think maybe he’s getting used to the fact that his only grandchild is a wiseass. He says maybe he can get Jenny, my second cousin who’s older than Mom, or Harold, her husband, to take me into town, to Belk’s or somewhere, to get some clothes. He says he’ll pay for them, which is fine by me.
I see this car come tearing down the road, some low, mean machine from the 1960s, it looks like, but in real good shape for something that old.
“That’d be Kenny,” Granddaddy says. He’s already told me a little about this guy. His name is John Kennedy Locklear, after the old president Mom and Dad think was so great. He seemed like a neat guy—JFK, I mean—but if I see one more television documentary on how the world might just aswell have crawled up its own asshole and died after his assassination, I might puke.
This guy, who goes by Kenny but is Mr. Locklear to me, teaches agriculture at the high school, and Granddaddy lets him farm several rows out back of what Granddaddy calls the carhouse, because the guy like lives in a mobile home and doesn’t have any land of his own. Granddaddy says Kenny’s family used to work for the McCains and lived in the shack down at the edge of the woods. He says Kenny gives him vegetables from what he grows, and that he has gotten more out of the land than any of the McCains ever
Similar Books
