The Adventures of Jack and Billy Joe by A. Jeff Tisdale

the one complainin’, it’s you,” Jack argued. “Your route would be as big as mine if you would call on some of those people who don’t take a paper and get them to subscribe. You got lots of those.”
    “Yeah, but they’re way out in the edge of town and all far apart. I’d have to pedal a long ways to deliver to them.”
    “Now see,” Jack accused. “You’re just lazy. They’re building more and more houses out past the AME church. Sooner or later you gonna have to subscribe them or Mrs. Whitehead will. Then you won’t get the new subscriber bonus.”
    “That sure makes a big route,” Billy Joe said.
    “Nah,” Jack corrected. “Mine goes from Old Town to the junior college and picks up downtown. If you subscribed everybody on the west side of town, you wouldn’t have as many as me.”
    “Here comes the bus,” Billy Joe said, glad to get out of this losing argument.
    The bus pulled into the gravel area where it normally stopped and the door opened. “Sorry, boys,” the driver said. “I guess they missed the bus. We left on time but there were no papers there. They’ll be on the next bus in thirty minutes, I’m sure.”
    “Yes, sir. Thank you,” Jack said.
    The bus pulled out to continue its route.
    “I guess I had better go over and tell Mrs. Whitehead in case she starts getting complaints from people because their paper’s late,” Jack said.
    Jack and Billy Joe walked over to her house. Jack knocked on her door.
    “What’s the matter, boys?” Mrs. Whitehead asked, sticking her head out the door.
    Jack explained the problem.
    “Well, y’all just sit out on the porch and I’ll bring you both a glass of Penny Drink,” she said.
    “Yes, ma’am. Thank you,” Jack said.
    They went into the front porch and seated themselves in the porch furniture. Billy Joe sprawled in the swing that was suspended from the ceiling by chains.
    Presently, Mrs. Whitehead came out with tall glasses of grape Penny Drink with ice cubes tinkling in them.
    “Now you boys just make yourself comfortable ’til the next bus comes,” she directed. “I’ll come out and tell you when it’s about five minutes to five.”
    “Thank you, ma’am,” both boys said.
    She went back in but, true to her word, she came out and said, “Time for the bus, boys.”
    Jack thanked her again and they went across the highway to meet the bus.
    Right on time, the bus came. The driver off-loaded a big bundle and a smaller bundle of papers.
    Billy Joe had his pocketknife out and ready to cut the binding strings.
    “You count out yours and I’ll take what’s left,” Jack said.
    Billy Joe counted the little bundle and a few more from the big bundle and set his stack aside.
    Both boys sat down beside their stack and started folding them into little, compact missiles that could be sailed up on a porch. Each boy knew how many he needed to fold for throwing and how many he could ride close enough to drop the paper on the porch.
    Billy Joe finished folding first, put his papers in his canvas carrying bag, put that in his bicycle basket and pedaled off on his route to the west.
    Jack finished a short time later and started on his route. He began his route going north to catch the four or five houses along the highway. He then turned east on a gravel road toward Old Town.
    Old Town had been “The Town” until Southern Railway laid its track from New York to New Orleans and it ran a few miles southwest of town. The town moved to the railroad, about five miles away, and the railroad built a station.
    Many people enjoyed living in the old town so they stayed.
    Jack finished delivering his papers in Old Town and started working his way south toward the county jail and the Baptist church. It was beginning to get dark.
    As he approached the house of Mrs. Willie Garner, an older black lady who lived alone, he heard moaning, crying and an occasional scream, as if the Devil was after somebody.
    He stopped. “What could be happening at Mrs.