Stumptown Kid Read online

  “No, Luther, don’t go.”

  Vern’s voice was getting louder, and we could hear what he was saying to Mom. “You asked him to sit right down and eat with you?”

  “Vern, he’s Charlie’s friend,” Mom said.

  “I’m just concerned about you and the boy,” Vern said. “You know that.”

  Luther picked up his bag near the table. “You tell your mama I’m much obliged for the spaghetti.”

  “But you hardly ate any!” I said, jumping up from the table. “Luther, don’t go. I hate Vern.”

  The gears in my brain were whirring around like crazy, and my head was pounding with the banging of my heart.

  “It was good to meet you, Charlie,” he said. “I’ll see you.” Then he was gone out the door.

  “Luther!” I yelled. “Come back!”

  But Luther was already walking across the grass and into Mrs. Banks’s yard near the shed at the back. I ran out the door and followed him.

  Mom yelled from the back door. “Charlie! Where’re you going?”

  “I’m going to talk to Luther!” I yelled at her.

  “No, Charlie!” she hollered. She came running and caught up with me in the yard behind ours. She took my arm, but I shook her off. I was so filled up with anger I couldn’t hardly talk.

  I saw Mrs. Banks standing at her back screen door, but I didn’t care.

  “I hate Vern!” I yelled. “I hate him!”

  A look of misery came into Mom’s eyes. “Charlie, you come back now. Vern left.”

  “What about Luther?” I looked back over my shoulder and saw that he was nearly a half block away.

  “Honey, Luther’s a grown man,” Mom said. She glanced over at Mrs. Banks’s back door and lowered her voice way down. “He can take care of himself. Maybe Mr. Landen will give him that job at the egg-buying station. Come on, Charlie. Let’s go in the house now.” She glanced over again at Mrs. Banks’s house.

  “Mom, he’s hungry.”

  “Lower your voice,” Mom murmured, giving me a hard look, “and go inside.”

  She nudged me and nodded toward our back door.

  I walked inside with her. I kept my voice low. “Mom, I don’t think he’s had any food since he caught a fish in the river last night. We gotta help him.” I saw her eyes go soft, so I kept on. “When Vern was talking about him, Luther heard him, and you shoulda seen his face.”

  “Ohhh.” Mom looked miserable again. She put a hand to her mouth. “I’m so sorry.”

  “We can take him some spaghetti,” I said. “I’m pretty sure I can find him.”

  “Oh, Charlie …”

  “Please, Mom? He don’t know anybody in Holden, and he don’t have a job yet.”

  It was a second before she took a deep breath and said, “Okay. Put some spaghetti in a bowl and cover it with tin foil. The rest can go in the Frigidaire. I’ll get the keys and back out the car.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “And get a fork and a napkin from the drawer.”

  “Okay.”

  In a few minutes we were in the old Chevy heading out of Stumptown. I had the bowl of spaghetti on my lap and a fork and napkin in my hand.

  “He said he was staying down by the river,” I said. “He set up camp down there.”

  “Set up camp?” A frown worked onto her face. She slowed the car, then stopped.

  “What?” I said.

  “Oh, honey,” she said. “I don’t think this is a good idea.” She turned to face me. “You mean he’s a drifter?”

  “No, he came here looking for work,” I said, talking fast. “I told you! He’s just camping out till he gets a job. But he’s hungry, and he heard what Vern said, so he left before he had a chance to eat. Please, Mom.”

  I could see she was softening again. She nodded. “Okay, we’ll take him the spaghetti. And that’s that.”

  She started driving again.

  I wasn’t sure exactly what Mom meant by “that’s that,” but at least we were going to get Luther some food tonight.

  “He said he caught a catfish last night,” I told her. “Said it was pretty good. But I bet he’ll be glad to get the spaghetti.”

  We drove along the edge of downtown and headed toward the river. We passed a big warehouse, a tavern, and the corner market.

  “Charlie,” Mom said, “I don’t want you to think bad things about Vern. He’s—”

  “I don’t want to talk about him,” I said. “I hate him.”

  “You shouldn’t say that,” Mom said. “It’s not right to hate a person.”

  “Well, tell Vern not to hate colored people then.”

  “Charlie, we need to talk.” She was saying the words slow and careful, and she slowed the car down to a crawl. “Vern and I might be getting married, you know.”

  “What?” I said. “How can you even like him?”

  “Honey, he helped me feel better after your dad died,” Mom said. “I still miss your dad something terrible—you know that—but sometimes when I’m with Vern, I can forget for a few minutes. Just a few minutes.” She turned a corner. “It’s hard being alone.”

  I didn’t see what was so hard about it. And she wasn’t alone. Mom and I were doing fine. She had the job at Woolworth’s, and I helped out a lot and did some of the jobs around the house that Dad would’ve done if he was here. I mowed the lawn and shoveled the snow, dried the dishes every night, and I helped Mom lift heavy things when she needed it.

  “Has he asked you to marry him?” I said.

  “Well, no, not yet.” Mom was still driving real slow. “I just have a feeling.” She frowned. “Unless …” Her voice trailed off.

  I knew what she was thinking. “I hope Vern’s so mad, he never comes back,” I said. “I don’t want him living in our house.”

  “Well, if we get married, Charlie, we’d probably move out of Stumptown into a nicer place.”

  “We’ve got a nice place,” I said.

  It scared me to think about moving. Sometimes I’m sure I’ll look up one day and see Dad walk through the front door. I mean, what if he wasn’t really killed in Korea and they sent somebody else’s body home by mistake? Everyone told Mom not to open the coffin, and she didn’t. What if he’s alive in a prison in North Korea? The war has to end someday, and then he could come home.

  Sometimes I believe that, and other times I don’t know.

  But what if it really did happen that way, and Dad came home and someone else was living in our house? How would he find us?

  I couldn’t let that happen.

  Mom turned onto a street that would take us along the Red Cedar River to our left. The Red Cedar’s a pretty big river, and deep, too. I’ve been swimming in it, but I’d never tell Mom. She’d scream if she knew. Will told me that people drown in the river every couple of years. Last year, it was a guy from over at the high school. He was goofing off with friends and jumped off the Rock Island railroad bridge and never came up again. His body washed up downriver two days later.

  As we drove, I wondered if we might pass Luther’s camp and not see it. Trees and brush grow right up to the water’s edge in most places. Luther could’ve built a camp in the brush and we’d never spot it driving by in the car.

  But then we came even to where the clearing is. You couldn’t see it from where we were, because the road backs away a little and the ground slopes down.

  “Stop the car,” I said.

  “You see him?” Mom asked, staring hard at the woods across the street.

  “No, but I bet he’s down there,” I said. “Park right here, at the side of the road.”

  Mom stopped the car and looked at the dense trees growing on the slope that dipped out of sight. “You’re not walking through that timber,” she said. “There’s bound to be lots of ticks in the grass. They’ll run right up your legs.”

  “Mom, Luther may be down there,” I said, pushing open the car door. “Besides, the timber’s not deep. There’re just a few trees.”

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nbsp; She frowned. “Well, let’s see.”

  “Come on,” I said. I brought the bowl of spaghetti, the fork, and the napkin.

  She crossed the street behind me, and I led her to the top of the slope.

  “See?” I said. “It’s not so steep. And there’s a path down to the river right here.”

  “Okay,” Mom said. “But be careful, Charlie. You want me to hold that dish of spaghetti?”

  “No, I’ve got it,” I said.

  I led her along the path as it wound down the slope. The sunlight was thinner now as the day eased into evening, and the trees sieved what was left of it into tiny flecks of gold that splashed over the green. Our footsteps tromped on the soft ground, crunching leaves and twigs.

  At the bottom we came to the clearing. I saw Luther’s catfish line first. It was tied to a stick about two feet tall that was jammed into the sandy ground next to the river. The line stretched out into the water and looked pretty limp, so there wasn’t a fish on the other end.

  Then I saw the lean-to built with brush. It stood up against some bushes, making a great shelter for someone underneath. It wouldn’t have kept all the rain out, but maybe it’d keep off a few sprinkles if they weren’t coming down too hard.

  A circle of rocks made a place for a campfire. Off to the side, a wire about a hundred feet long was tied between two trees. I figured Luther was using that to hang out his clothes after he washed them in the river.

  It was a great camp.

  “Luther’s staying here?” Mom said in a low voice. “Oh, Charlie. He seems like a nice man, but maybe we should—”

  “Luther?” I called out, ignoring her. “It’s Charlie. Me and Mom came to see you.”

  Luther’s head popped out from the lean-to. “Charlie?” he asked.

  I held up the dish in my hands. “We brought you some spaghetti ’cause you didn’t get to eat.”

  Luther stepped out of the lean-to, looking surprised. “What?” he said.

  “We didn’t want you to be hungry,” I said.

  Luther walked toward us slowly. “Oh, you didn’t have to do that,” he said in a shy kind of voice.

  I went to him and handed him the dish and fork. He nodded. “Well, that’s real nice of you.” He smiled a little at Mom. “Mrs. Nebraska, you do make good spaghetti.”

  Mom nodded back. I wanted her to say thank you to his compliment, but she didn’t. She kept staring at the lean-to. Then she’d look over at Luther and back at the lean-to. Something was working hard in her head, like maybe worrying that Luther was an escaped criminal or something. I kept searching through my mind for the right thing to say. But it seemed like there was so much noise going on in her mind, she wouldn’t hear me, anyway.

  Luther was watching Mom, too. “Come and sit down,” he said. He waved at a fallen log. “It’s not fancy, but it’s pretty comfortable.”

  “Thanks.” I sat on the log. “You made a great camp.”

  “Thank you, Charlie.” He looked at Mom, who was still standing stiff next to the circle of campfire rocks. “Mrs. Nebraska,” he said in a soft voice, “I’ll only be stayin’ at this camp till I get a job and can get me a room.”

  “Come on,” I said to Mom. “Sit down.” I patted the log next to me.

  Mom stepped carefully over the rough ground. “Tell me, um, Luther …” She brushed off the log and sat down. “What brings you here to Holden?”

  He looked down at the spaghetti dish in his hands. “Oh, I was ready for a change, I guess you could say.”

  “Go ahead and eat,” I told him.

  Luther smiled. “Thank you,” he said. He nodded at Mom. “Ma’am.”

  He sat down on a tree stump and took the foil off the dish. He scooped up spaghetti with the fork and crammed it into his mouth. The noodles, covered with red sauce, dangled from his lips. With a combination of sucking them in and using his fork, he got it all into his mouth.

  He wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

  “Charlie,” Mom said, “did you bring Luther the napkin?”

  “Oh, I forgot.” I still had it rolled up in my hand. I got up and gave it to Luther and stood next to him, watching him eat.

  “I swear, I’m hungry enough to eat the south end of a northbound polecat,” he said between bites.

  The edges of Mom’s mouth twitched up into an almost-smile. “Where do you come from, Luther?” she asked.

  “Tennessee, ma’am,” he said.

  “You must be about—what?—twenty-four years old?”

  “Twenty-five, ma’am.”

  “And what work did you do in Tennessee?” she asked.

  I wished she wouldn’t ask him so many questions, especially while he was trying to eat.

  Luther swallowed the mouthful and said, “I played baseball, ma’am.”

  “No,” Mom said. “I mean, how did you earn your living?”

  “Baseball, ma’am. I played with the Memphis Mockingbirds.”

  Mom stared at him, blinking, and Luther added, “They’re a team with the Negro League.”

  “Wow. You’re a professional baseball player?” I asked.

  I thought of the advice he gave me after tryouts and suddenly realized I’d been coached by a genuine pro. “Did you ever meet Jackie Robinson?”

  “I sure did, Charlie,” Luther said. “Back in forty-five. Jackie’s a champion, and that’s a fact. I’ll tell you about him someday.”

  “Why did you stop playing?” Mom asked.

  I wanted to know, too, but it was embarrassing the way she asked, like maybe she thought he got kicked off the team or something.

  “I hurt my arm, ma’am,” he said. “Couldn’t play no more.”

  Mom finally stopped asking questions and we let Luther eat. He sure was hungry. It only took him about two minutes to eat it all. When he was finished, he went to the river and washed the dish and fork.

  “Thank you for bringing the spaghetti, ma’am,” Luther said when he came back. “It was real good.” He handed the dish, fork, and napkin to Mom.

  “This is a great camp, Luther,” I said, looking around. I ran for the lean-to.

  “Don’t go in there, Charlie …” Luther said, coming after me.

  But I was already there and stepped inside. Luther’s sack was on the ground. An open bottle sat on a tree stump in the middle. It was nearly full. I stared at it. It looked like the whiskey that my granddad drank on special occasions.

  It was weird that Luther didn’t have food, but he had whiskey. I once saw Eileen’s dad drunk, and later Mom explained he had trouble with drinking. Luther looked okay, though, not like Eileen’s dad.

  But Mom didn’t drink at all, and if she saw that whiskey bottle of Luther’s, she wouldn’t like it.

  I didn’t want to mess with Luther’s things, but even more, I didn’t want Mom to tell me I couldn’t see him again. So I picked up the bottle and set it down behind the stump.

  “Charlie?” Luther stood in the opening to the lean-to. “I think your mama’s ready to go home.”

  I came out of the lean-to and Luther gave me a little nod. I’m not sure, but I think he was thanking me for putting the bottle out of sight.

  “I’ll come by tomorrow and take you to the egg-buying place,” I said.

  “Um, Luther, why don’t you come to our house and meet Charlie?” Mom said quickly. “Then you both can walk to see Mr. Landen.”

  I could tell Mom didn’t want me coming back here. But Luther’s camp was real inviting, and I wanted to come back again as soon as I could. Just before he found out he had to go into the Army, Dad said he’d take me camping. But we never got to do it.

  So I was already planning how I could come back here.

  I do what Mom tells me most of the time. But once in a while I do something different. Like I said, it’s not very often.

  Just often enough so I don’t go completely crazy.

  Chapter Four

  Luther knocked on our door about nine o’clock the next morning. />
  “Hi,” I said, opening the screen door. Its rusty hinges creaked like a complaining cat. “Come on in. I was just having breakfast. You want some?”

  Luther didn’t move. “Um, Charlie …”

  “Yeah?”

  He looked around. “Is that fella here?” he asked quietly.

  “Nah, luckily,” I said. “Vern usually comes over after work.”

  Luther nodded and came inside. Mom was in her bedroom getting ready for work. She’d just turned up the radio in the living room so she could hear Nat King Cole sing a song about some girl named Mona Lisa. It was her favorite song.

  I led Luther into the kitchen.

  “You want some oatmeal?” I asked. “Or toast?” I pointed to our toaster that was so shiny you could see your face in it. Our old toaster broke last winter, so we saved enough S&H Green Stamps to get a new one last month.

  “Your mama’s going to think I eat all my meals here,” Luther said. He didn’t move to sit down.

  “She made some extra for you, in case you wanted it,” I told him. It was sort of a lie, but I figured Luther wouldn’t eat unless he thought it was okay with Mom. And I knew she wouldn’t mind.

  Luther smiled. “Your mama’s a special lady, and that’s a fact,” he said.

  I dished him up most of the oatmeal from the pan on the stove and put the rest in my bowl. Then I gave him the sugar bowl and the milk bottle from the Frigidaire. We ate without talking much, but that was okay.

  Mom came to the kitchen doorway, smoothing her hair with both hands. “Hello, Luther. Charlie taking you to Landen’s this morning?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, that’s good. Kiss and a hug, Charlie,” she said, leaning down.

  I pointed one side of my face at her, so she could kiss it, and I let her hug me, but I didn’t hug back. Boys as old as me don’t do that kind of stuff in front of other people. It’s embarrassing.

  “Oh, hon,” Mom said. “Mrs. Crawford called yesterday. A book that I reserved came in. So could you go to the library sometime today and pick it up?”

  “Okay.”

  “Thanks, sweetie.” She kissed me again. “Now you be good, and call me if you need anything.”