Nate slipped into the recurring dream he had been having all week. He dreamed he was at Grandmother Tillman’s and the whole family was standing around an old, upright piano in the middle of the living room. Jim Frank was playing a hymn Grandmother Tillman used to sing to Nate, and everybody was singing along. Nate noted how green the trees were that grew next to the Sawatassee River as he looked at them through the long windows in Grandmother Tillman’s living room. The old glass distorted the shapes of their branches and made them look like rippled, green smears, so that the windows looked like long, impressionist paintings hanging on the wall.
Grandmother Tillman and Nate’s grandfather were in the dream, but they were both young. Grandmother Tillman’s usual pulled back, gray hair was loose and full of auburn curls. Nate’s grandfather looked like the picture Grandmother Tillman kept of him on the mantle, strong and slender with bright eyes. Grandmother Tillman had her arm around her husband’s waist, and Nate got a disconcerting sense of sexuality from her casual posture. In contrast, his parents looked old, haggard, and separated. His father wasn’t singing and his mother kept looking fretfully at her parents. Then, Nate’s grandfather sang a solo in a clear, beautiful voice, looking up the whole time he sang. At the end of it, though, he looked right at Nate, and Nate could tell that everyone was waiting for him to sing the next verse. But Nate didn’t know the words. It was awful, everyone’s eyes looking at him in anticipation and him not knowing what words he was supposed to sing.
“Time to get up, you’re going to be late for school again. That’s twice this week. Honestly, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, you never used to be this hard to get up.” Nate’s mother pulled the covers back. “Good Lord, you’re soaking wet. Do you have a fever?”
She touched his forehead and Nate could tell from the warmth of her hand that his head felt cool to her touch.
“I’m fine,” he said, relieved to be awake. “It’s just getting warm at night, now. I’ll have to start sleeping with less covers.”
It was Thursday, and this was the third time Nate had dreamt this scene since hearing Jim Frank’s story on Saturday. He always woke up when it came his time to sing, but not before experiencing that horrible, anxious feeling of having forgotten the words or never having learned them. It gave him a deep sense of being disconnected from the others.
Nate got dressed and skipped breakfast. His mother had gotten very solicitous abut his health since he started having theses sweating sessions at night, and facing her questions at the breakfast table felt too much like staring at all those people around the piano in his dream.
At school, Nate dozed through his geography and world history lessons, making up for the uneasy rest the night before. The recess bell woke him up and he found Freddie waiting for him in the schoolyard. The schoolyard was divided into two distinct areas: the blacktop next to the school and the field. The blacktop had swings, slides, and drinking fountains and was where the younger kids played. Teachers routinely patrolled the blacktop. The field had a chicken wire backstop in the far corner for playing baseball and was closed in by a high, chain-link fence. Teachers never went onto the field unless a fight broke out. By the time a teacher got out there, though, the outcome had been decided. In short, the field was where academe quit and real life took over. Freddie and Nate avoided it for the most part.
Nate was still slowly waking up from his nap, listening to Freddie go on about whether the emerging curves under Margaret Haynes’ dress were really breasts or not, when Nate saw his eyes suddenly get wide.
“Hey, butthole, give me some money,” Grub said, as he pushed Nate in the back.
Nate calculated whether or not he could make it to the sanctuary of the school building if he ran. He figured his chances were fifty-fifty at best.
“Leave me alone.”
As Grub mimicked him, Nate remembered Jim Frank’s story about Grub’s father and Nate’s grandfather. He could hear Luther Hanley saying “bat-food for sure” in the same evil voice. Nate wished Jim Frank had punched him.
“I said give me your money, butthole.”
“Go away,” Nate said weakly.
What Nate hated most about Grub was that he made him hate himself for being weak. Nate knew his grandfather wouldn’t have been weak like this. He was a man who climbed down holes when everyone else was scared. Grandmother Tillman wouldn’t take this kind of abuse. She’d hit him back with a serving spoon or point a rifle at him. Why were they strong and why was he weak? He blamed his parents for not being poor and not forcing him to live the hard life that would have made him strong. He blamed his father for not having gotten himself killed when Nate was a baby, so he would’ve had to fend for himself and be tough. Mostly, though, he hated Grub Hanley for rubbing his face in it. Grub didn’t want Nate’s money, he just wanted to show everyone how weak and chicken Nate was.
“What’s it going to be, butthole, your money or a purple tittie-twister?”
“Give him your lunch money, stupid,” Freddie said hoarsely. Nate looked over and saw that Freddie was staring at him with intense eyes. All the other kids had gathered around and were staring, too. Nate felt like that part in his dream when his grandfather and everybody just stood there, staring at him. Just as he was about to explode with the agony of it all his mouth involuntarily opened.
“Eat nigger shit,” he said impulsively and louder than necessary given how close Grub was to him.
Everyone stood in stunned silence. Nate was more surprised and shocked than everyone else. These were the two worst words he knew, words he had been trained and retrained never to say, and here he had just said them together. In an insult right in Grub Hanley’s face, no less!
Grub’s face went pale, then started getting red as he sucked in short, jerky breaths. His Neanderthal, neural networks were wrestling with this latest input, and he was having trouble putting the visual message that it was Nate talking and Nate’s lips moving with what his ears were hearing. Nate looked at Freddie, whose mouth was wide open in astonishment. Finally the full impact of what Nate had said and to whom he had said it sank in on all three of them, and they screamed in unison: Grub in rage and Freddie and Nate in terror.
Nate ran, but in his panic he didn’t run toward the school building. He ran into the field instead, where there was only Grub law. He made it to the backstop and realized he was cornered. He spun around and Grub stopped right in front of him.
Nate collapsed to his knees. “Please don’t kill me. I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I said that, I swear I didn’t mean it.” Nate was terrified and crying.
Grub stood there with his legs spread apart, contemplating just how he was going to kill Nate. From his groveling position on the ground, Nate could see the school building as he looked through Grub’s legs. He knew that no teacher could cross that distance in time to save him. In desperation he scurried forward between Grub’s legs and got up and ran. If he could get to the school building, he would be safe. He could see the kids cheering and parting a way for him as he heard Grub huffing behind him. Truly believing that he would be murdered if Grub caught him, he pulled away and made it to safety, just as the bell sounded the end of recess. Everyone ran into the school building, except Grub, who stayed in the yard, bent over with side cramps and confused by humiliation for the first time in his life.
Nate quickly washed up before going into class again. He was flushed with fear, exhilaration, and from the exertion of running. He was ashamed of what he had said. He thought about Grandmother Tillman and how she hated those words when they were used by themselves, he was horrified by what she would think of him saying both together. He never would be able to face her if she ever found out. He was further ashamed that he had groveled and begged for his life in front of the whole school. He wanted to run away, but he knew that Grub was somewhere on the outside, confused and wounded. He wasn’t ready to take his chances with that. He decided to try to slither unnoticed into class, completely unprepared for what was to happen next.
As Nate walked into the classroom, all the kids cheered and applauded. Boys who wouldn’t pick him to be on their baseball team without being compensated with a point spread were calling his name. Girls were smiling appreciatively at him. He was a hero.
Bill VanDiver, the uncontested social leader of the school, slapped him on the back and said, “Nice mouth. Kiss your girlfriend with that same mouth?”
Margaret Haynes giggled.
Nate realized that they were as much in awe of what he’d said as to whom he’d said it. He had always been the prim, momma’s boy of the playground. That phrase coming out of Nate Williams was news enough, his saying it to Grub Hanley made it a tabloid headline. His Uncle Henry would sometimes say, “It’s not what the talking dog says that’s so astonishing, it’s the fact he talks at all.” Nate thought in this case the opposite was true in spades. The school was astonished that he had spoken back to Grub, and equally astonished by what he had said. The prissy mouthed momma’s boy had uttered what had turned out to be the atomic bomb of playground insults for an all-white school in 1963. The fact that he’d run, cried, groveled, and begged for his life didn’t seem to diminish his stature. The ensuing scramble for safety hadn’t detracted from the initial bravery of his act. It was merely perceived as common sense.
Nate was intoxicated by his new popularity. Actually, it was notoriety, but at thirteen, with Margaret Haynes giggling and smiling at him, the distinction was small and quickly overlooked. These words he’d been forbidden to use all his life had suddenly given him power. The remorse about what he had said started to lift as he enjoyed the status it brought him. The question of what else might come along with that status had not yet started to nag at him.
At three o’clock, school let out and Nate was reminded in his euphoria that Grub Hanley hadn’t just gone away. Nate still had to get home. He and Freddie usually walked their bicycles to where their paths parted, so they had longer to talk. That day they rode fast. They got to where Nate’s street pulled off and Nate waved good-bye to Freddie, telling him that he’d call him later.
As Nate passed by the large elderberry bush that grew next to the neighborhood drainage ditch, Grub jumped out and grabbed the handlebars of his bike. He wrestled it to a stop the same way a cowboy would’ve wrestled down a roped calf in a rodeo.
He grabbed Nate and said, “Relax, butthole, I’m not going to do anything to you, here.”
Nate didn’t feel relaxed.
“Just want you to know that I’m going to kick your butt tomorrow in front of all your friends. And I’m going to bring a little something for you to eat.”
Grub gave Nate a parting swat to his head.
That night, Nate called Freddie and told him what had happened.
“What’s he going to bring?” Freddie said.
“What do you think?”
“Maybe you should tell your parents.”
Nate didn’t want to do that, but not for the obvious reasons. He didn’t belong to them anymore. Something had skipped a generation, he realized, and he was connected to his grandparents, somehow especially to his grandfather. Something important had happened in the schoolyard. Somewhere beyond the fleeting notoriety, beyond the shallow acceptance of his peers, and in spite of the trash talk, he’d stumbled onto something of substance. He liked himself for having stood up to Grub. It hadn’t been pretty, and it hadn’t worked out like in a story, but it had been real and he’d stood up to the bully. Nate knew he wouldn’t tell his parents, he was on his own.
“I’ve got a plan,” Nate said.
He could feel Freddie’s astonishment on the other end of the phone.
“What kind of plan?”
“I’ve got to get rid of Grub.”
“You’re going to kill Grub Hanley?” Freddie said.
“No, pencil-neck, I’m going to get him to leave town,” Nate said.
“How?”
“I still have to work out the details, but I need your help.” Nate knew that whatever it took, he couldn’t let Grub Hanley get to him at school the next day. “I’m going to skip school tomorrow. You find Grub and tell him I’ll fight him at midnight at Founder’s Hill.”
Founder’s Hill was Davis Corners’ creepy spot. It was a tall hill in the middle of otherwise flat ground with a single, gnarled oak tree right on top. It was the center of ghost stories and myths handed down over generations. He knew that Grub couldn’t turn down a challenge to a fight.
“What if he decides to kill me instead?” Freddie said.
“He won’t,” Nate said with unwarranted assurance. “Here’s what else I need. Can you get your brother to come by and pick me up at ten o’clock tomorrow night?”
“Your parents won’t let you out that late.”
“I’m not going to tell them, Einstein. Just get Skip to do this for me.”
Okay, okay,” Freddie said, “But what’s your plan?”
“Tomorrow at ten o’clock. Pull up outside with your lights off, and I’ll tell you then.”
Nate hung up and started calculating how he could pull this off.
Chapter 9
Copyright (C) 2009 Michael A. Hughes
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