Chapter 9: The Stolen Bag

The next morning, Nate was awake and waiting for his mother when she came to wake him. “I don’t feel so good.”

She didn’t take much convincing.

“I’m not surprised. I think you’ve had a fever on and off this week. I’m going to take you by Doctor Lightcap’s and have him look at you”

She watched Nate closely. Usually, if he tried to play hooky, that threat would bring about a predictable recovery.

“That’s a good idea,” Nate said. Ever since hearing Jim Frank’s story about Iron Hoop, Nate had wanted to hear Doctor Lightcap’s version. His eagerness to see the doctor reinforced his mother’s conclusion that he was genuinely sick.

About mid-morning, Nate’s mother loaded him into the car and took him to Doctor Lightcap’s office. After they’d waited in the sitting area for an hour, the nurse called Nate in. At first, his mother got up to come also, but the nurse said that at Nate’s age he should see the doctor alone.

“Tell him about the fever sweats at night,” his mother said.

Nate waited for a few minutes in the examination room, looking at a poster that showed the inside of the human ear. He wondered why the poster was there and who would care about such a thing. Then he figured out that his Uncle Henry would probably look the whole thing over and take in every fact. He hadn’t had any Saturday lectures on the human ear, so he assumed that Uncle Henry’s health had been running pretty good lately.

Doctor Lightcap came in, wearing a starched, white, lab coat with his stethoscope hanging out of the breast pocket. He carried Nate’s file folder. Even without his white coat, he would have looked like a doctor, with his Vitalis hair, bifocals, and ruddy, scrubbed skin.

“Well, what do we have today?”

He started poking and feeling while Nate explained that he’d been sweating at night and having funny dreams. He asked if Nate felt bad now. Nate told him he felt fine. Everyone knew that Doctor Lightcap was the most honest and straightforward man in the world. Lying to him would be almost sacrilege.

He listened to Nate’s heart and lungs for a minute through his stethoscope, and then put it back in his pocket. “What kind of dreams you having?”

“I dream about my granddaddy.”

Doctor Lightcap paused for a moment. “What happens in these dreams?”

Nate told him about the dreams and described the awful feeling when it came his turn to sing. “Sometimes it feels like everybody knows what I’m supposed to sing and they just want to see if I know it. Other times, it feels like they expect me to make up new words and they’re all curious to hear what they are. Either case, I never know what the right words are.”

Doctor Lightcap looked at Nate calmly but intently. “I dream about your granddaddy every now and then, too.” He watched Nate for a reaction. “I knew your granddaddy,” he said in a low, distant voice.

“I know. Jim Frank told me.”

Doctor Lightcap’s eyebrows went up a little when Nate said that.

“He told me how you tried to save my granddaddy.”

Doctor Lightcap took Nate’s wrist and felt his pulse. “Didn’t do such a good job at it, did I?”

Nate couldn’t tell if there was rancor in his voice or not.

“Well,” he said in his doctor voice, “You don’t seem too sick to me. Is there a test in school today?”

Nate explained the problem he had with Grub Hanley. He didn’t tell Doctor Lightcap exactly what he had said to Grub on the schoolyard, he was too embarrassed about it. None-the-less, Doctor Lightcap saw his predicament.

“Those Hanleys were pretty much a worthless lot from the get-go,” he said.

Nate saw his opportunity. “What was in the canvas bag that Luther Hanley stole at Iron Hoop?”

Doctor Lightcap leaned back and stared at Nate for a moment. He had put that experience away years ago and didn’t want to get into it again. “Old Jim Frank’s quite the story teller, it seems. It wasn’t any of my business then and it’s none of yours now.”

Nate noticed that he hadn’t said he didn’t know. “Jim Frank says you were mad about it.”

“Jim Frank’s a gossipy old fool with too much time on his hands.”

Nate was certain that Doctor Lightcap knew what was in that bag. He stared at him and said nothing. Doctor Lightcap finally gave in. “It was your granddaddy’s Colt pistol.”

Nate was amazed at how close to violence his grandparents had lived. His parents had pencils, pinking shears, and briefcases. His grandparents had guns.

Doctor Lightcap got up from his chair. “What are you going to do about Grub? You can’t play hooky forever.”

“I’m making a plan.”

“Good luck,” he said. “I’ll tell your mother, in the meanwhile, that you’re just going through puberty so she’ll leave you alone.”

Nate laughed. He knew puberty would keep his mother from quizzing him any further. Doctor Lightcap winked.

On the way home, Nate’s mother stopped by the drug store to pick up some aspirin for his fevers. Nate sat in the car while she went inside. He was still working on his plan for dealing with Grub Hanley when he saw a face he knew in the side mirror.

“Washington,” he said as he leaned his head out the window.

Washington was startled and looked around. Then he saw Nate’s head sticking out of the parked car and immediately recognized him. He walked over to the car.

“I’m glad you’re still in town.” There was an awkward moment when neither of them could think of anything to say. “Maddie Flanagan hasn’t tried to run you over any more, has she?” They both laughed.

“Miss Flanagan never tried to hit me,” Washington said reproachfully. “She was aiming at the chicken truck. The chicken truck tried to hit me.”

They laughed again.

“What are you doing these days?” Nate said.

“I’m working,” he said in an upbeat tone. “You know, it never would’ve occurred to me to seek employment at a funeral parlor. Took your fresh, young mind to see that connection.”

“You working at Wanamaker’s?” Nate was not only happy for Washington, he was excited that a grown-up had taken a suggestion of his.

“The very place you recommended,” Washington said. “Think I startled them at first by just going up and knocking on the door and asking for work. I convinced Mr. Wanamaker, though, that it would add elegance and charm to their funerals to have a colored attendant.”

“You have a tuxedo and stuff like that?”

“Oh yes. I’ve got tuxes, black suits and caps for driving, all that stuff. They’re not going to let me drive the hearse, though. Mr. Wanamaker said it wouldn’t be fitting.”

Washington made a snooty face and turned his nose up. He and Nate both laughed.

“I’m waiting. My break’ll come, and I’ll get to drive the big car. It’ll be like the old days, sitting up front in the deep, leather seat with the power windows and all. Only difference’ll be the passenger in the back won’t have much to say.”

Washington missed driving a big, fancy car. It wasn’t the status of it, he just truly appreciated the quality of the experience—mechanical and aesthetic.

“Ever look at a fine painting, one you thought was the prettiest thing you ever saw?”

Nate thought about the question. “Yeah, there’s this one I like of a bunch of people sitting in the park on a sunny day. Everybody’s sitting on the grass, looking at a lake.”

Washington leaned over and touched Nate’s arm. “For me, driving an expensive automobile with its engine in tune and its wheels aligned would be like you stepping into that painting and smelling the grass and hearing the waves. It’s art you experience.”

Nate had never heard anybody talk about a car like that. “I hope you get to drive that hearse,” he said.

Nate’s mother walked up and had a panicked look on her face when she saw Washington leaning over talking to Nate.

“You there, what do you want?”

Nate immediately explained. “This is Washington. I met him last week at Mr. Thompson’s. He almost got hit by Miss Flanagan.”

“Well, Mr. Washington, you’re in good company. Everybody in town’s almost been hit by Maddie Flanagan.”

“So I hear, ma’am.” Washington smiled broadly.

Her panicked look started to evaporate. The distributed terror of Maddie’s driving was a momentary bond. Besides, she was no longer surprised by whom Nate met when he was out on his junkets with his Uncle Henry. “You from around here?”

“New in town, ma’am. Working for Mr. Wanamaker.”

Nate noticed that Washington spoke more simply when he spoke to Nate’s mother than when he spoke to Nate. He was confused by this sudden change and didn’t like this Washington as much as the refined, witty one. Nate thought it would’ve been the opposite, a person would speak more simply when he spoke to a child and be more refined when he spoke to the grown-up. Then Nate understood. Washington wasn’t talking to Nate’s mother like she was a child, he was acting like he was the simple and childish one. It was how Nate’s mother expected black people to be. Washington was acting the part for his own protection from this woman who panicked when she saw him leaning into her car. For the first time, Nate began to understand why his grandmother hated that statue out at Jim Frank’s place so much. It didn’t show how black people were, it showed how some people wanted them to be. That’s what made it wrong, he thought.

Thinking about the statue helped Nate put the final piece of his plan together. He knew how he would deal with Grub at Founder’s Hill.

Chapter 10

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Copyright (C) 2009 Michael A. Hughes