Deep in the Heart of Me (43 page)

"All I know is I went up there, got in line cause Regina was wearing this white robe and singing, and she was looking at me, and I watched that preacher touch them one by one and soon as he touched them and said the words they fell down, and I didn't want that to happen to me, didn't want to fall right there in front of her, but she was singing right to me and…."

"And what?" I say.

"I said, no way I'm going down like that, no way. And next thing I knew I got up there and he put his hand on my forehead and…I was on the floor."

"He punch you or what?" I say.

"He slayed me," Ulie says, sitting up and shouting in my ear.

"I'm gonna slay you, you yell in my ear again," I say holding my mutt.

He flops back in the seat driving with his arm extended.

"And watch my hat," I add. It must be two in the morning, and I'm in no good mood.

"And after they got me up," he continues under the idea we want to hear it, "I'm up on the stage with Regina. She's got me by one arm and the preacher by the other…and I…I gave my life to Jesus. Again. And I surrendered to preach…."

"What?" me and Elsie say making a rare harmony.

"…and some church called me right there to their pulpit… and I looked at Regina, and she was nodding I should say yes. So I did and…" he lifts his butt so he can dig a piece of paper from his pocket. "I start next Sunday at The United States Under God Clothed in the Spirit Holiness Church in Lawson Illinois." He's read this off the crumpled paper.

I lean forward to see around Elsie. "You sign something?"

"No," he says, and I see the fear in his face.

I dig my crumpled pack of cigarettes from the ashtray. "That's good. Cause Lawson is about forty miles from the station, opposite of home, and you ain't going." We have more work than we can handle with the gas and Dad and the boys building the dairy and getting in crops. We can barely find time to play on the Purity Gas Regulars. And we are in church, come Sunday because Maman, but he's got no time to….

"What would I even say? There's Moses," Ulie says. "I know him pretty good. Let's see, he's a baby in a basket, and those naked girls are bathing…."

I sit back and slouch and fold my arms so I can get some shut-eye. We've got to be up at four in the morning so we can deliver. Farmers in the field want fuel when they need it.

He's still going on about Moses.

"Shut up," I growl. We are going across the bridge. I ain't falling asleep so I look down at the water and see a barge pulling underneath. I don’t keep working I’ll go under. It’s the only thing I got now. It’s the only thing worth doing. I got a lot, a lot to make up for. Luck? You make your own. Or you don’t. Bet on the wrong horse…you lose. Simple as that.

"I know about Paul," Ulie is saying under his breath. To himself this time. I know how he is, how he gets. Doesn't take much to push him back in solitary.

I close my eyes and what do I see but that album full of pictures in my head—a girl wearing a crown, a dress that twinkles under the lights, and a smile for me. Sobe coming down those stairs, me fumbling to pin that rose.

Then a long line of Johnnies and her dancing with everyone and ignoring me. It occurs I was invited there to be punished for calling her a shady lady. I truly believe that.

Ulie isn't the only one been slain this night.

"Move your ass," I call out. I have a good voice for yelling things. Most don't believe I'm a deep sixteen. I've been lying about my age the whole time I've been around Kinsey so they figure I'm older, and I feel older. Like it's my right.

Pat is going after the ball hit by the Kinsey Mule's best hitter. But Pat can't play for shit today and trips on a bumble bee.

Thank God Bill does something right for once and scoops that ball in time to throw it before that Kinsey bastard can tag home.

"What do you think you're doing old man?" I get practically on top of Pat and yell right in his face before he's back on his feet even.

"Shut your mouth," he yells back rolling onto his side and getting up like he's a hundred years old.

I'm almost glad no one from home could come and watch this rodeo because we are being ridden by these Kinsey Mules, and that's asses on our asses.

"All right let's settle down," Ulie calls from the sidelines. "Let's see something out there. Shake it off and let's see something." His big hands, clap. I wish he could play, but it causes too many fights when they see him taking the field.

He's too good. And too brown. When they start to lose, he's the first one they blame for it and then we have to beat their asses, theirs and any other team's we play cause they are already mad about me, but there's not a damn thing they can do about it so they have double reason to go for him.

It's alright if we play a Colored team, we do that. But Ulie can't be the only fly in the milk because the milk wants to sink that fly to the bottom of the glass.

I just want to keep Ulie alive, but that doesn't mean I won't draft him in if I need to cause I pretty much can't stand losing.

And punching a couple of those Mules, that pitcher and definitely that heavy hitter right in their kissers might feel really good about now.

I'm a good player. I've always been. Shaun was better. Ulie might be…as good.

Maybe that doesn't mean much in this world, but baseball comes easy to me. It's hard for me to believe others can be so bad at it, or so-undedicated.

I'm thinking this when I see that truck pull up. I see what is standing in the bed, but it doesn't make sense.

It's a Negro kid hops out of that truck and puts down the gate. I know that kid. He's Regina's brother Bartholomew.

He sets a board for a ramp off the tail end. He has a rope on the animal and that one doesn't want to come too easy so Bartholomew stands on the ramp and pulls, and sticks out his behind and pulls some more.

But that beast rears back and sticks out its behind and does that strange hee-haw a couple of times. It's a tug-of-war.

"Hello mule," I say from my position at first base.

I nearly miss a line drive, but of course, I never miss, not even when I can't believe my eyes--which are other places seeing troubling miracles. The crowd is booing me, and these are my customers mind you, but I don't care. They need me like the air they breathe now, most of them gone to gas-driven machinery.

I stopped their man from landing on first. That's all I care about. Or did. Now I got this new concern.

Bartholomew gets him off the truck finally and turns him around, and I see on his left flank painted in white are the words,

"Butt-kickers. Kinsey Mules."

Well, he wasn't made for that. He's not a signboard, he's a formerly glorious beast.

I watch him resist this whole display, then I watch the crowd gather around that mule, more him than this game for a minute. I tag another runner and get that last out for us, and we rearrange ourselves on the field, but I watch him the whole time, has more tired in his walk than pride. Oh, there's sass, but not enough. Not nearly enough.

They lead him over to the sidelines and the crowd for the Mules is saying hee-haw, but he's not saying a thing. I get up to bat, and his ears move toward me. I think he knows me. I'm sure he does.

I hit that homer, it's not for the Regulars. Not even for me. I hit it for him. I run past where they've got him, and we look at each other, and I fly on by and run the diamond, but I see that lack of light in his eyes.

Once I score and they are booing me and hee-hawing at me, I dust my butt off as I go over there where Bartholomew stands holding that tether.

"Where you get him?" I ask. I am close now, but I don't touch that mule. Not yet.

The crowd roars and I look over my shoulder long enough I see Pat finally do something. He gets on second.

"Bought him from Utz Smith at auction," he says. "I reckon with his size he got draft horse in him."

Utz sold this mule? Otto's mule? "How much."

Bartholomew looks at me for a minute and breaks into a grin. "Aw no."

I almost got him to say. That would let me know what to offer at least. But then…maybe I won't have so much of a limit anyhow, generous and angry as I feel.

"How much you take for him?" I ask.

"Oh, he…I ain't selling," he says. "They pay me to bring him to the games
,
and I'm hooking him to plow."

Now none of that is right. "How about I fill your daddy's tank until Christmas?" I say. I'll be seventeen before that debt is paid.

I see his eyes widen some. "What you want this mule so bad for? You gonna keep him at the station? They will steal him back you do them that way."

I don't answer. I just turn to that mule and put my hand on his neck. I run my hand down to that scar on his leg.

"That don't slow him none," Bartholomew says.

"We good on it?" I stick my hand out. Bartholomew stares at it, at me. Then he puts his hand in mine, and we shake.

"What I gonna tell the Mules?"

I shrug. "Tell them he's mine now. He works for Purity Gas."

I run my hand over his paint, and he turns to look at me, and he makes some sound in his neck. Maybe I'm the biggest disappointment he's known, but I'll make it up when I get him on the farm. They get any ideas to steal him away I'll be about as warm on it as Otto Smith was.

We lose that game, but I hardly care. Hardly.

I've got one less thing to make right in this world.

The Mules may have won the game, but they are taking it personal, me riding J. B. to the station.

There is a truck full of them rolling along beside me.

"You can't buy our mascot," the driver tells me. He's a big old boy--their hard hitter.

I know all of them one way or another. I've played them, practiced with them, fought with them, looked at the engines in their fathers' trucks. Talked fascists and grain prices, put gas in their tanks. But I'll always be an outsider, and this about proves it.

Fine by me.

"What we gonna do for a mascot?" someone is saying.

"Get another mule," I say as I ride along.

J. B. doesn't like that truck so close, but we're riding the aisle between it and the brush-line. If I stop, they'll stop. If I move him to trot they will speed up, and it might be on then, and I'm trying to avoid it.

"You can't just buy our mule like that," another is saying.

I don't look, but I'm watching every one of them.

"I just did," I say, no sass, just fact. I'm trying not to let my temper show over the way they won. Once I took the mule over to our side, that so-called umpire showed his true colors and called an out on Pat that should have won us the game.

Ulie tells me only heaven is fair. Guess I imagined him yelling in that ump's face, as I rode off.

"Thinks he can come up here and get all our money from overcharging for gas," another says. "Guess he thinks he can do anything he wants even if it's sinful."

I gotta show some scoff on that accusation. I doubt Jesus died so I could buy this mule.

He might have died so I can make seven cents profit per gallon on them, though.

Fact is country folks hate anyone who moves in and makes money off them, especially when they look too young no matter how much they lie about their age.

"How much you pay for him?" someone else says.

I am not answering that because they'll think he's for sale.

"Enough," I say.

"You ain't paid yet is my guess. So it ain't yours."

I do look now at the one who said it, the one nearest me in the passenger's seat.

"We shook," I say because he's close to calling me a thief. I'm touchy about that.

I wanted Pat to take J. B. home, but Pat said no, he's only going to Maumen until next weekend. So I have to watch over this mule at the station until then.

"Then take him to Uncle Frank's," I said.

But oh no. He's still mad I yelled at him in the game and then we lost. He's just mad.

I thought Bartholomew might take J. B. for a few days, but he was torn about the sale, and since I didn't have the money on me I didn't want to give him time to change his mind cause his old man is sore about Ulie and Regina and he'd keep J. B. just to get me by association. That happens, I don't want to think of this formerly fine beast in his pasture waiting for the noose so he can plow.

So I jumped on this mule and started to ride. I didn't even stick around for the fist fight after the game, which did happen judging by some of these. Missing that fight is not like me at all.

"Maybe it's about time someone brought him down to size," someone else says.

I've got about a half-mile to the station. I keep Jack's pace steady. There's still power in him. Somewhere along his ribs, I can feel he's thinking about taking off.

Someone jumps out of the bed. Jack's ears are moving. Then I hear another jump out. They are walking behind me now.

I wouldn't get too close, but each his own.

"Wonder who the ass really is, the one walking or the one ridin’?” someone says. Someone else laughs. They all do.

If I get off of Jack, they'll try to take him. I could dig in my heels and crash through the brush. But I don't want to.

Now the guy in the truck, the passenger starts to open the truck's door, and I am close enough, I kick it closed. Trouble is his arm is in it, so I give that door an extra kick, and the driver stops and they are yelling.

Jack kicks out. That was coming all along. When he kicks, it's like riding a bull. Which I only tried once.

The two behind me curse and fall back. Jack kicks a few more times, and he hits the side of the truck and those still in the bed move to the other side to get away from flying hooves.

"Oh shit," they say altogether.

They should have my seat. 'Oh shit,' doesn't cover it. I am the cowboy in the rodeo hanging on to that rope tether and J.B.'s mane. My legs are squeezing, and I'm laughing like I do.

We take off then, Jack does.

He's still got that speed, hoofing it down the center of the road.

The road bends ahead and ends up in town. But I let Jack go straight through the brush.

The truck had been gaining on us, but they can't follow now.

I'm stretched over J. B.'s neck and Mule--not the one I'm riding but the one driving the truck—slams on the brakes back there. They are going to head me off and wait for me at the station is my guess.

That's good.

Benny and his Luger are working the pump.

Soon as I dare, I pat Jack's neck. "Old times," I say slowing him down.

I've been good for a long time. Working my ass off every day. I've tolerated Ulie reading the Good Book aloud every night, the same things over and over while he practices his sermons, even going to watch him flail his arms and yell at people at the church and not so he can win Regina and her mother because they are already in his pocket.

It's her father he's after, and that is a serious lost cause. That old man is never going to be happy over some reform school gas man turned preacher gas man coming around his prize.

And like a good and dutiful son I go home once a month and eat at Maman's table and grin and nod and ooh and ahh over the dairy they didn't want me to be a part of cause I came home from State School like too much of a savage.

So maybe I've been missing a wild ride on some animal generally as pissed off as me.

Maybe I'm tired of looking at the same two dirty cobwebs hanging over my bed at the station. Maybe I've thrown my baseball against the wall on the side of the shop a million times, and haven't missed it on the rebound once, but maybe I'm thinking while I do that, and I grant you it might be myself I'm pitying, but I've got good reasons, and when I'm in an angry mood my reasons just get more and more outstanding.

I take my time getting to the station. Once I hit town, it's quiet as Sunday even though it's Saturday. Benny is sitting in front of the station tipped on the two back legs of a wooden chair. I can see the pistol stuck in his belt.

"They come by?" I say.

"Nice mule," he says.

I take J. B. into the shop.

"He can't stay in there," Benny says as I pull the door to the big bay.

This is exactly where he's staying until I can fix him a place out back.

A car pulls up to the pump, and I look through the big window, and Benny is getting on his legs, the real one and the fake one and he has his cane, and he doesn't think about the gun in his belt, he walks to that car so he can wash the windshield, check their oil and radiator and pump their gas.

The driver gets out of the car, and I'm watching for his reaction to Benny's gun. But I know something is up before I realize what it is. The guy is wearing a summer hat, and he pushes it back on his head, and he rounds the front of the car and lifts the hood, and he's looking under there with Benny at his elbow.

But it's none of that. It's who he is.

It's Boss.

I'm standing there nearly pissing myself. I can't hear. I don't think I'm breathing. I have to touch my face to find out where I am.

It's Boss alright.

I try to think. Ulie and me share Benny's truck. It's a foul smelling truck, ponderous for speed and it shifts like it’s got Lumbago.

I look at the nail where Benny hangs his keys. They aren't there. That means they are in his pocket.

I keep staring. Benny takes care of things, and Boss stands there, digs his wallet out of his back pocket, fixes his money straight. He must pay it on the dot because Benny gives him no change.

He gets in that car and starts it up. Soon as he's pulled away, I go out there and make Benny give me his keys.

I think I'll take that Luger too, but I know how I am with those.

I get in his truck, and I fall behind Boss's car soon enough. I don't know where I'm going, but I can't let him go.