Eli the Good (16 page)

A
lthough the fireworks weren’t supposed to start until dark, we were to leave in the afternoon, when the sky was still white with July sun. I helped Daddy and Charles Asher carry all the folding chairs from the screen porch out to the truck while the women finished getting ready. Daddy and Charles Asher carried two of the little wooden seats at a time, practically dangling the chairs from their fingertips while I struggled with just one.

When I came around to the back of Daddy’s truck, both arms wrapped around the chair, Charles Asher reached down from where he stood on the tailgate and took it from me. “Boy, you’re strong, Eli,” he said, smiling. He slid the chair into the pickup as if it weighed no more than a sheet of paper and hopped down onto the ground, flicking the bill of my Uncle Sam hat. As we walked back up to the house, he put one hand on my back, right between my shoulder blades. “Thanks for helping us, little man,” he said.

I hoped that Josie would start being nicer to Charles Asher, that she might even marry him and then he’d be my brother-in-law and we’d have lots of days of doing things such as loading chairs together.

Daddy and Charles Asher made their place on the screen porch while, back in the kitchen, Josie and my mother and Nell packed us a cooler and stuffed a picnic basket full of sandwiches, chips, and Reese’s cups. There would be all kinds of concession stands set up on the square, but my mother saw no sense in paying good money for things we could bring from home.

The door between the kitchen and the screen porch had been propped open, so I stood against the jamb, where I could listen to either conversation by simply focusing my attention on either the men or the women.

I still find it amazing, how easily and completely a child could disappear back then. None of them even realized I was there.

Daddy and Charles Asher were talking about Mustangs. Their conversation always made its way back to cars somehow. Charles Asher sat differently around Daddy: hunched over in his seat, his hands clasped in front of him while his elbows rested on his knees. He looked like a grown man when he was in Daddy’s presence, because he was always careful to make his posture seem this way. Daddy leaned back in his chair the way he always did, looking like the king of this porch, and asked Charles Asher how his oil was doing and then they started talking about the miracles of a 380 engine block and all the other things that people who worship Mustangs bring up.

In the kitchen, Josie was spreading peanut butter onto slices of Bunny bread while Nell put circles of mustard on the baloney sandwiches. Mom filled the red metal cooler full of bottles of Pepsi, 7UP, and Dr Pepper.

“I read in the paper that the county spent ten thousand dollars on fireworks this year,” Nell said.

“That’s ridiculous,” Josie said.

“It
is
ridiculous,” Nell said, ripping a piece of wax paper with great force to emphasize the
is.
“There’s many a person who could have used that money to buy food or clothes. There’s people around here who don’t even have a box fan, and the county’s blowing that kind of money on fireworks.”

“So we should be the only county in the entire nation that doesn’t have a nice fireworks show?” Mom said.

“No,” Nell said. “I’m looking forward to seeing the fireworks. But my God, Loretta, don’t you think that’s a bit
much
?”

“Well, I know what you’re saying,” she said, and latched the cooler lid. “But, no, not this year. This year it ought to be done up right. It’s the bicentennial, for God’s sake.”

“Yes,” Josie said in a breathless, movie-star voice as she clumped jam onto the bread. “Let’s spend thousands to celebrate two hundred years of stealing from the Indians, the Mexicans, the — well, everybody. Let’s shoot fireworks off and not even remember all the slaves and the four little girls who died in the Birmingham church and —”

“Stop it,” Mom said, firm and final. “Don’t talk like this tonight, Josie. Please. It’s Independence Day.”

“It’s true, though,” Josie said. She kept her eyes on her sandwich. “I just don’t understand why all that’s being skimmed over, why all that stuff is being forgotten in this big celebration. And if we’re being so patriotic, then why not be true patriots and question all of this —”

“I don’t give a damn if it’s true or not.” My mother never cussed, so I knew she was using this word for special emphasis. It worked; Josie immediately looked up at her, frozen, but with a look of contempt on her face. “I don’t want to hear it. We’re going to have a good time tonight, whether you want to or not.”

Josie gave a brief look to Nell, who nodded and widened her eyes in a way that suggested Josie should follow our mother’s advice and not push it any further.

On the porch, Daddy was saying that the best Mustang ever was the 1964½ two-plus-two. “That swayback,” Daddy said. “Man, it was sharp.” Daddy talked to Charles Asher the way he did to other men. I supposed he would talk to me in such a way someday, but I couldn’t imagine that happening anytime soon.

And then Edie was coming up the steps and opening the screen door to the porch. She looked small, defeated.

“Hey there, half-pint,” Daddy said.

Daddy had called her by Pa’s nickname for Laura on
Little House on the Prairie,
her favorite show. Edie’s face noted this term of endearment, and a look of joy and sadness flitted across her eyes.

“Hey,” she said to my father, although she looked at me at first, then back to my father. “Can I ride to the fireworks with you all? Daddy’s decided to just watch everything on television tonight.”

“Sure you can,” Daddy said. “You’re welcome to go anywhere with us. You know that.”

“I brought these for us,” she said to me, and lifted her hand. Only then did I realize that Edie was clutching four or five long boxes of sparklers. Edie handed me a couple of the boxes, and I looked down at the labels. Across the box was written
HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA SPARKLERS
and, in smaller letters,
Show your patriotism in brilliant flashing lights!

“You wearing that hat?” Edie asked.

“Yeah, it’s cool.”

“I guess,” she said, curving her words to let me know she didn’t think so.

“You all ready, then?” my mother said, suddenly right behind me as I stood in the door.

“We were born ready,” Daddy said.

M
y parents rode up front, but Nell had climbed in the back of the truck with Edie and me. Nell sat on the floorboard (Edie and I were on the little humps over the wheels) and stretched her legs out in front of her. She wore a long paisley skirt that flapped up and down in the wind and had brought along a quart jar of sweet tea with the lid tightly fastened. The ice in the jar clinked against the glass and made a bit of music. When we came to a stop sign, she lit a cigarette with her Zippo, which clicked open and shut with a loud, pleasing pop. She lay her head back against the side of the truck bed and closed her eyes, the wind stirring her hair into a wild, red mess. She didn’t care. She couldn’t very well sit up front because she and Daddy still hadn’t spoken since the guitar episode. Supper was often an awkward affair of silverware noise.

I had entrusted my Uncle Sam hat to my mother so it wouldn’t blow off my head, but to my disappointment she had laid it on the seat instead of putting it on.

Charles Asher and Josie followed close behind in his shining Mustang. At the next stop sign we could hear the music from Charles Asher’s car floating up to us — “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

There were people out in their front yards all along the road, lighting fireworks. The daylight was still too bright to see things like Roman candles, but kids were letting off bottle rockets just for the little bang and the trail of blue smoke that arched up into the sky. As we drove by one house a grown man without a shirt lit a pack of firecrackers and threw them out onto the yard, where a group of children scattered like bugs in the shadow of a lifted rock, laughing and squealing. Most everyone waved to us, and Edie and I did, too. Nell lifted her chin in greeting, the way my father did.

The smell of burning charcoal had overtaken the air. This was a pleasing smell that made me hungry. At every other house we passed, there was a man standing at a grill or a woman carrying a platter of chicken down to picnic tables set up on the yards. Children everywhere, running and playing. Free.

I had never seen so many flags in my life. Everybody had one up. They were hanging from porch eaves and poles and clotheslines. They were draped across the backs of porch gliders, fastened somehow to windows, clothespinned to tree limbs. We drove past a barn that had been painted to look like an enormous, stiff flag. “Good God,” Nell said to this. Daddy blew his horn to the barn, and Charles Asher did, too.

Once we neared town, Daddy slowed, since traffic was backed up. I stood, leaning on top of the truck’s cab, and there was a line of cars that went on as far as I could see. Beyond that were the big steeple at the college, the steeples of the two large churches in town, and the courthouse tower, which was decked out in red, white, and blue bunting. People bobbed down the sidewalk like a sea of bodies, carrying small flags and coolers and chairs.

“I didn’t think there were this many people in the entire county,” Edie said.

Nell took a long drink of her tea, draining the contents of the jar, and then screwed the lid back on and wiped her mouth with the whole length of her lower arm. “I think I’ll walk the rest of the way into town,” she said. “Too hot to set in the back of this old truck.” On her last word, she threw her legs over the side of the truck and joined the people who were headed toward the courthouse square. As she sashayed off, she hollered to my mother that she’d meet us all up there. I watched her for a long time, as she did not become a part of the crowd, really. Her red hair caught the sunlight and her strong walk set her apart from the others. The crowd parted for her determined march.

I positioned myself on the edge of the truck bed and leaned down into Daddy’s window and begged to walk on in, too. He was looking straight ahead, his wrist leaning on the steering wheel and the square muscle in his jaw clenching. He looked over to my mother, and she leaned forward. “You meet us in front of the courthouse in thirty minutes,” Mom said. “I want us to all watch the parade together.”

Edie and I scrambled out of the back of the truck, waving to Charles Asher and Josie, and then we were part of the thick line of people, too. Here was great chaos, and I liked it. A cop stood in the middle of the street, directing the cars toward a detour to make way for the parade, so eventually we walked in the middle of the street, occasionally running, sometimes skipping. Edie and I fell into a rhythm with this, and it seemed that we could both anticipate the other’s next move. All along the street, the houses were close to the sidewalks, with short little yards where people sat out on their porches, considering the passing crowd without any expression on their faces. I couldn’t understand how everybody stood living so close to one another like they did in town. It would have driven my mother crazy.

The courthouse square teemed with a thousand people, all darting this way and that like crazed birds. There were stands selling cotton candy and popcorn, candied apples and peanut-butter fudge. A big woman with huge glasses that magnified her eyes concentrated on squeezing lemons for homemade lemonade. A trailer with open sides held a group of army recruiters who hollered at all the teenage boys and told them how much money they could make by joining the service.

Everything was decorated in red, white, and blue, which made me realize that I had left my Uncle Sam hat back in the truck. I grieved over this a few minutes, but there was too much to take in, so I forgot it before long.

The courthouse sat in the middle of the square like a red box cake, its bricks baking in the July heat. The grass around it was unnaturally green, since it was watered every day. Every window was filled with the faces of people who had ventured in for a good view of the parade. All of them waved lazy fans and pushed against one another to feel the barely moving air that made its way to the windows. The radio station was set up near the courthouse steps, and they were playing music way too loud. A girl in a halter top and cutoffs flitted around in front of the big speakers, offering handheld fans to everyone. Most of the girls and women looked at the girl with a sneer and plucked the fan away from her, taking in the whole length of her outfit while the boys tried to strike up conversations with her, which she ignored. She simply called out, “Free fans. Courtesy of WYMR,” in a bored repetition while she gave them out. Edie and I were seized by the opportunity to get something free, so we pushed against the crowd until the half-naked girl had given us one apiece. The fans were square with little wooden handles stapled to a thick sheet of paper. On one side there were pictures of all thirty-eight presidents, right up to Gerald Ford. On the other side were the words to the Pledge of Allegiance, the national anthem, and “America the Beautiful.”

I started fanning with mine right away, but Edie paused long enough to study hers. “It always seems like Abraham Lincoln is looking you right in the eye,” she said. “You ever noticed that?”