Leaving: A Novel (26 page)

Ruby came out into the living room and looked around, then spotted Love in the kitchen.

“What you boys up to?” She didn’t wait for an answer. She sat in the rocking chair and picked up the leather Bible next to her purse. She opened it and took out the red string that marked her place.

“Come here and help me say this word,” she said. Love walked up and looked over her shoulder.

“Which one?”

“This here: ‘sour’?”

“Sower.” He looked up the stairs, checking for Li’l Pit.

“‘Behold a sower.’ Like myself. Why don’t you read to your grandmother?”

“Naw. I don’t like to.”

“Just this little part.”

“I’m busy.” He wandered over to the living room windows, which he’d replaced with his own money. He looked out through the curtains, then paced back to the kitchen.

“Too busy to read the truth of the Lord? Now, you must be in real trouble. But there ain’t no mess too big for Jesus. No, sir. Read me this here story and I guarantee you’ll find your way.”

Love looked up the stairs again. “Nanna, how many bad things can you do before you can’t get into heaven?”

Ruby shook her head. “The Lord has just got to see that you are trying the best you can and he’ll always forgive you if you start doing right.”

Love picked up the carved giraffe bookend on the table and slid his fingers up and down its smooth neck.

“I already killed one boy.”

Ruby turned and looked at him. “That was a long time ago, and it wasn’t your fault. You can still go to heaven. That wasn’t none of your fault. Now come and read what Jesus has to tell you.”

Nothing else was coming to him, so he went up behind Ruby and read over her shoulder again. He read in a monotone, going right through all punctuation:

“‘Behold, a sower went forth to sow; And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up: Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.’” Love shook his head. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

“Just keep on.” Ruby had her eyes closed and was smiling like she was listening to peaceful music. He read more carefully this time.

“‘And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them: But others fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.’” Love stopped reading. “There, that’s all.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Ruby nodded.

“This is all about farming stuff,” Love said. “It doesn’t do any good for us in the city. That’s a whole different kind of world than it is here.”

“Can’t no plant grow in bad ground. That’s what it’s saying. Just like the cotton ruin all that land back home. In good earth, any seed can grow up and be strong. That goes for city and for country.”

Love walked to the front door, checked that he’d locked it, walked back to the bottom of the stairs, then meandered over to his insect notebook. He opened it and tapped a beetle back into place. Ruby rocked and looked at her Bible. There was a sound at the door, and Love stood up straight, but it was only the postman putting mail through the slot and then wheeling the cart away.

“How much does it cost to go to college?” Love asked.

Ruby looked up at Love, a smile bursting in her cheeks, but then she looked back down in her Bible.

“Depends where you go. Could be different now than back then, but Love E used to go to Merritt and didn’t hardly cost him nothing. But the university, that may be thousands of dollars.”

“Oh.” Love nodded and went back to turning the pages of his notebook.

Li’l Pit came running down the stairs, but slowed when he saw Ruby. He was dressed in a new sweater and blue jeans, looking like any other ten-year-old kid on the block who was not part of the crew. It was amazing how much clothes could change his appearance and make it seem like he had never done one thing wrong in his life.

“I’m done. It’s all ready,” he said.

“What’s that?” Ruby asked.

“Nothing.” Li’l Pit and Ruby both looked at Love.

“What?” Love said. “Why you always looking at me like I’m doing something? It makes me feel like doing something.” He walked up the stairs in feigned resentment, and his brother followed him into his room. Love shut the door behind them and looked at the mess. Lida’s old dresses were on the floor and bed. It looked as if Li’l Pit had tried to pile them, but they weren’t folded. The green trunk was open and completely empty.

“Give me the key. And take off your sweater.” Li’l Pit did so faithfully. “We have to see if this will be big enough. Just get inside and curl up.”

“How come?”

“Just get in and I’ll tell you.”

Li’l Pit stepped into the box and then lay down. It was too small for him, so he pulled his knees up to his chest. “Is this good?”

“Yeah.” Love threw the top down and shut the locks. His brother kicked and yelled. Love looked at the chest for a moment as Li’l Pit screamed from inside. He backed away from it slowly, then ran downstairs into the living room.

“What’s all that racket?” Ruby asked. Love didn’t look at her. He paced to the front door and back, then sat on the couch, then stood up again.

“What’s going on?” Ruby went to the stairs.

“Nothing.”

“That ain’t nothing up there. You tell me right this minute.” She began to climb the stairs.

“I locked him in the trunk,” Love said.

“What’d you do that for?” She walked more quickly, but Love ran over and pulled on her arm.

“Don’t let him out.”

“What you mean? Let go of me.” She slapped his face, and he laughed nervously.

“Wait. No. Wait, really.”

“What you up to? You two boys play too rough with each other. Lida never made this kind of racket.”

“I’m not playing.”

“What you mean?”

“I didn’t know what to do. He’s gonna get in trouble.”

“Tell me what you mean.” She stayed on the bottom step.

“We’ve got to think of some plan. Something to keep him from slinging.”

“What you got him messed up in?”

“Nothing. I didn’t. That’s why I locked him in. I didn’t know what to do.”

“But he’ll suffocate in there.”

“I know. I know. I’m thinking.” He went back into the living room and paced.

“You can’t go and lock him in a trunk.”

“I know. But we’ve got to do something or he’s gonna get in deep.” The banging became louder as Li’l Pit made the trunk jump on the floor.

“Now, listen. You tell me what you mean. What might he get into?”

Love smiled again and then brought the smile under control. “See, he thinks he’s gonna go on a run,” he said.

Ruby shook her head. “What kind of evil you got that boy mixed up in? I’m fixin to lock you up in that trunk yourself once I get him out a there.” She turned and started up the stairs again.

“You got to wait,” Love yelled, but when he saw she wasn’t listening to him, he ran up the stairs past his grandmother to get to the trunk before she did.

“Get me out of here!” Li’l Pit yelled. “Get me out of here.”

“Hold still,” Love said. “It just fell. Hold still and I’ll open it.” The trunk stopped moving and Ruby came to the door.

“I had to go get the extra key from Nanna. Just hold still.” Love motioned Ruby to leave, but she stayed by the door. He opened the trunk and Li’l Pit burst out and ran to the open window, breathing heavily.

“I was just going to see how it closed, but then it locked,” Love said. “I couldn’t find the key.”

He and Ruby watched Li’l Pit from a distance. He breathed in the fresh air through his nose with his jaw set and tears in his eyes. His hands gripped the windowsill and he stared outside as if he were imagining climbing out and running away. Neither Ruby nor Love went near him, but the long silence seemed only to thicken his distrust, like something setting in concrete.

Ruby looked at the room, the clothes everywhere on the bed and floor.

“Now, what’s all this going on up here?” she asked.

Love looked at her and shook his head.

“What’s this Love’s been telling me…” Love opened his eyes and stared at her with a fear equal to anything she had ever seen in Lida or Love E. “This sure is a mess up here,” she said instead. “A fine mess.” She went to the bed and picked up the clothes, placing them neatly in the trunk. When she was finished, she turned to Li’l Pit, who was still at the window.

“Come on and get your coat and we’ll go to Sizzler tonight.” She’d taken him to Sizzler once before, and he had said it was the first time he’d eaten in a sit-down restaurant.

“No.” Li’l Pit shook his head. “I got some things to do.”

“That’s not until tomorrow,” Love said.

“Then why you want me to get all dressed up now?”

“’Cause we’re going out to dinner,” he said. He looked at Ruby. “Nanna told me this morning we were going out and you had to get dressed.”

Li’l Pit looked at Ruby. She nodded.

He wiped his cheeks, but his jaw was still clenched. He stared at the planks of the hardwood floor, and a whole minute of silence went by. Love and Ruby watched his face as he tried to figure out where to put all his anger. At times his nostrils flared and it seemed he wasn’t calming down at all. But then he lifted his long, wet eyelashes and looked at Ruby.

“Can we get the dessert bar?”

Ruby nodded. “Of course. You can get anything you want. We’re celebrating. This is our New Year’s celebration dinner.”

“I want the dessert bar.”

“Alright, then. Wash your face so we can go.” He walked out into the hallway and they heard him turn on the water. Ruby shook her head at Love and he smiled, and then looked away.

CHAPTER 14

FEBRUARY 1965   •   EASTON 19

EASTON TAPPED HIS
package of Kent cigarettes on the cash register at the gas station. He didn’t smoke more than one cigarette a day, and he’d already had one in the morning. That was all he would smoke unless he had a test after work, which he did. When he first started smoking, he’d worried that the gasoline on his fingers would catch fire, but all the mechanics smoked on their breaks and so did the attendants, just not around the customers.

On every break over the last year, he had watched Steve, the main mechanic, tear up cars and put them back together. Easton stood over him so it got to the point that Steve asked him to do small things. At first he just handed him oil and filters and parts, until he knew all their names and where they were kept. Then Steve showed him what he did with the parts, putting in the filter, draining the oil, and replacing the fluids. After three months on the job, Easton was doing all the tune-up work so Steve could do more complicated jobs, which he explained later on. After three months, Easton found a broken-down Ford to fix up for himself, and he worked on it in the evenings when he didn’t have art class.

This Tuesday morning he was thinking about the test he had that night. He rolled a cigarette between his fingers and then stuck it behind his ear. He’d smoke it right before the test. Five hundred years of Greek sculpture flashed through his mind, slides that the instructor showed one after the other: Poseidon, Hermes, Alexander; and the orders—Doric, Ionic, Corinthian. The hairs on his arms raised like those of an excited cat. It sometimes overcame him, this sense of being a part of academia and the serious study of art, but even more, it was a sense of having a history different from one he’d always been assigned—now he lived in the great tradition of artists. His classmates yawned during the slide shows, but he sat in the front row, captivated: the blank marble eyeballs of the sculptures haunted him, expressionless and chilling, people both dead and somehow alive; the illusion of softness in hardness, the white waves of hair carved into stone, the folds in the gowns, as smooth and flowing as if they were truly made of cloth; the chiseled white perfection of these warriors and gods. He often postured himself at work in one of the common poses of the statues, his jacket flung over his shoulder like a draped toga.

This was how he stood, his head slightly raised, staring through the garage window as if over the Mediterranean, when Sandra drove up. He hadn’t seen her since she left him in the bedroom almost a year before. After that, there were a few awkward discussions on the phone. The most he ever got out of her was that she didn’t want to hurt him, which, he protested, was exactly what she was doing.

He took the cigarette from behind his ear and lit it as he watched her park by the air hose. She drove a blue ’64 Olds, a gift from her father. Her bracelets caught the sun as she turned the steering wheel, the top of her dress open at the neck.

As if he’d suddenly realized that this was not a dream, Easton threw down the cigarette and stepped on it. He turned around, looking for something to do, and, at a loss, got underneath the Chevy he was working on. He stared up at the lug nut he’d already tightened after changing the oil and listened as she walked into the garage, jingling the little bell around the door handle.

“Hi,” she said to Steve, who sat reading at the counter.

“Hello, beautiful,” he said. There was a moment of silence. “What can I do to make your day more pleasurable?”

“Does Easton still work here?”

“Easton? Right under there.”

Easton listened to her shoes swivel on the gritty floor. He could see her calves as she approached the car.

“Hello, Sandra,” he said first, just to throw her off.

“Oh. You still recognize my voice?”

“I’m a man of many talents.” All he could see was the bottom of the car and her legs.

“I wasn’t sure if I should come by,” she said. “Or if it would be too painful for you.” He didn’t reply. There was no proud way to answer that question.

“I hear you’re going to Merritt now.”

His chest tightened. He hated that she knew anything about him, particularly that he was in college. “Who told you that?”

“Charles.”

“Mmm-hmm. I thought he was in Mississippi.”

“He didn’t make it down there for some reason. I think he was scared.”