Paperboy (5 page)

That meant I would have to ask another carrier to borrow his. And that meant saying Knife.

A rainy Saturday morning in the summer was usually a good time to stay in bed and think about playing baseball but I was up and dressed early just like it was a school day.

Even though there was a light rain coming down I could hear a gasoline lawn mower in the front yard. A man always came on Saturday in the summer to cut our grass and trim our bushes. But not just any man.

Big Sack was the tallest and widest human being in Memphis. He would pull up to the curb in front of our house in his old truck and lift the mower out of the back like it was a feather. After he finished mowing he would come to the front door and ring the bell. Mam would give him his pay and he would be on his way without saying much.

I had asked Mam why he was called Big Sack.

His family name be Thomas but I don’t rightly know his given name. The story always be told that when he came out of his mammy somebody yelled to get a clean flour sack from the kitchen and to make it a Big Sack.

Mam was sweeping the kitchen floor when I came downstairs. My father always played golf early on Saturday mornings with his business friends and I didn’t know where my mother was but I could see her car was gone.

Can you eat flapjacks with your lip?

You s-s-s-s-bet I s-s-s-s-can.

Mam put down the broom and started getting the makings out of the pantry. About that time the front doorbell rang. She reached into her apron.

Go give Big Sack his three dollars.

When I went in the entrance hall Big Sack was standing at the front door that was mostly glass. His body blocked out the light coming in. I opened the door and handed him the three dollars. I was about to close the door when he took his hat off.

Reckon I could speak to Miss Nellie?

Sure. I’ll s-s-s-s-get her.

Mam was finishing up the pancakes in the kitchen.

s-s-s-s-Big Sack s-s-s-s-needs you.

Start buttering your cakes. I be right back.

I was pouring syrup on my pancakes when Mam came into the kitchen. She sat down at the table across from me and gave me one of her straight looks that meant she had some business with me.

You been talkin’ to Ara T?

I s-s-s-s-loaned him some s-s-s-s-quarters to s-s-s-s-buy—

Mam usually let me finish my sentences no matter how long it took me but she was ready to get on to me but good.

You know you’re not supposed to be hanging ’round that man.

s-s-s-s-I ran in-s-s-s-s- to him in s-s-s-s-alley and—

Don’t you be running into him. You hear me? You best be running the other way.

s-s-s-s-What’s so s-s-s-s-bad about Ara T?

We’re not talking ’bout that man no more. You stay away from him. Far away.

Mam hardly ever talked down about anyone but she never had anything good to say about Ara T. I asked her once if she had known him before she came to Memphis and all she said was As Little As I Could.

The first thing Mam would do if anything went missing in the neighborhood was to say she was going to check out Ara T and his junk cart. The reason I have my new Schwinn Black Phantom is because my old one with the big shiny headlight on the handlebars was stolen one night when I forgot to roll it in the garage. A while later Ara T showed up with a pushcart with new wheels on it. Mam said she checked the cart out but the wheels and tires didn’t look like the ones from my stolen bike. Mam said that didn’t mean Ara T couldn’t have swapped wheels with another junkman from another part of town. Mam said she trusted Ara T about as far as she could heave him.

I pitched two innings that morning until the umpire called off the game because of the wet field. No one had gotten a hit off me yet so stopping the game usually would have bothered me but I had the paper route on my mind.

The newspaper truck came at one o’clock on Saturdays. Two hours earlier than the other days. The rain had slacked off to a drizzle.

While I was waiting on my bundles I saw Ara T a few houses down in the alley where he was checking garbage cans. There was no mistaking Ara T’s cart with everything from broken toy guns to old car mirrors fastened to it. An old doll’s head was tacked to the front. The handles of the cart were wrapped with different kinds of wire and cord.

I walked up to Ara T and stood by the metal garbage cans he was picking his way through. I was going to get my knife back and then I was going to mind Mam and stay away from him.

s-s-s-s-Got my s-s-s-s-k …? My … s-s-s-s-k …? s-s-s-s-Got my s-s-s-s-yellow handle?

He didn’t turn around even though I was sure he had heard me. I stepped closer and changed to a louder voice.

s-s-s-s-You s-s-s-s-got it?

Still not paying any attention to me he rooted around in one of the cans he had already gone through. Then he swung around and gave me a mean stare like a teacher did when somebody was acting up in class.

Can’t have it, boy, till you calls it what it is.

I smiled at first because I thought he may have been just kidding with me but any time Ara T came close to smiling you could see his gold tooth. I didn’t see any gold. He was puffing on his crooked cigarette and trying to make like I wasn’t there.

s-s-s-s-Do you s-s-s-s-have it?

Told you, boy. Can’t have it till you call its name proper.

Ara T moved on to another bunch of cans behind the next house. Still not looking my way. I stood in the middle of the alley with my newspaper bags in my hand. Ara T wanted me to say Knife. I didn’t know what game Ara T was playing but I didn’t like it. I thought about yelling KNIFE at the top of my lungs because I never stuttered when I said words in a yell.

But Ara T moved on down the alley.

The carriers had started leaving on their routes. I waited until everyone was gone and then took my bundles over to my bags hanging on the fence. Picking my way along the alley I found an old tin can with a jagged top that wasn’t rusted too bad. I twisted on the top until it came off and then took it to my bundles to start sawing on the heavy bundle cords as best I could. I decided I should have just kept my knife because even a dull knife that wouldn’t cut butter was better than using the top of a tin can.

I knew if I told Mam that Ara T had my knife and wouldn’t give it back that she would search him out and get my knife back in nothing flat. But I couldn’t tell Mam I had talked to Ara T again. Anyway. If I was going to be collecting and handling the route on my own then I needed to start figuring how to solve my own problems.

Throwing papers wasn’t any fun in the yellow raincoat Mam made me wear but I wasn’t in so much of a hurry because it was Saturday.

More people were out on their porches on weekend afternoons and they gave me some big waves when I threw their papers that slid right up to their doors. I figured the route would take me to only a little after three o’clock.

On Vinton I walked up to the house where I had made my first collection the night before. The father and mother and a little girl were sitting in chairs out on the porch. Instead of making a throw I skipped up the steps to hand the paper to the father who had tipped me a nickel. As I passed the screen door I took a quick peek inside and there was TV Boy with his face stuck in front of the screen with the sound turned off just like the night before. How could TV Boy be so interested in something that took him away from the world like that? I could sit in front of my window sometimes and get lost staring out into space but the tiniest noise would usually bring me back to earth.

The times I sat down and watched television I found myself thinking about everything except what was happening on the screen.

Like on
The Howdy Doody Show
. When Howdy Doody was talking to Buffalo Bob I would forget what they were saying and start pretending that I was a puppet and wishing that somebody would pull the strings to make my mouth move so I didn’t stutter. One time I didn’t hear my mother when she came into the room and I was moving my mouth up and down like Howdy Doody with my hands over my head like I was pulling the strings. It must have scared her because she grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me and told me never to do that again.

My favorite person on the show was Clarabell the Clown. He couldn’t talk but all he had to do to answer a question was honk the horn on a box he wore on the front of his clown suit. Buffalo Bob always knew exactly what Clarabell was saying with his horn. I could usually tell myself by the way he honked. I could tell if it was a quick happy honk or a long sad honk. Sometimes if I’ve had a bad stuttering day I’ll start thinking how good it would be if I just had a horn to honk. Me honking the horn all the time would look stupid but not as stupid as some of the things I did when I tried to say words.

I stopped watching
The Howdy Doody Show
when I started playing baseball. It was better for me to spend time practicing my pitching instead of figuring out how to honk like a clown.

The drizzle had almost stopped when I got to Mr. Spiro’s house on Vance. I couldn’t tell if he was home because there was never a car
in the driveway and he usually kept his front door closed even in the summer. I wanted to thank him for taking care of me after I bit into my lip trying to say my name but I really didn’t feel like standing in that same spot again on the porch. Whenever I stuttered a lot in a certain spot I tried never to stand there again.

A good idea came to me. I would write him a short note and stick it inside his Saturday newspaper.

The only piece of paper to write on was a blank page from Rat’s collection book. I sat down on a stoop across the street and sharpened the point of my pencil by rubbing it back and forth across the concrete. The page was small so I wrote in my smallest hand.

I put the page from the collection book into the fold of Mr. Spiro’s newspaper and laid the newspaper on the porch in front of his door.

Mrs. Worthington’s house was going to be the last house on my route for the day. Just the way I had planned.

A blue Ford I had never seen was in her driveway but it was worth taking a chance on ringing the bell. If she came to the door I had figured out a way to say that I was collecting for the night before when she wasn’t at home. My pencil was in my hand in case I needed to make another emergency pencil toss to start a word.

I rang the doorbell and waited and was almost ready to leave a newspaper and walk on home when I saw somebody through the thin curtain over the glass door. He looked at me for a bit from back in the house and then walked to the door and opened it.

Help ya?

The man had a cigarette hanging from his lips and was in his stocking feet. I had only seen Mr. Worthington once or twice and he had always been in a suit and tie but this guy didn’t look like Mr. Worthington. Then I saw that his name was Charles because it was on a patch sewn on to his dark blue shirt. He had slicked-back black hair and long sideburns. Rat would have called him a Greaser. I started to ask if Mrs. Worthington was home because I needed to collect for the paper but I decided the fewer words the better knowing how my luck was going and being that my lip was still a little puffy. I held out the newspaper for him.