The Paper Cowboy (21 page)

ANOTHER WORD FOR HELP

Mrs. Glazov loved the idea of having Mr. McKenzie provide refreshments, but the newly formed Downers Grove Musical Society was harder to sell on the plan. She invited them all over to her house on a cold evening in late February and served them tea. I was invited too.

“McKenzie's?” the trumpet player said, turning his lips upside down in a scowl. “Isn't he the communist?”

“Nah, he's not a communist,” the flute player said. “But he is a Gypsy.”

“Communist or Gypsy,” said a bald man with a big belly, who played the guitar, “I don't like either of them.”

“You know Mr. Sullivan?” added the trumpet player. “He said he caught him red-handed with a commie newspaper in his store!”

“Wait a minute!” I said. I knew the communist rumors would be a problem, but maybe . . . “Did I say the new store was going to be called McKenzie's?” I laughed. “It's going to be called Sam's Sandwich Shop.”

“Who's Sam?” asked the flute player.

“Isn't that McKenzie's kid?” said the bald man. “The fat kid with the burned face?”

“Yes, yes,” Mrs. Glazov said. “We help him.”

Everyone was quiet for a moment. Then the bald man shook his head. “I don't know.”

“If one burned kid will bring people out,” the flute player pointed out, “two might be even better.”

The trumpet player looked thoughtful. “Ezekiel 18:20,” he said finally. “‘The son shall not bear the guilt of the father.'”

They all turned to look at the guitar player.

“All right,” he said finally. “No need to start quoting the Bible at me. My wife already got on my case for missing Mass last week!”

Everyone laughed.

So it was decided: the first concert would be to raise money for the medical bills of one Mary Lou Wilson, and the refreshments would be provided by Sam's Sandwich Shop.

Mr. McKenzie had no problem with changing the name of the shop. “It's a great idea,” he said. “I should have thought of it myself.”

Sam was thrilled to have the shop named after him, and we got right to work designing the flyers. Sam wrote out the date, time and place, neat as a typewriter, then drew a little picture beneath the words.

“Is that a boy playing the accordion?” I asked when he was done.

“Yep,” said Sam.

It even kind of looked like me. We printed off a few sample copies and I ran home, eager to show them to my dad. He was going to be so excited. I'd asked Mrs. Glazov not to say anything to him yet. I wanted it to be a surprise. I wanted to swoop in and save the day like a cowboy in the movies.

That Sunday, February 21, we visited Mary Lou at the hospital. Once Dad went off to talk to the doctors, I showed Mary Lou our flyer and told her about the concert. She was delighted. “Oh my goodness, Tommy!” she squealed. “A concert in my honor!” She was sitting in the rocking chair beside her bed, rocking back and forth.

“You're gonna come, right?”

“Of course! If I have to walk all the way myself.”

We giggled.

“You don't mind taking charity?” I asked.

Mary Lou picked at one of the bandages on her legs, unrolling it and then rolling it up again. “What's so bad about accepting charity? I've been in the hospital a long time now. Five months. I've had to have help with everything—getting dressed, combing my hair, learning to walk again, even going to the bathroom! It bothered me for a long time.”

It would have bothered me too.

“You know, Tommy,” Mary Lou went on, “before I got burned, I believed if I just tried hard enough, nothing bad would ever happen.”

“That's not true, is it?”

“No,” she said. “It's not. Sometimes we all need a hand.
Charity
is just another word for
help.
”

I liked that.

The rocking chair squeaked as Mary Lou glided back and forth. “Make sure you bring some extra flyers for the nurses,” she said finally. “I think they're all going to want to come too.”

Driving home seemed like the perfect time to tell Dad about my plan. But unlike Mary Lou, he was anything but thrilled.

“No, Tommy,” he said when I finished telling him about our plans. “I don't like that idea at all.”

I was irritated. If Mary Lou didn't mind, how could he object? We needed the money! I started explaining my idea again, but I didn't get very far before Dad interrupted: “No, I won't have everyone knowing that I can't support my own family.”

“But . . .”

“Tommy, this is not your problem.”

“But Mrs. Glazov and her friends have been rehearsing for weeks now.”

“Well, they can have a concert,” said Dad, “but it doesn't need to be for us.”

“I thought you believed in people helping each other,” I said.

“I do, but . . .”

“Then what happened to ‘From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.'”

“That's different,” Dad said.

“How? I can play the accordion to entertain people. We need money. Seems like a fair trade to me.”

Dad was quiet a long time. “We have already accepted so much. Mrs. Glazov's help. Ma and Pa's. And I . . .”

“Wasn't that your dream, though, Dad? To live in a place where people help each other?”

“Yeah,” Dad said quietly. “I guess it was.”

“It's not only your dream. It's Mrs. Glazov wanting to be a music teacher again. She might get a bunch of new students from the concert. And Mr. McKenzie has a chance to start his sandwich shop. It's a way for people to find out about that too!”

“And we need the money,” Dad added.

“Yeah.”

I waited. It was a dark night, our headlights shining on the lonely road.

“It's like that movie,” I said. “
It's a Wonderful Life.
Bedford Falls helped Jimmy Stewart. Let our town help us now.”

“Okay,” Dad said finally. “I'm proud of you, Tommy. It still makes me a little uncomfortable, but . . .”

“You're uncomfortable?” I teased. “I'm the one who has to be up there in front of everyone playing the accordion!”

Dad laughed. “Well then, you'd better get practicing.”

TALKING TO EDDIE

For the rest of February and the first half of March, Mrs. Glazov and I practiced the accordion every night after dinner. Dad did the dishes while Pinky and Susie played on the floor and listened. Dad knew how to give Susie a bottle now. And Mrs. Glazov's cooking seemed to agree with him, because his face started to fill out, the crevices looking not quite as deep.

We'd settled into a nice routine at home. No yelling. No moods. One day, as I was doing the paper route, I realized home was no longer the wild saloon, where I
had
to stop if I wanted a drink. No, now it was more like a peaceful watering hole, where I could pull my hat down over my eyes and take a rest.

But if things were going okay at home for once, school was another matter. Recess was now my least favorite time of day. Eddie wouldn't speak to me while we cleaned the bathrooms, and worse, he spent his lunch hour harassing Sam, tripping him or stealing his jacket. I didn't know what to do. I liked Sam, but I liked Eddie too, at least the old Eddie who used to do things with me.

One day, I was standing by the horses watching Eddie and Peter chasing Sam around the street, trying to figure out what to say to get them to stop, when Luke came up to me. That was kind of odd. He and Peter usually did everything together. “Hi, Tommy,” he said.

“Hi,” I said. “Why aren't you with Peter?”

“He and Eddie are teasing Sam.” Luke shrugged. “It makes me feel kind of bad.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Me too.”

“Come on, Tommy,” Luke scoffed. “We saw what you did to Sam with those stockings before Christmas. And everyone heard what you said on the bus.”

I'd forgotten about that. “I'm sorry,” I said. “I shouldn't have said that about your arm.”

Luke shrugged. “I know it's the only thing that's protected me from your teasing in the past. No one wants to mention it. They don't want to have the bad luck to get polio too.”

“I really do feel bad about how I treated Sam,” I admitted. “I guess I wanted to be a cowboy, big and strong and tough.”

“I'd like to be a cowboy too,” Luke said. “But there aren't any cowboys with polio.”

“FDR had polio,” I said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Luke admitted. “Being president is pretty cool. But not as cool as Gary Cooper. Sometimes I'd just like to . . .”

“Scream?” I suggested.

“Yeah,” Luke agreed. “Or hit someone. But, well . . .” He gestured to his arm.

We both laughed. It felt good to actually talk about those open secrets that everyone knew.

“Maybe I should go tell Eddie to knock it off,” I said.

“Yeah,” Luke agreed. “Maybe you should.”

I didn't get up the nerve to talk to Eddie until that afternoon when we were scrubbing the bathroom. Usually Eddie did one side and I did the other, but that day I walked over to his section. “Eddie, I—”

“I don't want to talk to you.”

“Come on, Eddie. You can't give me the silent treatment forever.”

He threw down his brush. “Why?” he screamed. “Why did you turn on me?”

Eddie sounded like me when I'd thrown that glass. He sounded like my mom. I didn't like it. “I didn't turn on you,” I said.

“Sure feels like it! I always kept your secrets. How many times did I get punished and you didn't, only because I kept my mouth shut?”

It had been a lot of times. “I'm sorry.” It seemed like I was always apologizing now.

He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “Anything else you wanted to say?”

“Actually, yeah.” I took a deep breath. “I think you should stop teasing Sam.”

“Why?” he asked. “It's fun. You had fun picking on him too.”

It had been kind of fun. “I know,” I admitted. “But . . .” How could I explain it in a way Eddie would understand? “It's like Luke. Would you ever tease Luke about his arm?”

“No!” protested Eddie.

“Why not? You don't like him much. Don't you think he's kind of stuck up?”

“Yeah, but it just wouldn't be right,” said Eddie. “He didn't ask to get polio.”

“Do you think Sam asked for that bomb?” I said. “Or to be born in Nazi Germany? How is Sam's face any different from Luke's arm?”

He didn't answer.

“It's not different,” I said. “Except you didn't grow up with him.”

Eddie was silent for a long time.

“It was all in fun,” said Eddie. “Not my fault if he can't take a joke.”

“But you wouldn't play that kind of a joke on Luke,” I pointed out again.

Eddie looked thoughtful. “No,” he said quietly, “we all play kick ball with him.”

“Exactly,” I said.

“You're the one who started calling him Little Skinny! Why are you so high-and-mighty now?”

I shrugged. “He's not a bad guy.”

“He's a communist!”

“No—I told you. That was my fault. I planted the paper there.”

“Yeah, but it had to come from somewhere. It was probably them.”

I shook my head again. “No, I know where it came from.”

“Yeah, right.”

Eddie picked up his brush and started scrubbing again.

“I really do.”

“Then why don't you tell me?”

I shook my head. “I promised to keep it a secret.”

“Well,” Eddie snapped. “I'm not the one who's bad at keeping secrets.”

“I didn't mean it like that.”

“No,” Eddie said, “you just meant that you don't trust me. Even though I haven't given
you
any reason not to!”

I felt as mixed up as a lost calf in the middle of a cattle drive. He was right. And I didn't want to lose Eddie as a friend. There was only one way to show him that I still trusted him.

“All right,” I said finally. “I'll tell you.”

Eddie put down his scrub brush and put his hands on his hips.

I glanced around to make sure no one else was in the bathroom with us, even though I knew full well that it was deserted. Pa hadn't thought it was a big deal. Maybe Eddie wouldn't either.

“Well?”

I took a deep breath, trying to pretend my heart wasn't going thump, thump, thump. “The paper was from my dad.”

Eddie rolled his eyes. “Ha-ha. Very funny.” He picked up the scrub brush and returned to work.

“No, really,” I said. “He attended a couple of meetings in college and . . .”

Eddie sat back on his heels and stared at me. His hair stuck out like bits of hay and his eyes were wide. “You're serious?”

I nodded, my words caught in my throat.

“Your dad is a communist?”

“No, not a communist. He just read about it a little.”

“But you said he attended a couple of meetings?”

“Yeah, but—”

“That makes him a communist.”

This was a mistake. Dad had warned me that I was impulsive. I'd wanted to win Eddie back over to my side, to let him know I trusted him, to let him know he really
was
still my friend. But now that I'd told him, I'd made our family vulnerable. What if he started a rumor about us, the way I had about Mr. McKenzie? “Eddie! You've known my dad your whole life.”

“Yeah, and I've known you too. I didn't think you would betray me either.”

“Communism is just an idea,” I said, and I realized I sounded like Dad. “A bad idea but . . . haven't you ever had a bad idea?”

“Yeah,” said Eddie. “Being friends with you.”

I snorted and laughed. A big nervous laugh. “Yeah, that was a pretty bad idea.”

Eddie frowned harder.

“Look, Sam is helping me organize a concert for Mary Lou.”

“For Mary Lou?” he asked.

Maybe that was the way to win him over. Of course he wanted to help
her.

“Yeah. I'm getting up at four o'clock on Sunday morning to put flyers about the concert in the paper,” I said.

“Four o'clock in the morning?” asked Eddie.

“Yeah,” I said.

“That's awful early,” he said.

“It's when I'm getting up,” I repeated. “You want to help, come to my house then.”

I picked up my brush and started scrubbing, desperately trying to rub away the thought that I'd made another mistake by telling Eddie about my dad. “Seriously,” I said. “You know we were awful to Sam.”

“Yeah,” Eddie agreed. “I guess we were.”

We cleaned the floor in silence for a while. “Really?” Eddie asked suddenly. “Your dad's the communist?”

“Eddie!” I exclaimed. “You can't tell anyone.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“I mean it! Look what happened to Mr. McKenzie.”

“I know.” He scrubbed harder, putting all his concentration onto one little spot of dirty floor. “I know how to keep a secret.” And something about the way he said it, something about the way his eyes flashed dark as midnight for just a moment, made me wonder what secrets Eddie was keeping from me.

“Not anyone,” I repeated.

“I don't rat out my friends,” he said. “Unlike some people I know.”

“Guess I deserved that,” I said.

“Sure did.” He turned and grinned at me.

I grinned back. I told myself Eddie would keep my secret.

But I wasn't completely sure.