Belle Prater's Boy Read online

  “Granny?”

  “I heard you. I heard you,” she said at last. “I’m not hard-of-hearing, you know. I was just debating with myself whether you oughta hear this or not, but I reckon you’re old enough to understand. Just don’t repeat any of this to Woodrow. It would only make him sad.”

  “Okay,” I said, propping my elbows on the table and my chin in my hands. “I wouldn’t hurt Woodrow’s feelings. So tell me.”

  “Well, Belle couldn’t hold on to a boyfriend to save her soul. Every boy who walked into this house was pulled to Love like she was one powerful magnet and he was just a li’l ol’ weak piece of scrap metal.

  “Then Love went away to college, you know, over to Radford to learn to be a teacher like her daddy. And for the first time Belle had boyfriends of her own. She went to dances and parties and took on a bloom in her cheeks. She was almost pretty, and having the time of her life. Then along came Amos.”

  “Amos!” I sputtered, as one of my elbows fell off the table. “Amos who?”

  “Amos Leemaster, your daddy.”

  “My daddy was Aunt Belle’s sweetheart first?”

  “Yes, he was. Here he came riding over Cold Mountain on a black horse one Saturday in January. Big as life. I’ll never forget it. Dark and rugged as the hills. Straight he was in the saddle. Nobody in Coal Station ever saw the likes of Amos Leemaster.”

  Suddenly, without warning, I felt hot tears well up into my eyes, and my chin started to quiver. But Granny wasn’t noticing me. She was watching my daddy come riding over Cold Mountain on that long-ago Saturday.

  “Said he came to open a hardware store, but he did lots more than that. He started the Civic League, you know, and their main job is distributing food to the hungry, and he also started the volunteer fire department.

  “Why, he was like a knight in shining armor, and every girl in town went mental, but it was our Belle who turned his head. He was bound to marry her, he said, on that first day he hit Coal Station. They were so happy together. I never saw her sparkle like she did that spring.

  “‘Our Belle has found her life,’ I said to your grandpa. ‘She’s happy now.’

  “‘Yeah, until Love comes home’ was all he said.

  “Joel could see those things coming. I never could, but I should have in this case. I guess I thought fate could not be so unkind. But it was …”

  Granny’s voice trailed away. I swallowed hard three times before I could trust my own voice again.

  “And then what happened?” I asked.

  “Oh, the rest is history,” Granny said. “It was like fireworks, as they say in the movies, the minute Amos and Love laid eyes on each other.”

  We were both quiet then. I didn’t want to hear any more.

  “Aunt Belle,” I said to her in my mind, “I wish I had known you better. And I wish I knew what happened to you.”

  “Did you buy Porter a birthday present, Gypsy?” Granny changed the subject.

  “No, did you?”

  “Don’t I always? You shoulda bought him something, too.”

  “Why?” I snapped. “He’s not my daddy.”

  “Hush! You devilish young’un!” Granny scolded. “No, he’s not your daddy, but Amos Leemaster is dead now. Nobody can help that. You treating Porter like you do won’t bring your daddy back.”

  “I don’t treat him bad,” I said, and ran my finger around the edge of the cake plate to catch the frosting drippings.

  “Not as bad as I’d like to,” I mumbled real low, and popped the frosting into my mouth.

  “You just give him the silent treatment all the time,” Granny went on as she got up and carried the dirty cake tins to the sink. “You know it hurts his feelings.”

  It was true. Funny thing was, I used to like Porter Dotson fine when he was just the feller down the street who ran the newspaper. He was funny and friendly. Then he married my mama two years ago, and I stopped liking him. Every time I saw him sitting there where my daddy used to sit reading the paper by the picture window, I wanted to shout at him, “Move your carcass outa my daddy’s place!”

  But instead, I didn’t say anything at all, sometimes for days on end. Even if he asked me a point-blank question, I wouldn’t answer him. Yeah, it was wicked of me. I enjoyed seeing that bewildered look come over his face. He didn’t know how to react. Porter never had kids of his own, and I think he expected me to be like a puppy—you know—playful and cute and adoring. But I could tell him one thing right now—I was no puppy! And he was in for a real sorry time of it trying to be Gypsy Leemaster’s stepfather.

  “Here comes your grandfather and Woodrow,” Granny said, looking out the window. “I best get some lunch ready.”

  Three

  I ran to the front door to meet them. They were both loaded down with pokes that were crammed full, and Woodrow was so tickled he couldn’t stop grinning. I knew Grandpa must have bought him lots of stuff. Dawg came bounding in behind Woodrow, barking with excitement.

  “You gotta see, Gypsy!” Woodrow jabbered. “You gotta see what Grandpa bought me. I never had so much new stuff all at one time.”

  I helped Woodrow unload on Granny’s winecolored horsehair couch.

  “Lookit the comic books!” he gushed. “Red Ryder and Lulu and Sluggo and Joe Palooka and Slime!”

  “Comic books!” I said, laughing. “What about clothes? Didn’t you go out to buy clothes?”

  “Yeah,” Woodrow said. “Them, too. Britches and shirts and socks and belts and underwear and two pairs of shoes, and shorts for summertime, and what else, Grandpa?”

  “Eh?” Grandpa said as he dumped his sacks beside Woodrow’s.

  He hadn’t heard a word. Woodrow went plowing through the pile of new things.

  “Here it is, Gypsy! Slime!”

  Proudly he produced a comic book with a picture of a big fat maggot on the front cover. We sprawled on one of those round braided rugs Granny always kept on her slick and shiny hardwood floors, put our heads together, and read Slime out loud to each other, hootin’ and hollerin’ at the most disgusting stories ever.

  Directly Granny called from the kitchen, “All right now, you young‘uns, come on in here and eat these ’tater cakes I made you.”

  All four of us were in high spirits as we ate lunch. We acted the fool and yelled at each other over the table so the people all up and down Residence Street could probably hear every word. All the windows and doors were wide open. Granny did make the best ’tater cakes, and Woodrow and I ate three apiece.

  “Now, Woodrow,” Granny said when we were done eating, “I want you to put all your new things away in your room. Then I want you to trot down to Main Street and get a haircut. Gypsy can show you where the barbershop is.”

  Woodrow put his hand to his head and felt his hair.

  “You want me to get my hair cut in a haircuttin’ store?” he said.

  That was a real knee-slapper, but Woodrow didn’t seem to mind our laughing. He went right along with us. In fact, I think he was putting us on.

  “You never been to a barbershop before, Woodrow?” I said.

  “No. When my hair got down in my eyes, Daddy would set a bowl on top o’ my head, and whatever was hanging past the rim of the bowl, he would whack it off.”

  That sent us into hysterics again, and Granny had to take off her glasses and wipe them on her apron.

  Woodrow changed into a pair of his new pants and a shirt, and put the rest away. Grandpa gave him fifty cents and we headed to Main Street.

  It was a perfect day. The hills around us were green and full and they seemed to hold our little town in a cup away from the rest of the world. All the yards on Residence Street were as neat as a freshly made bed, and there was the smell of lilacs and fruit trees blooming everywhere.

  We walked past nine houses going toward Main Street. Then there was the post office, the courthouse, and the Presbyterian church before we reached the businesses.

  WE NEED YOUR HEAD IN OUR BUSINESS read the si
gn over Akers’s Barbershop. I had not been in there since I was a real little girl and my daddy used to take me with him when he went to get his hair cut.

  There were four men sitting around talking and watching Clint Akers cut Jake Stiltner’s hair. I knew they were hillbillies and that two of them mined coal for a living. It seemed there was a lot of chattering and guffawing, but when we walked in, they got quiet and looked at us. Maybe they were telling dirty jokes or something. I heard a boy at school one time say that’s where he heard all his dirty jokes—at the barbershop. And he knew a lot. Well, they could just hush up for a while. They knew better than to tell a dirty joke in front of Porter Dotson’s stepdaughter. That was a cross I had to bear wherever I went.

  Woodrow and I perched together, one on each side of a cane-bottomed chair.

  “Howya doin’?” Clint said to us.

  We said, “Fine.”

  “Clint, this is my relation,” I said, “and he needs a haircut. He’s got fifty cents.”

  “Howya doin’, young feller?” Clint said to Woodrow.

  Woodrow said “Fine” again.

  “Gypsy,” Clint went on, “is this boy from your daddy’s side of the family?”

  “No, Mama’s,” I said.

  “How’s that?” Clint said as he stopped his scissors in midair and gave us his undivided attention.

  “How’s what, Clint?” I said, knowing perfectly well what he was driving at.

  “Which one of your mama’s people is he?”

  Woodrow and I looked at all the waiting faces. What the heck, I thought. They were bound to find out. Might as well get it over with.

  “This here’s Belle Prater’s boy,” I said.

  “Is that a fact?” Clint said, his eyes as big as silver dollars. “Belle Prater’s boy, huh? What’s your name, boy?”

  “Woodrow.”

  “Woodrow, huh? Yeah, that’s right. I recall reading that in the Mountain Echo. Her boy, Woodrow, it said, was asleep when she disappeared. So that was you?”

  Woodrow didn’t answer and I didn’t blame him. It was a dern fool question. Nobody else said anything. They just crossed their arms and legs and leaned back and stared. Clarence Sparks aimed a big splat of tobacco juice into a tin can, then continued staring with the others.

  Finally Esau Ward said, “You heard anything from your mama, boy?”

  “Now, Esau!” I said, more than a little aggravated. “You know doggone good and well if there was any news about Aunt Belle, it would be all over the county. You wouldn’t have to ask.”

  “That’s the truth,” Clint said, laughing; then he went back to his haircutting.

  The atmosphere in the room lightened up some, and after a while a hushed conversation started again.

  “Okay, Woodrow, your turn,” Clint said as he took fifty cents from Jake.

  “But they were here first,” Woodrow said politely, motioning to the others in the room.

  “Oh, them!” Clint said, laughing again. “They don’t want no haircuts. They’re just chewing the fat.”

  Woodrow took his place in the barber chair.

  “Folks always come to my place to socialize,” Clint went on, like he was bragging. “Why, I remember Gypsy’s daddy, Amos Leemaster, used to drop by just to talk sometimes. And he’d bring Gypsy with him. You remember that, Gypsy?”

  I nodded.

  “I reckon Amos took Gypsy with him nearabout every place he went, didn’t he, Gypsy?”

  I nodded again.

  “You never saw one without the other,” Clint went on, determined to wear the subject out. “I never saw a man who loved his young’un more. He was the finest and handsomest man I ever seed. It was a pity what happened to him …”

  “Don’t cut too much!” Woodrow interrupted Clint suddenly, for which I was grateful.

  “Well, I ain’t even started yet,” Clint said. “Don’t worry, boy. You’ll get your money’s worth and no more. That’s what I always tell people. You’ll get your money’s worth and not a lick more.”

  Raymond Muncy came in and took a chair by Esau and Clarence.

  “Hidy, Raymond,” Esau said; then he leaned over and whispered something.

  They both looked at Woodrow.

  “Belle Prater’s boy, no foolin’? Cross-eyed, ain’t he?” Raymond said.

  “Was Belle cross-eyed?” Clarence asked.

  “Oh no,” Raymond said. “I went to school with Belle and she wadn’t no beauty like Love, but she wadn’t cross-eyed either.”

  I had had about enough of this.

  “Hey, Raymond,” I said as loud and nasal as I could manage, the way I had heard some of the holler women talk. “How’s your girl Flo? I heard she fell off the running board and caught her foot under the wheel.”

  “You heard right, Gypsy,” Raymond said. “But she’s mending. She’ll be back in school on Monday.”

  “Glad to hear it, Raymond. Flo’s as good a girl as you’ll find—right smart, too.”

  “’Zat so?” Raymond said, and seemed to puff up. “Well, sometimes I think she’s the smartest one of my seven, even if she is a girl.”

  I thought I was the only one in the room who detected that disguised insult to the whole female gender, but no, there was Woodrow peeping around the side of his glasses at me. He never missed a thing. And it occurred to me that Woodrow would never say anything like that. He did not think of me as “just a girl” any more than I thought of him as a cross-eyed boy.

  Four

  “Gypsy,” Granny called from the front porch as we approached the house. “Just ’cause Woodrow’s here, don’t think you can get out of practicing your hour like always. And don’t forget you gotta unplait your hair and wash it before the party.”

  I groaned. It wasn’t the piano practice I minded, but when it came to washing my hair, I’d rather clean up vomit. It had to be done twice a week no matter what, and it took hours to dry. If that wasn’t enough, I had to brush it one hundred strokes every night to make it strong and shiny. After that Mama always rolled the ends for me on paper rollers, which I slept in. My hair was a great source of pride for her. She would tell everybody how many inches long it was and how many years she had been growing it, like it was one of her prize azalea bushes or something. To even hint at cutting my hair could spoil her day.

  “What party?” Woodrow said. “And what are you practicing?”

  “Oh, it’s Porter’s birthday,” I said. “We always have a big supper and a cake on everybody’s birthday.”

  “Hot dog!” Woodrow said.

  “And I have to practice the piano an hour on Saturday and an hour on Sunday and a half hour on weekdays. I’ve been taking lessons from Granny since I was six years old. You know, she was a piano teacher for forty years, but I’m her only student now.”

  “How can she teach with her bad hearing?” Woodrow said.

  “She watches my hands when we’re having a lesson, and she can see a wrong note almost before I hit it. It seems as her hearing gets worse, her vision gets better.”

  As we reached the porch, Dawg greeted us. We sat down and petted her.

  “You know, she played the piano,” Woodrow said softly.

  “She who?” I said.

  “Mama. Granny taught her, too. She played so pretty it made me want to cry.”

  “Y’all didn’t have a piano in that li’l ol’ shack, didja?” I said, then bit my tongue. “I mean …”

  “No,” Woodrow said, seeming not to notice my blunder. “Mama always wanted one. She played over at the church on Poplar Creek of a Sunday. Can Aunt Love play?”

  “No,” I said. “She never could get the hang of it. Granny told me that Mama tried her best to learn, but she was so bad when she started practicing, the dogs would leave home.”

  We giggled.

  I did my duty that afternoon, and about 7:00 p.m. we all settled down to supper in Granny’s dining room.

  There sat Mama looking like royalty, with Porter beside her, his arm drape
d across the back of her chair. Porter’s brother, Hubert Dotson, the town doctor—we called him Doc Dot—was there with his wife, Irene, and two little twin girls, Dottie and DeeDee Dotson. Woodrow started giggling when he heard their names, so I whispered to him, “That’s not the worst of it. Porter and Doc Dot’s daddy was named Bobby Robert Dotson.”

  I thought Woodrow was going to have to leave the table when I said that.

  “What are you two young’uns giggling about?” Grandpa said.

  He was standing at the head of the table fixing to carve the pork roast. When I looked up at him with his thinning hair and wire-rimmed specs, it struck me how much he favored Harry Truman.

  “Nothing,” I managed to say.

  “Nothing?” Porter said. “Well, nothing seems to be mighty funny.”

  Everybody looked at us, but nobody was mad. They were smiling and in a good mood, and glad to see Woodrow having fun.

  “Well now, Mother, is that a bottle of your homemade blackberry wine I see there on the sideboard?” Porter shouted to Granny.

  “Oh Lordy, yes, I nearly forgot,” Granny said, and fetched the bottle to the table. “Here, Doc Dot, will you do the honors?”

  She set the wine in front of him.

  “Certainly,” Doc Dot said as he stood up to open and serve the wine. “You know, all a body needs is a taste of spirits to soothe the nerves. Sometimes a little sip from a bottle like this one in front of me could mean the difference between sanity and insanity, and frankly …”

  Doc Dot had a twinkle in his eye as he raised his voice for the benefit of Granny and Grandpa.

  “Frankly, I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy!”

  We all just about died laughing.

  Doc Dot was so tickled with his success he decided to try again.

  “Speaking of tension,” he said. “Mose Childress came to see me the other day and he said, ‘Doc, one night I dreamed I was a tepee and the next night I dreamed I was a wigwam. What do you think my problem is?’

  “And I said, ‘Well, Mose, that’s simple enough. Your problem is, you’re just two tents!’”