“This is a party line,” she said, “remember that.”
Another pause while she listened.
“Okay,” she said and hung up.
I spent some of my happiest hours squatting in the corn patch. I was completely hidden there; even when I stood, the maturing stalks reached a foot or more above my head. It was a good place. On the hottest days it was relatively cool in that thicket of green where the shade was dark and deep and the leaves rustled and scraped and sawed dryly overhead.
Nobody ever thought to look for me there. They could bellow their bloody lungs out for me and I could just sit and watch them getting uglier and uglier about it all. There was some satisfaction in that. I’d just reach up and pluck myself a cob. I loved raw corn. The newly formed kernels were tiny, pale pearls of sweetness that gushed juice. I’d munch and munch and smile and smile and think, why don’t you drop dead?
It was my secret place, my sanctuary, where I couldn’t be found or touched by them. But all the same, if I didn’t let them intrude on me – that didn’t mean I didn’t want to keep tabs on things.
At the time I was watching Thompson stealing peas at the other end of the garden. He was like some primitive man who lived in a gathering culture. My grandma kept him so hungry he was constantly prowling for food: digging in cupboards, rifling the refrigerator, scrounging in the garden.
Clad only in Bermuda shorts he was a sorry sight. His bones threatened to rupture his skin and jut out every which way. He sported a scrub-board chest with two old pennies for nipples, and a wispy garland of hair decorated his sunken breastbone. His legs looked particularly rackety; all gristle, knobs and sinew.
We both heard the truck at the same time. It came bucking up the approach, spurting gravel behind it. Thompson turned around, shaded his eyes and peered at it. He wasn’t much interested. He couldn’t get very curious about the natives.
The truck stopped and a man stepped out on to the runningboard of the ’51 IHC. He gazed around him, obviously looking for something or someone. This character had a blue handkerchief sprinkled with white polka dots tied in a triangle over his face. Exactly like an outlaw in an Audie Murphy western. A genuine goddamn Jesse James.
He soon spotted Thompson standing half-naked in the garden, staring stupidly at this strange sight, his mouth bulging with peas. The outlaw ducked his head back into the cab of the truck, said something to the driver, and pointed. The driver then stepped out on to his runningboard and, standing on tippy-toe, peered over the roof of the cab at Thompson. He too wore a handkerchief tied over his mug, but his was red.
Then they both got down from the truck and began to walk very quickly towards Thompson with long, menacing strides.
“Fellows?” said Thompson.
At the sound of his voice the two men broke into a stiff-legged trot, and the one with the red handkerchief, while still moving, stooped down smoothly and snatched up the hoe that lay at the edge of the garden.
“What the hell is going on here, boys?” said Thompson, his voice pitched high with concern.
The man with the blue mask reached Thompson first. One long arm, a dirty clutch of fingers on its end, snaked out and caught him by the hair and jerked his head down. Then he kicked him in the pit of the stomach with his work boots.
“Okay, fucker,” he shouted, “too fucking smart to take a fucking hint?” and he punched him on the side of the face with several short, snapping blows that actually tore Thompson’s head out of his grip. Thompson toppled over clumsily and fell in the dirt. “Get fucking lost,” Blue Mask said more quietly.
“Evelyn!” yelled Thompson to the house. “Jesus Christ, Evelyn!”
I crouched lower in the corn patch and began to tremble. I was certain they were going to kill him.
“Shut up,” said the man with the hoe. He glanced at the blade for a second, considered, then rotated the handle in his hands and hit Thompson a quick chop on the head with the blunt side. “Shut your fucking yap,” he repeated.
“Evelyn! Evelyn! Oh God!” hollered Thompson, “I’m being murdered! For God’s sake, somebody help me!” The side of his face was slick with blood.
“I told you shut up, cock sucker,” said Red Mask, and kicked him in the ribs several times. Thompson groaned and hugged himself in the dust.
“Now you get lost, fucker,” said the one with the hoe, “because if you don’t stop bothering nice people we’ll drive a spike in your skull.”
“Somebody help me!” Thompson yelled at the house.
“Nobody there is going to help you,” Blue Mask said. “You’re all on your own, smart arse.”
“You bastards,” said Thompson, and spat ineffectually in their direction.
For his defiance he got struck a couple of chopping blows with the hoe. The last one skittered off his collar- bone with a sickening crunch.
“That’s enough,” said Red Mask, catching the handle of the hoe. “Come on.”
The two sauntered back towards the truck, laughing. They weren’t in any hurry to get out of there. Thompson lay on his side staring at their retreating backs. His face was wet with tears and blood.
The man with the red mask looked back over his shoulder and wiggled his ass at Thompson in an implausible imitation of effeminacy. “Was it worth it, tiger?” he shouted. “Getting your ashes hauled don’t come cheap, do it?”
This set them off again. Passing me they pulled off their masks and stuffed them in their pockets. They didn’t have to worry about Thompson when they had their backs to him: he couldn’t see their faces. But I could. No surprise. They were the Ogden boys.
When the truck pulled out of the yard, its gears grinding, I burst out of my hiding place and ran to Thompson, who had got to his knees and was trying to stop the flow of blood from his scalp with his fingers. He was crying. Another first for Thompson. He was the first man I’d seen cry. It made me uncomfortable.
“The sons of bitches broke my ribs,” he said, panting with shallow breaths. “God, I hope they didn’t puncture a lung.”
“Can you walk?” I asked.
“Don’t think I don’t know who’s behind this,” he said, getting carefully to his feet. His face was white. “You saw them,” he said. “You saw their faces from the corn patch. We got the bastards.”
He leaned a little on me as we made our way to the house. The front door was locked. We knocked. No answer. “Let me in, you old bitch!” shouted Thompson.
“Evelyn, open the goddamn door!” Silence. I couldn’t hear a thing move in the house. It was as if they were all dead in there. It frightened me.
He started to kick the door. A panel splintered. “Open this door! Let me in, you old slut, or I’ll kill you!”
Nothing.
“You better go,” I said nervously. I didn’t like this one little bit. “Those guys might come back and kill you.”
“Evelyn!” he bellowed. “Evelyn!”
He kept it up for a good five minutes, alternately hammering and kicking the door, pleading with and threatening the occupants. By the end of that time he was sweating with exertion and pain. He went slowly down the steps, sobbing, beaten. “You saw them,” he said, “we have the bastards dead to rights.”
He winced when he eased his bare flesh onto the hot seatcovers of the car.
“I’ll be back,” he said, starting the motor of the car. “This isn’t the end of this.”
When Grandma was sure he had gone, the front door was unlocked and I was let in. I noticed my grandmother’s hands trembled a touch when she lit her cigarette.
“You can’t stay away from him, can you?” she said testily.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I said. “He was hurt. You ought to have let him in.”
“I ought to have poisoned him a week ago. And don’t talk about things you don’t know anything about.”
“Sometimes,” I said, “all of you get on my nerves.”
“Kids don’t have nerves. Adults have nerves. They’re the only ones entitled to them. And don’t think I care a plugged nickel what does, or doesn’t, get on your nerves.”
“Where’s Aunt Evelyn?”
“Your Aunt Evelyn is taken care of,” she replied.
