THE MAN WITH THE BARBED WIRE FISTS
She said we should bring that stuff down to her shack by the creek cause we had to give her that stuff if she was gonna do what Jimmy Tibbs wanted her to do. And we didn’t know then that she was a witch so we brought that stuff down there. Us kids did. That was before the aqua duck when there was still a creek there. And Jimmy made me tote the big spool of barbed wire cause I was stronger than he was and cause I was a nigger and he said that niggers was like Ygor in the picture and did what they was told. He was littler than me but back then I figured he was right bout that Ygor stuff so I didn’t bellyache.
That particular year it was a dusty summer. Hot and dry and miserable dusty. The creek bed was all buzzin with gnats and the rocks that was used to bein underwater was hot like little fryin pans and my socks was all itchy with brambles. And on top of that I was sick of the whole thing cause Jimmy had done had me runnin back and forth along that dry creek-bed with notes for the witch all week long. Anyhow, now everythin was settled and us kids was all finally gonna go and get turned into growed ups. Jimmy was way ahead of me cause all he was carryin was his daddy’s RCA radio and the plug cord draggin tween his legs was like Satan’s tail. Mary Hannah wasn’t too far behind Jimmy. The poke with lipsticks and powders she stoled from her daddy’s five-and-dime was scissored tween her arm and her chest and her cheeks was all shiny with lipstick in thick stripes like she was an Injun chief. And she was real eager to come with us fellas cause she said that since her daddy took sick he had to live upstairs all the time and her mama sometimes did that stuff with the truck drivers who brung goods to the store so she wanted to know how to do that stuff too cause now the truck drivers was startin to look at her sometimes too. And after Mary Hannah come Rusty and all he had was the keys to his daddy’s Ford but Rusty was lazy so he was slow and I knowed he was frettin on account of all the trouble he could get into bout them keys if his Daddy found out that he stoled them. And b’sides, he was sneezin on account of the dust from the itchy brambles us kids was kickin up.
And Jimmy laughed, singin, “Sickly child, sickly child… ”
I was last. The spool of wire was heavy and I was wearin gloves and two coats to keep from gettin scratched and I didn’t like to think what Pap was gonna do when he found out the barbed wire wasn’t in the barn no more like it was supposed to be. But Jimmy said to me, “Little Pete, your daddy is just a stupid nigger so he ain’t even gonna know it’s gone, and even if he does know it he’s gonna know better than to holler that someone stoled it, cause God knows where that kinda yellin gets a nigger round here, Little Pete.”
Little Pete. That’s what they call me cause I’m hunched up like Ygor. But I wish they would call me like they did the little boy in the picture. Peter. That’s what Mama used to call me before she went off to the sportin life. And I wished I was like Peter in the picture too, all brave like nobody’s business and off huntin rhinocerasses and alligators and havin adventures bout the giant who stoled my storybook and that soldierman with the rubber arm who rescued me.
But this wasn’t no adventure like that. Like I said, it was hot. Not cold and rainy and gloomy like in the picture. The witch’s shack was a teeny bit of a place out behind the big house and it was all leanin sideways and ready to fall over like the big house was too and like the houses in the picture. Jimmy said that she wrote him in a note that we had to meet her in that shack cause the big house was too grand for the likes of us little folks and little folks got to meet her in a little place. So we climbed up from the creek bed over the hot fryin pan rocks that was real smooth even though, like I said, there wasn’t no water in the creek. This was before the aqua duck, cause since we got that there is always water there and you can’t walk down that way no more and there ain’t even no stones in the bottom of it accordin to what people say and now there ain’t no grand house or even little house there no more, either, cause I guess them houses finally leaned over too far and just fell down and somebody hauled them away. But back then there was still a creek and two houses and when us kids come up through all that manzanita and then through the rusty barbed-wire fence what was all tangled-busted and needin fixin bad we was practically on the little porch which belonged to the shack. It was pretty rickety with a hole in the roof and I thought bout the picture and the hole in the labboratoree roof where Ygor pushed a boulder through and almost hit Jimmy.
But it wasn’t Jimmy he almost hit it was the doctor in the two-tone coat. Jimmy said the man was Frankenstein’s son, like the picture’s called. I said that Peter was Frankenstein’s son but Jimmy just said I was stupid cause Peter was the grandson. But then when I asked him how come the picture wasn’t called
Anyway, “You bring it all?” was what the witch asked and Jimmy allowed how we had. “Boy, you better not be lyin,” was the next thing she said.
“I ain’t lyin,” was what Jimmy said.
Jimmy lied all the time, though. He always said we should go to the picture together but then he wouldn’t sit with me when we did go even though we went plenty of times cause it was the only picture they showed for weeks and weeks. He told me he was my friend plenty of times and then throwed rocks at me when he seen me walkin by myself while he was with Rusty and the other fellas. I knowed he did it cause I was a nigger and I was always gonna be small like Ygor, anyhow. Even though back then I used to pray it wouldn’t be so, specially when Jimmy and Rusty called me a nigger dwarf circus clown.
And for sure Jimmy lied bout that stuff with Mary Hannah too, even though he said that he really didn’t hate her cause of what happened though after it happened he said she was just like the witch.
“I had to say it,” was what he said bout that back when I was still talkin to him. “I had to make up that story bout us kids runnin into that barbed-wire fence that was covered up with weeds and manzanita. You don’t want folks to know what really happened out there, now do you, Little Pete? You don’t want that man comin after us, or talkin to your pap, do ya?”
“No.”
“Well that’s thinkin straight. Cause you and me know we got to keep that a secret tween us, just like Ygor and the Doctor kept their secret bout the Monster in the picture.”
I didn’t say nothin to that even though I wanted to say that Ygor and the Doctor didn’t keep their secret too good. But I didn’t say it cause I knowed that Jimmy didn’t understand bout that witch and her barbed-wire man and it wouldn’t do no good to argue bout them if he didn’t even understand bout Ygor and the Doctor.
Anyhow, us kids was in the shack with the witch and Rusty was still coughin and snifflin because of the itchy dusty brambles and the witch asked, “He ain’t got TB, does he?” and Jimmy just laughed and said bout the brambles. So she forgot bout that and then she started lookin over our stuff, checkin the tubes in Jimmy’s daddy’s radio and twistin up Mary Hannah’s stoled lipsticks to make sure them lipsticks wasn’t empty Next she got hold of Rusty’s belt and pulled him up close right tween her legs with her red dress all wrinklin up round him. “These keys go to a car now, don’t they, little man?”
Rusty nodded quick and she just laughed and laughed with her rosy lips a big circle and then a big man stepped out of the shadows and he was laughin too. He looked like a nigger but he looked just like the Monster too — I mean to tell you he looked like Frankenstein but Jimmy always said that ain’t right cause the Doctor is the one who’s Frankenstein and the Monster ain’t got a name at’all cause he’s dead and nobody gives a name to things that is dead— and the Monster Man was grinnin at the way the witch had a hold of Rusty’s belt and the way he was squirmin. And then he stepped up to us kids and said over his shoulder “Hey now Viletta this un ain’t even no boy” while he ran a big thumb over Mary Hannah’s war paint.
Jimmy piped up, “She’s as good as a fella. She does everything that us fellas do.”
The Monster Man just laughed some more when he heard that. Real hearty, he laughed. He pulled Mary Hannah toward him by her overalls and then commenced to smearin her war paint into two rosy circles.
“No,” I said, and I grabbed hold of his arm just like Ygor did in the picture and it was a hard arm like a fence post. “She’s my friend and you ain’t gonna make her a circus clown.”
He looked at me sort of puzzled and then he made questionin eyes at the witch and shrugged his big shoulders. She said, “Leave the little gal be. When I was young I used to like to run with the fellas too.” She winked. “And you see how good I turned out.”
He allowed how she had turned out pretty good. She said that as everythin seemed right we might as well
