The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists

get down to brass tacks and me and him should run along and might as well take the radio up to the big house and enjoy it for a spell. And then later we could come back cause she didn’t spect Jimmy or Rusty to last very long and then it would be my turn since I didn’t bring nothin that was so grand as a radio or keys to a car, but I already done that thing that Jimmy and Rusty wanted to do anyway even though they didn’t know bout it so I didn’t mind even though I still didn’t feel growed up like a man. But still I couldn’t figure out why the witch said that bout comin back since she knowed I already done it cause I done it with her.

Anyway, the Monster Man said okay and bent down and the witch kissed him with them rosy lips of hers and even her tongue. Later on Jimmy said that was the worst part of it. Seeing that a white woman was in love with a nigger. I said that maybe the Monster Man wasn’t really a nigger cause his skin just happen to be black like the Monster’s skin just happen to be green (you can tell that from the poster at the picture show). Maybe he was part nigger and part Monster, I said. Like Ygor was part Dracula and the Monster was part the Mummy. But Jimmy just wrinkled his nose at that and said, “jumpin Jesus Christ, Little Pete, that fella wasn’t nothin but a big dumb buck nigger. Next you’ll be tellin me that you seen a coupla bolts stickin out of that dumb coon’s neck.”

But he didn’t have no bolts. And since I knowed that from then on I knowed that Jimmy Tibbs was a pretty stupid fella. I told him so right then, and I told him there wasn’t nothin bad bout bein a nigger cause I knowed after what happened at that witch’s place that Jimmy was deep-down scared of niggers. And that was the last time I wasted my time talkin to Jimmy Tibbs who thought he was a big man right then but sure enough found out he wasn’t as the years went by.

So back we went into the heat. Me and the Monster Man. He was takin long strides and it was hard for me to keep up cause I could hardly see over the radio and I almost tripped in a coupla postholes that was by the front steps. He said “Just watch it now” and I did while I hopped round them holes and them holes was wet at the bottom and the ground down there was black-red like an old sore that ain’t healed over after a long time and them holes was crawlin with worms and all of a sudden I didn’t want to look at them holes no more cause they stunk and they made me think of what that boilin pit must have smelled like in the picture cause it was full of sulphur. So we got up to the porch of the big house and there was a big patch of shade up there so I set down my burden in the middle of it. We both happened to wipe our brow at the same time and that made the Monster Man chuckle. “Hey shortcake,” he said, “how bout some lemonade fore we go back?”

I allowed how I’d like that. So he got us some and I seen that his was a touch darker than mine and I was gonna trouble him bout it but before I could he asked, “What’s wrong with you, anyhow?”

“I can’t say as I know,” I said soundin kinda puzzled and quiet like Pap always does when folks ask him bout me. “I was just born this way.”

“Uh-huh,” he says. “I heard bout stuff like that. Your ma took a bad scare while she was carryin you, I spect.”

I didn’t say nothin cause I didn’t know bout that. Maybe it had somethin to do with the lightnin was what I thought that summer, cause I recollect in the picture where Ygor said the Monster’s mother was the lightnin. And I wanted to know if the big man was the Monster and knowed bout that, so I asked him straight out. “Naw,” he said. “I seen that picture too. That man ain’t really big, like me. He ain’t really a monster. He’s wearin elevator shoes and a jacket stuff full with pillows. That Frankenstein is a scrawny little white man, just like everybody else in that picture. It ain’t nothin but make-believe.”

I was gonna tell him bout the difference tween Frankenstein the Doctor and the Frankenstein Monster but I didn’t want to get him riled. So I just asked him what his name was and he jingled Rusty’s daddy’s keys in front of my face and said, “Today my name is Jesse James, shortcake, but you can call me Jess.”

“Okay, Jess,” I said. And then he asked me what they call me and I said “Peter” cause I like that boy in the picture. His name is Peter and he wears sailor suits and hunts all manner of stuff. And when he gets in a fix someone comes right quick and helps him out of it like the soldierman with the rubber arm helped him and his daddy helped him too.

I took to lookin at them postholes while I drank my lemonade, waitin to see if a worm dared to poke its head out in the sun and what Jess would do to a worm that dared. But that didn’t happen. Nothin happened ceptin Jess drank some more lemonade and patted the top of the RCA. He said, “I sure am sold on radios, yes sir.”

“Me too,” I said. “And this radio is awful grand. I wish my Pap had one like it. I bet Amos and Andy sounds awful grand on a radio like this one.”

Jess wrinkled up his nose. “That’s just a couple of white men on that show, Peter,” he said. “You know, the only kinda white folks you should mix with is the ladies.” And then Jess seen Jimmy come out of the shack all puffed up like a rooster and he patted the radio once more and chuckled in a way that made me know he thought that RCA was awful grand too. “Hey now, Peter, you come and watch how to mix with white folks.”

Jess drank down his lemonade in one big gulp then stepped off the porch and dust puffed up all round his boot just like a bomb goin off in a war picture. My, he was big and his stride was long. Long as the space tween them postholes with the scabby dirt and worms, which was a good bit long. “Hey, boy,” he hollered to Jimmy. ‘You come here.”

Jimmy looked up sharp and when he seen who was talkin to him his ears got awful red. But he come ahead anyway. And when he got close enough Jess squatted down real low til he could look him in the eye. “You like that, over in there?” he asked and Jimmy kinda looked away but he was smilin. Then Jess said, “Well, it sure didn’t take you long.”

Now Jimmy’s whole face got red and Jess said, “Yeah, well, don’t never take a cherry very long. I figure that was bout four… mebbe five minutes, countin unbuttonin and buttonin time. Now, you tell me boy was that worth your daddy’s RCA?” But Jimmy didn’t say nothin so Jess said some more. “Well, I’m sure gonna enjoy that radio.”

Jimmy was lookin at the dirt but he said in a loud voice like they do in the gangster pictures, “It ain’t for you it’s for the lady.”

Jess curled up a fist and smacked Jimmy’s ear real good like Joe Louis does and the blood come like Jimmy been cut, and while Jimmy was swayin all woozy Jess said, “The lady is mine and I’m hers, so it goes to figure that your RCA is mine and hers.” He took hold of Jimmy’s shirt and pulled him close and I seen Jimmy cringin away from Jess’s lemonade breath. “Now, you listen up, boy. And you do like I say unless you want your daddy to find out where you been playin.”

Jimmy listened real good now cause I reckon I should have told you before that his daddy was a soldierman like the soldierman with the rubber arm in the picture ceptin Jimmy’s daddy didn’t have no rubber arm. Anyhow, I never seen anyone talk to Jimmy like Jess did, and I spect no one ever had ceptin his daddy. But Jess didn’t just talk he dragged Jimmy over by the old busted fence that we come up through when we come up from the creek bed over the hot fryin pan rocks. He give Jimmy some wire cutters and told him to cut the rusty wire off them old posts, but Jimmy tried to give them cutters over to me.

“I paid with my radio to do what I wanted to do,” Jimmy said. “I ain’t gonna do no nigger work for you.” But Jimmy looked kinda sick when he said it somehow, and I knowed his stomach was feelin like mine always did when he throwed them rocks at me, and I was gonna say so when Jess said, “What kinda nigger work you think I’m talkin bout, white boy?”

“Buildin a new fence,” Jimmy said. “Look here, I know you got a whole spool of wire in there on account of that’s what Little Pete brought. I thought you aimed to sell it to somebody, but if you think I’m gonna— ”

Rusty come out of the shack just then wipin his nose on his shirttail. I grabbed hold of Jess’s hand feelin like Ygor in the picture when he grabs hold of the Monster and sends him after them fellas who hanged him and busted his neck but didn’t kill him through and all of a sudden I knowed just how wrong Jimmy was bout Ygor. “Him too,” I said, pointin at Rusty. “Him too.”

In a minute Rusty was cryin cause Jess had told him what he imagined would happen if Rusty’s daddy found out bout the missin car keys. So Rusty got real busy quick workin the posts out of the ground. It wasn’t hard work cause them posts was already leanin and wasn’t set in cement like they set posts in these days. But like I said Rusty was a lazy sort and so it was hard for him and it didn’t help when he got to sneezin again.

“Look here.” Jimmy pulled Rusty away from his work and stood up to Jess cept he was so small standin in Jess’s big shadow that he was silly lookin. “We paid you, mister. We ain’t gonna build no fence.”

Jess just laughed that same real hearty laugh, mainly at that “mister” stuff I spect cause it come right out of the blue.

Bout then was when she come out of the shack. The witch did. She was holdin Mary Hannah’s hand and Mary