Plainsong Read online

  The two boys leaned their bikes against the milk wagon, and with a jackknife Ike cut the twine. Then they knelt and counted the stack of papers into two piles and began to roll and rubber-band them.

  When they were almost finished Ralph Black walked out of the ticket office and stood over the boys, his long shadow hanging across them, obscuring them while he watched them work. He was a gaunt old man with a paunch, he was chewing a cigar.

  How come you little boys are late this morning? he said. The papers been there almost a hour.

  We aren’t little boys, Bobby said.

  Ralph laughed. Maybe not, he said. But you’re still late.

  They didn’t say anything.

  Ain’t you, Ralph said. I said, Ain’t you still late.

  What’s it to you? Ike said.

  What’s that?

  I said . . . He didn’t finish but went on rolling papers, kneeling on the cobbles beside his brother.

  That’s right, Ralph Black said. You don’t want to say something like that again. Or somebody might just paddle your little behind. How would you like me to do that for you? I will, by God.

  He stared down at the tops of their heads. They refused to say anything or even to acknowledge him, so he looked out along the train tracks and spat brown tobacco over their heads toward the rails.

  And stop leaning those bikes against that wagon there. I told you that before, he said. Next time I’ll call your dad.

  The boys finished rolling the papers and stood up to put them into the canvas bags on their bikes. Ralph Black watched them with satisfaction, then spat again onto the nearest track and returned to his office. When the door was shut Bobby said, He never told us that before.

  He’s just an old dogfart, Ike said. He never told us anything before. Let’s go.

  They separated and began their individual halves of the route. Between them they had the entire town. Bobby took the older, more established part of Holt, the south side where the wide flat streets were lined with elm trees and locust and hackberry and evergreen, where the comfortable two-story houses were set back in their own spaces of lawn and where behind them the car garages opened out onto the graveled alleys, while Ike, for his part, took the three blocks of Main Street on both sides, the stores and the dark apartments over the stores, and also the north side of town across the railroad tracks, where the houses were smaller with frequent vacant lots in between, where the houses were painted blue or yellow or pale green and might have chickens in the back lots in wire pens and here and there dogs on chains and also car bodies rusting among the cheetweed and redroot under the low-hanging mulberry trees.

  To deliver the Denver News took about an hour. Then they met again at the corner of Main and Railroad and rode home, pedaling over the washboards in the gravel. They passed the line of lilac bushes in the side yard of Mrs. Frank’s house, the fragrant blooms long dead now and dry and the heart-shaped leaves dusty with the traffic, and rode past the narrow pasture, the tree house in the silver poplar in the corner, and turned in onto the drive at home and left their bikes beside the house.

  Upstairs in the bathroom they combed their hair wet, drawing it up into waves and fluffing it with their cupped hands so it stood up stiffly over their foreheads. Water trickled down their cheeks and dribbled behind their ears. They toweled off and went out into the hallway and stood hesitant before the door until Ike turned the knob and then they entered the hushed half-lit room.

  She lay in the guest bed on her back now with her arm still folded across her face like someone in great distress. A thin woman, caught as though in some inescapable thought or attitude, motionless, almost as if she were not even breathing. They stopped inside the door. There were the brief lines of light at the edges of the drawn window shades and from across the room they could smell the dead flowers in the vase on the tall chest of drawers.

  Yes? she said. She did not stir or move. Her voice was nearly a whisper.

  Mother?

  Yes.

  Are you all right?

  You can come over here, she said.

  They approached the bed. She removed her arm from over her face and looked at them, one boy then the other. In the dim light their wet hair appeared very dark and their blue eyes were almost black. They stood beside the bed looking at her.

  Do you feel any better? Ike said.

  Do you feel like getting up? said Bobby.

  Her eyes looked glassy, as if she were suffering from fever. Are you ready for school now? she said.

  Yes.

  What time is it?

  They looked at the clock on the dresser. Quarter of eight, Ike said.

  You better go. You don’t want to be late. She smiled a little and reached a hand toward them. Will you each give me a kiss first?

  They leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek, one after the other, the quick embarrassed kisses of little boys. Her cheek felt cool and she smelled like herself. She took up their hands and held them for a moment against her cool cheeks while she looked at their faces and their dark wet hair. They could just bear to glance at her eyes. They stood waiting uncomfortably, leaning over the bed. At last she released their hands and they stood up. You’d better go on, she said.

  Goodbye, Mother, Ike said.

  I hope you get better, Bobby said.

  They went out of the room and closed the door. Outside the house in the bright sunlight again they crossed the drive and went across Railroad Street and walked down in the path through the ditch weeds and across the railroad tracks and through the old park toward school. When they arrived at the playground they separated to join their own friends and stood talking with the other boys in their own grades until the first bell rang and called them into class.

  Guthrie.

  In the high school office Judy, the secretary, stood over a desk talking on the telephone and making notes on a pink pad of paper. The short skirt of her dress was stretched tight over her hips and she was wearing hose and spike-heeled shoes. Guthrie stood behind the front counter watching her. After a while she looked up at him and for his benefit rolled her eyes at what she was hearing.

  I understand that, she said into the phone. No. I will too tell him. I know what you’re saying. She put the phone back roughly in its cradle.

  Who was that? Guthrie said.

  That was a mother. She made another note on the pad of paper.

  What’d she want?

  About the school play last night.

  What about it?

  Didn’t you see it?

  No.

  You ought to. It’s pretty good.

  What’s the matter with it? Guthrie said.

  Oh, there’s this place where Lindy Rayburn walks out in a black slip and sings a solo by herself. And this person on the telephone doesn’t happen to think a seventeen-year-old girl ought to be doing that kind of thing in public. Not in a public high school.

  Maybe I should go see it, Guthrie said.

  Oh, she had everything covered. You couldn’t see anything that counts.

  What’d she want you to do about it?

  Not me. She wanted to talk to Mr. Crowder. But he isn’t available.

  Where is he? I came in early to see him.

  Oh, he’s here. But he’s across the hall. She nodded in the direction of the rest rooms.

  I’ll wait for him in his office, Guthrie said.

  I would, she said.

  He went into the office and sat down facing the principal’s desk. Photographs of Lloyd Crowder’s wife and his three children in hinged brass picture frames stood on the desk and on the wall behind it was a photograph of him kneeling in front of Douglas firs holding up the antlered head of a mule deer. Against the adjacent wall were gray filing cabinets. A large school-district calendar hung over them. Guthrie sat looking at the photograph of the deer. Its eyes were half-open, as though it were only sleepy.

  After ten minutes Lloyd Crowder entered the office and sat down heavily in the swivel chair behind the desk
. He was a big florid man with wisps of blond hair drawn in exact strands across his pink scalp. He set his hands out in front of him and looked across the desk. So, Tom, he said. What’s this about?

  You said you wanted to see me.

  That’s right. I did. He began to consult a list of names on a paper on his desktop. Under the light his scalp shone like water. How’s the boys? he said.

  They’re fine.

  And Ella?

  Fine.

  The principal raised the sheet of paper. Here it is. Russell Beckman. According to what I see here you’re failing him this first quarter.

  That’s right.

  How come?

  Guthrie looked at the principal. Because, he said. He hasn’t done the work he’s supposed to.

  That’s not what I mean. I mean how come you’re failing him.

  Guthrie looked at him.

  Because hell, Lloyd Crowder said. Everybody knows Mr. Beckman isn’t any kind of student. Unless he gets struck by lightning he never will be. But he’s got to have American history to graduate. It’s what the state mandates.

  Yes.

  Plus he’s a senior. He don’t belong in there with all those juniors. He should of taken it last year. I wonder why he didn’t.

  I wouldn’t have any idea about that.

  Yes, well, the principal said.

  The two men studied each other.

  Maybe he ought to try for the GED, Guthrie said.

  Now, Tom. Right there we got a problem. That kind of thinking, it makes me tired.

  The principal leaned heavily forward onto the hams of his forearms.

  Look here. I don’t believe I’m asking too much. I’m just saying go a little easy on him. Think about what it means. We don’t want him back next year. That wouldn’t be good for anybody involved. Do you want him back next year?

  I don’t want him this year.

  Nobody wants him this year. None of the teachers want him. But he’s here. You see my point. Oh hell, give him a downslip if you want to. Scare the young son. But you don’t want to fail him.

  Guthrie looked at the framed pictures on the desktop. Did Wright put you up to this?

  Wright? the principal said. How come? On account of basketball eligibility?

  Guthrie nodded.

  Why hell, he’s not that good of a player. There’s others can bring the ball down. Coach Wright never mentioned a thing about this to me. I’m just saying to you, as someone who has to consider the whole school. You think about it.

  Guthrie stood up.

  And Tom.

  Guthrie waited.

  I don’t need somebody else to put me up to something. I can still do my own thinking. You try and remember that.

  Then you better tell him to do the work he’s supposed to do, Guthrie said.

  He left the office. His classroom was at the far end of the building and he went down the wide hallway that was lined with student lockers that had sheets of colored paper taped to the metal doors with names and slogans written across them, and above the lockers attached to the walls were long paper banners bearing extravagant claims about the athletic teams. This early in the morning the tiled floors were still shiny.

  He entered the classroom and sat down at his desk and took out the blue-backed lesson book, reading through the notes he’d made for the day. Then he removed an examination ditto from a desk drawer and went back out into the hallway, carrying the ditto.

  When he entered the teacher’s lounge Maggie Jones was using the copy machine. She turned and looked at him. He sat down at the table in the center of the room and lit a cigarette. She stood at the counter watching him.

  I thought you quit that, she said.

  I did.

  How come you started again? You were doing okay.

  He shrugged. Things change.

  What’s wrong? she said. You don’t look good. You look like hell.

  Thanks. You about done with that?

  I mean it, she said. You look like you haven’t even slept.

  He pulled an ashtray closer, tapped the cigarette into it and looked at her. She turned back to the machine. He watched her working at the counter, her hand and arm turning rapidly with the crank of the machine, her hips moving at the same time and her skirt jumping and swaying. A tall healthy dark-haired woman, she was dressed in a black skirt and white blouse and wore considerable silver jewelry. Presently she stopped cranking the machine and put in another master.

  What brings you here so early? she said.

  Crowder wanted to talk to me.

  What about?

  Russell Beckman.

  That little shit. What’d he do now?

  Nothing. But he’s going to if he wants to get out of American history.

  Good luck, she said. She cranked the machine once and looked at the paper. Is that all that’s bothering you?

  Nothing’s bothering me.

  Like hell it isn’t. I can see something is. She looked into his face, and he looked back without expression and sat smoking. Is it at home? she said.

  He didn’t answer but shrugged again and smoked.

  Then the door opened and a muscular little man in a shortsleeve white shirt came in. Irving Curtis, who taught business. Morning one and all, he said.

  He moved up beside Maggie Jones and put his arm around her waist. The top of his head came up to her eyes. He stood up on his toes and whispered something into her ear. Then he squeezed her hard, drawing her toward him. She removed his hand.

  Don’t be such an ass, she said. It’s too early in the morning.

  It’s only a joke.

  And I’m just telling you.

  Oh now, he said. He sat down at the table across from Guthrie and lit a cigarette with a silver lighter and snapped it shut and then played with the lighter on the tabletop. What’s the good word? he said.

  There isn’t any, said Guthrie.

  What’s wrong with everybody? Irving Curtis said. Jesus. It’s the middle of the week. I come in here feeling good and now look what you’ve done to me. I’m depressed already and it’s not even eight o’clock in the morning.

  You could shoot yourself, Guthrie said.

  Ho, Curtis said. He laughed. That’s better. That’s funny.

  They sat and smoked. Maggie Jones stopped the machine and gathered up her papers. Your turn, she said to Guthrie, and left the room.

  Bye-bye, Irving Curtis said.

  Guthrie rose and fed the ditto master into the slot on the drum and closed it and cranked the machine once and once more to see how the exam looked.

  No shit, though, Curtis said. Just once I’d like to get her in a dark room.

  You want to leave her alone, Guthrie said.

  No. I mean, think about it.

  Guthrie cranked the machine and turned the damp exams out into the tray. There was the sharp smell of spirits.

  I told you what Gary Rawlson said about her.

  You told me, Guthrie said.

  Do you believe it?

  No. And neither does Rawlson when he hasn’t been drinking. When it’s in the daylight.

  Victoria Roubideaux.

  At noon she came out of the noise and crush at school and walked over to the highway and then up a block to the Gas and Go. In her purse she had three dollars and some change and she wanted to think she could eat something now and keep it down. Thinking anyway she ought to try.

  Approaching the store she passed two high school boys leaning together at the gas pumps, running fuel into an old blue Ford Mustang. They watched her walk across the blacktop in her short skirt. Once she glanced up at them. Hey, one of them called. Vicky. How you doing? She looked away and he said something she was unable to hear but it made the other boy laugh. She went on.

  When she entered the store a group of high school kids was lined up at the counter, talking and waiting to pay for the cold meat sandwiches they’d taken from the refrigerated case and also the bags of chips and the plastic cups of pop. She walked back th
rough the aisles, glancing at the labeled cans and the bright packages on the shelves. Nothing looked good now. She picked up a can of Vienna sausages and examined it and read the label and put it back thinking how slick they were, how they dripped and ran when you lifted them out. She moved over to the popcorn case. At least that would be a salty taste. She filled a bag of popcorn and then chose a can of pop from the cooler. She carried these to the front and set them on the counter next to the register.

  Alice rang them up, a hard-looking thin woman with a black mole on her cheek. Dollar twelve, she said. Her voice sounded harsh. She watched the girl raise the purse on its strap and open it.

  You’re looking kind of puny today. You okay, hon?

  I’m just tired, the girl said, and set the money on the counter.

  You kids. You need to go to bed at night. She scooped the money up and sorted it into the drawer. And I mean in your own bed.

  I do, the girl said.

  Sure, Alice said. I know how that is.

  The girl moved to the front window of the store past the double glass doors and stood at the magazine rack, reading about three girls her age who had trouble in California, while she ate the popcorn one kernel at a time and sipped at the can of pop. More kids came in and bought drinks during the noon hour and went out, calling back and forth, and once a couple of sophomores began to shove each other in the aisle stacked with cans of motor oil and pork-and-beans until Alice said, You boys can knock that off anytime.