Fighting in the Shade Page 3

  He shrugged. “Uh, it’s okay.” He touched his head and tried to smile. Her eyes went soft and vague in a way that Billy had never seen before outside a moviehouse. Her face was pale, not tanned like most girls’ faces, and not freckled either. Alabaster. He imagined her wearing hats in the sun like older women did when they walked downtown.

  “Well…” She looked up at him, raised a hand to shield her eyes. “I thought you were great in the game.” Her voice came from some sweet-humming motor deep in her chest. It sounded honest and innocent, but there was something else, something playful, that might make fun of a boy with a bump on his head, walking with his scarecrow of laundry.

  He nodded. “Was I better than that book?”

  She smiled. “Yeah, it’s pretty dull. So is football, most of the time, but… that was something. Ole Prosser with his foot on Charlie’s head. And he tossed you like a rag doll. You don’t see that every day. You and Charlie are gonna be friends again, right?”

  “I don’t know if we were ever friends, but it’ll be all right. Eventually.”

  “Well,” she said again, “it was really… something to see.”

  He couldn’t tell if she meant to belittle. His head throbbed. Life was all words to girls, notes written in class, chatter, dialogue from movies and songs.

  “Seen enough?”

  She didn’t like it. Her eyes tightened as though the light were suddenly brighter. He could see her heart beating now at the base of her throat, a mad little tremor in the white skin. She looked around at the bleached pine of the grandstand and the empty practice field. “Yeah, I guess.”

  Billy wiped his sweating face with his forearm, which was a rage of bruises, scabs, fire-ant bites, sandspur boils, and hard muscle.

  She glanced at it, swallowed, looked up at his face. “Are you okay?” She reached a pale hand toward his head, stopped it halfway.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “My car’s here. I’ll take you home.” She walked ahead of him through the runway to the sandy lot behind the bleachers, turned, and waited. Her car was a new white Plymouth Savoy.

  Shame was like a blindside tackle. His father’s battered blue Mercury was parked next to the Savoy. His father sat at the wheel watching Billy and the girl. Billy felt his face taking a liar’s shape. He said, “Oh, uh, no, I can’t do that.” He couldn’t let her take him home. To the shabby house on the crushed oyster shell road in the flat, shadeless grid of streets where he lived with his father.

  The thing that shamed him most about his neighborhood was that the shell roads were sprinkled with oil. It was collected from service stations, trucked in, and sprayed to settle dust. It did. Instead of a choking dust that coated trees and whitened the windows of cars, there was a burnt-oil reek. The oil soaked the leather soles of Billy’s shoes. Sitting in classes, he could smell them. Once, a cheerleader, Susie Strickland, had wrinkled her nose and said to everyone, “Pee-eew! What’s that smell?”

  Billy looked at the Mercury, his father waiting, watching. “Coach Prosser says we have to walk. For conditioning and things.”

  The girl smiled again, but there was a sadness in her eyes that he hoped was not pity. She said, “Some other time then. Well, uh, see you around.”

  She got into the Savoy, and he walked to the window. “Yeah, see you around.” He forced himself to meet her eyes. “As they say.”

  She started the engine, touched the weird Plymouth push-button drive, crept forward, then accelerated. Her white arm came out waving, and he saw her glance at his father’s car. I didn’t ask her name, he thought. And she knows mine.

  FIVE

  When Billy threw his laundry into the backseat, his father said, “Gad, sir, and how are you?” “Fine, sir. And you, sir?”

  The Maltese Falcon was their favorite movie, and this was their greeting. His father said, “How’s that head?”

  His father was a tall, long-faced, dark-haired man in gray suit pants and a white shirt with rolled sleeves. His suit coat was thrown over the back of the car seat. He smelled of cigarettes, aftershave, and whiskey.

  Billy smiled his best. “It’s nothing. Just got my bell rung.”

  “And there was a fight? With Ray Rentz’s son? That was nothing too?” His father turned and looked into his eyes.

  Billy looked back. “I didn’t see you in the stands. How’d you know about… ?”

  “Ah,” his father said with a wizard smile, “I have my ways.”

  Billy gazed across the car hood at the empty lot. He wished his father had seen the scrimmage, all but the last part. Things had gone well for a while.

  They did not turn toward home. Instead, his father drove through Monmouth Park, toward downtown, and Billy knew something would happen.

  Built in a valley that sloped to a lake, Monmouth Park was the heart of Oleander. It was society, law and medicine, old money, grace, and manners. Mornings at Carr High, the sons and daughters of Monmouth Park turned the crescent drive in front of the school into a parade of good fortune. Rich boys stepped languidly from gleaming Detroit chariots and stretched in the sun in their Oxford cloth shirts, alligator belts, and Weejuns. They slapped notebooks against their thighs and stared at the ordinary kids as though they expected applause. Debutantes dethroned themselves in villager blouses and skirts, gave their bouffants last pats before lifting notebooks to shield their bosoms from lustful eyes. Sim Sizemore and Charlie Rentz lived in Monmouth Park.

  Billy’s father drove past houses with tall white columns, blue swimming pools, tennis courts, and maid’s quarters. The branches of ancient oaks embraced above redbrick streets, and Negro yardmen leaned on rakes frowning as the old Mercury passed. The car windows were open, and the air was cool under the trees.

  Downtown, they parked in front of McCrory’s Five and Dime. A sign in the window read, Fountain. His father said, “Mr. William, what do you say to some lunch?”

  “Lunch, sir? Yes, sir.”

  They took a booth in the back. Billy ordered a Coke and a cheeseburger, his dad black coffee. A blond woman in a lettuce-green smock delivered their drinks.

  His father said, “I spoke to Doc Runkle. He says you’ve had a concussion. Says it’s not like in the movies where our hero gets thumped on the head, goes to dreamland, then wakes up, scratches his noggin, and chases after the bad guys. Your brain swells. Something soft and delicate gets bigger inside a container.” He reached over and gently tapped Billy’s forehead. “Which can’t expand. It’s serious business. He’s benching you for a week.”

  “I’ll be all right.” Water came to Billy’s eyes. A week.

  His dad smiled, shook his head. “You are a hardhead, aren’t you?”

  Billy looked at him, blinked at the tears. “Yeah, I guess so. Is that good?”

  His father laughed quietly. “Sometimes. Sometimes it’s just an invitation to a short, hard life.” His father turned his coffee cup in its white saucer, pursed his lips, and squinted as though his eyes hurt. “Son, I want you to consider quitting football.”

  Billy was on his feet. His father’s hand shot out to catch the Coke sliding for the edge of the table. It was a long walk back to the land of oil-sprayed oyster shells, and Billy figured he’d better get going. He heard at his back, “Billy!” and his father’s black business shoes scraping the tile floor. Behind the counter, the blond woman watched, mouth open, hands holding a half-eaten sandwich. Billy felt a hard grip on his shoulder.

  Softly, “Billy, come back and sit down.”

  His father put an arm across Billy’s shoulders and walked him back to the booth. Face flaming, Billy lowered his head. His father watched the woman in the green smock, smiled, shrugged, called, “The fevers of youth,” and hooked a comical thumb at Billy. The woman blinked rapidly, then turned her back. Billy’s father wobbled his head and said, “She doesn’t get my humor. Well, a lot of people don’t.” He cleared his throat. “And you. Gad, sir. I didn’t get two words out of my mouth before you bolted.”

 
Waiting for his heart to calm, his face to wash of red, Billy examined his father. Was he a little tired, a little thin, a little shabby in a white shirt soiled at the collar, a loosened tie that had been knotted too often, and with hair that needed cutting? The man he had known before his parents’ divorce was disappearing. And he thought, Other things have changed. He doesn’t know me now. He will never know me unless I want him to. Billy wanted to be honest with his dad.

  “I don’t want to talk about quitting football. I’m not a quitter, and my head isn’t that bad. It’s gonna be fine in a few days, I know it is.”

  “I know you’re not a quitter. No son of mine could ever be. But you’ve had a serious injury. I just want you to have some brains left in that hard head of yours when you discover there’s life after football.” His father took a long, slow breath and stared into Billy’s eyes. “I’ve asked you before to be careful, but you don’t seem to know how to do that.”

  “Were you careful when you were my age?”

  His father considered it, his eyes searching into the long ago. He gave a half smile and shook his head. “No, son, I wasn’t. When I was your age, there was a war coming, and I was pretty sure I’d be killed in it. A lot of guys were. So I wasn’t particularly careful.”

  Billy waited for more, but his father shook his head as though to clear the past from his mind. He dug in the pocket of his white shirt for his Winstons, lit one, took a deep drag, and blew gray smoke at the ceiling. “You and Sim Sizemore play the same position?”

  “Yeah, but… ?”

  “Any chance you’ll beat him out?”

  “I don’t know, Dad. I’m better at some things. He’s better at others. I’m gonna try. Do you want me to beat him out?”

  His father examined the gray ash at the tip of his cigarette, waved distractedly at the shimmer of smoke between them. “I play golf with Sim’s father, Campbell Sizemore. He’s a member out at Sunrise.”

  Sunrise was the oldest country club in the city. Billy had glimpsed the emerald fairways from a car window. He had no idea how his father could afford to play there.

  His father continued, “Campbell’s a little full of himself at times. He’s a sleek and happy fellow, because he has everything, or so he believes. You know, the perfect house, car, family… life.” He drank the last of his coffee, watching Billy from under his brows.

  “Do you beat him at golf?”

  “Oh, yes. And when I don’t, I let him win.” His father winked. “He’s happy to lose because he can afford the wager and he’s happy to win for his pride. And a happy Campbell Sizemore is good for business.”

  Billy wondered why his father had led them here. They had been talking about football, not golf. “Dad, are you saying you don’t want me beat Sim out because you win money from his father?” He tried to keep the note of grief from his voice. “Did Sim’s dad tell you I was hurt?” The men in suits, perching like black birds in the bleachers?

  His father smoked, looked over at the lunch counter where the waitress moved her lips as she read a movie magazine. “Yes, he did, and he said it was nothing to worry about, and so did you.”

  “I’ll beat Sim Sizemore out,” Billy said with sudden conviction. “He’s a senior, and the coaches want the seniors to play, but I’ll beat him out because he’s a…” Pussy. “Because he’s scared. He doesn’t like to hit. When the time comes to stick, he avoids it. I’ll beat him out.” He felt his face reddening, his neck swelling the way it did when a pretty girl caught him watching her in class. He had said too much.

  His father drew his lips in tight. Maybe a man who had flown a bomber across blue oceans into storms of flak and fighters did not like to hear his son speak with such confidence. “And you do, Billy? You like to hit?”

  “Yes, sir, I do. I don’t know why, but it excites me.”

  His father seemed to receive this information with sadness. He stubbed out his cigarette in the coffee cup. “Well, maybe you will beat out the young Sizemore. And maybe it will do us all a world of good if you stay in football.” His father squinted again, rubbed his eyes. He reached across the table and rested his hand on Billy’s forearm, his fingers testing the hard flesh. “Come with me, Billy.”

  David Dyer paid for their drinks and the cheeseburger Billy had not touched. They stood on the sidewalk in front of McCrory’s and Billy’s father said, “Look around, son. What do you see?”

  Billy saw Turville’s Department Store, the office of the newspaper, the Oleander Grower, the police station, Oleander Memorial Hospital, a store that sold artificial limbs, and the First Baptist Church. As usual the sky was low and yellow, and the air smelled of oranges. The tallest building in town was the fourteen-story Bland Hotel. It was Oleander’s castle tower. The other buildings, redbrick, mostly, but some white granite and limestone, sloped away from it right and left in chevrons of law, commerce, recreation, and religion. Between the steeple of the Baptist church and the office wing of the hospital, Billy could see, far off on the horizon, the eternal column of yellow smoke that rose from the Honey Bear Juice plant.

  He looked over at his father, who pointed at a nearby street sign. They were standing on Bland Street. His father said, “You play ball with Gary Bland, don’t you? His people own the hotel. And Dr. Ray Rentz, his office is over there by the hospital. And that’s the corner of Rainey Street and Dane Boulevard. Blake Rainey owns Honey Bear Juice and a lot more. Helen Dane owns the Grower. Her granddaughter, Clover, goes to Carr High. She’s a debutante. Do you know her?”

  Billy shrugged.

  Still gazing at the town, his father rested his hand on Billy’s shoulder. “The point is, the streets and the buildings, the businesses, they all have the same names. The Danes and the Raineys and the Blands came here before the Civil War and claimed the land and built the town and named the streets after themselves.”

  His father pulled his eyes from the hazy horizon and turned to him. “Look at me, Billy, and listen. You don’t know what football is. Oh, you know what happens on the field. Of course you do. But you don’t know what football means to this town, the old families here.” He lowered his voice. “The, uh… the powers that be and always will be, for lack of a better term. A lot goes on in Oleander, will always go on, because men live where they live, own what they own, people and things. I’m talking about Monmouth Park, and the country club, the women’s club, the Rotary. It starts when they’re born into luck and money, and people like us, we don’t know what it is. We don’t know, and we aren’t included, so it actually… it might be better if you did quit football. Take what happened to your head as a letter from the Fates and get out now with grace. I won’t say you have to quit. I don’t have that kind of authority, not anymore, but I’m saying maybe you should. Because you don’t know all that football is, and all that it will require of you and take from you in a place like this.”

  Billy’s father widened his eyes and watched. Billy looked into those dark eyes, searching for their secret. Much was locked away, but some of this, Billy knew, was about his father and the men whose work he did, and not about Billy at all.

  Billy shook his head firmly. “I won’t quit.”

  Then his father lifted his hand from Billy’s shoulder. And smiled kindly. “Well, sir, we’d better get you home to rest that head.”

  SIX

  The sound of the front door closing woke Billy in the warm gloom of his bedroom. Grocery bags crackled in the kitchen. His father was home. Billy rubbed a hand across his sweating forehead and pushed up onto his elbows, into a wave of dizzy nausea. Carefully he lowered his aching head to the damp pillow. He fingered the taut, throbbing bump above his left ear. The skin was stretched so tight it felt like it might split open. A saucepan clanged on the stovetop.

  “Billy, my stout lad! Time to get up!”

  “Coming, Dad!”

  His father stood at the stove pouring canned tomato soup into a pan. With his back to Billy, he said, “Make a salad, will you, sir?” Then he started wh
istling, “Someone’s in the Kitchen with Dinah.”

  “Yes, sir,” Billy said. A head of lettuce and two tomatoes waited on the table. “And how are you, sir?”

  “Fine, sir. And you, sir?” His father did not turn around.

  Last summer, before his sophomore year, Billy’s father had taken him out to the backyard to throw a football and told him he was leaving Billy’s mother. The Dyers had just moved to Oleander, and Billy loved their fine new house for all it said about who he was. He was growing, had gained an inch of height in just three months, and had earned two inches around his biceps doing push-ups in his room at night. He was going to try out for the junior varsity football team at his new school.

  They passed the ball back and forth, and Billy practiced catching it away from his body, then cradling the hard pigskin into the crook of his arm. His father sometimes complimented him, sometimes corrected what he did. And other times, strangely, his father stopped throwing the ball and simply stood looking at his son with an admiration Billy did not understand. Then, after catching a pass, his father walked quickly to him, dropped the ball in front of Billy, and grabbed him in a rough hug. His sandpaper cheek scraped Billy’s ear, and he whispered huskily, “I’m leaving, son. I’m leaving her. I just can’t take it anymore.”

  Billy was more embarrassed than sad. He did not return his father’s embrace. He said nothing into his father’s ear, so close to his mouth. He stood stiff in his father’s arms, wishing the moment finished. When his father released him and stepped back carefully as though Billy might flee, it seemed to Billy that this backyard, a little world, was all he and his father would ever have. And when they went inside where his mother waited with dinner, it would disappear into the past.

  Billy’s parents had always argued. In the town farther north where Billy had grown up, late at night when they thought he was asleep, he had heard harsh words and strange accusations. He had tried to understand why they fought but could only gather pieces. There had not been enough money, and then there had been plenty, but the plenty had not made his mother happy. His father had done something wrong. Someone had discovered it. This thing lived in the house with them like an unwanted guest. Late at night when his parents whispered their troubles, his mother sometimes moaned like an animal in pain. She sobbed when she spoke of “those men,” and she said, “How could you do this to us?” Billy had hoped that the move to Oleander would put distance between them and the trouble, expel the bad guest from their house. The Dyers had moved, but trouble followed them.