Trouble the Water Read online

“But why you writing about that? Colored folks can’t swim in the town pool.”

  “And that’s exactly why I’m writing about it,” Mr. Renfrow said. “The town pool was paid for with taxpayer money, and everyone in Celeste pays taxes, not just white folks.”

  “Well, best of luck, Mr. Renfrow,” Callie said. She didn’t bother to tell him he was wasting his time. That wasn’t the sort of thing grown-ups liked to hear, even if it was true. First of all, white folks didn’t read the Weekly Advance, so how were they supposed to get wind of Mr. Renfrow’s ideas? Secondly, weren’t no white folks gonna let no colored folks swim in the same pool as them. You could get mad about it all you wanted, but facts were facts. “In the meantime, you know how I could get a list of all the folks that drowned in the river in the last ten years or so?”

  “I can’t say I have such a list on hand. You’d have to search through the archives in the basement. We’ve got forty years’ worth of the Advance down there.”

  “Wouldn’t need to look at but ten years. Maybe fifteen. Dogs don’t live much past fifteen, if they live that long.” Then Callie had a thought. “If Jim was white, would you have put a story about it in the paper?”

  “The Advance reports all the news,” Mr. Renfrow told her, puffing out his chest a little. “If it happens in Celeste, my readers want to read about it. Now, young lady, follow me and I’ll show you the archives.”

  • • •

  Later that afternoon, when Callie got home, her fingers were coated with ink and her hair was thick with dust. Normally, she never volunteered to take a bath, but as soon as she walked into the house, she headed straight for the tub. No way could she eat dinner with that stuff all over her hands.

  “You’re late!” Regina called from the sitting room. “You were supposed to be home thirty minutes ago!”

  “Mama home yet?” Callie yelled back as she twisted on the tub’s faucet. “’Cause if Mama’s not home, then what’s it to you?”

  “Better hope Mama don’t see them weeds!”

  The weeds. Callie shook her head, sighing. It was always the dang weeds. Well, she’d just tell Mama her hands had gotten too cramped up. Maybe she was coming down with arthritis.

  Sinking down into the tub, Callie closed her eyes and watched headline after headline flash across her mind. She’d only had time to go through a half a year of the Weekly Advance, and that half year of papers, twenty-six in all, was so stuffed with happenings and doings and living and dying that, even skimming, Callie thought it was going to take forever to finish. Well, maybe that was because she wasn’t so good at skimming. Oh, it wasn’t hard when it came to town council meetings and notices about where you could dump your trash and where you couldn’t, but Callie kept getting caught up in stories about club meetings and church gatherings and who had come to town to visit who.

  There were meetings of the Domestic Economy Social Club and the American War Mothers convention, both held at the Baptist church on Clinton Street. The Town and Country Club met monthly in the back room of Shirley’s Grocery, making plans to help the needy of the colored community. Callie knew about Town and Country because her daddy went to that, even though Mama said it was a sad day when the only way a poor man in this town could get help was by another poor man emptying out his pockets.

  There was the Green Hill Baptist Church and the Corinthian Baptist Church and the Rock of Ages Seventh-Day Adventist Church, and each and every week it seemed like at least one of them was having a chicken dinner to raise money for some cause or another, war orphans or children in Africa or a new building. Callie wondered how Mr. Renfrow stayed so thin, reporting on all the church suppers the way he did. She knew there was no way he’d be let out the door without a dozen women handing him plates of chicken and dumplings and sweet potato biscuits and bowl after bowl of greens swimming in pot likker.

  Just reading about all that good food had made Callie hungry. She had been lingering over a description of Mrs. Pauline Johnson’s double-chocolate cake (“My secret ingredient is pepper,” Mrs. Johnson had divulged to Mr. Renfrow. “Just a pinch. It livens a cake up”) when she realized that at this rate it would probably take her five years of reading to get through ten years of papers.

  Now, sinking down into the tub, Callie decided that tomorrow she’d start at the beginning—1943 instead of 1953—and then work her way back up to the present times. She reckoned she’d been right, that if Jim had drowned in the river in the last couple of years, people would have a better memory of it. No, it had to have happened a ways back.

  Callie wasn’t sure why she felt so strongly there was a connection between the dog and the cabin and this person Jim, whose name was carved into the cabin’s wall. She guessed it was the way that old dog had laid down in front of the cabin and wouldn’t budge. There were a lot of little mysteries that she was hoping were all connected together, though she knew she might be chasing down a bunch of dead-end streets. But she’d gotten started, and once Callie started something, she liked to see it through all the way to the end.

  Regina banged on the door. “Mama’s home and fixing dinner. You better get on out of there and set the table. ’Sides, I need to use the bathroom.”

  “Out in a minute,” Callie called, grabbing the sides of the tub and pulling herself up. “Give me a second to dry off.”

  “You got one second and that’s it!”

  Shoot, Callie thought, that Regina sure was a mean-tempered thing. She needed to get out of the house and do something with her day, that was her problem.

  What would Mama and Daddy think about how she’d spent her day, Callie wondered as she dried herself off with her favorite towel, the one with yellow daisies on it. Daddy would be mad at her for going down to the river by herself, and Mama would sputter and steam if she knew Callie had gone walking around the woods with some white boy she’d never seen before in her life. But Callie bet if she told them about finding the cabin, that would get their interest.

  Who wouldn’t be interested in that cabin? It was Celeste’s best-kept secret, and now Callie knew where it was.

  And so did Wendell Crow.

  Callie hadn’t given any thought to what Wendell would do next. Would he forget about it now that they’d found it? Boys could be that way, enjoying the chase more than the catch. But what if Wendell had a plan? He’d acted like he wasn’t all that interested, but maybe he was thinking about—shoot, Callie didn’t know—maybe he was thinking about chopping the cabin down and selling the pieces for firewood. Maybe he was going to light it on fire and dance all around it. Maybe he was going to turn it into a private place where only he and his friends could go.

  She decided she better put Wendell Crow on her list of mysteries that needed to be figured out.

  “Callie!” Now Carl Jr. was pounding on the door. Dang, people, couldn’t a girl have half a minute to put some clothes on? “Come on out, Callie!”

  “Hold your horses! I’m getting dressed!”

  “Well, hurry up,” Carl Jr. called through the door. “Mr. Renfrow’s on the front porch, and he says he’s got something to show you.”

  12

  Seeing Fred

  Fred had hardly ever come to town, not that Jim could remember. When he wasn’t in school, he’d been at Uncle Owen’s farm doing chores. Soon as Fred got his driver’s license, Uncle Owen had hired him as a hand, and Fred’s dinner-table talk was always full of birthing calves and curing tobacco and whether or not Uncle Owen ought to trade his team of horses in for a tractor.

  But now Jim felt almost positive that he saw Fred talking to a man outside of McKinley’s Drug. Only this Fred looked old. Not old-man old, but grown-up old. Jim tried to remember the last time he’d seen his brother. Could’ve been years, he supposed. Had it been long enough for Fred to finish growing up? Jim didn’t like the thought of that—that Fred had kept getting older while Jim had just stopped.

  Fred, he called, but his voice came out the way it always did these days, like a thin rope o
f wind curling around the branches of a tree. No sound to it at all. Jim wondered if there was something he could do to bring his voice back. He’d read an article once about a baseball umpire who did special exercises to make his voice carry farther. Something about breathing in deep down to your stomach, then exhaling like there was a tube running from your insides to your outsides. Problem was, Jim didn’t exactly breathe anymore. Or if he did, he couldn’t figure out how he was doing it.

  Maybe if he walked right up to Fred and stood next to him. If anybody would know him, it would be Fred, Jim figured. Who was closer to you than your own brother?

  “Elizabeth’s set on us going to Louisville for the weekend,” Fred was telling the man beside him. “Says we won’t have time to go anywhere when the tobacco comes in.”

  “She’s right about that, I reckon,” the man said, and then he clapped Fred on the shoulder. “Course, you take her to Louisville, you might spend your tobacco crop before you get it to market.”

  Fred laughed, and Jim was surprised by how much it was a grown man’s laugh, full and hearty. “You got that right, son. And she says she just needs one new dress, but I’ve heard that before, and every time she comes home with three.”

  Jim stood as close to Fred as he could without touching him. He wished he could still smell things instead of just remembering how they smelled. Fred had always smelled like cedar pencils and the dry autumn leaves, with a sweet little tang of cow manure right around the edges.

  “Well, I reckon I ought to pick up Elizabeth’s prescription, then head over to the feed store. I got a lot of working waiting for me when I get back.”

  The two men shook hands, and Fred turned to go into the drugstore. Jim stayed close behind him, so he could walk through the open door. Oh, he could walk through a closed door—he’d discovered that early on—but he didn’t like to. He didn’t feel like he should be able to.

  “Hey there, Mr. Trebble,” the girl behind the counter called out. “What can we do you for today?”

  Mr. Trebble? Jim about bust out laughing. Mr. Trebble was his daddy, and almost nobody called him that, because he always said, “Let’s forget about this Mr. Trebble business; you just call me Harold.”

  Jim waited for Fred to say the same thing, to say go ahead and call him Fred. But Fred just nodded at the girl and said, “Hey, Prissie, I need to pick up that refill of Elizabeth’s prescription.”

  “She having trouble with her eyes again?”

  “’Fraid so. Doctor’s still not sure what it is.”

  Jim wondered if Elizabeth was Fred’s wife. If she was, she sounded like a lot of trouble, spending all of his money on dresses and sending him to town to pick up medicine all the time. He wondered what had happened to Mary Lloyd, the girl Fred had taken to the Harvest Dance his junior year. She’d had jet-black hair and blue eyes, and whenever Jim had seen her, his words had gotten all jumbled up in his throat, which made Mary Lloyd laugh in a way he thought sounded nice, almost like singing.

  “Your mama doing okay?” the girl asked Fred when she returned from the back of the store with a small paper bag in her hand. “I haven’t seen her around much.”

  “She’s middling,” Fred told her, taking out his wallet. “It’s only been six months, and they were married almost thirty years.”

  The girl rang up Fred’s purchase. “She’s had more than her fair share of trials, that’s the truth. Your total is two dollars and forty-nine cents.”

  “At least with Daddy we knew it was coming.” Fred handed the girl a ten-dollar bill. “Jim—well, he was gone just like that. And then never finding him, just knowing he’d never come back—well—” Fred stopped, swallowed hard, took the bag from the girl.

  Jim felt his mind grow hazy, the way it did when he started to think about going down to the river. What was Fred saying about Daddy? He was making it sound like Daddy had—

  Jim’s mind clouded over.

  “Well, I thank you,” Fred told the girl, giving her a tip of an imaginary hat. “Tell your daddy I say hey.”

  Jim tried to follow him out of the store, but he couldn’t make his feet go. Move, he told himself. Fred’s getting away and you don’t know where he’s going or how to find him again. But Jim couldn’t move. He couldn’t even remember where he was or what he was doing there.

  After a minute Jim made his way over to a chair near the door and sat down. Funny, he could almost feel the chair’s hard bottom beneath him. Made him think of all those hours sitting at his desk at school, his whole body aching to get outside. Not that he’d hated school. In fact, he wished he were at school right now, copying over his spelling list, the smells from the cafeteria kitchen—sloppy joes and chicken cutlets with gravy—spilling down the hall into Mrs. Porter’s classroom and making his stomach growl in anticipation.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder, and he twisted around. Daddy?

  Ain’t your daddy, the boy said. He was small and colored and see-through. Jim knew him. Knew his voice, anyway. He closed his eyes.

  You got to come back now, the boy said. He reached down and took Jim’s hand. You fading.

  Without opening his eyes, Jim said, How’d you find me here?

  Followed you. Something told me I better. Now let’s go on back. You fading away in here.

  Jim nodded and slowly stood. He let the boy lead him toward the door. As they were going out, a woman was coming in, and Jim had a sick feeling as he crossed through her body.

  “Oh, my goodness, Prissie, I got a chill walking in here!” the woman exclaimed. “I believe somebody just walked over my grave!”

  Come on now, the boy said to Jim. I’ll get you back to where it’s safe.

  13

  The Drowned Boy

  The day after they found the cabin, Wendell woke up and wondered what to do. Go over to George’s and get started on plans for a clubhouse? Why didn’t that idea excite him more? That was the whole point of finding the cabin in the first place, wasn’t it? But now that plan didn’t suit him.

  Maybe it was George—the notion of George—that was getting in the way. Sure, George was Wendell’s best friend, but he had his drawbacks. Living in town the way he did, George could be lazy. He didn’t like to travel too far to get to things. Only the week before Wendell had tried to interest him in a trip to Burger World, a five-minute bike ride down Route 16, ten minutes at the most, but George had said, “They’ve got burgers at Ralph’s Grill on Green Street. Why not go there?”

  Well, there were plenty of reasons. First of all, Wendell had eaten so many of Ralph’s burgers over the years, he thought he might turn into one if he ate any more. Add to that the fact that the fries at Burger World were the best in Celeste, maybe the best ever made. They were fries that were worth a little extra effort. The fact was, food always tasted better if you had to go a mile or two more to get it. You felt like you’d earned it that way.

  Wendell rolled out of bed, feeling more irritated with George by the minute. He’d forgotten all about George not wanting to ride out to Burger World, and now he was reliving the whole scene from last week, the two of them sitting at the counter at Ralph’s, all the booths filled with teenagers fresh from the swimming pool, their hair still dripping, the smell of chlorine everywhere. It took ten minutes to get their burgers, and then Wendell could hardly eat his, it was so rare. Maybe if the high school kids hadn’t of been there, he would have sent it back, but there was no way he was making a fuss in front of them.

  Maybe George was the wrong person for this, Wendell thought as he pulled on a pair of jeans. Maybe he needed someone who had a better sense of adventure, someone who wouldn’t think twice if you asked him to carry tools and supplies out to the woods. Wendell had been pondering logistics the night before—what they might need to get the cabin into shape. Lumber, for sure, and tools, maybe a ladder. He had a hard time imagining George carrying a ladder farther than ten feet.

  He’d hoped he could talk his dad into doing the job with him, but the second
Dad walked in the house after work, Wendell knew better than to even bring it up. He had that look on his face, a bad-day look, a My boss is a pissant and I don’t want to talk about it look. He didn’t even eat dinner with them. Instead he took his plate to the porch. The only thing he said to Wendell all night was right before bedtime. Wendell was sitting at his desk, making a list of supplies he’d need to get the cabin in working order, when Dad appeared in the doorway, pointing a finger at him. “No matter what, you ain’t ever working in the mill. Don’t care how bad you need the money, you ain’t working there, not even in the summers when you’re in high school. You got that, son?”

  Wendell nodded mutely. He hadn’t planned on working at the Felts paper mill anyway. From what his dad said, it was too hot, and you did the same thing day in and day out, got to know the number 4 machine—or whatever machine it was you ran—so well that you saw it in your dreams. No, Wendell was planning on playing baseball or owning a car lot when he grew up.

  “Good,” his dad said, already turning away. “Because if I ever catch you working in the mill, I’ll—well, I better not catch you.” And then he was off down the hallway, and a few seconds later his bedroom door slammed shut, the sound of it loud as a rifle report.

  That’s when Wendell got the idea he’d get the cabin fixed up and then show it to his dad. He’d make it a surprise. He was thinking he might save up to get him a new fishing rod, sell the idea of the cabin as a fisherman’s hangout. He even went out to the garage and finished whittling two of his new lures and sanded them down, thinking how he’d paint them the same and give one to his dad.

  But that was another way George was a problem, Wendell thought now as he made his way downstairs. George didn’t care for fishing. He said fish stank and he didn’t want to lose an eyeball by getting a hook stuck in it.

  Sometimes Wendell wondered how he and George ever got to be friends in the first place.

  “If you want eggs, tell me now,” his mother called from the kitchen. “I’ve got just about enough time to scramble some for you, and then I’m off to Miss Bertie’s. She needs a ride to the doctor this morning, so I’m going to take her before work.”