When Zachary Beaver Came to Town Read online

  “Not yet.” I wish everyone would stop asking me about Mom. She only left a few days ago, and the contest isn’t until next Thursday. After Thursday they’ll ask, “How did she do?” At least that fat guy replaced Mom as the juiciest news in town.

  At home, Mozart plays from the stereo while Dad stands at the sink, slicing bell peppers. He’s wearing his post office uniform with his black Bic pens neatly lined up in his shirt pocket. His head is bent, and I notice his bald spot has grown to the size of an orange. Radishes, onions, and lettuce from his backyard garden lie on the counter. Dad’s fingers are long and straight. As postmaster he sorts mail at the post office as quick as a card shark deals out a deck. But right now, cutting those peppers, his fingers look clumsy and awkward. “Hungry?” he asks.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “I thought I’d make a salad.” Dad may grow the vegetables, but he’s never made a salad in his life. He looks lost in the kitchen, digging around for a salad bowl. He opens a cabinet, scratches his chin, then selects another door. I don’t know where to find a bowl either. I search in the pantry. The shelves are filled with food. Boxes of cereal, pasta, and crackers, cans of soup, stewed tomatoes, and green peas. I open the refrigerator. Milk, eggs, and American cheese slices are jammed next to packages of ham and bologna. Dad always griped at the way Mom never kept enough groceries in the house. Now she’s prepared us for a national disaster.

  All that food reminds me of the night she packed for her trip. I sat on the edge of her bed, watching her. Every pair of cowboy boots she owned lined the wall, including the turquoise ones with red stars. She flung all her western shirts and skirts on the bed and dropped lipstick tubes from under her sink into a small suitcase. I swear she packed like she was going for the whole summer instead of a week. About the only thing she didn’t pack was the pearl necklace that once belonged to her mom. She told me that someday she’d give it to the woman I married so it would stay in the family. Mom sang “Hey, Good Lookin’” as she packed, and the entire time I couldn’t help wondering if moms were supposed to be that happy to get away. Mrs. McKnight doesn’t go on trips without her family.

  Dad has already set the table with Mom’s vinyl Las Vegas show scene place mats. Elvis in a white glittered suit looks up at me, microphone in hand. The table seems enormous without Mom sitting at her place. And it’s quiet. Mom did all the talking at dinner. While Dad and I ate, she’d tell us something funny the Judge, Miss Myrtie Mae’s senile brother, said that day at the cafe. Or how Sheriff Levi finally ordered something different from the menu, only to quickly change it back to his usual—hamburger with jalapeños and French fries.

  I always knew Mom dreamed of being a famous singer, but I guess I thought it was only a dream. The kind of thing you wish for upon a star, but deep down you know it probably won’t ever come true. After all, stars are a long ways away.

  Dad’s salad really isn’t bad if you take out the onions. They smell strong, but I eat around them. He looks like he’s waiting for me to mention the salad, so I tell him, “Pretty good, Dad.”

  “Really?” He sounds relieved, and I’m glad I said something.

  “Yeah.”

  “I didn’t use too many onions?”

  I look down at the sliced onions around the edge of my plate. “Well, I’ve never been crazy about onions anyway.”

  “I’ll try and remember next time.”

  I want to say, Don’t sweat it, Dad. Mom will be back soon enough. No need turning into a gourmet chef.

  Dad might as well be from Pluto as from Dallas. People in Antler see it as the same thing. The funny thing is, now it seems like Dad belongs here more than Mom. I don’t think she ever counted on him settling in Antler when he passed through years ago, looking for a place to raise worms.

  Dad is the Otto Wilson part of Otto Wilson’s Tennessee Brown Nose Fishing Worms. He keeps most of the bait shops stocked from here to Lake Kiezer and Lake Seymour. He also raises enough for the local men heading out to their favorite fishing holes. I help take care of the worms—separating them by size, changing their soil and keeping it moist.

  After dinner Dad and I do the dishes while we listen to the television news. We stand side by side; I barely reach his shoulder. People say I take after Mom—blond, brown eyed, and small.

  When the war correspondent comes on, the volume gets louder. The reporter hollers into his microphone, trying to be heard over the sounds of helicopters and M-16s in the background.

  Dad turns around and glances at the television screen. “Turn that crap off, will you?”

  As I walk toward the TV, I wonder if Wayne is there or someplace like it.

  Later I ride my bike past the town limits to Gossimer Lake. Dusk has arrived, and even though the sun is sinking below the horizon, I can see the moon. I pass the Dairy Maid, where the crowd has left. Now that it’s dark, the Christmas lights glow like fallen stars strung around the trailer. Paulie Rankin sits outside his Thunderbird in a lawn chair, smoking his pipe and gazing up at the sky. I guess he’ll head out in the morning to the next town full of suckers with two dollars to burn.

  What a sorry life Zachary Beaver must have, sitting every day in a cramped trailer while people come by to gawk at him. But at least he goes places. At least he doesn’t watch the girl of his dreams hold hands with some other guy or have a mom who’s off becoming Tammy Wynette. Except for having Cal, life in Antler is about as exciting as watching worms mate. And Cal can be such a dork. He may be the reason I’m batting a big fat zero with Scarlett. Maybe he’s ruining my image.

  Gossimer Lake is more like a large pond. It started out as a puny mud puddle. One spring we had an unusual amount of rain, and a mud puddle on Henrick Gossimer’s land grew to the size of a kiddie pool. Mr. Gossimer said he thought it was the Lord’s way of saying he should do something for Antler’s young folks. He dug the ground around the puddle as much as he could, then he called on Mr. Owens to bulldoze the rest.

  Pretty soon it became a town project. The First Baptist men’s group built a small dam to keep in the water, and the Shriners club raised a windmill to keep the lake filled. That’s how dried-up Antler got its manmade lake. It’s about as good as a mud puddle, though. Signs posted everywhere read, No Swimming. No Fishing. They might as well post one that reads, No Fun Allowed.

  I dodge the trees that fringe the lake, jump off my bike, and flop on the grass near the edge of the water. A light breeze blows from the southwest, bringing the stink of the Martins’ cattle feedlot. I take off my sneakers and socks and roll up my jeans. Once Cal and I waded into the water, but when Cal said, “I wonder if there’s any snakes in here?” I jumped out and he quickly followed. Tonight I don’t care if a snake pit is at the bottom of this giant puddle. Let them bite.

  Just as I step into the water, I hear grass rustle and I decide maybe I’m not sold on seeing a snake after all. Across the lake, two figures sit close to each other. One of them moves, and I see a glimmer of blond hair. My stomach feels sick as my eyes zero in on Scarlett and Juan.

  Chapter Four

  The next morning I jolt from a deep sleep. Dirt clods thump against my bedroom window, and Cal is calling my name. When I pull up my shade, light spills into the room. I have to squint real hard to see Cal looking up at me from the ground.

  “Come on!” he hollers. “You going to sleep all day?”

  It’s only eight in the morning. With Cal McKnight as my best friend, I don’t need an alarm clock. His family has a morning routine. Everyone up by 6 A.M., no matter if it’s summer—beds made, breakfast eaten, dishes washed and put away, teeth brushed by six-thirty, then on to the chore list attached to the refrigerator with a smiley face magnet. The list has three columns, with each McKnight kid’s name (except Wayne’s) at the top—Kate, Billy, and Cal. Whenever I spend the night with Cal, I get thrown into their routine. But I don’t mind. They seem like a happy army on a mission, zipping through their list.

  In the summer they’re out the door by e
ight, with hoes in their hands, headed to work in their cotton field. Most of the cotton farmers use herbicide to control weeds and insecticide to get rid of the bugs. Except for releasing the ladybugs in his fields once a year, Mr. McKnight doesn’t use anything. He believes a penny saved is a penny earned.

  Once Mom looked out the kitchen window and shook her head when she saw Cal, Kate, and Cal’s brothers piling into the back of the pickup with their tools. “Charlie McKnight works his kids like slaves. He has hired help to do that.” Mom believes a penny earned is a penny spent at Clifton’s Dry Goods.

  But today is Saturday, and even Cal’s dad gives his kids the weekend off. I yawn, stretch, and tell Cal to wait. Then I straighten the green plastic soldiers lined up on my dresser and cross yesterday off the calendar. Two hundred thirty-one more days until Wayne comes home. After stumbling into a T-shirt and jeans, I grab two English muffins and go outside. I need to wet down the worms’ dirt, but Dad won’t mind if I do it later as long as it’s done today.

  Cal waits on his bike, hands gripping the handlebars so tight, his knuckles turn white. “Hey, snoozer, what took you so long?”

  I ignore him, toss him a muffin, and head to the garage to get my own bike. Next door, Kate tries to parallel park the McKnight station wagon between two garbage cans set on the street. She looks like an old lady—frizzy red hair twisted in a knot on top of her head, glasses low on her nose, shoulders hiked up to her ears, and her body curled over the steering wheel.

  Every high school junior in Antler already has their driver’s license except for Kate. Mrs. McKnight drove her to Amarillo three times this summer to take the test, and each time Kate failed the driving part because she can’t parallel park. Now she frantically looks from the rearview mirror to the side mirror, inching the car backward.

  Watching from my driveway, Cal and I straddle our bikes and eat our dry muffins. I stop chewing. I even cross my fingers, wanting for her to succeed this time. But as usual, she backs into the rear garbage can, knocking it over, causing the metal to clank against the road.

  “Oh!” Cal smacks his hands against his chest and falls off his bike in slow motion. “She got me, buddy.” Flat on his back, the rear tire covering his legs, he raises his head and looks her way. I laugh.

  Kate jumps out of the station wagon, pushes up her glasses, and returns the can to its upright position. Her baggy jeans and tie-dyed T-shirt swallow her skinny body. Before getting back behind the wheel, she faces Cal, tight fists at her sides, and glares.

  “Come on,” Cal says. “Let’s get out of here before she blows.”

  We race down the sidewalks on Ivy Street, Cal on the right side of the road, me on the left. We jump curbs like track stars leaping hurdles. We take sharp turns at the corner of Ivy and Langston, leaning into the wind, knowing we won’t fall because we’ve done it a million times before. We can stop our bikes on a dime, and we do when we reach the school. In a few months the grounds will be crawling with kids, but right now Malcolm is mowing it with his dad’s riding mower. From the looks of it, he’s been at it awhile, and the smell of freshly cut grass floats in the air. He waves and we wave back, but Cal yells, “Hey, Malcolm. You big goofball! Crybaby!”

  We’re safe because Malcolm can’t hear Cal through the motor’s growl. He waves again, sucks in his big gut, and accelerates like he’s on a Harley-Davidson. He’s wearing his Antler Wrestling T-shirt, but the only wrestling action Malcolm has seen is from the bench.

  Last summer the three of us were out by Sheriff Levi’s place with the electric fence surrounding it. Cal and I challenged Malcolm to a pissing contest. We stood facing the fence, only Cal and I undershot. As we predicted, show-off Malcolm aimed for the fence, and as soon as he successfully hit his target, he was knocked flat on his back. It didn’t really hurt him, but the shock shook him up bad. He had hollered, “A snake! I got bit by a snake!” Cal and I split a gut laughing, but Malcolm ran home crying to his mother. We were grounded for weeks.

  “How much do you think that guy eats?” Cal asks.

  “Malcolm?” I ask.

  “No,” Cal says, shaking his head. “Zachary Beaver.”

  “He told you. As much as he can.”

  “Man, that guy was huge,” Cal continues. “I wonder if he’s in the Guinness Book of World Records.”

  “Who cares?”

  “Do you think he really weighs 643 pounds?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. I guess.”

  “I mean, how do they weigh him? Most scales don’t go that high.”

  “Maybe they weigh him at a meat market.”

  Cal scratches his chin. “I wonder how he goes to the bathroom?”

  “How do you go to the bathroom?”

  “You know what I mean. I mean, does he have to have a special toilet?”

  I roll my eyes.

  “And what do you think he keeps in that gold cardboard box?”

  I don’t want to talk about the fat kid. It makes my stomach ache because it reminds me of what happened with Tara, and that reminds me of seeing Scarlett and Juan at the lake last night.

  “Where to now?” I ask.

  “How about Wylie’s?”

  “It’s too early for a snow cone,” I say. “Besides, he doesn’t open until one.”

  “Swimming?”

  I throw him a steely gaze. He knows better. I haven’t been swimming at the town pool since last summer, when I swallowed a bunch of pool water and started choking. The lifeguard got excited and yanked me out of the pool and did mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

  “Oh, yeah,” Cal remembers. “Bowling?”

  “I guess.” Nothing sounds particularly fun this morning. The wind has started to kick up, and Cal’s red curls blow around his face.

  “Did your mom win?”

  “For the hundredth time, the contest isn’t until next Thursday night.”

  “You got cash?” Cal asks, not a bit embarrassed.

  “Some. Not enough for both of us.”

  “Then I better stop home first. Sure hope Kate has cooled off.”

  “You’re going to hit her up for money?”

  “Have to. Billy is as broke as me. He sinks every penny he makes at the drive-in into Wayne’s old junker. Kate saves money like Scrooge.”

  “Man, you’re brave.”

  Cal never has money with him. He usually bums some off me, then forgets to pay me back. One day when I was mad at him, I added up every single cent I loaned him since fifth grade. Forty-six bucks. We made up the next day, so I never told him.

  When we return, the McKnights’ station wagon is parked in the driveway and the garbage cans are gone. Inside their house, the Sound of Music album plays in the background. Next to Carole King, Kate likes show tunes best.

  Kate hunches over her sewing machine at the dining-room table. Billy sleeps on the couch, oblivious to the music and the growl of the machine.

  Cal walks over to Kate and grabs a piece of blue shiny fabric pinned to a pattern section on the table.

  “Put that down!” she snaps.

  Holding the piece to his chest, he skips around the room like a sissy, singing with the music, “I am sixteen going on seventeen.” It would have been funny except Kate didn’t deserve it. I want to tell her—I’m not like him. I think he’s acting like a jerk too.

  Kate jumps to her feet, but her shoulders remain hunched. Her face tense, she pushes at the POW bracelets she wears on each arm. Most girls have only one. Not Kate. She says, if some guys are being held prisoner in Vietnam, the least she can do is wear their names on her wrists. “Put it down, Cal Michael McKnight, right this instant! Or else!”

  Billy doesn’t stir. He even starts to snore. I stand there, helpless. I dread these moments when Cal torments Kate for no reason. She really isn’t all that bad.

  Kate chases Cal and yanks the fabric out of his hand. The pattern rips and the fabric drops to the floor. Kate’s eyes bulge. “Now look what you’ve done.”

  “Whoop
s,” Cal says. “I guess this means you won’t loan me three bucks.”

  She grabs the fabric off the ground. “Get out of this house, Cal McKnight, or I’ll throw you out on your skinny butt!”

  Billy’s eyes pop wide, and without bothering to find out why Kate’s freaking out, he yells, “Get out, Cal. You punk!”

  Cal pulls my shirt as he bolts from the room and heads for the front door. We hop on our bikes and pedal like crazy, the wind smacking our faces. We ride along in silence with only the sound of our tires meeting the pavement. From a distance, I hear the train pulling into the depot. “When are the ladybugs getting here?”

  “Dad said probably next week sometime.”

  Last year the ladybugs arrived closer to the Fourth of July. Now I wonder if it will be too late for the ladybugs to get rid of the bollworms. I guess I’m excited because this will be the first year that Cal and I get to empty the sacks of ladybugs in the field. “Where to now?” I ask.

  “Let’s go to the Bowl-a-Rama.” That’s what’s boring about living in Antler. There’s only a handful of things to do, and when we don’t have money for those things, we usually go anyway and watch other people do them.

  The Bowl-a-Rama sits across the street from the Dairy Maid. As we approach, I’m surprised to see the trailer still parked in the lot. But this time something is missing—Paulie Rankin’s blue Thunderbird.

  Cal and I stop pedaling at the same time and stare at the trailer. “Maybe they went to another town to eat,” I say.

  “Do you think he’s still there?” Cal asks. “I mean, the fat kid?”

  “Nah,” I say, but I wonder too. “Come on. It’s too hot to stay out here.” We park our bikes on the sidewalk and head inside.

  The Bowl-a-Rama smells of sweaty feet and cigarettes, but it’s the coldest place in town. Today the air conditioner is cranked so high, goose bumps pop out on my arms. Two of the six lanes broke last summer, but Ferris hasn’t bothered to have them fixed.

  Ferris leans against the counter, where the bowling shoes are kept, rubbing his long Elvis sideburns. With his shirtsleeves rolled up, his two tattoos are visible. One is an anchor, the other a hula girl. He said he got them the night he met Jim Beam. Cal thought he was talking about a real person until I explained that Jim Beam was whiskey and Ferris was drunk as a skunk when he got the tattoos. That was before Ferris met Jesus and got religion.