Part of Me Read online

  We arrived in Montegut thirty minutes late. Only two people remained—Luther and Gordie. Luther wore a white shirt rolled up to his elbows and the sun was so bright shining down on him that I noticed the pale hairs on his tanned arms. I tried to erase my big ole grin. Luther was smiling back, though. He had a way of staring at me that made me feel naked. And I knew I shouldn’t be feeling this way. He was a married man with a child.

  “Hi, Gordie,” I said with a little wave. “Guess what we saw today?”

  Then Gordie did the most peculiar thing. He held his arms out to me and said, “Momma.”

  I reached for him, but Luther held him back, frowning. “That’s not your momma.” He blushed so it looked like a rash covering his face. “I’m sorry. His momma hasn’t been able to hold him in a long time.”

  Gordie began to cry and kick his legs. I stood there helpless, wanting to hold him, knowing I couldn’t. Marlene gave him a grape lollipop. I went to the children’s side and found him a book.

  Luther practically grabbed it from me and quickly picked out another Western. Then they left.

  Five minutes later, we drove off. “It’s the most pitiful thing,” Marlene said. We rode the rest of the way to Pointe-Aux-Chenes in silence. In some ways, I was grateful for what had just happened, because it knocked me back into reality. I didn’t like feeling that way about Luther, that longing for something you can’t have, as if I were jumping off a cliff, hoping to land on a cloud.

  When we approached our spot across from the general store, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Six women stood with Julia, and they all seemed to be waiting for us.

  We parked, and when we got out, Julia told me, “Dat was a good book. You got any others like dat?”

  “The cookbook?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “Dat story. I cried so much, my man wanted to know what happened.”

  “Yes,” said a woman with a low, freckled forehead. “I want a book just like dat.”

  Marlene smiled at me, then she turned toward the woman. “Well, you can check that one out, if you’d like.”

  “I want one, too,” said another woman. And I could tell right off that was why they were all there.

  I was worried because this morning I’d placed only three books from the children’s side on the adult side of the bookmobile. But Marlene must have added some, too, because she was showing the women several I hadn’t even seen.

  Julia and the women each chose a novel and a cookbook. And when they walked away, Marlene and I stayed there watching until we couldn’t see them anymore.

  Marlene smiled as she pulled down the side doors to cover the books and crawled in beside me. She didn’t say a word all the way back.

  As we rode toward the library my head was filled with the bayou people I’d met in the last month—Antoine, Luther, Gordie, Julia, and all the others. For a while, a pelican flew above us, his shadow becoming our temporary companion on the road. He seemed to be calling, Follow me, follow me.

  I could hardly wait until next week.

  Merle Henry

  Trapped

  (1957)

  BLUE HAD BEEN the last puppy chosen. The last, but the best, thought Merle Henry. He’d gotten Blue for his twelfth birthday. A year later, the half hound, half mutt grew to a nice size and became Merle Henry’s shadow, taking to the woods alongside him every morning before school to check the traps. Merle Henry wanted a mink something fierce, but all he’d trapped over the last year since he’d started were possums and raccoons.

  “There goes Yip and Yap,” his daddy was fond of saying when he saw Merle Henry and Blue take off for the woods.

  Most nights the family read because they didn’t own a television like many of their neighbors were starting to get. His daddy sat in his chair after work, reading westerns by Louis L’Amour or Zane Grey. When his mother wasn’t writing in one of her Indian Chief pads, she usually read books that didn’t look that interesting to Merle Henry. His seventeen-year-old brother, Gordie, read anything and everything. Merle Henry preferred Superman comic books, but if he read a book, it had to be exciting.

  Tuesday evening the bookmobile pulled into the Hilltop Baptist Church parking lot, and Merle Henry’s family drove over to select their books like they did every week. Merle Henry and Gordie sat in the back of the pickup. Blue rode with them, his head hanging over the side, his ears flapping in the wind. The cool October air felt good against Merle Henry’s skin. He loved this time of year when he could be outside and not worry about mosquitoes.

  When the truck stopped, the family got out. Blue wagged his tail.

  “Sorry, boy,” said Merle Henry. “Dogs aren’t allowed in the bookmobile.”

  Miss Erma, the bookmobile librarian, stood to greet them, her plump hands smoothing the back of her skirt. She was chubby, but had pretty skin that always looked moist. “Hi, Luther. How ya’ll doing, Rose?” she said.

  “Doing just fine,” Rose said. “How about you, Erma?”

  Luther barely nodded. Merle Henry had once overheard his mother teasing his dad about Miss Erma. “I think she’s still sweet on you,” she’d said.

  Merle Henry wondered if that’s why his daddy didn’t say much to Miss Erma. Luther was quiet around most folks, except when he’d been drinking at the Wig Wam. Then, he would let off steam like a teakettle that he’d kept simmering inside while he was sober. After he got into a fight one night, he’d promised Rose he’d stay away from the whiskey and the Wig Wam.

  Tonight Merle Henry planned to choose his books quickly so he could get back to Blue.

  “Here’s one you might like,” Miss Erma said, handing Merle Henry a book with a dog on the cover. Old Yeller. “Everyone’s talking about it.”

  Merle Henry decided he’d give it a try. His brother always chose three or four, but all Gordie did was read. He didn’t have a busy life like Merle Henry. Merle Henry was first and foremost a trapper. Books were merely nighttime entertainment when nothing was good on the radio.

  The next morning, Merle Henry rose in the dark and dressed. He smelled the coffee dripping in the pot on the stove and heard his parents’ low voices as they sat at the kitchen table. He dressed quickly and walked out of the bedroom he shared with Gordie.

  “Morning, Merle Henry,” Rose said, looking up from her writing pad.

  “Morning, Momma.” He tried not to stare at her round belly. She was expecting a baby in a few months and the sight of her expanding waistline embarrassed him for some reason, maybe because he’d overheard Luther talking with Gordie, a couple of years ago, about girls and how babies came about. Gordie hadn’t seemed the least bit interested. Merle Henry tried to capture every word, listening from outside their bedroom window.

  Rose stuck the pencil behind her ear. “Scrambled or fried?”

  “Don’t have time. I’ve gotta run my trap line.” Merle Henry grabbed a slice of bread and his flashlight, then headed out of the kitchen and through the front door. Blue was lying on the screened porch floor, but quickly got up, ready for a walk in the woods.

  Luther stood at the door, buttoning his starched work shirt. “Son, wait a second.”

  “Sir?”

  “When I was out squirrel hunting yesterday morning, I saw where you’d placed some of those traps on foot logs. Someone could get hurt if they were crossing over.”

  Merle Henry was hoping that a mink might do just that, but he knew his daddy meant a person. Windstorms had caused those logs to fall, forming natural bridges across the creek. Men and boys who hunted used them. So did his cousin Faye when she was taking a shortcut from her house to theirs. The thought of having to move those traps made him want to groan. Merle Henry had worked hard attaching them to the center of the logs and covering them with moss.

  “Better move them,” Luther said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Merle Henry took off with Blue at his heels. It was dark outside. The moon looked like a lost balloon drifting between the clouds. His heart beat fast. Thoughts o
f mink pelts stirred in his head and his daddy’s words soon left him. Maybe today would be the day he’d finally trap a mink and get twenty dollars for it from Mr. Guidry. Mr. Guidry paid only twenty-five cents for a possum pelt and fifty cents for a raccoon’s. His parents let him keep all the money he made for trapping even though he was sure they could use it to help make ends meet.

  Merle Henry’s uncle Possum had been a great fur trapper. He gave him the traps to get started, allowing Merle Henry to pay for them as he made money from the pelts he sold. The payments stopped last fall when his mother met him after school to tell him that Uncle Possum had died from a heart attack. He’d been Merle Henry’s favorite uncle and she’d known that. Rose picked him up from school that day and took him for an ice cream cone at the Whip Dip in Lecompte, the next town over. She said some days were meant for ice cream and that there was nothing Uncle Possum would have loved more than to know that his favorite nephew was eating a vanilla swirl cone in honor of him. It had taken Merle Henry a long time to wrap his mind around the fact that his uncle was dead. Possum had been only twenty-seven years old.

  For the next two hours, Merle Henry and Blue checked each trap along the banks of Hurricane Creek. There was a wild smell in the woods that Merle Henry was addicted to—pine, dirt, moss. He loved to breathe it in, as if doing so made him a part of the woods, too.

  This morning was a two-possum day. Merle Henry found the first one in a trap inside the base of a hollow tree and another one on a foot log near a bend in the creek. Even though they weren’t minks, Merle Henry’s chest felt like it would burst open. He got such a rush from it. So did Blue. His tail wagged and he barked like crazy.

  Merle Henry rewarded Blue with a piece of beef jerky he kept in his pocket. Blue gobbled it up in no time.

  As they headed home, the sun barely peeked between the thick pine trunks. Merle Henry hoped he’d have time to skin the possums before going to school. He passed Kappel’s Nursery where the workers were already outside, watering the camellias and azaleas. As he approached the house, he noticed the truck was gone, meaning Luther had already left for his mechanic’s job in Oakdale. Rose cleared the sink while Gordie ate toast and read at the table.

  “How’d you do?” Rose asked.

  “Two possums.” Merle Henry glanced at his brother to see if he was impressed, but Gordie kept his head down and turned a page in his book.

  “You want to see them, Gordie?”

  His brother didn’t even glance up. “I’ll see them later.”

  Sometimes, Merle Henry thought, it was easy to tell that Gordie and he weren’t full brothers. Before his parents moved to Forest Hill, his mother had married his dad in Houma when Gordie was four years old. Gordie’s mother had died the year before. Maybe that was why they were so different. Gordie didn’t like hunting or fishing. Come to think of it, Merle Henry had never seen him kill a fly.

  “I’ll take a look at your possums,” Rose said, dropping the dishcloth and following Merle Henry into the front yard.

  Outside, the possums hung over the fence. Blue sat underneath them like he was guarding treasure.

  Rose smiled and then said, “You aren’t going to try and skin them before school, are you?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I have to if I’m going to keep the meat from spoiling. I want to sell them later in the colored quarters over at the sawmill town. Anyway, I have thirty minutes before the bus gets here.”

  Blue stood between them, panting. Merle Henry slipped his hand in his pocket and gave Blue another piece of beef jerky. He was the best trapping dog, staying with Merle Henry until the entire job was finished.

  “Make sure you clean up afterwards,” Rose said. “That means you and the mess. Last time, that dog of yours got into it.”

  Anytime Blue did something that made his mother mad she called him “that dog of yours.” But he knew she liked Blue. He saw her feed him scraps from her dinner plate, and he’d seen her pet Blue’s head like it was a kitten.

  Merle Henry picked up his knife and Rose went inside the house.

  * * *

  Maybe it was the possums that made Merle Henry feel brave enough to imitate Coach Burns in P.E. He knew he shouldn’t, but Merle Henry thought Coach was mean the way he called the folks who lived in the backwoods “woodsies.” He said it like they were ignorant without a lick of sense. The only difference between them and the folks who lived in town was that their houses were closer to the general store and the gas station.

  So when Coach Burns hadn’t made it to class, Merle Henry started prancing around, his head held high like a peacock’s. “Now listen here, you little woodsies, I don’t care if your daddy thinks he can beat me up. I’m sure he thinks he can if he’s drunk enough. But I’m from N’awlins and we are dignified there. We wait until Friday night to get good and drunk.”

  At first, the boys laughed hard and Merle Henry loved being in the spotlight. He kept circling the gym. Then the laughing stopped cold. A second later, Coach Burns lunged toward Merle Henry and seized hold of his earlobe and led him halfway around the basketball court.

  The other boys averted their eyes. Merle Henry’s face burned. As if the humiliation wasn’t enough, Coach Burns ordered him to arrive at the gym at 5:30 the next morning.

  “I’ll keep you busy until school starts,” Coach Burns said. “That is, if you live to see sunrise.”

  Merle Henry’s ear throbbed and he decided missing out on running his trap line the next morning would be the least of his problems. He’d never been in any real trouble in school and the thought of having to tell his daddy hurt more than his ear.

  That night Merle Henry went to bed early without telling his parents what had happened. He wondered if Gordie knew. If he did, he hadn’t said anything about it to him. Chances were he did know. Their school was small and news traveled quickly from class to class.

  In bed, Merle Henry read the rest of Old Yeller. He was thankful that the story let him escape from what had happened that day for a little while. He thought the ending was sad. A knot formed in Merle Henry’s throat and he wondered if he would have read the book if he’d known the dog was going to die. He decided he would have, though he couldn’t quite figure out why. Maybe it was because most of the book hadn’t been sad. Or maybe it was because Old Yeller reminded Merle Henry of Blue.

  When Gordie came into their bedroom, Merle Henry flipped over and quickly wiped his eyes with the sheet. He could hear Gordie undo his belt and slip out of his pants. Without looking, Merle Henry knew his brother would fold them up and place them on the chair at the foot of the bed. His own clothes were in a pile on the floor.

  Gordie turned off the lamp on the nightstand and for a while the sounds of crickets filled the quiet between them. A moment later, Gordie asked, “How’s that ear?”

  * * *

  An hour before dawn, Merle Henry decided he wouldn’t have to tell his parents why he was leaving the house. Like most mornings, they’d assume he was running his trap line. “If nothing is in the traps, I’m going straight to school,” he told them. “Coach Burns said he could use some help in the gym this morning.”

  It was almost the truth. He’d be going to the gym and he was certain Coach Burns would put him to work. Only the part about checking the traps had been a lie.

  He hadn’t counted on Blue following him. And when they got to where they entered the woods, Blue stopped and Merle Henry walked on. He turned and discovered Blue still sitting there, waiting.

  “Go home, Blue. Go on home.”

  Blue tilted his head, looking confused. Merle Henry decided not to look back again. Blue would return home when he figured it out. Merle Henry took a few more steps. Then Blue barked. He knew Blue was trying to tell him to come on, let’s go check the traps. And Merle Henry wanted to. Lord how he wanted to.

  Thirty minutes later he was Coach Burns’s prisoner, mopping the gym, touching up the paint in the girls’ locker room. By the time the first bell rang, the gym floor sparkled and t
he girls’ locker room walls were spotless. Every inch of Merle Henry’s body ached.

  “I’m not too funny now, am I, boy?” Coach Burns’s furry eyebrows moved up and down like caterpillars doing push-ups.

  “No, sir.”

  “Remember that the next time your backwoods ass wants to make fun of Marcus Burns, you hear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re darn right.”

  * * *

  Merle Henry couldn’t wait for the day to end. On the bus, he slept with his cheek pressed against the window. He awoke when Gordie lightly shook his shoulder. “We’re home.”

  Blue didn’t meet the bus like usual, and it wasn’t until Merle Henry reached the house that he remembered the last time he saw him that morning. His mother was stirring something on the stove that smelled like onions and roux. “Gumbo tomorrow night,” she said. “It always tastes better the second day.”

  “Have you seen Blue?”

  She wiped her hands on her apron. “Haven’t seen hide nor hair of him all day. I was afraid he’d followed you to school.”

  Merle Henry dropped his books on the couch and grabbed his hatchet before taking off for the woods. He needed to check his traps anyway. Maybe Blue was still out there, waiting for him. He ran to the spot on the road where Blue had been that morning, then quickly tore into the woods. He passed the first trap. It was empty. He felt dizzy and his breathing became shallow. Then he passed the second one even though there was a possum between the trap’s jaws. Today it could have been a mink and he would have still left it behind, because now he was in the woods for one reason only.

  As he approached the trap by the foot log he heard a whining sound. Merle Henry froze when he saw the familiar blue-gray hair. A sour taste filled his mouth, and he heard his father’s warning playing over in his head. Better move those traps off the foot logs. Better move those traps. Better move those traps.

  Blue’s left hind leg was trapped and his upper body was caught between two narrow limbs branching off the thick log. He was grateful for those limbs. They kept Blue from drowning.