When Zachary Beaver Came to Town Read online

  While Dad rushes over to her, Cal shrugs and shakes his head. “Now I know what we can do with all those smashed-up garbage cans.”

  “What?” I ask.

  “Make helmets for everybody in town. We’re going to need them when Kate gets on the road.”

  Chapter Six

  We can see all of Antler from the flat roof of the Bowl-a-Rama. We see the cotton fields and the cattle ranches stretched out beyond the town limits. We see hundreds of cars and trucks whizzing down the highway on their way to anywhere but here. And sky. We see lots and lots of sky. But today Cal and I have our eyes glued on one item—the grocery sack we just left on Zachary Beaver’s trailer step. We lie bellies down on the roof and wait.

  It’s been three days since Paulie Rankin left, and we figure a big guy like Zachary must be running out of food. I brought tomatoes, butter beans, and onions from Dad’s garden. Cal brought Twinkies, potato chips, and hot dogs.

  Today I was the one who went to Zachary’s door. I set down the sack, knocked, then ran across the street and climbed the Bowl-a-Rama ladder to the roof.

  We watch the trailer door, but now we also watch anybody who passes or drives by. It amounts to Earline driving her Volkswagen to the courthouse, Malcolm and Mason going inside the Dairy Maid, and Miss Myrtie Mae heading over to the library, wearing her wide-brim straw hat.

  “To protect her virgin skin,” I say in my high-pitch imitation of Miss Myrtie Mae.

  Cal hoots. “That ain’t the only thing virgin about her.” Cal’s hand covers his heart. “Miss Myrtie Mae has a tragic past.”

  “How’s that?” I ask.

  “The fellas at the gin said when Miss Myrtie Mae was younger she was engaged to a lawyer from Wichita Falls. All her sisters had married and moved away. She and the Judge were left. Two nights before the wedding the Judge pretended to be on his deathbed. She postponed the wedding, but the lawyer broke up with her because he said she was already married.”

  “What did he mean by that?”

  “He meant the Judge. The fellas at the gin say she was so dedicated to him, she would never have room for a real husband. After the lawyer broke up with her, the Judge made a remarkable recovery. Miss Myrtie Mae’s only chance at love, and it was gone.” Cal pretends to play a violin.

  I don’t like thinking of love and Miss Myrtie Mae in the same sentence. Especially since I seem to be as unlucky at it as she is. “Heard from Wayne?” I ask.

  Cal sits up. “Almost forgot. I got another letter.” He digs into his shorts pocket and reads it aloud.

  Dear Cal,

  Hope this letter finds you having a great week and that you are having the best summer ever. Have you had the Ladybug Waltz yet?

  Our food supply has been low this week, so we haven’t had as much to eat lately. Those chocolate bars Mom sent have sure come in handy. It’s not that bad, though. Starting tomorrow, we’ll have liberty for two days in Saigon, and I’m going to order the biggest meal I can find. After that, we’ll be heading out, and I should see a lot more action. Remember when you, Billy, and me played war in the backyard? I guess I’ll get to see it for real now. Don’t worry about me. I’ve had a lot of practice throwing water balloons.

  How is Mom? I’ll bet her roses are really pretty this time of year. And I guess Dad is working as hard as always. Now, there’s something I don’t miss—hoeing that Johnson grass during the blistering heat.

  Cal, I’d love to hear from you sometime. I guess you’re like I was at your age, trying to crowd a lot of fun into every minute of summer before you have to go back to school. You and Toby have a blast on me, okay?

  Your brother,

  Wayne

  “Did you write him back?” I ask.

  Cal scratches the back of his neck. “Not yet.”

  I glance away. “You ought to write him.”

  “Hey, man, give me a break. I got the letter today. Besides, Kate writes him every day. I don’t know what she has to write about. She’s the most boring ugly person alive.”

  Time drags on. Our sweat attracts the flies from the Dumpster below, and our shirts stick to our backs. Out of nowhere Cal says, “Maybe Zachary is dead.”

  “Jeez, Cal!”

  “Well, he hasn’t answered the door.”

  “Maybe we should knock again.”

  But before we take off, the curtain in the trailer parts an inch.

  We don’t stir. We don’t speak. We don’t even breathe. A moment later the door opens a crack, and though we can’t see anything, we know Zachary Beaver is peeking through. The door swings open, and now we see all of Zachary as he bends down and lifts the grocery sack. He is huge. Bare chested, his gut tumbles out over his pants. His arms are rolls of dough, and his puffy bare feet peek out of his baggy pants legs. He struggles to stand, gripping the doorway to balance. And when he does stand, we see he has breasts like a woman. Even with the noise of the Bowl-a-Rama’s air-conditioning unit, we hear him take a big breath before slamming the door.

  “Whoa!” Cal says. “That’s a whole lot of person. He could wear a bigger bra than flat-chested Kate.”

  I wonder what it would be like to be that fat. Once when I was nine or ten, Mom heard that a cold front might blow through the Panhandle. It was fifty degrees outside, but she made me wear a bulky sweater and my heavy winter coat. The cold front never arrived, and I felt like an enormous snowman, sweating under all those layers. I wonder if that’s how Zachary feels every minute.

  Mission is accomplished with the food delivered, and so we decide to go home.

  “Go on without me,” I tell Cal. “Dad asked me to stop at the Wag-a-Bag for milk and bread.”

  He starts for the ladder, jumps from the second step, and hops on his bike. At the bottom of the ladder, I notice he’s dropped Wayne’s letter. Since Cal is way down the road past the square, I tuck the letter into my pocket. I’ll give it back to him later. But right now, for this short time, the letter is mine.

  Chapter Seven

  Four days have passed since Paulie Rankin left town. Today Cal and I place another sack of groceries on Zachary Beaver’s steps. We’ve been here an hour, and he still hasn’t opened the door. We wait and wait. I wonder if we wait to make sure he picks up the groceries or to get another glimpse of him.

  At least today we came prepared, armed with a Sugar Daddy apiece, jawbreakers, and M&M’s. Our teeth sticky from the caramel, we talk about Paulie Rankin. We even make up his history—where he was born and how he ended up as a sideshow owner. First we have Paulie figured out as a bank robber who uses Zachary Beaver to distract the law. Then we have him dodging a loan shark. Finally we decide he kidnapped Zachary and is hiding out from an orthodontist because of an unpaid bill.

  While we wait, Malcolm’s little brother, Mason, and four other chubby third graders show up with sticks in their hands. Unlike Malcolm, Mason is tough and the leader of his bully pack. Each kid takes a side of the trailer and starts hitting it with sticks. Over their pounding, Mason yells, “Hey, fat boy! Show your face!”

  Something boils inside me. I remember when kids like them beat up on me just because they could. I wouldn’t snitch, and since Dad was against it, I wouldn’t fight back either. But today is different. Today we’re soldiers, fighting for Zachary.

  Thinking fast, Cal and I climb down the ladder and scoop up rocks from Ferris’s rock pile out back. They’re not big rocks, but from the roof they could sting the little brats’ arms, backs, and behinds. Using our shirts as baskets, we carry the rocks to the roof.

  Cal and I stand next to each other, our legs apart like camera tripods, our arms set in pitching positions. “Ready.”

  “Aim.” I focus on Mason’s butt.

  “Fire.” My rock sails through the air and hits a perfect target.

  Mason’s hands fly to his porky bottom. “Ow!” He looks up at the roof, shading his eyes with one hand.

  When Cal hits Simon Davis’s leg, Simon takes off crying, his hand pressed against his thigh.
Cal trots in place. “And this little piggy went wee, wee, wee, all the way home!”

  I throw again, this time aiming at James Rutherford’s arm. I miss. Then I hear it. Glass breaking. The window shatters, and the boys scatter in different directions.

  “Run!” yells Cal, and we do, leaving our bikes next to the ladder.

  It’s Thursday, and I wake up to the radio DJ yelling, “One more day until TGIF!”

  Two things weigh heavy on my mind—Zachary’s broken window and Mom’s big night tonight. Nashville time is one hour ahead of us, but she’s probably sleeping in. I picture her lying in a dark hotel room, eye mask covering her eyes, Dad’s worn-out socks on her hands to lock in her Avon hand cream, and empty orange juice cans she uses for rollers crowded on her head. It’s the best way, she says, to get big hair. I say it’s the best way to get a big headache.

  Since summer nights are usually cool in Antler, we sleep with the windows open and leave them that way until noon. But this morning the air conditioner is already running at full speed, so I get up and shut the window. Just as I’m about to flick the lock, I see the sheriff’s car pull up in front. Sheriff Levi gets out and walks toward our house. Duke hangs his head out the window, his tongue draping from his mouth.

  My stomach plunges. Zachary Beaver must have squealed. Maybe he saw us running away. Or it might have been nosy Earline, looking out her real estate office window. She has a full view of the trailer from her desk. I thought real estate agents answered the phone and showed homes to people, but Earline seems to do anything but that. Once I walked by her office window and found Earline with her feet propped up on the desk, painting her toenails. Cotton balls stuck between each toe.

  From the living room Dad calls, “Toby!”

  I feel sick. I yank on a pair of shorts and run downstairs. Sheriff Levi’s arms are folded across his chest, and except for his usual eye twitch, his face looks blank. He pulls off his hat and rakes his fingers through his wavy hair.

  I check out Dad’s face, but it doesn’t tell me anything except he hasn’t shaved yet. “Toby, Sheriff Levi has something to ask you.”

  He’s heard. Maybe I should confess. But Cal would get in trouble, and I’m not a snitch like Malcolm.

  Sheriff Levi clears his throat, and his right eye twitches like crazy. “Toby, I have a favor to ask of you.”

  My stomach feels like a glob of lava in a lava lamp, slowly floating up toward my throat.

  “Toby, reckon you and Cal could accompany me to that sideshow trailer?”

  I don’t know what to say. My knees shake, and the sheriff’s eye twitches.

  “Toby,” Dad says, “the sheriff is asking you something.”

  “Sir?”

  “I need to find out what those fellas’ plans are, and since he’s just a kid, I don’t want to scare him or anything. Seeing a sheriff at your door can be intimidating. You know what I mean?”

  He continues explaining. “Since you boys are about his age, maybe he’d relax a bit, open up and tell me the whereabouts of that other guy. The Dairy Maid has been mighty patient with them parked out front. Before he left, that sideshow fella paid them cash for the water and electricity hookup, but he said it would only be for a few days.

  “Yesterday Ferris got an envelope in the mail from that guy with money for some meals for that boy. It had a San Francisco postmark, but no return address. Now the folks at the Dairy Maid want to know what’s going on. Don’t blame them one bit. And, well, it’s my job to make sure strangers have a good reason for sticking around Antler.”

  Sheriff Levi doesn’t mention the broken window. Bringing him straight to Zachary Beaver’s door would be like asking me to pick out the electric chair for my own execution. Zachary probably assumes we broke it since he caught us peeking in it a few days ago.

  “Tobias,” Dad says, raising his eyebrow, “the sheriff is waiting for your answer.”

  I have no choice. “Yes, sir. Yes, sir, I’ll be ready in a second.”

  Duke rides shotgun in the front while Cal and I ride in the backseat of the sheriff’s car. I hold a sack of bell peppers and green onions Dad packed for me to give to Zachary. Cal acts like we’re going on a field trip to Disneyland. I feel like I’m attending a funeral—mine. As we pull up in front of the trailer, I check out our bikes still leaning against the side of the Bowl-a-Rama.

  Sheriff Levi parks his car and Cal bounces out. I take my time. As we walk up to the trailer, the sheriff looks toward the broken window, which is now covered with Wag-a-Bag grocery sacks. He tilts up his hat. “Wonder how that happened?”

  After the sheriff knocks on Zachary’s door, we wait for Zachary to answer. When he doesn’t, I’m thinking, Good, maybe we can leave. But Sheriff Levi knocks again and hollers, “Mr. Beaver, Sheriff Levi Fetterman here. I need a minute of your time, please.”

  The door slowly creaks open a few inches and Zachary peeks through with one eye. He huffs, beads of sweat rolling down his face like he ran the fiftyyard dash.

  The sheriff clears his throat. “Mr. Beaver, sorry if I woke you, but I need to ask you a few questions. I brought along a couple of my young friends. This is Toby and Cal.”

  Zachary’s eye narrows, and I know he remembers. I hold my breath, waiting for his finger to point our way. But he only nods and says, “We’ve met.”

  “Can we come in?” asks Sheriff Levi.

  Zachary swings open the trailer door and we step inside. The smell of lemon Pledge makes me think back to the first day Zachary arrived. He’s wearing a long red nightshirt like I saw in The Night Before Christmas. The ball of Zachary’s right foot is wrapped loosely with gauze. Malcolm wears a size twelve, and Zachary’s feet look a lot bigger. He wobbles across the room, the floor creaking with each step, and flops on the love seat, his bottom covering both cushions. He doesn’t ask us to sit down, but there’s no place to sit anyway. The Plexiglas panels rest next to the wall, folded like an Oriental screen. I see the fabric panel hanging at the other end of the trailer and wonder if the bathroom is behind it.

  Sheriff Levi leans against an empty space on the wall. Cal looks around, his eyes casing out the place, and I can see his fingers itching to touch something. I take deep breaths through my nose and try to look relaxed. In one hand I hold the sack of vegetables, but I don’t know what to do with my other hand. Finally I let it hang at my side.

  Sheriff Levi glances around. “Nice little place you have here. You got about everything you need.”

  “It’ll do,” says Zachary.

  The sheriff walks over to the window with the bags taped over it. “Looks like you have a problem with that window, though. Know anything about that?”

  I hold my breath, concentrate on the floor, and prepare for the ax to fall.

  Zachary stares at us, yawns, and locks his hands behind his head. “I guess some kids did it.”

  “Well, I’ll drop by later with somebody who can fix that for you.”

  My heartbeat slows and my breathing returns to a regular pace now that I know Zachary doesn’t have a clue it was us.

  “Toby and Cal should be about your age,” Sheriff Levi says. “How old are you fellas?”

  “Thirteen,” we say together.

  “I’m fifteen,” says Zachary, and the way he says it sounds like he thinks fifteen is as old as thirty.

  “That a fact?” says the sheriff.

  Zachary just stares.

  Sheriff Levi folds his arms and clears his throat. “Mr. Beaver, you don’t sound like a Texan.”

  “I’m from New York. New York City. Ever heard of it?”

  Sheriff Levi grins. “Kind of a jokester, aren’t you?” He looks down at Zachary’s foot, and his smile drops into a frown. “What happened to your foot?”

  Zachary covers his injured foot with his left one. “It’s okay. I just stepped on a piece of glass.”

  The sheriff kneels in front of Zachary like a shoe salesman. “You better let me take a look at that.”

  “I
t’s okay,” Zachary snaps.

  Sheriff Levi stands and steps back. “All right, but I’m sure the doctor at the clinic would be glad to take a look at it.”

  Zachary glares.

  Sheriff Levi clears his throat. “Where is that other fella from? The young man you’re traveling with?”

  “Paulie? He’s from Jersey.”

  “Is that where he is now?”

  “No.”

  “Where is he, son?”

  “He’s looking for another act to add to our show, but I don’t know where he is.”

  Zachary frowns at Cal, who is lifting the lid off the gold box. “Put it down. My mom gave that to me.”

  Cal lifts a black book out of the box. “It’s just a Bible.”

  “It’s not just a Bible. My mom gave it to me when I got baptized.”

  Cal flips to the front pages.

  “Cal, put the boy’s Bible down,” Sheriff Levi says in a gentle tone. Cal slaps the Bible shut and returns it to the box.

  I’m wondering why Levi Fetterman ever became sheriff. He’s too soft, and I can tell he hates asking these questions by the way his eye twitches and he keeps clearing his throat.

  “Where are your parents?” Sheriff Levi asks.

  “Rosemont Cemetery.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Dead.”

  Sheriff Levi clears his throat, and his eye looks like it’s going to take off. “Sorry about that, son. Life can be tough.”

  “I’m not your son,” Zachary says.

  The sheriff swallows. “Well, of course not. Sorry. Didn’t mean to offend you. Who is your legal guardian?”

  “Paulie Rankin’s my guardian.”

  Sheriff Levi grimaces, and his voice becomes firm. “I see. Well, I hate to break this to you, Mr. Beaver, but if Mr. Rankin doesn’t return in a week, I’m going to have to take some sort of action. I really should be doing it now. This isn’t a campground, and the court would view you as a minor who has been left unsupervised and abandoned.”