The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors (7 page)

Grandma Edna sat in a straight-backed chair, pulling green beans from a paper bag. “Your mom’s in the den.”

Reaching into the bag, Becca took a seat.

The kitchen was cool, a breeze blowing through the tiny window above the sink. Becca said, “I miss Bo.”

“Me too. He was old like me, you know. He had a good long life. He used to sleep right outside that window with his head on his paw. I can still see him there. That’s the funny thing about memory.” Grandma Edna’s narrow shoulders were hunched, her bright silver hair lit up like tinsel by the spot of morning sun that seeped through the cinder-block-sized window. She wore blue polyester slacks and a matching shirt.

Becca said, “My mom has bad memories.”

Grandma Edna changed the subject as she was apt to do—quickly. She said, “Marianne Pamplin brought the worst potato salad you’ve ever tasted to the church dinner last Wednesday. I expected the reverend to eat it, but dear Lord, they all ate it. Everybody went on and on about the stuff and how delicious it was.” Grandma Edna laughed. “The poor dear has no idea how bad it is. I told them, the lot of ’em, that they shouldn’t have gone on so about it, not with how awful it tasted. Not with them being in God’s house.” Grandma Edna wiped two tears from her high cheekbones. “I’ll be,” she said, having brought herself to hysterics.

“Which one is she?” Becca asked.

“She’s Marianne.”

They snapped the tips off the beans, dropping them in the colander. Grandma Edna told stories about more people Becca didn’t know. She talked about a man named Freddie. Blond and blue-eyed, he was tan from working in the sun. “He worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps. He built the cabins and trails at
Twin Lakes. One night, he showed up here. Clayton was in Norfolk.”

Grandma Edna never referenced time when she spoke, which made her stories even more confusing. Becca said, “And what happened?”

“Nothing. We ate what I had: snaps, cured ham, and biscuits. Lord, he was a fine-looking man. Hardworking too; he smelled like the earth. Spent enough days digging in the dirt.” Grandma Edna seemed far away. “I let him clean up. Just as times were different then, people were different too. I guess we rise or sink according to our times.”

“Are we still talking about Freddie?”

Grandma Edna popped a bean into her mouth. “His hair was the color of sand.”

Becca felt the smoothness of the bean between her fingers. “And we’re still talking about Freddie?”

“We are.”

Becca said, “Can I show you a trick?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“I need your watch.”

Grandma Edna got her timepiece from the sink’s edge and handed it to Becca, who slipped the braided watch onto her wrist.

“Don’t break my watch!”

“I’m not.” She said, “Just wait. Watch the hands.”

Grandma Edna leaned in close. “What am I seeing?”

“Just watch.”

Nothing happened.

“Has it happened yet?”

“No. Keep looking!”

“I thought maybe I was supposed to be seeing something but with these grandma eyes I was missing what ever it was.”

“Wait, Grandma. You’ll see.”

Grandma Edna stared at the gold hands of her own wrist-watch, waiting for time to do what it always does: tick away. But
that isn’t what she saw. She saw what Becca saw. She saw the second hand move counterclockwise: one second, two seconds. Grandma Edna sat up straighter in her chair.

“Did you see it?”

“I did! I do!” Grandma Edna was book-learned, no “simpleton” as Rowan Burke assumed. Remembering a quote she’d years ago forgotten,
Clocks slay time … time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life
, she smiled. Becca was a smart girl. Edna couldn’t remember the author of the quote, but he was someone important.

Whether or not the second hand actually moved counterclockwise was in the eye of the beholder, as with all things, but what’s certain is that the old, like the young, can sometimes see shades and nuances that those who are too busy with life’s minutiae, too busy rifling through the past and seeking blame, fail to see. Grandma Edna saw the fingertips of a child propel time backward. The old, like the young, feel time slipping away. Grandma Edna felt her life was like flour in a sieve, the last bits of white dust clinging to mesh.
Hold on
.

Hearing the bad news about Bo, Becca’s dad adopted a black mutt called Whiskers. Although he was not fond of domesticated animals because of the dirt and hair, this was a great opportunity to turn a negative situation into a positive one, making him look good.

A tiger-striped butterfly flew through the magistrate’s open window, alighting on the corner of his mahogany desk. Buckley watched the butterfly, her wings closed, throwing a dandelion hue on the leather desk pad. He watched her wings open and close again, and for the life of him, he didn’t hear his mother and the reverend say “I do.” He was their witness, but he’d missed it. He was eleven years old. It was August 1970. It’d taken the reverend three years to talk his mother into marriage. Buckley didn’t understand his mother’s decision. They’d been fine without Reverend John Whitehouse sharing their home, sharing his mother’s bed.

After the marriage license was signed and dated, his new stepfather drove them to Shoney’s Big Boy on Route 54. Buckley ate a hot fudge sundae while the reverend took advantage of the “sweet buffet deal,” filling four scratched and sweaty plates.

Buckley never remembered his mother being there. He wasn’t much of a witness.

No one in middle school chased or hit Buckley. Coach Flanagan warned from the start that physical contact belonged in physical sports. “Energy expended outside practice is wasteful.” He also said many less practical things like, “When you boys grow into men, the girls will squeeze your balls in a vise.”

No one hit Buckley and no one squeezed his balls.

Between September and Christmas break, someone stole his gym shoes and science report, but no one cared. Then someone urinated in Buckley’s locker. Buckley imagined this someone laughing as he zipped his pants, pulling a can of spray paint from his back pocket and tagging the locker
BASTARD
. The incident was not easy for Mont Blanc middle to ignore, especially since Buckley now had a father—a reverend, no less. Principal Clark called Buckley to his office. “Was the locker locked? Do you have a lock? Did you lose your lock?” Principal Clark was frustrated by Buckley’s apathy.

“It was my third lock this year,” Buckley said.

“Do you know who’s pulling this nonsense?”

“No, sir.”

“Me either, and I wouldn’t particularly give a crap, except that it needs to stop, and it needs to stop today. The Women’s Auxiliary has already gotten word of this. It’s an embarrassment.”

Buckley had no idea who disliked him so much that they’d go to this trouble. No one knew him well enough to hate him.

Janitor Jackson, like Buckley, stood before the principal. Principal Clark continued: “This kind of vandalism won’t be tolerated. I’ve told J.J. here to clean up the urine and to let the librarian know if any of your books need replacing. If J.J. can’t read the titles, he’s to ask you or the nurse to write them down.” Buckley rolled his eyes. He knew that Janitor Jackson was a smart man. He’d fought in World War II. He’d been a reporter for a black newspaper somewhere up north. According to Janitor Jackson, he’d fallen on hard times. It was “women and drink.” He told Buckley, “Show me a good-looking woman and I’ll show you a heap of sad men. There’s a big difference between a good woman and a good-looking one. I seem to prefer the latter.” Buckley knew Janitor Jackson fairly well, as Buckley had a tendency to hide in the bathrooms that J.J. cleaned between classes.

After school, Buckley preferred helping Janitor Jackson lug
trash to the dumpsters to going home to Reverend Whitehouse, who was always picking at him: “Do you think you’re smarter than me? You’ll never be smarter than me, boy.” Hell, his stepfather hated Buckley more than anyone. Maybe Reverend Whitehouse had pissed in his locker.

Principal Clark continued: “When the piss is gone, J.J. is gonna scrub
bastard
off the locker. If it won’t come off, he’ll paint the locker brown. We’re out of yellow paint.”

Buckley and Janitor Jackson stood side by side. Principal Clark said, “What’s the problem, Buckley? What do you expect me to do?”

Buckley didn’t answer.

Principal Clark looked at Janitor Jackson and back at Buckley. “Don’t worry, son: J.J.’s used to cleaning up piss. He’s good at what he does.”

Buckley didn’t like Principal Clark. It was no secret that he was in the Ku Klux Klan, annually parading, his white hood starched, down Main Street. Some educated people, Buckley had come to understand, were still ignorant.

By the sixth grade, Buckley was trying to survive—nothing more. With the reverend living in his house,
sleeping with his mother
, Buckley understood that Reginald Jackson, just like him, was trying to survive. There were those who endured and those who thrived. He and Janitor Jackson would probably never thrive. Some men are born to eke by, and Buckley, having no interest in good-looking women or whiskey, had no one and nothing to blame for his predicament.

Class was in session. Buckley, a foot shorter than Janitor Jackson, stood outside his locker. Janitor Jackson plunged his mop into a rolling bucket of gray water. Buckley said, “I can clean up my own piss.”

“Suit yourself.”

Fortunately, finding solace in cleanliness and organization, Buckley kept things tidy. His books were neatly arranged on the
top shelf, unmarred by the urine, nearly dry, that formed a yellow ring in the bottom of his locker.

Buckley handed one of the textbooks,
The Earth and You
, to Janitor Jackson. “Sorry,” Buckley said, “that you can’t read the important works of this century.”

Janitor Jackson said, “Maybe I should take this to Miss Beverly in the infirmary and ask her what it says.”

Buckley laughed. “I think you ought to.”

“It’s a shame us black folks can’t read good. It’s why we is always using the whites-only bathrooms and water fountains. You can’t blame us for being dumb.”

“Of course not.”

Buckley dunked the mop into the gray water.

“I’ll spray some bleach in there later,” Janitor Jackson said, “and I’ll get you a new lock—one that James Bond couldn’t bust.”

When the bell rang, the hall filled with onlookers, girls and boys snickering, concealing their smiles behind books such as
Mathematics Today
and
Grammar for Girls
. Ignoring the jeers, Buckley asked Janitor Jackson, “Anybody ever piss in your locker?”

“We didn’t have lockers where I went to school. All we had were desks.”

“And I bet you walked ten miles to school in the snow.”

Janitor Jackson said, “I like you.” He took the mop from Buckley. “Clark is an idiot, but I am good at my job. Don’t attempt to get rid of the spray paint. It’s not going anywhere. I’ve got a can of yellow paint stashed in the closet. I’ll take care of it.” As the hallway emptied, students rushing to their respective classes, Buckley felt fortunate to know Janitor Jackson. It was rare that he got to know someone.

Buckley said, “Are the women and the drink still hounding you?”

Janitor Jackson laughed. “We need more boys like you, boys who listen. And as a matter of fact, those good-looking women
won’t ever let me be. Day and night they hound me—a curse and a blessing. How can I live without them?”

“Wisely.”

“Your father’s done a good job raising you.”

“You can read, Mr. Jackson. It says ‘bastard.’ It’s no lie. I don’t have a father.”

When he got home from school, the reverend said, “You need to wise up and stop being a pantywaist.”

His mother, looking heavy and sad in her recliner, beckoned, “Come here.” Buckley was almost as tall as she was now. He leaned down. She pressed his head against her shoulder. Gangly and disheveled with unmanageable hair, he was uncomfortable in his own skin.

She said, “How was school today?”

The reverend said to Abigail, “Don’t baby the boy.”

Winter smiled. Her thoughts exactly.

Abigail said to Buckley, “Tell me what happened.”

“Nothing.” He pulled away.

“We need to talk about it.”

The reverend added, “And we’re going to talk about it.”

Buckley walked toward his bedroom, hearing the reverend’s boots at his heels. Tired of running, he waited for the reverend to take him from behind—which he did, being a reliable sort—grabbing Buckley’s T-shirt and pinning his head against the cream-colored cinder blocks. “What’s the matter with you?” the reverend demanded.

“Everything.” Buckley’s head hurt. He’d been through enough today. When he was older and taller, he’d hold the reverend’s head with his feeble brain against this block and see how he liked it. Or would he? Men like the reverend aren’t pinned. They don’t eke by or survive. They thrive. The reverend had wanted Abigail and he got her. The reverend had wanted to rule
Buckley and that’s what he was doing. Buckley said, “I’m worthless.”