Color the Sidewalk for Me (40 page)

“Oh, Danny,” I whispered, pushing the hair off his forehead. “It's okay.”

Danny told his mama to lock herself in his bedroom and slide furniture against the door. “Now listen to me, Mama,” he commanded, looking down on her white face. “No matter what you hear, you don't come out unless I tell you. Understand?”

She gazed at him with a mother's fear. “He'll kill you, Danny.”

“No, he ain't. Now git on inside.”

Mr. Cander came home after dark. He thumped up the steps, bellowing for his son, the shotgun trailing from one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other. Danny appeared out of a shadow and eased the gun away. “Evenin', sir,” he said quietly. “Been waitin' for you.”

“Gimme back my gun, boy; I'm gonna need it! Where's that no-good mama a yours?”

“Sleepin'. Come on, Daddy, let's sit on the porch, talk awhile.”

Bleary-eyed, his father processed the invitation. “Awright. We'll share the whiskey.”

They sat on the porch, Danny's father swigging the bottle hungrily. Danny pretended to take his own sips. He knew he should stop his father; the man had probably drunk enough to near kill himself. But fear for his mama stopped him. He couldn't risk getting his daddy riled up.

Finally the bottle emptied. Danny felt sure his daddy would pass out. Instead the man swayed to his feet. “Le's go get in the truck and head outta town,” he slurred. “'Member how fast I used to take those curves when you was little, laughin' when you was scared silly? I'll show ya how fast I can take 'em now.”

“No, Daddy,” Danny said. “You're too drunk.”

His daddy guffawed long and loud. “Ho, boy,” he bragged, “you know how good I am at those curves; I could take 'em with my eyes closed, no matter how much I been drinkin'.”

“Don't do it, Daddy; not this time.”

Mr. Cander started down the steps, using the banister for support. “Come with me, boy. We'll have a good ol' time, roust some chickens right outta their beds.”

Danny opened his mouth to protest again. Then closed it.

His daddy thwacked the banister. “Aw, never mind; I'll jus' go by myself.”

Danny did not stop him. He stood on the porch, watching his daddy stumble to the truck, open the door, fall in. The engine rumbled. Tires spinning, the truck spun around as his daddy drove away, kicking up dust that swirled in the fingertips of the porch light. The last thing Danny saw was the one unbroken red taillight as the truck skidded onto the road.

Danny couldn't believe what he'd done. As guilt and fear hit him in the chest, he told himself that what happened next was in God's hands. Feigning calm, he walked on shaky legs to knock at his own bedroom door, telling his mama she could come out.

Danny had not allowed himself to think the worst. He never thought his daddy would be hurt badly. Perhaps just enough to need a day or two of doctoring—giving Danny time to send his mama safely to Florida. But the outcome made Danny now believe God would judge him for not saving his father. I insisted that wasn't so. It wasn't Danny's fault; his daddy had brought it all on himself. To the very end Anthony Cander fought for the last word. And in a way he won. You could argue he was too drunk to know what he was doing. Maybe. But he was also mean and small-hearted, hating his son for the goodness he saw in him, blaming the town of Bradleyville for his own wretchedness. For that, I believe, he decided not to turn right at Main Street. Instead he yanked the steering wheel into a rubber-burning left turn, then went flying over the railroad tracks and screaming through town.

The skid marks told the rest of the tale. Flooring the accelerator after bouncing at an angle off the tracks, he managed to straighten out momentarily. Then he lost control. Why did he have to hit Tull's? Danny wondered. I'd guess that was his daddy's final act of rebellion against the town. Tull's, where Danny had sent him reeling in front of the town patriarch. Tull's, the watering hole of Bradleyville.

Maybe in the recesses of his mind Mr. Cander knew. Maybe not. Whatever he was thinking, in that split second he jerked the wheel left again. He careened across the street and smashed up the curb in metal-grinding flight to sail through Tull's front window, smearing medicine, lotions, and tooth powder over the aisles. The truck crashed into the red-cushioned booth where Granddad had sat, and stopped with a jolt at the crushed soda fountain, its broken pipes spraying the felled stools, the truck, and the wasted merchandise. Mr. Cander's head punched through the windshield, his torso slamming against the twisted steering wheel and its horn, sending it braying eerily into the shattered night.

Two deaths in such a short time in Bradleyville. But the town did not mourn the passing of Anthony Cander. There was no funeral, no eulogies. Neither Danny nor his mama wanted that. Instead he was buried by his wife and son in a wooden box out among the daisies of the field in which I once stood, frozen in horror, witnessing his drunken wrath.

“I feel so many different things,” Danny said, weeping quietly as we held each other, sitting on the fallen oak. “I killed my daddy as surely as if I'd taken that shotgun to him. I pray for forgiveness but I don't know if God's hearin' me. I feel so tired. And empty. At the same time, the house is peaceful and I feel such relief about that, for Mama and me.

“After the terrible sin I done, that relief is the worst of all.”

chapter 46

W
ith less than a month to go before Danny graduated from school, he and his mama put their dilapidated farm up for sale, accepting the first bid that came along, afraid it would be their last. Danny used the proceeds to pay off the mortgage and buy a used Chevrolet Impala. By the time he'd paid Mr. Tull for the damages, apologizing with his head hung and dreaming of the day when he'd never have to face the man again, he had only enough money to drive to Miami. There was no need to keep quiet about leaving now. And throughout the town, people looked at me with a mixture of pity and vindication. “He's runnin' off,” I could imagine them whispering. “His daddy shamed her and now he's turnin' tail, him and his quiet mama. That's what happens, you get mixed up with the wrong kind.”

Amid all the tumult Danny studied hard to the end. The final day of school he picked up his diploma early, as he'd arranged with the principal. We stood on the sidewalk, staring at the diploma, the June humidity a soggy blanket around our shoulders. For my own piece of paper we'd spend a year apart. He and his mama planned to leave early in the morning. They were packed and had been squeezing into the Hardings' house for the past week. At that moment I was willing to leave my inheritance and all respect behind and run off with them.

Danny was ambivalent about going—excited, terrified, filled with hurt. He didn't want to leave me, but he yearned for freedom from Bradleyville.
The first hill outside of town, I thought, and he'll be laughing with giddiness, the caged bird now flying. I was weeping inside. Danny, please don't leave me with your heart.

“I can't say good-bye like this, standin' at school,” he told me, ache in his eyes.

“Me either.”

We gazed at each other, breathing the hot June air, the jubilant chatter of freed students filtering around us. “Come tonight,” I implored, “in your car. I'll meet you at the corner of Main after everyone's gone to bed. I'll slip out. Eleven o'clock.”

“Celia, no. I can't leave you shamed like that. Anybody sees us, the whole town'll talk.”

“I don't care.”

“You don't know what it's like, havin' the whole town against you.” “I don't care. Please come. Because if you don't, I'll show up at the Hardings; I'll shame us all.”

He slid the diploma into his notebook. “You sure that's what you want?”

“You know I do.”

“My mama'd have a fit. What am I supposed to tell her and the Hardings?”

“Wait till they're in bed.”

“Mama won't sleep all night; she's too excited.”

“Then tell her nothin'. Just leave.”

“She won't let me go.”

“Yes, she will. She stayed in the bedroom that night, didn't she, while you took care of your daddy? You bear all the guilt yourself, but you think she didn't know what could happen? You're eighteen years old, Danny; she'll let you go. You did that for her. She'll do this for you.”

He touched my cheek. “I don't have the strength to fight you. I want to be with you too much.”

“Then come.”

I took my bath early. Retired to my room, saying good night to Kevy and Daddy. Locked the door, dressed with care. A light blue knit top, tucked into the waistband of a knee-length skirt. Bare legs and sandals. I brushed my hair until it rippled down my back, then waited, palms sweaty. At ten o'clock I turned out my light and sat in the dark, wishing the streetlight wasn't so bright. The next fifty minutes took forever.

Sneaking out at night was a terrible gamble. If people found out, they'd never understand. If God tried to talk me out of it, I couldn't hear him.

Finally my watch read ten-fifty. Cautiously I opened my door, holding my thumb over the lock so it wouldn't snap. The hallway was dark and quiet. Slipping out, I pulled my door closed behind me, releasing the knob with precision and lifting my fingers away. Crept through the living room and kitchen. Eased open the back door and stepped onto the porch. The night was warm, a slight breeze. A half moon hung low, peeking between the leaves of our oak tree and illuminating our swing.

Sneaking down the porch steps was the hardest; they tended to creak. But nothing would stop me, not even my mama discovering me in midstep, hand trailing the banister. I'd simply run.

I made it without a hitch. The soft grass beneath my sandals brought a soundless sigh of relief to my lips. I walked around the far side of the house so as not to pass underneath Mama's window. I flinched at the streetlight, head swiveling, but no one was near. Within a couple minutes I'd walked the block to Main. The stoplight was busily at work, changing from yellow to red to green, commanding cement. At the right corner of the intersection stood the willow tree, its branches a deep, swaying curtsy. I stood beneath it, drawing back from light, and waited.

It wasn't long before I heard Danny's car, its slow glide reverberating between the houses. I appeared from the shadows, waved him to a stop, and slipped into his car. Closed the door as quietly as I could. His eyes traveled my face. “Where to?”

“Our trees.”

He turned the car around and headed downtown. I scooted next to him and he put his arm around me. When we were past town and the railroad tracks, he parked on a dark, narrow road and we got out to walk, hand in hand.

“It looks so different at night,” I breathed, seeing the familiar spread of leaves shine dimly under the rising moon.

“Come on.” He pulled me forward.

The calling of crickets ceased as we picked our way through dark grass, watching our feet. “It's been so long since we've been here,” I said. The river was a lazy wide ribbon of silver and black. The colors of Jake Lewellyn's marble.

“Uh-huh. I always liked it after dark.”

“You've been here at night?”

“Lots a times. When things got too crazy, I'd come here and think about you.”

Another part of Danny I'd known nothing about. How many other things did I not know?

We sank down in the grass and held each other tightly, unable to speak.

“Just think, Celia,” Danny said, breaking the silence, “the next time we see each other, we'll be gittin' married. We'll be together the rest of our lives.”

“Promise me we'll see a justice that very day. I don't want to wait a minute longer than we have to.”

“You won't get to have a wedding.” He rubbed my arm as if in comfort. “I thought every girl wanted a wedding.”

“Every girl doesn't have you.”

I could feel his smile in the darkness.

“We got to get our lives straight,” he told me. “We got to pray every day and ask Jesus to get us back on track. I been prayin' a lot lately, and I believe he's heard me, even after all I've done. Your granddad was a wise man. That night he talked to me at your house, he warned me about going out into the world, leaving you behind. ‘All kinds of new temptations'll come your way,' he said. But he told me I only had to do one thing: never take my eyes off Jesus. ‘It's like walkin' a tightrope,' he said. ‘You look at the emptiness around you, you'll be terrified. You look at your feet, you'll fall.' We got to do that, Celia, keep looking at Christ. Not just this year but ever after that. I don't know about you, but I'm afraid that if I look away one more big time, I just won't survive it.”

I wondered how I'd survive the year in any circumstance.

“We will, Danny; we'll both keep focused. I can't believe God would let me lose you now. We've come through too much already.”