I scooched down into the beanbag chair and stared at the TV. Some man was shooting at some other man and some woman was trying to run everybody down with a car. My brothers were sprawled all over everywhere, watching that show like it was the meaning of life. Now that school was out for the summer, they spent their days watching TV and hollering at each other.
Ruth came running in and they all started yelling for her to get out of the way. She plopped down next to me.
“What you doing here, Jennalee?” she said.
“I live here.”
“Why ain't you at Uncle Beau's?”
“I don't feel like it, okay?”
“I bet it's cause of that Rupert man.”
“Shut up.”
“Mama says he's Uncle Beau's son.”
“Shut your mouth, Ruth Ann Helton!” I gave her hair a yank, but she kept going.
“I bet he is too Uncle Beau's son cause I seen him washing Uncle Beau's pickup and making deliveries to Miss June Tate and setting up the bargain table and ⦔
I yanked her hair again and she yelled, “Ma-a-a-ma!” Mama hollered something from the kitchen, and Ruth crawled up under the coffee table with her lower lip stuck out and her arms folded up against herself.
“You're mean, Jennalee,” she said.
“You're stupid.”
“Is that Rupert man really Uncle Beau's son?”
I put my hands over my ears and stared at the TV Ruth crawled over and stuck her face in front of mine.
“Did Uncle Beau have a wife?” she said.
Now, that was just the kind of conversation my brothers had been pining for. They jumped right on it like a flea on a hound dog.
“Not a wife, Ruth,” my oldest brother, Vernon, said. “More like a hot-to-trot girlfriend.”
Vernon and John Elliott and Jimmy all started poking each other and carrying on like they were funny or something. I kept my hands over my ears and my eyes glued to the TV.
Ruth tried to pull my hands away. “How come Uncle Beau had a hot-to-trot girlfriend?” she said.
“Well, I reckon ole Uncle Beau is hot to trot hisself,” Vernon
said. He jumped up on the couch and started gyrating and carrying on. He hung his tongue out and panted like a dog and John Elliott and Jimmy rolled around on the couch laughing and holding their sides. Vernon was just pleased as punch. He wrapped his arms around an invisible woman and smooched his lips out, making kissy sounds. Then he poked the back of my head with his foot, but I just pretended like he didn't exist. Then I pulled my knee back and let go with a kick that sent Ruth clean under the coffee table. I realize I should've been kicking Vernon, but I wasn't no fool.
Ruth started bawling and they all started yelling for her to hush up and John Elliott started throwing pretzels and I got up and left that ton-of-hell house. I could hear Vernon calling after me, but I didn't stop.
I stomped off down the road, kicking rocks and soda cans and even a beer bottle or two. When I got to Uncle Beau's, I waited outside for a minute. Finally, I heard Jake's tail thumping. Good ole Jake.
Inside the store, it was dark and smelled like spaghetti. Uncle Beau pushed the curtain aside and came out of the back room.
“Well, hey there, Gravel Gertie,” he said.
“Hey,” I said. “You cooking spaghetti?”
“Burning's more like it. That damn hot plate's ready for the junkyard. Guess I'll have to settle for a loney-dog sandwich.”
That's what Uncle Beau calls baloney Loney dog.
“Where you been?” he said. “I was about to send out a posse.”
I shrugged and ran my finger along the counter. I traced the dark brown circle stains left by coffee mugs. I wondered where Rupert was.
“You want me to stack them paper towels?” I said.
“Naw, Rupert'sâ”
“Okay,” I said. “I was just asking.”
In my head I said, “Where's Rupert?” but out loud I said, “Marny's got chicken pox. Fourteen years old with chicken pox.” I laughed. “Sits on the bed looking in the mirror and crying all day”
“You take home some oatmeal,” Uncle Beau said. “Oatmeal bath's good for the chicken-pox itch.”
I flapped my hand in his direction. “Aw, let her itch.”
Uncle Beau chuckled. That's what I love about Uncle Beau. You say something most grownups would have a conniption fit over and Uncle Beau, he just laughs.
I made my voice sound like I didn't really care when I asked, “Where's Rupert?”
“Over to Vernelle Aikens stacking wood.”
I sat on the stool behind the counter and watched Uncle Beau ringing up groceries for folks. It was almost closing time when he said, “What is it about Rupert that's bothering you, Jennalee?”
I hadn't seen that one coming, that's for sure. I swung my legs and kicked the stool with my heels. Thu-thunk. Thu-thunk. “I don't know,” I said. I kept my eyes on the
floor, staring at a water stain from a leak in the roof, a coupon for $.35 off diapers, ants on a doughnut crumb. I heard Uncle Beau sigh. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him rub his chin. For some reason, I wanted to say, “I love you, Uncle Beau.” But, of course, I didn't.
“You been weighing on me, Jennalee,” he said.
I looked up and wished I hadn't, cause he looked so sad.
“What you mean?” I asked.
“I mean I been seeing your looks and hearing your words and wondering where my Jennalee went and who's this little girl come and took her place.”
Wasn't much I could say to that.
“Jennalee, you and Rupert Goody got a lot in common. You both like sorting the produce and you're both good at crazy eights andâ”
“Me and Rupert Goody got nothing in common!” I hadn't meant for my voice to come out in such a holler.
“Why you so mad at Rupert?” Uncle Beau said.
I tried with all my might to keep my voice calm and steady “I just wonder why he took his sweet time coming to find you, is all.”
Uncle Beau lowered hisself slowly onto the couch. His knees cracked and his breath rattled in his chest. He rubbed his knees with his gnarly hands and looked up at me.
“There's a lot I don't know about that boy's life,” he said. “May never know. Rupert ain't too smart. I realize that. But he's smart enough to know what family is.”
“He wants family, he can have mine,” I said under my breath.
“He belongs here with me, Jennalee.”
“How come you so sure you all is family, Uncle Beau? You just going to take the word of anybody come prancing in here off the street calling theirselves a Goody? You ever ask him for proof?”
Uncle Beau took in a long, slow breath and let it out with a sigh. “Why don't you button the door, Gravel Gertie?” he said. “It's quittin' time.”
I knew Uncle Beau was dodging an argument and I was glad. My head was all spinning around wanting to holler and fight about Rupert Goody trying to take my place. But my heart was telling me to slow down and love Uncle Beau, cause he was somebody worth loving.
I've never in my life heard of a grown man that can't ride a bicycle. As far as I was concerned, that was just one more item on my list of why Rupert Goody was crazy. When Sam Myers brought a rusty old bike over to the store and give it to Rupert, you'd've thought there was a carnival going on, the way everybody came by to watch. They all stood around the parking lot hooting and hollering while Rupert wobbled around trying to ride that bike.
“Keep pedaling! Keep pedaling!” they'd yell. Or: “That's it, Rupert! You got it now!”
But Rupert didn't have it. He'd squeeze his eyebrows together and stick his tongue out of the corner of his mouth and pedal so slow that bike would finally just tip right over and Rupert would lay there on the ground looking surprised. Then everybody'd be falling all over each other to get out there and help him up and dust him off.
One day Uncle Beau said, “Watch Jennalee do it, Rupert.” He gave me a little push. “Go on and show him how, Jennalee.”
Everybody chimed in, “Yeah, go on, Jennalee.”
I took the bike from Rupert.
“Now watch, Rupert,” Uncle Beau said. “Watch how Jennalee keeps pedaling.”
Rupert nodded. “Okay, Uncle Beau.”
I pedaled down the road a ways and then came back.
“See?” I said. “You got to keep pedaling or else you fall over, okay?”
“Okay, Jennalee.”
“Now you try it.” I handed over the bike.
Rupert climbed on. He looked like one of them circus bears, all hunched over on a little tiny bike. He started pedaling and wobbling and then he just fell right over in the gravel.
“Let's go on in and get us a Dr Pepper,” Uncle Beau said.
Folks hung around for a while, drinking soda and talking. Before long, the store was empty and Uncle Beau went to the window and peered out at the darkening sky.
“Looks like we're gonna get a gully-washer,” he said.
There was a low rumble of thunder, followed by a flash of lightning that lit up the sky. Uncle Beau and I went out on the porch to watch. We love a good storm.
Uncle Beau sat on the glider. It squeaked as he pushed it back and forth.
“Come on out here, Rupert,” Uncle Beau called through the screen door.
The sky turned so dark it seemed like night.
“What's Rupert doing in there?” Uncle Beau asked me.
I looked through the door, but it was dark inside. “I don't know.”
“Go on in there and see.”
Inside, I squinted into the darkness, searching for Rupert. When I finally saw him, he was a sorry sight, standing in the corner with his arms all wrapped around hisself, staring at the wall and shaking to beat the band.
“What you doing, Rupert?” I said.
He didn't answer. Just kept his face to the wall.
“What's wrong with you?”
Still no answer.
Just then came a clap of thunder so loud it felt like the store was going to fall in on us. I thought Rupert was going to climb that wall. I could hear Uncle Beau out on the porch going “Hooo-eeee!”
“You scared of thunder?” I said to Rupert, moving a little closer.
He covered his ears with his hands and squeezed his eyes shut.
“Aw, Rupert,” I said. “Ain't nothing to be scared of. Just noise, that's all.”
Rupert wouldn't look at me. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Back and forth. Back and forth.
“Don't be a baby, Rupert,” I said. “Look at Jake. He ain't even scared.” But I wasn't too sure about that, seeing as how Jake was shaking pretty good, too.
Suddenly the rain started in one big swoop of a downpour. Rupert jerked around and looked toward the door all wild-eyed.
“My bike!” he hollered. “My bike!”
I followed his look and saw that beat-up old bike lying in the parking lot. The rain clattered down on it, making one wheel start to spin.
“Shoot, Rupert,” I said. “That ole thing's seen more than a rainstorm, I can tell you that. Ain't no more places to rust on that piece of junk.”
I turned back to look at Rupert and got a shock. He was crying. Tears rolling down his face. His chin all quivering. “My bike,” he said again.
I looked at the bike, then back at Rupert, then back at the bike. I ran out into the parking lot, ducking my head as I splashed through the muddy puddles toward the bike. Just as I picked up the bike and started back toward the store, there was another clap of thunder, followed by a jagged bolt of lightning.
“Jennalee!” Rupert hollered real loud and awful-sounding.
Through the curtain of rain I could see Rupert on the porch.
“Jennalee!” he hollered again. Then he ran out into the rain with his arms stretched out in front. I figured he was gonna grab his bike, but he grabbed me in his skinny arms and like to squeezed the life out of me.
“Jennalee,” he said.
I tried to pull away, but he had my arms pinned down to my sides.
“You gone crazy or something, Rupert?” I hollered.
When he finally let me go, I stepped away from him.
“Jeekers, Rupert,” I said. “You trying to kill me or something?”
I turned to see what Uncle Beau thought of all this and my heart fell right to my feet. Uncle Beau was slumped over on the glider like he'd just up and gone to sleep. His whomper-jawed fingers were all curled up and his face was white and his lips were blue and it was for darn sure he wasn't sleeping. I'm here to tell you, that's a sight I'll never forgetâbut I wish like anything I could.