It took a while, but Rupert finally figured out which chores were mine and which chores were his. I didn't squawk about him putting the bargain table out, but he knew better than to touch the bottle caps or put out the doughnuts or sort the produce. We took turns dusting the Indian souvenirs. When it came time to stock the shelves, I let Rupert hand me the cans and boxes while I stacked them neatly, labels facing out. I showed him how to use the roll-on pricer, but half the time he'd get two or three price tags on one can and I'd have to peel off the extras.
Uncle Beau stayed busy with the summer tourists coming in and out all day. Sometimes he took a nap out on the porch and me and Rupert would mind the store. I wouldn't let Rupert use the cash register, but he was pretty good at bagging. At least he had sense enough not to put the bread on the bottom.
After supper, me and Rupert and Uncle Beau played Parcheesi on the porch till the mosquitoes came out. Then we'd go inside and watch TV and eat ice cream. Uncle Beau liked to say, “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.” And every time Rupert would repeat it. “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.”
After I turned the sign and buttoned the door, Rupert, Uncle Beau, and Jake would walk me home. Rupert liked to pull the leaves off the rhododendrons beside the road. He'd spread them out like a fan and wave them in my face. (That irritated the heck out of me.) When we got to Arrowhead Road, Rupert would say, “Adios, Jennalee.” Every time. Don't ask me where he ever learned that, but that's what he said. Every time.
The end of July, I had to go to vacation Bible school at Mountain Creek Baptist Church. I've been going there since I was little, cause Mama makes us go there so she can visit her sister in Raleigh and know where we are till Daddy comes home. Now, except for Ruth and Jimmy, we were old enough to stay by ourselves, but Mama kept signing us up for vacation Bible school anyway. Vernon and Marny just flat don't go. John Elliott goes just so he can talk to girls. Me, I go for the arts and crafts.
The first day, I sat at a picnic table in the shade and used a strip of rawhide to sew up a leather wallet with a bear carved on one side and an Indian chief on the other. Imagine my surprise when I heard Rupert's voice say, “Hey, Jennalee.”
There was Rupert, peeking out of the bushes.
“Rupert?” I said, even though I knew it was him.
“It's me. Rupert Goody.”
“What you doing in there?”
“Nothing.”
“You spying on me?”
“No.”
“Then what you doing?”
“Nothing.”
I looked around. I didn't especially want Rupert Goody at vacation Bible school. Groups of kids were scattered around the churchyard making lanyards and wallets or painting posters of Bible stories. Nobody seemed to notice Rupert.
“Get on home,” I snarled into the bushes.
Rupert just stood there, staring at the wallet in my hand.
“What's wrong with you? I said get on home.”
“What you doing?” he said.
“Making something. Now, go away.”
“What you making?”
“This here's a wallet.” I jabbed the air with the wallet. “What does it look like?”
Somebody's hand grabbed the wallet from me. I whirled around. Kevin Rochester and his gang of nitwit friends.
“What you doing, Jennalee?” Kevin said.
“None of your damn business.”
“Who's that?” He pointed to Rupert, who ducked farther into the bushes.
“None of your damn business.”
“What's he doing in there?”
“None of your damn business.”
I heard Rupert rustling in the bushes. Why did he have to go messing up everything I do?
Kevin tossed my wallet on the picnic table. “I know who that is,” he said. “I seen that retard over at Uncle Beau's.”
To describe what happened in the next few minutes is going to be hard, cause it was a big jumble of craziness. I remember my fingernails digging into the palm of my hand when I made a fist. I remember the feel of Kevin's shirt button on my knuckles when I punched him in the stomach. And I remember Kevin's “oomph.”
When Miss Gainer came running over all hysterical, I picked up my wallet, tossed my hair out of my eyes, and headed off down the road. I could hear her behind me, hollering, “You come back here, Jennalee Helton!” Kids were laughing and yelling and I didn't even look back.
By the time I got to Uncle Beau's, Rupert was sitting on the porch steps looking like a beat dog. I climbed the steps and looked down at him with my hands on my hips.
“You shouldn't've done that, Rupert Goody!” I hollered.
I stomped into the store and told Uncle Beau what happened.
“You're right, Jennalee,” he said. “Rupert shouldn't've done that.”
“He should've stayed where he belongs. What's he mean coming over there to church like that?”
Uncle Beau nodded. “He should've stayed put.”
All this agreeing was making me madder. “You should've seen him, Uncle Beau. Hiding in the bushes, spying on me!”
Uncle Beau shook his head. “I don't know what got into him.”
“I told you he was crazy!” I stamped my foot, then dropped onto the couch. I looked at my knuckles all red and scraped up. What had got into
Rupert?
What had got into
me,
was more like it. Why on this earth had I done what I done? Hauled off and hit Kevin Rochester right in the stomach in front of God and everybody What did I care if he called Rupert a retard? Wasn't no business of mine. Maybe I was the one who was crazy.
That night we played Parcheesi in silence. I could feel Rupert's eyes on me, but every time I looked up, he looked away. Jake was having a doggy dream and whined and jerked in his sleep. Every now and then, somebody smacked a mosquito. When Uncle Beau said, “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream,” nobody said nothing.
I turned the sign and buttoned the door and we walked in single file down the side of the road. Jake, me, Uncle Beau, and Rupert. At Arrowhead Road, we stopped. I waited. Nothing. Uncle Beau pretended he was busy looking for ticks on Jake. Rupert shuffled a rock around with his toe. He looked at the rhododendron fan in his hand, then dropped it, watching the leathery leaves land on his shoe.
I thrust my bear-and-Indian-chief wallet at Rupert.
“Here,” I said. He looked at it, not moving. Uncle Beau nudged him with his elbow and Rupert took the wallet.
“Adios, Rupert,” I said, turning and heading toward home. I was almost to my mailbox when I heard Rupert holler, “Adios, Jennalee.”
And so the summer went. Me trying to keep things predictable and Rupert trying to mess things up. Leastways, that's the way I saw it.
Like the time he come home with a cat. Mangiest looking alley cat I ever seen. Rupert claimed Hal Roper give it to him for digging fence holes. Well, first off, if that was true, then he got taken for a fool. And second off, we didn't want no cats around the store. Uncle Beau is allergic to the dern things, and Jake, well, you can imagine how Jake reacted to the situation. First thing he did was chase that cat around the store, knocking over stuff and sending that thing clawing its way up the curtain in Uncle Beau's room.
I figured Uncle Beau would make Rupert take that cat back where it come from. I couldn't believe my ears when
Uncle Beau said, “You keep that thing outside, Rupert, you hear me?”
It wasn't two days before that cat was spending its days on Rupert's lap. Then, when it started catching mice and moles and stuff, Uncle Beau was just tickled pink. Me and Jake, though, we never did take a shine to that cat.
Then there was the time the dairy truck showed up at the store with a new driver. Never been to Uncle Beau's before. Me and Uncle Beau was busy inside, so Rupert, he decided to play Mr. Important and signed for the delivery. Even helped unload it. About fifty cases of yogurt and not one drop of milk. Well, trust me when I say there ain't too many yogurt eaters in Claytonville, North Carolina.
Me and Uncle Beau walked outside just as the dairy truck was disappearing down the road and there stood Rupert, grinning like he just saved the world.
“What in tarnation is this?” Uncle Beau said when he saw the yogurt.
Rupert looked at the cases stacked up there on the porch and scratched his head like it never occurred to him to wonder what was in them.
“They from the dairy man,” he said.
So there we were with a mountain of yogurt in August (which, in case you didn't know it, is hot as blazes down here in the South) and nowhere to put it and nobody to buy it.
Now, if it was me, I'd've made Rupert pay dearly for that
act of sheer stupidity But Uncle Beau, he just sit Rupert down and give him a talking-to in the nicest voice you ever heard. Rupert nodded like he understood, but I could tell he didn't.
By the time the dairy got another truck up the mountain, that yogurt wasn't worth eating, I can tell you that.
So things went along like that, all mixed up and crazy. And then came August 10, a day that will be forever etched in my mind.
We had played about a million games of crazy eights that day, keeping a tally of who won each game. (I was clearly the champion.) Right in the middle of a game, Uncle Beau had a hankering for pinto beans.
“Too hot for pinto beans,” I said, waving a paper fan in front of my face.
Rupert had sweat running down the side of his face and every now and then he'd wipe it off, making the cards all dirty and sweaty and grossing me out.
“Aw, now, it ain't never too hot for pinto beans,” Uncle Beau said. He set his cards down and went inside. I heard pots clanging and water running and then Uncle Beau came back out on the porch.
“There,” he said. “Long and slow, that's the trick. Wish I had me a ham hock.”
After we took in the bargain table, me and Rupert ate Popsicles on the porch steps. We had to eat fast cause they was melting, sending a stream of red juice running down our arms and dripping off our elbows. Rupert's fell off the
stick onto the ground and Jake hightailed it over and ate it, dirt and all.
When the mosquitoes started coming out, I said, “What time is it, Jake?”
“Quittin' time,” Rupert said.
We walked toward Arrowhead Road, Uncle Beau kind of wheezy and Jake with his tongue hanging out so far it like to dragged on the ground. Rupert kept stopping to pick stuff up off the ground. Bottle caps and shiny rocks. Even found an old sneaker. Uncle Beau walked so slow it didn't bother him none, but me and Jake, we had to keep stopping.
I turned and watched Rupert inspecting something in the weeds. “Come on, Rupert,” I said. And then I saw it. Clouds of black, black smoke rising into the darkening sky.
“What's that?” I said, pointing.
We all three watched the smoke getting thicker and darker. Then the next thing I knew, Rupert was running. I never in my wildest dreams would have guessed he could run that fast, his skinny arms pumping and his huge feet barely touching the ground. Jake started barking and I turned and looked at Uncle Beau. The second our eyes met, I knew we both got the thought at the same time. The store! The store was on fire!
I took off after Rupert, but he was nowhere in sight. My heartbeat was pounding in my ears and I swear I could feel the blood racing through my body. When I got closer, I could see smoke rising thicker over the tops of the trees. Then I rounded the corner and saw the worst sight of my life. Uncle Beau's General Store, looking the same on the
outside, but the inside glowing orange through the windows.
I stood in the parking lot, holding my hands over my ears to drown out the terrible crackle and roar of the fire. And then I remembered Rupert. I ran around to the side, yelling his name.
Then I saw him. Running out of the store with an armful of stuff that he dumped on the ground. Paper towels, cans of soup, bags of pretzels.
“Rupert,” I yelled. “What are you doing?”
He didn't even look up. Just ran back into the store.
“Rupert!” My throat burned from the smoke, but I kept yelling.
When he came out again, I grabbed his arm, but he shook my hand away. He dropped more stuff on the ground. Toothpaste and shampoo. Rice and spaghetti. I tried to grab his shirt as he turned to run back in, but he was too fast. My eyes were burning and I could feel the heat of the fire on my face.
Then I heard Uncle Beau calling my name, calling Rupert's name. I turned. Uncle Beau was coming toward me, his arms stretched out and his eyes so filled with scared I had to look away.
“Jennalee!” he called in a voice I hardly knew.
We grabbed each other and held on for dear life. When Rupert came out again, Uncle Beau pulled away from me and tried to grab Rupert.
“Stop it, Rupert!” he yelled in a hoarse voice that I could barely hear over the noise of the fire.
Rupert didn't stop.
“P-l-e-a-s-e stop!” Uncle Beau hollered, his voice all hoarse and pitiful. Then he dropped to his knees beside the growing pile of stuff that Rupert kept hauling out of the store. He held his chest and coughed and I prayed with all my might that he wasn't going to up and die.
I ran to him and knelt beside him. All we could do was hold each other and watch Rupert. By then, he was covered with black soot, coughing like crazy, with a look on his face like he didn't see one thing but what he held in his arms. Boxes and bags and cans. Moccasins and tom-tom drums.
I could hear crashing inside the store and then I threw up. I wiped my face with my shirttail. Then I jumped up and ran at Rupert full steam ahead. I grabbed him around the waist and pushed with all my might. We hit the ground with a thud that took my breath away.
“Stop it, Rupert!” I screamed, shaking his shoulders so hard his head whipped back and forth. “Stop it,” I said again, softer this time. His eyes finally met mine and for the first time I could tell he was really seeing me. “Stop it, Rupert,” I said, giving him one more shake.
As soon as we got ourselves up off the ground, Uncle Beau come staggering over and pulled Rupert to him. I watched them there in the parking lot, in front of the burning store, beside that pathetic pile of groceries, holding each other and crying like I never heard nobody crying before in my life and hope to never hear again.
Then Uncle Beau held out his arm and motioned for me. I could barely get my feet to move, but somehow I managed to join their crying, hugging heap. I don't know how long we stood like that, clinging to each other, arms all tangled up and heads leaning together.
Then all of a sudden Rupert jerked his head up and looked toward the store. Before me or Uncle Beau could figure out what the heck he was doing, Rupert took off running toward the store again. By now, the flames were leaping out of the windows. Uncle Beau hollered for Rupert to stop, but he disappeared inside.
Uncle Beau said, “Rupert,” real low under his breath, and started toward the store.
I took off after him. If he was going in there, then I was going in, too.
I thank the Good Lord to this day that, before we got to the porch, Rupert come out, coughing and sputtering. Uncle Beau grabbed the front of his shirt and shook like crazy.
“What the hell you doing, Rupert?” he hollered. “Get hold of yourself.”
Rupert dropped to the ground and took big gulps of air. Then he held something up for Uncle Beau. Through my burning, tearing eyes I could tell it was that wrinkled picture of Hattie. Hattie Baker, smiling out at us from the cool shade of that tree.
And that was the exact moment that I knew it. Knew there was something powerful holding Uncle Beau and Rupert
together. Knew Rupert had something in him behind that veil of crazy that Uncle Beau had seen all along. And as I watched Rupert that day, loving Uncle Beau like that, I knew that it was true. Me and Rupert Goody had a lot in common.