Carry Me Home Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  For the soldiers of all wars,

  and the families who waited for them to come home

  Chapter 1

  Jimmy stands out by the oak tree next to the garage. He’s turning in circles, all skittery-like. From my bedroom window I see the orange dot from his cigarette making streaks as he turns. I know if I don’t hurry and get down there, he’s gonna say piss on me, and leave. I walk real careful and put my ear against my door and it’s cold. The door, not my ear. And I listen real good for Ma, but I don’t hear nothing but for that loud whooshing you get in your ears when you’re scared of getting caught climbing out your window.

  I go back to the window—the one I opened while the house was still all noisy with Glenn Miller, ’cause simpleminded or not, I ain’t exactly a fool—and I climb out real quiet-like. Them shingles feel like a cat’s tongue against my hands as I scoot across the rooftop on my ass.

  I get to the edge of the roof and drop down, my hands squeezing real tight, then I dangle there like a string of snot ’til Jimmy comes and gets ahold of my legs. He catches me, then drops me with a thud. “Crissakes, Earwig, you get any taller and you won’t need me to catch you.” Jimmy calls me “Earwig.” He says it’s ’cause I’m like one of those bugs that crawls in a guy’s ear and goes right to his brain, making him go crazy. Jimmy reaches up and rubs his knuckles over my hair that is turd-brown and grows straight up like quack grass, then he grabs our fishing gear and off we go down the sidewalk.

  Jimmy whistles as we go down them empty, dark streets to get to Louie’s house. Jimmy’s car is in the garage, the motor all ripped to shit, so Louie’s gonna drive his car to the millpond, where we’re gonna spear suckers and drink beers. Jimmy’s real nice to let me come along. Ain’t many brothers who’d take their sixteen-year-old, dumb-as-a-stump brother to fish and drink beers with ’em. But Jimmy’s always letting me tag along. He knows I ain’t got friends like he’s got, ’cept for Eddie, and he don’t count ’cause he’s only six years old, fat as a Thanksgiving turkey, and maybe even dumber than me.

  Louie’s coming outta the garage with his creel when we get there, his orange, frazzly hair looking like fire with the porch light shining on it. John is leaned up against Louie’s car, smoking a cigarette, and Floyd, he is standing there kicking up gravel with his shoe, his shoulders all drooped forward, like they always is.

  “You took long enough, Gunderman,” John says, and Jimmy says to him, “Ah, give it a rest, Pissfinger.” I don’t call John Pissfinger like the rest of the gang does, on accounta I know if I do, he’s probably gonna stick his boot so far up my ass I’ll gag on his shoelaces.

  We all whoop and holler as we pull outta the driveway, spitting gravel.

  “Serve ’em up, Earwig,” Jimmy says. I reach under the seat to fetch the bottles of Schlitz that are clinking and clanking there. I pry a cap with the opener I got dangling from my belt, slip the cap into my pocket, and hand the first bottle to Louie. It’s the rule: The number-one guy gets the first beer, and usually, whoever’s got a car that’s running is the number-one guy.

  All the way to the millpond, them guys talk about titties, beers, and whose asses they’re gonna kick. Jimmy’s the only one of them guys that can really kick anybody’s ass. Jimmy ain’t real tall, but he’s got muscles pert’ near as big as Captain Midnight’s, and like John says, Jimmy knows how to use his fists when he’s gotta. I tell ’em I know a few asses I’d like to kick, and Jimmy tells me to shut up or he’s gonna fart in my face. I know he will too, so I shut up.

  Them trees along the road to the millpond look like butt-naked skinny girls against the sky that’s bright from a fat moon. Jimmy told me once that them fat circle moons remind him of a big, white titty. Course, he thinks everything looks like a titty.

  We turn off Mill Street and head down the dirt road that goes to the millpond. Louie drives so fast over the bumps that I bang my head on the roof.

  Louie jams on the brakes and we stop real fast. Beer slops down the front of John’s shirt and he pisses and moans about it like he’s going to the town hall for a fancy-up dance instead of grubbing for suckers at the millpond.

  We stand on the bank and rip our shoes and socks off. I know damn well it’s gonna be cold as shit in that rushing water, the snow here in Wisconsin not being gone all that long when them suckers start wriggling upriver looking for a place to drop their eggs. We’re all laughing and joking and having a good time. Ain’t nothing more fun than spearing suckers with Jimmy and the guys.

  “Hey, Earwig,” John says, as he balls up a sock and throws it at me. “I hear you tried choppin’ off Edna Pritchard’s fat leg.” Floyd and Louie start to laughing. I talk real loud so John can hear me above the laughing and the whooshing of the water. “I wasn’t trying to chop her leg off. That’s the God’s honest truth.”

  “That’s right,” Jimmy says, talking all mumbled ’cause he’s got a Camel sticking outta the corner of his mouth. “He wasn’t trying to cut off her leg, he was trying to measure her fat ass.” This makes them laugh all the harder.

  “Tell us the story, Earwig,” Floyd says, so I tell ’em. I tell ’em how Dad said, right there at the table while buttering a piece of nut bread Mrs. Pritchard brought, that that Edna Pritchard has the biggest ass he ever see’d on a woman. Dad said, “That ass has got to be at least three ax handles wide.”

  “Well, that didn’t sound right to me,” I tell the guys, and it didn’t. “Mrs. Pritchard has a fat ass, sure as my name’s Earl Hedwig Gunderman, but three ax handles wide, that just didn’t sound right to me. So I wait ’til I hear her big mouth yapping in the store, then I go out to the woodpile real fast and I fetch myself the ax. Then I go back into the store, whistling so as no one thinks I’m up to something, and I start taggin’ after Mrs. Pritchard. Ma and her was talking about that Dickens girl getting polio and what a pity it will be if her legs get all crippled, and how, worse yet, if that little girl dies, her mama’s heart’s gonna cripple up too and she’ll die right along with her. Mrs. Pritchard is looking at cans of applesauce while she talks, ’cause she’s gonna make some gingerbread and Mr. Pritchard won’t eat gingerbread unless it’s got applesauce poured over the top.”

  “Crissakes,” Jimmy says as he roots around in our stuff for a spear, “get to the goddamn point of the story, Earwig,” but he ain’t mad when he says it, ’cause he’s laughing.

  “Well,” I tell ’em, “I go’ed up behind Mrs. Pritchard, holding that ax like this,” and I show ’em how I holded it, sideways like, right behind her fat ass. “And it sure is a fat ass,” I say, and Floyd holds his skinny guts that are sunk in like a bowl and asks how would I like to hose that fat ass, and I say I wouldn’t like that at all. Jimmy says, “The story, Earwig, get to the point of the goddamn story.”

  So I go o
n with the story. I tell ’em how I was holding that ax up crossways, following behind her, and how when she walks, her ass under that dress looks like two bulls fighting under a sheet of mill felt.

  “Then Ma looks up and sees me behind Mrs. Pritchard, who ain’t so far seeing nothing but that can of applesauce in her hand, and Ma yells, ‘Earl Hedwig Gunderman, what on earth are you doing with that ax?’ and Mrs. Pritchard starts to turn and she sees me holding that ax, and she starts to screaming. I get all scared ’cause her scream is as big as her ass, and that ax falls right outta my hands, just as her fat legs are turning her around.” Floyd is slapping the ground with his hand, laughing real hard.

  I turn to Louie, who is laughing too, but not so hard he can’t hear me. “You ever see an ax fall, Louie? It don’t fall flat and nice at all. That cutting part, it falls first, making it look like a ghost is fixing to split a chunk of wood. And that ax come right down on Mrs. Pritchard’s fat ankle.”

  Jimmy is laughing ’til he’s choking out, “Cut through her fat almost right down to the bone!” Floyd laughs ’til his dark hair is slapping his forehead like a horse’s tail. “Ol’ Fat Ass starts hopping around like she’s got a rat trying to crawl up the crack of her ass, and Earwig here goes nuts like he always does when he gets rattled. He starts slapping the sides of his head, almost knocking himself out. Then Pritchard really loses it.” They’re all in stitches now, only I’m starting to think it ain’t so goddamn funny. Ain’t nothing funny about blood, all red and shiny, spewing out of somebody’s fat ankle.

  Jimmy shakes his head. “Ma starts in with her ‘Oh, good Lord! Oh, good Lord!’ And she runs to fetch a towel, then gets down on all fours, trying to get that towel slung around Pritchard’s ankle to stop the bleeding. That Pritchard was going nuts, yelling that Earwig had tried to kill her, and Ma was going nuts, screaming at me to go get Dr. McCormick. I had to leave then, so I missed the rest of that freak show.”

  Them guys start joking about how I shoulda chopped a chunk of her ass off while I was at it, but I ain’t listening too hard to ’em now. I’m trying to get Mrs. Pritchard’s words outta my head. Them words, “You should have locked that boy up long ago, Eileen.”

  Ma didn’t make me mop up that blood that was already seeping into the cracks of the floor, turning it all dark by the time Dr. McCormick come and took Mrs. Pritchard back in the kitchen to stitch her fat back together. Ma, she came back into the store with a pail of soapy water and started scrubbing with a bunched rag. She made me stand right there, where she could keep an eye on me. She sounded all winded, like she’d just run all the way down Main Street and back without stopping, as she preached at me about minding my Ps and Qs and not scaring people.

  “So,” John asks after he lights his Lucky Strike, “how many ax handles wide is the old bag’s ass, anyway, Earwig?”

  “Well, I didn’t exactly get to finish measuring it,” I tell him, “but I got as far as knowing it’s more than one ax handle wide, that’s for sure.”

  I’m real glad when the guys get done laughing and go back to talking about titties and kicking ass.

  I go to the trunk of Louie’s car to get the bucket we use for keeping the beer cold. I take that bucket and dig the rest of those Schlitz bottles out from under the seat and put them in the bucket. Then I bring the bucket to the groove in the bank that Louie cut out, leaving a little ditch so the water fills up the hole some. I put water in the pail and I set the pail in that little ditch.

  While I do this, Floyd and John are getting some wood for the little fire that Jimmy’s leaning over, huffing into the thick smoke to get the flames sparking.

  When we get everything all set up perfect-like, Jimmy hands me a spear, reminding me to stay on them flat rocks in the shallow part. Jimmy knows I can’t swim for shit. The guys head upstream, laughing as they slosh through the water, their arms pumping, each of ’em taking turns bitching about how cold the water is.

  The water looks like silver coins swirling in beer foam. I steady myself on a rock and stare real hard through them swirls. I wait for a dark shadow to come along, ’cause that would be one of them suckers. Suckers are ugly critters if I ever see’d one, with scales big as fingernails, and round mouths that move like an asshole trying to squeeze out a turd. Them suckers are mighty ugly, but after Louie sets ’em up in his smokehouse for a time, they end up tasting mighty damn good.

  I see one, not far from my feet, and I stab my spear as hard as I can. It don’t go into the fish, though. It just bangs against the rock I’m standing on, then skids sideways. I do a little dance to keep that spearhead from kicking up against my foot. Upstream, I can hear the guys and I can tell from their yelling that they’re gonna come back with their creels stuffed.

  I get real busy then, listening to some noise in the brush, hoping it ain’t no bear. I’m scared shitless of bears ’cause I know if one starts wailing on me, there’s gonna be lots of blood. And while I’m watching for bears, I’m jabbing my spear into the water any which way, and it keeps clanking against the rocks. Then, about the time Floyd calls out that it’s time for a beer break before they all freeze their balls off, I stab my spear into the water and it hits something tender. That handle starts dancing all over in my hands, and I can feel that I got a pissed-off sucker stuck at the other end. “Jimmy! Jimmy!” I shout, real loud.

  “You got one, Earwig?” Jimmy shouts back, all excited.

  I can’t talk, ’cause I’m excited as shit. I don’t know what to do, so I don’t do nothing ’cept keep dancing on that rock and hanging tight to the spear that’s still bucking in my hands.

  Jimmy kicks water up on me as he jumps to the rock I’m standing on. “Jesus Christ, Earwig, you gonna stand there pissing yourself, or are you gonna pull it up?”

  I ain’t gonna piss, but Louie is. He’s in the water, his pecker out, and he’s about to start pissing. Excited or not, I know I don’t want Louie’s piss getting on my fish, so I lift that spear up. And there it is, a big-ass sucker, wiggling and squirming ’cause he’s got two tines stuck through his back. Even though it’s mostly dark, I can see blood, black and shiny, running down the sides of that poor fish.

  Jimmy takes the spear from me, clapping me so hard on the back it hurts. “You did it, Earwig! You speared yourself a sucker!” Jimmy leads me to the bank that’s cold and hard on my icy feet. He pins the sucker to the ground with his bare foot and yanks the spear out like it don’t even turn his stomach. He holds up my fish. “Wow, this bastard’s gotta be over two feet long.” He’s proud of me, and, if I don’t look at all that blood, I’m proud of me too.

  Louie, John, and Floyd are coming outta the water. They’re proud of me too. So proud that after they stoke the fire and I get the beer bucket, they tell me I get the first one. I ain’t never been number one ’til now, so I get a happy feeling in my belly that gets so big it starts me to laughing.

  Them guys lift their beers high in the air and give me a cheer. I take a big swig like they do, hoping my Adam’s apple is bobbing like theirs, ’cause I think that looks real manly. Beer tastes like horse piss to me, but when I take that first swig, I wipe my mouth on my shirtsleeve and say, “Ahhhh,” just like they do. I only get one beer ’cause if I have more, I start to puking, but them guys, they keep on drinking ’til the Schlitz caps I got in my pocket are the size of a baseball.

  It’s the best night ever, with that titty moon shining over us as we drink our beers and warm our naked feet close to the fire ’til it’s almost morning. And, dumb as I am, I think that these good days are gonna last forever.

  Chapter 2

  I wasn’t always simpleminded. Ma says when I was a bitty baby, I was smart as a whip, my big brown eyes always busy. But then I got real sick with a bad fever that baked my brain and about killed me dead. Ma said after that fever was gone, my brain was like meat cooked too long, and it just fell apart whenever I tried to learn something new. “But, Earl, there’s no point in crying over spilt milk,” Ma said. I ain’t ex
actly sure what spilt milk got to do with that fever, but one thing I do know for sure is that I’m glad that fever got me, and not that goddamn polio. Jimmy says that polio is some wicked shit. It freezes your whole body from your neck to your feet and leaves you either crippled or dead. The President is crippled up from the polio, so he’s gotta get around in a wheelchair ’cause his legs are freezed. Dad says he knows this for a fact, even if them newspapers never show him in a chair, ’cause Dad’s friend, Delbert Larson, met a big-timey reporter for The Milwaukee Journal who said he saw it with his own eyes. One thing I know for sure is I’d rather have my brain baked any day than have my whole body freezed. I might be dumb as a stump, and I might look sorta skinny, but I’m real strong and I’m a fast runner, ’cause I got feet that are big and straight, not all buckled up from the polio.

  Fast runner that I am, there ain’t no running away from Ma when Jimmy and me get back from sucker fishing. She’s sitting at the kitchen table and it’s dark in the room ’cause the light from the new sun ain’t crawled inside the house yet. She snaps the light on and about scares the shit outta me. She is wearing her robe and she’s got them pin curls stuck to her head.

  She eyes up my clothes that are splotched with mud, and without even looking at Jimmy, she tells him to go up to his room so she can yell at me. Well, she don’t say so she can yell at me, but I know that’s what she means.

  Jimmy, he holds on to the wall and he uses a heel to wedge off his shoe, ’cause he’s all wobbly from beers. “Ah, Ma, don’t give Earwig a hard time now. It’s my fault. I took him even though I knew he wasn’t supposed to go.”

  “Go upstairs, Jimmy, and get cleaned up before your father wakes up.” There ain’t no mad in Ma’s voice when she talks to Jimmy. Ma never gets mad at Jimmy.

  Ma tells me to sit down at the table.

  “Earl, do you understand why I told you you couldn’t go anyplace for a good long time?” Ma is looking at me real hard, her blue eyes skittering back and forth, looking first at one of my eyeballs, then at the other, probably on accounta my lazy eye.