Carry Me Home Read online

  I can’t run off, but Jimmy’s gonna. That’s what he tells me when he wakes me up a couple hours later. “Where you going, Jimmy?” I am up on my elbows and my eyes ain’t hardly open yet, but my ears sure as hell are.

  “I don’t know. I just need to get away for a few days to think.”

  “About Molly and Eva Leigh?”

  “About everything. Tell Ma and Dad not to worry, and don’t you worry either. I’ll be fine.”

  Jimmy gives me a pat and tells me to go back to sleep, but I don’t. I lay there long after Jimmy leaves, thinking and thinking and thinking, and wondering why in the hell Jimmy can’t think at home if I can.

  Next morning, I tell Ma and Dad that Jimmy’s gone off for a few days. Ma, she looks at Dad like she’s expecting him to explain, even though I just did.

  Dad says, “Don’t worry, Eileen. He just needs some time to himself.”

  Ma gets huffy. “It’s that Franks girl, I’ll bet. I wish she’d never come back here!”

  Dad shakes his head. “It’s not Molly. It’s the war.”

  When I go back to the Ten Pin, I gotta tell Eva Leigh that Jimmy’s gone off. Eva Leigh nods. She looks tired, like maybe she ain’t got no trouble thinking at home either.

  Eva Leigh, she plays with the bottom of her blouse, picking at a thread that’s dangling there. “Earl, I feel awful asking you this, but do you know if Jimmy’s seen Molly since she was here the other night?” Eva Leigh don’t hardly get that question out, when her head and hands start making little shakes. “No, no, don’t answer that, Earl. It was unfair of me to ask.”

  For days Ruby Leigh bitches about Molly. She calls her a two-timing bitch, and she talks about how Molly was born with a silver spoon stuck up her ass, which is something I never even knowed could happen to a baby.

  A few days later, I’m at the bar, bringing back the empties Skeeter left in the pinsetters’ room, when Ruby Leigh says, “Ah, Earl, just look at her over there. It’s like her heart’s been torn out and stomped on. She deserves someone who treats her good, you know? She’s busted up right now, yet all she talks about is how she hopes that Jimmy can find some peace and happiness. Shit, if that were me I’d be kicking him in the balls and ripping Molly Franks’s hair out, curl by pretty curl. Eva Leigh’s a bigger person than that, though.”

  I don’t see Eva Leigh smile the whole time Jimmy’s gone, ’cept for when she comes into the store for some milk and Ma takes both her hands and says, “Jimmy will come home to you, Eva. Don’t you worry. I know my boy, and I know he’ll realize that you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to him.”

  Chapter 28

  I guess Ma does know her boy, ’cause after eight days Jimmy comes into the Ten Pin while the women’s league is bowling, and right there, with everybody gawking on and me watching from my little window, he gets right down on his knee and tells Eva Leigh that he loves her and wants to marry her. Good thing everybody stopped what they was doing to watch, or I woulda gotten the shit whacked out of my legs for sure.

  Eva Leigh, she can’t do more than nod her head and cry and laugh, all at the same time. Jimmy picks her up and twirls her around, and Ruby Leigh, who is all girlie-crying too, she lifts a glass and shouts, “Drink up, everybody. The next one’s on the house!”

  Jimmy don’t come home ’til early the next morning. I hear his car pull in and I go to his room to wait for him to take a piss and get upstairs. When he comes up, I shake his hand, like you’re suppose to do when somebody says they is getting married.

  “Hey, Jimmy,” I say, “you remember how you said after you get married, I get to live with you?” Jimmy peels off his shirt. His hair is a mess. He throws his shirt at me and it smells like Eva Leigh.

  “Sure I remember, Earwig. I even thought to talk it over with Eva tonight. She said she’d love having you with us. And LJ, well, you know he’d love it. You’re his best buddy.”

  “Well, Jimmy,” I say, “I ain’t gonna move in with you and Eva Leigh and LJ. Me and Lucky, we is gonna move in to our own place.” Jimmy’s undoing his pants, but he stops and squints at me.

  “Me and Ruby Leigh, we was talking it over tonight after we closed up the place. She telled me that she is gonna move to Milwaukee after the wedding and start herself a new life. That got me to thinking then about how maybe I should start a new life too.

  “Ruby Leigh, she said, ‘Why don’t you move into our place after we move out?’ So Jimmy, that’s what I’m planning to do, if Sam don’t mind. Slim telled me before he left tonight that he ordered them automatic pinsetting machines that they is using in the cities now and that I ain’t gonna be a pinsetter no more. At first I thought he was telling me I was shit-canned, but instead he telled me he’s too old and tired to spend so much time at the Ten Pin anymore, and he asked me if I can be the custodian. That means I’m gonna keep the place cleaned and fixed up. I gotta boot the drunks out too, if they get too mouthy.”

  “Jesus, Earwig.”

  “Ruby Leigh, she figured it out for me on paper. With the money I’m gonna make at the Ten Pin, working six nights a week now, and what Ma pays me for helping in the store, plus the money I got saved up, I got more than enough to live on my own, Ruby Leigh says.”

  “Earwig, you sure about this? ’Cause, like I told you, Eva said she’d be glad to have you move in with us. There’ll be plenty of room, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “No, Jimmy, I ain’t worried about that. It’s just that I’m all growed up now, and I want to live like I am.”

  “You’ll get lonely all by yourself.”

  “I ain’t gonna be all by myself, Jimmy. I got Lucky. And Eddie, he’ll come by to see me pert’ near every day. We is gonna play checkers and eat candy bars and drink Coca-Cola and look at comic books and stuff. And you and Eva Leigh and LJ, you can come by to see me now and then, and so can Ma and Dad. I can ride my bike and see you guys sometimes too. I’m gonna buy me a radio and listen to it even when I’m busy, and I might even save up for one of them television sets so I can see the pictures that go with them stories. Won’t that be something!”

  Jimmy, his mouth is smiling, but his eyes, they look a little sad.

  Chapter 29

  Me and Jimmy, we start packing up our stuff a few days before Jimmy’s wedding, ’cause the day after, we is moving out to start our new lifes. We dig out our closets and we both find a lot of good junk. Jimmy, he don’t want most of his good junk, so he gives the stuff to me, and I put it in the boxes lined in the hall that got a big E writ on the side.

  Ma, she fusses over our boxes every time she comes upstairs, taking clothes out and folding ’em up again, and taking out shoes and boots and tying the laces together so they pair up. “Earl, you’re not taking those silly bottle caps with you, are you?” she says when her and Dad come upstairs to see how we’re doing.

  “I sure am,” I say, and Dad tells me he thinks that’s a good idea.

  Ma asks if I have enough socks and underwear, and she tells me she don’t want me going without nothing, and all I gotta do is ask if I run out of things like toilet paper or milk. She tells Jimmy the same. Dad laughs a little. “Eileen, stop fussing. It’s not like they’re moving across the ocean, for crissakes. Jimmy’s just moving outside of town, and Earl is just going down the street. They’ll be fine.”

  Ma, she gets all teary-eyed. “It’s silly of me, I know,” she says, dabbing her eyes with the corner of her apron. “But this house is going to feel so empty with you two gone.” Jimmy, he goes to Ma and puts his arm around her shoulder, so I go and put my arm around her other shoulder, right over the top of Jimmy’s. Ma looks up at Jimmy, then she looks at me. “My boys,” she says. “Where did the time go?”

  The night before Jimmy and Eva Leigh’s wedding, we don’t hardly get to sleep when Lucky zips down them stairs, lickety-split, and wakes up the whole house with his barking, ’cause somebody’s pounding on the door. Dad’s the first one to the door. By the time I can get down t
he stairs, Floyd’s standing there, and boy, does he got the nerves!

  “It’s Mary. The baby’s coming, Mr. Gunderman! I need to use your phone to call Dr. McCormick. Mary says she’ll never make it to the hospital in Ripley.”

  Dad pulls Floyd into the house. “Settle down there, son.”

  “Hank, what is it?” Ma says as she’s coming into the room.

  “The baby’s coming, Eileen, and Mary doesn’t think she can make it to Ripley. Call Dr. McCormick, will you?”

  “Oh, dear!” Ma says. She hurries to the kitchen.

  “Holy shit,” Jimmy says, as he comes down the stairs.

  “Settle down, boys,” Dad says. “Ma will get Dr. McCormick on the phone and he’ll come and take care of Mary just fine. Women have been having babies at home a hell of a lot longer than they’ve been having them in hospitals. Everything will be fine, Floyd.”

  Dad is smiling, but he stops when Ma comes back into the living room and says that Dr. McCormick went out on a call and that Mrs. McCormick, she weren’t awake enough to hear where he said he was going. “She said she’ll send him over as soon as he gets back.”

  “Oh, shit! Oh, shit!” Floyd says.

  Dad rubs his chin a bit, then he says, “Floyd, you head home and tell Mary not to worry. We’ll be right over, as soon as we pick up Mrs. Lark.”

  “Mrs. Lark?” Ma yells. “She delivers calves, Hank, not babies!”

  “Well, there can’t be that much difference, can there?” Dad says. “Floyd, you go home and put some water on to boil, and get some clean towels together, and you keep Mary calm. We’ll be right along.” Ma hurries off to put on some clothes.

  “Okay, okay,” Floyd says. He’s so skittery that the empty sleeve he’s usually got tied up is flapping like a white flag. “I keep Mary calm and get together some towels, and boil some water. Shit, what am I boiling water for again?”

  “I don’t know exactly, Floyd, but I know you have to boil some,” Dad says. “Now, go. Hurry.”

  “I’ll go with you, Floyd,” Jimmy says, slipping on his shoes, even though he ain’t got any socks on.

  “Me too,” I say. I almost pop poor Lucky’s head off shutting the door when I don’t see him trying to squeeze out behind me. I shove his head back inside and run to catch up with Jimmy.

  We run like jackrabbits down the alley, stirring up them sleeping dogs until the whole neighborhood is filled with barks. My heart is beating right in my ears. I ain’t never been around no lady having a baby before, but I heared they scream like they’s getting killed.

  Mary ain’t screaming when we get there, though. Least not ’til Floyd tells her that Dr. McCormick ain’t coming, just Mrs. Lark. “What?” she bellers. “Mrs. Lark? Oh, my God!” Then, just when I think Mary ain’t gonna scream and carry on, she doubles over as much as she can with that big belly and screams like she’s got a sword stabbing through her.

  Floyd hurries to catch her so she don’t fall over, then Jimmy and Floyd help get her down the hall to the bed.

  Mary, she holds her fat belly as they lower her down. She’s got two wet spots over her titties, like she dipped ’em in a sink of dishwater by accident.

  “Oh, God, Floyd,” Mary says, after that pain lets up a bit. She reaches for his hand and squeezes it tight. “I’m scared,” she says, then she starts screaming again and that pain makes her close up like a jackknife.

  When Ma and Dad show up with Mrs. Lark, me and Jimmy and Floyd gotta wait in the living room with Dad. Ma and Mrs. Lark go into the bedroom and shut the door behind ’em.

  “The water,” Dad says. “We gotta boil the water.” Now Dad is as shook up as Jimmy and Floyd and me.

  We look for a pan, but we ain’t got a goddamn clue if we is suppose to boil lots of water or just a little bit. So we get out a big pan, a middle-sized pan, and a little pan, and we boil water in all three of ’em.

  Us guys sure is a mess. Jimmy and Floyd smoke and walk in little circles, and Dad, he walks in a long loop, his thumbs stringed through his belt. I don’t even know I’m picking at my pants ’til I feel my fingers pinch some of my skin.

  “Women have babies all the time,” Dad says. “We’ve got to remember that. Childbirth is as natural as taking a shit.” Mary lets out a big-ass holler and we all stop, our ears perked up like Lucky’s when he hears a loud noise.

  “Jesus,” Floyd says, when that scream quiets some. “Some women die having babies, don’t they?” And Dad tells him yes, but that ain’t gonna happen to Mary.

  Floyd sits down on the couch and blows his breath out, hard. “I wish my ma was here.” He rubs his leg a bit with the only hand he’s got. “Ma would have liked Mary, and she sure would have liked having a grandkid.”

  Dad goes over to Floyd and squeezes Floyd’s shoulder. “I know, son. I know.”

  Then, just like that, we hear Mrs. Lark yell, “Push, Mary! Push!”

  Mary’s scream sounds like a siren, only that scream don’t fall down, it just keeps rising and rising. Floyd leaps up. “Jesus Christ!” he says, and he looks like he’s gonna jump right outta his skin.

  Mary’s scream stops, lickety-split, and I listen hard, thinking she keeled right over and died. Then I hear it, little squeaks that turn into the screeching of a baby. I know the rest of ’em hear it too, ’cause they start to laughing.

  Floyd runs down the hall, me and Dad and Jimmy running right behind him.

  Floyd throws open the door. I can see right over the top of Jimmy and Dad’s heads, and boy, I’m sorry I can! There is Mary, her legs spread like chicken wings, and on the bloody sheets, right between her legs, is a gray blob that looks like a gut pile.

  “Holy shit!” I say. It don’t look like no baby I ever see’d before, but sure enough, it’s gotta be the baby, ’cause I can hear it crying.

  “Get out of here!” Mrs. Lark yells, and Ma runs to push us out the door.

  “Mary! Mary!” Floyd is yelling.

  “It’s a girl, Floyd! A little girl!” Mary yells back.

  That didn’t look like no baby girl I ever see’d before, and I hope to hell I ain’t gotta tell Floyd he’s got a cute baby there, ’cause that sure would be a lie.

  We is standing around like fools when Ma comes to get the water. Soon as she steps out of the hall and sees that foggy air swirling, her boomerang eyebrows scrinch down. She hurries to the stove and peers into the pans. “What on earth were you boys doing here? Boiling water for a bath? Good grief, couldn’t you smell this little pan scorching?” She shakes her head, opens a drawer and grabs a pair of scissors, and tells us all to go sit down and stay out of the way.

  Floyd, he can’t go sit down, though, on accounta he’s gotta puke ’cause he’s got the nerves, even though all the screaming is over. While he’s off puking, I tell Dad that I hope that baby don’t stay as ugly as she looked when she comed out, all gray and flubbery like that.

  Dad laughs, and so does Jimmy. “That wasn’t the baby, Earl. That was the afterbirth. The sack the baby was growing in.” I sure am relieved to hear that, ’cause Floyd probably woulda puked all over again, if that had been the baby.

  Mary is sitting up, propped on pillows, when they finally let us in. She’s wearing a pretty pink nightie, and that baby’s wrapped up in pink too. Mary’s got tears in her eyes, but she’s smiling big.

  Floyd hurries to the bed and kisses her. Mary pulls back the baby’s blanket, so we can see all of her. That bitty baby is kicking and clawing like a turtle that’s flipped over on its back. I’m real glad to see she ain’t got no silver spoon sticking out of her ass.

  I move closer to the bed so I can see her better. When she stops all that fussing, she looks kinda cute, even though she’s wrinkled like a raisin, and her mouth is all bald inside. Floyd reaches down and takes her little fist, which ain’t no bigger than a plum pit, and gives it a few bounces.

  That baby, she opens her eyes while I’m bending over taking a look, and she turns them teeny button eyes right to me. “She’s lookin
g at me! She’s looking right at me!” I say.

  “That’s your uncle Earwig,” Floyd tells her, and that gets me to laughing.

  “I want to name her Kathleen,” Mary says to Floyd. “After your mom.” This makes Floyd get all choked up, and it makes them ladies drop tears all over the place.

  We is so busy looking at the new baby that it takes awhile before any of us figure out that somebody’s knocking on the door.

  Ma goes to open it and comes back with Dr. McCormick. He sets his doctor’s bag down on the dresser and takes off his jacket. “I’m sorry I’m late, Mrs. Fryer. But it looks like you were in good hands.” He looks for a place to put his jacket, then he looks at us guys and frowns. “What are you men doing in here? You aren’t supposed to be around the baby this soon. Come on, now, all of you, out. That means you too, Daddy.”

  Ma comes out a couple minutes later, and she tells us that Mary and the baby’s gotta go over to the hospital in Ripley. When Floyd gets skittery, Ma touches his arm. “Nothing’s wrong, Floyd. The doctor just wants to make sure both Mary and the baby are looked after properly for a few days.”

  Dad puts the bag Ma packed with Mary’s things into Dr. McCormick’s front seat while Floyd helps Mary into the backseat. Once Mary’s got her legs in, Ma hands her the little bundle of blankets that would be Kathleen.

  “You get some sleep tonight, Floyd,” Mary says. “You’ve got an important event to attend tomorrow.” Mary looks over to Jimmy. “I’m sorry I’m going to miss your wedding, Jimmy. Give Eva my best, though.” Mary thanks Ma and Mrs. Lark for helping, then Dr. McCormick says it’s time to go. Floyd reaches in and gives Mary a kiss, then he kisses the blanket that’s folded over Kathleen’s head.