The Paper Cowboy Read online

  But I awoke in the middle of the night to a whisper in my ear. Tommy, it said, it was all your fault.

  No one was there.

  Boots whined softly, turned over and resumed his snoring.

  I closed my eyes and cried myself back to sleep.

  5

  THE PAPER ROUTE

  At 4:30 in the morning, the alarm clock rang. It kept ringing and ringing, until I finally found the right lever to turn it off. Boots slept on.

  There was a moment when I couldn’t remember why I had set the alarm. A moment when I didn’t feel worried or guilty, only confused and tired. And then I remembered. It was like the anvil falling on the coyote in that cartoon I’d seen at the movies.

  I knew it would be dark at 4:30 in the morning, but I didn’t know how dark. It was as dark as the time Mom made me crawl into the belly of our cold furnace to patch a hole in the firebox and my flashlight went out. And Mary Lou did this every single day.

  I wanted to climb back into bed. But I couldn’t let Dad down. I couldn’t let Mary Lou down. I had to do this. Like it or not.

  So as I got dressed, I took stock of what I knew. There were two different papers to deliver—the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. Some houses got only the Tribune, some got only the Sun-Times and some got both. Mary Lou had them all memorized now, but I knew she had a huge metal ring of two-by-four-inch cards, with the names and addresses and subscription details of everyone on the route, which she’d used when she first got started. All I had to do was find that ring. Which meant I had to go into her room.

  I don’t know why that seemed so scary. ’Course I’d been in her room a hundred times—she was my sister—but somehow, knowing she wasn’t there made it seem like I was walking into an abandoned gold mine. “Come on, Boots,” I called.

  My dog opened one eye and stared at me, but he obediently stretched and crept over to my side. Together, we walked across the hall and pushed Mary Lou’s door open.

  No one had closed the blinds, so moonlight streamed in through the uncovered window. Everything glowed silver, as if it were radioactive. The room was tidy, the desk neat, no clothes or books left on the floor. I stood there looking for a long time before I finally managed to force myself to step inside. I was careful not to look at the empty bed and went straight to the desk. I opened the top drawer. There, on a pile of papers, was the ring of cards.

  Well, that was one piece of luck. I grabbed the ring and ran out of there, like the town thief running from the sheriff.

  In the kitchen, I glanced at the clock. Somehow it was already almost five. How much time had I spent, standing at the edge of Mary Lou’s doorway in the darkness? If I wasn’t back by seven thirty, I’d miss the bus. So I grabbed a cold piece of corn bread for breakfast and wolfed it down.

  Boots and I trudged out to the garage and I opened up the door. There were three or four bikes there, all in a jumble, each of them with a giant, square wire basket on the front. I pulled out mine, which was red, but the front tire was flat. A piece of glass was stuck in it, probably from the scrap yard. I didn’t have the time to patch it, so I pulled out the blue bike Mary Lou used.

  I felt her presence hover around me like a ghost as I walked the bike to the front of the house. There was a huge pile of papers on our front porch. I knew that Mr. Reynolds, in his old World War II jeep, dropped them off there each morning, but I’d never seen them before. The pile was as tall as I was. I tried to pull out a couple, but the papers were tied together with baling wire. So it was back to the garage to find a wire cutter. Once I had the stack open, I stuffed as many papers as I could into the basket on the front of the bike. I’d have to come back to get the rest.

  I may have had another moment of despair then. I may have considered going back inside and waking Dad and telling him, I can’t do it. I may even have dreamed of crawling back into my nice, warm bed, but if so, I’m not admitting it.

  I glared at the papers.

  They stared back at me.

  Then I got on the bike and, with Boots trotting beside me, rode off into the dawn.

  Except that it was still dark. And if I’m being truthful, what actually happened was that I only made it halfway down the driveway before I fell off the bike. It wasn’t my fault. Balancing on a bike was way different with a stack of papers hanging over the front wheel. Half the newspapers fell out of the basket onto the gravel drive.

  That was just the last straw. My sister was burned and it was my fault and now I couldn’t even do a stupid paper route to help my family out. Boots came over to lick the tears off my face. Did I say there were tears? Of course, cowboys don’t cry. But I felt completely alone. So I may have cried for just a minute or two, till I realized no one was coming to rescue me.

  I stood up, put the papers back in the basket and walked the bike down to Fairview Avenue. That was the eastern border of the route and it was paved, so I’d have smooth pedaling and wouldn’t fall off. I hoped.

  I’d finally gotten the hang of riding with a full basket by the time I reached the old Czech couple’s house. Their real names were Mr. and Mrs. Kopecky, but everyone called them Pa and Ma. He was skinny as a broomstick and always wore a bow tie. She was round as a barrel.

  Ma opened the door at the exact same time I was opening the screen to put down her paper, and scared me half to death. “You the Wilson boy?” she asked. She wore a loose flowered dress that made her look like a big bouquet.

  I nodded.

  “What’s your name? Johnny? Walter?”

  “Tommy,” I admitted.

  “Tommy,” she repeated. “How old are you?”

  “Twelve, ma’am.”

  “Same as my grandson, Rickie. He visits in the summer. You know him?”

  I’d seen him on the ball field. I knew he was an only child, fussed over. You could tell, because his haircut was always neat, and he wore a white shirt and good leather shoes to play ball. Had a new mitt too. I’d tried to dislike him, but he let me use his glove, and if someone’s willing to loan you his glove, well, then you just can’t not like him. I nodded.

  “Hold on a minute.” She disappeared into the kitchen for a moment and reappeared with a sausage that she tossed to Boots.

  “I was going to eat that!” Pa called from inside the house.

  “You have enough!” Ma called back. “Dog is too skinny.”

  Boots gobbled up the sausage before she could change her mind.

  “Thanks,” I said with a smile. I could have done with a sausage myself.

  Ma smiled back. “We’re praying for your sister.”

  I nodded again, scared that if I said a word I’d burst out crying.

  When I was halfway through the metal ring of address cards, I went back to the house and refilled my basket. Then I began the western part of the route. First stop was McKenzie’s Grocery and Sundry Store.

  Mr. McKenzie had taken over the store after old Mr. O’Malley had died two months before. Mr. McKenzie was a Gypsy, a big man, not fat, but every time I saw him, it seemed like his suit was just a little too small. He was always friendly enough, but with his dark hair and wild, bushy eyebrows, he always reminded me of a grizzly bear. I wondered if he had a crystal ball in the apartment he lived in above the store. Mr. McKenzie was outside sweeping as I rode up.

  “You’re Tommy, right?” he asked.

  “Yes.” I held out the paper.

  He grasped it tightly. His hands were large and thick, his fingers twice the size of mine. “I was so sorry to hear about your sister.”

  I nodded.

  “Sam was burned when he was a baby,” he said.

  It took me a minute to realize he was talking about Little Skinny, the new boy at St. Joseph’s, who had joined our class when school started two weeks earlier. Eddie and I had christened him Little Skinny because he was so fat. He also had a big scar
across half his face. I hadn’t realized that Mr. McKenzie was his father.

  “A burn is a horrible injury,” Mr. McKenzie continued. “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”

  All his talk of burns and injuries was making me uncomfortable. Mary Lou was nothing like Little Skinny. She was my beautiful, sweet sister, and she was going to be absolutely fine.

  “Okay,” I said finally.

  I could feel him watching me as I rode off. He was just being nice, like Ma and Pa, but their sympathy made me feel like I wanted to throw up.

  I was almost done with the route by the time I reached Mrs. Scully’s house. She was young and pretty, with blond hair styled like Marilyn Monroe’s. Her husband had died a year or so before. She lived in the big house all alone, earning her living by taking in sewing and mending. She waved from the front porch when she saw me. I was afraid she’d call out her thoughts about Mary Lou too, but she didn’t say a word.

  I had one final stop—our next-door neighbor’s house. Actually, it was more like a shack, so run-down it looked like the Big Bad Wolf had already blown it over. An old Russian woman who played the accordion lived there, and as I threw her paper onto the front porch, I had the sudden thought that maybe the Daily Worker had come from her.

  But the sun was fully up now, so I had no time to mull over that idea. I knew it had to be nearly seven thirty, but I was too scared to look at my watch. I was huffing and puffing as I turned into our driveway. Boots’s tongue hung out as I threw the bike into the garage.

  “You’re late, Tommy!” Mom hollered from the kitchen.

  I ran inside and yanked on my school uniform: navy pants, white shirt and a tie. Mom handed me my lunch and satchel. I took them without looking at her and dashed back outside.

  The bus was waiting at the corner. The driver, an old woman with gray hair who always smelled of cigarettes, cleared her throat as I climbed on. “Heard what happened to your sister,” she said in a low voice. “I’m very sorry. But I’m afraid I can’t hold the bus again.”

  I nodded and collapsed into a seat. I’d done it. I’d delivered the papers. I should have felt proud or relieved or something. But as I watched Boots bark at the bus as it pulled away, all I felt was sick that Mary Lou wasn’t there with me, and dread that I’d have to do the paper route again tomorrow.

  6

  THE BULLY

  By the time we got to school, four different people had told me they were so sorry, Eddie had asked about Mary Lou twice and I was ready to slug anyone who mentioned her again. I practically ran to the chapel. As I slid into a pew, I could feel the weight of home falling off my shoulders, like a horse shrugging off a saddlebag.

  At St. Joseph’s Catholic School we had Mass every morning. That meant thirty-five minutes of peace and quiet—well, except for the standing up and kneeling, and chanting in Latin, but I could do all that in my sleep. And even if I forgot some of the words, I’d just get a real pious look on my face, lower my voice and say, “A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty ‘Hi-Yo, Silver!’”

  I loved school. Oh, the nuns liked to pretend they were mean, but the worst they’d do was get out the ruler and rap you on the knuckles. Not that anyone misbehaved. No, sir. St. Joe’s was run like Ike’s army, which was okay by me. I liked knowing what was going to happen. At home, if I accidentally dropped a plate, sometimes Mom would laugh and call me slippery fingers and help me clean it up, and sometimes she’d yell for an hour and send me to bed without dinner.

  After Mass we’d say a prayer for anyone who was sick or had died or anything like that. First on our prayer list was always Cardinal József Mindszenty. He was the leader of the Catholic Church in Hungary and had spoken out against the communists who had taken over Hungary after the war. He was arrested, tortured and, at a sham trial in 1949, sentenced to life in prison. So every day we bowed our heads and prayed for his release.

  I should have known what was coming next, should have expected it when Sister Ann stood up and said she had a special announcement. Like all the other nuns, Sister Ann wore a habit complete with a black-and-white wimple. She was tall and thin, except for her nose, which looked a little bit like a pickle. “Yesterday, one of our very own students, Mary Lou Wilson, was burned in a terrible accident.”

  There was a gasp from one of the eighth-grade girls. She must have been the only one who hadn’t already heard. I longed for the earth to open up and swallow me whole.

  “Please keep Mary Lou and her family in your prayers,” said Sister Ann, “especially her brother, Tommy.”

  Everyone turned to look at me.

  I slouched down lower in the pew. All I wanted was not to have to think about it for a little while. Did that make me a horrible brother? Yeah, it probably did.

  I’d never been so glad to file into our classroom and start working on spelling. Lizzie Johnson was selected to hand out the composition notebooks. I groaned. Oh, she was cute enough, with curls like Little Orphan Annie in the comics and enough freckles to make it look like someone had sprinkled pepper on her face. But she always batted her eyelashes at me and spoke in this high-pitched baby voice. It was really annoying.

  According to Mary Lou, I was handsome. With dark brown hair, always kept neat and trimmed, and deep brown eyes, as rich and gooey as a chocolate-covered raisin. (Her words, not mine. Who wants gooey eyes?) But I liked being good-looking. I mean, who wouldn’t? When I smiled, even the nuns would soften and give me the benefit of the doubt when I was being naughty. Tommy didn’t really mean to knock over the trash can. Tommy didn’t really mean to bump into you. Even if I really did.

  But sometimes, at night, I’d lie in bed and wonder, what if I hadn’t been born good-looking? What if I was like Eddie, with blond hair that jutted off at odd angles and blue eyes that weren’t quite the same size? When we got into scrapes together, often he’d get in trouble instead of me. I asked him about it once. “Aw, Tommy, you’re just a smooth talker,” he said, but I wasn’t sure that was the real reason.

  “Hi, Tommy,” cooed Lizzie when she reached my desk, just like I knew she would.

  “Hello, Lizzie,” I said.

  “I’m so sorry about your sister.”

  I frowned at her. “I don’t want to talk about it.” Sister Ann was writing spelling words on the board and I pretended to concentrate on that.

  “Did she really burn up like a firecracker?” Lizzie asked. Her blue eyes were sparkling, but whether from concern or excitement I couldn’t tell.

  Eddie glared at her. “He said he doesn’t want to talk about it.”

  “Well, I was just asking,” Lizzie said.

  I pulled a composition notebook from the middle of the stack, causing her to drop all the ones on top. They fell to the floor with a crash.

  Sister Ann whirled around. “Lizzie Johnson, what are you doing?”

  “Tommy made me—”

  “Are you handing out the notebooks or is Tommy?”

  “I am,” Lizzie admitted.

  I sat piously in my seat, my hands folded neatly on top of my desk.

  “Well, if you can’t do your job in an appropriate manner, I shall have to ask someone else.”

  “Sorry, Sister,” Lizzie said, bowing her head.

  Sister Ann turned back to the chalkboard. Lizzie bent down and picked up the notebooks, but before she moved on to the next desk, she stuck her tongue out at me. She kind of reminded me of Mary Lou when she did that. I swallowed, trying to force down the lump in my throat.

  Eddie leaned over to me and whispered, “Did you bring the paper?”

  “Which paper?” I asked blankly.

  “The paper.”

  “Oh yeah.” I checked my satchel. Sure enough, there it was, right where I had put it. Right before . . . “Here it is.”

  “We gonna show it to the choirboys at recess?”

>   I nodded. “That’s the plan.”

  The choirboys were what we called Luke and Peter. They lived in the nice part of town and Eddie and I had kind of a rivalry with them. They were always showing us the new pocket watches or army knives they’d gotten. Now we finally had something cool to show them. ’Cause fighting commies was one thing we all agreed on. I hated communists almost as much as I loved cowboys.

  But before recess came spelling. And then reading. And after that religion. And then it was finally time to go outside.

  There was no empty field or anything like that. The oldest boys in the eighth grade (that was Mary Lou’s class) brought out long, wooden, black-and-white construction horses and used them to block off the cobblestone street in front of the school. They set up a couple of saw horses in the middle of the street too, creating two sections. One was for the girls to skip rope and play hopscotch. The other was for us boys. The nuns walked in circles, keeping an eye on everyone.

  When the nuns were at the far end of the street, I gestured for Peter and Luke to follow Eddie and me over to a big elm tree. “Got something to show you,” I whispered.

  “What is it this time?” Luke asked, rolling his eyes. His mom must have made him get a haircut every two weeks, because his dark hair was always neatly trimmed. But he had a twisted arm from a bad case of polio in second grade and it just kind of hung at his side. Nobody dared say a word about it, ’cause that’d be bad luck and then maybe they’d catch polio too.

  Peter snickered. He was Lizzie’s twin brother, and they looked a lot alike. He also had curly red hair, which he kept cut very short so it wouldn’t curl too much, and a face full of freckles. Mention the resemblance, however, and Peter was likely to slug you. Unlike Mary Lou and me, Peter and Lizzie didn’t like each other. “Probably another stupid comic book.”

  I grabbed Peter’s tie and yanked, hard. He stumbled and almost fell on the cobblestones. “Hey,” I said. “Just because Kid Colt Outlaw isn’t as famous as The Lone Ranger doesn’t mean it isn’t a good comic too!”