Spare Change (Wyattsville #1)(14)

“Who you talking to?”

“I’m not talking to nobody!”

“Well then, quit making such a racket, you’ll wake the boy.”

“That sorry little shit will wish I’d woken him when I finally get hold of his ass!” Susanna mumbled as she trudged off to the bedroom.

In the morning, Ethan Allen ate a handful of pretzels for breakfast then bicycled off to school wearing the same shirt and pants as the day before. After school, he went back to the fort and waited until he saw Susanna’s car leaving, then he returned to the house. He followed the same routine for two days, before she finally caught up to him.

“No you don’t,” she said, grabbing at the back of his shirt as he tried to make off with a package of honey buns. “We’ve got some talking to do!”

“Why? I didn’t do nothing!”

“You’re supposed to be home on a school night. You’re supposed to be studying, not jackassing yourself into town for free pie!”

“I was hungry.”

“I don’t give a crap if your stomach was turned inside out, you got no business—”

“You’re just yelling at me cause I seen you waving your naked butt around!”

“Don’t give me none of your sass!”

“I ain’t to blame. You was the one.”

“Ethan Allen! I’m warning you!”

“If Daddy was to know you showed your bare butt to Mister Scooter…”

“Shut up!” Susanna raised her hand and whacked it across the boy’s face. “You don’t never talk about such a thing!”

“I ain’t afraid of you!”

“You might not be afraid of me, but you’d better be afraid of Scooter Cobb; his son’s a policeman who’ll toss your skinny little ass in jail.”

“For what?”

“For telling lies on people, that’s what!”

“It ain’t no lie. I did see—”

“You’re a kid, nobody’s gonna believe you! If that policeman says you’re telling lies on his daddy, then everybody’s gonna believe you’re telling lies!”

“They don’t lock people up for telling lies.”

“Oh no?” Susanna said looking square into the boy’s face. “Shows what you know. They might not put boys your age in jail; but they put them in reform school and keep them locked up until they’ve grown a long white beard.”

“But, I didn’t do nothing!”

“I know that and you know that, but everybody else is gonna think different,” Susanna let the corners of her mouth curl slightly. “That’s why,” she said, “it’s important for you not to say anything about this.”

“I won’t, Mama, I swear I won’t,” he crisscrossed his heart, “hope to die.”

“Okay, then. This’ll be our secret,” she said with a smile. “Now get your butt over here and give your mama a big hug.”

That afternoon Susanna fixed macaroni with cheese for Ethan Allen’s lunch and gave him two dollars to buy the new basket he’d been needing for his bicycle. And, for weeks afterward, it seemed she always had enough spare change for him to go to the movies or buy some trinket that had caught hold of his eye. Their relationship suddenly turned noticeably better. First she came home with a new collar for Dog, then it was three brand new Superman comic books, after that it was a bicycle horn, something Ethan had been wanting for the longest time. you’re spoiling him,” Benjamin grumbled, “He skips doing homework and you reward him with presents—what kind of way is that to raise a kid?”

“He’s just a boy,” Susanna answered; then she gave Ethan Allen a sly wink. Although she had put her foot down about him showing up at the diner all hours of the night; up until nine o’clock he was still allowed to come for free pies and cakes. “Not one minute later!” she’d said with a no-nonsense tone to her voice.

Ethan Allen started coming in right after school, ordering hamburgers, barbecue sandwiches with extra sauce, grilled cheese platters, milk shakes and on two different occasions, banana splits. He’d pass by the house and stay just long enough to lift Dog into the new basket hooked onto the handlebar of his bicycle, then off he’d pedal, thinking of what new thing he was gonna order up that day. He’d climb onto a stool at the end of the counter and tell Scooter he had a hankering for some God-awful thing such as chocolate cream pie with a double scoop of ice cream on the side—minutes later it would be sitting in front of him. When he’d eaten as much as he could hold, he’d want meat scraps for Dog. Although Scooter Cobb gave the boy everything he asked for and more, Ethan Allen had a genuine disliking for the man. He hated the look of Scooter’s fat fingers, hated the laugh that rippled first one fold of chin and then the other, but most of all, he hated the thought of his mama stretching her arms around that great paunch of stomach.

Once, just days after he’d seen Scooter grab hold of his mama’s butt in full view of everyone, Ethan Allen asked, “Mama, are you gonna leave us for Mister Scooter?”

She was sitting on the porch at the time, giving her toenails a second coat of Cherry Blossom Pink. “Dear Lord,” she sighed and set the nail polish bottle aside. “Come on over here,” she pulled Ethan Allen up onto her lap as if he was still a baby. “I know there’s times when I’m not a real good mama,” she said, “but honey, I love you and your daddy. Why, I’d never run off from you, never ever, not long as you live.”