Plainsong (Plainsong #1)(4)

The two boys leaned their bikes against the milk wagon, and with a jackknife Ike cut the twine. Then they knelt and counted the stack of papers into two piles and began to roll and rubber-band them.

When they were almost finished Ralph Black walked out of the ticket office and stood over the boys, his long shadow hanging across them, obscuring them while he watched them work. He was a gaunt old man with a paunch, he was chewing a cigar.

How come you little boys are late this morning? he said. The papers been there almost a hour.

We aren’t little boys, Bobby said.

Ralph laughed. Maybe not, he said. But you’re still late.

They didn’t say anything.

Ain’t you, Ralph said. I said, Ain’t you still late.

What’s it to you? Ike said.

What’s that?

I said . . . He didn’t finish but went on rolling papers, kneeling on the cobbles beside his brother.

That’s right, Ralph Black said. You don’t want to say something like that again. Or somebody might just paddle your little behind. How would you like me to do that for you? I will, by God.

He stared down at the tops of their heads. They refused to say anything or even to acknowledge him, so he looked out along the train tracks and spat brown tobacco over their heads toward the rails.

And stop leaning those bikes against that wagon there. I told you that before, he said. Next time I’ll call your dad.

The boys finished rolling the papers and stood up to put them into the canvas bags on their bikes. Ralph Black watched them with satisfaction, then spat again onto the nearest track and returned to his office. When the door was shut Bobby said, He never told us that before.

He’s just an old dogfart, Ike said. He never told us anything before. Let’s go.

They separated and began their individual halves of the route. Between them they had the entire town. Bobby took the older, more established part of Holt, the south side where the wide flat streets were lined with elm trees and locust and hackberry and evergreen, where the comfortable two-story houses were set back in their own spaces of lawn and where behind them the car garages opened out onto the graveled alleys, while Ike, for his part, took the three blocks of Main Street on both sides, the stores and the dark apartments over the stores, and also the north side of town across the railroad tracks, where the houses were smaller with frequent vacant lots in between, where the houses were painted blue or yellow or pale green and might have chickens in the back lots in wire pens and here and there dogs on chains and also car bodies rusting among the cheetweed and redroot under the low-hanging mulberry trees.

To deliver the Denver News took about an hour. Then they met again at the corner of Main and Railroad and rode home, pedaling over the washboards in the gravel. They passed the line of lilac bushes in the side yard of Mrs. Frank’s house, the fragrant blooms long dead now and dry and the heart-shaped leaves dusty with the traffic, and rode past the narrow pasture, the tree house in the silver poplar in the corner, and turned in onto the drive at home and left their bikes beside the house.

Upstairs in the bathroom they combed their hair wet, drawing it up into waves and fluffing it with their cupped hands so it stood up stiffly over their foreheads. Water trickled down their cheeks and dribbled behind their ears. They toweled off and went out into the hallway and stood hesitant before the door until Ike turned the knob and then they entered the hushed half-lit room.

She lay in the guest bed on her back now with her arm still folded across her face like someone in great distress. A thin woman, caught as though in some inescapable thought or attitude, motionless, almost as if she were not even breathing. They stopped inside the door. There were the brief lines of light at the edges of the drawn window shades and from across the room they could smell the dead flowers in the vase on the tall chest of drawers.

Yes? she said. She did not stir or move. Her voice was nearly a whisper.

Mother?

Yes.

Are you all right?

You can come over here, she said.

They approached the bed. She removed her arm from over her face and looked at them, one boy then the other. In the dim light their wet hair appeared very dark and their blue eyes were almost black. They stood beside the bed looking at her.

Do you feel any better? Ike said.

Do you feel like getting up? said Bobby.

Her eyes looked glassy, as if she were suffering from fever. Are you ready for school now? she said.

Yes.

What time is it?

They looked at the clock on the dresser. Quarter of eight, Ike said.

You better go. You don’t want to be late. She smiled a little and reached a hand toward them. Will you each give me a kiss first?

They leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek, one after the other, the quick embarrassed kisses of little boys. Her cheek felt cool and she smelled like herself. She took up their hands and held them for a moment against her cool cheeks while she looked at their faces and their dark wet hair. They could just bear to glance at her eyes. They stood waiting uncomfortably, leaning over the bed. At last she released their hands and they stood up. You’d better go on, she said.

Goodbye, Mother, Ike said.

I hope you get better, Bobby said.

They went out of the room and closed the door. Outside the house in the bright sunlight again they crossed the drive and went across Railroad Street and walked down in the path through the ditch weeds and across the railroad tracks and through the old park toward school. When they arrived at the playground they separated to join their own friends and stood talking with the other boys in their own grades until the first bell rang and called them into class.