Plainsong (Plainsong #1)(70)

When they walked inside the house, their father wasn’t there. They called out but there was no answer. It made them scared again. They locked the door, dropped their coats on the floor in the front hall and went upstairs and began to wash themselves at the bathroom sink. In the cabinet mirror their faces were dirty and tear-streaked with little runnels along their noses, and their eyes looked shadowy and strange. They were bent over the sink when their father came home. They heard him call as soon as he came in.

Ike? Bobby? Are you here?

They didn’t answer.

He noticed their coats and came rushing upstairs and found them in the bathroom, the rinse water clinging to their faces, both turned toward the door, looking at him as though he’d walked in on them in some shameful ritual act.

He entered the room. Why didn’t you answer me? he said. Where’d you go? When you didn’t come home after the show I went out looking for you. I was about to call Bud Sealy.

They stood looking at him.

What is it? he said. One of you better tell me what’s going on.

They wouldn’t say anything. Yet Bobby’s eyes had welled up and the tears ran unchecked on his cheeks and he began to sob terrifically as though he couldn’t breathe, crying but uttering no words at all.

What’s wrong? Guthrie said. Here now. What is it? He took a towel and dried Bobby’s face, then his brother’s. Is it that bad? he said. He led them down the hall to their bedroom in the old sleeping porch at the back of the house, sitting between them on the bed and encircling them with his arms. Tell me what’s wrong here. What happened?

Bobby was still crying. Now and then he shuddered. Both boys were turned away from him, facing the windows to the north.

Ike, Guthrie said, tell me what’s wrong.

The boy shook his head.

Something is. You’ve gotten dirty. Look at your pants. What is it?

Ike shook his head again. He and his brother looked at the window.

Ike? Guthrie said.

At last the boy turned to him. His face appeared desperate, pent-up, as though it would burst. Leave us alone, he cried. You have to leave us alone.

I’m not going to leave you alone, Guthrie said. Tell me what happened.

We aren’t suppose to say anything. He said we can’t tell anybody.

Who said you can’t tell anybody? Guthrie said. What’s this about?

That big one with the red hair, Ike said. He said . . . We can’t talk about it. Don’t you understand?

Guthrie watched him, the boy’s eyes were red and flaring, but he had stopped talking. He would not say anything more. Not now. He was ready to cry again and he turned back toward the window.





Guthrie.

He sat with them that night in their bedroom until they slept, and did not want to think what they would be dreaming. The next morning, Sunday morning, after breakfast and after they’d talked about the night before in the cold dark, the boys were able to tell more because in the daylight they were no longer so afraid. Then he drove to Gum Street on the south side of Holt, the old, the best part of town. A pleasant neighborhood with box elder trees and elm and hackberry, with lilac bushes along the side yards and kept lawns, though everything was still only faintly green at this earliest start of spring. A block or two to the west church bells were starting up from the tower at the Methodist church. Then the Catholic bells started up a block east.

He got out of the pickup and walked up to the white clapboard house, stepped onto the porch and knocked on the door. After a time the door swung open. Mrs. Beckman looked out. Squat and blocklike, she appeared to be rancorous already. She wore a housedress and toeless slippers, her hair sprayed up stiffly onto her head. You, she said. What do you want?

Tell Russell to come out here, Guthrie said.

What for?

I want to talk to him.

He don’t have to talk to you. She held on to the doorknob in her thick hand. This isn’t the school. You don’t have no say here. Why don’t you just get the hell out.

Tell him to come here. I’m going to talk to him.

Doris, a man’s voice came from inside the house. Shut the damn door. You’re letting the cold in.

You better come out here, she called. She didn’t even turn her head to speak. Instead, she watched Guthrie steadily. Come out here, she called.

Who is it?

Him.

There were footsteps, then her husband appeared in the door. What’s he want?

He’s after Russell again.

What about?

He hasn’t said what about.

Guthrie looked at the couple framed in the door, Beckman tall and thin above the short heavy woman, Beckman in a white shirt and dark shiny trousers, carrying a section of newspaper in his hand.

What’s this about, Guthrie?

Your son hurt my boys last night. I intend to talk to him about it.

What the hell are you talking about now? This is Sunday morning. Can’t you even leave him alone on a Sunday morning?

You tell him to come out here, Guthrie said.

Beckman studied Guthrie. All right, by God, he said. We’ll see about this. He turned to his wife. Go get him.

He’s still sleeping.

Get him up.

He don’t have no right coming here, she said. What right does he have?

Don’t you think I know that? Do what I say.

She left and after a moment Beckman stepped backward into the house and shut the door. Guthrie waited on the porch. He looked out toward the street and curb, the trees budding along the parkway, the big houses standing quiet and peaceful across the street. Next door, Fraiser came out of his white house in his Sunday clothes and stood for a moment on the front steps and took a cigarette out and lit it. He looked about and saw Guthrie and nodded to him and Guthrie nodded back. Mrs. Fraiser came out and her husband pointed to something in the flower bed at the front of their house. They moved off the step and Mrs. Fraiser bent over to look at it. She lifted her head and said something and he answered. They were still talking quietly back and forth when Beckman stepped out on the porch. The big boy was following him, and Mrs. Beckman came out behind him. They stood out on the railed porch in the bright fresh air. Guthrie faced them. The boy was in his jeans and tee-shirt and wore no shoes. He was just awake.