Read Online A Place to Call Home by Deborah Smith - Free Book Online

said darkly, “You don’t know nothin’.”
    I thought I knew everything and started to tell him so, but the high school band marched by and drowned me out with “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” followed by Uncle Dwayne and Aunt Rhonda Maloney, playing Joseph and Mary. Decent people didn’t talk while Joseph and Mary were going past. Uncle Dwayne was dressed in blue sheets and looked biblical with his long red beard. Aunt Rhonda was dressed in white sheets and looked nervous, because she was trying to hold a baby-doll Jesus while balancing sideways on the small brown mule Uncle Dwayne was leading.
    Next the Three Wise Men came along, riding skittish horses with their western saddles peeking out from under the Wise Men’s robes. I leaned over and whispered hotly to Roanie, “I know
plenty
. I know you oughta tell somebody when Arlan and Harold beat up on you. They’d get in trouble.”
    “Rich boys ain’t never gonna get in no trouble.”
    “They’re not rich! Uncle Pete spends all his money on stock-car racing.”
    “You don’t know nothin’,” he repeated.
    “You know what?” I said grandly, changing the subject. “You could cut some holly or mistletoe at the Hollow and bring it over to Mama, ’cause she uses it in her decorations, and she’d pay you with a box of homemade Christmas cookies.”
    “Yeah. Sure.”
    “She would!”
    “I ain’t been invited.”
    “I’m inviting you!”
    “
You don’t know nothin’.
”
    “You say that one more time and I’ll pull out all your hair! If you still got those nasty lice, I’ll yank them out, too!” What a terrible thing I had blurted out. How thoughtless and cruel. His angry, accusing eyes shot to mine and I nearly swallowed my tongue. “I didn’t mean it. Roanie, I didn’t—”
    My plea was cut short by a collective gasp in the crowd. I heard someone yelp, “Oh, my God, somebody stop him.”
    Big Roan had joined the parade.
    He limped up the middle of Main Street, apelike and huge, a necklace of garland hanging down his plaid shirt and baggy overalls. Greasy dark hair stuck out from his jowly face. He sashayed and twisted his butt. His mouth was screwed down in sarcastic contempt. He staggered through the Girl Scout troop. They dropped their troop banner and scattered like green leaves in a windstorm. Big Roan plowed ahead, waving a beer bottle. “Y’all want to see Santy Claus?” he bellowed. “I’ll drop my pants and y’all can kiss him on both cheeks!”
    Then he threw the beer bottle. It hit one of the Wise Men’s nervous horses on the rump. The horse bolted and collided with Aunt Rhonda’s mule. Aunt Rhonda fell off. The mule jerked away from Uncle Dwayne and darted ahead. The high school band split down the middle, and my cousin Aster toppled over with her tuba. The mule raced by the fire truck and the firemen accidentally pelted it with a handful of candy, which made the mule accelerate. It careened past Aunt Irene and clipped one of her angel wings, and she spun sideways like an out-of-control airplane.
    My feet were frozen to the windowsill. People were screaming. Daddy and some other men ran out in the streetand grabbed Big Roan. He went down swinging and hit Daddy in the face.
    I squealed with outrage and fear. Suddenly I realized that I was standing on the sidewalk, that Roanie had pulled me off the sill and set me there, and that I was by myself.
    He’d melted into the shadows, or evaporated from shame.
    The Atlanta newspapers and TV stations ran stories about the Dunderry Christmas parade. We were funny, small-town, mountain people. We were quaint. We were humiliated.
    Daddy had a broken nose. Big Roan was sentenced to three months in jail. My whole family, both the Maloney and Delaney sides, swore no
Sullivan
would ever cross their doorsteps. I was the family goat after word leaked out about my hobnobbing with Roanie during the parade. Mama was widely advised to keep an eye on me, as if I might grow up to join the circus