Read Online Muckers by Sandra Neil Wallace - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Sandra Neil Wallace
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skipping to victory in the fourth-floor lounge.
“Rah, rah, sons of Hatley High!”
Opal sings when he sees me, marching on the spot. Then he smashes the board with a fist and the pieces scatter like popcorn. “You cheated!” he shouts at his imaginary opponent. “I saw you.”
Phyllis Crawley shuffles over and buries her face in my shoulder. “I can let down my hair,” she says, showing me her long silver braid. “Then you can go home if you’ll do the same for me.”
“It’s another one with short hair, Phyllis,” Tuffy Briggs tells her. “You’re not going home.” Tuffy’s reading in a wheelchair by the window, his pajama bottoms billowing empty where they amputated below the knee.
“It’s 10:18, Red. You’re late. Two minutes and forty-five seconds late,” he says, holding up his stopwatch.
“It’s all those Rim Valley cars,” I say. “Wanting to hurry home after a loss.”
Tuffy likes holding my helmet, so I rest it gently on his lap and he fingers the indentations where the stitches grip into the leather. “Should’ve never lost in twenty-four,” hesays. Tuffy drove the school bus back then. “Saw it with my own eyes, what the Phoenix officials did.”
I lean closer and he takes my throwing hand, turning it over to examine it. “It’s your year, Red,” he says.
“I hope so.”
“You’ll make things right and let those Southern boys have it.”
Mrs. Mackenzie waves me over. “Your mother’s still awake,” she says, so I follow her down the hallway.
“Did she get out on the balcony at all?” I ask.
Mrs. Mackenzie pauses. “I was making the rounds in the maternity ward, so she very well might have.”
I know she’s just being kind.
“Mrs. O’Sullivan, look who’s here,” she tells Maw before I go in. Then Mrs. Mackenzie turns to me and says, “Just for a little while, okay, Red?”
I don’t find Maw at first—the light’s too dim. But when I do, I’m caught off guard—blindsided—every time I catch Maw this way, like being brought down to my knees the way it takes a while to recover from a sack. I keep imagining Maw as she was before, not who she is now—a shell of herself in the corner of the room in a wheelchair, slumped over, chin to chest.
I come closer and kneel beside her but she doesn’t move. The choppy layers of hair covering her face lift a little, sort of to a rhythm, so I know Maw’s breathing—that she hasn’t given up completely.
“Maw?” I whisper, turning up her chin so she can get a look at me if she wants to. “It’s me … Red.”
Maw rolls her head back and blinks at the ceiling. Her neck’s all shiny, which means she’s been drooling. I wipe some off her chin and gnaw at my lip.
Pop used to joke how even though Maw’s eyes were asgreen as the Glens, she was destined for Hatley since they’d been sprinkled with flecks of copper. I angle her face so I can see those eyes, but they’re empty. Cloudy as ice cubes, hazy and dull.
“Would you like me to comb your hair?” I take the sable brush Pop got Maw five Christmases ago, just before she came here, and start at the temples.
Cruz asked me flat out one morning if Maw was like Loco Francisco, which she’s not. I know they call it “the ward for the insane” or “the nuthouse” but those are just names, really. Maw isn’t crazy, and I don’t believe Francisco is either. They call him
loco
because he aimed higher than most and started going on about God’s plan, telling them about his visions. Things like starting his own church to preach at and building it with his own two hands. It made the rest of the town so uneasy they kept giving Francisco hell for it, so he up and quit the mine. Now he keeps to his Bible and won’t share a word about what God tells him, living off the land instead.
Maw doesn’t say much at all anymore, but that doesn’t mean she’s crazy, or even gone for good. You can give up for a while and then snap out of it like you can with a
“Rah, rah, sons of Hatley High!”
Opal sings when he sees me, marching on the spot. Then he smashes the board with a fist and the pieces scatter like popcorn. “You cheated!” he shouts at his imaginary opponent. “I saw you.”
Phyllis Crawley shuffles over and buries her face in my shoulder. “I can let down my hair,” she says, showing me her long silver braid. “Then you can go home if you’ll do the same for me.”
“It’s another one with short hair, Phyllis,” Tuffy Briggs tells her. “You’re not going home.” Tuffy’s reading in a wheelchair by the window, his pajama bottoms billowing empty where they amputated below the knee.
“It’s 10:18, Red. You’re late. Two minutes and forty-five seconds late,” he says, holding up his stopwatch.
“It’s all those Rim Valley cars,” I say. “Wanting to hurry home after a loss.”
Tuffy likes holding my helmet, so I rest it gently on his lap and he fingers the indentations where the stitches grip into the leather. “Should’ve never lost in twenty-four,” hesays. Tuffy drove the school bus back then. “Saw it with my own eyes, what the Phoenix officials did.”
I lean closer and he takes my throwing hand, turning it over to examine it. “It’s your year, Red,” he says.
“I hope so.”
“You’ll make things right and let those Southern boys have it.”
Mrs. Mackenzie waves me over. “Your mother’s still awake,” she says, so I follow her down the hallway.
“Did she get out on the balcony at all?” I ask.
Mrs. Mackenzie pauses. “I was making the rounds in the maternity ward, so she very well might have.”
I know she’s just being kind.
“Mrs. O’Sullivan, look who’s here,” she tells Maw before I go in. Then Mrs. Mackenzie turns to me and says, “Just for a little while, okay, Red?”
I don’t find Maw at first—the light’s too dim. But when I do, I’m caught off guard—blindsided—every time I catch Maw this way, like being brought down to my knees the way it takes a while to recover from a sack. I keep imagining Maw as she was before, not who she is now—a shell of herself in the corner of the room in a wheelchair, slumped over, chin to chest.
I come closer and kneel beside her but she doesn’t move. The choppy layers of hair covering her face lift a little, sort of to a rhythm, so I know Maw’s breathing—that she hasn’t given up completely.
“Maw?” I whisper, turning up her chin so she can get a look at me if she wants to. “It’s me … Red.”
Maw rolls her head back and blinks at the ceiling. Her neck’s all shiny, which means she’s been drooling. I wipe some off her chin and gnaw at my lip.
Pop used to joke how even though Maw’s eyes were asgreen as the Glens, she was destined for Hatley since they’d been sprinkled with flecks of copper. I angle her face so I can see those eyes, but they’re empty. Cloudy as ice cubes, hazy and dull.
“Would you like me to comb your hair?” I take the sable brush Pop got Maw five Christmases ago, just before she came here, and start at the temples.
Cruz asked me flat out one morning if Maw was like Loco Francisco, which she’s not. I know they call it “the ward for the insane” or “the nuthouse” but those are just names, really. Maw isn’t crazy, and I don’t believe Francisco is either. They call him
loco
because he aimed higher than most and started going on about God’s plan, telling them about his visions. Things like starting his own church to preach at and building it with his own two hands. It made the rest of the town so uneasy they kept giving Francisco hell for it, so he up and quit the mine. Now he keeps to his Bible and won’t share a word about what God tells him, living off the land instead.
Maw doesn’t say much at all anymore, but that doesn’t mean she’s crazy, or even gone for good. You can give up for a while and then snap out of it like you can with a
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