FROM HIS SPOT on the floor, Martin watched Wylene's fuzzy slippers shuffle across the room. She sat down in the La-Z-Boy and dropped her face into her hands, sobbing loudly. Every few seconds she took a deep, gasping breath, lifting her shoulders and then letting them fall heavily.
Martin got up and left the trailer. He went down the real-not-cinder-block steps. Down the neat brick walk. Past the blue birdbath, the pecking hen, the row of chicks. He walked down the gravel road past the Owenses', past the Scogginses', and right up his own cinder-block steps into his trailer. His father sat on the couch staring at the TV.
Martin stood in the doorway and glared at his father. “Give me back the violin,” he said.
His father kept his eyes on the TV.
“That violin ain't yours, Daddy.” Martin felt his pulse pounding inside his head.
“Get out of here, boy,” his father said in that calm-before-the-storm voice.
Laughter came from the TV set.
Martin's mother came in from the bedroom. She looked at Martin with wide eyes. “What's the matter?” she asked.
“Stay out of this, Doris,” his father said.
Martin clenched his hands into fists and squeezed until his nails dug into his palms. “How come you got such a problem with that violin?”
He heard his own voice and for a minute was surprised that he was really saying the words and not just thinking them.
“I ain't got a problem with that violin,” his father answered. “I got a problem with you.”
“Then why don't you tell me what it is?”
“All right, I'll tell you.” His father turned away from the TV and glared back at Martin. “I look at you and I hate what I see.”
“What do you see?”
“I see you never doing nothing right. All my life I ain't never had nothing but disappointments, and you're just the icing on the cake.”
“I know I ain't perfect, Daddy, but ⦔
His father chuckled and shook his head.
“I just want us to like each other.” Martin's voice cracked,
and he struggled to hold back the tears. Crying would ruin everything.
The room was quiet except for the TV. Scrubbing bubbles danced and sang in a bathtub. Martin stepped between his father and the TV. “What's so bad about me, Daddy?” he said.
His father moved his eyes slowly up to meet Martin's. “I've tried my best to turn you into something I could be proud of,” he said.
“I want to play music, Daddy. I'm good at it. I could make you proud of me if you'd give me aâ”
His father pounded his fist on the arm of the chair. “Music ain't nothing to be proud of, Martin.”
“Why not?”
His father waved his hand, a look of disgust on his face. “Go on, get out of here, Martin.”
“I ain't never going to be good at the things you want me to be good at,” Martin said angrily. “But I got a chance of being good at what I like.” His chest heaved with each breath. His pulse pounded harder inside his head.
His father jerked his head up to look at Martin, his eyes narrowed into dark slits. “If you think that violin's gonna make you something, you're dead wrong,” he drawled. “You're nothing. You'reâ”
“You're wrong!” Martin yelled. “I ain't nothing. I may not be what you want me to be, but I ain't nothing.” He took a deep breath, trying to calm his voice down. “I wish like anything I could make you like me, but I can't. But if
you'd give me half a chance, I'd show you I can do something.”
Martin heard the desperate tone in his voice, but he couldn't stop it. This was the first time in his life he'd ever told his feelings to his father. Maybe there was more than a snowball's chance in hell he could make him understand.
“That violin make you happy, Martin?”
“Yessir.”
“That weirdo Wylene make you happy?”
“Yessir. She's my friend.”
“Making a fool out of me make you happy?”
“I ain't making no fool out of you.” Martin was afraid that if he stopped talking, he would never get the words out that he needed to say, so he took another deep breath and said, “I ain't playing ball no more. I don't like it. I like music. I'm going to play music.”
His father jumped up so fast Martin backed up. He flinched, cowering at the same time, angry at himself for doing it.
“I won't have people laughing at me, you hear me?” His father's face was red. Suddenly he reached under the couch and pulled out the violin.
“This what you come here for, Martin?”
“Yessir.”
“You think you're a musician, that it?”
“Yessir.” Martin's head spun, his stomach churned. “Let me have that violin, Daddy.”
Martin saw his father's mouth moving and knew he was
talking, but he couldn't hear the words because of the ringing in his ears. His father raised the violin above his head and brought it crashing down on the kitchen counter. There was an echoey twang and then the sickening sound of splintering wood. Martin watched, numb, as the smashed body separated from the neck in one neat snap, then dangled, still attached by the strings.
It lay in a twisted pile on the linoleum floor.
It took every ounce of strength Martin had to pull his eyes away to look at his father. Calm as anything, he said, “If you think that's gonna change me, you're wrong.”
Martin didn't turn to watch his father leave the trailer. He stood facing the empty space where just seconds before his father had stood. Slowly life crept back into him.
He looked at his mother, sitting on the barstool. Tears rolled down her face. Martin scooped up the crumpled heap of a violin and left. The air outside smelled sweet, like gardenias. He took a deep breath and started toward the highway, walking fast.
At Brushy Creek bridge, he stopped and looked over the rail at the water below, bubbling into sudsy pools around the rocks. A rusty can floated by, bobbing and weaving before coming to rest in the tall weeds. From a pool of still water, Martin saw his own face looking back at him and realized that he was smiling. Must have been for a long time now because his cheeks ached. He squinted at his reflection. His smile got wider when he saw how different he looked. That stranger with the knotted-up stomach and the downcast
eyes was gone. Looking back was someone who knew who he was and liked what he saw. Someone looking through new eyes.
Martin cradled the violin in his arms. The beautiful wood was shattered. Splinters stuck up in every direction. Two strings had snapped and dangled from the neck. Who would have guessed that a curved piece of wood and string could have told him so much about himself?
He held the violin over the railing of the bridge and dropped it into the creek below. It hit the water with a soft slap and began to ride the slow-moving current.
It looked peaceful, floating with the leaves on top of the water. It bounced over rocks and dipped down tiny waterfalls. Then it rounded the corner and disappeared.
Martin stayed on the bridge a while longer, listening to the water. Then he turned and headed back down the road, humming.
WYLENE'S FACE WAS red and puffy. She made little whiny sounds and then big gaspy sounds. Piles of balled-up tissue covered the coffee table in front of her.
“I'm sorry to have to say this right to your face, Martin,” she said, “but that's about the meanest thing I ever heard.” She blew her nose with a loud, honking sound and shook her head. “That beautiful violin. I just can't believe it.”
“I'm going to pay you back every penny,” Martin said.
She flapped her hand at him and said, “Oh, for heaven's sake. I don't care about that.”
“Well, I do.”
Wylene took a deep breath and let it out in a puff that
blew her frizzy bangs up. “I can't imagine what would make a person do such a thing.”
She went to the kitchen and ran water on a paper towel. She wiped her face, then looked at Martin and smiled. “I'm real proud of you,” she said, “standing up to your daddy like that.”
Martin smiled back. “I got to admit it felt pretty good, speaking my mind and all.”
Wylene opened the refrigerator and peered in. “How about a BIT?”
“Naw, I got to get home.”
“Aw, come on.”
“Hazeline's coming.” Martin got up and headed for the door. “I'm going to pay for that violin,” he called back to Wylene.
“Oh, go on, get out of here,” she said, and waved her hand at him.
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On the way to Howard Johnson's, Martin told Hazeline what happened.
“Well, you've done crossed the Rubicon now,” she said.
“What does that mean?”
“Means there's no turning back.” She looked at Martin and winked. “And it's about damn time, I might add.”
He put his feet on the dashboard and studied his dirty shoelaces. “You think Daddy'll ever like me?”
“Your daddy don't even like himself,” she said.
“How come?”
Hazeline shook her head. “Damn if I know.”
“Just because, I reckon,” Martin said.
“I guess that's as good a reason as any.”
When they got back to Paradise, Martin's mother was waiting on the front porch, surrounded by bulging trash bags. Hazeline gave the car horn a couple of toots and waved as she drove away.
“Let's go on and get these bottles over to the Quik Pik,” his mother said. “You been letting them pile up too long.”
Martin gathered up the bags and loaded them into the trunk of the car. “Sure wish I could find me a job so I wouldn't have to mess with these bottles,” he said, climbing into the front seat.
His mother turned on the radio as they headed out of the trailer park. A preacher yelled to his brothers and sisters to open their hearts and let the Lord come in. The brothers and sisters hollered, “Amen!”
Suddenly Martin sat up. “Turn down there,” he said, pointing to a side street. His mother turned the car quickly. “Now go down that way,” Martin said. She turned again. “Now stop right up there by that mailbox.”
She stopped the car and turned to Martin. “Mind telling me where we are?”
“I got to do something,” he said. “It'll just take a minute, I promise.”
Martin ran up to the front door. Before he could knock, Sybil came to the door.
“Is your dad here?” Martin asked.
“Well, hello to you, too.” Sybil looked over Martin's shoulder at the car, raising her eyebrow.
“My mom drove me over,” Martin said.
Sybil jerked her head toward the back of the house. “He's around back.”
Frank Richards sat on a milk crate turning a wrench on the side of his motorcycle. When he saw Martin, he stood up and wiped his hands on a greasy rag.
“Well, hey there,” he said. “Long time no see.”
“I was wondering if I could ask you a favor,” Martin said.
“Ask away.”
“They need any help down at the gas station? Pumping gas or sweeping up or something like that?”
Frank stuffed the rag in his back pocket. “They barely got enough work for me down there, Martin.” He sat down in a lawn chair and motioned for Martin to join him. “You looking for work?” He took a sip out of a coffee mug with “Life's a Bitch” painted on it.
“Yessir.”
“Well now, let me think.” He squinted up at the sky as if he were reading something written in the clouds.
“I can do anything,” Martin said. “Maybe you got something around here.” He motioned to the house. “How about the garden? I could weed and stuff.”
“The garden?” Frank looked at him with twinkling eyes. “Shoot, Sybil would skin me alive if I let anybody work in that garden.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “But there is one thing I've been putting off for a while that I'd be pleased as punch to pay somebody to do.”
“What's that?”
“See that shed over there?” He motioned to a rickety shed behind the garage. It leaned precariously to one side.
“That thing's about to bust at the seams with junk I been stuffing in there for the last two years. You want to dean that shed out?”
A car horn sounded out front. Martin looked toward the street, then back at Frank. “Yessir, I could do that no problem.”
“I got to warn you, though. There's no telling what you might come across in there. Dead cat, nest of rattlesnakes. Liable to be anything in there.” He took a hefty swig from his coffee mug. “Vodka and grapefruit juice,” he said, as if he had read Martin's mind.
The car horn honked again.
“I can do it,” Martin said.
“Okay, start whenever you're ready. Keep track of your time. I'll pay you three bucks an hour. Make a pile to keep and a pile to go. Don't throw out anything without showing me first.” He smiled, and his mustache curled up. “One man's trash is another man's treasure, you know.”
Mrs. Pittman's voice interrupted them. “Martin, I got to get going.”
Martin looked up to see her standing at the corner of the house.
“I'm coming,” he called.
His mother stared up at the colorful wall on the back of the house. Frank walked over to her.
“Every state but New Mexico and Alaska,” he said
proudly. “I wish I could say I been to all them places, but I can't. Hope to someday, though.”
Martin's mother smiled.
“I'm Sybil's dad,” Frank said, holding out his hand.
Mrs. Pittman shook his hand and nodded. “Oh, yeah,” she said. “The pickled okra.”
Frank slapped Martin on the back. “Your boy here's going to be doing some work for me.”
Mrs. Pittman looked at Martin, then back at Frank. “That's mighty nice of you.”
“Hell, I ain't doing him no favors. He don't know what he's got himself into.” He winked at Martin.
“Well,” she said, looking at Martin, “we got to go. I want to get over to the flea market this afternoon.”
She turned to Frank and said, “Nice meeting you,” before disappearing around the side of the house.
Martin ran after her, calling over his shoulder, “I'll be back tomorrow.”
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Frank had given him fair warning, but Martin was still awestruck by the sight of that shed when he opened the creaky doors. Rusty tools. Bicycle wheels. A pile of bricks. A birdcage. A bent golf club. A smiling plastic Santa Claus. And more boxes than Martin had ever seen in such a small space. Boxes piled on boxes piled on boxes.
By noon the shed was nearly empty. Martin sat on a box and wiped the sweat off the back of his neck. He turned toward the house when the screen door slammed. Sybil glanced in his direction on her way out to the garden. Martin
pulled his drooping socks up, brushed dust off his T-shirt, and walked over to where Sybil was picking lima beans. He held up a paper bag. “I brought you some lunch,” he said.
She took the bag from him and frowned. Martin walked back toward the shed and sat in the shade, spreading his lunch out on the grass in front of him. Sybil pulled a lawn chair over and sat down. Martin nodded toward a doll lying in a rusty wagon.
“What's her name?” he said, popping a potato chip into his mouth.
When Sybil blushed, Martin quickly looked away. He stretched his legs out and tapped the toes of his sneakers together. “Sorry about the other day,” he said.
Sybil took a sandwich out of the bag and held it in her lap, frowning down at Martin. He lifted his eyebrows and looked up at her through the tuft of hair that had fallen over his eyes. She set her mouth tighter and glared at him.
He watched out of the corner of his eye as she unwrapped her sandwich and took a bite. She lifted the bread and peeked inside. Her mouth twitched at the corners, then broke into a grin.
“Peanut-butter-and-banana,” she said, shaking her head.
Martin grinned.
“You worked things out with your dad yet?” Sybil asked.
When Martin told her about the violin, she got off the lawn chair and sat beside him on the grass. “What are you going to do now?” she said.
“Well, first I'm going to pay Wylene for the violin.”
“Then what?”
“I haven't exactly figured that out yet.” Martin got up and went in the shed. He grunted as he pulled out a heavy box. He wiped the dust off the top and pulled the packing tape away.
“Wow, check this out,” he said, peering into the box.
Sybil looked in. “That's a saxophone.”
“I know,” Martin said. “Whose is it?”
“Dad's, I reckon.”
“How come it's out here?”
“Who knows? He's all the time getting stuff from people when he works on their car. That's how I got my rototiller.”
“Wonder what something like this costs.”
Sybil shrugged. “I'm going to get us a drink.”
Martin watched her walk off. When she rounded the corner, he took the saxophone out of the box. He blew the dust off it and then wiped it on his T-shirt. He glanced up to make sure Sybil was nowhere around, then put the saxophone in his mouth and pretended to play it. He leaned way back, lifting the instrument into the air the way he'd seen blues musicians on TV do it. He closed his eyes and puffed his cheeks out, lifting his fingers up and down on the keys.
When he opened his eyes, Frank was sitting on a lawn chair eating a sandwich. Martin quickly put the saxophone back in the box and disappeared into the shed. He moved boxes around noisily.
“You think I should put that in the keep pile or the go pile?” Frank called from outside the shed.
Martin clanged and banged stuff around. He carried a bent-up TV antenna out of the shed. “Depends on if you want to keep it, I guess,” he said.
Frank took a bite of his sandwich. Tomato juice dripped onto his lap. “I sure ain't gonna chuck it. That thing's worth something.”
“How much?”
“Hell, I don't know. It was worth a brake job to somebody over in Pickens.”
“How much is a brake job?”
Frank laughed and wiped his mouth. “How much you got?”
Martin looked away and said, “I can't buy that sax. I got to pay for a violin.” He looked back at Frank. “But maybe we could work a deal?”
“Now you're talking. What kind of deal?”
“Well, maybe I could trade something for it.”
Frank grinned. “What've you got?”
Sybil came around the corner of the house carrying a tray with three tall glasses. She set it down on the card table. “I'm going to set up the sprinkler,” she said, heading for the garden.
Martin stared out at the garden, watching Sybil stoop to pick weeds as she walked through the tall rows of corn. “I don't know. Nothing, I reckon,” he said.
Frank took a long drink. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed. “Aw, I bet you could come up with something,” he said.
“You think so?”
“Sure I do.”
Martin's stomach fluttered with excitement. Maybe he could come up with something. Maybe he had nowhere to go but full steam ahead. After all, he had crossed the Rubicon.