Tex Read online

  "No, really, Tex, listen. That time you and Johnny and Bob came home drunk, Cole kind of hinted real strong for us to stop hanging around with you guys, but I could tell he'd been impressed with Mason. He's not too impressed with any of us. Charlie's too much of a playboy and now Bob's got it into his head that he wants to be a priest; Johnny's such a scatterbrain I think Cole'll be relieved if he just makes it to twenty-one. And me. The little lady. Cole has the hardest time understanding that I'm a person, just like the rest of his kids, that being a girl doesn't mean I'm going to be sweet and dainty and grow up to be a devoted little mother just like Mona. Geez, it gives me cold chills just to think of it..."

  She scrunched her face up like she was hearing squeaky chalk across the blackboard.

  "How about Blackie?" I asked. This was really interesting. I never thought about what parents would want out of a kid. I thought you just took what you got.

  "Don't ever tell anybody I told you this." She dropped her voice. "Swear?"

  "I swear."

  "You know when Blackie moved out--he didn't just move, he ran away from home. It was after a big fight with Cole about not going to college. Not playing football was bad enough, but Blackie didn't even want to go to college. He didn't even want to go to art school. Said he had to know what he could teach himself first. Man, it drove Cole nuts to argue with him, because Blackie never argued back. You know how quiet he was. Sometimes I couldn't tell he was in the same room with me. He just stood there and let Cole get madder and madder. Then that night he took off. He wrote Mona from San Francisco to let her know he was okay. Tex, Cole and Mona had some awful fights about it. I'd never heard them fight before. They didn't know we were listening. Me and Johnny sat on the stairs and listened to them and we both were crying like little kids..."

  I reached over and took her hand. I couldn't stand the thought of her crying. She took a sudden deep breath. "Anyway, Cole hasn't made a big deal out of sports since. Basketball was Bob's idea. Blackie had the perfect build for football ... it must be weird for him, to look like a football player and be totally different on the inside."

  I had my mind on other things. "Mason sometimes goes to parties after the games," I said suddenly. "With a bunch of other people. So I could get the pickup and drive us around."

  Suddenly I remembered Johnny. If I had the truck, he'd want to go driving around, too. It would be hard to tell him the truth. He'd never understand how I felt about Jamie. He was interested in girls, sure, but it was like being interested in Playboy pictures and stuff like that. He hadn't got to the point where he was interested in real girls. And even though he loved Jamie in the same way he loved their dog, he didn't quite realize that she was a girl, the kind of girl somebody would lay awake thinking about for hours.

  "Johnny--" I began. Jamie quirked the corners of her mouth down. "I'll tell Johnny he's not wanted."

  "But..."

  "Well, he's not, is he? All right. He'll take it a lot better from me than you."

  Boy, she was mean. I really liked that. I really did.

  They were out to kill Mason. It was plain from the second he stepped on court and the opposing team started booing. People were trying to make him foul, or just plain knock him down and put him out of the game. They didn't know Mason. That kind of thing just made him cooler and cooler. He really played better when people were booing him than when our side cheered him. I took Mason pretty much for granted at home, but watching him on a basketball court kind of put you in awe. Man, he was good!

  I don't think I could have stood having all those people not liking me. But then, Mason never cared much whether people liked him or not.

  "Everybody does though," I said to Jamie, after telling her that.

  "You mean he's popular. Everybody thinks he's cool. Not everybody likes him."

  I didn't want to know if that included her. It would really bother me if she didn't like Mason.

  It took everybody screaming at once to get my mind back on the game. Everybody was on their feet screeching as Mason caught a rebound and made a wild shot that turned out to be a basket and on his way down from the leap an opposing player slammed into him. He came up off the floor so fast it looked like a bounce and for a second I thought that the other guy was going to get stuffed through the basket, head first. Whistles were blowing all over. It looked like everybody was going to rush into the middle of the court and start killing each other. People were just going crazy.

  Mason stood there, holding his right elbow. As far away as I was I shivered. I remembered one other time I'd seen him fighting to control himself like that. He was right on the edge of blowing up like a stick of dynamite.

  The coach came out and looked at Mason and then Mason turned and stalked off the court. The screaming was unbelievable. He sat down on the bench while the doctor looked at his elbow, bent his arm up and down some, then said something to Mason that made him shake his head angrily. You could see the doctor getting mad. Finally Mason got up and followed him out.

  "Hey," I said, "he must be hurt."

  I doubt that Jamie heard me. The guy who had knocked Mason down was being taken out of the game, boos and cheers following him. I looked over to where Pop was sitting with Ernie Driscoll's father. He was pushing through the crowd, going to the locker room.

  "Come on," I grabbed Jamie's wrist. "I want to see how he is."

  "You go. I've got a brother in this game, too, you know."

  I didn't like leaving her there in that screaming mob, but on second thought, she could hold her own pretty well. I shoved my way off the bleachers and ran to the locker room.

  "It's not serious," the doctor was saying.

  "Then I can go back in," Mason said. His arm was in a sling. Pop watched him worriedly. Suddenly I remembered when I busted five ribs in a junior rodeo. Pop had been nice, concerned, but not real worried. Of course, my memory could be wrong. It's pretty good, though, mostly. But he always had worried about Mason more.

  "Not this game. A lot of good you'd be with your right arm messed up," Pop said roughly.

  Mason shrugged. "My left is just as good."

  Mason is ambidextrous. That means he can use either his right or left hand. For some reason, when I was little, I thought that meant he was part water lizard. Don't ask me why.

  "You're out of this game all right," the doctor said. "You're lucky you're not out of the season."

  Just the thought of it made Mason flinch, and to hide it he said, "Hey, Tex. Want to trade clothes with me and go shoot a few baskets?"

  "Sure," I said.

  "Got another basketball player in the family?" the doctor asked.

  "If we do, I didn't know about it," Pop said.

  "Well, maybe you ought to take the time to find out," Mason snapped. He never was much fun to be around if he was mad or hurting, so I just said, "If you're okay then I'm getting back to the game."

  "Good idea. Go root for Bob Collins. He's gonna need all the help he can get, now."

  Being a big shot didn't go to Mason's head. Much.

  He was right, though. Poor Bob was everywhere, trying to make up for Mason not being anywhere. His main function had been to get the ball to Mason, and you could see Bob forget and pause and wonder where the heck Mason was. He even tried shooting baskets, which shows you how desperate he was. He wasn't too bad at it, though, for a short person.

  Me and Jamie yelled ourselves hoarse for him, along with a few hundred other people, but it wasn't any use. We lost by six points.

  "You'd think Mason was their lucky rabbit's foot or something!" Jamie griped as we drifted with the crowd out to the parking lot. Most of the people from our school were pretty mad. "They just gave up without him. I'd like to know just what it is that Mason's got. Look at Bob, smarter and nicer and twice as good-looking, and everybody likes him--but ask anybody who the most popular guy in the school is and they'll say 'Mace McCormick.' And Mason's too snotty to speak to half of them."

  "Maybe being popular and be
ing liked ain't the same thing." I said, deciding not to point out to her that the same things could be said about her. The bunch she ran with was the "popular" girl group, but they weren't all well-liked, even Jamie.

  The Riverview people were acting pretty silly, jeering and cheering and stuff, but I didn't pay much attention till Ralph Hernesy poked me and said, "I guess that shows you, huh, Mac?"

  Even though we went to different schools I'd known him a long time, from horse shows and rodeos. And school games.

  "Oh, bug off," Jamie said. Or something like that.

  Now I wasn't in the best mood I've ever been in. I probably wasn't as bad off as some of us were, judging from looks on faces, but losing the game, and knowing we only lost because they'd put a hit man on Mason, hadn't exactly made me cheerful.

  Ralph looked at Jamie. "I never thought you was any judge of horses, Tex, and you sure ain't any judge of a..."

  I belted him so quick I didn't realize what I was doing till after it was done and Ralph was sitting on the ground spitting out a tooth.

  Somebody shoved me in the back. "What's the matter? Sore loser?"

  I whirled around, but the shover took off and disappeared in the crowd. I turned back to Ralph. He was crawling around frantically, looking for his tooth. "That was my false tooth, dammit!"

  "Ain't you a little young for false teeth?" I asked, dumbfounded.

  "I knocked the real one out last year at a rodeo. My Mom will kill me! It cost a fortune."

  I squatted down beside him, licking the blood off my skinned knuckles. "Huh. Can you put it back in if you find it?"

  "I think so."

  I looked around for it for a second, till Jamie poked me with her foot and said, "I think we're going to get to see a riot."

  All round us people were shoving each other, or already into fights. I jumped up and grabbed Jamie's wrist, dragging her through the crowd.

  "Wait! I want to see what's going to happen!"

  I blocked a punch somebody threw at me and speeded up.

  "Sweet stuff," I told her, "if you want to watch a riot, watch it on TV. If you're there, you're in it."

  I opened the door to the pickup and shoved her in. You could hear the police sirens coming. I didn't particularly want to renew my acquaintance with the town cops, so I laid a little rubber getting out of the parking lot.

  Jamie twisted around on her knees to look out the cab window.

  "I wanted to know what was going to happen!"

  I slapped her on the bottom, and she turned back around and slid down onto the seat.

  "You'll hear all about it tomorrow."

  "Secondhand."

  "Yeah. The black eyes'll be secondhand, too." I paused. "What time you supposed to meet Johnny and Bob?"

  "In an hour. At the car wash. We've got time to get a Coke or something."

  I followed the highway to the gravel pit road and turned off. After a mile or so I pulled the truck over and switched off the lights.

  "They sell Cokes around here?" Jamie asked mildly. In the cold starlight her eyes glittered like a cat's.

  "You had a Coke at the game and I ain't thirsty." I said. I put my arm around her. I had been thinking about this for a long time. I kissed her, soft, so not to spook her, but it wasn't any rinky-dinky Mickey Mouse kiss. After the first one, I wasn't fooling. I loved her so much it seemed like she was a part of me, or should be, or there was a way for her to be...

  "Stop it!"

  My heart was thumping in my ears so hard I barely heard her. She was wiggling in my arms like a landed bass; she got her hands on my chest and shoved. I let go, trembling from trying not to crush her. I couldn't tell how much time had passed--minutes or hours.

  "What's wrong?" I asked, when I could get my breath.

  She tugged her sweat shirt down. "I am not ready for this. I mean it."

  I stared at her, completely mixed up. Looking at her without touching her was almost a real, physical pain. She must know how I feel, I thought, she wouldn't be that mean to me ... I reached for her again.

  "I mean it, Texas," she warned.

  Man, that hurt me. I just didn't get it. I slid back to my side of the truck, gripping the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turned white.

  "Well," I said, as soon as I thought I could talk okay. "What did you let me get started for?"

  "I didn't know you'd be in such an all-fired hurry. Anyway, I was curious."

  Curious. I was burning up and she was curious. Something was really wrong here.

  "I hate it when Cole is right," Jamie said suddenly.

  "What's Cole got to do with this?" I asked tiredly, resting my head against the steering wheel.

  "He said I was too young to start dating. I mean, dating even. We haven't even gone to the movies yet."

  "Okay. We can go to a movie." The last thing I wanted to do was go to a movie. I'd just be waiting for it to get over with so we could come here and make out. "Jamie, I love you."

  "Look Tex, I love you too." She certainly sounded matter-of-fact about it. "Right now I think you're the only boy I'll ever feel this way about, but, then, I'm probably wrong about that. But even if you are--look, my life is complicated enough right now. Sometimes I think I hate everybody, and sometimes I think I love everybody, and sometimes I'm mean and hateful to people, like Johnny or Bob, just to see if I can hurt them, but I love them and I'm sorry, after. I get mad at Cole for not understanding anything and mad at Mona for understanding everything. A lot of times I can't stand the way I act. I mean, I know people think I'm a bitch. And then I think if people don't like the way I act they can go jump in the lake. Then I worry that nobody likes me. See? See? I'm having enough trouble figuring things out right now without throwing in sex."

  When she said "sex" I felt my face go red. I know it sounds dumb, but I hadn't thought of what we were doing as sex.

  "I guess you don't love me as much as I love you," I said.

  "You turn pitiful on me and I won't love you a bit."

  I laughed a little, even though I felt like spanking her.

  "Jamie, when we get older, sixteen maybe, let's get married."

  I knew I'd never feel this way about any other girl. I wanted to know Jamie was going to be there the rest of my life.

  "I can see me marrying you," Jamie said slowly.

  "Yeah?"

  "Yeah. When I'm eighteen or nineteen and scared of the way things are changing, the way people are going off in different directions, and the simple life looks romantic, a good way to keep everything the same ... yeah, I can see me marrying you. It'd last about a year."

  If she'd thrown a bucket of cold water over me it wouldn't have done a better job of cooling me off. I was even shivering a little bit as I started the pickup. All the feeling had been wrung out of me.

  "I forget," I said, making a U-turn on the dark road. "You're one of them that's going."

  Johnny and Bob were waiting at the car wash, sitting in Denny Brogan's car.

  "See you at lunch Monday?" Jamie asked, before she opened her door. I'd been quiet all the way back and she was getting uneasy about it. I shrugged. "I don't care."

  I did, though. I really did.

  "Well, neither do I!" She jumped out of the truck and slammed the door so hard it cracked the window right down the middle. I just looked at it. I'd seen Mason do the same thing twice before. Bob took off in a big hurry--I guess he was late for a date. I just sat there, watching people drive up and down, talking to whoever pulled over and got in the truck with me. Everybody hung out at the car wash on Saturday night, sitting on their cars, driving by, looking for booze or dope or just company. I was just out for some company.

  You could pick up girls there, too, but if I couldn't have Jamie, I didn't want anybody.

  9

  "You think this is going to be worth it?" Johnny whispered. "What if they find out who did it?"

  "Nobody's going to find out who did it," I whispered back. We were gluing individual caps on the keys
of the typewriters in office machines class. As soon as the key hit the paper, the cap would explode. Since this was the day of the nine-week test, there would be a lot of keys hitting at the same time. There was always something depressing about a test day, anyway. I figured this little job might liven things up some. The month that had passed since my fight with Jamie had been really draggy.

  Johnny and I got to school real early and used a special key Roger Genet loaned me. It would open about anything if you knew how to use it. I didn't ask Roger what he used it for.

  "Sure it's worth it" I went on. "Even if they do find out who did it, what's going to happen? We'd get sent to the office, get a lecture and a couple of swats. That's nothing."

  Johnny gave me a dry look. "Cole Collins isn't your father."

  "Oh," I said. "Yeah. Well, anyway, nobody'll know it was us."

  When we got through, we locked the door carefully and went out to the smoke hole, which was the road corner of the baseball field. Nobody else was there, it was still too early. Johnny had started smoking lately. I got the feeling it was to put something over on Cole. I've been meaning to take it up myself, but haven't got around to it yet.

  "I guess Mason's all excited about his scholarship," Johnny said.

  "You'd think so, having his pick of a few like that," I answered. "But he's still so strung out sometimes I think he's lost his marbles. I figured once basketball was over and he was sure he was going to college he'd calm down some. But he's on my back all the time, worse than before."

  Sometimes I thought Mason hollered at me all the time to make up for Pop not hollering at all. It was like he was constantly poking and prodding at Pop to make him do something--what, exactly, I didn't know, and Pop sure didn't, either. Sometimes he'd look at Mason like a chicken that had hatched a goose egg. If Mason was worried that Pop wasn't paying enough attention to me, he could have saved himself the trouble. Mason would be gone for college pretty soon and then Pop would have to notice me a little more. I mean, I'd be the only kid, then.

  "At least he's got a job now," Johnny was saying. He dropped his cigarette and ground it under his heel. It did look cool. I'll have to get around to smoking one of these days.

  "Yeah, at least he's gone more. I used to think I was going to really miss ol' Mace when he left, but now I think I'll cheer all the way to the airport."