From the day Murrell Stone walked up our steps with his Davidson boot
chains jingling, Mom was like, He’s a good man. He likes you, and you like him. I had my instructions.
Stoner is the name he went by, and if he said nice things to Mom, she
was all ears. By now she’s been sober long enough to keep her Walmart job through all restocks of the seasonal aisles: Halloween costumes, Santa crap, Valentines, Easter candy, folding lawn chairs. She’s up on the rent and has her drawer full of sobriety chips that she takes out late at night and looks over like a dragon sitting on its treasure. That much I remember. Mom getting home from work and into her cutoffs, cracking open a Mello Yello, sitting on our deck smoking with her feet up on the rail and her legs stretched out trying for the free version of a tan, yelling at Maggot and me down in the creek not to get our eyes put out from running with sticks. Life is great, in other words.
What I don’t remember is what I didn’t know: How does it feel to turn legal drinking age, and already be three years into AA? How much does it suck to have a school-age kid and a long-termed relationship with the Walmart party-supplies aisle while the friends you used to have are still running around looking to get high or drunk or married, ideally some perfect combo of all three? All Mom had to work with were middle-aged type people in their thirties at least: sobriety buddies and Walmart buddies that would tell her “You have a blessed day, hon,” and go home to their
husbands and buckets of chicken and Jeopardy. She’d tried and failed at more boyfriends by this time, post me getting born, which all dumped her
because (a) they got her off the wagon and into hot legal water with motherhood, or (b) she was no fun.
Then along comes Stoner, claiming he respects a clean woman. Looking something like Mr. Clean himself, cue-ball head, big biceps, gauges instead of the earring. Mom said he could grow hair if he wanted to, but liked shaving his head. To her mind, a ripped, bald guy in a denim vest and no shirt was the be-all end-all of manhood. If you’re surprised a mom would
discuss boyfriend hotness with a kid still learning not to pick his nose,
you’ve not seen the far end of lonely. Mom would light me a cigarette and we’d have our chats, menthols of course, this being in her mind the child- friendly option. I thought smoking with Mom and discussing various men’s stud factors was a sign of deep respect. So I came to know such things: a
whole head with a five o’clock shadow, dead sexy. But Stoner ran out of steam on his shaving at a certain point because he had a full beard, the biggest and blackest you’ll see outside of a Vandal Savage comic.
One of the above powerful figures has plagued the earth with misery since before all time. And one makes Mr. Clean’s Clean Freak spray that will take the mold off your crappy shower curtain and make it like new. According to Mom, Stoner was door number two.
She started coming home from work and getting into more makeup instead of less, in case he showed. And he did, passing out compliments. Mom is gorgeous, she’s killing him with it, prettier than two peaches. Me, he called His Majesty. What is that supposed to mean, for a kid that owes most of his growth so far to signing his mom’s name on the SNAP free-
lunch forms? Stoner said my trouble was, I’d gotten used to being a mama’s boy. If he caught me lying with my head on Mom’s lap while we watched
TV, he’d say, “Oh look. The little king is on his throne.”
But he owned a late-model Ford pickup and a Harley FXSTSB Bad Boy, both completely paid off, and that part of the Stoner deal was hard to despise. He’d kick down the stand on the Harley and go inside to see Mom. Cue for me and Maggot to spend the next solid hour touching that hog, looking at our own stupid faces in its chrome, daring each other up onto its seat. Fully believing if Stoner came outside at that moment, we’d get the
electric chair.
So the day he roared up and asked if I wanted a ride, just down to the highway and back, Christ on a crutch. Why wouldn’t I? Maggot looked at
me like, Man, you have all the luck. Mom yelled down from the deck, “You hang on to him, Stoner, I’ll tar you if you get him hurt.”
My problem was no shoes. It was a Saturday, and we’d been doing target practice with Hammerhead Kelly, that was some form of Peggot-cousin add-on by marriage, older than us. Quiet kid, Mr. Peggot’s favorite to take deer hunting. He’d brought over an air rifle, with our creek being full of
items to shoot at, anyway the point being I had to think where my shoes were. Maggot’s house probably. Mom seemed to think I needed them and said go get them on, so I did. But not without Mrs. Peggot first grilling me about what was up. She was watching out her window. Mom had walked down to the road and Stoner was bent over kissing her like he was trying to suck something out of her guts with a straw. And her a willing party to the crime.
Mrs. Peggot gave me the advice that I would probably fall off that boy’s motorcycle and crack my head wide open. “And the worst of it is, he might drive off and leave you,” she said.
Jesus. As much as I’d wanted to climb on that Harley and tear down the road for all to see, now I couldn’t stop picturing my head lying open like the halves of a walnut shell, neighbors all crowded around, Stoner speeding off for the blue yonder. I mean, Mrs. Peggot was not one to blow smoke, the lady knew shit. What a boy’s brains look like laid open, I had no idea of at
the time, which now I do. It’s high on a list of things I wish I could unsee. But my little mind had a brutal talent for pictures. I went outside and told Stoner my stomach hurt. Maggot would have sold his own nuts to go in my place, but being a true friend, he just told Hammerhead we should all go
inside and play Game Boy till I felt better.
“Suit yourself,” Stoner said. But it was how he said it, like “Shoot
yourself.” Standing with his arm draped over Mom’s shoulders like he’d already made the down payment.
The day would come though, for me to ride on that hog, crammed between him and Mom like the cheese of a sandwich, getting a better look than needed at his neck tattoos. Mom behind me with her yellow hair flying and her arms reaching around to hold on to Stoner’s ripped abs. The neck
tattoos ran quite a ways up onto his scalp. I wondered if those came before or after the idea of shaving his head. The dumb things a kid thinks about
instead of the bigger questions, like, Where is this joy ride taking the three of us in the long run?
The first time, it was to Pro’s Pizza. Stoner ordered us an extra-large with everything, a pitcher for himself, Cokes for me and Mom. After we’d put a pretty good hurt on the pizza, Mom excused herself for a minute to the ladies’. These two friends of Stoner’s came over and sat down in our booth like it was no big deal, they were just taking the next shift.
I didn’t know these guys. In Lee County they say you have to look hard for a face you’ve not seen before, which surely was true for Mom, who’d directed anybody that could walk to where the Solo cups are kept on Aisle
19. But it’s different for a kid, where you stick closer to your own. I’d noticed these men looking Mom up and down, but I didn’t see how they were part of our group. The one that slid in next to Stoner was pale and white-haired, with a lot of ink, including an extra eye on the middle of his
throat, don’t ask me why that’s a good idea. The one sitting by me reeked of Axe spray and had the small type mustache and goat you’d normally see on the devil and Iron Man. My brain with its kid obsession of superheroes and evil supervillains wandered off to how I would draw them. The inked one I would name Extra Eye, that could see your thoughts. The other was Hell Reeker, with the power of slaying you with his smell.
They got in a conversation with Stoner. What’s this one called. A little Demon, huh? Demon Spawn, jokes I’d heard a million times. Then Reeker came up with “Spawn of the Centerfold,” and Extra Eye said, “A fox is going to whelp her pups, Stoner. You’re lucky it’s just the one.” And Stoner said he’d better watch it because some people are smarter than you think.
“Oh yeah, who’s that?” Extra Eye asked. I was curious too.
“Bear,” Stoner told him, which was a letdown. I thought maybe he’d meant me.
“Bear who?” they wanted to know.
Stoner did a fast little wink. “Mr. Grin’s friend, you damn idjits. Mr. Bear It.”
“Oh, I got ya,” Reeker said. “Mr. Cross-to-Bear.”
I already knew at my tender age a decent list of assholes, but none by the name of Bear. These guys laughed about him until Mom got back, which
was taking forever. They got cups out of the dispenser and helped
themselves to Stoner’s beer, and asked about his drilling project. If Stoner drilled wells, that was news to me. Stoner asked what they would do if they
found a cherry Camaro they wanted to buy, but it came with a trailer on the back.
“To buy, or just take for a hard run?” Extra Eye wanted to know, and Reeker asked, “How firm is the hitch, man?” All three of them laughing their asses off. I sat there sucking my Coke down to the ice till my throat froze to a hard round hole, confused by all that was said.
After school let out for summer, the Peggots offered to take me to Knoxville. They were going to see Maggot’s aunt June, staying two weeks. She was a hospital nurse and doing well for herself, living in an apartment with a spare room. For a person not even married, that’s a lot of space.
My first question: Is Knoxville near the ocean. Answer: Wrong direction. I’ve mentioned I was a weird kid regarding this seeing the ocean thing. So that was a letdown. Virginia Beach wasn’t out of the question, just to be clear. Not like Hawaii or California, impossible. Seven hours and a tank of gas gets you there, according to Mom’s coworker Linda that went for a week every summer with her husband and stayed in a condo. But the
Peggots were going to see their daughter and letting me tag along, so I should be polite about it. And really the idea of going any place other than school, church, and Walmart was pretty exciting. Up to then, I hadn’t.
What about Mom, was my next question. “She’ll be late to work if I’m not here to remind her to set the alarm,” I told Mrs. Peggot. I had a lot of concerns, like finding her work shoes for her and her ID badge, and remembering to go to the grocery. Mrs. Peggot was not really getting the situation of me and Mom. Who would get her Mello Yellos for her out of the fridge, and who would she talk to? Mrs. Peggot said I should go ask Mom myself, which I did. I was sure she would say no, but she lit up and
started on how much fun that would be, me in Knoxville with the Peggots. Almost like, not surprised.
The night before we left, I stuffed my pillowcase full of underwear and T-shirts and my notebook of superhero drawings, and slept in my clothes. In the morning I was out on the deck an hour before they packed up their truck, which was a Dodge Ram club cab with the fold-down back seats that face each other. Maggot and I would play slapjack and kick each other’s scabby knees all the way to Knoxville.
Mom sat out there with me waiting for the Peggots to shine, and the sun to come up over the mountains that threw their shade on us. Living in a
holler, the sun gets around to you late in the day, and leaves you early. Like much else you might want. In my years since, I’ve been amazed to see how much more daylight gets flung around in the flatter places. This and more still yet to be learned by an excited kid watching his pretty mom chain-
smoke and listen to the birds sing. She tried to pass the time by asking the bird names, which I’d told her before. I only knew some few, Mr. Peg knew them all. Jenny wren, field canary, joree bird. If we’d splash our armpits and faces in the sink instead of a real shower, he’d say we were taking a
joree bath. Which is what I did that morning, in my big hurry to leave Mom. It’s all burned in my brain. How she kept thinking of things to remind me about: act decent, remember please and thank you, especially whenever they pay for stuff, and don’t go poking around June’s apartment. Things you’d need to tell a kid before he goes out of state. I told her to set the damn alarm clock. Which made her laugh because I’d already stuck a
note on the refrigerator: SET THE DAM ALARM CLOCK. She said she loved me a whole lot and not to forget about her, which was weird. Mom was not usually all that emotional.
Finally Mr. Peg down at the road hollered “All right then, we’re fixing to go.” I started down the steps, but Mom tackled me with all of them watching, kissing on my neck until I was pretty much dead of embarrassment.
And that was it, we left her. Mr. Peg waved, but Mrs. Peggot just stared at her, making a long kind of face. I could still see it any time she turned around to ask us if we were buckled up and did we want any cookies yet. She wore that face well over the state line.
