Butch walks up the snowy road, his ears burning with the cold. He knows a week is probably not long enough to have stayed away, but he's tired of waiting for the bus at his house, where the only other kids are Margot and Sharon Randle, who spend all their time working on their snow fort like little ants or something. So a week is just going to have to do. His aunt can like it or lump it. He walks up the long grade to the tar road and crosses to drop his paper bag beside the array of cartoon-character lunch boxes his cousins have left in the snow.
    Julie Dunning, the nicest cousin, says, "Hi" and Butch says, "Hi" back. Jeanie Dunning stares down from a snowbank as high as Butch's head. "I thought you weren't allowed up here any more."
    "It's a free country."
    "It's private property."
    "Not the road."
    Mark Dunning doesn't say anything, and Butch can't tell if he's still mad about the fight. Butch knows his mother is still mad, though, because he can see her looking out their kitchen window at him. Butch looks right back at her, and after a moment she turns away.
    There's a shriek that startles Butch.
    He turns to watch Mark run up the side of the snowbank, grab Jeanie by the arm and sling her off. She goes stumbling down the mound of snow the plows have pushed up.
    Mark raises his arms and yells, "King of the Mountain!"
    A couple of the little kids grab Mark by the legs. He laughs as they struggle to move him. He pushes them away but they come right back at him. It reminds Butch of puppies when you get them all worked up. Butch's aunt used to raise collies, and he remembers playing with the puppies in their litter box, and how they would snarl and jump at you when you got them going. He remembers his aunt telling him not to be so rough with them. That was a few years ago, when they used to invite him inside sometimes.
    Butch's uncle Mike comes outside and frowns. Then he gets in his Plymouth Fury, backs out of the driveway onto the woodroad that runs up past their house. He drives forward and rolls down the passenger window. "Butch," he says, "weren't you were asked to stay away for a while?"
    "I did," Butch says.
    When his uncle is serious he resembles Butch's mother, even though he's better-looking. But you can tell they're both Dunnings. Sometimes Butch finds himself wishing he'd gotten the good one, until he starts feeling disloyal. Then he puts a stop to it.
    "I don't think a week was what she had in mind."
    Butch looks down at his rubber boots. "I didn't know."
    Uncle Mike peers upwards. "What's your opinion, Mark? Your being the wounded party and all."
    "I don't care," Mark says.
    "All right," Uncle Mike says. "We'll give it another try. But Butch, you're running out of second chances."
     "Okay," Butch says.
    "You need to keep your hands to yourself."
    "Okay."
    Butch's uncle eyes him, and for a moment Butch thinks he's going to get out of the car. He likes his uncle, and doesn't try to back-talk him. It's just sometimes he can't help it. Finally Butch's uncle says, "I'm trying to cut you some slack."
    "I know."
    "All right, then." He lets the car idle toward the road, looking out at his children the whole while, and when it's even with the big snowbank says, "I'll see you rug-rats tonight."
    "Bye Daddy!" they all cry.
    He rolls up the window, drives out onto the tar road.
    The little kids go after Mark again. Jeanie and Julie wander out into the crossing to watch their father drive away. Then Julie yells, "Bus coming!" and they hustle back and all the cousins grab their lunchboxes and line up according to age. Butch stands off to the side.
    The Halloween-orange bus comes rattling up and stops. Mrs. Harrison levers open the door and they all climb inside. There aren't many kids on the bus yet. Butch follows Mark down the aisle and when Mark sits across from the Hurd brothers and doesn't move in, Butch keeps going and slides into the next one back.
    Butch doesn't like the Hurds very much.
    They wear gloves instead of mittens, they have wool coats and they eat hot lunch at school every day. They talk funny and are always reading books. Tim Hurd is staring at one today, with his neck stuck forward like some kind of turtle.
    Mark likes them, though. Butch sees him waiting for a chance to say something. Before he can, Butch says, "Hey Hurd, what's the word?"
    Tim Hurd sighs and doesn't answer.
    "Come on," Butch says. "Whatcha reading?"
    With great reluctance, Tim Hurd turns the book briefly toward him - Herb Kent, West Point Fullback, the cover says - and then resumes reading.
    "You think you're gonna be a football player?"
    "Not particularly," Tim Hurd says.
    Butch leans forward with his arms over the seatback and flicks his knuckles into Mark's arm. "Hear that?" he says, and laughs. "Not particu'ly!"
    Mark doesn't comment.
    Butch thinks Mark wishes he was a Hurd sometimes, as if he doesn't have it good enough already. Or maybe he really is still mad about the fight. Then Tim's brother Tom, sitting by the window, says, "Nobody thinks you're funny, Butch. Why don't you just lay off?"
    "Why don't you make me?"
    "Somebody's going to make you someday."
    "Too bad you're too chicken, huh?"
    "Fighting's stupid."
    "That's what all the chickens say."
    They are riding down Lambert Road and just as they come up to Sharon and Margot's snow fort, which is right across the street from Butch's house, Tim Hurd puts his book down, points out the window and says, "We might be chickens, but at least we don't live in a chicken coop."
    Nobody makes a sound while the bus rolls onward for a hundred yards or so. Then Butch leans past Mark and punches Tim Hurd right in the face, knocking his glasses off. Tim Hurd puts his hands to his face and howls. His brother tries to hit Butch back, but it's not much of a punch because he's worried about getting his face too close. Butch comes after both of them then and is swinging wildly when Mrs. Harrison jams on the brakes. He falls onto the floor and by the time he gets back onto his feet Mrs. Harrison has him by the collar and is half-dragging him up to the stairwell.
    "Sit!" she says.
    Butch sits on the top step, in the dirt from all the kids' boots.
    "Don't you move!" Mrs. Harrison says. "Now, who started this?"
    "He punched Timmy in the face!" Tom Hurd says.
    "Is that true?"
    Butch doesn't answer.
    "Tim Hurd said Butch lived in a chicken coop!" one of the little cousins pipes up.
    "Shut up," Butch snaps from the stairwell.
    Mrs. Harrison looks at the little kid, then walks slowly down to Tim and Tom Hurd. "Is that true?" she asks. Tim Hurd is still blubbering too hard to answer, but his brother admits it, then says, "But he still started it!"
    "Enough!" Mrs. Harrison says. "Butch, take your seat."
    Butch stands up and brushes his pants off. He squeezes past Mrs. Harrison and slides onto the seat.
    "All right," Mrs. Harrison says. "Two things." She looks around the bus. "We do not hit on Mabel Harrison's bus. Is that clear?"
    Everybody murmurs, "Yes, Mrs. Harrison."
    "Butch?"
    Butch nods.
    "Second," Mrs. Harrison says, "we do not ever, ever mock anybody for their station in life. Is that clear?"
    The words station in life sink into Butch like an axe.
    "Yes, Mrs. Harrison," the kids says.
    "Mr. Hurd?"
    "I'm sorry," Tim Hurd croaks.
    Mrs. Harrison turns back to Butch. "Your Mom still at the Paper store?"
    Butch nods.
    "She'll have to take care of them glasses."
    Mark, who's turned sideways in his seat, takes a quick glance at Butch. Butch knows he's thinking about Butch's mother's temper. He was there when she shoved Butch against the living room window and he caught his arm on a piece of glass and bled all over the floor and had to go to the doctor for stitches.
    "Now, shake hands, and we'll call it square."
    Tim Hurd looks at Butch and slowly extends a hand. Butch shakes it very briefly. Then Mrs. Harrison goes back to her seat. Soon they're rambling down the dirt road again, picking up Daryl Hopkins, Emily Pruden and the Phillips kids along the way. Everybody who boards can tell something's happened. They see red-faced Tim Hurd and then they look across at Butch. As soon as they sit down someone leans over and fills them in.
    By the time they've reached the end of Lambert Road, wet snowflakes have started to fall, and the bus moves even slower. They turn around near the Goulds' driveway and head back, and when they near Butch's house again all the kids look out, trying to see the chicken coop in it. Butch looks out, too, mainly so he won't catch someone's eye and have to fight again. He doesn't have to try and see the coop in it. He knows it actually was one - his grandfather's - before it was converted into a place for Butch's parents to live. His grandfather had a lot of chickens at one time. There's another two-story coop near Butch's house, and Butch can just remember it being full of them. He can remember his grandfather chopping their heads off on a stump and how they ran around headless, and how everybody jumped out of their way so as not to get splashed.

~

During recess Butch thinks he hears a kid say "chicken coop," and that's that: he clamps a headlock on the kid and wrestles him to the snow. A teacher has to break it up and Butch spends the afternoon in the Principal's office, sitting at a table in the corner. He doesn't mind that so much. It's better than sitting with the other kids and wondering if they are talking behind his back. But when Mrs. Kimball comes into the office and starts going on about his family, he wishes he was back in the classroom. Mrs. Kimball isn't all that old, but she has gray hair. She has a long, gray ponytail that she lets rest on her shoulder like some kind of pet.
    "It's not easy growing up without a father around," she says. "It's hard on a boy, and sometimes you do things out of frustration, or from being sad. I understand that. But you still have a responsibility to behave in a way that society finds acceptable, otherwise you're going to spend your life getting in and out of trouble, instead of learning how to better yourself. Do you see what I mean, Butch?"
    "Uh-huh," he says.
    She goes on about it, and Butch lets his mind drift back to the big coop. He hasn't been inside it for a while. It is dusty and quiet, and walking over the wide, smooth planks of the floor you make echoes. There are metal bins where the chickens would crowd to eat, and there are lots of little metal spectacles lying around that the chickens had to wear. It was a weird thing about the spectacles. If the chickens didn't wear them they would start acting creepy. His grandfather told him all about it when he was five or six. Without the spectacles, his grandfather said, the chickens would turn into cannibals. They'd pick one poor chicken out and gang up on it. They'd chase it into a corner and peck at it until its guts were hanging out and it died.
    "Really?" Butch said.
    "Every time," his grandfather said.

~

Riding the bus home after school Butch invites Mark to come over so when the old lady gets home from work he won't be alone when he tells her about Tim Hurd's glasses. Tim Hurd isn't on the bus, nor his brother. Butch saw them getting into their mother's car after school. Mark's a little more friendly without the Hurds around, but he doesn't know about coming over. "We were going to play wiffleball," he says.
    "We've got coffee cake," Butch says. His mother brought some home the day before. It's something that Mark's family never has, because Mark's mother doesn't work, and only goes shopping on the weekends.
    "All right," Mark says, "for a little while."
    "It's too cold to play wiffleball anyway."
    "No it isn't," Mark says. "I hit three homers yesterday."
    They bang along the road. It has stopped snowing but is still very cold. The bus lurches over a big frost heave and somebody yells out, "Go Mrs. Harrison!"
    "Simmer down back there," she says.
    Butch gets off at the Dunnings' and waits outside while Mark asks permission. The cousins all run across the snowy lawn and inside except Julie, who stops at the door and says, "Come on in, Butch. It's cold out."
    "That's all right," Butch says.
    She smiles sadly at him and goes inside.
    Butch walks back and forth on the wood road. His ears start to hurt and he can feel his cheeks freezing. It's taking a long time and he figures Mark's mother must be arguing against the idea. She didn't like them hanging around together even before their fight. She thinks Butch is a bad influence. Once Butch let Mark shoot the .22 that Butch's old man left behind and she found out about it. He'd known where the shells were in his mother's room and he wanted to do something neat, so they took it out into the woods behind the house and shot it at a pine tree. They ate coffee cake and shot the .22 for a half hour. It had a scope that made the tree look close and easy to hit. They were having a great time. But Butch's grandfather was still alive then, and he heard them shooting and came down into the woods and took the rifle away. He told Butch's mother and Mark's mother and they had to sit through a lecture from Mark's father that lasted forever. Afterward Butch's mother hid the rifle, although it didn't take long for Butch to find it in a dark corner of her closet behind the dresses and coats. He figures he'll sneak it out of there eventually and she'll never even miss it, but he hasn't been able to work up his nerve just yet.
    Mark finally comes outside.
    "Can you go?"
    "For a little while," he says. "Like an hour."
    "That's okay."
    They walk across the tar road and down Lambert Road. The sky is still low and gray and it's getting dark already. When they near the Randalls' they see Margot and Sharon playing in their snow fort, and as soon as the girls notice them they start packing up a supply of snowballs.
    "Want to bomb 'em?" Mark says.
    "Naw, let's go get this over with." Butch can see that his mother is home; a car is parked in the space next to the road. It isn't Mrs. Soule's Impala, though: she must have gotten a ride with somebody else. Usually it is Mrs. Soule, who works in the Five and Dime across from the Paper Store. But this is a white Falcon. The boys walk up and look in its windows. There are clothes folded and stacked on the back seat and hanging from hangers in the back windows. An army duffle bag sits on the floor.
    Margo throws a snowball that barely makes it into the road.
    The boys laugh at her and walk down the hill to Butch's house. Halfway down they hear a man's voice.
    "Who's that?" Mark says.
    "Somebody that gave her a ride home."
    "Maybe it's her boyfriend."
    "She don't have one," Butch says.
    "If she did," Mark says, "maybe he's it and she's in a good mood."
    "Maybe." Butch opens the screen door. They go inside just as the curtain parts and Butch's father comes out from his mother's room. He looks pretty much as Butch remembers: a tall guy with a pot belly and a mustache. He's gotten kind of bald. He looks at Mark, and then back at Butch. "Son of a gun," he says, and sticks out his hand. "If you can stand it, your old man's home."
    Butch can't speak, but he shakes his father's hand.
    Butch's mother comes out of the bedroom and stands to the side.
    "You've grown," Butch's father says.
    "I guess so."
    "And Mark, how's things up at the Dunning plantation?"
    "Okay." Mark looks at Butch. "I better go home."
    Butch is trying to keep from grinning. "Okay."
    Mark keeps looking at him, then turns his eyes toward the kitchen counter. There's coffee cake there, covered by wax paper.
    "Mum," Butch says, "can Mark take a piece of that with him?"
    "Oh, for God's sake," she says. "I don't care."
    Mark snatches a piece of coffee cake, says, "Thanks," and takes off. Butch sees him run past the window. Then Butch's father reaches out with both arms and walks his wife and son over to the couch and sits them down with his arms still around them. He crosses his legs and looks the place over. "This won't do," he says. "I can tell you that right now."
    Butch feels something wriggle around in his stomach.
    "As soon as I find a job we'll see about making some changes around here." He smiles at Butch. "What do you think?"
    Butch shrugs. His cheeks hurt.
    Butch's father laughs, and squeezes the two of them tighter against him. After a moment Butch's mother squirms away and walks back to the kitchen. She picks up a piece of coffee cake and takes a bite. She looks back at the couch. "Don't you get his hopes all up, Willard."
    "I don't blame you for being skeptical," he says.
    Butch's mother takes another bite.

~

Butch's father goes to work in the shoeshop again, doing piecework. They get out an hour after school ends, and that Friday morning Butch asks if he can walk over and catch a ride home instead of taking the bus. A thaw has come in, and it's warm enough to hike the two miles into town. His father says, "I don't see why not," and writes him a note to miss the bus, and that afternoon Butch gets to leave with the walking kids when the second bell rings.
    "Where you going?" Mark says when Butch stands up.
    "I'm skipping the bus today. My father's bringing me home."
    "Lucky duck," Mark says.
    Outside Butch walks up past the store and the four corners and starts along the back road to town. It must be fifty degrees out and the sun feels wonderful. He's left all his books at school and saunters along with his hands in his pockets, whistling. He feels like one of the walking kids, who never have to ride on the damn bus, who just leave school and stroll home to where their mothers have snacks and hot chocolate waiting. Although you wouldn't even need hot chocolate on a day like this.
    At one point he catches up with Brian Stowell and they walk along together until Brian gets to his house. Butch says, "See you," and Brian says, "See you later," as if they were friends who walked home together all the time, and it makes Butch feel almost like a sissy inside but he doesn't really mind.
    He makes it to town after forty minutes and cuts through the park and past the Civil War monument and its flanking cannons to the shoeshop. There are fifty-three cars parked in the lot and on the street. Butch slows down and counts them, just because he's in no hurry.
    Inside the shop a lady at a desk smiles at him and checks a sheet of paper, then tells him where his father works. Butch walks up a dark stairway to where his father stands at a machine next to the wall. He's working a foot pedal and turning a flap of leather in his hands. He's moving all over, almost like running in place. There's a row of them all moving like that. It's hot in the room and they all have taken off their shirts and are working in their t-shirts. Sweat circles darken the sides of their t-shirts. Butch, wondering how long it will take his father to make enough money for a house, moves around to where his father can see him.
    His father stops his machine. He gives Butch fifty cents and says, "Go hang out in the break room. Buy yourself a drink. I'll be done in a little bit." He nods toward the other side of the room.
    Butch walks past clattering machines to a little room and sits there at a table. They have a vending machine so he buys a Coke and sips it while he waits. There are newspapers with half-naked women on the covers on the table, and he looks around to make sure nobody will see him and then leafs through them. Every other page has a picture of a woman with no shirt on. Quickly he folds one up into a square and crams it into his hip pocket to take home. Maybe he'll show Mark. Then he keeps looking through the others. The pictures give him a little headache, but one he doesn't mind.
    "Don't get yourself all worked up," his father laughs.
    Butch shuts the newspaper and pushes it away. His father is wiping the back of his neck with a paper towel. He drops it into the wastebasket next to the Coke machine and puts on his shirt. Another man comes into the room and says, "Willard, you in?"
    "Shoot, it's Friday, isn't it?" He ponders, then says, "I hate to miss a game but my boy's here. I'll catch you next week, okay?"
    The man shrugs and walks off.
    Leaving they pass the man and some others gathered around a table made out of sawhorses and a flat piece of plywood, and Butch's father stops and looks over the shoulder of the man sitting at the end of the table. Money is piled in the middle of the table, coins and bills. It's more money than Butch has ever seen. Butch's father scratches his chin while he watches. One of the men says, "Call," and they all lay their cards down on the table, and one of them laughs, reaches out for the pile and drags it back in front of him. Some of the other men swear.
    "Big pot," Butch's father says, his voice a little husky.
    The man who won says, "Grab a chair, Willard. We can always use another pigeon." The other men laugh a little.
    "Not today."
    The man goes back to stacking coins.
    "Come on, Butch." They walk to the stairs and down the dark, woody stairwell and past the lady at the desk. The Falcon is parked on the street. They pass the Civil War monument and proceed down the street to the car. Butch's father guns the engine and turns it around in the street so the tires spin. He drives very fast away from the shoeshop to the South Freeport Road and past the school toward home. The school looks deserted with no kids running around the playground. "Not a word about that card game," Butch's father says.
    "Okay."
    Butch's father puts an arm around him and drives with one hand. Butch sits up very straight. Water is running along the side of the road, and everybody is playing outside, enjoying the thaw. Some of them wave to Butch and his father. When they turn down Lambert Road Mark Dunning throws a snowball toward them from his yard, but not close enough to have a chance of hitting them.
    "Little shit," Butch's father says.
    They drive down Lambert Road and park in the space next to the road. They walk down the hill toward the house."When are we moving out of there, anyway?" Butch says.
    "I'm working on it."
    "Soon?"
    "We'll see."
    They go inside and Butch's father takes a beer out of the fridge. Butch pours a glass of milk and they sit down on the couch to watch TV.

~

It only takes a few weeks for them to start fighting, and another week for Butch's father to leave again. The afternoon he leaves Butch hears them arguing in their bedroom and then he hears his mother say, "They must have been happy to see you come back to work. It must have been like getting a raise."
    "Shut the hell up."
    They keep at it until Butch hears a thump. He looks out of his room at his father carrying the duffle outside. His father slams the door behind him. Butch's mother parts the curtain and stands looking at the door. Butch runs outside and chases up the hill after his father. It has turned cold again, and Butch is shivering in the chill breeze that comes whistling around the corner of the big coop.
    Butch's father throws the duffle bag into the back and shuts the door. Then he turns around and sees Butch. He sticks his hands in his pockets and says, "I guess it probably would've been better if I'd never shown my face, huh?"
    "Yup," Butch says.
    "Well, I'm sorry. I tried my best." He sticks out a hand. "I'll be in touch with you, okay?"
    When Butch doesn't move his father grabs his hand and pumps it. "Try and stay out of trouble, okay? Don't be like your old man. Stay away from the card games." He laughs, then gets in the car and shuts the door. He backs out onto Lambert Road and looks over at Butch and winks, and then he drives off fast. Butch's mother comes walking up the hill. "Where'd he go?"
    "He just drove off."
    She brushes past Butch without another word and heads down the dirt road.
    "Where are you going?" Butch calls.
    She keeps marching.
    "MUM!"
    His mother doesn't answer. He watches her stride all the way up to the crossing with her arms swinging and then turn onto the tar road. As soon as she goes out of sight behind the bushes, Butch runs back to the house and ducks under the curtain into her room. He takes the .22 out of the little closet where she hangs her clothes. He doesn't give a damn if she does find out. He'll just deny it. He sneaks around the corner of the house, and makes a dash for the big coop. He runs up the stairs and hides it behind a feeder near a corner. Then he goes back to the house to warm up.

~

Butch is lying down and wondering about supper when his mother finally comes home. She goes heavily into her room and then it is quiet. Butch thinks he'd better give her some time. He takes the tattered newspaper he brought home from the shoeshop out from under his mattress and looks through it for an hour or so, by which time he's too hungry to even enjoy the pictures. He puts it back and walks up to the curtained doorway to her bedroom and stands there holding his breath, listening. She's breathing noisily. He says, "Mum?" and she doesn't answer. He says her name again, and she still doesn't answer, but her breathing changes. When he asks about supper she swears and comes after him with the whippy metal end of a flyswatter, but she gets herself tangled up in the curtain long enough for Butch to avoid her first charge. Then she's stumbling and swearing, and Butch dodges around the living room until she trips and falls, and then he grabs his jacket off the kitchen chair and runs outside. She doesn't follow. He thinks about going up to the Dunnings', or across the street to Margot and Sharon's. He thinks about all the other warm homes along Lambert Road, and a huge sadness comes over him. That makes him mad, and he says, "The hell with all of them," and trots over to the big coop instead. It isn't quite so chilly once he's out of the breeze, but he can still see his breath.
    He climbs the stairs to the second floor and goes to the corner behind the feeder, taking up the .22. It's comforting at first to hold the rifle and walk around the quiet old coop. But then he kicks some of the spectacles with his heel and it makes him think about what the chickens did to each other.
    He goes to the window that looks out at the field and the tar road and Mark's house, and he aims the .22 out the window at the road. There are streetlights along the road. Every now and then a car appears out of the woods on the right and he follows it with the scope across the field and past the Dunnings' house until it disappears behind the bushes on the left.
    The rifle is cold and smooth in his hands.
    It's strange seeing the cars without hearing them. They don't seem quite real without their noise. They look sort of squeezed up in the scope. Then there are no cars for a long time and he sights on Mark's house. He moves the scope around the house and then holds it on the kitchen window. He's probably too far away to hit anything, so he doesn't feel too nervous about it.
    After a while the rifle goes off. He never felt his finger move. It didn't make much noise. It really seems almost as though nothing has happened until a light comes on in the Dunnings' shed, and Butch's uncle Mike comes out and stands looking around with his hands on his hips.
    Butch puts another shell in the chamber, cocks the hammer and without aiming pulls the trigger again. His uncle runs back inside. Then all the lights go out in the house. Butch turns around with his back to the wall and lays the .22 on the floor. He hopes he didn't hit anyone. After a while he hears a siren in the distance, and he sits waiting to see what will happen next. He doesn't particu'ly care what it is. He just hopes it won't take too damn long. The big coop is getting kind of cold. It is getting cold and creepy, too, because he can imagine the chickens. In the dark he can imagine gangs of chickens without their spectacles, looking around, deciding who is next.

Back to Top

Copyright © 2001 AZX LLC