A Life for a Life, Lynda McDaniel [best books to read for students txt] 📗

“You don’t need to worry about this.”

“I’m not worried,” I said. “I’m curious.”

“You’re curious all right.” He turned and spat something dark on to the dirt drive, a mix of tobacco and hate.

That’s how it always went. People talked to me like I was an idiot. Okay, I knew I wudn’t as smart as others. Something happened when Mama had me (she was pretty old by then), and I had trouble making my words just right sometimes. But inside, I worked better than most people thought. I used to go to school, but I had trouble keeping up, and that made Daddy feel bad. I wudn’t sure if he felt bad for me or him. Anyways, they took me out of school when I was twelve, which meant I spent my days watching TV and hanging out. And being bored. I could read, but it took me a while. The bookmobile swung by every few weeks, and I’d get a new book each time. And I watched the news and stuff like that to try to learn.

I was named after Daddy – Vester Bradshaw Jr. – but everyone called me Abit. I heard the name Abbott mentioned on the TV and asked Mama if that was the same as mine. She said it were different but pronounced about the same. She wouldn’t call me that, but Daddy were fine with it. A few year ago, I overheard him explaining how I came by it. 

“I didn’t want him called the same as me,” Daddy told a group of men killing time outside the store. He was a good storyteller, and he was enjoying the attention. “He’s a retard. When he come home from the hospital, and people asked how he was doin’, I’d tell ‘em,‘he’s a bit slow.’ I wanted to just say it outright to cut out all the gossip. I told that story enough that someone started calling him Abit, and it stuck.”

Some jerk then asked if my middle name were “Slow,” and everybody laughed. That hurt me at the time, but with the choice between Abit and Vester, I reckoned my name wudn’t so bad, after all. Daddy could have his stupid name.

Anyways, I wudn’t going to have Lonnie Parker run me off my own property (or nearabout my property), so I folded my arms and leaned against the rock wall.

I grabbed a long blade of grass and chewed. While I waited, I checked out the hubcaps on the cars—nothing exciting, just the routine sort of government caps. Too bad, ‘cause a black-and-white would’ve looked really cool with Mercury chrome hubcaps. I had one in my collection in the barn back of the house, so I knew what I was talkin’ about.

I heard some loud voices coming from upstairs, the apartment above the store, where Della lived with Jake, some kind of mixed hound that came to live with her when she lived in Washington, D.C. I couldn’t imagine what Della’d done wrong. She was about the nicest person I’d ever met. I loved Mama, but Della was easier to be round. She just let me be.

Ever since Daddy sold the store, Mama wouldn’t let me go inside it anymore. I knew she was jealous of Della. To be honest, I thought a lot of people were jealous a lot of the time and that was why they did so many stupid things. I saw it all the time. Sitting out front of the store most days, I’d hear them gossiping or even making stuff up about people. I bet they said things about me, too, when I wudn’t there, off having my dinner or taking a nap.

But lately, something else was going on with Mama. Oncet I turned 15 year old, she started snooping and worrying. I’d seen something about that on TV, so I knew it were true: People thought that any guy who was kinda slow was a sex maniac. They figured since we weren’t one-hundred percent “normal,” we walked round with boners all the time and couldn’t control ourselves. I couldn’t speak for others, but that just weren’t true for me. I remembered the first one I got, and it sure surprised me. But I’d done my experimenting, and I knew it wouldn’t lead to no harm. Mama had nothin’ to worry about, but still, she kept a close eye on me.

Of course, it was true that Della was real nice looking—tall and thin, but not skinny. She had a way about her—smart, but not stuck up. And her hair was real pretty—kinda curly and reddish gold, cut just below her ears. But she coulda been my mother, for heaven’s sake.

After a while, Gregg from the Forest Service and the sheriff, along with some other cops, started making their way down Della’s steps to their cars.

“Abit, you get on home, son,” Sheriff Brower said. “Don’t go bothering Ms. Kincaid right now.”

“Go to hell, Brower. I don’t need your stupid advice.” Okay, that was just what I wanted to say. What I really said was, “I don’t plan on bothering Della.” I used her first name to piss him off; kids were supposed to use grownups’ last names. Then I added, “And I don’t bother her. She likes me.”

But he was already churning dust in the driveway, speeding on to the road.

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That evening, all I could think about was Della and what them cops had been doing up in her apartment. Four cars and six men. I wudn’t even hungry for supper. Mama looked at me funny; she knew I usually didn’t have no trouble putting away four of her biscuits covered in gravy.

“Eat your supper, son. What’s wrong with you?” she scolded, like I were 8 year old. Well, what did she think? Like we’d ever had a day like that before. I asked to be excused, and Daddy nodded at her. I couldn’t figure out why they weren’t more curious about everything.

“Do you know what’s going on?” I asked.

Daddy just told me to run along. Okay, fine. That was my idea in the first place.

Even though the store were closed, I headed to my chair. A couple of year ago, I’d found a butt-sprung caned chair thrown behind the store. I fixed it with woven strips of inner tube, which made it real comfortable-like, especially when I’d lean against the wall. I worried when Daddy sold the store that the new owner would gussy everything up and get rid of my chair. But Della told me I was welcome to lean on her wall any day, any time. Then she smiled at me and asked me to stop calling her Mrs. Kincaid; I was welcome to call her Della.

I liked sitting there ‘cause I could visit with folks, and not everyone talked down to me like Lonnie and the sheriff. Take Della’s best friend, Cleva Hall, who came by at least oncet a week. She insisted on calling me Vester, which was kind of weird since I wudn’t used to it. At first, I reckoned she was talking about Daddy. But then I figured she had trouble calling me Abit, which was pretty nice when I thought about it.

I’d been on my own most of my life. Mama and Daddy kinda ignored me, when they weren’t worried I was getting up to no good. And I didn’t fit in with other folks. Della didn’t neither, but she seemed okay with that. She chatted with customers and acted polite, but I could tell she weren’t worried about being accepted. Which was good, since folks hadn’t accepted her. Sure, they bought her food and beer, but that was mostly ‘cause the big grocery store was a good ten or more mile away out on the highway. They’d act okay to her face, but they didn’t really like her ‘cause “she wudn’t from here.” Truth be told, I liked her extra ‘cause she wudn’t from here. 

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I couldn’t understand why Della chose to live in our town. It weren’t much, though I hadn’t never been out of the county, so how would I have known whether it was good or not? I had to admit that the falls were pretty to look at, and even Daddy said we was lucky to live near them. And we did have a bank, a real estate and law office combined, a dry goods store, Adam’s Rib and few other restaurants (though we never ate out as a family). And some kinda new art store. But there wudn’t a library or gas station or grocery store—except for Della’s store, which sat two mile outside of town on the road to the falls.

After supper, I felt kinda stupid sitting out front with the store closed and all, but I hoped Della would hear me tapping the chair against the wall and come down to talk with me. Mama didn’t like me to be out of an evenin’, though I told her I was getting too old for that. It was funny—Mama was a Bible-readin’ Christian, but she always thought the worst things. Especially at night. She never told me this, but I figured she thought demons came out then. (Not that she weren’t worried about demons during the day, too.) I hated to think of the things that went through her head. Maybe I was slow, but so be it if that meant I didn’t have to wrestle with all that.

I looked up at Della’s big window but couldn’t see nothin’. I wanted to know if she was all right—and, sure, I wanted to find out what was going on, too. Then a light went on in Della’s kitchen. “Oh, please, please come downstairs,” I said out loud. But just as fast, the light went out.

Chapter 3: Della

I switched off the kitchen light and limped back to the couch. No aspirin in the bedside table or in the bathroom or kitchen cabinets. Good thing I lived above a store.

Earlier in the woods, I’d twisted my ankle as I scrambled over a mass of tangled limbs trying to get to the open space where Jake waited, barking. Under the towering canopy of giant oaks, little grew, creating a hushed, cathedral-like space. Usually. Jake finally quit barking when he saw me, but he began a strange primal dance, crouching from side to side as he bared his teeth and emitted ugly guttural sounds. I closed my eyes, trying to will away what I knew lay ahead.

A young woman leaned against a fallen tree trunk blanketed in moss. Her head flopped to one side, long black hair covering half her face, though not enough to hide the vomit that pooled on her left shoulder and down her sleeve. She looked vaguely familiar; I’d probably seen her at the store.

I edged closer and reached out to feel her neck. Cold and silent. She looked up at me with the penetrating stare of the dead; I resisted the urge to close her eyes.

The woman, her skin smooth and clear, seemed no older than twenty or so, but her face was locked in a terrible grimace. Pain would do that, possibly the