The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists

THE MAN WITH THE BARBED WIRE FISTS

She said we should bring that stuff down to her shack by the creek cause we had to give her that stuff if she was gonna do what Jimmy Tibbs wanted her to do. And we didn’t know then that she was a witch so we brought that stuff down there. Us kids did. That was before the aqua duck when there was still a creek there. And Jimmy made me tote the big spool of barbed wire cause I was stronger than he was and cause I was a nigger and he said that niggers was like Ygor in the picture and did what they was told. He was littler than me but back then I figured he was right bout that Ygor stuff so I didn’t bellyache.

That particular year it was a dusty summer. Hot and dry and miserable dusty. The creek bed was all buzzin with gnats and the rocks that was used to bein underwater was hot like little fryin pans and my socks was all itchy with brambles. And on top of that I was sick of the whole thing cause Jimmy had done had me runnin back and forth along that dry creek-bed with notes for the witch all week long. Anyhow, now everythin was settled and us kids was all finally gonna go and get turned into growed ups. Jimmy was way ahead of me cause all he was carryin was his daddy’s RCA radio and the plug cord draggin tween his legs was like Satan’s tail. Mary Hannah wasn’t too far behind Jimmy. The poke with lipsticks and powders she stoled from her daddy’s five-and-dime was scissored tween her arm and her chest and her cheeks was all shiny with lipstick in thick stripes like she was an Injun chief. And she was real eager to come with us fellas cause she said that since her daddy took sick he had to live upstairs all the time and her mama sometimes did that stuff with the truck drivers who brung goods to the store so she wanted to know how to do that stuff too cause now the truck drivers was startin to look at her sometimes too. And after Mary Hannah come Rusty and all he had was the keys to his daddy’s Ford but Rusty was lazy so he was slow and I knowed he was frettin on account of all the trouble he could get into bout them keys if his Daddy found out that he stoled them. And b’sides, he was sneezin on account of the dust from the itchy brambles us kids was kickin up.

And Jimmy laughed, singin, “Sickly child, sickly child… ”

I was last. The spool of wire was heavy and I was wearin gloves and two coats to keep from gettin scratched and I didn’t like to think what Pap was gonna do when he found out the barbed wire wasn’t in the barn no more like it was supposed to be. But Jimmy said to me, “Little Pete, your daddy is just a stupid nigger so he ain’t even gonna know it’s gone, and even if he does know it he’s gonna know better than to holler that someone stoled it, cause God knows where that kinda yellin gets a nigger round here, Little Pete.”

Little Pete. That’s what they call me cause I’m hunched up like Ygor. But I wish they would call me like they did the little boy in the picture. Peter. That’s what Mama used to call me before she went off to the sportin life. And I wished I was like Peter in the picture too, all brave like nobody’s business and off huntin rhinocerasses and alligators and havin adventures bout the giant who stoled my storybook and that soldierman with the rubber arm who rescued me.

But this wasn’t no adventure like that. Like I said, it was hot. Not cold and rainy and gloomy like in the picture. The witch’s shack was a teeny bit of a place out behind the big house and it was all leanin sideways and ready to fall over like the big house was too and like the houses in the picture. Jimmy said that she wrote him in a note that we had to meet her in that shack cause the big house was too grand for the likes of us little folks and little folks got to meet her in a little place. So we climbed up from the creek bed over the hot fryin pan rocks that was real smooth even though, like I said, there wasn’t no water in the creek. This was before the aqua duck, cause since we got that there is always water there and you can’t walk down that way no more and there ain’t even no stones in the bottom of it accordin to what people say and now there ain’t no grand house or even little house there no more, either, cause I guess them houses finally leaned over too far and just fell down and somebody hauled them away. But back then there was still a creek and two houses and when us kids come up through all that manzanita and then through the rusty barbed-wire fence what was all tangled-busted and needin fixin bad we was practically on the little porch which belonged to the shack. It was pretty rickety with a hole in the roof and I thought bout the picture and the hole in the labboratoree roof where Ygor pushed a boulder through and almost hit Jimmy.

But it wasn’t Jimmy he almost hit it was the doctor in the two-tone coat. Jimmy said the man was Frankenstein’s son, like the picture’s called. I said that Peter was Frankenstein’s son but Jimmy just said I was stupid cause Peter was the grandson. But then when I asked him how come the picture wasn’t called Grandson of Frankenstein he couldn’t even give me a right answer. It’s the same way as when he tried to tell me that Ygor was the same fella as Dracula and that the Frankenstein Monster was really the Mummy.

Anyway, “You bring it all?” was what the witch asked and Jimmy allowed how we had. “Boy, you better not be lyin,” was the next thing she said.

“I ain’t lyin,” was what Jimmy said.

Jimmy lied all the time, though. He always said we should go to the picture together but then he wouldn’t sit with me when we did go even though we went plenty of times cause it was the only picture they showed for weeks and weeks. He told me he was my friend plenty of times and then throwed rocks at me when he seen me walkin by myself while he was with Rusty and the other fellas. I knowed he did it cause I was a nigger and I was always gonna be small like Ygor, anyhow. Even though back then I used to pray it wouldn’t be so, specially when Jimmy and Rusty called me a nigger dwarf circus clown.

And for sure Jimmy lied bout that stuff with Mary Hannah too, even though he said that he really didn’t hate her cause of what happened though after it happened he said she was just like the witch.

“I had to say it,” was what he said bout that back when I was still talkin to him. “I had to make up that story bout us kids runnin into that barbed-wire fence that was covered up with weeds and manzanita. You don’t want folks to know what really happened out there, now do you, Little Pete? You don’t want that man comin after us, or talkin to your pap, do ya?”

“No.”

“Well that’s thinkin straight. Cause you and me know we got to keep that a secret tween us, just like Ygor and the Doctor kept their secret bout the Monster in the picture.”

I didn’t say nothin to that even though I wanted to say that Ygor and the Doctor didn’t keep their secret too good. But I didn’t say it cause I knowed that Jimmy didn’t understand bout that witch and her barbed-wire man and it wouldn’t do no good to argue bout them if he didn’t even understand bout Ygor and the Doctor.

Anyhow, us kids was in the shack with the witch and Rusty was still coughin and snifflin because of the itchy dusty brambles and the witch asked, “He ain’t got TB, does he?” and Jimmy just laughed and said bout the brambles. So she forgot bout that and then she started lookin over our stuff, checkin the tubes in Jimmy’s daddy’s radio and twistin up Mary Hannah’s stoled lipsticks to make sure them lipsticks wasn’t empty Next she got hold of Rusty’s belt and pulled him up close right tween her legs with her red dress all wrinklin up round him. “These keys go to a car now, don’t they, little man?”

Rusty nodded quick and she just laughed and laughed with her rosy lips a big circle and then a big man stepped out of the shadows and he was laughin too. He looked like a nigger but he looked just like the Monster too — I mean to tell you he looked like Frankenstein but Jimmy always said that ain’t right cause the Doctor is the one who’s Frankenstein and the Monster ain’t got a name at’all cause he’s dead and nobody gives a name to things that is dead— and the Monster Man was grinnin at the way the witch had a hold of Rusty’s belt and the way he was squirmin. And then he stepped up to us kids and said over his shoulder “Hey now Viletta this un ain’t even no boy” while he ran a big thumb over Mary Hannah’s war paint.

Jimmy piped up, “She’s as good as a fella. She does everything that us fellas do.”

The Monster Man just laughed some more when he heard that. Real hearty, he laughed. He pulled Mary Hannah toward him by her overalls and then commenced to smearin her war paint into two rosy circles.

“No,” I said, and I grabbed hold of his arm just like Ygor did in the picture and it was a hard arm like a fence post. “She’s my friend and you ain’t gonna make her a circus clown.”

He looked at me sort of puzzled and then he made questionin eyes at the witch and shrugged his big shoulders. She said, “Leave the little gal be. When I was young I used to like to run with the fellas too.” She winked. “And you see how good I turned out.”

He allowed how she had turned out pretty good. She said that as everythin seemed right we might as well get down to brass tacks and me and him should run along and might as well take the radio up to the big house and enjoy it for a spell. And then later we could come back cause she didn’t spect Jimmy or Rusty to last very long and then it would be my turn since I didn’t bring nothin that was so grand as a radio or keys to a car, but I already done that thing that Jimmy and Rusty wanted to do anyway even though they didn’t know bout it so I didn’t mind even though I still didn’t feel growed up like a man. But still I couldn’t figure out why the witch said that bout comin back since she knowed I already done it cause I done it with her.

Anyway, the Monster Man said okay and bent down and the witch kissed him with them rosy lips of hers and even her tongue. Later on Jimmy said that was the worst part of it. Seeing that a white woman was in love with a nigger. I said that maybe the Monster Man wasn’t really a nigger cause his skin just happen to be black like the Monster’s skin just happen to be green (you can tell that from the poster at the picture show). Maybe he was part nigger and part Monster, I said. Like Ygor was part Dracula and the Monster was part the Mummy. But Jimmy just wrinkled his nose at that and said, “jumpin Jesus Christ, Little Pete, that fella wasn’t nothin but a big dumb buck nigger. Next you’ll be tellin me that you seen a coupla bolts stickin out of that dumb coon’s neck.”

But he didn’t have no bolts. And since I knowed that from then on I knowed that Jimmy Tibbs was a pretty stupid fella. I told him so right then, and I told him there wasn’t nothin bad bout bein a nigger cause I knowed after what happened at that witch’s place that Jimmy was deep-down scared of niggers. And that was the last time I wasted my time talkin to Jimmy Tibbs who thought he was a big man right then but sure enough found out he wasn’t as the years went by.

So back we went into the heat. Me and the Monster Man. He was takin long strides and it was hard for me to keep up cause I could hardly see over the radio and I almost tripped in a coupla postholes that was by the front steps. He said “Just watch it now” and I did while I hopped round them holes and them holes was wet at the bottom and the ground down there was black-red like an old sore that ain’t healed over after a long time and them holes was crawlin with worms and all of a sudden I didn’t want to look at them holes no more cause they stunk and they made me think of what that boilin pit must have smelled like in the picture cause it was full of sulphur. So we got up to the porch of the big house and there was a big patch of shade up there so I set down my burden in the middle of it. We both happened to wipe our brow at the same time and that made the Monster Man chuckle. “Hey shortcake,” he said, “how bout some lemonade fore we go back?”

I allowed how I’d like that. So he got us some and I seen that his was a touch darker than mine and I was gonna trouble him bout it but before I could he asked, “What’s wrong with you, anyhow?”

“I can’t say as I know,” I said soundin kinda puzzled and quiet like Pap always does when folks ask him bout me. “I was just born this way.”

“Uh-huh,” he says. “I heard bout stuff like that. Your ma took a bad scare while she was carryin you, I spect.”

I didn’t say nothin cause I didn’t know bout that. Maybe it had somethin to do with the lightnin was what I thought that summer, cause I recollect in the picture where Ygor said the Monster’s mother was the lightnin. And I wanted to know if the big man was the Monster and knowed bout that, so I asked him straight out. “Naw,” he said. “I seen that picture too. That man ain’t really big, like me. He ain’t really a monster. He’s wearin elevator shoes and a jacket stuff full with pillows. That Frankenstein is a scrawny little white man, just like everybody else in that picture. It ain’t nothin but make-believe.”

I was gonna tell him bout the difference tween Frankenstein the Doctor and the Frankenstein Monster but I didn’t want to get him riled. So I just asked him what his name was and he jingled Rusty’s daddy’s keys in front of my face and said, “Today my name is Jesse James, shortcake, but you can call me Jess.”

“Okay, Jess,” I said. And then he asked me what they call me and I said “Peter” cause I like that boy in the picture. His name is Peter and he wears sailor suits and hunts all manner of stuff. And when he gets in a fix someone comes right quick and helps him out of it like the soldierman with the rubber arm helped him and his daddy helped him too.

I took to lookin at them postholes while I drank my lemonade, waitin to see if a worm dared to poke its head out in the sun and what Jess would do to a worm that dared. But that didn’t happen. Nothin happened ceptin Jess drank some more lemonade and patted the top of the RCA. He said, “I sure am sold on radios, yes sir.”

“Me too,” I said. “And this radio is awful grand. I wish my Pap had one like it. I bet Amos and Andy sounds awful grand on a radio like this one.”

Jess wrinkled up his nose. “That’s just a couple of white men on that show, Peter,” he said. “You know, the only kinda white folks you should mix with is the ladies.” And then Jess seen Jimmy come out of the shack all puffed up like a rooster and he patted the radio once more and chuckled in a way that made me know he thought that RCA was awful grand too. “Hey now, Peter, you come and watch how to mix with white folks.”

Jess drank down his lemonade in one big gulp then stepped off the porch and dust puffed up all round his boot just like a bomb goin off in a war picture. My, he was big and his stride was long. Long as the space tween them postholes with the scabby dirt and worms, which was a good bit long. “Hey, boy,” he hollered to Jimmy. ‘You come here.”

Jimmy looked up sharp and when he seen who was talkin to him his ears got awful red. But he come ahead anyway. And when he got close enough Jess squatted down real low til he could look him in the eye. “You like that, over in there?” he asked and Jimmy kinda looked away but he was smilin. Then Jess said, “Well, it sure didn’t take you long.”

Now Jimmy’s whole face got red and Jess said, “Yeah, well, don’t never take a cherry very long. I figure that was bout four… mebbe five minutes, countin unbuttonin and buttonin time. Now, you tell me boy was that worth your daddy’s RCA?” But Jimmy didn’t say nothin so Jess said some more. “Well, I’m sure gonna enjoy that radio.”

Jimmy was lookin at the dirt but he said in a loud voice like they do in the gangster pictures, “It ain’t for you it’s for the lady.”

Jess curled up a fist and smacked Jimmy’s ear real good like Joe Louis does and the blood come like Jimmy been cut, and while Jimmy was swayin all woozy Jess said, “The lady is mine and I’m hers, so it goes to figure that your RCA is mine and hers.” He took hold of Jimmy’s shirt and pulled him close and I seen Jimmy cringin away from Jess’s lemonade breath. “Now, you listen up, boy. And you do like I say unless you want your daddy to find out where you been playin.”

Jimmy listened real good now cause I reckon I should have told you before that his daddy was a soldierman like the soldierman with the rubber arm in the picture ceptin Jimmy’s daddy didn’t have no rubber arm. Anyhow, I never seen anyone talk to Jimmy like Jess did, and I spect no one ever had ceptin his daddy. But Jess didn’t just talk he dragged Jimmy over by the old busted fence that we come up through when we come up from the creek bed over the hot fryin pan rocks. He give Jimmy some wire cutters and told him to cut the rusty wire off them old posts, but Jimmy tried to give them cutters over to me.

“I paid with my radio to do what I wanted to do,” Jimmy said. “I ain’t gonna do no nigger work for you.” But Jimmy looked kinda sick when he said it somehow, and I knowed his stomach was feelin like mine always did when he throwed them rocks at me, and I was gonna say so when Jess said, “What kinda nigger work you think I’m talkin bout, white boy?”

“Buildin a new fence,” Jimmy said. “Look here, I know you got a whole spool of wire in there on account of that’s what Little Pete brought. I thought you aimed to sell it to somebody, but if you think I’m gonna— ”

Rusty come out of the shack just then wipin his nose on his shirttail. I grabbed hold of Jess’s hand feelin like Ygor in the picture when he grabs hold of the Monster and sends him after them fellas who hanged him and busted his neck but didn’t kill him through and all of a sudden I knowed just how wrong Jimmy was bout Ygor. “Him too,” I said, pointin at Rusty. “Him too.”

In a minute Rusty was cryin cause Jess had told him what he imagined would happen if Rusty’s daddy found out bout the missin car keys. So Rusty got real busy quick workin the posts out of the ground. It wasn’t hard work cause them posts was already leanin and wasn’t set in cement like they set posts in these days. But like I said Rusty was a lazy sort and so it was hard for him and it didn’t help when he got to sneezin again.

“Look here.” Jimmy pulled Rusty away from his work and stood up to Jess cept he was so small standin in Jess’s big shadow that he was silly lookin. “We paid you, mister. We ain’t gonna build no fence.”

Jess just laughed that same real hearty laugh, mainly at that “mister” stuff I spect cause it come right out of the blue.

Bout then was when she come out of the shack. The witch did. She was holdin Mary Hannah’s hand and Mary Hannah was as pretty as could be with powder and lipstick and you could see how she wasn’t no little girl no more.

“Now don’t you be scared,” was what the witch whispered to Mary Hannah. “There ain’t one thing to be scared of.”

Jess looked Mary Hannah over with a big grin then he says to Jimmy and Rusty, “Now you remember what I said bout your daddies.” And then he took hold of Mary Hannah’s hand and took her up to the big house.

I sat down in the dust, in the sun, right tween them two postholes, listenin to the radio and lookin at the worms squirmin in the black-red mud and tryin to recollect how things went when I’d brung Jimmy’s notes to the witch.

All of a sudden I smelled sulphur.

Soon enough the witch got Jimmy and Rusty busy with a shovel and them old posts and that old rusty wire. Their hands got cut up somethin awful cause they didn’t have no gloves, and she just shook her head at Rusty when he begged for somethin to drink. She said, “You boys wanted to make men, didn’t you?”

Like the Doctor in the picture. That’s what I got to thinkin. He said he wanted to make a man. But that ain’t what he ended up makin. He ended up makin a monster. A giant that stoled storybooks from nice little fellas like Peter. But Peter thought that giant was nice and Ygor thought he was nice too. And Mary Hannah always said how sad he was and how he never did nothin bad that those other folks didn’t make him do cause he was really just gentle as could be. And I watched Jimmy and Rusty and I thought Jess was pretty nice and I recollect diggin them two holes by the porch after the witch took me inside the shack. And then I took off my gloves and looked at the scabs on my palms and recollect how she told me to hold that last note to Jimmy real careful so I wouldn’t get no blood on it.

Rusty finished makin his barbed-wire man first. The witch pushed him up against it and then pushed him away and she started rubbin on the barbed-wire man with her red dress all wrinklin up round her like before. And then Jimmy finished and she did the same thing to his barbed-wire man and Rusty started cryin then. But I think it was just cause he was scared cause he couldn’t have knowed what was gonna happen to him cause of that man.

And then the radio went quiet and Jess come out of the house with one arm round Mary Hannah and the other round the RCA. He walked right over to Jimmy and handed him the radio, sayin, “I was just spoofin you bout keepin it, boy. We sure wouldn’t want you to get into trouble with your folks.”

The witch laughed at that and then Jess give Rusty the keys to his daddy’s Ford and Rusty stopped bawlin so I knowed for sure he didn’t really understand.

“Skedaddle, now,” the witch said and Rusty and Jimmy did just that real quick, runnin down the creek bed over the hot fryin pan rocks, runnin like they was so happy to be free and didn’t have a care in the world like you can still see them boys runnin today.

Then Mary Hannah come over and took my hand, and she had little scratches on her hand. And the witch went round them postholes and slid her little hand into Jess’s big one. I looked up at him and I was all mixed up cause I didn’t know if he was the soldierman with the rubber arm who come to save me or the Monster or the giant who stoled my storybook or maybe all three, like Ygor was Dracula and the Monster was the Mummy. But I looked at his eyes and I looked at them two big holes like sores in the ground that was dug by me when I made my barbed-wire man and I knowed that I was never gonna grow up to be a man cause Jess had done that for me and I was grateful cause I bet it was somethin I never coulda done by myself anyhow.

And Mary Hannah had a hold of my hand. She said, “C’mon, Little Pete, I’ll take you home.” And she picked up the witch’s shovel and the poke of lipstick and powder and I got the spool of barbed wire. Off we went tween Jimmy and Rusty’s barbed-wire men and that rusted wire was startin to sigh and then we was climbin through what was left of that busted-down fence and it was singin in the hot breeze.

And the witch waved goodbye and said, “Thank you for my man, Little Pete.”

And I looked one last time at Jess who looked mighty happy and big and strong as anybody could ever want to be and it was like lookin into a mirror and seein somethin that was never gonna be.

And I smiled at the witch and said “Thank you” right back.

(For Alan M. Clark)