I can read this 40 times over

SONG FOR THE GOAT
by

my dearest

L. RAWSON

Ever since Tommy went up to Tulsa to work at that tire shop, Ma has been poppin’ them pills. I never took her for the type. Onliest person I knowed to take them things was Mr. Graves, ‘course he had ‘em prescribed by a doctor in Little Rock on account of his bad back. But Ma see, she don’t have no kind of prescription but she’s been poppin’ them pills and still on the drink for near two months now. She don’t move off that couch. Just last week when Michelle got sick I said to her, "Ma, Michelle ought to be taken to the store for some tussin." But she just layed there on that couch not movin’ a muscle, lookin’ like the good Lord done come down and put a glaze over her eyes so’n she can’t see past the damn television set. So when Michelle wouldn’t stop coughin’ and wheezin’, I took it upon myself to bring her over to Ted’s Pharmacy in the Ford. You oughta seen me in the thing. I could barely see over the dashboard on account of the truck bein’ a 450 Diesel and me bein’ only thirteen. But I got us there none the less. Walked right in and asked Mr. Ted if’n I could have some tussin on loan.
I said, "Mr. Ted, Michelle done caught sick and she need some tussin. But on account of us bein’ poor right now, I can’t offer up any sort of money. But sir, if’n you could find it in your heart…"
As his eyes sunk like a pair of marbles, he cut me off sayin’, "Sandy, take the Tussin. Ain’t no charge for the Rodgers when someone catch sick, you oughta know that honey."
I thanked him and walked back out to the truck to find who but Jim Eggers and little Eddy Warren playin’ in the dirt right there in the bed of the pickup.
"You know there’s cow shit in that dirt, right?" I said.
Right then and there they both stopped dead, looked at each other, laughed, then started heavin’ the dirt at me instead. I tell you them boys were never no good.
Toward the end of that summer me and Michelle sort of got used to Ma and them pills. We never knowed where she got ‘em from, only that she had an ample supply and that they made her useless to us kids. It was sorta hard havin’ both of my older brothers gone, Tommy up in Tulsa and Doug God-knows-where on the road. When school started up I took it upon myself to get Michelle up before the sun, fix her a little sandwich for lunch, and walk her over to the schoolyard. After that, I’d go back inside, try and pick up our rooms and the rest of the house a little, fix myself something for lunch, then walk on to school. I was goin’ into seventh grade that year and I had big plans on makin’ new friends and gettin’ smart. Before Dad moved out he used to tell me, "Now Sandy, take any opportunity you got to get you schoolin’. Get smart. Don’t be like me and your Ma."
Marble Middle School was pretty much in the dead center of town. Right south of it was the tracks that separated the colors of town, one side bein’ white Marble and the other side bein’ black Marble. The school was on the white side and I had to cross the tracks from the South to get to there each morning. I remember that first day of seventh grade like it was yesterday. I was on my way to the school, just crossed the tracks and was heading up Division Street when I seen all the kids gathered outside of the school, waitin’ for it to open up I suppose. I thought nothing of the direction I was comin’ from, but as I made it up to where the other kids was standin’, everyone got silent and stared at me like I was a sick dog. Jim Eggers was there and he said, "Everyone, y’all know Sandy, right? She from Niggertown. Live right South of them tracks." Right then everybody started laughing. I got red as a summer tomato but tried to hide my shame. I said, "Couldn’t help but been born there. Rodgers been on the same land since my great Granddaddy." I thought I saved myself but Eggers had to chime in, "And they still don’t got electricity!"
The year was destined for certain grief. Although I made sure to never arrive again as early as I did that first day, the other kids always seemed to ignore me. It was real hard to make friends with everyone thinkin’ that your family ain’t worth nothing. See, even though it was 1976, Marble was stuck in a time of the past. There was barely six hundred people in the community then, most bein’ white. Niggertown, the place South of the tracks where I was from, had only about twenty families living there. All were black but mine, and as I later learned, Jim Crow was still the law of the land.
Because of the situation with Ma, and because my Daddy was gone and wasn’t never comin’ back, I grew up kind of fast. I learned to take care of Michelle pretty easy. She was quiet enough most of the time and we was close enough in age to talk as friends, bein’ only three years apart. Seventh and eighth grade passed quickly, and before I knew it I was in high school. And that’s when and where everything changed. By the time I got to the ninth grade, Ma had years on the pills and booze. She had learned to function in her own way, on account of her bein’ on them all the time. It became normal for her. She still didn’t have a job, so it was up to me to support the three of us. I was fifteen and held a full time job and still went to school as often as I could. I remember them days. I remember that school and that office. Back then Time was nonexistent. I created it each morning, pushed it forward each afternoon, and turned it off each night. I had complete control, and even though life was harder’n hell, I knew I was destined for good things.
I always woke up ten minutes before my alarm was to go off. I don’t know why, but I guess my body just knew it was time to start the day. I met Scott Prine on a Tuesday. I remember because Tuesdays Ma was supposed to get her disability check, but that Tuesday it never came and was never gonna come again. But before I found out about all that, I got up and went about my day as usual. I got Michelle ready for school, walked her out and waited for the bus, then came back inside and got ready for school myself. It was Spring then, I can remember it clear as day. The mornin’ was already givin’ off lots of humidity and I knew it was gonna be a hot one. I picked out a light yellow dress that grandma Annie gave me when I was a little girl. It never fit me until that Spring Tuesday when I was sixteen and was really starting to look like a woman ought to.
I never had no boyfriends up until that point. Never took any interest in boys really, I guess on account of being so busy all the time with takin’ care of Michelle and Ma and all. But when I saw Scott Prine, I thought he was the handsomest boy in the world. When he saw me looking at him, he came right up to me, walkin’ like he didn’t have no care in the world.
"Hello, miss. My name is Scott Prine. I come from Memphis. Who might you be?"
He had a funny accent, too. A city boy. Before I could answer him I took the time to size him up. Looked like he just walked off a movie set or somethin’, wearin’ new blue jeans and with his hair slicked back all tight-like.
"Well if I can’t know your name can I walk you to class?"
Imagine, a boy sixteen years old, new to town, asking me my name and if he could walk me to class.
"I suppose you could." I finally said. Then and there he took my hand and if the good Lord didn’t put somethin’ in this boy that made him think he was a man I don’t know who did.
"I’m new to town, see. From Memphis, like I say before. My Daddy done bought twelve acres south of them tracks, right past the school there. Yep, moved me and him out here and decided he wanted a farm. Said Memphis was a bad city for a boy like me. Said we oughta humble ourselves a little bit. Would you believe that? Who ever thought of humblin’ yourself? Say, what is your name anyway? Figure if I’m holdin’ your hand I got some right to know."
"Sandy Rodgers." I blinked, blushed, and blinked again.
"Well if your name don’t match the color of your dress. I say Sandy, you sure are pretty. I’d like to get to know you."
"Well right now I should get to class, then I have a four-hour shift, and then I have to go home. But if you got nothin’ better to do after supper time, why don’t you come down to my house. I live in the small blue ranch ‘bout a mile and a half south of them tracks you was talkin’ about before. There’s a red Ford in the drive. Can’t miss it."
His eyes lit up like the light of day and he said, "Well then, maybe I will!"
I could not for the life of me concentrate at work that afternoon. Old Bill kept sayin’ there must be somethin’ on my mind if I couldn’t so much as file a paper in the right order. He let me go an hour early sayin’ something like, "You young girls get stranger by the day."
When I got home Michelle was sittin’ on the porch with her head between her knees. I saw little clear tears on her cheeks when I came up to her and I asked what was wrong. She said that Ma was dead.
Inside I saw the old woman in her usual spot on the couch lookin’ lifeless as ever. I walked up to her and tried to rouse her but she didn’t budge none. She wasn’t dead, just passed out and about as useless as ever.
"Why’d you said she was dead?" I asked Michelle.
"I thought she was, she ain’t moved since I got home from school."
"Did you cash the check like you is supposed to every Tuesday?" I asked.
Michelle was silent.
"Well, you couldn’t remember to cash the damn check? I go to school, go to work, come home, and you couldn’t do the one thing that you is supposed to do every Tuesday? If you ain’t dumber than dumb, girl. You know we need that money."
I walked down the drive to the post box but there wasn’t nothin’ in it.
"Well if the check ain’t in the post box, and you didn’t cash it, then just where the hell is it Michelle?"
Michelle started tearin’ up again, gettin’ shaky all over.
"It didn’t never come." she said.
"It never came." I corrected her and walked inside.
I didn’t make any supper that night on account of Ma being passed out worse’n ever and Michelle holed up in her room. I searched the house for the check but it must’ve really never come because it wasn’t nowhere to be found. And at about half past seven, who did I see walking down the road toward the house but that boy Scott Prine. It was his walk and the way he carried himself that defined him so. Not one hair on his head moved a lick since I saw him at school, his blue jeans were still clean and shiny, and he was smoking a cigarette as he strolled down the road the way that he did, kicking back dirt with his leather heels. I couldn’t believe my eyes or my heart when they both fluterred at the same time.
"This here house reminds me of my Mammy’s in Memphis, all dilapidated-like." He said.
"Well if that ain’t a way of sayin’ good evening."
"No ma’am, I don’t mean it in no bad way, just is what it is, you know?"
"What I know is that you must be the bravest boy this side of the tracks comin’ over here talkin’ like that and expectin’ me to invite you in."
His eyes, Lord. I had not noticed them in school because I was doin’ my best to not look at him on account of everything happening so fast, him approaching me and all. But his eyes. They were bluer than sapphire, yes sir.
"Whyn’t you come down here and say hello, Sandy?" he says.
As I walk down the front porch steps the evening dew sets in. All at once, see. My Sandy-yellow dress becomes paper, then becomes air, then is nothing. With the setting sun on his side he sees me for all a woman’s-worth, all exposed and vulnerable. The black pin-points of his eyes swell in the sapphire like ink in water and he is moved. He don’t stand there so sharp like he was a minute ago. Now he recedes and throws his cigarette butt to the dirt, taking out a comb to check his hair.
"If I oughta truthful, I oughta be crazy." I say. "I didn’t think you’d show."
"My faith brought me down here. Not no faith in the Lord or in the Devil, but my faith in you, Sandy."
If’n this here boy didn’t know exactly the right things to say at the right time, I don’t know who does. Right off the movie set, like I said before.
"Well, should we go inside so I can meet Mr. and Mrs. Rodgers." He asked.
"Now, why would we do a thing like that? You wait here, mister, and I’m gonna go inside and get a dollar. We’ll go down to the Taste-E-Freeze and get us something to cool you off."
When I turn I stop Time. He will stand there motionless until I come back, cheerful and skippy, ready to walk to town in the Spring night’s air. Until my return he is only could-be, and as he waits he is only want-to, and if I don’t return we will be nothing. But I go inside to get that dollar and to tell Michelle to look after Ma until I get back. I wanted to try for us to be some-thing.