Me and Billie Frank

          Trey, before I tell you the story of me and Billie Frank, there's a few things you ought to know about me. I don't have much in the way of an education. Me and book learning never could get our stomachs settled enough to take to one another, but I got me enough of it down to form my own opinion of it. I reckon, I could read me a little of James Joyce if I was a wanting to, or some Great Expectations. There are some nice folks I know that tell me I am a fair hand at scratching my name on the occasion, but a crow flew sideways between me and the piano when the rest of that song was sung. I get along pretty well with a crow, and I reckon I was watching that one too close to pick up the tune of that song. The truth is, Trey, I don't have a thing agin learning, but it seems some folks take to it quicker than others. There ain't but one person that ever called me slow, and I didn't pay her no never mind. I figure if a fellow is slow, he can't help it, and no grain of worry in the bucket is going to change his speed.

          I have never worried myself about throwing an impression on someone, Trey, but if it comes natural, a fellow has got to take advantage of it. I never bothered to tell that girl, Trey, but I aim to tell you. I ain't a bit slow, Trey. The Pike County Board of Education tells me I am as quick as a cat. They gave me a drawer full of certificates, and I have them up there at the house. I reckon, if it was to come right down to it, I am as proud of them as that little banty rooster is when he is strutting for that special hen.

          There is a thing to be learned, Trey, if a fellow is willing and sets a store by it: the way water flows down the mountain side, choosing a path just so, why the bat hides before the sun, the way the deer walk, and where the whippoorwill sings from. Then, there is the way to the reading of a man's own thoughts, and the why of his thinking them. There is the seeing of a young girl's dreams, and the changing of them. A man can learn things like these if he keeps his eyes on them long enough, and I have set mine on them now and agin. A thing a fellow holds dear can find a warm spot right next to his heart, nestle up snug agin it, and be thought on, and pondered over till it's a beating right along with his heart. It will beat wild when his heart does, and go right along with it when a calm falls over it. These are the things I sing for....

          There is a young girl I know, Trey. She used to live just down the road. To be lonely, she once told me, is a thing only a lonely person can know about. Her name was Billie Frank, and oh, I just loved that girl! We played the summers through, and on winter's snows. The fallen leaves we stacked high in the autumns, and the newly-lit fires smoked our names across the sky. Sometimes, we could hear a far away voice calling to us. Billie Frank, Billie Frank! Caw to the Crow..Crow..Crow. Usually, we would answer that call, go on into her house, and there would be two brimming mugs of hot chocolate a waiting. It had been her Mama calling, Billie Frank, Billie Frank! Caw to the Crow..Crow..Crow. I close my eyes, and her voice still echoes, plain as the smoke curling from the chimney.

          The old, three-room school sits in my mind. I can see the big, black, Nash automobile parked on the gravel, curled on its haunches, ready to carry Missus Hall away when she brings the key. The ding of the cow bell taken from its nail and rang for the recess is a far sound now, and the Nash... sputtering to life. I can still see Billie Frank's face, the startled look on it, the day she walked by, and I was getting the worst of a fight. I feel the life spring through my blood, and take a hold on me. I am lying there on the ground, wondering how I will get out from under the big boy who has pinned me down, and make Billie Frank proud. A new life stirs up inside me, dark the red blood flows. My face is a reservoir to gather it, and is flushed the color of spilled cow's blood at the slaughter house as it pools beneath my skin. The scream, whether it is mine, Billie Frank's or the big boy's, does not matter, for now I sit astride the big boy, my teeth bared, and grin up at Billie Frank. She smiles over her shoulder, and is gone.

          The support falls from beneath my face, and it slowly crumples earthward before I understand what has happened, it didn't matter to Billie Frank, whether or not I won the fight, in another second she would have toppled the boy to the ground herself. My heart beats wild and the blood slowly flushes from my face. Billie Frank, don't go! I think, but, the words are trapped in my heart.

          Billie Frank's grandmother was a close friend of mine. On Saturdays, I would generally make me up a reason to go visit her for a minute or two. She would have a smile for me when I was a needing me one, and she'd let on like she was fresh out of Ritz crackers and cold milk from the cow. She would sit me down at the kitchen table, go on a little bit how things were bad all over, how she was needing this, or that, but, directly, she would get up and go over to her kitchen cabinets. I could hear her rustling around in there, and she would come back carrying a package of Ritz crackers. It seems, she had put them back, and lost track of them. When she would open up the refrigerator, right there behind the gallon of butter milk was a whole half a gallon of sweet milk! " Honey," she'd say, "you go on and drink all you want of that milk, and I know how those crackers are your favorites. We will just save a little of them for Everett. He has went with the plow this morning. That poor man, he works so hard! I like to have a little treat for him when he comes in at noon." She would smile and pat my hand. A better woman may have walked this earth...

          We would sit there while I was eating, and she would fill out the silence for both of us. She knew the exact moment to come out with the words she had all the time been talking toward, just as I finished that last cracker, and was fixing to let that last swallow of cold milk settle to my stomach, she would say, " I sure wish you would rake my yard for me today, and maybe do a little sweeping up under the house. I am ashamed for a body to see that mess out there. You wouldn't mind, would you, honey? I've got some little something I've been saving, it ain't much, but, if you will do that for me, I'll give you two dollars and seventy five cents. There is kindling wood to be got in, and you might as well clean up that old pump house, too." She would smile and whisper how she loved me, and I would get up to go get the rake.

          As I walked out the back door, sometimes, she would say, from over by the wood stove, " I've got a cooker of soup beans that ought to be ready when you are done, some fried potatoes, and maybe, a little of apple pie and milk. Go ahead and get me that kindling wood first, honey, if you are of a mind to, and I'll keep everything hot for the table."

         Sometimes, she would let slip a hint in my general direction about Billie Frank, how she had cried when she had seen those A's on my report card, and how she had passed our house and seen me sitting on the front porch reading the Bible. Trey, now, I have it on good authority, and I don't aim to bear witness agin myself, but, the book in my hands that day wasn't the Bible. I think I was reading something from Louis L'Amour.

          On the way to get the rake, I'd walk out the back door, and across a stone wall walkway, to my left was the pump house, I'd pass it by to get to the shed where the rake was kept. Underneath the shed, built up of rock and mortar, was the can house. I liked it in there, on a hot day to duck inside its coolness, and see the rows of Mason jars waiting to be chosen, was a fine thing for a boy to be doing. Jars of canned apples lined the top shelf, below them was the tomatoes, sweet, yellow corn and green beans. Rosie, that was Billie Frank's grandmother's name, had all kinds of green beans in there. There were white half runners, pole beans, butter beans and some kinds I couldn't fit a name to. The bottom shelf was the shelf my eyes would always linger on. There was kept the sweet, blossom honey, honey the color of freshly poured ginger ale, with just a drop of root beer coloring to richen it. Beside the honey would be jars of blackberry, strawberry and raspberry jams.

          Some days, I would get my choice of a jar to carry along with me when I set out for home. Those were the days I was called to the dance. A jitterbug would course through my veins all the way home. " What have you got there, son?" my Daddy would say, and my Mama would smile the way she knew how, she didn't need to speak a word when she had smiled that way, she knew her smile had spoken the words I had needed to hear. My sisters would see me coming on the dance and a cutting a shine down the road, they would gather around to share my pleasure. "Here comes a dancing crow!" Joan would holler. " Watch him dance, hear him holler and caw like a crow. Watch him jump like a banty rooster on the flog, with his two crowns sticking up like a pair of rooster's tails. See him, Mama! just look at that boy, his hair a tangle and that grin a splitting his face. He is a dancing crow, ain't he, Mama?"

          Dance, dance....I was a dancing crow. The crow on a string. See the dancing crow for a nickel, folks. See me jump like a banty rooster on the flog, with my two crowns sticking up like a pair of rooster's tails. Step right up folks, see the crow on a string!

          Crow on a string... Trey, my other face would get the better of me on the occasion, it would fit itself right over the one I normally wore, and twist itself on real tight so nobody could see the me underneath. Then, it would take itself a hold on that string, give it a pull, and out would come the Crow. The Crow would sing and dance, holler and cut a shine. The Crow would do the two-step and paint the smiles on my sisters' faces. My sister, Gretta Rose, would laugh, and point at me real stern-like from behind that face she had on, 'cept her eyes would tell me the truth every time. She would say, " Ain't I done carried you around since I was seven years old, you rascal you? Ain't I done changed your diaper every day of the week since the day you were born? You had better quit that crowing and hollering, come up here, and give me some of that strawberry jam before I pull one of those crowns of yours plumb out of your head!"

          That girl acted like she was the boss mare, all the time sassy and spitting fire like a pair of rival tom cats. The thing was, though, I knew that she knew that I knew that she was four fifths bluster, the rest of her dare, sugar and sweet. The egg that was oozing off of her lips was winding me up like a jade music box, and when the turning was over, she knew the Crow had been asked to the dance. No self respecting crow was going to turn down that kind of request. Along about then is when I would come unwound. Knowing, as I did, that my efforts were being appreciated, I called in all the favors I was owed, and took me a long look up there toward the Lord of the dance. All that time I was praying he might gift my feet with the dance I knew was in them. Then, I did me a sweet dance no one had ever done before. I did myself proud.

          Trey, be darned if every one of my sisters didn't join in, and proceed to do some of the silliest things I had ever seen a female do in the name of dancing. It swelled out my chest to know my kin could dance a step or two, especially right there at the end, when they all tipped me a curtsy while that little one was grabbing that strawberry jam out of my hand, and they all ran off to eat it. I up and chased them for a step or two, Trey, but I didn't put myself no perk in the chase, if I had been wanting me some jam, I would have carried home the raspberry.

          Trey, I have got to tell you a little something about Billie Frank. She was sure enough a girl of the first kind. Sweet, she was, and restless for a fair wind a blowing through her long, golden hair. Her blue eyes spoke when she looked you in the eye, and off of her sweet, red lips rolled pure honey. Her lips said no sin, nothing but the sweet song fell from them.

          A thought of Billie Frank crossed my mind yesterday. A Thursday, it was, and we were walking home from school. Of a sudden her blue eyes grayed, and she says, " What kind of truck do you put in dreams, Crow?" I looked at her real solemn-like for a second, then, I up and said I reckoned it would be a Ford. Billie Frank let that blue come across her eyes for a second or two, before they grayed over again, and she set in to laughing. " You're so silly," she says. "You know that ain't my meaning. Come on now, and tell me true."

          I walked quiet for a moment, and waited. Directly, she up and says, " Crow, I had a dream last night, and I am in the need of telling that dream. Do you reckon I could hear your thoughts on it?" I told her she might could, if it was her way, and to just go right on ahead, my ears was open.

          It wouldn't do any harm was I to tell you Billie Frank's dream, Trey. She didn't seal my lips in the telling of it. It wouldn't make her a bit of never mind. I am going to tell you that dream, Trey, and it will pass my lips in the same way it was spoken to me by Billie Frank.

          Well, Billie Frank started in a telling me her dream, and I was some perplexed right there at the start of it. Billie Frank spoke that dream as if it was someone else doing the telling of it. She said that on the night she had the dream, she had been thinking, fallen asleep of a sudden, and the next thing she knew, the dream had gotten the grasp of her. Billie Frank didn't explain anything about the circumstances of her dream. She just started telling me the particulars of the dream itself.

          Now, Crow, she said, as she began to tell the dream, the rooster crowed a little early yesterday morning, and that old owl, he hooted late. It didn't make no never mind to Billie Frank, though. It wasn't no particular occurrence. Billie Frank, this morning, rose with the stars, before the rooster and the owl, and crept over to the little nook where she kept what she liked to refer to as her medicine. The small, burlap, tobacco sack held all the precious moments she had been able to accumulate in her first thirteen years on this earth. Warm and snug they were, beneath its drawstrings.

          Moments like these, stolen when her Ma and Freeland were abed, were what kept her heart from crying. Eagerly, she loosened the drawstrings, and tenderly spilled the sack's contents into the shallow bowl of her cupped hands. Each and everything she held in her hands had a story of the telling, and sometimes, to Billie Frank, it even seemed that they all had some kind of a life of their own.

         Take that tiny, mother of pearl penknife, the one with the pink roses, for example. The one her Daddy had taken from somewhere deep in the pocket of his overalls, and pressed into her hand on that Tuesday three years ago just before he had set out on the thirty mile walk to Pikeville, and never came back. That knife! That knife had a story to tell, and Billie Frank had heard it so many times in her mind, she could repeat it, word for word.

          There was the certificate the Pike County Board of Education had given her, now frayed around its edges, along with the tarnished pin she had gotten for winning the spelling bee over at the Cold Fork School. ....And the locket! Don't forget the locket Willie Joe had hung around her neck out behind the schoolhouse at the last pie social just before he had slobbered all over her first kiss.

          Darn that no account, two-timing Willie Joe, anyhow! She had seen him and that Sue Evelyn, don't think she hadn't; hunkered down about as low as you could get, in the dark seats over at the Twi-Light Theater last Friday night.

          Then, there was the golden hair bow with the three pink roses. Her Mama had saved her egg money to buy it for Billie Frank, and waited till the last minute before pinning it in Billie Frank's hair, just before Billie Frank had left to get her picture taken for the eight grade graduation. Didn't that make Billie Frank smile!

          Billie Frank listened to the wind howling against the wooden shutters outside in the dark, and shuddered. Clutching the penknife in her palm so hard she could feel the warm, red blood starting to ooze, Billie Frank jumped up, spilling all her precious moments onto the floor. Running down the cock-eyed stairs, Billie Frank went straight to the kitchen, pulled the string to turn on that old, naked light bulb, and there they were! In that same old, rust-streaked Mason jar sitting by the water bucket, just like Daddy had done it every time. Thirteen yellow roses!

          Billie Frank took them out of the jar one by one, counting them as she went. Thirteen! One for each year of her life, just like always. Daddy wasn't dead! He was upstairs in his room, Billie Frank just knew he was! ...And didn't the thirteen yellow roses make it true? Didn't she remember how her Mama had told her to sleep tight, and not to let her imagination run away with her, just before her and Daddy had went to bed?

          A long, drawn out, silent wail of despair...and happiness burst forth from somewhere deep inside Billie Frank as she smelled the thirteenth rose and put it back in the Mason jar. Somewhere out there in the dark blackness, the rooster crowed. Billie Frank smiled. That old rooster has let something get into him, she thought, crowing early two days in a row. ...And that old owl? She hadn't heard a hoot out of him this morning. Well, she thought, if that old owl wanted to be hooting late, it sure didn't make no never mind to Billie Frank.

          Why do you reckon Billie Frank had that dream, Trey? Myself, I wouldn't be a one to speculate on a thing like that very much, 'cept to say I heard it said that Billie Frank had taken herself a gall, and was a carrying it around right under that pretty hair of hers. That old devil was in the room when those words were spoken, Trey! I busted that feller right in the mouth till that old devil came right on out of him, a spitting blood and a crying like a new-born Redbone hound pup. Ain't no feller can speak like that on Billie Frank while I'm a standing.

          Billie Frank grew away from me once upon a time in a dream of mine, and a few years later, she did it for certain. There wasn't nary a thing to heal the growing: no pills to swallow, nor doctor. There was only the pain to eat. A raw and naked pain come a creeping into your heart. In two seconds after you have realized what has happened, an all out, died for hell explodes in your mind. So this is pain, and her close kin sorrow, you think. You thank them for their most unkind introduction of themselves, and patiently explain that you are not at the moment hungry. Pain and sorrow do not listen.

          There is a settling eventually into a lessening throb in your heart as the time goes over you. One day, your head lifts itself, and you realize you are full. You have eaten all the pain. The carrying of it is a thing you now worry over. You are young...strong, you can bend like the weeping willow. You can bend. The white snow lies heavy on the kneeling cedars. They mourn. You sense in their posture a listening for the new-born sun, a rebirth with its arrival. You too, will listen, and your snow will also melt. Billie Frank! you cry, Billie Frank! Where have you gone? Did you turn sideways in the wind, or leave your eyes in the blue sky matching them? Does my face occur to you, or my heart?

          My heart cries. The tears welling up from it wander down my cheeks soaking the front of my shirt collar. I make no sound. I have eaten the pain. Remembering the raspberries of last spring, I think, I picked them every day till the day they were gone. So it is with this pain, there is only the memory of it left to eat. Billie Frank, forgive my bitterness.