For, like, years. Until one time Mr. Peg was smoking by his truck and I was out there messing around, and thought to ask him why he had that on there, Hillbilly Cadillac. I asked did it mean something bad, and his answer shocked me: hillbilly is like the n-word. And of course I said what everybody knows, n-is not a word to be used unless by assholes. He said all right, but some do, that aren’t white guys being assholes. Which is true, Ice Cube, Jay-Z, Tupac. Mr. Peg was not a fan of those guys, in fact the opposite, but they still got heard in the house thanks to Maggot and me, so he would know. The n-word is preferred by those guys. Mr. Peg said other people made up the n-word, not Ice Cube. And other people made up hillbilly to use on us, for the purpose of being assholes. But they gave us a superpower on accident. Not Mr. Peg’s words, but that’s how I understood it. Saying that word back at people proves they can’t ever be us, or get us, and we are untouchable by their shit.
The world is not at all short on this type of thing, it turns out. All down the years, words have been flung like pieces of shit, only to get stuck on a truck bumper with up-yours pride. Rednecks, moonshiners, ridge runners, hicks. Deplorables.
10
Tommy Waddles was a talker, and who wouldn’t be, with a story like his to tell. He was not a case of screw-up parents, just the hardest luck imaginable. His dad was some kind of land surveyor that got killed in a small plane that crashed, and his mom had something go wrong with her heart even though not an old person. Tommy didn’t remember either one, he was that young whenever they passed. He had a grandmother that lost her mind somewhat, in a nursing home way the heck out in Norfolk. Other relatives dead or just not there to begin with, his dad being an only child. So Tommy had been in some kind of care in the state of Virginia basically for life.
He said foster care gets worse the older you get, with the better homes preferring babies and kids still on the smaller side. Tommy I’m guessing was never that small. But the type to make the best of things, mostly by reading library books and ignoring the fact of people hating him. He was doomed at Creaky Farm because he was soft. The old man had no use for soft. Tommy wound up there time and again though, due to Creaky needing the money, and Tommy still with no permanent situation. He should have been adopted by some nice lady that would make cookies and let him explain the entire story of every Magic Treehouse ever written. But adoption is even worse than foster homes as far as people only wanting the littles. Life is brutal like that. And it’s their loss, I’m going to say, because he was a kid you’d want around. Solid.
A thing about Tommy that we had in common is liking to draw. His doodling he called it. For him, though, it was like blood, this thing that came out of him whenever he got hurt. It took me a while to work out what was the deal of Tommy and doodling, but I got a clue the first night after Creaky called him out for eating too much of the hamburger and Manwich supper, saying this farm was for fattening up steers, not boys. He said worse actually, to the effect of Tommy being where he was because nobody wanted fat boys, and Creaky not running a foster home to take in rejects. I couldn’t believe the shit that got said, but the other guys just went on eating like, There you go. Tommy got up and put his plate in the sink and went in the living room. I could see him in there curled up on the couch with a newspaper against his knees, leaning over and writing on it with a pencil. Hair standing up on his head like he’s giving his all. I figured a crossword or scramble like Mrs. Peggot always did. Later on, though, I went to have a look and what I saw was: Skeletons. Tiny skeletons covering all the edges where there wasn’t print. You never saw so many. To look at Tommy you’d not think a Goth kid. Skeletons are the last thing you’d expect.
He also did his doodling on the bus using what blank spots he could find in his schoolbooks, if he was having a day that sucked especially, and again: skeletons. But usually he told me the story of his life. We sat together on the bus, with plenty of time for the telling. Because here was our day: rise and shine at five a.m., make breakfast if you’re going to, walk the dirt lane to the highway and stand out there in goddamn moonlight to catch the bus. I thought the ride from Peggot Holler was long. The little did I know. From Creaky Farm we’d take a first bus to Lee High, wait in the cafeteria with the other farthest-out country kids having spitball wars and free breakfast if we had our forms signed, then second bus to Elk Knob Elementary for Swap-Out and me, or Pennington Middle for Tommy. Hours and hours, stops and stops. Moms yelling at the drivers for one thing and another as regards leaving a kid off in the wrong place, drivers yelling back. Falling asleep, waking up because somebody’s telling you to shove over.
Riding the bus with high-schoolers was where you learned everything: how girls get pregnant, how to watch your back. Given the time we put in, the way-out country kids got the most education. I saw more than one guy fingering his girlfriend on a school bus, or her going down on him. More than one face slapped by a girl that wanted none of it. A lip or two busted. Once this fierce tiny towheaded girl got so fed up of a big guy calling her Q-tip, she stood on the seat behind him and cracked her Etch A Sketch over his head. Screen side down, the silver shit running down to cover his whole face. Picture Tin Man out of the Oz movie. That girl was going places. Probably she’s the president of something by now. At the least, not pregnant.
And while we’re all wasting our young lives on a yellow stinking bus, Fast Forward gets the extra hours in his rack every morning before getting up and cruising over to Lee High in his Lariat. Why every red-blooded boy dreams of turning sixteen with his own wheels: for the sleep.
At school I got to see Maggot again. He was like, My man! We thought you were abducted by aliens! Which is one way of looking at it. Maggot was my reason for living at that point in time. He saved my ass by getting clothes and stuff I needed from home. Mr. Peg had the keys, so they snuck over there like robbers while Stoner was out and stuffed my valuables in pillowcases, drawing notebooks included. Maggot brought it to school, a pillowcase at a time. They said Stoner was hardly showing his face around there anymore. So school was what I had left in the way of normal now, with Creaky Farm waiting at both ends.