“It sure is,” Lizzie said, trying to steer Mickey back toward the topic at hand. “Do you remember ever hearing about how Buck came to live at St. Joseph’s?”
“Somebody left him in a church was what I always heard,” Mickey said promptly. “Not like me. My mom passed when I was two, and my dad was a traveling salesman. My grandma did what she could, but she was too old to raise a kid like me. And then my dad got killed in the war, Iwo Jima, so then I was a real orphan. But my grandma would come see me, when she could, take me out for my birthday, stuff like that. I don’t think hardly anybody ever came to see Buck, which maybe explains why he sort of had a chip on his shoulder, excuse the expression.”
“By any chance, do you remember a woman named Josephine Bettendorf, who might have visited him while he was living at St. Joseph’s?” Brooke asked.
“Bettendorf? The family the cottage is named after? At Good Shepherd?”
“Yes,” Brooke said. “C. D.—I mean, Buck—says he remembers her coming every Christmas while he lived at St. Joseph’s. He says she brought all the kids gifts, but he got special ones. Like a toy truck.”
“You want a drink?” Mickey asked suddenly. He stood and opened the refrigerator door. “We get all kinds of samples, for free. The sales reps are always trying to get us to order whatever’s new in their lines.” He held up a can. “Red Bull? The SCAD kids all love Red Bull. Or lemme see, how about a Peach Sunset Tea? Or maybe some Chocolate Mint wine? What will you have? It’s on the house. Just don’t tell Yvonne.”
“No, thanks,” Brooke said. “We were talking about the Christmas visits? From Josephine Bettendorf?”
“I wouldn’t mind trying that wine,” Lizzie spoke up. “Strictly for research.”
“Great! Take the whole bottle,” Mickey handed her the bottle and a plastic wineglass. “Now what were we talking about?”
Lizzie twisted the metal cap from the bottle and poured an inch of milky brown liquid into the glass. She sipped, shuddered, shrugged, then sipped again.
“Christmas visits? At the children’s home?” Lizzie reminded him.
“There were several ladies who used to come around the holidays. They’d bring us kids candy canes and oranges. One year a Jewish lady whose husband owned a shoe store downtown brought us each a pair of new shoes. I tell ya, I was so proud of those shoes, I wore ’em ’til those nuns made me turn ’em over to one of the younger kids because they were way too small for me. I can’t think of the name of that store. But it’s right there on Broughton, near Levy’s Jewelers. Or used to be.”
“How about Josephine Bettendorf?” Lizzie prompted. “Can you remember her coming to the home? She was tall, with dark hair. Very striking. And C. D. says she gave him a toy truck one year.”
“The truck!” Mickey said, roaring with laughter. “I don’t remember that dark-haired lady, but I do remember a red truck. A beauty. The other kids were real jealous of Buck and his truck. This one boy—I can see his face, but I can’t remember his name … a big red-headed kid with freckles—grabbed that truck and bashed Buck in the eye with it. Buck yanked it back and busted the boy in the mouth. Kid bled all over the place. After that, nobody tried to take nothing offa Buck.”
“That’s what he told me too,” Brooke marveled. “Do you have any other memories of Buck? From his time at Good Shepherd? Did the dark-haired woman ever visit him there?”
Mickey popped the top on a can of Budweiser and sipped. “Not saying it didn’t happen, just saying I don’t recall it. But I remember him staying in trouble. Wouldn’t do his chores. Wouldn’t listen to the house parents. Fighting, like that. I heard he ran away after he got caught stealing cigarettes from a candy store nearby.”
“That sounds about right,” Brooke agreed.
“I was surprised he showed up at the reunion, to tell you the truth,” Mickey said. “I’ve never missed one since I left—been president of the alumni association. But that’s the only time he ever came to one. I don’t judge, but it looked to me like he’d had a hard kind of life.”
Brooke glanced at Lizzie to see if she’d thought of any more questions for Mickey Beaman.
Lizzie cleared her throat. “Mickey, there’s something I’m curious about. The nuns named him Charles, after the priest who found him, and they called him Charlie. So why did everybody at Good Shepherd call him Buck?”
“It was just a nickname. Everybody had a nickname back then. My name was Mickey, but the guys called me Mouse. You know, for Mickey Mouse? We had a guy called Jughead because he had big ears.”
“Where did the name Buck come from?” Brooke asked.
Mickey glanced at Felicia, then looked away. “It was different times back then, you know? We weren’t what you’d call politically correct. If you really want to know, Buck was short for Buckwheat. You know? Buckwheat, the little colored kid from the Our Gang shows?”
“I remember Buckwheat,” Felicia said, her voice icy.
“How did he get the nickname Buckwheat?” Lizzie asked.
The stockroom door swung open, and Yvonne stuck her head inside. “Dad, I’ve gotta go home and get supper started. I need you to come run the register until Michael comes back.”
“Sure thing,” Mickey said, lumbering to his feet, eager to escape the prying eyes of these three women. “Sorry, ladies, I gotta go to work now.”
“The nickname,” Lizzie repeated. “How did Buck get that nickname?”
Mickey squirmed and gulped his beer. “I didn’t name him that, you understand. It was one of the older guys who started it, and after that, it just stuck. Charlie, or C. D., whatever you wanna call him, he had this wild, kinky hair. You know, like that colored kid from Our Gang.”
Lizzie thought about that for a moment. She pulled out her cell phone and pulled up the photo she’d copied from the Good Shepherd yearbook.
“This is a photo of the boys from your cottage, isn’t it?”
The old man’s face softened. “Son of a gun. It sure is. Look at that. We look like the Dead End kids, don’t we? There I am, right there in the middle.”
“Which of the boys is Buck?” Lizzie asked, handing him the phone.
He stared down at the photo and finally tapped one face. “I can’t be sure, but I think maybe this is him. He was for sure the smallest kid in our cottage, and he’s wearing a ball cap, like Buck always used to do. Maybe because he was trying to hide the kinky hair.”
Felicia’s eyes were blazing, but her voice was calm. “Are you saying Charlie looked black? Like he was African American?”
“His skin wasn’t all that dark, not as dark as yours,” Mickey said. “Like maybe just real tan. You know how kids are. They say stupid stuff. The guy who gave him that nickname, he said he bet Buck was part colored. And that’s why his mama left him in a church. Because she didn’t want anybody to know she had a colored baby.”
“Dad! Are you coming?” Yvonne screeched.
Mickey downed the rest of his beer and scurried out of the stockroom.
52
“What planet was that old dude from?” Lizzie asked as they drove away from the liquor store. “‘Buckwheat’? ‘Colored kid’? What a dinosaur.”
“Nothing new to me,” Felicia said, turning around from her perch in the front seat of the Volvo. “You’ve been living in your little bubble out in California all this time. Wake up, girl. This is the Deep South. We got more crackers here than a box of saltines.”
“Could it be true?” Brooke asked. “Could C. D. be Josephine’s son? And biracial?”
“You think just because I’m black I can spot that one drop of chocolate in the glass of milk?” Felicia demanded.
“That’s not how I meant it, and you know it,” Brooke said, the blood rushing to her face.
“Relax,” Felicia said, laughing. “I was just yanking your chain. ’Cause I’ve lightened up.” She held out her hand to Lizzie. “Let me see that picture again.”
Lizzie pulled up the photo and handed over the phone.