The reformatory, p.44
The Reformatory, page 44
“He was covering for me!” Robert confessed, each word fire. “I didn’t tell everything—”
“That’s behind you now,” Mrs. Hamilton said. “Friends protect each other. That’s the only meaning of friendship in a place like this. And he knew that, Robert. Only he didn’t know it would turn out so bad—”
Robert sobbed, imagining Redbone bleeding and wide-eyed as he realized he was dying, maybe calling for his mama. Had Cleo taunted him and called him names while he died?
“—but if he made that sacrifice, you need to keep your head so you won’t get hurt too. Friends die for each other, Robert. The secret to war is the sacrifices friends make for each other, and this is your war. Don’t let your friend’s sacrifice be for nothing. Don’t vex Haddock or make accusations. Promise me that, son. It’s the most important promise you might ever make.”
“He should go to jail!”
“You’ve told me, and I heard it. I promise you—I heard it.” She held his face then, grasping his cheeks tightly, and his neck gave itself over until the weight of his head rested in her hands. “They’re going to bury Redbone today,” Mrs. Hamilton said. “At Boot Hill. They tidy these things up fast. His family’s not coming; I don’t even know if they’ve been told. That’s the first thing I’ll see about: making sure they’re told. But you need to be there to say goodbye, Robert. And I can help you.”
“How?”
“You’ll play four notes on that trumpet you play so beautifully. It’s taps, holding that lovely high C the way I know you can. It’s a sound only God could have created. I do believe Redbone will hear that horn all the way in heaven.”
“He will?” Robert whispered. He hadn’t been sure that a boy who stole a car and got sent to the Reformatory could go to heaven. He was glad Mrs. Hamilton thought so.
“I played it for my husband,” she said. “And I do believe he heard.”
Robert remembered that Redbone might be a haint now! He might find Redbone leaning against a tree. Or at the well. Redbone might come to his own funeral to watch himself be buried, legs swinging from a fence railing, making funny faces. He almost smiled.
“Teach me how,” Robert said.
Something rattled when Robert lifted the trumpet from the shelf. A small key fell to the floor. Mrs. Hamilton’s back was turned, so Robert kicked the key away and watched it spin across the room until it slid under the bass drum. He was so angry, he was panting. Was it the key to Warden Haddock’s desk drawer? Only a haint would choose such a silly place to hide it. How dare Blue try to give him the key now, of all times! Robert was far angrier with Blue than he was with Cleo, because Blue should have been able to stop it. And if Blue had delivered Henry Jackson like he’d said, Redbone never would have been sent to the Box.
“I don’t want your stupid key,” Robert whispered under his breath. “Leave me alone. I’m never talking to you again. I hate you.”
Instead of thinking about Blue and the rage he could hardly keep bottled inside, Robert spent his day learning how to play taps. He remembered the fingering easily enough with Mrs. Hamilton’s patient instruction, but he struggled with fixing his mouth properly up and down the octave. His high C squealed and stuttered, and his lowest note rumbled. For hour after hour, as Redbone’s memory charged him from every direction—even from the tiny bottle of oil he’d given Robert, which was still standing on the chalkboard rack—Robert drove away his thoughts with his trumpet. When he imagined Redbone dying alone, or Redbone’s reflection in the mirror on the wall, he couldn’t breathe except through the trumpet. He played to forget. He played to remember. His lips grew puffed and sore, but he never stopped practicing: middle C, middle C, F—pause—repeating middle C, F, A—slightly longer pause—F, A, high C—the longest note, his high C, which he often could hit just right before his descent down the scale—A, F, middle C—and then repeating middle C, middle C, F, allowing the final note to float to silence. The music felt like a kind of prayer. Mrs. Hamilton had said he was in a war, and Redbone was a fallen soldier as surely as if Haddock had shot him down instead of walking past him near the well.
Had Haddock known even then? Had he walked past Redbone thinking to himself how Cleo would take care of him because he could do anything he wanted to Cleo too? When the scream tried to rise in Robert’s throat again, he blew his hot sobs into the trumpet.
“Again, please,” Mrs. Hamilton said. Her voice always came just when he was about to forget he wasn’t alone.
Two firm knocks sounded on the door, impatient. Robert looked around to try to see who it was, but only a shadow moved beneath the closed door.
“Keep playing,” Mrs. Hamilton said.
Crutcher and Boone stood at the door. Robert’s heart raced, but he started taps again, keeping the notes smooth, an accusation in the sad beauty. He kept his eyes on the wall and Mrs. Hamilton’s charts of music scales. If Boone tried to touch him, Robert thought he would hit him as hard as he could with his trumpet and didn’t care what happened to him afterward.
Crutcher spoke first, gentle and familiar. “Marian… the boy needs to stop playing that. He’s played it a dozen times. More.”
“He’s practicing for his friend’s burial.”
“He sounds good enough. The other boys can hear… and it’s upsetting.”
“They can dig a grave and bury a child, but they can’t hear music?”
Robert had played taps an entire time again before Boone took over, less gentle and familiar. “He’s got chores. He needs to come on with me.”
“Chores?” Mrs. Hamilton said. “That what you call telling this boy when he’s chasing ghosts?” Robert kept playing but glanced back at Boone’s angry jowls. Crutcher took a step away from Boone, closer to his sister, as if to protect her. The middle C that Robert played was gravelly and flat as his attention fluttered. But he played on.
“You may not be aware of what emotional stress does to young people,” Mrs. Hamilton said. “August and Robert were in band together, so I’ve seen their bond up close. I’m not sure what all this ghost business is or how you’re caught up in it, Mister Boone, but I will tell you that this boy needs time to grieve in a safe environment. And I am providing him with that.”
“But, Mr. Haddock—”
“And if that’s a problem for the superintendent, you tell him he is free to come here and tell me so personally.”
“Marian…,” Crutcher said, whining.
“But while he is here, I assure you I will have some questions about why August Montgomery’s family has not been notified of his passing. And how a weapon ended up in those boys’ hands. Or the fitness of that punishment—the Box—on a boy hardly thirteen years old.”
Robert had to stop playing then. His hands were trembling too much.
“He won’t like that kind of talk,” Boone said with the same weary sadness he’d had in his voice when he knew he was leading Redbone to his death.
“I’ll just bet he won’t. But if anything happens to Robert Stephens, that’s exactly the kind of talk he’s going to be hearing—and not just in here.”
“Marian,” Crutcher hissed, tugging at his own vest so hard he might have torn it.
Boone was faking a smile suddenly. “Naw…,” he said, his eyes heavy on Mrs. Hamilton. “She’s right, she’s right. Terrible thing, what happened. It’s a damn shame.”
“And Henry Jackson too!” Robert called out. The words that had been bottled up in him flew free. “And the boys from the fire! A lot of terrible things happened! That’s why they’re everywhere. That’s why he wants them in his jar! Isn’t it? Does he think I’m gonna put Redbone in his jar now? Well, I’m not!” Blue too, he remembered. Blue had suffered a terrible death. It wasn’t Blue’s fault he was a haint. Robert’s face itched from his tears.
Speaking the truth had loosened Robert’s lungs. Boone was staring at Robert as if he were a haint floating ten feet high, his lips parted and slack. Even Mrs. Hamilton and Crutcher were wide-eyed.
Boone was the first to recover from his outburst. He took off his hat as he ducked inside the band room, taking a step closer to Robert, who remembered how much it had hurt when Boone grabbed him and twisted his shirt. “Yeah, I see now he’s talkin’ foolishness,” Boone said. “He needs time to get his head back on straight. So he don’t say nothin’ to get in trouble.” His eyes dared Robert to say another word, and Robert raised his trumpet to his lips to play taps again, staring back. Robert blew.
“We goin’ to Boot Hill at five o’clock, you and them other boys he knew,” Boone said, raising his voice over Robert’s trumpet. “Here, you bury your friends. And you try to learn so you don’t end up in the ground right next to ’em.”
If Robert could have killed a man by squeezing his eyes closed, Boone would have dropped dead where he stood. And Haddock. And Crutcher too, although he wasn’t the worst. If he could, he would set the entire Reformatory on fire and let all of the boys run with him.
“He’ll be there,” Mrs. Hamilton said.
When it was time for the band to meet, Robert sat with the sad-faced band students and then helped straighten up the band room. No one mentioned Redbone’s name. Robert nudged the big bass drum marked GRACETOWN SCHOOL FOR BOYS to the side and found the tiny glistening metal key he had kicked beneath it, just the size for the lock on a desk drawer. Robert slipped the key into his sock and enjoyed the solid feeling of his secret. He didn’t feel fear. Even the grief that had sliced his belly all day was squashed to a low pulse of pain when he remembered his plan.
Friday—tomorrow!—he would find a way to sneak into Haddock’s office and open his drawer. He would steal his photographs and his haint jar, even if it meant he needed help from Blue like he’d promised. He wouldn’t do it for Blue—he would do it for Redbone, so his true killers wouldn’t try to trap his spirit in this awful place.
And then he would run. With the jar. With the photographs. With his stories. Even if he died trying.
34
Fourteen boys came to bury Redbone, most of them from their dorm, where his bed sat empty, but also a couple of older boys who had just met him in band. They took turns with four shovels they shared between them to scoop into the ground, clearing room for the pale plywood casket in the back of the white truck. None of them looked toward the truck. Once, Robert saw the simple casket in the corner of his eye, the darker wood whorls like eyes staring back, and he remembered riding with Redbone in that same truck and how Redbone had given him advice about the Funhouse, and he couldn’t understand how Redbone was lying dead when he could still hear Redbone’s voice in his ear. That was the only time he almost cried again, so he made sure he didn’t look at the truck anymore. As they worked, the thin grass on the surface gave way to red-brown soil that grew redder and more like blood the deeper they dug. Like Mama had said.
When it was Robert’s turn to take the shovel, he pitched it hard into the packed soil, and his elbows and palms rattled. Maybe he’d hit a rock. Digging was hard work, but Robert welcomed the effort because it gave his anger a place to go as he grunted with each strike. The boys working beside him created a chop-chop-chop chorus as they worked, and an older boy from the band started singing a work song none of the rest of them knew, but they caught on and sang the words: “I said I need more power—power, Lord—I need an everlasting power—power, Lord…” And before they knew it, Crutcher said quietly, “That’s deep enough, fellas.”
And the hole for Redbone was dug, a lonely pit in the soil that looked impossibly small beneath the cedars and pines on Boot Hill. Robert noticed that this graveyard had no crosses or headstones like the cemetery behind his church. No flowers or wreaths or favorite items marked where a person was buried or honored their living. They were about to lay Redbone in the ground like he was a dog. He felt so angry again, the sky above him flared bright pink.
“Come on, Tex, you’re big and strong,” Crutcher said to the boy who had led the singing. “You too, Calvin. Let’s go carry him.”
Robert felt like he should have said he would carry Redbone’s casket too—he remembered Papa’s tight face when he’d been a pallbearer at Mama’s funeral—but he couldn’t make himself speak up. He didn’t want to touch Redbone’s casket or think about what he looked like inside. Instead, while Crutcher and the two other boys lifted the box out of the truck to move it to the freshly dug hole, Robert looked around desperately to see if Redbone’s ghost was watching from somewhere in the trees. But no other haints or people were in sight. Boone wasn’t there either, of course. Or Warden Haddock. They were cowards.
Crutcher cursed when they dropped the casket too hard into the hole, and it wasn’t even properly nailed shut, because the top flew open a few inches and there was a thunk sound as Redbone’s body jumped, and in the shadows inside, Robert saw a glimpse of Redbone’s thin arm, almost like he was trying to wave to him, and then the casket fell closed again. Robert almost threw up, but he swallowed the sour taste back down into his throat.
“Lord,” Crutcher said as they all stood in a circle around the casket in the hole, “we are gathered to lay August Montgomery to rest. Please bless this soul and forgive him his trespasses, for he was young and had lost his way.” Robert expected a better prayer or a passage from Scripture, but none came. “Do any of you boys have any remembrances of August?”
Stone silence except for quiet sniffling. Robert tried to open his mouth but couldn’t.
Even now he was letting Redbone down.
“He made me laugh,” said the boy with round glasses Robert had nicknamed Owl.
The other boys nodded and agreed with murmurs.
“He never wanted to see nobody get in trouble,” another boy said.
More agreement. Each one who spoke gave strength to the rest. Another boy remembered Redbone dressing his wound when he cut himself on a saw on lumber duty. A boy from band said Redbone kept good time and would have loved marching with the bass drum on Main Street, struggling to say something although he had not known Redbone hardly at all.
“He was a child of God,” Tex said, which was better than Crutcher had done. “He shoulda had a chance to live his life.”
All of the boys agreed.
“He…” Robert fought to force language from his burning throat. He wanted to say He died because of me, but he couldn’t confess in front of so many mourners. “He was my best friend.” Five small words cost so much effort that Robert wanted to curl on the ground.
“It’s time to play now, Robert,” Crutcher said. He handed him his trumpet, which had been resting against the trunk of a tree.
Robert hesitated. He could barely feel the breath in his lungs. How could he play?
“You want me to?” Tex said. He was first trumpet, after all. He would play it better.
Robert shook his head, taking the trumpet from Crutcher. Blinking acid tears from his eyes, he tried to blow. No sound came at all through the instrument except ragged breath.
“Take your time, son,” Crutcher said.
Tex put his hand on Robert’s shoulder, and Robert imagined Tex was Redbone standing tall and alive beside him, and his lungs opened up. Despite all of his practicing, the notes were unsteady and wavered in and out of key, but no one seemed to mind. Robert remembered what Mrs. Hamilton had said about how Redbone might hear him all the way in heaven, so he took a deep breath from his belly before he played his high C, the saddest sound of all, and even Crutcher looked at him with startlement because the note was so sure and strong. Birds flapped out of the trees, shamed by its perfection. Robert held the high C for an impossibly long time, until Tex was nodding and smiling at him. The last six notes were easy, his lungs emptying out. The memory of his music floated over them long after he had laid his trumpet down.
Mrs. Hamilton had said Redbone died like a soldier in a war, so Robert saluted him the way he’d seen in picture shows, and the other boys all saluted Redbone’s casket too. Then Crutcher said, “All right, let’s cover him up now,” and their shovels flurried to return the soil they had taken and slowly hide the pale wood of the casket. Although tossing loose soil was less work than digging, Robert’s shovel felt heavier in his hands as he watched the last traces of Redbone buried under the dirt. The triumph of his high C note was too small a solace, especially when he realized that no one from Redbone’s family was with them. Would his mama just get a letter in the mail saying Oh, well, he’s dead, sorry you missed the funeral? If he died here too, would that same letter go to Gloria and Miz Lottie? Would his family come to Boot Hill one day without knowing where to find him because his grave wasn’t marked?
None of the boys were crying. Since crying on an ordinary day could get them sent to the Funhouse, they had trained themselves to hide their crying. All of Robert’s crying was hidden in the plan in his head, which was the only thing that got him through burying Redbone. Once the crater dipped only a little less level with the rest of the ground, they patted the soil with their shovels. And then it was done.
“Anyone who wants to ride in the truck, climb in back,” Crutcher said. “If you walk, no one’s holding supper for you. So walk fast. And don’t miss dorm check-in.”
Most of the boys raced after Crutcher to ride in the truck, but Tex and the two other band kids decided to walk together. They waited to see if Robert wanted to walk with them. Robert only shook his head. If not for his plan, he might have tried to run right then, headed blindly into the woods far from the spot Gloria had shown him on her map. To stop thinking about running, he remembered laughing with Redbone by the swimming pool at the idea of Boone crawling on the diving board after haints that weren’t there.
“I’m sorry, Redbone,” Robert whispered. “I didn’t know what they would do.”
A twig snapped from behind him, and Robert whirled around with a gasp. He was so eager to see Redbone’s ghost that his knees went weak.
But it was only Blue, shoulders hunched inside too-big mourning clothes. “I’m your best friend now,” Blue said.
