His Mom came out. “I been calling you,” she said.
“Fire ain’t out yet.” He watched her closely now for change, whenever she wasn’t looking, but she was still the same. Fat women don’t show for awhile. It disgusted him to think about it. “Awful dry today, and you cain’t take chances.”
She sighed and went back in.
He’d always thought his Mom was pretty, but now he didn’t think so. She was big and old. Maybe that was the kind of change that was happening.
A big black ant appeared on a milk carton skyscraper. Junior imagined it was Carl Dean Palmers. Carl Dean was a senior at the high school, a bully, and possessed by the Devil. He made fun of Junior in the shower room, and pushed him around outside classes, knocked his books out of his hands. The carton burned slowly, being heavily coated with wax. The wax began to melt and it made the ant run faster.
Carl Dean was having carnal knowledge of Elaine Collins. Elaine was only a freshman like himself and too young for seniors, but her Mom was arranging it. Junior’s Dad all but said so, and right in church on Sunday mornings, so it had to be true. When Junior went with his Dad to sing on the Bruno lawn night before last, he had hoped he might get to see it. He wondered if only Carl Dean did it to her, or if they all took turns. But his Dad made so much noise he scared them, and they came out and got in a fight.
The ant peeked over the edge, his feelers wobbling around. He was probably thinking about jumping. Junior watched with his hand in his pocket. Last year, when Reverend Collins was still alive and everybody was friends, Junior used to go by Elaine’s house at night, because she sometimes left her blinds up. The thing he always wanted to see was if she was getting hair yet like him, but he was never able to make sure. Now, she wasn’t at home so much, and anyway her Mom seemed awfully suspicious suddenly about Peeping Toms. The ant stopped running. It was surrounded by torturing flames. The roof of the skyscraper began to buckle. The ant bowed its back like a cat raising its fur. Then, as the skyscraper tipped, the ant rolled into the fire. Junior tried to watch it, but he lost sight of it in the ashes. Did God watch each single Sodomite to be sure he burned? When his Dad’s side finally won out and they took holy retribution on the apostates and impostors, Junior hoped he could be responsible for Carl Dean Palmers and Elaine Collins.
Franny Baxter knew who the “Black Hand” was. But she discovered that the two little ones were also mixed up in it, and she didn’t want them to get into trouble with her father. He had preached so furiously against whoever it was, she was sure he’d just about kill them if he found out.
Her mother shuffled about gloomily in the kitchen. Franny thought she should be joyful about having another baby, but she wasn’t. Maybe the truth of it was that the Sarah in the Bible wasn’t happy either, her husband only thought she was, or should be — the Bible never told the woman’s side of things. Maybe her mother was afraid: she wept all the time now. She was an old woman, after all, nearly forty. Franny wondered if she would ever have a baby, and, if she did, what it would feel like. She had never even had a boyfriend, but her mother always said that their father was her first beau, and she was over twenty when she met him. Franny thought she would like to have babies, but she didn’t want a man very much. Unless he was very nice and very quiet and loved her just as she was. If someone like James Stewart or Gary Cooper asked her to marry him and have babies, well, she would do it.
Amanda came in, in tears, and Franny decided it was time for a serious talk with the girl. She followed her into their room. Amanda threw herself on the bed and pushed her face into the pillow. But she wouldn’t admit anything, wouldn’t tell about it. Franny wanted to know why they used those peculiar names. She’d never seen them in comicbooks or in the movies. “You’ll get in trouble.”
“I don’t care.”
Franny never knew how to reason with Amanda. She could handle the boys, but there was always some kind of friction between her and her sister. She gave up, went back to her housecleaning. Really, she didn’t care. Let them do what they wanted to. It was little Paulie she was worried about. Paulie could grow up to be like James Stewart, if only he didn’t get going the wrong way.
Junior came in then from burning trash. She watched him at the high school, always felt a pain of disappointment. He never seemed to grow up. He slouched around the halls, looking lost and scared, his hands in his pockets, his head ducked, didn’t have any friends, didn’t join any of the clubs, didn’t study, didn’t do anything. He was just a wad of nothing. And he was going to get fat. He was already getting fat.
He was glancing sideways into the kitchen at their mother. Franny recognized that Junior was going to be jealous of the new baby. Amanda and Paul already were. Only she and Nat wouldn’t care. She smiled to think she could have something in common with Nathan. Junior looked up at Franny watching him and blushed, went into the bathroom. And that was another thing. Their mother was too careless about getting undressed and using the bathroom with the door open and everything, and she still gave all three boys their baths. No wonder Junior was like he was. Franny believed simply that people shouldn’t use the bathroom when other people were in there. But it did no good to argue. Not in this house. Junior didn’t butt in on her anymore at least, but everybody else did.
She saw Nat and Paulie outside. Nat with that paper bag. She knew she could count on Paulie. “Junior,” she called. He flushed the toilet and came out, looking kind of red-faced like he a lot of times did. “Go make Paulie come in. I want to talk to him.”
“What for?”
“Never mind. Something serious.” Junior was sullen, but she knew he would always do what she asked.
It was a hard thing to be the Black Piggy. She sought their admiration, but she always got crying at the wrong time and ruined it. Like when they fed that little long-eared doggy of Mister Brother Hall the hamburger with the broken glass in it. She just couldn’t believe a dog could be bad like people, even if bad people touched it, and when it started to twitch so funny and drip long stringy drips of blood from the mouth, she got all sick and sorry and had to run home. And when they switched the little Harlowe girl who was just two and made her go home in the snow without any clothes on, she just couldn’t stand it, it was too terribly cold, so she went right out there and dressed the girl in front of the whole world and took her home to her mother. Ow! She really got it that time! They took her into the shed and tied her on the old cot and hit her harder even than her Daddy did, because they said it had to be a blood punishment. And she had to prove to them she was as brave as they were by having a b.m. behind her Daddy’s pulpit, all alone, in the middle of the day. She nearly got caught and had to jump out a window and skinned her knees all up. And after that, they had to be pretty careful for awhile, because their Daddy was really mad and it seemed like he might have some idea who did it. But they let her be the Black Piggy again, instead of one of the Evil Ones.
And now today, she did it again. She wouldn’t hit that little boy. He looked sick or something to her. They would get her again. And there was nothing she could do. Unless she could think of the bravest thing of all. Against the worst enemy of all.
At supper Saturday night, their parents gone, the Black Hand smells danger. Sees it in his big sister’s eyes. Their parents have gone to a church meeting or something, and Junior went, too. At some hill. The Black Hand tries to beat it after, but she catches him outside. “Nat!” He slugs her in her soft cowardly gut, but she hangs on. “What’s in that bag, Nat?”