Blaze

Blaze did more than drive. He also picked up everyone’s pails, trotted them back to the truck, handed them to John, and brought back empties to the pickers. He spent the whole day with an unvarying grin on his face. His happiness was a germ that infected everyone.

A thundersquall came up around three o’clock. The kids piled into the back of the big truck, obeying Bluenote’s admonition to be damn careful where they sat.

“I’ll drive back,” Bluenote said, getting up on the running-board. He saw Blaze’s face fall and grinned. “Give it time, Hoss — Blaze, I mean.”

“Okay. Where’s that man Sonny?”

“Cookin,” Bluenote said briefly, punching the clutch and engaging first gear. “Fresh fish if we’re lucky; more stew if we ain’t. You want to run into town with me after dinner?”

Blaze nodded, too overcome to speak.

That evening he looked on silently with Douglas as Harry Bluenote haggled with the buyer from Federal Foods, Inc., and got his price. Douglas drove home behind the wheel of one of the farm’s Ford pick-ups. No one talked. Watching the road unroll before the headlights, Blaze thought: I’m going somewhere. Then he thought: I am somewhere. The first thought made him happy. The second was so big it made him feel like crying.

Days passed, then weeks, and there was a rhythm to it all. Up early. Huge breakfast. Work until noon; huge lunch in the field (Blaze had been known to consume as many as four sandwiches, and nobody told him no). Work until the afternoon thundersqualls put an end to it or Sonny rang the big brass dinner-bell, strokes that came across the hot, fleeting day like sounds heard in a vivid dream.

Bluenote began letting Blaze drive to and from the fields along the back roads. He drove with increasing skill, until it was something like genius. He never spilled a single container from the low wooden slat-holders. After dinner he often went to Portland with Harry and Douglas and watched Harry do his dickers with the various food companies.

July disappeared wherever used months go. Then half of August. Soon summer would be over. Thinking of that made Blaze sad. Soon, Hetton House again. Then winter. Blaze could barely stand to think of another winter at Hetton.

He had no idea how powerful Harry Bluenote’s liking for him had become. The big boy was a natural peacemaker and the picking had never gone more sweetly. Only one fistfight had broken out. Usually there were half a dozen. A boy named Henry Gillette accused one of the other South Portland boys of cheating at blackjack (technically not poker). Blaze simply picked Gillette up by the scruff of the neck and hauled him off. Then he made the other boy give Gillette his money back.

Then, in the third week of August, the icing on the cake. Blaze lost his virginity.

The girl’s name was Anne Bradstay. She was in Pittsfield for arson. She and her boyfriend had burned down six potato warehouses between Presque Isle and Mars Hill before getting caught. They said they did it because they couldn’t think of anything else to do. It was fun to watch them burn. Anne said Curtis would call her up and say “Let’s go French-fryin,” and off they’d go. The judge — who had lost a son Curtis Prebble’s age in Korea — had no understanding of such boredom, nor sympathy for it. He sentenced the boy to six years in Shawshank State Prison.

Anne got a year in what the girls called The Pittsfield Kotex Factory. She didn’t really mind. Her stepfather had busted her cherry for her when she was thirteen and her older brother beat her when he was drunk, which was often. After that shit, Pittsfield was a vacation.

She was not a bruised girl with a heart of gold, only a bruised girl. She was not mean, but she was acquisitive, with a crow’s eye for shiny things. Toe, Brian Wick, and two other boys from South Portland pooled their resources and offered Anne four dollars to lay Blaze. They had no motive save curiosity. Nobody told John Cheltzman — they were afraid he might tell Blaze, or even Doug Bluenote — but everyone else in camp knew.

Once a night, someone from the boys’ cabins went down to the well on the road to the big house with two pails — one for drinking, one for washing. That particular night was Toe-Jam’s turn, but he said he had the belly-gripe and offered Blaze a quarter to go in his stead.

“Naw, that’s okay, I’ll go for free,” Blaze said, and got the buckets.

Toe smirked at the quarter saved and went to tell his friend Brian.

The night was dark and fragrant. The moon was orange, just risen. Blaze walked stolidly, thinking of nothing. The buckets clashed together. When a light hand fell on his shoulder, he didn’t jump.

“Can I walk with you?” Anne asked. She held up her own buckets.

“Sure,” Blaze said. Then his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and he began to blush.

They walked side by side to the well. Anne whistled softly through her rotting teeth.