Did They Teach You How To Hold A Pencil?

DID THEY TEACH YOU HOW TO HOLD A PENCIL?

“VIOLA!! Did they teach you how to hold a pencil?” This was the second time her Grandma asked.

She sat still. According to her mother’s rule: “be seen and not heard.” No contingency plan for this. It was the first time Grandma didn’t just tell her what to do.

“I, uh, yes.” That was way more than one word. She waited.

“Get it then.”

She left the scratchy couch, the hot living room, Grandpa and his nose hairs and the spittoon. As she walked up the stairs the heat intensified. The attic bedroom with its  single iron bed and mattress and vented window to the outside, held her safely at night. Predictable, slanted walls with tongue and groove paneling covering the ceiling and walls. Under the pillow, the stubby lead pencil waited for her touch. Small scraps of paper under it, with writing copied from the newspaper. She knew some of the words, like “Bovey” or “Men” or “War” because they repeated themselves in the weekly paper. She knew how to write her name.  Along with Kaye’s name and Millie and Mabel. What she didn’t know was how Grandma found out she had been writing. When she grabbed the pencil a smudge of black appeared on her fingers. 

The stairs were narrow and she side-stepped her way down, so she wouldn’t slip. Before she even reached the round oak dining table, she heard Grandma from the kitchen.

 “Alrighty then, here’s a paper, write this down: The church has a bake sale on Sunday.” A lined sheet soaked up butter from the kitchen table. Grandma peered over her shoulder.

Viola pressed the leaded pencil on the paper, the lines skipped over the oil stains and she carved wavy up and down lines with some circles.

“Good.” Grandma nodded her head and smiled. “Now, when my friend Selma comes over, I want you to show that to her.”

It was like everything else over the last two weeks: a waiting game. Two weeks and Mom hadn’t returned. The summer ground its way through dust and heat. Her cousin Kaye hovered and ran and picked up rocks and kicked them, but still hadn’t talked. Now, wait for Selma.

Selma’s voice bellowed through the front screen door, “Got the announcement for the bake sale?” The door swung open. It was the first time adults showed up and Grandma didn’t tell Viola to go outside. 

The noise and laughter of Grandma’s friends intrigued her, quiet ebbs and flows, no harsh sounds that she could tell. This Selma spoke in a way that she understood, not muffled, more clipped, more efficient. She decided then and there to adopt that sound. Selma turned her head to Viola and her voice quieted to a whisper. Viola thought she heard, “When is Millie coming back?”

“At least she’s not in Nuremburg.”

“Thank God.”

At least that was what it sounded like, and it was what she wanted to hear. Her cousin Kaye lived here all her life and her mom was in Nuremberg. Viola sat on the scratchy sofa and the distraction helped. She waited while the women continued to chat on and on, and pour coffee and eat donuts in the kitchen.

Viola went back to the sofa and when she turned, Kaye stood in front of her, a two-inch smooth round rock in her hand.

“Outside?” Viola said.

Kaye turned her back and opened the door to the porch, the same porch where Viola had last seen her mom: empty except for two reclining chairs made out of discarded cedar fencing.  Kaye threw the rock into the middle of a dirt pile and ran. Before she kicked she waited for Viola.

Over the last two weeks they played for hours around that house, passing the rock back and forth, waiting for the dirt to settle so they could see it again, and occasionally looking in admiration at a particularly long kick. Kaye still ran barefoot and Viola still kept her shoes on. The soles thinned and sometimes dirt and dust left a mark on the bottoms of her foot that took a particularly long time to scrub clean, Kaye’s feet were permanently stained.

“Cleanliness is next to Godliness.” Viola’s mom insisted on a daily bath, but with Grandma and the boys, her uncles, all you got was a washcloth once a day and a bath once a week.

There was uncle Bob and Roy and Arne and Stanley and auntie Mabel and her mom Millie.

Edward was an uncle. Viola imagined him in his crib. Grandpa was cleaning a loaded shotgun in the kitchen and the shot went through all the walls into Eddie’s chest while he stood in the crib. That’s all that was ever said about it.

Viola wondered if a shot could go through the ceiling to the third floor where her bed was.

Viola never wanted to touch a gun, that was for sure, no matter what.

So here it was, dead Eddie, no bath, and now she was supposed to talk and be seen.  Another broken rule, it didn’t matter that she did as she was told.  

Outside she kept kicking the rock and the dust piled up and she kept kicking until the dust was at her knees and she was just kicking the dust.

“Vioooooola,” it was her Grandma’s voice and Selma at the same time.

This couldn’t be good. Kaye had already stopped running, after the rock had disappeared in the dust.

“Sorry, “ said Viola as she left Kaye in the dust, “it’s Grandma, gotta go.” She didn’t know if Kaye understood anything she said, but she talked to her anyway.

The familiar yard, scruff tumbleweeds, yellow dirt, half dead poplars, the chipped pain on the clapboard sides, white, half painted. Her uncles painted it when Grandpa insisted but for the summer they all had other jobs and weren’t expected to keep it up. The kitchen door beckoned, this time Selma stood leaned against the frame, foot propping the screen door open.

“You did good with the writing.” Said Selma.

Viola was confused by the smile on Selma’s face.

“But can you remember what you wrote? Rememberin’s better than writin’.” She nodded her head and the thick black braid that wound around the top moved with her.

“Yup,” said Grandma.

“You’re goin’ to write for the paper, but some of your writin’ is gonna need some improvement.”

“You’re ok with that?” said Grandma.

Viola nodded her head, she didn’t know how to write, but if Grandma said she did, she guessed it must be true.

“Now the paper is just downtown about six blocks from here.”

Viola started to shake her head no.

“You’ll get a nickel for everything you turn in.” said Grandma, “and you need a new pair of shoes.”

“Downtown.” Was all she could squeak out, horrified about leaving the house behind, the house she had kept tabs on for 2 weeks, the one Grandma and Grandpa and Kaye that never left.  The one where she had last seen Mom.

She had never been “downtown.” What did that mean? People always came to Grandma’s, and that way she was safe. Everything stayed the same, the coffee, the donuts, Kaye, the nose, the heat.

Selma took Viola by the arm and shoved the piece of paper in her hand. “Now look, you need that nickel. Follow me.”

Selma opened the door to the porch, “you see that flat area out there, there’s where the people walked to get here. You just go down the road a spell, and there’s the Post Office and the Saloon and the Fire House, and right inside the Post Office that’s where they print the paper. You tell them about the bake sale and give them this paper, they’re waiting for you.”

Kaye was still outside. “Take tsch tsch Kaye with you.” Grandma called out from the kitchen.

They walked out to the flat place in front of the house and stood. To the right was more dust, it seemed like part of the hole the house had been plopped into. On the left a stand of poplar and some browned out pines blocked any passage. “Come on Kaye,” said Viola.

The flat part in the front of the house was not so flat, there were ruts and more rocks and even more dirt and dust, but this time they left the dust behind. The dust changed from yellow to red and there were more sharp rocks in the road, chipped off of something, but bright red. Kaye stopped, and Viola knew why. She could feel the sharp rocks pushing their way through the bottom of her shoes, just like the broken glass from the whiskey bottles near the shed. To the side of the flat area was trampled grass. She pulled Kaye back and they continued their walk on the side of what Viola now recognized as a road. It was like her home down south, the rock and gravel kept the road from washing out, only here it was red. She didn’t know why but she knew it was from something. Maybe had something to do with the Ironwood that got dropped off at the house, wood that never burned up but created a smoky black stain over everything. Someone would know.

A tall yellow house lay straight ahead, the first time she’d seen anyone else’s house in two weeks. Of course, those people  that visited Grandma must’ve come from somewhere. Then another one on the other side of the road, and sidewalks. Green trees, not dead ones bordered their land. Kaye at her side, she pointed out all of these things to her, explaining as if it was the first time, she had ever seen them.

“There’s a yellow house, 3 stories like the one we’re in. Look at that lawn.” A man leaned back in his cedar planked chair and smoked a pipe and waved.. Viola waved back. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Mr. Johnson, Olaf Johnson.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

Finally a square red brick building on the right with an American Flag waving.

Viola walked inside and brought the paper over to the desk that had a copy of the weekly Newspaper: “Bovey Times.” She put the paper on the table. “Here” she said.

A green visor protecting his eyes, and he peered at the paper, and pulled a nickel out of his pocket. “this time, you’ll get the nickel,” he said. “but next time I want you to write something that a neighbor tells you or you won’t get a nickel.”

“Uh, uh okay,” said Viola and she thought of Olaf Johnson, and then there was Selma.

“Come on Kaye, Grandma said 15 minutes, we got to go.”

Olaf sat where she passed him. She approached the porch. “Mr. Olaf.”

“Yes Miss Viola.”

“You know my name?”

“Same name as your Great Grandma Viola.”

“What? You know her?”

“From the day she was born.”

“Thank you Mr. Olaf, I’ve got to go.” Said Viola.

Pulling Kaye along the side of the street. The rocks were as sharp and red coming as going.

“Mr. Olaf sure talks a lot,” said Viola.

They continued along the edge of the road, the nickel felt cold at first and now felt hot in her tight grasp. She skipped and Kay skipped too.