Hemmed In

Rumble never should have left me to walk home.  Walking stimulates blood flow, and blood flow stimulates brain activity.  Even though Gram sent Rumble back to get me, by the time he showed up, I’d walked over half the way home, and my revenge was pretty well plotted.

The next morning I told Rumble to go ahead and go to school without me, because my friends Sue and Anna were coming by.  If Rumble left with the impression they would be taking me to school, that wasn’t my fault.  We raided Gram’s sewing kit, grabbed a packet of needles and a couple of rolls of white thread, then we descended the basement stairs and invaded Rumble’s lair.

Rumble was — probably still is –  ridiculously fastidious about his things.  Most everything he owned had it’s very own hanger, even his bath towels.  I took the towels out of his closet and very carefully sewed the inside layer tightly to the hanger.  I also sewed the shoulders of his bathrobe to the hanger. Anna sewed all of Rumble’s socks together in pairs.  Sue sewed the fly closed on every pair of underwear he owned.  I sewed his top sheet to his bottom sheet on his bed.

All three of us sewed closed every single button hole on every single article of clothing he owned.  On his shirts, we sewed them closed unbuttoned.  On the flies of his mechanic’s coveralls and his denim overalls, we sewed them closed buttoned.

That little chore took most of the day.  About an hour after we started Gram came down to see what we were doing.  She shook her head.  “He really isn’t going to like this you know,” she warned, then left the room.  As she was ascending the stairs she said, “Don’t forget to sew his pockets closed.”  It seemed like good advice, so we took it.

Every evening when the TV went off after the news, Rumble and I said good-night.  I went to my bedroom and Rumble retreated downstairs.  The north wall of the staircase was the south wall of my bedroom.  On the third step down Rumble always knocked on the wall three times, and I knocked back.  That night I waited in glee after the three knocks for the eruption downstairs.  It never came.

The next morning at breakfast Rumble was a little grumbly.  “The bed thing was really cute,” he said.  “I pretty much ripped it to pieces trying to get into it.”  Then his voice lowered.  “The towel thing was not at all amusing.”

My grandfather had built the downstairs bathroom.  The shower was 4′x4′ and the water sprinkler was a 3 inch disk that sprayed straight down from the celling.  The bathroom window took up most of the west wall, and it didn’t have a curtain on it.   Those of us who used that bathroom dried off inside the shower and emerged wrapped in the bathrobe or  towel we’d left hanging on the door for just that purpose — unless of course both the bathrobe and the towel were sewed tightly to their hangers.

Rumble said he used his pocket knife to get the button holes open on his shirt.   I had the joy of watching him try to use his pockets.  He ran his pipe lighter down his chest about three times before he actually stopped to look at his pocket to see why it wouldn’t open.  He did the same thing trying to put his car keys in his right front pocket and his wallet in his back pocket.  Each time he made rumbly noises and used his pocket knife to cut the threads.

Next he sat down on the couch and tried to seperate his socks.  More rumbling.  I laughed myself silly.  Gram – -the traitor — told Rumble that Anna and Sue had helped me.  Rumble promised to save a few choice growls for them.  Finally he was dressed in his chambray shirt,  denimn overalls, mechanics coveralls, socks and shoes — and likely undergarments as well, though I never saw them — and he never mentioned them.  I didn’t know if he’d discovered all his flies were sewn closed.  He went out the door to school.

Sue and Anna came to pick me up.  We went out the door to school, too.  We went straight to the school cafeteria and bought a gigantic cola, which we then delivered to Rumble as a peace offering.  Being the suspicious sort — go figure — he made me taste it before he would accept the dang thing.

We hung around the shop visiting while he drank his soda.  It wasn’t an unusual occurance.  None of us had class at that time and the shop was full of boys — most of whom we weren’t related to.  Rumble didn’t think it odd that we hung out there flirting.

When his soda was about three-quarters gone, Rumble excused himself to use the restroom.  Just before he could walk away, Anna asked if she could use his pocket knife to cut her shoe lace, which suddenly was hopelessly tangled.  Rumble surrendered his pocket knife without a qualm.

He erupted from the bathroom like a thundercloud.  His brows were drawn together and his beard was fairly bristling.   We’d made a tactical mistake and were in the tool alcove.  there was no way out that wasn’t past Rumble.  He advanced on us, rumbling.  “The coveralls …. okay.  I thought that was funny.  The overalls were a bit more irritating! But the underwear ….” his voice cracked like thunder.  “The underwear is unforgivable!”  He madly jabbed his finger in the direction of the restroom.  “I don’t suppose you’ve ever been in that men’s room,” he shouted.  “It has no doors!  And I had to disrobe –disrobe!   Completely undress — to take a pee! I haven’t done that since I was four!”

I think in pictures, and the visual that conjured up was just too much.  I dissolved in a fit of giggles.  So did everybody else within ear-shot.  Rumble rumbled that it damn well wasn’t funny.  Then he jammed his hand in the grease barrel and marked my cheek with a gooey, black “B”,  for brat.   Even that didn’t make me stop laughing.

Several days later Rumble arrived at the breakfast table still bristling.  He growled, “This is getting old! How the hell much of my stuff did you sew up?”

I grinned at him and shrugged one shoulder.  “All of it.”

He was lifting a piece of toast to his open mouth and he froze, staring at me in horror. Finally he sighed, then rumbled in resignation, “I’ll be cutting thread for the next month!”  I smiled again and blew him a kiss on my way out of the room.

Cosmetically Yours

Rumble loved his car. I don’t know why. It was a banged up beater. A Dodge Dart well past the age of darting anywhere. Still, he washed it, petted it, polished it and praised it. Most days — since my car was really Gram’s car — Rumble drove me to college. He sometimes took my friends Carla and Susan as well. He provided me with a key to the trunk of his car so I could switch out books between classes, but he refused to supply me with a key to the door. He said he didn’t trust me — bad mistake. By not trusting me, he gave me permission to be untrustworthy. I mean, it wasn’t like I was going to disappoint him, right? Gaining access to Rumble’s car wasn’t all that hard. He was taking a mechanics course and I just went into the auto shop and lifted his keys from his workbench while he was under someone’s chassis.

Maybelline used to make — may still make for all I know — eyeshadow in a tube that went on like liquid, but dried to a powder. My friends and I always carried a half-dozen tubes of the stuff at any given time. I didn’t care for them much on my eyes, but they were wonderful for writing on mirrors — or car windows.

Carla, Susan and I often used the eyeshadow to write notes on Rumble’s car window, like: pick me up at the library, or don’t wait I have another ride home. Rumble was used to seeing them, and knew they wiped right off. On this particular day I used them all and decorated every window. However, this time I decorated them on the inside, and I drew hearts and flowers, advertised his nickname, and wrote notes in baby-talk. The work was slow and meticulous because I had to write everything backward, so it would show correctly through the window. When my masterpiece was complete, I moved his car and parked it square in front of the auto shop so all his friends could see it. Then I walked up the embankment and sat down behind some bushes to wait.

At lunch time the auto shop emptied. A few of Rumble’s classmates found the car first. They walked around it reading and laughing, then using his nickname, they called him out in baby talk. “Oh Rumblie, ud woo come here, pwease?” They were laughing hysterically, but fell quiet and backed away as he approached the car, his face darker than a thunder cloud.

Rumble jerked out his pocket handkerchief and took a swipe at the window. His baby name mocked him. Painted in lavendar and surrounded by little pink hearts, it remained. He took another swipe. No change. Not even a smudge. A few of his friends snickered. Someone taunted, “Whudssa matta, Rumblie?” He let out a snarl and scrubbed frantically. The writing stayed.

He thumped his fist against the top of the car and stomped back into the auto bay. Someone called, “Hey, Rumblie, doan go ‘way mad! Come back!”

Rumble stomped back out to his car, ignoring the continuing taunts. He cupped his hands around his eyes and peered in the car windows. I knew he wasn’t going to find his keys, they were in my pocket. I had forgotten to return them.

Rumble walked slowly around his car, then he stopped and turned his gaze to the people around him. “Did anyone see who did this?” He rumbled. He didn’t raise his voice, but there was definite menace in the words. With hasty, “no’s” his audience dispersed. Rumble stood in the parkinglot, his eyes scanning the vicinity and suddenly I realized he was looking for a suspect. I scooted hastily behind a tree. When I finally had the nerve to peek out again Rumble was gone, and if I didn’t hurry, I’d be late for English class.

At the end of the day I approached Rumble’s car just as casually and nonchalantly as I assumed an innocent person would. Rumble was leaning against it waiting for me. He held out his hand and rumbled, “My keys?”

I told him I didn’t have them. It was true. I didn’t. While Rumble was leaning on his car waiting for me I’d slipped into the auto shop and put them back on his work bench. Rumble said, “Somebody took them. It had to be you. ” He pointed at his windows, “I recognize the paint job.”

“Hey!” I said all innocent, “I’m not the only one who uses that stuff!”

His hand was still outstretched. “My keys?”

Pretending impatience, I raised my hands and said, “Search me. I haven’t got them.”

“Where are they?” He asked. Rumble’s voice is deep and low and, when he wants it to be, menacing. Luckily, I knew I was safe from any actual physical violence, so the threat was wasted on me.

“How should I know? They’re not my keys!” I acted all put out, then added graciously. “Do you want me to help you look for them?”

“I already looked.”

“Yeah,” I said, putting my books down on the trunk of the car. “Like you looked for your textbook I found on the foot of your bed right where you left it.”

He turned his gaze back toward the auto bay. “Okay,” he said, and we walked inside.

I returned his keys just a few inches away from where I’d found them. Behind a can of WD-40 instead of in front of it. I hung back and let Rumble find them. When he said, “But I looked here earlier.” I just said, “Right.”

We walked back to the car. I gathered my books from the top of the trunk and stashed them inside. Rumble jerked open the driver’s door and wiped his nickname from the window. He crawled all through the car, cleaning every window. I waited outside. Rumble is a gentleman. He always opened the car door for me, cousin or not, and I knew better then to open it myself, besides, it was still locked. Finally Rumble emerged from the driver’s door and looked across the top of the car at me. “Since you didn’t have the keys, I know who did this.”

“Oh?” I said, my voice may have been a little sharper than I intended.

“Hmm,” Rumble nodded. “Had to be Susan. I gave her my keys this morning because she said she’d lost something in the back seat. I hope she enjoys walking home tonight.”

Oh crap. I’d just gotten one of my friends in trouble. “Maybe she didn’t do it,” I said. “I mean, why would she?”

“You. Susan. Carla. ” Rumble held up a finger as he listed each name, then he went through them again, “Carla is in Cataldo. You say you didn’t do it. Susan had the keys.”

Technically, I never said I didn’t do it. I couldn’t admit that, though. I also couldn’t let Susan take the blame. “But I’m sure Susan didn’t do it!” I snapped.

Rumble smirked at me across the top of the car. “So am I. Now.” Then he dropped into the driver’s seat, shut the door and — just before he drove away — waved at me.