Willie Chester's throwing up his green beans

 

In the hallway after lunch. He had to wait
until we were almost back in the room
and spew right inside the door. Then he drank
nearly all the water from the cooler
and spouted again. I've never seen sick
like that before. Someone bends and braces
himself on nothing, and, elbows bowed, makes
fists when the stuff is breaking loose--clenches
his eyes, coughs, spits, sputters, moans. Weakness.
So this masticated mess his stomach
rejects because his good sense wouldn't or
his brain wasn't as smart as his gut or
his eyes were bigger than his stomach. Flu,
perhaps. A bug. Viruses. A bad day
before he came to class. Nobody likes
Willie. He's a hick kid and a new one.
We don't like hick kids, especially
new ones. Why couldn't he have stayed at his school?
Why couldn't he have vomited there, on
his own territory, where people
hate with a hate that he's used to? Why does
he ask for ours? But he doesn't. I know
that he's feeling stupid, mind and body.
Bean-green on hardwood primary-school
floor. My father used to be a principal
here. He opened up this school. He's throwing
up on my father's floor, is Willie. I'm
telling. He's done it. I'm in third grade. He's
not very friendly but he isn't mean.
He looks like a rube. I was born in
Atlanta but in fairness to me
my mother's from Chicago though
Father's from Tennessee but he went to college.
I'm really not like the other kids. I
have breeding. My mother says so--and she's
from Chicago so she should know. City
of the big shoulders, she says, as she looks
out the window. People there have muscles
but they have brains, too. They don't come from here.
Just when I think that she's going to cry
she asks me what happened at school today.
Nothin', I say. Willie Lester got sick.
The new kid. We don't like him. He's so much
from around here that he's not one of us.
Not one of me, that's for sure. A boy without
friends is just going to meet with trouble,
she says. Oh, I guess he'll make friends, I say.
I mean you, she says. Aw, Ma, I got friends.
If you don't make new friends you'll lose the old,
she says. She's always pulling stuff like that.
Why don't you be his friend? Well, I ain't his
enemy, I say. Don't say ain't, she says.
Think how lonely he must be. She's looking
out the window, remember. Bring him home,
she says. Ma, he puked all over the floor.
I laugh. It was gross. Don't say puke, she says.
Don't say gross. Say vomit. Say unpleasant.
Actually, it sounds unfortunate.
I feel sorry for him. Ask him over.
I don't like him, I say. You don't know him,
she counters. If I knew him, I wouldn't
like him even more, I say. You think so?
How do you know? she asks. I know. I just
know, I say. That's just how I feel. I can't
explain. He's like a beanpole and he has
buck teeth and he talks like Uncle Chester.
He has poor posture, too, Iadd. You don't
want some kid with poor posture playing here,
do you? Willie's sick and so are you, she says. I
feel okay, I say. No, she says. Your heart.
What's wrong with my heart? I put my right hand
on it as if I'm about to recite
The Pledge of Allegiance. I mean your soul,
she says. I feel as if I've been caught with
my barn-door open. You know, she says, I
think I like Willie. But you ain't met him,
I say. You don't know him. No, she says. And
you've met him but you don't know him, either.
I know Willie better than you do. She
smiles. Victory. Poor Willie, she says, and
comes from the window and bends over me
like she's going to hurl and puts her hands
on my shoulders and looks me in the eye
like only men should do and says to me
You're a sweet boy, Willie, and I hope you
feel better. I'm sure you feel lonely here
in a new place but we'll become good friends.
I know it. It's called breeding. Culture. Class.
Mom's not from around here but she's alright.
I feel strange. I think I'm going to puke.

 

—Gale Acuff

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