The Big Bounce

“That’s from the company. They dropped it off,” J. R. Coleman told him.

“It isn’t sealed.”

“It wasn’t sealed when they brought it.”

Ryan read the pay period and the amount typed on the envelope. He pulled out the bills and counted fifty-seven dollars.

“That’ll get you home,” J. R. Coleman said. “Two blocks up’s the Greyhound station.”

Ryan folded the envelope and put it in his shirt pocket. He hesitated then and began feeling his pants pockets, his gaze moving over the counter surface. As he looked up at J. R. Coleman he said, “I had a comb.”

“There isn’t any comb here.”

“I know there isn’t. Why would anybody want to swipe a comb?”

“You didn’t have a comb.”

“No, I had one. I always have a comb.”

“If it isn’t here, you never had one.”

“You can buy a new comb for ten cents,” Ryan said. “A clean one. Why would anybody steal somebody else’s comb?”

J. R. Coleman said, “I’ll put you on the bus myself if you want me to.”

“That’s all right,” Ryan said. “I’ll see you.”

“You better not,” J. R. Coleman said.

Bob Rogers Jr. waited for Ryan to spot the pickup truck. He couldn’t miss it with the white-lettered sign on the door: RITCHIE FOODS, INC., GENEVA BEACH, MICH. But Ryan was looking around, up at the trees and up the street, acting casual as he came down the courthouse steps. Bob Jr. sat with his elbow out the window. As Ryan approached the truck Bob Jr. adjusted his straw cowboy hat, raising the fu

“You wanted a ride somewhere?”

Ryan looked up at him. “You’re going north, aren’t you?”

“That’s right,” Bob Jr. said. “But you’re going south. One hundred and fifty miles due south to Detroit.”

“I thought I’d get my gear first.”

“You don’t need your gear. All you need’s a bus ticket. Or go over cross the street and stick your thumb out.”

Ryan looked up the street north, frowning in the sunlight, at the stores lining the street and the cars angle-parked in front. He looked at Bob Jr. again and said, “You got a cigarette?”

“No, I don’t.”

“What’s the square thing in your pocket?”

“That’s a square thing in my pocket,” Bob Jr. said.

“Well, I’ll see you.” Ryan slammed the door and started along the sidewalk.

Bob Jr. watched him. He waited until Ryan was almost to the corner before flicking the column shift with the tip of his finger and edging along close to the curb, his hands resting lightly on the thin steering wheel. When he was even with Ryan, he said, “Hey, boy, I wasn’t finished talking to you.” He rolled past him before stopping so Ryan would have to come up to him.

“I want to tell you something.”

“Go ahead.”

“Come here a little closer, I don’t have to shout.” Bob Jr. folded the Sunday paper next to him and leaned toward the window with his arm on the backrest of the seat.

“What?” Ryan said.

“Listen, the two weeks you lived with the spiks we never did talk much, did we?”

“I don’t guess we did.”

“That’s right. So you don’t know me, do you?”

Ryan shook his head, waiting.

“We never talked because I couldn’t think of any reason I needed to talk to you,” Bob Jr. said. “But I’ll tell you something now. Go on home. I’ll tell you it for your own good, because if you’re not a white man, at least you look like a white man and I’ll give you that much credit.”

Ryan kept his mouth shut, staring at the grown man with the cowboy hat down over his eyes, the farm-hick Geneva Beach hot dog with the big arms and thirty pounds and maybe ten more years of experience on his side. And a pure white forehead, Ryan was thinking, if he ever took that dumb hat off. He had never seen Bob Jr. without the hat.

“You don’t work for me no more,” Bob Jr. was saying, “so legally you don’t have to do what I tell you. But I’ll give you the best reason I know for clearing out as quick as you can. You know what it is?”

Jesus Christ, Ryan thought. He said, “No. What?”

“Lou Camacho.” Bob Jr. paused to let it sink in. “You don’t beat up a crew leader in front of his men. He finds out you’re still here, he’ll have somebody stick a knife in you so fast you won’t even feel it go in.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Ryan said.

“That happens and I’m up to my ass in so many sheriff’s cops and state police, I don’t get my cucumbers in till Christmas,” Bob Jr. said. “You see what I mean?”

Ryan nodded. “I hadn’t thought of the cucumbers, either.”

“It’s the reason you’re a free man today,” Bob Jr. said.

Ryan nodded again. “I see.”

And Bob Jr. kept staring at him. “No, you don’t see. You’re too dumb. But I’ll tell you,” Bob Jr. said. “Ritchie Foods got you loose because Ritchie Foods makes pickles. They make sweet pickles and dills and hamburger slices and those little gerkins. They put the pickles in jars and sell them. But, boy, what they don’t put in jars and sell are cucumbers. Big grown cucumbers. That means they got to get the cucumbers picked before they’re full-grown. That means they got to hurry this time of year to get the crop in. But they ain’t going to get it in with the goddamn pickers sitting around in any goddamn courtroom. You see it now?”

“Well, the quicker I get my gear, the quicker I’m gone.” Ryan smiled his down-home smile for Bob Jr. “So why don’t you give me a lift to the camp? I mean if you’re going that way.”

Bob Jr. shook his head to show what an effort it was getting through to this guy. He said finally, “All right. You pick up your stuff and take off. Right?”

“Yes, sir.” Ryan gri

On the way he read the front page of the Sunday fu

Up ahead now he could see the company buildings. They reminded him of a picture he’d seen in Life of a deserted World War II Army post-the weathered barracks and washhouse and latrines in a hard-packed clearing; gray walls standing beyond their time; boarded windows or pushed-out screens and old newspapers and candy wrappers caught in the weeds that grew close to the buildings. It was fu

That was it. He saw people now crossing from the shacks to the elm trees that lined the left side of the road. The priest who came on Sunday always set up his card-table altar in the elm shade. He’d park his Olds over there off the road and put his vestments on behind the car while a couple of the women dressed the card table with a white cloth and a crucifix and the priest’s missal.