Rumble Seat

Arnold Tanner’s father pulled his ’38 Ford onto Route 14, kicking up a billow of dust that seemed to hover above the rumble seat for a quarter mile. Arnold’s younger brother held his hand over the top of his Nehi bottle to keep the dust out.

“Daaaad,” Jimmy whined.

“Shut up, jackass. He can’t hear you,” Arnold said to his brother, “He does it on purpose.”

Jimmy reared up in the seat to see the backs of his parents’ heads. His father’s eyes smiled in the rearview mirror. Jimmy plopped back down and took a big swig of grape soda.

“Bruuuhha,” his belch followed.

“Listen, we only have ten miles to go. Can you not act a fool for at least that long? You’re giving me a headache” Arnold patted the dust from his gray cotton pants and it puffed up, swirled into a funnel then disappeared into the rushing wind.

It was the same every week. When Sunday school let out, like doves from the cote children fled from the belly of the church and scattered in all directions, some heading home on foot, across backyards and down Clarksville’s tree-lined Main Street, while others meandered through the parking lot looking for their parents’ cars.

Lloyd Tanner was waiting, ready to hoist Jimmy into the fold-up seat. Arnold didn’t need a lift anymore. On the seat their father would place a couple bottles of pop for the ride.

Today Jimmy held his bottle out for his father to open it. Arnold shoved his down next to the seat. Lloyd popped the cap off Jimmy’s bottle and waited for Arnold to offer his.

“Arnold,” Lloyd held out the bottle opener, “how ‘bout it?”

“That’s OK, Dad. I’d just as soon save it for later.”

Lloyd looked at his boys sitting in the rumble seat, flipped the bottle opener once in the air and put it in his front pocket. Overhead the leaves were ready to turn, and Lloyd reckoned that for his older son these last few Sundays, before it got too cold to ride in the rumble seat, were a divide between childhood and his becoming a man. Next spring he’d ride up front. Next spring, Jimmy would ride up front too, because what one does, the other’s got to do.

He laid a hand on Arnold’s head, ruffled his hair and then joined his wife in the front of the car. Genie sat next to him, her gloved hands folded on her lap.

“I’m worried about Arnie,” he said to his wife. Lloyd checked the rear-view to see Arnold swat Jimmy on the head. Genie Tanner turned to see the return swipe.

“They’re just boys, Lloyd,” she smiled, reached over and gently kneaded the muscles at back of her husband’s neck.

“Something’s eatin’ him. Jimmy’s always full of pepper after Sunday school gets out. Arnold used to be the same. Lately he just seems blue.”

“Maybe you should talk to him. He is at that age.”

“We’ve talked. We’ve talked about that. Hell, I think the boy knows more about it than I do.”

“Lloyd, really!” Genie said and withdrew her hand from his neck.

The breeze blew a strand of hair into her mouth. She cleared it with her index finger.

“All I mean,” her husband continued, “is that ain’t it.”

“Maybe you should talk to him,” Arnold’s mother repeated, looking out her window at the sea of corn disappearing to the south.

Route 14 ends at a “T” where you choose left and go to Lumley, or right to go to St Clair. Lloyd paused at the flashing signal and eased south toward St Clair, but then pulled off onto the shoulder. Arnold leaned out to see why they’d stopped.

Dickey Kearns, who had a farm across the way from theirs, was slowing into the intersection.

Arnold’s father gave a toot of the horn and Dickey pulled alongside the Ford.

Arnold slumped down in his seat as Dickey exchanged words with his father.

“BRROOOHAAAA,” split the air, rivaling the rhump-rhump-rhump of Dickey’s truck. Arnold put his hand over Jimmy’s and squeezed it hard enough to cause the boy to freeze.

“Goddamn it, Jimmy. Why do you have to be such a little kid all the time.” “I am a little kid.” Jimmy wrestled his hand free and dropped the empty pop bottle at his feet.

“Shut up or I’ll wallop you one good.”

“I’m telling Dad you cussed.”

“Tell him then.”

Dickey’s truck lurched forward and pulled up alongside the rumble seat. Dickey’s arm hung out the window, dangling from a bare shoulder. Jimmy sat up to look past his brother into his neighbor’s truck.

“Hi, Mister Kearns,” Jimmy chimed.

“Hey there, Jimmy. What d’ya learn in Sunday school today?”

“Nothin’.”

“That’s how I remember it,” Dickey Kearns smiled and turned his attention to the younger brother. “What do you say Arnold? You haven’t been by in a while. You know the bass are kickin’ up a storm in the north pond. What say you come by and we’ll see if we can catch a few.”

“I reckon maybe,” Arnold answered without looking up from his trousers.

A silence settled like the Kansas road dust, broken only by the rumbling of Dickey’s truck. Genie Tanner was watching through the rear window of the Ford.

“Well anytime you feel it, you come on by,” Dickey raised his voice, “You too, Jimmy.”

“Thanks Mister Kearns,” Jimmy said, louder than he had to.

“Yeah, thanks,” Arnold uttered just loud enough.

Dickey Kearns slapped the Ford’s fender and hollered back to Arnold’s parents, “Till next time Lloyd. Good to see you, Genie.” He turned back to the rumble seat, “You boys take care.”

As the Ford pulled onto Route 9, Arnold turned and watched Mr. Kearns’s face in the truck’s side mirror. He could still see Dickey Kearns looking right back at him as he patted the dust from his gray cotton pants.

Lloyd Tanner swung his sun visor up out of the way, their mailbox just coming into view, and pulled the turn signal down toward his thigh.

“That Dickey Kearns is good people,” he told his wife.

“I don’t know,” she said, “there’s just something about him I’m not sure of. I can’t put my finger on it.”

“Maybe you should talk to him,” her husband chided.

“Maybe I should.”

Lloyd turned onto their driveway, and drove west through the sea of corn.