The Boy on the Porch, Page 3

  When John dug up an earthworm and reached for his rod and hook, Jacob put his palm out, as if asking for the worm, and once he had it, he reburied it.

  “But—that’s our bait,” John said.

  Jacob tapped lightly on John’s arm, tap-tap-tap-TAP, and returned to gathering more stones. He dug a trench along the creek bank and lined it with stones and packed the sides with mud. John watched as the boy collected twigs and leaves and built a strange sort of elfin bridge over the trench. Then Jacob climbed up on a boulder and jumped into the creek with all his clothes on. He splashed and laughed his silent laugh and then climbed back up on the rock and jumped again and again into the water. He crawled back up the muddy bank and took John’s hand and beckoned the beagle, inviting them to join him.

  Marta took one look at the wet, muddy man, boy, and dog as they returned to the house. “Well, John,” she said. “Is he dirty enough for you?”

  19

  More weeks passed.

  “Why doesn’t anyone know about this boy?” John asked.

  “We need to get him some clothes. He’s looking shabby.”

  “Did you hear me, Marta? Why doesn’t anyone—”

  “I heard you. I don’t know the answer to your question, but I do know that the boy needs some clothes.”

  They drove to the nearest town with a clothing store, some thirty miles away.

  At the counter, the clerk glanced down at the boy and said, “What a quiet lad you are. What’s your name?”

  The boy smiled up at her.

  “Cat got your tongue?”

  “He’s shy,” John said.

  “How old are you?” the clerk asked the boy.

  The boy tilted his head and blinked.

  “Seven—” Marta said.

  “Six—” John said.

  “Oops.”

  The clerk winked at Marta. “I know—my husband can never keep track of our kids’ ages either.”

  The boy had twisted around to look at a woman and a young girl standing in line behind them. The boy put his hand up, palm toward the girl, and the girl raised her own palm and tapped his. The boy waggled his arms in a silly way. The girl did the same.

  “Kids,” the woman said to Marta. “Crazy kids.”

  The boy knocked his knees together and the girl did the same.

  Marta felt such pride. “Yes!” she said. “Crazy kids!”

  20

  In the middle of fixing dinner, Marta said, “John, the boy needs to be around other kids.”

  “I know it, but how are we going to do that?”

  “He needs a friend his age.”

  “He’s got friends—the dog, the cow—”

  “John!”

  “I know, I know. I’ll go nose around. See what I can come up with.”

  He went to town and came home with a present for the boy.

  “But, John, what about the friend? Did you find him a friend?”

  “No, but look at these—I traded that old hat of mine for these.”

  It was a used painting set: ten dimpled watercolor cubes, a frayed brush, and a pad of yellowed paper.

  The boy touched each colored cube lightly, as if they were as fragile as a butterfly’s wings. Marta brought him a cup of water and showed him how to dip the brush in the water and then swirl it on the paint cube. The boy leaned forward, grasping the brush, swirling it over the red, and sweeping an arc across the paper. He bent close to the paper, his hand moving deftly. He filled up an entire sheet trying every color, blending them, dotting and swishing the brush as if his hand was made to do exactly what it was doing.

  He looked up at Marta and John and then at the next blank sheet of paper.

  “Sure,” John said. “Go right ahead.”

  The boy painted all afternoon. He painted until dark. He painted all the next day and the next and the next until the cubes were worn down and all the paper had been used. What started as swirly shapes quickly evolved into recognizable animals—cows, dogs, goats—and flowers and trees, cabins and barns and bridges. But the scenes were unusual: dogs stood on top of cows, flowers grew out of chimneys, bridges connected houses, barns roosted in treetops.

  “Where does he come up with this stuff?” John asked.

  “I don’t know. I think he’s a genius.”

  21

  “Marta, we need to ask again about the boy.”

  “He needs to be around some kids his own age—”

  “Marta—”

  “—not all day, but now and then.”

  John went to town. This time, when he stopped at the sheriff’s office, the sheriff came in while John was studying the bulletin board for new notices.

  “You looking for something?” the sheriff said. He was a stocky, muscular man, his shirt tight across his chest. He had a habit of rubbing his thumb across his badge, as if to remind people exactly who he was.

  “I was wondering something.”

  “Is that right?”

  “A cow wandered onto our property and I’ve been waiting for someone to claim her, but no one has.”

  “Is that right?”

  “I don’t see any notices here about missing cows—”

  The sheriff rubbed his thumb across his badge.

  “—but if someone claims it, how do I know it really belongs to that someone?”

  The sheriff looked from John to the receptionist, Darlene, and back again. “Would you be suggesting that someone might lie about owning that cow?” He aimed a finger at John’s face.

  “I was just wondering—let’s say a couple weeks go by and nobody claims that cow, and I’m just looking after it, right? I’m not stealing it. And somebody comes along and says it’s his cow—”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “I wouldn’t be accused of stealing that cow, would I?”

  “Did you steal it?”

  “No! Like I said—”

  “Then what are you so worried about?”

  “I was just wondering, what if someone said I stole it?”

  “Well, now, if you didn’t steal it, they’d be lying. And if you did steal it, well, then—”

  “I didn’t steal it.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “Should I have reported it? That cow, I mean? And how would I do that?”

  “How would you do what?”

  “Report it, report the cow.”

  “You wanna report a cow?” The sheriff turned to his receptionist. “Now that’s a new one. He wants to report a cow. Ha-ha. That’s a new one all right. Ha-ha-ha.”

  John thought, If they don’t understand about a cow, how are they going to understand about the boy?

  John left the sheriff’s office and stopped at the general store, where he traded in a leather belt for a sack of jelly beans and a harmonica.

  22

  John and Marta stood at the barn doors listening to the boy play the harmonica to his audience: the cow, the beagle, and the goats. The cow rested her head on the top fence rail, the beagle lay on the ground between the cow’s forefeet, and the baby goats were uncharacteristically still, leaning against each other, gazing at the boy. It was a slow, hypnotic tune he played.

  “We’ve got to ask him some questions, Marta.”

  “But we’ve tried, and he seems so far away when we ask, as if he doesn’t understand the simplest things, and yet—”

  “—and yet other times, he seems so capable—”

  “—and smart, but—”

  “—quiet, very quiet.”

  They tried to find out how old he was, but he didn’t seem to know. They asked if he had any brothers or sisters, but he merely shrugged in reply. They asked if it was his parents who left him on the porch, but he shrugged again.

  “Do you even have any parents?” John asked.

  “John, shh!”

  “Well, does he or not? Jacob? Do you have any parents? Mother? Father?”

  Jacob rested his chin in his hand, elbow propped on the table. He looked sl
eepy.

  “Is someone coming to get you?” John pressed.

  Jacob looked around the room, as if the answer might be there.

  “Do you want someone to come get you?”

  “John!”

  “Well, I’m just asking. Do you, Jacob? Do you want someone to come get you?”

  The boy yawned.

  “What is the matter with him? Can’t answer a simple question.”

  “John! Stop that. Maybe it’s not such a simple question, maybe—oh, now see what you’ve done—”

  A tear slipped down the boy’s cheek.

  “Now, look,” Marta said, springing to the boy’s side. “We’ve hurt his feelings.”

  “How did we do that?”

  “Kids are sensitive. You ought to know that. You’re a great big kid yourself.”

  23

  “He doesn’t know how to read or write. When do kids learn that, Marta?”

  “I don’t remember. Five? Six?”

  “If we could teach him how to read and write, he could answer our questions. Try, Marta. Try to teach him.”

  “Me? How do you teach someone to read?”

  She tried her best, but teaching reading and writing did not come naturally to Marta, and no matter how hard she tried, Jacob did not seem to catch on. If she asked him to copy the letter A, the boy made a scribble. If she asked him to copy the letter B, he drew something more like a Q. If she asked him to copy s-a-t, the boy drew a chicken.

  “I think he’s a lot better at painting and drawing and making music than he is ever going to be at reading and writing,” Marta said.

  “Is that a bad thing or a good thing?”

  “Of course it’s a bad thing. Isn’t it, John?”

  “Try some more.”

  Marta felt as if her hair were on fire. The pressure! The whirring of her brain. The letters whizzing around.

  24

  One day, John, Marta, and Jacob returned to the town where they’d bought Jacob’s clothes. In a thrift shop, Jacob wandered to the back, picked up a pair of drumsticks, and rapped on the nearby drum.

  “That there boy has talent,” the shopkeeper said. “Will you listen to that? How old are you, son?”

  Marta answered. “Six. He’s shy. Won’t talk to strangers, you know.”

  “Is that right? What’s your name, son?”

  The boy rolled the drumsticks against the drum.

  “Jacob,” Marta said.

  When John joined them, the shopkeeper said, “Been listening to this fine young man take a run at these drums. This your boy?”

  Jacob turned his head ever so slightly toward John. Marta glanced down at her feet.

  “Sure,” John said. “Sure, he is.”

  “I can see the resemblance,” the shopkeeper said. “You play the drums yourself?”

  “No.”

  “Who taught him then?”

  “Nobody. Will you take a couple dollars for this old drum set?”

  Back at their truck, Marta elbowed John. “Did you hear what he said? He could see the resemblance between you and Jacob.”

  John reddened. “Sure, I heard him. Sure, I did.”

  Next, they visited a general store, full of everything from canned peaches to cow balm, from shovels to sheets. In a dusty corner, on a dusty shelf, they found art supplies, marked down in price.

  “Lots of paper,” Marta suggested, “and a few brushes and some of those watercolors, and . . .” She was happily immersed in selecting supplies when she heard someone say, “Hello, again.”

  When Marta and John quickly turned toward the voice, they saw that Jacob had settled himself on the floor beside a young girl. Her mother, standing beside them, said, “Our kids met—last week, was it? You were buying clothes, remember?”

  “Oh,” Marta said. “Of course, I remember.”

  The adults regarded the girl and Jacob, shoulder to shoulder, flipping through a book together.

  “His name is Jacob,” John offered.

  “And that’s Lucy. She’s six. Nearly seven.”

  Marta cleared her throat. “So is Jacob. Six. Nearly seven. Hard to believe!”

  “Oh, I know,” the woman said. “Time sure whips by, doesn’t it?”

  “Weird,” Marta said, “running into you again.”

  “Oh, I don’t see anything weird about it at all! It must be fate. Maybe our children are meant to be friends. We’re at that park over there”—she gestured toward the window and the park beyond—“nearly every Saturday morning if Jacob ever wants to join us.”

  “Oh, sure. Okay.”

  On their way home, John said, “Marta, that’s a long way to go so that Jacob can have a friend.”

  “Shh,” Marta said. “Ears.”

  “What?”

  “We all have ears. Everyone in this car can hear, John.”

  “Well, of course we all have ears. Oh.”

  The next Saturday they returned to town and met Lucy and her mother at the park. The adults sat on a bench as Jacob and Lucy raced from swings to slide.

  “Lucy can be a little bossy,” her mother said. “I hope she doesn’t do that with Jacob. He seems such a nice boy.”

  “Oh, he is,” Marta said, but then regretting that she sounded as if she were bragging, she added, “but he can be a little bossy, too, sometimes.”

  John said, “Bossy? I don’t think—”

  Marta said, “See there, John? He’s trying to get Lucy to follow him back to the swings.”

  “But that’s just—”

  “Bossy, bossy,” Marta said. “But not often. Mostly he is such a sweet boy, wouldn’t you say so, John?”

  “Don’t think you should call a boy ‘sweet’—”

  Lucy’s mother laughed. “You two tickle me. I tell you what—I could never get Lucy’s father to sit here and watch her play in a park.”

  John stood. “Oh, but I’m not—I mean, I don’t usually—I was just keeping—if you two are fine here with the kids, I’ll go on and, you know—”

  “Sure!” Marta said. “You go on.” To Lucy’s mother, she said, “Aren’t men funny? Once they become fathers—”

  “Oh, I know, I know,” Lucy’s mother agreed.

  “Well, John’s not really a father.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Marta pulled a tissue from her pocket. “Goodness, I don’t know what—” She dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose. “We’re just watching Jacob.”

  “Oh! I thought he was your boy.”

  “Mm.”

  “So tell me what happened.”

  “‘Happened?’”

  “Yes, why he doesn’t speak. I’ve not heard a single sound out of him.”

  “Oh, that. We don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? Aren’t you curious?”

  “Well, sure, but the people—the people we’re watching him for—they didn’t say.”

  “That’s a little odd, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” Marta admitted.

  That night, after Jacob was in bed, Marta told John about the conversation with Lucy’s mother.

  “John, I do not know what has come over me. I feel so happy when we’re around the boy, and then all of a sudden, I want to bust into tears.”

  “I know,” John said. “I know.”

  25

  Jacob learned to play the drums as swiftly as he had learned the guitar. He seemed to know a hundred different rhythms, and he could make the drums sound like so many different things: horses’ clopping and cannons and footsteps. He could sound the beating of a heart, the beating of wings.

  When he wasn’t playing the drums or the guitar or riding the cow or running with the beagle, Jacob painted scenes of the pasture, the house, the animals. He painted trees and flowers and birds. Sometimes he painted explosions of color and line, unlike anything Marta and John had ever seen before.

  “Marta, I still think he needs to be learning some other things,” John said.

  “Like what?”


  “Chores.”

  “Fine, then,” Marta said. “Show him how to do some chores.”

  And so John showed Jacob how to feed the cows and goats. “Each day, you do this. I’m counting on you, Jacob. Understand?”

  Jacob nodded, just once, which was his way, and some days he remembered to feed them and some days he didn’t.

  “How come he doesn’t remember, Marta? How come I have to keep reminding him? Should I be hollering at him?”

  “Oh, no, you shouldn’t do that.”

  “Well, that’s what my father did when I forgot to do something.”

  “And did his hollering help you remember?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then—”

  “But his whippin’ did. Should I whip the boy?”

  “Oh, no, John, you wouldn’t—”

  “No, no, I couldn’t.”

  Another day, John asked Marta what else he should be teaching the boy.

  “How to use a hammer and saw and all,” Marta suggested.

  That afternoon, John asked Jacob to follow him down the drive. “Going to mend the fence, boy. You could help with this.” The beagle followed the boy. John carried a hammer, pliers, and a sack of nails. “You could—”

  John stopped abruptly. The sheriff’s car was turning off the road into the long dirt drive.

  “Jacob—run on up to the house, quick, now, go on, fast as you can, it’s okay, go on—”

  Jacob took off for the house, with the beagle trailing him.

  The sheriff pulled up alongside John, dirt swirling up in John’s face. The sheriff leaned out the window.

  “Howdy there.”

  “Howdy, Sheriff. What can I do for you?”

  The sheriff lifted his hat, smoothed his hair, and replaced the hat on his head. “About a cow. Old man Krankins lost his cow—he says it’s an old Angus. That the kind you found?”