Ricky - Chapter 9
First place winner
National Writers Association/Florida Chapter
It was early September and the feel of fall was already in the air. Leaves on Mama’s wild pear tree at the end of her little pond had turned pale gold, clusters of bronze persimmons were ready to burst with ripeness waiting for the first frost, and school had just re-opened.
After getting her four offspring off and running for the first day of school, as usual Mama couldn’t wait to get out in the yard… to the garden or her flowers or as she said so many times, “to see what the morning’s like…” And out she’d go with a cup of coffee leaving the house chores that “wouldn’t spoil” ‘til she got ready to tend to them. “I’m not gonna let a pile ‘o dishes tell me what to do.”
This first morning of back-to-school, she’d gotten as far as the back porch when she saw a young boy walking in the driveway between the garage and the house. She stepped back on the porch so he could not see her. She wanted to see where he was going. He walked past the house, turned the corner of the house where the pantry was following the narrow path by the fish pool. Then he went across the front yard to the street. She noticed he was not carrying anything, nothing that looked like books or paper and she particularly noticed he was not carrying a paper bag that might have been lunch.
Mama had been told by someone in the neighborhood that a family had moved into “the worst rundown mill house” on the north side of the ridge. We lived on the south side of that ridge. She asked around trying to find out who they were but no one seemed to know.
The next morning at about the same time, Mama kept her sharp eye out to see if he did the same thing. Sure enough, he cut through the yard again, but this time she noticed he stopped almost at the back door staring at that open door for a bit, then proceeded around the corner, by the little pool, and to the street just as he had the day before.
Mama made up her mind that if the same thing happened again, she’d go out and talk to him. Our house being on a corner seemed to invite various walkers to cut the corner across the yard. I often thought that many of them simply wanted to see Mama’s flowers and the little pool, never once thinking they were trespassing.
Well, the little boy came walking in that third morning just as he had before, and Mama was on the porch waiting and watching. She walked out and spoke to him. “Son, I don’t like you walkin’ ‘cross the yard like this… if ever’body cut ‘cross the yard like you’re doin’ there wouldn’t be no need for a street…” Seeing that he looked close to crying, she asked quickly, “You goin’ to school?”
“Yes Mam… I didn’t mean to hurt nothin’… I mostly wanted to smell somethin’ good to eat comin’ out your back door…”
Instantly, Mama thought about seeing him the day before when he had stopped and stared toward the back door. And just as instantly she knew that little boy was hungry. He was skinny as a rail… too skinny to throw a shadow, she said. His shirt was clean but torn in several places and hung on him like a sack. His shoes barely stayed on his feet they were so frayed and worn.
Mama lost no time in saying, “I was just fixin’ to make myself a sausage ‘n egg sammich. Why don’t you come on in the house and eat one with me?”
He started to smile, then looked embarrassed, kicking one foot against the other and said, ”Thank you, Mam...but if’n I do that I be late to school… but I’d… I’d like that…” And he’d made no move to keep on walking.
At which time, Mama said, “Never mind bein’ late to school… we’ve got uh old truck in the garage and I’ll take you to school so you won’t be late… come on in..”
He lost no time in going with her in the kitchen and she lost no time in fixing the sausage and egg sandwich. And while he ate, she packed a lunch for him.
He told her his name was really Richard, but that “most ever’body calls me Ricky which is awright. We moved in a house back that-a-way on the side of the hill.” He was pointing toward the back side of the ridge, so Mama knew that he was of the family she’d heard about. But he didn’t mention his last name and Mama didn’t ask.
He said he was seven years old, “But I’m a-goin’ on eight come November” and he had never been to school before. He took to Mama and she to him. There was a tender understanding between them. On Friday she asked him to come back Saturday morning and maybe she’d have something for him to do in the yard. He showed up bright and early and she put him to raking leaves… after she’d fed him. Mama swore she could tell a difference in the way he looked after she’d been feeding him for just a week.
And he never left our house going back to his house that Mama didn’t send food with him. She’d always say “I cooked too much of this or that and we can’t eat it all and maybe you and your Mama would like it…” And she’d always put some coins in his pocket. Once when she did this, they fell right through a hole in his pocket and out on the ground. “Come on in here,” she said, “and take off your pants. I’m gonna fix that hole right now.” Without saying a word he followed her in the kitchen. Mama said he stood stark still looking as if he didn’t know what to do, so she said, “I can’t fix that hole ‘til you take your pants off…” Then he said, “Mam, kin I go in here?” And he was pointing at the pantry off the kitchen. She said, “Oh, of course, go right in there.”
Ricky went in the pantry, shut the door, took his pants off then opened the door just enough to get his skinny little arm through holding the ragged pants out to her. Sometime later, he was overheard saying, “She can fix anything… jus’ anything! And she allus has a lot o’ good things to eat.”
Knowing that Ricky was a shy little boy, every morning Mama made a point of saying… come back tomorrow, or I’ll see you in the morning. Then that thin little smile would spread across his face and he’d say, “Thank you, Mam, I sure will…” and he did for several years… as long as his family lived in the house, as he said, “back that-a-way on the side of the hill.“ He never called Mama any name except “Mam”.
Day by day Ricky began to fill out and lose that sad, gaunt expression. He came regularly including Saturdays when he worked raking leaves, or mowing summer grass, pulling weeds in the garden or whatever else Mama could think of. He seldom talked but as Mama said, “When he does talk he’s got somethin’ to say”.
Some time after he’d been going to school, Mama went to the school to see his teacher. She had a feeling that his own mother had not been to the school and didn’t know anything about it. She was right. His teacher told Mama that she thought Ricky was basically a bright little boy but that he’d not been exposed to a book or to any learning process from his family or anyone, consequently he was far behind in basic learning skills for a seven or eight year old.
“Well,” Mama asked, “you think he’s too far behind to catch up?”
“No, I don’t mean that,” the teacher said, “But I do mean I think it’ll take him two or three years. However,” she went on, “He’s making a good start.” Then the teacher said, “I have the feeling you’re the one who’s feeding Ricky…”
When she said this, Mama simply got up saying, “I gotta go now.” And she lost no time in leaving the school.
When the time came, Ricky was promoted – barely the teacher said – from the first grade to the second. But after that, the teacher told Mama that he caught up remarkably well, and was promoted from grade to grade without having to repeat. In that same conversation, although Mama had not asked about my two brothers, the teacher smiled saying, “Now about your own sons… they both passed near the top…”.
Mama interrupted the teacher saying, “Well, they just better pass or they’ll be eatin’ standin’ up for a while…” And then she left without saying another word.
That next year as Christmas time drew closer and closer, Mama said to my father, “Do you think we could find ‘nough parts and wheels to make Ricky a bicycle? He’s never said so, but I know he’s never had nothin’ like most other boys…. you think we could?”
My father was not one to promise something he could not deliver, so he said, “Well, we’ll just see about that…” And Mama knew from those few words that the bicycle was as good as made. She said nothing more nor did he. But then a week or so before Christmas he called Mama to the shop. There it was… all finished on the rack in the middle of the shop. Ricky’s bicycle. It was made with a Schwinn frame, odd handlebars, two nearly new wheels, two brand new pedals and a new seat. My father had scraped and sanded every rusty spot on that frame, and then he’d buffed it ‘til it was shining satin smooth. “I’ll paint it first thing tomorrow,” she said smiling. “Oh, I can see him now… he’s gonna love it!”
Mama was as good as her word. First thing the next morning, she took the bicycle into the kitchen knowing it was too cold to do the painting in my father’s garage shop where there was no heat. She painted the bicycle bright red and striped it in white. At first glance it gave every appearance of being a new one.
“Now, when are we gonna give it to him?” Mama asked my father.
He replied almost as if he were thinking out loud, “Well, this year Christmas is on Saturday, and I’d lay a bet that Ricky’ll show up Saturday morning just like he usually does.”
Mama thought a minute, then said, “‘Course he will, and we’ll just have it waitin’ for him in the kitchen.”
And that’s just what happened. Mama was right again. She had watched for him from the porch and when she saw him round the corner of the garage and walk toward the porch, she called out “Come on in Ricky… I got Christmas breakfast ready…”
When he walked in the kitchen and saw that bicycle, she said he gave a little gulp, looked at her, then back at the bicycle and couldn’t say a word. Mama couldn’t wait. “It’s yours, Ricky… yours to keep. You can ride, can’t you?”
He was quick enough with his answer, “Yes Mam… yes, I can ride good, but I never been on a new bicycle.” By this time, Mama said he was rubbing the handlebars, feeling the seat, spinning the pedals… totally disbelieving what he was seeing.
Later, Mama said, “He was so shy… I thought it might scare him to death if I ever hugged him so I never had. But seein’ how he looked at that bicycle I couldn’t hep myself. I had to hug him, and then he put one skinny little arm out and halfway hugged me.”
Ricky and his family lived on the “back side of the hill” at least a half dozen years, during which time he and Mama grew closer and closer. He learned as she said, “by lookin’ and doin’”. And I heard her say one time, “When I ast him to do somethin’ or I try to show him what to do, he does it, and he’s never once ast me ‘Why?’”
When Mama said this she was looking straight at me.
One Saturday morning Ricky did not show up. Mama wondered why but simply thought that he had something else he had to do. However, it was not like him not to come by some time during the day. The day wore on but Ricky did not come. Monday morning Mama watched and waited for him to come riding his bicycle up to the back door… but he did not come. She couldn’t stand not knowing where he was or what had happened to him. So she drove their old truck to the school but he was not there. Then she drove straight to the “back side of the hill”. The house was empty, doors and windows wide open with no sign of life anywhere except for a shaggy old neighborhood dog curled up on the sagging porch.
Ricky was just one of the many hungry kids who just happened by from time to time that Mama fed, and mothered, but he was by far the one who found that secret little door to her heart and was invited in. She had never learned anything about his family, not from him or others in the neighborhood.
Once when she was asked rather pointedly about his parents and his family in general, she said, “All I know is he showed up one mornin’ at our back door… he was hungry, fact is, he was near starved and I fed him.” As far as Mama was concerned, that was the beginning, and the end of the story. I knew then that no one would ever take Ricky’s place.
After he and his family moved away, Mama never saw him again.
After getting her four offspring off and running for the first day of school, as usual Mama couldn’t wait to get out in the yard… to the garden or her flowers or as she said so many times, “to see what the morning’s like…” And out she’d go with a cup of coffee leaving the house chores that “wouldn’t spoil” ‘til she got ready to tend to them. “I’m not gonna let a pile ‘o dishes tell me what to do.”
This first morning of back-to-school, she’d gotten as far as the back porch when she saw a young boy walking in the driveway between the garage and the house. She stepped back on the porch so he could not see her. She wanted to see where he was going. He walked past the house, turned the corner of the house where the pantry was following the narrow path by the fish pool. Then he went across the front yard to the street. She noticed he was not carrying anything, nothing that looked like books or paper and she particularly noticed he was not carrying a paper bag that might have been lunch.
Mama had been told by someone in the neighborhood that a family had moved into “the worst rundown mill house” on the north side of the ridge. We lived on the south side of that ridge. She asked around trying to find out who they were but no one seemed to know.
The next morning at about the same time, Mama kept her sharp eye out to see if he did the same thing. Sure enough, he cut through the yard again, but this time she noticed he stopped almost at the back door staring at that open door for a bit, then proceeded around the corner, by the little pool, and to the street just as he had the day before.
Mama made up her mind that if the same thing happened again, she’d go out and talk to him. Our house being on a corner seemed to invite various walkers to cut the corner across the yard. I often thought that many of them simply wanted to see Mama’s flowers and the little pool, never once thinking they were trespassing.
Well, the little boy came walking in that third morning just as he had before, and Mama was on the porch waiting and watching. She walked out and spoke to him. “Son, I don’t like you walkin’ ‘cross the yard like this… if ever’body cut ‘cross the yard like you’re doin’ there wouldn’t be no need for a street…” Seeing that he looked close to crying, she asked quickly, “You goin’ to school?”
“Yes Mam… I didn’t mean to hurt nothin’… I mostly wanted to smell somethin’ good to eat comin’ out your back door…”
Instantly, Mama thought about seeing him the day before when he had stopped and stared toward the back door. And just as instantly she knew that little boy was hungry. He was skinny as a rail… too skinny to throw a shadow, she said. His shirt was clean but torn in several places and hung on him like a sack. His shoes barely stayed on his feet they were so frayed and worn.
Mama lost no time in saying, “I was just fixin’ to make myself a sausage ‘n egg sammich. Why don’t you come on in the house and eat one with me?”
He started to smile, then looked embarrassed, kicking one foot against the other and said, ”Thank you, Mam...but if’n I do that I be late to school… but I’d… I’d like that…” And he’d made no move to keep on walking.
At which time, Mama said, “Never mind bein’ late to school… we’ve got uh old truck in the garage and I’ll take you to school so you won’t be late… come on in..”
He lost no time in going with her in the kitchen and she lost no time in fixing the sausage and egg sandwich. And while he ate, she packed a lunch for him.
He told her his name was really Richard, but that “most ever’body calls me Ricky which is awright. We moved in a house back that-a-way on the side of the hill.” He was pointing toward the back side of the ridge, so Mama knew that he was of the family she’d heard about. But he didn’t mention his last name and Mama didn’t ask.
He said he was seven years old, “But I’m a-goin’ on eight come November” and he had never been to school before. He took to Mama and she to him. There was a tender understanding between them. On Friday she asked him to come back Saturday morning and maybe she’d have something for him to do in the yard. He showed up bright and early and she put him to raking leaves… after she’d fed him. Mama swore she could tell a difference in the way he looked after she’d been feeding him for just a week.
And he never left our house going back to his house that Mama didn’t send food with him. She’d always say “I cooked too much of this or that and we can’t eat it all and maybe you and your Mama would like it…” And she’d always put some coins in his pocket. Once when she did this, they fell right through a hole in his pocket and out on the ground. “Come on in here,” she said, “and take off your pants. I’m gonna fix that hole right now.” Without saying a word he followed her in the kitchen. Mama said he stood stark still looking as if he didn’t know what to do, so she said, “I can’t fix that hole ‘til you take your pants off…” Then he said, “Mam, kin I go in here?” And he was pointing at the pantry off the kitchen. She said, “Oh, of course, go right in there.”
Ricky went in the pantry, shut the door, took his pants off then opened the door just enough to get his skinny little arm through holding the ragged pants out to her. Sometime later, he was overheard saying, “She can fix anything… jus’ anything! And she allus has a lot o’ good things to eat.”
Knowing that Ricky was a shy little boy, every morning Mama made a point of saying… come back tomorrow, or I’ll see you in the morning. Then that thin little smile would spread across his face and he’d say, “Thank you, Mam, I sure will…” and he did for several years… as long as his family lived in the house, as he said, “back that-a-way on the side of the hill.“ He never called Mama any name except “Mam”.
Day by day Ricky began to fill out and lose that sad, gaunt expression. He came regularly including Saturdays when he worked raking leaves, or mowing summer grass, pulling weeds in the garden or whatever else Mama could think of. He seldom talked but as Mama said, “When he does talk he’s got somethin’ to say”.
Some time after he’d been going to school, Mama went to the school to see his teacher. She had a feeling that his own mother had not been to the school and didn’t know anything about it. She was right. His teacher told Mama that she thought Ricky was basically a bright little boy but that he’d not been exposed to a book or to any learning process from his family or anyone, consequently he was far behind in basic learning skills for a seven or eight year old.
“Well,” Mama asked, “you think he’s too far behind to catch up?”
“No, I don’t mean that,” the teacher said, “But I do mean I think it’ll take him two or three years. However,” she went on, “He’s making a good start.” Then the teacher said, “I have the feeling you’re the one who’s feeding Ricky…”
When she said this, Mama simply got up saying, “I gotta go now.” And she lost no time in leaving the school.
When the time came, Ricky was promoted – barely the teacher said – from the first grade to the second. But after that, the teacher told Mama that he caught up remarkably well, and was promoted from grade to grade without having to repeat. In that same conversation, although Mama had not asked about my two brothers, the teacher smiled saying, “Now about your own sons… they both passed near the top…”.
Mama interrupted the teacher saying, “Well, they just better pass or they’ll be eatin’ standin’ up for a while…” And then she left without saying another word.
That next year as Christmas time drew closer and closer, Mama said to my father, “Do you think we could find ‘nough parts and wheels to make Ricky a bicycle? He’s never said so, but I know he’s never had nothin’ like most other boys…. you think we could?”
My father was not one to promise something he could not deliver, so he said, “Well, we’ll just see about that…” And Mama knew from those few words that the bicycle was as good as made. She said nothing more nor did he. But then a week or so before Christmas he called Mama to the shop. There it was… all finished on the rack in the middle of the shop. Ricky’s bicycle. It was made with a Schwinn frame, odd handlebars, two nearly new wheels, two brand new pedals and a new seat. My father had scraped and sanded every rusty spot on that frame, and then he’d buffed it ‘til it was shining satin smooth. “I’ll paint it first thing tomorrow,” she said smiling. “Oh, I can see him now… he’s gonna love it!”
Mama was as good as her word. First thing the next morning, she took the bicycle into the kitchen knowing it was too cold to do the painting in my father’s garage shop where there was no heat. She painted the bicycle bright red and striped it in white. At first glance it gave every appearance of being a new one.
“Now, when are we gonna give it to him?” Mama asked my father.
He replied almost as if he were thinking out loud, “Well, this year Christmas is on Saturday, and I’d lay a bet that Ricky’ll show up Saturday morning just like he usually does.”
Mama thought a minute, then said, “‘Course he will, and we’ll just have it waitin’ for him in the kitchen.”
And that’s just what happened. Mama was right again. She had watched for him from the porch and when she saw him round the corner of the garage and walk toward the porch, she called out “Come on in Ricky… I got Christmas breakfast ready…”
When he walked in the kitchen and saw that bicycle, she said he gave a little gulp, looked at her, then back at the bicycle and couldn’t say a word. Mama couldn’t wait. “It’s yours, Ricky… yours to keep. You can ride, can’t you?”
He was quick enough with his answer, “Yes Mam… yes, I can ride good, but I never been on a new bicycle.” By this time, Mama said he was rubbing the handlebars, feeling the seat, spinning the pedals… totally disbelieving what he was seeing.
Later, Mama said, “He was so shy… I thought it might scare him to death if I ever hugged him so I never had. But seein’ how he looked at that bicycle I couldn’t hep myself. I had to hug him, and then he put one skinny little arm out and halfway hugged me.”
Ricky and his family lived on the “back side of the hill” at least a half dozen years, during which time he and Mama grew closer and closer. He learned as she said, “by lookin’ and doin’”. And I heard her say one time, “When I ast him to do somethin’ or I try to show him what to do, he does it, and he’s never once ast me ‘Why?’”
When Mama said this she was looking straight at me.
One Saturday morning Ricky did not show up. Mama wondered why but simply thought that he had something else he had to do. However, it was not like him not to come by some time during the day. The day wore on but Ricky did not come. Monday morning Mama watched and waited for him to come riding his bicycle up to the back door… but he did not come. She couldn’t stand not knowing where he was or what had happened to him. So she drove their old truck to the school but he was not there. Then she drove straight to the “back side of the hill”. The house was empty, doors and windows wide open with no sign of life anywhere except for a shaggy old neighborhood dog curled up on the sagging porch.
Ricky was just one of the many hungry kids who just happened by from time to time that Mama fed, and mothered, but he was by far the one who found that secret little door to her heart and was invited in. She had never learned anything about his family, not from him or others in the neighborhood.
Once when she was asked rather pointedly about his parents and his family in general, she said, “All I know is he showed up one mornin’ at our back door… he was hungry, fact is, he was near starved and I fed him.” As far as Mama was concerned, that was the beginning, and the end of the story. I knew then that no one would ever take Ricky’s place.
After he and his family moved away, Mama never saw him again.
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