Sketcher Read Free

woods. For godssake, we got the city right next door, Val!”
    She just kept choppin’ carrots without lookin’ up. Instead she answered real soft, like the Wisdom Book of Proverbs say you should:
    â€œYou’re right Alrick: we got everything we need right here. Everything... except running water and rice. That’s right. Between makin’ sure we all got home when you’re out doin’ your ‘evening activities’ and me trying to keep my two jobs cookin’ and waitin’ tables for other people, your wife forgot that we’re out of rice. So, Alrick – look: we got five ounces o’ lean ground beef, one large onion diced, ten ounces of sun-ripe tomatoes, green chilli chopped and one pound o’ red beans, but we need about six or seven ounces of Zatarain’s right about now. And where we going get it, Alrick?And don’t say ‘Lam Lee Hahn’. Those Chinese people know exactly how to shut down shop and head home at night. They know that nobody ’cept the Beaumonts would be coming to make groceries this time o’ night. Those Asian people, they opened a shop out here in this hellhole... but they’re smart. They live in the city. In the city . So, you goin’ get it, Alrick? Just pop into the city and get us some rice somewhere... since it’s ‘right next door’.”
    I wanted to point out to Moms that the Lam Lee Hahn family – who were genius to set up that small grocery shop out near the train tracks to serve swamp folks and make money – were actually Vietnamese. But this cussin’ was goin’ good, and I wanted to hear the endin’. Well, to be honest the endin’ was disappointing at first. It was just Pops sayin’ the usual “ bordel ” under his breath and me saying to myself, “You know, Skid, cuss words might be the only French your Cajunish father knows” – even though he liked tellin’ us all about The Great Expulsion from French Canada back in Seventeen Fifty-something, as if he had been there.
    Now from where I was, I could see Frico in the old dresser mirror, in his usual place on the floor beside the bed. That’s where he liked to sit and do his sketches – where we couldn’t see him. Moms told us to always look out for Frico. She said to make sure he had his glasses on when he was sketchin’, and then pay close attention to him, cos sometimes that boy would be concentratin’ so hard on what he was paintin’ or drawin’ – he’d forget to breathe. He’d just kind of fall asleep sittin’ straight up with his eyes wide open. Yep, he’d blank out and wouldn’t budge for hours. So we’d shake him – and if that didn’t work, we’d prob’ly have to slap him. They wouldn’t make me slap him, cos sometimes I didn’t know my own strength.
    Anyway, there he was: I’m watchin’ him in the mirror and – would you believe it? – all of a sudden he just jumped up with the sketch pad and walked out of the house into the pitchblack of night. Now that may sound simple, but you don’t just walk out of Valerie Beaumont’s house in the pitch black of night without someone accompanying you or making sure there are no black bears or water moccasins or demons lurkin’ about the swamp. Furthermore, Frico was only nine years old. How dare you walk your nine-year-old self out of the house and let the screen door slam behind you like you can’t stand all that fightin’ in your ear? And especially without your glasses? But see, that’s the kind of crap that Frico Beaumont got away with.
    Now, I’m not sayin’ I’m innocent. I’m jus’ sayin’ I couldn’t catch a break, like with that CB incident – but Frico, everybody treated him like he was some kind of special, even though Skid Beaumont is the last Beaumont – the baby Beaumont. While me and Doug