Waylon Read Free Page B

him to do right. He was solid as a rock. He just tried
     to live the best he could, the way a Christian should, and I never knew him to get really mad. He was a disciplinarian, but
     he was kindhearted. He’d sooner give you the back of his hand than grab a belt if you pushed the wrong button. I’d be in the
     back seat fussing with my younger brother Tommy, and he’d say “I’m going to slap the slobbers out of you, boy,” and we knew
     to duck ’cause that hand would be swatting back at us. We’d hit the floor and keep quiet for the rest of the trip.
    About the maddest I ever saw him get was one evening when I went to the movies on Sunday afternoon, and we were supposed to
     go to church that night. It was a double feature, and Wendell and I watched it twice. Walking home, my dad pulled alongside
     us in the car. “You shain’t go to the movies anymore on Sunday” was all he said. Anytime he said “shain’t” you could tell
     he was angry.
    I always knew he would protect me. One time I saw something nobody ever gets to see out of their dad. This kid, Billy Stewart,
     was a little younger than my brother Tommy, and they’d gotten into it. Tommy was maybe ten, and Billy had run home crying.
     He was a little crybaby anyway. So here comes Strawberry, his older brother, who was about twenty-two years old and a Golden
     Gloves boxer, a big guy standing at least six foot two. He grabbed my little brother, and Tommy’s screaming bloody murder,
     and Strawberry said he was going to give him a whipping.
    My dad was chopping weeds in the garden, about two fences away, with an empty lot in between, and after that stretched the
     grass and wildflowers of the prairie. Daddy said, “What are you doing with him? You turn that boy loose.”
    “Well,” answered Strawberry, “he hurt my little brother and I’m fixing to kick his little ass.”
    “No, you’re not,” Daddy replied in a low, even voice.
    “Old man, stay out of this.”
    Daddy dropped the hoe down, didn’t even take it with him, and he climbed over the first fence. He was pale as a sheet. “You
     touch that boy and I’ll break your back.”
    Strawberry said, “Old man, I make my living fighting. I whip people twice the size of you every night. You better stay away.
     I’ll hurt you if you come over here.”
    All Daddy would say is “You touch that boy and I’ll break your back.” He went over the next fence.
    “You come here and I’m going to kill you,” Strawberry shouted. My dad didn’t even slow up. Finally Strawberry looked at him
     and turned Tommy loose. “Aw, old man, you’re crazy,” he said, and backed off.
    I knew right there what my daddy was all about. I was twelve years old, and I knew he would shield me from harm, would walk
     through fire if he had to, and that he was a brave man. A hero. He wouldn’t let anything stand in the way of him and his child.
     He never even stopped to think twice; he just kept on going, one foot after the other, telling Strawberry all the time he
     would break his back. And I believe he would’ve.
    Momma was, and always will be, restless. She has a lot of energy, and like me, that’s worked both for and against her in a
     lot of ways. I feed that urge for going by traveling on the road. Momma gets high-strung and flighty, and sometimes I think
     she doesn’t allow herself to be happy.
    I got my determination from her, and maybe my sense of perfection. Momma doesn’t bend, and she would always know when I wasn’t
     telling the truth. “You’re lying and I can see it written all over your face,” she’d say. My cheeks would be turning all sorts
     of colors.
    When I was little, it seemed like we moved every three or four months. Momma had pneumonia once, and we relocated to the Rio
     Grande valley in South Texas, but Littlefield had a hold on us. We lived at the corner of Austin Avenue and Reed Street, a
     long shotgun house with no bathroom, and then settled across from the high school on