* * * *
I watched the giant pick his son up off the ground. Petey’s ma wasn’t too far behind us. She had juice jars with her. Guess his falling and getting knocked out had something to do with not enough apple juice. They were in such a big hurry to get Petey back to camp that they didn’t see his Mason jar. I was kinda surprised that they didn’t since it was so almighty important to them getting back to home, so I grabbed the cracked jar and picked up the scattered rocks. I followed really slow behind Petey’s parents. After Petey started making some noises in the giant’s arms, his ma stopped her crying and made him drink some juice. I stood there, scared. When his ma looked over and saw me she gave me a big hug. The Mason jar got in the way. When she looked down and saw the jar, she smiled.
I offered the jar to her and with great big tears she took the rocks and didn’t say anything more.
“He’s okay, right?” I asked her.
Petey’s ma nodded. She looked back at her boy. She took my hand and squeezed. “He’s going be just fine. Thank God he’s got a friend like you.”
* * * *
I was still worried about Petey. When I got to my place, my own ma took me in her arms and hugged me tight. That’s when I realized I wasn’t gonna get hit for running off where we weren’t allowed and for not making Petey drink his juice.
“That must have been scary for you. Glad your friend’s gonna recover.” Pa looked down at me. He looked concerned. Ma hadn’t let go of me yet.
I didn’t know what to say. So I just nodded. After all we’d been through—the dust, the storms, the foreclosure—my friend getting sick didn’t seem like a big deal.
“Son, I wish to God that you didn’t have to miss out on having a normal childhood. When the rains come to Kansas, we’ll go home.”
I thought about what it was like before the dust storms, before we had to sleep with rags over our mouths, before we moved. I didn’t know what normal was anymore, so how could I have missed it?
I shrugged. “I got more than some kids—at least we’re all together.”
* * * *
Pa didn’t get picked to go out on the flatbed truck. Guess there wasn’t much fruit to pick that day. Pa was fussing at Ma a lot and I was finding ways not to be underfoot. Things were hard all around camp.
Petey’s pa, the giant, he was picked to go out. It wasn’t a big surprise. He almost always got picked on account of his size. Pa mumbled about how size doesn’t mean squat since it’s speed that counts. The giant spent most of his time bending over and tying his shoe and picking up rocks or other nonsense, or so Pa said.
I decided it was time to call on Petey. Since we were friends and all. I didn’t want him thinking I was avoiding him, and his ma hadn’t let him out since he fell down. I’d been collecting rocks on my own. Ma’d given me some of her jars—she didn’t even ask me why I needed them.
Petey wasn’t doing so good. His ma let me in the tent, then left. They had a bed all made up for him. I sat on a crate next to it. There wasn’t much else inside the tent. Petey’s family didn’t have a lot of stuff—even their car was pretty empty. They traveled light for Okies. The tent wasn’t very big; there was barely enough room for the two beds and a short table.
Petey looked mad that he was stuck there. He wasn’t talking. He wasn’t even looking at me. His face was all red from sunburn and he was sweating.
I quietly sat there a spell with a jar of rocks on my lap.
“Umm,” I said. I didn’t know what to talk about. He probably had all the same migrating stories I had. I tried to think of something good. “In Kansas, we didn’t have much grass. There were all these jackrabbits….” I swallowed hard. There was a bitter taste in my mouth. “These jackrabbits, they ate everything around. Including the grass. Since there wasn’t much grass the dust storms came and made everything worse.”
Petey’s red face turned towards me. He groaned. I held out my Mason jar. He just stared at my face. He didn’t care about the jar even though I’d brought it to cheer him up.
“We all got together at the church then walked out holding hands. We made a giant circle. It was real big, like a mile.” I licked my lips, tasting the Kansas dirt on them. “We all walked together until there was all these rabbits in the middle. Then we beat ’em. We beat them with clubs and sticks. There was just squealing bunnies and blood.” I paused. Remembering was hard. “Dying all around. Everyone was killing them. Except me. I cried. Went home crying like a sissy girl to my ma.”
I blinked. Then I was quiet.
Petey just looked at me, straight-faced. I knew I was blushing, but I didn’t care. Telling Petey that story was important to me ’cause I didn’t want him feeling like a sissy for being sick.
“I knew why they had to die,” I added. “I just didn’t want them to die, I was tired of dying … dying trees and dying grass. They deserved a chance to try and live.”
He nodded. Petey understood it was more than just a dumb bunny story.
“Like leaving Dodge City. I know why we had to leave but I didn’t want to. Is that the way it was with your family?”
Petey shook his head. He pulled up his blankets. I wasn’t wearing a shirt on account of it being so dang hot, but he pulled up his blankets. “We left because we wanted to.”
“It was bad there?” I played with the rocks in the jar.
“It was perfect….” Petey reached out and took the jar. He poked around and picked one out. He threw it near the tent opening.
“Why did you leave, then?” I asked. It was an old question. I’d asked him lots of times before.
Petey held out the jar and as I took it, he pointed under the cot. I lifted up the sheet that was draped over the cot. On the dirt floor of the tent were Mason jars. There were Mason jars stacked up three high. There must have been over a hundred under there.
I looked back and forth between him and the jars.
“We were migrating,” Petey said. “Migrating to where the stuff we needed was. We ran out of all the stuff we needed and had to find more. Then something happened to our ship and we got stuck here.”
“You came in a ship? There ain’t much water where I’m from,” I said.
“Nah, not a ship like a boat. One that sails in the air, not the water.”
I didn’t understand and I didn’t ask. It was stuff a dumb Okie like me didn’t learn because I never went to school. I tried to put the jar under the cot, but there wasn’t enough room.
“We got more jars in the car.”
“More than this?” I asked.
Petey nodded. “In the trunk.”
I thought some. “When will you be done migrating?”
Petey looked at me and then down at his hands. He looked like he was counting on his fingers. I didn’t want to hear his answer. I didn’t want to know when Petey was leaving.
“When it rains?” I blurted out. That was always what Pa said whenever I asked him when we’ll get to go home.
Petey looked at me funny. “Rains here all the time….”
I got up to leave. “Something my pa sometimes says,” I mumbled.
* * * *
Pa was fuming. We ate lunch at home. Pa was out of work all that week.
“He’s a good man,” Ma offered.
Pa didn’t say anything else. He’d been talking about the giant and how he always went out on all the trucks. We really needed the money, Pa said. Money and rain, he always came back to those. I knew better than to shoot my mouth off. I wasn’t gonna make him madder.
I gulped my lunch—leftover squirrel stew that Petey and I had hunted last week. We were going hunting again. We’d hunted every night for a month. Petey was a really good hunter, not making any noise at all when he moved. So as long as Petey brought his juice, our mas, they’d let us out so they could talk to each other. Petey’s ma was homesick; she’d usually end up crying.
“I’ll walk Johnnie over to Peter’s,” Ma announced. I think she just wanted out of the garage. She gathered up the dishes, but then she smiled and took my hand. With her free hand, she grabbed some empty Mason jars.