To Come and Go Like Magic Read Online Free PDF

cardboard kaleidoscope with colored gemstones inside a tiny peephole.
    “It’s great, Uncle Lu. Where’d you get it?”
    “From a hippie,” he says.
    “A hippie?”
    “Down at Brock’s store. He was walking the Appalachian Trail end to end, and he got off in Virginia just so he could see Kentucky.”
    “Really?” Pop looks up from his paper.
    “That man had hair clear down to here,” Lucius says, swiping his hand midway across his back.
    “He just gave this to you?” I ask. The kaleidoscope looks brand-new.
    Uncle Lu shakes his head. “I bought it,” he says.
    Pop puts down his fork and looks hard at my uncle. “How much did you pay for it, Lucius?”
    Uncle Lu shrugs. “Gave him what I had in my pocket.”
    Momma groans at the other end of the table. I know Uncle Lu went into town this morning to cash his Social Security check. That money was supposed to last all month. “Surely …” She looks at Pop and sucks in her breath.
    I feel like a worm crawling around in the dirt.
    “You don’t have
any
money left?” Pop asks.
    I look from Momma to Pop. “It’s not my—”
    “Shush,” says Pop, wagging his finger at me.
    “I’ve got plenty money in my wallet,” says Uncle Lucius. He takes it out and spreads bills on the table. “I gave that hippie my pocket change.”
    Pop looks relieved, and Momma reaches over andpats Uncle Lu on the arm. Veins are popped up on his bony hands like little blue rivers. I look over at him and smile, and Uncle Lu smiles back.
    When supper’s over, I take the kaleidoscope to the window and aim it at the sky where the sunset’s brightest. The plastic colors fall into perfect shapes, one after the other, like glass flowers, gumdrops, tiny kites.

O n Being Different …
    “I’m gonna be working in the garden when planting time starts,” says Willie Bright.
    “You are?”
    “Yep. It’ll be a lot of responsibility. I probably won’t have much free time.”
    We’re waiting at the bus stop and I see the school bus in the distance creeping along like an old yellow turtle. I don’t recall the Brights ever having a garden and I’ve known Willie for as long as I can remember. My family’s been here since my great-great-grandparents Buster and Sudie built the house on Mercy Hill. Willie claims his family’s been here even longer, but I don’t think he can prove it.
    He’s poor and I’m not. He knows it and I know it, but mostly we’ve not talked about it. Lately, though, he’s been saying stuff, reminding me that we’re not alike. Sometimes I think he likes being different, but not especially being poor. Maybe he’d like to be different in some other way. Still, I’ll bet he doesn’t know the first thing about planting a garden.
    “Where do you get corn plants?” I ask.
    “You shell the dried corn,” he says. “You drop the kernels in furrows.”
    “What about beans? Do you pick beans once or more than once in a season?”
    “More than once,” he says. “Bean plants bear all summer.”
    Lucky guesses. “How do you plant potatoes?”
    “With the eyes up.” Willie grins and looks down at his feet.
    “It’s hard work,” I say. I tell him how the sun gets blistery hot in the garden and the chiggers bite and dirt clogs up under your fingernails. I do this
every
summer.
    He looks at me and shrugs. “I’ll do okay,” he says. His eyes are ablaze in the sun.
    “Maybe,” I say.
    When the school bus stops, Willie Bright steps back and lets me get on first.

T he Wisdom of Spring …
    Rain and freeze and thaw. Icy winds and warm winds, dry winds and winds full of rain. Every day is different; every day is the same. The grass is green, fluttering in the wind, and wild purple violets bloom around the stumps and rocks.
    We’re out walking and talking, Aunt Rose and me, searching for wildflowers.
    It’s the time of year when people living in the hollows come to town and stretch their legs in the sun. They’re heathens, Pop says. Those little kids are