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Stress Test Ch. 26

Uly Bondarbon

By Alan GoldPublished 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago 9 min read
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Image by Jaron W from Pixabay

Billey's heel crunched the gravel as he spun to see who was behind him. Instinct sent his hands flying up to protect his face, but he saw right away that Uly Bondarbon wouldn't whup him.

Perching on a thick, black cross beam of the trestle, Uly couldn't have weighed half as much as Billey. He didn't carry any more meat than the old cow bone Black Wolf licked on when he wasn't doing anything else.

Even in the moonlight, Billey could see that Uly Bondarbon's tiny, sharp features might have been stolen from a bird. He was older than Billey, but he looked like the kids Billey remembered from school. The little guy's shoulders and knees propped up his clothes the way tent poles shape canvas.

Billey knew that in a whup-or-be-whupped world, Uly posed no threat. Besides, all the whupping had worn him out. And he could see without asking that Uly had never dug a hole in his life. Billey figured maybe he could learn a few things from a guy like that.

"Since I like you so much, you can just call me Uly," the little bird man said, pulling a cigarette from behind his ear and holding it at eye level between them. "Smoke?"

The rush of words and gestures confused Billey. Nobody had ever told him they liked him; there was never much reason why anyone would. Maybe this stranger had been lurking behind trees and rocks, studying Billey for a long time, finding out good things about him. Billey dutifully took the cigarette because he thought Uly wanted him to hold it for a moment.

"Light?" Uly leaned back and fished in his pocket with two fingers. He dragged a match along the scratchy side of the little wood box, then cupped his hand around the flame, although the air hung dead still.

Billey held the cigarette in the same patch of air where Uly had left it. The two of them stared at it a moment in the match's yellow light.

"Hell fire!" The stranger laughed and shook his head. "If you don't want to smoke that, I ain't too proud to take it back." He slipped it out of Billey's fingers and caved in his cheeks. The end of the cigarette glowed a fierce orange, like the sun rising over the scooped-out hill back in Billey's world.

Billey watched for a moment and admitted, "I don't smoke."

"Neither do I." Uly leaned back against the black post and let a thin cloud escape from his narrow head. "But I thank the lord ever' day for a cigarette that does.

"You oughta least sit down a bit. Men like you and me don't get to sit down enough. Always got 'portant things to do."

Billey studied the gravel around his feet and found a hollow without any sharp rocks. He eased himself down into it, feeling his knees stiffen up from the whupping and the long walk.

"Don't believe you told me your name," the stranger said as he let out another puff. "Like I say, I'm Uly Bondarbon IV, but I'd be more than happy to be called Uly by a man like yourself."

"I'm Billey Elwood."

"You're Billey Elwood?" Uly shot up straight as the trestle's legs and stared at him with each eye wider than the moon that peeked through the tracks over their heads. "I'll be a vinegar pickle! That sure does explain a lot of things to me."

Billey waited a moment, but he realized Uly was done talking. "What do you mean?" he finally asked.

"Now, Billey Elwood, you're a sly one." Uly pulled his knees up and held them to his chest with his pencil arms. "You're not going to make me tell you how you came to be here and where you'll be tomorrow. You know better than that."

Billey's ears tingled with a new concept. "Where will I be tomorrow?" he wondered.

Uly just about spit the cigarette right out of his mouth. Instead, he grabbed it in his left hand and waved both arms high in the air. "Yes!" he cried so loudly that Billey thought he was calling to someone on the railroad tracks. Billey craned his neck to see who was up there.

"I knew it would be like this when I met Billey Elwood!" Uly went on, parking the cigarette back in his mouth. "No, I take that back. I never could have known it would be this good.

"You try, you try and you try," he shook his head, "but you just can't be ready for everything."

Uly struck another match and held it up close to Billey, dipping it to feed the flame. "Fr'instance, one thing I can't figure is what happened to your face?"

Billey looked at his hands as if they held the answer. "What do you mean?"

Uly threw the match down an instant before it singed his fingers. "I mean you look like you lost an argument with a freight train, Billey Elwood."

Billey didn't know what that meant, but he remembered how Tommy Lagocki's mother had scolded him once for having a booger on his cheek. He brushed his hands over his face—gently on the sore parts—and asked, "Is that better?"

"Better'n bein' dead, I reckon, but not by much." Uly shook his head. "I sure don't want to meet the man who can work over a big guy like you."

"My daddy says my mama made me look this way," Billey said.

"Your mama did that to you?" Uly didn't even try to catch the cigarette when it dropped off his lower lip.

"Did what?" Billey felt like he was listening in on somebody else's conversation.

"Did what? Did your face up like World War III. You telling me your mama gave you them cuts? Your mama made your cheekbones turn purple? She mashed your nose all outta whack?" Uly shook his head. "Your mama must have a kick like a horse."

Billey brightened up. "My daddy says she was a horse. A five-buck horse." That sounded mighty expensive, saying it out loud.

"Now, Billey Elwood, don't you go lyin' to your friend." Uly dipped his head and looked at Billey out of the tops of his eyes. "You can't tell me no woman did those things to you. A good woman brings you into this world, raises you up big and strong, and you go tellin' lies about her. Now what am I supposed to think about that?"

"I dunno."

"I'll tell you what I think. I think a man smashed you up like that. Fact is, I think your daddy did it."

Billey's mouth dropped open, giving Uly a good look at the spaces where his teeth used to hang. Suddenly everything fell into place like the way Billey settled into the deep spot in the mattress in his camper at night. "My daddy whupped me," he said. "He whupped me something good."

"Something bad, you mean." Uly reached out and ran a finger gently over the gash above Billey's eyebrow. "Looks like you been done wronger than a hungry dog. You sure he's your daddy?"

Billey shook his head like he had a drop of water in his ear. "Sure he's my daddy," he said. "Fact, he's my whole family, just like he told me. Ain't nobody else ever give me a can of beans. 'Cept Otis once when the pigs took my daddy."

"That's all mighty fine, but I gotta tell you, I have my doubts, Billey Elwood. I don't know how a man could do that and be your daddy, too."

"Do what?"

Uly clucked his tongue and looked over the ground. "You see where that butt went?"

"I dunno."

Uly squinted and poked his head around like he was trying to see into the cracks in the moonlight. "It musta gone somewheres around here."

"Do what, Uly?"

"What?" He kept peering at the light spots in the gravel like one of them would turn out to be a gold nugget.

"Uly!" Billey shouted to get his attention. "What did you mean that my daddy couldn't do?"

He finally looked up. His eyes glinted in the faint light and he said, "I just figure a man that messes up his own son ain't got no respect—not for you, not for hisself, not for nothin'. You know as well as I do that's no real man. That's a false daddy now, ain't it, Billey?"

"He's my real daddy," Billey protested. "He says he can do any damn thing he please."

"Now, Billey, people been tellin' me what a brain scientist you are and then I hear this trash from your own mouth." Uly scratched his ear. "Let me tell you about this false daddy of yours."

He hopped to the ground and squatted in front of Billey. "Number one, he's gotta be one big mother to make you look like that, and if he's a mother he can't be nobody's daddy. That's just common sense."

Billey opened his mouth but he didn't have time to say anything.

"Number bee, why's he treat you so mean if he's your own blood? I ain't your blood—fact I could be your enemy on earth just pretendin' to be your friend—but you don't see me treatin' you all mean like."

"You said you like me," Billey insisted.

"And I do on a bible. But your blood should like you more than the world."

Uly held his hand in Billey's face and counted off to his third finger. "Three, why'd you come all the way out here in the middle of the night if you ain't got a false daddy?"

Billey felt his lip quiver. His jaw moved without forming words. Hot tears rimmed his eyes.

"Now don't get all emotioned up on me, Billey. See, you don't need no daddy at all anymore and you 'specially don't need no false daddy."

Billey thought a moment and said, "What about my beans? How am I going to eat without my daddy?"

"Billey, Billey, Billey," Uly stepped back and sighed. "Someday, I'm gonna show you how you can eat sirloin steak and get all the respect in the world." He turned and started walking down the trail.

"Where are you going, Uly?" Billey tried to get up, but his knees and hamstrings made him move like an old man. "Can I come?"

Uly looked over his shoulder and said, "I've got some 'portant things to do. You might as well just go back to that false daddy of yours."

Arguing or pleading had never done Billey much good, so he just watched as Uly threaded his way down the path beyond the train tracks. He lifted his hand and heard himself make a little grunting noise, but Uly never did look back.

_________________________

Go back to Chapter 1 of Stress Test.

Read the next chapter.

_________________________

Complete novel is available on amazon.com.

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About the Creator

Alan Gold

Alan Gold lives in Texas. His novels, Stress Test, The Dragon Cycles and The White Buffalo, are available, like everything else in the world, on amazon.

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