Free The Paper Cowboy by Kristin Levine Page A

hammer and sickle on the new glass. The symbol of communism. I picked up the sponge and scrubbed and scrubbed. It came off slowly. My insides felt rubbed raw too, guilt and regret peeling the lining of my stomach like old wallpaper.
    â€œIs this . . . because of me?” I asked finally.
    â€œWhy would it be your fault, Tommy?” His tone was even, but there was an edge to his voice.
    He knew. I knew he knew. And I was just so tired. I wanted to stop hearing Mindszenty’s mother say, “It only takes a little poison” over and over in my head. Even so, I was a little bit surprised when I heard myself admit, “Because I was the one who planted that paper.”
    â€œOh,” he said quietly, not looking at me, not stopping his scrubbing. “Then I imagine it is.”
    That wasn’t what I’d expected. “I didn’t mean—”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter what you intended,” he said. “The damage has been done. It’s easy to start a rumor. Much harder to stop it.”
    I scrubbed harder. The paint chips stuck under my fingernails like bits of dried blood.
    We finally got the last of the paint off and went inside. I was glad to sweep out the store and to move boxes. Little Skinny worked the register, but there were few customers that day. He was careful never to catch my eye.
    â€œSlow day,” Mr. McKenzie said once.
    I had a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. Mr. McKenzie having no customers, my sister needing to learn to walk again, my mom’s moods, it was all my fault. But thinking about it made me feel even worse, so I focused on mopping the store’s floor like my life depended on it, noticing nothing but the stuck-on dirt.
    At noon, Mr. McKenzie put up the CLOSED FOR LUNCH sign. I took off my apron and hung it up. “I’ll see you next week,” I said.
    â€œNo,” said Mr. McKenzie. “Come on back and have a sandwich, Tommy. I want to talk to you.”
    Now, I’ll admit it. I was scared. I’d heard that some shop owners kept a shotgun in the back room. He was probably really mad at me, and rightly so. Maybe he thought I’d thrown the brick too!
    â€œTommy,” he repeated. “The back room.”
    As I followed him, I felt just like Gary Cooper in
High Noon,
walking down the street to confront the bad guys all alone.
    In the back room were a table and four chairs. Little Skinny was sitting at the table. Mr. McKenzie gestured for me to sit too, then pulled three root beers out of a cooler and sat down at the table.
    â€œTommy, do you know about Senator McCarthy?” Mr. McKenzie asked.
    That puzzled me. I expected him to yell at me, not chat with me about politics. “’Course I know about him,” I said. “He’s rooting out all the communists in the government.”
    â€œThat’s what he says he’s doing. Others think he’s just spreading fear and terror. Conducting a witch hunt, accusing innocent people and destroying their reputations for his own reasons.”
    I thought about
Guilty of Treason
again and how the communists had made up false charges against Mindszenty. Surely our own government wasn’t doing the same.
    Mr. McKenzie went on. “By planting that paper in my store, you were playing into that hysteria. Now, I hope this will all blow over. Just another mean rumor. We’re already known to be Gypsies, even if we did change our name to McKenzie. But if it doesn’t blow over, if the rumor keeps people out of the store . . . well, I don’t want to think about what would happen then.”
    â€œWhat would happen then?” I asked.
    â€œWe might not be able to pay my wife’s medical bills. We might lose the store.”
    Little Skinny stared at the floor, his face so pale, it made his scar look even redder.
    â€œYour wife . . . ,” I said slowly, putting all the pieces together, “is in the