A Cry of Angels

by Jeff Fields

  By twelve o'clock the job was finished and the carpenters went home. He hadn't said it was a full day's work he was offering, but he hadn't said otherwise either. Nevertheless, I was glad it was over. Em and I stood waiting at the pumphouse for our pay while Hutchinson busied himself in the house. It finally occurred to us, from the sounds coming from the kitchen, that he was having his dinner. He kept us waiting for over an hour. At last he came shuffling across the yard, his face sour with the prospect of paying out money. "Let's see now," he said, thumbing through his time book.

  "Six twenty-five," Em said.

  Hutchinson's head jerked up. "What?"

  "Five hours, at seventy five for me, fifty for the boy."

  "You started at eight o'clock! I looked at my watch the minute we drove in the yard."

  "I seen you did, so I checked it too. It was a little before seven."

  "I'll be damned!" shouted Hutchinson. "You ain't comin' on my place and skinnin' me, you goddamned-gypsy or whatever you are! Here's five dollars, and that's twice what you're worth, the both of you!"

  Em was trembling, his breath growing erratic.

  I stepped in front of him and took the money.

  "Em," I spoke quickly, keeping my voice down, "I know you want to hit him, but if you hit him right now you'll kill him, and they'll put you away and I don't need you put away. I need you with me right now. And besides, it wouldn't be worth gettin' put away for killing the likes of him. A lyin', cheatin', robbin' son of a bitch like him. But he needs hittin', somebody ought to hit him, but not somebody that'll kill him, so I guess it ought to be me!" And with that I turned and smacked the startled farmer as hard as I could across the mouth.

  He staggered back a few steps and touched his bleeding lip in amazement. Em was even more amazed, so much so he forgot his anger. "Well, I'll be damned," he said. Hutchinson, a little pale under his whiskers, lost no time retreating to the house. "I'll be damned," Em said. He said it over and over as we walked back to town, looking at me from time to time, his dark eyes shining with pride.

  "He done what?" laughed Jayell that night at Dirsey's, and as Em told it again he broke up, pounding his casted leg on the floor.

  "Said, 'Don't you hit him, Em, you'll get us in trouble.' Then—whap! right in the chops. Surprised me more'n it did old man Hutchinson!" Em doubled over with laughter.

  Jayell fought down a coughing fit and ordered more beers. "He's Esther's blood all right," said Dirsey. "By the way, what you hear from her lately?"

  "We got a letter here from her yesterday," I said. I fished it out of my pocket. "And there's something in it about you, Dirsey."

  "Yeah," said Em, "read him that part.''

  "It's at the bottom, but I'll come to it," I said.

  "Got to do things in order, of course," Em said. "He's her blood," he said, nodding.

  "Ssh, Em," said Jayell.

  I read:

  Dear Everybody, Farette and Earl,

  Rec. your letter Mrs. Bell, and so glad to hear. Hope this finds you all well. I am about to get over the summer cold I had—from the change of climate I guess—and am ready to go again. It is awful hot here now. I was surprised at it being this hot in North Carolina, but Vance laughed at me and said N.C. and Georgia wasn't that far apart in their weather. I guess I just forgot. It's been so long. Well I'm really glad to hear Earl is getting along well. I could still skin him for running off like that, but if he wants to stay on a while I guess it's all right. I know you all will look after him. Any expense he causes you now, you send me the bill and I'll see Vance pays it. We'll see if he laughs about that. Ha! ha! Must close now as Lucille is not feeling well and I have to fix dinner for the twins. Oh, and I was really tickled about that good for nothing Jojohn planting him a garden. I never thought I'd see the day he'd raise anything besides h—. Anyhow, anything that may keep him from spending so much time at that sorry Dirsey's can't do him anything but good. Pls. keep well and write soon.

  Love to all, Esther."

  "Can't do him anything but good!" laughed Dirsey, relishing it. "Oh, there ain't but one of Miss Esther. I remember the night she come down here after Wylie. Come through that door hotter'n a two-dollar pistol and, brothers, I mean she lit'ally cleaned house! Grabbed that deer up there"—Dirsey turned and pointed over the bar to the buck's head, which had one antler broken off—"I had it hanging over by the door then, and she commenced to swing it this-away—like a sickle, don't you know—and didn't she have those gentlemen climbin' the walls! In two minutes flat there wasn't a bottle left standing nor a customer on the place but Wylie, and she left here behind him—goosin' him with that damned horn! He told me she probed him all the way home!"

  Dirsey leaned on the bar until the laughter subsided. "Yessir, that Esther was sump'n else. I'm gonna miss her. I guess the old folks miss her too. What's become of them now?"

  "They're stayin' on at the house," said Em. "The son of a bitch that bought the place has upped the rent on 'em, but they're toughin' it out as best they can."

  "The hell you say—upped the rent! Who bought it?"

  "Who the hell knows," said Jayell. "One or another of them blue-blood bastards that owns every other square inch of this town! You know how they do, buy up little bits and pieces of property here and there on the quiet until they get a big enough chunk to put up a big business or development and turn a whopping profit. Did you know they bought the Blue Light quarry property off an old colored woman for fifty dollars an acre?"

  Dirsey whistled softly. "And how many million has it turned over?''

  "It'll never change," said Jayell. "Pretty soon there'll be twelve of 'em ownin' the world and chargin' the rest of us rent. Hell, I expect Luther Pierce to sell that shop property out from under me any day."

  "Speakin' of which, Jaybird," said Em, "when you gonna get that place cranked up again? Me and the boy here could use some work."

  Jayell twisted his beer on the counter. "I don't know, Em. Don't look like I ever will. Right now I couldn't get financin' to build a doghouse. Got to do something, though, and soon."

  "Listen at him poor-mouth," said Dirsey, "Mr. Marble Park. Talk about your blue-bloods . . ."

  Jayell slammed down his beer. "Goddamnit, don't talk to me about that place! I wish I had never heard that name! Them and their dinner parties and their damned bridge games. You know what my wife had me doin' yesterday . . . addressin' envelopes beggin' money for the Community Chest! And us sittin' up there eatin' tuna fish sandwiches. And I done it! That's what stumps me. I done it! God-a-mighty-damn!"

  "Well, that job with Smithbilt's still open, ain't it?" said Em.

  "You can get around well enough to do that."

  "Yeah—yeah, Smithbilt. Jesus, if I had this past year to do over again . . ." Jayell gritted his teeth. "You know, I'll wonder until the day I die if that damned Fay didn't push that ladder out from under me. I wouldn't put it past that Bobo one minute."

  Dirsey shook his head. "One of these days somebody's gonna kill that son of a bitch."

  "Won't be a day too soon," muttered Em.

  Dirsey looked at him. "I'm surprised you and him ain't crossed paths somewhere already."

  Em shook his head. "He leaves me alone. I leave him alone."

  "Well," said Dirsey, "Mr. Bobo's time might not be long off, the way things are goin'. Lot of folks stirred up about that Supreme Court thing. Did you know there's talk around town about organizin' a Klan?"

  "Shoot," said Jayell, wiping his mouth, "that won't bother the Fathers. They'll keep a lid on things. Just gives 'em a new bogeyman."

  "Fathers?" said Dirsey. "Who're you talking about, Jayell?"

  "The Southern Fathers!" said Jayell, getting into his preaching voice again. "That same land-owning, mill-owning little intermarried club of blue-bloods I was talking about before. Those almighty bastards and their watchdog politicians who've always run the South like it was their own private plantation, that's who I'm talking about!"

  Dirsey eyed the nu
mber of bottles Em was absently forming into a circle on the bar. "Yeah, well, tell you what, Jayell, you've had a bad time . . . why don't you go on home and get some sleep and . . ."

  But Jayell was just warming to his subject. He propped his elbow on the bar and wavered a finger at Dirsey. "Didn't you go hear Senator Broward's speech at the auditorium last night? 'Never!' he said. 'No, sir, not a thing to worry about, go back to work, go back to sleep; it's just another bogeyman, and we'll protect you. The structure is intact.'" Jayell's shoulders tightened in a futile gesture. "Don't you see, the Fathers have always ruled the South like it was a dull child, a child taught to work for nothing and want little. And to be controlled, a child's got to know the bogeyman! And they give us the bogeymen, don't they? Over the years, they've played the campaign trails with a trunkful of costumes, but there's two of them—a little frayed from use—that still remain as favorites. They never fail to fetch the crowd: the Federal Government, that old enemy on the Potomac whose sworn purpose is to bleed to death and gobble up the South, and that Dark Lurking Menace in the Ape Yards."

  Jayell drained his bottle and set it down. Conversation had stopped at Dirsey's; other customers had turned and were listening. "And now they've got the bogeyman for the fifties, haven't they, and he's special, made-to-order, a perfect combination of the other two!" Jayell leaned forward, his face darkened to a sinister scowl. "A nine-headed monster in the black judicial robes of the highest Court!

  "But," he said, leaning back, eyes bulging, "like the Senator said, there's not a thing to worry about. They haven't even set a date for compliance—why there's years and years of political maneuvering ahead! And as everybody knows, in the fine art of delaying progress, Southern politicians are recognized masters!"

  "Progress?" said a man down the bar. "You call mixing the schools progress?"

  "Hey, come on, Jayell," said Dirsey under his breath, eyeing the others, "hold it down a little bit, will you."

  But Jayell, heartened by the challenge to his opinion, turned and regarded the man solemnly. He slowly slid down off the stool.

  "Jayell . . ." Dirsey moved after him down the bar, shrugging to the other man about Jayell's condition. "Em!" he called, jerking his head rapidly.

  Jayell limped up to the man, who readied himself. But Jayell only stood looking at him. He turned to the others and raised his arms in benediction. "No worry, my children," he said soothingly. "Go back to sleep. This is the New South, not the old. The Fathers want no disruption in the industrial generation. Not now, just when things are booming! Go back to sleep, and be glad this is the twentieth century and not the nineteenth, when the Fathers' needs were different, and they cried alarm! And you, my gentle brothers, were called upon to lead us into the nation's bloodiest war."

  At Dirsey's frantic urging, Em finally sighed and shuffled down the bar and lifted Jayell under his arm. "Pore little fool. Ain't never had no sense. Never will have none." I held the door open for them.

  Dirsey, greatly relieved, was wiping the bar. "Next time you write your Aunt Esther, you tell her hello for me, son, you'll do that for me, won't you?" he called. "Tell her old Dirsey sends his love."

  I waved and let the door go.

  24

  As the days went by at Cooper Corner we learned not to be so quick to step forward, and when men of Hutchinson's reputation came we watched the black people for the hesitation, the polite mutterings of work already promised, and let their trucks go by. It was good to be out early again and working. We bolted a quick breakfast at the bus station, the only place open at that time of the morning, and raced each other to the corner, shouting to hear our voices bounce off the darkened buildings.

  But it was a summer of mercilessly hard work. I crawled for miles through fields dragging baskets and sacks; I unloaded truckloads of feed and fertilizer, stacked thousands of bricks. I stood all day in sweltering woods cutting pulpwood and slapping mosquitoes, rocking a cross-cut saw in the endless monotony that blurs the hours and makes the mind go wandering for beautiful things. And later, watched red cracks open in my hands from wrenching corn from withered stalks and shoveling it about in cribs of black dust that left my lungs aching for days after.

  Em kept after me, goading, pushing, yelling when he caught me hopefully watching a dark cloud on the horizon that might rain us out. "'Course it's hard work. Ever' child ought to be made to do work he hates to do, so he'll want to get out and find sump'n better!"

  The pleasures were simple: the taste of water at three o'clock in the afternoon, the soothing massage of a vibrating truck bed on aching thighs, calluses that came to toughen split and bleeding flesh.

  I felt myself perceptibly aging that summer, work will age you as surely as time. I got up slower and sighed like the men when I sat down. But there was a hardening too, and that felt good. My hands were like bark when I washed. There were no new muscles that I could see, but I was lean and tough and didn't tire as easily, and, best of all, my left arm was becoming almost as strong as my right.

  To Em, life was singing again. He had work he could throw himself into, he had money for Dirsey's and Deva's, and above all, he had his garden.

  He was out there every morning before I was awake, and as soon in the evening as he could get home, hoeing, fertilizing, suckering, stringing bean runners, hauling water from the well and talking to the vegetables. And let a bug be caught sunning itself on one of Em's leaves, or a worm be found with its head in one of his tomatoes, and the next instant the poor creature was headed toward oblivion under the dancing boots of the incoherently screaming Indian.

  "Boy, look at this! Just look at this!"

  Em worried and fretted along the line of overripe tomatoes on the sills; he picked up cucumbers, squash, bell peppers, clucking like a mother hen over her eggs, running his fingers over withering skins. Peas lay wilting in the sink.

  The garden, such a nuisance in the planting, now presented us with another problem.

  Overabundance.

  I was sick of vegetables. I never wanted to see another vegetable, and still that garden produced.

  "Why don't you throw them out? Give them away!"

  "What! Precious as vegetables are? Do you know what prices they're bringin' these days?"

  "Well, I'll tell you this, I'm not eatin' another vegetable for breakfast!"

  "What we need is an icebox!" Em pushed back his hat, thinking. "You know what? Tio said they throwed out that old drink box when they was redoin' the store."

  "I know. I wish they hadn't done that."

  "I'll bet you it's still around somewhere, and that'd make a perfect icebox! Let's go take a look!"

  We walked down the woods to the newly renovated store.

  It hardly looked like the same place. Tio had repainted it, inside and out, with bright red trim and put new green vegetable bins out front. There was a new sign over the door, and the gas pumps, painted blue and silver, stood in the yard like a pair of admirals.

  Tio stood under the awning in a bright new apron with his name hand-inked on the pocket. We politely stopped to check for improvements that needed praising. I wanted that icebox as bad as Em at that point, and Tio in a sulk would get us nowhere. "I don't believe I've seen that before," I said eagerly, pointing to the flashing red light in the peanut-parching machine.

  "Kind of catches your eye, don't it?" acknowledged Tio.

  "Bright as a blessed rainbow," said Em, looking over the store. "It just don't look like the same place."

  "We're gonna show 'em," said Tio. "We're gonna show 'em good."

  "Don't knows I'd a picked that color, though," said Em, looking at the nervous orange of the kerosene pump. "Most kerosene pumps I've seen were green."

  "That makes ours different then, don't it?" said Tio.

  "I kind of like it," I said, cutting an eye at Em. "What more natural way to advertise kerosene than to paint it the color of fire?" Jojohn, having realized his error, smiled with relief. "Ah, boy, you got a head on your shoulders."<
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  "Come look inside!" Tio said.

  The entire store had been scrubbed and rearranged. The shelves sported a new coat of white, and the floor boards were so clean they looked boiled. The counters were freshly topped with bright linoleum, and squares of it marched away up the stairs. Mr. Teague, in a new bow tie, fidgeted and turned in the checkout cubicle like a cat trying to get comfortable in a corner. "Tio will have to find what you need," he called out, "I don't know where nothing is anymore!"

  "That's what the signs is for," said Tio. He lowered his voice. "Hardest part of all was to get him to go self-service. Mr. Teague still thinks you got to run and wait on folks. Here, wait up, Em, get you a shopping cart." He snatched a flimsy contraption away from the wall.

  "We don't need a shopping . . ." Em stopped and stared at it. "That looks like a baby carriage."

  Tio grinned. "That's what it was before I made it over. It's a pistol, ain't it?"

  "Look," said Em, "what we came about is, I figured we could make an icebox out of that old drink box y'all throwed out. Is it still around?"

  "Yeah, it's out back there." He led us out into the weeds behind the store and pulled aside a piece of rotted plywood. "I hated to see it go; it was one of our main attractions. The new box don't freeze drinks yet, but I'm working on it."

  We dragged the box back to the front of the store and lifted the lid. It had a fist-size hole in the bottom and the sheathing was rusted loose, but the insulated box inside seemed solid enough. Tio had salvaged the frame and motor for possible use elsewhere.

  "Made to order," said Em, and sent Tio back for his tools. Mr. Teague came out complaining of the slowest business day he'd seen in months, and sat on the bench under the awning to watch. "Gonna make an icebox outa that, are you? Tio's about ruined the new box trying to make it freeze drinks like that one did. Fool froze up and busted a whole case of drinks last week." Mr. Teague looked from Em to me. "Whole damn case of drinks . . ."