by Robert Inman
“The mill has two shifts,” Keats said. He turned back to her. “It used to have three. First shift, eight in the morning until four in the afternoon. Second shift, four ‘til midnight. Third shift, midnight ‘til eight. They cut out third shift a couple of years ago. There wasn’t enough work. They laid a lot of people off. Those that hung onto their jobs were glad to have ‘em.”
Trout looked at his watch. Three-thirty. “Your mother works first shift.”
“Yeah. And Daddy works second. About the time Mama gets home, Daddy’s going to work.”
“Why do they do that?”
Keats snorted angrily, “Ask your Aunt Alma. It was her doing.”
Trout didn’t want to talk about Aunt Alma. So he said, “And you work at Dairy Queen.”
Keats got up suddenly with a clatter of crutches. “Not if I don’t get my fanny on over there.” She headed toward the door, and Trout jumped up from his chair to open it for her. “Don’t you dare!” she snapped.
He stopped in his tracks, felt the anger scurrying up the back of his neck, whispering in his ear. “Yeah,” he snapped back. “You’re pissed, all right. You’re not just abrupt, you’re mad as hell about something. I bet you come home after school and beat your gerbil.” He stepped in front of her, opened the door, walked out on the porch, left the door open behind him, stood at the edge of the porch smouldering.
Down in the yard, Wardell Dubarry was saying to Joe Pike, “I am damned tired of regimentation and standardization, Joe Pike!”
“Regimentation and standardization?”
“Ever’body’s gotta think alike, act alike, kiss ass alike!” He waved his arms at the house. “Ever’body’s house gotta look alike, for God’s sake! Hell, I oughta paint the place red! And go over yonder and paint Dooley Bledsoe’s house blue! And Faye Looney’s pink!”
“Fine!” Joe Pike finally exploded. “Paint ‘em! I’m not gonna get in the middle of all this, Wardell!”
And Wardell was saying to Joe Pike, “You’re already in the middle of it, Joe Pike!”
Then Keats was standing next to him on the porch. “Daddy…” she said. Wardell broke off, looked up at her, and all the anger went out of him. “I got to be at work in fifteen minutes,” she said. “Darnella quit and Herschel says I got to be in early.”
“Sugar, the car ain’t fixed yet.”
“Daddyyyy…” her voice rose.
“We’ll take her,” Joe Pike said.
Wardell gave him a sharp look. “I’ll get her a ride.”
“Look, it’s my fault your car’s not ready. It’s no trouble.”
“No thank you, Joe Pike,” Wardell said stubbornly.
Then Keats clambered down the steps, crutches and legs flailing, and the rest of them just watched. It was amazing. She careened off toward Joe Pike’s Dodge. “I’m gonna ride with Reverend Moseley, Daddy,” she shot back over her shoulder. “Y’all could stand there jawing all day and I’d be out of a job. Herschel doesn’t care how I get there. I can’t see why you do.”
Wardell Dubarry did a slow burn, but there didn’t seem to be much he could do about it. Keats reached the Dodge, opened the front door, threw her crutches inside, vaulted into the seat, slammed the door behind her.
Trout walked down the steps, giving Joe Pike and Wardell a wide berth, waited by the car for a moment, then got in the back seat and rolled down the window. Keats didn’t look at him.
Out in the yard, the two men stood glaring at each other. Trout wondered what he would do if they started fighting. Call Uncle Cicero? But Phinizy had told him the mill village wasn’t even in the city limits, never had been, never would be. Broadus Moseley had seen to that. Maybe, Trout thought, if it came to blows he would just lean over the seat and start honking the horn. Or he might just let them go at it for awhile. It might be a pretty good match. Joe Pike had a sizeable weight advantage, but Wardell Dubarry looked a good deal faster. And he had long arms. But somehow, he couldn’t imagine Joe Pike fighting. For his size and history, he was a gentle man. Wardell Dubarry, now there was a different story. He looked like he might fight you at the drop of a hat. Wardell Dubarry, in fact, looked downright nasty.
But they didn’t fight. After a moment, Trout heard Joe Pike say, “Wardell, I can’t help it if my name’s Moseley. Call it a genetic defect if you want.” Wardell just glared at him. So Joe Pike shrugged, turned on his heel and got in the car.
They were halfway to the Dairy Queen before anybody said anything. Joe Pike said, “That’s what I want to do when I grow up.”
Keats gave him a strange look. “What?”
“Work at Dairy Queen.” They rode on in silence awhile longer. “Actually, I’ve always thought of Dairy Queen as a sort of religious experience. Anything that’s good for the soul, that’s a religious experience. And the taste of a spoonful of ice cream sliding down your throat is good for the soul. It may be what they had in mind when they talked about the Rapture.”
“What’s your favorite?” Keats asked.
“Oh, just the plain old vanilla. But I hasten to add there is not a loser on the menu. Sometimes I like a little crushed pineapple sundae or a chocolate shake. If you want to talk about three-course meal, I’ll go for two foot-long chili dogs and a banana split.”
“Actually,” Keats said, “the Blizzard is my favorite. Only sometimes I juice it up a little bit with some extra nuts or maybe even a splotch of butterscotch. You like butterscotch?”
“Yes ma’am,” Joe Pike said. “I do dearly love butterscotch. Especially from Dairy Queen.”
Good grief, Trout thought. This is ridiculous. To hell with both of them. And he put his head down on the seat and went to sleep.
* * * * *
Joe Pike banged on his door at six the next morning. “Trout, time to roll out.”
“I’m not going,” Trout said.
There was a long silence and then Joe Pike said, “Can I come in?” Joe Pike and Irene had both been good about that, asking before they entered, especially the last few years. You never knew what a teenaged boy might be doing alone in his room. But even if he wasn’t doing anything he wouldn’t want you to barge in on, it was his space. They both seemed to understand that. In fact Joe Pike had said to him a couple of years ago, “Whatever you’re doing in there, it’s okay. You can’t do it too much, you won’t go blind, you won’t grow black hairs on the palm of your hand. Later on, you’ll move on to other things. When you’re ready to do that, you come talk to me.” It was the closest they had ever come to a birds-and-bees talk. It was enough for the time being. It had eased Trout’s mind considerably. But later, when it seemed he might get into Cynthia Stuckey’s pants, he didn’t go talk to Joe Pike. It just didn’t seem the thing to do.
“Come on in,” Trout said now, “But I’m not going.”
Joe Pike eased open the door and peeked into the room. Trout sat up in bed.
“Are you sick?”
Trout thought for a moment. “It’s a holiday.”
“What holiday?”
“Confederate Memorial Day.”
Joe Pike shook his head. “Confederate Memorial Day was last month.”
“But we didn’t celebrate it.”
Outside the open window, they heard a lawnmower start up. Joe Pike walked over to the window and looked out. “Morning,” he called to whoever was outside. “Can I help you?”
“Miz Alma sent me,” said a man’s voice.
“That’s quite all right,” Joe Pike called out. “You tell Miz Alma I cut my own grass.” The lawnmower engine coughed and died. “But I really appreciate it,” Joe Pike said. “God bless you. And Miz Alma.”
He closed the window. “I think we’ll turn the air on today. Radio said it’s gonna get up to ninety. And ain’t even June yet. Of course, that’s Atlanta. I was listening to the Atlanta station. Always hotter in Atlanta because of all that concrete. But still…” his voice trailed off. He stood next to Trout’s bed. “So?”
“I’ll stay hom
e and cut the grass,” Trout said.
“What about school?”
‘I’ve enjoyed about all of Moseley High School I can stand for one year,” Trout said.
“Two days?”
“There’s only three left. School’s out Friday.”
Joe Pike shrugged. “I guess I’m thinking of the principle of the thing. I always like to see a fellow finish what he starts.”
“Well, I’m finished,” Trout said.
“Hmmmm. Well, come on and eat breakfast. It’s on the table. We’ll talk about it.”
Joe Pike had fixed scrambled eggs, instant grits, slightly-burned toast. It was a slight improvement. For awhile after they took Irene away, the toast was inedible, the instant grits were watery, the eggs lumpy. So Trout had taken over cooking breakfast. Joe Pike seemed not to notice. He was working on the motorcycle at the time, and there was a lot he didn’t notice.
Trout smeared blackberry jelly on the toast, and when he took the first bite, he discovered he was ravenously hungry. He had gone straight to bed after they got home the previous afternoon and slept through the night. Now he cleaned his plate in silence and then Joe Pike fixed him two more pieces of toast and he ate those and finally sat back in his chair.
“Is it that bad?”
“It was pretty good.”
“No. I mean school.”
Trout thought about it for a moment. “Nobody talks to me. They look straight through me, like I’m not there. Everybody but Keats Dubarry.”
“Why Keats?”
“I think she thinks I’m some sort of freak. I don’t know. She’s weird. She’s mad at the world.”
“Hmmmm. I guess she comes by it honest.”
“What’s her daddy mad at?”
“The Moseleys. Life. Lack of an auto parts store.”
“Was he always that way?”
“Pretty much. It made him a fairly decent football player. Wardell always acted like somebody was trying to take something away from him. He’d fight you. Wardell played left end and I played right tackle. Run one way, there was Wardell. Run the other, there was me. We did some damage.”
“Were you friends?”
“I always thought so. With Wardell, it was hard to tell sometimes.”
“Did he play football in college?”
“No. Actually, Wardell had an offer. Partial scholarship at a little junior college in Mississippi. But he didn’t take it.”
“Why not?” Trout asked.
“I don’t know. ‘Cause he’s Wardell, I guess.”
“What were you arguing about yesterday?”
Joe Pike’s face clouded. “Nothing you need to worry about, son.”
“Stop it!” Trout shouted before he could catch himself. Joe Pike’s mouth dropped open. Trout couldn’t ever remember yelling at his father before. He ducked his head and stared at his plate. But the anger didn’t go away. It was a new thing, this anger. It seemed to insist on taking up residence.
“Trout?”
“You won’t talk to me. Nobody talks to me. Nobody tells me anything. You all talk in riddles. You tell me what I oughta do, what I oughta think, how I oughta act. But you don’t tell me why!” He looked up. “Why? What’s going on here?”
Joe Pike took a long time to answer. Trout could see him wrestling with himself, and he realized that there was a lot maybe even Joe Pike didn’t know. But dang it, he could tell him what he did!
inally, Joe Pike said, “There’s trouble at the mill.”
I know that. Aunt Alma said so at dinner Sunday.”
To hear Wardell tell it, they’re all riled up over there. Pay’s abysmal, they think some of the working conditions are unsafe. Folks working off the clock…”
What’s that?”
Everybody has a time card. You punch it when you go to work, again when you leave. They call it clocking in and clocking out. Only, some folks clock out and then have to turn around and go right back to work for another hour or so.”
Without getting paid?”
Yes.”
Isn’t that illegal?”
Yes.”
Why do they do it?”
Word gets around. Want to keep your job, you put in a few extra hours.”
What does Mister Dubarry want you to do about it?”
Stop it.”
Can you?”
Joe Pike ran his fingers through his hair, wiggled his head from side to side for a moment, then looked out the kitchen window at the church building next door. Then back at Trout. “I don’t run the mill. Alma does.”
hen Trout said quietly, “But you’re a Moseley.”
Yes.”
Mister Dubarry said you’re in the middle whether you like it or not.”
“Yes. That’s what Wardell said.”
They sat there for awhile pondering that. And then Joe Pike said emphatically, “I don’t need this. I just damned well don’t need this.”
“Are you sorry we came?”
“We didn’t really have much of a choice, Trout.”
“Because the Bishop said so?”
“Partly. Circumstances, you know…” he waved in the general direction of the storage shed out back. The motorcycle. All it represented.
“What happened in the game?” Trout asked.
“You mean The Game?”
“Yes. The extra point.”
Joe Pike gaze went back to the window, brows knitted. “I fell down,” he said finally.
“Fell down?”
Joe Pike looked back at him. “We scored with thirty seconds to go. Twenty-one to twenty. Coach Blaylock sent in twenty-five slant smash for the extra point.”
“What’s that?”
“A play. Quarterback hands the ball off to the left halfback, he slants across and runs behind the right tackle.”
“Why didn’t you kick the extra point?”
“In 1953, in Georgia high school football, kicking an extra point was considered sissy. So you run it. Run or kick, it was the same back then – one point”
“Why do they call the play ‘smash?’”
A flicker of a smile played around the corners of Joe Pike’s mouth. “Because I’m the right tackle and I’m the biggest, meanest sonofabitch on the line of scrimmage.”
Trout was taken aback. He had never heard Joe Pike use the word before. But this was Joe Pike the football player, a person out of the past, long before preaching, long before Trout. “And you…”
“Fell down. My feet got tangled up and I just fell flat on my face. The halfback climbed clear up my back, but he couldn’t get over the top. Linebacker nailed him. Didn’t gain an inch.”
Trout thought about Orzell Blaylock, sitting there in the principal’s office with the trophy gathering dust behind him on the air conditioner. Runner-up. “I think Mr. Blaylock’s still mad about it.”
“I imagine they all are,” Joe Pike said. “For most folks, it was the biggest thing that ever happened here, being in the state championship game. But for a Moseley, it might not be such a big deal, you see. The only Moseley in the whole stadium was me. I fell down, but I got up and went on with my life. Went places and saw things. Rest of ‘em…well, they just stayed here.”
“Didn’t your mama and daddy come to the game?”
“No.”
They sat there and pondered that in silence for a moment. There didn’t seem to be much more to say. Then Joe Pike heaved himself up out of his chair with a grunt and busied himself, stacking the breakfast dishes, carrying them to the sink where he added them to a growing pile. Aunt Alma had installed a brand-new dishwasher in the kitchen, but Joe Pike was wary of it. A man who could take apart a motorcycle and put it back together, buffaloed by a dishwasher. He turned to Trout, leaned against the counter. “So, what are we going to do about this incipient rebellion?”
“What?”
“You refusing to go to school.”
Trout shrugged.
“You want me to tell you something? Okay, I’ll tell
you something I’ve never told you before.” Trout sat quietly, waiting. “You’ve surprised me, Trout. You were a terror as a little kid. Always into something. Testing the limits. When you were two, we used to sit down at the table for a meal and I’d say, ‘Okay, Trout, turn over your milk so we can get started.’ And you would. Or maybe you wouldn’t. Just sit there and scrunch up your face and look at me.” Joe Pike smiled, remembering. “I used to think, this is going to be one pain-in-the-butt teenager. But then all of a sudden you seemed to get over it. And the older you got, the easier you were to handle. It was like the hormones worked in reverse on you. You sort of mellowed out.”
Mellowed out? Damn, Trout thought, he really missed that one. There was no mellowing about it. If anything, just the opposite. There was that point a few years before when he had become aware of the growing tension in the house -- of disappointment, dissatisfaction, even anger. He could feel it. And he began to feel it at approximately the same time he began to stumble into puberty. The two, he assumed, must be at least in some part connected – a noisy, messy, awkward kid underfoot, body changing alarmingly, voice squeaking, moods swinging wildly. Maybe they had taken a look at him one day said to themselves, What is going on here? We wanted a kid, but this little gawky freak? He wanted to ask questions, but Irene was so quiet and distant, Joe Pike so preoccupied, he didn’t know how to approach them. So he did the only thing he could think of. He tried to be good. He picked up his clothes, kept his room reasonably clean, tried not to slam doors or complain about the steady diet of oldies on the radio. When he had a wet dream he was careful to wash out his pajamas in the bathroom lavatory before he put them in the laundry hamper. He even tried to like math and rutabagas. He was sure, somehow, that if he were truly good, if he made no mess and caused no uproar or embarassment, Irene would get better and Joe Pike would come to himself and things would be right again. Instead, the silences deepened. So he tried harder than ever. And the harder he tried, the more the silences deepened until finally they took Irene away and left the great emptiness, left Trout baffled and exhausted. No matter how hard he had tried, it wasn’t enough. But by then, he had formed the habit of being desperately good. He didn’t quite know how to go about being bad. Marijuana made him throw up. Girls with bad reputations scared the hell out of him. The one time he would have willingly sinned, ached to sin, Cynthia Stuckey had stopped him. He was sick to death of all this goodness, but he felt trapped, confused, alone, sometimes desperate, because goodness just didn’t work. Mellow? Horseshit.