Holding on to Nothing

by Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne

  They had a twenty-two-acre tobacco allotment, all the profits split evenly between them. Deanna did none of the back-breaking work—none of the plowing, planting, topping, or sticking. She dealt with the money, the insurance, and the Farm Bureau. Even though he had no head for figures and couldn’t have done it himself, Jeptha was sure she was getting off easy.

  He had come to hate growing tobacco, or least growing tobacco with his siblings. He hated seeing the stalks loom up in the summer, hated how aware he was of how much work went into every cigarette he smoked. In every leaf looming up over the long, hot summer, all he could see was the misery of being forever yoked to his family. He dreamed of buying a plot of land for himself and growing whatever he wanted on it. Even if he failed, it’d be his failure. But Jeptha had no cash, no extra reserves of money set aside for something like that. Instead, he settled for telling Bobby there had to be a better way to make money off the land. Bobby kept asking what he had in mind. Jeptha had no idea, but he was sure that no man was meant to work so hard for so little.

  Bobby had insisted they plant tobacco, like their dad and his dad before them. But it didn’t take a genius to see that hefting three hundred pounds around the tobacco field was no easy job. As a result, every awful task—every knee bend, root check, or crawl through a row in ninety-two-degree heat to look at the underside of the biggest leaves—fell to Jeptha. At the end of every day, he emerged filthy from his fingernails to his ankles and smelling of fresh tobacco, a scent that made him both crave and despise the thought of a cigarette. They did as much of the work themselves as they could, but still, between fertilizing, topping off the flowers, and paying a couple of Mexicans to come out and help stick it into four-foot bunches that hung to dry in the barn, profit wasn’t something Jeptha was terribly well-acquainted with.

  Suppressing a gag at the taste of the coffee, Jeptha closed the door behind him and started into the field. His long legs caught up with Bobby’s waddle in a few steps. Together, they waded into the tobacco, six feet high and already lacing the air with the leathery, spicy scent that would intensify when it was hung and dried in a month. Theirs was quiet, long, hot work—checking for fungus, topping the flowers to force the tobacco to put its energy into the leaves, and keeping an eye for tobacco worms that would mean spending money they didn’t have for spray.

  “Damn, man. Ever time I look over there, you got a smile on your face. You just get some or something?” Bobby asked from the row next to Jeptha.

  “Get some? Did you see anybody in my trailer just now?”

  “Then how come you’re so happy?”

  Jeptha hid his face behind one particularly tall plant. “Just enjoying life,” he lied. “Ain’t you ever felt that way?”

  “Not when I’m sweating my way through a field of untopped tobacco, I ain’t.”

  “I ain’t saying I’m happy about this,” Jeptha said, gesturing at the long rows in front of them. “But I got something good happening tonight.”

  Bobby stopped and eyed Jeptha. “Oh yeah. Like what?”

  “Heading up to Carter’s.”

  “Me and Kayla was thinking of heading up. You don’t see me smiling like a dumbass kid at Christmas.”

  “I’m taking someone with me.”

  “Like I said, I’m taking Kayla.”

  “Y’all been doing that forever. This is someone new.”

  “Who?” Bobby asked, his eyes narrowed and lips curled.

  Jeptha didn’t want to say Lucy’s name, didn’t want to ruin what seemed so precarious. But Bobby squeezed his way through two plants and into Jeptha’s row. He stood in front of Jeptha waiting for his answer.

  “Lucy Kilgore,” Jeptha said quietly.

  “That’s hilarious. Who are you really taking?”

  “I’m taking Lucy Kilgore,” Jeptha said, his voice raised.

  “Damn, man. She’s a little out of your league, ain’t she?” he asked.

  “She said yes. So I guess I’ll let her decide,” Jeptha said defensively, fidgeting with the plant beside him.

  Bobby rustled back through the row. “Well, good luck. Don’t do nothing too stupid.”

  Jeptha looked down to see he had shredded the tip of the leaf in his hand. He dropped his hands. “Thanks, man. That’s real helpful.”

  They were quiet for a few minutes as they worked their way to the end of the row, going faster as they neared the end.

  “She don’t think I’m stupid,” Jeptha said as he got to the last plant.

  “What’s that?” Bobby asked as he straightened up and wiped his forehead.

  “I said, she don’t think I’m stupid.”

  Bobby wiped his brow again and looked back toward the other end of the field. “Well, she don’t know you real well yet, does she?”

  Jeptha tried like hell to ignore Bobby’s words. He tried to focus on the work and on the thought of Lucy’s face when she’d asked him to the Fold. But the words followed him through the rows of tobacco and into his trailer a few hours later. He stood in front of the fridge, staring sightlessly into the depths, wanting to rebuke Bobby, but lacking any ammunition to do so. When he thought of Lucy’s face that first night—as he held his mandolin and played the best set of his life—he could almost believe he was something better, someone worth her time. But Bobby’s words pricked at him, made him want to dive headfirst into the case of beer in front of him and never come out.

  He knew he wasn’t much, wasn’t ever going to cure cancer or be famous for something or, hell, even be known as a hard worker. He wasn’t much better than his father had been. But, prior to the night with Lucy, he had forgotten that he ever wanted to be.

  When he thought at all about the kind of man he was, which was rare as a summer blizzard, he figured he was no better or worse than any other man, especially the ones from his family. He worked as much as he needed in order to survive and drank more than maybe he should, but there wasn’t anyone else counting on him. He couldn’t see that it mattered much, despite what Rick Mullins said when he pulled him over early in the summer, trying to pin another drunk driving charge on him. But now, with Bobby’s words needling him, he worried that his brother was right. He thought of how Lucy had dodged him when he first asked for a date, how she’d wanted nothing to do with him when he tried to talk to her last night, and, mostly, how her face had fallen immediately after they’d had sex. She’d probably asked him out last night out of pity. Jeptha could not stand pity. He’d rather she hated him than pitied him. She probably thought as little of him as his brother did.

  He shivered as the fridge’s cool air wafted over his skin. He wrestled an Old Milwaukee out of the cardboard case on the top shelf, where it sat beside a jar of pickles and a block of cheese fuzzed with green mold, and gulped the beer down in two breaths. His stomach and mind calmed as the beer reacquainted itself with his body. He immediately stooped to grab another one and drank this one slowly, savoring the sea of calm that swept over him. This was more like it. More like himself. Maybe he should say fuck it about tonight, drink himself stupid with Cody, and pretend none of this shit with Lucy had ever happened. The sex had been great, he thought as his body stirred, but everything after had unsettled him, made him think all kinds of thoughts he didn’t have any use for.

  He got in the shower, needing to scrub the tarry, spicy scent of tobacco off his body. The beer had dulled the drumbeat of Bobby’s words to a barely noticeable hum. He reached out to the soap shelf and found it empty. With the water still running, he hunted around under his sink, dripping water all over the floor. All he could find was a bottle of bright green no-scent soap left over from last year’s deer season. The stuff didn’t lather for shit, but at least he wouldn’t smell like a tobacco field. Before he went back into the shower, he finished off the third beer he’d left on the sink for just this purpose. The words quieted again. He soaped himself down—his legs and trunk and shoulders a stark white against the warm brown of his forearms and hands. It was only July but, like e
very man in the county, his farmer’s tan was in full effect.

  With the towel wrapped around his waist, he checked his phone. He still had an hour and five minutes before he was supposed to be at Lucy’s. An hour and five minutes to decide whether he even wanted to go. He stood in the foot of space between his bed and dresser, reveling in the unusual smell of fresh laundry. He’d finally gone to the Laundromat for the first time in a month yesterday when everything had been worn many more times than twice. He looked out at the tobacco in front of him and Bobby’s words in his head got louder for a minute, but he took a sip of his beer and pushed them away. He picked out a blue plaid shirt with shell snap buttons, the last present his mama had ever given him, remembering how she had told him it would bring out his eyes. He didn’t know if he should even go through with it tonight, but a man had to get dressed regardless. At least this way he was ready. He snatched his clean jeans off the floor and slipped on his well-worn brown boots. The toes were scuffed nearly to his socks, but they were still wearable. He ran a hand through his buzz cut, not sure it made any difference at all, and then, as happy with his looks as he ever was, he walked into the kitchen.

  Jeptha heard his dog, Crystal Gayle, nosing around on the porch. He grabbed his mandolin and what was left of the case of beer and joined her. As he sat on the graying fabric of the red lawn chair, Crystal Gayle nuzzled her head under his hand. He lay the mandolin down on the porch far away from her paws and rubbed her down from muzzle to tail. She quivered with joy. Crystal Gayle had a lab’s build, tall and lean down the back, but verging on stocky up front. Like her namesake, she had a long lustrous coat of hair, chestnut-colored in the dog’s case. She would have been gorgeous but for two lower teeth that stuck out like an upside down vampire and a Mohawk of thick, spiky hair down the middle of her back, exactly the color and texture of the German Shepherd two doors down. That local valley stud had knocked up her mom, Loretta, because Jeptha, Bobby, and Deanna had been too broke and lazy to get her fixed. Loretta had produced a legendary litter of eleven of the mangiest mutts anyone had ever seen. Crystal Gayle was the runt, the ugliest of the bunch. But, a day after the pups were born, she had taken eight toddling steps over to Jeptha’s outstretched hand, climbed aboard, and fallen asleep on his chest as he stroked the Mohawk on her back with his finger. They had tried to sell the puppies, but the poor things were too ugly for anyone to buy. They gave away as many as they could, five in all.

  Jeptha had told no one about the night Bobby had appeared at his door with a squirmy burlap sack in one hand and a huge rock in the other, saying, “I’m heading to the creek. You coming?” Jeptha had shook his head no and shut the door in his brother’s face. He had gone back to the couch, where a three-week-old Crystal Gayle lay curled on the pillow that used to be his, and petted her until she fell into a deep sleep.

  Three years later, he was still glad he’d hidden her from Bobby that night. He spent more time talking to her than anyone. He leaned down and hugged her to his chest. “You’re a good girl, aren’t you, Crystal?”

  She wagged her tail and licked his cheek.

  “Supposed to go on a date tonight, with a really nice girl. You’d like her, probably more than you like me,” he said, scratching behind her ears. “Bobby thinks I ain’t good enough for her. I can’t decide if it’s even worth trying. You think I oughta go?”

  She woofed twice, then turned in a circle three times and lay down so that her head rested on the edge of the porch, her body curved around in front of Jeptha, placed so he could stroke her with his foot while he played.

  “Was that a yes?” he asked.

  Crystal Gayle looked over her shoulder at him and arched her back closer to his foot. He rubbed her with his foot, and she lay her head back down, contented. “You’re the only one on this farm thinks I’m worth a damn,” he said to her. “And that’s only ’cause I rub your back.”

  He grabbed his mandolin then and picked out the opening notes of “East Tennessee Blues.” He’d been trying to get the tempo down for weeks, but between the beers and the heat, his fingers wouldn’t move fast enough. He soon gave up trying. He rested the mandolin on his lap and looked up at the sky, his eyes heavy under the influence of the five beers he’d had.

  IT WASN’T UNTIL he heard a truck crunching up the gravel driveway that he realized he’d fallen asleep. Jeptha jerked his head up as his friend Cody lumbered out of the dark blue Ford F-150, pulling a black Harley Davidson t-shirt down to cover his belly, a job the shirt had long since sized out of.

  “What are you doing here?” Jeptha asked.

  “Brought you a present,” Cody said, hefting up a case of beer.

  “Aw man, you shouldn’t have,” Jeptha said. He thought about going in to check the time, but the light looked the same as it had when he fell asleep. He was sure it had only been a minute. Besides, the drunker he got, the less he thought he was going to go at all. Maybe he’d call up that Bendy Brandy girl—she didn’t seem to care much what kind of man he was.

  The porch swayed from side to side as Cody mounted the steps. His friend’s black hair curled long in the back while the front stopped above his eyebrows. Jeptha had never had much use for the mullet, but it had been Cody’s cut since he was seventeen. The man was loyal to it. There was something about it that brought out his small, upturned nose and his pink cheeks, where baby fat had solidified into adult fat. Jeptha would never have said as much to his friend, but sometimes when Cody spoke, Jeptha saw the talking pig from that kids’ movie they’d once showed in school, about a pig and a spider. Like Jeptha, Cody sported the same farmer’s tan on his arms, but unlike Jeptha, Cody wasn’t embarrassed by it. He cut off the sleeves of his t-shirts himself, and his shoulders shone white and blubbery.

  “You look awfully dressed up for sitting on the porch with me,” Cody said.

  “This ain’t for you.”

  “Well, I wondered. Thought maybe you’d gone gay on me all of the sudden.”

  “Look at you. Ain’t no way I’d go gay for you.”

  Cody smiled and handed him a beer before collapsing into the other lawn chair on the porch. Jeptha winced as he did, sure it was going to break underneath him one of these days.

  “Marla loves me,” Cody said. “That’s why I don’t got to get dressed up anymore. What’s your story?”

  “I’m supposed to be taking Lucy Kilgore to Carter’s tonight.”

  “Sure you are,” Cody said, looking away from Jeptha over to the tobacco. “Looks good out there.”

  “You and Bobby,” Jeptha said, shaking his head.

  “Me and Bobby what?”

  “Y’all don’t believe me when I say I’m taking Lucy.”

  “’Cause it ain’t believable. Who’re you taking?”

  “Lucy.”

  Cody turned back to Jeptha and narrowed his eyes at him. “Wait, serious? Shit. That’s awesome. You’ve been stuck on her forever.”

  “No, I ain’t.”

  “Please. We’ve all thought about her. She’s a beautiful girl. A little skinny for my tastes, but I could handle it. But you? You think about her nearly every damn day,” Cody said. They both paused to take a sip of beer. Jeptha slapped a mosquito off his leg. “I wonder why she said yes,” Cody said.

  Bobby’s words and now Cody’s pulsed in his head. He downed his beer and crushed the can hard under his foot. Crystal Gayle glared at him.

  “I don’t know why,” Jeptha said. “Especially since I’m coming to find out none of y’all think I’m worth a damn.” He grabbed another beer.

  “Man, don’t take it like that. It’s just—Lucy Kilgore. She ain’t on our level—not like Marla or Deanna. She’s smart. Different. Better than us, I don’t mind saying.”

  “Oh yeah? Not so much better; she ended up in my back seat three weeks ago.” Jeptha wanted to take the words back as soon as they left his mouth.

  “You did not have sex with Lucy Kilgore,” Cody said.

  Jeptha wondered if he could say
nothing and hope Cody would forget. One look at his friend’s astonished face told him no.

  “I did. But don’t say nothing,” Jeptha pleaded.

  “Holy shit,” Cody said.

  They were quiet then, listening to the cicadas start their nightly drone and watching Crystal Gayle stir when the first faltering movements of the lightning bugs appeared. She growled low in her throat and lunged when one sparked near her head, then ran down the steps, nipping at the air.

  Cody finally spoke. “So why’d you say you’re supposed to be taking her? You thinking of bailing?”

  “Probably.”

  “Why would you do a fool thing like that?”

  “Don’t know if it’s worth it. What would she want with a man like me?”

  “You was just yelling at me for saying that exact thing,” Cody said, half out of his chair.

  “Just ’cause something’s true don’t mean I want my friend saying it about me.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Jeptha reached down and grabbed another beer. He was drunk and getting drunker. Cody watched him as he drank down half.

  “The way I see it is, you got two options,” Cody finally said. “Sit here, get drunk, and be the man we all know you to be. Or get up from your god damn chair and see if you can’t prove us all wrong.” He held out another beer to Jeptha.

  Jeptha looked at it for twenty long seconds and finally stood up. “Aw hell, man.”

  Cody smiled. “What time you supposed to be there anyway?”

  “Six.”

  “Man, it was after six when I pulled up.”

  “Dammit,” Jeptha yelled. He jerked his door open, grabbed his keys off the counter, and jumped over the steps to his car.

  IT WASN’T UNTIL Jeptha arrived in Lucy’s neighborhood of small shotgun houses tufted by weeds on long, narrow lots that he realized he had forgotten the small napkin on which she had written her address. He knew it was Maple Avenue, but he had no idea of the number. He peered up the long straight ribbon of road that ended at the highway. There must have been a hundred houses between him and 11W. He scrounged in his pockets one more time, hoping that he would find the slip of paper, but there was nothing but a penny and a well-tumbled piece of lint.