Stars of Alabama

by Sean Dietrich

  “Baby Joe, what are you—”

  “Just shut up, Coot. This’ll be a lot easier if you shut up.”

  Then Baby Joe opened Coot’s bag and fumbled through the clothes. He took the tin box in his hands and weighed it. He smiled and said, “Pleasure doing business with you, Preacher.”

  Judy said, “We gotta hurry, Joe. Train’s almost here.”

  “Baby Joe, what are you doing?”

  “Nothing personal, Coot. This is just business.” Then he took Judy’s hand and started to leave.

  Judy stopped him. “Joe, he’s got more money in his sock.”

  “He does, does he?”

  Baby Joe removed Coot’s shoes and socks and said, “Jeez, Preacher, wash your feet once in a while, would ya?” Then cackled.

  The approaching train was shaking the earth beneath Coot’s back.

  “C’mon,” Judy hollered over the vibration.

  Baby Joe nudged Coot’s limp body with his boot. He whispered to Judy, “Should I break his legs or something?”

  “No, don’t be crazy.”

  “But what if he chases us? He’s a lot bigger than me.”

  “He ain’t gonna chase us,” said Judy. “Just look at him.”

  “But what if he does?”

  “He wouldn’t hurt a flea,” said Judy. “Just leave him.”

  Baby Joe squatted low and whispered in Coot’s ear, “You come after me and I’ll cut you up good, you hear me? I mean it.”

  Coot was too dazed to answer.

  The loud train hisses filled the air. They were so loud they drowned out all thoughts in Coot’s wounded mind. For a moment it seemed as though the end of the world was happening. Armageddon. That’s what this was. He’d preached about it when he was a boy, but he’d never actually believed in it. Now he did. He looked through blurry eyes at the figures of Baby Joe and Judy standing over him.

  Baby Joe slapped Coot’s face. “Answer me, Coot. Don’t make me break your legs. Tell me you understand.”

  Coot couldn’t answer.

  Baby Joe slapped Coot’s cheeks again. “C’mon, Coot, answer. I don’t wanna hurt you, Preacher. Gimme your word you won’t come after me.”

  “Baby Joe,” said Coot, using all the strength he had. “Take good care of her.”

  Forty-Seven

  Sad Faces

  The truck was traveling slow down a long dirt road, leaving swirls of dust behind them. Ruth scooted closer beside Pete. She watched the trees shoot into the distance behind the truck. She rested her head on Pete’s shoulder. She didn’t know what it was like to lose your mother, but she knew what it was like not to have one.

  “Wonder why they call farmworkers farmhands,” Ruth said to Pete, who was sitting beside her in the bed of the moving truck.

  Pete didn’t answer.

  “You know,” Ruth went on. “Why not legs, or feet, or backs?”

  Vern answered, “Just what they called.”

  “Hands?” she said again. “I think it should be farm legs. Seems to me men use their legs more on the farm than their hands.”

  Pete wore his cowboy hat low on his head so that his eyes were pretty much covered. He wasn’t responding to anything she said. Reese sat on his other side, wearing the same face. Ruth felt alone without their personalities to keep her company.

  She’d wondered about her own mother. Sometimes she would lie in her bed and think so hard about her mother she would dream about her. They were always short dreams. Ruth would be standing in a large hayfield or a meadow of flowers, and she would see a woman in the distance, backlit by the sun so that she could only see the woman’s dark shape. But she always knew who the woman was, and when the dream ended, she always woke with the same sadness Pete and Reese were feeling.

  They were so sad it was making the whole world sad. Ruth didn’t like to see them like this. Especially Pete. She loved him more than anything in the entire world. Even though he was much older than she was, she’d never seen a handsomer or more wonderful boy than him. Not in all her life.

  And he was hurting so badly she could practically taste it. She didn’t like to see things hurt. Especially not boys like Pete who had perfect little noses and sweetheart eyes. She touched his hand and he let her. It sent a surge through her. His was a heavy pain that she could feel.

  Ruth felt things more strongly than most people. She knew this about herself. Once, she’d found a dead turtle in the highway, and she almost collapsed from anguish. The shell was crushed and its insides were showing. It bothered her so badly she figured she’d take it off the highway and give it a good funeral. She scooped up the turtle with a shovel and buried it beneath a pine tree. She visited the turtle’s grave often and left flowers for it. She must’ve been the only girl in the world who adopted a pet turtle after he was already dead.

  Paul finally pulled the truck over. He turned off the engine. Ruth stood in the truck bed to see where they were. She’d been looking so hard at Pete, and his wonderful little nose, she hadn’t even seen where Paul was taking them.

  It was a farm, deep in the country. Trees were everywhere. A creek ran in front of an old farmhouse. There were barns, sheds, pens of goats, chickens, hogs, and even a few horses.

  Paul said, “C’mon, young’uns,” like he was calling dogs.

  “What’re we doing here?” asked Reese.

  Paul lifted Reese from the truck and said, “We’re begging for work, sweetie.”

  “Are we gonna be hands?” said Ruth.

  “God willing,” he said.

  Pete and Ruth jumped off the tailgate. They walked toward the farmhouse in the distance. Vern followed behind. They stepped onto the porch of a clapboard house that looked like it had seen better days. The paint was flaking from the sideboards, which were rotting in some places. The porch was crooked and leaning sideways.

  Ruth got lost in the view from the porch. It was so wide and open that she couldn’t even keep her face sad like Paul had reminded the kids to do. She was too excited to see so much prairie and so much sky all in one place.

  “Pete,” Paul said, tapping the boy’s shoulder. “Take off your hat, son.”

  Pete removed his tall hat and held it in his hands against his belly. Vern and Paul did the same. They stood in a group before the faded front door like they were posing for a picture. Paul moved the three children in front; he and Vern stood behind them.

  “Remember,” Paul whispered to the kids, “sad faces, really sad.”

  “Like this, Paul?” said Reese.

  “Not that sad, darling, we don’t want her to think we’re dying from the flu. Just starving.” Then he snapped his fingers at Ruth. “Ruth, honey, you even paying attention?”

  Ruth was too busy taking in the view to make her face droop.

  “Ruth,” said Paul. “Make your face sad.”

  So Ruth frowned as hard as she could until her cheeks hurt and the muscles in her neck tensed and her lower teeth were showing. This was what she often referred to as her “pooping face.”

  “Cut that out,” said Paul. “You look like you need wheat bran, for crying out loud.”

  Ruth grinned so big that her whole mouth showed and her eyes squinted.

  “Would you knock it off?” said Paul. “This is serious. We need this job. Now think of something sad or go back to the truck.”

  Ruth let her face relax. She held Pete’s hand. His sadness hit her hard, and she wished she could take it away from him.

  “Alright,” said Paul. “Everybody ready?”

  Paul stepped forward and knocked on the door. Then he took his place behind the kids again. “Remember,” Paul said, “you’re hungry and sad.”

  A woman answered the door. She was tall, gray-haired, and sophisticated. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun, and her glasses were low on her nose. She wore a floral cotton dress, and it struck Ruth as curious because she herself had never worn anything but overalls. The woman did not wear a very friendly face. She looked skeptical and
confused.

  “Can I help you?” the woman said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Paul. “Heard in town that you’re looking to hire a few hands.”

  Forty-Eight

  Saint Helen

  The child rested on Helen’s chest. Helen did not sleep. She only stared at the baby.

  The face of a baby, Marigold thought, is saintly. The baby’s tiny eyes were closed, his mouth slung open. His baby fingers and toes were so small. The first time she held Maggie against her shoulder she felt the same things she was feeling right now.

  Helen whispered, “What should I name him?”

  “Don’t know,” said Marigold. “But it’s gotta be something good.”

  “What’d you name your baby, Marigold?”

  “Maggie.”

  “Maggie, that’s a good name. How’d you pick it?”

  Marigold smiled. “Oh, it’s silly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I heard a song playing on a radio when I was a kid.”

  “Really?”

  “On my grandfather’s radio.”

  It was a radio no bigger than a bread box. It sat on a ledge beside her grandfather’s bed. Marigold remembered the exact day she heard the song coming from the speaker through the open window. She remembered the way the tune of this mournful ballad stuck with her. The melody was simple and beautiful. Today, however, the thought of it only made her heart sore. Sometimes she felt so distant from Maggie. Other times an unexplainable feeling within her told her she could reach through the fabric of the universe and touch the child if she tried hard enough.

  “Will you sing it for me?” said Helen.

  “Oh, you don’t wanna hear me sing. I can’t carry a tune in a bucket.”

  “Please? We both wanna hear it.”

  Her voice was not smooth, but shaky and unsure of itself. And she didn’t remember much more than the second verse. But she sang it. Helen closed her eyes and smiled when she did. “The green grove is gone from the hill, Maggie, where first the daisies sprung. The creakin’ old mill is still, Maggie, since you and I were young.”

  When she finished, the room was filled with silence for a few minutes. And Marigold had a single tear rolling down her cheek.

  “Maggie,” said Helen. “I love that name.”

  “Yeah,” said Marigold.

  “What was your grandfather’s name?”

  “Abraham Obadiah Butterfield, but everyone called him Abe.”

  “Did you love him?”

  “Yes.”

  Helen pressed her nose against the baby’s forehead. “Then that’s what I’ll name him.”

  Forty-Nine

  Tracks to Nowhere

  Coot followed train tracks in the dark. He stumbled forward, one foot before the other. He was singing. He didn’t know why. It was delirium, he knew that. But he had a memory that contained every song he’d ever heard. And tonight he was taking requests.

  When he was a boy, he would sing for the revival workers until the sun came up. They would name a song to try to stump Coot. But they rarely ever did. He had a particular knack for song lyrics, even as a child.

  The aching located in the center of his face had gotten worse. His nose felt broken, and his head throbbed so bad it felt like he was going to pass out. He wandered on railroad ties, wondering where he was and where he was going.

  Nothing looked familiar. He felt unclear in his thoughts. Confused. Disoriented. Dazed. This place looked like the middle of nowhere.

  He stopped walking and looked in all directions. He wasn’t even sure how he’d gotten here. It was as though he’d awoken, standing on his feet, on these secluded tracks.

  He had vague memories of opening his eyes and seeing stars hanging in the night. He remembered seeing the roofline of the empty train depot. But after that, he didn’t remember anything.

  The night sky over the black trees was bright from the full moon. It gave enough light to see the blood that covered his clothes. And he felt the sticky warmth soaking through his shirt and on the back of his head. This scared him. He hated the sight of blood.

  He kept walking. He stumbled forward, unseeing on his feet. He felt sleepy with confusion. But he forced himself awake by singing. His words came out more like drunk mumbles.

  “Come to the church by the wildwood, oh, come to the church in the vale. No spot is so dear to my childhood as the little brown church in the vale.”

  This made him laugh. There was nothing “dear” in his childhood. Nothing. In fact, his childhood had been one big, ugly mistake. There were no little brown churches, no wildwoods. There had only been dry prairies, dusty tents, hateful people. He felt bitterness come to the surface. Bitterness turned to hate.

  He hated E. P. for hitting him. He hated Blake for leaving him. He hated Judy for ruining him. He hated his mother for abandoning him. He hated God for sitting on his thumbs and letting it all happen.

  No. Actually, he hated the idea of God. He didn’t believe in the Old Man enough to hate him personally. He hated the lies people told about a big, phony creature in the sky. That’s what he hated. He thought of other songs to sing to keep himself awake.

  “Frankie and Johnny were sweethearts, O Lordy, how they did love. Swore to be true to each other, true as the stars above. He was her man, he was doing her wrong.”

  He laughed at this song. The laughter was not a natural kind, for there was nothing funny about the song. He remembered when his mother had taught it to him when he was a little boy. She marveled that he could remember every single word to it. All the verses. She taught him several songs. She taught him the song about the Titanic, about floating river trains, about building the railroad. He sang a few of these melodies to himself.

  Coot finally reached a train yard. The large stock cars were lined up in the night like big wagons in a circle. He could hear the sounds of cattle coming from them. He wandered toward a light in the middle distance, glowing yellow and red. A flickering.

  When he neared it, he saw four men sitting on overturned buckets. They were dressed in rags, unshaven and red-faced. They saw Coot, and they all leapt to their feet with the jerky movements of old men. One man stomped on a cigarette. Another pointed a handgun at Coot. The men said something to him, but Coot was in too much of a daze to understand them.

  His only response was, “How sweet on a clear Sabbath morning, to listen to the clear ringing bells; its tones so sweetly are calling, oh, come to the church in the vale.”

  The men moved closer to him.

  “He’s bleeding,” one said. “Like a stuck hog.”

  Coot fell to his knees. His mind was beginning to shut down. He fell forward onto his chest. His chin hit the ground. He tasted dirt and gravel and saw the ratty shoes and boots gather around him. They carried him toward the fire and placed him on a pallet of blankets. One old man touched Coot’s face and said, “What happened, son?”

  “Get him some water,” hollered another man.

  A man pressed a cool bottle against Coot’s lips. Coot took a pull from the bottle and nearly choked. Whatever he was sipping wasn’t water. It burned his tongue and lips and throat. He gasped for air and coughed.

  Coot pushed the mug away. “No, I don’t drink,” he said.

  “You do now,” said the man.

  “Best medicine there is,” said another.

  He felt his body go soft. In a few moments he felt delirious. He wasn’t sure where he was. He wasn’t sure who he was. He wasn’t sure why he was.

  He mumbled, rallying his energy to speak, but couldn’t find sentences to say. All that came out were songs.

  “They built the ship Titanic to sail the ocean blue, and they thought they had a ship that the water would never go through.”

  The hobo touched the back of Coot’s head, made a whistle, and said, “This kid needs a doc in a bad way.”

  “But the good Lord raised his hand and said, ‘That ship will never land.’ It was sad when the great ship went down.”r />
  The old man doused a rag with the bottle’s contents. He pressed the damp rag against Coot’s wounded head. It made Coot’s head sting like his head had been lit on fire. Coot moaned.

  “This will help,” the man said. “Believe me, I don’t like wasting hooch any more than you do.”

  The man wiped tiny bits of gravel from his wound, and Coot let out a howl.

  “Sshhh,” said the old man. “Gotta get this cut clean, don’t want it to get infected, now.” He used his finger to wipe the sand and grit from Coot’s open gash. “Sing us some more songs.”

  He opened his mouth and sang through the pain. “Would you be free from the burden of sin? There’s power in the blood, power in the blood. Would you o’er evil a victory win? There’s wonderful power in the blood.”

  When the wound was clean, the man wrapped Coot’s head in a rag. He gave Coot the bottle again and said, “Take one more swig. It’ll help the swelling go down.”

  Coot did as he was told. The alcohol made his mouth burn so that he could hardly breathe. There was no discernible taste to it. Coot imagined this was what drinking kerosene was like.

  The old man touched Coot’s shoulder. “Name’s Joseph,” said the old man. “But you can call me Joseph.”

  The others laughed.

  “I’m Coot,” he said.

  Joseph gently rested a hand on his head. “Coot, I don’t mean to sound presumptuous, son. But you don’t happen to take requests, do you?”

  Coot began to chuckle. It made his head hurt. “Try me,” he said.

  “How about ‘Billy Boy’?” said one man.

  Coot sang it.

  “Do you know ‘Buffalo Gals’?” another man asked.

  Coot knew every word.

  The man named Joseph said, “Do you know ‘When We Were Young, Maggie’?”

  Coot let out a laugh. He sang, “I wandered today to the hills, Maggie, to watch the scene below, the creek and the creakin’ old mill, Maggie, as we used to long ago.”

  Book III

  Fifty