Stars of Alabama

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Stars of Alabama Page 17

by Sean Dietrich


  Man in the Mirror

  Paul looked at his own face in the hand mirror that was hanging in the barn. He ran the razor across his cheeks and felt it nick him. Bright red blood ran along his chin.

  Vern was listening to the radio in the other room. It was blasting. The noise had changed from music to preaching. The sound of a man’s self-righteous voice hollered to the masses.

  “Turn that off, Vern,” said Paul. “It’s killing my good mood.”

  “But it’s J. Wilbur Chaplain,” said Vern.

  “Do I look like I care?”

  Vern turned it down to a low volume. Paul could still hear it, but he pretended he couldn’t. Vern had been listening to J. Wilbur Chaplain since the invention of the short wave.

  He wiped his blood and stared at his own reflection again. Paul had once been a beautiful man, but not anymore. Now he was hideous and old. This was no beautiful man in the mirror, only a haggard thing.

  Beautiful men did not have lines at the corners of their eyes that reached clear down to their knees. Beautiful men did not have old-man ears that were fleshier than a young man’s ears. Beautiful men did not have joints that creaked in the mornings. The man in the mirror was not merely “older,” this man was ancient. Elderly, even. How did this happen? Life had killed the beautiful man and replaced him with an old man. Life did this to everyone, sooner or later.

  He had once heard a preacher say that life was like a mountain railroad. The twists, the turns. It beat you up. You picked up different passengers along the way and dropped others off. And this was certainly true enough.

  In the years he’d spent running from boll weevils, from dead cotton fields, from bill collectors, building roofs, building barns, working tobacco plantations, he’d picked up several passengers on life’s train.

  He’d never wanted passengers. But that’s just how the trains worked. You didn’t get to choose who rode in the seats next to you. You were near them for better or worse, and if you were smart, you learned to like it. If you were really smart, you learned to love it.

  Over the years he’d watched the children grow longer, leaner, and stronger. Pete was a man, almost as tall as Vern, skinny as a stick and shy. It seemed like just yesterday Pete had started shaving and his voice had dropped. All traces of youth had left Pete’s person. He was a square-jawed, big-shouldered, quiet man.

  And Ruth. A woman. A young woman. But a woman nonetheless. She was stubborn, not easily broken, and her violet eyes had almost as much spirit in them as her wild hair. She was seventeen but did girlish things like splashing in nearby creeks, traipsing through mud, capturing frogs, and raising squirrels in shoe boxes. She worshipped Pete. Paul saw it in the way she looked at him.

  Maturity had landed on all of them. Age was working on each person whether he wanted it or not. It made beautiful men turn ugly. And baby girls become striking. But none of the children had matured more than Reese. The baby fat in her face had left her, and she became a lady almost overnight. She cared more for her appearance than anyone else on the Warner farm. She was not vain, but she was closer to it than Ruth was.

  Miss Warner had done well with Ruth and Reese. The girls had learned all sorts of feminine things. How to behave at supper tables, how to cross their ankles when seated, how to wear their hair for preaching. How to read, write, and work with numbers. How to set the table. How to behave around young men.

  Miss Warner had taught them how to be pretty. There was a skill to being pretty. It didn’t just happen, not even to pretty girls. It had to be coaxed. There was more to being pretty than having good looks. Long ago, Paul had always believed girls were born either beautiful or not. But that’s not how it was, Miss Warner had told him.

  “A woman’s beauty is of her own engineering,” she’d once said.

  Reese had always wanted to please Miss Warner—she was a natural pleaser. And Reese seemed to fill the space Miss Warner’s late daughter might have filled had she been alive. Reese and Miss Warner loved one another.

  The same could not be said of Ruth and Miss Warner. Ruth was her own woman. And sometimes she went clomping through the woods in overalls and boots, even though Miss Warner forbid such clothing, and such activity. She was just like Paul, is what she was. She was not owned by anyone, or any convention. This made Paul proud.

  Paul finished shaving and wiped his face. He tore small pieces of newspaper and wet them with spit, then stuck them to the cuts on his face.

  “You ugly dope,” he said aloud.

  Pete appeared in the barn doorway. His silhouette was strong. He was dressed in a full suit, with a yellow wildflower in his lapel, and wore a brown hat. He was just as wiry as he was tall.

  Paul could only stare at him.

  “You ready, Paul?” said Pete in a deep voice.

  Paul neared Pete and took him in with his eyes. “Where’d you get that monkey suit?” Paul said, touching the fabric of Pete’s jacket.

  “It used to belong to Miss Warner’s husband, before he died. Why, do I look stupid?”

  Paul felt a throbbing in his throat. “No,” he said.

  “I wanted to wear regular clothes,” said Pete. “But Miss Warner said she’d murder me if I wore overalls to a wedding.”

  Paul reached a hand upward and touched Pete’s rough cheek. Stubble and bone. He was a child in an adult body.

  “You’re a beautiful man, son. Beautiful.”

  * * *

  When they’d boarded the train, Miss Warner told Paul, “I think I’m going to be sick. I have vertigo.”

  “Just breathe,” said Paul.

  “I’m trying,” she said. “But I’m sick to death.”

  “Well, don’t die on me, not here. That would be rude, and I’ve never known you to be rude.”

  The train was filled with people. Men in business suits with briefcases. Families with children. Throughout the train ride, Paul would rest his hand on Miss Warner’s shoulder. Paul knew what she was suffering wasn’t vertigo. It was the same thing he was suffering. Loss.

  Together, Miss Warner, Paul, Vern, Pete, Reese, and Ruth sat in their bucket seats, watching the world go by through the glass. Trees flew past them at lightning speed. An entire countryside passed them in only a few blinks.

  “You alright?” Paul asked Miss Warner.

  “I’ll be better once we get off this behemoth,” she said.

  He tugged at his collar. He wore a suit and tie that Miss Warner had bought for him in town. It was the cheapest one the store had, and it made him itch all over. Ruth wore a frilly dress, trimmed with a blue sash. Vern wore what he always wore—his overalls—with a scuffed jacket.

  To see the world go by at eye level like this was quite a feeling. It made Paul’s stomach swim to climb tall hills, then roll down them. It was like one of the rides at the fair—only this ride had velvet seats and cost approximately the same price as dental surgery.

  But this was not just scenery zipping past him, he thought. This was life going by right before his eyes. And all he could do was stay in his seat. That was all anyone could do. Before he knew it, he would soon be looking behind himself and seeing a whole world. Faraway. Like it belonged to other people. People he did not belong to.

  “What’re you thinking about?” said Reese, who sat across from Paul.

  “Nothing, baby.”

  “You don’t look like you’re thinking about nothing.”

  “What do you think I’m thinking about?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Neither do I.”

  He was thinking about how it had only taken a few years for Reese to become a magnificent female, with all the class of a set of fine china. Paul was thinking about how beautiful she was, and how much she looked like her mother. He was thinking about how just yesterday she was a child who looked to him for safety, food, and shelter. And now she would look to another. He thought of how empty life would be after he walked her down the aisle and gave her away. That’s what he was thinking.

/>   “Are you sad?” Reese asked.

  “Sad? No, baby. I’m happy as a lark.”

  “Really?”

  “I couldn’t be happier if I were four people instead of one.”

  “I’m so nervous.”

  “That’s normal,” he said. “When I got married, I puked outside the chapel. I almost didn’t go through with it.”

  “I didn’t know you were married,” said Reese.

  “Once.”

  “To a woman? You?”

  “That’s generally how it works.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “Tuberculosis.”

  Reese rose from her seat and sat in Paul’s lap the way she did when she was a girl. It cut the circulation off to his thighs and made his back ache something fierce. But he made no faces of pain. He only remembered the young girl who had once picked a bouquet for her late mother. He remembered a lot.

  “What if I throw up from nervousness?” said Reese. “Like you did.”

  “You won’t.”

  “Are you gonna give me away, Paul?”

  “You better know it.”

  Reese kissed his cheek. “I’m sorry I’m leaving you.”

  “Quit your sorryin’,” he said. “Besides, I ain’t sorry about anything, except that your mother ain’t here.”

  * * *

  Reese wore a veil of white. Her groom came from a Birmingham family with more money than Father Abraham. It was a well-attended wedding. The church in the heart of the town was alive with cars and people. And onlookers too.

  When Paul walked into the vestibule where she stood, he felt his eyes start to leak. Reese looked like something from a storybook. Tall, slender, majestic. She was perfect. And he never felt so ancient in his life. Ruth straightened the train of Reese’s dress, flinging it with both hands.

  The music played.

  He walked Reese down an ornate aisle covered in wine-colored carpet. And when the preacher said, “Who gives this woman away?” Paul answered, “Me, Your Honor.”

  The young groom lifted Reese’s veil and kissed her. And bells rang. And people clapped. And the sounds of happiness abounded. And when the ceremony was over, Ruth approached Paul with her head down. Her red hair was tied in blue ribbons. Her eyes were wet with tears. She was a wreck.

  Paul squeezed her so hard he heard her shoulder pop.

  “Ain’t your sister beautiful?” said Paul.

  But she only looked at Paul and cried. “I’ll miss her so much.” And the violet eyes that used to look back at him with infantile trust still held the same sincerity they always had.

  “You know, you look so handsome today, Paul. You know that?”

  He kissed her forehead.

  “What can I say?” he said with a wink. “When you’re good-looking, you’re good-looking.”

  Fifty-One

  Men of Fortune

  Coot was awoken by a foul smell. The smell of manure. And when he opened his eyes, he saw the source of it. The stare of a black cow, standing only a few feet from him, greeted him. He smiled back at her. She seemed to be curious about him.

  The bright morning sun poked through the slats of the fast-moving stock car. The car was jerking back and forth on the tracks, rattling over the landscape. He peeked through the gaps in the wood and saw the rolling hills, the small ponds, and the hamlets dotted with trees.

  The cattle in the stalls behind him were making low groans. The cattle in front of him were too. And the cattle beside him. They were looking at him like he was one of their own.

  He wiped morning dew from his face and stretched his stiff muscles. His back was sore, and his neck hurt. And the smell of cow pies was strong.

  “Was wondering when you’d get up,” said Joseph, who sat in the corner. “Thought you’d sleep all the way to Mobile.”

  Joseph was already eating peanut butter from a can for breakfast, fingerful by fingerful.

  “How long have you been up?” Coot asked.

  “Long enough to watch you have an ugly dream,” said the old man.

  “Me?”

  “You was moaning and groaning at something. Maybe it’s ’cause you stink so bad.”

  Coot sniffed his own jacket. He smelled like manure. “You don’t smell too good yourself, you know,” said Coot.

  “Maybe, but I didn’t sleep all curled up with that black mama cow like you did.”

  Joseph licked the peanut butter from his finger like it was an ice cream cone. Joseph loved peanut butter because it didn’t interfere with his whiskey habit. Bread, for instance, interfered with whiskey—it soaked up all the contents in the stomach, he’d often tell Coot.

  Joseph extended the can toward Coot. “Want some peanut butter?”

  “No thanks,” said Coot. “It’s all yours.”

  “You sure? A boy needs breakfast.”

  “I’m sure.”

  Coot rubbed his face and felt the beard growing on his jaw. He wondered what he looked like. He hadn’t seen his own reflection in weeks. He knew his general appearance had probably gone downhill. He probably looked as ragged as the old man did.

  Joseph was a good man with questionable morals. But a good man nonetheless. He took Coot under his wing the moment he met him the night in the train yard. They became inseparable almost immediately. And the more Joseph’s health declined, the more Coot began to find himself responsible for the crippled old man, until it almost seemed as though Coot was Joseph’s babysitter.

  Soon Coot alone was responsible for Joseph’s survival. He did his best to ensure Joseph had at least two meals per day and a place to sleep. They were glorified hobos, but if Joseph had been on his own, he would’ve surely died in a train yard somewhere, unnoticed.

  But the old man’s personality was as vibrant as any Coot had ever known. He perceived life in a different way than Coot did. He was a brilliant man dressed in rags. Coot had never met a man so smart. There was a lot Coot didn’t know about the man. But in the years they’d been together, Coot had come to almost idolize him.

  Coot stood and patted his clothes. Clouds of dust came from him, lit by the sunlight streaming through the slats of the cattle car. Then he sniffed his clothes. He almost gagged.

  Joseph laughed. “Aw, what’s the matter, Coot? Can’t stand the smell of a little cow pie?”

  “I’d really like to take a bath.”

  “Baths are overrated.”

  Joseph replaced the lid on the peanut butter jar and wiped his hands on his coat, leaving peanut-colored streaks. Then he wiped the oily residue in his white hair to give it volume and body. He removed a flask from his vest pocket and took a snort.

  “Want some?” he said, offering the bottle to Coot.

  Coot refused.

  “Suit yourself,” said Joseph. “I’ll have to drink your half for you.” He took one final sip, then replaced the cap. “We’re close to Mobile. I can taste salt in the air.”

  “Salt?” said Coot.

  “The Gulf. Makes the air salty. Makes everything salty. It makes metal rust and turn into pure nothing too. You ever seen the Gulf?”

  “Nope.”

  “I envy you, seeing it for the first time.” The old man smiled. “It’s bewitching. It changes a man.”

  “How?”

  “Well, it’s big and blue, for one. That much blue all at once is a sight to see. It can break your heart.”

  Coot looked out the wood slats. He could see a city in the distance, approaching. “Do you think we’ll find work in Mobile?” said Coot.

  “Don’t know,” said Joseph. “We always seem to find work somehow. Maybe.”

  “Yeah, but not since the war ended. Nobody’s hiring.”

  “Barges come in and outta Mobile Bay by the hundreds. They need plenty of strong backs, and you got one.”

  “Yeah, well, there are more men than there are jobs. Nobody wants to hire a bum when they can hire a war hero.”

  “You worry too much, son.”

  “You don�
�t worry enough.”

  They had moved from place to place, working thankless jobs and long hours, since they’d met each other. They had worked turpentine plantations, and they’d picked cotton in Demopolis, peanuts and corn in Senoia. They had manned gang edgers, mill saws, and splitters in Georgia. And Coot had used every bit of elasticity his young lower back ever had. Sometimes he couldn’t sleep through the night because the muscles along his spine would seize up. He’d have to stand upright just to ease the pain.

  “You know,” said Joseph. “There are always other ways of making a living.”

  “Other ways? Other ways than what?”

  “What I mean is, honest work ain’t the only kinda work there is. Not if you’re smart.”

  Coot didn’t know how to respond.

  Joseph went on. “You might not know this about me, but I’m sorta famous in Charleston.”

  “You mean, where you used to play cards with politicians?”

  The old man laughed. “Infamous is probably a better word, come to think of it. People still talk about me up there for the things I did. And I did a lot more than take money out of politicians’ pockets—though I’m very proud of that.”

  “What sorts of things?”

  Joseph wore a far-off look. “Well, money was good back then. People had more than they could stand, everybody had work, economy was good. If you played your cards right, you could talk a man right out of his own cash.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Games, gimmicks, stuff like that.”

  “You mean card games?”

  Joseph started to chuckle. “Card games are for men with no creativity.”

  “You stole from people? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “I prefer to call it ‘winning.’ And I won more times than I lost. I once won a man right out of a twelve-hundred-dollar cashier’s check.”

  “By games?”

  “Yep.”

  “What kinda games?”

  “They don’t have names, but they all go the same way. You meet a man, you size him up, you set him up, then you knock him down. You either win or lose. Simple as that.”

  “You are a con. You know that?”

  “Nope, a con goes to jail. I never did no time. I’m a legend to some people.”

 

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