by Ron Foster
“Well you said some of them had a whole bunch of food and tents and such looking for a better place to live and I can’t think of nowhere better than a working farm to be staying at if the grocery stores are all closed.” Clem reasoned.
“Smarter words were never said. Yea I might take in a couple people temporarily but my acreage is really small and it’s more of a hobby farm than anything else.” Crick said wistfully.
“Is that feed corn you got cracked or whole?” Clem said drawing a circle with his boot in the dirt in front of the barn.
“It’s whole. I have a mill though.” Crick answered watching Clem start to pace going deep in thought about something.
“Them poorer folks that are going to be moving to the woods when their food runs out. Are they uppity city folks that are scared to get their hands dirty or are they just plain people down on their luck?” Clem asked speculatively.
“No they understand how much hard work is required to just survive. I bet anyone on that island now has lost any fool notions they had of bugging out after the first week of getting stuck there. Bugging out is just a slang word for having to leave somewhere and having to go somewhere else to live and camping if you have to.” Loomis said watching how the word confused Clem.
“I got ya, we called that riding the rails or going hobo back in my day. So where do these people plan on “bugging out” to? A hobo goes city to city looking for work or a hand out. If nobody wants to live in the cities no more where are they all going to go? Campground to camp ground looking for work like migrant farm workers?” Clem said looking over hundreds of acres of unworked fields.
“I doubt most of them have any real idea where they are bugging out to or how long they could last once they got there.” Crick said wondering how many people had already found out going to a national forest somewhere and trying to survive off just the land was slow suicide at best.
“If they ain`t been raised in around the woods they are not going to find much but bugs and misery.” Loomis said backing Cricks appraisal up.
“Now used to be when a man and his family were down on their luck a body would seek out a likely landowner to grub stake him and do a bit of sharecropping or hire on as a farm hand. Do you reckon that there might be a few people on your island looking for work like that?” Clem said letting the idea develop.
“I bet some of the survivors would be up for the idea of maybe hiring out for terms on this place. Is that what you got in mind, Clem?” Crick said brightening at the notion.
“I would have to talk it over with Bertha but this spread could be made to produce again. Now to be honest it would be a hard go to even put in much of a crop of anything even if we had the seeds and the equipment to do it. Those fields are all played out from years of raising cotton and peanuts. It would take a lot of fertilizer to even raise a fuss on it and we ain`t got any money or any place to buy some iffin we did. I guess it’s just an old man’s fancy to even think we could raise a vegetable truck farm let alone get them shacks back to being habitable once more.” Clem sighed.,
“Now I don’t think that is something that is a totally insurmountable problem Clem. Let’s talk this notion of yours over some more and come up with a couple solutions if we can.” Loomis said eying the fields as dreamily as Crick and Clem were doing.
“First thing to consider is seed. I got enough spare seed stored to put in an acre or so of assorted vegetables when I come back with the wagon train if I am able to round up enough folks to make it safe and worthwhile.” Loomis declared.
“I got that or more extra I can bring with me when I bring the tractor back. You talking about long term canned storage seeds or something else Loomis?” Crick asked while pondering the fertilizer problem.
“I got both, I don’t really like the selection in that vacuum sealed stuff and have some fresh packets saved from last year that is more suitable for this climate and my farming style.” Loomis declared.
“I don’t know nothing about vacuum seeds but old seed don’t sprout. Me and Bertha save enough seed every year to plant some things but we usually go to the feed and seed once a year to get some new fresh seeds of some vegetables. Seems some of that seed we save just don’t produce right the second or third year.” Clem said not understanding the intricacies of Heirloom versus hybrid seeds.
“That leaves fertilizer a problem. Now every one of those shacks used to have a kitchen garden or a little plot to sell extra vegetables to the general store or the restaurants around here but they ain`t been turned over in years. Soil should still be good though, lots of manure and sweat been dug into that soil over a hundred years of hoeing and planting.” Clem said perking up at the possibilities of raising food this year and all the seed they needed for next regardless if they could no longer buy any.
“Well there you go! How many shacks and little garden areas you got around here?” Crick asked with enthusiasm and interest.
“On this end of the plantation we got 20 but I would say maybe only 10 or so of them shanty’s are fixable as they stand. The big house had a big kitchen garden but weeds and little pine trees taken it over and the place is a mess. Been vandalized once or twice, age time and general disrepair been eating away at it for years but there is lots of good wood still left in it and a few usable items but nobody would want to be around it. It’s hainted don’t you know? Them ghosts don’t bother me and Bertha none because we belong here but strange lights and noises been known to go on.” Clem said looking like he was about to tell a ghost story before reminding everyone they needed to be washing up and heading down to the bottoms for supper pretty soon.
Clem led the way to the plantation foreman’s house he had taken up residence in years ago when the former tenant had passed away. He happily babbled about what a great lunch they were going to have when they got to Bertha`s and apologized that he hadn’t had the time or money to paint anything around the place in oh so many years.
“Now then boys you got several ways to wash up around here. We got the hand pump on the well, a 55 gallon barrel shower, wash basin in the bathroom. Oh yea, I got indoor plumbing but it don’t work cause I don’t have the gas to run that hit or miss motor on the well pump. Runs off electricity too if we had some. We ain`t as backwards as you all might think. We even run power down to the bottoms in the early sixties. Anyway if you use the shitter in the house you got to haul water in buckets right after you use it for the next person. I don’t care if it’s night or day you do it then and not wait. I don’t want nobody leaving their business in the toilet bowl any longer than they have too. There is three outhouses in the back. Use the one on the right. The one on the far left used to be for colored folks back in the day and the center one is for ladies. Me and Bertha dispensed with all those formalities long ago and just use the one on the right.” Clem said bustling around the house and opening a big armoire and taking out three what he called dinner jackets for his house guests.
“Now Crick you can be staying in Arbuckle’s room, that was Cletus’s eldest boys room that used to be foreman around here and cowboy you can stay in his youngest boy Jeb’s room. The beds a bit smaller in there than you might be used to but you will like the décor.” Clem said pointing out a boys room still decorated with what looked like every Hopalong Cassidy and Lone Ranger paraphernalia ever made for kids.
Crick was happily poking and grinning at Loomis behind Clem`s back that his room was specially chosen for him because he was the cowboy before he got a load of where he was going to be spending the night.
The walls were festooned with posters of some of the ugliest women he had ever seen in his life and a big four poster bed with a flowered canopy sat in the middle of the floor with what appeared to be ropes from a boxing ring half way around it.
“Now let me explain the odd decorations in this room.” Clem said with a wry smile as Loomis busted out laughing and slapped Crick on the back.
“That boy Arbuckle was just crazy about going to see the professional wrestling
shows and had a thing for them lady wrestlers. That’s the Fabulous Moolah over there the champion in the day.” Clem said indicating a scowling woman dressed in white tights portrait and she actually at one time slept in that bed that he somehow acquired and managed to move in here. The ring ropes came from the National Guard armory where he used to go watch the matches and I don’t want to even know what he was thinking about when he decided to attach them to his bed. He was a bit different, you might say. You can take the ring ropes down if you want, I just sort of leave everything like a museum because I never use these rooms except to entertain company and that has been many a year since I had any. That’s a picture of his mom over there and not a wrestler by the way, even though she favors one. She died when he was about 12 and his old man let them two kids do pretty much what they wanted too. Looks like he had a thing for that style of women, too. Bertha made that canopy on the bed best she could using the old one for a pattern. Seems he got a bit rambunctious one day jumping on the bed or using it for a wrestling ring with his brother and managed to tear the old one up.” Clem said to the incredulous Crick who was trying to take in this bizarre household while Loomis looked at the picture of Mad Moolah and tried to imitate her face with his tongue hanging out comically when Clem wasn’t looking to bedevil Crick that her ugly mug would be disturbing his sleep the rest of the night as well as the look he was going to give him every chance he got.
“I stay right down the hall here if you need anything but I warn you I sleep light, so no tricks.” Clem said pushing open the half closed door and disappointing or relieving them that the room’s contents only held what once was probably fine Victorian furniture dragged down or donated from the big house.
“Ok, this is home guys. I show you the livestock barn later. I only got a few hogs and a couple of piglets down there as well as some guinea hens who will scream bloody murder at any stranger cowboy hat or not .” Clem said with a playful smile and a light elbow poke to the ribs of Loomis in the close confines of the hallway leading to what he called his parlor. .
9
DINNER PARTY
Crick stood impatiently and uncomfortably as Loomis adjusted the string tie that Clem had forced him to wear. It was that or a very ugly bow tie so he opted for the lesser of two evils.
“You know I am going to get you for this if you ever repeat a word of it.” Crick said as Loomis affirmed he would do the same thing if they ever made it back around civilized and sane people.
“Why you boys look right nice. Loosen up them ties, this is an informal affair and you need some swallowing room to eat up all that good food Rossi and Bertha are fixing for us.” Clem said as he just clipped what looked like a boys tie onto his T shirt and stuffed the rest of it down the front of a newer pair of overalls. A pair of polished dress shoes and an old timey straw hat with a red and blue band completed his ensemble.
“Before you two start braying like a pair of matched mules I will have you know that this here hat aint got no underwear in it. I convinced Martha this style of hat needed to breathe because of my bald spot and it was specially made to show the vote for Ike label inside. Here watch this!” Clem said as he grabbed a cattleman’s cane out of the umbrella stand and did an impromptu doffing of his hat and a little dance like an old song and dance vaudeville act.
“Hot cha cha!” Clem declared finishing his brief exhibition looking amazingly like the actor Jimmy Durante with that nose of his held up for comparison.
“Damn Clem, you just full of surprises.” Loomis said laughing as he and Crick adjusted their ties for comfort.
“Well if your all set and don’t need to use the facilities let’s get on down to Bertha`s and tie on the feed bag. Oh, wait a minute now,I aint told you all this yet but Bertha also would of insisted you wear a bib to keep your ties and shirts clean if you had of left them that tight. Let me clue you in on a few more rules of etiquette for that house so I can save you some discomfort and embarrassment. I should of got you all stuck with the bibs but then you would of told on me for some of the fun I have had with Bertha over the years and that might of spoiled the party. When you get there, gush and fuss over how nice the women look of course and how nice the side board and table are decorated. Now Bertha didn’t get up to the big house very often around dinner time and the two times she did to assist with a big party the menus were put on the dog fancy affairs that she took a notion of that was how fine people generally ate. The first go round she got a peek at all them rich folks both men and women wearing lobster bibs so no matter what we will be doing with our napkins her and Rossi Ross will be wearing a set of them.” Clem said with a twinkle in his eye and a grin.
“I take it you never explained to her about lobster dinners?” Crick said raising a bemused eyebrow in his direction.
“Well I sorta did, we weren’t but about 13 years old and you see being a mischievous boy back then I had to fun her a bit. Hell, I didn’t know what them Lobster things were until me and Grand Pa unloaded a couple crates of them preserved with dry ice and seaweed. Old Man Mc Cloud had some Yankee investor fly in to maybe invest in cotton for his textile mills so the old bastard was putting on airs pretending like he was a rich landowner and that throwing such an extravagant party was just par for the course around here. I tell you what it took 3 weeks to just even get ready for that shindig what with everyone polishing what silverware was still left from selling it off to pay bills and manicuring the lawns and fields around here to look like a golf course or something. Them Mc Clouds pretty well wore everybody in the bottoms and the sharecroppers out. Anyway, my Pappy decided that he would tell me that those things were not giant crawdads and more akin to armored cockroaches that lived in Asia somewhere so I wouldn’t be begging a taste or stealing one out of the pot if I got a chance. Well young folks listen to the adults in secret all the time so I soon caught onto that yarn and commenced to plotting and scheming how to get me one for myself if
I thought nobody would miss it. I mean they had a fine mess of them things and a croaker sack full of Apalachicola oysters on ice my daddy went down to Florida to get to really put the icing on the cake. Speaking of cake, there were all kinds of cakes and pies set out that the best bakers in the bottoms had been fixing and picking fruits and berries to make them treats for days also. Anyway, the centerpiece for the table was going to be this gargantuan 15 pound lobster they had bought special and it was sitting off in the shade next to the kitchen back door in a split birch basket of its own. Wasn’t unusual back then to have a crate of chickens or rabbits around the back door waiting for the cook’s approval and whoever was tasked with doing the first stage of butchering back then? Well me and Bertha were carrying us a bushel basket full of sweet corn up from the field and she had been asking me why old Ms. Mc Cloud had made us string them Chinese lanterns from the last party out on the veranda if the white folks were not going to eat any of that “Japans” food they had at their last whoop de do. Bertha had always been fascinated by the little oriental chef and his crew that had been borrowed from a restaurant in Birmingham to fix that supper and cook in their pajamas. Clem had told her that their eyes were slanted that way because they had a lot to think about with them dragons like pictured on the lanterns in their home country lurking about. Bertha for some reason thought that was pretty cool and would take one hand and place it on her forehead while slanting her eyes if she needed to go deep in thought and think about something. She still does it to this day! If you see Bertha slanting her eyes and hunching herself down small, well then she had some mighty troubling and scary thoughts she needed to think about.” Clem said, as Crick and Loomis turned around and slant-eyed him like he was some kind of scary and troubling notion to carry the joke on even further as this crazy eye adjustment must be performed as if Bertha probably did to him, to observe him!
“See, I told you that you boys ain’t right.” Clem said chuckling before continuing his story and doing the same slant-eyed motion back to them!
“Anyway ther
e was this giant lobster in the crate that I had already done peeked at and weren’t nothing but a little bitty piece of wire holding the lid down that I must of not fixed tight enough. Now wait boys, quit your chuckling for a minute, it gets better! We aint loosening that monster Lobster on the world just yet. See we been back and forth about did dragons like on the Chinese menu and lanterns actually exist and how the bible said there used to be giants and such back in the old days so she always been naïve about what did or could actually exist in these backwoods around here to give her fears and that sort of been my thing to play and scare her with. Well on the way up from the corn field I had been scaring her with the story of Medusa; you know that Greek mythology story about the snake haired woman that could turn you to stone if you looked at her? I told her about how the hero used a polished shield to look at her and wasn’t affected by the magic and had sort of wondered out loud if them dragon creatures that lived in China needed to be looked at special with some kind of protections like slanty-eyes so they couldn’t put their MoJo on you.” Clem said grinning and pulling on the end of that Durante nose of his like it was lucky.
“You got you a mean streak in you, Clem!’ Crick said smiling at Loomis and waiting on the rest of the story.
“I’m not mean, it’s just that there ain’t a whole lot to do around here. Anyway, somehow or another that big old lobster managed to knock the lid loose off that crate and swing that big nipper of his out which caused Bertha to freak and scream and squeal. I said “Go get the spatula Bertha!” to which she said was “Are ya sure you don’t want a shovel?” to get that thing back in there. I told her no my Pappy had already told me what to do in this kind of emergency and did the China man routine with both my hands and that I was going to use its shiny surface to look at it like in a mirror so it couldn’t do no magic on me and to fix her own eyes.” Clem said beside himself giggling at his own mental picture of that fine day.