The Judge sighed. “I sure do wish old man Dawson had taught him a little about banking before he up and died on us.” Then he turned to Red. “Say, Red, how about another cup? That last one got turned over in the fray.” He rubbed his beard. “Do you remember when we used to come out here on Saturday morning and enjoy it?”
Just then, Tom Dover, the postmaster, walked in. “Mornin’, everybody. How’s it goin’ there, Judge? Debo? Nothin’ like a quiet Saturday morning just to sit back and relax.”
They all smiled at him and shook their heads.
“What? What did I say?”
CHAPTER 31
SUNDAY after church—John had talked his way into staying another night—Mrs. Vance was bustling around in the kitchen. “John honey,” she called into the living room. “I’m out of mint for the tea. Will you run across to the cemetery and get some from Jesse Clee?” She came in the living room, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Ma’am?”
“It’s the big one with the prayin’ angel on the top.”
He still sat there looking at her.
“Three or four sprigs will do, just the new growth, the little leaves.” She turned and left the room.
The Judge lowered the volume on the radio. “She’s talking about Jesse Clee, John. He was a farmer around here for a good many years. His family had all that land just south of Brown’s Crossing. Anyway, the man was a fool for mint juleps. He loved them so much, his wife planted mint on his grave. Seems all the ladies of the town use it when their supply runs low. His grave is in the back row of the cemetery, the one with the big angel carving on top of it. I think it says, ‘Beloved husband, loving father,’ something like that.” The Judge turned the radio back up and began listening to the news again. When he didn’t hear John get up and leave, he turned it back down again. “What is it?”
“She wants me to go in the cemetery and get mint off a dead person’s grave?”
“I used to do it.” The Judge smiled. There was silence. “It’s broad daylight, son. It can’t hurt you.”
“I know that.” He eased himself off the chair. “Yes, sir, I know that.”
He walked slowly out of the house, crossed the side yard and street to get to the town cemetery. The gate on the wrought-iron fence that surrounded the cemetery made an ominous squeaking noise. Sticking out of the ground, row after row, like tabs in some mammoth filing system, was the history of Lower Peach Tree.
Off at a distance he could see the marble angel standing on marble tree branches, wings outstretched, ready for flight. Toward the front of the cemetery, on the street side, were tiny markers of children who hadn’t made it past a few months. They lay at the feet of the larger crude markers of their pioneering parents. Headstones of later years were carved with Confederate flags and words of defiance and grief. Toward the back, the history became more immediate and top-heavy with men and their more modern wars. Lower Peach Tree had contributed four souls to the Spanish-American War, ten to World War I, and too many to count in World War II. He saw only one headstone from Korea. It was over in the Debo family’s plot. Their son Thomas, John calculated, had been nineteen.
Beyond the mint grave were tall weeds, where other graves were barely visible through the undergrowth. After he picked the mint, he edged over beyond the regular cemetery. There, almost hidden by the weeds, were large slabs lying flat on the ground. The words that had been on these stones had faded away long ago, but one of them had a large X across the front, newly drawn in white chalk. He turned to see if his bedroom window was visible from where he stood.
At dinner, he told the Judge he would be glad to stay over another night so he could be there early the next morning and not worry about being late.
Mrs. Vance started to say something, but the Judge interrupted her and said that it was mighty considerate of him but that he had better get on home after he ate.
After dinner, he stretched out the day as long as it would go, reading the Sunday paper to the Judge cover to cover, filling the Judge’s pipe with stale tobacco and insisting he smoke it, suggesting they do the Sunday crossword puzzle.
Finally, the Judge put his pipe down and let the strong odor of stale smoke smolder in the bowl. “John, come over and sit down on the ottoman.”
John eyed the Judge suspiciously but came and took a tentative seat.
“Do you remember the first time we met?”
“Yes, sir, on the train. We had coconut cream pie. I read the papers to you. We had meatloaf and—”
“That’s right. You asked about my blindness. I told you I was learning to cope, remember?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, I just want to tell you that I think you are doing an admirable job learning to cope with what life has handed you.” He waited a moment before saying anything else.
“Do you know what I’m talking about?” He waited again, but John didn’t answer.
“You can’t change the fact that they are your aunt and uncle. You just have to cope with it.”
“I hate’m.”
The Judge was silent for a long time after that. Then he said, “That’s probably part of what coping is, knowing how you feel and dealing with it anyway. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“You’re saying I gotta go home now.”
The Judge raised his hand up to his chin and rubbed his beard. The boy couldn’t see his eyes. “Yes, you have to go home now.”
John climbed the stairs and changed back into his home clothes, then left by the back door, without telling either one of them good-bye.
Aunt Nelda stood watching him at the supper table. She was smoking her supper as she stood over a pot of spaghetti sauce bubbling on the stove. Spaghetti was a real treat, and the others had already received large plates and were eating by the time he got there.
“Course I know it ain’t dinner with the Judge.” She let the plate drop to the table in front of him.
Uncle Luther glanced up at Nelda, then took up the cudgel. “We thought you had gone and got yourself adopted.” He tore a piece of bread off the loaf in the middle of the table.
John sat staring at the spaghetti. “They don’t want me.”
Uncle Luther let out a coarse laugh. “Hear that, Nelda? Them people’s got more sense than I give’m credit for.”
CHAPTER 32
MONDAY, Tuway was back. He walked in, telling the Judge and Mrs. Vance how his cousin Elva was much obliged to him for coming over there and fixing her roof. It was a hot job but he got it done and how were things while he was gone? The Judge said everything was just dandy and that John had done a good job. Between Mrs. Vance and John, he was more than taken care of. “In fact,” he said, “they have devised a plan that will free you up most Saturdays.”
Tuway said that was fine with him. He said that, as the Judge knew, he was a part-time preacher anyway and that he was going to have to do some preaching over near Burnt Corn later in the year and, this way, he would have more time to get over there.
As always, John and Tuway sat on the back porch at dinnertime. John kept looking at Tuway, wanting to ask him if he was the one he had seen on Saturday night, or had he been dreaming? But the idea of possibly making a fool of himself in front of Tuway, talking about things that might or might not have been, was too silly even in his mind. Every time Tuway looked up at him, his resolve melted. Finally, Tuway said, “What is it you want, boy? The rest of my cornbread?” He pushed his plate toward John and went back to looking at his little leather book.
On their way to work that afternoon, John asked the Judge, “Why is it that you live next to a cemetery?”
“What’s the matter? Don’t you like being so close to dead people?” The Judge laughed. “Still thinking about your trip to get the mint yesterday?”
“Where I used to live, the cemetery was out on the edge of town.”
“The house we live in now was once a plantation house. That was before Lower Peach Tree became a town. That graveyard sta
rted out as a family burial plot and developed into one for the whole community as the town grew. Have you ever noticed the graves at the far end over there?” He pointed with his cane in the exact direction of the X.
John looked at Tuway. He was walking straight ahead, as if he wasn’t listening.
“No, sir,” he said.
“Well, back in the weeds are some old slave graves that have been there longer than any of the others. Some are marked with stones. Most aren’t. You should take a look sometime. Tuway will show you.”
CHAPTER 33
JOHN and Cal were stacking poison sacks for storage a few days later when Tuway came out back to have a smoke.
“Well,” Cal said, “I hear you done gone and took up smokin’ again, and you told old Cal you done give it up.” Cal threw a sack from the back of the truck and went to get another without looking at Tuway. “What’s you ’spect? I wasn’t good enough to know your business?”
Tuway didn’t say anything, staring out into the parking lot, hunched over, his elbows on his knees. He blew out long trails of smoke that hung in the air.
Cal went to get another sack. “All my friends sayin’, ‘You cousins with Tuway. You talk to him. He listen to you.’ And here I am actin’ the fool, sayin’, ‘Old Tuway say he done give it up. I can’t help you, brother.’”
“I done give it up. That just was somethin’ had to be done.” Tuway dropped his cigarette and stepped on it as he stood up. He turned and walked back inside.
John looked to Cal. “Did he give it up just then when he put out that cigarette, or did he give it up the other day when I saw him smoking when he already said he had done give it up?”
Cal looked disgusted. “Who the hell knows ’bout Tuway. Go on, jump in the cab.”
They drove out the main highway and had turned onto a side road, when there was a big popping sound and the truck lurched to the right. Cal took his foot off the gas and coasted to a stop. “I know what it is. That right rear been ball for a month now. Get on out. We’ll have to change it.” Cal got out of his side and rummaged through what little equipment there was behind the backseat of the truck. He pulled out a lug wrench but couldn’t find a jack. “Somebody always messin’ with my tools. What I’m supposed to do without no jack? Sam done took this truck to Demopolis last week, and that’s what happens.” He threw a heavy chain back in the space behind the seat and slammed the door shut, disgusted.
“Go on up there.” Cal pointed to a drive that curved off the main road. “That’s the Dawson place. Find George, he be there, and get him to give you a jack to bring me. I’ll be gettin’ the lugs off while you go.”
John hesitated. There was no house in sight, only a wide drive that disappeared behind a grove of tall cedar trees. “How far is it?”
“It ain’t far, maybe half a mile. It’s where old L.B. stay.”
“Mr. L.B. lives up there?” John still didn’t move.
Cal looked up from crouching over the blown tire. “Go on. He ain’t gonna bother you. He probably half-drunk by now anyway. George say he do that on days he ain’t got to go into town or Montgomery.”
Cal turned back to the business of loosening the lug nuts. “Shake a leg,” he said. “We ain’t got all day. Got to get this here fertilizer delivered. And tell George we don’t need no candy-ass jack—this here is a big truck.”
John began his walk up the drive. On either side of the entrance, there were large stone columns. Up the road a short distance he noticed plantings on both sides of the driveway that needed weeding. From his hours in Mrs. Vance’s garden, he was tempted to stop and pull out the larger weeds.
As he walked on, the cedar trees gave way to the view of a grand three-story house, white, with turrets and porches running across the front, more Victorian in style than the usual larger plantation houses he had passed on his trips out into the countryside with Cal. This one looked as if it had grown up and old along with the towering cedars that surrounded it, not easy grown and not soon washed away.
His shoes made a crunching sound on the gravel of the circular drive, which was outlined with very old misshapen boxwood. Moss grew between the crosshatched bricks that formed the path to the porch steps.
He had noticed from a distance that the large oak carved front door was standing open, so when he climbed the porch steps, he didn’t think of knocking but walked up to the threshold and peered inside.
There was a wide hall that ran the length of the house, with a staircase that circled the walls up and up until it reached the entrance to the cupola that crowned the roof. A breeze blew past him, down the hall and out the open doors at the opposite end. Threadbare Oriental carpet covered the floor, and four large oil portraits of men and women lined the walls. He turned back around at the door. From this view, he could see that the house sat on top of a soft rise in the land, affording a view of all the surrounding countryside. He could even see the top of Cal’s truck off in the distance. The cedars that he had thought were randomly placed were actually laid out in a pattern surrounding the house and edging the drive.
He stepped inside, feeling that he was entering a sanctuary of some kind and that there was something here he should be afraid to disturb. “George? Is anybody home?” He said it in a whisper. Still his voice echoed up through the stairwell and then fell silent. A breeze ruffled the lace doily that centered the cloisonné bowl, which sat atop the mahogany hunt board that anchored the hall, which served as the hub of this house that cotton built.
He called again, this time a little bolder. “Hello, is anybody here?” He felt silly saying it. Of course somebody must be here with the doors open. He stomped his feet a few more steps into the hall and called again. “Cal sent me to get a jack.” He stood very still to listen and thought he heard a faint sound from the back end of the house, so he walked up to where the stairs began and looked down the hall. There was a noise out on the back porch. An older colored man appeared in the doorway, carrying a coat he was hurriedly putting on.
“Didn’t hear you comin’, Miss Eugenia. I was out back waterin’ the—” He stopped short when he saw it was a child. “Oh, I thought you was somebody else.” The colored man slowly took off his coat and draped it neatly back over his arm. “What’s you doin’ here? Ain’t you the boy at the bank?” He squinted. “Ain’t you the Judge’s helper?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I thought I recognized you. What you doin’ out here? You got a message for Mr. L.B. from the Judge?”
“No, sir. Our truck broke down and Cal sent me to borrow a jack, if you got one to spare, a big one for a truck.”
“Where he broke down at?”
“Just outside your driveway.” John gestured. “You can see our truck from here.”
George glanced out the door. “Think I seen a jack out in the garage, up on the wall. Let me go see what I can find.” He turned to leave, and John followed. “No, you stay here. Go wait in there.” He pointed to a room off the hall. “I might have to do some searchin’. Don’t know as how I seen no big jack in some time now.” He disappeared down the hall.
John turned around and looked at the portraits hanging there. One was of a beautiful woman in a bright blue dress. Another was of a man in a hunting outfit. He wandered into the living room. There were Victorian chairs and a sofa around a marble fireplace. Fresh-cut branches of magnolia leaves stuffed in a large brass container filled the fire well. A big gold-framed portrait of a lady in a skirted riding habit hung over the mantel. Photographs sat in frames on the side tables. He picked up a small one and was studying it when he heard a noise from the floor above and then steps on the staircase.
“Mama? I’m sorry. I was just upstairs,” a voice called.
John walked out to the hall, to see L.B. knotting his tie and hurrying down the steps.
“I didn’t think you would come.” He was busy pulling the knot tight and didn’t notice John or the stairs. Eight or ten steps from the bottom, he tripped and fell the rest of the way dow
n, sliding on his rear until he reached the hall floor. L.B. sat there half-dazed, not seeming to know where he was.
“You all right?” John stepped closer and was immediately enveloped in the smell of hard liquor.
L.B. took a moment to look around. “I thought you were my mother.” He brushed back his hair with one hand. “She comes to visit once in awhile. Said she might come today.” He began to try to stand up. “Course I knew she wouldn’t. She never comes except to . . .” He held on to John’s shoulder and the stair banister to steady himself.
“What are you doin’ here anyway?” His eyes focused on John for the first time. “You’re the Judge’s kid, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You got a message from the Judge? Is that why you came?” He loosened his tie with one hand while he still held to the banister with the other. “Sure as hell didn’t come to visit, did you?”
“No, sir. Me and Cal had a flat tire out on the main road. I came to borrow a jack.”
“Oh, well, I guess we can oblige you. George,” he yelled. “George’ll get it for you. George,” he yelled again, “get your sorry ass down here.”
“I talked to him already. He’s gone to get it for me.”
“Oh.” L.B. blinked his eyes, trying to focus on the thought. “Well, good. Good man, George.”
He let go of the stair rail and stood still, testing his ability to stand alone. “Well now, as long as you’re here, might as well come in and visit. Not that I would ordinarily entertain a kid”—he rubbed his back where it had hit the stairs—“but you know the dictates of southern hospitality.” His hand moved to his rear end to check for damage. “That’s why I’m doin’ it, invitin’ you in.” He swayed toward the door to the living room and motioned John to follow him. “Come on. Come on in here to the parlor.”
L.B. walked over to a sideboard that held a silver tray with several glass decanters. “Only touch this stuff when guests come.” He struggled to get the top off of the decanter containing bourbon. “That way, it keeps me from drinkin’ too much.” He turned to John and smiled. “Good plan, huh?”
Out of the Night That Covers Me Page 17