"If you get up and take a bath, Raleigh—you smell terrible—I'll give you a little drink."
She got Raleigh's shirt off, his undershirt, shoes and socks, finally his wet trousers, and led him in his boxer shorts to the bathroom, where she got him seated on the covered commode. She looked around, noticed a shard of glass in the tub. She lifted it out. The medicine cabinet was leaning against the wall. It was just like Harvey not to put it back up where it belonged. And he should have seen that piece of glass. She rinsed out the tub, then put the stopper in the tub drain and drew warm water. Raleigh would lie out somewhere and die if she didn't do this. There was nobody else willing. Harvey wouldn't do it. Raleigh had nobody but her. He had a good mind and heart. She hated for Stephen to see this, but there was nothing else to do. She could explain it to him as he got a little older—the awfulness of it all, what all Raleigh had had to go through. Stephen could learn from it. Learn to never touch alcohol.
Raleigh, dressed in clean, dry clothes, sat at the kitchen table while Alease did, at this stage, all she knew to do: pour him a drink, a little drink. Wean him off it.
"Aw, Alease, that ain't enough."
"Raleigh, that's all you're getting and then it's time for you to go to bed." "Go to bed?" "Yes. I'll lay down with you, if you'll go to sleep."
Stephen heard them talking from the couch where he lay very still except for his lips moving on the bottle nipple. His eyes, with heavy lids, fluttered. He imagined that the cold milk and Karo syrup mixture was warm. The little yellow pill had cleared his chest and made him sleepy and now would bring strange dreams.
His mama and his uncle were going to take a nap together. His mother was the one in the world to take care of Uncle Raleigh.
Next morning June Odum stood in the open back door at the Toomey house. "Alease?" she called. "Alease?"
Alease heard her from the living room, answered, went to the kitchen.
"I see Raleigh's been drinking again," said June. "Anything I can do?"
"Not that I can think of. Come on in and sit down. I was just cleaning up a little bit. He's still asleep." She stood the broom against the pantry door, wondered what time he might get up. "Harvey's got Stephen down at the blinker light."
"Well, I'm just sorry about it and I know it just worries you to death."
"It sure does, June."
"There's no nicer man in the world when he's sober than Raleigh Caldwell."
"I know it."
"No neater man."
"That's right."
"I was in the yard and heard him and Harvey fall in the bathroom. Did y'all get your medicine cabinet back up?"
"Not yet. I got all the glass up out of the floor, though."
Alease found an ashtray for June, then sat down with her at the kitchen table. She thought about the work she had to do, but this was all right for a few minutes.
"Did Stephen get over his asthma?" asked June.
"He did. Those pills usually help out."
"What is it you reckon makes him vomit when he drinks milk outen a glass?"
"I don't know. He's ashamed of it. Hides his bottle. I've never heard of such a thing, and Dr. Fountain said just go ahead and feed him a bottle and he'll outgrow it."
"Sometimes I wish I'd used a bottle when Fred was a baby.
He chewed on my titties something fierce. They never did toughen up. I think it was some kind of condition he had. I never heard of such. His gums were as hard as rocks. It was like he had rock gums."
"I don't know what I'd done without a bottle once Stephen started vomiting."
June took a draw off her Pall Mall. Silence. She looked at the yellow daisies in a jar on the windowsill, turned her head and blew smoke. "You just can't beat yellow for a color, can you?"
Alease was glad to have the back door open to the morning, and to have June over to talk for a little while, but it was time to get back to work. She hoped Raleigh would sleep long enough and June would leave in time for her to hear "Break the Bank" on the radio while she did her ironing. She'd have to explain some more to Stephen about how what Raleigh did was a sin but not bad enough for the electric chair. She'd have to fix dinner. She'd fix ham sandwiches. That ham was only about half gone—plenty more. She'd have to keep weaning Raleigh. She'd have to be real firm with him. She'd have to sweep the front porch and keep Raleigh off it until he got sober. She'd have to put away the breakfast dishes, call Harvey on their new telephone, and tell him to bring home a fresh chicken and some string beans. It had gotten to be too much going next door to borrow June's phone. She might fix some pinto beans. June had gotten the idea from somewhere of putting a cut-up cabbage core in her pinto beans. Alease wished she could have told that to her mother because they had always thrown the cabbage core away. She wished Stephen could have gotten to know her mother. June's pintos were good cooked that way, and with a whole onion dropped in there. Alease didn't hardly ever think of food but what she didn't think of her mother.
That afternoon, preacher Crenshaw drove past Train's Place on the way to visit Alease Toomey about the recent trouble with her brother.
Somehow beer-drinking out of doors at Train's had bled into the community so slowly it had escaped public condemnation. The fact of apparent abstinence at the flintrock, the grocery, the Blaine sisters', the barbershop, and up at the grill helped keep the blinker light intersection wholesome enough. And besides, Train's was just a little too close to home for direct lambasting. Though Lord knows, drinking was lambasted from his pulpit. But just about anybody who drank beer at Train's Place had relatives in the church and there was no need to go stirring up trouble close to home. Unless it got worse.
Alease Toomey's house looked neat and trouble-free from the outside. It was white with a nice lawn and flowers all around. He needed to be with her for a prayer at least. She was not one to call on him or come for a visit. She was an independent sort. But Mrs. Odum said she was in need and Raleigh Caldwell had always been a bad problem when he was drunk. An embarrassment. And while he, Crenshaw, was there he might mention to Mrs. Toomey his own problem with his secretary, Mrs. Clark. She'd up and moved into her office. She was living there. Mrs. Toomey was discreet, for sure. He'd never heard of her telling anybody one single thing. He needed to maybe see what Mrs. Toomey thought about the Mrs. Clark situation.
Stephen was sitting in the dirt at the garage entrance, rolling his little metal trucks through their chores of hauling important dirt along their new roads, completing important jobs. Each truck was solid in a way Stephen adored. He saw the preacher's green Ford, didn't recognize it. Then he recognized the preacher when he got out of his car. Why was he coming over there?
Mr. Crenshaw came up, said a word or two, then went to the back door and knocked. Mr. Crenshaw was the king of the church, and the church was the king building of the whole country around there. Stephen had seen Mr. Crenshaw up on the stage behind the wood thing, he'd seen Mr. Crenshaw walk back and forth up there and raise his hand toward heaven and holler until he got red in the face, hollering about what hell was like and what heaven was like and telling them to hurry up and accept Jesus as their saviour because when Jesus came back you'd better be saved.
Since his uncle Raleigh and his mama and Preacher Crenshaw were all in the house, he decided he would go in and see what was happening.
His mama and the preacher were sitting at the kitchen table. The preacher was praying:
"...and for the afflictions and the hardships brought by alcohol we pray for release. We ask Thy guidance in conquering the evil of the material excesses we experience every day. Help us, oh Lord, to fight temptation in all its disguises. Help us to be true, and clean, and pure, in Jesus' blessed name. Amen."
"Stephen, honey, you go on back outside and play while me and Mr. Crenshaw talk a little while."
"He's growing up into a fine young man. Stephen, what do you want to be when you grow up, son?"
"A fireman."
"Well that's good—and you know you c
an be a good Christian fireman. There's nothing wrong with that."
"He's also thinking about being a missionary," said Mrs. Toomey. "He's almost seven. Honey, you run on back outside."
His uncle Raleigh stood in the kitchen door. "Hello, Mr. Caldwell."
The preacher stood, shook his uncle's hand.
"Go on outside, son," said his mother.
Stephen wanted to see what happened with all those big parts of the world there together in one room, but his mother escorted him out the back door, and he returned to his spot in front of the garage where his trucks waited for their jobs of driving in straight lines, and curves, and turning over.
Harder than A diamond, longer than a longitude, deeper than all space, Raleigh wanted heat in his throat and stomach and then the magic of it spreading up to his head, releasing him to love the world—and be loved—and to hold on. He didn't want no goddamned son of a bitching preacher in the kitchen. "What are you doing here?"
"I come to spend just a little time with Alease. Frankly, her having to deal with your drinking, Raleigh, can be kind of hard on her, as you probably know."
"She's my sister and what she's dealing with is none of your business." Who in the tarnation did he think he was?
"We'd have to ask her about that, I suppose."
"I don't think we have to ask her nothing. She promised me a little drink."
"Raleigh, I'm not going to give you a little drink, yet. Preacher Crenshaw, sometimes I have to wean him off his whiskey."
Raleigh stepped forward. "Wean bean Dizzy Dean. I need a little drink to get me going and then I'll get out there and cut that grass." There were things a man could do around the house. Where was Harvey Parvey?
"Raleigh, you're not in any shape to cut grass. Preacher Crenshaw, I'll walk you out to your car. I appreciate you coming by."
"That's okay, Alease. I need to be getting on up to the hospital."
"To the hospital?" says Raleigh. "You mean you got to go to work today?"
"Raleigh, you go in the living room right now and I'll tend to you in a minute."
"That's exactly where I was headed. That's exactly where I was headed."
PART 2
The Man in the Buick Eight
A SPITNEW FACE
As he pulled in, Jack Umstead noted the name "Redding" on the big sign—redding bro. gulf service STATION, TRAIN REDDING, PROPRIETOR—hanging from an inverted L-shaped pole. Dripping water sparkled in sunlight against a dark sky on down the road. Beyond the intersection was a rock-walled store, lighted by the sun, general store it looked like, whole thing made out of big rocks. Across the road a grocery store—boy sitting on the porch step.
He got out, shut the door—a solid clunk. With this car he felt plum rich. He looked around. Tacked on to the grocery store was what looked like had to be a feed room. Beyond that, another store, maybe a store and house combination, then another—pendergrass auto shop and grill.
A barbershop across the road.
Whole place looked settled, ripe, timid, kind of stupid. Just right.
"What can I do for you?"
"Fill her up. Check the oil." He leaned against his Buick. This service station man's eyes were a little closer together than they ought to be and he didn't have a lot of chin. Looked like a talker. "You're one of the Reddings, ain't you?"
"That's right. I'm Blake."
Umstead waited the appropriate time. "I got some relatives over on the other side of Traveler's Rest." He spit from between his tongue and upper teeth. Looked around. "Just getting back to see them."
"Yeah?"
The pump dinged on each dollar. It took a while.
"Except I don't think I remember that blinking light," said Umstead. "How long's that been there?"
"Oh, about eight years. Nine. Since the mule-truck head-on—right after that."
"Mule-truck head-on. Now I do remember hearing something about that. I'm trying to remember whose mule that was."
"My brother was driving the truck. Train."
"Train Redding. That's right. I do remember that."
"It was Butch Gaylord's mule." Blake pulled the nozzle from the gas tank. "Who's your family?"
"Jones. Joneses. But somehow we ain't no kin to the Joneses right around here. We moved to South Carolina, then Mississippi when we left here. I try to come back when I can. The place hadn't changed all that much really. I'm on the way south from Richmond where I been visiting a army buddy."
"That'll be two sixty-five on the gas." Blake checked the oil. "Oil looks good. This is a nice car." He slammed the hood.
"Yeah, I got a pretty good deal on it. Traded a forty-nine Ford."
"Buick's a good automobile."
Stephen looked toward the slamming hood. The new man leaning up against the big black car talking to Mr. Blake looked skinny but strong at the same time. He was wearing some kind of boots, and dungarees, and a yellow shirt. He wore wire glasses and his hair was black and kind of curly in a way that made Stephen believe that the man was probably a happy beer drinker.
Inside train's place, Blake made change.
Umstead asked, "How old's that dog out there?"
"Sixteen."
"Damn."
"So you just visiting, huh?"
"Yeah. I'll be around for a few days, maybe a week, visit some of my folks and then head on back to Mississippi. What's that dog's name?"
"Trouble."
"He's full-blooded, ain't he?"
"Yep. English style, with them bowlegs. And he can tell the weather. Depends on where he takes his morning nap. There you go, two dollars and thirty-five cents."
"Who's he belong to?"
"Train."
Umstead looked around. "All things equal, I guess if I had to be in a pasture with a bull I'd rather him have a dog hanging on his nose."
"Where you from in Mississippi?"
"Clarksdale."
"I had a cousin had a grandma in Corinth."
"Don't know nobody in Corinth."
It was kind of dark in there. Candy counter, hoop of cheese, few canned goods, junk. Naked woman calendar. Ummmm. Somebody in a wheelchair behind the candy counter near a table of... radios? Had to be the owner. Certain mental nerves magically told you things like that.
"How you doing?" Umstead said.
"All right."
"You're Train, ain't you?"
"That's right."
"You probably don't remember me. I lived over the other side of Traveler's Rest for a few years with some kinfolks and I spent some time around these parts, worked some in Summerlin."
"Yeah, well... You any kin to Marcus Jones?"
"Who was his daddy?"
"Sam."
"No, not close kin, not a Sam that I recall."
Umstead bought a slice of hoop cheese to go, took another look at the calendar—"I keep forgetting what day it is," he said—paid his respects, went out and sat in the car for a minute, checked his rearview mirror. Little boy across the road sitting on the steps. Smoking? Little boy smoking? Now there was a good source.
"You notice what he called T.R.?" said Train to Blake.
"Called it Traveler's Rest."
"First time I heard that in a long time."
"I think people used to call it that sometime back, didn't they?"
"Not that I know of."
Albert Copeland sat on the Weams's pond bank with his sons, Thatcher and Meredith. He was talking to Meredith. "You take the head and just push it in like that and kind of just go ahead and turn the whole thing wrongsideoutwards, see, and it's all juicy yellow, and the fish like that. So then you just hook it. See?" / Linda Clovis, over in T.R., was hemming her grandfather's coat. He'd had a stroke and his left side drooped now and she was hemming the coat on an angle so it would hang level all the way around.
The stranger walked into the grocery store, came back out with a Pepsi-Cola and a bag of peanuts, and sat on the bench. "I thought them was real cigarettes you was smoking," he said.
"What's your name?"
"Stephen."
"Stephen what?"
"Stephen Toomey."
"You know where all the cigarette smoke in the world goes?"
"No sir."
"Makes white clouds." He tossed peanuts into his mouth one at a time. "You know where all the rubber offen tires goes?"
Stephen shook his head.
"Makes black clouds. Know where farts go?"
Stephen looked at the man.
"A fart, poot, you know—pbrruuuet. Ain't you ever farted? Pooted? You call it a poot?"
"Ye ... yessir." He was talking ugly.
"Well, you know where they go to?"
"No sir."
"They go in your ears, come out your nose, get in your socks and hide 'tween your toes."
Stephen thought: This man is a beer drinker up close.
"You ever had anybody find a penny behind your ear?"
"Yessir. Mr. Ferrell did."
The man stood, walked over. When he got close Stephen could smell him, a smell like fresh, clean fish. He pulled a penny from behind Stephen's ear and handed it to him. "I guess this is yours, Budrow."
Stephen looked at the penny, at Abraham Lincoln. He felt behind his ear.
"This is a right nice store," said the man. "Who runs it?"
"Uncle Steve. And my daddy."
"I see." The man chewed a peanut. "Well, it sure is a nice store." He sat back down on the bench. "I think it's a little nicer than the one next door. Who runs that?"
"The Blaine sisters."
"I see."
"They drive to Mrs. Clark's house when it lightnings."
"They drive off when it lightnings, huh?"
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