Umstead watched a good-sized black kitten walking along the top of a low rock wall that was beside his cabin. The kitten jumped down from the wall, crossed the road, and entered the woods cautious-like. Now a tiger, Umstead thought, will eat you up, but it has a very calm face. What about that? Well, not if it's real mad, showing its teeth. But then an elephant looks about the same all the time, except it probably throws its ears back. And a horse. But you do get a feeling about people by looking in their faces, and that's why that mental nerve has lasted, and cars look like they've got faces. There's two eyes: two headlights. One mouth: one grille. Why did the carmakers decide to have two headlights instead of three? Mental nerves had something to do with it.
In thirty minutes he looked at his watch again and stood to head for breakfast at the grill. There was nothing much he liked better than two over easy, chopped and mixed with grits for a toast dip, bacon, hot black coffee, and cold orange juice, all while he read the newspaper and found something to talk to somebody about. To Cheryl, maybe.
At the end of the fence he stopped. A little boy and what must be his mama were coming out onto the front porch of the first house there. It was the boy that ... the grocery store kid. Toomey. He could tell somehow that the mama was what ... religious? She had that look about her, but there was also something else. Something he liked. Something he liked a lot. Her hair had some of that deep dark red in it, something that said ... said she'd be hard to get through to, but once he did, she'd turn loose. Maybe that was it.
Besides faces, this business of reading people had to do with the way people moved, the way they walked, and how long they looked at you at a time. Scientists would figure it out one day. Scientists would figure out how—well, like that Redding fellow, Blake: eyes close together, no chin. That was for sure not the person who owned the gas station. That was the face of a helper, somebody without any sense of leadership. You could see right away that Train was the commander. A man with a jaw. And eyes that didn't give away the first thing. A man Umstead wouldn't mind getting to know a little bit. A man he probably had a lot in common with as far as deep character and intelligence was concerned.
The little boy climbed up into the porch swing, turned, and plopped down. The mother, she would be Mrs. Toomey then, held a plate of food and a fork. She pulled up a porch chair to a spot in front of the swing and pushed the swing, forked some egg, gave the swing another little push, held the fork out toward the boy, and looked out across the yard. The house was nice, not too simple, a little complicated-looking with a lot of flowers in the yard and up next to the house.
"Come here, little pig," she said, loud. "Come here, little pig. I got you something to eat, little pig. You come here, now. Get you something to eat."
Umstead watched the boy swing forward and mouth the egg. Damn.
The mother, still looking out toward the road: "Come on, little pig. Come on now. I got you some ... What in the world happened to your food, little pig!?"
The little boy about shit a brick. Having one hell of a time. There was a woman who didn't need no instruction about how to get food down a child.
"Mama, there's a man."
"That's okay. He's just walking down to the blinker light."
"That's the man at the store. He got a penny out from behind my ear." And he talked ugly, Stephen thought.
The man stopped.
Stephen's mother lifted her hand and smiled. The hand held the fork with egg on it.
"Where'd you get all them pigs?" said the man.
"Oh, they just come up here every morning for breakfast."
"There's some right pretty ones out there. They look hungry, too!"
"Somebody keeps getting their food."
"Well, good luck. I'm going to get a bite myself."
"He might be a gypsy," said Stephen.
"No, I don't think so."
"He lives at the Settle Inn."
"That don't mean you're a gypsy, son. You can stay at the Settle Inn and not be a gypsy."
Umstead had A notion to go running across the yard toward them, screaming, "Oink, oink!" He walked on. If he did that he'd just scare them. But there could be some pleasure in that, too. He wondered how many people in the history of the world, if any, had been pretending to feed imaginary pigs, when all of a sudden real pigs showed up. Now that was a question nobody could ever answer, no matter what, even though the answer was as really there as answers to easy questions like the number of blinker lights in the world, or how many times that blinker light had blinked so far—you could figure that one out—but not one like how many people a day in the world, on average, thought about a tree while they farted, or when they were having supper two weeks ago. What percentage thought about a bare tree, what percentage about a leafy tree? Which year since 1850 had more leaves fall off trees? That just showed you about knowledge. There was a lot going on you didn't know about.
Little Kenny Rollins stood in his bathroom a half-mile away. He held his penis in both hands and looked down as he repeatedly pulled open the little hole with his thumbs and then pushed it back together. "Hello there, Kenny," Kenny said. "My name is Mr. Knob-knob. I'm a lumberjack." "Hello, Mr. Knob-knob. How do you feel today?" "I feel just fine. I'm a-looking me some trees to cut down." "Oh? Well, I know where some trees are. Why don't you come with me?" "Okay, Kenny. I believe I will."
Umstead, walking toward the blinker light, checked his watch, counted the blinks for ten seconds: twelve. Twelve times three, thirty-six. Thirty-six times two, seventy-two. The same as heartbeats a minute.
All the stores except the sisters' probably for sure took their stash home and then probably to the bank. More and more people were using banks. There might even be a stash at the little boy's house on some weekend nights—that his daddy brought home from the grocery store.
He'd go with his original plan. He'd wait until the next storm and break in downstairs at the Blaine sisters'. In the meantime, he'd get more or less comfortable.
Inside the grill he found Cheryl waiting on a mama, daddy, and two kids. He went to the counter where he'd be close to the cash register and could talk to her. He got a newspaper from a chair, sat down.
"What'll it be, Mr. Jones?" said Cheryl. She was behind the counter waiting to write on her order pad.
"Call me Delbert. You make me feel like a old man. I'll take two over easy, grits, bacon, toast, orange juice, and coffee. Bacon crisp, if I got a choice. You work all day?"
"I get off late mornings and in the afternoon."
"I see."
Through the order window, "Two over, crisp bacon, toast." Then to Umstead, "We got some mighty good fresh biscuits."
"I ain't never been real big on biscuits for some reason."
"I might have to give you one anyway. You ain't ever had none like these."
"Give me two."
She set a cup of coffee and a glass of orange juice in front of him, turned, and he looked at her rear end move, apron strings falling down across those just pure-t perfect hips, and under that smooth white skirt: a panties outline.
She placed a dish with two biscuits, butter, and grape jelly in front of him.
"Thank you." He could get used to this.
Midmorning, Umstead was sitting outside on the bench at Train's when Train himself rolled out in his wheelchair. Umstead had never seen him outside before. He was somebody who didn't pretend to be a Christian.
"Trouble," said Train. "Sic ... sic."
The old squatty bulldog grunted, got up slowly, hobbled around the side of the building, out of sight.
"What's he going after?" asked Umstead.
"Just getting his exercise."
"I see ... looks like it's gone be a scorcher." Umstead needed to be careful here. He didn't say anything for a while. "You fix radios, huh? Besides running this place."
"Yeah, I try."
"Hobby, more or less?"
"Yeah."
They sat for a little while. Trouble came in view from the other s
ide of the building, slowly waddled along, lay down in front of his box, and grunted.
"You seen one of them televisions?" said Umstead.
"Yeah, I saw one."
"They say they're expecting to sell a bunch of them in the next year or so. They're pretty interesting. I wonder if they work like a radio."
"I don't know."
Casey Odell drove up, went inside, came back out with a Coke, and sat on a stack of drink crates. "Man, I tell you one thing. It's hot. Train, how you been?"
"I was feeling okay until I got up this morning."
"My name's Casey Odell."
Umstead reached over, shook his hand. "Delbert Jones."
"Oh yeah, you the one down at the Settle Inn."
"That's right."
"Where you from?"
"Mississippi. Just visiting some of my kinfolks. I lived the other side of T. R. for a spell when I was little. I'm just kind of heading home. Had some time off from work."
"Well, this ain't a bad place to settle—is it, Train?"
"Nope."
"I do remember the stores around here," said Umstead, "and I remember there was a sawmill somewhere, wadn't there?"
"Up that rise behind the flintrock over there," said Casey. "That thing finally burned down back in ... when was that, Train?"
"Thirty-nine."
"Thirty-nine. That was the last big fire around here before your tires burned up, won't it?"
"Far as I know."
Umstead wanted to find out more about the Blaine sisters—whether or not they used a bank. "Wadn't there some talk about opening a bank around here?" He looked at Train. Maybe he shouldn't have said that.
Train looked at him. "Not that I've heard of."
"That might have been someplace else," said Umstead. "I've lived in right many places over the last four or five years. I work for a surveying company down in Mississippi. Some of these little intersections get to reminding me of one another."
"When did you leave out of here?" said Casey.
"Oh, must have been, let's see, early twenties. I was just a little kid. Old man Blaine had his store over there. I remember that. I can't remember much more, except I remember the sawmill. Them sisters were over there at the store back then too, I think."
"I tell you one thing. They've always been there, ain't they, Train?" said Casey.
"Pretty much."
"They tended to their mama for a long time after their daddy died," said Casey. "I remember him. He took to sitting outside under that little shelter over the door and died one day sitting out there in the chair and they never told their mama. She lived another I think four years. They took care of her like a baby down in the back part of that store."
"What you reckon that is about the thunderstorms?" asked Umstead. He wanted to be sure they were gone during thunderstorms.
"That business of the thunderstorms is Mae's problem mostly, what I've always heard," said Casey, "afraid of lightning and thunder. That came up after their little brother got killed on the railroad is what I've always heard, hadn't you, Train?"
"He got dragged something like a quarter-mile underneath a train in a bad storm," said Train. "One night, summer night. And lived for some number of days after it happened. Where'd you drive in from?" Train asked Umstead.
Why did he want to know that? Umstead wondered. "I was visiting a army buddy of mine in Richmond right before I left to drive down here. Fellow with one eye—had a shell go off in his rifle chamber."
"What road did you live on, other side of T.R.?"
"We lived on the Old Sloan Road across the county line. You know that road?" Need to get off this.
"I do."
"On across the county line. We lived back in there. We didn't have no mule-truck collisions, though. How'd that happen? I never got in on the details."
"Oh man, I tell you one thing," said Casey. "That was something. Boy I remember that. It was a Saturday afternoon and Butch Gaylord had hired Chuckie Freeman to plow out that field over there. Right over there. Anyway—you want to tell it, Train?"
"Go ahead."
"Well, Chuckie needed the money bad and wadn't in no notion to let on about how little he knew about plowing. He felt bad about it all. Still does. He's told you how bad he feels about it, ain't he, Train?"
"Yep."
"Well, the mule was ornery and after a couple of rows she took out for home, which placed her headed that way along the road there—at a right fast clip, dragging the plow along. Chuckie just gave up and let her go. He didn't know much about mules."
"He didn't know nothing about mules," said Train.
"Coming from the other way was Train and his brother, Ralph. Ralph was driving their daddy's old Ford wide open and Train was right behind him driving this new truck of his. You was both bad about driving fast, actually, won't you, Train?" said Casey.
"Well, yeah."
"I've heard you say so more than once. Anyway, Train passed Ralph about time they got to the church down there, coming this way."
Umstead thought about how the back door to the Blaine sisters' store was out of sight of everything, and hell, even if they were in there, two old women couldn't put up no fight.
"Mule's name was Molly," said Casey.
"Dolly," said Train.
"That's right, it was. Why don't you tell it, Train?"
"Naw, go ahead."
"Once Train got completely around Ralph, them and the mule was all on the same side of the road, Molly still on the—"
"Dolly."
"Dolly, shit, still on the shoulder, coming right at them. And them right at her. The mule turned right in front of the truck to cross the road at her normal crossing place, see, doing this little trot with her head up, and dragging that plow, and they say Train never even hit the brakes—and Train you don't remember nothing about it do you?"
"Nope."
"Ralph always says Dolly decided to do two things at once, he says: 'Number one, try to jump whatever it was coming at her, and number two, shit.' Near as we could tell—see I was sitting over there at the flintrock and I heard it and I was—"
"What did it sound like?" asked Umstead. "Mule-truck head-on?" Now how many of them had happened since trucks come on the market?
"Well, I tell you. It sounded ... it sounded more or less like a mule-truck head-on is about all I can say. Kind of this loud Ka-whomp."
Train took it: "My hood ornament and the whole front center of the hood hit her shoulder and knocked her front end out from under her, and she busted in through the windshield ass first and stuck there, with that plow whipping around and lodging in behind the right door, and the truck rolled once when it hit the ditch, broke Dolly's neck—they said, as if she wadn't already dead—and dropped me in Gus White's yard unconscious, and mule shit all over my face and shoulders, and after I was out for ten, fifteen minutes and then come to, they said for the next two hours, which I don't remember, they said I kept asking what happened, over and over. I'd say, 'What happened?' and they'd say, 'You hit a mule widge your truck,' and I'd say, 'Naw,' and they'd say, 'Oh, yeah,' and in five minutes I'd say, 'What happened?' and they'd say, 'You hit a mule widge your truck,' and I'd say, 'Naw,' and they'd say, 'Oh, yeah.'"
Once he gets cranked up, thought Umstead, he talks right along.
"One bad thing," said Casey. "Now I can tell this because you were unconscious. One bad thing was that all mixed in with that mule shit was crushed-up windshield glass. Chuckie tried to wipe off Train's face with a towel but of course it cut him up. We'd all run down there, see. Now I saw that part. There, you can see the scars. Turn your head a little bit, Train."
"Yeah," said Umstead. "I'd heard about all that but never heard the specifics."
"He broke his ankle so bad," said Casey, "it made his leg shorter and that could have kept him out of the army but he wanted to serve his country and so ended up taking that Jap bullet through the spine."
"'A great tribute to the fighting spirit of the American people,'
" said Train.
"Severed it," said Casey. "Just like you'd do a wishbone."
Train looked at Casey. "Where'd you come up with that?"
"Well, you the one said it was severed."
"That's right. I am. I can talk about my own accidents, Casey. My own injuries."
"I'm sorry."
"Yeah, I heard something about that one, too," said Umstead. " 'Cept I didn't know it was a Jap bullet. That's too bad."
They were silent.
"We got a right good little community here," said Train, looking at Umstead. "People are pretty settled and we don't have much trouble."
"I like it here."
"It's a good little community. What are your plans?"
"Oh, I don't know. I'm trying to work out a few things on the telephone with my cousin over in Summerlin. She just come in from Baltimore and we got some family troubles I think'll work out all right in a week or two if we don't rush it. I've pretty much learned the value of patience."
"I don't know any white Joneses other side of T.R." said Casey.
"They're right good ways out, most of them, and there ain't nobody left much, except my cousins and a few more."
"What was your mama's name?" asked Train.
"Her name was Beulah and my cousin's name is Annie."
"Seems like I heard of a Annie Jones," said Casey.
"Yeah, I think there's probably more than one."
CHICKEN'S EYE
Several times miss Mae Blaine had invited Stephen over to sit for a spell. He would sit outside in the metal chair beside the long, low icebox. Miss Mae would open the lid and scratch a line on a big block of ice with the ice pick for a customer. The line would be in the right place for a nickel or dime or quarter block of ice. Then she'd hand Stephen the ice pick and he'd chip along her line until a block just the right size fell off. There might be some fresh chickens in there too —no heads, little doodie things for necks, cold, the color of his wrist on the inside.
Miss Bea might come up behind him and say, "Pinch him. Pinch that chicken and watch him jump." But he wouldn't pinch it.
WHERE TROUBLE SLEEPS Page 9