My mother sent my father some money that my grandmother gave her, and he sent us some presents. Rick got a little donkey carved out of cedar, and Belinda got an Indian doll wrapped in a little red blanket. I got a leather case with some crayons and a comb and nail file in it. “Souvenir of Hot Springs, Ark.” was printed on all of them. My father sent my mother a little leather coin purse which she said he made in the hospital.
My father had sent my mother two photographs of himself before the accident. In one, he was in dress uniform and was grinning. In the other, he wore a helmet and was holding a rifle, and his face was smeared with black grease paint. My mother told us it was taken when he was training for night fighting. She had kept those pictures on her chest of drawers and had shown them to people who came to visit us. But a few weeks after the accident, she took them down and locked them in her cedar chest, and only occasionally took them out and looked at them. I never knew why.
I was sitting at the kitchen table, trying to build a windmill with my Tinker Toys, and Mother came in and sat down across from me. She watched me for a while, and then she said, “I don’t believe you’ve got enough Tinker Toys there to finish the job, Gate.”
“Well, you can build a windmill with them. There’s a picture of one right here on the box.”
“Yes, but that’s what you can build if you have the big box. You’ve got the little one. See? Here’s one that shows a motor operating something. You don’t have a motor in yours.”
“Well, what should I build then?”
“Here’s a good one. Try a giraffe.”
“Okay.” I started taking the windmill apart.
“I’ll help you,” Mother said. She scooted her chair over by mine, and we sat there together, pulling the sticks and knobs apart.
“Your daddy’s coming home,” she said quietly.
“He is? When?”
“Pretty soon. Soon as he gets out of the hospital.”
“To stay?”
“Yes, to stay.” She was peering at me very closely, as she did when trying to find out if I was lying about something.
“Can we go back to the farm then?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t know how things are going to be.”
“Things will be just like they used to be, won’t they? Before Daddy went to the Army?”
Mother sighed. She had been twiddling with a Tinker Toy stick, staring at it. Now she looked at me again. “Things never are just like they used to be, Gate,” she said. “I don’t know how they’ll be, but they won’t be just like they used to be.”
“Daddy’s all right, isn’t he?”
“I don’t know. He hasn’t told me.” She sighed again. “Well, that’s enough of that,” she said. “Let’s build this giraffe.”
Belinda and Rick and I were waiting at the gate when the mail truck drove up. We’d been waiting a long time, and it was almost dark. The driver got out, pulled Daddy’s suitcase out from among the mail bags, and carried it to the porch. “Well, kids,” he said as he passed us, “there’s your daddy!”
Daddy sat in the truck, looking at us through the windshield. We hung back, kind of bashful, not knowing what to do or say. He didn’t wave or smile or anything. We didn’t either. It was hot and still, and we were standing there in just our shorts. Sweat was popping out on our foreheads.
“Is that Daddy?” Rick whispered to me.
“Yes,” I whispered back.
The driver started back now, and Mother and Gran were with him. Mother was carrying Cherry Ann. Gran was whispering something to the driver. They were hurrying.
The truck door opened now, and I could see two feet under it, and then two walking sticks. Daddy scooted out slowly and stood beside the truck. The door slammed. He was bent. He stood there, hunched over the sticks, his gray felt hat pushed back from his face, his red-and-blue necktie hanging untied around his neck. Mother ran, Gran ran, we all ran. There was a lot of kissing and hugging and crying, and nobody even saw the mail truck leave.
“Hot, ain’t it?” Daddy said. “Ought to be good for the oats.”
He lay on his back on the floor and lifted Cherry Ann into the air and made funny noises, as he used to do with Rick. But he never laughed at her gurglings. At night, he played dominoes with Mother and Gran, as he used to. But he never argued, never accused them of cheating. Used to, when he lost, he’d get up and stomp out of the house. Now winning and losing seemed the same to him. He went downtown once, on a Saturday, when all his friends would be there. But he didn’t stay long, and when he returned, he had Belinda pull a kitchen chair up to the living room window that faced the little empty pasture between the house and the school grounds. He sat down, and with his two hands lifted his legs, first one and then the other, and placed his feet on the window sill. He sat there all afternoon, smoking, never speaking, staring out. We crossed the room on tiptoes and whispered when we spoke at all.
But on the morning of the livestock show he awakened me with the tip of his walking stick and asked me if I wanted to go.
“Sure.”
“Hurry, then. I want to see the cattle before the crowd gets there and the tent gets hot.”
He was wearing his Army boots and khaki pants, but with a blue, short-sleeved work shirt with washed-in grease stains on it. I held his two black walking sticks while he lifted his legs into the car and tucked them under the steering wheel, and when I got in on the other side, he looked at me and grinned, for the first time, I think, since he came home. He lifted his hand, folded it into a fist, and struck his thigh.
“They’re getting better, by God!” he said. “They ain’t as heavy to lift now. Pretty soon, they can lift themselves, by God!”
“Will we go back to the farm then?”
“You bet your bottom dollar.”
He was still smiling as he backed the car slowly into the road, eased his foot from brake to clutch and shifted into low. “Fact is,” he said, “I been thinking I ought to go out there and take a look around the place. There’ll probably be a lot of fixing up to do after that cropper gets his crops in and gets out. Maybe I’ll go tomorrow.”
“Can I go with you?”
“I reckon.”
We parked in front of Dale’s Dry Goods, and Daddy motioned for me to bring his sticks around to his door. He lifted his legs over the running board, pulled himself up on the open door, and took the sticks. “Let’s go in here a minute,” he said.
In the middle of the store, between the yard goods and the shoes, was a table full of straw hats. Daddy headed directly for it, leaned his sticks against the table, picked up a yellow hat just like the one he’d worn before he left for the Army, and put it on. He tugged the brim. “I guess I should have gotten a haircut first,” he said. “I might get it too big.”
“It looks fine, Will,” said Mr. Dale, coming up from behind a pile of shoe boxes. “What size is it?”
“Seven and an eighth.”
Mr. Dale shook his head and picked up another hat. “This one’s for you,” he said. “You always wore a seven, and you probably do now. I doubt if the Army put any weight on your head.”
Daddy didn’t respond to Mr. Dale’s grin. “I reckon you’re right,” he said. “You got one for the boy, too?”
“Yessir. We just got a shipment of cowboy hats in, chin strings and little sheriff’s badges on them. They’re still in the stockroom, but I’ll get one for you, young man.”
“No,” I said. “I’ll just take one like Daddy’s, if you’ve got it.”
Daddy grinned and tousled my hair. “This boy ain’t no cowboy, Mr. Dale,” he said. “He’s a farmer like his daddy.”
We left the car at Dale’s and headed for the big circus tent that had been raised on the vacant lot behind Pearly White’s blacksmith shop. The cool breeze tugged at the flat brims of our new hats and threatened to carry them away, since they weren’t yet molded to our heads. Daddy dropped a stick to grab at his. I picked up the stick and tried to hand it to him, but
he waved it away.
“It’s all right,” he said. “You carry it. I better hang onto this here hat.”
Walking was hard work for him. His Army boots dragged through the grass. The dew gathered into little drops on the oiled leather. But when he noticed the bellowing of the cows and the crowing of the roosters in their wire cages under the tent, he grinned. “That’s real music,” he said.
We stepped into the shade, and he stopped and looked a long time down the aisle between the rumps of Jerseys and Guernseys tied up to two long ropes that were stretched like fences down the sides of the tent. The place reeked of cow, and Daddy threw his head back and sniffed like a hound dog does when you hold a piece of meat above his head. Then he took his second stick from me and moved down the aisle to where a big, fresh, soft cow pie was, and he looked at it a second, slowly lifted one foot, stepped right in the middle of it and moved his foot around until about half of his boot was just covered with shit.
“Well, I’m really home now,” he said.
“Gollee! Why did you do that?” I asked.
“All the time I was in that hospital, every time I thought about home, the smell of cow shit came into my nose. I promised myself that when I got back, I was going to step in the first cow pie I saw.”
He laughed, then stuck his other foot in the wrecked cow pie and moved it around, too.
“I always said you was crazier than a hoot owl, Will, but by God, now I got proof.”
Harley May had sneaked up behind us and was standing there with his hands on his hips, his yellow teeth shining in his turkey-head-red face. He pushed his hat back and scratched. “Lordy,” he said, “I never seen a man love cow shit so.”
“There’s worse things,” Daddy said as he shook Harley’s hand.
“Yeah, I reckon. Like the coffee they’re selling here. Want to go get a cup, and see if I ain’t right?”
“You buying?”
“Yep.”
“Hell, yes, then. It ain’t every day Harley May flings away a nickel.”
We walked toward the other end of the tent, Daddy and Harley stopping now and then to admire a heifer, then went on outside to the coffee man’s counter. He had two big enamel coffeepots sitting on a wood fire behind the counter and was pouring the contents of a third pot into a big crock on the counter. When he saw us, he reached into the crock with a water dipper and filled two tin cups on the counter.
“This batch any better than the last one, Jeremy?” Harley asked. He reached into his long, black change purse and put a dime on the counter.
“’Fraid not, Mr. May,” Jeremy said, dropping the dime into the pocket of his brown-splotched apron. “I don’t believe the Lord himself could make coffee to suit you. Ain’t you going to buy something for the young’un?”
Harley looked down at me. “What you got for young’uns?”
“Sody pop. Red and Dr. Pepper.”
“You don’t feel like having one of them, do you, Gate?” Harley asked.
“I’ll have me a Dr. Pepper.”
“I was afraid of that.” Harley frowned and undid the clasp on his change purse again and fished out another nickel. Then he said, “While we’re dealing in all this big money, Will, I might as well make you another offer.”
“I ain’t selling,” Daddy said.
“A hundred and fifty for horse and saddle, Will. That’s my final offer.”
“I ain’t selling.”
“Let’s move over there,” Harley said, waving his cup toward a bench under a tree. “There’s no use in letting old big-ears Jeremy know our business.”
“I ain’t heard a word, Mr. May, but I would appreciate you moving on and making room for a more satisfactory customer.”
Daddy eased himself down onto the bench and propped his sticks beside him. Harley squatted in front of him, rolled two cigarettes, lit them both and handed one to Daddy.
“You know damned well that horse ain’t worth that much,” Harley said.
“He is to me,” Daddy replied.
“You had a better offer?”
“Nope.”
“What you going to do with him, then?”
Daddy squinted. “What the hell you think?” he said evenly. “I’m going to ride him.”
“Oh.” Harley glanced at me. “You going back to the farm, then?”
“Yep,” Daddy said. “Back to the farm.”
“When?”
“Soon as Shipp can get his crops in and get out. By Christmas for sure.”
“You told him yet?”
“I’m going out tomorrow.”
“You talked to Oscar and Toy?”
“What have they got to do with it?”
Harley shrugged and peered at the ground, puffing slowly on his cigarette. Daddy smoked quietly, too, his eyes focused on the long lock of Indian-black hair that spilled from under Harley’s greasy straw hat. It was quiet for a very long time, it seemed.
“How’s Nero?” I asked.
Harley jerked his head up. “She’s fine,” he said. “You ought to come out and see her sometime.” He grunted and pulled himself off his haunches. “Well,” he said, “I’d better go find Ellen. I promised her some foolishness money today, and I’d rather go find her than have her out on the street hollering for me.”
“Okay, Harley,” Daddy said. “See you.”
Harley started away, then Daddy called him and raised his empty coffee cup. “This ain’t worse than cow shit. This is cow shit,” he said. “Thanks, anyway.”
Harley grinned and waved, then headed toward Pearly White’s.
We were sitting on the bottom row of the bleachers watching the judging of the dainty little Jerseys when the woman sat down by Daddy. She was wearing a tight, short-sleeved red blouse and a black skirt and high heels. Even hose. Her lips were very red, her eyes were very blue, and her blond hair was short and very curly.
“Hello, Will,” she said.
“Hello.”
“You mind if I sit here?”
“No.”
She leaned around him and smiled at me. “I see you have a friend with you,” she said.
“Yeah, that’s Gatewood,” he said. “Gatewood, this is Mrs. Thomas.”
“How do you do, Gatewood?”
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”
She smiled at Daddy. “He’s got good manners,” she said.
“If he ain’t, it ain’t because he ain’t been taught. How’s the telephone business?”
“Oh, the same people are still calling the same people. Still saying the same things to them, too, I guess.”
Daddy concentrated on the judge in the ring, who was eying the pin bones and hocks of the little Jerseys and feeling their bags and tits. Mrs. Thomas watched Daddy, a kind of pleading in her blue eyes, and she would glance at me and smile when she saw me looking at her, but the smile would fade when she looked at Daddy again.
“You haven’t been to see me, Will,” she said finally, very softly.
“No.”
“Why?”
The new yellow hat turned slowly toward her.
“Why do you think I’m sitting on the bottom row of these bleachers, with people and dogs walking by and blocking my view?”
“There are places without stairs, Will, if that’s what you mean. We could go…”
“It ain’t just that. The climbing, I mean.” He slapped his thigh. “These things are practically dead, Laverne. How… You know what that would be like?”
“Listen, Will.” She was talking in a fast, earnest whisper now. “When Jake got killed, I thought I was going to die, too. You knew that, and you saved me. Now…”
“Me and Lon Allison and how many others?”
She blushed. “Now, don’t get nasty, Will,” she said. “I admit there for a while I was a little…available. But that was before you, Will, and you know it.”
Daddy was looking out at the cows again. He said nothing. She watched him, seeking his eyes.
“There never wa
s Lon, if it makes any difference to you,” she said.
“It don’t.” He looked at her and must have smiled, because she smiled at him.
“Bastard,” she said.
“Wench,” he said.
She smiled bigger then. “You’ll be at the top of the bleachers before you know it,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“Will you come see me?”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“Not long.”
She smiled and touched his arm, then stood and started to walk past us. Then she stopped in front of me and smiled again and opened her shiny black purse and dug in it.
“Gatewood,” she said, “would you let me buy you a cold drink before you leave today?”
“Sure, ma’am.”
She handed me a nickel. “Make it a red one, will you?”
“Sure, ma’am. Thank you.”
“You’ve got a nice friend there, Will,” she said. “He’s very polite.”
We watched her walk away, then Daddy looked at me. “She’s a nice lady,” I said.
Daddy bent near my ear. “Now, listen, Gate,” he said. “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t tell anybody about the little talk we just had. Don’t tell anybody we saw Mrs. Thomas, and don’t tell anybody about her giving you a nickel, or anything else. Let’s just let it be our secret, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Cross your heart, now?”
“Cross my heart.”
“Our secret forever, right?”
“Okay.”
“Well, then. Let’s go get that red cold drink.”
Mother looked worried when she came out to the front porch with us. Rick was with her, and he looked worried, too, as he often did. He was a solemn kid, his almost-black eyes always looking questions at people. He clung to Mother’s skirt this morning, kind of hiding behind it, actually, peering around at us. He’d never seen anyone walk like Daddy walked now, I guess, and he didn’t know what to think of it. It took Daddy quite a while to get down the four front steps, and we all sort of held our breath while he struggled. But he was getting pretty good at such things, and no longer cussed every time he moved a foot, as he had when he came home. His legs really were getting better, I guess.
Some Sweet Day Page 7