by Tony Earley
“You know what I mean,” said Whitey.
“Electric lights,” Jim said.
“You got it,” said Whitey.
The uncles said that electricity would come to Aliceville when the new school opened, but Jim had his doubts. The town had been wired for years, but still hadn’t been connected to the power plant in New Carpenter. Jim wanted to go to a school with electric lights, but he wasn’t getting his hopes up.
“And look at the size of that blackboard,” Whitey said. “There’ll be plenty of room to do arithmetic problems. You won’t have to worry about running out of space when you do algebra.”
The room was empty save for the lights and the blackboard. It did not have desks in it yet, or pictures on the walls. Jim pushed away from the window and Whitey lowered him to the ground.
“Shoot, Jim,” Whitey said, “you’re going to get so smart you won’t be able to stand it.”
“The uncles are going to teach me how to do geometry,” Jim said. “They’re good at geometry.”
“They’re smart men,” Whitey said, seriously. “You do what the uncles say and you’ll turn out all right. That’s for sure.”
Jim and Whitey turned away from the school and started back toward town. They could see almost all of Aliceville from the top of the hill. Pete Hunt stood up on the porch of the depot and stretched and looked up and down the street. Uncle Coran walked out of the cotton gin and into the store. He would lock the store soon and go to Uncle Zeno’s house for dinner. Smoke was rising from the kitchen chimney. Uncle Al and Uncle Zeno would come in from the field and tell Uncle Coran and Jim’s mother about the morning. Jim felt something cold, like a fog, ink out through his belly. Only his mother would believe he had gotten sick in the field. The uncles would not have much to say because they would be ashamed of Jim. The tall houses on Depot Street were the last place Jim wanted to go.
Whitey suddenly slapped Jim on the arm.
“Hey,” he said, “I heard it might be somebody’s birthday today. You hear anything about that?”
“I don’t know,” Jim said. “What did you hear?”
“I heard that a certain boy might have turned ten years old today.”
“I guess it’s me,” Jim said, as if confessing to a crime.
“It’s you?”
“Yep.”
“You don’t say. Ten years old. You get any presents yet?”
“Nope.”
“You mean your mama and the uncles didn’t get you anything for your birthday?”
Jim had not considered the possibility before. If the uncles had gotten him something, they might not give it to him now. And if his mother had a present for him, why hadn’t she given it to him at breakfast?
“I guess not,” Jim said. The fog in his belly climbed his backbone toward his neck.
“That’s terrible,” Whitey said. “To have a birthday, to turn ten years old, which is pretty old, and not get one present. Don’t you think that’s about the most terrible thing you ever heard?”
Jim nodded. He didn’t want to cry in front of Whitey, but thought he might have to.
“Well,” said Whitey, “we’re going to have to do something about that. Hang on a minute.”
He stopped in the middle of the street. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out half a plug of tobacco.
“You chew?” he said.
“Nope,” said Jim.
“Hmm,” said Whitey. He reached into one of his coat pockets and pulled out a small pad. “You got any use for a receipt book?”
Jim shook his head.
“Didn’t think so,” Whitey said.
He reached into his other coat pocket and rummaged around. When he removed his hand it contained a new baseball. “How about this?” he said. “Can you use a baseball?”
Jim gasped. “That’s for me?” he said.
“If you can use it,” said Whitey.
“I can use it!” Jim said. “I can use it! I can use it!”
“Good,” Whitey said. “I’m tired of carrying it around. It made my pocket lumpy. I got it for my granny for Christmas, but she didn’t have a bat.”
He handed the baseball to Jim.
“Thanks, Whitey!” Jim said.
He stared at the baseball in his hand as if it were made of gold. His baseball at home was as heavy as a cannonball. He had accidentally left it out in the rain, and was afraid to ask for another one. But this baseball was brand-new. It was shinier than Whitey’s hat. He felt like he could throw it a mile.
Jim tossed the baseball up into the air. Whitey reached out and caught it before it came down. “You’re sure you can use it?” he said.
“WHITEY!” Jim yelled.
“All right,” Whitey said. “Just checking.” He handed the baseball back to Jim, and together they started back down the hill.
Baptism
WHEN THE uncles came in at midday, Jim didn’t mention the baseball Whitey Whiteside had given him because he had begun to suspect that taking it was wrong. The uncles and Jim’s mother ate without talking much, until late in the meal. Nobody said anything to Jim about what had happened that morning in the field. Jim decided he would hide the baseball in the barn until Whitey Whiteside came back to town. Then he would give it back.
“Pretty good morning, wasn’t it Allie?” Uncle Zeno said.
“We got a right smart done, I reckon,” said Uncle Al.
Uncle Zeno stirred a slice of butter into the apple cobbler Jim’s mother had made for dessert. Jim had noticed already that she hadn’t baked a cake.
“Seems like you got more done out there than the rest of us,” Uncle Zeno said.
“I’m not fast,” Uncle Al said. “The rest of y’all are just slow.”
“There was a time, you know, when I didn’t think you were going to make much of a farmer.”
Uncle Al turned and stared at Uncle Zeno. He was vain about how he ran the farms. Uncle Coran said that Uncle Al would walk half a mile to pull a morning glory off a fence post.
“And just when was that?” Uncle Al said.
“That time you and Coran baptized all those chicks.”
“Shoot, Zee,” said Uncle Al. “We weren’t but four years old. Ain’t you ever going to forget about that?”
“Nope,” said Uncle Zeno. “I got a whipping because of it. And you were five years old. It was the summer I got baptized, and I was twelve. Seeing me get baptized is where y’all got the idea.”
“We were still just little fellows,” Uncle Al said. “We didn’t know any better.”
“It was all Allie’s idea, Jim,” said Uncle Coran. “He was the preacher. I was just the deacon. All I did was hand him the chicks. He’s the one who stuck them in the rain barrel.”
“Y’all were just little knotheads,” Uncle Zeno said. “Cissy wasn’t even born yet, or she’d have been out there, too, helping with the service. She was bad to follow you two around and get into whatever mischief you got into.”
“They were my big brothers,” Jim’s mother said. “I didn’t think they could do anything wrong.”
Uncle Zeno snorted. “You don’t know the half of it,” he said. “Anyway, Jim, we had this little game hen, and she had this big flock of chicks. There must have been twelve of them.”
“Thirteen,” said Uncle Al.
“Thirteen,” said Uncle Zeno. “And Al here, he and Coran, they had seen me get baptized down at the river, and they thought that was really something. Seven or eight of us got baptized that summer, and Coran and Al, they were standing on the bank watching everything, and listening, and their little heads filled up with ideas.
“So one Sunday afternoon, not too long after I got baptized, Corrie and Allie turned up missing, and Mama sent me out to find them. Well, when I found them, they were in the barnyard, baptizing chicks.
“They had the chicks in a peach basket, and Coran would reach into the basket and catch one and hand it to Al. And Al, he’d stick it down in the rain barrel. Then he’d
hand the chick back to Coran, and Coran would fish around in the basket for a dry one.” “We thought they needed to be saved,” Uncle Coran said. “We wanted them to go to heaven.”
“They went to heaven all right,” said Uncle Zeno. “By the time I got over there, you had drowned them all but one. I tried blowing in their bills to save them, but Al had held them under the water too long, and they had drowned.
“Well, by then, both of you had figured out you’d done something wrong, and you started crying. You cried and begged me not to tell on you, because you knew if Mama found out you had killed her chicks, she would break off a switch and whip you good.
“Now, me, I didn’t want to see the two of you get whipped, so I took the dead chicks out behind the smokehouse and dug a hole and buried them. And I made you promise not to tell.
“How we got in trouble, though, is that Daddy saw me go behind the smokehouse with the hoe. In a little bit he came in the house with the chicks. He came straight up to me, and I really hadn’t been involved in the thing at all, until it was too late, and he said, ‘Zeno, what do you know about these dead chicks?’
“And I told him I had found them in the rain barrel, which wasn’t far off the truth. Then he said, ‘Zeno, how did these chicks get in the rain barrel?’ and I told him I didn’t know.
“He said, ‘You don’t know.’
“And I said, ‘I don’t know.’
“So, right about then, Little Allie and Little Corrie, bless their hearts, couldn’t stand it anymore, and busted out crying and told Daddy that they had baptized the chicks in the rain barrel and the chicks had drowned.
“Daddy stood and thought about it a minute and said to Coran and Al, ‘Boys, I’m not going to whip you, because you’re little and you didn’t know any better, but you better never stick another chicken in the rain barrel.’
“And then he said to me, ‘Zeno, I’m not going to whip you for burying the chicks behind the smokehouse, because you were standing up for your brothers, which is admirable. But I am going to whip you for lying to me about it.’”
“What happened?” Jim asked.
“He took me outside and gave me the worst whipping I ever got in my life,” Uncle Zeno said. “And I never lied to him again.”
“And we never baptized any more chickens,” said Uncle Coran.
“That’s the truth,” said Uncle Al.
“So, all in all, Jim,” Uncle Zeno said, “Allie turned out to be a pretty good farmer, when you consider how he started out.”
“At least we can be thankful he didn’t try to become a preacher,” Uncle Coran said.
“That’s for sure,” said Uncle Al. “I would’ve had to be a Methodist to keep from drowning people.”
Mama stood and began clearing the dishes from the table.
“Where was the mama hen while all this was going on?” she asked.
“We locked her in the chicken house,” Uncle Coran said. “She almost flogged us. We had to get after her with a couple of sticks to get her in there.”
“She spent the rest of the afternoon looking for those chicks,” Uncle Al said. “She looked all over the yard.”
“That’s sad,” said Mama.
“What happened to her?” asked Jim.
“I don’t remember,” Uncle Zeno said. “I guess we ate her.”
After Supper
THE UNCLES rocked in their tall chairs on Uncle Zeno’s porch, while Mama pushed herself in the swing. Jim sat on the top step with his chin in his hands and contemplated the end of the day. The sun was low in the sky, but its reflection still burned in the windows of the new school. Soon, long, blue shadows would slide up out of the river bottoms. Fireflies would light themselves in the tops of the trees, and cicadas would chant and tree frogs would screech. Along the fence rows whippoorwills would call and listen and call again, and from deep in the grass crickets would answer with low, sad songs. Bats would dip and wheel in the purpling sky, their strange flights marked by the whisper of wings. Twilight was the loveliest time of day in Aliceville, but Jim did not want the sun to set. He did not want his birthday to end. Nothing had gone right. He had disappointed the uncles, and didn’t want to wait until his next birthday, a whole year away, to make things right.
“I’m getting a little chilly,” Mama said. “I’m going inside to get a sweater.”
She stood up and disappeared into the house. Jim was so lost in his thoughts that he did not notice when she reappeared beside him.
“Jim,” she said. “Hey, Jim.”
Jim turned and looked up. Mama was holding a chocolate cake. The top of the cake was alight with burning candles. She leaned over so he could see it. The reflection of the little flames jumped in her eyes.
“Happy birthday, Jim,” she said.
Suddenly the uncles were gathered around him as well. “Look at him,” Uncle Al said. “I don’t think he knows what it is.”
“What is it?” said Uncle Coran.
“It’s Jim’s birthday cake,” Uncle Zeno said.
“Oh,” said Uncle Coran. “I thought Cissy was on fire.”
Jim counted the candles on the cake. There were ten.
“Jim,” Uncle Zeno said, “did you think we had forgotten you?”
“I thought you were mad at me.”
“Oh, sweetie,” Mama said, “don’t cry. Nobody’s mad at you.”
“I’m not mad at you, Doc,” Uncle Zeno said. “I promise.”
“Zeno, I told you not to take him to the field,” Mama said.
“Hush, Cissy,” Uncle Zeno said quietly.
Uncle Coran hoisted Jim by his overall straps and pretended that he was going to throw him over the banister and out into the yard.
“You knothead,” he said. “You’d know it if we were mad at you. Wouldn’t he, Al?”
“We’d get a stick after him if we were mad.”
Jim didn’t know why he was crying, only that he couldn’t stop.
“Whitey Whiteside gave me a baseball,” he said.
“Well,” said Uncle Zeno, “wasn’t that nice of Whitey? Did you thank him?”
Jim nodded.
“Good. That’s how you’ve been raised. You better go ahead and blow out all those candles.”
Jim blew out the candles with a single breath.
“I wonder if Mr. Ralph Whiteside gives baseballs to all the little boys on his route?” Mama said.
Uncle Zeno quickly and almost imperceptibly shook his head.
“Jim?” asked Uncle Al. “Can we have some of your cake?”
“I guess so,” Jim said.
“We didn’t get a chocolate cake on our birthday, did we Allie?” Uncle Coran said.
“We sure didn’t.”
“Let’s go to the dining room,” said Mama.
In the middle of the dining room table Jim spotted a baseball glove and a baseball bat. He stood in the doorway and stared.
“Are those mine?” he asked.
“Are what yours?” Uncle Zeno said.
Jim pointed at the table. Uncle Zeno leaned into the dining room and shrugged.
“Never seen them before,” said Uncle Coran. “What are they?”
“Oh, stop it,” Mama said. “Sometimes I could just strangle y’all.”
Uncle Zeno placed his hand on Jim’s back and lightly shoved him into the dining room. Jim approached the table warily, as if he might frighten off the glove and bat if he moved too quickly.
“The bat’s a genuine Louisville Slugger,” Uncle Zeno said. “It’s probably a little big for you, so you’ll have to choke up on it till you grow into it.”
The bat was indeed too heavy for Jim, and more than a few inches too long. Jim slid his hands up the handle until the bat felt light and short enough to swing; the wood was smooth and cool, varnished so brightly that Jim searched the grain for his reflection.
“It’s perfect,” he announced. “It’s just perfect.”
“Now the glove,” said Uncle Zeno, “is a Rawlings. I
asked the man in the store in New Carpenter what kind of glove major leaguers use, and he said Rawlings. You ought to be able to catch pretty good with a glove like that.”
The glove, like the bat, was also too big, a fact that Jim did not notice then, and would not notice later. The glove’s fat fingers were twined together with an intricate web of rawhide laces; the wrist strap fastened with a bright brass button. Jim covered his face with the glove and inhaled deeply. It bore the luxurious, almost forbidden smell of the uncles’ harness room. Jim could sit for hours in the barn while the uncles mended or oiled harnesses; he wasn’t allowed to play in the harness room alone.
Jim gazed up at his mother and the uncles as if he had a wonderful story to tell them but could not remember their language. Everyone seemed as happy as if they had received a bat and glove themselves, although Mama’s eyes looked a little wet.
“They’re from all of us, Jim,” she said. “We love you very much.”
“Speak for yourself, Cissy,” Uncle Coran said. “I can take him or leave him.”
“He’s all right, for a knothead,” said Uncle Al.
“He ain’t no bigger than a poot,” said Uncle Zeno, “but I guess we’ll keep him.”
Jim at Bat
A summer pasture at twilight:
The boy cannot hit the baseball to his satisfaction. Though he makes contact almost every time he swings the bat, he does not strike the mighty blow he sees in his mind. The ball does not leap scalded into the sky, but hops into the tall grass as if startled by a noise; it buzzes mildly, a dying beetle tied to a piece of thread, and rolls to a disappointing stop.
Uncle Zeno pitches. He tracks the ball into the grass every time the boy hits it, and retrieves it without complaint from each new hiding place. He blames himself for the boy’s lack of success. The bat is simply too heavy. He knew this for fact when he bought it; he had not wanted to buy a new bat every time the boy grew an inch. He silently chides himself for being cheap.
Uncle Coran and Uncle Al man the field at improbably optimistic distances behind their brother. Their faces are indistinct in the coming darkness, their forms identical except that Uncle Coran wears a baseball glove on his left hand, while Uncle Al, who is left-handed, wears one on the right. They shout encouragement each time the boy swings the bat. They pound their fists into their gloves, though only for their nephew’s benefit; their bodies no longer believe the ball will ever make it out to their place in the field. They do not creep closer because it would make the boy feel bad.