Isaac had been a fixture on the farm ever since he was old enough to handle a hoe. When Pete was very small and would beg to go to the fields, he would sometimes get so tired that he fell asleep riding on the tractor in his father’s lap. It was Isaac who would carry him to the truck and drive him home.
Now, Isaac was one of only ten or so field hands working for Daddy Ballard. Pete had heard the older men at church talk about times back in the thirties and forties when all the cotton had to be chopped, hoed, and picked by hand, and his grandfather had employed at least fifty hands—men and women, black and white. But machines had made it harder for poor people like Isaac to find work in the fields. He had been helping the Ballard family raise cotton since he was a boy and was like a right arm to Pete’s father, who had been running the whole farm since Daddy Ballard retired. Isaac was likely around thirty, though Pete had a hard time guessing grown people’s ages.
As he opened the window by his bed and looked out, Isaac waved to him from the barn, holding up two cane fishing poles.
“Gimme a minute to get outta my church clothes!” Pete called out.
Isaac pointed to the ladder he had propped against the house beneath the window and sat down to wait on a concrete table underneath the pecan trees. That was where Pete’s father always cleaned the fish he caught.
Isaac was over six feet tall and broad-shouldered, with the kind of muscles you get from working hard, not from playing football. His skin was the color of strong coffee, and he had a kind face, one that looked like he would be glad to help you if there was any way he could. His work pants and cotton shirts were patched and worn but always neatly pressed. That was his mother’s doing. Hattie hated wrinkles. She said they made a person look “no-account.” Isaac was never without a wide-brimmed black fedora to keep the sun off his face and a black leather belt with a silver buckle that had a four-leaf clover stamped into it.
Colored girls thought he was handsome, Pete could tell. Once, and only once, he and his father had secretly accompanied Isaac to Tandy’s, a barbecue joint that white people didn’t go to—didn’t even know about since Tandy ran it out of her tiny backyard, where everybody sat on five-gallon buckets turned upside down. Isaac knew how much Pete’s father loved good ribs and had cleared it with Tandy to bring the two of them just that one time. When Isaac walked by a bunch of colored girls, they started giggling and whispering to each other. A new girl in the crowd had spotted him and “prissed up,” as Isaac called it.
“What’s this here?” she asked with a grin.
He answered, “M’name’s Isaac—but you can call me Lucky.” He winked when he said that last part. Isaac believed in luck. That’s why he had carried the same rabbit’s foot all these years.
Pete scrambled to get out of his suit and into his jeans and a T-shirt. He took time, though, to hang up his church clothes. No need to upset his mother today. He wanted to get a message to her. Opening his bedroom door to see who might be milling around in the hallway, he spotted his aunt coming out of the upstairs bathroom. “Aunt Geneva,” he said, “do you think it would be okay if I went with Isaac for a little while?”
She gave a sad smile and laid her hand against his cheek. “I think that would be fine, sweetheart,” she said. “Want me to let your mama know?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’ll tell her.” Aunt Geneva slowly walked down the stairs, sinking into the great swell of conversation as Pete went back to his room. Slipping the rabbit’s foot into his pocket, he pulled the flimsy screen off two bottom nails that barely held it to the window, climbed down the ladder, and ran across the backyard just as Mr. and Mrs. Highland were getting out of their car. The Highlands were from Birmingham and liked to tell everybody how things were done “in town.” Pete wondered why they’d ever moved to a little dot on the map like Glory if they liked the city so much.
As she crossed the yard, Mrs. Highland pulled a mirror out of her purse and fussed with her hair. She was so busy studying herself that she didn’t see Isaac standing there with his fishing poles, and bumped right into him.
“Beg pardon, ma’am,” Isaac said, backing away from her the way you’d back away from a dog that might bite.
“Don’t you people ever look where you’re going?” she snapped as she kept walking.
“But Isaac didn’t—” Pete stopped himself when Isaac put a hand on his shoulder.
“C’mon, Pete,” he whispered. “Ain’t no good come o’ stirrin’ that one up.”
Isaac loaded the cane poles into his green pickup, and the two of them headed for Copper Creek—Pete’s favorite. Right beneath the bridge, the creek was shallow, with cold, clear water gurgling over big rocks so smooth they looked like they had been hand-sanded and spit-shined. The water deepened just beyond a bend that you could barely make out from the road.
Isaac pulled over once they cleared the bridge, taking the cane poles, a stringer, and a box of worms out of his truck. “I can carry something,” Pete said, and Isaac handed him one of the poles. They made their way down the bank and into the woods to a prime spot underneath a big cottonwood tree and plopped their corks in the water.
Once they got situated, Isaac sat quietly, looking out over the creek in the direction of his cork. Pete had always appreciated the way Isaac never rushed him into a conversation. He had a way of knowing when you were ready to talk and leaving you be till you got there.
“Isaac,” Pete finally said, “did you really jump in and try to save Daddy before Uncle Danny and them got there?”
Isaac gave a weary sigh as he stared at the creek. “You don’t need no pictures like that cloudin’ up your mind,” he said.
“But did you?”
Isaac hesitated. “Yeah,” he finally said, without embellishing.
“Were you scared?”
“Yeah.”
“But you did it anyways?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“How come?”
Isaac’s cork bobbed on the water and he gave his line a little tug. But the cork popped back up and steadied itself. “I reckon I done it ’cause I knew your daddy woulda jumped in there for me. Ain’t many people I can say that about. Sho’ ain’t no white men I can say it about.” As Pete’s cork went underwater, Isaac said, “Looka yonder—you need to quit pesterin’ me and look after your fish.”
Pete gave the pole a tug and then stood up on the bank to pull in a small bream not big enough to fry. “I reckon I’ll let ’im go,” he said, freeing the fish and tossing it back in the creek. He put another worm on his hook, dropped his line in the water, and sat back down next to Isaac. They were silent for a while before Pete quietly said, “Thank you for tryin’.”
“You welcome,” Isaac answered. For a time, the two of them watched their corks and listened to the peaceful sound of the creek moving through the woods. But Pete had more questions.
“Isaac, how old were you when your daddy died?”
“Little older’n you—thirteen or so.”
“Was it scary?”
“Whoo, yeah. But I didn’t have time to be scared long ’cause they was people to feed—Mavis and Letha and Junie and Iris and Mama and me. Life throw you a hairpin turn sometimes—ain’t nothin’ you can do but keep drivin’ and try to keep it in the road.”
“Is that how come you didn’t finish school?”
“Yeah, but our school wasn’t much no-ways. B’lieve I taught myself more with all them books Mama brings me than I ever woulda learned at that little school.”
“Where’d you get all your books—without going to school, I mean?” Now that Pete thought about it, he had never seen any colored people in the county library.
Isaac smiled. “Mama,” he said. “She got it all figured out. See, while she dusts all them white people’s bookshelves, she keeps her eye out for anything she thinks I might like. She knows I love to read them history books and anything ’bout the ocean. When one o’ them white ladies is feelin’ ’specially worrisome about some get
-together, Mama mentions to ’em—kinda casual like—how she sure would ’preciate any old books they weren’t readin’ no more, like maybe that Treasure Island and History of Alabama. And then she makes a point of lookin’ at that watch Iris give her, like she might have to leave soon.”
“And all those ladies give her books?” Pete asked.
“You kiddin’ me, Pete? Mama’s such good help that once word got out ’bout the books, some of them white women went out and bought some they thought she might want. She got ’em baitin’ their bookshelves, tryin’ to hook her into workin’ for ’em. Mama’s a sight. Now that she don’t have to work for nobody but your granddaddy, he goes to the county liberry for her. Even gives her his Birmin’ham News after he’s done with it, on accounta I told her I kinda like to know what’s goin’ on in the world.”
“You got a favorite book?”
“Now, that there’s hard to say.” Isaac paused for a moment to think it over. “I reckon if I had to pick one, it’d be Treasure Island. That boy Jim sure gets into some scrapes with all them pirates, but he makes it through alright.”
“Ever wish you was a pirate?” Pete asked, tugging at his fishing line.
“Naw, I don’t wanna be no pirate. Sure would like to be a sailor, though, out there on that big water, lookin’ up at the sky from the deck of a ship bound for somewhere that don’t look like no place I ever been. That’d be fine. It surely would.”
“You could join the navy,” Pete suggested.
“Naw,” Isaac said. “Done got too old. They don’t want the likes o’ me. Plus the paper says we headed for war over in Vietnam, and that don’t sound like no place I wanna go.”
“How come you didn’t join up when you were younger?”
“Mama needed me here,” Isaac said. “Even missed the draft on accounta what they call a hardship exemption. Mighta been nice to ship out for some place across the ocean—back when there wasn’t no war, I mean.”
Pete felt a whole new wave of sadness. It had never occurred to him that Isaac might want to be anything different from what he was. The thought of his friend plowing cotton when he longed to sail the sea left a weight on Pete that he didn’t know how to carry.
It was made even heavier by a sudden memory of his father—of the three of them—from last summer. Pete had ridden with the men to haul a new tractor tire from a dealership in Childersburg, and they had stopped at the Dairy Queen for foot-longs and milkshakes on the way back. While he and his father ordered at the window, Isaac waited in the truck. As they were bringing the food back, a wiry white teenager with greasy hair and a dirty T-shirt passed by and spotted Isaac.
“Boy, you ain’t got no business here.” He angrily jabbed his finger at Isaac’s open window as he said it. Pete’s father hurried him into the truck and set the food on the driver’s seat. Then he stepped around to face the white boy.
“I’m not in the habit of askin’ children where I can and can’t go—or who I can bring with me,” he said. “You need to move along.”
The teenager had puffed out his chest the way boys do when they think they want to fight. He took a menacing step toward Pete’s father, who didn’t budge or flinch as he repeated, “Move along.”
Jack McLean was at least a head taller than his adversary and clearly twice as strong. He had a look on his face that Pete had never seen before. Apparently the teenager saw it too. He moved along. When Pete’s father got back in the truck and started handing out the foot-longs and milkshakes, Pete expected Isaac to thank his daddy for running that boy off. But he didn’t. Isaac had a strange expression of his own—part angry and part sad, but mostly just far away, like he had suddenly gone to a place Pete couldn’t get to.
“Pete, hold my milkshake for me while I get us down the road,” was all his father said. The three of them ate their lunch on the highway, wasting no time getting away from whatever it was that just happened. Pete had never asked his father about it. He couldn’t exactly say why.
“Where’s your mind, Pete?” Isaac was saying, casting his line into the creek. “You look like you a million miles away.”
Pete just smiled at him. “Hey, what book you readin’ now?” he asked, searching for something happy to talk about.
“It’s a real excitin’ one ’bout the Gulf of Mexico,” Isaac said. “You ever hear tell of a hurricane, Pete?”
“Ain’t it some kinda big storm?”
“That’s right. Only it’s a storm like we ain’t never seen. It starts way out in the ocean, and when it’s out there in the water, they call it a tropical de-pression. Then it goes to headin’ for land, and it gets bigger and bigger till it turns into a mighty wheel o’ wind. And that wheel gets to goin’ faster and faster the closer it gets to land, till by the time it hits, it’s so powerful it goes to rippin’ up trees and pushin’ up waves the size of a barn and spinnin’ off tornadoes and all such as that. They was one down in Texas a year or so ago that had 175-mile-a-hour winds. Can you b’lieve that? Ain’t no car ’round here go no 175. And you know what else? They name them hurricanes after women. That one what tore up Texas go by the name o’ Carla. Sho’ is a pretty name for such a mean piece of weather. Then again, I reckon I met up with lots o’ pretty women that was mean pieces of weather.”
Pete giggled, pleased with himself for getting a grown-up joke. “Isaac, I think I’d like to see one o’ them hurricanes.”
“You crazy, Pete? Hurricane’ll kill you. Don’t you lemme catch you chasin’ after no hurricane.”
“Oh, I don’t mean get in one. I just wonder what it looks like comin’ in, you know? The people on the shore—what do they see when that mighty wheel o’ wind is pushin’ all that ocean straight for ’em?”
“I reckon they too busy runnin’ from it to study it much,” Isaac said. “But I know what you mean. Sometimes you just wanna see things you ain’t used to seein’. Nothin’ wrong with that.”
Pete leaned out so he could see his reflection in the water. This little creek would ramble south to the Coosa River, which would eventually hook up with the Alabama and head down to the gulf. He wondered if the flowing water could somehow carry his image all the way down, from creek to river to sea.
“You said something ’bout bein’ scared a while ago,” Isaac said. “You scared o’ the world without your daddy?”
Pete nodded.
“That’s alright. Ain’t nothin’ to be ’shamed of. You lucky on accounta you got lotsa folks gonna look out for you. But one of these days, we all got to learn how to look out for ourselfs. And you can do it, Pete. I got faith in you.”
Pete smiled. “Hey, thanks for the rabbit’s foot.”
“You welcome. Don’t you be lettin’ nobody touch it, now.”
“I won’t. How’d you get it in the house?”
“Climbed up to the window and pitched it in while y’all was at the church. Remind me to fix that ol’ window screen for your mama so the mosquitoes won’t carry you off.”
“I saw you at the cemetery. ’Preciate you comin’.”
All the field hands—black and white—had come to the graveside service. But Isaac wouldn’t think of setting foot in a white church, and Pete knew that.
“Hey, when’s your church homecoming?” Pete asked.
“First week in May, remember?”
“Can I come again?”
Isaac smiled. “If it’s alright with your mama, I reckon my mama could make room for you on her pew and fry a little extra chicken.”
Pete would go to Isaac’s church every Sunday if his mother would let him, but instead he only got to go on special occasions. He loved the singsong back and forth between the preacher and the congregation. And the food—have mercy, it was good.
“You still in the choir?” Pete asked him.
“Mm-hmm.” Isaac pulled in his line and put another worm on the hook, then plopped his cork into a promising spot under some low-hanging branches.
“When did you and Daddy start singin’ together?
” Pete asked.
“Hard to say. I just remember I was singin’ ‘Guide My Feet’—that’s prob’ly my favorite—while we loaded the planter one spring, and he started hummin’ along. I told him if he meant to jump onto my song like that, he oughta learn the words and sing it proper. So I taught ’em to him. And then we started harmonizin’—your daddy liked to practice his tenor against me on accounta I’m a baritone. Worked out real nice.”
“Did he ever teach you any songs?”
“Aw, yeah. Let’s see . . . ‘Sunset Is Coming but the Sunrise We’ll See,’ ‘Just a Little Talk with Jesus’ . . . bunch of them quartet songs. But his very favorite was—”
“‘Amazing Grace.’”
“That’s right. ‘Amazing Grace.’ Most ’specially that last verse. And that’s important, Pete. You got to always remember your daddy’s favorite hymn. You got to honor him by rememberin’ that.”
Pete had heard them sing it together a million times. Not only would he remember the song, but he would remember their voices singing it together—forever.
When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we first begun.
Three
AUGUST 3, 1963
Almost a year had passed since the accident. Pete understood now that his father had been more than just a boss to Isaac. He remembered the sound of the two men laughing together in the fields and the perfect harmony of their voices singing as they hosed down the pickers at night or fueled up tractors in the morning.
One morning they didn’t notice Pete playing with his toy trucks nearby, and he heard his father say, “Don’t you reckon we could drop that ‘mister’ business?”
Pete looked up to see Isaac shaking his head. “Naw,” he said. “My folks wouldn’t like that no more’n yours. Both sides go to sayin’ I’m gettin’ uppity.”
The two men liked to go fishing together whenever a hard rain made the fields too wet to farm. Looking back on it, Pete thought his father might’ve been more at ease with Isaac than with Daddy Ballard. Many times he had seen his daddy slip Isaac some cash when it wasn’t payday, and when Pete asked him why he did that, he said, “Because I know what it’s like to want things you can’t have.”
Missing Isaac Page 2