by Jane Gill
“Lizards, palmetto bugs, and now turkey vultures. Ugh!” said Susan. “What do they do, wait for lunch hour or something?”
“Naw, they just like their meat to marinate in the sun awhile. They’ll begin to circle later this evening and by tomorrow, it’ll be just right for them. Yum, yum,” Zach joked.
“Dad! That’s disgusting.” She made a face, and Zach and Lu both laughed at her squeamishness.
“Can we turn the radio on?” William pleaded.
“No, we’re not turning the radio on,” Lu said. “You’ve got your iPod. All you’re going to get on the radio around here is the farm report or some evangelist pleading for money so he can stay on the air for another week.” William sighed his frustration noisily and leaned against his window.
They rode along in silence. Finally, Zach spoke. “By the looks of all the bulldozers in the fields around here, rural Florida might soon become a thing of the past.”
Lu didn’t hear him. She was still stewing about her brother having brought Reverend Parker to the funeral without telling her ahead of time, but she dared not say anything about it to Zach. The eternal optimist, she thought. She knew if she did, he’d tell her she was over-reacting. She knew she wasn’t. He’d say she didn’t need to find something to “pick at.” He never understood that sometimes women want to pick at things.
“Hey, Lu,” Zach said, forcing her thoughts back to the present. “I said, this place has sure grown, don’t you think?”
She looked hard at the passing countryside. “Oh, yeah, it’s a lot different now. I can’t believe it’s finally changing,” she said. “There are new houses everywhere. Years ago this used to be just farm after farm, filled with endless acres of soybeans, potatoes, and cabbages. Now, it looks like entire pastures have been bulldozed. Can you believe I used to know just about every family at the end of each little dirt road?”
“Looks like a lot of them aren’t dirt anymore,” Zach answered.
Lu was lost in remembering that most of the families she knew lived in run-down unpainted houses, or tar-paper shacks. ‘Ram-shackle shanties’, her father called them, their dirt yards hard-packed and filled with barefoot kids, whose toys consisted of rusty bed-spring trampolines and swings made of old tires hung by a rope. Yards, she thought, made up of lonely, emaciated marigolds struggling to stay alive, if the dogs didn’t lay on them. She hated marigolds to this day. Thank God, I got that scholarship, she reassured herself. It was my ticket out. Of course, who knew then that Dwight Powell would grow up to be a lawyer? And Daddy had him pegged as a share cropper’s son who would never amount to anything. Ha! She found that a satisfying thought and a tiny smirk formed at the corner of her mouth.
Zach pulled to the side of the road in front of a line of mailboxes. “Is this it?” he asked. The old metal boxes, in various stages of rust, leaned tiredly against each other, tied to the ground by an unruly kudzu vine. One read simply, ‘Stovall’ in hand-lettered, peeling red paint.
How many times did Momma and I walk down the road to that mailbox? Lu wondered.
“Yes, turn here, it’s down this road,” she directed. She didn’t want him to know her stomach was in knots over having her children see the impoverishment of her youth.
“You mean, ‘Stovall Road’,” Zach asked, pointing to a street sign that was holding its own despite its bottom half being snarled with creeping greenbrier. “Now, how about that,” he exclaimed.
“I wonder when that happened?” Lu pondered out loud.
Susan and William both leaned forward, peering out the front windshield at the shell road that lay before them.
“What’s all this white stuff on the road, Mom?” William asked.
“It’s ground-up shell. They put it on the dirt roads down here to keep the dust down. It’s a lot cheaper than grading and oiling the roads,” she informed him.
“Grading and oiling?” he asked.
Lu ignored him. Townies! she thought.
“Sure is bumpy,” Zach said, grabbing the steering wheel at the sides, his elbows protruding, acting like he was driving a big tractor. Lu was too nervous to react to his clowning. Instead she stared at the overcast sky. A light mist began to moisten the windshield, just as the task ahead dampened her spirit. Stovall Road narrowed, and the way ahead was barely visible through the yawning live oak branches. The acreage she knew existed on either side of the road was hidden by trees draped with miles of wild, long vines, their trunks hidden amid the thick undergrowth of scrub palmetto. The road ended abruptly in front of the old clapboard house, its gray paint cracked and dry, the windows dark. Her father’s old turquoise Ford pickup was pulled close to the house, tired looking from thirty years of Florida sun. Lu held her breath. She wanted Zach to turn the SUV around and take her back home before the kids could see where she grew up.
“Whoa,” William said with a low whistle. “Uncle Martin wasn’t kidding. That truck is a classic.”
“For sure!” Zach said.
Lu was relieved. Apparently her father’s truck was a distraction from the run-down house. “1974,” she said. “It was a good year. I remember Momma got a new sewing machine. She was so happy, and Daddy got his truck.”
Zach parked behind the pickup. A weathered homemade wooden table, shaded by a massive pine tree strung with heavy cactus, sat in the side yard, its top littered with brown needles. An array of rusting cans of various sizes held sprouting plants. Two dull white plastic chairs, smudged with mildew, were set in the sparse grass nearby. Lu opened her hand and looked at the skeleton key Martin gave her. Only then did she realize how tight she’d been holding it. Its impression was embedded in her palm.
Only Daddy would’ve kept his house key dangling from an old Texaco key chain, she thought. And you already took the truck key off here, didn’t you, Martin? She shook her head as she stepped up onto the wide front porch. Zach held the screen door open, and she thrust the key into the lock where it groped blindly before it forced the bolt to retract. She gave the door a healthy push with her free hand and it swung open.
The tall pines surrounding the house permitted only minimal light inside. Yellowed shades were drawn over every window, weighed down only by limp crocheted pulls hanging from rusty thumbtacks. Lu silently worked her way around the parlor, tugging each shade in turn. The internal springs were old and they rose unambitiously, slowing to a stop midway. On the wall over the sofa was a cheaply framed black and white picture of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. It had hung there as long as Lu could remember. Even though she knew Martin and Elizabeth just left the day before, the house stank of dampness from the old newspapers she could see her father had forced into the crevices beneath every window frame as homemade insulation. She suppressed the urge to throw her full weight against the sills and force the windows open on the modern world, but she knew the rising humidity outside and the light drizzle that was now falling would only add to the mustiness.
Zach and the kids, who had been looking over the truck, appeared in the doorway. “Uncle Martin’s sure gonna’ have his hands full with that,” William commented. “Man, it’s got a lot of rust. Why’s it so dark in here? Don’t the lights work?” He flipped a switch on the wall, and a table lamp added only dim light to the room. “Oh, not much help, huh?” he asked.
“It’s those tall pines, son, shading that big tin roof. It all works to keep that hot Florida sun off the house,” Zach said. “These homes were called cracker houses. That’s because the early settlers were cattle ranchers who herded the cattle on horseback by cracking their whips over them. They didn’t lasso them like they do out in Texas. That steep sloping roof out there let the rain run away from the main part of the house, and the deep porch provided a cool place to sit. It’s the same with the crawl spaces under these old southern houses. It’s all about ventilation. I’m willing to bet there’s probably a big old attic fan somewhere, too. It would pull the hot air up and out of the house. Sort of early air conditioning.”
“On
ly you would know that, Dad. Connors Heating and Air,” Susan teased.
“Hey, it’s a livin’!” he teased back.
Lu forced herself to move from room to room, raising the shades against the gloom. She never understood why her father kept them drawn against the sun—shutting out the daylight. The air in the house was stifling. She headed for the kitchen door, hoping that opening it would provide some relief. She instinctively reached to the right side of the doorjamb for the key. It was a second skeleton key, discernable from the front door key only in that it hung from a loop of grimy and worn string. Her father used this door more often of course, because it opened on the small back porch where he would sit watching the early morning sun draw the dew from the rows of Irish potato plants, his main crop.
“It smells in here,” she said opening the door. “I can’t imagine how Martin and Elizabeth were able to stay here.”
“It looks like Granddad used the kitchen mostly,” Susan commented as she opened the cupboard doors to neatly stacked cups and dishes. An ancient Frigidaire stood in one corner graced by a yellowed plastic doily crowned with a basket of greasy-looking, plastic purple and pink flowers. The red and white enamel-topped table took up another corner of the room, its edges chipped here and there, exposing rough, black metal underneath.
Lu ran her palm over the table. “You know, we used to do our arithmetic at this table,” she said. “I loved it, because I could work the problems out in pencil on the enamel, and if I made a mistake, I would lick the end of my finger and erase the numbers. You don’t see these tables anymore.”
Lu stepped into the bedroom off the kitchen. This is where he must have lived out his last few years, between this room and the kitchen, she thought. The old iron headboard, painted white and pushed up against rain-streaked green drapes obliterated the only window in the room. This is Momma’s bed, she thought. Oh, no, oh, no, she scolded herself. You’re not going to fall apart now! She took a deep breath and looked around the room.
“Hey, Hon,” Zach called. “We’re going out to the SUV and get the boxes. We’ll put them together on the porch”
“Yeah, okay,” she answered absently. The room was exactly as it had been when she was a child. A faded green chenille bedspread covered an uneven mattress. An old round table stood next to the bed. Perhaps eighteen inches in diameter, it held only a white gooseneck lamp and a pair of drug-store eyeglasses. Lu wondered briefly where her father’s Bible went, then realized that Martin probably took it, or put it in the casket with her father. She would have to remember to ask him about it. A single, long oak dresser occupied the wall near the end of the bed. It took up nearly the entire wall of the tiny room. A couple of small towers of seed catalogs and Florida agricultural newspapers were stacked across the top. Her eyes were drawn back to the old iron bed.
On the nights when a storm brewed, little Martin would find his way into Luella’s room. He couldn’t say her name clearly, so he’d paw at the side of her bed and call,”Wu Wu.” Luella would pull him up into the bed where she cradled him in her arms. When a flash of lightning lit the room and rattled the windows, Luella’d pick him up and flee to the safety of Momma and Daddy’s big bed.
Luella was five in the fall of 1968 when Daddy came in from the field early one day.
“Gotta watch this one,” he announced as he turned on the TV. All the news was about a hurricane that was churning its way “right towards us”, Daddy said. He had been watching the sky and the high long clouds swirling slowly over his farm. He called them mare’s tails, a certain sign, he said, that a big storm was on its way. Daddy worked to put away everything in the yard that “might take off,” while Momma and Grammy filled every jug and pitcher in the house with fresh water. They made lots of ice cubes too, tied them in plastic bread bags, and stuffed the freezer with them in case the power went out. Then Daddy drove into town and filled the farm truck with gas, and when he came home, it was nearly dark. Around the dinner table that night Momma and Daddy and Grammy talked about “Dora” and how they hoped this storm wouldn’t be like that one. The lights flickered twice, and while Luella didn’t know what they were talking about, she grew more and more frightened. The wind picked up, the sky was heavy with low, black clouds.
Momma put Luella to bed and tucked Martin in beside her. “Now, don’t be scared,” she said. “Everything’s fine. It’s just a storm.” Martin squirmed under the covers and hid. Luella could hear the rain pounding against the side of the house as the wind roared like an angry lion and then grew eerily silent. Thunder echoed in the distance as the rain raked its way across the fields. She fell asleep as it hammered on the roof.
A loud crash outside woke her, and she ran toward her mother’s room, leaving Martin still asleep in her bed. Her little heart pounded wildly as the wind screamed through the pines outside. She met Daddy in the hallway. He was still up. He had toweled the windows and doors and was watching the pots and pans on the floor fill with water as the wind drove the rain into every crevice in the roof. The power was out, but he had his big flashlight and was up listening to the wind and watching the storm. Grammy Mayetta was sitting at the kitchen table, the Coleman lantern casting a harsh white light on the Bible which lay open before her.
Daddy picked Luella up and carried her to her mother. “Here, Momma,” he whispered. “This little one’s scared.” He laid her in her mother’s arms in the big bed.
But Luella sat straight up. “Martin!” she yelled. “Daddy, I forgot Martin.”
“I’m gonna go get him right now, honey,” he assured her. “You go on back to sleep.”
Her mother began to hum and rock her in her arms. Safe, Luella was quickly fast asleep again. Daddy must have brought Martin in, because he was in the bed in the morning when Luella woke up.
Hurricane Gladys crossed Florida from the west. All along its path from Homosassa it left swollen rivers and washed-out roads. Daddy spent the next couple of days cutting up fallen tree limbs in the rain-soaked yard. He hauled his big ladder out of the pole barn and crawled all over the roof with a bucket of tar, patching leaks. The crop, he said, was “iffy” because of the salt water the hurricane brought inland and dumped in the fields.
Lu tore her eyes from the bed. She stood before the dresser and began opening the drawers one by one. They were well organized, holding socks, underwear, shirts; all folded neatly, the socks paired into little balls. Exasperated, she shoved the bottom right drawer back in roughly, but it jammed three quarters of the way. She pulled it back out and tried again. It jammed once more. Frustrated, she got down on one knee, pulled it out as far as she could, and peered inside, feeling blindly with her left hand for whatever might be stuck. Her fingers grasped at the back of the drawer and she yanked out a large, bulging, wrinkled, brown manila envelope. Ah, she thought sarcastically, the family fortune!
She wrestled the envelope out of the drawer and peered inside. It was stuffed with photos and bits of paper. Curious, she unfolded one of the papers. It was a letter from her. It looked as if all the pictures of Susan and William she had ever sent him were in there. That’s just great, Daddy, she thought. Just stuff every memory of me out of sight.
She pulled out one of the photos hurriedly, afraid any minute that one of the kids or Zach might come into the room. A tiny piece of colored paper fluttered to the floor. She reached down to pick it up and saw it was a picture of a little girl’s dress. From its jagged edges, she immediately recognized it had been cut from a catalog. She swallowed hard and quickly stuffed the bit of paper back into the envelope and shoved the envelope back into the drawer, her jaw tight. Why would he have saved my homemade paper dolls? She wondered. Damn it all.
Chapter Fourteen
The acrid air was getting to her, the rain was getting to her, the greasy layers on the stove and Frigidaire were getting to her. The memories were closing in, trying to overtake her. She didn’t want Susan and William to see her upset. She fled out the back door.
Zach, who was just
entering the kitchen, followed her. “You need some help back here?” he asked.
“Oh, shit. Shit!” she said, clenching her fists at her sides. She spun around to face him. “I just don’t know. It’s like he’s still here. I can almost hear him yelling at me.” She looked toward the door to the kitchen to be sure Susan and William weren’t within earshot.
“I know, baby, I know. All that’s done, okay? You gotta get your head around this—it’s over,” he said, his hand holding open the back door. “We’re just here to pick up some papers, that’s all. So, take a deep breath and then you and Susan can look around for whatever you’re looking for. I’m gonna take William out to the pole barn and see if we can see us a snake! Ha ha.”
“No, oh, no, Zach!” Panic seized her. She grabbed his forearm. “You can’t take William out there. Ah, uh, there are snakes out there—bad, huge rattlesnakes. Please don’t go out there, please,” she pleaded.
In the hot months of summer, the wind almost never blows and the haze hangs in the air smothering every breath. The attic fan rattled and banged as it labored to keep air moving through the house. But, for all its efforts, it cooled nothing. Momma and Grammy Mayetta were sweating over the stove doing their canning. The kitchen was steamy with hot jars and hotter vegetables as they worked. From time to time they would wipe the sweat from their foreheads with a dish towel. Luella was supposed to keep her little brother out of the kitchen, but he kept running in there, and she kept having to pull him back out onto the porch.
“Now,” she scolded him, “you stay out here with me. Momma is canning and we’re supposed to stay out of the way.”
She heard Grammy Mayetta raise her voice, “Lovie!” she shouted and little Luella knew just from the tone of her voice that something was wrong. She ran inside to see what happened, Martin at her heels. Momma was bent over holding her belly, pain covered her face. Luella stopped in the doorway holding Martin by the hand. Grammy Mayetta scolded her mother, “You workin’ yourself sick, Lovie,” she said as she led her to a kitchen chair. Tears filled Momma’s eyes as Grammy ran to the phone and called Miss Pearl.