The Floatplane Notebooks

by Clyde Edgerton

  Papa says, “We uth to keep thoup down the well—dropped it down in a clean bucket with cheeth cloth acroth the top.”

  Bliss looked at me like “do something,” but I figured it’d work out. Just give it a little time.

  Papa told me to get the flashlight, but I couldn’t find it, so he struck a match, got on his knees, and reached down into the well with the match as far as he could. Didn’t do no good.

  “I’m going to shinny up,” yells Meredith.

  “Wait till we find the flashlight,” says Bliss.

  “I don’t need no flashlight.”

  About then Papa found the flashlight in the pantry, came back, shined it down the well, and we all saw Meredith. He was coming up, pushing with his hands and knees against the well casing—one hand, one knee, the other hand, the other knee. Down below him you could see the dark water reflecting the flashlight. And his pajamas, the blue ones, printed with the crossed rifles, were all wet and stuck to his shoulders—the wet making the skin show through. He wears that same pajama top to baseball practice.

  “Wait a minute and we’ll throw you a rope,” says Papa.

  “Never mind,” says Meredith, grunting. “I can make it like this.”

  “Whereth a rope?” says Papa, looking around, still shining the light down on Meredith.

  Meredith looks up at us and his face is all splotchy white and red, and he tells Papa to turn off the flashlight because he can’t see how far he is from the top. So Papa clicks off the flashlight and lays it down and that flashlight just slowly rolls right into that black hole before anybody can grab it and when it hit Meredith it sounded solid, like a hammer hitting a tree—got him right on the head. Then there is this heavy, scratchy scrambling followed by a short silence, then this loud, deep splash.

  Meredith goes through his teeth: “What the hell was that?”

  “The flathlight. Can you uth it?”

  “You dropped the flashlight?”

  “Look around. It’th suppoth to float.”

  “Meredith cussed,” said Noralee. “You’re not supposed to cuss in the house,” she says down to Meredith.

  “I ain’t in the house. I’m in the well.”

  Mama tells Bliss to go call the fire department and I could tell they were both worried. Papa said we didn’t need no fire department, and then he remembered the rope under the front seat of the truck and told me to go get it. I told him that rope was only five or six feet long. Meredith was a good twenty-five feet down.

  But Papa gets this idea: add sheets onto the rope. So I went out to the truck, got the rope, came back, and Mama had collected a few sheets from the beds. Bliss had called the fire department.

  In a minute, Bliss and Papa were passing these tied-together sheets, one at a time, down into the well. About the time the sheets were out of sight and just the rope was left above the floor, Meredith yells up, “Okay, tie that end to something. I’ve got aholt to this end.”

  Well, we look around for something to tie the rope to.

  The post.

  Papa gets positioned on the side of the post away from the well, wraps the rope around the post, ties it into a knot, braces his foot against the post, and wraps what’s left of the rope around his hand. I had my doubts, but I didn’t say anything.

  Noralee, who’s standing there with her arm stuck between her legs she’s got to go to the bathroom so bad, says, “What if that post comes loose?”

  “Mr. Hoover said that post won’t put in solid,” says Mama.

  “Poth ain’t coming looth,” says Papa. “Joe Ray Hoover don’t know everything. He thirtenly never built bridgeth in the war.” Papa does his jaw motion. He has this habit of—with his teeth out—bringing his lower jaw right up under his nose, in this chewing motion, so that the whole bottom half of his face disappears up into the upper half. And he needed a shave.

  “It could come loose,” says Noralee.

  Papa don’t pay her no mind at all. He just yells down to Meredith, ‘All right, climb on up.”

  “You got that end tied to that post?” Meredith wants to know.

  “The rope is thanchioned, Meredith,” says Papa. “Climb on up.”

  “It’s what?”

  “Thanchioned.”

  “What?”

  I didn’t know what it meant either.

  “Thanchioned! Thanchioned! Now climb on up like I told you!”

  The rope tightened and squeaked on the post—which held. It held for a right good while, as a matter of fact, until Meredith was about halfway up, and then it snapped free real loud there at the bottom, jerked the rope out of Papa’s hand, shot to the hole and wedged there. The damn knot held. And Meredith held on to the sheets. I guess he dropped about five feet. Papa can tie a knot. I’ll say that.

  “What happened?” Meredith yells up, shaky.

  Papa says, “Nothing. Keep climbing.” He hadn’t no more than got the words out of his mouth when this little bitty rip starts somewhere in one of them sheets, sort of speeds up, then goes real fast, and there goes old Meredith again. Right back where he started from. Another loud, bottled splash sound.

  Noralee says, “He ain’t gonna ever get out of there.”

  Mama turns on Papa. ‘Albert, this kitchen has gone all this time rotting through, and you messing with them rabbit boxes and airplane plans. How do you expect to build an airplane if you can’t build a kitchen? And now something like this happens. This floor ought not to ever got like this in the first place. Joe Ray Hoover told you about this kitchen.”

  Papa’s mouth dropped open and his eyes darted around all over Mama’s face. Then he did his jaw motion, turned, and walked out the back door.

  “Papa, I could of told you that post would pop out,” Meredith yelled up.

  “He ain’t up here, Meredith,” I said.

  The fire truck drove up. We could hear the loud idle of the engine. The fireman hit the siren for a low growl.

  “We don’t need no fire truck,” said Meredith.

  I walked out onto the back doorsteps and saw the firetruck headlights shining on Papa, sitting on the ground beside the well house, spotlighted, his head in his hands. The firemen, a tall one and a short one, walked up to him. Papa pointed to the kitchen, and they came on in and dropped the rope ladder down the well, hooked the end to the well curb, and in a minute out climbed Meredith, his pajamas dripping water. A red bump was on his hairline in front. Served him right.

  Bliss thinks there is no end to his cuteness.

  “Where’s Papa?” he said.

  “He’s out in the backyard,” I said.

  Mama says, “Go on to the bathroom, Noralee.” Then she went to get a towel for Meredith.

  “Y’all didn’t have to come,” says Meredith to the firemen. “I could have got out.”

  “Then jump back down there and climb out,” I said.

  He gave me his go-to-hell look, then followed the firemen out. He stood on the back doorsteps. Me and Bliss stood on the porch. Papa was still out in the yard.

  “What do we owe you?” Papa said to the firemen.

  “Not a thing.”

  “What about that ‘natural suspension,’ Papa?” said Meredith. “In the kitchen floor?”

  Papa walked over to the base of the steps. Meredith was on the second step. The backdoor light shined in Papa’s eyes. “Don’t talk to me about ‘natural thuthpension’ becauthe you don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know nothing about building bridgeth, and Joe Ray Hoover don’t neither.

  “Why don’t you write this up in the notebook?” I said.

  “I ain’t studying no notebook,” he said, sort of digging his hand down in his overall pocket.

  “Go put your teeth in,” says Mama.

  THE VINE

  The leg belonged to Timothy Cook who worked at the mill.

  Timothy’s mother Delphi came the morning after the explosion and sitting in her buggy talked first to Caroline. I just don’t feel right about burying his leg
in the same graveyard with Thadeus you know at the same time and all she said. It just don’t seem right somehow. And that’s such a nice little graveyard out there.

  It’s fine with us I’m sure said Caroline.

  I favor a small ceremony. Timothy of course won’t be able to come. If I could just get a body to holp me a bit.

  We will Mrs Cook. One of us. Where is the leg now?

  Well they brought it wropped up and put it in our smokehouse. It’s from his knee down. It’s just awful but gracious sakes it can’t stay out there.

  We’ll send Ross after it and build a box for it. Then after supper about sundown we’ll have a little service. You come on over and bring whoever you want to.

  Walker came up.

  We’re going to bury Timothy’s leg out here in our graveyard said Caroline.

  Leg?

  Why sure. It’ll give him great pain if we don’t dispose of it rightly.

  Well we got room.

  I’d be mighty obliged said Mrs Cook. It is a nice little graveyard with the babies and all and I want to dispose of his leg rightly. I told him what I had in mind and he seemed agreeable. I certainly appreciate it. She drove away in her buggy.

  A few minutes later Walker said to Ross You need to build a coffin for Timothy Cook’s leg. Then you’ll have to go get the leg. It’s in their smokehouse. We’re going to bury it out here this evening.

  A coffin?

  A coffin. A leg coffin.

  I got to go get his leg.

  That’s right.

  How much of it got blowed off?

  It was at his knee. Make it a infant coffin like the others. A little longer maybe. Walker held his hands showing the length. That’ll be plenty long. No need for nothing fancy. And the grave needn’t be deep. I’ll dig it.

  That evening they stood in a small group out in the graveyard read a Bible scripture and buried the leg.

  On the next blue moon, the leg was in a dark maple rocking cradle, just like the cradles for three infant cousins of the family who were out there with Thomas Pittman, and were crying. Thomas Pittman couldn’t see the leg in the coffin because it was added at the end of the short row of infants. But he sang to it along with the infants, even though they cried.

  NORALEE

  I know where home plate and first base and second base and third base is. I like third base best of all. Papa lets me play third-base coach sometimes because I’m a girl. I go with them down to the ball field when Papa takes us down there. Him and Meredith and Mark all pitch and hit. Thatcher used to come before he got married, but he’d just stand in the field way out there and scratch between his legs and look off at the woods and make Papa mad at him.

  Papa gets mad at Meredith for not hitting the way he wants him to.

  And Mark is the pitcher but Meredith wants to be.

  The best thing that happened at the ball field was when Meredith slid the truck down the left field bank. Right down into the trash pile.

  Meredith don’t have his driver’s license yet, but Papa lets him drive the truck down to the ball field and empty the trash over the left field bank where the trash pile is. Mark goes with him. Meredith don’t ever let me go so I walk down there through the woods and watch them. He drives fast across the ball field and then the truck turns and slides around like everything. Sometimes they get out and throw rocks at jars or shoot the .22 at Pepsi bottles. And sometimes Meredith lets Mark drive the truck.

  Papa don’t know Mark goes down there with Meredith. I’m waiting to tell on them when either one tells on me about something.

  Last winter it snowed real, real long and Meredith and Mark took the truck down to the ball field while everybody was gone off. The tires had chains but that didn’t do no good.

  I was in the living room when Meredith walked in the kitchen and said something to Papa. I walked to the door and listened.

  “It’s where?” said Papa.

  “Down the left field bank at the ball field,” said Meredith.

  “In that trash-pile garbage dump?”

  “Yessir.”

  “What the…. How…. Who did it?”

  “Mark.”

  They walked out the back door and I got my coat and boots and followed them. Papa slipped on the ice and Meredith grabbed him.

  We stepped into the screened-in porch at Mark’s house and stomped our feet. The porch was quiet and dark because of the deep snow on the ground and the snow stuck in the screen.

  Aunt Esther opened the door. I smelled meat loaf. “Wait a minute,” she said. “Let me get you a broom to clean off them shoes with.” Mark came up behind her.

  She handed out a broom and closed the door.

  Papa told Aunt Esther what happened and she got mad at Mark. Then Papa, Meredith, and Mark walked to the ball field. I followed them. I walked on top of the glaze on the snow.

  When we got there it was getting cold. Their faces were red in the cold. They looked down at the jeep. It was pointed uphill. The whole weather seemed like it was gray.

  “One of your earflaps is up,” said Meredith to Papa. Papa was wearing his old hunting cap with the earflaps.

  “That ear ain’t cold.”

  Meredith looked down at the truck. “We’ll get it out,” he said. ‘And we can come down here and start it up every morning until the snow goes away.”

  “It really ain’t so bad,” said Mark.

  They stood looking down at the truck.

  “I swear,” said Papa. “My jeep. In the trash pile.”

  “It didn’t quite reach the trash pile,” said Meredith.

  They started walking home. I followed them. I stayed on top of the snow but they sunk in.

  Meredith stopped at a place where a shortcut turned through the woods. Papa was in front and kept walking. I was behind. Mark kept walking behind Papa, crunching in the snow, then stopped. I stopped. Papa kept walking. Meredith nodded toward the woods and him and Mark went that way.

  I caught up with Papa and stayed close behind him because I didn’t know what they might be getting ready to do in the woods.

  THATCHER

  Why the hell do I have to get the damn truck out of the damn trash pile? Why me? It don’t make sense. If I had drove the damn truck over the damn left field bank of the ball field you think Meredith would be helping get it out? Hell no. You think Papa would make him help get it out? Hell no. You think Meredith would be within twenty miles when I got it out? Hell no. You think it would make any difference to Papa where Meredith was when I was getting the truck out if I drove it down there? Hell no.

  Papa wouldn’t even ever let me drive hardly. And that’s after I got a driver’s license. And Meredith don’t even have a driver’s license yet because he didn’t pass driver’s education. He got a note sent home because he told Sandra Tilly, right before her time to drive, when they walked around the car trading places, that she would have to slam on the brakes because they were real weak and went all the way to the floor, but the brakes really had just been serviced and tightened—feather sensitive—and Sandra Tilly hit the brakes like stomping a snake I reckon and went into a skid which scared her so bad she had to drop out. The next note said Meredith was out of driver’s training because he had run off the road trying to run over a possum that somebody had hit and not killed. And driver’s training was run by Coach Kelly, who wouldn’t get upset at just anything. And another thing is Meredith and Mark both got kicked off the ball team for two weeks because Meredith stuck a record needle in the seam on a baseball at one of their ballgames so that when Mark pitched it it would jump all around. Nobody had ever heard of doing it except Mark read it somewhere and of course Meredith had to try it out. If it can be tried out, Meredith will try it out.

  So we borrow Babe Terrell’s tractor, that off brand Earth-Master, made in Russia or somewhere, which has strange gears I ain’t used to—but I can drive the thing. Papa borrowed Fred Burgess’s John Deere. See, it was Papa’s idea to pull the truck out with two tractors.
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  The snow melted, and on a Friday night before we pulled it out Saturday, he sat us all down in the living room. At night he’ll sit us on the couch instead of outside on the root.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m going to explain to y’all how we’re going to get the truck out of the trash pile. With a little thinking and a little natural suspension you can do almost anything. Physics. Now the angle up that bank is high enough that the friction available to the tires of one tractor probably ain’t going to do it. Friction is how one surface holds another, and the earth on the left field bank has to hold the tractor wheels or they’ll spin. If they spin the truck stays where it is. With two tractors there’ll be half as much chance of each one spinning so you’re working on the principal of friction in your favor. What natural suspension does is—”

  “Why don’t you get a wrecker down there and wrench it out?” asked Meredith.

  “Because with two tractors you can get at natural suspension. Be quiet.”

  “Why ain’t Meredith getting it out?” asked Noralee.

  “He is. He’s helping.”

  “That’s a good question,” I said. “He’s getting helped by the whole neighborhood. I’d hate to see what would have happened if it’d been me drove the truck down the left field bank.”

  “I didn’t drive it down there,” Meredith said. “Mark did. But it was both of us in there. Both of us’ll have to pay.”

  “Pay what?” I asked.

  “Whatever it costs.”

  “That’s a joke. It ain’t going to cost nothing.”

  “If we get a wrecker.”

  I got the EarthMaster and drove it down to the ball field Saturday afternoon. Mr. Thompson, the principal, had found out about it and he was down there. And Bliss, and Papa, and about ninety kids.

  We hooked up two long chains to the front axle of the truck. Papa had Mr. Burgess’s John Deere. I said why don’t we try it with one first, and Papa said that would be like wasting food, that we had two tractors and we ought to use them both, and you couldn’t get at natural suspension with just one tractor. Just like Papa.