“Bigger.” He turns around, keeping his balance, picks up the tow sack and drops the frog in with the others. “Let’s go fry some frog legs,” he says.
“Yeah. I’m hungry.”
Meredith balances the cast iron frying pan on two small logs at the edge of the fire and, with a stick, pushes several coals and small pieces of burning wood under it. He dips a spoon into a small jar of congealed bacon drippings, shakes it into the frying pan, wipes the spoon clean, unfolds a piece of waxed paper, spoons a mixture of cornmeal and flour from another small jar onto the waxed paper and rolls the washed frog legs in it until they are covered. He takes a pinch of flour and cornmeal between his thumb and finger and drops it into the pan. “It’s not ready,” he says. “I’m about to starve. You got that other stuff?”
“In the knapsack. Is it time?”
“Put it in that pan—the beans—and put it on the fire on the other side there, like I got this.”
I get out a can of pork and beans, open them, pour them into a pan, and place the pan at the edge of the fire. Then I get out two deep red tomatoes, clean my hunting knife, and slice the tomatoes into a tin dish.
Meredith drops a pinch of flour and meal into the pan and it sizzles. “Thank goodness. Ain’t you about to starve?”
“Yeah. I’m about to starve my ass off.”
Meredith drops four legs into the grease. They sizzle. He rolls them several times. “Hand me that salt.”
I hand the tin salt shaker to Meredith. He sprinkles salt as he rolls the frog legs in the pan, and talks. “They’re going to be good. Just the right size. Not too big. Not too little. Papa won’t do great big frogs. These are cooking just right, too. See that little bit of smoke coming up. That’s just right.”
“I know.”
“If it’s hot enough, and you get the flour to stick good, then they’ll be real crisp. They’re doing just right.”
After they’re cooked, we eat the frog legs along with beans and tomatoes on tin plates and drink water from our canteens. We eat slices of white bread with the meal, sop our plates with it.
“I wish we had some corn on the cob,” said Meredith.
“Me too.”
“The coals will be right in about fifteen minutes. What about old man Blackwelder’s corn field?”
“Five minutes to get there,” I say, “five to get the corn, and five to get back. The coals would be just right.”
“Let’s go. Get the flashlight.”
“We don’t need it. The moon’s bright as day.”
“Right. We don’t need it.”
The almost-full moon is so bright the clouds are white. We cross a field of broomstraw, a patch of woods, the road —crouched and half running—and stop in a corn row. The stalks look black against the bright night sky.
When we get back, the campfire is a pile of smoldering, red-hot coals. A small flame flickers out, returns, another appears.
We push the corn ears up under the coals so they meet like spokes on a wheel, then cover them with hot coals, and sit watching.
“I wish we had some butter,” I say.
“They’re good with just salt. You don’t need butter.”
Later, Meredith takes a stick and spreads the coals away from two of the corn ears and rakes the ears onto the ground away from the coals. They steam, and are splotched with black where the coals have burned partly through the green shucks. “They look just right,” says Meredith. “Let’s see if this one’s done. You’ll burn your ass if you ain’t careful.”
He peels back the steaming-hot green and black shucks, jerking his hands away when he gets burned. He pulls away all the shucks, most of the silks, tosses the ear into the air and catches it, then quickly drops it, steaming, onto his plate.
“It smells sweet,” I say.
“It’s pretty, ain’t it?” Meredith blows onto the ear of corn, sprinkles it with salt, bites into it, and chews, opening his mouth so he won’t be burned. “Man, that’s great. Taste that.” He hands me the plate.
I take a bite. “Hummm. It’s done—let’s get the rest out.”
“Pull it out and let it be cooling. Shuck that other one for you. This stuff is hot as Cora Gibbs’s pussy,” says Meredith.
I shuck the corn ear.
“You remember when Jack and Richard saw her and Bryan Williams doing it in his car?” says Meredith. “Broad daylight?”
“Yeah, I remember that.”
Meredith takes a bite of corn. “Hell, I got Rhonda hot. She gets hot real easy. She unbuttoned her blouse in the barn one time, too.”
I don’t talk about her doing that with me.
“They’re all kind of wild or something,” I say to Meredith.
“You ever had a girl to stick her tongue in your ear?”
“Sort of.”
“‘Sort of?’”
“Yeah.”
“I’m talking about French kissing in your ear, not just plain old French kissing. There’s a big difference. French kissing in your ear drives you crazy and if you do it in their ear it’s guaranteed, double-d guaranteed to make them hot. You ever got a girl hot?”
“Of course.”
“Who?”
“Christine Madrey.”
“I thought so. Give me another ear…. I’m going to stick my tongue in it. Ha.”
We eat three ears apiece and leave three for breakfast.
Late in the night, we crawl into the tent, under our blankets, and lie there.
“Let’s see who can fart first,” says Meredith. He farts.
We watch the dying coals.
“You ever hear about old Ross giving somebody a hot coal to eat?” says Meredith. “Told them it was chocolate?”
“Yeah, I heard that a bunch of times.”
BLISS
On the first night things were the same as always. We watched television for a while, talked, the men fed the dogs, we went to our separate quarters.
Miss Esther and I were staying in Lee’s room as usual—Uncle Hawk and Aunt Sybil’s daughter who works in Kentucky. The same pictures were on the dresser: Lee’s baby pictures, and Uncle Hawk in a uniform when he was very young, and Aunt Sybil and Uncle Hawk when they got married.
When we were getting dressed to go to bed I asked Miss Esther, “Was Uncle Hawk in World War I? That picture. I’ve never heard him mention it.”
“No, as a matter of fact, he wasn’t. He bought that uniform at an Army surplus store. He was running from the law then. I remember washing it for him, and Mama crying. We washed his clothes and sent them to him for over a year. Somebody would leave them off and pick them up.”
“What was he in trouble for?”
“He escaped off a chain gang, for one thing. It was all because of drinking. You’ve heard it talked about. It was a real shame, but he’s gone straight for a long time now. That other was a long time ago. Time changes some things.”
I felt she wanted the topic closed.
I was about to bring up the question of Meredith and Mark going into service, and perhaps not being along next year, but I didn’t. It didn’t seem like the place or time. Yet, I wanted to explode with my concern so that this family would somehow register what was about to happen. They seemed to treat the imminent departure as a normal event. I wanted to shake them up, say, “Don’t you all have something to say about this? Aren’t you concerned?” They’ll talk far more about Old Ross, Tyree, bird dogs, and cooking, than they will about these young men going away to war.
Day Two: Silver Springs. It was exciting again, and this was the first year Taylor got the full effect of all the wonderment. His favorite was the monkeys in the trees which we saw on the jungle cruise.
On the second night Aunt Sybil fixed quail casserole, one of her best dishes. Dan Braddock was there. The conversation got onto Vietnam. Meredith likes to call it B. E Nam, because that’s what Taylor calls it. At first I didn’t want to get involved, but I got to thinking that I’d been a part of this family for ten years, a ve
ritable decade.
“Nobody else in the family has gone to war, have they?” I asked.
“Thomas, Esther’s husband,” said Uncle Hawk.
“Blood kin, I mean.”
Miss Esther eyed me. “Isaac, Walker’s oldest, was killed in the Civil War. Ross’s brother,” she said.
“And Daddy was a frogman,” said Noralee.
“And built bridges,” said Mr. Copeland.
“But none of that counts,” said Meredith, “because he never got any farther than Norfolk, Virginia.”
“The timing’s always been wrong,” said Uncle Hawk, “since the Civil War, anyway. Like Thatcher there—he’s got a kid and is too old.”
Aunt Sybil passed the biscuits.
“Well, I’ll just miss them being away for one thing,” I said.
“Who was in the Civil War?” asked Dan Braddock.
“Isaac, Walker’s boy, was killed, then Walker went in sometime, a couple of times, I think,” said Uncle Hawk. “Turned around and came home the first time because they told him it was over. While he was gone Caroline threw boiling water on the Yankees. Did you ever hear about that, Frances?”
“Rhonda.”
“I mean Rhonda. Excuse me, honey. It was Frances last year, wadn’t it, Meredith?”
“You lie, Uncle Hawk.”
“Anyway, Caroline threw boiling water on the Yankees.”
“What did she do that for?” asked Rhonda.
“She was mad. They stole her meat and was sitting around in the front yard eating it.”
“I’d been afraid they might have killed me if I’d done that.”
“She won’t afraid. Poured a pan of boiling water on them and said she wished they were dead and in the belly of hell. Next day Ross, who won’t big as nothing, shot at them from out of a tree, a hollow tree, holed up in a hollow tree, and they couldn’t find him. He climbed up the inside of a tree.”
“Pass some of that casserole,” said Dan Braddock. “Maybe Mark can fly that floatplane to Vietnam, Albert, and scare all the slant-eyes to death.”
“It won’t fly,” said Meredith.
“That’s what I mean,” said Dan Braddock.
“I get me some bigger engines on it and it’ll fly,” said Mr. Copeland. “That’s all it needs—a little more horsepower.”
“You just need a horse,” said Mildred, buttering a biscuit. “Or a mule. Keep figures on him.” She looked up. “He’s got a notebook with his figuring in it—on the floatplane. Plus all the children’s heights and weights, and newspaper clippings and I don’t know what all.”
“I got two notebooks,” said Mr. Copeland.
“Except the stuff on the floatplane ain’t accurate,” said Thatcher. Thatcher worries about that. I don’t think it’s all that important. The thing will fly or not fly regardless of what’s in the notebooks. Except I guess the notebook would be a fun thing for Taylor to read once he’s grown.
MARK
I remember being about ten, when Uncle Albert would sit in his cloth beach chair in the front yard, holding his bird notebook that he’d drawn birds in—how they look when they’re flying. They weren’t very good pictures.
He’s quizzing Thatcher, Meredith, Noralee, and me. He has his teeth out, so he’s talking funny. A bird is flying over the trees. “Whath that one, Noralee? Be quiet, Meredith.”
“A crow.”
“It’s a buzzard!” says Meredith.
“I thaid be quiet. Give her another chance. Nexth time she gets two chances. Everybody gets two chances from now on. Underthand? Do you underthand, Meredith?”
“Yeth thir.”
“Don’t you mock me.” He jumps, holding on to the chair arms, like he’s going to get up. Then he does this jaw motion, where his chin goes up into his face. Then he sits back.
That night I’m staying at Meredith’s.
Uncle Albert goes to bed early. Meredith begs Aunt Mildred to let us stay up and watch TV. She says okay.
The Channel 9 news signs off, and suddenly there is an F-104 Starfighter, climbing higher, then rolling into a lazy aileron roll.
“Look at that!” says Meredith.
The camera zooms in. A white-helmeted pilot is in the cockpit and there’s this poem about slipping the surly bonds of earth and dancing the skies on laughter-silvered wings, and goes on to something about “reach out and touch the face of God.”
“Man, that’s something! Did you see that?”
“Yeah I saw it.”
“Turn the station! Maybe it’s on another station!”
“That’s what I’m going to do,” says Meredith. “I’m going to fly one of those.”
“I am too.”
“No, you’re not. You can’t go in the Air Force if your daddy got killed in the war. You can’t go. It’s going to be me.”
I tell Mother I want to be a jet pilot, and she says, “If you were a doctor or a missionary you could fly to see your patients maybe, or whatever. But if you were just a pilot you wouldn’t be able to be a doctor or a missionary—or a concert pianist.”
BLISS
We were eating dessert when Dan Braddock said, “Mark, you’re going to find you one of them slant-eyed girls to marry? They’ll walk on your back and make you feel good.”
“I don’t know,” said Mark. “I might end up staying in the States. That stuff might be over before too long. I’m not going to volunteer to go, but if I have to, I have to.”
“Find you a slant-eye in the States then.”
Rhonda looked at Meredith. “I’m going to check your back for footprints.”
“Maybe he won’t have to go over there either,” I said.
“I wish,” said Rhonda, “but that ain’t what he told me.”
“I’ll probably go,” said Meredith.
Then Thatcher got into his military arm talk, which pretty soon changed to talk about the next day’s hunt. Mildred, Aunt Sybil, and Rhonda were talking about Silver Springs, and Miss Esther and Noralee were eating quietly. I wish Noralee would speak up more. She’ll talk to me, but not much, unless we’re alone.
I got to thinking that I would miss Meredith during the next three days of hunting, and Thatcher, but especially Meredith and Mark, in light of their going off in a few months. It occurred to me that I could go along on a hunting trip. Why not? I could join these men, be with them. For one day, at least—one of the three hunting days. But I dared not broach the subject in front of everybody at once.
I waited until later when the men had gone out to the guest house, just before we were settling in for the night, and I asked Rhonda, who had a rollaway bed in the living room, “Have you ever thought about going hunting with the men?”
“Nope. Shoot little birds? Fishing is hard enough for me.”
“I think I might see about going one day.”
“I don’t think I’d like it.”
That was enough for me. I went quietly out the back door so that I could knock on the guest house door, get Thatcher to come out, and ask him.
Meredith was sitting on the back steps, alone. It was cold.
I sat down beside him. “What are you doing out here?” I asked.
“Just thinking. Kind of.” He looked at me and smiled. “And Rhonda’s supposed to sneak out.”
“Should I go back in?”
“Oh no. No.”
So I sat. I had to say a few things. “You know, I think about you leaving a whole lot, Meredith. And nobody talks about it much, one way or the other. And coming down here makes it worse.”
“Makes what worse?”
“Thinking about it. I don’t know why. Because we’re all together, I guess.”
“It’s just something I have to do, and then it’ll be over.”
He was wearing blue jeans worn thin at the knees—little fuzzies. I put my hand on his knee, the soft cloth, and rested my arm on his leg. “I wish you weren’t going. That’s all I can say.”
The side of his face was lighted by the dull green l
ight from the street light. “Hell, three years from tonight we’ll be sitting right here,” he said.
“I’ll remember that,” I said. We sat not moving. I could feel his leg and knee with my arm and hand. “You be sure to write me.”
“I will.”
“Good. Listen, what do you think about me going hunting with you-all tomorrow?”
“Why?”
“Just to see what it’s like.”
“Fine with me. Yeah. That’d be fun.”
“I asked Rhonda. She didn’t want to go.”
“Yeah, it’s all right with me. You might get a little tired, though.”
I realized that I wanted to be Rhonda for a night. Just one night. But I knew the deep and sacred futility of such thinking.
“I guess I ought to ask Thatcher first,” I said, standing.
“Tell Papa I’m watching some more TV”
I stood, walked to the guest room, and knocked. Mr. Copeland opened the door and stuck his head out. I got a glimpse of Mark in his underwear. “What ith it?” said Mr. Copeland.
“I want to ride along on the hunt tomorrow. Think that’ll be okay?”
“You?”
“I just want to see what it’s like.”
“Okay. We’ll make room. Damn, ith cold. Thee you in the morning. Thatcher’ll come wake you up. We got the clock thet.” He shut the door.
I knocked. The door opened.
“Meredith said to tell you he’s watching TV,” I said.
“He better get to bed.”
I turned and started back to the house. The street light shone through the Spanish moss. Rhonda was sitting with Meredith on the back steps. The cold, damp air went straight through my clothes, through my skin, to my bones. Cold weather in Florida is very cold, because it’s so damp, Florida being between two oceans, or an ocean and a gulf.
I walked up the steps past them.
“You going hunting tomorrow?” asked Rhonda.
“I’m not sure. I’m thinking about it. I think I’ll see how cold it is. Good night, y’all.”
The next morning at about five-thirty Thatcher came in and held my foot until I woke up. It was quite cold, even inside. Before we had gone to bed, Aunt Sybil put out a pair of her leather boots and extra socks since the boots were a little big. Thatcher had brought over some of Mr. Copeland’s hunting clothes: pants equipped with extra thickness in front to guard against briars, hunting coat, flannel shirt, and black crewneck sweater. In the coat pocket was toilet paper and an apple. How practical! I rolled up the sleeves and pants legs.
The Floatplane Notebooks Page 8