“We didn’t need that cantaloupe,” said Aunt Bette.
“It didn’t hurt to get it. It was so pretty.”
“It’s a sin to waste. Carl Oakley’s about to have a whole batch, for nothing.”
“It’s a sin to be stubborn, too.”
“Where does it say that?”
“It’s in there.”
This is the way they go back and forth. Every now and then it gets nasty.
“How’s Faison getting along?” Aunt Bette asks me. “Wait a minute. What you been up to, son?” she asks Morgan. “I ain’t seen you in I don’t know how long. What you been up to?”
“Nothing much.”
“Well, well. I’m glad you came by to see Aunt Bette. Aunt Bette gets lonesome staying here all alone, not able to get out so much anymore. Now, don’t you wait so long before you come see me again, you hear?”
“Yeah, okay,” he says. Mr. Personality.
Out at the airfield I tried to show him several things about the airplane. I opened the cowling, checked the oil, and was explaining about the exhaust system when I realized he’d just walked off and sat down on the grass.
So, hell, I went on over, sat down. “You’re not too interested in all this, are you?” I said.
He tightened his bootstrings—combat boots, very practical—then mumbled, “Not especially.” You’d think I was torturing him. What am I supposed to do?
“That’s okay,” I said. As calm as I could. “But do you think you want to go up for a ride?”
“I guess so.”
I swear, I try to understand it. If my old man had bought an airplane—like Uncle Grove’s—I’d have been beside myself. It would have been the best thing that ever happened. But Morgan? He sits on his butt and mopes.
I remember three or four rides with Uncle Grove when I was little—before he left. He’d put me in the front seat. He’d sit in the backseat and look over my shoulder and say, “Left hand on the throttle, right hand on the stick, feet on the rudder pedals.” And I’d get all set, except my legs wouldn’t reach the rudder pedals, and then he’d say, “Crank her up.” And I’d turn the key, press the button—the Super Cruiser was the first airplane with an electric starter. The propeller would flip over, stop, flip over, stop, flip, catch, and come to life. I’d feel the throttle under my hand move forward—him in the backseat, working the dual controls. “Okay, push it on up,” he’d say. “Push the throttle on up and stay on the controls with me. Feel what I’m doing,” and we’d go bumping along the ground, with him talking loud, saying what he was doing with the rudder pedals and the throttle to get the tail end to swing one way or the other, talking about touching a brake with his heel to make her turn, checking out the controls. Moving them all around. I’d be staring straight ahead at the instrument panel, left or right out the windows. Then he’d brake her to a stop, letting up on the brakes an instant before she stopped to make the stop smooth—like stopping a boat in water, against nothing. We’d be out there at that devil’s stomping ground—the worn circle in the grass between the other two circles that were growing grass back. He’d wear one circle down, then lengthen or shorten the cable.
He’d say, “Pull up that hand brake. Pull it hard. Hard. Attaboy. Don’t touch the throttle now.” And he’d open the door and climb out, hook up the cable, that airplane going a-cup, a-cup, a-cup, a-cup; then he’d get back in.
The little airplane felt like a hollow shell with a heavy engine up front, bouncing over the ground in that big wide circle, the engine wide open, picking up speed. Then clear, clear of the ground. Above the ground, broken away. A smoothness. Then in a minute we’d be free, broken away from the cable. Then my eyes on a cow down there, standing in a green pasture, not even looking up, and the whole wide world spread out below, with white wisps of clouds way, way up there above us.
“You want to follow me through on the controls?” I ask Morgan.
“Naw, I don’t think so,” he says.
Maybe I should be happy he’s talking at all.
It seemed like he was born and then about three months later he was sixteen years old and silent.
We flew over the homeplace and I decided to go ahead and land on the cart path across the back field. The wind was just right—ten knots off the nose. We set her down and stopped with eight hundred feet to spare.
5
Jimmy
Me and this guy that came over about the dog ended up going hunting together. He really wanted to go. Faison’s his name. Timmy had just brought me this bird dog I wanted to try out. Beautiful dog. Name is Willy.
We had a fair morning. Found two coveys. Willy did beautiful. Lunchtime, I pulled the pickup under some trees off the long dirt road between Farley and Hill View. I like the stopping for lunch about as good as the hunting, you want to know the truth. We had sardines and beans and some cans of Red, White & Blue. I bought some hot sauce for the sardines.
He starts in telling me about this uncle of his—traveled around with fairs and all that, circuses and stuff. Might be coming to see him before too long. That’s how we got into my endangered-species thing.
“You know,” I said, “you can’t hardly have a circus now with all these cruelty-to-animal people all over the place. You use a whip and a chair in that tiger’s cage and you liable to get arrested.”
“That’s right,” he says.
“If somebody tells me I can’t feed my family because of a goddamned turtle . . .”
He forked a sardine, shook off the oil. Looked at me like what are you talking about?
“I’m talking a turtle,” I said. “I got friends in Morehead City their family’s going hungry because some goddamned sea turtle is a so-called endangered species. Their livelihood is endangered—my friends’ I mean. That’s what’s endangered. You see what I mean?”
“Yeah.” He spooned some beans. Didn’t seem all that interested. This is serious business down on the coast.
“What I want to know,” I said—I get pretty worked up about this stuff—“what I want to know is how the hell they going to count all them goddamned sea turtles. Huh? I mean there’s a lot of ocean out there. And what you see is only the top. Know what I mean? What you see is only the top. And let’s say just for argument, let’s say they all do die. So what? There’s plenty of pictures of them. And films of them. Why should a man’s livelihood be endangered because a damn sea turtle’s endangered. That looks like to me it’s putting the horse before the cart. Huh? We’re talking a human being and his family’s livelihood. I mean this man, this friend of mine, had his job before any of them big-ass sea turtles ever got endangered. I mean first things first. Fair is fair. Really. And what we’re talking about anyway is the whole species being endangered. Not just that one turtle. See what I mean?”
He said he did—seemed a little more interested. “I mean I can see regulations, though,” he said.
Notice I hadn’t said anything about regulations.
“You got to have regulations,” he says, “but it does get ridiculous when you start messing with a man’s livelihood. That means you’re messing with his family. I mean he might have kids and all that.”
“That’s right,” I said. “God expects you to take care of your own.” I spooned some beans. “If there is a God.” My jaw was popping like it does sometimes. I got this bad jaw. It pops everytime I chew. Sometimes I notice, sometimes I don’t. Out there in the woods it seemed loud for some reason.
I do believe there is a God, but in any case, I got it figured out, so I says, “Let’s say there is a God. Okay. Now. Look at Mother Nature. You got animals killing other animals all over the place. Huh? You got birds killing insects. Animals killing birds. Insects killing insects. Birds killing birds. Hell, insects killing animals. Now, all this is one of the laws of God, else it wouldn’t be happening all over the place. So you have to think about this: does God expect man to be any different? Why, hell no. Of course not.”
I let that sink in. I could tell he was t
hinking. He was sucking down those sardines, too. He wouldn’t use any hot sauce, though. I tried to get him to.
“Now, on the other hand,” I said, “let’s say there ain’t no God. Okay? Okay?” He nodded. “Well, in that case it don’t make no difference about nothing. You can kill whatever you want to. See? See, I’ve spent some time thinking about this.”
“I can tell.”
“Either way it works.”
“Yeah, I see what you mean.”
Some people you talk this stuff to and they look at you like you’re crazy. I think Faison was with me.
I walked a few steps into the woods, unzipped my pants, took a leak, waving old Rangatang in circles. The stream breaks up into great big drops. I like to watch it do that. I tucked myself back in, zipped up. One thing I like about the woods—you can piss where you want to. That’s what I like about my yard, too. In my family we got a tradition of pissing in the yard—just the men, though. At least, as far as I know just the men. Huh? It makes you appreciate your freedom.
Faison was looking down, scraping his paper plate, scraping up some paper.
“I tell you one thing,” I said. I waited. He looked up. “What I do—and this is the bottom line—what I do is I treat people the way I want to be treated. That’s what I do, and what I can’t for the life of me understand is why people don’t treat me the same way. Can you answer me that one?”
“No, I can’t,” he said. “I sure can’t.” He turned up his beer can.
“It’s a political world,” I said. “That’s what I say. It’s a political world. And I think it’s a shame. You take my brother. It’s politics that’s kept him from getting the kind of medical benefits from the U.S. government that he ought to be getting. I think it’s a shame.”
“It is a shame,” he says. He pulls out a fresh toothpick from somewhere, asks me if I was in ’Nam, too.
“Oh yeah,” I said. “Did you know ’Nam spelled backwards is man?” I could tell he hadn’t thought about it. “But I have to say,” I said, “my brother had it rougher than I did. But I had it rough enough. It’s hard to explain to somebody that won’t in it.”
“Yeah,” he says, and then he says, “And dog spelled backwards is god. Did you ever think about that?” A word man here. Then he tells about his brother being a fighter pilot in the navy and a cousin being a fighter pilot and a cousin getting a leg shot off and all this stuff. His brother teaches out at Ballard—could have been flying with the airlines.
I could tell he wanted to get off the deep stuff onto family stuff. That was okay.
“My brother’s seven years younger than me,” he said. “I about had to raise him. But he’s the one had all the breaks. He deserves some credit, though. He won a Silver Star in ’Nam. He was a actual hero. The real thing. He just got through buying him a old airplane.” He went on about his brother. He didn’t talk none about his boy. Timmy told me he had a boy that died. I figured I wouldn’t pry.
“Let’s go shoot some quail,” I said. “Here, have a cold one.” People will talk about their families till the cows come home.
“Yeah,” he says. “Right-o. Let’s go.”
And here this idea struck me. I’d been trying to figure out how to get to Hickory to get some rattlers without driving all day. It’s getting damn hard to ship them anymore. So I asked him, “Think maybe your brother would fly me down to Wilmington or Hickory to buy some rattlesnakes?”
He said he probably would.
I have to get them from both ends of the state, and I swear I hate the driving.
“Won’t hurt to ask him,” he says. Then he got back into the family stuff. Talked about his brother having everything handed to him, all the good breaks and all that. I think maybe it’s been the opposite with me and Timmy. Timmy’s the one had the bad breaks, but my life ain’t been no roller coaster, I can tell you that.
All in all, we had a good hunt. Willy did great. Smart as a whip. Pretty as a picture. Retrieved. The whole nine yards. I couldn’t believe it. We got six birds. I got four and Faison got two. The dog is a dandy.
On the way back, Faison says, “Turn in this next driveway. I’ll show you something.” So I do and we go up this long driveway to a old white farmhouse. Pretty place. There were some old tobacco barns and stuff, and he says this was where he grew up and that if his stepmother died before his daddy—they were both sick—he and his brother would get the whole place. I know something about what land’s going for over there—it’s within a couple of miles of TechComm—so I figure this Faison is a possible future millionaire. No small bacon. And he’s the kind of guy I wouldn’t mind being friends with. See, so if it all works out we might be doing some fishing and hunting in Australia or somewhere.
We’re turning the truck around to leave and he says, “Look-a yonder,” and I’ll be damn if this airplane ain’t landing right behind the house.
It was his brother he’d been telling me about. We walk on out there and damn if this little blue-and-white airplane ain’t a beauty. Built in 1946. He landed it right there in this field behind the house.
I forgot to ask him if he’d take me to get some snakes. That would be great if he would. Hickory and Wilmington. That’s where my contacts are. I swear I hate the drive. It’s lots shorter now that 1-40 is open to Wilmington but it would still be nice if I didn’t have to do it.
The brother had a goddamn hippy with him. Turned out to be his boy. Huh?
6
Faye
I was happy that the weather was finally getting warmer. The bare trees along i-85 from Charlotte to Summerlin budded with that kind of faint green mist that I love so much.
I met Tate at the 7-Eleven the way I always do—first Friday afternoon of every month. He paid his and Faison’s part of a month’s salary for Gloria, food, diapers, the night sitter, and other necessities. We exchanged a few words. I bought a bottle of tomato juice as usual, and Tate bought his Diet Sprite and pack of Nabs. The meeting was brief, ritualistic, as if we were from different countries. I get tired of this, but I can’t imagine it will last much longer. One of them has to die soon. And if I end up with the home-place I’ll have to come back here to settle things with those boys who will be unhappy and their aunts who will be unhappy. Their position, according to the Fullers, is that it shouldn’t become Mother’s because she never “worked” the land. All this regardless of the wishes of my stepfather, the owner. In other words, inheritance laws are invalid, somehow, even though my stepfather bought the land and now wants his wife to have it because of the unselfish care she gave him for nine or ten—eleven?—years. The sisters apparently believe that there is some kind of feudal right they have by virtue of prior occupancy and the amount of time they spent “working” the place. I fail to see it, and thank goodness the wisdom of the law does not recognize that line of reasoning.
Driving up the long driveway to the homeplace—after the 7-Eleven—I first saw the familiar green Ford truck, and then I saw, sitting on the front porch, Mrs. and Mr. Fuller, perennial visitors, bearing a vague resemblance to vultures.
I did not want to sit and talk to these people, these people who would visit Mercury if someone were sick there—they’d endure the heat for the sake of a visit—these salt-of-the-earth people Mother did used to like so much, while she still had her mind. These people who seem interested in Charlotte and the law in such a way that I know they disapprove, or at least can’t understand that a woman could get a law degree, move away to Charlotte, and then stay there after her mama gets sick—and still not harbor a callous soul. And besides all that, be as old as I am without a husband. Sometimes I fantasize about putting people like this on the stand and asking them questions—for days—until I find out exactly why, what line of reasoning they use, why they believe so strongly in one narrow, bent moral code for all peoples on earth. If you planted them among the Arabs, then within six weeks they’d be cutting off thieves’ hands left and right. I know they would.
But also, I can’t
deny that there is a kind of comforting steadfastness about them.
As I started up the front porch steps, they were both ready, brimming. She was sitting, rocking energetically, smiling at me, and he was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees.
“Well hey, Faye,” she said. “Miss Laura’s looking a little better today. Didn’t you think so, Harold?”
“Yeah,” said Mr. Fuller. “She seemed to have a little more color today—or something. She shore ate the hell out of another box of candy.” He leaned back comfortably. You’d think he lived there.
“Well, that’s good,” I said, “about the color anyway. But it’s probably not a good idea to leave her with chocolate, unattended.”
“I think you’re right about that,” said Mr. Fuller. “I tried to tell Wilma.”
“No, you didn’t,” she said.
“Yes, I did.”
“No, you didn’t.” She turned to me. “How long you going to be able to stay, Faye?”
“I’ll be going back tomorrow afternoon. The usual.”
“Which one you reckon is going to die first?” said Mr. Fuller, leaning forward again, looking at me.
I stood with one foot on the top step, one foot on the porch. You might think Mr. Fuller’s question was unusual. It wasn’t.
“Harold,” said Mrs. Fuller.
“I don’t know, Mr. Fuller,” I said. “I just don’t know. I’d hate to have to guess.”
“That Gloria is bound to be right expensive,” said Mr. Fuller.
“Well, she is,” I said. “But at least she’s dependable. I’m glad Tate is willing to help out.”
“Poor Faison ain’t moved a house in I don’t know how long,” said Mrs. Fuller. “That I know of. I don’t imagine he can help out at all.”
“Well—”
“If you get this place, you planning to hold it or sell it?” Mr. Fuller asked me.
“Harold.”
In Memory of Junior Page 7