by Chris Fabry
“I never met Jesse’s mom face-to-face,” I said.
“She was an uncommonly thin woman,” Uncle Willy said.
Again I stared at the batch of Polaroids I held, the muted colors and blurry faces bringing back painful memories I couldn’t quell.
“Take those with you,” Aunt Zenith said to me. Then to Uncle Willy, “Go get him a poke.”
Uncle Willy went into the house and came back with a paper bag, and I dropped the pictures inside. I leaned down and received a good-bye kiss from Aunt Zenith, her face a little scratchy. Uncle Willy walked me to my car, pointing out his zucchini patch.
“You always grew the biggest pumpkins,” I said.
“Got out of the pumpkin business,” he said through clenched teeth. “Everything good has to come to an end.”
I nodded and shook his hand. He held on, blue eyes piercing mine.
“I expect your mom and dad were surprised to see you back, Matt. Especially with the wedding. Don’t suppose they told you about it.”
“No, they didn’t.”
“Well, I understand that. They’re trying to help.”
“How does marrying Earl help Jesse?”
“How does you coming back here help her?” he said. “Seems to me you’re complicating things. Unless there’s something you want.”
“I want the best for her. Nobody looked out for her.”
“So you’re riding in to rescue the damsel who doesn’t know she’s in distress.”
It was the first time I’d realized my uncle could focus on anything but weight, and his words hung heavy on me. Then he smiled and the way he held his mouth reminded me of my father.
“When we were kids, your daddy was always the one who climbed the tree to rescue the cat. Maybe it’s in your DNA. But sometimes the cat’s there because it wants to be. And it’s a long way down from the top limb.”
I waited until my parents left for church, then drove up the hollow to Jesse’s place, but there was no car in the driveway. The little house she and Daisy had lived in had been torn down but a trailer sat on a slab of concrete. It wasn’t a brick house, but getting indoor plumbing was a huge leap. People in the community had pulled together for Jesse and Daisy. Even people from the church. There was no light on inside the trailer. I knocked on the door but no one answered. I went to the church parking lot and watched people park and file inside, the scent of mildewed carpet and the sound of the heater firing up swirling in my memory. My mother had said Jesse worked with the youth on Wednesday nights, and as long as I could avoid Earl and his relatives, I figured I could snag a few minutes with her.
Younger children were taken to the steel building in the back, clad in gray shirts with medals and patches sewn onto them. I noticed an older woman get out of her car and recognized Mrs. Talmage. She was the go-to person for anyone with an ailment or medical problem because of her nursing background. Her husband had died recently—my mother had informed me. It was a car accident or a heart attack or maybe both. I hadn’t paid attention to the description of the events or the obituary she had sent. As Mrs. Talmage passed two men smoking on the front steps of the church, she stopped and said something, wagging a finger.
Several teenagers noisily took the steps two at a time and laughed and pushed each other. When Basil Blackwood pulled up in the same red truck I remembered, the sight of him caused those outside to scurry. He leaned forward as he walked as if there were some unseen tether propelling him. His imposing figure and our history caused my heart to race.
It’s always in situations like these that you think of the things you’d say if you ever had the chance. And I had a few words for Blackwood I’m sure my father wouldn’t want me to say.
Earl drove up and let Jesse out near the front. She had on an Awana leader’s shirt and hurried toward the metal building. I wondered if she’d have to give up the shirt once people found out she was pregnant. And then I wondered if all of that were true.
Earl parked and followed her inside. I watched the door close and drove away.
JULY 1972
As soon as Dickie went home the day after the campout, I raced to Jesse’s house. The closeness I had felt drew me like a magnet. She opened the front door and waved me inside.
The first thing I noticed was the strong scent of mildew. Then I saw their couch, a tattered, green-and-black plaid with a throw pillow at one end. Above the couch was a crooked picture of Jesus with a staff and a lamb. There was nothing else on the walls except cobwebs. On the other side of the room on a kitchen chair was a black-and-white TV with two broken rabbit ears. The channel knob was yellowed and the tube had a child’s handprints all over it.
The linoleum floor had bubbles and ridges. Each room had a different color, and at the edges the linoleum pulled up so it was easy to trip going from one room to another. Dishes were stacked in the kitchen sink next to a bucket of water. The refrigerator was short and rounded like an old Buick. I had seen a similar one in my grandmother’s basement, unplugged, the handle removed. Dickie told horror stories about children playing hide-and-seek and suffocating inside refrigerators.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said last night,” I said. “I think you need a phone.”
Jesse shook her head. “A phone costs money we don’t have. And they won’t install one without a grown-up’s signature.”
“Well, we need a way to communicate. Like if you’re in trouble and need help, some way you can tell me.”
“Why wouldn’t I just ride over to your house?”
“Because my parents will ask questions.”
“Maybe a birdcall,” she said. “I can do a mean bobwhite outside your window.” She made the sound and it was frighteningly similar to the bird.
“We need to be able to talk whenever we have to.”
Jesse snapped her fingers. “Dickie’s got a CB. He talks to truckers up and down the interstate.”
She put Daisy Grace in the basket and we rode to Dickie’s house. He showed us his setup, a small CB hooked to an antenna on the side of the garage.
“How much do those cost?” I said.
“You can get a cheap one at Heck’s for $20.”
I was pretty sure I had enough birthday money to cover the expense. I knew Jesse couldn’t afford it.
“What about the antenna?” Jesse said.
“Depends on how far you want to talk. What do you want it for?”
“I got to be able to communicate with the outside world,” Jesse said, repeating the line I made her memorize.
“How much of the outside world?” Dickie said.
“Just Dogwood,” I said.
“You two want to talk to each other?”
“Or talk to you,” Jesse said. “If I need somebody to make a phone call, it’ll save me a trip on the bike.”
Dickie dug around in the corner of the garage and blew dust from a black box with a microphone. “The channel knob is broke on this. It stays on 17. But it still worked last time I checked.”
“Where’d you get it?”
He looked sheepish and finally admitted he had found it in someone’s trash.
“I could use some birthday money and see if my parents would take me to Heck’s,” I said. “What else would Jesse need to get it to work?”
“Just an antenna and coax.” He thought a minute. “There’s an old boy down the street who put up a Moonraker—it’s this big antenna on a tower that turns. He helped me set this up. I think he’s got a little antenna he doesn’t use anymore.”
It took some finagling, and Dickie had to promise to mow the man’s yard the rest of the summer, which Jesse said she would do, but the man gave us an antenna and the metal pole it was mounted on, plus the coax, a thick cord from the antenna to the CB that looked like a blacksnake. Dickie and I carried the antenna to Jesse’s house and it felt like we were setting up the transcontinental railway. Each step brought us closer to breaking the communication barrier.
“We can run the wire out my bedroom window,” Jesse
said when we reached her house. She put up a rickety wooden ladder and pointed. “The antenna could go right there.”
Dickie nearly turned white when he looked up. “Don’t you dare put that ladder there. See that electric wire? I don’t know who installed that, but that wire’s hot. You put the antenna there and the thing will splatter every time you key the mike. And if we slip and the antenna touches it, they’ll be burying all three of us.”
Jesse’s mouth dropped open. “I climb up there all the time and I’ve never gotten shocked.”
“You put your hand on that and you’ll see what I’m talking about.”
“Where should we put it, then?” I said.
“At the front, right there. You could run the coax in the living room window. That way you can talk on it without waking Daisy Grace.”
“She sleeps about as hard as you do, Dickie,” Jesse said.
He squinted at us but didn’t ask how she knew that.
Dickie marked a spot on the ground and dug with a posthole digger into the soft earth. Jesse and I leaned the metal pole up to the house and sank it deep in the hole, and Dickie packed it down with rocks and dirt. He said it should have cement but Jesse didn’t have any.
“How are we going to keep it from falling over?” I said.
“Just hold it while I look for something.”
He disappeared behind the house and Jesse looked at me. “You think this is really going to work?”
“You doubting Dickie’s ability?”
She smiled. Her hands were next to mine. And I could see the blue-green ocean in her eyes. “I’m doubting our ability to dig a hole deep enough to keep this thing from blowing down in the wind.”
Dickie returned with a flattened Maxwell House coffee can, four nails, and a hammer and climbed up the ladder. He put the can around the pole and drove nails in on either side. He pulled on it hard and smiled. “That ain’t going nowhere.”
The antenna stuck up above the roof. I backed up for a better view.
“Looks right pretty, don’t it?” Jesse said.
Dickie climbed down and wiggled the pole again, seeming proud of his work. He fed the coax through the window and Jesse went inside and screwed the connector into the CB, but all we could hear was static. He showed us how to work the squelch knob to cut down the noise.
“Not many people on channel 17, but that’s good if we just want to talk to each other,” Dickie said. “You two need to come up with handles while I ride home and test it out.”
“What do you mean, handles?” Jesse said.
“A name. What to call yourself so nobody knows who you are.”
“Why wouldn’t I want anybody to know?” Jesse said.
“It’s got to do with the FCC. You wouldn’t understand it. But everybody has a handle. Classy Chassis. Tin Bender. Electric Man. That kind of thing.”
“What’s your handle?” I said.
“Listen to the radio. You’ll see.”
Dickie rode Jesse’s bike back to his house. She and I waited in the living room, watching the little lights flash on the CB. Every now and then we heard fuzzy voices that Dickie later said were from truckers passing along the interstate. Their voices bled over from channel 19.
“Breaker, breaker 1-7,” Dickie said, his voice higher pitched but clear. “This is the Breakthrough Kid. You copy?”
I handed the microphone to Jesse but she shook her head. I keyed the mic. “I hear you, Dick—I mean, I got you, Breakthrough Kid.”
Dickie laughed. “Who am I talking to?”
“This is the Dogwood Pirate,” I said.
Jesse’s mouth was wide-open. “It really works.”
“Nice to meet you, Dogwood Pirate,” Dickie said. “Now hand the mic to the little lady.”
I handed Jesse the mic but she shook her head again.
“Come on, you’re going to have to talk for him to hear you. This is a CB, not a TV.”
Jesse frowned and picked up the mic like it was a dead mouse. She finally keyed it and said, “Hey, Breakthrough Kid.”
“There you are—and who am I talking to?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“If you don’t make up a name for yourself, I’m going to do it for you,” Dickie said.
She thought a minute, then held the mic up and keyed it. “Call me Wildflower.”
“Now that’s the best handle I think I’ve ever heard. Fits you perfect, Wildflower.”
It took some cajoling to get my mother to sign on to the idea of a CB in my room. But all the cajoling in the world wouldn’t get my grandmother to agree to an antenna by her house, even if we did use a clamp instead of a coffee can. She said the CB was for low-class people.
Two days later, after considerable hounding, I convinced my father to take me to Heck’s, where we looked over the inventory. There were base units that went in people’s houses and mobile units for the car. I picked the cheapest one that plugged into the wall and asked the man behind the counter about an antenna.
“If you’re talking with people short-range, you can get one of these,” he said. He pulled out a small coil from the glass case. “Plugs right in the back. You’ll want a bigger one soon, but this will get you started.”
I connected everything when we got home and flipped the channels, listening to a few faint voices. I switched to channel 17 and keyed the mic.
“Break 1-7, for Wildflower.”
My father sat on the bed and listened.
The needle on the meter flew from left to right and I heard a tiny voice say, “Daisy. I’m Daisy. . . .” She held the mic on and I heard Jesse in the background. “Turn loose of it. You can’t hear if you don’t let go of it.”
The needle fell and my father laughed and left the room.
“Daisy, this is Dogwood Pirate. Is Wildflower there?”
“I’m here, Pirate. Looks like we’re in business.”
“Is the Breakthrough Kid on?”
I waited but didn’t hear anything. Then Jesse said something to Dickie and we determined my antenna wasn’t strong enough to pull in his signal. Dickie could hear me but I couldn’t hear him.
“Breakthrough Kid says he’ll work on your setup, Pirate.”
“10-4,” I said, beginning to learn the vocabulary of our new experiment.
Later that night, after all was quiet in our house and Daisy had gone to bed at Jesse’s, I turned the sound down as far as it would go and put a pillow over my head to muffle my voice. The lights were out in my room and all I saw was the soft glow of the CB.
“This is the next best thing to a phone line,” Jesse said.
“The antenna holding up over there?”
“Yeah. The wind wiggles the top but it’s secure like Breakthrough said.”
I pictured her in her living room, on the couch, holding the microphone and maybe in a nightgown. Then I thought better of it because Jesse wore the same clothes every day, so she probably slept in her T-shirt and shorts too.
“What do you think is gonna become of us, Pirate?”
I took a deep breath, listening to the sounds of crickets and frogs through the open window. “I don’t know, Wildflower, but I think something good’s going to come from all of this.”
She said something but was yawning while she spoke and I laughed and so did she.
“Daisy wore me out today. I’m going to bed. Talk to you tomorrow, Pirate.”
We began an easy back-and-forth, Jesse and me. Because I couldn’t hear Dickie, Jesse relayed his messages to me, acting as a repeater. Then late at night when I was reading, I’d hear her familiar click click of the microphone and I’d answer with two clicks.
“You okay?” I said one of those nights.
“Yeah, just a little lonely. I was up on the roof tonight, looking at the stars.”
“You’ve got to be careful going up there with that live wire.”
“I put the ladder a long ways from it. You can see stuff and there’s a breeze up there. It helps me
clear my mind.”
I had never considered climbing on my grandmother’s roof for any reason, but Jesse was a free spirit.
“Won’t be long till you’ll need to get a bigger antenna,” Jesse said.
“Why’s that?”
“Because you’re moving to the parsonage, right?”
This was a constant topic of conversation around our dinner table. “There’s a holdup on it. I don’t think we’ll be moving anytime soon.”
“Good. I mean, good for me.”
I smiled. “My mom is headed to the Kroger’s tomorrow. You need anything?”
“No. Thank you, though.”
There was silence a moment before Jesse spoke again.
“What’s it like to play the piano?”
“It’s okay, I guess. I don’t really know how to explain it. You ever thought of playing an instrument?”
“I play the radio, that’s about it. But I thought about the harmonica when I was younger. They had this thing at school in the second grade where if you brought fifty cents in, you could get a harmonica and take lessons, but my mama said we couldn’t afford it. My music career went out the window before I got to third grade.”
She meant it to be funny, but I thought it was sad. And it made me appreciate my piano lessons more knowing Jesse wanted to take them but would never be able to.
“I wish I could hear you when you talk,” I said to Dickie at his house the next day.
“You should just hang a mobile antenna on the laundry pole,” Dickie said.
“I suggested that and my grandmother said she doesn’t want to get struck by lightning.”
Dickie laughed. “When you move to your new house, you can put one up.”
Dickie and I were poring over a magazine he’d found. It showed the cadavers of Martians discovered in the New Mexico desert, and Dickie said this was the kind of photograph he was hoping we could take with my new Polaroid. A car pulled up outside the garage and two uniformed men got out, put their berets on, and walked toward us. One man was white, the other black.
Dickie kept the magazine open on his lap as he studied their faces, not saying a word, as if he knew why they were there. I wasn’t sure, but I immediately thought of my promise to Jesse about praying for Dickie’s father. With all that had happened after Jesse’s mother’s death, I hadn’t kept my side of the bargain.