Junior looked at me and I shrugged. “Well …” he hesitated. “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” The captain shook his head and looked at Dad. “You’ve got a fine pair there, Woody. God! That’s marvelous. They won’t tell because it would be giving away confidences. How about that! Innocent integrity. Long may it live! Hallelujah!” He rolled his head on the pillow in a wild display of delight. “Here these two are, protecting a poor sick boy whose grasp of right and wrong is tenuous at best. Oh, Woody. Tell them it’s all right to tell me anything. Everything. No matter what Bradford said—and I’m sure he said plenty about me—can’t hurt me. But it might help him. Whatever you know about him. No matter how distasteful it may seem. It’s your duty to tell me now. If he weren’t sick, I’d be the last person in the world to ask you to be … be tattle-tales.”
Dad nodded to Junior and he told them the story of the rainy night when Brad was locked out of the house naked. The captain just nodded. “He has called you …” Junior shot a look at Dad who nodded again. “He has called you … an old fart.” The captain noted it by inclining his head slightly. “He said he wished … wished … you were …”
“Dead?” the captain asked.
“Yes. And then he’d sell the place here and go back to Virginia.”
“All that figures. Actually, it’s fairly normal. Most young men wish their father were dead.” He saw the look of horror on our faces. “You two may be the exceptions. So far.” He looked at Dad with amusement. “Also, you’re both very young. Maybe Woody hasn’t had time to show you just what kind of a shit he can be.”
“They’ve been pretty well primed,” Dad said.
“Is that all? Carlton, you have anything to add?”
“Only some wild stories he told us about his school,” I said. “I don’t think they were really true, I think he was just trying to … to impress us—you know the way boys do. Try to make a bigger story than the last one.”
“What sort of wild stories?”
“Well, he said they used to tie up the darkies—he called them that—and then whip them.”
“Pure fantasy,” the captain said. “Not a very pretty one, however.”
“And then they’d—what was the word, Junior?—corn something. Cornhole, that’s the word. They’d cornhole the younger boys in school.”
Dad spewed wine all over his shirt and the captain fell back on his pillow and roared. Junior and I looked at each other helplessly. “Wasn’t that the word?” I leaned over and asked him.
“I think so.”
Suddenly Dad sat up straight and looked furious. “He never tried out anything like that with you, did he?” Dad was speaking and looking directly at Junior. “Not that I know of,” Junior answered.
“Not… that… I … know…” the captain was having one of his coughing and choking attacks. Dad was beside him, lifting him slightly under the shoulder and arching his body, his chest up and head back so that he could breathe. Each time Dad started to ease him back on the cot, the spasms would start again. He was gasping for air and bit by bit, his shallow inhalations relieved the attack and I wondered why we hadn’t brought along the oxygen tank. Finally, breathing normally and with a fresh glass of wine for both men, the captain was able to speak.
“Now. Let’s go back—calmly, ever so calmly—to cornhole.” He was grinning broadly at Dad who was having difficulty keeping a straight face. “I gather from your answer to your father’s question, Woody-Two, that you haven’t a clue what cornhole means.” Junior shook his head and so did I. “Woody, you have two abysmally ignorant sons. Are you going to let them grow up not knowing what cornhole means? It is one of the most important things to know about. Since they don’t, Woody, I think we can safely assume that Bradford couldn’t have had his degenerate way with them. Either one of them. Right?” I was totally lost but Junior nodded. The captain paused and then looked at Dad. “For Christ’s sake, how do you explain this? They’re your boys, you explain it.”
“They learned it from your boy, you explain it.” They were teasing each other while Junior and I sat in bewildered silence.
“Got it!” The captain snapped his fingers. “I’ll tell you a little story. One of the oldest stories in the world. OK? Ready?” He looked at Dad and shrugged. “The scene is set back in the days when the Puritans first arrived in this country. And this story is about that old too. Now. There was one Indian whore … prostitute … in this whole area. Let’s say the whole eastern seaboard. There weren’t very many women—Indian or otherwise—so this Indian … lady had lots of customers.” He looked at us to see if we were following so far. We were. “One day a customer arrived with a sack of corn and he asked this … er … lady for her services but explained he had no money. He’d have to pay with the produce from his farm.” We were still following. “She agreed and lay down on her stomach.” He looked at Dad who nodded. “The man asked her why she was lying on her stomach and she answered, pointing first to her … her front section, her crotch, ‘This money hole.’ Then she pointed to her backside, ‘This corn hole.’ ”
Dad fell about. Junior exploded with a great hoot of laughter.
It took me a minute or two to get the images straight in my mind and then I realized it was something I’d done to Miguel in the muddy water of the irrigation ditch—our slick bodies rubbing together but I remembered his backing up into my lap in a particularly exciting way, fitting us together like a cork in a bottle, just another aspect of our games, a throwback to the puzzles with Mary Lou only with Miguel it was the tightest fitting puzzle I’d known. I had no idea that there was a name for it. My God, I thought. I’d better laugh quickly. I did, rather hysterically.
“I’m not absolutely sure,” the captain said with eyes that bored into me, “that Carlton hasn’t heard that story before.”
My laughter was sounding very false to my own ears. “No, I never did …”
Dad’s eyes were back on Junior. “You’re sure Bradford didn’t try any funny stuff?”
“Woody, for God’s sake. Unless Bradford finally did wank his cock off to a nub, I’m sure Woody-Two would have been aware if an invasion were attempted. No matter how subtly. Or minor the equipment.”
We all laughed, the tension gone. Nobody was paying any attention to me. I’d actually done it but Dad was in a state just thinking that Junior might have been touched. Contaminated? Junior contaminated? Never! But I’d touched and been touched. I’d participated in acts that had now been given names. Dirty names. Names to sneer at. Dad didn’t seem to care what I’d done. It was only Junior’s virtue (virginity?) that he cared about. Perhaps there wasn’t all that much reason for me to feel guilty. As far as Dad was concerned, what I did couldn’t possibly matter very much. So, why worry? What was it the captain had said I was? Sensu— something. I’d better look it up.
That outing had been a revelation from several points of view but the most bothersome point to me was one that was never fully made. The captain’s muttered, “Oh, how I shall miss you.” It echoed in my ears. Dad hadn’t heard, he’d gone to pee and Junior was busy with the corkscrew. I was the only one who’d heard it and it made the ground shake under my feet. What had he meant?
Chapter Ten
IT WAS A PAINFUL waiting time for the Joneses. June’s heat became July’s with a great leap up as though an oven setting had been increased automatically. Mrs. Jones’s vigil at the hospital was as unvarying as the temperature and Bradford’s condition as steady as the thermometer. He neither got worse nor better. Everything that could be done was being done but to no avail. Everything was static. Life at 1548 moved on oiled hushed wheels. Everyone was particularly sensitive to the others’ moods. We tended to give each other a lot of space—physical contact was kept to a minimum either because of the heat or the almost audible buzz of tightened nerves that we were all giving off.
Mrs. Jones was the most visibly altered. She’d lost a great deal of weight and what little color she had was applied. She’d become almost as re
moved and remote as they reported Brad to be. The captain’s active imagination still spawned new projects. Dad worked harder than ever. Mom was kept hopping taking care of the captain’s complicated needs. Now as much secretary-nurse as housekeeper-cook. The hours on the telephone gave way to visits from lawyers or specialists for Brad brought out from the east coast. All this added more work for Mom and I helped as much in the house as I could while Junior worked along with Dad. Every time I saw the captain, I could hear the echo of his saying, “Oh, how I shall miss you …”
It was almost a relief when it all fell apart. At least we knew where we stood. We stood right back on the road in the Model-A. It came down off the blocks, Dad and Junior ground the valves and overhauled the motor, new tires were bought and installed and Mom and I recovered the seats with a bright blue rough-textured cotton.
The captain broke the news to us all one night at the beginning of August after dinner in the main house. They were going to have to sell 1548. That’s all I heard for some time or at least that’s what registered like a bolt of zig-zagging lightning through my body. The rest, the reasons, soaked into my consciousness in bits and pieces; the place was a folly … a hobby that was pure selfishness on his part … Alice deserved something more for her patience in letting him indulge his ideas and schemes … And there was Brad. It was fairly conclusive that if he got better at all it wouldn’t be for years. It was possible that his condition would never improve—an unhappy thought but it had to be considered. Alice missed her family and … and … and … “As it turns out, I didn’t have to die to make Brad’s wishes come true. I’m selling the place and we’re moving back to Virginia just as he said he’d do. Now I wonder if he’ll even know where he is.” The captain sighed. “We’ve already contacted a private place to take care of him—it costs the earth. The idea of a State Hospital galls Alice. I mean he’s in there with Winnie Ruth Judd! We know what she did, but do we know her background? What kind of a family does she come from? We must take care who our son and heir associates …” He dropped his chin on his chest. When he spoke again, his voice was barely audible. “That was not funny. I apologize.” He was quiet for some time and when he spoke again, he didn’t look at us but kept his chin on his chest. “I don’t have to tell you … I hope I’ve made you feel it but I’ve … I’ve loved … I have loved you all. Love you all. From that first minute …” He took a deep breath. “… that first minute when I saw you standing in the drive … your wonderful faces …” he swallowed hard, “… faces shining with eagerness and honesty. Ready to work … to do anything to make an honest living for your two fine boys …” He lifted his head and looked at Mom. “But it couldn’t last. I think I knew that from the first minute. You’re not cut out for this … this sort of work, Miz Milly. You’re … special.” He looked around at each of us. “You’re all special… and we’ve been priv … privileged and … and oh, I’m going to miss you so.” There it was finally. That phrase in its full context. “I don’t …” He choked and hit the side of his cot with his fist and said, “Oh, SHIT!” The word hung in the air. Then he muttered. “For Christ’s sake, Woody, get me out of here …”
We were out of there and on the road to Yuma by the beginning of September. We’d stayed on to help the packers, although they made us feel more in the way than anything else. The captain had been more than generous with his “golden handshake” which made it doubly difficult for us to make the final break. 1548 had been sold to one of the doctors who’d fallen in love with it when he’d come to discuss Brad’s case.
“It’s a relief to think that it won’t be turned into a chicken farm,” the captain said. “He’s not much of a doctor, but he does have some feeling for the place.”
Mrs. Jones had flown with Brad a few weeks earlier and got him installed in the private institution and come back to escort the captain. Dad offered to drive them to Virginia in the station wagon and the possibility was seriously considered until it was decided that accommodations along the way for the captain would be too unpredictable and risky. They’d have the car driven out by an agency.
The Model-A was packed—everything fitting in as before. Our trunk was left at Aunt Dell’s along with another large case of a year’s accumulation of things. There were no big farewells there—Aunt Dell, temporarily out of sueable parties in Phoenix took this moment to go back to Galena and sue Jesse for divorce and her portion of their joint property. She’d stay with Grandpa and Uncle Ed would drive her to the Galena Court House for the trial. There was talk of Uncle Roy being transfered away from Phoenix by the State Meat Board. Sister was heavily involved with a handsome young bartender and Mavis was busy being pregnant with her shyster’s son and heir. Everybody’s life was going its own direction. Our direction was to continue on west.
We headed toward Buckeye which was the first town outside Phoenix and then it was, “Gila, Gila, Gila!” Junior said. “There’s the Gila River, the Gila Desert just over there to the left, Gila Bend, Gila this, Gila that. That Gila monster is going to dominate our lives. We follow the Gee, hee, hee-la River all the way to Yuma.”
“That’s the rich farming country,” I remembered. Where the Mexican migrant workers headed when they first sneaked across the endless straight border into Arizona from Mexico. Here their backs could only be wet from sweat—there wasn’t a stream between Yuma and the Santa Cruz River over two hundred miles away to the east. I searched the fields and orchards for Miguel, but most workers were hatted and too far away to be recognized.
Not all migrant workers were Mexican. We were barely outside the Phoenix city limits before we became aware of cars and trucks filled with people and belongings all headed southwest as we were. The battered license plates listed the disaster areas: The largest disaster area seemed to be Oklahoma, then Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, with the more rare Ohio, Indiana, Kansas, but a vast section of the middle of the U.S.A. was represented right here, on a steaming hot highway leading toward the California border at Yuma, Arizona. The traffic flowed steadily. The space made by a vehicle pulling off the road because of a flat tire or a motor boiling over was soon filled. Few cars overtook others. It seemed futile to rush. We were all going the same way, to the same place for the same reason. Might as well settle back and move with the tide. The Gila River bounced over boulders and around steep cliffs in a much more erratic playful way than our implacable river of cars. We honked our horn and waved when we saw a Missouri car but the response was seldom joyous.
“Maybe,” Junior said, “our fellow-Missourians aren’t very friendly because we have Arizona plates now.”
Dad smacked his forehead. “Oh, for Christ’s sake.”
“We’ve changed nationality, Woody,” Mom said.
Around Yuma the orchards and acres of irrigated land spread out on both sides of the road. Signs began to sprout and grow as though they’d been fertilized and irrigated: “No Pickers,” “No Workers,” “No Help Wanted,” “Season Over. Beware of Dog.” We saw cars laden down, bumping as though on their last legs down the lanes toward the farms in spite of the signs. I wondered what kind of reception they’d receive from the people who warned about their dog.
Yuma is not exactly on the border with California—it’s some five or six miles inside Arizona—but we were forced to come to a halt before we were out of the city limits. The cars and trucks were lined up as far ahead of us as we could see.
“All the way to the border,” the man driving the truck in front of us told Dad. “Border inspection. They’re bastards. They tear everything to pieces. You’d think they’re prospectin’ for gold in these here pore old beat-up vehicles.”
“How long will we have to wait?”
“Aw, lord. Cain’t never tell. They git some pore sonumbitch in there with a whole truck load of stuff and they’ll make him take ever damn bit of it off. And reload it, piece by piece. Oh, I tell you, they’as bastards of a kind you don’t know nothin’ about.”
We’d move a few feet and th
en stop. We all took turns looking for tall cotton. It was awfully public. Everybody else had the same idea. The fields were alive with figures walking along and then suddenly ducking down out of sight. Mom said she’d wait until dark. That wasn’t much of a wait.
“Hey,” Dad called to the man in front. “Do they keep things open at night? I mean, will they go on lettin’ people through after dark?”
“That depends. I know the border station on ’66 there at Needles’ll just close up whenever they want. Meanest sonsumbitches I ever seen in my life. No respect for women nor children. Hateful, all of ’em.”
This curious train we’d become linked up with—and it was behind us as far as we could see—crept like a misshapen caterpillar toward the golden state. Junior and I were awakened by a flashlight in our faces sometime in the middle of the night. We didn’t seem to be near any building and the same truck was in front of us. “Just the four of you?” the flashlight barked.
“That’s right,” Dad said into the night. “Just left Phoenix this mornin’.”
“Git out,” the rough voice said. “All of you.” When the light was out of my eyes, I could see that the man was wearing a tan uniform, a tan cap like a policeman’s and a gun in a holster on his belt. Mom was out on her side and Junior followed her. I was out with Dad. The officer flashed the light around inside the car. “Got any fruit? Any food of any kind? Fresh food?”
“Nope,” Dad said.
“You said Phoenix. You got Arizona plates. What you doin’ in with this pack of Okies and Arkies?”
“We’re just on a trip to see my brother,” Mom piped up. “Near Los Angeles.”
He stuck a little piece of paper onto the windshield. “Well, they ain’t no need of you being held up. It’s a pleasure from time to time not to have to go through people’s private things. But, that’s the job. You folks get back in. I’ll guide you around these trucks— Lordy, look at all that stuff. They’ll have to unload it. Feel sorry for ’em.” We were back in the car in a split second, nodding and smiling our thank-yous. “OK?” He flashed his light down the road. “Just go on down on this left lane here. Stop at the gate house and show ’em that sticker and then you’re on your way.”
In Tall Cotton Page 23