The Evening Road

by Laird Hunt

  “Be a jiff,” Dale said.

  “I got to see this,” Bud said.

  I didn’t have to see it, I’d seen it plenty, but I got out and followed them around the car. Bud took the chance of being outside to hit Dale a couple of his good ones on the arm and Dale took a pretty good crack back at him.

  “Here she is,” he said.

  “Good Lord in heaven,” said Bud.

  “I know it,” said Dale.

  “That’s some piece of pork!”

  “I’d like to see someone show me finer in this county.”

  “Landrace?”

  “American Yorkshire. She come out all alone like she’d ate up all the others and not too far off this size.”

  “You could win a prize with a pig like that.”

  “Money in the bank.”

  “A bank full to bursting, she keeps on growing.”

  “She’ll keep on.”

  While they talked sloppy like that, I looked at the pig and she looked at me. You want to tell me something, don’t you? I thought. You want to tell me things about this world or your world. About the world far away. You got things to say about me, I can see it. Nasty things. Whisper them at me, then chew off my ear. Bite off half my head. Lie down on me and sleep your beastly sleep. I shivered, then laughed out loud and the boys looked at me, then went back to their talking.

  There was a spot down by the creek kind of had indentations where I could fit my feet. I liked to visit there whenever it was my turn to look in on the monster. I had a view from where I squatted down, and once I got myself settled I looked out over the countryside. Corn and wheat and barley and more corn. It all looked burned up about right and had those wavy squiggle marks in its airs from the heat. I could see six barns and four silos from where I sat. It was good country. Not big but rich and you could live on it. Pull a life up out of its dirt. At the Spitzers’, when we didn’t behave, old Mrs. Spitzer would make us go out to the woods to do our business. There wasn’t a one of us knew how to act just right so we were all out in the woods all the time. Wandering and bleating like sheep in a field. Pigs in the muck. Somewhere over there in about the direction I was looking was Marvel. You couldn’t spit and hit it but you knew it was close and that thought made my stomach get the tinglies and the last time I had had them was when Sally had give me that hug and told me I had something special coming. That something I now had my mind settled on that would make it all come clear.

  When I finished up I hurried back over to the pig palace expecting they’d be in the car and raring to get to the show, but there they stood at the rails. Dale was pulling carrots from my garden out of his pockets and handing them to Bud, and Bud was handing them in to Her Royal Highness—carefully, like he thought he might be bit. One time I had put my hand on the flank that bulged out through the fence slats when you slopped her. I had thought she would be soft and hot, hotter than a star in its furnace, but she was hard and cool, cold almost, like the grave had already come calling and shoved some coffin in her.

  “Get that pile of pork chops snacked up and let’s get on the road,” I said.

  But Dale kept pulling my carrots out of his pockets and Bud kept taking them and that beautiful giant pig kept getting fed and that went on and on and on.

  Now that he’d pawed at me then made it up all nice with Dale, who didn’t even know he was being made up with, anyone had half a head could have guessed what Bud would come up with next, which was that he was hungry and wouldn’t mind tracking down some food.

  “Catfish supper today over to Ryansville,” said Dale.

  “Well,” said Bud, rubbing those heavy hands over the steering wheel, “let’s get over there and get us some.”

  There were so many vehicles at the Ryansville church it looked like they were having the lynching there. Cars and trucks were parked as far as a quarter mile up the road, and I said I didn’t want my supper that bad but Bud went right ahead and stopped the car.

  “You’ll want your energy up for what we got coming this evening,” he said.

  “I’ll want some energy left so I can enjoy myself is what I’ll want,” I said.

  “Get out of the car, Ottie Lee,” Dale said.

  I didn’t move a muscle until he added a “please” and would have probably kept sitting there until they either left me alone or hauled me out if about that time a whiff of fried catfish hadn’t swished its way in through my window and set my stomach curious. I’d had exactly two crackers and a caramel candy since breakfast, and that catfish smelled so good I yanked the door open and shouldered Bud and Dale straight out of my way.

  I was ready to do the same to anyone else ahead of me but when I got to the church I could see I wouldn’t have to. Everyone was packed out onto the lawn and those clunkerheads weren’t eating catfish at all. Some oversize boy in a brown suit didn’t flatter his figure was standing on a soda crate and treating the smoky airs to a speech about democracy and freedom and corn crops and fresh flowers, or at least that was what I caught as I crossed the lawn and stepped into the church.

  You would have thought there would at least be a few of them down in there to get their supper but I didn’t see a soul as I followed the CHRISTIANS GIT YOUR WORLD’S BEST CATFISH HERE! sign down to the basement. It took my eyes a minute to adjust to the little lightbulbs they had hanging from the ceiling but it didn’t take me long to see the piles of fish they had down there. They had so much catfish you had to stand a minute and take it in. And it wasn’t just catfish—they had slaw and rolls and potato salad and two tables covered up in pies. There was steam in the air and everything came up glittery. It looked like you’d stepped into one of those old stories they were always telling us at the Spitzers’ where Jesus gets Himself stirred up and casts a spell. Mr. Spitzer liked to lift his arms out to the side when he would tell that part. Lift his arms out and let his hair fall down over his face. In the church, they had a jar for your money and I opened my purse and took out some coins. Then I got my eye on the plates and stepped my way straight over. That’s when I saw there were serving ladies down there. Three of them. Each about as old as Methuselah’s uncle. They had on matching blue calico dresses and had covered their splash zones with aprons.

  “Supping it alone this evening?” one of them said.

  “I’m with two others,” I said.

  “Probably stopped to hear the speech,” said another.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t stop yourself,” said the third.

  “I’m hungry,” I said. “Hungry, hungry, hungry.”

  “I think every one of them up there is hungry,” said the first.

  “Is there some reason you aren’t serving me? Money’s paid and I’m standing here holding a empty plate,” I said.

  “Why, is there some reason we shouldn’t?” said the second.

  I studied on it a minute. ’Course there were reasons. I could think of a hundred but who in hell couldn’t.

  “I’m a sinner. How about you gals?”

  “Oh, we’ve been friends with sin.”

  “But we found our way here.”

  “Yes, we did.”

  As the third one said this, the crowd outside let out a roar and about five seconds later it sounded like the host of the Apocalypse was starting down the steps.

  “Do I get my catfish or don’t I?” I said.

  “Of course, dear,” said the first.

  “What would you like?” said the second.

  “Make sure you pick out some pie and don’t forget to praise the Lord before you eat it!” said the third.

  I got my food, stepped back upstairs through the side door as the swarm went swarming in and made me think of the swine Christ cast those demons into and then thought of Dale’s pig’s cold flank and then sat down at one of the long tables they had set up on the back end of the lawn. It was a handsome place. Everywhere there was big trees giving out their shade and all around in the distances were the summertime fields. There wasn’t any breeze but the
y had set out smoke buckets to work at the flies and mosquitoes. There were black-eyed Susans blooming all about and a great rose of Sharon bush standing at the back of the lot. My eyes lingered a minute on that bush. Because it looked a little, and just for a second, like the whole thing was covered in eyes instead of hardy pink blooms.

  One of the things we’d had to do to earn out our days at the Spitzers’, waiting on our shitheel wayward parents to return, was work the weekly ham-and-bean supper at the Baptist church. In the summer months I’d set tables as much as anything else and that had meant working out in a yard a lot like this one. Might have even had a rose of Sharon. Two or three times my last summer, as I was setting places, I got the feeling I was getting looked at but far as I could tell there was never anyone there. It was as strange a feeling then as it was now but I had an appetite and a plate of catfish in front of me so I looked away from the bush and down at my plate and liked what I saw. There is a curve to a piece of fried catfish that satisfies the eye. Leads you off to the rocks and reeds of the river where it once swam. I was about to set in to cutting at the center of that curve when a nickering voice nosed the air just behind me.

  “Madam, may I count on your vote?”

  Not only did the suit not flatter him but young as he was, he had on a false head of hair. He must have seen me looking at it because he reached up there quick and pushed it up straight.

  “You bet you can,” I said.

  “I’m obliged,” he said.

  I’d said it because I wanted to get to eating and hoped he’d step off to some of the others coming out with plates but he just pulled up a chair next to me and sat himself down.

  “Pretty lady like yourself,” he said.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “You come to the occasion alone?” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “The supper, you’re here just yourself?”

  I pointed with my fork at the basement door and said I had a husband and a boss with me. He crossed one of his fat legs over the other and said that was a shame, that fate was cruelest to the kindest and so on. Then he said, “I expect you all are heading over to the lynching.”

  “That we are,” I said.

  “Have conveyance?” he said.

  “We’re riding in my boss’s car.”

  “Lucky him.”

  I kind of squinted my eye, then looked down at my fish. It was sogging in its oils, its curve giving way.

  “Yes, lucky, lucky him,” he said and tapped at the table with his finger. It was a nice finger, long and fine as a lady’s. I watched as his finger and its fellows tensed up and just about got themselves snapped off as he used them to shove himself upright.

  “Best be off, I expect,” he said. “I got buses coming to take them all over to the show and I’ll have to organize them and may even captain one. They are coming at my expense, mind you. No one else will be out a nickel. I’ve been very lucky in my own humble way in this life. The great Governor in the Sky has been good to me.”

  I nodded. I could see there wasn’t any more steam coming off my fish. That the juices of my slaw had run.

  “It’s a patriotic thing you’re doing, madam,” he said, and gave a little bow of his head that set his chin flaps to flopping.

  “Waiting on eating this catfish?” I said.

  “Going over to the lynching.”

  “Going to the lynching is patriotic?”

  “Didn’t you hear my speech?”

  “I heard it. Some of it.”

  “And how did you find it? That portion that you heard?”

  He gave a great big smile and more than I liked of a look at his pink gums. I have never liked someone showed too much gum. I shrugged. The smile fell off his face and into the brown grass.

  “Was it that bad?”

  “You want the truth, I missed most of it.”

  This seemed to perk him up. He leaned back, treated me to a small laugh.

  “But you liked what you heard?”

  “Yes, I did. It was real, real fine.”

  “‘A torch of clarity to burn bright across the countryside during dark days’... That’s got a winner’s ring to it, wouldn’t you agree? I worked hard on that part.”

  “You said that? About the lynching? The one that’s happening today?”

  “Yes, madam, I did. It is a difficult thing, a harsh thing, but it will burn things clear. Bring us back into balance. The hardest things always do.”

  “A bright light?”

  “The brightest.”

  “Well, I’ll give it to you,” I said, “that part is pretty good.”

  He started to say something else, stopped, sneaked a look down the front of my dress, then showed me his gums again.

  I’d finished all I had and slurped down a glass of iced tea to settle it before I saw a speck of Bud and Dale. I hadn’t particularly thought they would come and sit down with me to eat—instead I had next to me a family of field-workers come for the cheap vittles—but I didn’t think I’d find them standing, each one holding a plate in his hand, out by the road and watching a group of boys play break-into-the-jail either. It was some boys had got hold of chisels and mallets and had made themselves a hiding place out of a pile of old doors. One of the boys would sit inside and the rest of them would swing their chisels and mallets for all they were worth. When they had the thing down they would take the boy inside over to a tree and tie him up there with some rope and take turnabout at pretending to strangle him. Then they would untie him and start the whole thing up again.

  “Let’s get on over to the show before it starts needing a shave,” I said.

  “We’re still crunching here,” said Bud.

  “As you can plainly see,” said Dale.

  They weren’t the only ones out there watching the game with plates in their hands. There must have been more than a dozen thought it was right to eat their supper on the road while they stared at some juvenile display. Some of them standing there were Bud’s relatives. Bud’s father and his father’s four sisters had set down more than two score souls on the earth. I’d met a goodly number of them because plenty of those fine individuals made it their weekly business to try and borrow from Bud. Matter of fact, as I stood there a tall knucklehead named Wendell Lancer leaned over Bud’s way and I saw Bud reach for his wallet. I told Dale I was heading for the car and away from all the high excitement but didn’t get any response outside the sun reflecting off the back of his greasy head.

  The speechmaker had had on clean hair even if it wasn’t his own, I thought as I walked to the car. And he’d had those nice hands to offset the suit. Not that the suit itself had been too bad. Just needed a man in it with a little less pie lard and gravy around the middle. Dale would have looked good in that suit, I thought. Dale, who wouldn’t even wear a suit to his own funeral. Even if he had the right slim build for it, the right nice stretch of shoulder and those good slender arms. Dale, who wouldn’t give a speech to save his own scratchy skin. There was something to a man with nice hands who could give a speech. “A torch of clarity.” That was choice. And it was Sally’s light. Sure as I was standing there. What else could it be? We all needed some clarity. Every little now and then. I ought to ride in one of that speechmaker’s buses, get there quick, get there in style, I thought. I bet he’d let me sit in the front seat.

  I was giving the proposition more than idle consideration when I came up on an old man squatting on an overturned bushel basket in the middle of the road. He had a long white beard and wore a punched-in top hat. About every ten seconds he would stand up, shuffle around to the other side of the basket, and squat back down. He did this four or five times as I came up. I don’t think he saw me until I was about on top of him.

  “You coming or you going?” he said.

  “I’m not coming so I guess that makes me going,” I said.

  “Going where, goddamn it?”

  “Marvel, like everyone else.”

  “Then I can’t let
you pass.”

  “Can’t let me what?”

  “Pass,” he said. He said it and reached down at the ground and tried to pick up some kind of a large-muzzle firearm.

  “What if I said I was going so I could try to help those boys they plan to lynch?”

  “Then I would stand up and accompany you.”

  “Well, that’s not why I’m going. They’re criminals. They deserve what they got coming.”

  “You believe that?”

  “I just said it, didn’t I?”

  “Then you’re as ignorant as all the others. Hand that up to me,” he said.

  “Why, so you can shoot it at me?”

  He nodded.

  “You live around here?” I asked.

  He flicked a finger over to the right. All I could see was what was left of a alfalfa field and a lightning-struck tree. I took another step. The old man put out one of his skinny arms.

  “I can’t let you pass. Can’t let those buses they got coming in pass either.”

  “Why not?”

  “I fought in the great Civil War,” he said.

  “You don’t say it,” I said.

  “Indiana Nineteenth,” he said. “I was at Bull Run and Gettysburg both. Those weren’t the only ones. I was just a boy at the time but I carried that musket.”

  We both looked at the musket lying on the ground next to the basket.

  “It ain’t right to go to a lynching,” he said.

  “Even when they did it? Even when they are criminals?”

  “How do you know they did it?”

  “That’s what I heard.”

  “You believe everything you hear? You got sheep hiding in that fancy red hair of yours? Saying ‘bah,’ making you follow along?”

  “I don’t like your tone.”

  “Bah.”

  “I don’t follow anyone. I’m going ’cause I want to.”

  “You think that makes it better. Lord have mercy on us. Lynching ain’t right.”

  “You said that.”

  “I’ll say it again too, you red-haired piece of trash.”

  I bent over and picked up the musket. I wasn’t any expert on firearms but the barrel looked bent. Looked like the firing pin was out of commission too. I shook my head and handed it up and had to steady him and it both when he lost his balance and fell toward me off the basket.