A Far Piece to Canaan (39 page)

I
woke up with a god-awful hangover and called room service for a pot of coffee, some aspirin, and a glass of tomato juice. An hour later I felt better and decided to visit the University of Kentucky, my brother's alma mater.

The campus was beautiful, but not as beautiful as the UK I remembered Bob and I wandering through in 1948. Gone were the wide spaces between the ancient buildings, many of which had heard the whine of musket balls. In 1948, deep ivy had covered the double layers of redbrick walls that black people laid long before their sons and daughters had been allowed to attend the school. The dense foliage was eventually found to conceal so many defects that the Kentucky legislature had budgeted for new construction. Now, gleaming metal and concrete reared skyward. The Emerald City with a Southern drawl.

I didn't feel a connection to the new Oz. I walked across the parade ground, which was now much smaller than when my brother Bob and I had stood watching the ROTC march. The cadets had thrilled me. I had wanted to be one of them. I remembered how conflicted I felt during Vietnam and the hurt I caused Bob as I argued against the war. Those times tested both of us. I idolized him as a kid. He had fought in the war that saved civilization and survived. He was the fastest tobacco cutter in the neighborhood, a great boxer, loved the outdoors, and often took me with him on his outings. He gave me my first baseball glove, which I kept for thirty years. I lost it during a move and remain saddened by its absence. Then, of course, there was the bike, which I used all the way through college. We shared so many things, things to which no one else was privy. I felt a great sense of loss as I thought about Bob, my sisters, and Mom and Dad. Being the sole surviving member of a family is painful. Watching them fall one by one was like having pieces of my heart cut away. Fortunately, Nora was always there to give me the strength to endure. Somebody has to help you overcome loss or you never completely heal. I had learned this as a child because . . .

. . . After Alfred's funeral, Fred just stayed away from everybody. I went to the Mulligans' several times during September and nobody was around. I figured Mamie and Thelma Jean was at Bea and Pers'. Annie Lee was with WK and Fred was off wandering the hills. I quit going to the Mulligans', then, first Saturday in October, I tried again. This time, Mamie come to the door.

“Hidey, Samuel,” she said soft.

“Hi,” I said. “Fred home?”

“Naw, honey, he's out lookin' for timber t' cut for winter.”

“Think he'll see me?”

Mamie thought for a few seconds. “Naw, don't think so. Hit's still too soon. Fred's just natural slow that way, you know how down he gets. Come in and set a spell.”

I didn't want to but I did. It was strange in the living room. Everything was still there, the bed, stove, Mamie's chair, little peeling table with the humpback radio and the no-back. A breeze coming through the window kept fluttering a torn part of one drape and occasionally it would hang on the radio dial, which was still tuned to WLEX, the station where the Reds played. I must've been looking sad because Mamie said, “Lonesome, hain't it.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You still listen t' th' Reds?”

She shook her head slow. “Can't. Batt'ry's dead.”

Then we just sat. It was like standing at a grave after everybody's left the funeral.

“What's going on down your way?” Mamie asked, motioning me to sit on the no-back.

“Nothin',” I answered, and kept standing.

Mamie nodded. “Go 'head 'n' sit on hit, honey. Alfred ain't gonna haint you. G'won, have a seat,” and I did, but just barely on the edge. “How's your ma and pa?”

“Okay.”

She smiled at me because she knew I was bothered. “How's th' rest of th' fambly?”

Her smile relaxed me and I slipped further onto the no-back. “Debby's in California.”

“How's Naomi?”

“Naomi's gettin' capped around Christmas. She's gonna get through nurse's trainin'.”

“That's great,” said Mamie. “How's Bob?”

I really brightened up. “Bob's got a job for when he's graduated. Good one too!”

“Graduated!” and her voice rose. “Well, I swan! Seems like he just got back from th' war. Ain't been going t' college all that long, has he?”

I liked talking about my big brother. It made me feel good. “He had some college before th' war. That's how come he finished so quick.”

Mamie shook her head again. “Seems like yesterday y'all were runnin' that trot line.” The breeze flipped the drape until it covered the whole radio and Mamie walked over and unhooked it, then snapped the on dial. No sound come out, and she snapped it off, then turned back to me with tears in her eyes. The grooves in her face were deep and her stringy brown hair hung straight. “Hit wudn't fair things a-happenin' t' us this way. We had our show comin' t' us . . . t' Alfred.” She let out a big sigh, and the breeze flipped the drape, making a pop.

Suddenly, I felt terrible. I had to get out of the Mulligan house. “How long you figure it'll be before Fred comes around?”

“Hard t' say,” she sniffed. “Try back again next weekend. He's doin' some better 'n' seeing as how y'all are best friends, that might work.”

I went out through the kitchen and climbed the gate. From its top, I could see Thelma Jean walking slow up the road from Pers'. I waved to her, but she just kept putting one bare foot in front of the other, heel to toe, like she never saw me.

The walk home was nice. Leaves were changing fast. Everywhere you looked was Life Everlasting. Squirrels were working hickory and walnut and oak trees harder than I'd ever seen. Flocks of ducks went south, one after another. The signs were talking about winter and they said it would be long and hard.

When I got back to the house, Dad was further down than ever. I didn't know why until late that night when talk from their bedroom woke me up. Their voices mumbled but I could hear them pretty good. They were talking about Mr. Berman.

“How can he say that?” said Mom. “Who else would take care of his shitting farm the way we do? He gives us every third lamb and he thinks he's being generous? Doesn't he realize that usually a third die, sometimes along with the ewes, and you save almost every one?”

Springs squeaked and I figured Dad turned over. “Nate's a city boy. I'm his first tenant.”

“Well, why don't you tell him?”

“Tell him what? He's too damn ignorant to understand.”

“What exactly did he say, anyway?”

There was a thump, and I knew Dad put his arm behind his neck and hit the headboard.

“He said he didn't like the arrangement and that it had to change. The most he would give us was every fourth lamb and none of the wool. He wants me to plant double the corn and put in a trench silo. He said he read about it in
Successful Farming
and that with it he can run double the number of cattle he has in the past.”

“Trench silo? I didn't think trench silos worked around here.”

“They don't. The water table is too high. We tried those years ago when I first came to Kentucky and worked for Mr. Farnsworth. The silage just molds and you lose it all.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, what did he say?” Mom snapped, and her voice was tired.

Dad sighed real deep. “He said those were th' dark ages. That I ought to read
Successful Farming
and learn some of th' new stuff. He talked about corn pickers and combines.”

“Why would we even want a corn picker or combine here?” asked Mom. “We only raise fifteen acres of corn. As rough as the ground is, we'd tear up the corn picker. And a combine? The only grain we raise is eight acres of oats, and we get that baled. Corn pickers! Combines! We don't even own a tractor!”

“Yeah.” Dad giggled. It was the first time in months he had done that but I knew it wudn't a happy giggle.

“Did you tell him that?”

“I tried to. He said th' Wallace boy didn't think it was dumb.”

“The Wallace boy?” and Mom's voice sounded like she couldn't believe him.

“Yeah, Rags' oldest wants th' place. Turns out, he's been putting a bug in Nate's ear. He's gettin' married and needs a farm to rent. He'd have his dad and brother right up the road for things like tobacco housing and stripping. Good deal for a kid. Big tobacco base.”

Mom snorted. “Yes, and Nate would find out some things too. His cattle and sheep would quit making money when he didn't have you taking care of them. A shmozzle of Nate.”

I turned my head into the pillow and stopped listening. Wow, what would we do if we left Berman's? Everything was changing.

I couldn't sleep so I thought about Joy West and what had just happened at school. Joy and I had always talked to each other, but this year we talked more than ever. It was weird how we'd keep meeting. We'd bump into each other seven or eight times a day. One day, Miz Callen asked for kids to help set up chairs in the auditorium before the Future Farmers meeting and sent Joy and me to the school storehouse to see how many chairs there were if we needed extra. The storehouse was a piece down the road from school and we skipped along laughing and talking, her telling me about their trip that summer to Lookout Mountain in Tennessee. On the way back we sat down under a big maple. It was a great day, real clear, and the fall breezes were blowing like they always do in Indian summer and fluttering Joy's blouse and making her long black hair stream away from her shoulders or wrap around her face. Somehow, and I really don't know how, we kissed each other. My heart pounded and my whole body seemed to shake a little as I looked into her eyes and she smiled. Then she said we had better be getting back. That was the first person I ever kissed outside of my family and I couldn't get it off my mind. Alone in the dark I started to tingle all over with an electric feeling and wanted to kiss her and hold her and see the wind blow her hair across her face.

M
r. Berman said we had to move and the next couple days were awful around the house. Most of the time it was dead quiet. Dad hardly talked, and when he did, it was about how he didn't know any way we could buy a place with what little we had for a down payment.

Mom wouldn't say anything for a time, then she'd yell at him and bawl. Then it would be silent again. It was really bad, boy.

I headed back to the Mulligans' the next Saturday. This time I decided, come whatever, I was seeing Fred. In just one week it had gotten deeper fall and we had our first killing frost. Trees that were only turning a few days before were yellow or even red, and the chill in the morning air was staying until almost noon. There was a little north wind starting too, and as I walked through the hickory and locust thicket it showered me with leaves. Everything that hadn't seeded was doing it in a hurry and a strange haze was starting. There was no mistaking the signs. Something bad was coming.

When I got to the barbwire gap, I could hear the sound of an ax biting wood in the direction of Cummings Hill. I went to the Mulligan house but it looked deserted, the only things moving around being a few old Dominicker hens. I climbed up on top of the hog lot gate and called. On my third call, Thelma Jean came out on the front porch. She had on a flowered feed sack dress. It was dirtier than usual and I guessed nobody was cleaning it for her.

“Whatchawant, Sam?”

“Fred around?” I asked, straddling the gate.

“Naw.”

“Where is he?”

Thelma shrugged and looked away into the distance.

I threw my other leg over the gate and set on its top rail. “I'd like t' see Fred, Thelma Jean. We're best friends and it's a long time since we saw each other.”

“Ain't none of your bidness where he is,” she said, narrowing her eyes and looking at me. “Fred don't want nobody a-botherin' him. Whyn't you go way 'n' leave us alone.”

I started to say something back hot when a voice from the upstairs window said, “He's cuttin' wood out on Cummings Hill, Samuel. I think he'll see you now.”

It was Annie Lee. From the top of the gate I could see most of her and wudn't any doubt about one thing: Annie Lee was gonna have a baby. I remembered then that she had a pot belly at the funeral. She'd never had a pot belly before, and this was why.

“Thanks,” I answered, and jumped down into the yard and began walking along the path through the weeds. I could feel her eyes following me. Before the path turned the corner of the house, I looked around. Annie Lee was sitting in the window smiling at me. I smiled back.

Any fool with ears could've found Fred. The thunk . . . thunk . . . thunk of his ax cut through the warming day like shotgun blasts. I circled where he was working, slipping from tree to tree. He looked different. His face had always been old, but now it kind of had lines. He was thinner too and moved slow. In his hands was an old single-bit ax and he was working on a fallen log about two foot thick. All around was worked-up limbs. You could look at the cut ends and tell it had been an awful job. The wood was mostly mashed apart. Fred's ax was dull as a rock. At the rate he was going, one cut through the log he was working on would be a half-day job. He didn't stop though. Thunk . . . thunk . . . thunk in a steady beat.

The first time he let up, I stepped into the open and called out. “Fred?”

For a few seconds I didn't know what he'd do, then he turned toward me with a little grin on his face. I went bounding down to him. “Hidey, Fred Cody.”

“Hidey, Samuel,” and he tried to sink his ax in the log for a rest but it just bounced off. He turned the blade up and looked at the edge. “Wouldn't cut hot butter.”

“Looks like you could use a file.”