Bang The Drum Slowly (6 page)

I opened it and looked at it and wrote a little note across the top saying I was taught in school where slavery went out when Lincoln was shot, and I stuck it back in the box, never signing it, and the letter carrier picked it up on his way back to town, saying, “My lands, Wiggen, you sure answer your mail prompt.”

Waiting for the mail was a big operation. It took the 4 of us, beginning after breakfast until he angled in beside the box so as not to have to reach across, and some days he got out and gassed with us, and some days not, saying “I am running late today,” though I don’t believe he ever did because he never come more than 5 minutes one way or the other. You could tell time by him if you ever cared what time it was, which you never cared because it never made much of a much down there if it was 6 o’clock or half past 2. And if he did come up and gas did he bring the mail up with him? No, he did not. He left it in the box, like that was as far as his duty went, and when he left he said, “There is mail,” and Bruce went down for it, twirling the swatter around on his finger. I never seen such a man with a fly swatter. His eye was awful quick, and he never went after a fly but once, never dizzied it first and polished it off second but always nailed it square the first try, even the tricky ones that me and his mother and his father all give up on before it wandered over Bruce’s way, and he brung the mail back up and passed it around, and they opened it and read it and laid it on the rail, shuffling it back and forth until they all read everybody else’s, and then they talked about it, the bills, church notices, ads, and the letters from their relations until I knew every piece of their business from the taxes they owed to what his sister Helen was planning to wear over Easter in Seattle, Washington, and after the mail was hashed over we always took off, me and Bruce, and I think that was what he liked the best.

For a place where there was really nothing to do we sure kept busy, and the time went. We clumb around in the mill a lot. It was dark and cool, and it stirred up a lot of old remembrances, and he talked in there, stringing together whole long sentences, which he usually never does, running off regular histories of the boys that hung in the mill with him so long ago, what they looked like, where they went, who they married, and we sat high up on these various boards slung across from place to place, and now and then he bit off a chew and said “Arthur?” and when he said it like that, with a question mark after it, I knew what was coming, and I said, “Do not ask me questions that I cannot answer.” But he asked them all the same, saying, “Arthur, tell me why in hell I clumb to the top of the mill a million times and never fell down and killed myself, and why I never drowneded in the river, and why I never died in the war, and why I was never plastered by a truck but come clean through it all and now get this disease?” I said I did not know, which I did not and still don’t. I said why does one airplane go down or one ship, or why does some poor cluck go tramping down the street and get struck by lightning. “Lightning I could understand,” he said. “Arthur?”

“Ask them little,” I said.

“How do you play Tegwar?” he said.

I told him.

“Arthur,” said he, “if I tell you something do not laugh.”

“I am not libel to laugh for some time,” I said. “My wife has not answered the telephone in 3 days, I owe 40 quarts of blood to the United States Bureau of Internal Revenue, and I am libel to never play baseball again rather than play for slave wages.”

“I been handed a shit deal,” he said. “I am doomeded.”

“I am falling off this board laughing,” said I.

“But the world is all rosy,” he said. “It never looked better. The bad things never looked so little, and the good never looked so big. Food tastes better. Things do not matter too much any more. Like you take I used to wash my car all the time. I used to worry about it. Sometimes I laid in bed at night thinking about my dirty car and could not sleep.”

“It sure needs it,” I said. I kept trying to bring him back into living again. He stood a chance of living a long time yet, not too long but long enough, and I tried to keep him thinking of things yet ahead.

We visited around. He knew some boys that he once played ball with down at the crate and box plant in Bainbridge, and he hung there once or twice a week when they were on their lunch, and he knew people up and down the main drag. Everybody always asked him 2 things, how did he come out in Minnesota and where would the Mammoths finish. It was a Mammoth town, Mammoth pennants in the sporting-good stores, Ugly Jones gloves, Sid Goldman bats, and these little plastic statues of various Mammoths that some crook sold all over the country that none of us ever got a penny for, plus Sam’s book, called “Sam Yale—Mammoth,” and Dutch’s, “Dutch Schnell—Mammoth,” both wrote by Krazy Kress, plus my own, “The Southpaw,” wrote by yours truly and nobody else, $3.50 or 35¢ in the quarter book (39¢ in Canada).

And we must of sat in 45 barnyards talking about crops and hogs, crops and hogs, crops and hogs, until I probably knew more about the situation in south Georgia than the United States Bureau of Internal Revenue knows nor ever will, Bruce not talking much but only listening, though then not really listening neither but only looking and nodding and smiling, liking the sound of their voice without caring what they said.

In church the same. He begun going to church. His mother thought I was a great influence on him. “In days gone by,” she said, “I could not of dragged him by the hair,” but now he went, slouching in the seat like he sat slouched against the barnyard fences, not listening but only liking the sounds. He was very fond of this preacher, Reverend Robinson, the first person except me and Holly to know the truth. Bruce wished to tell him, so we done so, and I liked him quite well though I never been very regular at church, in fact never went a-tall, and he liked the singing, too, and always hummed the songs a couple days after, maybe through Wednesday.

We played golf at the Bainbridge Country Club, 9 holes, and I probably stunk up the joint pretty bad. They did not have very good left-hand clubs, and then I’m not too goddam interested in golf anyway but only done it for him. I’ll shoot 78 keeping my own score, but he is very good. He does anything good when there is no pressure on, and there was none, for we just played for the kicks, maybe 4 or 5 times, and we started hunting the same number but never got there, turned back. I do not hunt. I never fired off a gun in my life and was just as glad, nor never fish neither, or at least never done so before but went with him down by the river and spent the whole first afternoon taking off the winding reel and putting it back for the left hand while he sat on the bank and caught weeds. Several times a man come along and said, “No fishing here,” and Bruce said, “I am not fishing, only weeding,” which I thought was pretty quick for Bruce except I soon seen it was his father’s joke, and probably
his
father’s before that, back and back. They was always from Georgia. He caught quite a few, and I caught some myself, the only fish I ever caught and probably ever will. Golf, fishing, hunting, these were never my dish of meat.

The river was like the old mill for him, stirring up 10,000 remembrances. Many an hour he was not fishing a-tall but only watching the river wash by, the Flint River they call it, dangling his shoes in it, sometimes kicking at the water with his toe, or spitting in it and watching it travel on, or flipping little stones in it and watching the circles get bigger, and maybe 3 or 4 times in an afternoon, more times than he could possibly of had to, he laid his line down beside him and stood and urinated in the river, and watched that, too, watched it all mix in with the water, and disappear.

Also, we played Tegwar. Mrs. Pearson would not hear of card playing on the porch, so we moved back in the kitchen, which we should of done long ago. It was air condition, and no flies, and his father dragged over a chair and watched, and then he said, “Deal me in, boys,” and I dealed him in, 17 cards apiece plus one in the middle. “You have not been putting one in the middle,” his father said.

“It is the fish-fly card,” I said, and me and Bruce took all the tricks the first 2 deals until his father dealed and threw the fish-fly card in the middle, a 9 or something, and I swooped them up, saying, “That will be 6¢ to me and a nickel to Bruce.”

“You lose your deal when the fish-fly card is a 9,” said Bruce.

“How come 5 to you and 6 to Arthur?” his father said.

“Rules,” said Bruce.

“You see,” said I, “it was not a double-birdie. Probably you been playing Southeastern Tegwar all your life, but the boys all play Western Canadian style, which for my money is much faster and leaves you free for a butchered hog most any time.”

“It keeps you from dropping dead on the board,” said Bruce.

The old man looked up quick, and I knew. Or at least I think I knew. The Reverend Robinson told him. I would of suspected anyhow because he went on playing Tegwar 3 nights, shoving his money across at us, never knowing the rules and never caring, but seeing how much it pleased Bruce for once in his life to be in on a gag that somebody else was still out on. Nothing give Bruce as much of a kick all summer as Tegwar.

*   *   *

One night in the middle of Tegwar Holly rolled in. She simply could not stand it up home without me. The snow and the ice got her down, for she loves sun and heat, and so do I. She was nervous, not knowing what to expect nor what to say nor who been told what. Bruce’s father practically fell over backwards getting out of his chair in a hurry. They are extremely polite to white women. She shook hands all around and was one of the family in no time.

Another chair was dragged on the porch, another swatter looped on the nail, and Gem brung 5 glasses instead of 4 now. Also, there was a fan for her, covered with designs of roses like the one his mother used, because it begun getting warm down there, and everything you said it took twice as long getting an answer out of anybody because there was now not only swatting and sipping but also fanning. You kept busy.

I seen the first sign of 600 Dollars now, nothing much, only a little rise in her belly that you would of never noticed except sideways in a slip or less. She was tip-top and felt fine, her weight right, the 2 of us parading in the bathroom the last thing every night and stepping on the scale, Holly where she ought to been, me maybe a shade over. I consider 200 right but do not worry if I hit 203 or 4 in February.

I briefed her, telling her only me and Bruce and the Reverend Robinson knew, probably the old man but not his mother, and that was all. She herself told nobody in the beginning, only Pop, but finally busted down and told the Epsteins. She could not keep it in.

It was 66 Street all over again. When we lived on 66 Street Bruce was always there and we were never alone, coming mornings until time to go to the park, coming after the ball game, or staying all day when it rained, wandering in because he knew nobody else, and because nobody else he knew would of stood him, settling down wherever we were, or following us around the house, never speaking much but only listening, or at least looking like he was. He met Katie on the stairs one day and fell in love with her and wished to marry her, and I told him go ahead and marry her, anything to get him out of the house, but she would not. What did she want with $7,000? She must of paid half that much in taxes, for I know she paid her tax man $300 just to file, and him not nearly the expert Holly is. I seen her hold a $100 bill in her hand fishing in her purse for keys and throw it back in like any girl might throw a single back.

After awhile you got used to him, and if he didn’t show up you begun to worry and look at the clock, and then when you heard him on the steps you said, “Damn it all anyhow. Here he is again.” But once he stepped in the door you could not heave him out. He was so happy to see you, and he might of brung flowers or a slab of meat or a basket of fruit or a box of candy, always something, never nothing, something for you and something for Katie that he took upstairs and handed to her between customers and kissed her on the cheek like she was 16 and not yet been to her first dance. So we were never alone down there, for there was always Bruce, slouching, like in the barnyards or in church, listening without listening, looking from me to her and back again like the world never seen 2 people so smart and so good. Any other man you would of said, “Take your eye off my wife like that,” but not Bruce.

He never left until we said, “Well, sack time,” and she popped open a button or zipped a zipper. He took off fast then, afraid he might see some part of Holly he believed he should not see. It even embarrassed him if she wore a low neckline, which she sometimes does, having a good neckline and wishing to show it off. Why not? And then when he was gone, and we could of talked, there was nothing to say, and what we done we laid there and heard him paddering around in his room, or maybe heard him open his door very quiet and go on tip-toe down the stairs and out, and then a long time later back, though where he went I never knew and never asked. Sometimes he drove, but mostly he walked, and in the morning he was up before anybody, fresh, like he slept his full 8.

The last night he stood up until morning. He packed his suitcases and loaded them in my car, and his gear, and he drove his own car out back and parked it there, the one they give him when he signed and the one we drove down from Minnesota in, a 47 Moors with Cushion-Gear, probably the greatest flop in the history of the business. In his car he loaded his golf clubs and his remembrances from the war, his fishing poles and his guns. Then he burned some papers. We seen him from the window dropping papers one by one on the fire and raking the fire together to keep it burning, now and then reaching down and plucking a paper out and reading it, even while it burned in his hand, and then leaving it flutter down until all was burned. That is my best picture of him, standing there all black against the light of the fire and leaning on the rake, and Holly’s, too, and then we went to bed but could not sleep, and in the morning we shoved off for Aqua Clara.