Cockfighter (14 page)

By four that afternoon I had made up my mind. I would go home and press Randall for the three hundred dollars he owed me. If he paid me, I'd forget about the farm and never consider taking it away from him again. If he didn't, I'd see Judge Powell and do something about it. I needed money, and if I didn't get some soon I'd miss out on the cockfighting season.

I checked my bag and gaff case at the desk, wrote a message for the desk clerk to hold any mail that came for me, paid my bill, and headed for the bus station. I only planned to stay overnight at home, so my shaving kit was enough baggage. If my black shirt got too dirty, I could have my sister-in-law wash and iron it for me.

The bus pulled out at 4:45. There was a one-hour layover in Lake City to change buses, and I arrived in Mansfield, Georgia, at 3:30 a.m. The farm was six miles out of town on the state highway. I could either wait for the rural route postman and ride out with him or I could walk. After being cramped up in the bus for such a long time, I decided to stretch my legs.

I enjoyed the walk to the farm. When I had attended school in town the county had been too poor to afford a school bus. I had walked both ways, winter and summer, over a deeply-rutted red dirt road, muddy when it rained, and dusty when it hadn't rained. The road was paved now, and had been since right after the Korean War. Soldiers from Fort Benning had used a lot of the county as a maneuver area. When the war was over the county had sued the United States Army for enough money to blacktop most of the county roads.

I reached the farm a little after six. I passed Charley Smith's house first, the only Negro tenant Randall had left, but I didn't stop to see the old man, even though a coil of black smoke was curling out of his chimney. Charley was much too old to do hard farm work any longer, but his wife, Aunt Leona, helped Frances around the house four or five days a week, and she was still a good worker.

The old homestead was a gray clapboard two-story structure set well back from the road. Randall hadn't done anything to improve the looks of the place in the five years he had owned it. The ten Van Deman pecan trees, planted between the house and the road some sixty years before, had been the deciding factor when Daddy first bought the place. In another month or so, Charley, Aunt Leona and Frances would be under the trees gathering nuts. If Randall hit a good market, he would realize three or four hundred dollars from the pecans before Christmas, but I couldn't wait that long to get the money he owed me.

Old Dusty was lying on the long front gallery near the front door, but he didn't bark or lift his head when I entered the yard through the fence gate. He could neither see nor hear me. The old dog was almost sixteen years old, blind and stone-deaf. When I reached the steps, however, he felt the vibration, snuffled, and began to bark feebly. His hind legs were partially paralyzed. When he tried to struggle to his feet, I patted his head and made him lie down again. The hair of his great head was white now. Unable to hear himself, he would have continued to bark indefinitely, so I closed his mouth with my hand to shut him up. He recognized me, of course, and licked my head, his huge tail thumping madly on the loose floorboards of the gallery. He had been a good hunting dog once, and despite his infirmities, I was grateful to Randall for not putting him away. I hadn't expected to see Old Dusty again.

Instead of entering by the front door, I took the brick walk around the house to the back. I opened the screen door to the kitchen, leaned against the doorjamb, and grinned at the expression of surprise and chagrin on my sister-in-law's face.

But I believe I was more shocked than Frances. She had begun to put on weight the last time I had seen her, but in two years' time she had gained another forty pounds. She must have been close to one hundred and eighty pounds. Her rotund body was practically shapeless under the faded blue dressing gown she wore over her nightgown. Frances' face was still young and pretty, but it was as round and shiny as a full moon. Her short brown hair was done up tight with a dozen aluminum curlers. With a grimace of dismay, Frances put a chubby hand to her mouth.

“You would catch me looking like this!” she exclaimed. “Why didn't you let us know you were coming?”

I put an arm about her waist and kissed her on the cheek. “Well,” she said good-naturedly, “you can stop grinning like an ape and sit down at the table. The coffee'll be ready in a minute. I was just fixing to start breakfast.”

I sat down at the oilcloth-covered kitchen table. Frances lifted the lid of the coffee pot to look inside, and clucked her tongue disapprovingly. “You may have lost your voice, Frank,” she scolded, “but you can still write! We haven't heard from you in more than six months.”

I spread my arms apologetically.

“I guess I'm a fine one to talk,” she said, smiling, “I never write myself, but we do enjoy hearing from you once in a while.” Frances filled two white mugs with coffee, put the sugar and cream where I could reach them easily, and sat down across from me.

“Randy'll be down pretty soon. He was up late last night working on an article, and I didn't have the heart to wake him. He likes to work at night, he says, when it's quiet. But if it was any quieter in the daytime I don't know what I'd do. We never go anyplace or do anything anymore, it seems to me.” She sipped her hot coffee black and then fanned a dimpled hand in front of her pursed lips. “This isn't getting your breakfast ready now, is it?”

Because Frances knew how fond I was of eating, or because she used my visit as an excuse, she prepared a large and wonderful breakfast. Fried pork chops, fried eggs, grits, with plenty of good brown milk gravy to pour over the grits, and fresh hot biscuits. I ate heartily, hungry after walking out from town, listening with stolid patience to the steady flow of dull gossip concerning various kinfolk and townspeople. I was finishing my third cup of coffee when I heard Randall on the stairs. As he entered the room, I got up to greet him.

“Well, well,” he said with false heartiness, holding onto my hand and grinning, “if it isn't the junior birdman!”

He patted his wife on her broad rump, crossed to the sideboard and poured a shot glass full of bourbon. He swiftly drank two neat shots before turning around.

“Welcome home, Bubba,” he said, “how long are you going to stay?”

He sat at the table, and I dropped into my seat again. Randall looked well. He always did, whether he had a hangover or didn't have one. His face was a little puffy, but he was freshly shaven, and his curly russet hair had been cut recently. His starched white shirt, however, was frayed at the cuffs. The knot of his red-and-blue striped rep tie was a well-adjusted double Windsor, and his black, well-worn oxford flannel trousers were sharply creased.

When I managed to catch his eyes with mine, I shrugged.

“I see,” he nodded, “the enigmatic response. Before I came downstairs I looked outside, both in front and out back, and didn't see a car parked. Until I realized it was you, I thought Frances was merely talking to herself again. But if you're broke, you're welcome to stay home as long as you like and close ranks with me. I've never been any flatter.”

“I saved two pork chops for you, Randy,” Frances said quickly.

“No, thanks. Just coffee. Save the chops for my lunch.” Randall smiled abstractedly, clasped his fingers behind his head and studied the ceiling. “It isn't difficult to divine the purpose of your visit, Bubba,” he continued. “When you're flush, you wheel up in a convertible, your pockets stuffed with dollar cigars. When you're broke, you're completely broke, and on your uppers. But if the purpose of your visit is to collect the honest debt I owe you, you're out of luck. Three hundred dollars!” He shook his head and snorted. “Frankly, Bubba, I'd have a hard time raising twenty!”

He leaned forward in his chair and said derisively, “But you can live here as long as you like. We can still eat, and thanks to Daddy there's a wonderful roof over our heads. And whether we pay our bills in town or not, the Mansfield credit it still good.”

To drink the coffee Frances set before him, Randall gripped the large white mug with both hands. His fingers didn't tremble, but it must have taken a good deal of concentrated effort to hold them steady.

“Going to see Mary Elizabeth?” he asked suddenly.

I shrugged and lit a cigarette. I offered the pack to my brother. He held up a palm in refusal, changed his mind and took one out of the pack. He held both of his hands in his lap, after putting the cork top in his mouth, and I had to lean across the table to light it for him.

“You kind of believe in long engagements, don't you, Bubba?” he said, smiling sardonically. “It's been about seven years now, hasn't it?”

“Eight,” Frances emended. “Eight years come November.”

“Well, you can't say I haven't done my part to bring you together,” Randall said wryly, watching my face closely. “Five years ago our farms were almost three miles apart. But thanks to selling land to Wright Gaylord, we're less than a mile away from them now!” He laughed with genuine amusement.

I was unable to listen to him any longer. He made me feel sick to my stomach. I rose from the table, and picked up my shaving kit from the sideboard.

“There's plenty of hot water upstairs if you want to shave, but not enough yet for a bath. Lately I've taken to turning the heater off at night and not lighting it again till I get up,” Frances said. “Your room is dusty, too, but when Leona comes over this morning I'll have her do it up and put fresh sheets on the bed.”

I nodded at my sister-in-law and left the room. As I climbed the stairs to the second floor, Randall said, “Maybe you'd better scramble me a couple of eggs, Hon. But don't put any grease in the skillet, just a little salt…”

Not only was Randall weak, he was a petty tyrant to his long-suffering wife. Before she could scramble eggs she would have to pour the good milk gravy into a bowl, and wash and dry the frying pan.

My old room was at the very end of the upstairs hallway, next to the bathroom. When Daddy bought the farm and moved out from town, I had been elated about the move because it meant having a room to myself. And somehow, Daddy had made a go of the farm when many other good farmers were half starving in Georgia. He had earned fair sum by
not
planting things and by collecting checks from the government. But even when times were excellent, he had never made any real money out of the farm. He was fair farmer, but a poor businessman. Daddy had only been good for giving Randall and me advice, cheap advice, and he had never found anything in either one of us except our faults

My room was dusty all right, as Frances had said. It had also been used as a catchall storeroom during the two years I had been away. The stripped double bed had been stacked with some cardboard cartons full of books, two shadeless table lamps and two carelessly rolled carpets. Extra pieces of dilapidated furniture had been tossed haphazardly into the room, and the hand-painted portrait of Grandpa was lying flat on top of my desk. A thick layer of dust was scattered over everything. When I opened the window, dust puffs as large as tennis balls took out after each other across the floor.

For a moment or two I looked out the window at the familiar view, but it didn't seem the same. Something was missing. And then I noticed that the ten-acre stand of slash pine had disappeared—cut down and sold as firewood probably, and not replanted.

I lifted the stern-faced portrait of Grandpa off the desk and leaned it against the dresser. I wiped the surface of the desk with my handkerchief. After rummaging through the drawers, I found a cheap, lined tablet with curling edges. Sitting down at the desk, I took out my ballpoint.

It took approximately a half hour to write out a list of instructions for Judge Brantley Powell. I wanted to be sure that I covered everything completely so he would't have any questions. After rereading the list and making a few interlinear corrections, I folded the sheaf of papers and stuffed them into my hip pocket.

I went into the bathroom and shaved, planning on an immediate departure for town in order to catch the judge in his office before he went home for the day. After returning to my room, I was rebuttoning my shirt when a soft rap sounded at the door.

“Bubba,” Randall's voice called through the door. “How long're you going to be?”

I opened the door and looked quizzically at my brother. He was smiling a sly, secretive smile. Whenever Mother had caught him smiling that way, she slapped his face on general principles, knowing instinctively that he had done something wrong, and also knowing that she would never find out what he had done.

“Come on downstairs,” he said mysteriously. “I've got a surprise for you.” Still smiling, he turned away abruptly and descended the stairs.

I slipped into my corduroy jacket, put my hat on and followed him.

The surprise was Mary Elizabeth, the last person I wanted to see right then, standing at the bottom of the stairs, cool and crisp in a wide-necked white blouse, blue velvet pinafore and white sling pumps. Ordinarily, I would have stopped to see Mary Elizabeth first, before coming home, but I didn't want to see her at all when I was broke and without a car. My last visit home, when I had first made my vow of silence, had been a strained, miserable experience for both of us.

“Hello, Frank,” Mary Elizabeth said shyly, “welcome home.”

She hadn't changed a fraction in two years. She was every bit as beautiful as I remembered. Mary Elizabeth had pale golden hair and dark blue eyes—which often changed to emerald green in bright sunlight—a pink-and-white complexion, fair, thick, untouched pale brows, and long delicate hands. Her figure was more buxom than it had been ten years before, but that was to be expected. She was no longer a young girl. She was a mature woman of twenty-nine.

A moment later Mary Elizabeth was in my arms and I was kissing her, and it was as though I had never been away. There was a loud click as Randall closed the double doors to the dining room and left us alone. At the sound, Mary Elizabeth twisted her face to one side. I released her reluctantly and stepped back.