Smoke (34 page)

“Not bad.” He looks pleased. “Over a foot 'round.”

“Yeah, over a foot,” doubles Hank.

To Buster the leaves are as wide as the tires on Donny's Bel Air.

“How's the new machine, boys?”

“A hell of a lot easier than priming on foot,” says Percy, lighting a cigarette. His hands have blackened and gone sticky from the tar.

“Good.” Tom reaches onto his tractor for a jug of water and passes it to Percy. “In a few years these contraptions'll be commonplace. My curer's working out too. He's stoking now. The leaves are soft but he's bringing 'em into case just fine.”

After a few minutes standing there talking but not really talking, smoking, stretching and quenching their thirst—and Bob's isn't nearly quenched enough—they all climb back into position, adjust their caps and hats. Buster watches his father empty the baskets onto the boat hooked to his tractor and drive off in the direction of the table gang. He starts them back to working.

The humidity is thick and his legs are soon numb from sitting—one foot falls asleep. The smells of the field eventually prove stronger than any fantasy he can concoct and reality seeps in, one leaf at a time, leaches under his dirty fingernails, coats his hair. Soon visions of bootlegging and even of capturing the bandit and redemption float away and Buster is overcome by row after endless green row. He can think of little else except right here, this verdant marshy place. The soil all around is a living, breathing entity sapping him of all that is good, all that might be good again, reminding him of his one big mistake like an infected, dirty wound that just won't heal. The repetition of priming is endless and so, like the women who are standing side by side at the tying table handing leaves, the men gossip in order to stave off the monotony. They don't call it gossip though; they just say they're shootin' the shit.

“Your father know about Rombout's petition?” Percy asks Hank.

Without breaking priming rhythm Hank responds, “What petition?”

“To oust your father from the parade. Says he's got twelve signatures so far.”

“Never happen. Dad's president of the Growers Association.”

“Might,” says Percy. “Folks don't like hearing about quotas.”

“Don't like petitions either.”

“No need to sneak behind backs to make the point,” says Bob. “Must be on account of Susan's condition. It's making him crazy.”

Hank's face turns ashen. “What say?”

“Didn't you hear?” Bob leans in. “She's got herself knocked up.”

Buster spins around to meet his brother's eyes and Hank is looking as humiliated as a wet cat so he knows it isn't Hank's fault.

“Whose is it?”

“Dunno,” says Bob. “Hazel told me when I went in for batteries yesterday. She says it's a French boy most like, but Susan's not telling. Donny, you used to be over at their place a lot. You know anything?” Donny fidgets with his gummy black hands and shrugs.

“She's as stupid as a cow and deserves what she gets!” Hank spits. His throat is dry. Caked. He can barely swallow. He wants badly to hit someone hard—Susan most of all—and just as fast he is plunged so deeply and completely into despair that he can barely make out the leaves he is priming. They continue working in silence though Hank sits on the primer staring at the wall of tobacco moving past to his right, letting it s
lap slap slap
hard against his face, and thinking that Susan,
his
Susan, is having someone else's baby.

A
T NOON THEY BREAK
for dinner and by then they've picked under half a kiln. Not good enough. Hank is off the primer, storming through the field away from the others. Percy is furious with Bob for plodding more than usual. Bob has given two tugs instead of the necessary one to snap the leaves from their stems and he's slowed them by an hour or more. Percy avoids Bob's bloodshot eyes for fear that he'll slug him and embarrass Donny who has primed twice as fast to atone for his shiftless father.

“I told you my dad's got a real problem,” Donny whispers to Buster as they hurry in.

“Makes it our problem too. At this rate we'll be stuck working to friggin' six o'clock. He knows we can't quit until the kiln's full.”

“Yeah, all he does now is sleep and drink. I don't think he even paid our rent last month.”

“Hang tight, Don. We'll have that reward money soon enough.”

The blood-scent of roast beef and fried steak reaches them as they close in on the farmhouse. Buster notices that the kiln door is open, ready for the hanger. Percy climbs up the ladder and stands in the opening. Bob begins to pass the tobacco up slowly, stick by stick. Percy moves them into place as fast as he can. Later, at the end of the day when the kiln is full, he'll seal it so the curer can yellow them, dry them green to gold. It's a near perfect system as long as everyone pulls his weight. All of this will continue until the stalks in the fields are completely bald, every kiln full and the leaves hung as they are ready, turned from bold green to dark brown to a bright, expensive yellow. Or until an early frost closes them down— whichever comes first. Buster trudges over to the tap where the table gang are in line to wash up. His mother has left them a bar of soap and cream hand cleanser to wash off the tar. He unzips his rubber suit all the way down the front and an invisible wave of steam rolls off his skin. Funny, he thinks, watching his brother ahead of him splashing cold water on his ordinary face. Funny how “kiln” is always pronounced “kill.”

Isabel is in the kitchen moving hurriedly between the stove and counter, flipping steaks and then checking on boiled potatoes, corn and peas. She lays the meat on a platter that, when full, she passes to Jelly Bean. “First batch is done Judy.” She moves to the sink to rinse her hands. She is weary but can't afford to stop working long enough to think about it. If she pauses to sit, she is sure she won't rise again.

Lizzie, in her playpen, begins to cry and lifts her short arms, and Isabel speaks to the child as she removes the roast beef from the oven. “Lizzie. Don't fuss. I'll be right there with a bottle.” She gestures to Jelly Bean, who stands wearing an old red and white gingham apron tied around her thin waist, stirring a pan of gravy. Jelly Bean accidentally splatters grease on herself.

“Oh darn,” she pouts, looking down. “I'm sorry; I'll clean that for you right away.”

“Don't be silly, Judy. A little dirt never hurt anyone.”

W
HEN JELLY BEAN SETS
the potatoes and gravy, corn on the cob, peas and meat down in the centre of the table a flurry of muscled arms reach out like prize fighters'.

“Plenty of rain this year,” says Percy. “Looks like a good yield.”

“Too soon to predict.” Bob slips a flask of vodka from his back pocket for a quick swig while Jelly Bean has her back to him and Isabel is safely out of the room. The vodka is odourless and calms his trembling hands. “Depends what happens at auction.”

Buster spoons potatoes from a large bowl onto his plate and pushes them around with a fork. The dirty fedora hides his over heated face. His skin is unusually discoloured because of the humidity, the shine on his face inevitable no matter how many times he wipes it with a bandana. The brim of his hat isn't wide enough to protect from the sun so the tip of his nose, lips and chin are already smarting. Jelly Bean passes so closely by the table that he feels her long blond ponytail swing into his back.

“Hi Buster.”

“Hey,” he mumbles through a mouthful. He doesn't look up or reveal any special fondness for her, though he watches her from the corner of his eye.

“Seems you've got a fan,” says Bob, after she moves off outside to join the table gang who have each brought their own lunch.

“That ankle biter?” Hank scarfs down his steak. “She's a little twerp.” His square jaw is a snake's. Distendable. Limitless.

Buster wants to defend Jelly Bean, it would be the honourable thing to do, but Hank is obviously feeling pretty clutched. Hank isn't himself. Buster pours gravy over his roast beef and half of his plate and watches his brother chew and glower at Susan who is eating her lunch alone under the oak tree. Hank's been acting strange for a while, now that Buster stops to think about it. Ever since he told their father that he wants to leave the farm. Hank usually darts around the property like he can't wait to get the work over with, but lately he's been yawning all the time. Now the sight of him in a defeated state makes Buster want to once more tell Hank to forget about Susan, tell him to give her the old heave-ho. There will be other girls and the seasons pass, days roll on. You can get used to just about anything, with enough time.

Percy reaches for the biggest cob on the plate, shakes salt over it. “Gonna ask her out?”

“Not my type,” says Hank, assuming the question is meant for him.

Percy clears his throat. “Buster?”

“Me?” They don't know about Ivan's New Year's bash. They don't know that he took Jelly Bean out for a drive or that he's already kissed her. “Naw, nowhere to go.”

“Drive-in at Courtland,” says Bob, a faint slur to his words. “Donny and Ivan went every weekend last summer, didn't ya?”

“A couple of times.”

“She's quick as a whip,” says Percy.

“Yeah,” Bob agrees. “I seen her count change at the hardware store.”

Buster shifts in his seat as the clouds move in temporarily, leaving a dreary, overcast sky looking back through the glass door. He doesn't want to share Jelly Bean with anyone, least of all this bunch of sorry slobs. They don't know her the way he does.

“Jelly Bean's an artist,” he finally says.

“An art-eest,” says Bob, winking at Percy. “You don't say?”

“Yeah, if you want to know. She paints people the way they are.” It gave him a clear, cool satisfaction saying it.

“Who does?” Isabel appears carrying two large pitchers of lemonade from the refrigerator to the table. Bob hides his flask out of sight.

“Jelly Bean,” says Bob. “Buster's sweet on her.”

Isabel and the men wait for Buster's reaction and when there is none Isabel sets the pitchers down and moves off again, an exaggerated wiggle.

Buster glares at Bob, the loudmouth ingrate. He's collecting pay for doing less than his share. How dare Bob comment on Jelly Bean. How dare Bob eyeball his mother that way. As if Bob can hold a candle to Tom McFiddie. Buster feels defensive of his father and for the first time in a long while protective of his mother. Bob's a drunk. A sponge soaking up whatever he can. Can't hold down a regular gig. Can't even keep a wife. “Hey Mr. Bryson?” he asks. “When did you say your wife was coming back?”

Donny kicks Buster under the table and Bob takes another, longer swig from his flask. He stands without speaking and teeters off to relieve himself in the downstairs washroom. “I told you he's dead weight,” mutters Donny. “You don't have to rub it in.”

Buster couldn't help himself. He lowers his eyes. “Sorry, Don.” Then he stuffs the remainder of his dinner into his mouth, wipes his sticky hands on his pant legs and skulks off to sit on the ground a few yards away from the table gang with his back up against the half-full kiln, licking his fingers clean of the gravy. He won't bother with dessert. God how he hates the fellas razzing him about Jelly Bean, especially in front of his brother. She is his, a secret more secret than the plan to catch the bandit, for even she cannot be told. He'd like to tell her. He'd like to be near her all the time, but he also needs to be where she can't see him, where he can confidently imagine her off painting a barn or another dead bird, something plain and common. And wanting him in return.

He once dreamt of touching girls any way he pleased, any girl he wanted. He felt entitled. He belonged and so he hadn't known to hunger for belonging. Same with Donny and Ivan and Hank, Buster thinks. Those fellas have nothing to worry about; they always find another and another opportunity, even if it's only the opportunity to screw things up. Hank was born with a horseshoe up his ass. Buster recognizes it because in many ways he used to be Hank, younger sure, but Hank all the same. He laughed without noticing the sound that air made pushing through his nasal passages. He teased others mercilessly without concern for what it was like to be on the receiving end. Now he knows he is hungry, starving—a brassy gut-love hunger that is beyond the physical and builds to a pressure point inside a person, replacing fear and rage and even loneliness with a rumbling well of dry-mouth desire.

Jelly Bean Johnson.

From under his hat he watches her eating her lunch, and all he can think is how the heat from her fingertips traced an illicit script over his face. All he can feel is the terrible need to be read.

He turns and stares out at his father's field, squinting a dark inky glare, but the tobacco sways like a sea of emerald. It appears to be talking to him, saying
Here I am, where I've always been. Waiting for you
. He uses his grower's eyes—eyes with years of practice—to distinguish different patterns in the field. First, a dark shape rises like a cloud, rounding and circling. Then the wind pushes harder through the plants, drawing sandy snakes and tunnels up and away. He stands to make a serious inspection. To other folks it might all look the same—a single moving mass of green. Even boring. The work itself is that, boring, though never the tobacco. For the first time in a year Buster accepts its subtle changes, how the shiniest of leaves catch the light in the sky and reflect it back in a million bubbly mirrors. How green isn't only green, but a grudging forest or a resentful lime, some parts drier than others. When the wind blows he even thinks he can smell the DDT his father sprays as pesticide. Taste it the way Tom showed him to do when mixing for the proper amount. Tom sticks his finger in the water barrel and touches it to the tip of his tongue. When his tongue tingles he knows to stop.