Angels at the Yard Sale
James Barnes
Published by Smashwords
Copyright James Barnes 2010
Chapter 1
A redneck river town most people of my generation call it; nothing of value there, and if you blink on the way through your eyes have done you a favor, but that isn’t true. This place is a sparkling pearl rounded by the slow curving waters of the St. Francis River, patient and lasting. A treasure formed over time by a tight sense of community gracefully flowing through and beyond each generation; permeating our souls with a fierce devotion people in small towns just happen to acquire. A unique citizenry with a desire to stay and make it a better place keeps our town vibrant and alive. And bridge number three is a bright white expanse connecting east to west across that river with automobiles passing over gap toothed concrete echoing into a mile wide swamp and bouncing back through our quiet streets, waking me just before dawn.
Founded in the early eighteen hundreds, this dusty little farm town of two thousand exists aside a grassy levee holding back a fishy, murky flow that some say looks like a river of Kahlua. But everyone knows that would never be tolerated in the Bible belt.
This town was once a bustling center of commerce, where steam powered paddle boats reigned over the main channel, and the J. L.C.& E. Railroad, also known as “The Moose”, horsed through and across a wooden trestle on its way to the Mississippi.Our little community enjoyed a thriving economy seen today only in faded opaque pictures at the local museum.
Early in her past, Main Street was home to a blacksmith shop, dry goods store, and City Hall, among other businesses, offices, and hotels. At one end of the muddy road stood the white Methodist Church, whose copula hosted a cross topped steeple. The first and largest church is still one of many among us splitting open with parishioners on Sunday mornings, their melodic drones of organ music lifting voices perfectly synced up to heaven where God must certainly be pleased. And in that time, book ending the other end of the street was the bane of every religious maven who considered themselves the very hierarchy of saint hood west of the Mississippi. It was the saloon bursting at the seams Monday through Saturday.A place of revelry where drinking, gambling and the good ladies of the evening whiled away the melancholy of lonesome lumberjacks, hunters, and dock workers for a well negotiated, but reasonable price.
Lake City was an east Arkansas boom town destined to be a county seat. The rich Mississippi delta soil had yet to be cleared for farming and thick swampy cover of cypress, oak, cottonwood, and maple canopies shaded the wet and tangled forest floor. Tribes of Tula and Cherokee hunted beaver, muskrat and coon in those feathery forests before the clearing began making way for ambitious white Americans who invaded from the east on their way to fulfilling the nation’s manifest destiny.
But the constant of time changes everything, and now our town is a sleepy bedroom community to Jonesboro, a larger city of sixty-five thousand people just ten miles west sprawling completely across Crowley’s Ridge and into the valley between it and the Ozark foothills. From here to there along Highway 18 as far as anyone can see north or south lie rows of cotton, soybeans, and corn dominating the landscape from spring planting to fall harvest.
A shallow geologic wonder since ancient times, the lake was once situated just southeast of town and is widely believed by archeologists to have been an impact crater formed by a flaming meteorite plummeting to earth while dinosaurs could only watch in fear and confusion. A popular resort area, good folks came from all over Craighead County to rent boats, fish, and occasionally shake a leg under starlit skies at the pavilion near “Williams Boat House”. Over a few millennia, sugar like granules of silt settled to fill the cosmic aperture which was eventually completely drained when the levees were built. It has all but disappeared into the lowland swamp nearly a mile wide and spanning the entire length of the meandering river. Now a protected refuge it embraces some of the finest catfishing waters on earth and many still brave swarms of bloodthirsty mosquitoes and sweltering heat during the sauna that is late spring and summer to catch their supper on trot lines, in nets, and cane poles.
Borrow pits line the east side of the levees and were created when the Corp of Engineers came and erected those guardians against the inevitable deluge. Oblong ponds about fifty yards wide and some a mile long before a thin dirt road crossing was left so tractors could run between the levee and the river to farm the lowest acres. These rectangular pools with canopies of hundred year cypress lining the edges are full of pan fish such as bream, crappie, and bass but also the trolling gar, a hated garbage fish and the only remnant of a dinosaur left in these waters.
Thirty six years have passed since I was born in this place, and thirty two since my lovely wife Jessica, who was lying safely asleep beside me. A few cracks around my eyes and a couple of gray hairs amid all the black ones have all been earned among the finest people and the finest place I know.
Tires thumping in rhythm across the divided concrete on that new span were generally just a white noise in the clamor of day, but in the gray time between night and morning when everything is calm and quiet like small towns get, the unmistakable “Kathunk, Kathunk, Kathunk,” might as well have been an alarm clock.
There in the half light of morning, the static sound of a car passing on wet pavement penetrated my window and betrayed last night’s weather report firmly stating we had no chance of rain. Chores brought to mind; a wry smile cracked my face as a long day of slow rain would remedy the ill thought of hard work. I reached to the nightstand for my pack of Marlboro Lights so I might enjoy simultaneously the patting rain and a good smoke.
Taking into my hand and gently rubbing my thumb across the richly impressed Zippo cigarette lighter, reminded me each time of how I came to own this little trophy. It was won some twenty odd years ago while trying my hand at a midway game at the District Fair in Jonesboro. Lying perilously on the ninety degree angled wooden edge of the red, glass encased platform with a chrome encased metal crane affixed in the middle. Just over the dropping point where a wooden slide was smooth and ready to whisk it into my hands. This ornate igniter lay motionless and thought to be bonded to the floor by skeptics unskilled. But this was no sucker’s game; it was a game where only the most capable of operators could manage to retrieve a valued trinket. A hoister unlike the ones in every buffet restaurant and supermarket grabbing stuffed animals and plastic toys for every third attempt, it was a dragline of fortune manipulated by a single wheel outside the case requiring a deft touch and cunning placement of a steel bucket.
A sparkling pirate’s chest, the case was full of gold and silver plated pens, a metal playing card container, thick chained chrome bracelets and a necklace with a German cross for a charm. But the shining little booty I coveted most was the Zippo.
I stood watching and waiting while the delicious fried aroma of funnel cakes and pronto pups wafted through my nostrils and the muddled sounds of carnival barkers, loud music, and flashing lights served to heighten my excitement. My turn came when the hapless operator before me finally gave in and marched away in frustration. Quickly stepping forward, a carnie clad with an eye patch happily changed my dollar bill into four quarters.I sensed by the look of his one eye and the smirk on his face he doubted the abilities of any man intent on walking away with his treasures.
I dropped the first quarter and the greasy metal chains released the bucket to splash violently in the sawdust littered floor of the glass box. Careful not to touch the circular handle until all had settled, I gently placed my forefinger and thumb on the cold knob and began slowly turning causing the bucket to ascend to the end of the crane’s rickety arm. Lost on most was the next move. Depending on which way the handle revolved would determine the direction the arm would swing. Steady on the handle, I glanced at the cyclops carnie now squinting menacingly and studying every move. His Jolly Roger doo rag was damp with sweat as were the palms of my hands when I cautiously rotated the handle swinging the arm and stopping the bucket precisely above the Zippo. The pirate carnie’s lip snarled trying to intimidate me but only a hesitation was required to wait for the swaying bucket to still and reengage the chain mechanism. The next turns slowly descended the open bucket to the floor of the case resting it gently on the lighter. After all had settled, I began to gingerly elevate the bucket grabbing the Zippo with a fragile metal on metal grip. My confidence was soaring. I had it. All that was left was to get it to the slide and retrieve my prize. But in an absentminded moment of haste, I shifted the crane too swiftly; lurching sideways it swung wildly over the opening back and forth like a pendulum and the mighty crane’s grip was lost. The moment was frozen in my mind as time all but stopped. Horrified, I watched flashing metal tumble to the floor of the case. But the sawdust was thinly piled by the four cornered opening and the hard wood caused the Zippo to bounce once and gloriously topple onto the slide, out the metal flap, and into my hands.
For twenty-five cents I was the owner of a collector’s edition Zippo cigarette lighter with a design in relief to rival even the great works of Rodin himself. Proudly, I looked up to see the pirate carnie with his angry eye glaring at me as though I had somehow cheated the game.
A suspicious lot those carnies, always seemed to have more tattoos than teeth and they are never the romantic figures seen in old movies like Elvis’s Roustabout. Society’s washouts, most took a job with the carnival because it required no diplomas and no drug tests.
I noticed the pirate carnies’ blue T-shirt, covered in the random tarnish only the fair can bring, sporting the carnival logo, and I wondered how many blue shirts he had? All carnies wore one, fresh on Monday, only to be tattered and stained by the weekend.
What must company meetings have been like for these employees? The foreman with muddy boots soap boxing on a picnic table, “Alright everybody, gather in. Now we ain’t got any insurance for ya again this year, and that means no dental plan neither. Hell y’all ain’t gonna have time to go to no dentist no ways. But the good news is, the company sprung for everybody a new T Shirt. How’s that sound to ya?”
His question replied to with a boisterous cheer as the needle of the local tattoo parlor was a welcome alternative to the drill of a dentist.
Tipping my Razorback baseball cap, I smiled at the attendant and turned with satisfaction knowing I hadn’t cheated, owned no blue T-shirts, and my teaching job at Arkansas State University afforded me an adequate dental plan.
Briefly, a spark from the Zippo’s well worn flint flashed bright orange then relaxed into a blue and yellow flame. Drawing smoke into my lungs, I quietly snapped the lid shut as the orange glow of the cigarette grew bright. I noticed a figurine in the darkness of our bedroom. It was a six-inch tall porcelain angel wearing a flowing red tunic with wings extended white and lined in solid brass. Her hands folded in prayer and her face fixed by a consoling smile, she looks down as if gazing closely upon God’s earth from a heavenly position. She was lovely and glossy in the round, and I wondered what message the artist wanted to convey in the piece. Perhaps her expression was consoling to the poor and ill, or maybe she was appointed by God as a patriarch to the masses lost, but whatever the case she was a gift to my lovely wife, Jessica Carter, in her infancy from a mother who loved her little girl, and the little angel enough to pass it to her own. An heirloom, the angel was a gift to Jessica’s mother from her grandmother, Lillian Jones, whom everyone called “Priss”.
The nickname was given to her on the day her father, who nicknamed everyone due to a deficiency of good memory with actual names, noticed in her first steps a prissy gate all the Jones women were blessed with. Purchased from the Sears and Roebuck catalog in 1957, the angel was a special order with her nickname stamped in gold at the bottom. She gave it to Jessica’s mother and kept it in her nursery at their small three bedroom house on Fourth Street. When Glenna Jones was born, it watched over her from a shelf just above her crib where it would also watch over Jessica nineteen years later and has been with her ever since.
Jessica is lovely like the angel. Delicate and caring for people she encounters, including those not interested in being a friend to her. Thick, straight, shoulder length dark brown hair, teeth big and white as Chiclets hiding now behind un-waxed red lips, and round fawnlike eyes, she is always most beautiful in the morning sun without makeup covering her naturally attractive features.
Her infectious smile caught my attention at a little league baseball game when she came to watch her nephew from Weiner play against our Lake City Catfish where I was a young high school coach before my job at the college and she was a stunning spectator in a black full-length dress. Sister-in-law to my best friend, we had spoken only once before at his wedding. But that day she sat in a brighter sun than anyone else in the stands and after the game I asked for her phone number, and to my pleasant surprise, she graciously agreed. After mustering the courage to call, we talked until three in the morning and haven’t stopped talking since.
The stimulation of nicotine helped me escape the slothful restraints of our sheets and I moved through the ghostly gray room without waking my dear wife. She was sleeping soundly after a long shift at St. Bernard’s hospital where she nursed like her mother once did and her grandmother before her. After snuffing the cigarette out in a bean bag ash tray with a price tag, I quietly slid my feet across the floor to where the angel was positioned on the open shelf of a breakfront chest. As I lifted the cool porcelain body, stickiness on my right hand caused a swirl through my stomach. It was a piece of masking tape not firmly affixed at one end and written in the middle by my wife with a felt tip pen was; $.50.
Convincing Jessica of the sentimental value wasn’t necessary, she understood perfectly well, but porcelain figurines or “Whatknots” as she called them, were not fashionable in modern homes with modern designs and our European Lyman under construction would have everything new.In a cavalier manner she mentioned those old things were for grandmas and old houses, and she wouldn’t be a grandmother before her first child was born. Finding she had detached from something I knew was dear to her was a hard realization. But I knew she was simply caught up in the frenzy of preparation for the big day and I was certain nostalgia would work its magic on her the way it always seemed to on me.
Yard Sale Day causes people all over our town to experience the paranatural phenomenon associated only with this once a year event. Upon resurfacing, people feel a false necessity to clutch on to the odds and ends hidden away for months, even years, and these worthless knick knacks can bare newness, not quite as pristine as when first purchased, but significant enough to cling to. An old golf club, a picture frame, or even a pair of sneakers invoke the sudden emotion that is always shattered when someone recognizes the senseless act of restowing when it might bring fifty cents to the till. Fuel for fiery arguments is this phenomenon rarely wetted by an epiphany of truth from the pack rat mentality, which invariably overcomes one, the other, or both. But the angel was different. She wasn’t packed away in some dusty recess of the attic, she was better than that and the sticky little tag must have been insulting to her.
Arguing with Jessica was fruitless because an attitude contrary to retaining something useless was the equal and opposite mindset to rid ourselves of what had outlived its purpose.
Frustration over the subject now in check, my mind spun back to the chores lying before me, and teaching my English class would have been welcome consolation to the difficult physicality of moving a truck load of junk. Unmercifully, the rain ended and my second favorite vice was beckoning. I needed some coffee. But before replacing the angel upon its temporary perch, I peeled away the tape from the angel and rolled it in my fingers as I walked quietly to the kitchen.
I took a sip of the best coal oil I could manage and I stepped out onto three steps of concrete we call our porch. Painted gray and wet at the bottom from rain, the top was dry so I sat there beneath the roof’s eve in quiet observation as the sun peeked above the tree line behind me. Two robins were pulling their breakfast from the sparkling grass. Strange birds those robins, perfectly capable of soaring above the world, but always seen hanging about near the ground in couples, racing from one end of yard to the other in search of the perfect worm I guess. A woodpecker hammered tirelessly on the phone pole by the bright red fire hydrant standing guard down the street. I couldn’t recall how long he had whittled away on the poles’ resin hardened surface, but since the weather warmed not a day went by he couldn’t be heard hard at work.
Mornings in spring are particularly pleasant and made even more so when away from the normal rush to work on a Friday. In small towns, people know you, and they know your routines and when the apple cart of the mundane gets toppled, people sometimes strain themselves to understand what special event might keep a man with a real job home on a weekday. Those poor souls, rutted in the day to day, deplore the notion someone else’s life is abundantly more interesting, so they choose to live their lives in absentee behind doors and curtains and watch closely through the glass as though life was some serial television show and they hope with burning fervor not to miss a detail of each episode.
Much to my disgruntlement, the rain ceased and a wonderful spring day was dawning. I knew the yard sale signs were posted on every corner of the city and few would cripple themselves with curious anticipation wondering why I was home. They might even smile considering my laziness and derive a sense of satisfaction in me lugging all those boxes to the truck trapped by a brutish fate. But the next two days affects everyone save the hermit, and for those lucky few who choose not to participate, they are affected in the very least with the endless in and out traffic.
Hot coffee, crisp air, cool concrete on bare feet, and my morning friends were the only life stirring in our little neighborhood. Most would drag out the day moving a little here and a little there, but thanks to Jessica, our heap was priced, packed, and piled in the living room heavy and waiting. She was always overly prepared for any event including this one and she always finished early readying for the weekend.
Our citywide yard sale was created by the City Council passing an ordinance allowing a family only one yard sale on one day per year. The rules stated the sales couldn’t begin before six AM on Saturday and had to end by six PM the same day. Everyone could set up on Friday as long as no sales were made. If the rules were broken, that criminal would be awarded a thirty-five dollar fine. Such a penalty could erase any profits made and since no one wanted to start out in the hole, the law was mostly obeyed. Neighboring sales known to file reports on one another from time to time had never resulted in a fine though some had almost ended in a fist fight.
Before this law, there was no limit to having yard sales year round. The mid nineties saw “yard saleing”, as it was termed, become a fad in town and got to the point there were so many a man couldn’t turn a corner without seeing a yard full of junk being peddled by every Tom, Dick, and Harry’s mom, sister and grandmother. But placing blame for this dilemma solely on the ladies would be unfair when the root cause was an old gentleman known as Jack “Dirty Foot” Wilson.
Nicknames are common in this place and Dirty Foot was tagged because in his sixty-eight years on planet Earth not one person could recall ever witnessing the man in a clean pair of shoes. Spending his entire life north of town near the twin bridges down an old dirt farm road where the front of his trailer was more mud-hole than yard, it was easy to see how keeping a pair of clean shoes was a wasted effort. When he needed money, he bought and sold junk. Normally peddling his wares in auctions around Northeast Arkansas, the popularity of yard sales lured him to capitalize on the craze and begin “yard saleing” in the middle of town on Highway 18.
He struck a deal with Freddie Payne his only friend and owner of the Chatterbox restaurant. The small painted white box like cinder block building on the highway with “The Chatterbox” lettered in cursive on the west side had no other distinct features other than a weathered wood shingled awning and a gravel parking lot. Regulars there were mostly farmers who gathered every morning for coffee, breakfast and most days again at lunch.
The heart of local political discussion hosting governors and senators alike, the tiny restaurant was a permanent fixture on the campaign trail for most Arkansas hopefuls. Even President Bill Clinton had once visited this eatery and a signed photograph of ole “Slick Willy” was autographed and framed just above Fred’s regular table. But this small café was rarely graced by the presence of females except for those who moderately patronized the drive-thru window and a waitress known as Flo.
Dirty Foot and Freddie’s deal allowed him to use the empty gravel parking lot next door for fifty dollars a month. His sales were enormously bigger due to sheer space and convenience, and grew into something akin to a flea market, causing sales on side streets and neighborhoods to be effectively forgotten by passers through no matter how many signs were posted. Dirty Foot was busy, and Freddie was content with easy money. It wasn’t long before frustration set in and the ladies in town suffered at the hands of a man who didn’t even live inside the city limits. Soon their grievances boiled over into nothing short of a march on City Hall.
Mrs. Thelma Patterson was the first female mayor of Lake City and performed satisfactorily to most citizens excluding the gang at the Chatterbox. She won the position without a visit to the political core, which was considered the equivalent of a third world coop in the face of the small town political establishment.
Addressing the mob, she made a solemn promise to establish a compromise and at the next City Council meeting the ordinance was offered and passed. The law also stated no sales would be allowed on the highway as it was a major thoroughfare and thereby deemed too hazardous for other traffic to be slowed by the onslaught of shoppers which would undoubtedly come to patronize the annual event.
This decree marked an abrupt end to Dirty Foot’s year of prosperity, and Freddie Payne vowed to use his political clout to run Mayor Patterson out of office.
“A travesty of justice,” he proclaimed, and entered the next race on the platform of free enterprise.
Freddie put up an admirable race, but when Mayor Patterson was reelected with the widest margin in the town’s history, it was found that more female voters polled that year than ever before. The public had spoken, or at least the women had, and when the results were announced on the local TV station in Jonesboro, Freddie didn’t even call to congratulate her. He was devastated and though hopeful candidates still stop once in a while for a little glad handing, the Chatterbox’s perceived political prowess was irreversibly damaged.
The door closed behind me and Jessica joined me on the front porch cup in hand. She sat close enough our hips touched and offered, “I see the Robins are up and at it this morning.”
“Do you think they would feel like trespassers without me here to roll out the welcome mat,” I asked sarcastically.
“I’m certain they wouldn’t show up without you. I sometimes wonder if you being here makes the worms taste better?”
“Could be the case,” I shrugged.
“You’re an awfully sweet man.”
“Ah! Buttering me up for the big day already, huh?” I chuckled.
Joking a little, and not joking at all she said, “Gotta get an early start on you, you know. I wouldn’t want you to get slack on me when I really need ya. Besides, you know me, always looking to get ahead of the ballgame.”
“I would expect nothing less,” I agreed.
“Coffee’s good,” she said while shuttering at the bitterness.
“Boy! You’re a shameless liar today aren’t you?”
“Look at it like this,” she sighed, “You won’t have to work any harder than that woodpecker you listen to every morning; sounds like he’s really wound up today.”
“Working this yard sale is going to be somewhat like beating my head against a wooden pole. Only I think the woodpecker gets more out of it.”
She laughed and I smiled. What does this woman contribute to the world a dozen roses in a vase cannot? Not more than the pinkish purple sky before us and the vision of her makes me believe the Venus De Milo or Mona Lisa were works created in a grade school art class compared to the simple work of art God crafted in her. For Him to attempt to repeat it would only seem contrived.
We sat for a time not talking, just watching the robins go about their business as the first footsteps of morning toddled across the sky; wishing we could stay until the day left us as an old man graying into the night. She leaned on my shoulder and I leaned on her head. There on the porch with the curving brightness leisurely illuminating the world we were still in our nightclothes and I could have hung on to that rare moment for the rest of our lives. But as every good thing must come to an end, our moment was abruptly halted by the sound of a ringing phone.
“Should I answer that,” she asked startled.
“Jess, you know who it is, who else would call us this early in the morning?” I bristled at the thought.
“I know, this is nice though, I can call her back.”
Janie Dooley was the only person I knew who could out spar Jessica in a match of preparedness. Sure my wife was a little anal, but the drudgery of chores, preparation, and most activities one could consider weren’t just what they are. With Janie, the intensity was akin to a life or death, black ops mission in a Special Forces unit. I wouldn’t be surprised to find her face painted black and wearing camouflage when we got to her mother’s house. Not answering was not an option, she knew we were here, she knew we intended to be there this morning, and we knew after a few rings, there would be a four second pause before it started to ring again.
We always combined our sale with the Dobb’s south of town, selling our goods with theirs as to make the sale seem bigger and more attractive to buyers.It was fact, the more people involved in the sale the easier it would be to work the customers while other tasks such as refolding or rehanging garments, making sure the hardware was always placed strategically, and of course, taking up money was done as well. My philosophy was, anything making my job easier or getting me completely out of working it all together was just fine. My philosophy was generally ignored.
“Are you kidding me,” my tone was one of frustration. “She’ll call you back eight times in the next five minutes.”
“You’re right, I’ll get it, be right back.”
“We’ll be here, the robins and I, minus a few worms,” I lightened up.
My cup was empty. The birds still working tirelessly along the ground now had the sun up to assist and it wouldn’t be long before the wet grass would dry, the worms would retreat to the cooler, deeper recesses of earth, and I would be left busting my hump loading boxes of junk. This day wasn’t shaping up the way I would have wished, and I never expected it turn south from here.
Chapter Two
Summer months in Arkansas can be as brutal as the hottest desert with temperatures escalating into triple digits for weeks at a time, but the desert lacks the saturating broth our high humidity brings to the summer air. One can sit unmoving blanketed in the darkest shade of the largest tree, and still sweat. A breeze is hard to come by in July and August, and old ladies sitting with open windows in church fanning their faces with fresh copies of the service agenda doesn’t paint a realistic depiction the misery of summer can bring.
But in April, mornings are cool, and temperatures mild. Trees are almost fully leaved and cotton plants already pushing their way up to sunlight join the corn, and acre after acre of soybeans, transform fields from a grayish tan to bright green. At month’s end, overhead irrigation systems sprinkle artificial rain from wells tapping aquifers in the cool earth below. When spring showers sometimes fail to linger; the most a farmer, or a poor slob moving boxes, can hope for is an afternoon thunderstorm to cool the balmy air.
Boxes categorized and neatly heaped would not move themselves no matter how long I stared at them, willing ’em to load themselves of their own accord. Worst were those crammed with garments of all sorts, and no one realizes the weight of a shirt or pair of pants while dispersed about the body, but stack an assortment of forty to fifty shirts, pants, and other miscellaneous rags in a cardboard carton, and you have a new piece of weight lifting equipment for the World’s Strongest Man competition. Sure six feet tall, a hundred eighty-five pounds, was enough to cope, and though I was no Atlas, my three day a week workout regimen was enough to keep me from being the guy getting sand kicked in his face at the beach. However, there was more than one of those damned things and after moving ten or so, a brief respite was quite necessary.
Perched once again on the porch employing my trusty blue bandana, which I kept in the back pocket of my Big Smith overalls to dry my moistening neck, my attention was diverted by the shadow of Gerald “Pudsy” Crain who completely eclipsed the ten o’clock sun.
About the same height as I, but outweighing me by at least a hundred pounds, his immense girth was a living testament to gluttony. No doubt having just finished breakfast, he’d failed to fully wipe away egg yolk from the frowning corners of the black hole he called a mouth, and before he could speak, the thought of chickens unborn pecked on the inner recesses of my mind. His triple X red and blue, bulging in the middle, striped polo shirt was littered with the crumbly remnants of enough bread to piece together at least one full slice of toast, and he hadn’t washed it, nor the wrinkled Kaki cargo shorts sagging below his knees in at least a week. Blowing away from my position, the wind did not announce his presence before the shadow caught me off guard.
Still at home with his mother, at forty-one he lived like a twelve year old. She controlled everything he is, was, or would become because controlling himself would require thought and effort beyond the ability to lift a fork, or operate a television remote.
Inferring Pudsy was lazy wasn’t necessary, in his mind, getting off the couch long enough to walk across the street was exertion beyond anything he could generally bear, which makes it easy to understand my curiosity over his visit, especially at such a time when work was being done.
Pudsy and I had attended Lake City High School together and though we never really ran in the same circles, our school was small enough most circles intersected one another at some point before fading apart. He was often the subject of ridicule, as little had changed since our adolescence, and I felt no sense of sorrow over his situation.It wasn’t like his appearance or smell was an endearing quality, but he was intelligent beyond common sense and somewhat a culinary expert. Time spent watching the Food Network enjoying the wit and epicurean wisdom of Emeril LeGasse gave him motivation to find the only niche others could appreciate. Occasionally, he regaled the local Senior Citizens Center, where his mother was a regular on Bingo Night, with dishes so delightful even the grandmother gourmets would be caught off guard by mouth watering cuisine rarely served at the finest of restaurants. I was sometimes asked to call the games, due to the absence of Milton Buzzard who lived in the government apartments adjacent to the center and prone to rove about in a drunken stupor he always claimed was Alzheimer’s, and thus was afforded the opportunity to sample the fruits of Pudsy’s only true labor. Why he hadn’t opened a restaurant of his own was no mystery, he certainly enjoyed cooking, but clean-up wasn’t his forte, and his mother would never allow it. She kept a tight leash on her dirty little dog.
“Mornin’ Pudsy,” I said, squinting up at my own personal eclipse.
“Carter, you need some help?” He addressed me by my last name knowing I hated it.
Completely astonished I replied, “Pudsy… are you OK?”
“Look here, Carter, don’t be a smartass. I’ll get to the point. I need some money. You give me a hundred dollars, and I’ll help ya load all this crap up.”
“Well that’s a grand offer, Pudsy, but not my call to hire out help for the yard sale. If I can’t give you the hundred, how much would you be willing to do it for?”
“How ‘bout ten percent,” he asked.
“Ten percent! Are you insane? Jessica would skin me alive if I did that. How about you help me finish loading the truck, and I’ll buy your dinner at the Chatterbox next week?” I counter offered trying to appeal to his limited sensibilities and give him something more appetizing besides financial gain.
“Are you jokin’? That place is a dump. I wouldn’t eat there even if I was the cook.”
Interesting! A grown man living with his mother, his clothes filthy and egg yolk on his face with the audacity to turn his nose up at a free meal, but that was Pudsy. He never understood how other people saw him; everyone thought him a loser. He was one of those perfectly spoiled brats with just enough self-esteem to blind himself to his own pathetic reality.
“I can’t do it, Pudsy. I apologize and I appreciate you asking, but I don’t think we’re coming to terms on this one.”
“All right, Carter, if you won’t let me help at least let me buy them red sandals Jessica and my momma talked about the other day. Jessica said she might get rid of ‘em and if she did momma could have ‘em.”
All mastery of victuals aside, Pudsy was a dumbass, and being a dumbass is not a crime, but his offer was and he knew it. The illegality of his offense wasn’t what angered me most, it was what it could mean to Jessica that really disturbed me. She did offer the shoes to his mother, but paying for them now tipped me he was up to something, and I was tired of his game. Besides, the dumbass just told me he didn’t have any money.
“What the hell are you trying to pull, Pudsy? You and your mother both know we can’t sell you those shoes before tomorrow. What are you up to? Did someone put you up to this?”
Stumbling over his words and obviously shaken a bit he said, “I-I’m not working for anybody. I just-just wanted to surprise mama with them shoes for her birthday.”
“Bullshit! You don’t have any money. Everybody knows your mother has to give you the money for anything you buy out of her social security check, and besides, her birthday was last month and the reason I know this is because my wife baked cookies which you ate while she and your mother talked in the kitchen. She wouldn’t like you doing this, Pudsy. She knows the rules and you do too. You’ve got something up your sleeve and I want to know what it is, and if you don’t tell me I’m going over there right now and ask your mother what you’re doing. You and I both know she won’t be happy to see me.”
“I don’t want you talkin’ to mama, you’ll ruin my surprise.”
“There is no surprise Pudsy, you need to stop lying and tell me what you’re doing because I’m going right now.” I stood up and moved toward the street.
“Alright, Alright I’ll tell ya. I was offered fifty dollars by someone, who shall remain nameless, to try and buy somethin’ from you to mess up y’all’s sale. I took the money, but after I spent it I started to feel bad about what I done. I figured if I offered to help I might make a few bucks, and give back the money and Jessica nor momma wouldn’t know.”
How
benevolent this overweight waste of space must have felt. He had no
intention of doing much even if I did let him help, and he sure as
hell wasn’t giving any money back.
“You should be ashamed of
yourself for even considering such a thing. Jessica has helped your
mother more than once when you wouldn’t even get off your ass long
enough to take her to the doctor. You need to seriously examine what
you are, and what you tried to do here, and if you don’t make some
changes, I’m going to have a little talk with your mother about
your proposition. Now get your ass out of here.” I pointed toward
the street.
“James, whatever you do don’t tell momma. I’ll find another way to give the money back and nobody needs to tell anybody anything about this.” He was begging at this point.
Amusing, he had a benefactor who considered Jessica’s sale such a threat as to contrive a devious plan to make us criminals among our peers. How desperate they must be to use a dupe like Pudsy.
As Pudsy headed back to the hovel from which he came, I knew whoever the perpetrator was would have to be repaid; it saddened me to think the money would most likely be borrowed from his mother for repayment. He had no job and wasn’t willing to exert himself, so he would once again endure familiar humiliation asking for an advance in his allowance. As he lumbered away, he let a fart rip so loud it altered the flight path of a passing Blue Jay.
Pudsy’s stunt left me too aggravated to continue what should have been a peaceful respite on the porch. But the adrenaline coursing through my body now was the boost I needed to finish the arduous task of loading the truck; and with the chore complete, I kicked a notion around in my head to call Pudsy’s mother, but I realized she was as unaware of his despicable state as he was. The perfect child continuously bending to her will, or maybe she was perfectly aware and just as selfish. Maybe together they were a perfect couple, she the doting mother and him a perfect substitute for the husband who left her alone with an infant son. Whatever the case, telling on Pudsy to his mother would only be futile in the end, after all, what punishment would a forty one year old man receive from his mother? She wouldn’t throw him out and he would continue to happily consume what she was glad to give. Money, food, or even misery from days on end of constant companionship like an old couple in the twilight of life, both complaining without end about one another, constantly at odds, and yet, inseparable.
The clock hadn’t struck eleven o’clock, and I was gratefully loaded and ready for Jessica to accompany me to the Dobb’s house. Hands on hips examining my eighty-nine Ford F150, stacked well above her bed sides and squatting wearily, I hoped her springs wouldn’t buckle under the heaviness. Still, she was a sturdy old gal and was probably as amazed as I was we had accumulated so much under the roof of a house with no garage, no carport, and no room in the attic.
Jessica fully dressed and ready for her day popped with a smile out onto the porch. She was wearing a yellow sun dress and her makeup was not heavy, just enough to accentuate the naturally beautiful lines her sculpted features allowed the sun to delicately highlight. I was enraptured by her for just a moment, but a stray thought stampeded through my mind and before I could close the gate on the corral of my brain the cows escaped out through my mouth.
“For a woman so modern you sure look awfully country this morning.”
“Well maybe it’s all a façade, James. Did you ever stop to think maybe a country dress would appeal to the patrons of our sale more than some glitzy outfit? This dress gets me in the mood for tomorrow. Besides, what did you expect me to wear today, sequins?”
Obviously irritated I attempted to deflect the conversation.“Is there any coffee left?”
“Maybe, maybe not,” she crossed her arms.
And there it was, one of those moments when men are challenged to go ahead and take the last step off a ledge dropping us into a place we never get to leave. The place where every mistake, every misstep of a relationship is recalled with the accuracy of a court reporter. No matter the faults of a woman long erased from the husband’s scorecard of marriage, hers is always periodically updated by the inevitable and unforgotten tallies of her mate. There must be a gene men lack causing that particular ability to be absent within us, and we end up a blathering idiot fumbling through our memories for something, anything to counter with, and our ignorance is generally met with a rolling of the eyes accompanied by a guttural sigh and slight tapping of the foot. This time I was unwilling to step off that ledge.
“I think you would look amazing in both.” I was hoping for a reprieve.
“Chicken!” She knew me too well. “I’ll get you some coffee.” She went back into the house almost laughing at my cowardice. What she didn’t know was that I would rather be thought a coward than proven fool enough to step off that ledge a second time.
She hadn’t noticed the angel still perched on the dresser, and I hadn’t loaded it purposely hoping it would be overlooked long enough to avoid the tornado this sale had become sweeping across our town.With all the resistance encountered over the subject the night before, I wasn’t really certain why I felt strongly about selling her little angel, but a calling within was wailing as loud as a banshee. Though not one to buy into influence from beyond the grave I was beginning to interpret this feeling as a sign from Jessica’s mother, grandmother, or both.
Marrying well above my head, those two considered a school teacher just good enough for her, but I am certain they would rather Jessica had married a doctor or lawyer, and I have no doubt a sign from them wouldn’t be a subtle one. It would be more in line with a tree limb crashing on my head, which I would gladly endure to be released from the impending moment, but not even ghosts could scare it away.
“Here is your coffee, and why is the angel in the bedroom not packed and ready to go?” She was agitated beyond consoling.
“I must have overlooked it when I got the stuff out of the bedroom.” I said, lying through my teeth and not looking directly at her.
“James, I’m not a fool. You never intended to pack this…” she whipped the angel out from concealment behind her back and waved it in my face, “and you thought you could slip it by me until after the sale didn’t you?”
Perhaps I should revise my position on messages from the grave.
“No, no. Go ahead and put it in the truck in the front seat and we’ll take it with us.”
“Uh-huh. Just get in the truck and let’s go. And James, when we get to the Dobb’s I will make sure this is out, front and center. And by the way, I would appreciate it if you would please not resist me on getting rid of any of this crap. When we move into the new house, it will be so much better to have all the old clutter completely gone. I know you mean well, but I just don’t want this ancient stuff in our new home. It’s gonna be a brand new house with new memories, a place where our future will be, just ours and our children. I really want this to be about us, and I really need you to be on board with it. Will you?”
I nodded yes, not because I thought it was the right thing, but because I loved her. It wasn’t less manly or being henpecked to respect her wishes, and when you love someone you know the things you don’t necessarily agree with are not done out of malice or blind selfishness. She really believed it best to create a new history with me and I could see in her eyes it was an unavoidable desire. Perhaps it was for the best and I was being overly sentimental about the whole thing.
Early morning labor had left my stomach an empty canyon with nothing but a percolated stream of coffee to sustain me, and though lunch was some time away, I had no appetite for breakfast. The robins milling about were finishing theirs and the warm sun had chased the woodpecker off his post to the cooler shade of the magnolia tree flanking Pudsy’s house. As Jessica and I climbed into the old gal with our sixty-five pound black and tan bassett hound, Sammy Sosa, I asked if she would like to go to the “Chatterbox” to eat, and I immediately regretted reopening the gate.
“Are you insane? I’m not gonna eat at Freddy Payne’s little house of artery blockers. I don’t understand how you can eat that crap.”
She never appreciated Freddy’s cuisine though she did like Freddy. He always referred to her as “Little One” because of her demure stature, and she appreciated him for never missing an opportunity to flirt. Always asking how she was if he saw me alone, Freddie may not have given women their due when it came to politics, but he was always cordial to Jessica and the wives of most of his patrons, with the exception of Mayor Patterson of course.
“We need to get to the Dobb’s house and get this unloaded”. She pointed out the windshield like I didn’t know the way. “They’ll most likely have something we can eat, and you need to stop trying to delay the inevitable.”
The old gal groaned as I put her in gear and Jessica gasped in horror as the truck lurched forward tumbling the little porcelain angel off the dashboard.
Chapter Three
Instinctively, like a shortstop snags a bad hop, I reached without panic nabbing the angel just before it ended up a shattered unrecognizable mess on the floor of the old Ford.
Surprisingly relieved, Jessica said, “You may not play baseball anymore, but you still have great hands.”
The Dobb’s had a lovely red brick home with white paned windows and a two car garage situated on two acres of flat ground at the south end of Catfish Drive. One story, but the roof line was high enough to accommodate a second and the whole of them were present and accounted for with Janie the first to greet us.
She gave a pronounced look at her watch and said, “Bout time,” then quickly went on milling about, not focusing on a singular activity, but trying to do a little piece of everything. She had a manic sweetness to her personality, not in the least bit annoying, but a wonderful spirit, always jovial with a delightful sense of humor. Her husband David Dooley the son of Irish immigrants and an electrician at a factory in Jonesboro kept her grounded. Spending most of their twenty-five years of marriage together in a home beside her parents, they had two daughters, Breigh the oldest, and Holly who were in the driveway arguing with one another about how much the other hadn’t done.
Riley and Sarah Dobbs, Janie’s parents, sat happily in woven lawn chairs, breakfast on paper plates and happily oblivious of our arrival. And in the side yard was Leon Dobb’s, Riley’s father, comfortably seated amid an oak wood and iron slide swing reading the Friday Jonesboro Sun. Slamming truck doors drew him from his pastime and he peaked around the corner with a crow footed eye and said in a loud voice, “I see you brought that goddamned mutt with you.”
“Good to see you on the cheerful side, Leon,” I said. “You going watch him for me while I get this junk unloaded?”
His refusal was sarcastically emphasized by a harsh, “Hmmf.
Holly quickly volunteered, “I’ll watch him. I love Sammy.”
“Thanks kid. How are you today?”
“Good,” she said taking, him by the collar and leading him away. “Nothin’ to it. C’mon Sammy, let’s go torture the cats.” Holly commanded, and Sammy followed along wagging his tail and tongue already dangling over his canines.
Holly was a sweet, athletic, eleven-year-old girl with an outgoing personality who loved the small town life of Lake City. Her sister, Breigh, was exactly the opposite. A sublime fourteen year old already dreaming of escape. Moving somewhere beyond the place where everyone knew everyone and privacy was hard to come by. I was puzzled by her as she never chased after boys and hadn’t made time for a boyfriend. A beautiful girl whose head was draped with coiled flaxen hair, skin like porcelain, and rounding into quite a girlish figure, she was always somewhat distant. I had known them both since birth and found it disheartening she was already willing to leave behind those who loved her so much. She was also a bit disgruntled in me having provided a distraction for Holly while she still labored over the sale.
“Thanks James, we don’t have enough hands as it is” she said.
“Oh, stop whining,” Janie Scolded. “It’s not as if you’re diggin’ ditches here.”
“Whatever!” Breigh pouted. “She gets to play with the dog, and I get to work?”
“Then go play with the dog, and send Holly back to work.”
“I’m not keepin’ that nasty dog.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” I protested. “That dog is one of the best groomed in the county, Jess I would take offense if I were you.”
“None taken, Breigh, and you get to work.” Jessica said, pointing toward the still laden truck.
Jessica went over to say hello to Sarah and Riley, and I waved hello as well then started unloading the truck.
Nothing made me happier than teasing Leon and he enjoyed the attention. While untying some string I used to secure the load, I called over. “Hey Leon, you going to help me unload this truck or just sit there gathering dust?”
“Boy, you shoulda’ hired you a couple of Mexicans to get that done. I’ll be more than happy to help Mrs. Jessica with anything she needs. I’m sure she loaded all that stuff for ya anyway. Least you could do is get it outta the truck. It’d do her some good to get help from a real man.”
“On second thought, you better keep your seat there, ole timer, the morning paper might just be more exercise than you can handle.”
“Funny, real funny, boy,” he laughed sarcastically and disappeared behind his paper.
Leon Dobbs, a slim eighty-two year old man with a face relatively unhaggard by life; he had Paul Newman-like blue eyes and was a World War II veteran. He came straight off the farm to Jonesboro and registered for the Army in 1943. Dirt poor at seventeen with dreams of world travel and a steady paycheck, he arrived at Fort Chaffee on a cold and overcast winter afternoon. Twelve long weeks later with heavy arms and a tight belly, he departed Army training camp sharp as a knife and anxious for battle as part of an infantry division bound for a troop ship in Norfolk, Virginia. He wouldn’t be like most men who served in the “Great War”, his first tour of duty would begin in Normandy, France. Leon would be part of what many WWII veterans refer to as, “The Longest Day”.
Chugging into France on the metal floor of an LCVP Landing Craft, he and his fellow soldiers stretched their necks like nervous storks to get a look at the blood bath ripping apart Omaha beach, and each man knew the smell of diesel exhaust filtering through their olive green helmets would soon be replaced with the sulfurous odor of gunpowder. As the engine labored to push the squared steel pan crowded full of men closer to the fight, Leon surveyed the faces of his comrades. He saw fear, anger, even pride and those feelings reflected back into him and smelted a determination hard as iron. He realized dying was something many men would do, and had already done this day and the same fate might await him on that beach, but it didn’t matter, he would fight to his last breath and hope his mother and father back home could in the very least be proud their son was no coward.
The bulky craft bottomed out twenty yards from shore, the front gate fell, and Leon among thirty seven others, were immediately hip deep in water fanning out left and right. He tried to keep his M1 carbine rifle dry, but even in the middle of summer the ocean water was cold and the waves high as he trudged toward a beach littered with hundreds of young soldiers, either dead or seriously wounded with limbs missing. With as many or more bobbing in the tide, he tripped over the corpse of a floating warrior and fell forward onto his knees keeping his hands high out of the red tinted water. Trying to gather himself, he was shoved face first into the ocean floor beneath the surf by a large wave and immediately separated from his rifle. Water and sand rushed into every facial cavity and he resurfaced blowing and spitting, his eyes stinging from the salty breaker. He turned groping for his rifle. Eyes clearing now, he found a kid he didn’t know struggling to reach for Leon with his right hand in the shallow water left by the retreating wave while trying to hold back the pulsing flow of blood through the fingers of his left as he clutched at his neck.
The crashing wave had kept Leon from being shot in the chest by a Nazi sniper, and the reality of war immediately sank in. War is not fair, war does not discern between the living and the dead, right and wrong no longer matters in the thick of the fight. There is only life, death, and the wounded. Not thinking now but reaching, he grabbed the young man by the shirt with both hands and threw him over his shoulder like so many hay bales he’d hoisted back on the farm when the wheat was cut and stored for the horses and cows to eat during the cold winters. Hard work in those faraway fields and the rigors of training camp combined with an adrenaline boost Leon hadn’t experienced formed him into a machine of sorts and more than capable of carrying the weight of two men to the shore. He dumped the soaked and suffering soldier on the sand like a sack of potatoes and not even breathing hard screamed, “Medic!”
All thought of the battle and the hell surrounding him was suddenly out of focus and the only sight not blurred was the shivering soldier on the sand. He felt a push from the left and was knocked off balance as the medic stumbled in to tend the wound.