Hardscrabble Road Read online

  Darlene walked her friends back home after Saturday breakfast. Jay and I gave the departing girls some long, final glances and then took up our grubbing hoes. When Papa rode out to the cotton field before noon, I worked harder than ever to root out sandspurs, pale-green clusters of sticker balls that kept coming up around the ruined cotton.

  Papa’s saddle creaked as he shifted his weight in the stirrups, and Dan snorted and scuffed the dirt with a hoof as big as my head. Papa said, “I’m fixing to take the family to the picture show in Bainbridge after dinner.”

  My brothers and I cheered. “Thank you kindly, Papa,” Jay said, while Chet and I whooped. In his big white Stetson, Papa looked like one of the cowboy heroes on the screen. He turned Dan around with just a tweak of the reins and cantered back to the stable. I admired the ease with which he controlled the huge horse and how confident he looked up there. Gleaming sunlight made a halo of his hat brim. Just like that, I’d forgiven him for everything.

  Nat and Lonnie continued to dig up the sandspurs a few rows away from me. Jay called, “Y’all are coming, ain’t that right?”

  Nat kept grubbing as he said, “Mr. Mance said ‘family.’”

  Lonnie straightened his back, lifted his straw hat, and swiped a sleeve across his sweat-slick face. “Lots to do here. Be sure y’all tell me how our cavalry boys make out ‘gainst them Injuns.”

  Chet said, “We’ll act it out for you.” He pointed his hoe like a rifle and pretended to shoot.

  “It ain’t right,” I said, “that y’all don’t g-got a rest coming to you.”

  Lonnie shrugged. Sticker balls had spurred his overalls in a thicket of sharp points from his waist down to his ankle-cuffs. They looked to be eating him alive. He said, “Come day, go day—God, send Sunday.”

  *

  Bainbridge was the nearest large town, down US 27 from Colquitt; we always wore shoes when we went there. I washed and dried my feet and pushed them into hand-me-down loafers that each of my brothers had worn in years past. The coarse, torn lining would rub the hide off my ankles and pinch my toes.

  I dipped a rag into the drippings bowl Mama kept on the stove and rubbed grease over the scuffed leather. This brought out a gleam like Miss Wingate’s chalkboard after I would sponge it for her. Jay and Chet shined their ratty loafers too. Our hunting dogs took a sudden interest in our feet; we raced to the truck bed so they wouldn’t eat our shoes.

  Mama came through the doorway, forcing stray hairs into place. Two more bobby pins stayed clamped between her lips as she made her way to the truck. She wore a store-bought dress of blue and green stripes. When she lowered her arms, the muslin relaxed against her body and revealed a neckline she’d cropped much too low.

  Darlene followed behind her wearing the same dress, but with the original collar. She touched Mama’s back and said, “Can you fix these?” In her blond tresses, sky-blue bows sat perfectly placed. Still, Mama tweaked the satin butterflies before patting her own hairdo some more.

  Papa emerged sporting a brown corduroy suit jacket, matching trousers, new chocolate-and-cream-colored wingtips, and a starched white dress shirt that shone like the Stetson he’d scrunched down over his ears. He marched past Mama and Darlene and opened the driver door. The dogs retreated to the porch as he called, “Come on, Reva, get in the damn truck. Your hair ain’t what folks’ll be looking at.”

  The bobby pins wavered in Mama’s mouth as she muttered what sounded like, “Didn’t think you noticed these no more.”

  Darlene sat up front with the grownups. After Papa started the noisy engine, I nudged Jay and said, “N-noticed what?”

  “You’re too little,” Chet told me.

  We jostled each other as the truck bounced over ruts in the dirt road. Dust boiled out behind the rear tires and hung for a moment in the air. As the dirt resettled, specks of mica glinted in the sunlight. On the path to the highway, we passed the rented shotgun shack where Uncle Stan and crazy Aunt Arzula lived. He lifted a forefinger off his plow handle to hello us as he followed his mule across the field he sharecropped. The leather straps that looped over his shoulders pressed his sweaty shirt and overalls tight against his back.

  Heading south on US 27, I was lulled by the sudden smoothness of the paved road and the high-voice singing of the tires upon it. Yankees sped around us on their way to Florida. Children sat in the backseats of many of the cars, and we’d make eye contact sometimes as they sailed past. Their parents’ cars always looked new to me and every child seemed to dress in nice clothes. They’d often laugh and point at us.

  Jay shouted, “New York,” naming the state stamped into the license plate of a passing car, and Chet yelled, “That’s number 417.” They’d been playing that game for as long as I could remember. At any time, Chet could recite the scores for each of the thirty-seven states Jay had spotted.

  Jay said, “De Soto Airflow.”

  “Unh-uh, Lincoln LeBaron. The fourth one.”

  “No, sir.”

  While they argued, I stuck my head around the truck cab and squinted into the wind at the receding red car. I tasted its bitter exhaust as I murmured, “Going on a vacation most likely.” I wondered what that would be like, driving to the Florida beaches instead of crashing through the swamps to pick up another whiskey load from the Ashers.

  Mule-drawn wagons and Hoover carts—automobiles converted into wagons for lack of gas money—crowded the south end of the Bainbridge courthouse square. A few trucks and autos were parked in front of the shops bordering the square. The air smelled of manure, cut grass, and burned oil.

  Papa parked diagonally to the curb in front of a drugstore, a block from the movie house. As we clambered out, a Negro man shouted from the sidewalk, “Hey, boss, set me up!” It was Vernon Harris, who’d grown up in our part of Miller County forty years before. He tipped his sweat-stained hat to us, a shy smile twitching his gray mustache. He was the eighth child of ten, all with a first name starting with V. Everybody, including his parents, called him V8.

  Papa pushed back his Stetson and smiled, teeth and all. It was a sight so unusual that I liked V8 more than ever. Papa said, “Sure I’ll do that.” He walked inside the drug store and strode up to the soda fountain. A minute later he came out with a paper-wrapped Moon Pie and an RC that dripped beads of water down its twin-pyramid label. He handed over the goods to V8 with a casual nod.

  “Thank you, Mr. Mance. Y’all looks like you put on the dog and is doing the town. Gonna eat over at the Cottontail Café again? I see your truck there lots of times.”

  The smile on Papa’s face died a quick death. “No, we’re just gonna catch the picture show. See you around.”

  V8 thanked him again and lifted his hat to Mama and Darlene with the hand clutching his Moon Pie. Metal taps on his shoes clicked as he set off down the sidewalk.

  We followed Papa to the Roxie Theater, where he gave Mama fifty cents.

  She said, “You told me you’d come in this time.” Her fist squeezed the two quarters.

  “I don’t feel like it now.”

  “You promised.” She had to step aside as other customers paid their ten cents at the ticket window and entered the two-story building.

  “I’ve got some Florida business to do.”

  Mama looked him over and said, “I thought you got dressed up for me.”

  “Just forget about the whole Goddamn thing. We’re going home.” Papa grabbed her hand that clutched the money, but she wrenched free of his grip.

  The young woman in the ticket booth stared at us. When her gaze met mine, she mouthed, “Trash.”

  Mama said, “Go on and get outta here then. Do your ‘business.’” She turned her back on him and shoved the quarters at the ticket-seller. “Just five.”

  Papa stared at her for a moment, working his jaw, but then stalked up the sidewalk. With muttered curses, Mama led Darlene inside. While they went to claim their seats, I lingered in the lobby with my brothers, inhaling the smells of hot, buttered popcorn and fiz
zing colas. We looked at the electric lamps in the ceiling and light bulbs surrounding every movie poster on the walls like picture frames.

  “Two bulbs burned out around ol Gene.” Jay pointed to the Western ad showing Gene Autry strumming his guitar, punching a black-clad bad guy, and snuggling with a dark-haired lady.

  “Same two is always burned out.” Chet indicated the feature that played on weeknights and the Saturday late-show and said, “Got a new flickerer beside The Prisoner of Zenda.”

  I cupped my hand just above a light bulb to feel its steady warmth as I took in the illustration of a mustachioed man sword-fighting a black-clad bad guy and snuggling up to a blonde. Not every hero got to play a guitar. “Just think,” I said, “c-coming here during the week to catch a show or s-seeing the midnighter.”

  Jay said, “Yeah, and imagine Papa setting us up to a RC and Moon Pie.” He waved his arm, signaling us to follow him into the dark theater cooled by squeaky ceiling fans.

  We found Mama and Darlene centermost in the front row, sitting erect in the wooden pull-down seats. My brothers and I slouched on Mama’s other side in birth order, with me at the end. Sometimes I had nightmares about the booger-man reaching for me in a pitch-black theater. I had plenty of elbow room on my right, but I’d rather have been surrounded.

  I focused on the huge rectangular screen in front of us instead of the gloom. My legs bounced as I anticipated the sudden brightness the projector would cast. Jay once told me what an oasis was, and the picture show had become that for me: something I could see shimmering even from a ways off, a place of peace and happiness where I could lose myself for a little while. I loved to sit right down front, pretending I could see the images before anyone else. They all got the hand-me-downs, not me.

  Twice, Mama leaned forward and said, “Aye God, Bud, you’re shaking the whole row. You keep fidgeting and I’ll make your drawers itch for real.” Even with her threats, I could barely sit still in the near-dark. Cigarette smoke drifted over us, invisible and sharp-smelling as ammonia. Behind me, a couple whispered and crunched popcorn from a rattling bag. Someone else slurped a cola and burped.

  Everybody stopped talking and, for a moment, put a halt to their eating and drinking as the cartoon began to play. From Silly Symphony to the final coming attraction that would follow the Western, I always wanted to stop time and make it last forever. Instead, the Movietone newsreel came on before I’d finished laughing at the jigging cows and pigs. A chapter of Zorro’s Fighting Legion also went past in a blur, almost as fast as the masked hero could carve a Z. Thanks to Miss Wingate, I finally understood that he was writing the first letter of his name.

  Even the hour-long Western was what Jay had called a mirage; before I could understand what was happening, the scene changed, over and over. The songs slowed time down, as did the parts where Gene swapped slobbers with the girl—but then I wanted it to go fast and get to another barroom brawl or gunfight. By the time the last image faded and the white screen was blank, I panted like I’d run for ninety minutes, trying to catch up.

  Once again, we’d sped through the oasis. Time to trudge across the desert again. Cotton-headed, I stared at the screen. Mama walked past me, and I staggered upright to join the others as we followed her into the blinding sunlight.

  CHAPTER 7

  My parents must’ve found it too hot to argue on the trip back home. Darlene and Mama retreated to the house, each one fanning her face with both hands. Papa slammed the driver door and said, “Boys, get my pole and we’ll do some fishing.” Jay and Chet traded looks. Fishing was the only thing Papa didn’t do well; we would spend most of our time climbing trees along the shore to untangle a line he cast into the branches. Worse, he’d stand there cussing us as we tried to rescue his hook. Jay said, “How ’bout swimming?” He wiped his sleeve across his forehead. “It’d sure feel good in this heat.”

  Papa stared at us a moment, sweat staining his shirtfront. He pointed to me. “Can you swim yet?”

  “No, sir,” I stammered.

  “Then go fetch your Uncle Stan. We’re gonna learn you if’n we have to drown you.”

  “F-f-fishing sounded m-mighty good to me.”

  Papa started around the back of the truck. “What are you s-s-s-s-skeered of, boy?”

  I took a few steps backward, trampling the swept yard. “Nuthin, sir.”

  “Then fetch your uncle and meet us at Foster’s Drain.”

  I left my shoes on the porch and trotted along the driveway until Papa had gone inside the house. My brothers waved at me. I’d hoped that one of them would tag along, but neither one was much for Uncle Stan and Mama’s sister, Aunt Arzula, who was clearly touched in the head.

  Slow, shuffling steps on the warm dirt finally delivered me to the field where Uncle Stan trudged behind his old mule, Viola, breaking new ground for fall planting. The plowshare between them hissed as it cut through the sandy soil. Lather covered Viola’s flanks, and sweat darkened every stitch of my uncle’s shirt and much of his overalls. They plowed to the end of the row where I stood. Touching Viola’s nose reminded me of our feather mattress after Mama would sun it all day in the yard.

  Uncle Stan rolled his shoulders, making the leather harness rise and fall. He stood a few inches under six feet tall, lean and wiry, but looked tired all the time. His lower jaw, usually stubbly by noon, hung slack; his reddened nose drooped; and the skin under his eyes bagged, as if his face was melting. A battered straw hat drooped low on his head. His work shirt and overalls gapped at the neck and hung loose in the legs; his body seemed better suited to the nice clothes Papa wore. As ever, he squinted when he looked at me, his eyes the blue of worn-out dungarees, and I wondered again whether I’d once given him a bad scare or somehow made him permanently angry at me.

  “Hey,” he said in his soft voice.

  “Hey. P-p-papa’s taking us swimming at Foster’s Drain. He, um, s-sent me to fetch you.”

  “Why?”

  Viola nuzzled my hands and pockets, her snorts like steam from an overheated radiator. “It’ll be crowded there, with white folks downstream, so Lonnie and N-Nat ain’t allowed to.”

  “Ain’t allowed to what?”

  “Learn me to swim.”

  His eyes closed completely. I waved flies off Viola’s head while he stood still and melted some more. One eye opened a little. “Your mama gonna be there?”

  “No, sir.”

  His eye shut again and he squeezed the leather grips of the plow, which had turned almost black from years of use. With a sigh, he said, “OK.” He raised the plowshare out of its furrow. In a louder, more confident voice than he used with people, he called, “Viola, haw.” She turned left, and they tromped along the edge of the row to a small barn. “Gee, gee,” he ordered, turning the old mule to the right to get her through the barn doorway.

  A high-pitched voice screeched, “Bud, you get over here.” Aunt Arzula stood on their porch, looking swollen under her clothes. As I approached her, I counted three dresses she’d put on, each of the collars scooped differently, the sleeves of various lengths. Tiny red poppies on one homemade outfit contrasted with the green diamonds of another and huge sunflowers from the third calico pattern. I saw an old pair of men’s brogans on her small feet; she had to scuff to keep the work shoes from sliding off while she walked to the porch steps. She held out a fruit jar brimming with water.

  I thanked her and eyed the glinting surface for wiggle-tails. My aunt had a bad habit of not skimming off mosquito larvae after she drew up a pail from the well. Sure enough, a dozen flicking, tadpole-like swimmers crisscrossed the water with more ease than I could ever muster. I tipped the jar toward me as I raised it to my mouth, spilling the top few inches onto the steps and my hot feet.

  She put her hands on her hips, stretching the seams on the outermost sleeves. “In all my born days, you’re the spillingest boy I ever seen. You ain’t never drunk right even once in my house.”

  “Yes’m,” I murmured. Four wiggle-tails
had stayed in the glass. I slurped water, crossing my eyes to keep track of the swimmers as they headed for my mouth. Only three remained when I looked into the jar again. I wiped a hand across my lips and moved my tongue around the insides of my cheeks, but knew I’d swallowed the bug.

  A crow cried and Aunt Arzula turned around twice clockwise and then once the other way, muttering something to herself and rubbing a bald spot on the side of her head where she’d worried away all the hair. She focused on me again. “Wha’d you tell Stan that run him off like that?”

  I told her of Papa’s idea for a swimming lesson.

  “So he’s gonna touch the river bottom?”

  “Yes’m, I reckon he will.”

  She made a drawn-out O sound. “I’ll have to make the house safe for baby.” She shuffled inside and began setting flat things on the plank floor: smoothed out rags, a serving tray, dented baking sheets. Her heavy shoes kicked some of them askew, forcing her to reset the makeshift walkway.

  I put her fruit jar on the porch and slipped down the stairs. In the shade along the side of their home, I waited for Uncle Stan. Near the stacked-stone foundation pillars that made a breezeway under the house, a small cemetery plot lay. A pile of rocks marked where they had buried their baby daughter ten years ago. Mama once said that her always-strange sister had gone downhill soon after the infant suddenly took sick and died. As Uncle Stan walked toward me across his half-plowed field, I wondered how he managed not to go crazy living with Aunt Arzula. Maybe he was hoping to melt away.

  He had removed his work boots and now stood before me barefoot, the skin below his denim cuffs as white as a maggot. “Don’t y’all still swim at Fan’s Wash-hole?”

  “The drain flows a lot faster.” In fact, the tumbling current had nearly drowned me several times.