by James Aura
When the roosters crowed, I had guilt hanging over me like a dark rotten Sycamore limb but the chores had to be done. I milked the two cows, fed the chickens, washed dirty dishes in the sink and then cleaned up the front room, because I knew there’d be company. Every now and then I would think of something and turn to tell Grandma then remember. She was no longer with me.
The first person I called was Opal, who came out to the farm immediately. Opal was a life long family friend. She gave me a hug and looked me up and down.
“Russell, your Grandma was a careful, deliberating woman. We need to look around for a will, or some kind of a testament of instructions. She told me she wrote one and it must be around here someplace.”
Opal helped me search, and sure enough we found a handwritten letter in her nightstand. Grandma wrote it shortly after Daddy’s funeral. She wanted me to have the farm, and for Uncle Wallace to have the livestock. She also wanted a plain pine coffin. The tombstone was already there in the Methodist cemetery with her name on it next to Grandpa’s and the church saved the grave plot for her.
Much to my relief, Opal went with me to the funeral home. The undertaker wanted to sell us a seven thousand dollar casket and a two thousand dollar burial vault.
There was only brief discussion. The undertaker was not happy. He was being told off by a guilt-ridden teenager and a short, brassy black woman. Opal told him Sally Mae Teague wanted an inexpensive, simple funeral- and that was all there was to it.
Opal and Grandma grew up on backwoods dirt farms along Blackwater Creek in the years following the Spanish American War. Nothing had come easy for them. Grandma’s Daddy, one of Black Jack Pershing’s infantrymen, died in a French forest in 1918. Then came the Spanish flu. It wiped out poor families by the thousands. Grandma, her mother and sisters, managed to survive. They worked the farm with one old mule and fishing the creek. They trapped cottontails and muskrats and made molasses from cane. Opal’s family lived a half mile down Blackwater Creek from Grandma’s house. They shared most everything.
I grew up hearing Grandma’s stories about those days. Country folk working and playing in the fields, ignorant of race or class. Grandma sometimes observed that we have two types of kin in this world: Kin by blood and kin by shared memories. Grandma was a little older than Opal, was like a big sister to her. By these rules, Opal was kin and our family thought nothing about it.
Grandma’s funeral was an event. It seemed like the whole church turned out for it. There were people I hadn’t seen since Daddy’s burial.
I did fine until they played one of Grandma’s favorites, ‘In the Garden’.
“And He walks with me and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.”
I managed to hold the hymnal steady through the first verse but my hand began to shake and I sobbed. Nobody else knew what led to her death. It was me blubbering after that announcement about Saigon surrendering. That was when she keeled over.
I felt a firm tap on my shoulder. It was Uncle Wallace. He was Momma’s older brother, and a welcome sight. He handed me a great big handkerchief, and I regained a little composure. Some of the people down at the general store called him a shiftless oddball but he was always nice to me.
The preacher began. “Today we honor and remember Sister Sally Mae Teague and send her to eternal rest in Jesus.
Born August 19, 1899, passed April 30, 1975.
Wife of Everett, mother of Bobby Ray, grandmother of Russell Ray, sister of Lettie Sims, daughter of Willard and Sarah Armour and a friend and helper to all in this congregation.”
They had a carry-in dinner in the church basement after the burial. Uncle Wallace loaded a paper plate with fried chicken, biscuits and gravy. He came over and sat beside me. Across the table, Opal looked him over. She was the only black woman in the crowd and was probably wearing the most expensive clothing. Opal drew a few stares, but Methodists are by and large polite folks.
Uncle Wallace looked serious. I figured he didn’t know he was going to get Grandma’s milk cows, or the sheep and the chickens. That reminded me of all the things that had to be done. I tried to fork a few bites of lemon pie then saw Grandma walk past the church kitchen door. My hand with the fork and the pie started to shake. Then Uncle Wallace leaned over with a half whisper.
“Watch out, Russell. The wolves will be circling. The peckerwoods from the coal companies will be after you very soon, and they will try to lowball you for the rights to dig up the old home place.”
He was late on that admonition. I had already taken three calls from the ‘coal company peckerwoods’. They jumped on the phone as soon as Grandma’s obituary ran in the paper. We knew there was plenty of coal beneath those fields. Nobody really knew about gas or oil, but everybody in the county knew about Big Dog, the huge strip mining shovel that was turning land to the north into god-awful piles of rocks, rubble, slag and coal dust. The shovel had that name painted across its back in ten foot high letters. On quiet nights you could hear the dim roar of that monster machine in the distance. Big Dog ran night and day when the weather was good.
The snake from the coal company even sounded like a snake, on the phone.
“Russssell, that farm is worth so much more underground. You should sell it to us soon. Sally said she was going to sell it to us. So sorry about her untimely demise,” he hissed.
Opal stared at Uncle Wallace and sipped her tea. . She was dressed up in a shiny gold colored blouse and black skirt and high heels. Uncle Wallace had on a brand new pair of overalls, a blue shirt and a black bow tie. His beard was neatly trimmed for a change.
I wondered if they had met.
“Miss Opal, this is my Uncle Wallace. He and my Momma were brother and sister.”
Uncle Wallace nodded and tucked into his chicken and biscuits.
Opal leaned forward and launched into one of her lectures. Her voice was like a trumpet.
“Pleased to meet you, Wallace. I hope you are going to encourage your nephew to do what his grandmother wanted, and stay in college. As I am sure you know, college is really important and Russell is whip-smart.”
Uncle Wallace smiled, and nodded politely. There was an odd gleam in his eye.
Opal went on.
“Russell, an empty head hosts fear. You need to fill that head up with knowledge and be brave and go out and change the world!”
I wasn’t surprised she would lay it on about college. Opal escaped the dirt farm life by getting a scholarship to a college for black folks. She had recently retired and hired a high powered management firm to run her business. I never understood how you could make much money trimming and painting ladies’ fingernails and toenails. But by the time she called it quits, she had a bunch of shops all over and drove a white Cadillac Eldorado with leather seats.
Opal probably didn’t know we were just about out of money. I got a scholarship that covered most of my college tuition-which is why I went to Auburn, even though it was a day’s bus ride away. But I worked several part time jobs to buy food and books and pay rent. My grandparents had done all right with their little farm, but never managed to save much.
The funeral was costing nearly $1,400 dollars. I wrote the undertaker a check up front on the bank account that Grandma and I shared. And I began to wonder if there was enough money in there to cover everything. I stared at the church basement ceiling and thought about my final exams, due to start in three days.
After a few minutes of goodbyes and hugs and handshakes and promises to stay in touch, I felt the need for some peace and quiet. But as I looked around at the folks heading for their cars and trucks, there was no sign of Kim, the curvy nurse of a past, eventful evening.
Our old farmhouse was strange without Grandma. I felt her presence in every room. Unfinished sewing laid on an ironing board in the side room, ladies’ magazines on the coffee table. Some romance-type books on the end table
in the front room. Grandma’s kitchen was full of things I barely recognized, utensils from bygone days that she never seemed to use but kept, anyway. A paddle churn for butter on the counter. A big old cream separator was hunkered in the corner, and other old timey things lurked on the shelves above the stove. Except for the separator, we hadn’t used most of those things in years.
I sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee and contemplating the day. The undertaker check hadn’t bounced. That was a good thing. There was money left in the account for maybe another month’s worth of groceries and gas. But I had no idea what other expenses would suddenly come around the corner. It seemed like there was some big bill that came due every year, maybe a property tax on the farm. Grandma never talked about those things. She didn’t let me help out much with chores, after I started college.
“Just keep up on your books and lessons, Russell. You do that, and everything else will take care of itself,” she told me over and over.
When I came home to the farm to study for finals, I hadn’t milked the cows in months. My hands and wrists were sore from the muscles I hadn’t used. Now there were cows to be milked morning and night. The chickens had to be fed, eggs to be gathered every morning. I wondered how Grandma got it all done, moving in her slow motion way. Every day at noon I walked down the lane to the mailbox, to see what new surprise would turn up.
I hadn’t heard from Uncle Wallace. He didn’t have a phone and he still didn’t know he was getting the animals. At least food and cooking hadn’t been a problem, so far. There were still cakes and pies from neighbors and church folk on the kitchen counter and the table. I had been living on those and milk, coffee and fried eggs. When I’d heat up the cast iron skillet on the stove the smell of bacon grease made me look around. Grandma was still here, about to come in from the henhouse. The whir of the sewing machine, the drone of a soap opera, always in another room. Just past the corner of my eye, she was there.
I imagined her in the front room hovering over the flowers and houseplants from the funeral. I had no idea what most of those plants were, but I had decided to give a bunch to Opal, if she wanted them. Another thing to do.
On this day, sitting at the kitchen table, I decided to get two things done after I finished the usual chores. I needed to get ahold of Uncle Wallace and see if he could look after the farm if I went back for final exams. But first I needed to call the Dean at school, and see if I could be excused from finals, or somehow postpone them. I had been putting this call off; afraid I might get a negative answer. I dialed the Dean’s office and got a secretary. She wouldn’t put me through to the Dean, insisted I come into the office personally, which would involve an all-day bus ride. She also said I would need to bring proof of my grandmother’s passing. So I thanked her then slammed down the phone. I was mad enough to spit barbed wire.
I started out the back door and saw a gray blur dart around a corner of the barn. A dog? Gray fox? Grandma complained about varmints now and then. Her .410 shotgun was propped in the corner next to the back door. Maybe she was using it for something other than running off coal company agents.
I trudged toward the barn with the milk bucket in one hand and the shotgun tucked under my arm, just in case. The dew on the trees and grass sparkled under the sun. A red-tailed hawk soared on the morning shift, floating high above the woods beyond the pasture. I paused outside the kitchen window where small green plants sprouted in the mulched garden patch. They were herbs that Grandma used to season meals in her special way. Basil, oregano, marjoram, garlic and probably catnip. I took a gulp of the cool morning air and realized my world might quickly change from books and chalkboards and lecture halls. It seemed like a big step backwards. But the cows would not wait. They needed to be fed and milked, now.
I finished with the cows and loaded a ten gallon milk can onto the pickup- around 80 pounds- and hauled it out to the main road for the dairy truck to pick up. I wondered how big the milk check would be at the end of the month. As I turned around to go back, I saw Uncle Wallace’s old Chevy Bel Air come around the curve. The windows were open and he had the radio playing some old timey country music- sounded like Earnest Tubb. I waved him to drive on up to the house and followed him in the pickup.
Strangely, when he got out of the Bel Air, the cats came running out of the barn and trotted right up to him. The cats did that for only reason: food. He reached down and picked one up.
“Uncle Wallace, I had no idea you were buddies with these damned cats. How’d that happen?”
He stood there with the cat on one arm and gazed at the barn and the house, looking things over. He was Inspecting, observing, taking stock.
“Russell, we need to have a talk. We’ve lost an awful good woman, you and me.”
With that, he put the cat down, walked to the porch and lowered himself into one of Grandma’s rockers. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a plug of chewing tobacco. His flannel shirt and overalls were probably older than me. His boots were US Army issue, probably from Korea.
I stood in the yard, along with the cats, watching him and thinking, “He looks like he owns the place.” This was odd and a little unsettling. I reached down to pet one of the cats and it edged away from me, as if I was the stranger here, not Uncle Wallace. These cats were ingrates. It was me that poured them a helping of fresh, foaming milk morning and night these past days. Then I had a vision of Grandma carrying a basket of eggs just past the azaleas, cats trailing her.
These Grandma sightings made me unsteady. I reached for the other rocker and waited for a pronouncement from Uncle Wallace. He had a slow, hesitating way of speaking. It was almost an impediment. But I knew he turned over his thoughts awhile before he released them through his mouth.
He leaned back and pulled a coffee can from the corner. It had a bearded man with a turban sipping coffee on the side. I hadn’t noticed it, but judging from the rust, the turban guy had been there for awhile.
I decided to ignore the business with the cats for now.
“Uncle Wallace, I’ve been watching the news about Vietnam. The Communists are rounding people up and putting them in some kind of work camps, and it looks like there are thousands more trying to get away, sailing boats out into the ocean. Daddy would not have been happy about that. He sure hated the Viet Cong but he said the folks he knew around Saigon, were mostly good people. He talked about them and he’d smile “
“Russell, it will soon be Ho Chi Minh City instead of Saigon. The North Vietnamese say they are going to rename it for their head man, who was practically a saint to the Communists. The saint business ain’t so far-fetched either, considering he married a little Catholic gal many years ago in China. Those Catholics do like their saints.”
That didn’t make sense to me, but Uncle Wallace was not one to argue history with. I once spent two hours in the library looking up the history of Christmas trees after he told me they were not Christian at all, and came from some kind of ancient Roman tree worship. He was right, of course.
He spat into the coffee can and gazed at the Chickenhawk sailing slowly on the breeze above the woods. It let out a scream and dived into the trees.
“I guess you found your Grandma’s letter, with the animals going to me and the farm going to you. And I assume you have the bank deal figured out. She made sure you were on the joint account.”
So Uncle Wallace already knew about Grandma’s letter dividing up her estate. I was a little surprised.
“Yes, Opal helped me find it. What do you want to do with the livestock?”
The cows were a lot of work, but the chickens and sheep were easy. I wouldn’t mind keeping them, at least until I had the farm and college sorted out. I awaited his answer.
“Well, I have a modest proposal, Russell. My trailer is old, and if anybody from the county happened out that way, they’d probably get it condemned. I haven’t been able to find regular work in awhile, and that brings us to the present situation.”
I waited. Maybe he’d cl
ear up the odd deal with the cats and the coffee can and the general feeling I got about him ‘owning’ the place.
“As you know, Sally’s arthritis slowed her down. When you went off to college, she asked me to come and help out with the farm. I’ve been milking these cows and looking after things for awhile, now. But she was a proud woman. She wanted you to think she was still holding it all together, out here.”
“When the weather was bad, I’d even sleep in the back room upstairs, with the canned goods. When you came home from school, she told me to make myself scarce for awhile, but she said she was going to tell you I was helping out. It’s the only real job I’ve had in awhile. I even got to know the animals so well that I named most of them.”
This was big news but I wasn’t completely surprised. I had been wondering how my 77 year old Grandmother had been able to keep up the farm so well, especially the cow milking.
Uncle Wallace and I watched as a bunch of crows drove the Chickenhawk up out of the woods and over the next field, circling him like black fighter jets around a red and gray airliner. I got a feeling that more changes were coming.
