Stars of Alabama

by Sean Dietrich

  Maybe it was because he was getting older and tired. Maybe it was because he was slowing down. After six years of tobacco, he’d grown used to the light pace of work.

  The best part of the job was the housing—if you could call it that. It was a crude cabin made of rotting clapboards, a dirt floor, a leaky tin roof, a fireplace made of mud and rock. There were dozens just like it. Crooked structures with cockeyed gables and chickens roaming dirt yards. Eulah and the girls slept inside. Paul, Vern, and Pete slept in a lean-to where the chickens often gathered and left little gifts on their pillows if they forgot to cover them with tarps.

  But mornings brought simple blessings. Coffee over a campfire. A sunrise. Paul’s homemade biscuits from a sack of flour. And children. The children had gotten older since they’d first come to the Pettigrew farm. They were taller, leaner, and just when Paul thought they couldn’t get any more beautiful, they proved him wrong.

  Eulah’s children had become the best part of Paul’s life. So had Ruth. Eulah kept to herself and could go full days without saying much. With each year, the children grew into miniature adults. They acted like it too. Ruth had found her favorite phrase: “I know.” She said it all the time, and it made Paul smile every time the self-assured six-year-old reminded him that she “knew” something.

  Paul could practically write her future. She would grow into a confident girl who didn’t need anything from anybody. And this made him proud of her, even as he hoped he’d live to see that version of her.

  But he might not. People died every day from little things. It was never the big things that got you. It was always the little things that swept you from this planet. But it didn’t concern him, for his purpose in life was clear. These children had become his purpose. And until he’d met them, he only wandered through life with Louisville and Vern. There was never a reason for doing anything. Now he had more reason than he could stand.

  He heard Ruth’s energetic footsteps on the porch. Ruth was often the first to wake in the mornings. Though sometimes Reese would beat her to it. Most mornings, young Ruth would wander onto the porch, half-awake, and sit on Paul’s lap and watch the sun lift itself above the ground and wake up the world. And he would touch her shock of red hair—which was Paul’s favorite thing in the world.

  Ruth galloped down the steps of the ugly house. She was all hair. Paul greeted her, but she was too sleepy to answer.

  “What’re you doing up so early?” he said.

  Ruth rubbed her eyes. She crawled into Paul’s lap and rested her head against his chest. If there was a better feeling in the world, Paul didn’t care to know what it was.

  She watched the world get brighter with him. The sun was becoming warmer every second.

  “Louisville was fussing in her sleep,” said Ruth. “Can’t sleep with all that noise. I wish she’d sleep outside with you.”

  “She’s old and deaf, baby. Her bones are sore. She can’t help all that whimpering.”

  “I know, but it’s hard to sleep.”

  “Oh, you be sweet to my old girl.”

  “How old is Louisville?”

  “Pushing nineteen.”

  “That’s old in dog years, right?”

  “That’s ancient.”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  “You sure know a lot.”

  “Yeah.”

  “In a dog’s world, nineteen’s a record.”

  “Are you older than nineteen?”

  “Not by much.”

  “What will Louisville be like when she’s your age?”

  “I expect Lou will be sitting next to the Lord by then, the lucky girl.”

  Paul ran his fingers through her red curls. Her hair was thick and fell over her shoulders. She was the prettiest child he’d ever seen.

  “Are we really at war?” said Ruth.

  “You and me ain’t, but the rest of the world is.”

  They watched the sun climb. He rubbed her head—more for his satisfaction than for hers. This know-it-all girl was the most important thing he ever did with himself. Sometimes he looked at the stars at night and wondered if this was the reason he was created. For her.

  He said in a whisper, “Almost time to eat. You want me to show you how to stamp biscuits with an upside-down glass? It’s sorta fun.”

  But there was no answer. Her eyes were shut. She slept with her cheek against his chest.

  Their lives weren’t beautiful. In fact, their lives were hard. And whenever they settled into a routine, along came something that changed it. They always seemed to be a few meals away from starvation, and they seemed to have less each month than they had the month before. But life doesn’t have to be beautiful to be pretty, Paul thought. All it needs is red hair.

  “I love you, sweetie,” said Paul.

  “I know,” she whispered.

  Thirty-Three

  Girls into Ladies

  Marigold admired her image in the mirror. She had never admired herself before. But she was admiring herself now, and it was a rare moment of happiness that she did not usually afford herself. But today she was in a good mood. There was something happy in her.

  Helen sat in bed, reading a newspaper. She was sipping coffee from a tin mug and paying no attention to Marigold.

  Marigold smoothed her dress against her tummy. Somewhere along the way, she’d outgrown her girlish frame and childish clothes. She’d become a tall, slender woman. It had all happened right before her eyes so that she never really noticed it. But today she did. And was grateful for it. Most often, when Marigold looked into a mirror, she saw ugly. She saw a big-boned, copper-topped fifteen-year-old.

  “You believe this?” said Helen. “They’re calling up all the men.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The government, they’re gonna steal all our men, ages eighteen to forty-one. Says it right here in the paper.”

  “Take the men? You mean they’re sending them to war?”

  “Well, they sure ain’t gonna teach them to play patty-cake.” Helen turned the page and shook her head. “This war’s gonna put us outta business.”

  Earlier that week, Marigold had gone into town and stood in line at the post office. There she’d met an old lady in a blue dress with a matching hat. Most women avoided Marigold, but not this woman. They had talked. The woman was a pleasant woman who was better at conversation than most people. Before they’d parted ways, Marigold felt a familiar heat in her palms. It started in her palms and moved upward to her elbows, then her shoulders. She was no longer afraid when it happened. She knew what it meant, and she knew what she had to do when her hands became hot.

  She did not ask the woman before she laid her hand on her neck. No sooner had Marigold touched her than she developed a headache that was so splitting it made her vision blur and her teeth hurt. The woman had only closed her eyes and started to cry. Marigold embraced her outside the post office.

  “Sometimes,” the woman told Marigold, “my migraines get so bad that I go two, three days without sleeping.”

  But Marigold already knew this before the woman said it. She had seen the woman’s pain when she touched her.

  “Are you a healer?” the woman had asked Marigold.

  “No,” said Marigold.

  “What are you?” the woman asked.

  Marigold shrugged. “A redhead.”

  Marigold was interrupted from inspecting herself in the mirror by a horrible sound. Helen had dropped her newspaper and leaned over the edge of her bed. She wrenched forward. She moaned. The sound of splattering came next.

  Marigold ran to Helen, who was doubled over, vomiting onto the floor. She hurled again and again, until nothing more came up. She wiped her mouth with her forearm, caught her breath.

  “I can’t believe this,” Helen finally said. But she was interrupted by more heaving.

  Marigold touched her. She wanted to help Helen, but there was no heat in her hands, only her normal, clammy skin.

  “Can’t believe what?
” Marigold said.

  “I’m too old for this,” Helen moaned. “This must be some kinda joke.”

  “What’s a joke?”

  “I thought I was all dried up inside. I thought . . . I thought . . . I thought I was all used up.”

  Helen leaned over her bedpan. She missed. The floor was painted with bile. The smell made Marigold ill.

  “This is my punishment,” said Helen. “This is judgment, judgment for what I am.”

  She heaved several times until she was kneeling on the floor, leaning over the bedpan, crying.

  Marigold rubbed her hands together. She willed them to become warm. She wanted nothing more than to rid Helen of nausea. She concentrated on her palms, but nothing happened. She tried patting them against her thighs. She closed her eyes. She even said a short prayer. But nothing happened. So she rested her hand on Helen’s neck, which was covered in a thin film of sweat.

  “What am I gonna do with a baby?” said Helen.

  The words made Marigold think of Maggie. She thought of the day she lost her. She remembered everything about the day. And in this moment, she became a dumb fifteen-year-old all over again. She felt as lost in this world as she’d ever been. And her hands became as hot as fire.

  She touched Helen on the shoulder. She felt a current pass between them. It was like electricity, only gentler. The heat grew so hot, Marigold’s hand became slippery. When the heat dissipated, Helen stopped vomiting and wiped the corners of her mouth and turned to face Marigold.

  “What in the devil did you just do to me?” Helen backed up against the wall. “What did you do to me?”

  “I don’t think the Devil had anything to do with it,” said Marigold.

  Thirty-Four

  Laborers

  “Coot’s in love,” said Aaron in a singsong-like voice. “Coot’s in love. And he’s got it bad too.”

  “Yeah,” said Billy. “He’s in love, alright. Look at him, the big dummy.”

  The night sky over the Oswalt sawmill was peppered with a million stars that seemed to get brighter with each passing minute. Teems of young men twirled their young ladies on the pinewood dance floor. Lanterns dangled above and candles adorned tables, but Coot thought these were poor substitutes for stars.

  The sounds of shoes on the dance floor were almost louder than the fiddle band that serenaded them. Clomping sounds of waltzing people filled the night with happiness and the kind of imagined adventures that youth offers.

  Coot was watching from a distance with the other mill workers near the barn. Coot was watching her. He always watched her. She was the loveliest thing on two feet. He could feel his face wearing a grin, even though she was so far away. Judy Bronson spun like a fairy out on the dance floor. Her blonde hair caught the light from the lanterns. It was illuminated and made her look like a heavenly being.

  Coot had never been in love before. Not even close to it. But he believed he was in it now. With Judy Bronson. Of course, she hardly knew he existed, but this was only a minor technicality.

  “Hey, Coot,” said Aaron, snapping his fingers in front of Coot’s eyes. “Are you even with us?”

  “Think he’s had too much moonshine,” said Billy.

  “No way,” said Aaron. “Not the preacher. He don’t never touch liquor.”

  “He’s a regular J. Wilbur Chaplain, ain’t he?”

  One boy slapped Coot’s shoulder. “Tell me, Mister Chaplain, are you for or against the Eighteenth Amendment? Inquiring minds wanna know, Reverend!”

  The boys laughed so hard Coot thought they were going to empty their bladders in their britches.

  But Coot didn’t care. He was busy watching Judy. Judy knew how to dance, and Coot had never known this until tonight. She was nothing but graceful. No, poised was a better word for it. She was long and poised. Fair. That was also a good word for what she was. She was very fair. She had white-blonde hair, and a charm that made even the grossest mill workers behave like Sunday school teachers when they were near her.

  Coot knew he didn’t have a chance with her, but he was in love nonetheless. And you can’t control who you love. Even if it’s bad for you. You can control what you know and what you think and what you do. But not who you love.

  “Hey, Preacher,” said Aaron. “You’re creeping me out with that face you’re wearing.”

  More laughter.

  Judy was in the arms of Baby Joe, the boy with dimples. Girls loved Joe’s dimples. Coot had once tried to give himself dimples by exercising his smiling muscles until they were sore, but it didn’t work. What he would’ve given for a pair of dimples like Baby Joe’s. Those things were top-shelf.

  Joe spun Judy in a circle, her hair lifting from momentum. Coot wanted to die a slow death when she passed him. He knew she would never see anything in him.

  After all, girls were only interested in men who wore army uniforms. Ever since he’d started working at the mill, Coot had noticed he’d gotten even uglier than before. His ears seemed to get bigger every time he looked at them. And his pants were falling off him from all the hard work and small suppers. He’d become a telephone pole with floppy ears and donkey teeth.

  And tonight he looked even worse than usual. Tonight Coot wore an uncomfortable necktie he’d bought in town. He’d chosen green because he once heard Judy say that green was her favorite color. What a waste of money, Coot thought to himself. She doesn’t even know I’m alive. She’ll never even notice this stupid green tie.

  Judy spun past Coot. She flashed a smile when she saw him staring. “Why, Coot,” she said in passing. “I ain’t never seen you in a necktie before.”

  Coot kicked himself for not buying seventeen hundred green neckties.

  Baby Joe stuck his tongue out at Coot. The other men who stood nearby were all dressed in green uniforms and side caps. They laughed at Coot.

  “With friends like Joe, who needs enemies?” said Aaron.

  “Joe’s a cocky little twerp,” said Billy. “The Germans will cut him down to size, just wait.”

  “Twerp?” said Aaron. “Why, he’s taller than you are.”

  “No he ain’t,” said Billy. “We’re practically the same height. Ain’t we the same height, Coot?”

  But Coot could not be jolted out of his own thoughts. He was already plotting his trip into town the next day to spend every dime he had at a men’s clothing store, where he would make the biggest necktie purchase ever recorded in county history.

  “Coot,” said Billy again. “Am I as tall as Baby Joe?”

  “Close,” Coot said.

  Coot himself was one of the tallest workers at the Oswalt Mill. In the group photograph taken that year, the photographer put him in the back row. The only man taller than Coot was Dieter Schlaff, the German man who could hardly speak English without spitting on himself.

  But even though Coot was tall and broad, he would never wear a uniform. The doctor at the military office had heard something irregular when he’d listened to Coot’s heartbeat. Coot would never forget the way the man frowned and said, “Afraid to tell you this, son, but you’re 4-F.” Ineligible for service all because of a strange sound within his heart.

  When the music ended, everyone clapped. The dancers on the floor dispersed. The music became fast and lively. A few couples took the floor and started stomping their feet, kicking, and making hollering noises. Buck dancing was something the country people did, and it was almost humorous to see.

  Judy Bronson came near the clot of young men where Coot was standing. Her presence made Coot nearly urinate on himself and forget how to say his name.

  “Ain’t got music like this in Columbus,” said Judy, who stood close enough to Coot that he could smell her perfume. “This here’s a real string band.”

  Coot nodded. He’d meant to say, “How are you doing tonight, Judy?” or “Isn’t it stunning weather on this fine summer’s eve?” But what came out of his mouth was a collection of sounds with no intelligible meaning.

  Judy looked at h
im with furrowed brows. She studied his face and said, “You’re a funny one, ain’t you?”

  He couldn’t get any words out. Behold the Great Preacher of the Plains. Big ears. Long legs. Classification: 4-F. And completely tongue-tied.

  William Oswalt suddenly appeared before Judy. The young man wore an officer’s uniform with a gold emblem on his cap. He asked if she wanted to dance. William was built like a spruce, with broad shoulders and a square jaw. The uniform made him look like a hero even though his feet hadn’t touched foreign soil yet.

  Judy handed her drink to Coot. And she was gone.

  “How do you like that?” said Aaron. “Stupid Will can have anyone he wants here tonight, and he took Judy.”

  Coot didn’t answer. He only stood watching.

  “Am I as tall as William?” asked Billy. “He’s not that much taller than me, is he?”

  Aaron laughed. “Would you quit worrying about how tall you are?”

  “I think I’m as tall as he is,” said Billy.

  “He’s a whole foot taller than you, shrimp.”

  Will was the son of the wealthiest mill owner in south Alabama. The Oswalt Mill had been the largest mill for too many decades to count. Will’s father also raised beef and dairy cows on twenty-five hundred acres. He owned more land than anyone in the state almost. The newspapers called the Oswalts the Kings of Alabama. Kings. With a capital K. And no necktie, no matter how green, could compete with that.

  Coot loosened his necktie and left the clot of young men.

  “Hey, Preacher,” said Aaron. “Where’re you going?”

  “Don’t know,” said Coot. “Anywhere else.”

  “He’s probably going to listen to J. Wilbur Chaplain,” said another boy.

  “Shut up,” said Aaron.

  “Hey, Preacher,” said one man in a uniform. “Don’t forget to say your prayers.”

  Coot wandered into the darkness and hitched his thumbs in his pockets. He had gone from feeling low, to high, to low again. That’s how love worked, he guessed.

  He thought about the old man who twirled a lasso beneath prairie stars. He wondered where the old man was in the years they’d been apart. He missed Blake, but he half hated him too for sending him away. Still, on nights like this, Coot wondered what sort of advice the old man would’ve given him. Blake always had good advice.