by Larry Brown
“You havin trouble with your prostrate gland again, Virgil?”
“Yeah. I reckon I need to go back to the doctor and let him stick his finger up my ass again.”
He walked back over to Woodrow and Woodrow stood up.
“Ain’t no need to wait around on him. If he ain’t back by this afternoon I’ll ride over here again and check on him. Come on and I’ll run you by the store and then I guess I’ll go home and get some sleep.”
They turned around in the pasture and drove back up to the blacktop road and turned right. At the top of the next hill they passed the church and its yard full of cars and trucks. Virgil saw Jewel’s car there parked under a big tree and a small pang of longing to see the boy went through him. Maybe before too much longer. There was still a good bit of water in the river. The catfish were hard to catch when it was this hot but he thought he knew where there might be some bream biting. If nothing else just an afternoon on the riverbank with the boy. The two of them together, he liked that, liked answering his questions except when they were about Glen. Went over there and fucked her. He kept looking out the window long after the church had gone past.
“What you shakin your head about Virgil?”
“Aw hell. Just that boy. I just feel real bad about him. He’s a good little old boy.”
“He loves to fish, don’t he?”
“Yep.”
They were back in the hills now and more houses appeared and there were mailboxes by the road and fenced yards and barns and field equipment in sheds, the post office, and finally the store. Woodrow pulled in and parked. The dog in the backseat raised his head, maybe thinking he was home. They got out and slammed the doors. Some folks were sitting around the storefront on crates and drink boxes, empty cotton poison cans.
“Let me get old Naman out,” Woodrow said. “He may need to use the bathroom.”
He opened the back door and found a leash on the floorboard and snapped the catch into a big ring on the dog’s collar and let him out. The hound was large even for his breed. He leaned his hips back and opened his mouth and lowered the front half of his body and stretched in the sunshine.
“Come on, Naman.”
Woodrow walked him around the side of the store and the dog raised his leg over the air compressor, looking around sleepily.
“That’s a big dog,” somebody said. Virgil turned to see who had spoken. The voice sounded familiar.
It was a boy about eighteen, barefooted with blue jeans and a T-shirt.
“Yeah, he is,” Virgil said. He couldn’t figure out who the boy was. “How’s it goin?”
“Pretty good, Mr. Virgil, how you?”
The name still wouldn’t come to him and then he remembered a smaller version of him in shorts, trying not to cry, a fishing lure hung in his hand.
“Tommy Babb,” he said. “I like to not recognized you, boy. Where you been?”
The boy smiled then and leaned back against the wall. Virgil hadn’t seen him in years and his short body was now packed with muscle. He used to see him on the river bridge fishing all the time, his bicycle leaning against the rail. He’d always wave to Virgil when he went by.
“I’m in the army now,” he said. “I just come home on leave. How’s old Puppy these days?”
Virgil wouldn’t have thought the boy was old enough to be in the army. It didn’t seem possible that this child could be a soldier.
“He’s all right, I guess. Got three kids. He works for the county now.”
Virgil stood there for a moment and then he bent over and pulled up a Coke case and sat down. “How long you been in the army?”
“About six months. I’m through with all my schools. They’re gonna ship me out before long so I thought I’d come home for a while. See Daddy and them. You remember when you took that lure out of my hand?”
Virgil nodded. It was a day long ago. “That was pretty bad, wasn’t it?”
“I thought it was. You remember how it was?” Tommy held up his hand to illustrate and Woodrow brought the hound back around to the front. “It was in this thumb and this first finger, had em stuck together. They was four of em in past the barb and you took some needle-nose pliers and cut the hooks off and pushed em on through.”
“I remember,” Virgil said. “You didn’t shit in your britches, did you?”
Tommy grinned and an old man beside him smiled.
“I might near did.”
“You want a Coke, Virgil?” Woodrow said. “I’m gonna take this dog on and go to bed, I guess, get up this evenin and go check on old Nimrod. See if I can find him before somebody runs over him.”
Virgil scratched his jaw. “I’ll get me one in a minute. I think I’m just gonna sit over here for a while.”
“You don’t want me to run you on home?”
“Naw. I can walk or catch a ride with somebody later on.”
Woodrow was loading the dog back into the car and after he closed the door he paused beside it. “I’ll run that wormer over one of these days before long. Let’s go drink a beer sometime.”
“All right. I’ll see you, Woodrow. Thanks for the ride.”
Woodrow got in his car and he cranked it up and left. The dog was standing in the backseat looking out the window. Virgil moved his Coke case in out of the sun and pulled out his makings, then stuck them back in his pocket and got up.
“I remember what I come over here for now,” he said.
He put one foot on the low step and stopped for a moment.
“Y’all want a cold drink?”
“No thanks, Mr. Virgil.”
“Not me, Virgil.”
He went on inside and opened the door on the drink box and peered into the darkness and got a little green glass Coke and opened it on the box. He took a sip and looked at the vacant counter. There was a rack of cakes and bread midway down the floor and he walked over and stood looking at the things displayed there. Banana pies, oatmeal cookies, Moon Pies. He got a Moon Pie and a small bag of chips and carried his things over to the counter and put them all down.
“Hey Junior,” he said. A door opened at the back and then a cloth curtain parted as a man came through on a pair of crutches. His left foot was bound in a thick cast and it went up nearly to his knee. It was coated with greasy handprints.
“Hey Virgil. Hold on, I’m slow today.” He made his progress in a series of stops and starts, hitching himself along by degrees.
“I thought you’d have that thing off by now.”
“Aw hell, the doctor said it needed to stay on another week and be sure that bone’s healed.”
When he got to the counter he took the crutches from under his arms and leaned them against the wall. He gripped the counter and eased himself onto the high stool behind the register.
“Whew,” he said. “Althea went to church and left them younguns here and I can’t hardly watch em by myself. What else for you, Virgil?”
“Let me have a pack of Camels.”
He sipped his Coke while Junior reached high and propped himself with one arm for the cigarettes and then started punching buttons on the register.
“I heard Glen was back home,” he said.
“Yeah. Puppy drove down and got him yesterday and they got in about dinnertime.”
The storekeep was squinting through his glasses at each item as he rang it up.
“You gonna drink that Coke here, Virgil?”
“Yeah. Let me have a box of matches, too.”
Junior tossed them on the counter and pecked at his machine with a bony forefinger. A little bell rang and the cash drawer slid open. He peered at the tape and leaned forward to hold it with his fingers, glancing at the items and nodding to the tape until apparently he was satisfied with what it said.
“Dollar and a half, Virgil.”
Virgil handed him the money and put the cigarettes in his pocket. He picked up the chips and the Moon Pie and Junior gave him his change. The drawer rolled shut and Virgil heard a car go down the road, but it
was headed toward the church. Junior scratched his ear and leaned on the counter.
“I sure hate it you’ve had such troubles, Virgil. I wouldn’t wish it on a enemy.”
Virgil didn’t know what to say. He stood there uneasily sipping his Coke. Other people had said stuff like that to him and all it did was make him feel worse.
“I saw Jewel one day a while back,” the storekeep said.
“Is that right?”
“Yeah. That’s a cute little old boy she’s got. Just cute as he can be.”
Virgil just nodded. He looked out to the road.
“Yeah he is,” he said. “Well. I’m gonna go out there and talk to these boys. I’ll see you, Junior.”
“You come back, Virgil.”
“Yeah.”
He stepped back outside. His face was burning just a little. He sat back down on the Coke case and stuck the cigarettes in his shirt pocket. The old man had gone. He was a veteran of the first world war and Virgil had heard him speak of the Argonne Forest and how the shells landed first to the west, then to the east, and that you had to run to either side once you knew the coordinates because the next one was coming right down the middle.
It was hot even in the shade. He didn’t have a watch but he guessed it wasn’t dinnertime. Nobody was leaving the church yet. There was an old store across the road that had been closed for a long time but he could remember it being open from the time he was a boy, long before he went to the war. The windows were boarded shut now, the planks on the front porch gapped and broken, the whole building leaning a little to the left. It looked like a good push would bring the whole thing down.
A car came down the road and slowed, pulled in. A door slammed. Mary Blanchard came around the back end of the car and stepped into the shade of the porch. She had on a dark blue dress. She was still a good-looking woman. She stopped when she saw him.
“Why hey, Virgil,” she said.
He turned slightly and nodded at her. “Hey Mary. How you been?”
She pulled a little cigarette holder from the pocket of her dress and tapped one out of the pack, then looked back up at him.
“Pretty good, but I haven’t seen you in a while. I heard Glen was home. How is he?”
Virgil didn’t look at her much. He just glanced at her and reached for his Coke. “He’s all right, I guess.”
She lit the cigarette and he wondered if she’d sit down, but she didn’t. She just kept standing there and looking at him. “Bobby said he saw him.”
She leaned an elbow on top of one of the gas pumps. The Babb boy was watching something across the road. She drew on her cigarette and ran one hand distractedly through her hair. Virgil thought she looked better than ever.
“Is he gonna stay with you?”
“I don’t know. He was over at the house a while ago. He went by his house yesterday I reckon and got his car. I don’t look for him to stay with me, though.”
She watched the boy sitting there and put one hand in her pocket. Another car came by. Virgil looked up at her again. “Has church let out?”
“Yeah.” She glanced at her watch. “I just stopped to get some milk and some bread before I went home. They called and said Bobby wasn’t coming for dinner. He doesn’t hardly have time to sit down and eat sometimes. He stays so busy most of the time. Why don’t you come eat with me? It’ll just be me and you.”
“Well. I don’t know,” he said.
“I got fried chicken. Chocolate pie.”
He looked up at her and she was smiling at him. He knew she wouldn’t have asked if anybody besides that boy had been sitting there. And he wanted to. But Bobby might come in. You never could tell about him. He was apt to show up most anywhere at any time.
“I appreciate it, Mary. I don’t guess I better.”
She didn’t stop smiling. She dropped her smoke and stepped on it and touched him lightly on the shoulder as she came by, heading in.
“Well don’t be a stranger. You hear?”
“Okay,” he said. He could feel the boy watching him. He heard her steps on the floor inside, heard her talking to Junior.
“You caught any fish lately, Mr. Virgil?” The boy had turned back toward him.
“Not lately. It’s been so hot. We need a rain.”
“Yessir. I been over in Georgia. It’s hot over there.”
“How you like the army?” Virgil said. He opened the Moon Pie and took a bite of it.
“It’s all right, I guess. It ain’t bad now that I’m out of basic. You was in the army, wasn’t you?”
“Yeah. World War II.”
“Daddy said you were a prisoner of war.”
He nodded and took a sip of his drink. Almost every day the ax came down and Lt. Roberts tried to catch his head when it went rolling away, like something that had happened yesterday or was still happening. How they’d yipped and squealed with delight at the pumping stream of blood and how the eyes in the head fixed and stared at the sun.
“Yes I was,” he said. “They held me nearly three years.”
“Where was that?”
He heard the register ring inside and wished he could just get in the car with her and go. It wasn’t too late to say yes. But he didn’t want to cause any talk about her. He didn’t care what anybody said about him.
“That was in the Philippines,” he said. “Forty-two. April, I think. We surrendered after three months. I was on Bataan Peninsula. Roosevelt sent MacArthur over to Australia and General King came in.”
“I heard it was rough.”
He looked at the boy’s earnest and sober face. He couldn’t tell him how it really was. There was too much of it, too many bad things that wouldn’t go away even now.
“It was that,” he said. “It ain’t nothin to be proud of. I wish it hadn’t happened.”
“It wasn’t your fault, though.”
“Well. We was cut off. Food, ammunition. Lots of boys got malaria and there wasn’t any medicine. A jungle’s a bad place to have to live.”
He picked up his Coke and leaned over and dropped the rest of the Moon Pie into the trash.
“That thing’s kind of stale,” he said. “You ain’t headed into that mess overseas, are you?”
The boy rocked back on his seat and lowered his head. He nodded slowly and then looked up warily.
“Yessir. I reckon I am.”
“When you got to leave?”
“Two more weeks. They sent me on home cause I’ll be over there for a year.”
Mary came out the door but she didn’t stop. “Bye, Virgil. Hope I see you sometime.”
“Bye.”
He didn’t watch her get into her car, but he watched it when it pulled off. She waved at him.
“I was sorry to hear about Miss Emma,” the boy said.
Virgil stared at the bottle caps and the cigarette butts on the ground in front of him.
“I appreciate that,” he said.
They got quiet. He didn’t want to talk about Emma. He kept thinking that maybe Jewel would come by the store now that church was over. Once in a while a car came down the road but nobody stopped. He didn’t much want to go back home if Glen was still there.
“How’s your leg?” the boy said. “You used to have some trouble with it, didn’t you?”
“It’s okay most of the time. I have to use a cane once in a while but most days I can get around pretty good. I get out and walk regular, try to keep it in shape. You get old as me everything starts to kind of fall apart on you.”
“You need a ride back home? I can give you a ride if you need one.”
“I think I’m gonna sit around here for a while. I get tired of settin around the house.”
He lit another cigarette and looked at the car. It was sitting behind the boy, a new Chevy, bright red, flashy hubcaps.
“That your car there?”
“Yeah. How you like it?” The boy turned around and faced the car. “I just got it. I’m gonna leave it here for Mama to drive and it probabl
y won’t have too many miles on it by the time I get back.”
“Is it a new one?”
“Yeah. I mean yessir. They changed the body style. It’s got a 327 in it and it’ll shit and git. You want to take a ride?”
The boy was already off his seat and putting his empty bottle in the rack.
“Where you gonna ride to?”
“I don’t care. Up the road and back. Come on and go with me.”
“Well. I ain’t rode in a new car in a while.”
Virgil put his bottle away too and opened the little bag of chips as they walked out to the car.
“Hop in.”
Virgil got in. It had bucket seats and a shifter on the floor and the letters SS emblazoned on the steering wheel. The boy got in with the keys and cranked it up. It rumbled gently when he tapped the gas with his foot.
“This is a nice car,” Virgil said.
“Thank you. I’ve done waxed it twice. She’ll do nearly ninety through a quarter.”
“Quarter?”
“Quarter mile. She’ll lay a strip of rubber from here to the curve yonder. Daddy’s scared to set down in it it’s so fast.”
“Well don’t get it up too fast with me in here. How fast will it go?”
The boy eased out on the clutch and they swung out. He pressed the gas and Virgil was pulled back in the seat a little.
“I don’t know,” the boy said. He popped second and a rear tire barked. “I ain’t had it up as fast as it’ll go yet. I been tryin to break it in easy, except I run a few people. Ain’t nobody beat me yet.”
He went up into third gently and they went around the curve beyond the store and out past the cotton gin and up the road toward Paris. The blacktop road was patched and cracked and low grass stood up along both sides of it. The boy dropped the car into high gear and the wind rushed in through the windows.
“She’s nice,” Virgil said.
“I saved my money the whole six months. Didn’t go out much, just stayed in and shined my shoes.” He grinned. “I got some cold beer in the cooler if you want one. You want one?”
“I might drink one if you got plenty.”
“I got plenty. I bought some the other night over at Barlow’s. You ever been over there?”
Virgil reached for a cigarette and pulled his matches out as the car slowed. The boy took a lot of pleasure in shifting the gears. He tromped on it a little and then started edging toward the side of the road.
