Father and Son

by Larry Brown

  All that morning Mary thought about Virgil. It was too wet to work in the yard, but after Bobby left she cleaned up the breakfast dishes and put on an old dress and went out there to see about hanging out some clothes. It was still cloudy and she decided she’d just wait until it cleared off. She was glad for the rain. The farmers needed it.

  She went back in and gathered a load of clothes to wash and got her little sharp paring knife and stepped into the muddy rows of the garden to gather some okra and tomatoes. She put the okra in her pockets but she didn’t get all of it. When they’d planted it Bobby told her they didn’t need that much. Her pockets were bulging with it and there was still half a row to cut. She picked all the tomatoes she could hold in her arms and unloaded it all on the kitchen counter. While she was in there she got to thinking that Virgil might want something good for lunch, so she started making some spaghetti sauce in a skillet and left in on low to simmer. If Bobby came in he could eat with her, and then she could take the rest of it over to Virgil. She knew he didn’t eat right half the time and wouldn’t unless he had somebody to take care of him. And it was more than just that. It wasn’t good for either one of them to spend so much time alone. A long time ago it hadn’t mattered as much, when Bobby was growing up and needed her and there wasn’t as much time to think about all that. But he was home so rarely now. He stayed so busy. Getting up and going at all hours of the night whenever the phone rang to wake her long enough to listen to part of a sleepy conversation and then he would call to her and tell her he was going and she would drift back to sleep hearing his car go down the road. All the trouble on the weekends, all the drunks and the fights and the wrecks. All the bad stuff always happened then. People got to drinking and they went crazy.

  She went back to the garden and gathered some more of the okra, but it was so muddy at the far end of the row that she thought she’d just leave the rest of it for later. Going back across the yard she saw her wheelbarrow beside the door of the barn with her little tomato plants in it. All that rain, it was probably full of water, drowning those tiny plants. Her old tennis shoes squeezed liquid mud from the grass as she walked down the hill.

  The wheelbarrow was half full of water and just the tops of the tomato plants were sticking up above it. She slipped the knife into her pocket carefully because it was so sharp and then walked around behind the wheelbarrow and picked up on the handles to tip it forward and let the water drain off. It poured out the front onto the ground and she eased it up a little bit at a time, trying not to slide the plastic pots out with it. She was going to set them out before long so they’d have fresh tomatoes right on into the fall. Bobby loved them so much. And everything would probably work out okay about him and Jewel. It was just Glen she was worried about. He’d been in so much trouble and she knew it was because of what happened to his brother. A child like that, he couldn’t help but be affected by something bad like that. And all this time later, for Emma to do what she’d done. She’d never understood that, people thinking they were ending all their troubles without ever thinking about the trouble they were leaving for the people behind them. She wondered if they’d ever told Glen the truth about that. It was just as well if they hadn’t. But he’d probably find out the truth one day anyway. You couldn’t keep a thing like that a secret forever. You might keep it for a long time, years might even go by, but somebody would eventually tell it.

  She couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t claim that little boy. He was a nice little boy. Always behaved in church. And he was Virgil’s grandchild. Hers if Bobby married Jewel. And there might be other children later. It was so nice to think about. She was almost scared to think too much about getting back with Virgil after all this time. She hoped he would call her.

  The hoe handle struck her above the left eye—she saw it looming, swinging in, hands gripping it—and she had a vague impression of tumbling sideways over the tipping wheelbarrow. Then the ground rushed up to her face and smacked her into a black place with a soft whump.

  Bobby got back to the jail around the middle of the morning and he parked the car next to the steps. He left the keys in it and got out, opened the back door and waited for his prisoner to get out. There had been no words said on the way back and he wouldn’t even look at Bobby now.

  Bobby got him by one arm and shut the door behind him. They turned toward the jail and stood there for a moment, and then he turned him loose.

  “All right,” he said. “You know the way in.”

  He never expected him to run then. He wasn’t even paying that much attention to him. He had mud all over him and he wanted to get inside and change clothes. There was a quick movement beside him and then his prisoner was running hard across the wet parking lot, holding his cuffed hands to his chest. In a way it didn’t surprise him. That was the thing of it. They never wanted to pay for what they did.

  He didn’t have to chase after him or even draw his gun. A city police car turned in at the end of the parking lot and Bobby just watched as the officer behind the wheel realized what was happening. The car slid to a quick halt and the prisoner washed up against it, rolled over against the grill one time, and tried to go around the other side. But he slipped on the pavement and the officer stepped out and collared him. His knees almost went out from under him and he sagged against the city cop. Bobby walked over there slowly, reaching for a cigarette, and he stopped for just a moment to light it. Then he walked on up there.

  The officer was still holding him, and Bobby nodded and the officer turned him loose. They watched him. He leaned against the fender of the patrol car, his face twisted, and he laid his manacled hands on the shiny hood of the car where drops of water from the morning rain were beaded, and he seemed to be praying as the tears began to roll out of him. His eyes squeezed shut hard and deep sobs began to wrack his frail body. He confessed it all, and it only took a minute, a deed done with a walking cane to a little boy who was sick and would not stop crying. Bobby and the officer stood there in the street under the cloudy sky with their heads down and listened to it.

  He seemed to feel better after he did that. He got off the hood and stood up, sniffling loudly through his nose and trying to wipe his eyes with the cuffs on his hands. Then he straightened himself and started walking briskly back across the parking lot toward the front door of the jail, as if he had some high purpose, some destination other than the one that was his.

  Bobby had him back in the cell and he was looking around the office to see if there was any coffee made when Mable came over and stopped. He was doubtfully eyeing the dregs of some evil-looking fluid he had poured into his cup that was dark and thick and smelled rank.

  “Somebody called for you a while ago, Bobby.”

  “Who was it?” he said, and poured the stuff into the sink.

  “Jewel Coleman. Said she wanted to talk to you.”

  He rinsed the cup and looked up at Mable. “She say what she want?”

  “Naw. Just wanted to know if you were in. Said to tell you she called.”

  He set the cup back onto the towel where they kept them. It seemed like somebody should keep some coffee made for him. He guessed he’d have to make it himself and he started looking for the stuff.

  “She want me to call her?”

  “She didn’t say. What you looking for?”

  “The coffee. I wish y’all would keep it someplace I could find it or keep some made.”

  It wasn’t like Jewel to call up there. She probably wanted to know what his mother said. But he didn’t really have time to go by there or get into all that on the phone. He could give her a call later on this evening.

  “I’ll make you some coffee. Go on back there and change your clothes. You look like you’ve wallered in a mud hole.”

  “Holler at me when it’s ready, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  He turned and went down the hall. He thought maybe they could take David out sometime, maybe this weekend if things settled down. He had to find Glen and have
a talk with him. A calm talk. Get everything straight with him.

  Mable called after him, “We gonna keep him a while longer?”

  He stopped and turned around. “Who’s that?”

  “That one you just brought back in.”

  “Oh yeah. He’s gonna be here for a while.”

  He went on back to his office and sat down at his desk. Then he got back up and locked the door for a few minutes and changed into a clean uniform and got another pair of boots. When he opened the door Mable was bringing him a cup of coffee up the hall. He thanked her and went over to his desk again and leaned back in the chair. There was a lot to do yet. Somebody would have to take his confession down and then take him over to the courthouse and get him charged. More paperwork. More time in court. The main thing he had to do was go back out there and dig that child up as soon as he could. That might take most of the afternoon and it could always start raining again, but he hoped not. He had to call the coroner and he had to call Jackson and let them know he had to have an autopsy done. Mable could probably do some of that for him.

  He picked up his coffee and slid the telephone closer and dialed his house. He hated to have to tell her about this one. She wouldn’t understand it any better than she had about the others. But he didn’t understand it himself. The phone rang in his house and he put one boot up on the desk. Probably drunk when he did it. Probably no money to go to the doctor. There was no telling what time he’d be through tonight. He might not even have time to go see Jewel. It rang again. He couldn’t let that baby keep lying in that ground out there. They’d need shovels, a body bag. He needed to round up somebody to help him. It rang again and he figured she was probably out in the yard. Out there doing something, always was. Come on, Mama, answer the phone. It rang three more times and he pulled it away from his ear and started to hang it up, but she was probably trying to get to it, had her hands covered with flour or something, so he let it ring a few more times. On the tenth ring he knew she wasn’t home and he hung it up.

  He started pulling forms out of his desk drawers, the telephone numbers he needed.

  “Hey Mable?” he called.

  “Yes sir,” she said when she appeared at the door.

  “Would you mind runnin out to get me a sandwich?”

  “Not a bit. What you want?”

  “I don’t care. A hamburger. Anything. I got so much to do I ain’t got time to go get it myself.”

  “I’ll find you something.”

  “Thanks, Mable. And would you raise Harold on the radio and tell him I’m gonna need him pretty soon? Please ma’am?”

  “Sure will.”

  She went back down the hall and he scanned with his finger down the list of numbers. He wondered briefly where his mother could be at this time of day and then he thought no more of it. He had a lot of things on his mind just then.

  He dragged her by the arms and she was lighter than he would have thought. There was a little runnel of blood coming down over her left eye and sliding off her cheek, and he had to hold up on her arms to keep her head out of the mud as he was going into the barn with her.

  It was dark in there, cool and quiet. An old wagon stood backed in between posts, fat bags of musty corn encrusted with dust. A hay rake with one flat tire sat at the rear, the claw tines frozen with rust and disuse. An old smell of horses and fertilizer and cow shit through which he dragged her, breathing heavily from exertion and the weight of this deed. Some okra fell out of her pockets as he dragged her along.

  He stopped for a moment to rest and to look for a place to put her. Some fitting niche where the thing could be done without wallowing in any nastiness. He dropped his hold on her arms.

  Some carpenter long ago had erected poles of peeled oak and had hammered the joists to them. Glen looked up through the rafters and could see specks of light through the tin roof even though it was still cloudy and the promise of more rain was in the sky. A loft at the back held stacked bales of hay. There was a ladder standing up against it and he walked over and looked at it. He shook it with one hand. It seemed rickety and he didn’t think he could get her up there by himself. He turned and looked at her. Her eyes had not opened and one of her tennis shoes had come off. She lay like one braced against sleep, her arms out to her sides and flat on her back with her legs slightly spread and her face turned to one side in a soft grimace.

  He walked around, feeling somehow like a burglar or a lecher, a voyeuristic bent inside him that had never been his intention. But some wounded piece of him still cried out for the need to punish Bobby, and she was the one who could cause him the most hurt. She was the easiest.

  He wandered among dusty relics, an old icebox whose chromed hinges had barnacles of corrosion encroaching. Cigar boxes stacked on a shelf. He lifted some of the lids and peered in to see: ancient fishing lures, goggle-eyed wooden minnows and silver spoons, a busted padlock, tarnished shotgun shells. A single round for a .50-caliber machine gun that felt like it weighed half a pound. She lay sleeping quietly in the hall of the barn whenever he looked her way.

  It was still overcast when he walked to the door of the barn. A few clouds had parted and dark shafts of vapor hung down through a hole in the gray center of the sky and the thunder rumbled far off. He looked back at her but she had not moved.

  Standing there at the entrance he lit a cigarette and stepped back out of sight of the house to kneel with one knee up and smoke and watch her. She had aged. He could remember her writing on the blackboard, could remember her at her desk and going down through the aisles handing out papers and reading from her books with her feet propped on a drawer and the wind coming through the windows billowing her dress up. Now thin strands of gray had settled in her hair and her face was devoid of makeup and her lips were pale. He put his head down on his arms and held the cigarette, rocking gently, waiting for this day to be over.

  After a while he got up and toed a clean place in the scattered hay that lined the floor of the barn and dropped the cigarette and pressed the butt firmly into the black dirt and made sure that it was out. Then he walked to the back of the barn. There was one stall in the corner where hay was piled up beneath a window set into the rear wall. It looked dirty. It looked damp. He didn’t want her to have to lie in that.

  He took another look at her and then walked to the ladder, shaking it one more time, and then he put his foot up on it and began to climb, watchful for the little nails that might pull out, and he went up carefully until he came to the top and stopped. He looked out at the floor of the loft. Fifty or sixty bales of hay were up there. The uprights extended five feet above the floor and he climbed on up and stepped off. Old sea grass ropes had been hung from the timbers. He walked to the nearest bale and bent over, grabbed the strings, carried it to the end of the loft. Looking down to judge its impact with a careful eye he turned loose of it and saw it fall in front of the stall. He went back for another one, dropped it, too. He went back for one more. It hit the other two and bounded across the floor, bouncing once on its end and landing near her. He stood looking down. He could see her stretched out on her back. She still had not moved and he began to wonder if he had hit her too hard. But then he realized that she should have thought about that whenever she was fucking his old man and he climbed back down.

  He pulled the strings off one of the bales and started taking the charges apart, separating the little blocks of hay and scattering them about, the dusty components of stem and seed floating in the air and settling over the floor. He worked calmly, tearing the hay apart and smelling its clean fragrance, it wafting down around his knees and over his shoes, piling up. He kept working and spreading it and he looked through the dirty window to see her garden and her flowers in the yard, her neat back porch.

  When he had all the hay scattered and spread out he bent down to it, spread his hand out to test its resilience. A nice soft bed to lay her upon. He went back to her and got her by the arms again.

  He dragged her into the little stall and he
dropped her arms. She lay as before, but now nested in fresh clean hay. It was like something he might have dreamed a long time ago.

  There were rags for a blindfold hanging over a brace and he took some of them down and knotted them together and tied them around her head, blinding her eyes so she could not see him. Another trip to the loft brought down bale strings with which to bind her arms. He wrapped them around her wrists but not tightly enough to cut off her circulation. He tied them to the posts that flanked the stall. And then he sat down beside her and waited for her to wake up. He wanted her to know what was happening, and he kept telling himself that he could really do this.

  He thought it might rain again, looking out the barn door. And sitting there he saw the overturned wheelbarrow and got up and went out there and righted it. He looked up at the house. Nothing was stirring up there. Not even the wind riffling the leaves in the trees. All was still.

  He went back into the gloom beside her and tried to think where he would go when this was over. But he already knew that.

  Mable brought his sandwich and Bobby kept working. When Harold finally came in, he got his papers gathered up and stacked on his desk and they got into the cruiser and drove out into the county to meet the coroner and his helpers at a lonely and rain-swept crossroads where the hawks had folded their wings to sit on the fence posts and regard the sky with their cold bright eyes. Shoals of water were riffling off the fields and the day was gray and dark, the creeks rising, foaming, the beavers swimming strongly with sticks in their mouths as the men crossed the little bridges in their cars and cast a glance down into the muddy currents. In a small procession they drove to that place where he had already been and unloaded their shovels, and then they went down through the woods.

  The storm had passed and the weeds were wet with that passing. The little pullings of mud at the soles of their boots and the trees dripping water down on them in their sorrow. A small caravan of officials bearing the weight of the law with them. Bobby directed them and at last they stood beside the opened grave with the bones still showing, flies hovering, the short blue flight of a jay over their heads as it dipped and swayed. They started digging the child up and Bobby walked off some distance where he wouldn’t see what was going on and smoked a cigarette. He could hear them talking quietly. He could hear the clay sucking at the blades of the shovels as they pressed their feet down on them. He could remember his mother shushing him and rocking him in her lap one time when he had skinned his knee. He could remember the taste of Jewel’s nipples and the sweet smell of her breath. He wondered if she was thinking of him now.