The Wettest County in the World

by Matt Bondurant

  Fellas in the army showed me this, Howard said.

  He took Jack’s hand and wrapped the strips of burlap around it and between his fingers, pulling it tight.

  So’s you don’t bust your hands, Howard said.

  When Jack’s hands were well wrapped Howard stepped back and nodded and Jack pawed at the bag a bit, embarrassed to do it in front of his brother. He threw some jabs with his right.

  Here, Howard said, quit foolin’ with that stance. You gotta twist your body with it. And you gotta lead with the left first, save the right.

  Howard shot a couple of straight left jabs into the bag.

  Jack tried some left-right combinations. Howard grabbed the bag to stop it from swinging.

  Other thing you need is a good hook, he said. Most fellas will throw everything real wide, which will leave them open.

  He feigned a few wide, looping haymakers.

  You gotta throw your hooks short and tight. Dip the shoulder.

  Howard squared before the bag and dipped his left shoulder slightly.

  Then hook it hard, he said.

  He ripped a short hook into the midsection of the bag.

  Now, he said, you do that after he’s thrown something. It’s gonna be a right hand, you see, ’cause most is right-handed. He throws the right hand…

  Howard dipped slightly and moved his head to the side.…and then when he misses he will be wide open for the hook.

  Howard fired two quick hooks into the bag.

  Jack set his feet and practiced his jabs, right cross, and left hook. Howard watched with his arms folded.

  You plan on whippin’ somebody?

  Nah, Jack said. Just messin’ around.

  Howard picked up his spool of baling line. He wiped his forehead on his shirtsleeve and squinted in the sunlight.

  Never does turn out like you think, Howard said. When the first swing happens everything is new an’ nothin’ is the way you thought.

  All right, Jack said.

  I’ll tell you what, Howard said, you only need to know one thing. Something ol’ Forrest knows. That’s you gotta hit first, hit with everythin’ you got, and then keep hittin’ until the man is down, and then you hit him some more.

  Jack nodded.

  Many men, Howard said, like the idea of fightin’ but very few likes to get hit. You can make a man wanna quit real quick with that first shot. A good straight left into the nose bone and most will let it be. A man who likes to get hit is the one to watch out for.

  Looking at his brother then Jack realized that he never considered Howard much of a sentient being, never considered that he ever had a real thought or plan about anything. He had always thought of him as some kind of machine or animal, reacting to the world in an instinctual manner. This thought alarmed and embarrassed him.

  Too damn dry, Howard said, kicking at the dirt.

  Then Howard strode through the back of the barn and out into the field. The bag creaked as it swayed slightly. Jack tried to imagine the face of someone on the burlap, first the smirking, laughing face of Wingfield, and went after his nose with his right hand, stepping into his punches. Then he saw the face of Charley Rakes, his egg-shaped head, reaching out and holding Jack by the shoulders. Give me another shot like that, Jack thought. He tucked his fists to his chin and fired a series of tight jabs.

  Chapter 19

  1930

  BY THE END of May the stills up on Turkeycock were steaming out two hundred gallons a week with Jack and Cricket making the night runs to Burning Bag without incident. Jack bought a few more suits, a watch fob, a brand-new Dodge Sport Coupe, and began to sock away money for a big Packard or some other chariot. He had four hundred dollars wrapped in a rag tucked under a loose board in his old bedroom and he perused the wares in town like a man without claim or notion of anything that was not himself. It was a splendid time and in between his father’s tobacco fields, the stills, and the midnight drives, he began his courting machinations.

  Jack managed to lurk at the ag-feed store when Tazwell Minnix made his regular run, and when the man had gone inside he strode by his truck in the lot, Bertha in the cab sucking on a bottle of pop or flipping the pages of a catalog, windows rolled down to feel the breeze. She would squint up through the speckled windshield to catch this swaying apparition coming down the planked walk, bow tied and suited, boots gleaming and strapped tight, a cigarillo streaming off his lip, face content as if there was nothing like a jaunt on a spring’s day. Jack would turn and tip his cap to her as Bertha sat in the front seat, the catalog on her lap, wondering just what this fool was up to. After a few weeks he steeled his will and came to the car, knowing that he would have about six minutes before the old man came out with his sacks of feed.

  Bertha regarded him with a disinterested eye and set mouth. She wore a dark shirt buttoned high. She instinctively moved her hands to her collar and then back to her lap. Jack propped a foot on the running board and flicked away his cigarillo.

  Fine day, she said.

  How’d you like to come for a ride with me sometime, Jack said, nodding toward his car parked across the street.

  I’m waiting for my father, she said. But I guess you know that.

  Huh. I wouldn’t. I was just thinking you might want to take a ride.

  Why would I want to do that? I don’t need to go nowheres.

  We wouldn’t have to go anywhere, just for a ride.

  Jack cranked his head around as the feed-store door slapped open. Some other old man shuffled out with a bulging sack over his shoulder and headed down the street.

  You ought to be worried if my father catches you here. Talking to me.

  Why’s that?

  You know. Coming to a meeting like that. Then busting out like a crazy person. Are you affected in the head?

  This was not how Jack had pictured this thing going. He straightened his coat and checked his watch, squinting in the sunlight to read the hands.

  It’s all right if you are, Bertha said. I got a cousin who don’t ever leave the house.

  There’s nothin’ wrong with me, Jack said. Does a crazy person wear a suit like this? Does a crazy person have a car like this? This my second one besides. And me only twenty?

  Bertha gazed over at Jack’s car for a moment. Jack thought she seemed duly impressed. It was swinging back his way.

  I suppose not, she said. But that don’t explain why you acted like a crazy person. Daddy says you were drunk but I’d never seen a drunk like that.

  I just didn’t want my feet washed is all.

  Bertha tsked and sucked in her cheeks.

  Funny way of showin’ it. I see you got some new boots.

  All this is new, Jack said. This here is a tailored suit, from Richmond.

  Hmmmm.

  Jack dragged a toe in the dirt and eyed the feed-store window.

  Look, I got nothin’ to say about that, he said. ’Cept to say I wished I hadn’t done it.

  Well, that’s something.

  So how ’bout that ride.

  You know I’m waiting for my father.

  Later then.

  Bertha seemed to consider this for a moment. She flipped through the catalog on her knees.

  You ain’t the kind of man a girl should be ridin’ with, she said. I know who you are.

  Oh yeah? Who’s that?

  Jack could not help but grin, and he put his hand up to feign scratching his lip.

  One of them Bondurant boys, and that’s enough. There aren’t many that have a good word in for you.

  That so.

  Yep. My granddaddy says you boys the worst ever to hit Franklin.

  Jack scanned the storefront for movement. Bertha draped her arm over the door and a short section of white skin scooted from under the cuffs, ending in her tapered hands like porcelain. Jack realized he was balling his fists and he jammed them in his pockets. A dampness spread across his lower back.

  You know where my daddy’s place is? Bertha said.

  Y
eah.

  I get done with my chores around two, she said. Your watch will tell you when that is. If you came round to the end of the road I might take a ride.

  Jack nearly choked, his mouth gone cotton.

  Tomorrow then?

  Bertha laughed, a bright musical laugh. It warmed them both and they suddenly felt silly in light of this charade. Jack was about to burst inside and run down the street like an inflamed preacher.

  Sure is a funny way of courtin’, Jack Bondurant, Bertha said. This is courtin’, ain’t it?

  I’ll see you tomorrow then, Jack said, and spun away and across the street just as Tazwell came out of the store, feed sacks in a wheelbarrow, his daughter in the truck idly picking at strands of her hair.

  THE NEXT DAY Jack tried to concentrate on his driving. Bertha unwound her head scarf and placed it on the seat between them. The Dodge hummed up the hill, the frame screeching as it seesawed over ruts in the road. It hadn’t rained in weeks, but when he picked her up it was drizzling lightly and she stood beneath a stooped elm at the end of her drive wearing a long black sweater and knickers with deep-red kneesocks. Jack was desperately working to come up with a way to entertain Bertha now that he had her in his car. As he made his way south he was well aware that he had no plan as to where they were going, and what they were going to do when they got there, but he couldn’t concentrate on anything else at the moment other than the road and the scent of the girl sitting next to him. It struck him as something he knew well: On summer afternoons by the creek, an overgrown fence line, or sometimes inside the house by an open window, after a rain and when the wind was right, there would suddenly be a gentle wave of flowering honeysuckle in the air, the smell of deep summer, honey mixed with earth and water and sky. Jack couldn’t be sure if this was her natural scent or if it was some kind of perfume, but on this raw day in May it seemed like a glimpse of summer, a moment in the sun.

  I’ll be leaving soon, Jack said. Getting out of this county.

  Oh yeah?

  Maybe Texas, out west or somethin’. Or maybe some city.

  What’ll you do? Bertha asked.

  Shoot. Anything. Everything. Get myself set up.

  The cab warmed as they talked, condensation forming on the windshield. Jack could now smell mostly the damp must of her sweater drying out.

  What about you? Jack said.

  Oh, I’m fine right here.

  Really?

  Yeah. I’d like to finish up at school. Didja hear they might close up the Co-Cola plant?

  Yeah? What for?

  Don’t you read the papers? The country’s in real trouble.

  Not me.

  Well, people are out of work all over. Daddy says Hoover’s to blame. Cursed him up one side of the street and down the other.

  That so?

  I reckon I’ll stick around, Bertha said. Stay close to my family.

  Can’t see why ya wanna do that.

  Bertha furrowed her brow, and Jack knew that he had stepped in it. There was no way out but forward. He gave the coupe a bit more gas.

  Well, Jack said, I mean, they always trying to…keep you from doing things. I know plenty a Dunkards.

  Bertha lowered her head and Jack was afraid that he had gone too far.

  It may seem like that, Bertha said, but it ain’t. We like to be around each other. We have a lot of fun together.

  Can’t right imagine that, Jack said.

  He wrestled the wheel around a particularly gaping pothole and then overcorrected, making the car slide in the mud for a moment. Bertha was staring at him with a bemused look on her face.

  What do you know? she said. You show up at our church and then run out like a lunatic, and you think somehow you know my family? You don’t see what we do, what it’s like at home.

  Yeah, Jack said, I know it.

  So don’t say things like that.

  Okay. Jack said. Sorry I said it.

  Oh, never mind, Bertha said.

  But don’t you want, Jack said, just to…get out on your own?

  Sure, but that don’t mean I’ve got to go far away. On your own has nothing to do with distance.

  Damn, Jack thought to himself, she’s making me look right foolish. She don’t believe any of it.

  Well, then, he said, when I go maybe I’ll take you with me.

  Bertha gazed out the window, looking at the withered tobacco fields, a stretch of puny alfalfa that ran over the hill. The dread thought hit his heart: The woman was bored to tears already and they had only been driving for five minutes. At least the rain had tapered off and the sun struck through the clouds. He steadied the wheel with one hand and reached inside his coat pocket.

  Got you a li’l somethin’.

  She looked over at him askance like he’d just claimed he could make the car fly. He extended the Brownie camera to her between his thumb and forefinger, his eyes on the road. He was afraid to see her expression. She took it from his fingers and turned it over in her hands, examining each side of it.

  I can’t take this.

  It ain’t nothin’.

  This is one of them cameras.

  Yep.

  I ain’t never had a camera before.

  Well now you do.

  I don’t know how to operate it.

  Shoot, Jack said. All you do is look through the little window and push the button. Ain’t nothin’ to it.

  What will I take a picture of?

  Jack turned down a side road near the foot of Fork Mountain, not too far from his father’s place in Snow Creek. He realized that he had been heading steadily in that direction for unknown reasons. Perhaps it was familiar territory he sought.

  Here, he said. I’ll take a picture of you and then you can take one of me. How’s that?

  He jerked the Dodge to a halt at a small side cut off the road near a field of limp fescue flattened by the brief rain. The ground was already drinking the moisture deep, the road ruts hardening. They clambered out of the car and into the sunshine.

  You got your car all muddy, she said.

  Here, Jack said, stand up there by that crab-apple tree and I’ll take your picture.

  Wait a second, Bertha said, and she shucked off her long sweater to reveal a short-sleeved white blouse, tied at the neck with a blood-colored kerchief. Jack thought that in her knickers and blouse she cut a prim and divine figure as she stood in a shallow ditch of bramble, one foot cocked on the slope and clutching a sprig of the tree. She preened and mocked for a few moments, smiling and rounding her eyes.

  Hold on, Jack said, let me get it, now hold it so’s I can get it.

  Bertha settled into a stony stare off to the side, away from the camera, looking out over the road and the fields beyond, her mouth in a grim line. Jack snapped the photo.

  Why’d you quit cuttin’ up?

  That’s how you take a picture, Jack, she said, you gotta set your face straight. That’s how the movie stars do it in California.

  She snatched the camera from his hand.

  Now you.

  Jack set about arranging himself on the car, sitting on the hood, his feet on the bumper. The thought occurred to him that this was in fact what he was really hoping for when he bought the camera. He had had his picture taken only a handful of times before, mostly as a small chap in family gatherings and a few others, and none in his new regalia, posed on his new car.

  That’s a good one, Bertha said.

  Hold it, Jack said.

  He fished out a fresh cigar and stuck it between his teeth, and set his hat back at a rakish angle. The sun fell directly onto his face and he squinted mightily but he figured it gave him a tough look, his boots crossed nonchalantly before him. He was going for his watch when she snapped the picture, and because she laughed and held her hand over her mouth he decided not to mention it.

  Chapter 20

  1930

  EMMY DROPPED a dishrag that morning, so she knew that a visitor was due before sundown. She told Jack that this visito
r would bring them bad news or worse. In the kitchen Jack watched his sister standing at the sink, her eyes shut, her hands clasped over her thin chest, considering the possible turning of fate.

  Well, Jack said, then we’ll be expectin’ them.

  The three brothers gathered for dinner after spending the morning pulling suckers in their father’s field. It was July, and the withered tobacco struggled out of the parched earth and the suckers were thin and yellow. His father and brothers seemed intent on continuing the charade of harvesting. The drought had dried out the land till it broke apart and Jack thought they should be focusing on the stills.

  Granville’s store was nearly vacant and he only opened for paying customers, too tired of fending off the wretched looking for handouts. He kept the springhouse open across the street so that all could have a drink of cool water, but he couldn’t give away any more goods. The jobs for Forrest’s sawmill also began to wane as men tightened up around the county, unable to pay for his services, and the community began to revert to the old communal farming methods, relying on the available free labor. Many in the county went back to straight subsistence farming, others sending their boys out west to find work picking produce in California. The city council in Rocky Mount hired yard bulls at the train yard to keep wandering men from hopping out of boxcars, driving the flapping scarecrows back into the empty flats with clubs and locking the doors so they would be carried on to the next town.

  That afternoon the three brothers watched the girl coming from a long way off, walking through the field of sorghum and red clover that ran to the north away from the house, up to the foot of Fork Mountain. She emerged from the trees a quarter mile away, a thin cloud of red dust at her feet. Sissy Deshazo walked with her head back, bobbing in a strange motion, like she was watching the sky. The day was heavy with humidity and low clouds filled every inch of the sky. She was wearing her Sunday dress, fringed with a streak of red clay on the bottom. Sissy Deshazo was crying, her chestnut-colored face, ashy from the summer sun, streaked with tears. Her grandfather had died, old Little Bean Deshazo, who had worked alongside Granville and his father in the tobacco fields. He had passed away sometime in the night, and Sissy was sent to tell the neighbors and invite them to the wake that was being held that afternoon. The Deshazos had lived in the county as long as the Bondurants, just over the first set of hills, one of a handful of black families in the Snow Creek area of Franklin County. Jefferson Deshazo, Sissy’s older brother, had worked for Forrest out at the County Line Restaurant and Sissy herself had spent ten years cooking and cleaning in the Bondurant house after their mother had died. Little Bean, his sons Willy, Benjamin, and Horace, and all their children had been to the Bondurant house for hog killings or wood choppings, and their children often played with Jack and his brothers.