"At least you admit it's a gamble," Miss Claypoole said. "I'm prepared to offer you a sure thing. Aid to Dependent
Children. General Assistance. And reinstatement of Toby's Disability payments."
"I already know we could get all them things if we went back to Jersey," Pop said.
"You don't have to go back, Mr. Kwimper. The state of Columbiana can offer you everything that New Jersey could. The fact that you haven't been here long enough to qualify as residents is a mere technicality. I can get an exception made for you. And clearing up the Veterans Administration trouble is just a matter of Toby making a routine appearance before their nearest representatives, and of me calling off Arthur King."
Pop said, "I wouldn't think you could call him off with anything less than a shotgun."
"That brings up one tiny little point," Miss Claypoole said. "If I'm going to arrange all this, all of you will have to move into Gulf City."
"Why would we have to move?" Pop said.
"Because I can't do anything for you while you live here. This isn't county land. In fact, things are so mixed up that nobody is even sure it's state land. And as County Welfare Supervisor I can only help people who are legal residents of the county."
"Pop," I said, "if nobody else wants this here land, maybe we could get it taken over by Jersey."
"That might not work out good," Pop said. "It would leave us mighty far from the government in Jersey, and when I'm working with the government I like to be able to hash things out face to face."
Miss Claypoole said, "I haven't told you the nicest thing yet. The Department of Public Welfare operates a housing facility in Gulf City. It's a lovely place called Sunset Gardens. There's going to be a vacancy in one of the units, and I can get you in. Your General Assistance payments would cover the rent."
Pop looked at me and said, "What do you think of it, Toby?"
I studied on Pop for a little, but there is times when he is pretty deep and you can't tell what he is thinking. I warn't going to come right out and say what I liked was living here by the bridge, because maybe Pop was hankering to live in an honest-to-goodness facility, which I reckon is a lot finer to live in than just a plain old building. "Pop," I said, "it will take me a while to find out what I think, so you tell me what you think about it."
"I asked you first, Toby."
"I passed up my turn and asked you, Pop."
Miss Claypoole said, "Your unit has three beautiful bedrooms, a living room, dinette-kitchen and a lovely little porch. Of course all the utilities are included in the rent. We pick our people very carefully and I know you'll like your neighbors."
Pop said to me, "If you'll speak up like a man and say what you think, I'll say what I think."
"What I think is you should speak up first, Pop."
Miss Claypoole said, "There's a fine school quite near, and that would be nice for the twins. They'll be starting school in the fall, and you ought to think of their welfare too."
"Toby," Pop said, "if I said I liked the idea, what would you say?"
"I would say I liked it too, Pop." "Wonderful!" Miss Claypoole said. "Then it's all settled."
"Hold on a moment," Pop said. "Now Toby, if I said I didn't like the idea, what would you say?"
"I would say I didn't like it neither, Pop."
"I never seen such a mule of a boy. Now I don't know what you think."
"That's because all you been doing is iffing me," I said. "I'm onto your tricks, Pop, and I don't plan on saying nothing till I know what you think. I want to do what the rest of the family wants to do. If I speak up first and say what I want, maybe you will go along with me even if you don't really want to."
"That's what I'm feared of, too," Pop said. "How are me and you going to wriggle out of this, Toby?"
Miss Claypoole said, "Why don't both of you take your car and follow me into Gulf City? I'll show you Sunset Gardens and introduce you to a nice couple who live there, and you can ask them about it. Once you see how lovely it is, you won't have any trouble deciding."
"That's a good idea," Pop said. "But I would ruther Toby took the car and went, because he's more used to big towns and facilities."
"You're putting this off on me again," I said. "I don't know if you are being ornery or just plain lazy."
"If a man can't trust his own son to run an errand, I don't know what he's got a son for."
"Well, I'll go," I said. "But after I tell you what it's like, you're still going to have to say first what you want to do."
So I got Pop's car and drove into Gulf City following
Miss Claypoole. Sunset Gardens was a real nice setup that covered a whole block. There was half a dozen one- story buildings of cement blocks, and each building had maybe ten units where folks lived. Every unit had its own little porch out front, and a walk going down to the street. It warn't more than a few years old, so the two coconut palms at the end of each walk by the street hadn't growed much yet, but the two hibiscus bushes by the porch of each unit was doing good. Back of every unit was a place to park a car and one of them umbrella things to hang wash onto.
Miss Claypoole said, "I can't take you into the unit that you will have, because it's still occupied, and the family living in it has not been cooperative. They get very upset at what they call invasions of their privacy. But I'm going to introduce you to a fine couple, Mr. and Mrs. Brown, and leave you with them. They'll be glad to show you their unit and tell you anything you want to know. Here they are, sitting out front right now."
She took me to the place and met me up with Mr. and Mrs. Brown, and then went off and left me with them. Mr. Brown was a thin feller with a habit of peeking at you sideways, like a hound might look at you around a corner to see if you wanted him in the room or not. He had been setting on the porch reading a newspaper. Mrs. Brown was a friendly lady, plump as a cup cake. She had been setting there knitting. Mr. Brown brung out another chair for me, and Mrs. Brown brung out a glass of milk and cookies.
"So you're going to live here, are you?" Mrs. Brown said. "I guess you'll want us to tell you all about it. Thisyoung man and his folks are very lucky to get a unit here, aren't they, Will?"
"They're lucky for sure," Mr. Brown said. "There's a waiting list as long as my arm."
I said, "Have you folks been here a while?"
"Two years," Mr. Brown said. "We came south four
years ago from Minneapolis. I did all right as a carpenter
in Minneapolis, but I was getting onto sixty-five and the
winters started feeling pretty cold. A man can really live
down here. Ellie, is it time for one of my pills yet?"
Mrs. Brown looked at her watch. "Just about, Will."
"Did I have a green one or a yellow one last time, Ellie?"
"A green one. Now it's time for one of your red ones." Mr. Brown dug out a bottle with different colored pills in it, and shook some into his hand and got a red one and swallowed it down with some water. "Man has to watch his health when he gets my age," he said.
"I reckon Pop ought to watch his health, too," I said, "But up in Jersey he was so busy trying not to do no work that he didn't have time to give his health a thought,
and down here he works so hard he don't have time neither."
"What sort of work does he do down here?" Mr. Brown asked.
"Well," I said, "we squatted on some land by a new bridge a few miles from here, and Pop got interested in helping to put our place together. You can't hardly get him to put down his hammer and saw lately." Mr. Brown said, "When we came down here I thought I might hire out as a carpenter, just to keep my hand in and pick up a little extra money, but it isn't easy for a northerner to pick up jobs like that. Anyway when I thought it over, I knew my health wouldn't stand it."
"Oh but Will," Mrs. Brown said, "you still keep your hand in. Show the young man some of those lovely things you make."
"Maybe he wouldn't want to be bothered, Ellie."
"I'd be right happy
to see them," I said.
Mr. Brown jumped up. "You sit right there," he said, "and I'll bring them out."
He went into the unit, and Mrs. Brown said, "It's wonderful for him to have his carpentry. And it makes him so happy when he gets a chance to show people what he makes. People need a little something to do, don't they? Like my knitting."
"That's a mighty nice thing you're knitting," I said. "What is it going to be?"
"A sweater."
"I reckon a sweater can come in handy now and then down here, in winter."
"Oh, I'm not going to wear it. I already have two. It's just something to keep my hands busy. When I finish it I'll unravel the yarn and start all over on something else. Yarn costs too much not to make good use of it. Or maybe I'll make another rag rug. Except that we don't have any more floor space for rag rugs, and I hate ripping up a rag rug after I get the pattern right."
"I would think you could sell them things."
"Well, I don't really know where. And there are five
other women in Sunset Gardens who make rag rugs, too, so you can't even give them away around here."
Mr. Brown come out just then with an armful of things, and lined them up for me to look at. He had some of the finest little bird houses you ever seen, fitted together so good you couldn't see the joints. Then he had a batch of wooden signs for the front lawn with his name carved on in different ways, like Mr. and Mrs. William Brown, and Will and Ellie Brown, and The Browns. He had used different kinds of wood for each sign, and polished the wood until it shone, and I mean you could have sold them signs in a jewelry store.
"These are mighty fine," I said. "Which one of them signs will you be using on the lawn?"
"Oh, we're not going to use any of them," Mr. Brown said. "We have rules here in Sunset Gardens to keep it looking nice. We don't allow signs out front giving your name. If that was allowed, first thing you know folks would have a lot of junky signs out front, like Bide-a-Wee and Dew-Drop-In, and it would look pretty bad."
I said, "Them bird houses are going to look nice with birds flying in and out of them."
"Yes," Mr. Brown said, "except that you won't find the birds coming inside your unit to look for a bird house."
"What I meant was after you put them up outside."
"Oh, we can't put them up outside," Mr. Brown said. "If we did that, then the folks in the next unit would want a TV aerial, and the folks on the other side would want a flagpole, and you can see how it would get out of hand. It's kind of nice having bird houses on the mantel, though. Except I haven't room for any more. Maybe you'd like a bird house for your place?"
Mrs. Brown said, "Will, you're forgetting the young man and his folks are moving here."
"I forgot that," Mr. Brown said. "What's this place like, where you're living now?"
I told them about the shack and Pop's rest room and how we didn't have no electricity or gas or any water except we carried it or pumped it ourselves. "I reckon you would say it is nothing much more than camping out," I said.
"Think of that," Mrs. Brown said. "None of the comforts of home. You'll be so much better off here. Did you say that girl who lives with you, and takes care of the twins, sells sandwiches to the fishermen?"
"Yes ma'am," I said. "She makes out real good at it, too. Them fishermen can get hungry."
"I make wonderful pecan pies," Mrs. Brown said. "The only trouble is, not many people around here have good enough teeth to eat them. A good pecan pie takes a lot of chewing. I'm going to wrap up a couple for you to take back with you. I make good Key Lime pie, too, and that's easy to eat, but all our neighbors are tired of eating it so I kind of gave it up."
Mr. Brown said, "Did you say your Pop built a fence around your place?"
"I reckon you wouldn't think much of it," I said. "It's just thrun together from little thin trees called cajeputs."
"I used to like making fences," Mr. Brown said. "But after we got settled here in the unit and couldn't build a fence, I began to see that fences are really kind of selfish. What I mean is, a fence is to keep folks out. The way we have things, here in Sunset Gardens, everybody's lawn is open and friendly."
Mrs. Brown said, "And you don't have any of that keeping-up-with-the-Joneses about gardening, either. I used to have a nice garden in Minneapolis, but if they allowed gardens here, some would have nice gardens and some wouldn't, and Sunset Gardens would look patchy. And of course if you don't have a garden, you don't get backaches stooping over it. This way, everybody has two young coconut palms and two hibiscus bushes, and the whole facility looks very neat. Don't you think so?"
"Yes ma'am," I said. "Pop has a lot of little coconut palms sprouting all over our yard, and it's a real trouble to him."
"And backaches too, I don't doubt," Mrs. Brown said. "By the way, Will, I think that mattress of mine needs a board under it, because I've had a real ache in my back lately."
"I'll fix it up," Mr. Brown said. "Now what were you telling us about the people who moved their trailer in, across from you? Name of Jenkins, wasn't it?"
"I was telling you about how they make shell jewelry and sell it," I said. "They haven't really sold much yet, but come the tourist season they figure on doing better."
"Think of them taking a chance like that," Mrs. Brown said. "I don't suppose they have much money, and they might lose everything they put into that shell jewelry, wouldn't you say?"
"Yes ma'am," I said. "And like Miss Claypoole told us, you never know if a hurricane or a red tide or a long sickness might come along and wipe you out."
"And suppose those Jenkins people did make a little money on shell jewelry," Mr. Brown said. "Why, if they earned over twelve hundred a year they'd lose their Social Security benefits, if they're on Security, that is. It would hardly be worth it. Well, young man, maybe you'd like to see inside our unit."
I went inside with them, and they showed me all through it, and it was real neat on account of you warn't allowed to put nails into walls and hang a lot of junk on them. Mr. Brown opened up a closet and let me see all his tools. He had some real good power tools but he needed a workshop to use them and didn't have room for that in the unit, and he couldn't build a workshop out back because of keeping Sunset Gardens looking nice.
"And anyway," Mr. Brown said, "I don't know what a man would want a workshop for, because you would end up building a lot of things nobody would have room for. And a workshop wouldn't leave you enough time to enjoy the social program we have here."
"You folks will love the social program," Mrs. Brown said. "We have the shuffleboard league that meets twice a week. And we have wonderful courses in music and painting and understanding the drama. Then once a week we have the Senior Citizens dances, with polkas and square dances and all. Don't they have wonderful names for things nowadays? Senior Citizens. It makes you feel like somebody, instead of being called old folks. I just love those dances, even if my back won't let me get in them. Oh, now I want to remember to get those pecan pies for you."
She began packing the pies, and Mr. Brown asked me some more questions about our shack and the fishing business, and shook his head over the hard time we was having. "Didn't you say you had mosquitoes, too?" he asked.
"We got near about all the skeeters a man could want," I said. "And even with screens, them skeeters ride in with you on your clothes."
"We almost never see a mosquito here," Mr. Brown said. "They send the spray truck around several times a week."
Mrs. Brown come up with a big package and said, "I've put in three pecan pies, and half a dozen glasses of kumquat marmalade and guava jelly. I just love making jams and jellies, but so do most of the other women in Sunset Gardens, and I don't really know how to get rid of all the jars I have. Now you folks use all these jars up before you move in, because I'll have some more ready for you."
"That's mighty nice of you, ma'am," I said. "And if we do move in, we'll be right happy to have some more."
"Did you say, if you move in?" Mr. Brown s
aid. "I thought it was all settled and that they had offered you a unit."
"Oh, they done that," I said. "But it's up to Pop to decide if we move in or not, and I won't do nothing to talk him out of it."
"Why, I should think you'd talk him into it, if he doesn't have sense enough to want to come," Mrs. Brown said. "I'm sure you see all the advantages."
"Yes ma'am," I said. "I seen them all, but I am not much used to advantages and I would just as soon stay where we are at. But I'll tell Pop all about them advantages and do whatever he wants. If he wants them advantages, I will try to want them too."
"Well, I never!" Mrs. Brown said.
Mr. Brown said, "Ellie, you must remember he's pretty young. Young folks don't worry much about hardships. You tell your Pop this is the finest place that folks would want to five. Is it time for my next pill yet, Ellie?"
"Not quite, Will. Fifteen minutes to the next. Well, goodby, young man, and I hope you'll be sensible."
After I left Sunset Gardens I drove part way home and then pulled off the road and parked, so I could think about what to tell Pop. I was afraid if I told him about all the fine things at Sunset Gardens, you couldn't hold him back. Why, what with Aid to Dependent Children and General Assistance and my Total Disability, Pop could lay back in Sunset Gardens and take naps all day long. He had been so busy the last few months he hadn't been getting his naps, and he had a lot to catch up on. For a while I thought I would just leave out a few things when I talked to Pop, like the spray truck coming around to get rid of skeeters. If there was one thing Pop didn't like about living at the bridge it was the skeeters. It warn't that they bothered him more than Jersey skeeters had. It was just that he didn't like other skeeters setting themselves up to be as good as Jersey ones.
It got a little late and time for dinner, so I broke out one of them pecan pies and ate it. That was near about the best pie I ever ate. After Pop sunk a tooth in one of the other two pies and heard he could get more whenever he wanted at Sunset Gardens, that would be another reason for him to want to move. I warn't really full after just one pie and I thought about eating up them other two reasons for moving to Sunset Gardens. But finally I told myself it wouldn't be right. So I drove home, and turned in the pies and the marmalade and jelly, and told Pop and Holly all about Sunset Gardens not even leaving out the spray truck.
Pioneer, Go Home! Page 12
