Mississippi Cotton

by Paul H. Yarbrough

  “What’d he say?”

  “He said that was part of it. But also when girls got older…well, their… you know…” I held my hands to the front of my chest, palms up and slightly curved, “…well, these get bigger. You know… their…their—”

  “Their bosoms.” Taylor said the magic word.

  “Yeah,” I said, “those. Now we’ve been comin’ up here since I was too little to remember, and Farley has been seeing Dixie Daniels since she was ten or eleven. So he’s watched them progress, you might say.”

  Casey walked in. He was wiping the remaining spit and toothpaste from his mouth with his hand.

  “What are y’all talkin’ ‘bout. I heard y’all say fishin’ and bosoms.”

  “Not so loud, Casey. You wanna get us killed, talkin’ about stuff like that?”

  “Talkin’ ‘bout fishin’?”

  “No! ‘Bout bosoms.”

  “I jus’ wanna know if y’all decided to go fishin’ tomorrow. Whada I care ‘bout bosoms?”

  “Jus’ a minute, we’re talkin’ about something else right now.” Taylor turned back to me. “Well, ‘progress’ sounds funny.”

  “Well, they have…progressed. I wonder why ours don’t progress,” I said.

  “They jus’ don’t. It’s jus’ a law or something. Ours don’t change. I think they’re jus’ there for balance or something. I mean it’s not like they’re a couple of hamsters and you can feed ‘em and train ‘em to make ‘em bigger.”

  We both laughed.

  Casey didn’t laugh. He just looked at us like we were crazy. “When y’all get through with your bosom talk, will y’all tell me one thing?”

  “What?” Taylor said.

  “Are we gonna go fishin’ tomorrow?”

  Taylor and I looked at one another. Then Taylor put his hand on his little brother’s shoulder for reassurance. “Definitely.”

  CHAPTER 5

  “Now I’m gonna give you boys twenty cents apiece. That’s a dime for the movie and a dime for popcorn.” We were parked in front of the Majestic, the pickup idling while Cousin Trek dropped us off. He dug into his pocket for change.

  “Thank you, Cousin Trek, but Daddy gave me some money.” I knew my daddy would want me to try to pay for myself, and anyway I felt important saying I had my own money.

  “That’s fine, Jake, but save your money. I’m treatin’ tonight. Y’all are gonna get a chance to earn a little hoeing cotton next week.”

  I thought of that extra money and smiled. Taylor and Casey didn’t smile. The thought of doing anything with cotton wasn’t special to them—money or not.

  “BB’s helpin’ work that hundred acres across the road for me and Big Trek, and he needs to get some of the weeds out. They been gettin’ ahead of him, and his daddy and the sharecroppers got more’n they can handle this year. Anyhow, the picture show’s gonna start in a minute or two, now git goin’.”

  The three of us turned and bolted to the ticket window. Cousin Trek shouted a final instruction. “I’ll be back by nine-thirty. Don’t wander away from the square—y’all hear—I don’t wanna have to look around for y’all!”

  There were few things in my life as exciting as a Friday night picture show. The marquee put the titles up in big block letters so they almost shouted. Every picture show, I thought of in these gigantic titles: ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE INVISIBLE MAN. On top of that they were showing a serial, RADAR MEN FROM THE MOON, starring Commando Cody. He had this great rocket suit and could fly all over the Earth just by turning on his power and jumping in the air, and flipping the up and down buttons.

  Tonight they had a Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam cartoon. You got all this with popcorn, and you could yell and holler as much as you wanted since no grownups were in the way. It was hard for me to believe Farley was no longer interested in watching Commando Cody falling from the sky, unable to get his up-down buttons fixed. Now all he cared about was watching girls and their progression. I guessed that when you got older, life had less meaning for you—although you did get a driver’s license.

  The show ran a second time starting at nine-fifteen. And though we wanted to watch it again—Farley and I had watched Red River five times one weekend a couple of years ago—we had to get outside to meet Cousin Trek at the park.

  We raced across the street right in front of Mr. Siler, the slowest driver in the entire State of Mississippi. I don’t think he could hurt you, even if he hit you. He never drove more than two miles an hour probably, but if you ran across the street before he passed you, he would honk and yell, “You boys are gonna get killed!” Then he always turned to look at you, nearly running up on the sidewalk in the process.

  About twenty other kids had gotten out of the picture show and there was already a roughhouse football game going on in the square. Nobody had brought any kind of a ball to the show, but a bunch of wadded up popcorn boxes were shaped into something you could throw. It worked fine. Most of the kids were in their good clothes, and probably had been told to not get their clothes dirty. If they had, they were just hoping they didn’t fall down and leave evidence of grass stains or ripped knees.

  “There’s Mr. Hightower.” Casey pointed.

  “Don’t point, Casey,” Taylor told him.

  “Cousin Trek and Cousin Carol don’t go for that pointin’ stuff neither, huh?” I asked, knowing the answer. It was funny the way every set of grownups had the same bunch of rules.

  “Oh yeah. Pointin’ at people or scratchin’ your behind in public is a major crime,” Taylor said. Casey started scratching his behind like he had lice. We both laughed at him.

  “Okay, somebody’s gonna tell on you and you’ll get a switchin’. Wait and see,” Taylor said.

  “What’s a’ matter, Casey? Got ants in ya pants?” Earl Hightower, a man who rented from Cousin Trek had been watching from across the street, and walked over.

  Renters were men who rented certain pieces of land from farmers, planted their own seed, then kept the difference between what they owed in rent and what the cotton brought at the gin. Mr. Hightower was one of these. He also worked for some of the farmers by the hour or by the pound during picking season. I always heard Cousin Trek say Earl was a hard working fellow. Calling a man hard working was a compliment.

  Mr. Hightower didn’t look much older than Farley, but I had been told he was at Guadalcanal in the War, so he had to be a lot older than he looked. In any event we didn’t call him Earl. He was Mister Hightower to us.

  “Hope they ain’t them fire ants. You’ll really be in trouble then.” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Well, boys, was the movie good?” He stood with us at the gazebo where we were watching the ball game.

  “Yes, sir. Did you see it?” Taylor knew he probably hadn’t but asked anyway. Taylor had told me that only once in a while did the Majestic have a picture show that anyone older than us liked. If there was a real special picture show, like the ones I had heard Mother and Daddy talk about, like Gone With the Wind or All the King’s Men, the grownups would go to Clarksdale where they didn’t allow hollering.

  “Naa, I been over at the café, havin’ Friday-night coffee.”

  Once I heard Cousin Carol speak to my mother about the café in what my mother called dark tones. She said on Friday and Saturday night there was a high-stakes domino game going on in the back room. She said she had it on good authority that some of those men played for a penny a point. She couldn’t understand as hard as a dollar was to earn, how some men could gamble it away. Whenever we went to that café, we had instructions from my mother never to go into the famous back room. Mr. Hightower was a nice man, but I’ll bet he’d seen that back room.

  I was sure that the gazebo checker games, played right out in front of everybody, were not played for money—at least not so we knew about it. Dr. Henry and the others played for the pride of being best. I figured that no amount of money in the world could have helped that old dentist from Shelby. His pride had been taken.

  “
Y’all waitin’ for your daddy?”

  “Yes, sir,” Taylor said.

  “Maybe he’ll give me a ride home. Had to put my truck in the shop earlier today. Saw y’all, and thought I’d catch a ride back home, maybe.”

  “He’s gonna be here any time Mr. Hightower, I ‘magine,” Taylor said.

  “And who do we have here?” he said, looking at me.

  Oh, this is our cousin Jake. From Jackson—”

  “Earl Hightower, son. Nice meetin’ ya.” He extended his huge hand. It seemed as big as a catcher’s mitt as he shook my hand.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Hightower.”

  “What’s your last name, Jake?”

  “Conner.” I didn’t tell him I knew who he was. I had heard Cousin Trek and Cousin Carol talking about him lots of times. And they always seemed to be saying nice things about him. But I didn’t say that. I just pretended not to know him.

  “Jake likes hoeing cotton. Prob’ly likes pickin’ it too,” Taylor said.

  Casey laughed. “He’s kind of stupid,” he said.

  I punched him on the arm. I knew they were just playing with me, but it made me kind of mad—made me feel like a city slicker. “I didn’t say I liked it. I said I like to make the money.”

  I wasn’t about to let it get out that I liked hoeing or picking cotton. Nobody in his right mind liked that, and I could be the laughing stock of the county if such a rumor got out.

  “Well, don’t worry, Jake. I’ll keep your secret.” Mr. Hightower smiled and rubbed the top of my head, while reaching and grabbing Casey by the nose with two fingers, making him squeal like a piglet. “And if there’s any stupid goin’ round, this one’s got his share.” He laughed at Casey, then let go of his nose, giving him a little push backwards.

  Casey faked great pain: “Ouch, ouch, ouch!” then laughed.

  Daddy told me that hoeing cotton meant hoeing out the weeds during the growing season—usually from about April to the end of September. Cotton has a long growing season, which is one reason why it grows mostly in the South; that and the need for plenty of rain, which the Delta gets. Too many late freezes in the spring or early freezes in the fall are bad for cotton farmers. He said that cotton requires a certain amount of heat, and if it gets too cold when it is young in the ground, or when it is coming out almost ready to be picked, it can be damaged. In both cases the farmer’s yield is cut back a whole lot.

  I knew that hoeing cotton wasn’t nearly as awful as picking it. Picking was brutal back-breaking work. But hoeing was slow, boring and hot. Not long after the sun rose, the temperature rose quickly to the mid eighties. By late-morning it could reach one hundred degrees.

  If you had been picking every year since about an hour after you were born, you could get tired of cotton fast. But since I hadn’t I could at least make some money while on vacation.

  “Your daddy says you’re gonna be helpin’ me and BB next week,” Mr. Hightower said.

  “Yes, sir,” Taylor said.

  “Who’s BB?” I asked.

  Mr. Hightower said, “That’s Big Black Julius. We jus’ call him BB. His daddy jus’ calls him Julius. His football coach gave him the nickname Big Black Julius. You don’t know him, Mr. Jake?”

  “No, sir. But Cousin Trek told us we were gonna be helpin’ him on Monday. Said he played football pretty good—”

  “That’s what they say. Supposedly he could have got some kind of scholarship at Florida A&M. Jake Gathier wanted him—pretty good coach. That’s what the colored folks say. But he went in the army right outta high school. Said he didn’t care much ‘bout college right then.”

  “Where’s Florida A&M?” Casey asked no one in particular.

  “In Florida, dopey,” Taylor said.

  I laughed. So did Mr. Hightower, but not as loud. It wasn’t that funny to him, I guess. “Well, I think it’s in Tallahassee. It’s a colored school. Usually have a pretty good football team. I know that.”

  “And y’all know Big Black Julius pretty good?” I asked. I couldn’t remember if I’d ever heard the name when I’d come up here before.

  “He’s a colored friend of ours,” Casey said.

  “Yeah. A big guy, too,” Taylor added.

  “Just got back from Korea,” Mr. Hightower said. “Big, strong boy; a hard worker, too. Julius Samuels is his whole name. His daddy is Ben Samuels. He says he might want to go to that new school for colored students at Itta Bena. Mississippi Valley State or something like that. Probably can’t play ball now though. His wound in Korea might not allow it. Least, that’s what I heard.”

  Mr. Hightower took a toothpick from behind his ear and put it in his mouth. Lots of men did that—put a toothpick in their mouths for no reason. Just something to do, I guess. “Y’all got a big Saturday lined up? Or your daddy got y’all workin’ all day?”

  “We’re goin’ fishin’. We don’t have any work ‘til Monday; at least none in the fields. Momma and Daddy always got summin’ to do around the house,” Taylor said. “We’re goin’ down to the branch at Cottonseed Road. Bet you anything we’ll pull in some big cats.”

  “Y’all oughta get your daddy to take you over to the river, down at the bridge at Greenville. If y’all want big cats.”

  “I don’t think he’s gonna have time while Jake’s here. He’ll be pretty busy gettin’ ready for pickin’.”

  “Well, maybe I can take y’all after church next Sunday. I got a friend or two with boats down there. We could really do some catfishin’. Blues, channels--they catch some giant spoonbills on trotlines down there, too.”

  Just then Cousin Trek pulled up in the pickup. He stuck his head out of the window and held out his hand to shake Mr. Hightower’s. “Hello, Earl. Whadaya say? Makin’ a night on the town?”

  “Not really. Jus’ havin’ coffee over at the café.”

  Before Mr. Hightower could finish, Taylor piped up. “Can we give Mr. Hightower a ride, Daddy? His truck’s broke down.”

  “Well, sure nuff. Jump up here in the front, Earl. You boys climb in the back.”

  Viewing the rows of cotton in the daytime, it seemed they stretched for miles, and almost like a long straight highway in the distance, seemed to come to a point on the horizon. At night they disappeared into the darkness only a few yards away. Each row seemed to make me blink in the headlights as we drove by, a reminder that they would be there in the morning.

  At night before the moon was up, there seemed to be a jillion stars. To me they looked like eyes that had come out to look at the land while the sun rested. It was much different out here in the country than it was in Jackson. As we passed the rows of cotton, I thought of the cottonseed plant in Jackson. When we drove downtown, Farley and I would always plead with Daddy to drive close to the cottonseed plant so that we could smell the cottonseed oil cooking. But out in the country there were things to smell that the city didn’t have.

  It was an extra three or four miles out of the way to Mr. Hightower’s house, but that was fine with us. At night, the air felt good blowing on you. Riding in the back of the truck gave us a kind of free feeling that felt especially good as a change from the daytime heat. We had to shout to hear one another over the rush of the wind and the noise from the Firestones against the pavement.

  “Did y’all hear about that dead guy they found in Greenville?”

  “What dead guy?” said Taylor.

  “What dead guy?” said Casey.

  “A dead man they found in the river. He got shot two times. Then he was chunked in the river.” I guess in all the excitement of my arrival I’d forgotten to mention it. But when Mr. Hightower mentioned the bridge at Greenville, I remembered it.

  “Aw, c’mon. Where’d you hear that?” Taylor asked.

  “You mean y’all haven’t heard about it?”

  “Aww you’re jus’ makin this up,” Taylor said.

  “No, I’m not. The deputy sheriff told me.”

  “A deputy told you?” Casey asked.

  “Wel
l, not really jus’ me. I was sittin’ at the counter at the bus station in Greenville and he kinda told everybody—at least everybody sittin’ there.”

  “And you’re not makin’ this up?” Taylor asked.

  “No, really. Some colored man and his son found the body.”

  CHAPTER 6

  We had a glass of milk when we got home. Then we were off to bed, well before eleven.

  “Do y’all have to sleep in pajamas, still?” I asked. By a certain age, most boys were of the opinion that pajamas were a little sissy.

  “Not really, but Momma would rather we did. Daddy said it wasn’t a big thing on his mind. Besides farm boys have to get up early and quick. Ain’t got time to fool with pajamas.”

  I put mine back in the drawer. Mother had made me pack them, but she didn’t say I had to wear them.

  Cousin Trek came in and told us to get to sleep and not lie down and talk all night, not if we expected to get up and go fishing. These were mostly standard instructions, and we went to sleep as soon as we could. We were excited about the three weeks ahead.

  Cousin Carol let us sleep late, until seven. But we were still tired. We had whispered until after one.

  “Hey, let’s eat and get on out,” Taylor said. He stood on the edge of the lower bunk and was holding on to the top edge while he poked me with his finger.

  “I’m up. Have been for a while. Is Casey up?”

  “I doubt it. He sleeps like a drunken sailor.” That must have been something he heard in a picture show, or maybe one of the men playing checkers had said it. I was pretty sure he had never seen a drunken sailor, sleeping or not.

  “Get up. I’ll go get him,” Taylor said. He went through the open double doors into the adjoining room.

  I threw back my sheet and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. There was a ladder at the end. That was for cowards, since real men jumped out of their beds like firemen or paratroopers. After jumping, I went through my assigned drawer looking for my most worn blue jeans. I was standing there in my underwear when Casey walked in.

  He rubbed his eyes for a moment then stared at me. “Hey! You gotta hole in your underwear. Booty, booty, booty. I—see—your—booty,” he hollered.