Mississippi Cotton
Page 6
Casey was only eight and he was always doing stuff you’d expect from a guy in the third grade. I dropped my underwear and mooned him.
“Ahh!” He put his hands over his eyes.
Taylor broke up laughing.
From downstairs I heard Cousin Carol. “Y’all better get dressed and get down here before I throw these pancakes out and make you paint the chicken house instead of goin’ fishin’.”
Painting—the curse of mankind. “C’mon, y’all, let’s get goin’.”
Cousin Carol made pancakes like she made pies. They were great. Or maybe it was easy to make pancakes. I don’t know. Anyway, my mother made good ones, too. I couldn’t remember if that was a family trait my grandmother had mentioned in her book or not. But we ate as many as she fixed, and almost all the Aunt Jemima in the large bottle was gone by the end of the meal. We probably could have eaten more, but we wanted to get on down to the branch.
Cousin Trek had already left. He and Big Trek went downtown most Saturday mornings and drank coffee at the café, waiting for the seed and feed store to open, or to talk with other planters before they made their rounds in the fields. Today he had gone alone since Big Trek was still in Clarksdale.
“Y’all got your poles and everything you need?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Taylor said.
“Finish your milk, Casey. Now wipe your mouth, and not on your sleeve. Use your napkin.” Too late. “Casey!”
Trying to recover, Casey wiped his sleeve with his napkin. Awkwardly, he murmured, “May I be excused?”
Cousin Carol didn’t answer. She stared at him with one corner of her mouth up, one corner down. There was a brief silence. “Get out of here. All of you.” A slight smile materialized.
“The pancakes were good, Cousin Carol. I sure enjoyed ‘em,” I said.
“Well, I’m glad you did, Jake.”
“Me, too. Thanks, Mama.” Taylor said.
“Me, too, Mama,” Casey uttered, licking his lips.
“Y’all get upstairs quick and brush your teeth. And be back here for dinner. I didn’t have time to make you any sandwiches.”
We walked through the back yard, past the garage and the chicken house, toward the field of ripening cotton. We walked our bikes down one of the rows that led to Cottonseed Road, then followed it to the bridge.
It was about a mile and a half to where the branch passed under the bridge. We left our bikes and walked along the branch. It was eight o’clock or thereabouts, since none of us had a watch. And we’d have to guess about what time noon came so we’d not be late for dinner.
We carried our cane poles over our shoulders. Casey carried the can of worms. Cousin Trek had also scooped up a few roaches out of the barn and put them in a jar for us, careful to poke some ice pick holes in the top so they wouldn’t die before we killed them. I carried the roaches while Taylor had a cigar box under his arm full of extra hooks, sinkers and some extra line.
Roaches, crickets and worms were the best bait for bream, although they would even bite on white bread if it stayed on the hook long enough. All of these were also terrific for catfish, because catfish were scavengers and would eat most anything.
I started with a worm and began sticking it head-first, though I was never sure which end was the head, over the point and past the barb and bend, crushing the life out of it. Taylor put a roach on, its squirming little feet wiggling just like anybody’s would, I thought. He ordered Casey to do the same. Taylor said that worms were a sure thing, but we needed to see if they were biting roaches this early in the morning. I had my line in the water first and soon heard Taylor hollering at Casey.
“Casey, don’t do that. That’s dumb. You wanna have ‘em alive for a little bit.”
“What difference does it make? They’re gonna die anyhow when they drown.”
Casey was shaking a roach out of the can and then squashing it with his tennis shoe. Then he scraped it onto his hook.
“I don’t like ‘em wiggling in my hand. It tickles. Besides, roaches’ll put a hex on ya.”
Taylor shook his head. “You dope,” he said. “That’s jus’ some ol’ story you heard.”
“It’s true. Humphrey Turnipseed told me.”
“Aw squat! Humphrey Turnipseed is dumber than a baked cow pattie.”
“He is not. You’re dumb.”
“He failed the third grade twice.”
“He did not. He failed it jus’ once. And that was because he had mumps and measles in the same year.”
“Well, he’s still dumb,” Taylor said. “There ain’t no such thing as a roach hex.”
“Well, jus’ the same, I’m not lettin’ ‘em wiggle in my hand.”
“You’re jus’ chicken,” Taylor said. When he turned back to the water Casey distorted his face and stuck his tongue out at Taylor’s back, then cast his dead roach into the branch.
We sat on the bank under the bridge and watched our corks. Fishing made me think about the dead guy, and about the colored men who found him while they were fishing. Last night while we whispered after bedtime the three of us wondered if it was BB who had been with his daddy and found the body. Taylor said it might have been since a lot of the time BB and his daddy did go fishing at the river bridge down at Greenville. It could have been anybody, but I think we wanted it to be somebody we knew so we could ask questions about the big crime.
“Y’all think we can ask BB or Julius, or whatever his name is about that dead guy?” I asked. “I mean, when we see him.”
“Sure,” Taylor said. “Might be the first thing I’m gonna ask him.”
“He won’t mind?”
“Naaa. BB’s a nice guy.” Taylor pulled his line up to check his bait, then flipped it back in. “I guess you’ve never met him, huh? In all the times you been here? You never have?”
“Never have,” I said. “Guess he was never around, or something. How come he didn’t want to play football in college?”
“Don’t know. I think he jus’ wanted to go fight Communists,” Taylor said.
I held up my hand. “Shhh. I got a bite. Watch my cork.” My cork was moving around and bobbing just a little bit. Just enough to make some small ripples before it would stop. Then the whole thing would be repeated: bob—ripples—bob—ripples.
“Ahhh, that’s a turtle after your bait,” Taylor said. “Better check it. Bait might be gone.”
I pulled my line in and the worm had been mangled some—a pretty good sign of a turtle attack. Turtles would swim under the water and jus’ nibble around on your bait, never getting’ their mouths on the hook, just teasing you. I reset my worm and flipped the line upstream some.
“He could have gone to college and then to war, it looks like to me,” I said.
“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him that? I’ll ask him if he saw the dead guy, too.”
“I wonder who killed that guy?” I asked.
“I wonder, why?” Taylor asked.
“Will y’all shut up talkin’ about dead guys? You’ll scare the fish away. Hey! I got one,” Casey screeched.
His cork darted below the brown water. His line pulled hard. His pole bowed and shimmied in his hands. He tugged, both hands on the pole. He yanked hard and up on the bank a big blue catfish sailed, landing in the grass in a flopping frenzy.
We caught three more. Taylor caught a cat, a hand-sized bream, and I caught a cat almost as big as Casey’s. After about an hour or so they stopped biting under the bridge, and we decided to move up the branch. It was probably after ten we figured, but we had time to try a couple more spots before going home for dinner.
We followed the branch, sometimes staying close to it, sometimes getting back a ways. There were some cattails close to the bank and some willow trees so close to the branch that you couldn’t get around without slipping into the water. Besides, we were more likely to step on a water moccasin walking through cattails and drooping willow branches. Casey said there was danger stalking us every step of the way.
We reached a big cottonwood tree and an old weeping willow, both about ten feet back from the bank. They were old and full and gave shade; as much as the bridge had, anyway. It was over ninety degrees by then. There was plenty of room for all three of us to sit and throw our lines.
At first they didn’t bite, but just as we were about to move, they did. I caught three bream and Taylor and Casey each caught a cat and a bream.
Taylor looked at the sun, almost directly overhead. “We better go eat,” he said. “Prob’ly gettin’ close to noon. We’ll come back after dinner.”
I started pulling the fish stringer out of the water.
“Aww, jus’ leave ‘em there. Nobody’s likely to come by here anyway. Let’s take our poles, though,” Taylor said.
Taylor had a good sense of sun time. It was just before noon when we parked our bikes and walked in the back door.
“Catch any?” Cousin Carol was looking in the refrigerator, her chin cradled between her thumb and forefinger. She spent a lot of time looking in the refrigerator. Like my mother, she had to engineer a food plan for meals, making sure all the leftovers got used, and the diet was all balanced and everything.
“I caught a bunch,” Casey blurted. “Maybe four, I think.”
“Well put them in the sink on the back porch, and I’ll clean them for y’all later. Maybe y’all can eat them for supper. Or maybe I’ll freeze them. We’ll see.”
Taylor sat down at the kitchen table. ”We jus’ left them in the water, ‘cause we’re goin’ back after we eat.”
“Okay.” She took a bowl of something out, then closed the refrigerator door. She looked at Taylor, sitting at the table. I was about to sit, myself.
“Now y’all don’t sit down until you wash your hands.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Taylor said.
“I washed mine in the branch,” Casey said. His attempt to dodge a rule flopped. Cousin Carol pointed the way. We went to the backdoor sink and washed.
Cousin Trek walked in the back door. He rubbed each of our heads while we were washing. “Catch any? Don’t forget the soap, Casey.” He kept walking into the kitchen. “Hi Hon’,” he said to Cousin Carol.
I was pretty sure that it would be hard for me to ever get married if I had to use names like “Hon” and “Sugar” and “Dear.” I guess they sounded okay on the radio programs or in the picture show, but if you had to say them yourself it sounded terrible. One time I told my mother that if I got married I’d call my wife Jake Jr. She gave me the look she sometimes gave Daddy.
We dried our hands and walked into the kitchen. I said, “We caught seven or eight, I guess, Cousin Trek.”
“Let me see…” Taylor started counting on his fingers, and mumbled some numbers. “You know what? I think twelve.”
“Good for you. You got ‘em in a bucket? Lemme see.”
Cousin Carol put some bread on the table and answered for us. “They left them in the branch. Said they’re going back.”
“Well, they’ll be okay I imagine, as long as they are in the water so they keep fresh. And there ain’ a lot of fish thieves in the county.” He smiled. “I’m hungry. Let’s eat.”
Some leftover chicken and ham and some butter beans and tomatoes made up most of our dinner. Cousin Carol even gave us a piece of pie for dessert, a treat at dinnertime. I’m sure she did it just because I was there. Company was king in our whole family.
After eating we went upstairs for a few minutes to rest our stomachs, and just sit around and talk about nothing special. Casey kept counting to himself how many fish he had caught. One count he would remember four, one count five, another count back to four. And he kept saying, “All on squashed roaches.”
“Whaday’all wanna do when we get back from fishin’ this afternoon?” Taylor asked, ignoring Casey’s squashed roaches comments.
“Maybe we can go to the picture show again,” Casey said.
That sounded good to me, even if it was the same show. Taylor sat on the bed, his back against the wall, his hands clasped behind his head. “Naaa, I don’t think we can go tonight. That’d be two nights in a row. Even havin’ company, that isn’t likely. You know, Daddy’ll say that’s too much money for something you already saw. Momma will agree with him like she always does.”
“I know, I know,” Casey said, lying on his bed, punching his naval with his finger.
“Anyway, I think we might be havin’ homemade ice cream. I noticed the bucket was out of the closet. It was sittin’ on the back porch when we came in,” Taylor said.
“I wish we didn’t have to crank so much,” Casey said. “That’s a lotta work.”
“Whadayamean ‘we’? I do all the work anyway. You always start whinin’ that your arm hurts.”
“Well, it does! Crankin’ that thing is hard.”
“Aww baloney! You’re jus’ lazy.”
“So? Lazy’s okay, if you’re a gentleman about it. That’s what momma says: ‘Anything you do, do it like a gentleman.’ ”
Taylor just shook his head.
Eating homemade ice cream sounded good, and just sitting around the porch was always kind of fun. Maybe swinging in the big swing; maybe playing Chinese Checkers or something; even climbing the windmill and looking at the sunset—not because it was pretty like Mother and Cousin Carol would say, but just because you could see it longer from high up. It was stuff we didn’t do at home.
A full stomach and a warm room had made us sleepy. We were lying on our beds when Cousin Carol called out, “Y’all better come on down and get back to your fishin’ spot, before something happens to your fish.”
She gave us a thermos full of lemonade and put it in a brown paper sack with three small jelly glasses. She admonished us to not get back too late. Supper was at six and maybe we should get back by five. She might have a surprise. That told us for sure we were going to have homemade ice cream.
We left our bikes at the house since we had worked our way up the branch close enough to the house to walk. And it was easier to carry everything walking. It was hotter now, and we kicked up dust between the rows of cotton. In the morning the dew hadn’t dried, and the rich soil was still matted and would stick to your Keds. The stalks of green with their white bolls were dry and taking in the sunrays. I almost felt sorry for the little white bolls facing the sun. We picked up little clods of dirt to throw at the dragon flies circling. You had to be pretty accurate to hit one. To my knowledge, no one had ever hit a dragonfly with a dirt clod in midair.
Taylor tried to tell a joke while we walked. He said he hadn’t heard all of it, but it was one that he had overheard in the seed and feed one day. It was something about a farmer’s daughter and a salesman, and how they ended up in her daddy’s barn one night and fell out of the loft. Taylor said maybe when we were older we would know what it meant, and then maybe it would be funny. I told him if he had heard all of it, maybe it would be funny. He had heard Cousin Carol say one time that some of those men at the seed and feed store were lazy and had nothing better to do than play dominoes at the café and tell dirty jokes. She had said they ought to be careful when children were around—telling some of the jokes they told—and they were the same men you never saw in Sunday School, either. The farmer story must have been a dirty joke.
We passed through the field, then turned through the trees toward the spot where we had been earlier. We sat under the cottonwood tree and put down our poles and our sack with the thermos. The first thing we wanted to check was our fish. Casey screamed when he saw the snake; a great high-pitched scream, like a girl.
“Oh, man alive, look at that,” Taylor said. Casey had retreated almost all the way up the bank. “Is it dead?”
I was about five feet away and didn’t want to get any closer. I leaned forward and squinted at the dark colored snake. “He doesn’t l
ook like he’s movin’. Y’all think he’s dead?”
“Hand me a stick,” Taylor said.
Casey started poking through the weeds, trying to find a tree limb. Finally he picked one up about three feet long. He pitched it to Taylor, who was closer to the snake.
“I think he’s dead,” I said.
Taylor poked the snake. It didn’t move. He poked it again. Finally he slipped the stick underneath it and lifted it. It didn’t move until Taylor lifted the stick high and the snake started sliding down toward his hand. He dropped the stick and jumped back. It just lay on the ground. Finally, satisfied it was dead, we closed in.
“Cottonmouth,” Taylor said. “Sure death if you get attacked by one of those.”
“My daddy said they’ll make you sicker than a dog with mange,” I said.
“Shoot! They’ll kill you too, Jake. I’ve heard lotsa guys say so,” Taylor said.
Casey had gathered courage at the discovery that it was dead and moved in a little. “I wonder how it died?” The three of us stood directly over it.
“You think somebody came along here and killed it, Taylor?” Casey asked.
“Beats me. Say! Look it’s kinda got a bloody spot on its head.” Taylor put his foot on it just below the head, and pointed with the stick. “Look at that. Looks like little holes in its head. Maybe somebody shot it. Hey, Jake, see if the fish are still on the stringer.”
I looked at the stringer. I imagined a giant cottonmouth attached to the fish.
I tugged the stringer then pulled it up. “Yep, looks like they’re all here.”
“Hey, what’s this shiny thing?” Casey said. He was pushing something with his toe, just beyond the snake. “Look, Taylor,” he said, holding up the small object in the sunlight. Its reflection sparkled.
“Look, another one,” I said.
Before I picked it up Taylor took Casey’s, held it in the air and said, “That’s a bullet shell…you know, a casing. A .22.” He looked at Casey.
“I’ll bet it’s Looty,” Casey said.