Raney

by Clyde Edgerton

“No.”

  Aunt Flossie said she had heard that Mr. Earls didn’t have a phone so I might have to ride out to his house to ask him about helping us out. She said he was a Primitive Baptist and shouldn’t be any harm, if I wanted to ride out by myself. But Charles rode with me to meet him—this past Saturday morning, one of those hot fall days.

  We turned into the driveway of a nice looking brick house, ranch style, with trees, except the leaves hadn’t been raked. There was a big flagpole at the mailbox flying the Confederate flag. Charles sees that and goes, “Oh, no,” like a paint bucket had fell over.

  We stopped in the driveway and got out. A dog came out to meet us. He was a old dog, and didn’t even bark. In the carport was a man sitting beside a cannon, working on it. Then I saw a cannon on the front porch and another one out in the back yard. The man got up and walked out to the car. Right off he reminded me of Abraham Lincoln, without a beard. He was over six feet tall, and wearing blue and white striped overalls with a belt holding all these tools. His waist looked like it won’t no bigger than mine. His ears stuck straight out and his hair was black and short. I thought: that’s the skinniest man I’ve ever seen in my life. When he got up close I saw that his temples and cheeks were sunk in so that he looked like a skeleton almost. And he didn’t have much coloring in his face.

  “Howdy,” he said. “What can I do for you?” He had a deep business voice. Charles reached out and shook his hand and introduced us.

  “We wanted to call, but couldn’t find a listing,” said Charles.

  “I don’t have a phone. Don’t have a television. I wouldn’t have lights if they hadn’t already been hooked up when we bought the place. Ain’t no need for none of it except for a electric drill and a table saw. I’ll use a electric drill and a table saw. But that’s it. What can I do for you all?”

  I explained about the Golden Agers’ Day.

  “I’d be happy to help you out. People don’t do nothing for old people nowadays. I told Birdie, I said ‘Birdie, when the man gets here in the ambulance to take me to one of them nursing homes, if you’re living and able, put me in the bed, put a sheet over my head, and tell him I’m dead. And if you ain’t able to take care of me then stop feeding me, and if the youngin’s won’t take care of me, then let me die doing the best I can.’” He looked straight at Charles. “Nothing more than the best we can do is required of any of us. My mama is right there in my living room right now. Far as I know she ain’t ever heard a one of these cannons go off, and I shoot one about every day. She does the best she can, which ain’t nothing but breathe. Birdie and me do the rest. And the good Lord provides. What time you all want to come out next Saturday?”

  “How about ten o’clock?” I said.

  “That’ll be fine. I’ll build a lean-to, start a campfire, and have a regular little show. If there are any men along we’ll let them join in. Come here and let me show you where I blew a hole in my tool shop.”

  I thought: maybe we better think twice.

  Mr. Earls had one of those little sheds out back and one side had a big hole in it which he’d covered with clear plastic. “I don’t know how in the world it happened,” he said. “I had a box of powder and I guess a spark got to it some way. We’d been firing at a reinactment and maybe a spark got in there somewhere and smoltered. I been in the Civil War business over forty year and nothing’s blowed up but twice.”

  “What was the other time?” I asked.

  “A cannon. I’d walked about twenty feet from it—to get a drill—and it blew up. Blew a limb out of the tree it was under. Listen, won’t you all come in and look at some of my relics?”

  We said we’d like to. We walked through the carport door into the kitchen. Mrs. Earls was cooking dinner. Mr. Earls introduced us then took off his belt of tools and dropped it on the bar and said, “Put those tools in the box, honey. Ya’ll come on in the living room and have a seat.”

  In the living room, propped up in a brass bed that must not have been polished in ten years was Mr. Earls’s mother. Mr. Earls introduced us but she kept looking straight ahead. She had a tiny brown face that looked like a apple that had been on the window sill for about a year.

  “There’s my children’s pictures on the wall,” said Mr. Earls. “Didn’t a one go to college, thank the good Lord. They all make a good living and are respectful of the things deserving respect.”

  I wondered if Mrs. Earls was going to put up his tools—why he didn’t put up his own tools. Then I heard the tools knocking in a box. She was putting them up.

  “What you all want to drink—water, milk, or orange juice?”

  We both said orange juice.

  “Birdie, bring these folks some orange juice. You folks sit down right over there.”

  Birdie came in with two glasses of orange juice. “He makes me unload his tools,” she said, “then load them back up. I told him just to hang up his belt with the tools in it, but he won’t do it.” She was a tiny woman who looked like one of those migrant worker women in Charles’s photography book.

  “Stretches the leather,” said Mr. Earls.

  “He could lay it down somewhere, couldn’t he?” I said to Mrs. Earls. I wanted to even things up a little.

  “I don’t leave things laying around,” said Mr. Earls. “Against my principles. Let me tell you: I model my life after Stonewall Jackson, one of the greatest generals in the history of war. Birdie knows I do, and abides it. And I’ll tell you this: the German panzer divisions had Stonewall Jackson to thank. He’ll go down with Napoleon. He was a great general, a great man, a Christian.”

  Birdie brought some cookies. Chocolate chip. Bought.

  “Do you all know anything about the Civil War?” says Mr. Earls. “If you don’t, you should.”

  “I’ve heard about it off and on all my life,” I said, “but I don’t know much.”

  “I’m reading a book right now,” said Charles.

  “Which one?” said Mr. Earls.

  “Bruce Catton’s.”

  “Which one?”

  “The big one.”

  “Read Shelby Foote’s three when you finish that one. They’re the best for an overview.” He went on to talk about all these books on the Civil War, about Stonewall Jackson getting shot by his own men, and I don’t know what all—something about a secret message wrapped around cigars. Then he brought out all these bullets and pistols and rifles, and finally Mrs. Earls asked us if we wanted to eat dinner. We politely refused and drove on home.

  I thought about what a one-two—one on the top, two on the bottom—marriage Mr. and Mrs. Earls had. He was one and she was two. And she seemed perfectly happy. Charles wouldn’t ever ask me to hang up a tool belt of his. If he did, he’d be more upset about it than me. At home, inside the house, Mama was one and Daddy was two. It seems like Mrs. Earls and Daddy were born number twos, but Charles . . . I don’t know. He was born one and a half, and that don’t leave me but one and a half, whether I like it or not. We’ve talked about it some. It’s fair. No doubt about that, but I don’t know if it’s natural.

  We were riding along and Charles says, “Well . . . a real live Rebel.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That’s the mind that ruled the South before the Civil War, I imagine. You heard what he said about blacks being better off before the war than after the war.”

  “He didn’t say ‘blacks.’”

  “That’s what he meant.”

  “Some of that might be true.”

  “What do you mean? Are you telling me that slaves were better off than free blacks? Come off it.” Charles looked at me. He was holding onto the steering wheel with one hand and his other arm was propped in the window.

  “Look at Mrs. Earls,” I said. “She’s a slave if ever I saw one, and she’s a lot happier than your normal ‘free hippie.’”

  “Raney. This theory about the southern black being better off as a slave is a rationalization. If you found one slave saying he’d rather be a slave t
han free, then you could account for that through some exceptional circumstance—or ignorance.”

  “Well, I don’t know. I know you don’t know everything about Mr. Earls’s ‘mind.’ You don’t know nothing about how he took care of his children, about whether he goes to church or not. Aunt Flossie said he was a Primitive Baptist, and they—”

  “For the sake of argument, let’s suppose he does go to church—every Sunday, Sunday night, and Wednesday night, and for all the sunrise services and whatever the hell else. I’d like to know what that proves, exactly.”

  “It proves he’s in church like the Bible says he’s supposed to be. It proves—”

  “Wait a minute. Let’s take that one. What does that prove?”

  “What does what prove?”

  “That he’s in church like he’s supposed to be.”

  “It proves he’s obeying God’s word.”

  “A monkey can obey God’s word.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Charles.”

  “I’m merely responding logically to your argument.”

  “Charles, a monkey can break God’s word too. And I’d rather have the monkey who kept God’s word. This argument don’t make sense because a monkey don’t even know what God’s word is, and a man does, so you can’t have a monkey breaking God’s word, but you can have a man breaking God’s word.”

  “What about a man who doesn’t know God’s word—has never heard it. Those kind of men live and die every day.”

  “We’re talking about Mr. Earls who does know God’s word. Stick to the subject.”

  “Raney, the whole point—”

  “Charles, the whole point is that you think you know what you’re talking about and you’ve just met Mr. Earls and you’re jumping to all kinds of conclusions about him.”

  “Raney, I’m talking about the Civil War. Who do you think should have won the war?”

  I waited a minute. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I’m not taking a stand either way, Charles. You should have been born a Yankee—that’s all I know. Some of my relatives were killed in the Civil War. Who do you think I am, a traitor?”

  Charles gave up. We were at home anyway.

  Aunt Flossie was real happy to find out that Mr. Earls would help out. After Charles and me had a banana sandwich I drove straight over to tell her. I’ve finally got Charles to eat peanut butter and potato chips on a banana sandwich—along with mayonnaise. He used to wouldn’t eat anything but mayonnaise on one.

  II

  On Golden Agers’ day, Mr. Earls met us (we were in three cars and a van) in his Confederate uniform. Birdie was standing beside him in a granny dress and a blue bonnet. On the front porch was Mr. Earls’s mama, sitting wrapped up in a quilt and with a tight navy blue knit hat pulled down to her neck. We turned into his driveway and all piled out—thirteen Golden Agers and six people who were helping out.

  Down across the yard, close to the woods, was the cannon, and on beyond that in the edge of the woods was a shelter built out of pine tree limbs with a burning campfire close by. Beside the campfire were three bunches of rifles, stacked with their barrels coming together at the tips.

  The Channel 9 TV van turned in the driveway. Aunt Flossie had called them and they said they might be able to come.

  Mr. Earls was walking around shaking hands with everybody. “Glad you made it. Glad you made it.” Birdie headed toward the campfire—to keep it going, I guess.

  “Birdie,” hollered Mr. Earls, “get those hats and coats out of the lean-to.”

  Birdie brought Civil War hats and coats and Mr. Earls put them on several of the men, including Charles. Aunt Flossie told the TV men—Bob Ross and a cameraman—that me and Charles had our banjo and guitar in the car and might be willing to do a little back-up music. They asked us if we would and we said we’d be glad to. I got nervous and Charles got fidgety—kept tuning his B string.

  Bob Ross got a bunch of people to stand and sit around the campfire, and he put me and Charles off to the side picking “Salt Creek,” while he interviewed Mr. Earls and Aunt Flossie about the Civil War and the Golden Agers’ day. We played through Salt Creek three times before they were through. I asked Bob Ross when it would be on TV and he said Monday night probably. He looked lots older than he does on TV. He seemed like a normal person, though.

  The cameraman took a few more shots of people sitting around the campfire and then a close-up of Charles and me picking and singing. Then Mr. Earls says, “Okay, let’s fire the cannon. Birdie, gunpowder.”

  Birdie hurried over to a wooden box, got out a little package, and hurried back to the cannon where Mr. Earls was. He went straight to work while he hollered out for the men in uniform to get a rifle and line up beside the cannon and to be careful because the rifles were loaded. The men ambled over with the rifles. Everybody else stood in a group over toward the cars—to watch. Mr. Earls made a short speech to the group about the use and movement of field artillery in battle. He was wearing a sword which he pulled out and pointed as he talked. The cameraman filmed part of that. Then Mr. Earls starts toward the cannon and says to the cameraman, “Take your picture from anywhere you want to.”

  “I think I’ll stay here,” he said. He was over with us watching.

  “I ain’t shooting nothing but wadding. You could get right out front. The rifles ain’t got nothing but wadding, either.”

  “I think I’ll stay here.”

  Mr. Earls went to work ramming a long stick, with a cloth balled up on the end, down the barrel of the cannon. Then he walked around to the back of the cannon, picked up a smaller stick with cloth on the end—soaked in kerosene, I guess—walked to the campfire, lit the cloth, came back and stood behind the cannon. A fuse was sticking up from the rear of the cannon, looking like a little white rope. The men were lined up on each side of the cannon. “You men back up over here,” he said. “No, you. Right. Camera ready? Ladies and gentlemen! Here we go.”

  Charles was holding a rifle, wearing that little Rebel hat, standing beside Mr. Goodman, looking at me with his eyes real wide, pretending he was scared to death.

  “Men. Prepare to fire. Sir. Raise that gun a little if you will. No, not you. Yes, you. Good. Ready on the left, ready on the right, ready on the firing line. Ready. . . . Aim. . . .”

  Mr. Earls touched the fire to the fuse—which I guess was stuck down into the gunpowder somehow—then stood back. The fuse sparkled and fizzed, and just as the spark reached the cannon he said, “Fire.”

  The rifles fired. The cannon just sat there.

  “Birdie. Get the drill.”

  Birdie ran over to the corner of the house, bent over and picked up something, then went running to the cannon with this electric drill with a long orange extension cord dragging along behind.

  I got in the front door of the TV van and moved to the back where an extra camera was and sat down on a little bench. About a minute later Charles was in there. “Did you see what he’s doing?” said Charles.

  “Yes, I did. What’s he doing with a drill?”

  “I do not know.”

  I buried my head under my hands and Charles got the giggles. Then I got the giggles. “Charles, I don’t want to die in the Civil War.” We could hear the high whine of the electric drill.

  “Maybe it’ll be on TV if we do,” said Charles. “I guess I’d better sneak back out there.”

  “I’m staying put,” I said.

  In a few minutes I heard another “Ready, aim, fire,” and there was a awful loud boom along with the rifles firing. I got out of the van. Everybody was clapping and white smoke was drifting up into the air.

  Next was the bluegrass festival. We got everybody loaded into the cars and van and drove to Hardee’s for lunch, then out to the Templeton Highlands—two big pastures—for the Fall-fest Bluegrass and Gospel Show. Charles and me were scheduled for two o’clock. Mr. Rittle, from church, called us in August and asked us if we wanted a spot on the show;
two acts had cancelled. His son, Ferrell, was in charge and had asked him if he knew anybody who could take the places of the cancelled acts. They have it every year in late October, usually the last bluegrass festival around. So since August, I’ve been promising Mary Faye and Norris that if they’d learn one of our songs they could come up on stage and sing with us. They both have good voices and Mary Faye can sing harmony better than Charles. Charles has to learn his part whereas Mary Faye picks it up natural. Well . . . like I do.

  The stage was at the bottom of a hill and people were sitting around on blankets and in lawn chairs. Mary Faye and Norris were there with Mama and Daddy; they had lawn chairs down front. Mr. Rittle saw to it that all the Golden Agers got in free, and the church provided fold-up chairs that we set up a ways behind Mama and Daddy. We got everybody settled at about 1:30. At 2:00 Charles and me went up to play.

  Charles is getting better and better on banjo. He’s been working on “Devil’s Dream” and “Doug’s Tune” all summer and they’re the two instrumental we did Saturday. Then I sang “Careless Love,” “I’ll Go Stepping Too,” “Farther Along,” “Keep on the Sunny Side,” “You Are My Flower,” “Fifty Miles of Elbow Room,” and “When the Roses Bloom in Dixieland.” Just before Mary Faye and Norris came up we did this beautiful song by Alice Gerrard and Hazel Dickens that we’ve been working on: “West Virginia,” with Charles singing harmony. (Charles bought me the album it’s on as a surprise. He buys me about one album a month. He’ll remember a song I like on the radio and the next thing I know, when I go to bed there’s the album under my pillow.)

  Then Mary Faye and Norris came up and sang “I’ll Fly Away” with us. I was going to dedicate it to the Golden Agers but Charles said I’d better not. I saw why he thought I ought not to, but I decided he was being too sensitive, so I dedicated it to them anyway. They appreciated it.

  Norris and Mary Faye were so excited and they did a perfect job. We got our biggest applause after their song. So when we were coming down the steps off the stage, I told them they caused all the applause.

  Of all the people in the world, there at the bottom of the steps was Cliff Clawhammer, who does The Kiddie Show on Channel 9 every Saturday morning from 10:00 to 10:30. He plays the banjo and sings a little song at the end of every show. He looked just like on TV except older too—like Bob Ross. I guess TV does that to you. He looked about sixty, whereas on television, about fifty.