“Really, Hank! What if somebody comes along and sees you?”
“Well, I could just tell ’em I’m adjusting the TV antenna or something.”
“Oh sure. Just when are you supposed to sit on the roof? Right before knocking me up, or right before the baby is born?”
“I hadn’t thought of that. Your mother didn’t say.”
“Why don’t you ask her?”
“Heck, I couldn’t ask her that.”
Sonora didn’t say anything more. But just before going to sleep, she drowsily mumbled, “Maybe I will ask her.” And she did. The next time she saw her mother, she casually mentioned the subject, never having had any difficulty discussing sex with her mother, and told her, “Hank wants to sit on the roof for seven hours. When’s he supposed to do it? Before conception or before birth?” Her mother told her that it was supposed to happen just prior to conception. Sonora relayed this information to Hank, who declared,
“Well, I’m ready anytime you are.”
Sonora calculated the best time of her month and answered, “Any time this weekend,” so the following Sunday, after the noon dinner, when there weren’t any television sets that needed urgent repairs, Hank filled a quart Mason jar with ice and water (it was a hot day), propped a ladder against the eaves of his house, kissed Sonora for good luck, and climbed to the roof, stepped onto it, then climbed the roof to its ridge. He put his ice water on the top of the chimney, the only flat surface up there. He sat down on the ridge, lighted a cigarette, smoked it, and dropped the butt down the chimney. His daughters came out of the house and stared up at him, pointing at him and giggling among themselves fit to burst. After an hour of it, they grew tired of giggling and went back into the house.
It was one hell of a hot day, and the sun reflecting off the roof made it even hotter. Hank was soaked with sweat; he uncapped the Mason jar and took a lusty drink of ice water. The ice was rapidly melting. The pressure of the ridge against his buttocks was uncomfortable. He hollered down the chimney, “Hey, Snory!” His wife came out of the house, and he called to her, “Could you throw me up a sofa cushion or a pillow or something?” She laughed and went back into the house and brought out a sofa cushion; she threw it; it didn’t reach him; he had to fetch it halfway down the roof. He put it on the roof ridge and sat on it. That was much more comfortable. A pickup truck pulled into his driveway, and in it was his father and all four of his uncles. “Hey, Hank!” Uncle Tearle called up to him. “Ball game down at Deer. Let’s go.” “I got to fix this damn antenna,” Hank replied, taking hold of the antenna and pretending to turn it. “We can wait,” Bevis said, and got out of the truck and began climbing the ladder. At the top of the ladder he asked, “Need a hand?” “That’s okay, Dad,” Hank said. “I can do it, but it takes a while to get it right. You boys go on to the ball game.” Bevis protested that they could wait, and it took several minutes of argument for Hank to persuade them to leave. They were scarcely out of sight when another pickup truck pulled into his driveway, and Bill Chism jumped out and called to him, “Hey, Hank. My Tee Vee just won’t go on. I don’t know what’s the matter with it.” “Well, Bill, I’m sorry,” Hank replied. “I’m messin with this here antenna, and I’ll probably be up here all afternoon.” “Aw, durn,” Bill said, “I was gonna watch the Cardinals.”
“Did you check to see if it was plugged in?” Hank asked. “Hadn’t thought of that,” Bill said and got back into his pickup and drove off. Half an hour later he was back. “Yeah, it’s plugged in, all right, and I can get some sound, but there jist aint ary picture.” Hank replied, “Try the brightness and contrast knobs. Could be you’ve dimmed the tube out.” Bill left again, and returned in another half hour. “I reckon I’ve missed that there Cardinal game by now. But my old woman is givin me hell on account of she has to watch ‘I Love Lucy.’ You sure are takin a long time with that antenna. What’s wrong with it anyhow?” “Caint git it adjusted just right,” Hank said, but he was at a loss for any way to get rid of Bill Chism. He could keep sending him back to fool around with various knobs and screws on his television set, but ole Bill would just keep on coming back until Hank had fixed it. Now Bill showed no inclination to leave, but was just hanging around watching Hank pretending to twist the TV antenna. Hank kept up the pretense until he realized that he wasn’t fooling Bill, and then he asked, “Bill, can you keep a secret? I’ll tell you the truth. I know it’s plumb ridiculous, but what I’m doing up here on the roof, see, is an old superstition. Learned it from Snory’s mother. I’ve got to sit here on the roof for seven hours, and I’ve just been here about three.”
“No foolin?” Bill said, with an ill-suppressed grin. “What’s it supposed to cure?” “It don’t cure anything, exactly,” Hank replied, “it just sorta brings a certain kind of good luck.” “Is that a fact?” Bill said. “Well, I declare. I hope it works fer ye. But will you come and fix my Tee Vee as soon as you git down?” Bill consulted his wristwatch and added, “That’d be about eight o’clock. If you hurry, maybe my old woman can watch her program.” “I’m sure sorry, Bill,” Hank said. “But as soon as I git down, I’ve got to do something else.”
“What’s that?”
“I caint tell ye, Bill, but it’s part of the superstition too.”
Bill hung around a while longer, dejected, and then complained, “What if you was a doctor, and my old woman was a-dying? You’d come down then, I bet.”
“Yeah, Bill, I sure would, but I aint a doctor and your old woman aint a-dying, and I’ve done put my mind to this here superstition, and you’d have to burn my house down to get me off of here.” Bill went away.
Hank’s jar of water was empty; he hollered down the chimney for more, and Sonora climbed the ladder and got his jar and refilled it, and brought it back up with a ham sandwich. He ate his sandwich and drank his ice water, then he realized that he needed to urinate. He went down the back slope of the roof and stood at the edge of the roof and urinated. Inside the house one of his daughters observed, “Mommy, it’s raining, although the sun is out. I bet there’ll be a rainbow.” All of the girls ran out of the house looking for a rainbow. Then they went back in. Late in the afternoon, a carload of Stay Morons drove into the driveway and stared at him and then drove away. “Damn that Bill Chism,” Hank said aloud. Another carload of Stay Morons arrived. Then another. The population of Stay More at that time had shrunk to only about sixty, but before the afternoon was over every last one of them had had a chance to see Hank Ingledew sitting on his roof. Most of them shouted, “Good luck, Hank” as they were driving away, but many of them made joking remarks. The last visitor was a reporter from the Jasper Disaster, carrying a Graphlex camera. “You point that thing at me,” Hank warned, “and I’ll smash it to flinders.”
“Could I ask a few questions?” the reporter asked.
“I jist as soon ye didn’t,” Hank said.
“It isn’t every day that I get a chance like this,” the reporter persisted. “Imagine the headline: ‘stay more man sits on roof seven hours.’”
Hank grimaced, and said, “There better not be a word in your paper. A man has got the right to do whatever he wants so long as he aint harmin anyone. I’m on my own property, and you’re trespassing. I’ll take ye to court if you print this.” The reporter retreated, and nobody else came. He had just a couple of hours to go. He was tired. His bones ached. He felt silly. But he believed it would work. Faith fortifies.
When his seven hours were up, Sonora climbed to the top of the ladder and smiled at him and asked, “Shall I climb on up there, and we’ll do it on the roof?” Hank didn’t know if she was serious or not, but he observed, “It’s still light. I’ll come down.” He went down off the roof. She pointed out that the girls wouldn’t be going to bed for another hour. “Are we supposed to do it right away?” Hank wondered. “I guess,” she said. “Well, let’s go for a little walk,” he suggested. Sonora went inside to tell the oldest girl that they were going for a walk and would be back soon. T
hen Sonora and Hank went into the woods behind their house; within a few hats they were lost from sight. On a thick blanket of old leaves Sonora sat and removed her slacks and panties; Hank removed his pants and shorts. They embraced and kissed for a while, but Hank discovered that his part was not only not standing but also it wasn’t even rising. Hank could not explain it. He tried: “I guess maybe I’m just all wore out from sitting on the roof so long.”
“But what about all of those other men that it worked for, who sat on their roofs and then had sons?” Sonora said. “Were they worn out too? How did they get it in?”
“I don’t know,” Hank said, and he climbed on top of her and put it between her legs and went through all the motions of intercourse, but his part refused to stiffen. Sonora thrust her hips vigorously against his, but it wouldn’t help. He did, however, after prolonged movement, spill his seed, which Sonora collected on her fingertips and inserted into herself. It was this which impregnated her.
Nine months later she gave birth to, sure enough, a son. She was ecstatic, and there is no word to apply to Hank, who made a fool of himself out of pride and happiness. But after the celebrating was over, he frowned and asked Sonora, “What was the name of that guy we were going to name him after? You know, the World’s Oldest Man, that peddler from Connecticut?” “Yeah, I know who you mean,” Sonora said, frowning; “His name is right on the tip of my tongue…Eh…Eh…Elmer? No. What was it?” She couldn’t remember. Hank asked his father. Bevis said, “It was one of them funny Yankee names, Esau or something.” Hank’s Uncle Tearle thought the first name was “Ezra” but none of his uncles could help him.
Wasn’t the name written down anywhere? Maybe it was written on the glass showcase which served as the man’s coffin. Hank went into the old mill; its timbers were thoroughly rotten; he worried that the mill would collapse upon his head, but he found the glass showcase and dusted it off. The old man hadn’t changed a bit, but the sight of him didn’t refresh Hank’s memory as to what his name had been. “What was your name, old-timer?” Hank said aloud, and wouldn’t have been surprised if he got a reply, but he didn’t. He inspected the glass showcase closely, but there was nothing written on it except the name of the manufacturer, “Acme Display Fixtures, Inc.” He told Sonora that they might as well name their son Acme Display Fixture Ingledew, but Sonora rejected that because of the resemblance between “Acme” and “Acne.” Sonora suggested finding the oldest person in Stay More and asking him or her if he or she could remember the name of the Connecticut peddler. That turned out to be Drussie Ingledew, Grandpa Doomy’s kid sister, in her early eighties, still living in the Stay More Hotel, still operating it in fact, although the last customer to spend the night there was back during the Second War.
“Aunt Drussie,” Hank said, “what was the name of that old peddler who used to come back to Stay More again and again and finally died here when I was a kid?” “Aw, shore,” Drussie replied, “everybody knows his name. I’m ashamed of ye, thet you’ve forgot it. Why, when I was just a little girl, I remember the year he brought the whale oil when the bar oil guv out, and then again when the whale oil guv out he brought coal oil. Then there was the time—” “Aunt Drussie,” Hank interrupted, “what was his name?” “He used to give me candy,” Drussie recalled, “and ask me if I had been a good girl, and if I was being as good a girl as I knew how. I’ll never forget him, to the day I die.” “But you don’t remember his name?” Hank asked. “Ellis Wilkins?” Drussie said. “Ellery Wilkes? Ephriam Wilson? Elton Wallace? Ennis Willoughby? Any of them sound right to you?” Hank shook his head. “Wal, I’ll tell ye,” Drussie offered, “there was a time he druv up to Stay More in the first hossless kerridge, and my oldest brother Denton took ’im to court fer spookin his livestock’ in the building whar the cannin fact’ry used to be, that one time was Denton and Monroe’s barn, and the Jasper newspaper printed a give-out on the court trial. Maybe if you was to find that old newspaper, it would have his name in it.” “What year was it?” Hank asked. “Year?” said Drussie. “Why, I reckon that was the same year, or the year after, that Doomy organized the Masons.” “What year was that? Do you know the number of the year?” “Number of the year? Law, boy, years don’t have numbers!” “Don’t you know the number of this year?” “No. Do you?” Hank said goodbye to his great-aunt and drove into Jasper to search the files of old Disasters, but the fellow on duty in the Disaster office was the same person that Hank had refused permission to photograph him on his rooftop or even to interview him, and the fellow was peevish and wouldn’t give Hank permission to look at old issues. It didn’t matter; Hank didn’t even know what year it was. Even if he knew the exact year, he probably wouldn’t have been able to find the item. He went home to Sonora and said, “Let’s just name him Hank Junior and you can call me Big Hank and call him Little Hank.”
No, Sonora wasn’t buying that. For one thing, she knew that the boy would eventually grow to be bigger than his father, and therefore the Little Hank designation would be as absurd as “Li’l Abner.” For another thing, she had been thinking that names ought to mean something. Her own name, Sonora, had been given to her by her mother because it meant “little song” and her newborn cries had been like little songs. “John Henry” didn’t mean anything. Taken literally, it meant “God is gracious and is the ruler of an enclosure, or private property,” which, even apart from the fact that the Ingledews didn’t even believe in God, was contradictory: a gracious John cannot be a tightfisted Henry. Sonora wanted a meaningful name. It was springtime; things were growing; she wanted her baby to grow and flourish. So she named him Vernon. Hank didn’t much like that, but there wasn’t much he could do. He hoped that before the ink was dry on the birth certificate the name of the Connecticut peddler might suddenly return to him, but it never did. Vernon Ingledew it was, and remained.
We come now to a difficult matter. What psychological effect would it have upon a growing boy to have five older sisters? Wouldn’t he be dreadfully spoiled? Would he become effeminate? Or wouldn’t his congenital Ingledew woman-shyness be magnified a hundredfold? It was true his sisters doted on him—and during the summers there were not five but six of them, in a sense: his first cousin Jelena, raised by his Uncle Jackson in Harrison during the school year, spent all her summers, every summer, in Stay More and was such a close friend of his sisters, especially of Patricia, who was the same age, that as far as Vernon was concerned she was one more sister. She and Patricia were eight years old when Vernon was born, and that is an age for being particularly interested in watching Sonora change Vernon’s diapers. Soon Patricia and Jelena were volunteering to change Vernon’s diapers.
Jelena was to claim, years afterward, that she fell in love with him the first time she laid eyes on him. Was he aware of her in infancy? Dubitable; to him, her face was just one of seven female faces that came constantly in and out of his field of vision. But he was four years old before he understood that he was in any way different from these seven persons. By the age of four he had begun to misbehave, and his father, in order to induce good behavior, threatened to cut off his tallywhacker unless he behaved himself. He could not help but notice that the other seven persons did not possess tallywhackers, and assumed that they had all flagrantly misbehaved, and were doomed to go through life tallywhackerless and wearing dresses and sitting down to pee.
He did not want to wear a dress, nor did he want to have to sit down to pee, so he tried his best to behave. In the years of his growing up, Vernon was preoccupied with behaving himself. He felt sorry for the seven persons who had lost their tallywhackers, but he tried to avoid all of them except the one who was his mother, for whom he felt an emotion that was not pity or compassion or wonder but a deep feeling that he could not understand, and which frightened him in its intensity, causing him to do his best to suppress the feeling, lest it lead him into misbehavior and the loss of his tallywhacker.
There are two things that can happen to a boy who has five (or six)
older sisters and a mother with whom he is unknowingly deeply in love: on the one hand he can lose all of his courage and self-confidence and be a pampered emotional cripple for the rest of his life, or, conversely on the other hand, growing up masculine in a feminine household, fiercely determined to keep his tally-whacker, he may be forced by himself into great achievements. Vernon Ingledew forced himself into great achievements.
His first great achievement, however, was almost accidental, and occurred at the age of sixteen. On one of his many solitary walks in the fastnesses of Ingledew Mountain, he discovered a razorback boar. It had been thought that the razorback, if it ever existed at all outside of legend, was long extinct in the Ozarks, but to Vernon, who had seen pictures of them, there was no mistaking that this was indeed a razorback boar. In the end of the following, penultimate chapter, we will have to witness Vernon’s struggle to capture the boar. And in the final chapter we will learn what he did with it.
Chapter nineteen
Jackson Ingledew was a janitor in the Harrison public school system. He got the job in the same year that Jelena, who had become his ward, was old enough to start to school. During the summer months, when school was not in session, he was unemployed, and the two of them returned to Stay More for the entire summer. That is part of the reason why he bought the “mobile home,” shown here; the other part of the reason was that he thought the mobile home looked “modern.” The Ozarks were filling up with mobile homes, and Jackson got the latest model. Stay More was full of abandoned houses that were his for the asking, but he opted for the modernity and the convenience of a mobile home. For nine months of the year, while school was in session, Jackson’s mobile home was parked in a “trailer camp” in the small city of Harrison; for the other three months it was parked beside Swains Creek in Stay More, halfway between the old canning factory and the sycamore tree which had held Noah Ingledew’s treehouse.
The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks Page 42
