Maggie's Farm

by Sherry, John;

  Older than the rest of us by a good bit, he had swum into our ken by way of Kate, with whom he became friendly during the years she had lived in St. Louis while the rest of us were living abroad. Roger traveled a good bit and he became acquainted with the others, Darroch and my brother Earl when they had been living in London during the spring and summer of 1953. Kate had suggested that Roger look them up there.

  Roger’s motives in handing around his money were exceedingly difficult to pinpoint. However, I am convinced they had nothing to do with philanthropy in the traditional sense; nor were they vicious in any sense covered by the dictionary definition of that word. I believe that he sought through the offbeat dispensation of his money a dimension of action rather than sensation. I do not believe that Roger had any conscious vision of the dimension of action he sought; if he met a human being who interested him and that human being wanted something, Roger would see to it that he got it simply because he sensed that desire granted to an unprosaic personality would tend to have interesting results. Such an Aladdin’s Lamp approach to life can of course be terribly dangerous.

  Whatever interest Roger had in any of us was directly proportionate to the closeness of his direct or indirect relationship with Kate. The fact that Darroch had been married to and so long associated with Kate made him the obvious initial candidate for Roger’s attention. When Roger met O’Hara, my brother, and Darroch in London, it was Darroch who got the first chance to rub the lamp. Just why Darroch wanted it I will never really understand, but what he asked the genie for was a terribly exotic automobile which he found for sale on Great Portland Street. It was called a Bentley Speed Six and I don’t suppose there are more than ten of the things still running in the world. Darroch showed it to Roger and Roger bought it for him on the spot, paying also the cost of its transportation to the U.S.A.

  When word of this reached me, a slight whisper of “where’s mine” immediately began in my head. In the heads of Earl and O’Hara, who were on the spot in London, there was nothing slight about the whisper at all; it was, in fact, deafening. O’Hara, immediately recognized Aladdin as being far too important in the long run to be wasted on short term, frivolous requests. Even then, O’Hara must have been thinking of returning to St. Louis to have a go at marrying Kate. It is possible that as a good psychologist, O’Hara knew that the successful accomplishment of such a move would immediately place him in the forefront of Roger’s consciousness and that his hand, if properly and slowly played, could result in Aladdin providing much more than booze and exotic automobiles.

  By the fall of 1955, money was beginning to grow dangerously short for Dorothy and me; the improvement of our house and land had used almost all we had and our few, largely symbolic ventures in the direction of actual farming had reduced our expenditures a bit but did little that made any real difference to bring in income. At that time, I had approximately one hundred thousand words down on paper of the novel on which I had been working. I wrote to Hiram Haydn at Random House asking if he would be willing to have a look with the idea of an advance kept in mind. He replied that he would, but warned me that it would take him some time to get around to it. Accordingly, I bundled up a copy of the manuscript, made my hexes and crosses over the package and sent it off to New York.

  The O’Haras also were sailing quite close to the wind financially. O’Hara was working at his writing but he had so far published nothing and his hopes of financial succor from that direction were even more precarious than my own. Fortunately, Kate had a small private income which paid for the bread and beans. But there wasn’t much left over afterwards. Presumably, O’Hara decided that the time had arrived to throw Roger into the game, for he invited him to come to Wytheville that fall for a short visit. It was on that occasion that I had my sole encounter with Roger. Left to his own devices, I am inclined to think O’Hara would have preferred not to trot Roger out for public consumption. Alas, he did not have much choice. Roger had heard much of Dorothy and me and he knew that we were close friends of both O’Hara and Kate and that, indeed, they had moved to Wytheville because we had settled there. Undoubtedly O’Hara faced the fact that it would seem extremely strange to a man as preoccupied with other human beings as Roger if he were to keep us under wraps during Roger’s visit. In any case, our brief meeting with Roger was an uneventful one and I think O’Hara was relieved that no particular feeling of rapport developed on either side. Exactly what went on between Roger and O’Hara during that visit I have no way of knowing but subsequent events indicated that opening negotiations took place towards some sort of financial relationship between the two men, which would increase in scope and complexity during the next year or so.

  Sometime after Roger’s visit to Wytheville that fall, a sudden minor disaster took place which pushed me to the edge of a financial precipice. It was the sort of accident which seems vaguely comic when viewed with sufficient perspective over a period of time but it struck me as tragic at the time. It must have happened immediately before Christmas because my mother had arrived to spend that holiday with us. She and Dorothy were away at the time doing some shopping in Wytheville. They had taken Linda with them, thank God, for had the baby been with me, tragedy rather than tragicomedy would have almost certainly been the result.

  It was a bitterly cold day; so cold in fact that our creek was frozen solid. I had gone in my beloved wooden station wagon to collect some bales of hay for the cow from a nearby farm. Returning with the hay, I had to dismount from the car to open the gate to the farm and then after having driven through the gate, dismount again in order to return and shut the gate. The ground just inside the gate was fairly level and I had got into the habit of doing a very stupid thing: neglecting to set the hand brake when I left the car with its engine running to go back to shut the gate. This day, I finished closing the gate and started back towards the wagon only to realize with horror that it had begun to move. The drive leading on down to the old barn ran more or less gently along a track levelled out of the side of a steep hill. So steep, in fact, that the ground fell away to the left of the track at an angle of about 45 degrees for about 150 feet until it reached the creek bed. When I saw the wagon begin to move, I ran to it as fast as I could but, by the time I got the door open, the car’s wheels had turned downhill towards the creek and it had assumed enough momentum that I had no chance of stopping it. Accordingly, I had to stand helpless, my jaw wide with horror as I watched my beloved station wagon which was also the sole family means of transportation, plunge down the hill picking up speed every instant until it hit the frozen creek, bounded up into the air and annhilated itself against a large oak tree on the far bank of the creek.

  After the first few moments of shock and trembling had worn off, I could only think of one thing: getting the disastrously broken vehicle out of the creek bed. I felt both ashamed and foolish at having been so unbelievably stupid as to have destroyed the car through pure, thoughtless lack of precaution. I telephoned a wrecker service and a half hour later they came and winched the car back up the hill. There was no question of having it repaired; it was a total wreck. Its value as scrap just about paid for the wrecker service and that was that.

  An hour or so later, Dorothy and my mother returned from their shopping in the town. They were inclined to take a much lighter view of what had happened than I did. Their attitude was: no one was hurt, no flesh was torn; it was only wood and metal which were destroyed so why worry about it? I attempted to adopt the same reasonable attitude but I was too angry with myself to have much success with it because I had already begun to worry about how I was going to replace the vehicle. Life on the farm was clearly impossible without one.

  I immediately began looking around for something and found an International pick-up truck for sale for five hundred dollars. For some time, we had felt the need for a truck of some sort keenly. The many small and large hauling tasks which arose even on a farm as small and amateurish as ours made such a vehicle something of a necessity; until then,
the station wagon had just barely served to fulfill such duties. However the price of the pick-up truck was five hundred dollars and it was five hundred dollars we simply did not have at the time. I could always approach my mother, of course, but I did not want to do so; while I had no qualms about bracing her for capital sums for actual investment in the farm, it did not seem fair to be running to her in a case like this. Then I thought of Roger and began to wonder if I might not rub Aladdin’s lamp also. And in all honesty, I must admit that I was interested in what O’Hara’s reaction to such a move might be.

  Deciding to sound O’Hara out about the feasibility of such a course, I dropped by to see him and told him what was on my mind. He reacted to my intentions with both scorn and a certain amount of nervousness which struck me as arising primarily from the fact that he considered Roger to be his pigeon and feared any possible confounding of his plans by having a second set of hands in the till. Human nature being what it is, the more O’Hara objected to my putting the bite on Roger, the more determined I became to do exactly that. O’Hara’s position was rather delicate because he could not actually come right out and say he did not want me to summon up the genie without displaying his colors as those of a true dog in the manger. We parted sourly after O’Hara, much against his will, had given me Roger’s address, muttering about “me-too republicans,” a phrase much in vogue during those Eisenhower years.

  I wrote to Roger explaining that I had sustained a disaster in the automotive department and asking him if he would lend me five hundred dollars to buy a pick-up truck on the understanding that I would pay him back when and as I might be able to do so. Almost by return mail, I received a check for five hundred dollars accompanied by the following note. I quote it now because this loan of five hundred dollars was destined to become a football used for a good deal of play during the next few years. The letter was postmarked from a town in California.

  Dear John,

  My man in St. Louis came through like the good and true Mason he is; consequently, here is the five hundred. I hope it is in time to plug the hole in the dike. You can repay me as and when you are able—don’t stew about it.

  Best, Roger.

  Faced with a fait accompli, O’Hara’s sourness disappeared. I did not then know that there would be much backlash from this transaction. Matters returned to an even keel; the transportation crisis was solved. As the year drew to a close, Dorothy and I continued to putter with our house as I awaited news of my novel with ever-growing tension.

  Unfortunately, 1955 did not expire without one more gloomy incident: a second and more serious brush with the law occurred; one which involved O’Hara, my brother and myself and for which we had no one but ourselves to blame.

  It began, as most silly incidents do, in high spirits. O’Hara and Kate dropped by the farm late one Saturday afternoon to pay an idle social call. Drink was taken and an invitation subsequently tendered for them to remain for dinner. Kate refused, saying that she had to return to fix supper for her children but O’Hara elected to remain. Although women tend to become a bit rancorous at even such a minor defection from the hearth, I do not believe that explains Kate’s vituperation in regard to what happened later on that evening.

  It began and continued as a cheerful enough evening among old friends. Drink was taken before, during and after dinner and by midnight when Earl and I left to drive O’Hara back to town, we were far from sober. The route to town which I chose that night led past the local country club, a fact which, when coupled with misfortune, led to our downfall. About a quarter of a mile past the country club one of my tires blew out. On inspection, the spare proved to be flat. The country club was the closest feasible place from which to phone for assistance, and the three of us walked back down the road to see if we could use the country club telephone. It turned out that the weekly Saturday night dance was in full swing. Clad in muddy Barker boots and rough work clothing, none of us was exactly properly turned out for a festive occasion. The first person I saw after we entered the club was Bean, the local lawyer, seated at a table by the dance floor with his wife and some friends. Lawyer Bean invited us to join his party and we sat down and began to make inroads on his bourbon. The degree of intoxication among the invited guests was entirely commensurate with that of the uninvited. For quite a long time, events proceeded smoothly and, indeed, I was enjoying myself hugely, dancing with various of the ladies who seemed to find the invasion of new blood a welcome departure from what must have been a fairly ritual Saturday evening. To this day, I am not certain exactly who or what sparked the explosion. All I know is that I was seated talking with Lawyer Bean when I became aware that an altercation had developed on the far side of the dance floor. Upon investigation, I found O’Hara and my brother surrounded by a ring of angry hillbilly nobs who had clearly taken exception to something that had been said or done. Insults of increasing heat were being exchanged by both sides and there was no question that on the verbal level the locals were far outclassed, a fact which did nothing to diminish their growing fury. In retrospect, it is clear to me that we were in considerable danger. Very few of the men in that room were entirely sober and peacemakers were in short supply. And hill-country southerners, when aroused, are among the most irascible of men. Verbal provocation inevitably led to physical provocation and blows were struck. Like most fights where the personnel is intoxicated, little real damage was done. Or to be more accurate, there was not enough time for damage to be sustained before the police arrived, summoned by some intelligent member of the company. For whomever did so, I retain warm feelings; we were arrogant and outnumbered and that is a bad combination. I feel certain that had the police not arrived when they did, we would have been beaten to a pulp. At one time, in the Medinah at Rabat, I witnessed a scene of mob violence and the red-eyed, jeering crowd of men who surrounded us as we were led off by the police that night was uncomfortably reminiscent of it. The pokey seemed at that moment, eminently preferable.

  And so, off to the pokey we went; trip number two for O’Hara and me; number one for Earl. This time it was full-fig pokey—cells, warrants for our arrest and all the rest of it. I have the warrant before me now. The charge reads: “Crashing a private party while drinking.” It was hardly the sort of charge which leads to a life sentence; nevertheless, it was depressing. So depressing was it for me, in fact, that my psychological defense was to assume that we were being put upon. Because of this and because I knew it was going to be necessary to have a bond signed by a property owner in order to secure our release, I put up a perfectly god awful fuss, yelling and swearing and dragging my tin cup across the bars like a character from “The Last Mile”. The police evidently enjoyed this hugely; they allowed me to rant on until nearly four in the morning before finally letting me telephone Dorothy. I explained to her what happened and that she would have to come down to the jail and sign our bond before we could be released. She said she would be along as soon as she could arrange to have our truck picked up and the tire repaired.

  Dorothy showed up at about eight-thirty the next morning. By that time, we were all sober and thoroughly ashamed of ourselves. Later on, Dorothy told me she had found the assembled policemen laughing themselves sick over their prisoners when she arrived. I am exceedingly glad they felt this way because some of the things I had spent the night yelling at them were not of the friendliest. Indeed, I am sure, my actions would have got me a fine fat lip in a big-city tank. Strangely enough, Dorothy also seemed to find the whole situation rather comic. I recall that she brought Linda to my cell door and held her up so the child could see me through the barred window, saying, “There you are now, you can see your Daddy in jail.” Linda cooed and waved away at me happily. It was certainly not a situation covered by Dr. Spock.

  After signing the bond, Dorothy came back to the cell with the turnkey while he prepared to let us out. Then, Dorothy reported a strange order she had received from Kate regarding O’Hara. Looking straight at him, Dorothy said, “Kate told me to l
eave you in.” Our immediate reaction was to break out laughing. Then, I turned to look at O’Hara and saw that this had hit him as a very serious piece of news. His face was a study in consternation. Dorothy then said it had never occurred to her to pay any attention to Kate’s strange request, and that she had signed the bond for all three of us and we were free to go.

  There was one more curious scene that morning after we left the jail. We drove O’Hara back to his house and took him up on the offer of a cup of coffee when we got there. When we walked into his living room, Kate was sitting in a chair knitting. As O’Hara walked into the room she looked straight at him with an expression of the most ferocious contempt I have ever seen on the face of a human being, and said one word: “Trash.” His face went white and he turned and left the room without saying a word. Kate’s anger and contempt, it seemed, were directed solely at O’Hara. To the rest of us, she could not have been more cheerful and set about preparing breakfast for us immediately.