GodPretty in the Tobacco Field

by Kim Michele Richardson

  “That’s real good. Sometimes I don’t mind working Sundays either,” Rainey said, looking at me, dimples deepening along his jaws. “And Millers’ sure has fine laying chickens.”

  “Sure do. Got them some new hens the other day,” Baby Jane said proudly. “And Mr. Miller said I could name the big red one. I’m gonna help with the new coop.” She hugged my waist. “Bye now.”

  “Wait. Is Henny coming down?” I asked, wondering if she would after our argument. I was always sick after we fussed, and would gladly trade her named illness for my heartbreak. Truth was, I needed her more than she did me, her with nine brothers and sisters.

  “Sister said tell your uncle she’s sick this morning. Don’t know what time she’ll be down.” She turned, smiling, holding up the fortune-teller.

  Gunnar strolled through the rows and plucked it right out of her waving hand.

  “RubyLyn,” he snapped, “what did I tell you about wasting good time and my good paper on your scribbles?”

  “Scribbles. Scribbles? No, wait, that’s my art, Gunnar.” I reached for his arm.

  “Rubbish,” he blew, sidestepping, stopping long enough to shred it and toss it onto the tobacco as he continued on to the back field.

  Baby Jane gasped and took a fearful step behind me.

  “Rubbish? What? Th-that’s not what you told the President of the United States,” I shot back.

  Chapter 9

  Gunnar hadn’t been able to keep quiet about my art five years ago and had even told the President of the United States different. It was true that my first fortune-teller weren’t nothing fancy, or as refined as the ones I made now, but, then, I hadn’t planned on it ending up in the White House, either.

  It was on a double-sock frosty morning, April 24, 1964, when Gunnar had picked a bunch of Easter flowers in front of our house and drove us over the winding mountain roads to Inez to see the President of the United States and his wife, Lady Bird Johnson.

  Gunnar’d worn a freshly pressed shirt and a solemn tie, and had me dress in my best church clothes.

  As we bumped along from hollar to hollar in Gunnar’s old pickup, hugging the two-lane mountain road, I couldn’t help but notice the hills had put on their finest, too. Blooms of pale-purple toothwort cut paths into waking forests, and bluebells and spotted trout lilies greeted us at every switchback. Gunnar slowed to point out that our mild winter had the wild dogwood trees bursting their barked blouse in rosy-pink blossoms. A black cherry spread its arching branches, coaxing the chickadees and titmice with its budding white-clustered lace, while a gray squirrel and her mate scampered down the thick warted trunk into a pile of last year’s leaves.

  I had never seen Gunnar so excited. He hankered for a finer tie and craved one of those fancy cameras with the newfangled color film.

  He went on about President Johnson like he was some sort of famous kin. Being only ten, I didn’t understand much of what Gunnar yapped about, but I was thrilled to hear him talking to me instead of at me. Twice I had to look around to make sure that there wasn’t actually nobody with us.

  Gunnar said the president was a compassionate man and loved to move into the crowd among regular folk and shake hands, telling his Secret Service men to get lost. Several times I watched Gunnar flex his gnarled bark-brown hands over the steering wheel, testing his fingers in case he got to shake hands with the president.

  Traffic swelled, and twice we stopped to let plow horses pulling wagons full of families pass. Finally, Gunnar parked his truck and we got out and walked the rest of the way.

  The whole world must’ve come out to see, because Inez, Kentucky, was bursting with busloads of people and pockets full of bystanders. Gunnar pushed us through the crowds. More than once I heard people wondering why the big Texan was coming to the hills. A lot of folks whispered about the president traveling all this way so soon after Kennedy’s assassination, murmuring, “It’s so sad how he got his job.”

  We waited for hours. Just when I was starting to think no one was coming, a roar exploded from the crowd, and a loud, metal whirlybird landed nearby, rolling a stinging wind across ducking heads. Another landed beside it, shooting blinding sunspots from the late-afternoon sun. I couldn’t believe it. Then the president and his wife stepped out of the second helicopter and walked right onto Tom Fletcher’s swayback porch. President Johnson squatted alongside Mr. Fletcher and his eight kids to talk to the family.

  Somehow, Gunnar had pushed us through the crowd and up near the hand-hewn porch. The president shook hands and patted backs in front of the small home, and when he said he was declaring his War on Poverty, Kentucky lit up from a million camera flashes.

  No one had told us we were poor, and I looked around at the hill folk trying to see something I may have missed before. But nothing had changed, and the people looked the same as me. Still, everyone clapped politely and some hooted.

  The president talked about dignity and the Kentucky man. He told about his own grandma being from Kentucky. Then he spoke about the school and the nearby coal mines having the only jobs around. I pulled out the fortune-teller I’d made from inside Mama’s purse. I admired my drawings of a Kentucky barn, the White House, and the dollar bills I had sketched onto it, and traced my finger over the words I’d written.

  After a few more minutes President Johnson thanked everybody and the crowd gave him a big applause. That’s when Gunnar put the flowers into my hand and shoved me toward the First Lady, who was standing elegantly beside her towering husband.

  When I handed Lady Bird the wilted daffodils, I dropped my fortune. She stooped over to pick it up, and I caught a look-see of her lily-white slip.

  Lady Bird smiled quizzically. “Pretty nifty art,” she said, inspecting the folds and looking like royalty in her string of pearls, fancy red coat, and white pillbox hat. “Is this for me?”

  I looked up at her pretty face, guzzled a mouthful of her perfumed air, and blew out a stitched “ye-yes, ma’am.”

  She asked my name and when I told her “RubyLyn Royal Bishop,” she rolled the second syllable of RubyLyn under her tongue and pronounced it like “Ruba.” I wanted to correct her, but she’d made it sound exotic, and I could feel Gunnar’s eyes heating up my backside. I gave a wobbly grin and bobbed my head agreeably.

  Lady Bird reached inside her white pocketbook. Smiling, she handed me a shiny half-dollar. I took the coin and gave her the best curtsy I could manage before hightailing it back to Gunnar’s side with my heart banging against my bones. Then I dared look at the coin. It had President Kennedy on one side. I’d never seen one of them before, and the look on Gunnar’s face said he hadn’t either. I tried to give it to him, but he handed me his fresh hankie instead and told me to wrap it up and keep it safe.

  As we made to leave, Gunnar pulled us into a small huddle and shook the president’s hand, spilling about my fine art, and then stopped to boast to three strangers, telling them his niece was an artist and her art was going all the way to the White House in Washington, D.C.!

  I couldn’t believe the finest lady in the whole world wanted something I’d made and paid me in silver. Gunnar beamed all the way from Inez to Nameless, the longest I’d ever seen him happy. Normally, he couldn’t hold a smile between the porch and the mail post.

  I’d shined that silver coin twice a day for a good month thinking about her. And I had folks around here puckering up their syllables for another, to call me Ruba.

  After the president showed up in Kentucky unannounced, the postmistress said to anyone who would listen it was because of my prediction on the fortune-teller.

  Some of the townsfolk insisted I’d chased away the bad luck in Nameless and brought fame and money by sketching the White House and money onto a paper fortune after Kennedy was assassinated. I’d written Nameless will be rich like the White House under my drawings. Others laughed and I did, too . . . and greedily ate the free penny candy it earned from Mr. Parker, and pocketed the coins from the kids who’d ask me to make them
one.

  Still, I couldn’t imagine a lady that fine having the need for such charms. Which made me even more determined to seek a fine life for myself in the city where I could become a real lady and earn lots of money from my art.

  It made folks feel good, too. Hopeful. And didn’t Gunnar always say that to possess faith was Godly? So how could it be wrong . . . ?

  Fury needled my spine. “It’s not rubbish, dammit, it’s art and it don’t hurt none,” I blasted toward Gunnar’s backside and took a big breath. It always seemed like I had to take bigger gulps when Gunnar was around. He probably told his God not to give me much because I’d waste that.

  Baby Jane grabbed her basket and plucked a piece of paper off a tobacco leaf. One of the sketched chickens rattled in her trembling hand. Clutching it tightly, she hightailed it out of the rows and onto dusty Royal Road.

  Rainey shook his head, opened his paper bag, and pulled out a pickle wrapped in newspaper. “Sorry about Baby Jane’s fortune-teller. They’re making you famous in more ways than you’d like. Come on, Roo, let it go,” he said.

  I rolled my shoulders, trying to shake off my anger. Gunnar had been thrilled with my fortune-teller back then, but the more he worried over his crop and President Johnson’s War on Poverty, the more sour he’d become.

  “Hey, girl, missed ya.” Rainey tried to cheer, and held up the pickle. “Look what I got you to go with your dinner. Ma made up a batch. The garden’s been doing good this year. There’s extra cucumbers inside to make your own.”

  “Thanks, Rainey. Missed ya, too,” I said, cooling. “And I made a batch with the last ones you gave me. Really crunchy and sweet, and even the executioner wolfed them down.”

  “That’s ’cause I used my papa’s heirloom seeds this year.”

  “Your papa?” I said, surprised. He hardly talked about Gus.

  “Yeah, I found them in a small box of his things this past winter. Ma said he always grew good cukes. I thought I’d plant them and see.”

  “You must miss him a lot.”

  “I try to see him from what Ma says about him. But I . . . Well, I miss that I never helped him plant, learned hunting from him, you know, stuff like that,” he said, shoving the pickle back into the bag. “Those seeds and my papa’s old violin are all I have. Still miss the knowing. Imagine it’s the same with your folks . . . losing them like you did.”

  I never liked to talk about Daddy’s death, or Mama and what happened to her. Though Gunnar talked enough for both of us when he was mad at me. And sometimes I wondered if it would’ve been better to have lost them like Rainey did while he was in his mama’s womb—not to know them, because the tiny memories of my folks and what could’ve been made me miss them more.

  I especially missed that I didn’t have much of my daddy. The passing of time stole most of him long ago. But a few things I’d snatched back from the thief: Daddy’s scent, especially in the thick of summer, wood-soaked with traces of lavender, like the old applewood tree and purple blooming shrub in our yard that he’d planted. The soft gray hat—his favorite, a pork pie—the one that had the smart charcoal-striped band, wide brim, and deep-dish crown that he’d always let me pop up for his preaching and then pass back to me when he was through. His soft whiskers tickling my cheeks as he closed in to drop a kiss on my cheek and plop the felt hat onto my head. Those gentle hands of his that worked the rim just right and cupped my chin before letting go.

  Remembering, I whisked light fingers under my chin.

  Rainey coughed lightly, pointed to my mouth. “You been taking care of your jaws?” He walked over to a tobacco plant and plucked off the lowest leaf and handed the lug to me. Touching my jaws, he rubbed lightly. “Make yourself a spit poultice,” he said.

  I pulled myself up from my thoughts, sighing. That was Rainey, always looking out for me. I ground the leaf between my teeth. After a minute I took it out, squeezed it into a wad, and pressed it to my lips. Though the lugs had the least amount of nicotine in them, I could feel the remedy tingling, going to work on the inflammation. “Thanks,” I grunted through my lips. I wanted to talk to him about baby Eve, the fair, and everything, but it just didn’t feel right.

  “You and Gunnar’s really been going at it lately,” he said, looking down at the littered paper. “Those fortunes and scandalous books keep him pretty riled.”

  “Not much that doesn’t. But since all this baby-buyers business, it’s got us locking horns a lot more.”

  He grimaced and eyed my mouth. “Better?”

  “Yeah . . . it’s just . . . you—this war—everything.”

  “Me? I’m fine. And we’re gonna whip ’em over there, so stop needling it, Roo.” He shook his head. “Sorry you had to be up there at the Stumps’ like that.” He cupped his hand over his eyes and stared toward Stump Mountain. “Sure glad she shooed me off, though. . . .”

  “Wish I hadn’t been there either. But Mrs. Stump had it in her mind to use my silly fortune Henny shared with her.”

  “I’m predicting you should give Gunnar one of those good fortunes.” Rainey made light, side-eyeing me and poking his toe to the torn paper salting the ground.

  “He should be so lucky to have one of my fortunes. Then maybe he’d stay away from mine.”

  “He means well.” Rainey turned his gaze back to the mountain.

  I shot an eye full of stingers his way. “Tell my jaws that.”

  He turned to me, raising a brow and crooking his mouth. “You should hook him up with one of those nice ladies from your church; then I won’t have to worry on you two when I’m gone.”

  “Gone.” The word crushed.

  “Can’t wait to see the ocean . . . the city . . . Won’t be too long now till I get my ticket.” He grinned cheerfully. “Hook him up with that old schoolteacher, maybe.”

  He was leaving, why wouldn’t he be in a great mood? “No one would have him,” I huffed. “And you know I don’t do the hooking. I let the fortunes do the talking,” I teased back.

  “Seems like they talk a lot more when you write down a name of the person you want them to have,” he chuckled, reaching to tickle my ribs.

  “Rainey Ford, are you accusing me of stacking the odds? I’m just gifted at giving others their perfect destiny, thank you.”

  “Perfect destiny. Now wonder what you’d see in mine?” he asked, rubbing his chin, sneaking peeks over his back and mine. “Who do you see me having, girl? Huh?” He tried to tickle me again.

  I jumped to the side, feeling my cheeks pluck rose red. Rainey, six, Bur, five. “Are you asking me to make you one?”

  He stared out past the fields, then cut a sly eye back to me. “With this greeting letter from the president, I might be asking for maybe something more. . . .”

  “Maybe I’ll get started on it,” I punched back, wishing he’d tell me that something more.

  His eyes twinkled. “Better hurry ’fore the president beats you to it.” He turned back to picking. “Let’s go, girl. You look out for the snakes and I’ll take the suckers off today. And maybe check on some of those flowers, too. Seems like we’re feeding too many blooms out there . . .”

  Gunnar always had me leave the blooms on a few stalks for next year’s seeds, but I could see we might have too many this year. The sweet blossom left the plant weak and spindly, stole the food from the leaves.

  “I want to hurry so I can work on my own burley today.” My ticket out of here.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll find time. I see it’s doing real good over there, and it’s only the second day of August.”

  That cheered me up. It was something. A lot. And I suddenly felt lucky looking out at the tall plants. It was hard to believe Gunnar’d broke down and told me I could use a patch of my parents’ land to grow my own tobacco to try to win the prize. I was sure it was just another plan of his to keep the devil from nipping at my heels this summer—and to keep me away from the Shake King scum he hated. Like him, some folks around here thought hanging out with them wo
uld be like tossing your Holy Spirit into a bag of angry church snakes. So I made sure to present a big fuss and all, telling him how much more work it cost me.

  Wasn’t much to its postage stamp size, but heck, those teensy heirloom seeds I’d found in a jar out in the barn were going to get me to the 1969 Kentucky State Fair and further!

  I glanced sideways and caught Rainey looking at me. The wind kicked up a big breeze carrying the growls from Gunnar’s tractor, the drone laddering up into the mountain pines.

  A torn scrap from Baby Jane’s fortune-teller landed near my feet.

  I picked up the paper and triumphantly wagged it at Rainey. He smiled as I put the drawing of Baby Jane’s egg basket into my pocket.

  Overhead, a kaleidoscope of butterflies dipped for the tobacco honey, quivering above the pinkish blooms before flittering away.

  Rainey turned on his tiny transistor radio. Sam Cooke crooned “Teenage Sonata.” “My lips, my lips can only kiss you” softened the long August day.

  I grabbed my tobacco knife from the table and cut off a stalk’s trumpet blossoms and tossed them into a small heap, leaving them to lie there like sugar-pink tutus.

  Rainey wiped his brow, bent over, and pulled off suckers that would weaken the plant, throwing them onto a pile behind him. He stopped to inspect for worms, plucking a big one off and into the bucket of water.

  I snapped off a bloom and it landed on his hunched shoulders. Rainey jerked upright, startled, and I couldn’t help but giggle. Mischievously, he lurched forward, swatting me with two elephant leaves.

  I disappeared into the tobacco rows, topping flowers like some sort of swashbuckler hippie wearing a psychedelic dress over her new black Saturday undies.

  Soon, Rainey’s laughter climbed onto mine, and the hot Kentucky breezes lifted a child’s song to the surrounding hills. For a good five minutes we abandoned our work and chased each other through the tobacco rows, scattering up sugar-pink tutus and lost youth—a tender youth lost to hard work under a hard sun and old people’s hard thoughts and prejudices.