by Tony Earley
“Is that your water broke?” he asked.
“No, sir,” she said, suddenly aware of her wet dress clinging to her legs. “I accidentally peed on your floor but if you got a rag somewhere I’ll be glad to clean it up.”
Mr. Tall took off his hat with his left hand and clapped his right hand onto the top of his head. He closed his eyes. “Good Lord,” he said.
“I’m real sorry about the floor. I just think I was afraid of your dog, is all.”
He put his hat back on. “How old are you?”
“I’m nineteen.”
“And you’re sure that ain’t your water broke.”
“No, sir. I mean, yes, sir. I mean, it’s just pee.”
Mr. Tall sighed and lifted the latch and opened the door. “Come out of there,” he said.
Plutina glanced down at the dog. The dog stared up at her. It had blue eyes, of all things. “Is that dog going to bite me?” she asked.
“Noggin,” Mr. Tall said. “Get under the house.” The dog instantly turned and trotted around the corner of the crib. “Come out of there,” he repeated.
Plutina’s legs wobbled as she moved forward. For a second the floor wavered and she thought she might vomit. She tried to hold her dress away from her legs without pulling it up as she stepped down out of the crib.
Mr. Tall walked a few steps away from the crib and turned around in a slow circle, his hands on his hips, as if trying to remember where he had put something. “Son of a bitch,” he mumbled.
“Can I please go home now?” she asked.
Mr. Tall looked at her appraisingly. “You don’t look too good.”
“I’m sorry. I promise I am.”
“Come on,” Mr. Tall said. He started toward the house.
Plutina followed him unsteadily across the yard, watching the line of shadow underneath the porch. Her legs shook so badly that even if he let her go she didn’t think she would be able to make it around the ridge.
“Mr. Tall,” she said. “Please stop.”
He turned toward her.
“Are you going to sic that dog on me?”
“What the hell kind of question is that?”
“I just need to know if you are, is all. Because if you are I think I’m about to fall down.”
“Just come on. Don’t worry about the dog.” When they reached the porch he pointed at the steps. “You sit there,” he said.
Plutina sat down. Mr. Tall climbed past her and disappeared into the house. She smelled awful. She didn’t know where the dog was. She didn’t know if she would ever see her mama again. She stuck the heels of her palms into her eyes. She heard the screen door open and close and Mr. Tall cross the porch. She felt the steps give as he came down the stairs. She tried to stop crying, but it was too late.
“Drink this,” he said, extending a glass toward her.
“I just want to go home,” she said.
“Drink it. I churned it this morning.”
Plutina had never cared for buttermilk, but figured if she didn’t drink it he would never let her go. The buttermilk was fresh, and it was cool enough, and the glass didn’t stink, and she thought she might be able to keep it down if she only took small sips. But then she accidentally imagined a bunch of cats with their heads stuck down inside a milk bucket and felt everything in her stomach rush up into the back of her throat. She closed her eyes and swallowed and waited until the sick feeling slid back toward her stomach.
“Mmm,” she said. “This is good.”
He nodded. He walked a few feet away and sat down on the edge of the porch. “I’ll sit over here,” he said. “Till you finish that.” He put his hands on his knees and stared out toward the orchard.
Plutina looked down into the glass. She didn’t see how in the world she could drink another swallow.
Mr. Tall jumped up so suddenly that he startled her. He hurried up the steps past her and pointed at what looked like the butt end of a metal spike sticking out of one of the logs up high near the door frame.
“I’ll bet you ain’t never seen anything like that, have you?” he said.
“No, sir,” she said. “What is it?”
“Bullet,” he answered, his eyebrows raised expectantly.
“Who shot it?” she asked.
Mr. Tall shrugged. “Don’t know. Indians, I reckon. Home Guard, maybe. Tories. I just don’t know.” He stepped close to the wall and squinted up at the bullet. “It’s always been here.”
“Do you have a cat?” she asked.
“A what?”
“Do you have a cat?”
“Nah. I hate a damn cat.”
“I ain’t got a cat, neither,” she said. “I ain’t even got a dog. We had a dog that Charlie brought home but I threw a biscuit at it and it ran away.”
“You don’t like buttermilk, do you?”
“No, sir.”
“Then you want some water?”
“No, sir. Thank you, though.”
“That’s all I got to drink. Water and buttermilk.”
“I’m fine, really.”
“I don’t care for sweet milk.”
“Do I have to finish this?”
“Nah,” he said, giving the bullet a last squint. “You best be getting on.”
Plutina jumped up. The world tilted suddenly and she discovered that her right cheek was resting on the dirt. She wondered how it got there. Mr. Tall hovered over her, his hands wheeling through the air like swallows.
“Shit,” he said. “Damn, damn, damn.”
She pushed herself onto her hands and knees, made sure her dress wasn’t hiked up, then crawled back to the steps, where she sat down beside the buttermilk glass. “I guess I need to try that again,” she said. “I didn’t do so good.”
“The baby,” Mr. Tall sputtered. “Is something the matter with you? You’ve got to go back to your house right now. Ain’t nobody here can take you to town if you need to go.”
Plutina started to cry again. “I’m just scared, is all, Mr. Tall. That dog scared me and you scared me and I can’t stand buttermilk and I’m embarrassed because I peed on my dress and my legs won’t work. If I need to go to town I’ll ride Charlie’s damn mule and take my own self. As soon as I can walk I’ll go back to my house and leave you alone and you won’t never see me no more, I can promise you that.”
Mr. Tall’s mouth opened but he didn’t say anything. He stalked away from her without a word and disappeared around the corner of the house. After a few moments Plutina began to worry about the dog and eased two steps closer to the back door. If that dog came out from under the porch she was going inside, no matter what. She would run upstairs to the room with the crib in it and slam the door. Mr. Tall soon reappeared on the other side of the house and kept going, his face bright red, striding rapidly toward the farmyard. Before he reached the corncrib he stopped and pointed an incredibly long finger at her.
“How the hell was I supposed to know you don’t like buttermilk? Nobody asked you to come over here.”
Plutina didn’t know what to say to that, so she didn’t say anything.
“That’s just what I figured,” he said.
He came back a few minutes later leading the black mule, which he positioned parallel to the edge of the porch. He nodded at Plutina.
“Climb on,” he said.
Mr. Tall’s mule was even bigger than Charlie’s mule. She already knew it to be easily spooked. She watched it shiver a fly off of its glossy back. “But my dress is wet,” she said. “I don’t want to get pee on your mule.”
“It’s a mule,” Mr. Tall said. “He smells like shit anyway.”
Mr. Tall dropped Plutina off at her house and led the mule away without saying a word. When she called after him he waved without turning around. She went inside and washed herself and changed her dress. She lay down and closed her eyes and pitched instantly into sleep. When she awoke it was black dark. The cow was hoarse from complaining to be milked and Charlie’s mule rhythmically kicked the
side of the barn. She could hear the pig snuffling in its empty trough. Plutina lit the lantern and went out and fed the mule and slopped the pig and milked the cow without knowing if it was nine thirty in the evening or the last of the dark before daylight.
When Charlie came home that weekend she didn’t tell him about her adventure at Mr. Tall’s but she did tell him she was going to have a baby. He was bathing on the porch when she told him, his back to her. Moths drew streaks around the lantern and ticked against the glass; from the mountainside fell the shrill scree of tree frogs. Charlie didn’t say anything. She watched his shoulders go up and down once. When he turned around she saw he was only half interested. She couldn’t tell if it was going up or coming down. He was smiling a little, but in the lantern light she couldn’t read his eyes.
“Well, what do you think about that?” she asked.
“I reckon it was bound to happen, the way me and you go at it.”
Going up, she noticed. “I reckon.”
“I’m surprised it took this long,” he said. “I thought we’d have had half a houseful by now.”
Something inside her dried to crust right then. Mr. Tall had been nicer about it while she was locked in his corncrib standing in a puddle of piss. “I’m going inside,” she said. Wouldn’t nobody be putting up the mule on the Shires place before morning, if then.
That Sunday night, after Charlie went back to Corpening, Plutina found she couldn’t stop thinking about Mr. Tall. She lay awake and tried to remember everything he had said to her. He had been mostly kind, she decided—gruffer than her father, but still nicer; worse-tempered than Charlie, but more thoughtful. If Mr. Tall had been her daddy he wouldn’t have said to Charlie what her daddy had said about not bringing her back. If he had been her husband he would have had more to say about her being pregnant than what took you so long. As she slid into sleep their conversation extended from what they had actually said to each other into reams of talk about everything under the sun. She told him something extremely important that took her a long time to say, but when she woke up she couldn’t remember what it was.
Monday while she worked she wondered why Mr. Tall hadn’t jumped in after his wife and baby. She pictured him running down the railroad embankment toward the river. Women on the riverbank were screaming and crying and pointing into the rapids. Maybe he did jump, she thought, he just didn’t drown. Maybe somebody stopped him from jumping. Plutina placed herself on the riverbank between Mr. Tall and the water. She wore a long black skirt and a high-collared blouse, a cameo pin—she was a woman in an old photograph. Mr. Tall’s eyes were wild as he ran down the hill. He threw down his hat. He was going to jump. She stepped in front of him and wrapped her arms around him at the water’s edge. He tottered dangerously at the edge of the rapids. He wanted to go in, although she could see in his eyes he knew there was no use. The river roared at her back and covered them both with spray. If he went in he would take her with him. She would drown underneath the same rock as Mrs. Tall. No, Mr. Tall, no! she shouted into his ear. There’s nothing you can do. They’re with Jesus now. Eventually she felt his arms wrap around her shoulders. He stumbled back from the river’s edge and began to sob. She had saved him. There, there, Mr. Tall, she said. There, there. She helped him back to the train.
A few weeks later she heard a soft footstep on the front porch and ran and jerked open the door, thinking Charlie had quit his job and come home to surprise her. Instead she saw Mr. Tall hurrying across the yard toward the road. Beside the door sat a peck basket of ripe apples.
“Mr. Tall!” she called. “Mr. Tall, wait.”
He stopped and turned slowly toward the house.
“Thank you for the apples,” she said.
“They’re sour,” he said. “They’re not fit to eat but they cook good.” He waved and started to turn away.
“Wait,” she said again. “Wait. Do you like pie? Let me make you a pie. Come back tomorrow evening and I’ll have an apple pie for you. You can eat it with your supper.”
His mouth worked rapidly, trying to make an excuse.
“I won’t ask you to come in,” she said. “I’ll just hand you the pie when you come and you can take it home and eat it. You can leave the pan down in the yard when you’re done. You don’t even have to wash it. I make a good pie. You like apple pie, don’t you?”
Mr. Tall nodded, but he looked miserable.
“Will you come back tomorrow?”
“I…” he said. “We’ll see.”
Plutina waved. “See you tomorrow,” she said, closing the door before he changed his mind.
The next morning at first light she sat on the back porch peeling apples. She wanted to get her baking done before the heat of the day. It was a Wednesday. She had enough sugar to make three pies, but barely enough cinnamon for one. She didn’t have a sign of a clove. Mr. Tall’s pie would be fair enough, but it wouldn’t be her best. The other two would only be adequate. She planned to eat them both herself anyway. If she gave Charlie a piece of apple pie, he would naturally want to know where the apples came from, since they didn’t have a tree. Plutina didn’t see how she could tell Charlie Mr. Tall gave her the apples, without also telling him about the spying and the dog and having been locked in the corncrib and peeing on the floor and gagging on the buttermilk and Mr. Tall having to carry her home on the mule. And while she didn’t want Charlie to know specifically that she had gotten into trouble at Mr. Tall’s, she also didn’t want him to know about Mr. Tall generally—although she tried to keep that part of her secret pushed out of the way so she didn’t have to consider the implications of keeping such a secret from your husband. She simply decided that Mr. Tall was her friend and she would keep him for herself. She was going to make her friend an apple pie—nothing wrong with that, just being neighborly—and she would eat the other two. Nothing wrong with that, either. She was going to have a baby. She ought to be able to eat as many apple pies as she wanted to. She would give the apple peels to the pig and the rest of the apples to the mule. That struck her as a waste—giving perfectly good apples to a mule—but there was nothing she could do about it.
When Mr. Tall stepped onto the porch the next afternoon, Plutina pulled open the door and extended the pie toward him so suddenly that he flinched a little. “Slow down, now,” he said.
“Here’s your pie,” she said. “I didn’t have a clove, but I did have a little cinnamon in the kitchen. I hope it’s fit to eat.”
Mr. Tall took the pie from her and stared down at it a long time. With one hand he touched the bib pocket of his overalls. “What do I owe you?” he asked.
“Mr. Tall,” she said. “Don’t be silly. You don’t owe me a thing.”
He looked down at the pie again. “Well, I thank you.”
“You’re very welcome.”
“All right. I best get on, then.”
“Don’t rush off,” she said.
“I got to get back.”
“Well, come see us.”
He touched the brim of his hat with his finger. Plutina watched him start across the yard. “Mr. Tall,” she called after him, feeling as she spoke, yet unable to keep herself from speaking, that she was about to misstep in the dark and fall a long way. “I’m sorry your wife and little baby fell in the river.”
Mr. Tall stopped and stiffened in his tracks. His shoulders widened. He stood up straighter. He seemed to grow several inches before he whirled on her. “What did you just say?” he asked.
“Mr. Tall, I—”
“What did you just say?”
“Please don’t be mad at me.”
“Who the hell do you think you are?”
“I don’t think I’m nobody, Mr. Tall, I really don’t.”
“Don’t you ever talk to me like that again.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Tall. I didn’t mean to. I just wanted to make you feel better, is all.”
He gaped at her. “Feel better?” he said. He stepped toward her. “You want to make me feel b
etter?”
Plutina covered her mouth with her hands.
He closed his eyes and threw the pie toward the house, where it splatted in the yard. “You think I feel better now? Tell me.”
“Please stop, Mr. Tall.”
He took another step. “Let me look at your titties. How about that?”
“What?”
“You heard me. Show me them ripe little titties you’re so proud of. That ought to make me feel better.”
“Oh, no, Mr. Tall. Please no.”
“You know how long it’s been since I even seen a titty?”
“Mr. Tall, I think I’m going to be sick.”
“I hope you are. I hope you’re sick enough to die.”
Plutina stepped to the edge of the porch and vomited half an apple pie into the yard. She dropped to her knees and held on to a post while she retched.
“And I hope your baby dies,” he said. “I hope it dies before I get back to the house.”
Plutina closed her eyes. If he wanted to kill her, well, that would be all right. She had made herself worthy of the curse. She listened to him pant in the yard, and waited for him to tromp toward her. Then she listened to him stride away.
Before she had a chance to start crying a rock thwacked into the wall near the door and clattered onto the porch. Plutina thought, Mr. Tall is throwing rocks at me. She opened her eyes and sat up. Mr. Tall stood near the road, his face gone white as his shirt. His right arm was cocked behind his ear, his fist clutching another stone to throw. He raised his left arm and pointed a long, shaking finger at her. “They didn’t fall!” he shouted. “You hear me? They didn’t fall!” He chunked the second rock, which sailed all the way over the house.
Plutina climbed to her feet. Mr. Tall had cursed her, and cursed her baby, and she halfway expected him to come back after while and shoot her, but she did not want him, or anybody, throwing rocks at her. That was just too much. She stomped down the steps and wagged her finger at him. She cried, “You better stop throwing rocks at my house if you know what’s good for you!” She cast around for a rock of her own to throw.
