Carrying Albert Home

by Homer Hickam

  When Elsie confessed in a choked voice she didn’t know, the Captain told her how he’d pursued the woman who was now the lovely Mrs. Laird, and how, after he’d asked her a dozen times, she said she’d marry him only if he had a plug of Brown Mule chewing tobacco in his pocket and, what do you know, he did!

  “This is called kismet, Elsie. It is what made her say what she said and me have what I had. Do you understand?” He came from behind his desk and sat down beside her and patted her knee. “Let kismet be your guide for that is the will of the universe.”

  Elsie tried to wrap her mind around kismet but had trouble with it. She had always thought God made things happen. It had never occurred to her that there was something else floating around in the air that did, too.

  “Look, daughter,” the Captain rumbled on. “Why don’t you at least agree to meet Homer in Welch this Saturday eve? Maybe you two could have some fun there. That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?”

  “I don’t suppose so, sir,” Elsie agreed.

  “Fine. He will meet you in front of the Pocahontas Theater at seven o’clock Saturday evening. Can you make it?”

  “Yes, sir. One of my brothers will drive me there.”

  And so it was settled and her brother Charlie drove her in his jalopy to Welch and dropped her off. Homer arrived on time and they went inside, with very little conversation beforehand, and watched the movie that was, as she recalled, one about Tarzan, the ape man. They did not hold hands. Afterward, she and Homer waited outside Murphy’s Department Store for Charlie to pick her up. That was when, without preamble, Homer once more asked her to marry him.

  “No,” she said.

  “Please,” he replied. “The Captain said he’d give us a house and I shall soon be a foreman. We would have a good life.”

  Since she had talked to the Captain, Elsie had been feeling terribly blue about Buddy and had let her imagination get away from her. She saw him in New York going out with a lot of flashy women and just having the time of his life while she languished forlornly first in Florida and now back in the awful Appalachian hills. Impulsively, she decided to leave Homer’s proposal to kismet, just as the Captain had said she should do. She heard herself say, almost as if in a dream, “If you have a plug of Brown Mule chewing tobacco in your pocket, I’ll marry you.”

  Homer looked sad. “You know I don’t chew tobacco.”

  Elsie felt a glimmer of relief.

  Homer dug in his pocket and then held up a pouch on which there was a picture of a brown mule and was redolent of a sweet chaw. “But I just happened to pick this one up off the bathhouse floor. Thought it might belong to one of your brothers.”

  Elsie stared at the pouch, then at Homer’s twinkling eyes, and for one of the only times in her life, she simply gave up. “I’ll marry you,” she said and instantly burst into tears. She supposed Homer took them as tears of joy but they were something very different. They were tears for herself, for who she was and now would be, a coal miner’s wife. After that, the days ticked by until the wedding and then it came and went. She barely recalled saying the words in front of the preacher and slipping on the cheap ring that turned green within a week.

  Afterward, she wrote Buddy to tell him that should he come home from New York at last, he would no longer find her in Orlando but instead married to a man in Coalwood, West Virginia. His response was Albert, whom Elsie raised in the kitchen sink until he got too big, whereupon she transferred him to the bathtub in the upstairs bathroom, the only bathroom in the house. While Homer was at work, which was nearly all the time, she sat with the little alligator and sang him songs. She also fed him bugs and, when he grew large enough, chicken parts donated by the company butcher in the company store. She took him outside and walked him around the yard on a leash like he was a puppy while miners on their way to work stopped long enough to tip up their helmets and watch in wonder. Her daddy came over and dug a hole in the backyard and lined it with concrete so that Albert could have a little pond to swim in during the summer. Because Homer was so busy digging coal, she spent more time with Albert during her newlywed year than with her husband and it seemed to her that Homer didn’t really mind.

  It wasn’t long before Albert got so big he began to stroll around the house, sometimes crawling up on the couch, his tail flipping over the table lamps. He made a yeah-yeah-yeah sound when he was happy or excited. He flung himself into Elsie’s lap and cuddled every chance he got, turning over so she could scratch his creamy belly. The only thing Albert was afraid of was thunder. One night, when the thunder was like somebody beating on a kettle drum, Albert climbed out of the bathtub, pushed open the bedroom door with his snout, and crawled into bed. When Homer turned over and looked into Albert’s glowing red eyes, he jumped up and ran for his life, tripping down the steps and going right over the rail, his fall cushioned only by the cherrywood coffee table in the living room. Hearing the crash and subsequent groans, Elsie cuddled Albert for a few minutes before she got up to see how Homer was doing. From the floor of the living room, he said he was fine, save a bruised hip, but the coffee table wasn’t and since it was company property, they would have to pay for it if it couldn’t be fixed.

  “I never liked that old coffee table, anyway,” Elsie said and, when the thunder receded, escorted Albert to his bathtub, then went back to bed. As she lay there, listening to Homer trying to reassemble the coffee table, a thought occurred to her. “If I could only get Homer to Florida,” she mused, “maybe he’d change into someone more like Buddy.”

  Now, with the astonishing journey Homer had proposed, she considered her closet and what to pack. She also realized that perhaps what the Captain called kismet was giving her a second chance to get out of the coalfields. She really hadn’t thought Homer would agree to carry Albert home but now that he had, it would mean days on the road, time enough for her to perhaps sway him, for the sake of their marriage, not to return to West Virginia.

  And, if that didn’t work, maybe when he got a look at how beautiful Florida was, it would convince him those old Appalachian hills were nothing but ugly traps.

  And if that didn’t work?

  Well, she would cross that plank over the creek when she came to it but she thought she already knew the answer.

  Once she got out of the coalfields this time, no matter what her husband did, she was never coming back.

  4

  HOMER PLACED SOME BLANKETS IN THE ROOMY TRUNK OF the Buick plus a wooden box that held an extra shirt, a pair of khaki pants, a toothbrush and shaving mug, a razor, and cream. He then went upstairs to the bedroom, where he found Elsie just as she closed a cardboard suitcase, an arm of a blouse hanging out. Silently, he tucked the arm of the blouse in, then took the suitcase, the only one they owned, to the car.

  Before long, Elsie appeared with Albert on the rope that served as his leash. Homer gestured toward the washtub. “Albert goes there.”

  Elsie inspected the tub and wrinkled her nose. “It’s too small. His tail will hang out.”

  “It’s the biggest tub I could find. It will have to do.”

  Elsie had a quilt over her arm. She tossed it to Homer. “Put that in the washtub so he’ll at least have something soft to lie on.”

  Homer inspected the cloth and its intricate needlework. “My mother made this. She worked two years on it.”

  “Albert likes it. Put it in the washtub.”

  Homer draped the quilt inside the washtub and turned back to his wife to find that Elsie had put her arms around Albert behind his front legs and had lifted him up. “Well?” she said. “Pick up his tail.”

  Homer picked up Albert’s tail even though he’d read that an alligator could use his tail to knock a man down and be on him before anything could be done. But all Albert did was moon over Elsie while she eased him into the washtub. “He fits fine,” Homer said, relieved.

  “Sweet boy,” Elsie said and patted Albert’s knobby head. He grinned at her. “You go to sleep now.”

  �
��I have procured maps from the company gas station,” Homer apprised. “I have Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida. They were out of Georgia.”

  “What happens when we get to Georgia?”

  “We will keep heading south. The sun will rise on our left and set on our right. Eventually, we’ll come across Florida.”

  “I want to see my folks,” Elsie said.

  Homer raised an eyebrow. “We don’t have time to see your folks. We need to get back to Coalwood in two weeks or we could lose our house. I might even lose my job.”

  Elsie’s laugh was harsh. “What a disaster that would be!”

  “Look, Elsie . . .”

  “No, you look, Homer. Mama and Daddy love Albert. Daddy built him a pond and Mama sends him birthday and Christmas cards. If we took him to Florida without letting them say goodbye, they’d never forgive us.”

  No matter how they had indulged their daughter’s love of her alligator, Homer doubted Elsie’s parents cared two cents about the reptile in the back seat but he held his peace. After a final look around at the mountains and the little town he loved, he steered the Buick out of Coalwood and aimed it in the direction Elsie wanted to go.

  The Lavenders lived in Thorpe, a typical little McDowell County coal camp with gray dust drifting about and houses coated with black grime. The Lavender house was positioned on the side of a steep hill well above the level of the mine tipple, which meant it sat in clear air. Although it belonged to the coal company that owned Thorpe, it had been assigned to Jim Lavender because he was a talented carpenter. Coal companies were always after him and the Thorpe mine had won out by offering him a house not only high on the mountain but with an adjoining barn and two acres of land. Jim’s wife, Minnie, was a pleasant, kindly woman who had birthed nine children and raised seven to adulthood. Two sons had died, one at birth, the other when he was six. His name was Victor and Elsie said one day he’d played in the nasty creek that flowed from beneath the Thorpe tipple, caught some sort of disease, and died two days later. What he’d died of, nobody knew for sure. Elsie often talked about Victor, wondering what he might have become had he lived. Homer supposed he might have become a coal miner like all her other brothers but it was Elsie’s opinion Victor would have become a writer. Where she got that, Homer surely didn’t know but he left it alone. He supposed a dead brother could be anything Elsie wanted him to be.

  When Homer pulled up in front of the Lavender house, Elsie got out and opened the back door. “Help me get Albert out,” she said.

  “You should just leave him in the car,” Homer replied. “That way, your folks could come out and see him and then we’ll be on our way.”

  Elsie petted the alligator’s snout and was rewarded by him opening his jaws and showing her his fine white teeth. He made his yeah-yeah-yeah happy sound. “Your father is silly, Albert,” Elsie said, “because with his planning and his money and his maps and all, he has failed to notice that we have no food.”

  Homer silently conceded this was good thinking on Elsie’s part. Restaurants were expensive, even if one could be found on the open road, so it made sense to carry as much food as possible on an extended trip. If there was one thing the Lavenders had, it was food. Their hillside farm was well tended.

  Homer and Elsie carried Albert in his washtub up the steps to the front porch, where they sat him down between two rocking chairs, one of which was full of Jim Lavender. Jim was wearing muddy boots and bib overalls and his left arm was in a sling. “What’s wrong with your arm, Daddy?” Elsie asked. “Did you have a fall?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” Jim answered. He raised his eyebrows. “Why do you have Albert with you?”

  “Because we’re carrying him to Florida.”

  “Really? I figured you to keep him until he ate Homer.”

  Homer took off his hat. “Well, sir, he’s already big enough for that, at least a mouthful at a time.”

  Jim smiled at Albert, who smiled back. “He is a handsome beast, ain’t he?”

  “Yes, he is, Daddy,” Elsie agreed. “And sweet, too.”

  Elsie’s mother appeared at the screen door. She was dressed in a faded frock, a grease-stained apron, and a frown. “Hidy, Elsie, Homer,” she said without passion. “Is that Albert? He’s growed.”

  “That’s Albert, Mama,” Elsie said. “You look like you’ve been crying. What’s wrong?”

  “Your daddy’s arm is what’s wrong,” Minnie answered.

  “Let’s not talk about my ailments,” Jim quickly said, then stood up. “Think I know why you’ve come. If you’re going all the way to Florida, you need to stock up with some victuals. Well, you’ve come to the right place. For twenty dollars, we could supply you enough to go to Texas.”

  “Jim, we ain’t charging these children nothing,” Minnie scolded. “Now, you come on in, Elsie, so we can talk.”

  “Albert should come in, too,” Elsie said. “I don’t want the sun on him.”

  Minnie nodded. “Jim, you go on up to the pigpen, do what you have to do to get these children a ham.”

  Homer helped Elsie carry Albert inside, then went back out and followed Jim off the porch and past a chicken coop toward a copse of trees on the back edge of the property. There, he caught the odor of pigs.

  “Got me a big old sow and a slew of piglets,” Jim said. “A couple of boars, too. They’re snuffling around in the woods.”

  “What happened to your arm?” Homer asked.

  “I had me a fall. It was from Mrs. Trammel’s bedroom window. A midnight visit, if you will.”

  “So you broke it,” Homer said, unsurprised at his father-in-law’s philandering. He had that reputation.

  “Naw. Dilly Trammel shot me as I was climbing out.” Jim winced, as if the memory made him get shot all over again. “Trudy and me heard him at the front door—an hour before he should’ve been home, by the way—but then he sneaked around and winged me with his pistola while I was doing my best to save the honor of his wife by not being caught. What kind of man would be so low as to shoot a man looking after the honor of his wife?”

  “I’m sure I can’t imagine,” Homer said while frowning.

  Jim smirked. “So tell me, Homer, why are you on this fool’s errand? If I was you, I’d just toss that reptile in the nearest creek and take Elsie home.”

  “I’d like to but I just can’t. It’s what Elsie wants and I’m bound to do it.”

  Jim shook his head. “There’s only one way to control a female. You let her know who’s boss. Granted, that might be hard with Elsie but it’s what you got to do.”

  Homer shrugged. “I love her, Jim.”

  “Love! Stuff of women’s magazines. Anyway, Elsie’s a special case. She always took a iron hand. I had to smack her more than once when she was a girl. It didn’t do much good but she knew when she’d done wrong by my lights.”

  “Yet you came over to Coalwood and built a pond for Albert,” Homer pointed out. “Why’d you do that?”

  “I’m her father and she asked me to.”

  “Well, I’m her husband and she asked me to take her alligator to Florida.”

  Jim grinned. “A romantic coal miner! That’s a rare breed!”

  Homer searched for a retort but couldn’t find one. “How about that ham?” was the best he could do.

  Jim pointed toward a gigantic pig that stood just inside some low brush. “That’s Bruiser, one of my boars. Man could eat off him for a year.”

  “He’s some pig,” Homer agreed. “But he looks kind of mean.”

  “Mean? He’s downright vicious. Bet he’d eat Albert given half a chance.”

  Jim led Homer into a tool shed where he selected a knife, its sharp edge shimmering in the pale light, and showed it to his son-in-law. “String ’em up, slice ’em along their necks, end of their days. A sharp knife’s the key.”

  “Pigs know when you’re going to kill them,” Homer said, turning from the knife. “They’re smart and they know.”

&n
bsp; Jim shrugged. “They all know, Homer. You think a cow don’t know? You think a chicken don’t know? I killed a bunch of ’em and I can tell you they all know and they don’t like it one bit. But that’s the way God designed us, to eat. And to eat, we have to kill.”

  Taking a loop of rope, Jim led the way out of the shed to a board nailed between two trees with thick nails protruding from it. “This is where I hang ’em,” he said. “Tie up their back legs, then string ’em up, then stick ’em. You heard about somebody crying like a stuck pig? That’s where that phrase came from.”

  Homer was unsettled by Jim’s description of a dying pig and watched morosely as his father-in-law made a noose out of the rope and handed it over. “This is for Bruiser,” he said, nodding toward the giant boar, which was carefully watching them through an opening in the surrounding brush. “Put this around his neck.”

  Homer looked at the thin rope and then at the boar. “You’re joking. That pig’s six times bigger than me.”

  “Look, boy, it’s your ham.”

  It was indeed his ham so Homer took the rope and crept up on Bruiser. To his surprise, the boar didn’t move although its serious oil-drop eyes watched him closely. “Just loop it around his neck?” Homer asked.

  “Better than around his tail,” Jim replied.

  Homer edged around the boar. “Easy, pig,” he said.

  “His name is Bruiser,” Jim reminded.

  “Easy, Bruiser,” Homer said, then lunged with the rope, successfully placing the loop over the boar’s head.

  Bruiser’s response, after a moment of apparent contemplation, was a shriek and a massive flailing of his cloven hooves. Hanging on to the rope, it felt to Homer as if his arms were being pulled out of their sockets. Still, he gamely gripped the rope and tried to keep up with the pig but it was devilishly fast and, in seconds, Homer found himself on his stomach being dragged over the roots of trees and through various thorny bushes and stinging nettles. He twisted until he was on his back, then began to spin over and over until at last he could hold on no longer. Defeated, he let go, then lay draped over a protruding tree root, mentally searching his body for wounds and contusions and broken bones. Finding nothing disastrous, he got to his knees, then struggled to his feet.