One Good Mama Bone

by McClain, Bren; Monroe, Mary Alice;

“Where’s my plate, Mama?” I asked.

  “You don’t need you nothing to eat. You too fat, girl,” she said. “They going to laugh at you at school as it is.” She cut her off a big piece of sausage and dipped it in some redeye gravy and put it in her mouth.

  “But, Mama, I’m hungry,” I told her.

  She slapped me across my mouth. “Take that if you want something in them big chops of yours. You ain’t nothing but one big pone, look at you. And a slittail, at that.”

  Papa lifted up off his chair and said, “Now, Teeniebelle.”

  “Now nothing,” she went. “I spared her the pain all these years of folks making fun of her at the church, but I can’t spare her the pain at school. She’s got to go there. It’s the law.”

  My papa sat back down.

  I said, “Mama, I was hoping you’d let me go to church with you this morning. Let me meet some of the boys and girls I’m going to be in school with.”

  She held up two fingers and told me, “You twice they size. And church people don’t want to see nobody waddling down the aisle, it’s embarrassing. And you’d take up too much room on them pews, too.” She sopped her up some gravy with one side of a biscuit and took her a big bite.

  I went on back to my room and stood by my window and waited for the church bell to ring. The church was almost straight across from our house and set up high off some steps that led up to it. Me and Papa’d go over there sometimes when Mama would be at work at the sewing plant, and he’d be off from the mill. We’d go and step them and count them. There was twenty of them, Mama’s twenty steps to Jesus is what I called them.

  That Sunday morning, the church bell started ringing. Mama soon came into view. Her hair was all done up in a bun that pressed close to the back of her head and was pinned for good keeping. It looked like a sawed off peacock tail, if you looked at Mama straight on. That’s what me and Papa always would say. But nobody over at the church could see her hair. She always wore a hat.

  I watched the boys and girls gathering over there, and I saw that none of them was fat, they was all skinny. I started trying to hold in my belly. I found if I took a deep breath, it wouldn’t stick out so much.

  Papa called me to come to the kitchen. He had me a plate of sausage and eggs setting where my place was. I wanted to eat, but I’d seen them skinny children, and I said, “I’m fat.”

  He told me, “No, you ain’t. Them other children’s poor. Now eat. Enjoy yourself, hon.”

  I hugged his neck and kissed his face. His whiskers were rough. I liked that. It meant he wasn’t going to work that day, and he’d be home with me.

  When Mama came back across the road, me and Papa was sitting in the front room waiting for her to tell us about Jesus in her heart and for her to take her hat off, so we could see her hair and try not to bust wide open.

  There she went. She told us, “Got the love of Jesus in my heart, people,” and me and Papa held hands and squeezed hard. Then she took off her hat, and there was her sawed off peacock tail. Me and Papa had to squeeze harder.

  I was expecting her not to set a place for me to eat, but Mama did. She set me a place for dinner and then again for supper, heaping helpings.

  NOVEMBER 16–18, 1951

  The mother cow’s calf no longer sneaked his head between the wires to drink from her. Nor did he place his head near hers to eat from the earth. He made sounds that made her keep her head high and not leave the barbed wires between them.

  As soon as school was dismissed that Friday, LC ran to the back of the schoolhouse. Overgrown shrubs, much taller than he, lined the back wall and gave teachers switches to use on disobedient children like himself. He reached inside the second shrub and retrieved a paper sack he’d hidden when he’d first arrived at school that morning. It held a gift for Emerson Bridge.

  “Hey, what you got in there? A snake?” the Glenn boy asked when LC started down the row in the classroom. The monthly 4-H meeting was about to begin.

  But LC made the boy no response and walked past him, LC’s eyes cast for Emerson Bridge. LC had a seat near him and slid the sack under his desk.

  “Boys, this is a big day,” the county agent said. “With two months of controlled feeding under your belt, it’s time now to get your steer on full feed and give him all the mixed grain and dry hay he can eat. It’s called ‘Full Choice’ from here on out.”

  The Prater boy raised his fist in the air and hollered, “Yeah!”

  “Had a teacher up at Clemson tell us ‘The eye of the master feeds his flock.’ He was talking about finding the right amount of food to give your steer without being wasteful, because it can run into big money when you’re having to buy it.”

  Emerson Bridge sat with his feet out of his shoes and his hands folded on his desk. Where his shirt buttoned up the front, small holes puckered like tiny mouths held open to eat.

  “It’s going to be a big change, because I’m talking about easing him into a full fifteen to eighteen pounds of grain a day, boys, instead of the mere three or four you’ve been giving him.”

  LC didn’t know how Emerson Bridge would be able to afford all that feed. But it wasn’t only the money that worried LC. He worried about the boy’s heart. LC knew him to have a tender one. He wondered if there was a minimum weight requirement for the show and, if there was, maybe Emerson Bridge’s would turn out to be too little. Maybe the animal’s name would turn out to be true. But that would never be the case for LC’s own steer, thanks to his father’s hammer mill grinding a never-ending supply of corn. Tears started to well up, but that could not be. He took a deep breath and hollered, “It takes a real knack for knowing how much. A real knack.”

  “Yeah, and don’t you wish you had it, Little LC, like your big brother Charles did?” It was the Prater boy.

  “Now, boys,” the county agent said.

  But laughter filled the room, every little space around LC. The only one not laughing was Emerson Bridge.

  “At least I didn’t think I could buy him back,” LC said and watched the Prater boy’s mouth close. LC opened his to send out his own laughter, but he saw the boy’s eyes, how small they had become. They could have been his own that early morning in March when he stood behind his father in the barn and watched him twist Shortcake’s tail, forcing the animal up the cattle chute and into the back of the waiting truck. LC had wanted to shout Stop! But he did not.

  Emerson Bridge’s eyes were still wide and still unafraid. LC wondered how much longer they could stay that way.

  “Besides getting your steer on full feed,” Mr. Merritt was saying, “it’s time to build on that trust I hope you’ve all established by getting him used to your touch. Everybody doing that?”

  “Made mine so gentle, I can ride him!” the Glenn boy called out.

  “Mine’s my friend,” Emerson Bridge said.

  The boys all looked Emerson Bridge’s way. A few nodded their heads but a couple smirked and moved their arms as if dismissing him. But not the Prater boy. He stayed looking at Emerson Bridge and said, “Yeah, until he ends up in somebody’s deep freeze.”

  “Yeah, there’s a deep freeze called for tonight, sure is,” LC said as loud as he could. He was standing now and keeping his eyes on Emerson Bridge, who had a smile on his face as if he thought the exchange was funny.

  “Let’s get serious, boys.” The county agent put his two fists beside each other like he was holding onto something. “It’s time now to begin the next part, and that’s breaking him.” When he said the word “breaking,” he moved his fists like he was popping something open.

  LC felt his head jerk.

  “So, boys, before I dismiss you, let me advise you to go ahead and get a halter on him and get him used to wearing it.”

  Emerson Bridge was bent over, putting his feet back in his shoes, the tongue, wide and extended, as if hoping to catch some food.

  LC leaned over and undid his own laces and began tying them back. “I appreciate you not laughing at me,” LC told him.
>
  “It wasn’t funny,” Emerson Bridge said and reached beneath his desk for his clutch of books. He started for the door.

  LC slid out his sack and caught up with Emerson Bridge in the doorway. “I’ve been wanting to make friends with you,” LC told him and extended the sack the boy’s way. The sack was shaking.

  Emerson Bridge took it.

  LC had never noticed his dimples. “Look inside.”

  The Creamer boy pulled out a halter.

  “It’s for your steer.”

  “For Lucky,” Emerson Bridge said.

  LC nodded but did not repeat the animal’s name.

  “That’s real kind of you. Thank you. Now Mama won’t have to buy me one.”

  They took off outside together. Emerson Bridge’s mother was waiting with his door open.

  “Mama, look what my friend gave Lucky!” Emerson Bridge held the halter up for her viewing. It was made of rope, what LC’s father called an everyday one. LC had sneaked it from the barn the afternoon before as soon as his father made his usual trip to the garage to his bottles of RC Cola, which he kept out in the open and his bottle of whiskey, which he did not. A half dozen rope halters hung from nails in the tack room. He wouldn’t miss one of them, but he might miss one of his six show halters, made of brown leather with a fancy chain that hung beneath the steer’s chin.

  Mrs. Creamer held her hands flat to her mouth like she couldn’t believe it.

  “It goes on him like this,” LC said and took the halter and held it by the two long sides. He made sure Emerson Bridge was looking, but mostly, he wanted Mrs. Creamer’s eyes, not to watch how he was going to demonstrate, but to watch him.

  He believed it so.

  …..

  A heavy frost covered the ground that early morning at the Creamer place. Emerson Bridge liked the way the little white sparkles covered the grass and dirt and even rocks as if they were having a party to celebrate something good. He sat on the porch steps, waiting for Mr. Merritt’s monthly visit, his third. He wanted to show the county agent how big Lucky had grown and how much Lucky trusted him. He had practiced putting the halter on him as soon as he got home from school the afternoon before.

  Mr. Ike stood by the front fence with Emerson Bridge’s mother. They giggled a lot. Emerson Bridge liked hearing them do that.

  When Mr. Merritt turned into the driveway, Emerson Bridge ran towards the barn and stood ready by his steer. As soon as the county agent came through the gate, he lifted the halter from the fence post, where he’d hung it the night before, and whispered to the animal, “Hold still, boy.” Emerson Bridge made sure Mr. Merritt was looking and then slipped the halter on the steer’s head. Lucky didn’t move. He only let out a low moan. “See how much he trusts me?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his mother and Mr. Ike waving from the fence, and then they both started to clap.

  But Mr. Merritt was shaking his head.

  “Oh yes, sir, he does, too.” Emerson Bridge started removing the halter, so he could show the county agent again.

  But Mr. Merritt wasn’t watching Emerson Bridge. He had his hands feeling along the top of the animal’s back. Lucky raised his chin and made that low sound again. “He’s lost weight, son.”

  “Oh no, sir. We’ve been feeding him more than ever. As much as he could eat, too, didn’t we, Mr. Ike?” Emerson Bridge called out.

  “Full feed! Tell him full feed!” Mr. Ike came running their way.

  “Full feed?” Mr. Merritt said. “You’ve had him on full feed before I told you to yesterday?”

  “Why, yes sir,” Emerson Bridge said.

  There was a frown on the man’s face, and his hands were now feeling down lower on the steer’s side.

  “Exactly what’s the situation here?” Mr. Ike said.

  The county agent now was touching Lucky’s ears and his legs and even looking at his hooves.

  Emerson Bridge felt dizzy. “He’s not sick, is he?”

  “Son, I’m afraid he’s got the bloat. You don’t see how poked out his sides are?”

  Emerson Bridge didn’t know what the bloat was, but he knew it wasn’t good. “Thought he was getting fat like y’all all wanted him to.”

  Mr. Merritt moved behind the animal and looked at Lucky’s rear end. “And he’s got the scours, for goodness sake.” He sounded mad now.

  Emerson Bridge felt his stomach knot up. His mother was standing beside him now. He didn’t dare look at her or his lips might start to quiver.

  “Son, you have got to follow my instructions, especially when it comes to food.”

  Emerson Bridge nodded and let his eyes drift over to Mr. Ike, who stayed at the fence. Emerson Bridge wanted him to ask him why he’d said to put Lucky on full feed the month before, but Mr. Ike was fiddling with his yellow scarf he had tied around his neck.

  “We’ve got to get rid of all that mixed feed in his trough,” the county agent said, his words coming fast. “Dry feed only right now. I’m talking hay. That’s all.”

  Mr. Ike took off towards the feed trough.

  “Y’all got any Pepsi-Cola, ma’am?” Mr. Merritt asked Emerson Bridge’s mother. She had her eyes cast down and was shaking her head. Emerson Bridge didn’t know what a Pepsi-Cola was.

  “Then, can you go to the store and get me two right now?”

  His mother started running.

  “You got any money, Mama?” Emerson Bridge called out.

  She raised her hand, which he took to mean she did. But this was his steer. He ran inside the barn to his papa’s straw bales, where the shaving kit remained. He unzipped it, moved his fingers past the brush that had dried hard and past the mixing cup that contained cracked remnants of their last shave, to the round coin he’d been saving, the fifty-cent piece from the tooth fairy the month before. He took off outside with it and saw his mother getting in the automobile. “Mama! I’ve got some money!”

  But she told him, “That’s yours, hon.” She took off out the driveway.

  He ran back to the lot. Mr. Merritt and Mr. Ike were scooping grain from the trough with their hands and putting it in his papa’s wheel barrow.

  Lucky was tied to the fence post with a rope. Emerson Bridge told him, “I’m sorry, boy, I didn’t know.” His papa’s words about being a better man, Emerson Bridge had not understood, but now that he’d not taken good care of Lucky, he wondered if that’s what his papa had thought about himself. “Papa was wrong, though. He didn’t make me sick. I’ve made you sick.”

  His mother pulled up to the fence in a cloud of dust. “Got Mr. Drake to go ahead and open them,” she called out and hurried their way, each hand holding a glass bottle filled with dark liquid.

  Mr. Merritt worked to get the steer’s mouth open. “His tongue’s hot.”

  Emerson Bridge had felt that but had not thought much of it. He took a step back.

  “Son, I need you to pour one bottle at a time on his tongue, and be easy with it.” Lucky was trying to jerk his head. His mother held one of the bottles Emerson Bridge’s way, but he did not take it. “Son, we don’t have time to be standing around.”

  “He don’t trust me no more.”

  “He trusts you, son, now come on. Now’s the time to stay strong.”

  Emerson Bridge reached for the bottle and poured it on and watched the liquid bubble up. He poured in the next one.

  “Let’s hope this makes him belch and get rid of his gas.” The county agent wiped his hands, coated in slobber, on the legs of his khaki pants.

  Emerson Bridge felt his eyes start to fill. “Is he going to die, Mr. Merritt?” he whispered.

  The county agent leaned towards him. “This is big boy’s work, son, fooling with a steer. So I’m going talk to you like a big boy, even a man. Feeding him too much too soon, yes, could kill him.”

  Emerson Bridge felt his knees go weak.

  “You make sure you keep him on his feet, all right? That’s why that rope’s got so little play in it.”

  Mr. Merritt was le
aving. Emerson Bridge didn’t want him to. It had never occurred to him that he might not be enough for this animal, but it occurred to him now.

  He looked along the ground. The sparkles had all gone.

  …..

  Luther put his hand on the back of his boy’s steer, the animal’s head bent low to the trough, heaped with Luther’s ground corn and oats and milo. Luther had started the steer on full feed the day before. He ran his hand along the ridge, then down the steer’s sides, feeling for meat. He wasn’t sure what to feel for. Was it hard like muscle or soft like fat? He tried to remember how Charles’s steers had looked with only four months left to feed out, but Luther had never bothered to pay much attention, since Charles had never needed him to. LC was with Uncle running the hammer mill behind Luther, holding the sacks under the funnel to catch the grain. Luther was glad his boy was not with him to witness his father’s unknowing hand. He bent towards the animal’s ear and whispered, “Eat up, boy, please,” and reveled in the loud grinding of his hammer mill, let it fill his ears with something he could claim as having done right. The decision to buy it had been his and his alone.

  Luther shoved his hand into the trough, pushed the tiny bits of grain around, making them go wherever he sent them. He looked back towards his house. Merritt was late with the news that Luther had been waiting on, whether the Creamer steer had the bloat or whether his plan had backfired and the steer had packed on more even more weight, putting it even stronger on the path to becoming champion and Luther Charles Dobbins, Sr., a total nobody and failure in his boy’s eyes.

  Luther’s own belly had bloated. It began as soon as he tasted Mildred’s sausage that morning and then chased it with orange juice. His belly protruded like a woman’s, the fleshiness of their middle, but his was swollen hard. He hoped no one would notice.

  Merritt drove up. LC came running towards the lot. Luther pressed on his belly.

  Merritt apologized for being late. Luther told himself not to act too interested in the reason, but when the county agent said, “Afraid the Creamer steer has the bloat,” Luther chuckled.

  “That steer could die, Luther.”