A Painted House (25 page)

“That’s some car,” my father said as they sat on the front steps. Gran was in the kitchen making iced tea. My mother had the unpleasant task of chatting up Stacy, a misfit from the moment she stepped out of the car.

“Brand new,” Jimmy Dale said proudly. “Got it last week, just in time to drive home. Me and Stacy here got married a month ago, and that’s our wedding present.”

“Stacy and I got married, not me and Stacy,” said the new wife, cutting in from across the porch. There was a slight pause in the conversation as the rest of us absorbed the fact that Stacy had just corrected her husband’s grammar in the presence of others. I’d never heard this before in my life.

“Is it a fifty-two?” Pappy asked.

“No, it’s a fifty-three, newest thing on the road. Built it myself.”

“You don’t say.”

“Yep. Buick lets us custom order our own cars, then we get to watch when they come down the line. I put the dashboard in that one.”

“How much did it cost?” I asked, and I thought my mother would come for my throat.

“Luke!” she shouted. My father and Pappy cast hard looks at me, and I was about to say something when Jimmy Dale blurted out, “Twenty-seven hundred dollars. It’s no secret. Every dealer in the country knows how much they cost.”

By now the Spruills had drifted over and were inspecting the car—every Spruill but Tally, who was nowhere to be seen. It was Sunday afternoon and time, in my way of thinking, for a cool bath at Siler’s Creek. I had been hanging around the porch waiting for her to appear.

Trot waddled around the car while Bo and Dale circled it, too. Hank was peering inside, probably looking for the keys. Mr. and Mrs. Spruill were admiring it from a distance.

Jimmy Dale watched them carefully. “Hill people?”

“Yeah, they’re from Eureka Springs.”

“Nice folks?”

“For the most part,” Pappy said.

“What’s that big one doin’?”

“You never know.”

We’d heard at church that morning that Samson had eventually gotten to his feet and walked from the ring, so Hank had not added another casualty to his list. Brother Akers had preached for an hour on the sinfulness of the carnival—wagering, fighting, lewdness, vulgar costumes, mingling with gypsies, all sorts
of filth. Dewayne and I listened to every word, but our names were never mentioned.

“Why do they live like that?” Stacy asked, looking at Camp Spruill. Her crisp words knifed through the air.

“How else could they live?” Pappy asked. He, too, had already made the decision that he did not like the new Mrs. Jimmy Dale Chandler. She sat perched like a little bird on the edge of a rocker, looking down on everything around her.

“Can’t you provide housing for them?” she asked.

I could tell that Pappy was starting to burn.

“Anyway, Buick’ll let us finance the cars for twenty-four months,” Jimmy Dale said.

“Is that so?” said my father, still staring at it. “I think that’s ’bout the finest car I’ve ever seen.”

Gran brought a tray to the porch and served tall glasses of iced tea with sugar. Stacy declined. “Tea with ice,” she said. “Not for me. Do you have any hot tea?”

Hot tea? Who’d ever heard of such foolishness?

“No, we don’t drink hot tea around here,” Pappy said from his swing as he glared at Stacy.

“Well, up in Michigan we don’t drink it with ice,” she said.

“This ain’t Michigan,” Pappy shot back.

“Would you like to see my garden?” my mother said abruptly.

“Yeah, that’s a great idea,” Jimmy Dale said. “Go on, sweetheart, Kathleen has the prettiest garden in Arkansas.”

“I’ll go with you,” Gran said in an effort to shove the girl off the porch and away from controversy. The three women disappeared, and Pappy waited just long
enough to say, “Where in God’s name did you find her, Jimmy Dale?”

“She’s a sweet girl, Uncle Eli,” he answered without much conviction.

“She’s a damned Yankee.”

“Yankees ain’t so bad. They were smart enough to avoid cotton. They live in nice houses with indoor plumbing and telephones and televisions. They make good money and they build good schools. Stacy’s had two years of college. Her family’s had a television for three years. Just last week I watched the Indians and Tigers on it. Can you believe that, Luke? Watching baseball on television.”

“No sir.”

“Well, I did. Bob Lemon pitched for the Indians. Tigers ain’t much; they’re in last place again.”

“I don’t much care for the American League,” I said, repeating words I’d heard my father and grandfather say since the day I started remembering.

“What a surprise,” Jimmy Dale said with a laugh. “Spoken like a true Cardinal fan. I was the same way till I went up North. I’ve been to eleven games this year in Tiger Stadium, and the American League kinda grows on you. Yankees were in town two weeks ago; place was sold out. They got this new guy, Mickey Mantle, ’bout as smooth as I’ve seen. Good power, great speed, strikes out a lot, but when he hits it, it’s gone. He’ll be a great one. And they got Berra and Rizzuto.”

“I still hate ’em,” I said, and Jimmy Dale laughed again.

“You still gonna play for the Cardinals?” he asked.

“Yes sir.”

“You ain’t gonna farm?”

“No sir.”

“Smart boy.”

I’d heard the grown-ups talk about Jimmy Dale. He was quite smug that he’d managed to flee the cotton patch and make a better living up North. He liked to talk about his money. He’d found the better life and was quick with his advice to other farm boys around the county.

Pappy thought that farming was the only honorable way a man should work, with the possible exception of playing professional baseball.

We sipped our tea for a while, then Jimmy Dale said, “So how’s the cotton?”

“So far so good,” Pappy said. “The first pickin’ went well.”

“Now we’ll go through it again,” my father added. “Probably be done in a month or so.”

Tally emerged from the depths of Camp Spruill, holding a towel or some type of cloth. She circled wide around the red car, where her family still stood entranced; they didn’t notice her. She looked at me from the distance but made no sign. I was suddenly bored with baseball and cotton and cars and such, but I couldn’t just race off. It would be rude to leave company in such a manner, and my father would suspect something. So I sat there and watched Tally disappear past the house.

“How’s Luther?” my father asked.

“Doin’ well,” Jimmy Dale said. “I got ’im on at the plant. He’s makin’ three dollars an hour, forty hours a week. Luther ain’t never seen so much money.”

Luther was another cousin, another Chandler from a distant strain. I’d met him once, at a funeral.

“So he ain’t comin’ home?” Pappy said.

“I doubt it.”

“Is he gonna marry a Yankee?”

“I ain’t asked him. I reckon he’ll do whatever he wants to do.”

There was a pause, and the tension seemed to fade for a moment. Then Jimmy Dale said, “You can’t blame him for stayin’ up there. I mean, hell, they lost their farm. He was pickin’ cotton around here for other people, makin’ a thousand bucks a year, didn’t have two dimes to rub together. Now he’ll make more than six thousand a year, plus a bonus and retirement.”

“Did he join the union?” my father asked.

“Damned right he did. I got all the boys from here in the union.”

“What’s a union?” I asked.

“Luke, go check on your mother,” Pappy said. “Go on.”

Once again I had asked an innocent question, and because of it, I was banished from the conversation. I left the porch, then raced to the back of the house in hopes of seeing Tally. But she was gone, no doubt down at the creek bathing without her faithful lookout.

Gran was at the garden gate, resting on the fence, watching my mother and Stacy go from plant to plant. I stood beside her, and she tousled my hair. “Pappy said she’s a damned Yankee,” I said softly.

“Don’t swear.”

“I’m not swearin’. I’m just repeatin’.”

“They’re good people, they’re just different.” Gran’s mind was somewhere else. At times that summer she would talk to me without seeing me. Her tired eyes would drift away as her thoughts left our farm.

“Why does she talk like that?” I asked.

“She thinks we talk funny.”

“She does?”

“Of course.”

I couldn’t understand this.

A green snake less than a foot long poked its head from the cucumber patch, then raced down a dirt trail directly at my mother and Stacy. They saw it at about the same instant. My mother pointed and calmly said, “There’s a little green snake.”

Stacy reacted in a different manner. Her mouth flew open, but she was so horrified that it took a second or two for any sound to come forth. Then she let loose with a scream that the Latchers could’ve heard, a bloodcurdling shriek that was far more terrifying than even the deadliest of snakes.

“A snake!” she screamed again as she jumped behind my mother. “Jimmy Dale! Jimmy Dale!”

The snake had stopped dead on the trail and appeared to be looking up at her. It was just a harmless little green snake. How could anybody be afraid of it? I darted through the garden and picked him up, thinking I was helping matters. But the sight of a little boy holding such a lethal creature was more than Stacy could stand. She fainted and fell into the butter beans as the men came running from the front porch.

Jimmy Dale scooped her up as we tried to explain what had happened. The poor snake was limp; I
thought he’d fainted, too. Pappy could not suppress a grin as we followed Jimmy Dale and his wife to the back porch, where he laid her on a bench while Gran went to get remedies.

Stacy came to eventually, her face pale, her skin clammy. Gran hovered over her with wet cloths and smelling salts.

“Don’t they have snakes up in Michigan?” I whispered to my father.

“Reckon not.”

“It was just a little green one,” I said.

“Thank God she didn’t see a rat snake. She’d be dead,” my father said.

My mother boiled water and poured it into a cup with a tea bag. Stacy sat up and drank it, and for the first time in history hot tea was consumed on our farm. She wanted to be alone, so we returned to the front porch while she rested.

Before long, the men were into the Buick. They had the hood up and were poking their heads around the engine. When no one was paying attention to me, I moved away from the porch and headed for the rear of the house, looking for Tally. I hid by the silo, in a favorite spot where I couldn’t be seen. I heard an engine start, a smooth powerful sound, and knew it wasn’t our old truck. They were going for a ride, and I heard my father call my name. But when I didn’t respond, they left.

I gave up on Tally and walked back to the house. Stacy was sitting on a stool under a tree, looking forlornly across our fields, arms crossed as if she were very unhappy. The Buick was gone.

“You didn’t go for a ride?” she asked me.

“No ma’am.”

“Why not?”

“Just didn’t.”

“Have you ever ridden in a car?” Her tone was mocking, so I started to lie.

“No ma’am.”

“How old are you?”

“Seven.”

“You’re seven years old, and you’ve never ridden in a car?”

“No ma’am.”

“Have you ever seen a television?”

“No ma’am.”

“Have you ever used a telephone?”

“No ma’am.”

“Unbelievable.” She shook her head in disgust, and I wished I’d stayed by the silo. “Do you go to school?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Thank God for that. Can you read?”

“Yes ma’am. I can write, too.”

“Are you going to finish high school?”

“Sure am.”

“Did your father?”

“He did.”

“And your grandfather?”

“No ma’am.”

“I didn’t think so. Does anybody go to college around here?”

“Not yet.”

“What does that mean?”

“My mother says I’m goin’ to college.”

“I doubt it. How can you afford college?”

“My mother says I’m goin’.”

“You’ll grow up to be just another poor cotton farmer, like your father and grandfather.”

“You don’t know that,” I said. She shook her head in total frustration.

“I’ve had two years of college,” she said very proudly.

It didn’t make you any smarter, I wanted to say. There was a long pause. I wanted to leave but wasn’t sure how to properly remove myself from the conversation. She sat perched on the stool, gazing into the distance, gathering more venom.

“I just can’t believe how backward you people are,” she said.

I studied my feet. With the exception of Hank Spruill, I had never met a person whom I disliked as much as Stacy. What would Ricky do? He’d probably cuss her, and since I couldn’t get by with that, I just decided to walk away.

The Buick was returning, with my father at the wheel. He parked it, and all the adults got out. Jimmy Dale yelled for the Spruills to come over. He loaded up Bo, Dale, and Trot in the backseat, Hank in the front, and away they went, flying down our dirt road, headed for the river.

⋅   ⋅   ⋅

It was late in the afternoon before Jimmy Dale made any mention of leaving. We were ready for them to go, and I was particularly worried that they might hang around long enough for supper. I couldn’t imagine sitting around the dinner table trying to eat while Stacy commented on our food and habits. So far she
had despised everything else about our lives, why should she relent over supper?

We moved slowly to the Buick, our languid goodbyes taking forever, as usual.

No one was ever in a hurry when it was time to go. The announcement was made that the hour was late, then repeated, and then someone made the first move to the car or truck amid the first wave of farewells. Hands were shaken, hugs given, promises exchanged. Progress was made until the group got to the vehicle, at which time the entire procession came to a halt as someone remembered yet another quick story. More hugs, more promises to come back soon. After considerable effort, the departing ones were safely tucked away inside the vehicle, then those sending them off would stick their heads in for another round of goodbyes. Maybe another quick story. A few protests would finally get the engine started, and the car or truck would slowly back up, everyone still waving.