A Painted House (38 page)

Their truck started with great reluctance. The
clutch whined and scraped, and when it finally released, the entire assemblage lurched forward. The Spruills were off, pots and pans rattling, boxes shaking from side to side, Bo and Dale bouncing on a mattress, and Trot curled into a corner of the trailer, bringing up the rear. We waved until they were out of sight.

There’d been no talk of next year. The Spruills were not coming back. We knew we’d never see them again.

What little grass was left in the front yard had been flattened, and when I surveyed the damage I was instantly glad they were gone. I kicked the ashes where they’d built their fires on home plate and once again marveled at how insensitive they’d been. There were ruts from their truck and holes from their tent poles. Next year I’d put up a fence to keep hill people off my baseball field.

My immediate project, however, was to finish what Trot had begun. I hauled the paint to the front porch, one gallon at a time, and was surprised by the weight. I was expecting Pappy to say something, but the situation drew no comment from him. My mother, however, gave some orders to my father, who quickly erected a scaffold on the east side of the house. It was a two-by-six oak plank, eight feet long, braced by a sawhorse on one end and an empty diesel drum on the other. It tilted slightly toward the drum, but not enough to unbalance the painter. My father opened the first gallon, stirred it with a stick, and helped me onto the scaffold. There were some brief instructions, but since he knew so little about house painting I was let loose to learn on my own. I figured if Trot could do it, so could I.

My mother watched me carefully and offered such
wisdom as “Don’t let it drip” and “Take your time.” On the east side of the house, Trot had painted the first six boards from the bottom, from the front of the house to the rear, and with my scaffold I was able to reach another three feet above his work. I wasn’t sure how I would paint up to the roof, but I decided I would worry about it later.

The old boards soaked up the first layer of paint. The second one went on smooth and white. After a few minutes I was fascinated by my work because the results were immediate.

“How am I doin’?” I asked without looking down.

“It’s beautiful, Luke,” my mother said. “Just work slow, and take your time. And don’t fall.”

“I’m not gonna fall.” Why did she always warn me against dangers that were so obvious?

My father moved the scaffold twice that afternoon, and by suppertime I had used an entire gallon of paint. I washed my hands with lye soap, but the paint was stuck to my fingernails. I didn’t care. I was proud of my new craft. I was doing something no Chandler had ever done.

The house painting was not mentioned over supper. Weightier matters were at hand. Our hill people had packed up and left, and they had done so with a large amount of the cotton still unpicked. There had been no rumors of other workers leaving because of wet fields. Pappy didn’t want folks to know we were yielding anything to the rains. The weather was about to change, he insisted. We’d never had so many storms this late in the year.

At dusk we moved to the front porch, which was now even quieter. The Cardinals were a distant
memory, and we rarely listened to anything else after supper. Pappy didn’t want to waste electricity so I sat on the steps and looked out at our front yard, still and empty. For six weeks it had been covered with all manner of shelter and storage. Now there was nothing.

A few leaves dropped and scattered across the yard. The night was cool and clear, and this prompted my father to predict that tomorrow would be a fine opportunity to pick cotton for twelve hours. All I wanted to do was paint.

Chapter 30

I glanced at the clock above the stove as we ate. It was ten minutes after four, the earliest breakfast I could remember. My father spoke only long enough to give his weather forecast—cool, clear, not a cloud anywhere, with the ground soft but firm enough to pick cotton.

The adults were anxious. Much of our crop was still unharvested, and if it remained so, our little farming operation would fall further into debt. My mother and Gran finished the dishes in record time, and we left the house in a pack. The Mexicans rode with us to the fields. They huddled together on one side of the trailer and tried to stay warm.

Clear, dry days had become rare, and we attacked this one as if it might be the last. I was exhausted by sunrise, but complaining would only get me a harsh lecture. Another crop disaster was looming, and we needed to work until we dropped. The desire for a brief nap arose, but I knew my father would whip me with his belt if he caught me sleeping.

Lunch was cold biscuits and ham, eaten hurriedly in the shade of the cotton trailer. It was warm by midday, and a siesta would have been appropriate. Instead, we sat on our picking sacks, nibbled our biscuits, and
watched the sky. Even when we talked, our eyes were looking up.

And, of course, a clear day meant that the storms were on the way, so after twenty minutes of lunch, my father and Pappy declared the break to be over. The women jumped up as quickly as the men, anxious to prove they could work just as hard. I was the only reluctant one.

It could’ve been worse: The Mexicans didn’t even stop to eat.

I spent the tedious afternoon thinking about Tally, then Hank, then back to Tally. I also thought about the Spruills and envied them for escaping. I tried to imagine what they would do when they arrived home and Hank wasn’t there waiting for them. I tried to tell myself that I didn’t really care.

We had not received a letter from Ricky in several weeks. I had heard the adults whisper about this around the house. I had not yet sent my long narrative to him, primarily because I wasn’t sure how to mail it without getting caught. And I was having second thoughts about burdening him with the Latcher news. He had enough on his mind. If Ricky were home, we’d go fishing and I’d tell him everything. I’d begin with the Sisco killing and spare no details—the Latcher baby, Hank and Cowboy, everything. Ricky would know what to do. I longed for him to come home.

I don’t know how much cotton I picked that day, but I’m sure it was a world record for a seven-year-old. When the sun fell behind the trees along the river, my mother found me, and we walked to the house. Gran stayed behind, picking as fast as the men.

“How long they gonna work?” I asked my mother. We were so tired that walking was a challenge.

“Till dark, I guess.”

It was almost dark when we got to the house. I wanted to collapse on the sofa and sleep for a week, but my mother asked me to wash my hands and help with supper. She made corn bread and warmed up leftovers while I peeled and sliced tomatoes. We listened to the radio—not a word about Korea.

In spite of a brutal day in the fields, Pappy and my father were in good spirits when we sat down to eat. Between them, they had picked eleven hundred pounds. The recent rains had driven up the price of cotton in the Memphis market, and if we could just get a few more days of dry weather, then we might survive another year. Gran listened from a distance. She listened but did not hear, and I knew she was off in Korea again. My mother was too tired to talk.

Pappy hated leftovers, but he still thanked the Lord for them. He also gave thanks for the dry weather and asked for more of it. We ate slowly; the day’s exhaustion finally settled in. Conversation was soft and short.

I heard the thunder first. It was a low rumble, far away, and I glanced around the table to see if the adults had heard it, too. Pappy was talking about the cotton markets. A few minutes later the rumbling was much closer, and when lightning cracked in the distance, we stopped eating. The winds picked up, and the tin roof on the back porch began to gently rattle. We avoided eye contact.

Pappy folded his hands together and rested his elbows on the table as if he might pray again. He had
just asked God for more good weather. Now we were about to get another drenching.

My father’s shoulders dropped a few inches. He rubbed his forehead and gazed at a wall. The rain began pecking the roof, a little too loudly, and Gran said, “It’s hail.”

Hail meant high winds and fierce rain, and sure enough a storm roared across our farm. We sat at the table for a long time listening to the thunder and rain, ignoring the half-eaten supper before us, wondering how many inches would fall and how long it would be before we could pick again. The St. Francis couldn’t hold much more, and when it spilled out, the crops would be finished.

The storm passed, but the rain continued, heavy at times. We finally left the kitchen. I walked to the front porch with Pappy and saw nothing but a pool of water between our house and the road. I felt sorry for him as he sat in the swing and gazed in disbelief at the waves of water God was sending us.

Later my mother read Bible stories to me, her voice barely audible above the rain on the roof. The tale of Noah and the flood was off-limits. I fell asleep before young David slew Goliath.

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The next day my parents announced that they were driving into town. I was invited—it would’ve been too cruel to deny me the trip—but Pappy and Gran were not included. It was a little family outing. Ice cream was mentioned as a possibility. Thanks to Cowboy and Tally, we had some free gasoline, and there was nothing
to do around the farm. Water was standing between the rows of cotton.

I sat in the front with them and paid close attention to the speedometer. Once we turned onto the main highway and headed north toward Black Oak, my father finished shifting and sped up to forty-five miles an hour. As far as I could tell, the truck ran the same as it did at thirty-seven, but I wasn’t about to mention this to Pappy.

It was oddly comforting to see the other farms idled by the rain. No one was trudging through the fields, trying to pick. Not a single Mexican could be seen.

Our land was low, prone to early flooding, and we’d lost crops before when other farmers had not. Now it appeared as if everybody was getting soaked in equal measure.

It was midday with nothing to do but wait, and so families were gathered on porches, watching the traffic. The women were shelling peas. The men were talking and worrying. The children were either sitting on the steps or playing in the mud. We knew them all, every house. We waved, they waved back, and we could almost hear them say, “Reckon why the Chandlers are headin’ to town?”

Main Street was quiet. We parked in front of the hardware store. Three doors down at the Co-op, a group of farmers in overalls was engaged in serious conversation. My father felt obliged to report there first, or at least to listen to their thoughts and opinions on when the rain might end. I followed my mother to the drugstore, where they sold ice cream at a soda fountain in the rear. A pretty town girl named Cindy had worked there for as long as I could remember.
Cindy had no other customers at the moment, and I received an especially generous helping of vanilla ice cream covered with cherries. It cost my mother a nickel. I perched myself on a stool. When it was clear that I had found my spot for the next thirty minutes, my mother left to buy a few things.

Cindy had an older brother who’d been killed in a gruesome car wreck, and every time I saw her I thought about the stories I’d heard. There’d been a fire, and they couldn’t get her brother out of the wreckage. And there’d been a crowd, which, of course, meant there were many versions of just how awful it really was. She was pretty, but she had sad eyes, and I knew this was because of the tragedy. She didn’t want to talk, and that was fine with me. I ate slowly, determined to make the ice cream last a long time, and watched her move around behind the counter.

I’d heard enough whispers between my parents to know that they were planning to make some sort of telephone call. Since we didn’t own a phone, we’d have to borrow one. I was guessing it would be the phone at Pop and Pearl’s store.

Most of the homes in town had phones, as did all the businesses. And the farmers who lived two or three miles from town had phones, too, since the lines ran that far. My mother once told me it would be years before they strung phone lines out to our place. Pappy didn’t want one anyway. He said that if you had a phone then you had to talk to folks whenever it was convenient for them, not you. A television might be interesting, but forget a phone.

Jackie Moon came through the door and made his way back to the soda counter. “Hey, little Chandler,” he
said, then tousled my hair and sat down beside me. “What brings you here?” he asked.

“Ice cream,” I said, and he laughed.

Cindy stepped in front of us and said, “The usual?”

“Yes ma’am,” he said. “And how are you?”

“I’m fine, Jackie,” she cooed. They studied each other carefully, and I got the impression that something was going on. She turned to prepare the usual, and Jackie examined her from head to toe.

“Y’all heard from Ricky?” he asked me, his eyes still on Cindy.

“Not lately,” I said, staring too.

“Ricky’s a tough guy. He’ll be all right.”

“I know,” I said.

He lit a cigarette and puffed on it for a moment. “Y’all wet out there?” he asked.

“Soaked.”

Cindy placed a bowl of chocolate ice cream and a cup of black coffee in front of Jackie.

“They say it’s supposed to rain for the next two weeks,” he said. “I don’t doubt it.”

“Rain, rain, rain,” Cindy said. “That’s all people talk about these days. Don’t you get tired of talkin’ about the weather?”

“Ain’t nothin’ else to talk about,” Jackie said. “Not if you’re farmin’.”

“Only a fool would farm,” she said, then tossed her hand towel on the counter and walked to the front register.

Jackie finished a bite of ice cream. “She’s probably right about that, you know.”

“Probably so.”

“Your daddy goin’ up North?” he asked.

“Goin’ where?”

“Up North, to Flint. I hear some of the boys are already makin’ calls, tryin’ to get on at the Buick plant. They say the jobs are tight this year, can’t take as many as they used to, so folks are already scramblin’ to get on. Cotton’s shot to hell again. Another good rain and the river’s over the banks. Most farmers’ll be lucky to make half a crop. Kind of silly, ain’t it? Farm like crazy for six months, lose everything, then run up North to work and bring back enough cash to pay off debts. Then plant another crop.”