House of Earth (17 page)

Tike listened and thought to himself, “I sorta do hope
that she rams this whole joint right down flat, smack, smooth against th' ground.”

“What did you remark? Sir?”

“I said, I sorta do hope that she bangs this old house down when she comes in at th' door, like you was a-sayin'.” The smoke from his cigarette mixed in with his words. As she saw the back of his head, neck, and ears in his cigarette smoke and in the lamplight, the moving smoke caused him to look like he was flying across the earth. The smoke that he blew down between his legs along the floor rose up and formed into little flat clouds four or five feet above the linoleum. The clouds moved, lay to one side, slipped, fell away and rose up again, and waved like the waters of the oceans.

She felt her old feeling blow down, rise again, form into the shapes of clouds that blew and waved, then got whipped to pieces, knocked apart, smeared out by the drafts of the wind that sifted in through the cracks. Her thoughts were all wrapped up inside her in one tight bundle as she sat watching the back of his head. She saw other visions of him in the whipped-out smoke in the room. Him lifting, bending, and him stooping, crawling. Him running and sitting down alone and quiet. She saw again all of the old pictures. She saw a picture of him on the first day that she had seen him. Yes. He rode a fast bareback broomtail pony up along a hard dirt road, and he waved his hat and yelled so loud that he caused her buggy team to snort and run wild. She saw him working thrashes, binders, carrying water to work in a rag-wrapped jug. She saw him taking tractor and car motors
apart, and then putting them back together again. She saw him laughing and playing with her daddy's dog in the yard while he put one over on the old man and let her ease out the back door. She saw him all up and down the cliffs and gullies of the Cap Rock. She sat there with a blank stare and saw Tike Hamlin doing just about everything that a man ever done.

She leaned her head over in a new position against the bedstead and folded her hands over his forehead, and she sighed, grunted in a tired way, and said, “Tike.”

“Mmm?” He smoked.

“Everywhere that you look, do you see me?”

“Huh? Oh. Guess so. How come you to ask? Yeah. I guess I do. I guess I do at that. Hmm. Never did just think of it like that before, but I reckon since you mentioned it, I s'pose that I do. Why?”

“Oh, I don't know. I was just leaning back here, enjoying of my aches and miseries, and just thinking.”

“Ha.”

“Just thinking that I've always seen you in this way.”

“Ha.”

“I always did. And I don't really know why. When I look out across the country I see you. Out across the farm I see you. Out across the room here I see you. And I guess that the experts that know about such things would say, Oh well, it is just because I loved you. And so I guess it is. I guess it is why. But I'm just sitting here and thinking.”

“Yaaa.”

“Wondering.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Just trying to figure. Just figuring and figuring and figuring. Trying to figure out just some one little teensy-weensy reason why I should have to love you so much.”

“Ha. Ya. You got me fooled there, Lady.” He squeezed his hands together so nervous and so hard that she could hear his bones and gristles crack. “I never could figure out that one myself. Listen. Listen.” He leaned his head toward the radio. For some unknown reason the speaker had gotten quiet, and it was for some few minutes that they listened to the sounds of an orchestra. It was so soft that they strained their ears to hear, because of the dead batteries, but the notes of the music were easy to hear. It was the horns and the saxes, hot trombones of a Saint Louis dance band playing some dreamy, bluesy Louisiana ragtime. The shuffle of the trombone and the blare of the little wet trumpet sounded jazzy, wiggly, fiery, and Tike saw people all around the world move their hips and rub their bellies.

“Hotch chh chh chh. Hot choochy, choochy. Shew. Shew. Shoo. Shooo. Wowww. Whow. Whow. Whow. Whow.” Ella May only rocked her head from one side to the other, and tapped the end of her shoe in the air under Tike's back. He leaned against her so as to feel every movement that her body made in time to the music.

And then it stopped. And he said, “Boy, howdy, Lady, you was right in th' right church an' th' right pew an' th' right row with th' right how, an' a-goin' an' a-blowin' right
on down to Georgia that time, wasn't you?” He moved his shoulders against her legs and knees as he sat on the floor.

“Shh. There's a man speaking. Let's see if you can hear just what it is he's crowing so about.” She tapped him on the head.

And they held themselves stiff and still for the next few minutes, because the static noises again had just about whipped the voice of the man to pieces. The wild elements, rays, and magnetisms, the unharnessed and unseen, invisible forces of the plains bit and clawed and chewed at his words exactly as did the ears of the two that sat there and listened. And there were parts of his words that the weather whipped to pieces, and there were other parts that Tike and Ella May beat into dry sand.

“Shh.”

“Yeah. Shh. Shush.”

“Don't you shush me. Hush.”

Tike stood for a few seconds, brushed the loose crumbs of tobacco from his clothes, and blew his breath down against his shirt with a whistling noise. He felt Ella's hand take hold of his little finger on his left hand and the warmth caused him to feel again all of the bitterness and the coldness of the night outside. The moisture of her hand was warm. He kept his ears to the speaker. Then, without making any noise, he sat down on the bed, leaned against the wall, and pulled her hand until she laid down at his side. She kept her ears to the things that the loudspeaker said. Tike held her around her waist with one hand and with his other hand
he felt, rubbed, caressed, the baby in her belly. It jumped, it moved, it fluttered, it stuck its elbows, arms, and knees against her like a wildcat trying to fight its way out from under a box. The movements of the baby caused Tike to feel such a fear as he had never felt in all of the days of his life. Such a fear as he had never known that he could feel. A terrible lost feeling, a dread, a misery, a complete feel of being helpless, ignorant, and fooled. Already this thing in her fought to get her attention for twenty-four hours out of every day, and already it beat her, fought her, struck her with its fists, and kicked her with its feet to get more and more of her love and her attention. Already. And it was not even a living human being yet. No name yet. No papers yet with its picture and fingerprints clipped on. It had not hoed a row, nor had it plowed a single furrow. It had not scratched the top sod, it had not touched a finger to the earth to cover over a seed. Had not driven a tractor down a row. Had not carried in one single solitary bucket of milk or water, nor done any work on the house. It had not done anything. Nothing. Not a single useful lick of work. And yet already, ahead of time, this far ahead of its own time, already it beat around, struck out with its fists, kicked, punched, and thrashed around just for the one sole purpose of getting everybody's attention, just for the one reason of causing everyone to run, to worry, to stumble and to fall, to move along faster, to go here, to go there, and skid around, just to hurt, to whip, to make trouble,
and more gray hairs. This all taking place on the inside of her belly. For goodness sake, what on earth would the new stranger want and how much more would it yell and scratch and fight for its own self when it would get its head on the outside?

Tike was afraid to think any more about it. He shook his head to cause his thoughts to shift over onto other things. God. Lord. Jesus. Little prairie dogs and tarantulas. Lord God and all of you tangle-headed saints. Christ O Jeez O Lordy O Mighty O! He shook his head several times. The springs of the bed made so much noise that Ella May finally said, “Hush. Man talking. Listen. He's some kind of a big Government man. Put my dress down.”

“Wanta feel. Brat a jumpin',” Tike said in a whisper so as not to interfere with what the big Government man was driving at. “Jump. You little monkey, you. Ha ha ha ha.”

“Tike. Please. Be still. I'm listening. This man is a man from the Government.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. Listen.”

There was an educated sound, a sound of the rattle of papers and pencils, in the man's voice. It was a bit of a boomy voice, a voice that had rehearsed, practiced for hours and hours every day to sound boomy and big, so it would find a little place somewhere in their ears to plant its seeds and to sprout its roots. A good-old-boy sound. A real old-crony sound. A right-hand-man, a brotherly and sisterly sound. A
smooth, soft, oily running sound in the flow and the dance and the weave of the words. Tike smiled a bit of a mocking grin and whispered, “Don't he sound perty?” Ella May jabbed him with the point of her elbow and got quiet again.

And the voice said:

“And this, this appears very plainly to me to be the only answer to our problems!”

Tike pooched up his lips and shook his head wisely, as if to say, “Well, is that right?”

“In view of the world market, we have far too many hogs! Far too many sheep! Far too many cattle! Too much cotton. Too much corn. And too much grain of every kind. Our storage bins are running over, and we've got too much wheat!”

Ella May's stomach moved with the baby as she stuck out her lower lip and mocked, “Far, far, too much.”

“It is a very plain and simple problem with a very plain and simple answer. Our modern machines and our modern factories and our modern systems of labor have simply given us more of everything than we can use. There is no demand for this oversupply. Prices are falling because all of the storage rooms are full and overflowing and nobody will buy the excess. There is too much. Too much of everything.”

And a look that was half hate and half silly, a grin that was more of a sneer on Tike's face. Outside he heard the rattle of the cold wind against the dry house. He thought of the years that he had raised growing things, and said, “Oh yeah? Too much.”

“It is better for you to receive two dollars a bushel for a thousand bushels of wheat than to raise three thousand bushels and have to sell it for thirty cents. And don't feel too hopeful when I tell you thirty cents, because I can quote you county after county right here in the wheat belt where it is going at just twenty cents a bushel and not one penny more.”

“Ha,” Tike said.

“Hmm,” Ella May said.

“So in closing, I want to urge you to go along with this plan. The agent will soon come around and knock on your door with all the necessary papers. You simply agree not to plant a certain number of acres, and you are paid so much an acre for the acres that you leave idle. The price is different according to the kind of crop that you last planted on this land. The same goes for the meat animals that you kill this year and the ones that you agree not to raise next year. Your agent has all of the papers, with all of the classifications and all of the rates, figures, and prices. Remember, you are not being forced to leave your land idle nor to kill off your cattle nor your sheep nor your hogs. You are not being forced. You are not being driven. Most farmers have already signed up. Many of them have already received their checks. They say that they used their money to pay off some of their back debts so as to be able to borrow more money to run their farms in the years to come. Many intend to buy fertilizer and put their idle soil into better condition. Many will repair their houses, sheds, buildings, and barns. Many will build new ones.”

Static sighed and moaned and the voice on the radio was blown away like a sky full of loose hay.

“He says that we have got too many of the blessings of life.” Ella May held Tike's hand against her stomach.

“Yeah,” Tike answered in a sour drawl. “Too much.”

“I may have just failed to find them. Or possibly both of us overlooked them. When that agent comes around with those papers, I aim to ask him to come all around over this farm with me, and see if he can find all of these blessings and all of this oversupply of meat and things to eat, and things.”

“What about all of these electric washing machines and ice boxes that you've got here in your little cottage, Lady? And what if he would find all of those trunks and suitcases and handbags full of all your nice perty clothes?” Tike's eyebrows went up and down like a private detective. “What then?”

She smiled in the light of the lamp and bumped her head against the wall. “That is right. Yes sir. No sir, you know, that is one thing that just did not enter my mind. He would be sure and certain to find my two limousines under the house.”

“Sure he would.”

“And those last two airplanes that I bought and hid up on top of the barn.”

“Find them, too.”

After being quiet for a time, her ear caught the sound of the radio at her back. It was still buzzing. It hummed like a
long, flat stick thrown at a horse. There were horses in their minds. There were whole herds of horses born and raised on the plains, the sheep pony with his fast quick trot, the cow pony able to stop on a nickel and whirl on the point of a needle. There were herds and herds of bawling cattle kicking up their manure dust. There were the farms filled with hogs, sheep, cattle, horses, in their brains. These things moved in Tike's brain as if he flipped through a movie magazine with his thumb and saw the shapes and faces jump, cavort, flicker, and fade. Ella May saw long new furrows of good plowed ground and her nose smelled the roots, the syrups, the saps, the juices, not only of the ground but, too, of popping seeds with big white roots, drying stems and stalks and leaves with roots as hard as her fingernails. Already, without the slightest doubt, these wondering worried pictures, too, were moving across the closed eyes of the little new upper plainsman that fought under the weight of Tike's hand. And this was her feeling. A funny one, not any too clear a feeling, it was blurred and smeared as she tried to see it in her mind.