I resigned from the draft board a couple of months after that. Figured if I was going to do my civic duty, I’d do it on the Garnet River Levee Board, something that might benefit us farmers. We got flooding and drainage problems throughout all this part of the country. Hell, the Mississippi, Red, and Atchafalaya are powerful big rivers. You got to pay some attention to the land and water in your own state.
Old Lyndon Baines decided not to run again. Said he was going back to Texas. Said his daddy once told him that down home the people know when you’re sick and care when you die. I never really thought the man meant to keep us in that war for so long. I feel for him. He ain’t never had Chaney forgive him. There’s a lot of us on Judgment Day that will be ripped outta our E-Z Boys and thrown into a hell we never dreamed of.
These days, years after my time on the draft board, I’ll sit up at night and watch the Gulf War on CNN. And I’ll be damned if I can get to sleep, even hours after I turn off the TV. So I’ll lay awake and talk to the Old Podnah. I wouldn’t exactly call it praying. I just lay there and talk to Him. And sometimes when I listen close enough, I can hear—past the wheezing in my chest—the sound of a heartbeat that isn’t coming from my own body at all, but from the fields outside, from the dirt, from the old Louisiana earth.
Playboys’ Scrapbook
Chaney, 1991
I be takin it easy in my twilight years. I sit out here under the mimosa tree with my ice tea and work on my scrapbook. Oh, I got pictures of it all. Miz Siddy call me the family historian. That what she say. I got pictures of her when she was the Mardi Gras Queen, her hair all long, wearin a green sequin gown. Pictures she done sent Letta from when she was gone to Europe and Paris. That child done been more places than any of us here at Pecan Grove, her Mama included. Done been ever’where and done ever’thing.
I got me clippins of what-all Mister Big Shep done on the Levee Board. He a big man in drainage. Got my own picture with my grandson, Macon, holdin that seventy-pound squash we growed in my garden. Man come out from The Monitor, took our picture, put it right up there in the newspaper. Got me the clip where Mister Big Shep done got one of his DWIs up on Davis Street. Got me the big write-up they done on Mister Baylor Senior when he passed.
But I don’t need no clip to put me to mind of that.
Mister Big Shep called me from the Louisiana Savings and Loan the day after they put the old man in the ground. When the phone rang, I be just settin down to my noon meal. Coolin off in the kitchen with a ice rag on my neck in front of the fan. I member lookin over to the windowsill at a sweet potato Letta got growin in a jelly jar. Toothpicks stuck in the side to hold it up, roots spreadin down into the water. Letta love it when them sweet potatoes shoot green leafs out the top. She get them to spread out all over the TV.
Mister Big Shep say, Chaney, could you come down here to the bank and pick me up?
Man cuttin into my lunch time, ain’t no rest for the weary. I say, Your truck broke down, bossman?
He say, Don’t ask me no questions now, podnah. Just get your butt down here. Please.
Somethin must be bad wrong. That man don’t never say “please” to me. I grab me a chunk of cornbread, get in my truck, go down there to fetch him. He be settin up in that air-condition bank with his legs crossed like he don’t hardly never do. Look pale as a ghost. His own truck parked right out on the curb, but when I see that man try to stand up, I know why he done hollered for me. His hands both shakin and he havin so much trouble breathin, got his wheezer clenched tight in his fist. Tryin to act like things be hunky-dory, but when he stand up, he like to fall down. I reach out to steady him but he pull away. The man got tears in his eyes and he walkin all whompa-sided. Lord, I be thinkin, Mister Big Shep better not be drinkin this early in the day or we all in trouble!
We get on out to the truck and then Mister Big Shep haul off and start to cryin like a baby. I don’t say nothin, no way. Act like it be a regular thing for a grown white man to be slobberin all over hisself in the cab of my pickup truck. He choke up and stop hisself, put his hands on the dashboard like he holdin on for dear life.
He say: Chaney, My Daddy done died and left me a one-hundred-thousand-dollar debt to pay off. That’s what the bastard done left me!
Then he take out that wheezer and pull some breath out of it, stuff it in his shirt pocket and light up a Camel. He keep those Camels in his shirt pocket, right along with the wheezer, back in those days. (I still smoked my L&Ms on the sly, so I can’t put the man down.)
Now I ain’t never heard nobody talk that much money before. Not real-like. Oh, sometime the phone ring and Letta say, I answer it! Might be a man wantin to give me a million dollars! Somethin like that.
But Mister Shep not jokin.
I ax him, Boss, where you want me to take you? You want me to run you on back to the house?
He say, Hell no, the last thing I want to see is Viviane and the kids.
Okay, I say, then where we goin?
I shoulda knowed better than to ax him. The man don’t know what he want. He a lost sheep settin in the cab of my truck. So I head out Jefferson Street like I got good sense.
Fore long, Mister Big Shep say, Chaney, why don’t you just drive us around? Just take us for a ride, okay podnah?
Well, I carry us on out to Madewood where his Daddy used to farm. Out on Bayou Latanier where all the Dutchmen farm. All thick with pecan trees. Mister Vanderlick be farmin over there, we help him with his harvest from time to time when he in a pinch. I drive down the turn-row till we get to the bayou. Then I stop the truck, open the door, and get out. Mister Big Shep just stay settin there like he froze to the seat.
I ain’t got no air condition in my truck like he do in his. I open his door, say, Come on out, Boss, it be cooler out here.
We go set under that big old pecan tree by the bayou where Mister Baylor Senior used to pull up his black car and eat his biscuits, drink ice tea Miz Hallie done packed him. It was shady and we sat there and Mister Shep just go on and cry and cry. He be pitiful. He take his handkerchief out the pocket of his khakis and wipe his nose. He say: Chaney, what am I gonna do? I can’t farm this family one-hundred-thousand dollars outta the hole. I can’t do it. I need me a goddamn drink.
That what he all the time be sayin: I need me a drink. The man be suckin on the juice since he was a teenager. I can’t talk, cause I used to be sippin my cold Jax beer back then myself. But Mister Big Shep, he talk about a drink the way some men talk about wantin a woman.
I tell him what Letta be tellin me all our life, say: Mister Big Shep, you gotta turn it over, is what you gotta do. You gotta give it to the Lord.
He pull out another Camel, take a puff, then snuff it out on the ground with his boot. He got on his dressy boots. That cigarette paper so white there in the good sandy soil. That dirt by the bayou be what we call our “ice-cream dirt.” Good ground. Easy to work.
He say, We used to play down here, huh, Chaney?
Yessir, I tell him, we play down here all the time when your Daddy be workin this place.
He say, Chaney, podnah, I’m thirty-three years old. I got four kids and a crazy wife. I should of went to Tulane. I should of been a goddamn sonovabitch lawyer.
Oooh Lord, I hate it when they start to talkin like this. You don’t hear no black men rattlin off all they missed opportunities. They didn’t have no opportunities to miss! I just want to slap Mister Shep upside the head and say, Pull yourself up, boy! Quit bein such a titty baby!
He be black, I mighta done it. But you don’t talk like that to a white man, no how, no way.
Boss, I tell him, You gotta quit feelin sorry. You got you three plantations to farm. Your Daddy done built you a brick house. You white, you a man, and you got chilren what need you. You got you some good soil.
If I could, I’d give you this land, Chaney, he say. You’re the farmer.
Shoo, I say, I don’t want it.
He let out a laugh, say: Shit, it’s pathetic! I couldn’t give this l
and away if I tried to! No one would touch it. No. They’re not gonna let me walk away from my Daddy’s debt.
You oughta thank the Good Lord you got two legs to stand on, I tell him.
He go on whinin. Son of a goddamn bitch, he say. Only thing I could do with my inheritance is run off into the night.
I been workin with Mister Big Shep my whole life, and all I can say is, he sure be takin his time growin from a boy to a man. He done had ever’thing a man could want. His Daddy done bought him a convertible Buick when he wasn’t but eighteen. Many a time I sat in that outhouse and wiped myself with newspaper wonderin where justice was at. Many a time I axed the Good Lord why Mister Shep was the boss and I was the nigger.
But lookin at him snifflin by that tree, all my envy just fall away, and I get to feelin light-like. Feel like someone reach and take a heavy coat off my back.
I feel that hot air, swat a fly offa my face and think: Ain’t a thing he got I need. Ain’t a thing he got that I want. He ain’t nothin but a sad, scart white man, can’t even breathe worth a damn. Me, I got a strong body what my Letta love, and I done learnt to roll with the punches from my Daddy. That’s one thing I know, is how to roll with the punches. Mister Big Shep, he ain’t learnt nothin from his Daddy but smokin and drinkin and how to sign a check. I go to church on Sunday, sleep good at night, and when there’s a rain comin in, I stand out on my porch and smell the earth I been workin. Even if I don’t own it, it’s still mine.
Get up, Mister Shep, I tell him. Quit your cryin. Your people done had this land too long for you to lay down and die now.
He look up at me like a little boy, instead of a man only two–three years younger than me. Then he stand up, straighten his khakis, run his hand through his hair.
He say, Let’s get on back to Pecan Grove. We’re wasting time down here.
Maybe I oughta not tole the man to stop cryin. Maybe I shoulda just let him set on that bank under that tree, cryin till he couldn’t cry no more. Sometime I think about that. Think about maybe Mister Big Shep heart done got all hard cause of tears he ain’t cried. Tears bricked up in there and turned hard. Dammed-up rain that couldn’t water what needed it.
I wish somebody could tell Mister Big Shep how good he got it. I been knowin the man since we was little playboys together. Since my daddy and uncles was workin for Mister Baylor Senior. I been knowin the man since he was three–four years old. And I ain’t never known him to be satisfied.
Oh sure, he might have him a minute or two at twilight, after he done had his highballs and come drivin down the lane, say, Come on Chaney! Ride on back with me to look at the fields.
It’ll be gettin dark, way after my worktime unless we be harvestin. But I get in the truck with him, and he got that glass of whiskey in his hand. And we ride on back there and look at the beans or rice or cotton or whatever we got in the ground. And you can see him startin to settle down for a minute. But that don’t happen much. And when it do, it don’t last long. Mainly what happen is the man worry hisself sick till he can’t breathe most every day of his life.
These days seem like he pullin that wheezer outta his shirt pocket and suckin on it every time I look over. When he breathe sometime he sound like a Mack truck in his chest stuck in the mud. That’s how bad it is. Sometime when I get up to pee in the middle of the night and step out on the porch to look at the stars, there he be—settin up, the light on in his room down the lane. I can see him in the easy chair next to the window, fightin to get a breath.
He ain’t even got Miz Viviane in there with him. He don’t sleep with her since she done move out that room years ago and took over the chilren’s little schoolroom. I had to go up to the brick house and take the blackboards down off the wall in that room. When them kids come home and seen they blackboards and desks out on the carport, they look around so lost. I just stared at the ground to keep away from they eyes.
After that, Mister Big Shep and Miz Viviane act like bidness people in that brick house. When Miz Viviane tell me to do somethin, she say, Get it done before The Master come home. She made it up to call him The Master. I ain’t never called him that and don’t plan to.
Pecan Grove a beautiful place. Quiet and green and full of sweet dirt. Oh sure, they was a whole lot more trees years ago. Whole grove of old pecan trees fore Mister Big Shep done ripped them out to plant the rice and soybeans. Me and Letta used to pick those pecans and sell them down the road at Mansour’s Grocery. After Mister Baylor Senior died, Mister Big Shep come back here all young and sad and bustin to pay back bills, ready to tear up anything got in his way. He dig in the earth and pull them trees out by the roots—took near-bout every bit of shade off this plantation. He say he could get a whole lot more for rice and beans than for any old pecans.
I don’t judge the man for that. I don’t judge the man for any of it. Judgin up to the Good Lord hisself and nobody else. Bossman punished hisself enough, the way all that dust blow through his house and into his lungs after he pull up them trees by the roots.
I don’t worry much. You can’t. I done worked hard to help Mister Big Shep pay off his debt. Shoo, there was times when I just wanted to knock him to the ground. (And I coulda done it easy, cause I always been a stronger man than him, ever since we was little.) Times when he cuss at me in the fields or when he say somethin smart when he handin over the payroll on Fridays. Or when he sent my baby brother overseas to get his jaw blowed off, tellin me it was Lincoln’s “big opportunity.” There’s a lot I coulda said to that white man.
I set under my mimosa tree and think on things and mostly I don’t worry about Mister Shep or none of the Walkers. Some people, they is gonna be unhappy no matter what. You could give them ever’thing you have. Take the blood out you own body and give it to them and they’d still be miserable. That just be the way it is.
Oh, Pecan Grove full up with beauty. I got my vegetable garden full of tomatoes and string beans. Letta got flowers ever’where you want to look. Zinnias, hibiscus, hydrangeas. She got something growin outta most every empty coffee can we done used in our life. She even got flowers growin outta a pair of Mister Big Shep’s old boots he done throwed out. I bet there ain’t no more peaceful place on the Good Lord’s earth than here at Pecan Grove. Ain’t no violence, no noise, no shootin, no drugs, like up on Miami Vice. I watch the TV, I know what’s goin on. No drugs here. Just my blood pressure pills and what Letta take for her iron. Things might be different up at the Walker house, but I be talkin bout my Pecan Grove.
We done had us a good life here. A hard-workin life. And when we could, we done had us some parties! Catfish cook-ups like you never saw. Settin out in the yard till way after dark, laughin and laughin. We done good with the hand the Good Lord dealt us. We done loved each other, uh-huh. We done raised two girls, and five grandchilren, and we got a great-granbaby gonna need tendin pretty soon. That is just the way life happen. We done lived down the road from sadness all our lives. But you gotta know what sadness be yours and what be somebody else’s, is what I say.
Sometime Letta she be up at the brick house, tryin to fix ever’thing. Lookin out for those chilren. I can understand that. That been her main job here at Pecan Grove. She ain’t never lost no sleep worryin bout whiter-than-white towels for Miz Viviane or servin for the parties. Only thing my Letta done lost sleep over is those chilren. She know them chilren good. You hand-wash a family’s underthings and you learn more about them than you ever want to.
Letta done stood over there many a time and bite her lip, watchin Miz Viviane tear into them. Miz Lulu not wearin a brassiere one time for a date, and right in front of Miz Lulu’s boyfriend, Miz Viviane done rip that shirt off her daughter. Just rip it open down the front and show her little titties. Letta say the shame on Lulu’s face make her want to hit Miz Viviane herself but she didn’t. She just walk down the hall and vacuum Mister Shep’s room. He like it vacuum twice a day to keep out the dust.
Letta done seen it all, and sometimes it like to break her heart. Sh
e lay next to me in bed and say, Chaney, I wouldn’t trade my life for that central air condition, no way, no how.
Same as me, I tell her, and rub my hands on the back of her neck.
Sometime she cook special sweet things for them chilren, tryin to make up for the things she can’t do. Sometime I holler: Letta! Pearl and Ruby hungry for sweet things too! But Letta do what she got to.
Only one time we done crossed over and butted in. When Miz Viviane like to beat them chilren dead outside the house. We step in then and Mister Shep give me his truck after that and a small raise. Never made no fuss at all.
When the sun set on this land, it look like heaven. I ax Miz Siddy when she call us from up North, Do they got sunsets like this? And she say ain’t no sunsets like Pecan Grove anywhere else in the world. Siddy know what it like. The sky be all Easter colors and you can see the light shootin against that flat green land. You hearin the birds, crickets, cows, dogs, the one or two horses they got left. Across the bayou now is Bayou Estates, buncha big houses tryin to look like the Old South or what-have-you. Sometime you can hear they little chilren out on the driveways playin, which I like cause we ain’t got as many kids round this place as we used to. The sound of chilren ain’t never bothered me. It always sound like singin to me.
I know we goin to Mister Big Shep and Miz Viviane’s funerals one of these days. I know the inside of that Cromer Funeral Home where all they people been laid out real good. I wonder, will they come to help bury me and Letta when we pass? Only time they done set foot in our funeral home is when Lincoln got kilt. When Lincoln got kilt cause Mister Big Shep done put him in a uniform.
We all four of us been workin together, day in and day out—for, oh Lord, I don’t know how long. We done raised crops and chilren together, done kept that brick house so clean you could eat off the floors. But like Letta always say, Who wanna eat off a floor?