The front yard was twenty acres or so of Johnson grass with some polled Herefords grazing on it, two of them standing belly deep in a brown, warm-looking pond, for what comfort was in it. Mr. Reese said Johnson grass had a much higher protein value than people thought and that it played an important role in his feeding program. He was uneasy and defensive, and seemed to be afraid that Edmund was secretly amused at his farming methods. By way of changing the subject he said, “I’ve got eighty paper-shell pecan trees I’d like to show you before dark.”
“I’d very much like to see them,” said Edmund.
“Of course they’re not all that much to look at. They’re just trees.”
Edmund had bathed and changed and was now wearing white linen slacks and a navy blue blazer, which he kept thumping lint from.
The house was a sprawling 1928 story-and-a-half nature’s-bounty farmhouse, done over with Johns-Manville asbestos shingles (“Not One Has Ever Burned.”). The front porch was long and wrapped halfway around one side of the house and there were two swings on it. The rich girl Kay sat in one and made room for Norwood but he said he didn’t like to sit in a swing and eat. He had never had any meals in a swing but it was something to say. He sat doubled up in a deck chair, hunched forward and holding the paper plate on the floor between his shoes. He cleaned his bones like a cat and made a neat pile of them. He didn’t want this girl to think he made a mess when he ate, whatever else she might think. They watched as Joe William made a howling, dusty departure in her Thunderbird.
“He’s ruining my tires,” she said.
“It ain’t helping your bad universal joint none either,” said Norwood.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a thing on the end of the drive shaft. Yours is shot. Can’t you hear that clicking? They don’t grease them U-joints like they ought to and them little needle bearings just freeze up in there.”
“I better get it fixed.”
“You’ll have to take that whole shaft out. You know where that brace is right there in the middle that holds that carrier bearing study?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Well, there’s two bolts under there that hold that brace to the frame and if you’re not careful you’ll twist ’em off trying to get ’em out. And right there’s where you got trouble.”
“In that case I think I’ll have someone else do it. I didn’t know you were a mechanic.”
“Well, I’m just a shade tree mechanic. I can do things like that. I’d be too slow to make a living at it.”
“Have a Fig Newton.”
“I don’t believe I will, thanks. This fish was aplenty. I never was much to eat a cake.”
“Joe William owes you some money, doesn’t he?”
“Well, he did. He paid me.”
“How much was it?”
“Seventy dollars.”
“I hope you won’t lend him any more.”
“You don’t have to worry none about that.”
“I keep thinking he’ll grow up or whatever he needs to do.”
“Are you gonna marry him or what?”
“How did that come up?”
“He’s a pretty good old boy when you get right down to it.”
“I’m not so sure of that.”
“A lot of girls would be proud to get him. He had a really good-looking one out in California. She was crazy about him. She had a car too and she’d always fix me up with somebody and we’d go up to the Compton Barn Dance. We had some good times.”
“Yeah, that divorcee with the name. I’ve seen her picture. She has fat arms. Boots or Tuffy or something.”
“Teeny.”
“I can just see those two together. The blond bombshell and him with his comic patter.”
“She looked pretty good to me.”
Mrs. Whichcoat filled Rita Lee in on the judge and told her all about the Butterfields. She told about the one who ran up an eleven-hundred-dollar candy bill in Memphis and forced the family to sell a slave to pay it, and about the one who drained the swamps and how he agitated unsuccessfully for a public statue of himself in the square, like the one of Popeye in the Texas spinach capital.
“They all pulled out and went down to Louisiana later, and just made a world of money doing something,” she said. “I forget now what it was. They knew how to make money, you have to give them that. How do you like that fish?”
“Oh, it’s so good,” said Rita Lee.
“I bet you never had any that good where you’re from.”
“No ma’am, I sure didn’t.”
“It’s not as good as some we’ve had. Is this your first trip to Arkansas, Wilma Jean?”
“Yes ma’am, it is,” said Rita Lee. “Except to Virginia it’s my first real long trip anywhere. I been in seven states now.”
“Dick Powell is from Arkansas.”
“He is? I didn’t know that. Dick Powell.”
“You can see seven states from Rock City,” said Mr. Reese. “At least that’s what all those bumper signs say. You couldn’t prove it by me.”
Mrs. Whichcoat turned on Edmund. “Did you ever run across a Dr. Butterfield in Wales?”
“No, but then I’ve never been in Wales, madam. Unless you count Monmouthshire. Curly hated Wales.”
“He was a leading practitioner in some well-known city there,” she said. “I can’t remember which one. Cousin Mattie corresponded with him for quite a long time. Lord, he may be dead now. That was about 1912. The preachers nearly drove us all crazy then talking about the tariff. You don’t hear anything about that any more. They’re all on integration now.”
Mr. Reese wiped his hands on his apron and searched the skies. He said he would be surprised if they didn’t get a shower sometime in the night. “That low started moving in here about four-thirty.”
He knew this because he had a thermometer-barometer on the front porch by the door. It was a big tin affair meant to hang on a storefront. There was an orange rooster on it, smiling, so far as a rooster can be made to smile, and crowing about Marvel cigarettes. The Snopesian tackiness of the thing was painful to Mrs. Reese. Mr. Reese took frequent readings and thought about them.
Mrs. Reese did not come outside until the sun was behind the trees because of her skin. She ate some coleslaw and went about being hospitable in her distant way. There were dark pouches under her eyes which an indoor existence and an uncommon amount of sleep did not help much. Things had not worked out well for her. The young planter she thought she was marrying turned out to be a farmer. Her mother got on her nerves. Instead of the gentle Lew Ayres doctor son she had counted on, the Lord had given her a poolroom clown. She claimed descent from the usurper Cromwell and she read a long paper once on her connections at a gathering of Confederate Daughters, all but emptying the ballroom of the Albert Pike Hotel in Little Rock. This was no small feat considering the tolerance level of a group who had sat unprotesting through two days of odes and diaries and recipes for the favorite dishes of General Pat Cleburne. She often managed to leave the impression that she was in Arkansas through some mistake and it was her belief, perhaps true, that only common people had piles.
Edmund and Joe William had to eat the frog legs. No one else would touch them, tasty morsels, although there was a lot of talk about how they were “considered a delicacy” and about how much you would pay for them in a good restaurant. Mrs. Whichcoat sacked up all the fishbones for burning, to keep them from the dogs, and gathered what was left of the corn-bread balls for her laying hens.
Mrs. Reese said, “Do you have any new hens, Mama?”
Mrs. Whichcoat did not answer at once. For some time now people had been closing in on her. She knew how quickly one of these casual openings could land her in a jam. Had she left the gas on again? Was this a new attack on her open range poultry policy? She considered several incriminating possibilities. “No, just the same old ones,” she said.
“It’s very strange,” said Mrs. Reese. “I was looking out the bathroom
window a while ago and I thought I saw a gray one out there with a hat on.”
“That one belongs to Norwood,” said Joe William. “It’s a wonder chicken he brought in from North Carolina.”
“Oh, it belongs to these people,” she said. “I wondered. I couldn’t imagine.”
“That’s pretty funny,” said Mr. Reese. “A chicken wearing a hat. I never heard of anything like that before. I guess there’s a first time for everything though.”
Later Norwood and Rita Lee went around back to check on the subject of all this fun. There she was, squatting in the dust alone, shunned by the other chickens. Norwood held her beak down in a mossy skillet under a faucet. After a few dunkings she drank a little. He found some translucent worms on a chinaberry tree and held them in his hand and tried to get her to eat. She didn’t want any. He talked to her and told her they were good and compared them to Safeway grapes. “All right, I’m on give ’em to Rita Lee then. She likes ’em.”
“Get away from me,” said Rita Lee.
He took the mortarboard off Joann’s head but she still wouldn’t eat.
Rita Lee said, “Have you ever hypnotized a chicken?”
“I never have.”
“You can do it.”
“How?”
“Let me see her.”
“Wait a minute.”
“It won’t hurt her. They come right on out of it.”
She held Joann’s chinless head down to the ground and slowly traced a line in the dust in front of her eyes. A few seconds of this and the chicken lay in position, transfixed.
Norwood said, “I’ll be a son of a bitch.”
He tried it himself and soon they had all eleven of Mrs. Whichcoat’s Rhode Island Reds lying about stupefied. He looked at them, then arranged four or five in a single rank and stood in front of them. “Congratulations, men,” he said. “Yall keep up the good work. The skipper just come through the squad bay and there was little piles of crap all over the deck.”
“You’re silly, Norwood, you know that?”
“I think I’m on take her on with us.”
“You’re going back on your word.”
“I know but she don’t get along here with them red pullets.”
That night it rained. The wind came up and billowed the curtains and the birds stopped their noise and there was one lone rumble of thunder and then rain. Norwood heard people putting windows down. He waited. Water was dripping outside his window on a piece of tin. When things got quiet again he got up and put on his pants and his gaiters and took a penny box of matches from his shirt pocket and went out in the hall. Rita Lee’s room was down at the end by the bathroom.
There were unaccountable cold spots in the hall, as in a spring-fed lake. He stood outside the door for a moment and started to knock, then decided no and quietly opened the door. There was a headboard bumping noise and a frantic scrambling movement on the bed table.
“Hey,” he said in a half whisper, “it’s me.”
“Who is it?” said Edmund. “Who’s there?”
Norwood struck a match. Edmund was crouched back against the headboard with his fountain pen at his side. He was wearing shorty pajamas of a golden hue.
“Oh. I was looking for Rita Lee.”
“Did you think she was in here?”
“Ain’t this her room?”
“No, she’s across the hall.”
“Oh.”
“You certainly gave me a fright.”
“I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“Well, no harm done.” He scratched his head vigorously, giving it a sixty-second workout. “I’ve still got soap in my hair. Their water is extremely hard.”
“I didn’t notice that.”
“Yes, you can taste it. Very high mineral content.”
“Well, I’ll let you get back to sleep.”
“Did you get your money?”
“Yeah, he paid me.”
“Well, look here, do you think you could lend me fifty dollars? I’ll have it back to you in two weeks. That’s a solemn promise, Norwood. You see, I’m going to be in rather a bind. I’ve been lying here figuring.”
“I’d have to have it back.”
“Yes, yes, of course. I feel like an absolute rat but I had no one else to turn to.”
“When could I get it back?”
“Two weeks, I swear it.”
“Okay. Two weeks.”
Norwood took five tens from his billfold and laid them on the foot of the bed. Edmund put on his glasses and got his memo book, chattering all the time, and made a to-do about entering the correct address in his memo book.
“No street, just Ralph?”
“Yeah, that’s all. We get our mail at the post office.”
Edmund wrote down another address, one in Los Angeles, and tore that sheet from the memo book and crawled to the foot of the bed and handed it to Norwood. “You can always get in touch with me through this chap.” He picked up the money. “You’re a jewel, Norwood. A veritable precious stone.”
Norwood looked at the little torn page. “What will I need to get in touch with you for?”
“Well, you won’t, of course. But if you do, there it is.”
“Just so I get it back.”
“You can count on it. Please trust me on this.”
Norwood left and closed the door, the crawling golden vision still in his brain. He crossed the hall and entered Rita Lee’s room. “Hey, it’s me,” he said. She turned on the bed light and turned it off again. He caught only the briefest glimpse of legs and red slip and arms. He struck a match. Now she was under the sheet and had it pulled up under her chin.
“I thought I’d look in on you.”
“What for?”
“Well, it was raining. I thought you might be scared.”
“I’m not scared of rain. Nobody is.”
“There was some lightning too. In here by yourself and everything. I didn’t know.”
“All I know is I’m about to burn up in this feather bed. You sink right down in it.”
“How’s your bed?”
“I just got through saying. It’s hot.”
He struck another match. Outside some night birds had started up again: ChipOutOf TheWhiteOak . . . Ted-FioRito. . . . Whippoorwills. How did two certain birds get together? And then what?
“Norwood, listen hon, somebody is liable to come along.”
“Okay.”
“Hear? You go on back now.”
“I will in a minute.”
“No, right now.”
“Okay.”
“I haven’t even got my ring yet.”
“Okay.”
“Hear?”
“I was laying there in bed thinking about something, Rita Lee.”
“What was it?”
“Well, when we get home and get squared away I’m on take you out to dinner. I’m twenty-three years old and I never taken a girl out to dinner in my life except drive-ins. What I mean is supper but they always call it dinner.”
“That’ll sure be nice. Do you like Mexican food with a lot of hot stuff on it?”
“Yeah.”
“I do too. Listen, here’s what I’d like to do: I’d like to live in a trailer and play records all night. See, we’d be in there together with our little kitchen and everything. You can fix those things up pretty nice inside.”
“I don’t know about a trailer.”
“I don’t think they cost a whole lot. We could get a used one.”
“We’ll see about it.”
Mrs. Reese gave Rita Lee some sheets and towels and other odds and ends and a jumbo black suitcase with straps on the outside, not a new one but serviceable enough. She also gave her a little talk. Joe William got up late and came in the kitchen and Norwood was sitting there at the table by himself drinking coffee with his hat on and whistling “My Filipino Baby.”
“Good morning.”
“I figured you’d be out checking cotton today.”
&
nbsp; “No, not on Saturdays. Sometimes half a day. I’ve got to do a quick recheck on a colored guy this afternoon but it won’t take long. Where’s the incredible shrinking man?”
“He’s gone. He got up real early and your daddy took him to catch the bus.”
“Flew the coop, huh? Well, he was a nice little guy.”
“Yeah.”
“You want some toast?”
“I already ate.”
Mrs. Whichcoat came in the back door with an empty wire basket. She hung it up in the pantry and took off her brown garden gloves. “All the hens have stopped laying,” she said. “I didn’t get one egg.” There was a note of despair in her voice but no surprise. It was as though she had warned all along that there would be treachery one day in the hen house. She went in the living room and turned on the television set.
Norwood said, “We got to get on down the road our own selves.”
“You’re not leaving today?”
“Yeah, we got to get on.”
“You might as well stay the weekend now. I thought we’d go over to Memphis tonight.”
“I been on the road too long as it is.”
“You want some more coffee?”
“Yeah. Have you got a box or something around here I can carry that chicken in?”
“I expect we can find something.”
“How much longer does your job last?”
“Another couple of weeks. Maybe three.”
“Is it very hard?”
“No, not usually. We’re checking plow-ups now. We go out and make sure they’ve destroyed what they overplanted. They all overplant. I’ve got a headache with this one colored guy. You can’t tell what he’s plowed up. He doesn’t have it planted in rectangular fields like everyone else, he’s got it in trapezoids and ovals with tomatoes and pole beans running all through it so there’s no way you can measure it unless you’re Dr. Vannevar Bush. He knows I’ll get tired pretty soon and say, Yeah it’s okay. Well, they screw him on the allotment anyway. I don’t blame him.”
“That sounds too hard.”
“It’s not really.”
“I wisht I was home right now.”
“Are you going direct to Shreveport?”
“Naw, Ralph first. I’ll have to leave Rita Lee there at home for a while and go scout it out.”