“Fellow was a grave digger, see?” Garland was telling an old joke. “He dug one too deep, this time. So he was shouting up from it, help. Get me out of here. I’m freezing. A drunk came staggering along and he looked in. Says, Hell, fellow, no wonder. They forgot to cover you up. And he began to throw in what was shoveled out.”
“Now, that’s a good one,” Dr. Trumbo was whispering. “I’ll remember it. Sure wish I had you to go the rounds with me.”
* * * * *
A day later Ellen and Garland were back in Chicago. Simon met them at the front door. “Look here, what Aunt Vi gave me for my Christmas.” A sleeping calico kitten was within his shirt, a soft lump.
Ellen laughed at him, “My.”
When Simon touched it with a finger, the kitten stretched a paw and yawned. Simon was delighted. “See that?”
“You made him right at home, boy,” Garland cried.
Violet was stepping down the wide staircase, trailing her housecoat, her hair undone, her eyes wistful. Garland put his arm about her tall form. “Miss me, wife?”
“Sure did, Chicken. I didn’t hear the doorbell, I was sleeping so hard. You know Simon was in the school play? He was the shepherd and he brought a gift.”
“No, I ne’er,” said the boy. “I just knelt by the sheep, singing ‘Round John Virgin.’”
Garland was carving the holiday ham that night. “Next year we’re going to have a turkey, Vi. I hear they might vote FDR in for another term. We’ll see prosperity again.”
Ellen watched Simon eating, struck by it. He held the fork in his left hand, pushing the food with the knife as his grandfather did. She said abruptly, “How come you hold your fork so? I ne’er noticed that. It’s not proper. Your fork goes in the right hand.”
“Let him eat Christmas dinner like he wants, puss.”
Reckon I’ll always see those ways Pa stamped on him. Simon was reaching for the ketchup and pouring it heavily on the potatoes, his head bent over his plate. She remembered how he said, “Mind now,” to the kit. She was wondering if that too came from Anton.
“Now these quality,” Violet was saying, “had an exercise machine. You could hear it clear down in the kitchen. It was bolted to the floor and there was a wide belt they put around them. It juggled their stomach or wherever there was a fat spot and it just rubbed it away.”
“Say now, that’s what I need.” Garland was patting his stomach.
20
Anton and Dyke were loading the Burwell truck for the trip to Louisville. It was late January. They had become familiar with the town since their first excursion six years ago at the beginning of the depression. They had come to know the wholesale section and the waterfront district where the Ohio flowed and where auctions were conducted in the shadow of tobacco warehouses and mills and the newly-operated distilleries, reeking and guarded. Now too, they would manage more than one yearly trip. They found it necessary, in fact, to go many times.
Sam Offut had moved in with Anton the week after Maria went, bringing along his wife Eadie. She was plagued with lumbago and vestiges of various diseases contracted when much younger, and she seemed satisfied to settle with Sam in Mr. Gaddy’s house for as long as she was required. She learned to carry out her duties to his partial satisfaction. She cooked three meals and cleaned occasionally. She was cowed, however, by the Catholic icons, refusing to dust the crucifix or the statuettes or the framed Sacred Heart. “Be careful what you say near the things, Samuel,” she warned, “they be Romish. You know Mr. Gaddy’s not a true Christian like us.” The Offuts would go to the new Holiness Church that had set up a tent on the outskirts of Millville. There folks spoke in strange tongues and preachers would handle rattlesnakes and fire and encourage public confession. Besides being entertained, the Offuts had found an ideal place to express themselves without censure.
This morning Eadie was bringing sandwiches of bread and bacon to the truck. Dyke was gunning the motor and a white smoke streamed from the exhaust. Six fattened shoats, stowed behind the load of corn, grunted and squealed until the machine was set in motion. Then they were lulled, grew sleepy-eyed swaying warm-bodied against each other. “I’m going to get me a piece of cock tonight, Mester Gaddy,” Dyke sang out.
“Do that, boy,” Anton glowered.
“Hey. I like a ooman built like a brick shithouse.” Dyke’s ruddy face shone. Beside the taciturn older man he was feeling debonair and knowing. “Big and soft all o’er. And I know where they’ve got them.” He blew the horn, “Beep. Beep!” A flock of chickens fled squawking into ditches from the carcass of a dog that lay in the frosted road. “Want me to show you where, Mester Gaddy?”
“No. Christ.”
“Setting about the room in wrappers. Nothing underneath. For a fact, now.”
“You’ll get the claps and come home dragging your tail. Hum. Won’t be so horny then, I vow. Best stay away from harlots, boy.”
“Now, there’s one old girl does a trick with a cigarette. You’d ne’er think she could do it.”
“Get your pecker down, boy.” Anton looked out on the frozen fields that waited fallow for spring. “Give not thy strength unto oomen. Mind.”
“Reckon the corn’ll sell high, Mester Gaddy?”
“Prices always come up in late winter. Seems most folks are so strapped for cash in fall, they’ll sell when hit’s cheap.”
The stoutish younger man and the other near sixty were drawn together in the close cab, knitted by the future, unforeseen. The return trip would be different, then the tie would fall away as tomorrow became a routine of familiar chores. Dyke was laughing. “Hey, Mester Gaddy. Saw Butcher Faust last night. He’d just got in a cow carcass. Still had the udder on it. So he sliced off a front teat and let it hang out his fly. Old lady Brenner came in. He took her order, started in to cut her meat for her. Well, she jerked up of a sudden. Says, timid-like, look there, Butcher Faust. And he looked down, says, Oh that damn thing. And lays it on the block, whacks it off with his knife.”
“Haw,” snorted Anton.
“Old lady Brenner near passed out. That Butcher Faust slays me.”
Hog prices had nearly doubled over the fall rate. The men found a buyer for the corn and stopped in at a dingy corner bar for a glass of draught beer before parting company. Then Anton was making his way down Market Street, a bleak wind thrusting at his back, up the sleeves to his mackinaw and ill-fitting black suit. He took a left turn for two blocks, then a right. He swung in at the second house, his stride unaltered. The building was of red brick, one of a series of identical houses. The long hall was unheated and dark, a radio lilted faintly from under a doorway.
I don’t want your sugar sprinkled in my tea Because the gal I’ve got is sweet enough for me
Anton was climbing a staircase, knocking at the door at the head. A shapely woman opened it, her jet-black hair heavy about her sallow-skinned broad face. Anton spoke thickly, “You alone, Rose?”
“I’ve been looking for you, Daddy.” She was turning in a studied careless way. He put a heavy-muscled hand toward the slim curve of her back, withdrew it hastily as if caught between guilt and greed. He closed the door and followed her to the window where she was looking out as if waiting. His hand came upon her insistent, he was pulling her to the bed.
She asked him after a while, “Why don’t you ever kiss me? And you with those big lips.” She was slipping into her wrapper. He followed her with his eyes, made no answer. She took his coat from the chair, explored the inner pocket and brought out a flat box. “Why not, Daddy?” She was deriding, but gentle, for the kind elderly farmer suited her. She had met him a few months ago, knew he was Catholic with a wife committed recently to an institution. She opened the gift box holding a red and blue silk handkerchief. Louisville, Kentucky. The Biggest Wholesale Distributor Of The South. She knotted it softly at her neck, wise that the vivid colors set off her hair. She planned that she would marry Anton. She was preparing supper on a two-burner hot plate, boiling spaghetti, searing ground meat in a frying pan. “Vo-do-do-dee-o-do-o-o! Guess I’ll teach you to dance, Daddy. Okay?”
From the bed he was taking in the figure in the bright kimono that contrasted so completely with the shadow of Maria. He would leave Louisville tomorrow, returning to the farm. But he would be restless and irritable, lonely, his sin again unconfessed. “Come o’er here, Poppet.”
She was going to the bed. He took her to his lap. His sateen shirt was open and she stroked the red hair of his chest. “You’re a comfortable man. You’re strong.”
“Rose, you wait here for me.” He was heated. “Don’t see e’er a man. You hear?”
“I don’t know.” But Rose said it as if she would obey.
“This little grandson of mine had hair would turn pale in summer, like oat straw. Hum.” Rose went back to where the savory odors were steaming. She laid dishes and brought glasses of beer to a low table. Anton drew on his pants, fastening his belt; he pulled his heavy frame erect, began to pace back and forth. His yellowed winter underwear was exposed above the waist. He stopped in his stride as if angry, “Will you do like I say, Rose?”