Chapter 5. The Calm (part 3)
The last part of chapter 5. To go back to last installment click here. To start at the beginning, click here.
“Well, how is he.” Woody slipped back through the door and hung up the phone.
“He’s in the hospital with a busted jaw. She said he’ll be laid up for at least a month...said they had to wire his mouth shut!”
“Hospital? We’ll there goes my job.” I went back into Woody’s room and sat back down.
“Coy, Jr. how can you think of yourself at a time like this?”
“I’m not thinking of myself! I like Johnny, he’s a good guy. But...”
“But nothin’! You was thinking of number one and nothing else.”
“I was not!”
“The only reason Johnny is laid up in the hospital is us...and mainly you!”
“ME? How is it me? I didn’t make him a drunk!”
“There you go. You sound just like your Mama!”
“He’s a drunk! And don’t be talking about my Mama!”
There was a short pause as Woody and I looked at each other. I could actually see disappointment on his face. He shook his head as he closed his eyes and frowned.
“Coy, Jr., go look in the mirror and then tell me not to talk about your Mama.”
I started to get up and leave, but I knew he was right. I didn’t want to be like my Mama. In fact, I didn’t want to be like anybody in my family. I always had talked down to Woody, I had told on him a million times and I never believed half of what he told me. But he was always right there with me no matter what. The situation I’m in these days is probably as bad as I could have ever imagined...and Woody is right there in the thick of it with me. As tough as it was to admit it, Woody was probably my best friend.
“Woody, I’m sorry about getting you into this mess. If Mama Pope hadn’t had that still none of this would be going on.”
“Aw, man, don’t worry about it. I’m just mad ‘cause my one shot at killin’ Hannon got screwed up by a certain somebody.”
“Maybe one day you’ll thank me for keeping your butt out of Parchman.”
“Maybe...”
“You know, I wonder if Hannon and Fiveacre know it was us that put Hannon in the car and caused his wreck. The only way they could would be if Mama Pope told them or old Pate told them or somebody saw you in the car with him going out to Gunner’s Creek.”
“I know nobody saw me in that cop car! I am absolutely sure that nobody saw me riding with him, so forget that. And I don’t think it was Pate ‘cause he helped us do it. So, in my mind, if they know anything, it had to be Hannon remembering it or Mama Pope told them...and I find it hard to believe Hannon remembering anything after I hit him in the head with that pump handle.”
“Whatever the case, the only reason I can figure that Fiveacre and that other guy would come after us out at the gin was because of Mama Pope and us knowing about the still.”
“Now hold on a minute, you forgot about old Barton. Coy, Jr., we took his job away from him. And there goes his drinking money.”
“Hmmm. That’s a good point. Maybe that’s all it was. Wouldn’t that be a heck of a coincidence?”
“It’s a small world, Coy, Jr., and truth is stranger than fibbin’.”
“Fiction. It’s ‘truth is stranger than fiction’.”
“Huh? That don’t make sense! What’s fiction?”
“You know...like science fiction. Fiction. A story that’s not true.”
“How’s that different from fibbin’?”
“It’s not like that...” I caught myself fixing to go off on Woody for being stupid. “You’re right! It doesn’t make sense.” And I let it go at that.
Woody and I hung out the rest of the afternoon talking and carrying on like we didn’t have a care in the world. About four o’clock or so, I called my house to see if Mama was home. Nobody answered the phone so I headed on home.
“Woody, if I hear anything I’ll let you know.”
“Good luck. And don’t let your Mama hit you no more. Next time just knock the living daylights out of her before she gets a lick on you.”
“I’m not going to hit my Mama, Woody.”
“Okay, okay. But if things get too rough you can come back over here and spend the night.”
“Thanks,” I went out the door and headed down the road. It was still broiling hot and I could see a mirage hanging over the road. It looked like a creek crossing it about a hundred yards ahead. I staggered along the road side trying to focus on the mirage with my one good eye all the while hoping a car would come by and stir up a breeze. No matter how far I walked, that mirage stayed the same distance ahead of me. Before long, I started to feel like I was in a tunnel as my eyesight began to close in. I could only see straight ahead and the sides were kind of blacking out. Then, I thought my ears were ringing until I realized it was just bugs chirping down in the side ditch. The thought of Johnny Ray Fiveacre and Barton coming by crossed my mind a time or two, but for some reason I wasn’t really worried about it. They wouldn’t recognize me with my puffed up face, I reassured myself. I put all that stuff out of my mind and thought about how Mama was going to act when she saw me. I bet she’d be sorry for hurting me and say she didn’t mean to. She’d probably tell me she’d make me a cake or something. I know it was just that Pope temper coming out and from my own personal experience...it’s really hard to control when it gets loose. Then again, she wasn’t sorry for any of the other times she beat folks up. I always feel pretty bad after I’m mean to somebody, but I guess that’s because I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of it.
I got to the house and Mama wasn’t there. She didn’t leave a note, but I figured she was probably over at Mama Pope’s house. There was a piece of cake wrapped in aluminum foil sitting on the counter so I helped myself to it. I got a glass of water and went to my room to eat. It had been a mighty long day and I was dog tired. I lay down on my bed and within a few minutes I drifted off to sleep. Daddy woke me up when he came home from work about six thirty or so. He stuck his head in my door and when he saw my face, his eyes opened wide.
“What have you gone and got into?”
“Huh?”
“Have you been in a fight? Did you and Woody go get in a fight with somebody today?”
“No. Mama did it this morning.”
“Your Mama? How’d she do it?”
“She slapped me about a dozen times.”
“What had you done to get slapped, talk back to her?”
“She said I did, but I didn’t.”
“It’s hard to believe your Mama did this, Coy, Jr.”
“Well, she did. She was talking about Johnny Cooper being a drunk and I said I liked him and that he was a nice guy.”
“And she slapped you.”
“Yep. She grabbed my hair and started hitting me in the face. She stuck her fingernail in my eye and it’s been hurting all day.”
“Let me look at it,” Daddy came over to the bed and I stood up.
“I put some ice on it this morning.”
“You work today?”
“No. Johnny didn’t show up.”
“I heard he was in the hospital.”
“Who told you that?”
“His step daddy works down at the wood yard. He said some guys beat him up at the gin yesterday.”
“Yeah...they did.”
“That’s why you and Woody had to get me to come get you last night.”
“Uh...yeah. We walked as far as we could.”
“You see who beat him up?”
“Just some guys, I guess. I didn’t know but one of them and that was ol’ Barton.”
“Why’d they beat him up?”
“I don’t know. I guess because Johnny fired him.”
“Why didn’t you boys go help him?”
“Daddy, two of them was grown men! They would have killed us!”
“How many of them were there?”
I thought about exaggerating a little and tell him there were five or six, but I figured he probably already knew the answer. “Three...Barton and two other guys.”
“Could you recognize them if you saw them?”
“Nope.”
“How about Woody?”
“Nope.”
“You know Johnny might need you boys to help him press charges against them for assaulting him.”
“I don’t know who it was that hit him. It wasn’t Barton.”
“So you saw which one hit him?”
Now I was painting myself into a corner. I needed to start thinking before I answered questions. “It wasn’t Barton, it was one of the other two. I only know it wasn’t Barton because I recognized the clothes he had on.”
“Do you know what the other guys had on?”
What is this, Dragnet? I don’t know who they were!”
“Okay, I was just asking. Did you finish painting?”
“No. We had about a half day left. Johnny had some on his side and we had a little on our side left to do.”
“If Johnny doesn’t get that gin finished he probably won’t get paid. And that means you won’t get paid.”
“I can’t think of myself when Johnny is in the hospital. He’s the one that’s really suffering over this.”
“You and Woody could go out and finish it tomorrow.”
“What if those guys come back? Besides, we don’t have a way out there.”
“I can drop y’all off in the morning and pick you up at lunch. Think you could finish by then?”
“I’m not going back out there and have those guys come out and beat me up.”
“Why would they beat you up?”
“I don’t know. They’re mean.”
“They were probably just after Johnny and now he’s in the hospital so they don’t have a reason to go out there.”
“Well, I don’t know. I got Barton fired, so he might be after me.”
“I doubt it. Where’s the paint?’
“Most of it was in Johnny’s truck. I guess it’s still out at the gin.”
“No, his step daddy went and got it last night. It’s over at their house.”
“Where’s that?”
“Out by Harold Gilmore’s place.”
“Well, what about Woody...what if he won’t go for it?”
“You tell Woody he won’t get paid if he doesn’t finish painting and I’ll guarantee he’ll go.”
“Okay, I guess. But what if they come back?”
“Well, Coy, Jr., I reckon you’ll have to stand your ground.”
“Haven’t I been beat up enough?”
“Between you and Woody, I think y’all can handle a couple of ‘grown men’. Now let’s go get something to eat. Your Mama is over Mama Pope’s and she said we needed to get our own supper.”
“Aw, naw. Not root hog or die again.”
“How about we go get something at Tastee-Freeze?”
“Okay. Let me get my shoes on and I’ll be ready!”
“Then, we’ll go and get the paint out at Johnny’s place. I’m sure he’ll appreciate you and Woody taking care of his painting while he’s in the hospital.”
“Maybe I better call Woody before we go.”
“Call him when we get back. I don’t want to have to feed him, too.”
Daddy and I went and ate a ton of stuff that Mama would have fussed about but she didn’t come home that night, so she never knew. When we got home I spent an hour on the phone convincing Woody that we should go back out to the gin. The next day, Daddy dropped me and Woody and all the painting stuff off at the gin. We didn’t see hide nor hair of Barton or Fiveacre. One car stopped to turn around and Woody threw down his paint brush and took off running. He was just about out of sight when I yelled at him and got him to stop. The last part of the wall ended up having grass and dirt stuck to it from his paint brush after he finally got calmed down enough to go back to painting.
It took a couple of weeks to get paid, but that was because Johnny couldn’t get out of the hospital to go by and pick up his check. With Johnny laid up for a month or so, it looked like my painting career was going to be cut short. I really didn’t like painting, but it was about the only way I had to earn some money. He was grateful to Woody and me for finishing up the job and gave us a little bonus. He also told us that as long as he could get work painting, we had jobs if we wanted them. Funny how that little bit of work paid off. Even though we could have gotten killed, I felt pretty good about going back out there and finishing up. I’m glad Daddy talked me into it.
Johnny told us that the reason that he got beat up was because Barton wanted to get paid half of the money Johnny had been promised for painting the gin. And when Johnny told him he was gonna pay him for the work he had done and that he’d pay him after he got paid, one of the other guys socked him in the jaw. He also told us that Barton needed the money because he owed Johnny Ray Fiveacre a couple of hundred dollars for whiskey that he’d been getting on credit. He never said why they were coming after me and Woody. He did say that Johnny Ray Fiveacre claimed Mama Pope had ripped off a couple of hundred gallons of moonshine and sold it herself. That seemed highly unlikely, but these days I wouldn’t have doubted anything I was told about Mama Pope.
Mama wasn’t talking to me very much nowadays. That’s okay, because I was less likely to sass her when there was no conversation. She was over at Mama Pope’s all the time, even spending the night two or three times in a row. I figured she was helping her make whiskey or something. She was probably making runs over to Snipe or Okaluka or wherever they were selling the stuff. It was pretty tough thinking that my Mama was “runnin’ ‘shine”, but, then again, it didn’t really bother me. Me and Daddy were eating at Tastee-Freeze a lot and it was way better than Mama’s cooking to me.
Daddy seemed to be working a lot, too. He wasn’t upset about Mama being gone all the time, either. His life was probably better without her griping and fussing twenty four hours a day. There’s something to be said for being a man, eating whatever you want, watching TV and sleeping as much as you want without listening to the constant drone of a bitter woman.
“Well, how is he.” Woody slipped back through the door and hung up the phone.
“He’s in the hospital with a busted jaw. She said he’ll be laid up for at least a month...said they had to wire his mouth shut!”
“Hospital? We’ll there goes my job.” I went back into Woody’s room and sat back down.
“Coy, Jr. how can you think of yourself at a time like this?”
“I’m not thinking of myself! I like Johnny, he’s a good guy. But...”
“But nothin’! You was thinking of number one and nothing else.”
“I was not!”
“The only reason Johnny is laid up in the hospital is us...and mainly you!”
“ME? How is it me? I didn’t make him a drunk!”
“There you go. You sound just like your Mama!”
“He’s a drunk! And don’t be talking about my Mama!”
There was a short pause as Woody and I looked at each other. I could actually see disappointment on his face. He shook his head as he closed his eyes and frowned.
“Coy, Jr., go look in the mirror and then tell me not to talk about your Mama.”
I started to get up and leave, but I knew he was right. I didn’t want to be like my Mama. In fact, I didn’t want to be like anybody in my family. I always had talked down to Woody, I had told on him a million times and I never believed half of what he told me. But he was always right there with me no matter what. The situation I’m in these days is probably as bad as I could have ever imagined...and Woody is right there in the thick of it with me. As tough as it was to admit it, Woody was probably my best friend.
“Woody, I’m sorry about getting you into this mess. If Mama Pope hadn’t had that still none of this would be going on.”
“Aw, man, don’t worry about it. I’m just mad ‘cause my one shot at killin’ Hannon got screwed up by a certain somebody.”
“Maybe one day you’ll thank me for keeping your butt out of Parchman.”
“Maybe...”
“You know, I wonder if Hannon and Fiveacre know it was us that put Hannon in the car and caused his wreck. The only way they could would be if Mama Pope told them or old Pate told them or somebody saw you in the car with him going out to Gunner’s Creek.”
“I know nobody saw me in that cop car! I am absolutely sure that nobody saw me riding with him, so forget that. And I don’t think it was Pate ‘cause he helped us do it. So, in my mind, if they know anything, it had to be Hannon remembering it or Mama Pope told them...and I find it hard to believe Hannon remembering anything after I hit him in the head with that pump handle.”
“Whatever the case, the only reason I can figure that Fiveacre and that other guy would come after us out at the gin was because of Mama Pope and us knowing about the still.”
“Now hold on a minute, you forgot about old Barton. Coy, Jr., we took his job away from him. And there goes his drinking money.”
“Hmmm. That’s a good point. Maybe that’s all it was. Wouldn’t that be a heck of a coincidence?”
“It’s a small world, Coy, Jr., and truth is stranger than fibbin’.”
“Fiction. It’s ‘truth is stranger than fiction’.”
“Huh? That don’t make sense! What’s fiction?”
“You know...like science fiction. Fiction. A story that’s not true.”
“How’s that different from fibbin’?”
“It’s not like that...” I caught myself fixing to go off on Woody for being stupid. “You’re right! It doesn’t make sense.” And I let it go at that.
Woody and I hung out the rest of the afternoon talking and carrying on like we didn’t have a care in the world. About four o’clock or so, I called my house to see if Mama was home. Nobody answered the phone so I headed on home.
“Woody, if I hear anything I’ll let you know.”
“Good luck. And don’t let your Mama hit you no more. Next time just knock the living daylights out of her before she gets a lick on you.”
“I’m not going to hit my Mama, Woody.”
“Okay, okay. But if things get too rough you can come back over here and spend the night.”
“Thanks,” I went out the door and headed down the road. It was still broiling hot and I could see a mirage hanging over the road. It looked like a creek crossing it about a hundred yards ahead. I staggered along the road side trying to focus on the mirage with my one good eye all the while hoping a car would come by and stir up a breeze. No matter how far I walked, that mirage stayed the same distance ahead of me. Before long, I started to feel like I was in a tunnel as my eyesight began to close in. I could only see straight ahead and the sides were kind of blacking out. Then, I thought my ears were ringing until I realized it was just bugs chirping down in the side ditch. The thought of Johnny Ray Fiveacre and Barton coming by crossed my mind a time or two, but for some reason I wasn’t really worried about it. They wouldn’t recognize me with my puffed up face, I reassured myself. I put all that stuff out of my mind and thought about how Mama was going to act when she saw me. I bet she’d be sorry for hurting me and say she didn’t mean to. She’d probably tell me she’d make me a cake or something. I know it was just that Pope temper coming out and from my own personal experience...it’s really hard to control when it gets loose. Then again, she wasn’t sorry for any of the other times she beat folks up. I always feel pretty bad after I’m mean to somebody, but I guess that’s because I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of it.
I got to the house and Mama wasn’t there. She didn’t leave a note, but I figured she was probably over at Mama Pope’s house. There was a piece of cake wrapped in aluminum foil sitting on the counter so I helped myself to it. I got a glass of water and went to my room to eat. It had been a mighty long day and I was dog tired. I lay down on my bed and within a few minutes I drifted off to sleep. Daddy woke me up when he came home from work about six thirty or so. He stuck his head in my door and when he saw my face, his eyes opened wide.
“What have you gone and got into?”
“Huh?”
“Have you been in a fight? Did you and Woody go get in a fight with somebody today?”
“No. Mama did it this morning.”
“Your Mama? How’d she do it?”
“She slapped me about a dozen times.”
“What had you done to get slapped, talk back to her?”
“She said I did, but I didn’t.”
“It’s hard to believe your Mama did this, Coy, Jr.”
“Well, she did. She was talking about Johnny Cooper being a drunk and I said I liked him and that he was a nice guy.”
“And she slapped you.”
“Yep. She grabbed my hair and started hitting me in the face. She stuck her fingernail in my eye and it’s been hurting all day.”
“Let me look at it,” Daddy came over to the bed and I stood up.
“I put some ice on it this morning.”
“You work today?”
“No. Johnny didn’t show up.”
“I heard he was in the hospital.”
“Who told you that?”
“His step daddy works down at the wood yard. He said some guys beat him up at the gin yesterday.”
“Yeah...they did.”
“That’s why you and Woody had to get me to come get you last night.”
“Uh...yeah. We walked as far as we could.”
“You see who beat him up?”
“Just some guys, I guess. I didn’t know but one of them and that was ol’ Barton.”
“Why’d they beat him up?”
“I don’t know. I guess because Johnny fired him.”
“Why didn’t you boys go help him?”
“Daddy, two of them was grown men! They would have killed us!”
“How many of them were there?”
I thought about exaggerating a little and tell him there were five or six, but I figured he probably already knew the answer. “Three...Barton and two other guys.”
“Could you recognize them if you saw them?”
“Nope.”
“How about Woody?”
“Nope.”
“You know Johnny might need you boys to help him press charges against them for assaulting him.”
“I don’t know who it was that hit him. It wasn’t Barton.”
“So you saw which one hit him?”
Now I was painting myself into a corner. I needed to start thinking before I answered questions. “It wasn’t Barton, it was one of the other two. I only know it wasn’t Barton because I recognized the clothes he had on.”
“Do you know what the other guys had on?”
What is this, Dragnet? I don’t know who they were!”
“Okay, I was just asking. Did you finish painting?”
“No. We had about a half day left. Johnny had some on his side and we had a little on our side left to do.”
“If Johnny doesn’t get that gin finished he probably won’t get paid. And that means you won’t get paid.”
“I can’t think of myself when Johnny is in the hospital. He’s the one that’s really suffering over this.”
“You and Woody could go out and finish it tomorrow.”
“What if those guys come back? Besides, we don’t have a way out there.”
“I can drop y’all off in the morning and pick you up at lunch. Think you could finish by then?”
“I’m not going back out there and have those guys come out and beat me up.”
“Why would they beat you up?”
“I don’t know. They’re mean.”
“They were probably just after Johnny and now he’s in the hospital so they don’t have a reason to go out there.”
“Well, I don’t know. I got Barton fired, so he might be after me.”
“I doubt it. Where’s the paint?’
“Most of it was in Johnny’s truck. I guess it’s still out at the gin.”
“No, his step daddy went and got it last night. It’s over at their house.”
“Where’s that?”
“Out by Harold Gilmore’s place.”
“Well, what about Woody...what if he won’t go for it?”
“You tell Woody he won’t get paid if he doesn’t finish painting and I’ll guarantee he’ll go.”
“Okay, I guess. But what if they come back?”
“Well, Coy, Jr., I reckon you’ll have to stand your ground.”
“Haven’t I been beat up enough?”
“Between you and Woody, I think y’all can handle a couple of ‘grown men’. Now let’s go get something to eat. Your Mama is over Mama Pope’s and she said we needed to get our own supper.”
“Aw, naw. Not root hog or die again.”
“How about we go get something at Tastee-Freeze?”
“Okay. Let me get my shoes on and I’ll be ready!”
“Then, we’ll go and get the paint out at Johnny’s place. I’m sure he’ll appreciate you and Woody taking care of his painting while he’s in the hospital.”
“Maybe I better call Woody before we go.”
“Call him when we get back. I don’t want to have to feed him, too.”
Daddy and I went and ate a ton of stuff that Mama would have fussed about but she didn’t come home that night, so she never knew. When we got home I spent an hour on the phone convincing Woody that we should go back out to the gin. The next day, Daddy dropped me and Woody and all the painting stuff off at the gin. We didn’t see hide nor hair of Barton or Fiveacre. One car stopped to turn around and Woody threw down his paint brush and took off running. He was just about out of sight when I yelled at him and got him to stop. The last part of the wall ended up having grass and dirt stuck to it from his paint brush after he finally got calmed down enough to go back to painting.
It took a couple of weeks to get paid, but that was because Johnny couldn’t get out of the hospital to go by and pick up his check. With Johnny laid up for a month or so, it looked like my painting career was going to be cut short. I really didn’t like painting, but it was about the only way I had to earn some money. He was grateful to Woody and me for finishing up the job and gave us a little bonus. He also told us that as long as he could get work painting, we had jobs if we wanted them. Funny how that little bit of work paid off. Even though we could have gotten killed, I felt pretty good about going back out there and finishing up. I’m glad Daddy talked me into it.
Johnny told us that the reason that he got beat up was because Barton wanted to get paid half of the money Johnny had been promised for painting the gin. And when Johnny told him he was gonna pay him for the work he had done and that he’d pay him after he got paid, one of the other guys socked him in the jaw. He also told us that Barton needed the money because he owed Johnny Ray Fiveacre a couple of hundred dollars for whiskey that he’d been getting on credit. He never said why they were coming after me and Woody. He did say that Johnny Ray Fiveacre claimed Mama Pope had ripped off a couple of hundred gallons of moonshine and sold it herself. That seemed highly unlikely, but these days I wouldn’t have doubted anything I was told about Mama Pope.
Mama wasn’t talking to me very much nowadays. That’s okay, because I was less likely to sass her when there was no conversation. She was over at Mama Pope’s all the time, even spending the night two or three times in a row. I figured she was helping her make whiskey or something. She was probably making runs over to Snipe or Okaluka or wherever they were selling the stuff. It was pretty tough thinking that my Mama was “runnin’ ‘shine”, but, then again, it didn’t really bother me. Me and Daddy were eating at Tastee-Freeze a lot and it was way better than Mama’s cooking to me.
Daddy seemed to be working a lot, too. He wasn’t upset about Mama being gone all the time, either. His life was probably better without her griping and fussing twenty four hours a day. There’s something to be said for being a man, eating whatever you want, watching TV and sleeping as much as you want without listening to the constant drone of a bitter woman.
Posted by TBF at 8/30/2009 7:28 PM 
Categories: Humor
Tags: Hannon job hospital fighting Barton Harold Gilmore Coy Jr. gin Johnny Cooper painting Coy woodyard Mama Pope busted jaw
Categories: Humor
Tags: Hannon job hospital fighting Barton Harold Gilmore Coy Jr. gin Johnny Cooper painting Coy woodyard Mama Pope busted jaw
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