A Painted House (45 page)

With four women working on him, it took only a few minutes to stop the crying. Once things were quiet Libby left the kitchen and went outside. She sat on the edge of the porch in the same place Cowboy had occupied the day he had shown me his switchblade. I walked to the house and said, “Hi, Libby,” when I was a few feet away.

She jumped, then caught herself. Poor girl’s nerves were rattled by her baby’s colic. “Luke,” she said. “What’re you doin’?”

“Nothin’.”

“Come sit here,” she said, patting the spot next to her. I did as I was told.

“Does that baby cry all the time?” I asked.

“Seems like it. I don’t mind, though.”

“You don’t?”

“No. He reminds me of Ricky.”

“He does?”

“Yes, he does. When’s he comin’ home? Do you know, Luke?”

“No. His last letter said he might be home by Christmas.”

“That’s two months away.”

“Yeah, but I ain’t so sure about it. Gran says every soldier says he’s comin’ home by Christmas.”

“I just can’t wait,” she said, visibly excited by the prospect.

“What’s gonna happen when he gets home?” I asked, not sure if I wanted to hear her answer.

“We’re gonna get married,” she said with a big, pretty smile. Her eyes were filled with wonder and anticipation.

“You are?”

“Yes, he promised.”

I certainly didn’t want Ricky to get married. He belonged to me. We would fish and play baseball, and he’d tell war stories. He’d be my big brother, not somebody’s husband.

“He’s the sweetest thang,” she said, gazing up at the sky.

Ricky was a lot of things, but I’d never call him sweet. Then again, there was no telling what he’d done to impress her.

“You can’t tell anybody, Luke,” she said, suddenly serious. “It’s our secret.”

That’s my specialty, I felt like saying. “Don’t worry,” I said, “I can keep one.”

“Can you read and write, Luke?”

“Sure can. Can you?”

“Pretty good.”

“But you don’t go to school.”

“I went through the fourth grade, then my mother kept havin’ all them babies, so I had to quit. I’ve written Ricky a letter, tellin’ him all about the baby. Do you have his address?”

I wasn’t sure Ricky wanted to receive her letter, and for a second I thought about playing dumb. But I couldn’t help but like Libby. She was so crazy about Ricky that it seemed wrong not to give her the address.

“Yeah, I got it.”

“Do you have an envelope?”

“Sure.”

“Could you mail my letter for me? Please, Luke. I don’t think Ricky knows about our baby.”

Something told me to butt out. This was between them. “I guess I can mail it,” I said.

“Oh, thank you, Luke,” she said, almost squealing. She hugged my neck hard. “I’ll give you the letter tomorrow,” she said. “And you promise you’ll mail it for me?”

“I promise.” I thought about Mr. Thornton at the post office and how curious he’d be if he saw a letter from Libby Latcher to Ricky in Korea. I’d figure it out somehow. Perhaps I should ask my mother about it.

The women brought baby Latcher to the back porch, where Gran rocked it while it slept. My mother and Mrs. Latcher talked about how tired the little fellow was—all that nonstop crying had worn it out—so
that when it did fall off, it slept hard. I was soon bored with all the talk about the baby.

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My mother woke me just after sunrise, and instead of scolding me out of bed to face another day on the farm, she sat next to my pillow and talked. “We’re leavin’ tomorrow mornin’, Luke. I’m going to pack today. Your father will help you paint the front of the house, so you’d better get started.”

“Is it rainin’?” I asked, sitting up.

“No. It’s cloudy, but you can paint.”

“Why are we leavin’ tomorrow?”

“It’s time to go.”

“When’re we comin’ back?”

“I don’t know. Go eat your breakfast. We have a busy day.”

I started painting before seven, with the sun barely above the tree line in the east. The grass was wet and so was the house, but I had no choice. Before long, though, the boards dried, and my work went smoothly. My father joined me, and together we moved the scaffold so he could reach the high places. Then Mr. Latcher found us, and after watching the painting for a few minutes he said, “I’d like to help.”

“You don’t have to,” my father said from eight feet up.

“I’d like to earn my keep,” he said. He had nothing else to do.

“All right. Luke, go fetch that other brush.”

I ran to the toolshed, delighted that I’d once again attracted some free labor. Mr. Latcher began painting with a fury, as if to prove his worth.

A crowd gathered to watch. I counted seven Latchers on the ground behind us, all of the kids except Libby and the baby, just sitting there studying us with blank looks on their faces.

I figured they were waiting for breakfast. I ignored them and went about my work.

Work, however, would prove difficult. Pappy came for me first. He said he wanted to ride down to the creek to inspect the flood. I said I really needed to paint. My father said, “Go ahead, Luke,” and that settled my protest.

We rode the tractor away from the house, through the flooded fields until the water was almost over the front wheels. When we could go no farther, Pappy turned off the engine. We sat for a long time on the tractor, surrounded by the wet cotton we’d worked so hard to grow.

“You’ll be leavin’ tomorrow,” he finally said.

“Yes sir.”

“But you’ll be comin’ back soon.”

“Yes sir.” My mother, not Pappy, would determine when we came back. And if Pappy thought we’d one day return to our little places on the family farm and start another crop, he was mistaken. I felt sorry for him, and I missed him already.

“Been thinkin’ more ’bout Hank and Cowboy,” he said, his eyes never moving from the water in front of the tractor. “Let’s leave it be, like we agreed. Can’t nothin’ good come from tellin’ anybody. It’s a secret we’ll take to our graves.” He offered his right hand for me to shake. “Deal?” he said.

“Deal,” I repeated, squeezing his thick, calloused hand.

“Don’t forget about your pappy up there, you hear?”

“I won’t.”

He started the tractor, shifted into reverse, and backed through the floodwaters.

When I returned to the front of the house, Percy Latcher had taken control of my brush and was hard at work. Without a word, he handed it to me and went to sit under a tree. I painted for maybe ten minutes, then Gran walked onto the porch and said, “Luke, come here. I need to show you somethin’.”

She led me around back, in the direction of the silo. Mud puddles were everywhere, and the flood had crept to within thirty feet of the barn. She wanted to take a stroll and have a chat, but there was mud and water in every direction. We sat on the edge of the flatbed trailer.

“What’re you gonna show me?” I said after a long silence.

“Oh, nothin’. I just wanted to spend a few minutes alone. You’re leavin’ tomorrow. I was tryin’ to remember if you’d ever spent a night away from here.”

“I can’t remember one,” I said. I knew that I’d been born in the bedroom where my parents now slept. I knew Gran’s hands had touched me first, she’d birthed me and taken care of my mother. No, I had never left our house, not even for one night.

“You’ll do just fine up North,” she said, but with little conviction. “Lots of folks from here go up there to find work. They always do just fine, and they always come home. You’ll be home before you know it.”

I loved my gran as fiercely as any kid could love his
grandmother, yet somehow I knew I’d never again live in her house and work in her fields.

We talked about Ricky for a while, then about the Latchers. She put her arm around my shoulders and held me close, and she made me promise more than once that I’d write letters to her. I also had to promise to study hard, obey my parents, go to church and learn my Scriptures, and to be diligent in my speech so I wouldn’t sound like a Yankee.

When she was finished extracting all the promises, I was exhausted. We walked back to the house, dodging puddles.

The morning dragged on. The Latcher horde dispersed after breakfast, but they were back in time for lunch. They watched as my father and their father tried to outpaint each other across the front of our house.

We fed them on the back porch. After they ate, Libby pulled me aside and handed over her letter to Ricky. I had managed to sneak a plain white envelope from the supply we kept at the end of the kitchen table. I’d addressed it to Ricky, via the army mail route in San Diego, and I’d put a stamp on it. She was quite impressed. She carefully placed her letter inside, then licked the envelope twice.

“Thank you, Luke,” she said and kissed me on the forehead.

I put the envelope under my shirt so no one could see it. I had decided to mention it to my mother but hadn’t found the opportunity.

Events were moving quickly. My mother and Gran spent the afternoon washing and pressing the clothes we would take with us. My father and Mr. Latcher painted until the buckets were empty. I wanted time
to slow down, but for some reason the day became hurried.

We endured another quiet supper, each of us worried about the trip North, but for different reasons. I was sad enough to have no appetite.

“This’ll be your last supper here for a spell, Luke,” Pappy said. I don’t know why he said that, because it sure didn’t help matters.

“They say the food up North is pretty bad,” Gran said, trying to lighten things up. That, too, fell flat.

It was too chilly to sit on the porch. We gathered in the living room and tried to chat as if things were the same. But no topic seemed appropriate. Church matters were dull. Baseball was over. No one wanted to mention Ricky. Not even the weather could hold our attention.

We finally gave up and went to bed. My mother tucked me in and kissed me good night. Then Gran did the same. Pappy stopped for a few words, something he’d never done before.

When I was finally alone, I said my prayers. Then I stared at the dark ceiling and tried to believe that this was my last night on the farm.

Chapter 36

My father had been wounded in Italy in 1944. He was treated there, then on a hospital boat, then shipped to Boston, where he spent time in physical rehabilitation. When he arrived at the bus station in Memphis, he had two U.S. Army duffel bags stuffed with clothes and a few souvenirs. Two months later he married my mother. Ten months after that, I arrived on the scene.

I’d never seen the duffel bags. To my knowledge they hadn’t been used since the war. When I walked into the living room early the next morning, they were both half-filled with clothing, and my mother was busy arranging the other necessities to be packed. The sofa was covered with her dresses, quilts, and some shirts she’d pressed the day before. I asked her about the duffel bags, and she told me that they’d spent the last eight years in a storage attic above the toolshed.

“Now hurry and eat breakfast,” she said, folding a towel.

Gran was holding nothing back for our final meal. Eggs, sausage, ham, grits, fried potatoes, baked tomatoes, and biscuits. “It’s a long bus ride,” she said.

“How long?” I asked. I was sitting at the table, waiting for my first cup of coffee. The men were out of the house somewhere.

“Your father said eighteen hours. Heaven knows when you’ll get a good meal again.” She delicately placed the coffee in front of me, then kissed me on the head. For Gran, the only good meal was one cooked in her kitchen with ingredients that came straight off the farm.

The men had already eaten. Gran sat next to me with her coffee and watched as I plowed into the feast she’d laid on the table. We went through the promises again—to write letters, to obey my parents, to read the Bible, to say my prayers, to be diligent so as not to become a Yankee. It was a virtual roll call of commandments. I chewed my food and nodded at the appropriate moments.

She explained that my mother would need help when the new baby arrived. There would be other Arkansas people up there in Flint, good Baptist souls who could be depended on, but I had to help with chores around the house.

“What kind of chores?” I asked with a mouthful of food. I’d thought the notion of chores was confined to the farm. I’d thought I was leaving them behind.

“Just house stuff,” she said, suddenly vague. Gran had never spent a night in a city. She had no idea where we would be living, nor did we. “You just be helpful when the baby gets here,” she said.

“What if it cries like that Latcher baby?” I asked.

“It won’t. No baby has ever cried like that.”

My mother passed through with a load of clothes. Her steps were quick. She’d been dreaming of this day for years. Pappy and Gran and perhaps even my father thought that our leaving was just a temporary departure. To my mother it was a milestone. The day was a
turning point not only in her life but especially in mine. She had convinced me at an early age that I would not be a farmer, and in leaving we were cutting ties.

Pappy wandered into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee. He sat in his chair at the end of the table, next to Gran, and watched me eat. He was not good at greetings, and he certainly couldn’t handle farewells. The less said the better in his book.

When I had stuffed myself to the point of being uncomfortable, Pappy and I walked to the front porch. My father was hauling the duffel bags to the truck. He was dressed in starched khaki work pants, a starched white shirt, no overalls. My mother was wearing a pretty Sunday dress. We didn’t want to look like refugees from the cotton fields of Arkansas.

Pappy led me into the front yard, down to a point where second base used to be, and from there we turned and looked at the house. It glowed in the clear morning sun. “Good job, Luke,” he said. “You done a good job.”

“Just wish we’d finished,” I said. To the far right, at the corner where Trot had begun, there was an unpainted section. We’d stretched the last four gallons as far as possible and had come up a little short.

“I figure another half gallon,” Pappy said.