A Short History of a Small Place (51 page)

Momma said Miss Pettigrew did not exactly scamper across the ballroom but did not dally on her end of it either and so made forthright progress directly into the midsts of the get togetherees, and Daddy said she caught up the copper teakettle in the crook of her left arm which kept her right one free to shake with and she went roundabout to each of her guests and took them by the fingers and called them by name and asked after their children and their old, ailing relations. She told Miss Frazier she was fretfully sorry her dog had got run over by a creamery truck, and she congratulated Mr. Venable on his promotion at the cigarette plant, and she politely took issue with Mr. Wyatt Benbow’s tomatoes, which she claimed were altogether too mealy for the price. Daddy said it was purely mystifying to him how a woman who had stayed shut up inside her house for the last eight years and for the last ten years before that and for the last three years before that could know anything at all about anybody aside from herself. But apparently news siphoned in from off the street and Daddy said Miss Pettigrew fairly stunned most all her guests with every little ordinary observation she made, which was not what people expected from a Pettigrew, especially from an isolated and peculiar Pettigrew, so the gaping persisted long after it had become noticeable and impolite and just when it seemed folks might get ahold of themselves and make civil expressions, Miss Pettigrew would say something regular and run of the mill and the chins would drop all over again since nobody much had expected Miss Pettigrew to be ordinary and since nobody much had wanted her to be either. So Daddy said the gaping did not die off to any degree as Miss Pettigrew made her way throughout the ballroom shaking fingers and giving out tiny cloth flags as party favors, and when folks found themselves out of position to gape at Miss Pettigrew directly they would gape at each other so as not to squander their astonishment.

Daddy said it did not seem to him that the gaping and finger shaking and the flag giving would ever leave off so the eating could commence, but after Miss Pettigrew had taken up little Sally Anne Cromer in her arms and rubbed their noses together, she made a vague sort of gesture with the back of her hand and said, “Please do help yourselves,” which was not one of your point-blank invitations but was certainly enough to put the buffet table in some immediate jeopardy. Momma said the food was exquisite and the champagne punch superb, and even Daddy himself, who forages widely but generally does not pay much attention to what he eats, agreed with Momma that the food was indeed exquisite and the champagne punch in fact superb. And Momma said Mrs. Estelle Singletary took a taste of each dish, working her mouth like a rabbit, and then announced to Miss Pettigrew that all of the refreshments were most adequate, which was excessively high praise coming from Mrs. Singletary and set everybody to gushing over whatever happened to be on their forks at the moment. Of course Miss Pettigrew gee-hawed as modestly as she could, and Daddy said she tried to make out like the food had near about prepared itself, but folks insisted on embarrassing her anyway and Miss Frazier said a few words on behalf of the baked ham followed by Mrs. Petree’s tribute to the cheese balls after which Mrs. Philtip J. King delivered a brief but compassionate speech on the texture of the potato salad and everybody else just hummed with their mouths full in a show of culinary delight. But Daddy said even the likes of Mrs. Phillip J. King cannot talk about a buffet forever, so the topic wore itself out directly but did not get replaced straightaway except by the sound of Mr. Emmet Dabb’s bronchial asthma and a singularly rich and hearty burp from little Buford Needham who simply could not get his hand up fast enough. Otherwise there was not much noise to speak of and most everyone looked at the floor or studied their fingers and waited for somebody to venture a remark they could all throw in with. And Daddy said he was expecting any moment some sort of idiocy from Mrs. Phillip J. King when Miss Pettigrew herself made several extraordinarily bland observations about the weather, so extraordinarily bland in fact that Daddy, who is not much of a natural gaper, laid his chin flush against his shirtfront and showed Miss Pettigrew his adenoids.

And just along about then came Peahead Boyette’s big bang, though nobody knew it was Peahead Boyette right off and folks just generally hovered over their chairseats on account of the concussion, everybody that is except for Miss Pettigrew who grabbed at her throat with the fingers of her left hand and looked altogether pleased, Daddy said, that some sort of engaging calamity had come along to prevent her from pursuing the weather. And it did turn out to be an engaging calamity though Daddy said it did not sound particularly engaging at the time or calamitous either. He said it sounded to him like somebody had tossed an aluminum trash can out of a Leer jet and hit the boulevard dead on, which seemed somewhat peculiar and diverting but did not strike Daddy as in any way disastrous. However, it had not been a trashcan exactly; it had been instead Mr. Peahead Boyette’s sky-blue 1961 Ford Falcon in combination with a nickel parking meter and a mature poplar tree. And Daddy said Mr. Wyatt Benbow, who had his back to a window, was the first one to part the sheers and look out and directly he shrieked, “A wreck!” which sent half the get togetherees toward the ballroom windows and the other half toward the ballroom door, and by the time Mrs. Petree could pull her nose off from the glass and holler, “Lord, it’s Peahead!” Mrs. Phillip J. King was already halfway down the sidewalk with her ears laid back. Little Buford’s boy, Paul, caught up with her at the gate since he was not wearing heels and passed her up across the boulevard, but Mrs. Phillip J. King managed to arrive at the Falcon just a hair’s breadth behind him nonetheless and the two of them stuck their heads in through the driver’s window and expected to see a goodly amount of gore judging from the impact. But there was no gore to speak of and no Peahead either, not anything really except for a pair of drowned muskrats on the back floorboard.

Of course everybody came pouring out of the house shortly, and Momma said she believed even Miss Pettigrew got so far as the front door before she recollected herself and stayed behind, and soon enough Peahead Boyette’s sky-blue 1961 Ford Falcon had fairly much disappeared under a swarm of anxious get togetherees who looked in the trunk, under the tires, and all throughout the engine but could not discover Peahead Boyette anywhere. And it was Daddy himself who found Peahead, mostly on account of his aversion for swarming get togetherees which sent him strolling down the boulevard in the direction of the icehouse and along the way he came across Peahead stretched out flat on his back lengthwise in the gutter.

“Peahead!” Daddy exclaimed and stooped down over what he figured for a corpse.

But Peahead opened his eyes and scratched the end of his nose with his index finger. “Hello Louis,” he said.

“Are you alright?” Daddy asked him, and Peahead grunted and sat up on both elbows. “Well what in the world happened?” Daddy wanted to know.

And Daddy said Peahead spat out of the side of his mouth and told him, “Goddam Muskrat.”

“Muskrat?” Daddy said.

“Yes sir,” Peahead told him.

“You mean a muskrat wrecked your car?” Daddy said.

“Yes sir,” Peahead told him.

“Well, you should’ve never let him drive, Peahead. You know their legs are too short to work the pedals.” And Daddy said though Peahead is usually of a highly jocular disposition he just spat sideways once more and laid back down in the gutter.

Daddy said Mrs. Phillip J. King and little Buford Needham saw what he was stooped over near about simultaneously and set out together in a dead heat but after the
first
ten yards Mrs. Phillip J. King commenced to pull away primarily on account of little Buford’s arthritic condition, which did not lend itself to extended sprints. And Daddy said it was quite a frightful thing to have Mrs. Phillip J. King run at you, even in the middle of the afternoon, and Daddy said he got kind of hypnotized looking at her with her shiny black clutch purse in one hand and her tiny cloth flag in the other and with her eyes wild and her hair blown back and her forehead mildly irridescent. In fact, Daddy said he was so overcome by the sight that he did not hear Mrs. Phillip J. King at first when she hollered at him, “Is he dead?” and so she hollered it a second time with a little more conviction and Daddy got ahold of himself sufficiently to tell her No.

“Well, is he injured then?” Mrs. Phillip J. King wailed at him.

“No,” Daddy told her, “I don’t believe so.”

And Daddy said that aside from looking frightful and wild and mildly irridescent, Mrs. Phillip J. King looked somewhat lost for words temporarily and allowed little Buford the opportunity to holler, “Is he alright?”

“Yes,” Daddy told him, “I think he is.”

And Daddy said Mrs. Phillip J. King arrived shortly thereafter and fairly much threw herself on top of Peahead Boyette and put her face directly in his face and said, “Mr. Boyette? Mr. Boyette?” which caused Peahead’s eyes to pop open and instigated some serious squirming and thrashing around on his part.

“Jesus woman,” Peahead said and worked himself loose from Mrs. Phillip J. King, “I’m alright, just a little shook up.”

And Mrs. Phillip J. King stood upright in the gutter and shouted off in the direction of the sky-blue 1961 Ford Falcon, “He’s shook up,” which sparked a general stampede, and Daddy said little Buford had not hardly gotten enough breath to say “Hey Peahead” when him and Mrs. Phillip J. King and Daddy and Peahead too found themselves all wrapped up in get togetherees who shot down the curbing and churned all roundabout the four of them like a spurt of frantic ditchwater. Of course everybody wanted to know just where Peahead Boyette was shook up, just exactly where specifically, and Daddy said Peahead picked himself up out of the gutter for fear of being stomped on, sat down on the curbing, and had the audacity to insist he was not shook up after all, not shook up in the least. But a great preponderance of people were nearly violently adamant that he be shook up, so Peahead set in to complaining about a shooting pain in his left wrist which was not one of your more severe and scintillating injuries but was far enough off from perfect health to satisfy most everybody. So once Peahead confessed to a degree of noticeable discomfort, people generally turned their attention to the cause of the accident which was a matter of some confusion to them since the driver was a ways down the street sitting insufficiently injured on the curbing and the vehicle was a ways up the street very thoroughly bent around a poplar tree. So naturally folks began to ask Peahead what in the world happened and Daddy said he looked around to see what the ladies would do when Peahead told them Goddam Muskrat but Peahead did not tell them Goddam Muskrat and instead told them, “Ill luck.”

“Ill luck?” Mrs. Estelle Singletary said.

“Yes ma’m,” Peahead replied, “a shitpot full of it.”

Peahead said the trouble had started on the day previous when he had taken the afternoon off to do some fishing. Now Peahead worked on the dock at the cigarette plant unloading hogsheads and usually when he took time off him and Willis Beeson and either Jimmy Pitts or his brother Sleepy would all ride in Willis’s truck down 29 south to the Haw River after catfish. According to Daddy, there are any number of decent and sporting ways to catch catfish. You can angle for them with a legitimate rod and reel or you can run a trot line across the river or set bank hooks or even wade out in the water and wrestle with them, but Daddy said Peahead and Willis Beeson and Jimmy Pitts and his brother Sleepy both were not the sort to be much interested in the ethics of fishing, so whenever they went down to the Haw River they got their catfish the easiest way they knew how which was to telephone for them.

It was Peahead’s phonebox, or anyway it was the handcranked dynamo out of Peahead’s Momma’s phonebox, and Peahead had customized it somewhat with fifteen feet of additional insulated wire hooked into each of the two terminals, which Peahead figured was enough to reach to the bottom of any river he could get to. All you did was throw the wires in the water and let them sink down to the river bed where the catfish would be and then you set in to cranking the dynamo and thereby made things a little hot for the marine life. However, according to Peahead the charge didn’t damage much of anything except for the catfish and it went in through their whiskers and near about electrocuted them, but Peahead insisted that telephoning was in no way as harmful as fishing with dynamite which tended to bring everything that was under up, and Peahead found some considerable sport and challenge in corraling all the catfish once they floated to the surface. But nonetheless Daddy said he did not believe it was the sort of thing you’d ever see Kurt Gowdy do on t.v.

Now on the afternoon of July the third Peahead and Willis Beeson and Sleepy Pitts took Willis’s truck down 29 to the river and then east to a trestle crossing where the local folks tended to dump their garbage down the banks and directly into the water which made for a catfish paradise. Peahead had a little rubber boat about the size of a bathtub, and he said when Willis and Sleepy finished blowing it up he got in it with the phonebox and paddled out around the pilings, where he commenced to charge up the water. Then he crisscrossed underneath the trestle cranking and paddling and cranking and paddling and cranking some more, and Peahead said soon enough the catfish were coming up like corks all over the place and most every one of them as big around as a man’s thigh. So Peahead called for Sleepy Pitts to toss out the hook which was a three-pronged floated gaffer on forty feet of clothesline and Sleepy Pitts flung it a good dozen yards ahead of the boat where Peahead could paddle up to it and hook it into a fish. Then Sleepy Pitts would draw it in to Willis Beeson, who would take the fish by the tail, knock it on the head for good measure, and free the hook so Sleepy Pitts could send it back out into the river again. Peahead said they had found this a very fine and reliable system for gathering in their catfish and generally, according to Peahead, there was nobody better than a Pitts for flinging the hook. He said Jimmy and Sleepy both could usually lay the clothesline across whatever fish they were after and fairly much draw the gaff into him on their own. So Peahead was not expecting Sleepy Pitts to do what he did but then Sleepy Pitts was not expecting a train to come when it came. Peahead said Sleepy Pitts had the gaff going round above his head and appeared just prior to releasing it when the front end of the engine broke clear of the treeline and hit the trestle with the whistle wailing, and Peahead said he liked to have leapt clean out of the boat but he managed to restrain himself somehow and he saw on the riverbank Willis Beeson and Sleepy Pitts both jump straight up in the air, which was fine for Willis since he was not otherwise engaged at the moment but which was not so fine for Sleepy Pitts, who let fly with the three-pronged floated gaffer in the very midst of his agitation. And according to Peahead it was one of Sleepy Pitts’s more beautiful flings with a high, gentle arc to it and some considerable distance and though it was a little wide of the catfish it appeared to Peahead to be a direct hit on the boat, so he did in fact leap clean out of it after all and Peahead said the gaffer landed near about amidships and the prongs of it dug into the inflatable port gunwhale which caused the whole business to flip over and sent Peahead’s Momma’s dynamo to the river bottom.