GodPretty in the Tobacco Field (15 page)

I figured Rainey must've left his brain on that sleeping porch to ride in an automobile with no roof and get boozed up with strangers, and being real friendly to me in front of white folks.

I looked past those flapping folks, not sure what my eye just caught. At the edge of our property, one of the Crocketts stood beside a tree watching Ada and her brother walk down the property line. Crockett wasn't trying to hide, but he didn't want to be seen either. Then he caught me looking and stepped into the woods.

I scooted farther away from Rainey and mumbled something about getting him back to the fields and picked up his traveling bag.

Dena sidled up to Rainey, put her hand on his shirt, then puckered up her painted lips and I watched his whole mouth disappear behind her kiss. Until this second I'd never really seen the hardness of Rainey's long arms and lean chest, the deepness of his laurel-green eyes in his coffee-brown face, his welcoming smile. Never seen anyone else notice either.

Dena slowly leaned back, trailed a nail across his cheek, then waggled her slipless behind all the way back to the automobile.

Rainey licked his limp lips, rubbed his chest.

Dena settled inside the Pontiac, pulled down the visor, and dabbed a pinky at the corners of her mouth. Donny climbed in behind the wheel and they sped off, collecting mud, spraying rock and warbly yee-haws down Royal Road.

Rainey stuffed his hands into his pants pockets, rocked on his heels, and tipped back his hat. He grinned down at me with his shiny, plum-colored, beer-soaked lips.

I
tightened my grip on Rainey's satchel, then swung it and hit him square on the shoulder. Twice, then another on his back before he fell to the ground laughing, arms crossed as he shielded himself.

“Here you are, Rainey Ford, all liquored up with those flyby floozies when everybody's been fretting about you!”

“Roo, stop it now . . . no . . . c'mon—stop . . .” He pulled himself up unsteadily onto his knees, leaned back on his heels, and spread his hands.

“Five long days you've been gone,” I preached.

“You missed me?”

I shook the suitcase at him.

“What was I supposed to do, girl? Hitch when I've got a good ride?” He pouted, his lips bruised with paint by another.

“Humph, good ride my eye. What if those white folks would've turned on you? What if they're doing it now—gone to town
right now
and said you hugged me and—”

“What . . . ?
No
. Now, Roo, me and Donny made us a pact . . . uh-huh, to save each other in Vietnam. Hell, I'd likely be gone forever if the wrong white folks picked up my black hide hitchhiking—”

“Five.” I raised my fingers. “Five days, Rainey. You ain't never been out of this hollar more than five minutes and now I see why. No sense! Your mama's been worried sick. You could've called and left word with the postmistress. You—”

“Now, Roo, those were friendly folks.”

“Too friendly and up to no good.”

“Huh?” He rubbed his mouth. “You don't think
that
meant anything?”

“It meant a lot to me, Rainey Ford.”

“Hey . . . hey, c'mon, Roo. You know I missed you. You're my girl. Hell”—he plopped back on his heels, spread his arms wide—“wait, come here . . . I'll get my violin . . . here, Roo, take a dance with me in the fields. I missed you. C'mon, girl . . . c'mon ‘
Sw-Sweet Ken-tuck-eee Lady'
. . .” he crooned. “ ‘
Now that I'm home again, deee-ry . . .
' ” Swaying on his knees, he pressed a hand over his heart and sang.

I raised the small suitcase.

He twisted sideways, dodging as I swung the bag again. Missing, I threw the leather satchel onto the porch, busting the lock, scattering out the tightly packed clothes and newspaper inside.

He fell back onto the grass, lost in a fit of giggles. I stomped across the field toward home to his caterwauling tunes.

Gunnar stopped me in the rows, took off his straw hat, and wiped his brow. “Did I hear Rainey?”

“Oh.” I looked over my shoulder. “Yessir, you did. Going to fix us meatloaf sandwiches for supper, then go to my room for the evening . . . I . . . well”—I dropped my voice—“I got my you-know-what . . . er, it hasn't stopped. I feel . . . and I—”

He ran a hand over his reddening face, stretching skin, wagging his head for me to hush it.

When I was about a good fifteen feet away Gunnar called out, “RubyLyn, fix up one of your fancy pies or nice cobblers.” He stared off toward Rainey's house. “Think I'd like to call on him in a bit, see if he picked up my
Louisville Times
newspaper I wanted.”

Fancy
. I stopped dead in my tracks and turned to him. He'd never said anything good about anything I did. And except for the rare church socials, an ill neighbor, he'd never asked for one of my dishes to go calling on him.

I said, “Yessir.” I thought about the kiss, my daddy and Mr. Stump, the empty beer bottles strewn across the backseat. Fury railed my senses. “I'll see if I have any peaches left, but I reckon a pie won't go with what he's been drinking. You may need some coffee for that.”

Gunnar narrowed his eyes and locked them to the fields.

I headed for the house. In the cellar I found a few peaches for the pie. I prepared the dough, not bothering to take extra care to knead it lightly so I wouldn't toughen it. I punched the dough, calling out “Dena” after each blow . . . When the pie came out of the oven, I set it on the windowsill to cool.

I knew Gunnar wouldn't bother asking me to go with him now that we had my unmentionable menstruation to keep us at his comfortable distance for the next few days, or until he forgot about it again. Weren't no time after I'd set the pie out to cool when he took it over to Rainey's porch.

I sat on my bed staring at Mama's Rattle-My-Tattle lipstick, rolling the gold tube across a palm. I pulled off its top and glided the soft creamy bullet across my lips, smearing, tasting. I wondered what color Dena was wearing and how many of those hussy kisses she'd given to Rainey. Surprised, an ache took hold of my heart. I couldn't bear losing him.

I heard the screen door bang twice and then Gunnar's heavy footsteps on the stairs. Quickly, I wiped my mouth on the back of a hand.

“Gunnar?” I poked my head out the bedroom door. “You're back early. I left your sandwich on the stove . . . How'd they like the pie? Did—”

He had his jaw set tough and fists clenched.

“What is it? Gunnar?” I followed him to his room and stood in the doorway. “Is it the Crocketts?”

He went straight to his closet and rummaged inside, then turned around and scanned the bedroom. In two long steps, Gunnar reached his tallboy sitting across the room, ran his hands over a stack of clean shirts, spilling clothes onto the floor. Then he peered behind the dresser. Bending over, he snatched up his thick leather belt.

“Gunnar?”

He shoved me aside, plodded down the stairs, and elbowed himself out the door.

I made it outside the screen before its clap could cry the warning.

Gunnar was heading back to Rainey's, his belt coiled tight around a fisted knuckle.

I grabbed my shoes off the porch and put them on.

When I got near Rainey's place, I saw him and Gunnar in the side yard. Abby stood on her porch, braced against the rail. I stepped behind the Fords' thick old cherry tree and peeked out.

Gunnar dragged Rainey by the shirt over to a waist-high rotted stump in the yard.

Rainey jerked his arm away once, and Gunnar snatched it back and shoved him forward onto the splintered stub. Rainey looked like he might try to light into Gunnar, but my uncle had a power and size I'd not seen.

“Going to get a whipping for upsetting your mother,” Gunnar bit.

Rainey looked back at Abby.

“Never once thinking of home.” Gunnar snapped the leather against the ground.

“Sorry, Ma, I never meant to,” Rainey called to her quietly.

Abby moaned and buried her head in her hands.

“Letting our women see you like that . . .” Gunnar's voice shook. “Tearing up my satchel.”

I pressed my mouth to the bark, groaned.
If only I hadn't told on him . . . if only I'd sent Rainey off somewhere till he sobered
.

“You will learn to keep your manners here and all of those sins in the city,” Gunnar hissed. “You not bothering to call, coming home with your boots soaked and smelling of whore. Why, you worried this family for days, son.”

Rainey gripped the stump and peered up at Gunnar. “You're not my pa.”

“I am today,” Gunnar growled, and let the belt fly ten times.

S
haking, I moved back into the tree's shadow, sucking air through my teeth between each slap on skin. Rainey never so much as whimpered. I shouldn't have told knowing how Gunnar felt about the alcohol—my daddy. I couldn't help feeling some of those lashes were meant for me.

From the porch, Abby cradled her face and wept quietly.

When Gunnar was through, he tossed his belt to the ground. “Rainey, get to the creek and clean yourself up. Don't be going in the house like that.”

Rainey pushed himself up and staggered away.

Gunnar stepped onto the porch, put a hand on Abby's arm, and said, “We're not careful Rainey's gonna end up same as his namesake. Our Rainey in his life's got to honor Bethea, not end up like him—”

“Don't say that, Gunnar!” she gnashed. “My boy's not gonna end up like Rainey Bethea—he's gonna be a fine soldier.”

I gasped. The colored boy, Rainey Bethea, had lived over on the banks of the Ohio River in Owensboro. He was the last one publicly hanged in Kentucky—even the whole country. During the Depression, Gunnar had gone to the spectacle, and for years now I'd overheard him talk about Bethea, comparing his own prison executions to this last hanging. Many times Gunnar'd told Abby the picnic hanging made him become an executioner so that he could bring dignity to the condemned man.

Gunnar said folks accused Bethea of robbing and killing an old white woman, but most weren't satisfied. “Those type of crimes meant Bethea would get a private electrocution in prison,” he'd said. So they'd convicted him only of rape—a crime that called for a sure Kentucky hanging.

Gunnar said things went sideways when the new female sheriff, who was also a mama, and other officials botched the hanging. The sheriff didn't want to pull the trip lever, so she hired a man from Louisville to do it while she watched from afar in an automobile.

Gunnar'd told about the thousands and thousands of people who'd swelled the small Kentucky town on that hot day in August 1936, saying most came from far and wide, with lots of reporters coming from big city places. But the hangman, Hash, showed up drunk, fumbled on releasing the trap, and later had the gall to bill the town $6.19 for his travel expenses. A few of Gunnar's old newspaper clippings likened the whole affair to a “carnival,” saying as soon as the lever finally got pulled, some rowdy folks clawed and ripped at Bethea's hood cloak to steal a keepsake. Other witness accounts said it wasn't true; it was calm, hushed amongst them 20,000 folks, and they gave the Negro a dignified hanging.

“Just another colored boy gone fishin' in a pond where he wasn't supposed to be,” Gunnar would always say.

 

“You should've never come home telling 'bout Bethea,” Abby accused. “Getting my Gus so stirred up that he even swore the name on his firstborn . . . made me swear, too.”

Gunnar hardened his jaw, tipped his face to the sky. “A tribute—”

“
A stain,
” Abby wheezed.

I sped back home, letting the wind dry my wet face. Racked with guilt, I paced across the kitchen floor. When Gunnar didn't show up in a few minutes, I went up to my room. Hours later I heard the front door ease shut.

I tiptoed halfway down and leaned over the banister. Gunnar was in the sitting room, elbow on the mantel, worrying his fingers alongside the carved box, talking to Claire again. He dabbed at his eyes and looked upward several times. Then I watched him wring his hands, not sure if his ailing arthritis had gotten the best of him or something more.

I tucked my head and stole back up the steps. Leaning out the bedroom window, I listened for Rainey's violin. Silent, except for a chorus of night musicians trilling their insect song of rattles, chirps, and lisps.

Quietly, I climbed into bed ticking through thoughts. Gunnar had only whipped Rainey twice, and he'd never hit me. What had brought on the change? I thought about my drunk daddy and buried my moans into the pillow with a knowing that I was the change.

For the next few days Rainey didn't show up in the rows. Gunnar didn't seem to care none. He went straight to work and ordered Henny back to her daddy's field, planting, while he bush-hogged the property lines, inspected one thing or another.

I suckered the tobacco and worked the burley as much as I could, worrying for Rainey, wondering when I'd have him back at my side.

On Saturday morning I found myself alone again, facing two hornworms hitched to my prize tobacco. I got a stick and poked at the leaves. The stubborn 'bacco-thieving worms clung to the plant. Furious, I tried to curse them off. Then I raised my stick to slap the ugly things off only to have it snatched from behind.

I whirled around to find Rainey. “Hear, now. You're bruising the tobacco, girl.” He plunked down a bag and five-gallon Pepsi Cola drum, reached around me, and snatched off the worms.

“Rainey, I . . . what are you doing?”

“Working,” he said matter-of-factly, as he tossed the ugly creatures into the catch bucket beside the drum.

“You feel okay?” I wanted to hold him and make all that hurt go away. I wanted to curse him, too, but I couldn't do neither with all that sadness in his eyes.

He straightened, grabbed his side. “A little tight in the back.” He stared off and his eyes took on a distance.

I let the silence land at my feet, not wanting him to know I had seen what brought on the “tightening.” I turned to the tobacco.

In a minute he said, “Ma told me the news about Crockett.”

“Drowned.” I looked back at him, rubbed a chill off my arms that prickled like slapped skin.

“Pretty bad thing,” he murmured.

“Henny was really broke up about it.”

“Shame that boy never learned how to swim.” He grimaced.

“Shame,” I repeated.

“Oh . . . hey, I have something for you.” He pointed to the Pepsi drum, then pulled out a folded paper from his back pocket and handed it to me.

It was a flyer for the Kentucky State Fair.

“See there?” Rainey pointed to the dates
August 18–23
.

“Picked this up while in the city. Just two days away . . . and on the way home I passed the big exposition center—that's where they're having it—and I saw them raising tents and putting up a huge contraption called a Ferris wheel. A big thing folks pay to ride on.”

“A Ferris wheel?”

“Yeah, it's a big metal circle with tiny buckets sticking out all around it.” He drew a big ring in the air, looping round and round. “They say folks sit in the buckets high up there and spin about.”

“Why?” Just the thought made me woozy.

“Fun, I reckon.” Rainey shrugged.

I stared at the flyer and then to the tobacco. “Can't believe it's happening. I'm still not sure how I want to exhibit.”

“I do. Got this for you when I was in town on my shopping day.” He kicked the empty cola drum. “Now pick your best plant, girl, and we'll pot it for your exhibit.”

“My exhibit,” I said, growing excited.

“Uh-huh.” He smiled and began cleaning the drum and shining it with some turpentine and beeswax he'd brought.

“Two more days,” I moaned, busting to get to the city.

I helped him buff the container until the red and white advertisement markings on the heavy tin gleamed. Then I pointed out my fattest plant, and carefully he dug up the tobacco and the rich soil and potted it.

That I was really going to finally go to the city sent my nerves flapping.

Excited, I turned around to thank him, but he had this tied-up look on his face again. “What is it, Rainey?”

“Well, Roo”—he pulled out an envelope from his back pocket—“I got my induction papers. This letter beat me back from Louisville.”

“What's that mean?” I asked, fearing the answer.

“Travelin' time for Rainey boy.”

I shook my head. “Thought you'd be helping me show at the State Fair. I need you—”

“Thought so, too, but there's no time. Ma will keep me close, and Gunnar”—he spread his hands together—“even closer. He needs me here. Time for the cuttin' and stackin'—get this crop up and hanged in the barn before I leave.”

“I thought maybe the first week of September, but I reckon it's time for the barn. How soon will you be leaving?”

“Paper says I'm due back in Louisville at the end of the month—the thirty-first. Betting they'll pack me off for good then.”

“Not coming back?” It was hard to believe I'd be in the city one day and he'd be there on another. That we were really losing each other.

“Me and Donny heard one of the officials talking when he thought we couldn't hear. He said us guys wouldn't have a clue when we're told to board the bus after the final testing. Said that old army bus carries those boys off into the lonesome night real quiet-like.”

“Oh.” Sorrow stabbed at my heart.

“Guessing that's gonna be me when I go back, Roo . . . The Parkers will be traveling there to stock their wares on the Friday before, and said that they'd tote me up in the back of their truck.”

“No convertible?” I couldn't help whispering.

He grinned a little sheepishly and lifted my hand, tapped my fingers. “Not unless you sketch it on one of your nice fortune-tellers for me.”

“Your fortune?”

“I 'spect I'm gonna need one of them now. Man shouldn't have to face the world without some sort of good-luck charm and a good woman's promise.” Devilment shone in his somber eyes. “
Your
promise.”

“ 'Spect so,” I said, knowing there wasn't enough tobacco paper in Turner's barn, nor enough woo-woo magic in all the hollars of Kentucky to describe the promise I was itching to give him.

Rainey hoisted the potted plant onto the gathering table. “And this fine-looking tobacco here”—he patted the shiny container—“is a sure
promise
to take the State Fair prize.”