Mississippi Cotton (14 page)

At some point we’d probably have to wait while Cousin Carol went to some dress shop, or something equally useless. There was nothing as wasteful as hanging around waiting at a dress shop. Hat shops were none too exciting either, although they could be good for laughs. If you laughed too much, they’d ask if you wanted to leave. But you couldn’t say yes even though you wanted to, because then you would get punished for talking back. So you were trapped there, wasting time.

We turned the corner onto Main Street and saw the hotel. The streets were crowded and there was a lot of traffic. Clarksdale had a lot more stores and picture shows and cafés. In the small towns the crowds and traffic usually didn’t come until Saturday. But in Clarksdale even Wednesday was busy. There was a policeman directing traffic at an intersection. I thought about Mr. Siler driving here. He’d probably hit the policeman, or just yell at him. Of course it would probably take fifty years for Mr. Siler to drive this far from Cotton City.

We saw Big Trek standing in front of the hotel talking to a couple of guys who were wearing straw hats and denim overalls. Big Trek was poking the air with his finger. My guess, he was informing them of some weather that he was speculating about—probably rain. Big Trek was like a walking, talking Farmer’s Almanac. He just seemed to know when it was going to rain, or be dry, or when tornadoes were about to drop from the sky. No one knew how he did it. He mostly was right about his predictions and people listened. Casey had said they should send his name into
Ripley’s Believe It or Not
.

Big Trek waved at us as we parked in front of the hotel. All of us climbed out and went to greet him. Hugs and more hugs. You’d think he had been in Alaska or someplace digging for gold for about ten years. Big Trek told me how much I had grown, which couldn’t have been much since last Christmas. But he said it anyway.

“Well, now, I trust the farm ain’t burnt down,” he said. He always joked with Cousin Trek, and Casey and Taylor, that they’d let the place burn down or get destroyed. They laughed and Cousin Trek said something like, “Not when we left, but you can never tell.”

Big Trek laughed and rubbed the top of Casey’s head. “Well, I’ve still got some errands to do. Maybe by the time I’m finished, we can get some dinner at Pete and Buger’s before we head back.”

“Where you goin’ now, Daddy?” Cousin Trek asked.

“First, I gotta go to the hardware store. I gotta get some nails and paint. Then I wanna go to the tractor dealer.”

“Okay, we can jus’ leave the car parked here for now. Come back in an hour and stick another nickel in the meter,” Cousin Trek said.

“Well y’all can go the hardware store, but I’m not spending part of my day off listening to those hair-brained, seedy stories y’all be telling,” Cousin Carol said. She didn’t consider them delightful today, I guess. “I’m going up the street to a shop I’ve wanted to visit for the longest time.”

Cousin Trek said, “Well, that’s fine, Honey. You go ahead.” The ‘honey’ word meant he hoped she didn’t ask him to go. I supposed those names did come in handy once in a while, if they got you out of something horrible like going to a dress shop. There was a brief silence. Casey and Taylor and I shuffled our feet, as if we hadn’t heard her.

“Well, doesn’t someone want to come with me?” she asked.

Now, she had to know we would rather have an eye gouged out with a hot poker and a wasp stuck up our nose than go to some woman’s shop. “How about my baby? Casey, you wanna go with your mother?”

“Well…maybe…I guess…”

She reached over and pulled his head toward her and kissed him right on the forehead, right there in broad daylight. Then she laughed and said, “Y’all go on, I’ll meet y’all back at the car about a quarter ‘til twelve. Okay?”

The hardware store was filled with everything you could imagine that had something to do with work. Nails, plenty of evil cans of paint, tools of all kinds, rope, chains, insecticides, even fishing tackle and hunting supplies, with rifles and shotguns lined up in racks behind the counter. It had a cement floor and smelled like a hardware store—rough, greasy, a hemp smell and the always great fertilizer aroma. A small group of men at the counter were talking, most likely about the baseball standings and the price of cotton.

Casey and Taylor and I stood in front of the counter looking at the rifles and shotguns, talking about which one we would buy if we had the money. “You could kill a bear with that one,” Casey said.

“Aww, there ain’t any bears around here,” I said.

“Yeah, there are,” Taylor said. “Back a long time ago there were lots of bears up here.”

“Aw, c’mon.”

“Really, Big Trek says about two hundred years ago there were lots and lots of bears in the Delta. Panthers, too. Before farmers started growing cotton and stuff like that. It used to be like a jungle almost, around here.”

“Really. Panthers, too?” I asked.

“Yeah, and there are still some—panthers and bears, I’m pretty sure.”

Big Trek and Cousin Trek walked toward us, each with a can of paint. “See anything you boys want?” Big Trek winked at Cousin Trek when he asked.

“Casey wants a bear gun, Big Trek.” We laughed.

“Well, sounds good to me. Picked one out yet?”

“Yes, sir. That one on the end,” Casey said.

“That’s a .22, Casey,” Cousin Trek said. “You can’t kill a bear with that, unless maybe you beat him over the head with it.” He put his free arm around Casey’s shoulder and squeezed him.

“Why not? You can kill people with one.”

“Well, people are different than bears—and what makes you say that anyway? Whada you know ‘bout killin’ people?”

I broke in for Casey. “I told him about some dead man they found in the river the other day, Cousin Trek. I heard it from a deputy and a highway patrolman at the bus station when I was ridin’ up the other day.”

He and Big Trek looked at each other.

“Really? Well, it was in the newspaper the other day. Didn’t know you boys were reading anything but the funny papers. But I don’t think they know yet who the dead man is. They sure don’t know who shot him. Not as far as I know, anyhow. Y’all jus’ forget about it for now. Y’all don’t need to be worrying about such things.”

“That’s right,” someone behind me said. I turned around and saw a man, I think was the owner. He seemed to know Cousin Trek and Big Trek, because as soon as we walked in they started shaking hands and talking and laughing.

“What’s right, Jimmy?” Big Trek asked.

“Sheriff was in here today. Said they still ain’t identified that guy they fished out down there. Jus’ said he had been shot and dumped in the river.”

“Well, I guess he could be from anywhere,” Cousin Trek said. “I mean he could have been dumped in at St Louis for all we know.”

Jimmy walked behind the counter to get an ashtray. He had just lit a Camel cigarette. “Well, now I wouldn’t say that.” He blew smoke up toward the ceiling. “They figured out ‘bout how long he’d been in the water, I imagine.”

“Is that right, Jimmy?”

“Yep, and so now they think he was dumped in somewhere maybe not more’n a little bit upriver from the Greenville Bridge.”

“Are you sure? Or are you jus’ guessin’?”

“Well, I’m jus’ guessin’, but my guess is as good as the sheriff’s, I’ll bet you.”

“Well, enough of this for me,” Big Trek said. “I need some nails to go with this paint, Jimmy. I’m a payin’ customer here, don’t forget. Then we got to get o’er to the John Deere dealer.”

“Hey Daddy, maybe he was dumped in at Rosedale,” Taylor said. Rosedale was close to the river and Cotton City.

“Well, we don’t have any idea where he was put in. He could have been put in right there at Greenville for all we know. Now, no more discussion. Y’all hear me.”

“That’s right,” Big Trek said. “We got to get o’er to the John Deere place. Then we eat.” The look in his eyes said he was ready for Pete ‘n Buger’s.

The door had just been slammed on the subject of murder for now. It was just as well since it was almost dinner time.

It was exactly a quarter to twelve by the big English-looking clock on the People’s Bank of Clarksdale when we arrived at Pete and Buger’s. We had timed it just right because Cousin Carol walked up the street toward us.

“I see y’all must’ve got all your hardware chores done,” she said. She gave a little sarcastic punch to the word chores.

“Well, you don’t have an armful of packages, so I guess we won’t have to mortgage the back forty.” Big Trek laughed at his own joke.

“Very funny, Bob Hope. Let’s eat,” she said.

Pete and Buger’s was filling fast since it was almost noon. Ceiling fans whirled above the single room while three waitresses moved around the tables. Two more were behind the counter. They all wore white dresses, like nurses, but with aprons tied in back, green ticket pads in their pockets and yellow pencils stuck in their hair. Our waitress’ nametag said Lucy. She was kind of fat and chewing gum. She also had a gold tooth that you could see when she chewed and smiled at the same time.

“How are y’all today?” She chewed and smiled, her tooth sparkling as she put five menus on our table with five glasses of ice water. I was always amazed at how waitresses could carry so much at one time.

“Fine, fine,” Cousin Trek said. “And how are you, Lucy?” I don’t think he knew her, but just saw her name tag.

“I’m just fine. How’r y’all today?”

The rest of us all said “fine.”

“Hot, hot, hot,” Cousin Carol said. “Mercy, it is hot.”

“Oh, Honey, I am jus’ so glad to be inside workin’,” Lucy said. “At least I’m outta that sun. And these fans give me some breeze. Whooee!”

All the menus had a piece of paper clipped to the top describing the dinner special for Wednesday. Today it was meatloaf or catfish and a choice of two vegetables of green peas, beets, carrots or potatoes. Printed underneath the paper on the menu was the selection of steaks, chops, fried chicken and such. Taylor and Casey and I went for the hamburger side of the menu while Big Trek, Cousin Trek and Cousin Carol ordered the dinner special.

“Okay, and iced tea for everybody? ‘Kay, I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Lucy said. She backed up—chewing, smiling, sparkling—then turned and waddled away.

Casey leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Nice hamsters.”

Cousin Carol reached over and grabbed him by the nose. “Do
not
whisper in public like that.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Cousin Trek gave him a stern look. Bad manners in public were like a thousand times worse than at home, for some reason. My greatest fear was Cousin Trek was going to ask him what he had said. That could have ruined dinner.

Big Trek came to the rescue and changed the subject. “Well, unless y’all need anything else in town, we can get on back after we finish. Trek, you prob’ly need to see Earl before it gets too late anyhow.”

“We oughta be home before three. I’ll have plenty of time to see him,” Cousin Trek said.

Big Trek had been in Clarkdale for almost a week. He had caught the bus up here the day before I got to Cotton City. When I had mentioned to Cousin Carol one afternoon that he must have lots of business up here, she gave one of her ‘hruummp’s.

“Well, Daddy, you get a lot done this week? Find out who’s planting what next spring?” Cousin Trek said.

I noticed Big Trek was looking at Cousin Carol kind of out of the corner of his eye. It looked a little bit the way Casey looked when he was about to say something goofy.

“Yeah. I been talking to some of the boys in the domino game about planting some corn.”

“Corn, huh?” Cousin Trek said. “Are you serious?”

“How can somebody who deals with domino players be taken seriously?” Cousin Carol said.

Big Trek didn’t answer. He just kept on talking. “We figure this new Sheriff Bibeau is gonna be honest since he’s a Presbyterian and we’ll have to make our own whiskey since all the bootleggers’ll be out of business.” He laughed so loud half the people in the café turned our way.

Cousin Carol just shook her head. “Big Trek, you ain’t going to heaven if you don’t quit your corruption. And these boys don’t need to hear about such things.”

The three of us looked at each other. We really didn’t know what the corn talk had to do with anything, but everybody from first grade on knew that whiskey was illegal in Mississippi.

And I think she suspected that he participated in the domino game at the café in Cotton City sometimes, but didn’t say it. But, if he played in the Cotton City café, what kind of wild games do they have in a big city like Clarksdale?

The place filled even faster now. Lucy had to weave through tables and new customers coming in. She got to our table with three plates riding up her right arm, two on her left wrist and the plate of rolls clamped in her fingers.

“Well, now, hamburger for you, hamburger for you and hamburger for you,” she said as she unloaded her right arm. “And meatloaf, meatloaf and fried catfish.” Big Trek got the fish. “Now I’ll get y’all some more water and tea and y’all will be all set, I think.”

She went to the counter and picked up two pitchers and returned. “Anything else?”