Sweet Song (24 page)

“Two,” said Bob. “For the week.”

“Two dollars each. ‘Til next Wednesday.”

Hugh and Bob paid the man.

“In the back. No fightin’. No arguin’. No pissin’ inside.”

Bob wrinkled his nose and followed Hugh. The room wasn’t very big. Straw bunks were built into every wall space except where the door stood. A second shelf of bunks was built above the lower ones. There were two candles lit in the middle of the floor. The three available bunks were all bottom bunks, two of which flanked the door. Hugh and Bob took those two.

The room smelled like urine. In the dim flickering, the floor appeared stained. Most of the men were lying in their bunks staring above them. One man struggled to read a newspaper in the near darkness. Two men, both in top bunks, lay head-to-head whispering and letting out with quiet laughter from time to time.

Bob unrolled his blanket and placed his burlap bag next to the wall. He curled next to it. He had almost fallen asleep when Hugh grabbed his shoulder. Bob jumped.

“Hold up,” Hugh said. “I was thinkin’.”

“What about?”

“About you can sing.”

“So?” Bob wondered where Hugh was headed with the comment.

“You can sing. That’d be your work.”

Bob made a face and rolled back over. “Nope.”

Hugh kneeled there for a few minutes as if waiting to continue the conversation. Then Bob heard him get up and go back to his own bunk.

R
ain pelted the bunkhouse and saturated the roof. Bob woke to the sound of dripping on several occasions. Once he woke to the sound of someone leaving the room and a few minutes later returning. He dreamed of Bess touching him and awoke hard. Guilt overtook him, and sorrow. When he tried to replace the image of Bess with thoughts of Hillary, his body reacted by going flaccid, all adding to his confusion and disgust. He slept again only to awake from another dream. This time, he sawed timber, slept under trees, and sang. In each vignette the background reverberated with a continuous humming. Morning arrived much too suddenly. The door to the bunkhouse had been left open and the smell of rain-soaked wood and weeds poured into the room stirring the residents.

Bob stretched his legs and felt for his sack, which lay beside him. A few men grumbled as they woke. One man shoved another who got too close. “No fightin’,” someone said in a gruff morning voice.

Bob rolled his blanket while lying in his bunk. He packed his sack inside the blanket making sure he could reach in to grab money if what he had in his pockets wasn’t enough.

Hugh wasn’t in his bunk when Bob peered around the door. Had Hugh abandoned him? Bob stepped into the morning, tired from the fitful night. “Hey,” Hugh called from near the outhouse door. Bob nodded and walked toward him. The outhouse had a terrible stink coming from it. “I think someone was deathly sick last night,” Hugh said.

“I heard someone go out.”

“Didn’t hear nothin’ myself.”

A man left the outhouse and Hugh stepped inside.

Bob stepped up into Hugh’s space. Two other men now stood behind him.

Once inside, Bob pulled his shirt over his nose and mouth. Someone had gotten sick and the odor practically made Bob sick as well. He did his business, held his breath, and walked out, stepping quickly to put distance between him and the outhouse.

Hugh waited. It had been two days and Bob wondered why Hugh had attached to him. Bob wasn’t used to having someone with him all day like that, at least not when there was nothing particular going on. If they were working together then it would be fine. If they were traveling, on the move, it would be fine. But wandering around town with little on their minds gave Bob the oddest sensation he had ever had in his life. Like he had picked up a stray dog. Bob didn’t know what to say to Hugh much of the time. He’d already learned that Hugh had been on his own for years, and either enjoyed labor or felt that was all he could do. Regardless which way Hugh felt, he had come to terms with it and appeared satisfied.

Bob considered his rebirthing in the river where he had essentially died, going in black and coming out white. There was his new name, now. Where had that come from? Bob White had been born in an instant. Already the story of Leon faded as though it were only a story. Except in his dreams, his past became foggy and thin, weak and elusive.

Hugh focused on work and encouraged Bob to, “Go in and talk to the man,” whenever he noticed a possibility.

Time and again, Bob listened, went into establishment after establishment, and was turned down over and over again. His first interview was short. A stubby man with greasy hair stood at the counter of a feed store. The words on the sign were misspelled. The sign said ‘Halp Wantd.’

Bob, on Hugh’s insistence, stepped to the counter. Before the man could say anything, Bob said, “I’m here to help.” He pointed to the front where the sign hung.

“You know feed?” the man said.

“I know it, but I never sold it.”

“What you know?”

“Animals eat it,” Bob said.

The man looked at his own shelves – bags, boxes, buckets, and bins. “You know the difference between oats and barley, between hay and straw?” the man asked.

“Grew up on a farm,” Bob said, then he looked at Hugh to see whether he took that bit of information in.

The man behind the counter also glanced at Hugh, then back to Bob. “You lyin’?”

Bob turned back. “No. I’m not.”

“Then why you give your partner that look?”

“What look?”

“I don’t need the help right now,” the man said. “I’m thinkin’ I’ll need help in a week or so. When the town fills.”

Hugh grabbed Bob’s arm and pulled him around. Bob followed without resistance.

“The place was filthy,” Bob said. “Did you see it?”

“Sour grapes,” Hugh said.

“What?”

“You ain’t never looked for no job, have you?”

“I’ve worked on farms and logged all winter,” Bob said.

“You ain’t never ‘looked’ though, have you?” Hugh said again. “’Cause if you have, you’re no good at it.”

Bob gritted his teeth.

Hugh slapped Bob’s shoulder hard, sending a sting through his arm and into his neck. “Listen to me,” Hugh said. “You got to first introduce yourself. Look ‘em in the eye and say, “I’m Bob White. Glad to meet you, sir.’ Then you tell ‘em straight out. You say, ‘I’m lookin’ for honest work.”

Bob pulled free of Hugh’s lingering hand.

“Okay. It’s fine if you don’t want work,” Hugh said.

“I want work.”

“Then why do you refuse work yesterday and act like a damned ass today? I’d say you’re not wanting very hard.”

“I don’t want to be a logger any more. Or a rafter or a roller or a stacker,” Bob rattled off just in case Hugh didn’t hear in his voice how he felt.

“And here we are in a loggin’ town. Where in hell do you think all this money comes from? Why do you think half this town is here?”

“Half,” Bob said.

“Well if you want to be part of the other half of the town remember where the money comes from. Lumber. And remember whose payin’ you in the long run. Lumbermen.”

Bob felt a few drops of rain land on his arm. He looked up. “It’s going to rain again.”

The two of them walked silently until Bob cleared his head. “Jobs have just been there. I never had to talk my way into one.”

Hugh spit on the ground. “You’re in a new world. Once the floods hit, this town will be totally different. Maybe then someone will drag you off the street and beg you to work, but you won’t have no choice in it, all the best jobs will be filled.”

“I’d like a choice,” Bob said.

“You want me to teach you?”

“I’d appreciate it.”

“Then you do as I say.”

The rain was intermittent and sparse. “We have a little time,” Hugh said. “We’ll pick places you don’t want to work.”

“Why?”

“So you can practice.” Hugh walked Bob through the important interview steps as he saw them. After he tested Bob a few times, they entered a cobbler’s shop. There was no sign for help.

One man stood behind and off to the side of the counter. He pounded a tack into a boot sole. The man looked up. “Be with you,” he said. After several more nails were forced into place, he pulled the boot off the anvil-like fixture it was draped over. He grabbed the boot’s mate and placed the two together on a shelf next to him. “What’s the problem?”

Bob held out his hand. “Name’s Bob White and I’m looking for some honest work.”

The man stared at Bob’s hand. He wiped his hand over his apron, then placed the fingertips of each hand in a pocket along the front of his apron. It looked as though he were scratching his own belly. “Barely enough work for me. You don’t see no sign do you?”

“No, sir,” Bob said. “But when the town fills up, you might need help.”

“When the town fills up I’ll have a full day’s work.” The man nodded. “Thank you for comin’ in. If you ever need yer boots repaired, I’ll be here.”

Bob lowered his hand. “Thank you, sir.” Back on the street, he said, “You make me nervous. Watching and listening from behind.”

“I have to see what you’re doin’ or I can’t help.”

“Well, what the hell was wrong with that?”

“Nothin’ except he didn’t ask no questions.”

“Two more times,” Bob said.

“We’ll see.”

They visited five more places before Hugh let Bob go in alone. They walked up and down the streets looking for help-wanted signs, of which there seemed to be plenty. The first one Bob visited alone – Hugh waited in the drizzle – he was asked to write down his name and where he stayed while in town.

“Be needin’ help soon,” the man said.

Bob felt confident after that even though only about half the places he went into appeared to be interested in hiring him. None needed help right away.

B
ob slept in a room that increasingly smelled like urine as the men decided not to visit the outhouse. The rain continued. The snow melted. The river rose.

He lay on his cot imagining the water screaming down through the creeks and streams and runs. Eyes closed, he watched piles of timber lift from the banks, turn into the flow of liquid, and get propelled down stream, a battering ram so massive and so powerful that it would rip creek-side trees out by their roots. So angry would the spirit of the timber be that men caught having the wrong footing along the banks would be killed. The stories were everywhere. The river gave and took life with equal assurance and disinterest.

Bob loved the river. He loved its power and strength. He loved its fish. What he feared was the wrath of the trees. The floating logs with a mind of their own. He knew that the timber would use the angry and vengeful part of the river, and he wanted to be away from it.

After some weeks spending much of his time indoors, the stench of bodies and excrement even permeated Bob’s clothes. The men became agitated with one another. Bob kept to himself.

He took a short walk down muddy streets and alleys. He sat alone at breakfast. Then he walked to the edge of town and curled next to the trunk of a densely leafed tree where the rain was less likely to soak him. Under the tree, Bob listened to thunder, far off on the other side of the mountain, but coming closer.

Bob did not hear Hugh coming into the woods until branches were pushed aside and a hale of drops fell with the sound of hands clapping. “What are you doing here?”

“Did I interrupt a private party?” Hugh said. He sat near Bob. “I’m sick of smellin’ piss and sweat.”

“There’re just too many people there all the time.” Bob and Hugh both leaned against the trunk of the tree, their legs stretched straight out, pant legs damp, boots muddy.

“You don’t like people much, do you? I notice you don’t talk to no one unless you have to. You don’t engage in no conversation.”

“There isn’t much to say. I don’t know them. I don’t know their families,” Bob said.

“You don’t ask no questions,” Hugh said.

Bob shrugged.

“You got secrets. I know men who got secrets and they stay quiet. They talk a little. They ask questions. They learn about people, but they don’t let too much of themselves out. Only a little.” Hugh fell silent.

Bob listened to the distant thunder.

“You got big secrets. I see it in your face. So can some of the other men. They talkin’ about you. They curious.”

“Let them be curious.”

“Damn, Bob, I’m trying’ to tell you that they get nervous about you. They don’t like it. The more they feel you got secrets the more they don’t trust you. They watch you. They blame you for stealin’. Hell, they blame you for the rain comin’ and the jobs being slow. They’ll blame you when the river drives the lumber to the boom.”

“What can I do?”

Hugh slapped his thigh. “Now you talkin’. You got to open up. You don’t have to tell yer secrets, but you got to be interested in what’s goin’ on.”