A Painted House (Page 49)
We finally made it to the highway, and when we turned toward Black Oak, we left a long trail of mud on the asphalt. Why couldn’t all roads be paved? I asked myself.
Things appeared normal as we drove along. No flattened trees or crops, no debris slung for miles, no gaping holes through the landscape. All the houses seemed to be in order. The fields were empty because the cotton was wet, but other than that, life had not been disturbed.
Standing in the back of the truck, looking over the cab with my father, I strained my eyes for the first glimpse of town. It arrived soon enough. The gin was roaring as usual. God had protected the church. The stores along Main Street were intact. "Thank God," my father said. I was not unhappy to see the buildings untouched, but things could’ve been more interesting.
We weren’t the only curious ones. Traffic was heavy on Main Street, and people crowded the sidewalks. This was unheard of for a Monday. We parked at the church, and once we determined that it had not been hit, I scampered down to Pop and Pearl’s, where the foot traffic appeared to be particularly thick. Mr. Red Fletcher had a group going, and I got there just in time.
According to Mr. Red, who lived west of town, he had known a twister was about to appear because his old beagle was hiding under the kitchen table, a most ominous sign. Taking his cue from his dog, Mr. Red began studying the sky, and before long was not surprised to see it turn black. He heard the twister before he saw it. It dipped down from nowhere, came straight for his farm, and stayed on the ground long enough to flatten two chicken coops and peel the roof off his house. A piece of glass struck his wife and drew blood, so we had a bona fide casualty. Behind me I heard folks whisper excitedly about driving out to the Fletcher place to inspect the destruction.
"A Painted House"
"What’d it look like?" somebody asked.
"Black as coal," Mr. Red said. "Sounded like a freight train."
This was even more exciting because our twisters had been a light gray in color, almost white. His had been black. Apparently, all manner of tornadoes had ravaged our county.
Mrs. Fletcher appeared at his side, her arm heavily bandaged and in a sling, and we couldn’t help but stare. She looked as though she might just pass out on the sidewalk. She displayed her wound and received plenty of attention until Mr. Red realized he’d lost the audience, so he stepped forward and resumed his narrative. He said his tornado left the ground and began hopping about. He jumped in his truck and tried to follow it. He gave it a good chase through a driving hailstorm and almost caught up with it as it circled back.
Mr. Red’s truck was older than Pappy’s. Some of those in the crowd began looking around in disbelief. I wanted one of the adults to ask, "What were you gonna do if you caught it, Red?" Anyway, he said he soon gave up the chase and returned home to see about Mrs. Fletcher. When he had seen it last, his tornado was headed straight for town.
Pappy told me later that Mr. Red Fletcher would tell a lie when the truth sounded better.
There was a lot of lying that afternoon in Black Oak, or perhaps just a lot of exaggerating. Twister stories were told and retold from one end of Main Street to the other. In front of the Co-op, Pappy described what we’d seen, and for the most part he stuck to the facts. The double-twister story carried the moment and had everyone’s attention until Mr. Dutch Lamb stepped forward and claimed to have seen three! His wife verified it, and Pappy went to the truck.
By the time we left town, it was a miracle that hundreds hadn’t been killed.
The last of the clouds were gone by dark, but the heat did not return. We sat on the porch after supper and waited for the Cardinals. The air was clear and light-the first hint of autumn.
Six games were left, three against the Reds and three against the Cubs, all to be played at home at Sportsman’s Park, but with the Dodgers seven games in first place, the season was over. Stan the Man Musial was leading the league in batting and slugging, and he also had more hits and doubles than anybody else. The Cardinals would not win the pennant, but we still had the greatest player in the game. At home after a road trip to Chicago, the boys were happy to be back in St. Louis, according to Harry Caray, who often passed along greetings and gossip as if all the players lived in his house.
Musial hit a single and a triple, and the score was tied at three after nine innings. It was late, but we weren’t tired. The storm had chased us from the fields, and the cool weather was something to be savored. The Spruills were sitting around a fire, talking softly and enjoying a moment without Hank. He often disappeared after supper.
In the bottom of the tenth, Red Schoendienst singled, and when Stan Musial came to the plate, the fans went wild, according to Harry Caray, who, as Pappy said, often watched one game and described another. The attendance was fewer than ten thousand; we could tell the crowd was slim. But Harry was making enough noise for the other twenty thousand. After 148 games, he was just as excited as he’d been on opening day. Musial ripped a double, his third hit of the game, scoring Schoendienst and winning it four to three.
A month earlier we would have celebrated, along with Harry, on the front porch. I would have sprinted around the bases in the yard, sliding into second, just like Stan the Man. Such a dramatic victory would have sent us all to bed happy, though Pappy would still want to fire the manager.
But things were different now. The win meant little; the season was ending with the Cardinals in third place. The front yard had been overwhelmed by the Spruills. Summer was gone.
Pappy turned off the radio with Harry winding down. "There’s no way Baumholtz can catch him," Pappy said. Frankie Baumholtz of the Cubs was six points behind Musial in the race for the hitting title.
My father grunted his agreement. The men had been quieter than usual during the game. The storms and cool weather had struck them like an illness. The seasons were changing, yet nearly one third of the cotton was still out there. We’d had near perfect weather for seven months; surely it was time for a change.
Chapter 21
Autumn lasted less than twenty-four hours. By noon the next day the heat was back, the cotton was dry, the ground was hard, and all those pleasant thoughts about cool days and blowing leaves were forgotten. We had returned to the edge of the river for the second picking. A third one might materialize later in the fall, a "Christmas picking," as it was known, in which the last remnants of cotton were gathered. By then the hill people and the Mexicans would be long gone.
I stayed close to Tally for most of the day and worked hard to keep up with her. She had become aloof for some reason, and I was desperate to learn why. The Spruills were a tense bunch, no more singing or laughing in the fields, very few words spoken among them. Hank came to work mid-morning and began picking at a leisurely pace. The rest of the Spruills seemed to avoid him.
"A Painted House"
Late in the afternoon I dragged myself back to the trailer-for the final time, I hoped. It was an hour before quitting time, and I was looking for my mother. Instead I saw Hank with Bo and Dale at the opposite end of the trailer, waiting in the shade for either Pappy or my father to weigh their cotton. I ducked low in the stalks so they wouldn’t see me and waited for friendlier voices.
Hank was talking loudly, as usual. "I’m tired of pickin’ cotton," he said. "Damned tired of it! So I been thinkin’ about a new job, and I done figured a new way to make money. Lots of it. I’m gonna follow that carnival around, go from town to town, sorta hide in the shadows while ol’ Samson and his woman rake in the cash. I’ll wait till the money piles up; I’ll watch him fling them little sodbusters outta the ring, and then late at night, when he’s good and tired, I’ll jump up outta nowhere, lay down fifty bucks, whip his ass again, and walk away with all his money. If I do it once a week, that’s two thousand dollars a month, twenty-four thousand bucks a year. All cash. Hell, I’ll get rich."