THE ROOTS THAT CLUTCH

By Jimmie von Tungeln

This day showed promise. Sheila knew it when she saw a pair of turtle doves courting in a tree before she started to school. Their soft cooing caught her attention and she stopped to watch the male nuzzle the female in the morning fog. She watched quietly as their heads bobbed in ancient ritual. In the mist the two appeared as a single gray organism, joined in an almost musical rhythm. Sheila bobbed her own head, smiled once and then sailed a rock into them. It caught one squarely in the chest—the first direct hit of her life.

"Be damned," she said as she watched feathers drift to the ground, following the body in a slow, orbiting motion.

"Why'd you want to do that?" Robert asked. He jumped a ditch bordering a cotton field, swinging a rusty lard bucket that carried a small lunch for him and Sheila. “Doves is in The Bible."

            "Don't care," his sister said. "I'll kill 'em ever by god chanct I get."

"That don't hardly seem right," Robert said. Then his attention was caught by a blur on a far away county road. It was an automobile and he stopped to stare.

"Model A, I'll bet,” He said. “Ford Motor Company."

“Who cares?" was Sheila's answer as she scanned the fencerow for birds, a well balanced rock in hand. Straining, she failed to see the Hinson boys approaching.

           "Ya'll ain't pickin' cotton today?" asked Timmy, the older of the two as they joined the others. He also carried a worn and much dented lard bucket, hanging at his side like a burden of the world thrust upon the young.

           "Mamma said cotton still ain't opened up on account of the rain. So she said we might as well go to school. Papa may hire some hands to help us." Then she said "I kilt a bird."

           "You ain't never," said Roland, the younger. "Girls can't hit no bird, can they Robert?'

           "She oughten not to have done it but she did," Robert said and then asked "Know what makes an automobile run?”

           "Motor, I reckon." said Timmy with caution, looking at Robert sideways. "Ain't that right?"

           "It's internal combustion. That's what does it. They say that someday we'll all have one. Everybody in the world will have one...their own car to go places in. Can you picture that?"

           “Golly snot," said Roland, He was struggling with that image. He had trouble seeing himself even riding in a motor car, much less driving one. He looked to Sheila for validation but, seeing none, turned back to Robert.

           "Could I ride one to your house any time I wanted to?

           "Heck, you could drive it to Little Rock," said Robert.

           "Golly snot," said Roland.

           "I ain't havin'one," said Sheila. The conversation had strayed too far from her, a situation that she began to correct the way a person might direct a stray calf back into a herd. "My husband will have a buggy with a fine red mare to match my hair. He'll take me anywhere I tell him to, even Little Rock." 

           "But them cars will pass you right up," said Timmy absentmindedly, immediately regretting it as Sheila twirled upon him with the fury of one of those storms that descend sharp and wild, from time to time, upon the helpless delta. She was thin, but two inches taller than the boy and she swelled above him.

           "Well I wouldn't by-god worry about it if I was you!"

           "No, no I won't," Timmy said, and he dropped several steps behind the group.

           They walked in silence for awhile, the Hinsons hoping for Sheila's wrath to subside while Robert contemplated the mysteries of the internal combustion engine.

           Finally he looked up. "I'm sure gonna have me one."

           "You're a real dope," said Sheila.

           Robert didn't respond. He felt the cough coming and he needed his energy. He had spotted something on the edge of the ditch and was forcing himself to keep from looking at it directly. He turned to Timmie and asked him to hold the lunch bucket.

           "A dope like you couldn't ever afford a pair of mules, much less an automobile", Sheila said, hoping for continuity.

           "Look what I found", said Robert. He had leaped into the tall grass suddenly and claimed his prize: a long length of chain dropped from a wagon or bounced from a truck and laying unmissed by its owner.

           "I saw it first," cried Sheila. "Give it here."

           "We'll use it for the bridge," said Robert, ignoring Sheila. "This is what we need." Then he began to cough.

           "That's what you get," said Sheila. "You know you ain't supposed to get excited."

           Robert didn't answered and the coughs came deeper from his lungs as he struggled to stand erect.

           "Golly Robert, you sound worse than ever," said Roland.

           "I'm okay," Robert said as he knelt on one knee next to his new belonging and wheezed, fighting the pain. Finally catching his breath, he added, "Let's hurry and get to the bayou. We got time to make some progress today."

            “A brand new chain,” said Roland. “Golly snot.”

           "I'm gonna bust you up if you say that again," said Sheila.

           The four of them started off down the road.

           There were two routes leading to school, each leading through fields that today drooped with unopened bolls of cotton needing to be picked but waiting as the rains persevered day after day. Today a soft grey mist covered the fields and the world seemed mysterious and unchanging as the four moved through it. Soon they would be at the turning off place.

The main road to the school passed the small farms that covered the delta like the squares on a giant quilt. It served as a collector for the minor roads, paths, and finally trails that connected each farm with the world. It, itself, connected to the state road on which, it was said, a person could go all the way to Memphis.

The school was a simple white building sited on a small patch stolen from the corner of a cotton field. It sat just beyond a bridge that crossed a wide bayou in a low spot too wet for farming. The road made a wide arc toward the bridge whose builders had sought the narrowest crossing.

           The other way ran straight on a tangent to the old road led directly to the school across a wide stretch of bayou. It could only serve in the dry months since it crossed a bayou too deep to be forded during wet weather. Created by the impatience of youth, it was hardly more than a path. It was said that the children favored it more for the adventure of the crossing than for the short distance it saved.

           The two paths diverged just past the home of Fate Johnson and as the four came near, Sheila attacked.

           "You ain't speaking to them people today are you?"

           "I might," said Robert.

           "I'll tell; you know what Mama said. Why you want to anyway?"

           "They ain't hurtin' anybody, they just like to wave at us, that's all."

           "They's black and it ain't right. They don't know us."

            “You may not know them but I do.” 

“I told Mama that you ate their food. She said for you not to and for you not to be talkin' to them."

"They ain't hurtin' anybody, they just want to be friendly."

"Somebody told me they just got married," said Timmy.

"That's crazy", said Sheila, "They's colored."

"They get married too", said Timmy, defensively.

"But not like everybody else, do they?" asked Roland.

"No, they do every thing different from us", Sheila said, silencing Roland with a glare so severe that he felt its force hot upon his face. He stumbled to the rear and walked quietly.

Robert stared ahead, thinking of how, with the addition of the chain, they could complete a bridge across the bayou.

"I didn't know they got married like white people do," said Roland. "Do they really, Robert?"

"Shut up," Robert said.

            He walked for some time and then he realized that Timmy Hinson was walking beside him. Sheila and Roland walked a few yards ahead. Tommy kicked a dirt clod into the ditch and looked at Robert. He held the chain in his hand and it dragged behind them in the muddy road.

            “Do you really know them people?” he asked.

            “I reckon I do.”

            “How?”

            “That man’s daddy used to work for mine sometimes. I didn’t know him until one day he yelled at me when I was riding our mare by here.

"Mamma says you keep hangin' out with coloreds, you start actin' like one," Sheila yelled back.

            Robert ignored her and continued. “What he wanted me to do was let him milk our mare. He said that a mare’s milk could cure a baby of the whooping cough and that his little brother was about to die of it. I didn’t see any harm that could come to it and he looked like he was about to cry. So I let him. I can’t see no harm in helpin’ anyone if you can.”

            “Golly snot,” Timmy said. “I never heard of such in my life.”

            “Anyway, he was thankful. He said the baby would be fine now, and that it would be my baby from here on. I just told him not to tell my daddy I let him. You know what?”

            “What?” Timmy asked.

            “It worked. He told me later,” he said and walked a little farther. “A real mystery… knowin’ that could come in handy some day.”

            “Is that why him and his wife do it?”

            “Do what?”

            “Run out on the porch and wave every time you come by?”

            “No, I just think they get lonesome.”

            Robert looked up in time to see Sheila walking back towards them.

            "They're waitin' on you and you better not talk to them today. And don't eat nothin' they offer you. We got food."

"Shut up," Robert said again. "Timmy, when we get to the bayou, we'll tie this chain to that big log and we can all four pull it down to the water. That'll finish the bridge."

"Don't you look at them Robert. If they got a biscuit, you don't eat it. You just keep walkin'."

Robert wanted to stop and speak but as he reached the corner of their fence, his breath failed and he felt the coughing coming again. From the corner of his eye, he saw the young couple sitting on their porch as always, the man waiting for the wagon that would take him to the field if the rains stopped and the woman waiting with him to wave at the children.

Walking without surrendering to the cough took the last measure of Robert's effort. He took each step with a resolution that exacted full payment in effort and he stared ahead. He could think of nothing but the pain and effort of breathing.

Sheila watched from the corner of her eye, her strength and determination ready. When Robert stumbled, she darted but he regained his footing and concentrated his entire consciousness on holding the chain.

The young couple held hands and waited, smiling and eager.

Only this morning there would be no greeting. There would be no chance to offer their gift. The boy stared straight ahead as he walked by, dragging a chain and gasping for breath. He tossed a hand at them but just barely, weakly. The girl walked backward in front, waiting to grab the chain if he faltered or turned to look at the couple. She stared at them victoriously, and the two younger boys followed obediently behind. They were gone quickly.

"I'll be," the husband said. Then he stood up, turned, and walked through the dark door of the house, leaving his wife alone on the porch as the soft rain began falling again over the fields.

"You all right?" Timmy asked.

"I'll be fine, just leave me alone."

"Last one to the bayou's a nigger baby," said Sheila, and she starting running, first along the road and then veering along the path that led to the trees that bordered the water. Roland started after her and then Timmy, who first checked to see if Robert was coming. Robert continued to walk, dragging the chain and struggling to breathe. The rain framed a curtain before him and he walked through it into the woods.

The place was quiet and seemed of another place and time to Robert. Giant oak trees towered above the lesser vegetation. Even in the middle of summer it would be a dark, sunless place and never quite dry. The forest floor was smooth with the tracks of millennia buried beneath its mud. It seemed as if he had entered a large, dark building. It was a mysterious place, suitable only for gathering, communing, and, today, planning.

When he reached the edge of the water, the others were gone. They had followed one on the many paths, some made by animals, and others by people, that followed the edge of the bayou. They were looking for wood - logs, limbs, pieces of broken lumber - that they could use to finish the bridge.

Robert sat on the stump of an ancient cedar and coiled the chain at his feet. He watched the flow of water and knew that it was higher, and faster, than before. He watched eddies as they sucked and whirled in the coffee brown water and he knew the flow was unstoppable.

The spot where he sat, the spot where they had chosen to work, had once been a large grove but the bayou had shifted over the years and now ran in a narrow course between the spreading trees. It was the right place to build a bridge, he was thinking, even though the water was too high today. He began to sing – aloud, but just barely and to himself, as the waters rolled by.

           "On the Jerico road....there's room for just two,

           "No more and no less....just Jesus and you."

           Roland had returned and was standing behind Robert now, waiting and watching as if he didn't quite belong in what was going on. Finally, hearing the others coming, he spoke.

           "How long we got to work today?'

           "Robert finished a verse and then replied, "Prolly half and hour. We'll have time to go back around the other way if we start when we hear the first bell sound."

           "We won’t finish today?"

           "No, not today, water's too high," and he started to sing again.

           "Oh brother to you ... this message I bring

           "Though hope may be gone ... he'll cause you to sing.

           "At Jesus' command ... sin's shackles will fall.

           "On the Jerico road ... will you answer his call?"

           "Shut up that goddam singing," Sheila was shouting as she and Timmy returned from upstream. "Let's get this stupid bridge built so I don't have to walk so far .... how much time we got?"

           "Not much," said Robert. "You find any wood?"

           "You dang sure didn't," she screamed, and then addressing the group "We don't need any more wood."

           "Why?" asked Timmy.

           "I figured out a new way since we found the chain."

           "Robert found the chain," said Roland.

           "It's half mine and I know how to finish the bridge with it," said Sheila. "You piss ants gonna help or not?"

           Robert still sat on the cedar stump with his feet resting on the coiled chain.

           "We'll finish next week," he said. "Water's too high today."

           "We'll wrap the chain around this tree here and tie the other end to that one there", said Sheila. "Then we'll push it over and it'll fall upstream. That'll stop the water 'til we finish," and she leaned against a tall, full, cedar whose roots were so damaged from erosion that it leaned far out over the stream.

           "Golly snot," said Roland, "That might work."

           "Damn right it'll work. Now let's get busy." Sheila turned toward Robert and waited.

           "We'll build it like we planned...water's too high today," Robert said and as he said it, he felt something terrible begin deep in his body and move toward his chest.

           Sheila took a step toward him. "You don't even have to help, just give me the chain and you can watch us."

           "We'll build it like we…," Robert started, but he never finished. The sickness sprang into his lungs and turned his world into a red nightmare. He dropped from the stump onto his knees through the redness saw the chain snake toward Sheila's hand and then knew it was in her hand and following her like an obedient child. Then he could see nothing but the redness and feel nothing but pain.

           When the coughing stopped, he was still weak, but managed to stand, and then to sit on the stump. He watched, wanting to speak but not able. In his mind spun the secret formulas and vectors that defined the danger but when he tried to distill, to coalesce, the thoughts into words they swirled and become part of the mist that rose from the spinning brown waters of the bayou.

           He watched helplessly as Timmy and Roland secured both ends of the chain and he forced damp air into his lungs desperately while Sheila directed the boys.

           "Goddamit hurry up!" she yelled as she began to push against the leaning tree as if her energy would complete in that moment the process that erosion had been working for years. She hurled herself against the tree again and again as Timmy and Roland completed the securing of the chain. "Help me", she screamed and the boys ran over to join the frantic assault.

           "That tree won't fall", Robert started to say but before he had finished, Sheila conceived another plan.

           "Timmy, get your ass up that tree."

           "What?"

           "You get up the tree and we'll push from here. When it starts to give, slide down and we'll catch you."

           "Why me?'

           "You're the heaviest, stupid."

           "I ain't gonna."

           "Yes, by God, you're gonna!" and with this she shoved him backwards into the muddy bank where he sat looking, alternatively, at her and Robert, waiting for the decision that he knew he deserved, knew was waiting, and knew that he feared in the very depths of his heart.

           "Don't", came softly from Robert, not spoken as much as aspirated into the mist where it lay without force or power.

           "You heard me damn it", said Sheila and the words flashed within the grove like the hiss and crackle of lightening.

           Timmy stood slowly and walked toward the tree.

           "You’re one of the saints now, brother," said Sheila proudly. "You just get it started and watch out!"

           "Timmy, don't", said Robert as the other boy inched his way up the tree.

           Sheila twirled upon him. "Shut the hell up!" Then she turned and joined Roland as they began to push against the base of the tree.

           "Roll Jordan roll", she began to yell as she pushed and then Roland joined her.

           "Roll Jordan roll," they yelled.

           "Roll Jordan roll."

           "Roll Jordan roll."

           Robert stood up now and walked toward them. He was only a few feet away when he heard the crack of the roots giving way and the sound of Timmy’s screaming.

           "Hold on Timmy", Robert yelled and as time slowed he formed the arc of the tree in his mind and calculated its destination. As the tree fell, he spun in a half circle and ran obliquely to its base, past the horrified faces of Sheila and Roland and then into the sliding waters of the bayou as the tree, and Timmy, hit the water at once in an brown liquid explosion of water, tree, and boy.

           Timmy sank completely beneath the water as the tree crashed in a wild boil, but then Robert saw him surface as the trunk of the tree sprang back straight. Timmy held to the very end of the branches as if taking some ride. His hair was plastered on his forehead and Robert noticed bubbles forming around his nose. By some miracle, Robert thought, his head stayed just above water.

           "Don't move," Robert yelled and began to slide his way further into the water which was becoming more turbulent as it sped into the tree. Just beyond his reach he could see Timmy and it seemed to Robert that his eyes were bulging so they might pop from his face.

           "Hold on, I'm almost there." To Robert's great relief, the bed of the stream did not fall steeply at this spot, and he was soon able to grab the boy's hand and begin to work him toward the bank.

           "The chain held," said Sheila as Robert and Timmy reached the edge of the bayou. "Roland, help your brother out of the water."

           "Golly snot", said Roland.

           "Just shut up, the both of you," said Robert as he and Timmy walked up the bank. The bank was wet and slippery and the younger boy stumbled several times as Robert helped him forward. Timmy was numb and he stared straight ahead as if led by some light that the others didn't see.

           "I didn't wanna," he said, "She made me," and for the first time his fear found expression and he began to cry, the tears marking a trail on his face through the brown mud of the bayou. "She made me do it Robert. I didn't wanna."

           "It's okay," said Robert, leading him farther away from the other two. "Don't let them see you cry," and he and the other walked out of the darkness of the woods back towards the main road.

           "It's time for school to start," shouted Sheila from behind them. "Where ya'll goin'?"

           Neither Robert nor Timmy answered. He removed his coat, wet nearly to the chest, and covered the younger as they started home.

           Sheila's screaming became fainter and more distant with each step. "By God you tell 'em he fell in. You'll be sorry if you don't." Robert heard Sheila but neither he nor Timmy acknowledged her commands. "Me and Roland are goin' on - you mind what I said." Then they couldn't hear her anymore.

           They walked back slowly, the two of them. The soft rain fell again upon the fields of cotton rotting for lack of sun and the fields lay damp and dying in the dullness of the delta. They passed Fate Johnson's house again but this time there would be neither smile nor wave. Those were gone now and so were the plans for a bridge across the bayou. Soon they would be home and they expected heat and dry clothes there. But for now the cold settled into them like a vapor. The trip seemed endless.

           The younger boy still cried softly. As he walked he looked at Robert through his tears as if a veil had been pierced in the fall and the crash and he mourned that he could not make it never have happened.

           "I didn't wanna, she made me."

           "I know," said Robert. "You go ahead and cry because of it if you want to," and he put his arm around Timmy's shoulder. In the direction of the Hinson home he saw a thin slice of blue sky emerge from the clouds. As they walked, he began to sing:

           "On the Jerico Road,

           "There's room for just two,

           "No more and no less

           "Just Jesus and you."