A Solid Quarter

By Jimmie G. von Tungeln

             He was a quiet sort of person but one had the feeling that he didn’t want to be. He didn’t shy away—in fact, he would be the first to edge up to a group and, once there, would enjoy the fellowship as much as anyone. He just didn’t contribute. He was sort of a free-rider in the world of comradeship, one might say. Added to that was the fact that he didn’t stand out. He could slide through most situations unnoticed. In some situations, that could be a real talent.

            As for his appearance, he was stout without being fat and of medium height. He had that look of a person who had grown up on hard work and food cooked with lots of lard which gave him a dark and oily cast with a few signs of a poor complexion. Because of this, he never looked quite clean, but that didn’t cause any problems.

            His name was Dermot and he was from some little shit-hole town in Georgia where the people who were born there hardly ever left and they didn’t allow non-whites to stay after dark. The family trees weren’t particularly bushy and the few boys who were blessed with normal intelligence learned at an early age to hide the fact. Somehow Dermot had escaped the cultural gravity, headed west, and gone as far as physically possible without getting wet. He was one of 40 boys and men between the ages of 17 and 21 who had volunteered for the United States Navy. It was January 1966 and we were all in boot camp in San Diego, California. He was a recruit with a newly-shaved head and his life was changing very rapidly.

            The same could be said for all of us. We had arrived around the same time at the San Diego Airport and had been directed to a holding area outside the terminal and told to wait for a bus. A drunken First Class Bosun’s mate on shore leave wandered by and, taking command, told us to form a big circle on the airport parking lot and hold hands with our bags in front of us. When the bus driver arrived, he laughed and told us we had been had. It was the last time I would ever accept orders without clear proof of authority. But I was younger then. I wasn’t used to such things.

It was a foretaste of things to come. The bus had dropped us off inside the gate of the recruitment center and we lined up on little yellow footprints painted in the asphalt to begin our naval careers. Since that time, no one other than another “boot” in our own company had spoken a kind word to us. Three weeks into a nine-week ordeal, we were still a hive of individuals with no collective identity. That was all about to change, partly because of Dermont.

            He didn’t seem slow, just somehow out of his natural habitat. He would sit quietly and watch whatever was going on as if it was the first time in his life he had ever imagined such a thing could happen. Like most of the men, he had yet to form any individual personality. He marched as well as anyone. He learned to fold his navy-issue clothes correctly, and kept his locker in order. He made his bunk each morning and it always passed inspection. Except for not saying much, he seemed to be one of those recruits who would pass quietly through boot camp without a lot of notice and then disappear below decks for four years, or twenty. Who could tell?

            Since I had some education and was a little more mature, actually, because my voice had fully changed and I was taller than most, they had put me in charge of the other recruits. They called me the Recruit Chief Petty Officer, or RCPO. They even gave me a little miniature CPO emblem to wear. It was my job to round everyone up and see that the barracks was put in order before the Company Commander arrived each morning. It was sort of nice because I didn’t have to stand barracks watch or do some of the really crappy stuff. Of course they constantly threatened to “hold me back” if any of the other 39 fucked up. This was the deal: the company performed above average or I would have to go through the entire nine weeks again. At least that’s what the Company Commander told me and I had no choice but to believe him. The Navy had these time-honored methods of motivating a person.

            Things had evolved into something resembling a pattern when the seas of boot-camp began to heavy-up. One morning, I had gotten the company up, marched it to breakfast and, afterwards, to one of the interminable classes where we learned all sorts of naval lore, like how the navy had won World War Two despite the screw-ups of the other services. We had returned to our barracks and were waiting for the Company Commander to come and give us our daily ass-chewing before going to lunch. It was near the end of Week Two, and we were taking a break for mail call when a short, red-haired recruit named Causey eased up to me and asked if I wanted to know something interesting.

            I didn’t really but since I was sort of getting into this leadership role, I said, “Sure. What is it?”

            “You know that guy Dermont?”

            I more or less knew everyone since that was my job. I resisted stating the obvious, however, and simply nodded.

            “What’s he doing now? Causey asked mysteriously.

            I looked. Dermont was sitting on the steps of the barracks porch looking with awe at the recruits reading their letters from home.

            Could this be a trick question? I checked to make sure Causey wasn’t taking notes. There was a persistent rumor that Naval Intelligence would send youngish looking spies through training on occasion to check on the system and to catch Recruit Chief Petty Officers who weren’t sufficiently patriotic. Seeing nothing untoward, I ventured an answer.

            “Resting?” That seemed like a safe bet.

            Causey wasn’t going to let me off that easily. “What’s everbody else doing?”  He folded his arms on his chest and waited.

            I looked again. “Looks like every damned one of them is reading a letter,” I said. I hoped for an end to the questioning for I had a couple of letters to read myself.

            “But not Dermont,” Causey said with an air of finality.

            “No,” I said. “You are absolutely correct. No mail for Dermont today.”

            “He never gets any.” Causey said, beginning to get on my nerves.

            “What do you mean, ‘he never gets any,’” I asked.

            “As far as I and the other men can tell, he hasn’t gotten on piece of mail since we’ve been in Boot Camp.”

            “Really?” I said.

            “Not one. Not a letter, a package, a post card, or newspaper. Nothing.”

            “Maybe he doesn’t have a family.”

            “Nope. Heard him say myself he has a mother, a daddy and a sister and a brother. His daddy works at a sawmill. His brother and two uncles do too.”

            I watched Dermont. He started cleaning dust from his boondockers, those awful brogans we had to wear through Boot Camp, ones we had to shine until we could see the cracks between our teeth in the reflection.

            I started to ask if he got along with his family but Causey interrupted.

            “He’s the first one,” he said.

            “The first one what?”

            “First one in his family that can read or write,” Causey said. “He ain’t got nobody that can write him a letter. Just thought you might want to know.”

            I was depressed enough about owing this outfit, this grand and glorious United States Navy, four years of my life without this extra burden, no matter how trivial. But still—I silently cursed Lyndon Baines Johnson, Robert McNamara, and Ho Chi Mien—I didn’t have to go through it unconnected.

            I thought no more about it for the moment but I noticed things. When the mail arrived, Dermont would invariably make his way to the head. He wouldn’t emerge until the mail had been distributed and then he would take a seat near a man who was busy reading some piece. He would appear so interested in the other’s reading that it was hard to tell he didn’t have mail himself. On more than one occasion, I observed him accept a hometown newspaper from another recruit and start reading it as if he had owned it all along. I also noticed that he read slowly and his lips moved with every word. I should have sensed that trouble was brewing.

            At the third week of Boot Camp, the Navy slowed us down for an evaluation. This consisted of competition in marching and drilling followed by a written examination on what we had been learning in our classes. The Navy assumed a serious attitude about the ability of its sailors to know the rudiments of ship safety, rigging, fire control and general survival. So they gave us a book called The Blue Jacket’s Manual and pretty much expected us to know it along with a bunch of nautical terms and customs, such as going up and forward on the starboard side of a ship and down and aft on the port. They said that kind of shit was important in an emergency. So was discipline. They also had sort of this obsession with saluting officers.

            Now our company was pretty good with the discipline part as regards marching and all that. In fact, we were some marching and close-order drill “machines.” The Navy was becoming more and more integrated in its enlisted ranks by then and it didn’t hurt that we had a large contingent of “brothers” with a great deal of respect rhythm and such. We placed them in the more visible positions. Also, I had outstanding recruit squad leaders and a real asshole recruit Master-at-Arms named Chauncey who kept the barracks ship-shape. So at the halfway mark of the evaluation week, we had secured first place among the sister companies in our brigade. All sorts of people came by to brag on us and to promise us if we continued to excel we would win the coveted Brigade Flag which would allow us to go to the head of the chow line three times a day and to have a day off with a free movie. We would be tight-rigged and close-hauled, as the Navy would put it.

            Then we took the written exam.

            We had some bright spots. A few of the fellows had a year or so of college and a couple of those were good readers. We had a few in the middle, several below, and then we had Dermont.

            Lip-reading just wasn’t getting the job done. The way they gave the exam back then was to get everyone in a big classroom and flash multiple-choice questions on a screen in the front of the room. Everyone had the same amount of time to read the question and then all had to mark an answer at once and we went to the next slide together. Some of our boys, particularly Dermont, simply couldn’t read the questions fast enough. My ballast shifted slightly when they sent word by another company commander that our company had come in last and that Dermont had made the lowest score in the brigade on the written exam. I braced for the aftermath, readied for a major squall.

You see, the United States Navy can reverse the Law of Gravity at times and shit can truly flow uphill.

I was deep in worry about the test results the next morning when the Company Commander sent for me. He was a First Class Machinist’s Mate with Dolphins who had been shit-canned from the submarine service long enough to take a couple of companies through boot camp. He wasn’t happy about this. Being a true “Bubblehead,” he hated fresh air and surface sailors in equal portion. Now he had seen the results of the written exam. Having been mentally keelhauled above the ocean’s surface, he was double-mad. I could tell this after I had respectfully requested permission to enter his office and had been answered with “Get your fucking ass in here.”

It was going to be “gunnels awash.”

“RCPO,” he began, and I knew I was in trouble. He was that formal only when he was pissed. “RCPO,” he said it again and sort of let it drag out this time. He employed a fake southern drawl since he knew that I was from the south and that I knew he wasn’t. He continued.

            “You know that you won’t be an RCPO,” and he drawled it out even more this time. “When you go through Boot Camp the second time.”

            “I won’t?” I said. Then I caught myself. “Sir, of course not, Sir.”

            “In fact, I’ll see to it that you are in the “retard company.”

            “Sir, yes Sir” When the shit hits the fan, act the role of a “lifer.” That’s one of those navy regulations that doesn’t have a number.

            “What’s the answer, R – C – P - O? Mr. Recruit… Chief…Petty…Officer?”

            He was beginning to get on my nerves.

            “Sir, the Recruit does not know the question, Sir.”

            “Bullfuckinshit!” He roared it. I know the rest of the company was listening. I retreated.

            “Sir, is the Company Commander referring to the recruit exams, Sir?”

            “I can see to it that you go through this shit at least three times and that your four years don’t start until I say you have completed basic training, you fender-headed son of a bitch.” He leaned back in his chair.

            For a second, I felt complimented. Terms like “fender-head” were generally reserved for real sailors and considered too salty for mere recruits. He quickly disabused me of such thoughts.

            “Get the fuck out of my sight,” he said.

            I did as he requested and as I wandered through the barracks to the porch, I remember thinking that it had gone pretty well. At least I wasn’t on my knees scrubbing a toilet with my only toothbrush. It paid to be the Company Commander’s favorite.

            I sat on the porch steps and tried to collect my thoughts. Then who should wonder up and sit down next to me but Dermont?

            “Sir,” he began.

            “Don’t call me Sir,” I said. “I’m a goddam recruit just like you. I stopped at that. I knew that he felt miserable and that next he would start apologizing. I knew he felt badly for letting his shipmates down and wanted to beg for absolution. I didn’t want to make it any harder for him. I would let him grovel and promise to do better and then we could go to work on it. But first, he had to get the shame out of his system. I mentally prepared for it. That’s what leadership is all about.

            “Do you have a solid quarter?” he asked.

            “A solid quarter? I slammed the brakes on my imagination and descended from Leadership Central. “What the hell are you talking about?”

            “I need a solid quarter, “he said. “I have two nickels, a dime, and five pennies. I’ll trade them to you for a solid quarter.” He leaned back and waited.

            Now I knew what a “solid quarter” was but I had never, in my life, heard a white person use the term. “What in god’s name do you need with a solid quarter?”

            He looked at me for a moment as if wanting to say it wasn’t any of my business. I looked back and expressed resolve. That’s what leaders do. He looked off and told me.

            “I’ve pulled the mid-watch over by the mess hall.” He waited to see if he could get away with that. Sensing my continued resolve he added, “There’s a “geedunk” machine there and I can sneak a candy bar but it only takes a solid quarter.”

            When I didn’t respond, he sighed and turned his face away. “I shore would like one of them candy bars,” he said.

            “You mean one goddam candy bar costs a quarter?”

            “Almond Joys. There’s really two candy bars in there and that machine only takes a solid quarter. You can have the right amount of money and still not be able to get one.”

            Curiosity suddenly overtook me. “Dermont,” I said. “Why did you join the Navy?”

            He looked around as if he thought someone else might be listening. Then he looked at me as though I had asked him why he breathed.

            “Have you ever been to Cumming, Georgia?”

“Nope,” I said, although I got his point immediately. “But what motivated you to join the Navy of all things? I see you as this Marine sort of guy.”

            “Really? Well, I seen this picture show.”

            “A picture show?”

            “Yep. My cousin made me take her to see it. As soon as I saw it, I knew that the Navy was the one for me.”

“What picture show for chrissakes?”

“It was about these three sailors.”

            Getting information from Dermont wasn’t proving to be the easiest thing in the world. “Three sailors,” I said. “What did these three sailors do that made you want to join the Navy so bad?” Then I guessed. “Did they win the war or something?”

            “Nope.”

            “What then?”

            “They went to New York.”

            “New York?”

            “Well, their ship went to New York and they all three went ashore together. You ever been to New York?”

            “No,” I said. This was getting a little weird. “That’s all? They just went ashore in New York?”

            “That looked like some kind of place, New York did.”

            “I hear it is.”

            “They even went to a museum. You ever been to a museum before?”

            “A few times,” I said. “So you want to go to a museum?”

            “When I get to New York. Sure. You want to know what else? They met some girls.”

            “There would be some of those there too,” I said. “In addition to the museums.”

            “I just couldn’t get over thinkin’ that you could get paid for doing stuff like going to New York.” His voice evoked a great deal of satisfaction.

            Now, normally I would be the last person in the world to muddy up such a picture, but I blurted it out without thinking. “You do know that New York is on the east coast and we are on the west coast, don’t you?”

            “Oh, I know all about that. They was supposed to send us to boot camp closer to the east coast.” He leaned back. “They sent us here instead.” He said it as if I might not be aware of the fact.

            “So now you may spend your entire four years in WESTPAC and never get near New York,” I said.

            He leaned forward. “In that case, couldn’t I just save my money and go there on my own when I get out?”

            How could anyone address such logic? I changed the subject. “Wasn’t there a lot of singing and dancing in that movie?”

            “Yeah, but I didn’t pay it no mind. I just thought about New York. I still do.”

            I mulled this over. Then my natural leadership skills came to the fore. You can deal with a highly motivated man. “Tell you what,” I said.

            “Sir?” he answered.

            “Don’t call me Sir,” I said. “Tell you what, I’ll trade you the change for a solid quarter and you promise me two things.”

            “Two things?”

            “Two things. First, you don’t tell anyone about it if you get caught at the geedunk machine.”

            He nodded.

            “Second—and this is real important—we’re going to do better on the next exam, right?”

            “I reckon.”

            “Reckon hell!” I wasn’t going to stand for any of his north Georgia bullshit. “The sooner we get out of boot camp, the closer you are to New York. We’re going to do better, aren’t we?”

            “Yes Sir, we are,

            “Don’t call me Sir,” I said and I got up to retrieve a quarter from my locker.

            In the barracks, I handed him a shiny new coin that I had been saving for cigarettes and he handed me his odd assortment of change. “Enjoy your candy bar but understand it’s your ass if you get caught.”

            “If you have another quarter, I’ll get you one too,” he said.

            “You’re beginning to get on my nerves.”

            “Yes sir,” he said and was gone.

            I don’t guess he got caught for they would have awakened me and made me stand the rest of his watch if he had. I forgot about it and set about the task of raising the test scores for our final exams, a few short eternities away.

            First, I talked it over with the recruit chief petty officers. There were others that needed to do better as well, but Dermont was the real test. I mean last place? Chauncey wanted to make him stand under a cold shower while we thought up test questions and yelled them at him.

            “That makes a person concentrate,” he said. He said it with some authority since he had spent three years in military school. “It truly focuses your mind.” A couple of the others even agreed that it might be worth a try.

            Still, it didn’t seem quite right to me. He was a boot just like we were and though we had some degree of control over what went on in off-hours, I couldn’t see that we had the right to do anything like that.

            In the end, I put him and five others on extra study time although that didn’t amount to much. The Navy doesn’t really believe in spare time. I think it goes back to the old days and the fear of mutinies that could be hatched by idle minds. In the limited time we did have, I had some questions put on paper and we would flash them in front of the six of them and see how fast they could respond.

            Nothing worked. We found that a person reads as fast as a person reads and there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot we could do about it. We did discover that it wasn’t stupidity. All six of the “extra help” boys could answer with some regularity if they had that few additional seconds to read the question. We kept trying. And they did try, especially Dermont. They words simply wouldn’t come any faster. I forced myself to accept the fact that going through boot camp twice, maybe even three times, might not be so bad.

            In some other areas, things were coming together. I was losing weight, what with the stress. I smoked too much but then I didn’t have to do all the heavy exercise the others did. Also, we boasted a couple of real stars in the company. One, a bright, blue-eyed, and gentle lad named Lawson, would ultimately be our Honorman. He was from Iowa and was in the Navy for the GI Bill. He had no dad and his mother was a waitress, he told us. The military provided his only hope for a good education. He said he was going to be a doctor and would prepare for that by going to Navy Corpsman School. I found out later that he bought the farm at Khe San and if you ask me, the world missed out on a fine physician.

            The other was an ebony-black youth from Atlanta named Armley. He was our color-bearer and the United States Navy never had a better one. I feel certain that he is in a boardroom somewhere today.

In short, the company represented a sample of the best, the near-best, the could-be’s, and some assorted characters. But even our characters were even better than the rest. For example, there was a runty little fellow named Caskins from west Texas. He swore that his sister had been in a Playboy Magazine spread called, “The Girls From Texas” and was forever trying to obtain a copy of the issue to show us. I finally saw one a year or two later. There was no girl named Caskins in it but I imagine they all use fake names. I surely hope one was his sister. Everyone deserves the right to be proud of something.

            Anyway, it was interesting to watch a collection of individuals start to form a unit. We survived firefighting school with soot in every orifice that took several days to get out. We completed weapons training without shooting one another. We passed our swimming and water survival tests with only a couple of near drownings. We even learned to moor a ship, a landlocked vessel christened the U.S.S. Recruit but known lovingly to generations of Naval heroes as the “U.S.S Neversail."

The company pulled its week of mess cooking although I was exempted, along with the other recruit petty officers, ostensibly so we could prepare for the final weeks of training. Mostly we screwed around and tried to figure out a way to ace the exams. Nothing came to mind.

We knew we were getting close to graduation when a fellow called “F-stop Willie” came by with and ancient Rolleiflex Camera and took a bunch of photographs of the boys acting happy to be in boot camp. It was for a book called The Anchor that they would give us when we graduated. The Company Commander wouldn’t let me in any of the pictures though. I think that he had been ragged about the test scores that day by the other company commanders. Anyway, he came back to the barracks with his battle flag hoisted and throwing a shit-hemorrhage fit. He said I didn’t deserve to get my goddam picture taken so I sat across from the Barracks and smoked one Camel after another while the boys ran through their poses. Not long after that, I started passing up breakfast.

            One of the better recruit petty officers, a fellow from South Carolina named Clark began to hold extra lunch-break sessions to tutor the slower recruits. Some of the others chipped in to help them with some minor tasks like shining their boondockers so they could spend the extra time studying. It was turning into a group effort but I couldn’t really see that much progress.

            Other than the shit-storm when the photographer was there, the Company Commander pretty much left me alone except for a few snotty comments, like the time he casually asked me if I might want to put in for Boot Camp at the Great Lakes Naval Station near Chicago my second time around. I told him we were working very hard on the matter. This whole Boot Camp thing was really getting on my nerves.

            Time passed and we were only days from the final evaluations. I was having trouble with heartburn and was barely eating. As I wasted away, Dermont flourished with all the attention. He had, by now, become sort of a company mascot. His skin had completely cleared and he could flash a smile like a Filipino whore. Although he was on my nerves constantly, I couldn’t help feeling a little happy for him. Other than that, I just braced for the heavy seas just over the horizon.

            As I walked through the barracks one night, I couldn’t help but being struck by all the activity aimed at one goal, getting out. There were recruits “spit-shining” boondockers, cleaning their WWI vintage Springfield Rifles used for marching, and folding their clothes just so they met the standard of being folded ‘The Navy Way.” And of courses the “extra-help” boys were being tutored. I sat done at one of the tables that ran the length of the barracks. Chauncey was seated on the other side.

            “They’re not going to make it,” he said. “We should have beat it into them.”

            “They’ll make it,’ I said. Who the hell was I kidding?

            “I had a cousin who had to,” he said.

            “Had to what?”

            “Had to go through boot camp twice. I think they can make you do it if they want to.”

            “Bullshit.” In my weakened state, I knew I didn’t sound convincing. Everyone was aware by now that my rigging was loose.

            “At least they give you all the milk you want to drink,” Chauncey said, referring to a line from a recruiting pamphlet we had all seen before.

            “Fuck you,” I said. I wandered to the porch and smoked until they played taps. Now if you have never heard Taps played late at night on a military base, just know that it can reach in and tear the guts right out of the strongest of men. Imaging what it could do with someone whose anchor was dragging the way mine was. I wandered to my bunk and spent a fitful night alternating between staring at the ceiling and dreaming of being stuck in boot camp until I was a withered old man of thirty.

My mother always told me that the darkest part of night came just before dawn. I started believing that in Navy Boot Camp. It happened this way.

On the evening of the day before test time, a squad leader named Olson and I were returning from muster. It had taken a fraction of the time it normally did. The other recruits wouldn’t expect us back for a good while. Olson was one of those people who understood situations of a cosmic nature. I am sure he was trying cheer me up for he suggested that we sneak up and see what the company did when we weren’t there. I was sick with worry and anything was worth getting my mind off the exams. Maybe we could catch them lollygagging and raise a little hell. That always made me feel better, for a little while at least.

Recruits had either to run or march anytime they left the barracks area. Since there weren’t enough of us to march, Olson and I jogged as far as the barracks compound then stopped to catch our breath. We each sneaked a cigarette and plotted our strategy. We eased by to the parade ground and split up, approaching our barracks from opposite sides. We quietly eased around the end of the barracks and peeked through the back door, staying in the dark so they couldn’t see us but we could see them. It worked.

What we saw was as weird as it was inexplicable.

            There was Armley at the far end of the barrack with about ten of the smartest recruits, facing him. The rest of the company circled behind them facing Armley as well.

            ‘Now,” Armley said quietly, making a sign to the group in front that the rest of the company couldn’t see.

            Immediately, five heads cocked to one side. “Number!” Armley said.

            “One,” said the group in the rear, with Dermont barking it out first.

            “Now,” Armey said, giving another hidden signal.

            The row of heads cocked to the opposite side.

            “Three,” the rear group stated in unison.

            This was repeated a number of times until they had it down perfectly and we had it figured out. Each position of the head reflected a specific number, up to four.

            After that, they reviewed the names of the ones on the front row and made sure everyone recognized them by the back of their heads. Then Armley asked for questions.

            Dermont’s hand went up. “What if one of them don’t know the answer?”

            Armely thought for a moment but before he could speak, one of the recruits blurted out. “He could just move his head back and forth real slow and we’ll know to watch the others.”

            Armley looked at the rest of the company. Several nodded in agreement.

            “Fuckin’ A,” he said. “Now how about lining up?”

            “Bell-cows to the front,” said a big rawboned recruit from Arkansas named Holliman.

            “Right,” said Armly. The rest file in behind them and try to get a good view of these guys if you think you need help.”

            “We gonna tell the RCPO about all this?” someone asked.

            Lawson was in the front row with the good test-takers. He stood up and looked at Armley and Armley nodded. Lawson slowly turned to face the group. He looked toward the hallway to make sure no one was coming. “Let’s leave the RCPO out of this. He’s got enough burdens on him right now.” The recruits nodded in unison.

            “He’s got to get us out of this place,” Dermont said. “The whole company… I mean through graduation and mustering out and all. They’s a lot of other details he has to attend to.” The recruits nodded again.

            Olson and I backed away and looked at one another in awe. We kept backing farther into the darkness. I couldn’t see his face but I knew he was laughing. I wasn’t.

            We finally backed far enough away that we were in the light of the next barracks. I was right. He was smiling like it was his first night ashore at Subic Bay.

            In the barracks, the session broke up and bodies spilled onto the porch. We started to walk toward our shipmates. I still couldn’t speak. Olson, on the other hand, had somewhat of a flair for the dramatic.

            “Where will America ever find men like this again?” he said.

            “I don’t know I,” I said. “But godammit am I hungry.”

 THE SECOND COMING

III

               "Dammit, I thought you was shot," said Clifton.

                "No, I think he just got scared and pulled the trigger."

                "I don't blame him," said Clifton as he watched the light in the sky. "I don't like the looks of this at all."

                "Neither do I," I said. "Do you really think it's the end of the world?"

                "Could be," he said. "Got to happen sometime. Let's head down to the Church."

                "That ‘age of accountability thing,’" I asked, "Are you sure about that?"

                "Oh yeah," he said. "Besides, we never done nothin'. Don't reckon they can get you for just plannin' to do something can they?"

                "Heck, I don't know," I said. “They can tell what you’re thinking can’t...”

                "Dang, look at the people!"  Clifton interrupted. Sure enough, with a full moon out now you could see pretty clearly. There was a file of people ahead, and every time we passed a house, another family would emerge from the front door and join the throng. They seemed to be in a trance of some kind. They walked stiff legged, like they were walking in their sleep maybe. Nobody said much and everyone just looked straight ahead except for the kids, who were taking everything in.

I began to recognize so many shapes on the road up in front of us that I guessed the whole county was turning out, white and black alike. They were all in the same group. Nobody said anything. They still just looked straight ahead.

 We stayed behind the line so we could see. We eventually got to the Centerville crossroads. At this point, the black families peeled off to the right towards their church. As they reformed, I could hear them beginning to sing. Then I could hear a shout or two. It seemed to me at the time that they almost sounded happy. Clifton and I stopped to allow the stragglers to get ahead of us. I glanced around, sort of hoping it had gone.

It was still there – if anything it was even closer.

                "Maybe it is the end of the world," I said.

                "Look at Grandma and Grandaddy!" said Clifton, pointing at Uncle T. J. and Aunt Hallie who were in a crowd about twenty feet in front of us and visible now in the.  "They still got their nightclothes on!"

                Sure enough, both were dressed like they were ready to step right into bed. We surmised that they, like everyone else had been surprised by the spectacle in the sky and, assuming the worst, had rushed out without bothering to change. As we began to recognize more of our friends and relatives, we marked a variety of dress as if the end of the world had truly caught everyone unprepared.

                "Let's hang back, I got to figure this out," said Clifton. We sat down under a tree. Then he looked at me like there was some the answer to some long-hidden problem surfacing in his mind. "By the way, who was that man come to meet Gehaw?"

                "You wouldn't believe it if I told you," I said.

                "God almighty, look a yonder!"  Clifton said, pointing to the shy where the light had appeared again, this time making a beeline for the crowd of travelers who filled the road. There was a mixed chorus of screams, halleluiah’s, prayers and singing as some dove for the ditches on either side, some grabbed one another, and some just fell to their knees to wait for the worst.

                Clifton and I just stood back behind the rest, taking in the scene.  I guess we felt a little secure because of our age. Or maybe we relaxed in the knowledge that the most important sin of our lives to this point had been curtailed before it really got under way. But I also think maybe there was a slight flash of understanding, some hint of familiarity in the movement of the light that the others, occupied as they were with the prospect of such an imminent and lasting judgment, missed. We each guessed it at the same time.

Clifton grinned. Nobody else seemed to have noticed.

"This is going to be good," he said.  "Let's get to the Church and get a good seat for it."

                "All right," I said, and we set out across the open cotton fields.

                When we got there, we didn't go inside. Instead, we went to the dark side of the building and found a good strong limb in an oak tree. From there we could see almost the whole inside. The windows were open, so we wouldn't miss a word. This was going to be some show all right.

By the time we got settled, the Church was half full and people were still streaming in. Preacher Hargraves was already in the pulpit, his face flushed red like it did when he got filled with the Spirit. His wife, Preacher's Gracie, was pounding the piano like it was the devil itself. She was one of the fattest women in the county and watching her bouncing around on that piano seat sent Clifton into a spell of laughing that I just knew was going to get us caught.

“Shut up,” I said. He just laughed harder.

                "Fall down and repent!" Preacher was saying, and several people took him right at his word. They fell right down in front of the pulpit. A couple of them began to shake and jerk uncontrollably.

This seemed to satisfy the preacher, so he continued.

"I have seen the light of salvation in the eastern sky." 

                "Gloree!" someone shouted from the pews.

                "Praise his name brother!" Preacher said.

                "Oh Lord, have mercy," said another, "I been a bad sinner and I ain't ready."

                "He hears you Brother.” Preacher was getting warmed up now.

“Who's next?"

                "Been a liar," said another.

                "Oh Lord I've stole from my neighbor."

                "Pray to Him brother"

                "Lord I'm a drunkard."

                I recognized that voice. Before I could get a good look, I heard another just as familiar.

                "Lord I just got done lyin' to you that my husband was sick when he was dead drunk instead,"

I could see the two of them, Mamma and Papa kneeling near the back with Uncle T.J. and Aunt Hallie who had just come in. I couldn't hear the rest of what they said on account of Clifton was laughing so hard.

                "Stop it," I said.  "They're going to come out here and get us."

                "I can't help it," said Clifton who had tears streaming down both cheeks and snot starting out of his nose he was laughing so hard. I wouldn't look at him now for every time I did he busted out all over again. Then I would get the giggles.  Inside they were heating up so that we could just hear snatches.

                "Stole a hog!"

                "Adultery!"

                "I ain't been to Church....."

                I can’t quite describe it. Clifton was limp by now. He laid back against the limb and just watched, sort of like he was daydreaming. The noises and the music reminded me of a carnival. Maybe like when you stand beside a carousel and watch the people glide by to the music. It all began to flow together.

                Then we heard another voice we recognized, this one clear and strong above the rest to the point where the other voices stopped and even Clifton sat up. 

                "I thank I kilt my daughter tonight."

                It got real quiet. There was no sound but for the insects.

                But Preacher didn’t seem to want things to calm down. He took over again before things got too quiet and addressed old man Ratliff from the pulpit.

"Ain't nobody gonna die ever again, brother." He added quickly, "Help me pray for this man!"

                Then the din started up again and we couldn't hear any single voice, just the crying, singing, praying and shouting of a hundred voices seeking salvation in that delta night. It was if the earth had opened and the sins of the earth were being poured out of that little country church.

Clifton and I just sat back in amazement, knowing that we would never see anything like this again. 

                "Is he in there?" Clifton whispered over to me.

                I didn’t say anything. I guess I didn’t have to. I guess it was just the way I was watching him and laughing.

                "You're lyin," he said, but when he looked and saw I wasn't I could tell that he was as shocked as I had been although being older than I was and all, he didn't shock as easily.

                "I'll be damned," he said.

That seemed to end it for him.  "You reckon we ought to stop them?"

                "Guess somebody ought to so's they can go home,"

We slid off our perch and walked around to the door of the Church. Actually, they had begun to wear down a little themselves, having gone at it for nearly an hour. They heard us open the door and, all at one time, looked around at us. Here stood two young boys instead of the heavenly hosts that they had expected so earnestly. You could see surprise as if it had been painted on their faces.

The noise had died away like a summer storm does when it moves off into the east.  Even Preacher's Gracie quit playing the piano. She just leaned over against it and you could hear her breathing real heavy above everything else.

The preacher was the only one who seemed to want to keep it going after we walked in.

                "You boys better get in here and pray," he said. "Ain't you seen the Lord on his way here?"

                "Where?" said Clifton from the back of the room.

                "In the sky, boy. Ain't you seed it?"

                "I seen a buzzard with a fire tied to its leg," said Clifton.  "That's all I saw."

                "A what?" said a voice in the crowd.

                "A buzzard," said Clifton. He looked toward the pulpit. "If you can't tell the difference between a buzzard and the Lord coming, you ain't much of a preacher."

                "Oh lord.  Hush Clifton," said Aunt Hallie.

                There was this funny sound like everyone in the room drew a quick breath at once.  They stared at us like they expected us to bust into flames. I expected them to start up again with us at the center of things.

                Then I think the truth must have pierced that room for I heard Uncle T.J. "You hush woman. By God I thank the boy's right."

                The room got quiet again.

                "I thought there was something funny about it myself," said a voice I didn't recognize."

                "Are ya'll goin to listen to a couple of sneakin' kids over a man of God?" Preacher was pleading now but he knew it was over, too. Then I heard Papa.

                "I wanna go home and go to bed, Mamma."

                “Sure you do,” she said quietly. “Let’s get on back to the house.

                We moved away from the door as she and Papa walked out. She didn’t say anything to me but gave me a look that said plenty. The main thing it said was to never mention this again. I watched them disappear into the night. She had her arm around Papa and was leading him home like he was her son instead of her husband.

                Then it all began to break up.  It was pretty plain that no one wanted to talk to anyone else, didn't want to see anyone else really - just wanted to get out of there and without once raising their eyes to meet anyone else's. Preacher eased toward the back door with his Gracie behind him. Clifton and I faded back into the darkness and waited in the hope that something else of a lively nature might occur. But it was all over.

                Everyone has realized by now that it wasn't the second coming that they saw in the southern sky that night but just a coal-oil soaked rag set fire and tied to a buzzard's leg by, as it turned out, Fish Johnson who thought it was wondrously funny until they almost sent him to the penitentiary over it.  We all walked home a little thoughtful, though, having been forced by the events to confront our own personal sins, or, in the case of Clifton and me, our intended sins.

                As I said at first, nobody ever mentioned it much. I never talked about it at all as long as Mama and Papa were alive. He, by the way, never touched whiskey again. Preacher disappeared the next day. He left Gracie and she taught piano lessons for a while and then disappeared herself. The harrow handle that Gehaw ran into when the shotgun went off was, we found out later, bent over even with the ground and people used to walk by the house just to look at it.  She wasn't dead at all but was all right after a few days and back with the mules.

Of course we never did see her take a bath, or even want to, really, after that night. We never mentioned it again. I never even told Clifton what her real name was, not that he would have had any interest.

                Clifton and I had more escapades but I never saw him with as much spirit. In fact, I think he sort of lowered his sights after that. It was as if he knew he had been part of something big, maybe even bigger than Hog Eye Bend itself for that matter. We might find it dangerous to try to top it.

                I've thought about Clifton a thousand times, I guess, particularly as he looked that night going home, his hands stuck in the pockets of his overalls and his feet shuffling along and the dust of the delta rising in the full moon's light behind him to form a diamond-like mist that seemed to want to hang there so it, too, could glory in the moment.  It was a grand one for him and I'm glad he had it before the Japs got him.

 

 THE SECOND COMING

II

                I arrived at Uncle T.J.'s house on time. Clifton was ready. I don’t think that I would have been disappointed if he had thought up an alternative adventure. But he was as determined as ever and we were soon on our way. We told his grandparents that we were going to check our trotlines. I don’t think they even heard us. They were sitting on the front porch, Aunt Hallie snapping green beans and Uncle T.H. reading the Bible. Neither of them looked up. We backed off the porch and across the yard, quietly. Then we simply evaporated, headed for the bayou.

Clifton was giving the directions and I was following as best I could. I was, at the same time, plotting an escape route in the event that old man Ratliff became involved. I didn't mention this to Clifton, of course, for it was his strong belief that if you even thought of an unlucky possibility it was more likely than not to happen. Planning for any sort of mishap, would, in his way of looking at it, invite that very disaster, so why bother?

                "Lucky for us they live on the edge of the bayou," Clifton explained as we crossed the Ratliff's field. "We'll act like that's where we're headed and then we'll just move up in the cover of the woods when the sun starts going down."

                "Sounds good." I tried to sound older than I was.

                "You ain't told nobody, have you?'

                "Who would I tell - Mama and Papa?"

                "Something like this, well you just got to keep it to yourself," Clifton said with a wise nod. "No use letting it get around."

                "You're right," I agreed and fought away the image of old man Ratliff's knife.

We decided to sit for a time on the bank of the bayou to wait for the sun to go down. It was quiet and peaceful there. The shade felt good and there was a soft summer breeze drifting through. We had a few moments - time to ponder the greater mysteries of life.

                "Clifton?"

                "What."

                "Why do men want to?"

                "Want to what?"

                "You know," I struggled for the words.  "See nekkid women."

                "Just something to do," said Clifton.  "Just for fun, like us I reckon. Why else would they want to?"

                "That's what I wondered, myself," and I noticed that the woods were getting darker. "Think it's nearly time?"

                "Purty near," he replied and I felt something inside me tremble like it was cold but I knew it couldn't be in August.

                "Clifton?"

                "What."

                "Do you reckon we'd go to hell for this?"

                "We ain't old enough. You got to get to what they call the ‘age of accountability’ for it to count that hard agin’ you."  He paused for a minute as he chewed on a twig.  "I reckon we're safe from about anything for a couple of more years. Except maybe killin' or something."

                "Oh," I said. I hoped that the relief didn't show through in my voice.

                "So I guess we'd better get going," he said.

                "Yep, I guess we'd better," I said.

                We were able to stay well hidden by hanging close to the edge of the bayou, it being so low that time of year.  We got due south of the Ratliff place just as it got dusky dark for we could make out the two oak trees that stood by the house place. As we began to ease our way up the bank toward a vantage spot, Clifton whispered his final instructions.

                "No more talkin'. Find yourself a low tree limb to sit in and enjoy the show. I"ll whistle like a Bob White two times when it's time to go. Okay?"

                "Okay," I whispered, thankful that I didn't have to muster enough spit to talk out loud.

                "You won't forget this night," Clifton said, and disappeared into the darkness.

                He didn’t have to tell me that. I eased forward toward where I thought the house was and immediately decided to amend Clifton's plan. I wasn't going to climb any tree and risk getting caught there by a Ratliff. No thank you. I'd take my chances on foot even if it meant getting in closer.

                I took each step slowly, easing through the foliage as I had been taught to when hunting, not making a sound, even when walking on dry leaves, the way they said Indians could do. I parted each vine carefully, half expecting some trap to spring, set by a Ratliff as a precaution against...  well against people like me.

All around me the night voices of lowland insects had erupted with the end of the last light and I had never heard them enjoin so loudly. Surely they were alerting the household to the presence of strangers. I stopped, swallowed as best I could, and eased forward again. Never in my life, I imagined, would I ever be as alone as I was now.

                "Surely I'm almost there," I was thinking when the area directly in front of me exploded in light. I froze in my steps. A sharp, electric surge raced across the back of my tongue and I could almost see the front of my overalls bounce with every beat of my heart which I knew could be heard for half a mile. I couldn’t, of course, see my hair but I was sure it was standing straight up. This was it. This was what life had come to for a ten-year-old boy who would never see another adventure, who in fact was destined to die before his first was really underway good. I froze and waited.

                Then I realized that I was still in the shadow of the woods and that, at least yet, nothing was coming for me. As I watched, with blood screeching through my head with every heartbeat, the scene formed before me.

                The light was coming from a lantern which had been swinging from an arm and which now was being set on a barrel. The light framed a clearing about fifty feet across with the Ratliff's chicken house on the back side and the woods on the other three. In the center of the light was Geehaw Ratliff. Her head was framed in its glow and the scene brought back a memory of something I had seen before. But I was too scared to remember what. A picture of something I had seen. What was it?

Then I remembered. In the Bible, the pictures of the Virgin Mary always looked like that. With her head framed in light and all. The Wise Men would be looking at her and the Baby Jesus and the light would glow all around them like this. But this wasn’t the Virgin Mary and the Baby Jesus. It was Gehaw Ratliff and I was not a wise man I felt, just a common sinner, watching something I had no business watching.

She had all her clothes on but there was a number three washtub in front of the barrel and I could see that the tub was full of water. It had no doubt been set out earlier to warm in the sun. As for me, I was completely hidden in the dark, but another step or two would have had me walking into the clearing just as Gehaw did.

                So it seemed that for now I was safe. Gehaw went about her business without looking our way so I guessed that Clifton was safe as well and had a good view. Gradually, my heart stopped pounding and I felt as normal as a person could have felt under those circumstances, I suppose.  Actually if you had known the truth, there were a lot of places where I would rather have been, but I was here so I determined to take her in for all it was worth.

                As my presence of mind returned, I noticed that Gehaw didn't seem in any hurry to take a bath. In fact, she seemed a little nervous and kept looking toward the far corner of the chicken house. I was puzzled. If she was going to take a bath I wished that she would get it over with so I could find Clifton and get the hell out of there.

                Then I saw what she was looking for. There was someone else that had come to take part in this Saturday night ritual, a guest that was surely more welcome than the two of us. He was standing in the shadows at the edge of the building but I could make out who it was and I tell you I was shocked to the bottom of my feet, more shocked still when Gehaw walked over to him like she had been waiting for him all of her life, and shocked further when she took him by the hands and spoke to him so softly that I couldn't hear.

I was so shocked, in fact, that I didn't notice old man Ratliff come around the opposite corner.

             "Come out from around there," he yelled and I turned to see him clearly in the light.

I guess, now that I think about it, it was just a regular shotgun. But in that pale light, with the bugs beginning to swirl around it, things took on a bizarre look and the gun sure looked bigger. It looked more like a cannon, I thought, and it wasn’t even aimed at me.

"I got you now," Mr. Ratliff said. He sounded like a man on a hunt that had just trapped a coon in a tree.

“Hot damn boys, I got him now!” I half expected him to say something like that.

                Gehaw didn't say a word, just flattened herself against the building like maybe she could get so that her Papa couldn't see her. 

                "Girl git to the house," he said and motioned that way with the gun. Then he addressed the still hidden figure again.  "I told you once to get around here you son of a bitch. I got a shotgun."

                The other man never moved. I was the only one who could see them both and I could tell that he wanted to run but maybe he didn't know exactly where Mr. Ratliff was or whether there might be some more Ratliffs waiting where he wanted to run. Mr. Ratliff started toward that end of the chicken house.

It was when he was about halfway there that Gehaw let out a scream that curled my toes and that was when we first saw it. We must have all seen it right about the time that she screamed, for I heard the man behind the chicken house yell "Oh my God!" Gehaw was still screaming and even Mr. Ratliff stopped to look.

The shotgun went off.

                Let me tell you, it was confusing for a couple of seconds.  Old man Ratliff must have fired the gun off accidentally when he saw the thing in the sky and when that happened, the other man just disappeared. In fact, there seemed to be movement everywhere.

The spray from the gun hit the roof of the chicken house right over Gehaw's head and shingles flew every which way. She bolted and ran right by me out into the edge of the field and ran smack into a section harrow. The handle was sticking up and she hit it with a thud that made me sick to my stomach. She screamed again but just kept running out of the light and into the cotton field.

                "Come back daughter," old man Ratliff yelled but it was no use. She was gone. He didn't stay long either. He took one more look into the sky, threw down the shotgun and ran for the house screaming, "Mamma get the boys, the world's coming to an end and I done kilt Caroline!"

                “Caroline?” So that was her name. Of all the shocking things going on before me, I remember being most interested in the fact that Gehaw had a real name.

                Then I heard the woods coming alive to my right and in a second I heard Clifton holler, "Bobby, you all right?"

                "Yeah," I hollered back. "I'm right over here."

                Clifton materialized in a second and, after assuring himself that I hadn't been shot, pointed to the sky.  "What in the hell is that?"

                What we were looking was described by a lot of people in a lot of different ways, but I can tell you what it looked like to me, and, if Clifton were here, he would probably tell you the same thing. It was a great ball of fire off to the east and it was moving in mysterious loops looking to the whole world like a fiery host descending toward us ever so deliberately.

                There are those who say it wrote out various messages but don’t believe that. It was just moving back and forth across the sky like it was trying to decide exactly where it wanted to land. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you it was a frightening spectacle.

                "Let's get the hell out from here," said Clifton. I couldn't have been more in agreement.

                We didn't have to take the route back through the woods.  We could hear the whole Ratliff family already heading out to the road, all of them yelling for Gehaw. Clifton and I just skirted the edge of the field until we hit the road and then we started down it like we had been there all along.

  

 

THE SECOND COMING

Part One

By Jimmie von Tungeln

                                                                                                

Now the reason that I got involved in this in the first place was because of my second cousin Clifton who was two years older than me. And the reason I don't mind talking about it when there are so many people who for all those years didn't mention it hardly at all and if they did they almost always said it didn't happen the way someone heard it did and even then usually lied and said they weren't there, is because I don't owe anyone in Hog Eye Bend, Arkansas one blessed thing. The only one I would have protected anyway was Clifton who got killed in the Second World War though they wouldn't take him at first because he couldn't pass the IQ test.

                Mama was to say later that it turned out Clifton was just smart enough to get himself killed but that's not the way I looked at it. I sort of idolized him, him being older and everything, and I felt he had a good mind. It took a good mind to stand out in those days. And Clifton stood out as far as I was concerned.

                “Fun is where you find it,” – Clifton used to say, and I agreed. “Fun is just about better’n  anything’” he  would add. “It keeps us from bein’ mules or such.”  I mean, does that sound like the philosophy of a person who couldn't have passed an IQ test if he had wanted to? Really wanted to?

                Anyway, fun was what we were looking for and it was fun that brought us to where we ended up, which brought us to have a front row seat at the most exciting thing to ever happen in or about our little settlement, and which revealed so many things about so many people. You could say that it was part of the folklore of the Arkansas delta, even if it was recorded by two boys scarcely old enough to realize what was happening, much less old enough to attach much meaning to it.

                I was ten at the time, and Clifton was twelve, he being twenty-one when they hit Pearl Harbor and not living long past that. It was in August when the crops were laid by, that being another reason why so many people got involved. Had it had happened any other time of the year, most people would have been in bed and would never had even known about it.

                "I got it all figured out," Clifton announced one day, no warning, just out of the wild-blue. Just like that.

                "What?"

                "You know anything about girls?"

                "What?"

                "You know!"

                "Oh yeah," I lied.

                "Ever see one nekkid?"

                "Oh my God!  Who?"

                "You won't believe it."

                "Who?"

                "Geehaw."

                "Gehaw?"

                "Geehaw."

                "Why would anyone want to see that?"

                "Cause she's a girl, stupid!"

                "Oh."

                Until that moment, I had never thought of Gehaw as a girl, or as anything else for that matter.  I didn't even know her name except that her last name was Ratliff and she was one of the Ratliff's from south of Pine Bluff - the means ones - the ones that Papa said married one another. I hadn't even heard her talk except to her Daddy's mules which she drove from sunup until sundown every day and all she said to them was "Gee" and "Haw." Of course that's where she got that name.  She was about eighteen, I suppose, real tall and real skinny as I remember.

                "You kiddin'?" I asked.

                "I got it all figured out."

                "What?"

                "How'd you like to watch her take a bath tonight?"

                I tell you I was stunned by the prospect of an escapade of such magnitude. Clifton sensed it. I could tell by the way he looked at me.

                "Take a bath?"

                "That's right!"

                "How do you know she does?"

                "Hell, everybody takes a bath."

                "I mean how do you know she will tonight?"

                "She does every Saturday night, right before dark. Fish Johnson told me and Chester's Gracie told him.

                Now I wouldn't bank a whole lot on what Fish Johnson said but Chester's Gracie was about as reliable a person as you found in Hog Eye Bend. She shared that common first name with a bunch of other girls about her same age as a result of the Lady Evangelist Gracie Throughgood who had held a week long meeting in Kingsland about twenty years earlier. She must have made quite an impression on the local people, for almost any girl born the next three years was named Gracie. Since they were mostly related, there was considerable confusion until they started getting married at which time they took their husband's first name as an identifier. We had, in addition to Chester's Gracie: Newt's Gracie, Jesse's Gracie, Neddo's Gracie, and Ed's Gracie just on our road alone. And my Grandmother, who was given the name half a century before this all happened, was called “Papa's Gracie” the last few decades of her life.

                Anyway, I never thought at the time about how Chester's Gracie might have come by this information because I was considerably troubled by Clifton's plan. I knew from past adventures that he tended to underestimate both the degree of difficulty as well as the time required for execution. "First you got to get started and then you jest play 'er as she goes," was his tactical battle plan for most undertakings. And his plans tended to get larger and more complicated as we got older.

This one presented a pretty good step up, even for Clifton.

                "You mean we just slip up and watch her?" I asked. 

                "As easy as that," he said and he got that blank look on his face like he did when he was thinking. He hadn’t said so yet but I knew we were off on an adventure.

                Now this discussion took place on Saturday about noon and we were supposed to embark about an hour before dark. Normally, this would have been simple since Clifton and I stayed with Uncle T.J. and Aunt Hallie, his grandparents, most of the summer. But, as I said, the crops had been laid by and Papa used this time of year to make whiskey and that was a problem. 

                The making of the whiskey wasn't the problem as much as the testing of it, a job which Papa trusted to no one else and which often rendered him unpredictable by Saturday night. Once he made a particularly bad batch and became convinced that the "White Russians" were coming after us, whoever they were. That night we all huddled in a corner while he sat in a chair in the living room with a deer rifle across his knee, waiting for the attack.

                "I'll shoot the goddam monkeys," he kept saying all night while Mama kept up a steady line of prayer. It turned out later that he didn’t even have bullets in the gun. That would have been lucky for any intruders, I suppose.

                That was when I began staying with Clifton whenever I could. You never knew when whiskey and imagination might collaborate to create a new enemy for Papa. That might, of course, keep me at home and I sure didn't want that to happen tonight.

Thinking back on it, I don't think it was so much to get to see Geehaw take a bath as it was for the honor of being asked to by a man much older and wiser man than I. That has moved more men than me to stranger adventures, I’d be willing to bet.

                "What happens afterwards?"  I assumed a logical continuity.

                "Nothin’”. We may tell Fish but we may not. He talks too much."

                "What happens if we get caught?"

                Clifton looked at me as serious as death and drew an imaginary knife across his throat.  "Old man Ratliff would kill us I reckon."  Then he looked at me suspiciously. "You in this with me?"

                "Sure," I said and in the saying of it I felt the metallic taste of the knife blade. I had always taken it for granted that, if I were to be killed, it would during some great brave act, like protecting my family for instance … say from an onslaught of White Russians. Only my respect for Clifton could have forced me to face such a sacrifice as the price of watching Gehaw Ratliff take a bath.

                But I was game and this adventure was as good as underway.

                My fears were realized. Papa had tied one on by the time I came home, but luckily for me he had sailed right past belligerence and was nearing a state of bewilderment as Mama tore into him. I could hear them when I reached the front yard.

"You low down sorry outfit."

Silence

“You ain't fit to live!"

                Finally a response: "Shut up for Christ's sake," Papa was struggling to keep his balance. He kept reaching for the garden fence and every time he did he grabbed a handful of blackberry vines.

                “Damn it to godalmighty hell,” he yelled.

                "Blasphemer!" Mamma shouted.

                "Yes, goddammit!" Papa countered, "Now get out of here and leave me alone." I had walked up and noticed the green cast to his skin. "I don't feel good," he said weakly. He tried to look past Mamma to me.

                "No wonder," Mama shouted right into his face.  "You been swillin' rotgut whiskey all day and now git ready for the Lord's turn." Then she looked around at me. "Bobby you get over here and help me pray."

                "I was going over to Uncle T. J's," I said.

                "You get your hind-end over here and pray." Mama said. Then she dropped to one knee.

                "All of you leave me alone - just get away!" Papa shouted. Then his jaw went slack. "I'm gonna be sick," he announced, not to any particular person. He just announced it like it was of some importance to the world at large.

                "You get out of my sight then," Mama said although she needn't have bothered, for Papa had already lurched around the corner of the house. Then she turned to me. "I hope you're satisfied."

                "Me?"

                "You should look after him. You know how sorry he is."

                Papa was making awful noises. Sort of like the gurgling sound that a hog makes when it's stuck, I thought, only much louder and with a lot more thrashing around. I didn't want to draw attention from him so I played it contrite. "I ain't done nothin'."

                "Hush," Mamma said, to my relief. She was listening for Papa, who wasn't making any noise at all now. I looked at her and I could see real concern in her face.

                "You think he passed out?" I asked.

                "You shut your little smart mouth!" Mamma said. I had forgotten that criticizing Papa was a privilege that she reserved for herself.  "He may have died for all you know.  A man that works all day and all week for you and who don't ask nothin, who ain't never done nothin' but smell the backside of a mule all his life and ain't got a nickel to his name for it because he spends it to keep you fed and who you ain't never once offered to help, even once when his back was bent over and breakin', not once, just always off with Clifton doin' God knows what."

                She could have gone on like this for hour or so if she had wanted to. I've seen her. But Papa had walked up so quietly that we hadn't noticed. He stood by the back door and he looked worse than before.

                "I think maybe you had better pray after all," he said softly, his eyes meeting Mamma's.

                "Halleluiah!" she said and forgot all about me.

                It was settled then, I was cleared for action. I changed shirts; that's the only thing I could thing of that might add dignity to the affair.  It was true that the shirt I changed to was exactly like the one I discarded, and that my dress was the same overalls and blue shirt that every young boy in the county wore, but I felt that the impending activities required some sort of special attention, no matter how modest.

                I stopped by a window before I left to make sure that Mamma and Papa were going to be occupied for awhile, and, sure enough, they were going at it in earnest.  Mamma had Papa on his knees with his head in both hands and tears were streaming down her face, which was, of course, raised toward the Savior.

                "Lord, look at this poor drunk sinner." she began.

                "Wait!" Papa cried. "Wait just a goddam minute!"

                "A blasphemer and a drunkard," Mamma expanded.

                "Wait," Papa said again and he tried to rise but Mamma had him in salvation's grip. He simply rolled over on his back.

                "You be still, "Mamma said, and she raised her face once more toward heaven. "Lord, this drunk sinner needs forgiven. I wouldn’t do it if it was me, but you’re a better person, I think."

                This time Papa prevailed. "Don't tell Him I're drunk, dammit, tell Him I're sick!"

                "I can't lie to the Lord," Mamma said, and she raised Papa's head up until his eyes met hers. "I won't lie to the Lord, even for you."

                "Just tell him I're sick, then, that part's the truth. Just don't mention the drunk part."

                "I can't Homer, not even for you."

                "Oh please just this once. Who’ll know?"

                I listened to them go on like this for a few minutes and I guess you could say that Papa finally got his way, for as I left for Clifton's house I could hear Mamma's voice drifting out over the cotton fields. It was sort of musical, like some misty plea for mankind itself.  "Help this poor sick sinner, Lord.  He ain't worth a ten cent bucket of lard, but could you help him please?  He ain't much, but he's sick and he's all we got."

                I skedaddled before Papa got his strength back.