A Southern Place (21 page)

The Cecil Medders farm, still owned by the family but not worked since Cecil’s death two years ago, sat still and unattended on Clear Lake Road. At the courthouse, Cal learned that the farm was nearly sixty acres, but also contained three family homes where Cecil’s children still resided. Jack Hudson’s farm was also owned by descendants, each of them living somewhere else and hoping to sell the 200 acres to any bidder they could find. The Hammontree place, fifty-two acres with a nice cotton allotment, had skirted foreclosure for nearly a decade, living from harvest to harvest with second and third mortgages, yet the family swore the land would remain theirs. This part Calvin understood completely.

On a warm spring Monday, Cal dressed in his best khakis, a dress shirt, and the only tie he owned, heading out for the appointment he’d set up with the loan officer at the Dumas County Bank. He took with him the deeds to his house and land, his truck title, and his checking and savings records from the same bank.

All the tellers greeted him with smiles—his former high school typing teacher, the wife of the Oakland overseer, the white haired Miss Overby who’d worked there as long as he could remember and probably before. A thin man with slicked back hair, wearing a blue jacket with a gold tag branding him “R. Hugh Harlon, Loan Officer” ushered him into a small room in the back.

The meeting was short; Mr. Harlon stepped out to make copies of Cal’s papers, then returned with a handful of carbon-backed forms for him to take home, fill out, and return. Cal had prepared, even practiced, what he’d wanted to explain about his situation, but the loan officer seemed uninterested in anything he had to say; handing Cal a plastic folder for his sheath of documents, he extended his hand and dismissed him.

“We’ll look over your assets and let you know if anything can be worked out,” Mr. Harlon said, ushering Cal out the door. The smiling women were all engaged in their work, not one of them looking up as Cal walked through the lobby office and out into the street.

Chapter 14: May 1959

Phil

Phil had adjusted to life as a working man, yet no one particularly noticed. Strangely, the driving from town to town, which both he and his father had assumed would be his preference in duties, grew monotonous, whereas work on the farm was more pleasant as time went on.

Despite Phil’s deficiencies with the written word, he flourished in hands-on activities, and his memory for day-to-day agricultural life was like a sponge; he never forgot anything and easily linked prior knowledge like a seasoned farmer. Sometimes, as he watched the long rows ahead of him from the seat of the tractor, Phil imagined talking with his father, discussing long-range plans for the farm, and witnessing Dad’s shock to realize his son was not incapable of complex thought.

He cut down on his drinking, made healthier eating choices, and went to bed at a decent hour. At night, he dreamed of the forthcoming father-son bond as he fell asleep in the study with a single glass of wine for company. For the first time in many years, his confidence was growing again. He would talk to his father. The day would come that he’d no longer be seen as the family fool; he just needed time for it all to unfold.

Phil planned to ask about working at the farm full time. He could make his father proud. He would gain his father’s trust, build a better relationship, and make it work, as soon as the time was right. It was his one long-term goal that never changed.

It was a gorgeous April afternoon; the slight breeze and the smell of rich, freshly turned earth made early pre-plant harrowing a job every farmer loved. While daydreaming of nothing in particular, Phil noticed a large, unfamiliar vehicle parked at the end of field, just inside the gate. Pulling closer, he recognized the bow-tied, silver-haired gentleman he’d come to know as his father’s attorney step out of the car, walking to the end of the row Phil was harrowing. The man brushed off his seersucker suit, then removed his hat, which he held in his hands in front of him. Phil stopped several feet before the end of the row, turned off his tractor, and climbed down to meet him.

“Mr. Moorhead,” Phil said, extending his hand to the older man. “What brings you out today?” Phil had seen Robert Moorhead in various settings with his father for most of his life, but he couldn’t imagine why he drove his shiny Chrysler into an unplanted field, alone.

“Call me Robert, son. You’re not a little boy anymore,” he said as his trembling hand grasped Phil’s warm, soil-dusted one. “I’m afraid I’m the bearer of sad news.” There were red lines in his eyes and dark circles beneath. His bottom lip quivered as he slowly spoke.

The smell that had been fragrant just minutes ago soured, turning Phil’s stomach queasy and his mouth dry.

“You know your father left for Little Rock today,” he said. Phil nodded as if he knew this, though if he’d been told, he didn’t remember it. His father rarely kept him abreast of his travels.

“He boarded his flight in Albany at seven-twenty this morning, and caught another flight in Atlanta that would have him there late this afternoon.”

Stop,
Phil thought.
Just stop.
I may be slow but I’m not stupid. Why else would Mr. Moorhead be here?

“Unfortunately,” the older man continued, “your father never made it to Little Rock. Son, today’s Pan Am flight to Little Rock went down in flames on the outskirts of Tunica, Mississippi. There were no survivors.”

Phil looked up at the Easter egg sky, the cottony clouds, the too-bright sun. How could a day so picturesque bring such horror? How could he be here, waxing philosophical on the cosmic beauty of nature while his father burned to death in the same sky? He had been imagining some great homecoming when Daddy would be proud of him, while Phillip Foster III drew his last breath.

Phil did not scream, or cry, or bow his head, as a good son would do. As the overpowering smell of nature mixed with the stabbing pain in his gut, Phil fell to his knees in the fresh-plowed soil, replenishing the earth with the contents of his stomach.

Not knowing what to do, Mr. Moorhead looked in the other direction. When it seemed that Phil had no more bile to spew forth, he stepped closer and patted the young man on his shoulder, inducing an outburst of sobs as Phil slowly stood.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Phil jabbered, choking on his on mucous.

“No offense taken, son. We all deal in our own ways.”

“But my dad would’ve—” Phil’s voice broke again, a rush of tears and snot flooding his face. This time he stepped aside, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

“I talked to your sisters on the phone,” Mr. Moorhead said. “They’ll be planning the arrangements tonight, at your father’s house in Albany. My office will look over the businesses for the next few days, I told your sisters not to worry over any of that. We’ll meet later next week. You’ll need some family time together, first.”

Phil heard the man talking but didn’t really process the words. Time had stopped, the world had stopped, and it was hard to see anything beyond the painfully colorful day, here in the field.

“Let me take you back to the lodge, where you can get ready to go and see your family,” the man said.

See my sisters?
Phil thought. For some reason, the idea of his sisters as family seemed foreign to him. Suddenly, it was brilliantly clear that
the farm
was his closest relative, the closest link to his father he would ever have. The idea, though strange, was comforting, and more so than the idea of meeting with his sisters.

“But I need to put up my tractor,” Phil said.

“Surely one of those farm hands can do that,” said Mr. Moorhead. “Your place is with your family. Let the help take care of the tractor.”

Phil stood straighter, seeing for the first time his family position among the workers. “Actually,” he said, clearing his throat, “I’ll need to meet with all the men before I go. They need to know about Dad, and they should hear it from me. One of them will give me a lift back to the lodge, after I’ve talked with them. But thanks for the offer. Besides, I’m a bit aromatic to ride in your car. Thanks for coming to tell me, personally.” Phil put out his hand, and the two shook.

“I’ll see you later, at your father’s house,” Mr. Moorhead said. He nodded, walked back to his car, and left.

Phil stood, a silent tear slipping down his cheek. When the bright sun seemed to dry out his wet, salty face, he climbed back on the tractor and drove to the next field, where he stopped his friends and told them the news. Clifford drove him to the next field, and the next, and finally the pole barn, until all the workers knew.

In all the pain of that long afternoon, Phil did learn one new and astounding fact: Strong, earth-loving, sweat-smelling men are never afraid to hug. Or to cry.

Days passed. There were funeral home hours, where friends of the family stood around awkwardly, and left. There were home visits involving mountains of food they barely touched. There was the funeral, a church they rarely visited filled with a few friends and hundreds Phil didn’t know all “paying their respects.” There was the reading of the will, which was either in legal language neither Phil nor his sisters could understand or so dumbed down they were embarrassed. Everything was in trusts; none of the children were expected to actually run anything, and the Foster estate would continually make money for partners, stockholders, and subsequently, the Foster family in coming generations.

Despite the fact that Phil had, just weeks ago, dreamed of becoming an integral part of the farm, the death of his father crumbled his confidence to ashes in the wind. He never had a chance to tell his father how he felt about farming, though he’d often imagined just what he would say. He never asked him about the guns, a part of his family history he wanted to share. He never found out why his father had told all those stories to Calvin and not to him. He would never talk to his father about any of those things, and he would never have the chance to make him proud. It now seemed like a child’s dream, and Phil felt humiliated to even think back on it; so he didn’t.

The sudden shock of tragedy changed Phil to a near-recluse. Though his worker-friends stood by him in the beginning, they backed away after the urgency subsided. They found it easy to bond in the hard times, but afterwards, in the day-to-day matters, they didn’t know how to react, so they stayed away. Some expressed concerns, and they all liked Phil, yet they were anxious as well. Since he’d had no real relationships with family members, his sisters had no idea of the changes in Phil. And they scarcely came around to see.

Phil worked sporadically but drank on a daily basis. Unlike the frat boy binge drinking of his college days, he was drinking alone. He ate little and consumed alcohol until he passed out. Often suffering from nightmares, he would awaken two and three times a night, needing more and more alcohol to get back to sleep. Even the friends who suspected his problem were afraid to confront him or offer help. He often stayed inside for days into weeks without being seen.

Phil stayed on in the lodge until the wine cellar was nearly gone. By then he had a trust fund to spend. He tried to reach his sisters, but they never returned his phone calls. Leaving town with no itinerary for returning, he wrote his farewell:

Girls—

Checking out—Gonna see the world and have some fun. No plans for the future. Might as well live up to the old man’s expectations.

Chapter 15

Calvin

The baby came, a perfect baby girl Dolores called Mary Jane. Dolores seemed happy to see Cal when he’d show up at her door, but he was always clearly a visitor and nothing else. He’d offered to stay, sleep on the couch, let her get some sleep for a few nights, but she dismissed him before he’d finished the offer. He’d wanted to babysit, or take them to doctor appointments, or just
be
with them for more than a couple of hours at a time, but Delores was totally independent—she needed
nobody
and seemed proud of it.

He’d been making plans for them, all in his head, but special ones he was saving for the day she came to her senses and realized they were still a family. His second bedroom—the one where he kept his tools, fishing tackle, and a few furniture odds and ends along with mystery boxes from the home place—was the smaller of the two, but plenty big enough for him. Delores and the baby could take his room, fix it up any way she wanted; there’d be room for both bed and crib, then maybe twin beds when the child was older.

He’d already started thinking about later on, when little Mary Jane needed space of her own. For himself, Cal could build four walls around the corner stilts; start with one big, simple room, same size as the whole house upstairs, with maybe a bathroom. He could partition up his sleeping quarters, then maybe set up a woodworking shop or something, to fill in some of the empty space. They’d all share the living area upstairs, but this way, the girls could have their own place, and he’d have his. Cal’s little bedroom would become Mary Jane’s, and she could paint it any color she wanted, no matter what her fussy mama said, he’d see to it she had something of her own. Cal liked planning for the years ahead with their family, in the home that would grow along with them.

Just months ago, he would have thought, too, about his own children, the ones he’d have with the wife he had yet to meet, but the possibility of such a wife seemed less likely than ever. Though he’d adjusted to all kinds of physical changes with his new appendage, using the shiny metal hook with the opposite sex was as awkward now as the first day he had it. Somehow, the very idea of the cold metal interacting with the soft skin and delicate structure of a woman made Calvin feel more like a machine than a man. Sure, he could lift and raise, hoist and pull, manipulate objects for the same effect he could with a real arm, but this was day-to-day
doing
, interacting with other objects to achieve a goal. And even though he could still touch, stroke, caress a hand or cheek or brow with his “good” hand, just having the cold, tool-like facsimile in the same room with the kind of girl he’d want to impress felt vulgar—he couldn’t explain why, but the feeling was always there; the hideous, glaring taboo that everyone saw but no one could mention.

So Calvin kept his distance from pretty girls—actually, from girls in general, after what he referred to, in his head, as “the thing with Claudette.”

On the weekends she didn’t have her kids, Claudette showed up wherever Cal and his friends chose to drink. A two-hundred-pound, thirty-five-year-old mother of three, Claudette worked as a desk clerk, payroll clerk, bookkeeper, and jack-of-all-trades at Walter Perry Tractor Supply. The store’s only female employee, she knew every machine in the place, as well as thousands of parts that accompanied them. She knew what-went-where, what-could-be-replaced-with-what, and which repairs were faster or more economical. She could also lift the front end of a tractor, take apart any motor, and recognize any part by its size and serial number. On another note, she made the best chili, pot roast, and German chocolate cake in three counties.

Claudette became “one of the guys” as she tagged along with John and Mike, the two diesel mechanics who were Cal’s best drinking buddies. In actuality, she could drink any of her male friends under the table, but seldom did, going out for more of a social than alcohol-driven need. To Calvin, the two men seemed viciously rude to her, constantly labeling her with hurtful monikers to her face.

“Claudette, you big ol’ bull dyke,” John had said to her, the first night Cal saw her with them. “Sit your fat ass down. Hey, Mike, we can tie one on tonight,” he called. “We got us a designated driver—that is, if we can fit in the car with her!”

Claudette just laughed along with them.

Cal looked at his friends in disgust, then back at Claudette. He thought he saw a flicker of hurt or embarrassment as his eyes met hers, but she quickly took Mike’s beer, finishing it in one gulp and burping out loud.

“You’ll make yourself fit if you expect me to take you home,” she said, “and that’s if I’m of a mind to do you a favor. Can’t say that I owe either one of you homos a damned thing.” Mike reached over and hugged her, then punched her on the shoulder as hard as he could. She didn’t even flinch. “Anyone sitting there?” She eyed the empty chair next to Calvin.

Calvin stood and pulled out the seat, the way he would for any woman. Claudette sat down without reservation. Cal wasn’t sure how a woman of Claudette’s demeanor would react to his glaring metal arm, but she said nothing.

“Damn, Cal,” John said. “Don’t go all ‘southern gentleman’ on us. It’s just Claudette, ain’t like it’s a real woman or nothing.”

“Damn yourself, John,” Claudette answered. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a friend you didn’t meet on the chain gang. Bet he can read and write, too.” Then she turned to face Cal, holding out her hand, like a man, for a handshake. “Guess I should know better than to expect these fools to introduce me,” she said. “I’m Claudette. And you’re—”

“Cal,” he answered, awkwardly offering his left hand. “Calvin Mullinax.” He held her fingers but for a few seconds. It was a large hand—as big as his own—with a strong grip, but her skin was surprisingly soft and supple.

“Mullinax,” she said, still looking into his eyes. “You’re their buddy that got hurt at Oakland last fall?”

Cal froze. He knew he’d been talked about—an accident like his would have been the biggest news around back when it happened—but the reality of imagining such a conversation, perhaps at this very table, made him feel embarrassed and exposed.

But Claudette kept talking. “Tough break,” she said, looking at his hook, then back into his eyes. “You’ve been to hell and back, haven’t you? Damn, I can’t imagine going through what you have. You must be tough as damn nails, with a spirit to boot. What you doing hanging out with the likes of these assholes?”

“Cut the crap, Claudette,” someone said. “Just cause he’s missing an arm don’t mean he’s hard up enough to go home with you.” The men snickered, and Calvin thought he saw a blush as she reached into her purse.

“I’m going to the bar to order,” she said. “Can’t blame the waitress that skips over
this
table.” She stood, then looked at Cal while pretending to address the others. “Ya’ll need anything else?”

“Just tell her to send another pitcher,” Mike said. But Claudette had already gone.

She returned with her own mug of draft, and a waitress soon brought two more pitchers. At first, Cal held back from his usual drinking pace, unsure of this large but not-so-uninteresting woman at their table. Yet soon he was comfortable, the two of them exchanging light conversation as she continued the caustic, sarcastic banter with the others. Someone ordered a round of schnapps to accompany the beer, then another, and another. At some point later, when standing to go to the john, Cal’s right arm, always heavy and clumsy when he drank a lot, knocked over a half-full pitcher onto Claudette’s bosom, which caused him to stumble and fall forward into her lap.

Seething with anger and humiliation, he reached and pushed against the table with his good arm, trying to raise himself up and escape from the embarrassing scene he’d caused. But his arm angled more downward than he realized, tipping the table and causing all the mugs, in various stages of fullness, to come sliding downward.

Then, as if the world suddenly went into slow motion, the mugs all stopped, only a little from the fullest one sloshing over its side.

Claudette caught five beer mugs and an empty pitcher in her right hand, setting the table upright at the same time. Her left arm was wrapped around Cal’s shoulder, her hand resting calmly over the silver hook. With a singular move, she jostled him into a sitting position, then lightly kissed the top of his head.

“You are one rowdy fellow,” she said. “I never had to shower myself in beer just to get a man to put his head on my shoulder, but I believe maybe for you, I might just do it all over again.” She rubbed her hand over the hook, as natural as any caress. “But I probably need to go to the ladies’ room to wipe off the excess. You mind walking with me? I may be a little woozy when I stand up, you think you could help me?”

As she helped him to his feet, Cal stood taller than he had since back when he’d had two arms. He put his good arm around her shoulders, wondering how he could help her walk when he could barely move himself, but they made it to their respective restrooms. When he came out, she was waiting. Back at the table, they all were too drunk to care what was going on; a couple of guys had left, others had scattered. Cal remembered that Claudette would be driving them home, and he was more than grateful. He didn’t notice who rode in the car, and didn’t remember much of the ride home. It was just one of those nights.

The next day, Cal awoke alone with a monumental headache. Downing two pain pills, he slept another hour, then ambled into the kitchen. The coffee pot was filled and ready to turn on—strange, he didn’t remember getting it ready the night before, but what the hell—maybe he was more organized when totally wasted.

When he opened the refrigerator, there was some sort of unbaked pie there, with a note on top.
Breakfast—Bake at 350 for 40 minutes.

Had Delores been by? When, and why? He’d never had pie for breakfast, but followed the directions, deciding to take a shower while he waited.

Going back into his room, things there looked different, as well. The covers were straightened, folded back, showing an imprint of where he’d lay between them but otherwise perfectly intact. The clothes he’d worn the night before were folded and hung over the chair. His shoes were in the closet, his wallet, keys, and a folded napkin lying across the dresser in a perfect line.

Cal took off his prosthesis, which he hadn’t removed before bed, and addressed another strange question about the night before. He turned on the shower, making the water as hot as he could stand, and stood beneath it until the room was total fog.

Toweling off and stepping out of the bathroom, the house was filled with a smell so wonderful Cal sucked hard to breathe it in. The coffee was ready, but another fragrance took precedence.

Peeking into the oven, Cal groaned at the scent of sausage, covered in layers of eggs and bubbling cheese. Who put such things in a pie?

Smells like breakfast in heaven,
Cal thought. The piecrust edges were turning brown, and glancing at the clock, he wondered if his stomach would allow him to wait the ten minutes more the mysterious note had instructed. He cheated and took it out in five.

After eating nearly half the pie at one sitting, Cal washed out his plate and coffee cup, leaving them in the dish drain. Cal continued to flirt with the idea that his sister had been there. He didn’t really believe it, but it was a great idea for the start of a new day. Then the truth came out, like it or not.

Cal drove into town that afternoon, put gas in his truck, bought laundry detergent and dog food.

“Cal, my boy,” said Ronnie, who worked the afternoon shift at Bill Tom’s Gas & Go. “Have a good time last night?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Cal said. “Same old, same old.”

“So it’s a regular thing, eh?” Ronnie asked, acting as if this were major news.

“I guess, but don’t we all? I mean, we drink a lot, but hell—we live in Nolan. What else is there to do?”

“I guess. But we don’t
all
do it. Some of us would rather do nothing at all. But I say ‘to each his own.’ Whatever floats your boat, like they say.”

Cal shook his head. “See you around,” he said to Ronnie, climbing back into his pickup to go.

There were knowing smiles and whispers at the grocery store and the barbershop. Seeing Walter Perry at the post office was the worst.

“How’s it going, son?” old Walter asked. “You ever find any permanent farm job around here?”

“No, sir, no one seems to be hiring these days,” Cal said.

“It’s a shame, but at least you got your house and all, and no family to worry about.” The old man grinned. “At least not of your own,” he added. “Drop on by the store sometime, why don’t you?” Mr. Perry said. “I’m sure there’s folks that’d
love
to see you, if you know what I mean.”

“Sure thing,” Cal muttered, hurrying as quickly as he could for the safety of his truck.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to put the pieces together; in fact, Cal had known since he opened the folded napkin on his dresser. No note, nothing sappy, simply a name and a phone number: Claudette, 734-5215. A Nolan exchange.

Claudette lived in a yellow wooden house, just a stone’s throw from the project where Cal’s sister lived. There was a live oak bearing a tire swing in front, and the yard was filled with bikes and trikes and anything with wheels. Claudette’s ex had left her with three tow-headed boys like stair-steps in height. Cal had seen them out playing in the patchy grass-and-dirt yard, a rusty, kudzu-enhanced chain-link keeping both the boys and a few mixed-breed dogs from the residential street. He’d heard Delores mention how they always looked dirty and unkempt, but he’d thought to himself that they always looked to be having fun, just boys being boys. Funny, he’d thought about the kids often as he passed by their home, but he’d never once given a thought to the woman inside. And now he didn’t
want
to think of her. Cal succumbed to a wave of guilt he couldn’t quite explain and didn’t want to ponder.

Cal didn’t call Claudette, as the phone number suggested, but was surprised at his joy in seeing her at the pool hall a few nights later. Only nodding at her across the room at first, after several beers he accepted her challenge in a game of eight ball. He thanked her for taking him home before, then bragged on the wonderful meal she’d left in the refrigerator.

“I love to cook,” she said, her voice sounding softer, girlier than he’d noticed before. “I figured you feel pretty rotten the next day, so I just kinda threw together something easy with what you had in the frig. Nothing fancy, just home cooking.”

“It was pretty fancy to me,” Cal said. “I can scramble an egg and heat things from a can. Grill things. That’s about it. I’d say yours was the fanciest meal cooked in my house so far!”

“You should let me
really
cook for you sometime,” she said. “Tell me your favorite foods, and I’ll see what I can do. I love a challenge, with three boys under eight, I get so damned tired of making sloppy joes and chili dogs I could scream.”

“But I love sloppy joes and chili dogs,” Cal said. “And when I was their age, I wanted to eat nothing else. My mama did get me hooked on a few other favorites, though. Do you make shepherd’s pie?”

“Sure do.”

“Brunswick stew?”

“The best.”

“Stuffed pork chops?”

“Now you’re talking up
my
alley. How ’bout stuffed pork chops, with a side of Brunswick stew, some fried okra, mashed potatoes, and—what do you like for dessert?” She was teasing him, but it was sweet, kind of like the way his mama had teased him, though he’d never really noticed it until she was no longer around to do it.