Mississippi Cotton (3 page)

She pulled out some little papers and some kind of little pouch from her bag. I didn’t know what she was doing until she started sprinkling tobacco onto some little papers. What they called ‘the makings’ was what she had. I had seen it in a Red Ryder picture show. This bad guy was always asking somebody for the makings so he could have a cigarette.

She drew the length of the paper across her lips, rolled it into a cigarette, then poked it into her mouth. “Well, my young fellow traveler, I don’t suppose you have a match do you?” She smiled, as if she didn’t really expect me to have one.

“No, ma’am.” It did sound kind of funny asking me, and I laughed a little. That brought on another yellow smile.

She rooted around some more in her bag, pushing and twisting whatever was in there, so she could find some matches. She finally found a pack, pulled one out and struck it. She leaned against the headrest and sucked on the wrinkled-looking cigarette, then exhaled a cloud of smoke through her mouth and nostrils, her eyes closed. I waved my hand at the cloud of smoke.

The bus moved up the two-lane highway, seldom passing anyone, except an occasional pickup truck driven by a farmer, who seemed in no particular hurry. Other than that, most of the cars passed the bus.

The woman smoked two or three cigarettes within an hour and asked me about a million questions, often blowing smoke in my face. How old was I? How long was I going to be in Cotton City? How big was my family?

I had been taught not to be nosey, but since she was asking me so many questions I decided it would be okay to ask her one or two, just to be friendly.

“How much stuff do you have in your bag? Sure is big.” I kind of leaned over trying to peek in.

She started rummaging around as if she were taking some kind of account for me.

“Well, let’s see now. What all do I…” She paused while she pulled out an old scarf. “…well look a’ here. How many years have I had this? My late husband give me this. I can’t hardly believe I still have it.”

It looked faded and I was sure I saw a cigarette hole.

“What was he late for?” I asked.

“No, no Hon, I mean he’s no longer with us. He’s dead, Hon’. Deceased.” She pointed her hands up and wiggled her fingers, trying to gesture some kind of ghostly shape going upward, I think.

“Oh,” I said. So, that’s how I learned that being late meant the same thing as being dead. That’s why talking to grownups was so hard; you were always in danger of learning something that didn’t make sense.

“Yes indeedy. I’ve had it for some time—some time. But let’s see what else we have. Looka here, a pack of bobbie pins. I thought I’d lost those.” She kept reaching and pulling different things out to show me. It was like a little treasure chest.

It reminded me of one of those magic acts where the guy keeps pulling a string of scarves out of his mouth. You finally realize that there’ve been more pulled out than there should have been room for in the first place. Then I saw a little pistol, like one of those derringers.

“Is that a gun?”

She pushed it down under some of the other stuff in the bag. “Not a real one. Just a cigarette lighter—outta flint.”

“Oh. Sure looks real.” Not that I had ever seen a real one. The ones in the picture show were the only ones I’d ever seen.

“Oh I jus’ carry it mostly outta sentiment. My late husband give it to me one Christmas.”

Just then she pulled up a Barq’s Root Beer bottle that had a wad of cloth wedged in the top.

She pulled out the wadding and announced, “I’m jus’ gonna have a little medicine now.” She tilted her head back and took a big slug.

I think I caught a sniff. It smelled like the lighter fluid my daddy used in his cigarette lighter.

Yeah Boy stirred. He looked like a bloodhound that had picked up a scent in the wind.

“Excoose me, ma’am.”

It sounded funny the way he said ‘excuse.’

He gently tipped the front of his hat. “I don’t mean to pry but is that a good cough medicine?” He put his hand over his mouth and coughed.

The woman looked at him, then me, then back to him. “Well, it helps with gentle coughs. It won’t he’p if you got something big, like TB or somethin.”

He took his hat off and leaned across the aisle a bit so he could lower his voice. “Oh, no ma’am. I got none of that consumption. Not me. But I got me this cough that wuz caused by a piece of shrapnel I got in the First War. Some German chunked a grenade at me and blew a hole in my lung. Been coughin’ gently ever since. Ever since, jus’ been coughin gently.” He covered his mouth and coughed again.

“Well, I suppose I could spare a little for some gentleman that hep’ed defeat the dreaded Hun,” she said. She handed him the bottle and he took a big slug without wiping the mouth of the bottle.

I thought that was pretty putrid—drinking out of the same bottle as someone else—someone you had just met; someone with tattoos and a fat exposed stomach. I wouldn’t even drink after my brother. I couldn’t stand the thought of someone’s cooties in my mouth. He could have had cooties from anywhere—Bombay, China, even Biloxi.

She continued talking to him. “Well, my late husband offered to fight them but he was turned down for flat feet—also had a bad case of athlete’s foot. He always had feet problems.” She took a small drink then offered him the bottle again. “But he found work in the carnival. Flat feet don’t matter, I guess, if ya got sawdust in yo’ veins.”

I thought the two of them were pretty funny the way they told stories. I’m not sure my mother would’ve approved though. She and my daddy had always told me to respect grownups but to be careful of strangers. Some would tell exaggerated stories to impress young children; stories about who they knew or where they’d been or what they’d done. It was, my mother had said, just a function of poor conduct to begin with. My daddy said they were sorry trash.

“How’d he die?” He held the bottle up to the light as if he were looking for life forms in it. “Is that what ya said, he’s dead? Fall off the high-wire or summin’? A lion kill him?”

She had begun rolling another cigarette and was concentrating on her makings. “He was hit by lightning. Sad. Not only killed him but knocked one of his eyeballs out. Never did find it, so we couldn’t stick it back in. We wanted an open casket, so we put a patch on his eye. And he did look natural except for the patch. And one of his ears was almost burnt off.” She licked the papers and put the cigarette in her mouth.

He took another drink and handed her the Barq’s bottle. He tucked his chin down close to his chest, then lifted it back up a bit and let out with a belch louder than Farley had ever made after drinking a hot Coca-Cola. I think half the people on the bus must’ve turned and stared at him. I noticed the driver gave a long look into his mirror and glared.

The woman turned and whispered in my ear as if she were my mother, “Prob’ly from Arkansas.”

“Well, golly. I guess that cough of mine got busted some.” He looked around as if he expected everyone to laugh or something. None did. He reached behind his head and pulled his wadded coat down. He pulled out a pack of Pall Mall cigarettes and lit one. He inhaled deeply then exhaled a stream of smoke. He coughed gently once or twice.

The bus pulled into Yazoo City. My daddy always said that Yazoo City was the ‘Gateway to the Delta.’ Once when I was little I asked him where the gate was, but he said that it was just an expression. I hated things like that, the way grownups said the gateway or other expressions that I later learned weren’t really that at all. I guess I didn’t really hate them. I was just disappointed not to find them. I was always on the lookout for things like that, like a giant gate, things that I thought were real. There were bumper stickers on cars that said, ‘Rock City, Tennessee: See Seven States.’ I later found out that all you could really see was a long way off. How were you supposed to know what you were looking at? There weren’t any state lines in colors or anything, like on our maps in school. As it turned out, I wasted a lot of time looking for things that were never there.

“Yazoo City, Ladies and Gentlemen. We’ll be here about fifteen minutes, if you want to stretch your legs or get something to drink,” the intercom squawked.

Yazoo City was about fifty miles from Jackson. It had taken us over an hour to get here, and though I didn’t really need to stretch my legs, I wanted to see if there were any pinball machines for me not to play. I figured I’d at least watch somebody else play. Watching somebody play pinball is like watching somebody fish, it’s not a spectator sport. But every once in a while you’d run across a world-class player that could really rack up some points. It gave you something to tell your friends about when you got back home.

I didn’t get full use of the fifteen minute layover because I had to wait on the straw-haired lady to get out. Then the fat-stomached belcher squeezed in behind her. He waddled down the aisle, winding like a fat trout in a stream, bumping a seat on one side then the other. She was carrying her giant bag. It seemed like it took almost five minutes for them to get off. I left my sandwich bag on my seat to save my window space.

Sure enough there were two pinball machines backed up against the wall which reminded me of something else my daddy had told Farley. “Son, anything that can back up against the wall and take on the world can’t be beat.”

Farley knew Daddy made sense, but he still wanted to play them. I think a lot of things are like that. You hear things from your parents that make sense, but you want to see for yourself why they are bad.

I decided to get a Coca-Cola, so when I got back on the bus I could have it with my sandwich. The waitress at the counter was about as old as my mother and very pretty. She was wearing a white dress kind of like a nurse’s.

“And what’ll you have, Darlin’?”

“May I have a Co-Cola please, ma’am?”

“Why, you surely may.” She had a pretty smile.

“And will you put it in a cup for me, please. I’m gonna take it with me on the bus, and I don’t want to pay the deposit on the bottle.”

“I surely will. Anything for a nice little gentleman like yourself. Would you like some ice in it, too?”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.” She turned and walked the length of the counter to get my Coca-Cola. By the time she got back, the straw-haired lady and the belcher had plopped down on the stools to either side of me.

“Well, now did ya ever see such a right smart whisker of a boy as this one?” the straw-haired lady said to the waitress.

“Well, he certainly is a sweet little man. Here’s your Co-Cola, Darlin’. That’ll be a nickel.”

“What can I get y’all,” she said politely to the other two, offering no smile.

“Lemme have a cup of coffee, Sweetheart,” Yeah Boy ordered. He roared like she was a half a mile away.

“Me too, Dearie,” the straw-haired woman said.

I wanted to watch the pinball machine players so I got up. “Thank you for the Co-Cola.”

The smile lit up again. “Well, you’re jus’ more than welcome, Darlin’. You come back to see us, ya hear?”

I stood next to the pinball machine and watched as some teenager and his friend, both about Farley’s age, played it. There was a guy in an Army uniform playing the other machine. I decided to watch the teenager.

There was an excitement watching the balls bounce, hitting one stob, then another, lights going on and off, sounds like a cash register made: ca-ching, gong, ching, ching. He was really playing great—ca ching, gong, ching, ching, body English, ca-ching, body English, too much—tilt!

He swore with all the anger of a guy who’d just lost a nickel.

“Now you just watch your mouth over there!” It was the pretty waitress. “There’re ladies and children in here. If you don’t watch your mouth I’ll have a policeman here in two shakes.”

The teenager slumped and mumbled, “Yes, ma’am.”

I backed away and decided to get back on the bus, since the fifteen minutes were almost up. But, mostly, I didn’t want the pretty waitress to think I was friends with the cussing teenager. When I looked back I saw the straw-haired lady in the back of the station closing the door on one of those lockers they have in bus stations.

Before I got to the door, I heard that familiar sound from the belcher, still at the counter. Everyone else heard it, too.

“I think your bus is about to leave,” the pretty waitress said to him.

Yeah Boy and the straw-haired lady got back on the bus behind me and took their same seats. The bus pulled out and made its way through downtown Yazoo City, which wasn’t as big as Jackson but bigger than Flora for sure, and soon we were on Highway 49.

I had finished my sandwiches before we reached the city limits when I noticed she didn’t have her big round bag. She had a brown grocery sack rolled down from the top. I had been taught that it wasn’t polite to pry, but I didn’t want her to forget something important to her. “Ma’am, did you forget your bag in the bus station?”

“No, no,” she whispered. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

Yeah Boy had pulled his hat down over his eyes. In a way I wanted to ask him about the dead guy he had mentioned earlier. But I didn’t. I was afraid she would wake up and shush him again.

She slept, grunting, snorting like she was having a dream. Somehow the family book my mother had given me had gotten wedged slightly under the straw-haired woman’s butt. She was a little bit wide and I guess when she sat down she sat partially on the book, which was beside me. I had to get it before she smashed it completely. It was just a spiral notebook and wouldn’t survive her load long. I had been admonished to be very careful with it. I very carefully tugged at the edge of it. She gave a quick snort. I pulled some more. Another short snort. Gave a quick yank. It was free.