The Weather and Women Treat Me Fair

Turtle

The boards of the house were gray like those of so many old barns. The overhang of the front porch was supported in part, if not whole by two four-by-fours which stood out because of their light brown freshness. The house sat off the ground on pillars of chipped brick. Chickens walked around under there.

A dark man sat on the porch, his complexion highlighted by his white tractor cap. The cap was crisp and new. His name was Bubba Johnson. He scratched at his cheek while he watched me approach.

“How’s it going, Bubba?” I asked.

“Okay, Dan. How you doin’?”

“Just fine.”

He started to pull himself from his rocker. “Let me get you a chair.”

“Stay there,” I said. “I’ll just sit right here.” I sat on the porch with my feet riding down the steps. “Your corn is looking real good.”

“Yeah, but it got cockaburrs in it. Been out there most of the day. On my knees.”

“Is that your soybeans back that way?”

“No, that’s Theodore Cheesboro’s.”

“I didn’t think your property went that far.”

“Well, that ain’t his property neither,” he laughed. “I don’t know whose it is. Probably belong to some white fella in Rock Hill. But it ain’t Theodore’s.”

I pulled a pack of cigarettes from my shirt pocket and shook one high. I pulled it out with my mouth, tilted the pack toward Bubba.

He shook his head.

“Smart,” I said. I struck a match on the cinderblock step and lit up. “I read where they closed one of the mills. The one where you work?”

“‘Fraid so.” He was momentarily silent. “I might go work at Industrial. I been there already for a physical.” He looked out over the corn. “They closed her up, all right.”

“You like turtle?” I asked.

“Turtle meat?”

“I killed one last week. Cut him up and froze him. I was thinking I’d fry some up tonight.”

“I love turtle.”

“Come on over.”

“I will.”

He wiped perspiration from his forehead with the back of his hand. “It’s a hot one, ain’t it?”

“Sure is,” I said, “but it seems to be cooling off a bit.”

“Yeah, it’s gonna rain. We need it, too.”

I tossed my half-smoked cigarette out into the yard.

“Wanna see some babies?” he asked.

I looked at him.

“Pigs. Wanna see some baby pigs?”

“Sure.”

Bubba was shoeless. He started down the steps past me.

“You want your boots?” I asked.

“Don’t need’ em.”

We walked around the house. We passed his tractor parked out back.

“I hear you got yourself a tractor?’ he said.

“Yep. It’s a ‘49. Needs some work.”

“A Ford?”

“Right.”

“I believe I know the model. Good machine if you get her running.”

The pigs began to squeal loudly.

“I wonder what all that’s about,” he said and we walked faster down the hill toward the pens.

Closer, I could see the little pigs bunching up against their outstretched mother and just outside the pen a lone little pig trying to get back in.

“So, that’s what the commotion is,” Bubba said. “Why don’t you grab him, Dan, and stick him back in there. I’m barefoot.”

I walked around the pen and chased the little guy until I cornered him against the side of the feed shed. I grabbed him by his back legs and tossed him over the wire.

“There you go,” said Bubba.

“How many you got?” I slapped my hands clean on my jeans.

“Ten. You think you might wanna try some pigs?”

“Raising ’em?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll try anything. Maybe.”

He laughed.

He turned and headed back to the house. I followed. We walked past a large uprooted tree. I stopped to look.

“Storm did that,” he said.

“Damn. When was that?”

“That big one, about a month or so ago.”

“Hunh.”

“Well, that tree didn’t have real deep roots, no way. See.” He pointed.

“Still, it’s a big tree. Must have been some wind. You’re lucky it fell that way.”

“You heard the story about the slave woman and the bad storm?”

“No.”

“They say there was this slave woman who was real scared of thunder and lightning and every time a storm would brew up she’d run up to the white people’s house. Well, this real bad storm come up and she went running up there. She had to stay in the kitchen and back then, you know, the kitchen was sometimes sorta off the house, just sorta attached. Well, this big wind come up and picked up the kitchen and carried it down the road and the slave woman got kilt.”

“Some wind,” I said.

“Yeah. If she had stayed home and not gone runnin’ to them white folks, she’d have been all right.”

A flash of lightning turned both our heads south.

“Bad-looking cloud,” I said.

“It don’t look real friendly.”

We walked on down the dirt drive to my car. A skyrocket split the darkening sky.

“You’d think people would stop selling those damn things,” I said.

“People ain’t got good sense. Fella told me, this fella works at the fireworks place, he told me that people come in there and spend thirty, forty dollars.”

“Phew.”

“I saw a burnt spot in the field cross the highway down that way.” He pointed. “I bet it was some fireworks which done it. Dangerous.”

“I hear you.” I opened my car door. “See you tonight.”

“Probably after the storm.”

The storm was short-lived. I dropped some shortening into the skillet and watched it slide around and melt. Bubba’s truck came roaring up. He needed a muffler.

“Come on in!” I shouted. “Back here in the kitchen. Where the big wind can get us.”

He laughed, hung his cap on a nail. He had a bottle with him. He set it on the table, then pulled a chair around and sat in it backwards, straddling it.

“That ain’t Scotch,” I said, pointing to his bottle.

“Sure ain’t. This here is white liquor. The last batch I ever made.”

“When was that?”

“Fifteen years ago.” He rubbed his face. “Got some glasses?”

I pulled a couple of glasses down and put them on the table.

“You can’t even taste this stuff till it goes down,” he said.

“Where was this still?” I asked, dropping the first pieces of turtle into the pan.

“I used to keep ’em near runnin’ water.”

“Like the branch near the old canal?” I asked. “Down below Old Tuck’s place?”

“Yeah.” He gave me a baffled look.

“I found one of your stills once. Well, the vat. I pissed in it.”

“Good for it,” he said and laughed.

“If you say so.”

“I’ll tell you when I stopped drinkin’ that stuff.”

“When was that?”

“One time it snowed and I went to check on things. I used to keep the vat low to the ground. Course, you know that.”

I laughed.

“Well, I went down there and found rats digging round it. Got rid of the rats and went back two days later and found an ol’ pilot in there.”

“One of those gray snakes?”

“Yeah. Drunk and dead.” He frowned. “That son of a bitch. They tell me that was the best batch I ever made.” He rubbed his jaw. “Drunk and dead. I held that son of a bitch up and let it drip off of him. I wasn’t wastin’ a drop.”

I turned the meat. “Think you might be able to drop by and feed my dogs tomorrow and the next day?”

“No problem. Where are you goin’?”

“Atlanta.”

“Long drive,” he said.

“I suppose.”

“You ought take some workin’ medicine before you go.”

“Excuse me?”

“You ought a take something that’ll work you.”

“Are you talking about a laxative?”

“A long trip like that’ll throw your system off. Best to clean yourself out before you go.”

“I’ll pass.”

Bubba poured the shine and handed me a glass.

“Whoa,” I said and blew out a breath. “That’s something right there.”

“Good, ain’t it?”

“You didn’t tell me why you stopped making this stuff?” My eyes were tearing.

“I was scared of getting caught.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“For a while I had Ol’ Tuck’s boy helpin’ me. Making it for me.”

“Which one?” I asked.

“The real big one, Leroy.”

“I don’t remember him.”

“He was jimmy-jawed. He jumped the broom with Sarah Willis. That Sarah was a pretty thing, like a speckled pup, but she let herself go.”

“So, he gave you a hand.”

“Yeah, but I let him go. He was trying to stretch the bucks.”

“What?”

“The bucks is the last of a batch, real weak. If you mix it with the first jugs you can use it, but Leroy was keeping the first and mixin’ the bucks with the middle. Weak stuff.”

I pulled the first pieces of turtle out and dropped them on some paper towels.

“You wanna help me slaughter a hog?”

“When?” I asked.

“Saturday.”

“I’ll help you.”

“Good, we’ll hang him up then.”

“I kind of like pigs,” I said. “They seem real smart. Not like sheep. Sheep are stupid.”

“Well, maybe not stupid,” he said. “What they used to say about sheep was that they’re humble. Back in Bible times.”

I attended to the turtle frying.

“My papa killed a sheep once. He said once was enough. He said he cut its throat and it screamed and didn’t take its eyes off him. He said that sheep just looked at him till he died. Liked to made him cry.”

“They do have sweet faces.”

“Humble,” he said.

“Humble.”

We sat at the table and took our first bites. He looked up at me.

“Damn good turtle,” he said.