my sons' favorite
One hot summer afternoon I was driving slowly along in my truck, exploring the back roads near my home in southern Florida, and I thought I saw a man rising slowly straight up through the trees. As I watched, he came down fast. Then I saw the rope he’d climbed and descended. I’d seen crazier sights, but I determined to meet the man behind that sort of energy and strength, so I did. We became friends, which is how I got to hear about the fruit jar.Jimmy lives out on the far edge of town in scraggly pines and palmetto bushes in a square box of a ramshackle pine wood house with two windows on each side, screen doors front and back, and a chimney. Three wide boards, smoothed in the middle, are the front steps and extra seating area. The house once was white. From the road it looks like an old man with a bad hip, tilted to the side, leaning slightly forward. Cement blocks support the corners, but the right front needs a lift. Jimmy would tell you, “It’s nearbout wore out.”
Jimmy told me one time, “When I quit the high school in 19 and 58, that was the year Bubba Wilson got drunk and backed into the corner of the house and knocked it off’n the blocks. Broke Momma’s Sears and Roebuck china in the cabinet inside. We never was able to get it right again. We’d get her level, but she’d ease back down again in a few months. I think they’s a sink hole under there or somethin’.” Jimmy’s daddy built the house when he came back from the war with a metal plate in his head. Got disability. That was 1941, the year Jimmy was born.
There’s a wooden duck flapping on a stick in the yard, a few tires sunk half-way in the dirt for decoration, an angry-looking rooster and a few hens, an assortment of dogs, and a yard full of old cars and appliances and an old couch on the porch. There’s an animal hide nailed to the porch wall. It looks shriveled, like it fought during the tanning process. A big coon maybe. It’s all beat to shit. If you drive by most evenings Jimmy and his wife, Lerline, are sitting on the couch drinking iced tea, giving at first glance the impression that a car has exploded around them, leaving them unhurt, looking out.
The road was widened but never paved in 1950, which shortened the distance from the porch to the road. After the road gets smoothed by the grader—twice a year at most—trucks come by doing 60 miles an hour. They toot their horns and put up clouds of dust that Jimmy pretends to ignore. Jimmy says it’s where the washboard road was invented. The county sent two engineers to study the height of the ridges in the washboard road one year, but they came after a big rain and their county sedan bottomed out in a pothole; Shin’s Wrecker service pulled it out.
Years ago Jimmy shot a few trucks with his .22 rifle and once beat a driver so bad with a four-foot bubble level they sent him to the hoosegow for thirty days. Since then he’s quit drinking and just sits on the porch, pretending he likes it when cars clatter by.
Seeing Lerline up close is different than seeing her from a passing car. Old bruises, teeth missing on the left side and across the front of her mouth, and the absence of any sort of makeup or nod toward femininity give her a foreign look, like you’ve seen on the news of Kosovo. She wears old Red Cross shoes in black, with slits for her bunions, and the grey polyester pants to the uniform she got from the motel where she cleans rooms. The elastic waist is shot, so she has a big laundry pin holding them shut in front. Her shirt’s a stained man’s tee-shirt with a ripped pocket in the front. Big wide boobs wander off under her arms, and seem to have lives of their own when she moves. She has a habit of sucking her lips in and out over her gums, and she spits chewing tobacco like a man, expertly aiming it off to the side, hitting her target, catching drool with the back of her hand. Charged with electricity, her brownish grey hair stands away from her head in sprays.
The two of them, “settin’ there” as Jimmy would say, on the couch or a step, blend right in with the discarded refrigerators and tractor parts, the harrows and plows.
If you could groom Jimmy, you might have something. His nose, by his own account, has “been broke quite a number of times.” Still, it lends character, bent like it is. He doesn’t take many showers and never has taken a bath in a tub, so he says. His face looks it, a shade of grey with scraggly whiskers he shaves “ever few weeks.” He told me once that “he don’t go in much for looks.” Like Lerline, he’s missing an assortment of teeth, but has a couple of rotting ones in front that make me oh, so glad for mine. When he laughs big you see other rotten sprigs he’s self-conscious about. He tries to purse his lips back around ‘em, contorting his face, stifling the laugh. You learn not to watch.
Before the smile, from a distance, you notice the most striking thing about Jimmy—the gym-rat look of his body. In overalls, wearing a skimpy tee shirt, his muscles would startle you from the pages of a mens’ health magazine. Big arms, heavy shoulders and a deep chest would seem to have been borrowed from a man 40 years younger. There’s an unmistakable spring and balance to his step, a grace that reminds me of a judo instructor I once had.
Setting on Jimmy’s porch one day he offered this explanation for his conditioning: “My deddy died and I got the deepression. Din’t know I was deepressed, but all I done was set on the porch and drink ice tea, for near ‘bout six months. One day I said to myself, Jimmy, you are fuckin’ about to die your ownself. I seen I had to do somethin’. It was honorin’ my deddy was the way I looked at it. I was skinny as an Africa dog. I couldn’t a lifted a full dinner plate. I was porely! I went by that there Golden Gym place, but it costs lot of money, and I didn’t like all them men admirin’ theyselves in the mirror and standin’ up close behind one another while they lifted weights. So, what I done was, I made my own set of weights. That’s them yonder.” He pointed to a long piece of galvanized pipe with weight plates on either end. “I got them plates at a garage sale and made me them there barbells. When I started I couldn’t lift hardly nothin’, maybe 100 pounds, but I kept on and ever’ few days tried to add more weight. A guy down to the American Legion told me about how Marines is taught to climb up a rope to get strong, and I had me some hawser off’n a shrimp boat, so I hung it from that tree limb yonder and tried to climb up it. Shit. I couldn’t even get my feet up off the ground…not for three months. But, by then the weight’s was working, and I’d started running sprints on the road out there, runnin’ and liftin’ ‘til I couldn’t lift or run no more. Then I’d rest until I felt like I could start again, and I would. I done that, and added doin’ situps—doing, oh, a hundred a day at first, and pushups. Now I just do ‘em till I can’t do no more, an’ it’ll take most of a mornin’. One day ‘bout a year later I seen that I wasn’t deepressed no more. I don’t know, must have been Jesus Christ done it, or somethin’. That’s what I tells people that asts. You want to get in shape, I can show you how I done it, an’ you won’t see it on no TV. It ain’t easy, but it’s simple, and you won’t read about it in no book either. Just for the hell of it, checkin’ on myself, sort of for Deddy, I went by that Golden Gym place and told ‘em I’d bet one hundred dollars cash money that I could do more pushups than anyone in there, right now, on the spot. I put my $100 on the counter and them boys all laughed and throwed in money and got one wiry young fella said he’d go again’ me—looked like one of them homasexyals to me, wearin’ red tight pants went down under his feet, and a undershirt with one of them messages on it. Well, he wore out an’ give up quicker’n I thought he would, and I done ‘em twenty or thirty one-arm pushups as extrees, an’ took the money and went on home.”
As he finished his story, Jimmy stepped down off the porch and went to the rope dangling under a pine tree limb, and shook the rope, looking up the length of it as though remembering what it looked like up at the top, almost prayerful looking, and then he wrapped his hands around it in front of him like he was holding a baseball bat, and without a noticeable hitch, started climbing the rope, his elbows jutting out like a marching snare drummer. I’d seen Olympic gymnasts do it, but was amazed to see Jimmy slide up the rope. At the top he stopped for maybe five seconds, and then let himself drop fast, with his legs entwined in the hawser. At the exact level of the ground he came to a halt and stepped away and extended his arms to accept applause. He said he’d seen “one of them Krotchnikov Russian girls do it on the TV. That’s called your dismount.”
We got to talking, and Jimmy said that he’d just taken his brother-in-law, Lerline’s brother, Robert, to the bus depot. Lerline had been sitting on the bottom step, looking down at the ground while Jimmy talked. She got up quick, with her mouth clamped shut, and went inside, but she was careful not to slam the screen door. Jimmy started in on the brother-in-law:
“That’s the sorriest sumbitch ever lived. Set around here for one entire week watchin’ the television, Lerline a’feedin’ him and fetchin’ him Co Colas. Lerline made me ast him a dozen times ‘did he want to go with me, down to the boat or the fish house,’ but, no, he didn’t wanna do nothin,’ just set there. He’s sorry as they come. Oh, he can talk alright, talked all kinds of shit about huntin’ and fishin’ when Lerline was off to the motel (pronounced MO’tell). He’d stand there and watch me work on the truck or mendin’ on a net, and he’d tell some story or other. I’d listen along and catch him bullshittin’ evertime. I’d ast him a question, like, what size hooks was you usin’ on them trout, and he’d fumble around and wouldn’t know, which naturally anybody was really a trout fisherman would know ezactly and have an opinion on it. I’d ask him did he want to go to town, he’d say no. Mostly he was wearin’ my clothes anyways, so no, he didn’t need nothing at the WalMart. Just set there or gawked at work I was doin, makin’ dumb ass suggestions like I’d never fixed nothin’ in my whole life. Like to of drove me crazy. Ain’t worth one shit!
“One day I was changin’ oil in the tractor and that ol’ Yates boy come by and said, ‘Jimmy, we oughta go and get us some coons. I got me a new dog I wanna run. Get that ol’ redbone dog a your’n and that little feist dog and come by for me ‘bout dark tonight.’
“Billy knowed what an asshole Robert was, and had heard him talk down on runnin’ coons, so why he done it I don’t know, but he told Robert, said, ‘Robert, you can come if’n you want to. You might like it if you can keep up.’ With that ol’ Robert kinda throwed his shoulders back and give a little laugh and said, ‘Well, I think I will. Won’t have no trouble keepin’ up with your ass. You boys can use a extree hand, I reckon.’
“I told Billy I was for it that very night. Wasn’t no need talk no more. We hunted together since we was kids and knowed ezackly where we was goin’, down the Reckless Swamp the other side of the river. No sooner did Billy leave than the brother-in-law started in. Allowed that he’d done a lot of hunting, but never did see the point in huntin’ behind dogs, them doin’ all the work, just follerin’ along. Wasn’t nothing to it, not like deer huntin’ or shootin’ ducks. Oh, my he went on, and I’s getting pissed off, bigtime. He’s Lerline’s brother, and I’d promised to be nice, so I ast him did he want to come along sure ‘nough? I told him it’d be a long night. He said, kinda scoldin’ me, ‘I told Yates I’d go, and I do what I say. I won’t have no trouble keepin’ up with you boys.’
“After supper—Lerline made biscuits and gravy and country ham and potatoes for Robert—she let the three of us and the dogs off’n the truck down by where the powerlines cross the road, and we told her to pick us up at first light where them cypress trees comes up on the edge of the swamp. We had Runty, the feist dog, one huntin’ fool, and Silo, my redbone hound, as good a nose as they is. Billy’s dog looked good, but he was fat, hadn’t been run at all by the look of him. Mostly he was a bluetick hound, with them long legs, but he had some chow in him, with his tail curled up like that. Billy had picked up a extra dog or two, and we’d see if they’d hunt. Sometimes a common yard dog will surprise you and do real good on a coon track. I had a croaker sack and my headlight and my .22 pistol and a jug of water. Billy had about the same, but he didn’t carry no gun on account of the felony conviction. I had told the brother-in-law to bring hissef’ some water, but he left it in the truck.
“Wasn’t no time at all and the dogs was trailin’. Billy knowed them woods and had seen a string of coons cross back and forth where we started, so it weren’t long before we had us two coons in the sack. The dogs done good, run both the coons up the same tree, and I popped ‘em and down they come. Billy’s dog, name of Scrote, practically eat one before we was able to pull him off. He sounded good though, and was fast, sounded real houndy, like he was hurt, real drawn out like, aoooh, aooooh, all low soundin’ and sorrowful, real music like. My feist had them high tones, and he’d yip plenny when the smell was good. You mighta thought he’d been hit by a car or somethin’, but that was jest his way. Said, arrrent, arrent, hurrnt, real high like. Don’t weigh twenty-five pounds, but damn if he can’t run a coon. My ol’ redbone, Luther, had one of them voices makes you go huntin’. Luther, why he’d go a while before he’d talk, but when you heard him you knew he was on ‘em. He done a real gravelly moan, sounded like all the air been took out of him, like a mournful cry. Ever’ time you heard him you thought he was dying, but he weren’t. Said, arunghh, arunghh! Them other dogs just run alongside, didn’t seem to know nothin’.
“It was a pretty night. Wasn’t no moon, an’ it dark as a dug well, and they’d been some rain so the dogs could smell good. For a long time we run down in them cypresses, but didn’t find nary a coon. Been gone a few hours when we stopped to rest, gathered in the dogs and jes’ set a while. The dogs had watered in ditches, but the brother-in-law, he allowed as how he would appreciate a drink of water, and Billy asted him, said, ‘What? You didn’t bring no drinking water?’ I give him some of mine, and noticed he looked tuckered, sweatin’ like a whore in church, and it early, and we wadn’t even in the swamp yet.
“Directly we took off again, an’ in a while we had us another big ol’ coon, just where them willows goes along Peal Slough. I seen the dogs right behind the coon, and the coon go up the tree pretty as you please.
“Right about then I heard the brother-in-law let out a yell. He’d been running right behind me and a branch had caught him a good one across the mouth and his lip was bleedin’. Billy said to him, said, ‘Goddam it, man, stay back a ways. The lead man can’t be holding back bushes for you all night.’ His lip was swole up pretty good by the time we got the coon in the sack, and damned if he didn’t look whipped, but he’d stopped runnin’ his mouth. He was huntin’ for sure now, in the swamp, tryin’ to keep up with Billy and me, and it just after 3AM by my pocketwatch, and he’d fell down a time or two already. He mighta done better if’n he’d had his own light.
“We stopped again like we done ever’ hour or so, and I skinned one of the coons and cut it up for the dogs, who didn’t waste no time eatin’ it. Lerline’s brother wanted to know how close to the road were we. He sounded like the bellows in a blacksmith’s shop, all wind.
“Billy told him, pointin’ to the east, said, ‘Oh, about three mile thataway,’ but it weren’t near that far. Robert said, ‘Oh, Jesus. Jimmy, can I wait here? I’m plumb wore out. I can’t go no further.’
“I said, ‘Well, I reckon you can, but we may not be able to find you ‘til after sunup. You just gonna set here in the water ‘til then?’
“Robert allowed that he’d set and wait, but could he have some water. I give him what was left in my jug. I left the sack of dead coons with him so I wouldn’t have to tote ‘em, only one wasn’t quite dead, tried to get out of the sack, and the dogs set to it, a’rippin’ and tearin’, and one of ‘em by accident bit Robert some on the back of his arm in all the confusion. By now he was hurtin’, I could tell, and damned if he didn’t whimper some, just like a knee baby.
“We said we’d be back for him, and me and Billy and the dogs headed out. We knowed exactly how to find ol’ Robert, but he’d twisted one of his knees too, and couldn’t keep up, so we done the best we could by him. I told him there wasn’t many moccasins in this part of the swamp noway, which caused him to kind of scuttle like a crab back right up to a big ol’ cypress knee, which was dumb because they’s nothin’ a big ol’ moccasin likes better than wrappin’ hisself around a cypress knee, which I tolt him.
“It wudden the best night we ever had, but come ‘bout sunup we had another five coons and we headed back to get Robert and go meet Lerline at the road. When we got back to Robert he jes’ din’ look good at all. His eyes was sunk back in his head, and he’d took a couple of other whops in the face by branches along the way, and he was standin’ there shaking, wet all over from fallin’ again. The skeeters had eat him pretty bad. Said he heard somethin’ at first light that scared him, and he went to run toward the road, but fell in the water and busted his shin pretty bad. He showed us. It was good and swole up. So we gathered up the coon sack and headed to the road. We’d had enough, and the dogs was wore out, trailing along behind us, the water ‘bout knee deep. Behind ‘em ol’ Robert jes staggered along. Them yard dogs had give up and run off.
“Well, we’re nearabout to the road, and the dogs comes alive, starts openin’, a’hollerin and headin’ out into a little knot of gum trees. Them dogs was hot, let me tell you, and tired as we was, me and Billy and I looked at each other, and laughed right out loud. We knowed what they was after, by the way they was bayin’, real excited and all together, real close.
Out we come to the road, and there set Lerline in the truck, a’waitin’. You can count on Lerline, by God. We throwed the coons in the back, then me and Billy just stood and listened to the dogs and smiled at one another.
“’Robert,’ I said, ‘do us a favor, son. Billy and me’s gonna skin these coons. The dogs has something treed back in there just a little ways. Take these here leashes and go in and just bring them dogs out.’
“Lerline had been making a fuss over where he was hurt, and giving me the bad eye, like it was all my fault, and Robert seen that he had to act like a man, to try an’ prove hissef’. So, off he goes, down in that thicket of willers and briars to get the dogs.
“Me and Billy stood there listenin,’ laughin’ to one another. Them dogs was wild, their voices distinct, barking and growling and howling.
Wasn’t no time and we hear Robert and a regular tornada of dog noise. Robert said, just a’ screamin’, ‘Oh, Jesus! Oh, Jesus! Oh, Godalmighty!’ A dog let out a yell, and then here come the dogs up out of the bushes, with Robert right behind ‘em. Robert run right up and jumped in the back of the truck where the dogs had got, and said, ‘Oh, my god. Oh, my,’ moanin’ for near ‘bout a minute, all the time looking over his shoulder at the woods. He was scairt! Billy and me just a’smilin’.
Then he said, crying and all hysterical like, said, ‘Oh, god! I got in there to where the dogs was at, and they was all around this big gum tree, so I went to ‘em to get aholt of ‘em. They was jumpin’ up on the tree, and I was holdin’ on to the tree and grabbin’ at the dogs, an’ I looked up to see what it was. Right over my head they was a bear climbing backward down the tree—right on top of me , an’ I looked up and there was his asshole big as a quart fruit jar!’
Why, to say I laughed wouldn’t do it no good. Me and Billy roared! I’ve never laughed so hard in my entire life. Even Lurline smiled.
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