The Floatplane Notebooks (5 page)

At around lunchtime everybody started stopping work. I walked with Aunt Scrap over to the clearing between the graveyard and wisteria vine, where people were spreading blankets and quilts on the ground. Aunt Scrap took me into the edge of the woods and ran her rake softly across the pine straw. “See, you can still see where the cotton rows were.” And there on the ground among the tall pine trees: gentle, undulating rows beneath the thick copper-colored pine straw.

Now that would have been something to give a report on in school.

Thatcher walked up. I grabbed his hand, which was rough from the work he'd been doing. Thatcher has very manly hands anyway. He works for Strong Pull Construction, and will eventually become a crane operator. It's been his lifelong dream.

Dan Braddock, sitting on the tailgate of Mr. Copeland's jeep truck, said to Aunt Scrap, who was getting food out
of a basket in the truck bed, ‘Ain't it so, Aunt Scrap?”

“What's that?”

“About Hawk. Nigger woman nursing him and a pickaninny at the same time.”

“Aunt Ricka, won't it? Some kin to that Zuba.”

“I don't remember it,” said Uncle Hawk.

“You ought to,” said Mr. Copeland. He looked at me. I had just sat down on a blanket. “Hawk was so old before he stopped nursing, Mama told him if he'd just please stop, he could start smoking cigarettes.”

Everybody laughed.

“Who was Zuba?” I asked Thatcher, who had just sat down beside me.

“Nigger man used to live on the place. He got hung with a stretch of wisteria vine for murdering a little girl. That same vine I reckon.”

I was shocked to my toes.

Aunt Scrap handed me a ham-and-biscuit.

It was a joyous and merry occasion. The sun was bright through the lofty pines and we were in the cool shade drinking iced tea and eating lovely picnic food.

I like the graveyard. You can't step on the graves, but a dog gets on one and Aunt Scrap hollers.

Papa asks me if I can remember coming last year and I can. There is a little rock angel on Loretta's grave. Loretta was my grandma but I never saw her when she was alive. They talk about Loretta and the baby fingers. Then they talk about that rock pile and Meredith carries me down there on his shoulders.

Mr. Braddock talks about niggers. Mama says not to say nigger but everybody else does except Mama and Bliss.

Mr. Braddock is fat.

Then we eat.

Aunt Scrap has a surprise for me in her pocket. She always does. It's a piece of candy, but she says I can't eat it until after lunch. She hollers at Fox. Fox is Meredith's home dog. He's black and last time at the graveyard he licked some chocolate off my face.

Mark's home dog is Trader.

Mark wears a hunting knife and him and Meredith take me down to the rock pile where they see who can throw a great big white rock the farthest.

At the rehearsal dinner, Uncle Hawk and Aunt Sybil sat across from Mother, Father, Thatcher, and me. I was a little concerned.

“What sort of work you into?” Uncle Hawk asked Father.

“Securities.”

“Securities?”

“Right, securities.”

“Is that in a bank or something?”

“No, not exactly. It's not in a bank.”

“Some kind of paper work, though.”

“You could say that.”

“I never been in any paper work, course I hadn't wanted to either, but I imagine if I had, I wouldn't had the credentials to do that sort of thing. I'm too tan, too.”

“Hum,” said Father, chewing on his steak. The dinner was absolutely wonderful. Thatcher and I held hands under the table.

“What sort of work do you do?” Father asked.

“Transportation. Transportation and digestion is what I call it. I got a combination gas station, cafe, hardware-grocery store, and fruit stand. That's what I call it: transportation and digestion.”

“That's right,” said Father. “Bliss told me that—”

“Most people think that's right funny,” said Uncle Hawk. He was leaning over his plate a little.

“It is funny,” said Mother. But she didn't laugh.

And then, the most glorious day of my life.

The church was almost full for the wedding, both sides. On my side were all my aunts and uncles, a total of only four. Thatcher's family was there in full force, including Aunt Scrap.

My older sister, Claire, made it from Alabama and was my maid of honor, though we've never been close, and Mr. Copeland was the best man. Meredith and Mark were two of the ushers and were the handsomest little things in the world. Meredith had that twinkle in his eye throughout. He is so cute.

And yes, there's something of steel in Thatcher, in his eye and manner, that makes me know we'll be happy for the rest of our lives. I look forward to a full life as a wife and mother, friend and patient companion through the hardships one encounters along the pathways of life.

The reception took place in our backyard and I was upstairs putting on my trip suit when Mother walked in—apparently upset. “Who did you say the one with the red tie is?” she said. “The one who sat across from us last night.”

“That's Uncle Hawk. Thatcher's uncle. Mr. Copeland's brother—the one we went to see in Florida.”

“Do you know what he's saying?” She put her fist on her hip.

“What?”

“Well, there's Ellie and Bob, and Dawn Harrison sitting around out there and he says, ‘Yeah, I was working the roads in Albany, Georgia, in thirty-two and got fried chicken left beside a fence corner on one day, pork chops the next, and barbecue the next. By three women. Three different women. That's how organized I was.'

“And Ellie says, ‘Why did they leave it beside a fence? Why didn't they just bring it to you?'

“‘Cause I was working the roads,' he says.

‘“What's that?' says Ellie, and Bliss, the man was on a chain gang!”

“I didn't know that.”

“So then Larry Cain asks him how long he was on a chain gang and he says, ‘Until I figured out I could get a file left for me just as easy as fried chicken.'”

“Well, Mother, he may have been exagger—”

“And then about a minute later he says he never shot but one man in his life, ‘but he lived.'”

I didn't know what to say. What could I say?

“Well, don't you see how that sounds?” Mother says.

“No, not really, Mother.”

“It's just not the kind of thing one wants to hear on one's daughter's wedding day.” She was smoking a Pall Mall—red lipstick on the end. ‘And this Dan Braddock fellow—honestly,” she said, blowing smoke.

“Now Mother, please,” I said. “This is the happiest day of my life and I can't let something like that get in the way. Please.”

Mother tends to find the least distinguished aspect of a situation and then focus on it for one to two hours.

Mother tells me the Scriptures are full of warnings about spilling your seed on the ground like Onan. Onan made God mad and God “slew him also.” She says if God would do it then, He might do it now.

But I don't know what it means. She reads it to me when she catches me doing it. But I'm not going to do it anymore. But it's hard not to.

I do lots of good things to make up for doing it. I don't cuss like Meredith does, for one thing. We live next door to them and sometimes Mother comes and gets me if she hears him cussing. Last time she came out to the shop door and heard him.

Uncle Albert lets us play in the shop in the floatplane he's building. We bomb the Japs and the Germans.

While the people in the church are singing “Breathe On Me,” I feel Jesus. Mother is singing in the choir. Meredith is
not here. He comes to Sunday school sometimes. Mother says Uncle Albert and Aunt Mildred ought to make them all come, and come themselves.

Holy Spirit, breathe on me,
My stubborn will subdue;
Teach me in words of living flame
What Christ would have me do.
Breathe on me, breathe on me,
Holy Spirit, breathe on me;
Take thou my heart, cleanse every part,
Holy Spirit, breathe on me.

Mr. Meacham walks down the aisle next to the far wall. His head is bowed, and he's holding his handkerchief up to his face.

“Tarry not.”

I look at my hands resting on the back of the wooden pew. I feel Jesus pulling me down toward the preacher, down to rededicate my life, whispering to me, moving in my feet. I want to be true, clean, pure. I look up at Mother in the choir, but the lights are in her glasses and I can't tell if she's looking at me or not.

“All you have to do, friend, all you have to do is take that one step, then let Jesus take your hand. Don't refuse him. Don't hold back.”

I let go. I step into the ocean, out into the aisle and watch my feet walking, one and then the other, my brown shoes on the thin, maroon rug—down past wooden pews in which I used to sit with my head leaning over into the corner of the pew, my ear picking up the hard echoes of all the people singing loud, full hymns to God.

After the service people stand in line to shake my hand. Mrs. Boles, Mrs. Wood, Mrs. Toggart hug me. I smell their hair, dresses, perfume, and look into the sagging skin on their arms. I feel their breath in my ear as they whisper what a good boy I am. They're almost like aunts and uncles.

Mr. Bass, the preacher, asks the ones of us who have come down—me, two men, a red-headed woman, and another boy—to follow him back for a brief meditation. We walk through the door at the back of the auditorium, into the hallway which smells like wood and hymnals. I follow them through the junior department, where Meredith shot a broken paper clip at me with a rubber band one time while I was leading a song—and the clip stuck in my chin, and I kept on leading the song. After church I told on him.

We go into a classroom, sit, and the wicker chair-bottoms squeak.

“May we pray,” says Mr. Bass.

I close my eyes and feel the church around me, the tall red brick walls, the white columns, the steps, the large rooms and smooth wooden benches. It feels good, like I'm where I'm supposed to be.

“Dear Lord,” Mr. Bass prays, “be with us in our hour of need. Be with these who have sought Thee, have sought Thy healing presence, Thy love, oh Lord. We ask that Thou wilt bless them, grant each one the needs he has, Oh Lord, in Thy precious name, amen. Now if any of you would like to pray, please do.”

The red-headed woman prays: “Dear Lord, Thou knows I whup little Judy Faye and it don't do no good…. Amen.”

I see a little girl getting whipped over and over because she keeps doing mean things.

“Anyone else?”

Silence.

“Amen,” says Mr. Bass. “Bless you all. I just wanted us to gather for a moment of quiet and prayer.”

When we finish, Mother is waiting outside the classroom door.

Next day, Meredith and me sit in the floatplane frame on a bombing run over Germany.

I need to let him know. “Last night I rededicated my life to Christ.”

“Why?”

“Because I had to. Jesus called me.”

“You just want to be a goody-goody.”

I am better than Meredith now, for sure. I was better than Meredith when he dropped those kittens down the well. I told him he was supposed to drown them in the pond but he didn't pay any attention. He just walks over to the well with the kittens in a potato sack and takes them out one at a time and drops them down the well by holding them right over the middle of the well, by the skin on their necks, turns loose, saying, “Bombs away.” It goes sailing down to meet itself coming up in the picture, and splat hits, and the circles spread out in the middle, breaking up the blue sky. Three of the kittens hang onto the side until Meredith pours a bucket of water on them in a steady stream so that it pushes them out in the middle and they disappear. I was scared Jesus might come and get mad.

I was better than Meredith then, because he did it, and I didn't, and I'm better than he is now because I'm saved and rededicated and he's not either one.

“If you're not saved you'll burn in hell after you die,” I tell him.

“I'm as good as you are.”

“Not if you ain't saved.”

“You don't know everything.”

“I know that.”

Bliss and me moved in with Mama and Papa right after we got married. We're waiting for Mr. Sutton's son to move to Richmond, which he keeps putting off. Then we'll have a nice place to rent until we can save up for a down payment. Meredith has been the center of attention lately, as usual. First off, he got in trouble at school because he got the address of this group from Miami and he wrote a letter saying he had fifty volunteers ready to go fight Castro and they wrote him a letter back saying that American citizens couldn't fight down there, but that they appreciated his interest.

I wish they'd sent about ten combat trucks to the school and said,
Okay, boys, let's load ‘em up.

Mrs. Bingham got aholt of the letter and gave it to Mr. Temple and he called in Meredith and asked him what was going on. Meredith said he was ready to go fight, but that it was Mark's idea to write the letter. Mr. Temple called in Mark and Mark said he knew about it, but it won't his idea. Then
Mark told Aunt Esther and she complained to Mama.

Papa found out and told Meredith he couldn't go out to the shop for a week. Papa is still working on that floatplane out there—off and on. Meredith got the picture of the finished product out of the instructions and stuck it on his wall, which don't make much difference because Papa don't seem to be too interested in the instructions anyway. He's more interested in the notebook. He's supposed to keep that in case the thing crashes, I reckon. Then they can look in there and see why. He finally got both engines started at the lake but nobody wouldn't ride with him so it was whopsided in the water until he moved over in the middle. Then he drove it around on the water again. But he wrote it up wrong. He had the temperature, wind direction, and all that in here, and then in the narrative account he says, “First successful in-air operation today. Aircraft lifted into air on eight separate occasions.” What happened was he run it across this speed boat wake twice and it bounced eight times. I told him that didn't count but he wouldn't talk about it.