Dirty Work (17 page)

“We had a crew come in there one day, a whole family, had sideplanks on their truck and all their stuff in there, little black kids all piled up in the back. There were some other people in the field, too, but it was about thirty acres. With a picker now that’s nothing. But back then most of it was picked by hand.

“Anyway they drove up and asked old Norris if he needed any help. He said he did and the guy asked him what he was paying. So Norris told him and asked him reckon when they could start. This guy says Wellsuh we figgered we’d start in right now. So, hell, they all piled out, it was seven or eight of them, some little bitty kids, too. Cutest little kids. Some of them had their hair fixed up like Buckwheat when he was little, you know. That guy I guess was in his early forties, middle forties. His wife got out and helped. Every one of them helped except for a little baby they had. They let it sleep in the truck.
And they started in around two o’clock that evening. That guy’s name was Louis Champion. He got on a row beside Daddy and they went to picking some cotton. Daddy was pretty good, but this guy could pick more, and cleaner, than anybody I ever saw. He didn’t pull any trash and he didn’t leave anything behind, either. They even had their own sacks. It was what they did every fall. They went wherever there was cotton, didn’t matter where it was.

“Wasn’t but about an hour before Champion came out with his sack full and laid it down and got another one, squatted down and smoked a cigarette, and then hit it again. Hell, Norris knew how hard he was working. Daddy came over to me one time and said Damn, that guy beats anything I’ve ever seen. Said he couldn’t keep up with him. He had a fourteen-year-old girl who could pick almost as much as Daddy could. I guess they’d done it all their lives. Or maybe there wasn’t much other way for them to make money the other parts of the year, and they had to make all they could in a season. Anyway they worked harder than any people I’ve ever seen. Him and Daddy talked just about all evening, I mean when they could. Champion had been in the war, too. I guess they were talking about that.

“Long about dark they were still picking, and Norris hollered out That’s enough, let’s quit for the day. And hell, I was ready to. Most times we’d get paid by the day. You got paid when the sun went down. But we still had a bunch to pick. And I don’t know what all was said exactly but it turned out they didn’t have any money for supper
and wanted to spend the night and just stay till it was all picked. Till the whole field was picked. And which that suited old Norris fine, he wanted to get it out and get it to the gin before it rained. Go on and get it baled. Get his money.

“So he told em yeah, they could stay on the place. Champion wanted his money for that day, though. Me and Daddy were going to wait on ours. We were going to stay till it was all picked anyway. Norris was writing it down every time we weighed our sacks. We didn’t know he was weighing us light. Maybe Daddy knew. Maybe that was why he didn’t like to work for him. I don’t know. But anyway they stood around talking for a while and Norris talked Champion into just waiting till they got through before he paid him out. Told him he’d give him whatever he needed by the day. Acted real nice about it, of course. He pulled out thirty dollars and gave it to him and said, Just go on and take this, get whatever you need, I’ll take it out of whatever I owe you when we get through. Hell, his eyes lit up when he saw that money. He’d probably never been given any advance money his whole life. Norris was watching them weigh the sacks when they brought them out, but this is how he fucked him. How he fucked all of us. He had the cotton scale shaved down to where it didn’t show what it ought to. He had some regular scales and then he had these. You couldn’t tell it if you didn’t know what to look for. He’d milled the damn thing down some way to where it took more weight to bring it down to where it ought to read. Then, I don’t know, I guess he left
it laying out in the pasture for about a year so it would rust and look like it had always been like that. The first evening they worked, old Champion looked at that scale a little funny. Norris showed him what he had written down in his little book and he kind of turned his head up on the side and said, Sure thought I picked more’n that. Then Norris gave him that money. So, hell, everything was slick. Right then, anyway.

“Daddy told him where the store was and then we left. Our house was just down the road a little ways. They had them a little tent they were setting up when we took off. I thought it was pretty neat. They just lived sort of a nomadic lifestyle, I guess. They had that tent and pots and pans and all. A big Dutch oven, lanterns. Had some cots and a bunch of quilts. They’d just camp out wherever they were working.

“So we went on to the house and ate supper. Mama had fixed a big blackberry pie in a dishpan and there was a bunch of it left over. We were just sitting around the table after supper talking. Mama got up to start washing dishes and she saw those lights down in the field there and asked Daddy what that was. We told her about those people staying down there. Daddy was sitting there smoking a cigarette and he looked at that pie and then looked at me and said, Hell, Walter, let’s go down there and carry them kids the rest of that pie. Said they’d probably like some dessert. So we went back down there. Carried some spoons. Tried to get Max to go but he was watching ‘Gunsmoke.’

“You should have seen those kids. They all started grinning when they saw that pie. They were all real nice and everything. Champion was sitting in a folding chair smoking a pipe and reading a newspaper when we got there. They had some coffee made and he got us some chairs, fixed me and Daddy some coffee. Had his shoes off. They had a nice little camp there. The kids started eating that pie. Even got that little baby up and fed him some of it. Boy he liked it, too. He was smacking his lips.

“I was raised not to talk when grown people were talking, so I just listened. Him and Daddy talked about the cotton for a while, about what a good crop it looked like. And after a while he said something else about being light on the scales but I didn’t know it then, see. It was a long time later when I found out what happened. I went and got the scales one night. While they still had Norris in the hospital and Daddy in jail. I weighed a bag of Portland cement that was certified at ninety-four pounds and the scales said eighty-one. He was cheating us out of about fifteen pounds on every hundred. Which adds up to a hell of a lot on thirty acres. But Champion didn’t know for sure. He didn’t make any big deal out of it. They got to talking about where all they’d gone in the war. They’d been in a lot of the same places. He had six kids and another one coming. They picked cotton everywhere, all over Mississippi, even went over in north Alabama and picked. They just moved around in the fall, but they lived in Alligator. He said down there they wouldn’t pay much for picking,
there were so many people needing work, so he’d come up north.

“I don’t know. He didn’t seem bitter. He knew a better day was coming sometime. He just wished it was here now. Then. He wanted his kids to go to college. Get educations. Not have to pick cotton the rest of their lives. I’d never heard a black man talk like that. I’d never heard one with hopes like that. But finally he yawned once and we got the hint and got up to go. He stood up and his wife brought the pan over, she’d done washed it and all the spoons, and they thanked us for bringing it to the kids. They were good people. They didn’t seem like they were unhappy. But I felt sorry for them. Hauling their kids all over the country. Camping out in a tent. I guess it was just the times we lived in. I guess it wasn’t just Mississippi. It was the way everything was back then. But you could find people like that right now I know.

“He knew something was wrong by dinnertime the next day. He’d bring his sack out and it would weigh light to him every time. He’d stand there and look at it. He’d picked enough to know what the sack would hold damn near to the pound. Daddy didn’t say anything, he was just watching. Maybe Daddy knew Norris was screwing us. Maybe he just wanted to stay out of trouble. But Champion finally said something about it. To Norris. Said I believe it’s something wrong with that scale. Well, Norris just flew into cussing. Usually that was all he had to do. Most of them wouldn’t stand up to him. But Champion
did. I guess Daddy had seen this kind of thing happen before. He didn’t say nothing, he just watched. Champion told old Norris he wasn’t calling him a cheat, but he knew what his sack would hold. Norris told him if he thought there was something wrong with the scale to go on and look at it, so he did. Hell, it looked all right. You’re talking about just a little bit of metal shaved off that made a lot of difference. The whole thing didn’t weigh but a few pounds. He looked at it, just shook his head. Said well, it didn’t look like they was nothing wrong with it. He just couldn’t figure it out. Said I know what my sack holds. Shit, I hated it. It looked like we were fixing to have some real trouble. I didn’t know what Daddy was going to do, whether he was going to stay out of it or not. I figured I knew whose side he’d be on. But Champion didn’t look like a guy you could push much, either. Only thing was his wife and kids looked scared as hell.

“Finally he went on back in the field and started picking again. Working faster than he was before. He rolled. Worked on through dinner and wouldn’t even stop to eat. He was packing it in there. Got it so full it wouldn’t hold any more. Just about too heavy to pull. Daddy quit picking and left his sack on the ground and helped him pull it up to the truck. Took both of them to get it up on the hook. I’d never seen one sack with that much in it. Old Norris got up there and fiddled around with it a while and hollered out One twenty-two. And hell, it had over a hundred and fifty pounds in it, easy. And it flew all over Champion. He told him. Said You weighing us short. And hell,
everybody could see it. Everybody’d done stopped picking. Old Norris was scared. He eyeballed Daddy a little bit. Then he called Champion a lying black son of a bitch. Right there in front of his wife and kids and everybody. You could tell he really had to suck up his guts to do it. Cause there was Daddy looking at him, too. But Daddy wasn’t saying anything. He was just watching.

“Champion said Well, you can just pay us off. Cause we ain’t working no more. Norris said that was fine with him. He had it all wrote down. Started figuring it up. Champion got all his kids out of the field and they started packing everything up. Daddy just motioned for me to get out of the field so I did. They had to take down their tent and all. I was trying to figure in my head how much they must have picked. A lot. And if it was fifteen percent he was trying to gyp us out of it was a bunch. Hell. He could’ve made it right. That’s what Daddy was doing, giving him a chance to. Champion was smoking a cigarette, just waiting. Old Norris looked up at him one time and said I doubt if you’ve made thirty dollars yet, and it was like he’d slapped him. He had this look on his face like the world was fixing to end. Norris put his pencil in his pocket finally and handed Champion the little book he’d been figuring in. He looked at it for a minute. Then he just closed it up and dropped it on the ground. Said I know a ton of cotton when I see it, white man.

“At two cents a pound it would’ve brought forty dollars. And Norris held out four dollars and told him that was all he was getting. Said that was all he owed him if they
didn’t pick any more. Champion wouldn’t take it. Said You cheating me. Norris started cussing him again. Told him he’d better take it and get off the place. Champion said Why you want to cheat me? Said I ain’t never done nothing to you. He said he was taking ten, but he wasn’t taking four. Norris throwed the money down. Said there it was if he wanted it, but for them to get their asses gone.

“Daddy was real calm about it. He said If you’ve cheated this man then you’ve cheated me too. Me and my boy. But he wasn’t even looking at Norris while he was talking. He was looking at Champion’s kids. Man, they were scared. They were all holding onto their mama. Daddy said Now you pay him what you owe him and then you pay me.

“Man. I’ve thought a lot of times how easily all that could have been avoided. All he had to do was be honest. Just wouldn’t do it. Just that damn sorry.

“He told Daddy, said Now Randall I ain’t got no quarrel with you. Said I’m gonna pay you what I owe you. Daddy said yeah and he was gonna pay them what he owed them, too. Started walking toward him. Norris started backing up. Backing around toward the cab. Champion spoke up and told him to just leave it alone, he could handle it. Didn’t need any help. It all happened so fast. If he hadn’t been so scared of Daddy it probably wouldn’t have happened at all. I mean all this shit happened over six dollars.

“He had the gun under the seat. Little sawed-off twelve-gauge single barrel. It was on the other side of the truck. I didn’t actually see it when it went off. Just heard it. I
saw Norris fall. We stepped around there and it looked like about half his head was blowed off. There Daddy was holding the gun. Hell, we thought he was dead. So much blood. But he didn’t die. Not till he turned that tractor over on him a few years ago. They never did figure out how that happened. He was snaking logs out by himself. Way off down in the woods. Had a fifty-foot cable with a hook on it. Got the damn thing hooked around a tree somehow. That’s the thing about a tractor. You don’t want to pull nothing with the back end that can’t be pulled. They’ll turn straight over backward on you. Every time. You’d think a man like that would know to watch behind him. All he lost that day in his cotton patch was one ear and some skin off the side of his head. My daddy lost some more years of his life. And I lost that much more of my daddy. Cause they sent him back to the pen again after that.

“He got me to go call the law and an ambulance and all. He got Champion and them to leave while I was gone. We never heard anything out of them again. Daddy just sat there and waited for the law to come get him. He knew it wouldn’t do any good to run. But he gave them the chance to run and they took it.

“He went quick in his sleep one night. Mama woke up next to him and he was already cold. She just laid there beside him and held him until it got daylight. Then she woke us up and told us. But he was old. Looked old, moved like an old man. He did nearly ten years altogether. That’s a lot of cottonpicking.