The Floatplane Notebooks (10 page)

This was after me and Bliss were married because I remember asking Bliss if she wanted to ride down there with me to watch. She had something else to do.

They had built a fire in the coal stove in the corner and
were doing lay-ups when I got there. City and them had three cheerleaders dressed in green-and-white cheerleader outfits, with pom-poms, and they had some spectators along—two mothers who had driven them all down there, and four or five more. It was real cold, but I remember City had two or three players who were barefooted. He said they were the Tigers; what did Meredith's team want to be?

Meredith said the Floatplanes.

They started playing and the cheerleaders started cheering and their four reserve players lined up on the side. When a player got tired he'd get at the end of the line and the one at the front would go in the game.

I can't remember what the score was but it was real cold, I know that, so every time-out or break or something, somebody shoveled more coal into that stove.

The thing was that somebody had used the stovepipe as a target for coal bricks and dented it and knocked it out of kilter so that it leaked smoke where two sections of pipe fitted together. To fix it somebody would have to sit on somebody's shoulders and twist the loose section of pipe until it fitted tight. The game was about half over, the stove was red-hot, glowing, and smoke from the leak covered the ceiling—and was dropping lower and lower. The only light came from high-up windows and was turning a dark gold color.

Ted and Mike helped Mark up onto Meredith's shoulders and gave him a coat so that he could put his hands in the sleeves and not burn his hands on the pipe. He was going to fit the loose sections back tight so the leaking would stop. I'm just sitting there watching, waiting for the worse. I was at the back door, in case Mr. Thompson came in the front.

Mark had his hands in the sleeves like he was putting the jacket on backwards, up on Meredith's shoulders, the sleeves drooping over his hands. About the time Mark got hold of the pipe, Meredith touched his knee against the red-hot stove and jerked and hollered; Meredith lost his balance, and it looked like when you hold a baseball bat on the tips of your fingers but it falls anyway. Meredith tried to get back under him but it was too late.

When Mark fell he grabbed and took the whole pipe down with him. Only one section of pipe was left in the stove, and the black smoke roared out—like out of a train.

Everybody started doing different things then. Meredith got the shovel, knocked open the stove door and started shoveling out red-hot coals and throwing them out the gym door.

I stood up.

Black smoke was rolling down the back wall and the big black cloud was lowering. Meredith was dropping hot coals out of the shovel, onto the floor and Mark was kicking them out the door.

Somebody got a fire extinguisher from somewhere and started spraying in through the door on the hot coals. That made more smoke than ever come out the short pipe and the stove door.

You could see coal dust dropping from the air like it was sifting through somebody's hands. The bottom of the cloud was just about at everybody's heads and Meredith's face was as black as City's.

There was no choice but to leave. You couldn't see the goals. We just closed the door and left. I looked back at the gym, and smoke was seeping out through cracks in the boards and
out the top corners of the door in two little black upward-flowing rivers, and sort of billowing out under the roof overhang.

But the worse part of the whole thing was that we walked to Mike's backyard to wash off our faces and Mrs. Tillman, their neighbor, saw it and told Mike's mother we'd been dressed up like niggers, and Mike's mother called Papa.

I was lucky, because I didn't go straight home, but Meredith and Mark did, and Papa met them in the yard, blessed them out for changing races, and told Meredith he was going to give him a whipping but he wouldn't say when. I think he waited about two weeks.

Meredith used to brag about getting Rhonda hot. We'd go frog-gigging and talk. One night, it's his turn to gig, my turn to row. Four bullfrogs are in the tow sack in the floor of the rowboat. Meredith sits in the bow, hands cupped over his mouth, answering a bullfrog. I'm in the stern, paddling toward the sound of the frog on the bank.

“Hurry up,” he whispers over his shoulder. He picks up a three-pronged gig with one hand, a flashlight with his other hand.

I drag the paddle on one side and then the other, steering the boat toward the bellowing. Meredith stands slowly and hoists the gig like it's a spear.

The frog croaks from the bank straight off the bow. Meredith clicks on the flashlight, finds the frog sitting on the muddy bank just above water level, looking shiny wet, and sleepy. He holds the light on him and slowly extends the gig toward him as we approach the bank. Just before the boat
touches land, he stabs the gig through the frog and into the mud. The frog croaks a muffled croak and kicks twice. Meredith gives the gig a quick swing up, lifting the frog into the air, lets the gig handle slide down through his hand, places the flashlight between his legs, almost loses his balance, pulls the frog from the gig, drops the gig into the boat, grabs the light and shines it on the frog, which he's holding for me to see. “He's a nice one. The biggest one yet,” he says.

“Not as big as the last one.”

“Bigger.” He turns around, keeping his balance, picks up the tow sack and drops the frog in with the others. “Let's go fry some frog legs,” he says.

“Yeah. I'm hungry.”

Meredith balances the cast iron frying pan on two small logs at the edge of the fire and, with a stick, pushes several coals and small pieces of burning wood under it. He dips a spoon into a small jar of congealed bacon drippings, shakes it into the frying pan, wipes the spoon clean, unfolds a piece of waxed paper, spoons a mixture of cornmeal and flour from another small jar onto the waxed paper and rolls the washed frog legs in it until they are covered. He takes a pinch of flour and cornmeal between his thumb and finger and drops it into the pan. “It's not ready,” he says. “I'm about to starve. You got that other stuff?”

“In the knapsack. Is it time?”

“Put it in that pan—the beans—and put it on the fire on the other side there, like I got this.”

I get out a can of pork and beans, open them, pour them into a pan, and place the pan at the edge of the fire. Then I
get out two deep red tomatoes, clean my hunting knife, and slice the tomatoes into a tin dish.

Meredith drops a pinch of flour and meal into the pan and it sizzles. “Thank goodness. Ain't you about to starve?”

“Yeah. I'm about to starve my ass off.”

Meredith drops four legs into the grease. They sizzle. He rolls them several times. “Hand me that salt.”

I hand the tin salt shaker to Meredith. He sprinkles salt as he rolls the frog legs in the pan, and talks. “They're going to be good. Just the right size. Not too big. Not too little. Papa won't do great big frogs. These are cooking just right, too. See that little bit of smoke coming up. That's just right.”

“I know.”

“If it's hot enough, and you get the flour to stick good, then they'll be real crisp. They're doing just right.”

After they're cooked, we eat the frog legs along with beans and tomatoes on tin plates and drink water from our canteens. We eat slices of white bread with the meal, sop our plates with it.

“I wish we had some corn on the cob,” said Meredith.

“Me too.”

“The coals will be right in about fifteen minutes. What about old man Blackwelder's corn field?”

“Five minutes to get there,” I say, “five to get the corn, and five to get back. The coals would be just right.”

“Let's go. Get the flashlight.”

“We don't need it. The moon's bright as day.”

“Right. We don't need it.”

The almost-full moon is so bright the clouds are white. We cross a field of broomstraw, a patch of woods, the road
—crouched and half running—and stop in a corn row. The stalks look black against the bright night sky.

When we get back, the campfire is a pile of smoldering, red-hot coals. A small flame flickers out, returns, another appears.

We push the corn ears up under the coals so they meet like spokes on a wheel, then cover them with hot coals, and sit watching.

“I wish we had some butter,” I say.

“They're good with just salt. You don't need butter.”

Later, Meredith takes a stick and spreads the coals away from two of the corn ears and rakes the ears onto the ground away from the coals. They steam, and are splotched with black where the coals have burned partly through the green shucks. “They look just right,” says Meredith. “Let's see if this one's done. You'll burn your ass if you ain't careful.”

He peels back the steaming-hot green and black shucks, jerking his hands away when he gets burned. He pulls away all the shucks, most of the silks, tosses the ear into the air and catches it, then quickly drops it, steaming, onto his plate.

“It smells sweet,” I say.

“It's pretty, ain't it?” Meredith blows onto the ear of corn, sprinkles it with salt, bites into it, and chews, opening his mouth so he won't be burned. “Man, that's great. Taste that.” He hands me the plate.

I take a bite. “Hummm. It's done—let's get the rest out.”

“Pull it out and let it be cooling. Shuck that other one for you. This stuff is hot as Cora Gibbs's pussy,” says Meredith.

I shuck the corn ear.

“You remember when Jack and Richard saw her and Bryan
Williams doing it in his car?” says Meredith. “Broad daylight?”

“Yeah, I remember that.”

Meredith takes a bite of corn. “Hell, I got Rhonda hot. She gets hot real easy. She unbuttoned her blouse in the barn one time, too.”

I don't talk about her doing that with me.

“They're all kind of wild or something,” I say to Meredith.

“You ever had a girl to stick her tongue in your ear?”

“Sort of.”

“‘Sort of?'”

“Yeah.”

“I'm talking about French kissing in your
ear
, not just plain old French kissing. There's a big difference. French kissing in your ear drives you crazy and if you do it in their ear it's guaranteed, double-d guaranteed to make them hot. You ever got a girl hot?”

“Of course.”

“Who?”

“Christine Madrey.”

“I thought so. Give me another ear…. I'm going to stick my tongue in it. Ha.”

We eat three ears apiece and leave three for breakfast.

Late in the night, we crawl into the tent, under our blankets, and lie there.

“Let's see who can fart first,” says Meredith. He farts.

We watch the dying coals.

“You ever hear about old Ross giving somebody a hot coal to eat?” says Meredith. “Told them it was chocolate?”

“Yeah, I heard that a bunch of times.”

On the first night things were the same as always. We watched television for a while, talked, the men fed the dogs, we went to our separate quarters.

Miss Esther and I were staying in Lee's room as usual—Uncle Hawk and Aunt Sybil's daughter who works in Kentucky. The same pictures were on the dresser: Lee's baby pictures, and Uncle Hawk in a uniform when he was very young, and Aunt Sybil and Uncle Hawk when they got married.

When we were getting dressed to go to bed I asked Miss Esther, “Was Uncle Hawk in World War I? That picture. I've never heard him mention it.”

“No, as a matter of fact, he wasn't. He bought that uniform at an Army surplus store. He was running from the law then. I remember washing it for him, and Mama crying. We washed his clothes and sent them to him for over a year. Somebody would leave them off and pick them up.”

“What was he in trouble for?”

“He escaped off a chain gang, for one thing. It was all because of drinking. You've heard it talked about. It was a real shame, but he's gone straight for a long time now. That other was a long time ago. Time changes some things.”

I felt she wanted the topic closed.

I was about to bring up the question of Meredith and Mark going into service, and perhaps not being along next year, but I didn't. It didn't seem like the place or time. Yet, I wanted to explode with my concern so that this family would somehow register what was about to happen. They seemed to treat the imminent departure as a normal event. I wanted to shake them up, say, “Don't you all have something to
say
about this? Aren't you concerned?” They'll talk far more about Old Ross, Tyree, bird dogs, and cooking, than they will about these young men going away to war.

Day Two: Silver Springs. It was exciting again, and this was the first year Taylor got the full effect of all the wonderment. His favorite was the monkeys in the trees which we saw on the jungle cruise.

On the second night Aunt Sybil fixed quail casserole, one of her best dishes. Dan Braddock was there. The conversation got onto Vietnam. Meredith likes to call it B. E Nam, because that's what Taylor calls it. At first I didn't want to get involved, but I got to thinking that I'd been a part of this family for ten years, a veritable decade.

“Nobody else in the family has gone to war, have they?” I asked.

“Thomas, Esther's husband,” said Uncle Hawk.

“Blood kin, I mean.”

Miss Esther eyed me. “Isaac, Walker's oldest, was killed in the Civil War. Ross's brother,” she said.

“And Daddy was a frogman,” said Noralee.

“And built bridges,” said Mr. Copeland.

“But none of that counts,” said Meredith, “because he never got any farther than Norfolk, Virginia.”

“The timing's always been wrong,” said Uncle Hawk, “since the Civil War, anyway. Like Thatcher there—he's got a kid and is too old.”