cursing and what he called “ugly talk,” which was anything a twelve-year-old would scrawl on an outhouse wall.
He did not spit in front of ladies, even if he had to swallow the juice. He tipped his hat, like in a cowboy matinee.
He was blessed with that beautiful, selective morality that we Southerners are famous for. Even as a boy, he thought people who steal were trash, real trash. He thought people who would lie were trash. “And a man who’ll lie,” he said, even back then, “will steal.” Yet he saw absolutely nothing wrong with downing a full pint of likker—a full pint is enough to get two men drunk as lords—before engaging in a fistfight that sometimes required hospitalization.
He saw no reason to obey some laws—like the ones about licenses, fees and other governmental annoyances—but he would not have picked an apple off another man’s ground and eaten it.
He was not literate, but he was no fool. He could figure in his head the carpenter’s calculations needed to roof a house or build one—some men just have a gift that way—but while men came to respect him for his abilities, he would always be the one who did their lifting for them.
If they talked down to him, he quit and he never worked for them again. The South of Charlie Bundrum had a strict class system, and he was beholden to the monied whites for his living. But even as a boy he thought his life was worth just as much as anyone else’s. “We’re as good as anybody,” he liked to say. It might have been obvious, as he rode past in a ragged car, a big tar bucket on the floorboards, that some people lived better. But if there was any envy, it never boiled up to where it passed his lips. He did not hate a rich man, did not covet his life, at least that anyone can remember.
He did not talk about heaven, the way a lot of poor people did then and always will, to justify their struggle on this earth.
He was funny that way.
He was happy being who he was, without even an expectation of wings, and feet of clay.
If someone, maybe around a fire on one of those riverbanks, had asked him then, “What do you want, Charlie,” he could have told them.
He wanted enough work to live decent, and on a Saturday he wanted a drink of likker, because it sent the silver shivers down him and that was good.
He wanted a ham and biscuit. He wanted to hear some music,and watch a pretty girl walk down the street in town, if he could do it and not be obvious about it.
He wanted, even though he was just a boy himself, some babies. His heart melted around them, his spirit soared. He might not have been able to put it into words, but they made him noble, they raised him up. And he wanted that little four-eyed gal, the one he had seen at a basketball game over by Gadsden on the Alabama side. There was just something about a black-haired girl with blue eyes.
Claude Bundrum, his kin, knew Ava Hamilton when she was a young woman. He knew that, even then, she was different—if not outright peculiar.
“And meeting Charlie,” he said, “probably didn’t help things none.”
5.
Four-Eyes
Outside Gadsden, Alabama
1910–1920
G od made just one.
In size, she wasn’t much, just a little thing, a tad bowlegged, with hair down past her waist and those startling, silver-blue eyes. But the Maker must have had some personality left over from somebody else—Lutherans maybe—because He gave Ava about twice as much as anybody else. Even when she was growing up on her daddy’s nice farm in the Alabama foothills, her anger burned hotter and her happiness flashed brighter, it seemed, than was altogether natural. When sorrow gripped her, it gripped her like barbed wire, and her wails would make a person shiver. But when she was happy she drew everyone around her into the circle of her warmth, her joy, and you were grateful for it even as you waited for the mood to sharply turn, like a Sunday drive that ends in a head-on collision.
Her eyes went weak early in life,
He did not spit in front of ladies, even if he had to swallow the juice. He tipped his hat, like in a cowboy matinee.
He was blessed with that beautiful, selective morality that we Southerners are famous for. Even as a boy, he thought people who steal were trash, real trash. He thought people who would lie were trash. “And a man who’ll lie,” he said, even back then, “will steal.” Yet he saw absolutely nothing wrong with downing a full pint of likker—a full pint is enough to get two men drunk as lords—before engaging in a fistfight that sometimes required hospitalization.
He saw no reason to obey some laws—like the ones about licenses, fees and other governmental annoyances—but he would not have picked an apple off another man’s ground and eaten it.
He was not literate, but he was no fool. He could figure in his head the carpenter’s calculations needed to roof a house or build one—some men just have a gift that way—but while men came to respect him for his abilities, he would always be the one who did their lifting for them.
If they talked down to him, he quit and he never worked for them again. The South of Charlie Bundrum had a strict class system, and he was beholden to the monied whites for his living. But even as a boy he thought his life was worth just as much as anyone else’s. “We’re as good as anybody,” he liked to say. It might have been obvious, as he rode past in a ragged car, a big tar bucket on the floorboards, that some people lived better. But if there was any envy, it never boiled up to where it passed his lips. He did not hate a rich man, did not covet his life, at least that anyone can remember.
He did not talk about heaven, the way a lot of poor people did then and always will, to justify their struggle on this earth.
He was funny that way.
He was happy being who he was, without even an expectation of wings, and feet of clay.
If someone, maybe around a fire on one of those riverbanks, had asked him then, “What do you want, Charlie,” he could have told them.
He wanted enough work to live decent, and on a Saturday he wanted a drink of likker, because it sent the silver shivers down him and that was good.
He wanted a ham and biscuit. He wanted to hear some music,and watch a pretty girl walk down the street in town, if he could do it and not be obvious about it.
He wanted, even though he was just a boy himself, some babies. His heart melted around them, his spirit soared. He might not have been able to put it into words, but they made him noble, they raised him up. And he wanted that little four-eyed gal, the one he had seen at a basketball game over by Gadsden on the Alabama side. There was just something about a black-haired girl with blue eyes.
Claude Bundrum, his kin, knew Ava Hamilton when she was a young woman. He knew that, even then, she was different—if not outright peculiar.
“And meeting Charlie,” he said, “probably didn’t help things none.”
5.
Four-Eyes
Outside Gadsden, Alabama
1910–1920
G od made just one.
In size, she wasn’t much, just a little thing, a tad bowlegged, with hair down past her waist and those startling, silver-blue eyes. But the Maker must have had some personality left over from somebody else—Lutherans maybe—because He gave Ava about twice as much as anybody else. Even when she was growing up on her daddy’s nice farm in the Alabama foothills, her anger burned hotter and her happiness flashed brighter, it seemed, than was altogether natural. When sorrow gripped her, it gripped her like barbed wire, and her wails would make a person shiver. But when she was happy she drew everyone around her into the circle of her warmth, her joy, and you were grateful for it even as you waited for the mood to sharply turn, like a Sunday drive that ends in a head-on collision.
Her eyes went weak early in life,
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