relayed to her already. My eating breakfast was a losing proposition any way I examined the matter.
Half an hour went by and I stood and waited. I paced around and whistled a few tunes, killing time. I cranked out a few sets of pushups on the patch of grass. A gamble quail scuttled across the road. Its color, like that of the scaled quail, is bluish-ash, but it has that plume of soft curved feathers on its head that gives its subspecies away every time. My stomach rumbled.
Deputy Roy pulled up precisely at seven a.m. with the passenger window of his car already rolled down. “Get in,” he said, and I obliged.
We drove east on Main Street and turned the corner south onto Highway 2. It was the same route Crazy Ake and I had run only a few days ago. We passed the café and the mercantile, the tavern and pool hall south of that, the school with its baseball field, and then we were out of town. The wind whistled throughmy open window. I hadn’t closed it on purpose of the way I stunk. There was no shower in the jail where I overnighted, although I tried to wash up as best I could in the bathroom sink. My clothes were a mess. That don’t matter much if you’re lying in a foxhole for days on end, but for a man on his first official day of work, I felt a mite ashamed of my condition, even if I was only stinking for Deputy Roy.
“You been to the church building yet?” he asked.
“No sir.”
“Just so you’re oriented correctly as to the lay of the land, we take a right on the Lost Truck Road just before we hit the bridge over the river. Church is down that road on the left. You from these parts?”
“Grew up in Denim.” Him nosing around my past made me antsy, and the specific whereabouts on the highway were looking all too familiar. This was the very same stretch of blacktop he’d shot at me.
“Denim, huh. We used to play them in baseball. What year did you graduate?”
“Finished tenth grade then went into the CCCs.”
“Digging ditches for President Roosevelt, eh. I’ve never gone out for that unskilled manual labor myself, and I don’t cater much to public relief programs. Yet I’m curious about your ministerial training. Where’d you say you went to seminary?”
“I didn’t.”
“Correspondence courses?”
I shook my head.
“You trained as a chaplain then? What branch of the service? I would have liked to serve our country myself, but I was 4-F on account of my flat feet.”
“No sir. Wasn’t a chaplain.”
The deputy slowed the car and stopped. He didn’t pull over to the shoulder even. It was right in the middle of the highway.No other cars were around, and we both sat there, neither of us saying a word. Finally he spoke. “Engine’s running a mite warm today, Rowdy. Be a pal and pop the hood for me. I want to let it cool a spell.”
The engine was still running. I knew he was testing me. He wanted to see me stand in front of his patrol car, to gauge my height and build against his memory. The color of my jacket. The way the back of my head looked through his windshield.
“Go on,” he said. “Get out and pop the hood.”
“Seems to be running fine.” My voice was low. As low as I could make it while still being heard. My heart pounded in my chest. I didn’t want to need to kill a man this morning, and I didn’t want to get shot at neither.
“No, you’re wrong. Engine’s hot. Needs to cool off. I’ll just sit here if that’s okay. My back’s been out of sorts lately.”
The deputy wasn’t relenting, and I knew the man wouldn’t until he got his way. Slowly I eased open the door. Slowly I walked to the front of the car, reached down while keeping my eyes on the deputy, and fiddled with the hood latch. It popped and I opened the hood. I stayed standing where I was, not even looking at the engine. It was a typical Ford Flathead V8, and it wasn’t steaming, I knew that much—not steaming in the least. I counted three hundred Mississippis in my mind until I was certain
Half an hour went by and I stood and waited. I paced around and whistled a few tunes, killing time. I cranked out a few sets of pushups on the patch of grass. A gamble quail scuttled across the road. Its color, like that of the scaled quail, is bluish-ash, but it has that plume of soft curved feathers on its head that gives its subspecies away every time. My stomach rumbled.
Deputy Roy pulled up precisely at seven a.m. with the passenger window of his car already rolled down. “Get in,” he said, and I obliged.
We drove east on Main Street and turned the corner south onto Highway 2. It was the same route Crazy Ake and I had run only a few days ago. We passed the café and the mercantile, the tavern and pool hall south of that, the school with its baseball field, and then we were out of town. The wind whistled throughmy open window. I hadn’t closed it on purpose of the way I stunk. There was no shower in the jail where I overnighted, although I tried to wash up as best I could in the bathroom sink. My clothes were a mess. That don’t matter much if you’re lying in a foxhole for days on end, but for a man on his first official day of work, I felt a mite ashamed of my condition, even if I was only stinking for Deputy Roy.
“You been to the church building yet?” he asked.
“No sir.”
“Just so you’re oriented correctly as to the lay of the land, we take a right on the Lost Truck Road just before we hit the bridge over the river. Church is down that road on the left. You from these parts?”
“Grew up in Denim.” Him nosing around my past made me antsy, and the specific whereabouts on the highway were looking all too familiar. This was the very same stretch of blacktop he’d shot at me.
“Denim, huh. We used to play them in baseball. What year did you graduate?”
“Finished tenth grade then went into the CCCs.”
“Digging ditches for President Roosevelt, eh. I’ve never gone out for that unskilled manual labor myself, and I don’t cater much to public relief programs. Yet I’m curious about your ministerial training. Where’d you say you went to seminary?”
“I didn’t.”
“Correspondence courses?”
I shook my head.
“You trained as a chaplain then? What branch of the service? I would have liked to serve our country myself, but I was 4-F on account of my flat feet.”
“No sir. Wasn’t a chaplain.”
The deputy slowed the car and stopped. He didn’t pull over to the shoulder even. It was right in the middle of the highway.No other cars were around, and we both sat there, neither of us saying a word. Finally he spoke. “Engine’s running a mite warm today, Rowdy. Be a pal and pop the hood for me. I want to let it cool a spell.”
The engine was still running. I knew he was testing me. He wanted to see me stand in front of his patrol car, to gauge my height and build against his memory. The color of my jacket. The way the back of my head looked through his windshield.
“Go on,” he said. “Get out and pop the hood.”
“Seems to be running fine.” My voice was low. As low as I could make it while still being heard. My heart pounded in my chest. I didn’t want to need to kill a man this morning, and I didn’t want to get shot at neither.
“No, you’re wrong. Engine’s hot. Needs to cool off. I’ll just sit here if that’s okay. My back’s been out of sorts lately.”
The deputy wasn’t relenting, and I knew the man wouldn’t until he got his way. Slowly I eased open the door. Slowly I walked to the front of the car, reached down while keeping my eyes on the deputy, and fiddled with the hood latch. It popped and I opened the hood. I stayed standing where I was, not even looking at the engine. It was a typical Ford Flathead V8, and it wasn’t steaming, I knew that much—not steaming in the least. I counted three hundred Mississippis in my mind until I was certain
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