of his grasp over toward that big old pot of hen and chicken that Mama’d been growing forever. He couldn’t get his hands on that bottle to un-screw the lid and put one of those pills on his tongue, which might of stopped all the rest of it from happening.
They say Mama was at the Piggly-Wiggly. She drove up in the blue Oldsmobile in a hurry because she didn’t want to be late with his noon meal. He always liked to eat his meals on time. She found him there laying in the breezeway.
She tells me she remembers thinking, I got to put this sack of groceries down careful. I got six bottles of RC Cola in here and I don’t want to break them.
Chaney, my right-hand man, and his wife, Willetta, are the ones who come out to the field to tell me. I’m standing under that big pecan tree where we always set up the water cooler. When they pull up in the flatbed truck I start to thinking, What the hell is Letta doing out here? She’s supposed to be cleaning up at the house.
Chaney and Letta walk over, Chaney’s head hanging down the way it does when he’s ashamed. When he gets to me, he takes off his cap and wipes his face with a rag out of his pocket. Your daddy done passed, Mister Shep, he tells me.
What you talkin’ about, man? I ask him, thinking maybe he means Pap had driven by in a car.
He says, Mister Baylor Senior done passed, boss. Your daddy dead.
He is standing there with that blue denim cap in his hands, fingering the bill of it. And he’s crying like you wouldn’t expect a worker like Chaney to do. Letta hands me a cup of water from the cooler. I can taste the tinniness of that water and hear the hoe-hands mumbling in the distance. For a second the specks of cotton I can see out of the corner of my eyes confuse me. They look for a minute like snow in another climate far away from the land where I was born and raised.
By the time I get over to Mama and Daddy’s, his body has already been taken to the funeral home. The only thing left is his shoes next to the rocker. Big blackbroke-in Red Wings sitting there, pair of white socks tucked inside. I bend down to pick one of them up and I can still smell the Ammons’ Heat Powder he’d sprinkled on the inner sole that morning. I can see how his wide feet had pushed out at the sides of those shoes, just the way my own do.
The funeral feels like a strange political cook-up. Hundreds of Pap’s friends from North and South Louisiana are there. Hell, even Russell Long puts in an appearance. And you can’t count the number of colored people there, babies hanging on their mamas’ hips. Vivi tells me what to wear, and my kids are dressed like little royalty. I think, How did my children turn out to look so damn blue-blooded?
We get home that evening and I go back to the bedroom. I bathe and get ready for bed and don’t say nothing to nobody. I climb in the bed with a copy of U.S. News and World Report , propping up my pillows like I do so I can breathe.
And then my children start coming back there. I can hear their feet slapping against the wood floor. First Siddalee. Then Baylor, then Lulu, and finally Little Shep. Every one of them, climbing up on the bed with me like we hadn’t ever done before. We’re not the kind of family that does cozy things. But they all pile up in there with me like a little bird had come and told them to do it. They don’t say anything. And I sure as hell don’t have any words that can get unstuck from my throat.
Then Little Shep says, Read us what you’re reading, Daddy.
And so I start reading out loud from the damn magazine, don’t even know what I’m reading about. I just read out loud whatever words are there on the page.
Vivi comes to the door then, rubbing cold cream on her face like always, and I see her look at the five of us. I can smell Siddalee’s hair, all clean from just being shampooed, and her eyes are focused on the page I’m reading. Like she understands all about world affairs. Then Vivi walks over and
They say Mama was at the Piggly-Wiggly. She drove up in the blue Oldsmobile in a hurry because she didn’t want to be late with his noon meal. He always liked to eat his meals on time. She found him there laying in the breezeway.
She tells me she remembers thinking, I got to put this sack of groceries down careful. I got six bottles of RC Cola in here and I don’t want to break them.
Chaney, my right-hand man, and his wife, Willetta, are the ones who come out to the field to tell me. I’m standing under that big pecan tree where we always set up the water cooler. When they pull up in the flatbed truck I start to thinking, What the hell is Letta doing out here? She’s supposed to be cleaning up at the house.
Chaney and Letta walk over, Chaney’s head hanging down the way it does when he’s ashamed. When he gets to me, he takes off his cap and wipes his face with a rag out of his pocket. Your daddy done passed, Mister Shep, he tells me.
What you talkin’ about, man? I ask him, thinking maybe he means Pap had driven by in a car.
He says, Mister Baylor Senior done passed, boss. Your daddy dead.
He is standing there with that blue denim cap in his hands, fingering the bill of it. And he’s crying like you wouldn’t expect a worker like Chaney to do. Letta hands me a cup of water from the cooler. I can taste the tinniness of that water and hear the hoe-hands mumbling in the distance. For a second the specks of cotton I can see out of the corner of my eyes confuse me. They look for a minute like snow in another climate far away from the land where I was born and raised.
By the time I get over to Mama and Daddy’s, his body has already been taken to the funeral home. The only thing left is his shoes next to the rocker. Big blackbroke-in Red Wings sitting there, pair of white socks tucked inside. I bend down to pick one of them up and I can still smell the Ammons’ Heat Powder he’d sprinkled on the inner sole that morning. I can see how his wide feet had pushed out at the sides of those shoes, just the way my own do.
The funeral feels like a strange political cook-up. Hundreds of Pap’s friends from North and South Louisiana are there. Hell, even Russell Long puts in an appearance. And you can’t count the number of colored people there, babies hanging on their mamas’ hips. Vivi tells me what to wear, and my kids are dressed like little royalty. I think, How did my children turn out to look so damn blue-blooded?
We get home that evening and I go back to the bedroom. I bathe and get ready for bed and don’t say nothing to nobody. I climb in the bed with a copy of U.S. News and World Report , propping up my pillows like I do so I can breathe.
And then my children start coming back there. I can hear their feet slapping against the wood floor. First Siddalee. Then Baylor, then Lulu, and finally Little Shep. Every one of them, climbing up on the bed with me like we hadn’t ever done before. We’re not the kind of family that does cozy things. But they all pile up in there with me like a little bird had come and told them to do it. They don’t say anything. And I sure as hell don’t have any words that can get unstuck from my throat.
Then Little Shep says, Read us what you’re reading, Daddy.
And so I start reading out loud from the damn magazine, don’t even know what I’m reading about. I just read out loud whatever words are there on the page.
Vivi comes to the door then, rubbing cold cream on her face like always, and I see her look at the five of us. I can smell Siddalee’s hair, all clean from just being shampooed, and her eyes are focused on the page I’m reading. Like she understands all about world affairs. Then Vivi walks over and
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