The Floatplane Notebooks by Clyde Edgerton

float.”
    â€œMeredith cussed,” said Noralee. “You’re not supposed to cuss in the house,” she says down to Meredith.
    â€œI ain’t in the house. I’m in the well.”
    Mama tells Bliss to go call the fire department and I could tell they were both worried. Papa said we didn’t need no fire department, and then he remembered the rope under the front seat of the truck and told me to go get it. I told him that rope was only five or six feet long. Meredith was a good twenty-five feet down.
    But Papa gets this idea: add sheets onto the rope. So I went out to the truck, got the rope, came back, and Mama had collected a few sheets from the beds. Bliss had called the fire department.
    In a minute, Bliss and Papa were passing these tied-together sheets, one at a time, down into the well. About the time the sheets were out of sight and just the rope was left above the floor, Meredith yells up, “Okay, tie that end to something. I’ve got aholt to this end.”
    Well, we look around for something to tie the rope to.
    The post.
    Papa gets positioned on the side of the post away from the well, wraps the rope around the post, ties it into a knot, braces his foot against the post, and wraps what’s left of the rope around his hand. I had my doubts, but I didn’t say anything.
    Noralee, who’s standing there with her arm stuck between her legs she’s got to go to the bathroom so bad, says, “What if that post comes loose?”
    â€œMr. Hoover said that post won’t put in solid,” says Mama.
    â€œPoth ain’t coming looth,” says Papa. “Joe Ray Hoover don’t know everything. He thirtenly never built bridgeth in the war.” Papa does his jaw motion. He has this habit of—with his teeth out—bringing his lower jaw right up under his nose, in this chewing motion, so that the whole bottom half of his face disappears up into the upper half. And he needed a shave.
    â€œIt could come loose,” says Noralee.
    Papa don’t pay her no mind at all. He just yells down to Meredith, ‘All right, climb on up.”
    â€œYou got that end tied to that post?” Meredith wants to know.
    â€œThe rope is thanchioned, Meredith,” says Papa. “Climb on up.”
    â€œIt’s what?”
    â€œThanchioned.”
    â€œWhat?”
    I didn’t know what it meant either.
    â€œThanchioned! Thanchioned! Now climb on up like I told you!”
    The rope tightened and squeaked on the post—which held. It held for a right good while, as a matter of fact, until Meredith was about halfway up, and then it snapped free real loud there at the bottom, jerked the rope out of Papa’s hand, shot to the hole and wedged there. The damn knot held. And Meredith held on to the sheets. I guess hedropped about five feet. Papa can tie a knot. I’ll say that.
    â€œWhat happened?” Meredith yells up, shaky.
    Papa says, “Nothing. Keep climbing.” He hadn’t no more than got the words out of his mouth when this little bitty rip starts somewhere in one of them sheets, sort of speeds up, then goes real fast, and there goes old Meredith again. Right back where he started from. Another loud, bottled splash sound.
    Noralee says, “He ain’t gonna ever get out of there.”
    Mama turns on Papa. ‘Albert, this kitchen has gone all this time rotting through, and you messing with them rabbit boxes and airplane plans. How do you expect to build an airplane if you can’t build a kitchen? And now something like this happens. This floor ought not to ever got like this in the first place. Joe Ray Hoover told you about this kitchen.”
    Papa’s mouth dropped open and his eyes darted around all over Mama’s face. Then he did his jaw motion, turned, and walked out the back door.
    â€œPapa, I could of told you that post would pop out,” Meredith yelled up.
    â€œHe ain’t up here, Meredith,”