The Floatplane Notebooks by Clyde Edgerton Page B

it.
    That evening they stood in a small group out in the graveyard read a Bible scripture and buried the leg.

    On the next blue moon, the leg was in a dark maple rocking cradle, just like the cradles for three infant cousins of the family who were out there with Thomas Pittman, and were crying. Thomas Pittman couldn’t see the leg in the coffin because it was added at the end of the short row of infants. But he sang to it along with the infants, even though they cried.

NORALEE
    I know where home plate and first base and second base and third base is. I like third base best of all. Papa lets me play third-base coach sometimes because I’m a girl. I go with them down to the ball field when Papa takes us down there. Him and Meredith and Mark all pitch and hit. Thatcher used to come before he got married, but he’d just stand in the field way out there and scratch between his legs and look off at the woods and make Papa mad at him.
    Papa gets mad at Meredith for not hitting the way he wants him to.
    And Mark is the pitcher but Meredith wants to be.
    The best thing that happened at the ball field was when Meredith slid the truck down the left field bank. Right down into the trash pile.
    Meredith don’t have his driver’s license yet, but Papa lets him drive the truck down to the ball field and empty the trash over the left field bank where the trash pile is. Markgoes with him. Meredith don’t ever let me go so I walk down there through the woods and watch them. He drives fast across the ball field and then the truck turns and slides around like everything. Sometimes they get out and throw rocks at jars or shoot the .22 at Pepsi bottles. And sometimes Meredith lets Mark drive the truck.
    Papa don’t know Mark goes down there with Meredith. I’m waiting to tell on them when either one tells on me about something.
    Last winter it snowed real, real long and Meredith and Mark took the truck down to the ball field while everybody was gone off. The tires had chains but that didn’t do no good.
    I was in the living room when Meredith walked in the kitchen and said something to Papa. I walked to the door and listened.
    â€œIt’s where?” said Papa.
    â€œDown the left field bank at the ball field,” said Meredith.
    â€œIn that trash-pile garbage dump?”
    â€œYessir.”
    â€œWhat the…. How…. Who did it?”
    â€œMark.”
    They walked out the back door and I got my coat and boots and followed them. Papa slipped on the ice and Meredith grabbed him.
    We stepped into the screened-in porch at Mark’s house and stomped our feet. The porch was quiet and dark because of the deep snow on the ground and the snow stuck in the screen.
    Aunt Esther opened the door. I smelled meat loaf. “Wait a minute,” she said. “Let me get you a broom to clean off them shoes with.” Mark came up behind her.
    She handed out a broom and closed the door.
    Papa told Aunt Esther what happened and she got mad at Mark. Then Papa, Meredith, and Mark walked to the ball field. I followed them. I walked on top of the glaze on the snow.
    When we got there it was getting cold. Their faces were red in the cold. They looked down at the jeep. It was pointed uphill. The whole weather seemed like it was gray.
    â€œOne of your earflaps is up,” said Meredith to Papa. Papa was wearing his old hunting cap with the earflaps.
    â€œThat ear ain’t cold.”
    Meredith looked down at the truck. “We’ll get it out,” he said. ‘And we can come down here and start it up every morning until the snow goes away.”
    â€œIt really ain’t so bad,” said Mark.
    They stood looking down at the truck.
    â€œI swear,” said Papa. “My jeep. In the trash pile.”
    â€œIt didn’t quite reach the trash pile,” said Meredith.
    They started walking home. I followed them. I stayed on top of the snow but they sunk in.
    Meredith stopped at a