Lesley Kagen - Land of a Hundred Wonders

“Chows up,” Grampa calls after a bit, walking our plates to the picnic table. “Wash your hands.”

After sliding them into the lake and wiping them off on my jeans, I sit down across from him at the table he made from scratch. The cornbread is warm, the catfish crispy. “The sheriff was at Miss Jessie’s today,” I say, helping myself.

“Use your fork. What for?” he says, all of a sudden cranky again. Grampa does NOT care for LeRoy Johnson any more than I do. Says the man is a born and bred bully, same as his daddy and his daddy before him. And even though that’s true, I also suspect that jealousy, sometimes known as the green-eyed lobster, might be rearing its ugly head tonight.

“Peaches and I had a wonderful ride this afternoon,” I say. “And that new filly, she’s really something.”

“Gibby.”

“Yup. And then…”

“Focus,” he says, ripping a hunk off the cornbread and jabbing it in the clover honey. “Why was LeRoy up to Jessie’s place?”

“Mr. Buster’s gone missin’,” I say, sliding a sliced tomato into my mouth that’s sprinkled with dressing all the way from Italy. “The sheriff came by to talk to Miss Jessie about his disappear-”

“I heard there was some to-do up at the Malloy place,” Grampa interrupts. His eyes look like the deposit slot down at the bank. “Don’t be gettin’ any ideas on using your powers of meticulous perception to go snoopin’ around in this matter, hear? And don’t talk with your mouth full.”

“Why shouldn’t I go lookin’ for Mr. Buster?”

“Just don’t,” he barks out like the drill sergeant he used to be.

For what seems like close to eternity the only sounds are the far-off motors on the water and forks scraping against the tin plates cowboy Grampa loves so much because they remind him of stars at night that are big and bright deep in the heart of Texas.

Finished eating, he dabs at his mouth with his paper napkin. Says nicer, “Ya still wanna get the board out after we clean up these dishes?”

“A course I do, Charlie.” I lay my hand on his whisker sprouts, rub ’em to let him know I forgive him using his hut-to voice. “Ya know, ya could-”

“Shhh. Hear that?”

“Eeee… eeee… eeeeeee. Eeee… eeee… eeeeeee.”

“Cooper’s Hawk,” Grampa says with a lot of know-how, because not only is he a whiz at whittling, he watches birds, and can tell the call of a red-throated loon from a common loon without even looking up. “Look, there he is.”

The hawk’s caught a breeze above the cottage next to ours. Something squirming in his mouth. I know, I know, it’s all part of God’s grand design, but I just can’t stand seeing that kind of helplessness, so I lower my eyes down to the Flemings’ gray cottage. They were our neighbors for years and years, but they moved to town after Miz Comfort Fleming broke her hip when she fell on the slippery pier. They lease out their place now to strangers for extra money.

When Grampa mutters, “Useless,” he isn’t referring to the hawk. He means Mr. Willard DuPree, the most recent next-door renter who moved in right after Christmas, which is sort of a peculiar time to show up in Cray Ridge ’cause there’s not much going on around here then. But Mr. Clayton Fleming told Grampa that Willard paid cash for a year in advance, so that was fine with him. Grampa does not fancy our neighbor one iota. First off, Willard smokes hemp. Even worse, he doesn’t have a job, from what I can tell. In fact, most days our neighbor does nothing but lie around in the “contemplating” hammock he’s slung up between two yellow-woods. Right this minute, I can see his behind pushing through the knotting and scraping the top of the grass that should’ve been mowed two weeks ago. This sort of Indolence: Inactivity as a result from disliking workcan really get under the skin of a man like Grampa, whose calluses have calluses.

“Eat,” Grampa says, lighting up with his Zippo. “You’re startin’ to look like a bedpost.”

I take another sneak peek next door. Lord. Grampa would have an apoplectic fit if he knew that Willard has been attempting to teach Clever and me how to play strip poker, which I’ve come to believe doesn’t have so much to do with cards as Willard taking the opportunity to show off his pecker that he has named Lord Sparky. Clever is dazzled. I suspect that the two of them might be having hot sex, which I think doin’ before you’re married is a lot like eating supper before sayin’ grace. Contrary to common sense. But Clever, she dropped out of school in the ninth grade, so she is not entirely educated.

Grampa’s stacking up his dirty dishes on one end of the picnic table, his cigarette dangling from his lips. “Ya feelin’ all right? Ya seem on the distracted side lately. More than usual.”

(Oh, if he only knew. Considering how he feels about him, my grampa’s going to be thrilled to the nub when he finds out Mr. Buster is not missing, but dead. I can barely rein myself in from letting him in on the secret!)

“Stop frettin’ about me and start sayin’ your prayers, Charles Michael Murphy,” I shout. “I got a feelin’ I may go down in Scrabble history tonight.”

Giving me a low-watt grin, he pulls open the screen door. “Don’t forget to feed him,” he says, and him and the dirty dishes disappear inside.

I got leftover catfish and a slice of cornbread on my plate for Keeper so I set it down in the grass for him. This time of day a breeze likes to tickle the lake so the tips of the willows are etching smiles near the shore. My bangs are ruffling.

Our neighbor calls over in his shovey accent, “Is he gone?”

“Yes, Willard, he is.”

I attempted to write a Welcome to Cray Ridge story right after he moved in, but Willard dodged every single one of my questions, which I found odd since folks are usually quite enthused at the thought of seeing their name in the paper. What I eventually got him to admit was that his favorite color is gray and that he’s from the New York area. That last part got me excited. I asked him if he knew Mr. Howard Redmond. Willard answered he might, but in his line of work he meets so many different people. “Ya don’t say,” I said. “And what line of work might that be?” Ya ever see a turtle reverse into his shell? Like that.

Remembering my neighborly manners, I holler over, “How they hangin’, Willard?”

Only the hawk calls back.

“Willard?”

Nothing but the breeze in the trees.

He probably fell asleep. Willard does that a lot after he smokes hemp. He also eats Mallomars by the ton.

“ ’Bout time,” Grampa says, when Keeper and I join him at the kitchen sink. Tied around his neck, he’s got the Chief Cook and Bottle Washer apron that I gave him last Christmas. “Ya hear me? Do not go stickin’ your nose into that tobacco farm’s business.”

“And why exactly would I wanna go sniffin’ tobacco plants?” I ask, rummaging my hands around the soapy sink water.

Grampa shoots me one of his inspecting looks and must like what he sees ’cause he goes back to humming along with the singer who he admires beyond sense, Mr. Johnny Cash, who I do not care for one bit. I prefer the Beatles eight days a week, but Grampa won’t let me listen to them because he says those boys are nothing but long-haired goo.

Doesn’t take us long to finish up, there’s just the two of everything. He hangs his apron on the nail, and says like he does every night, “Pour a coupla glasses while I get us set up.”

Playing Scrabble is another one of the “stimulations” of my brain that Grampa tried out when I first got out of the hospital. When he was still hoping I could get Quite Right again. It’s become a habit now. Every single night he gets out the board from the top shelf of the bookcase and we head out to the pebbly card table on the porch. At first I made words that looked like this: