Brad Watson - The Heaven of Mercury

— What do you most like to eat?

Blink.

— Oh I like fresh vegetables, you know. And chicken. I love barbeque.

— Me, too, Earl said, reeling in and casting again, jigging the line. -You like, I’ll get a rack of ribs and you can cook em up on the drum grill.

— Yes, sir, sure will.

— We used to keep pigs awhile, when I was a boy.

— Yes, sir, we did too till a flood come and drowned them. We didn’t get no more after that.

— How old were you?

— I guess about nine, ten years old.

— And had to eat fish the rest of your life after that.

Rusty laugh.

— Yes, sir, near bout.

— I reckon I’d hate it too.

He cast. The swells made slurping sounds against the boat. Light coming up behind a gray cloud cover, darker below with silvery metallic openings. Gulls glided past angling their heads at them curiously. Laughing.

— I never liked hog-killing, he said. -All that mess. I wouldn’t keep a pig now.

— No, sir, I didn’t like it either. My papa had a gun, but he wouldn’t use it on his hogs. He used a hammer.

— A hammer? How’d he do that, put them in a chute?

— No, sir, he just hit em with a hammer.

— I mean how’d he get up on them?

— He bait them with corn.

— Bait em? How you mean?

— First time I went out with him, he says to watch this. Got his old claw hammer in his right hand, hid behind his back, like. Got a palm full of feed corn in his other hand, going up to the hog and holding out that corn, saying, Here, pig. Hog watch him, saying, I don’t know. Keep saying, Here, pig, walking up slow. Pig finally inch over there, you know. He trust him. Start nibbling the corn out his hand. That’s when he brung the hammer around and hit him hard square in the forehead.

— I be damned.

— Yes, sir, laid him right out. Like to struck me hard as the pig, to see that. I was just a little old young un. I liked to watch them pigs.

— Probably one of them was your pet.

— No, sir, no pet. But I thought they was interesting, you know. They was like a family, playing all the time. Didn’t fuss and fight, like we did. Just scooting around the pen, chasing each other, squealing. Not that old hog, I mean the young uns. Well, they strung up that hog by his heels, was going to bleed him. I snuck up there and look at him, his old tongue hanging out. Them corn kernels there still stuck to it.

— I be damned.

Frank laughed.

— Yes, sir, took me a while to trust my papa again, too, after that. He offer me a extra piece of gingerbread at Christmas, you know, I be looking for that hammer.

Earl looked at him, then laughed out loud.

— Where in the hell did you come from before you showed up at my place?

— South of here. Florida.

— Turpentine, then?

— Sir?

— You a turpentine worker?

— No, sir. My papa was, for a while. I just wander, do yard work. You know, like for you.

— You plan on staying around?

Frank said nothing for an extra beat, his face got solemn. Looking out over the Sound.

— Well, sir, I’d sure like to make me a little money.

Earl reeled in, set his rod down.

— Get me a sandwich and one of those Cokes.

Frank reached into the cooler and brought them out.

— Get yourself something.

They sat and ate for a minute, sipping the Cokes.

— What you got in mind?

Frank appeared to study the question for a while.

— Well, sir, you know how you get me to help out down to the store every now and then, up in the stockroom where you has your cot.

Earl stiffened a little at that. Let it go.

— Go on.

— Well, sir, I know how you cares for Miss Ann, and she off down there with that store in Tallahassee, and you having to travel down there all the time, and I don’t mean to step in where I oughtn’t but I know you worried about her, yes sir. And I thought maybe you put me to work down there for Miss Ann, make sure nobody gives her no trouble. I could work around the store, and keep up her yard same as I do yours here. I’m from Florida, now, Mr. Earl, I know how to get by in Florida.

— I can see you do.

Frank nodded.

— Yes, sir. Now, you know I wouldn’t ever say anything about Miss Ann and yourself, not to nobody.

Earl lit a Camel and stared at him a minute.

— Don’t recall asking if you would.

— No, sir. I’m just saying.

— You just saying.

— Yes, sir.

The boat rocked in the swells. It was quiet, occasional gull creak.

— Damned if you ain’t about either the dumbest or the smartest black son of a bitch I ever knew. Didn’t know better I’d think you were extorting me, here.

Frank shook his head and smiled.

— No, sir. Do what, now?

— Aw kiss my ass. Extortion. Blackmail, call it.

— No, sir, I ain’t — no, sir, don’t say that. Mr. Earl, I’m saying I wouldn’t do that, now.

— Yeah, Earl said. -That’s how they all do it.

Frank shook his head and gave the Mississippi Sound his grave look again.

— I don’t know whether to knock you in the head with this anchor and throw you overboard or pay you a compliment, Earl said.

— No, sir. You don’t have to do neither one.

The two men sat there looking at each other, boat rocking, clouds creeping overhead, gulls laughing and creaking, swells slopping against the bow.

— Well what about Creasie? She tells Birdie you two are married.

Frank drank the rest of his Coke, set the bottle in the boat floor beside his feet.

— Well, no sir, we’re not married, not official. She’s a good woman, now. I can tell she’s set on making babies, though, and I figure she keep on trying she going to get it right one day.

— You want that?

— Mr. Earl, he said, I can’t afford no babies, nobody knows that like you.

— I know it, Earl said. -I can’t afford you to have no babies, either, know what I mean.

— Yes, sir. Frank smiled a wan smile. -I guess I just as soon Creasie didn’t know nothing about it.

— Go like you came.

Frank nodded. -Yes, sir, I guess that’s about it.

He sat there watching a gull while Earl finished his sandwich and drink and watched him. Earl felt like he’d never seen this joker before in his life, like he’d just winked into his boat there beside him out of the air. What am I thinking, he said to himself. Big son of a bitch could break my neck and take this boat to goddamn Cuba, if he wanted. But that’s not what he wants. Just wants a better job. He shook his head and pitched the empty Coke bottle into the water.

— Cover, he said.

— Mr. Earl, Frank said.

— Yes, goddamnit.

— If you was to pay me a little more than what you paying me now, I think I could get by down there in Tallahassee, now. I wouldn’t ask but I been there, and it cost more to get by.

— How much more then do you figure it costs to get by?

— Well, sir, I guess I’d be doing at least two, three times the work I do here, and quality work, too. And it cost more just ever way you look at it. Say fo’ times what I make here I figure I can get by in Tallahassee, yes sir, that’s about all it take.

Earl stared at him a minute, then looked away, speechless. In a little bit he reached over the bow and hauled up the anchor and laid it in the boat at his feet. Motioned with his arm for Frank to crank the motor, get them going. Frank hesitated, then nodded, turned slowly to the motor and gripped the pull cord. He held this station for a long few seconds, then gave it a snap pull and set it firing, phlegmatic, then a baritone pushing them up and out into the Sound.

A MAN COME into the store one day to take his order on Tweedies and says, — Say you know I was in Conway, Arkansas, the other day and saw this thing, man had a hardware store and out on the porch had this nigger dummy working an electric saw, and I stopped to see it. Said he got it from you. I said I was going to be calling on you this week, what a coincidence.