Donald Pollock - The Heavenly Table

Standing around the red clay mound, Cane flipped through the pages of the Bible, finally coming to a passage in the Hebrews that their mother had marked with a pencil. “I reckon you should bow your heads,” he said. Then he cleared his throat and began to read:

“And what shall I more say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins: being destitute, afflicted, tormented; of whom the world was not worthy: they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.”

“Amen.”

“By God, that hit the nail on the head,” Chimney said. He squatted down and picked up a pebble, tossed it on top of the mound. “He probably would’ve give anything for one of them sawings.”

“The man had a need for pain, that’s for sure,” Cane said.

Cob stared at the sword stuck in the ground, his brow lined with worry. “Cane?” he finally said.

“Yeah?”

“Now that Pap’s gone, who’s gonna fix the biscuits?”

With a loud hoot, Chimney sprang up. Behind him, the evening sun seemed to be halted on the blue and orange horizon, as if it, too, were paying the old man some last respects. “What now, boss?” he said.

Cane glanced over at his youngest brother. Standing there dressed in rags with his thin arms hanging at his sides and his ribs showing through his shirt, Chimney seemed more wretched than he could ever recall seeing him. Even Cob, who could usually go two or three days without eating and not lose an ounce, was beginning to look a little poorly. It was time to leave this place before they all ended up planted around the hog pen. “People most always have a big feed after a funeral, don’t they?” Cane said.

Chimney shrugged his shoulders and spat. “I reckon most do, yeah.”

“Well, then, what say we eat the rest of that pig.”

“All of it?” Cob asked excitedly.

“Hell, yes,” Cane said. “Who’s gonna stop us?”

ON HIS WAY back across Meade from the army camp, Ellsworth remembered that Eula’s birthday was coming up soon. Perhaps a little present would help ease the news about Eddie, maybe even get her to forget about the wine. Now that he knew the boy was safely ensconced in the military, he was having second thoughts about dumping it. The gift would have to be cheap, though. Maybe a broom, he thought. He had noticed the other day that the straws on her old one were worn clear down to the handle. Not as nice as a new dress, but it would still surprise her. He stopped Buck on a street lined with elm trees and pulled his purse out. He was counting the coins that he kept back for pipe tobacco when he heard some whistling and looked up. A short, wiry man wearing a pith helmet and knee-high gumboots stepped out from between two houses. He carried a long wooden pole over his shoulder and a dead rat by the tail. A blackjack smeared with blood hung from a cord on his wide leather belt. With his small head and bowlegged walk, he bore a strong resemblance to a Floyd Odell who used to witch water for people out in Twin Township.

As the man started to pass by, he smiled and nodded at Ellsworth. His was the first friendly face the farmer had seen since he had left home the morning before. “Mister,” Ellsworth said quickly, “you wouldn’t have any idy where I could buy a good broom, would ye?” He noted that the pole the man carried was marked at regular intervals with dabs of black paint like a measuring stick and looked to be about eight feet long. The bottom third of it was coated with wet, dark matter, and a ball of flies buzzed around the tip of it like bees around a fragrant flower.

The man stopped. “A broom? I sure do. I got an uncle that makes ’em. Old boy’s blind as a bat, but I guarantee you his sweepers are ten times better than anything you’ll find in the stores.” He pointed the rat down the street. “Just make ye a left at that house up yonder with the white fence and go down a block or so. You’ll see his sign right across from Antoine’s barbershop. You can’t miss it. His name is Cone.”

“Cone,” Ellsworth repeated. “That your name, too?”

“Yes, sir, it is. Jasper Cone.”

“Reason I ask is you look an awful lot like an Odell I used to know.”

The man shook his head. “No, I been a Cone all my life.”

Though a little leery of making himself look like a fool yet again, Ellsworth’s curiosity got the better of him. He hesitated a moment, then asked, “What ye doin’ with that rat?”

“Oh, I haul them out to the dump,” Jasper explained. “Nothing worse than a rodent when it comes to spreadin’ diseases.”

“That your job? Go around killin’ rats?”

“Well, not exactly,” Jasper said. “Mostly I check the levels on the outhouses, but if’n I run into, say, a black snake while I’m in there, or a spider’s nest, or a possum, or what have ye, I go ahead and take care of it.” He set the end of the pole down on the sidewalk and leaned against it. “Yes, sir, they’s a lot more to being the sanitation inspector than most folks realize.”

Though Ellsworth couldn’t begin to imagine why anyone would pay a man to go around poking a stick in people’s privies, or why a man would want such a job in the first place, he nodded and said, “I bet ye seen some sights, ain’t ye?”

“I surely have,” Jasper said. “Ye’d be surprised at what goes on in a shithouse.” He looked about, then moved toward the wagon and lowered his voice. “Husbands a-cheatin’ on their wives, wives a-cheatin’ on their husbands. And that’s not nearly the worst of it. I’ve come across people doin’ things that would make your hair stand on end. It’s the privacy, see? That’s what attracts them. Ye step in and latch the door and everybody thinks you’re just takin’ a dump. Why, I bet ye half the girls in this town have lost their cherry in somebody’s johnny.” He took another step closer. “Then there’s other stuff, too. A couple months back I rescued a newborn out of one over on Hickory Street. The mother thought she was just havin’ pains from some cabbage she’d et for supper, but as soon as she started to strain, out plopped a baby right down in the slop. Didn’t even know she was expecting, or so she claimed anyway.”

“Good Lord,” Ellsworth said.

“Oh, it turned out fine,” Jasper said. “I ran him straight over to Doc Hamm’s once I pulled him out. They put my name in the newspaper and everything. Heck, the mother even said she was goin’ to name him after me, but then her old man, he got jealous, started claiming that I’d been spying on her, and, well, that put the stops to that. But you can ask Mr. Rawlings, the city engineer, I don’t need nobody’s permission. I got a legal right to check any outhouse in this town.” Then Jasper’s face turned dark and he lowered his voice even more, to the point where Ellsworth could barely hear him. “Found me another one, too, over on the south side, but it was already dead. Nothin’ but his little feet stickin’ up like a couple of peckerhead mushrooms. They never did find out who put him there.” He shook his head sadly and glanced down at the rat in his hand. A drop of blood dripped from its crushed skull and landed on the toe of his boot.