A Garden of Earthly Delights (3 page)

Drunk?
—Carleton hadn't had a drink that day.

Pearl was a head shorter than Carleton and her lower body was swollen to twice its size, but damn if he didn't have to walk fast to keep up with her. Damn!—Carleton was embarrassed of her, his young wife, carrying on like this in public. Lately Pearl was flying into rages at the least provocation. Sharleen, who was five, had sometimes to plead with her—“Mamma? Mam
ma
no.” Pearl was wearing shapeless bib overalls some fat woman friend had given her, and over top of these a pink cotton smock printed with flamingos that would have been pretty except it was soiled, and on her feet frayed tennis shoes. She was furious, glowing hot. She cast off Carleton's hand on her left, and on her right little Mike who was whining and sniveling for her. “You men don't give a damn! Call yourselves men! Cowards!” Pushing her way through a band of observers, Pearl clambered up to Franklin, grabbed his arm, and continued to yell in a high-pitched quavering voice: “Why in hell don't you look where you're going? Who gave you a license to drive? You let my husband drive and pay him, he's better than you any day. ‘Carleton Walpole'—he's a better driver than you. And you're cheatin us, too. What about my baby? Where'm I gonna have my
baby?” Franklin tried to appease the indignant woman, you could see he was frightened of her, and the blood trickling down from his cut eyebrow made him appear more frightened; and Franklin's kid brother trying to intervene, and Pearl threw off their hands with a look of contempt, and turned to the Arkansas man, the hog driver, standing there in the middle of the glass-strewn road gaping at her—“
You!
You hit us on purpose! Trying to kill us! I'm gonna have you arrested! What about my baby? Look here, you bastard,” Pearl was pleading now, lifting the pink smock to show her pregnant belly, “what about this? Think I got this on purpose? Not some man? One of you's fault? Fuck you all lookin at me, thinking you got a right to kill us like vermin.”

Other women joined in. The fat woman friend of Pearl's put her arm protectively around Pearl's shoulders and yelled at Franklin and his brother. When women began yelling like that, there was nothing to do but back off, exchange glances with other men, smile, try not to laugh out loud. 'Cause that only combusts them more. Any public display of female rage was exciting and scary: it was comical, but you had to admire it, too. A man flying off the handle like that, he'd be shamed, but a woman like Pearl, and almost-pretty with her widened blue eyes like a startled doll's, flailing her hands about like that, you felt different. Still, Carleton felt the sting, being called a coward, though he knew for damned sure he was no coward, and Pearl would regret her accusation later, when they were alone. For now, Carleton wasn't going to intervene. Pearl was winding down, another woman was yelling, louder. Louder and uglier. The mood of the crowd was becoming festive. Carleton smelled fresh-opened whiskey. And there was his little girl Sharleen nudging his knee—“Pa? Pa, look.” Sharleen was proud of a bump on her forehead the size of a crab apple. She took her father's stained fingers to feel it, and Carleton teased, “Know what that is, sweetie? A billy goat horn coming out.” Sharleen giggled, “Is
not.
” A little-girl friend of Sharleen's felt Sharleen's bump and showed her a flame-like rash on her own neck, that was like some rashes Carleton had on his neck, and on his sides, bad as poison ivy but it was some insects, or maybe pesticides, itched like hell. “Don't you go touchin that,” Carleton scolded Sharleen, but she didn't listen, running off
with her friends squealing bad as the hogs. Too many kids in the truck, his own and the others' and the shock of it was, damned if you could tell them apart sometimes. Especially the small ones like little Mike runny-nosed and sniveling for his Momma all the time.

Hadn't wanted to be anybody's daddy how the fuck did all this happen?
That was not true of course. Carleton Walpole was crazy about his kids, and his wife. All a man has is his family, when you get right down to it.

Carleton spat. His mouth was dried out from the tobacco he'd been chewing. Christ, he was bored!

Drifted to the side of the road where some guys were passing a flask of home brew. They included him, and he thanked them. These were men who liked Carleton Walpole, and he liked them. They were his age mostly. They were young fathers, too. They had his young-old face. His ropey-muscled arms, and fair skin that burnt faster than it tanned, and his bad teeth, that were mossy-green and crooked. They had his quick laugh, and his hopeful way of glancing up, squinting, to see what was coming next. Some of these guys, “Red” from Cumberland, for instance, were alone on the truck, they'd left their families back home. Like Carleton, Red was working to pay off debts. Not that Carleton didn't have money saved, too: his mother had told him, always have a few dollars in the bank no matter what. And so Carleton had, forty-three dollars that Pearl knew nothing of, and would not know of, though maybe when they got back he'd buy her a little present from it, her and the baby, to surprise her as sometimes he did. Red was saying he sent money home to his family, and he missed them. When they'd been drinking together once Red had confided in Carleton, he was eleven hundred fifteen dollars in debt to a Cumberland bank, and Carleton bit his lip not knowing what to say—
he
was only eight hundred some odd dollars in the hole, not that he was proud of such a fact but—well, it wasn't eleven hundred, that sum made you swallow hard. Of course, trouble is, Red and Carleton had to laugh, you can't pay off a debt more than a few dollars since you have got to eat, and your family has got to eat, right now. So Carleton and Red, they got along like brothers. Better than Carleton got along with his own brothers in fact. But like brothers they were cagey not
to tread on each other's toes. Red respected Carleton who looked and behaved older. It had required a couple of weeks of groping around before they discovered the “facts” about each other. The way they pronounced their
a
's and
i
's, the way words slurred out into an extra syllable, turned out their father's families—Walpoles, Pickerings—were both from North England, the countryside around Newcastle—but a long time ago, neither could have said how long. And Pearl's people, Brodys, they were from Wigtownshire, that was in Scotland. Carleton didn't know or care much about these old places—“Have to figure people left for a good reason.”

Carleton was telling Red this was going to be his last season on the road. The money he owed was mostly to one of Pearl's uncles and that would be paid off, or nearly. Two wet springs in a row back in Breathitt County, wiping them out. Small farms, less than fifty acres. And the soil hilly, thin. He and Red were standing beneath a tall scrubby willow tree where the smell of hogs wasn't so bad. Inside the truck, you ceased smelling the truck; but when you climbed back in, it hit you. Like the camps they stayed in picking lettuce, onions, radishes. Carleton was chewing a plug of tobacco, and spat in the direction of the truck. “Yeah. I'm settling what I owe. Going back.”

They talked of
going back.
At the moment neither could have said which direction Kentucky was in, the sky was hazy and overcast like mucus so you couldn't see any sun to know which side it was slanting down on, that would be
west.
Anyway, on the road, the road's always curving so you get confused. What Carleton meant by
Kentucky
was just where he lived, a circumference of perhaps thirty miles at the most, though there was Hazard he'd been to a few times, and Pikeville. He didn't try to add up how long he and Pearl had hired out for farmwork, how many seasons. It was like cards in a deck: shuffled together, in no order. There was no point in trying to remember because there was nothing to remember. Like squatting at the edge of the truck watching the road roll out. Seeing where you'd been, not where you were going. There was a comfort in that. If you could live your life backward, Carleton thought, you wouldn't make so many mistakes.

Aloud he said to Red, “Ever thought how, like a mirror you could
look in over your shoulder, you'd see where you were going, but backward? And not mess up.”

Red laughed, spitting tobacco juice. Whatever the hell Carleton Walpole was speaking of, he'd agree.

Red spoke of quitting, too. Going back to work construction. There was a dam going to be built, somewhere near Cumberland. Carleton was silent, jealous of Red: not the thought that Red would get a good job but the thought that Red believed he might, at least for the moment. Carleton himself had been hired for highway construction in east Kentucky but with that kind of work he was the only person in the family to work and they needed more money than that—in the fields his wife could work, and she'd used to have been a good picker, especially of difficult things like strawberries where you can't grab and clutch with a big hand, you need smaller fingers to avoid the leaves, and some places even kids could work: Sharleen who was five could make herself useful somehow. This was against the law in some states but nobody gave much of a damn. Local law enforcement did not. Very rarely did
law
intervene except if you got drunk and caused a ruckus in some local place which was dangerous anyway. Turned out, the sheriff 's men were guys looking like Carleton, same lean severe face and a look of being cheated, it was their bosses with the bald heads and fat faces like Herbert Hoover. Carleton sneered, and spat.

A cry went up: a tow truck had appeared. Carleton and Red went to watch. Carleton felt a stab of envy, Christ he'd have liked to own such a truck, and to drive it like that guy was driving like it was just something he did, a
job.
Like it wasn't anything all that unusual or special. Though you could see the driver knew he was important. Carleton caught this guy's eye as he backed the truck around, and a young kid jumped out of the cab to assist. Franklin was standing there wiping his hurt face with a rag and looking worried. Thank God, Pearl had shut up; the other women were quiet, too. Carleton was aware of kids playing in the drainage ditch but damned if he was going to look for his, if Pearl wasn't.

Carleton wished the tow-truck man would ask him to help. Invite him to ride into town with him. Carleton was good with his
hands, good at repairing farm equipment. Not trucks or tractors but wagon wheels. Carleton, Sr., was a blacksmith and also did farm equipment repair. But there was no money in it, you could rely on.

There came Pearl clutching at Carleton's sleeve, her face pinched. “Carleton, I don't feel right.”

Except she was poking at him, with her fists. Like trying to wake him. Carleton stared at her. She'd been crying, had she? He felt his underarms break out in a sweat. That damn rash up and down his sides like fire ants stinging. Was she going to have the baby here? So soon? Carleton wanted to protest it was early, wasn't it? Pearl had not gone to any doctor but had counted the months and this baby was not due until next month.

“Carleton, I told you
I don't feel right.
”

Carleton yelled, “ 'Melda, Lorene? Hey—Pearl's gonna need you.”

Carleton was holding Pearl, who'd begun to lose strength in her legs. She gave a sudden high scream like a kicked dog, and clutched at her belly. Contractions? Carleton knew what that meant. But it meant you had time, too. Last time, with Mike, Pearl had been in labor through a day and most of a night, Carleton hadn't been present and had been spared.

Now, women hurried to Pearl, to claim her. That animal glisten in their eyes a man found fearful to behold.

Carleton and Red backed off. White-faced, and needing a drink. There came Franklin bellying up to them, the cut on his face still fresh. “You, Walpole. She's having that baby right now, you and her are
out.
We can't wait for you. We got a contract, we're not waiting.”

When Carleton ignored him, Franklin said, appealing to the others, “If that woman dies it ain't my fault! I don't want no pregnant women on my truck! I don't want no nursing babies! I got troubles bad enough!”

It was just blustery bawling, Carleton thought. The truck wasn't going anywhere except to a garage. Nobody was going anywhere for overnight at least. Carleton wanted to slam the fat bastard's face, bloody his nose like his eye was bloodied, but knew he had better not, his quick temper had got him fired in the past. He wasn't young
like Jack Dempsey had been getting started at sixteen, seventeen fighting in saloons out west, Christ he was thirty, and losing his teeth. Get on a recruiter's blacklist, you were dead meat.

“Hell, Franklin. Your old mother had got to have
you
, hadn't she?”

This wasn't Carleton talking, it was somebody else. Carleton was drifting back toward the truck. The women had torn off the tarpaulin, and were making a kind of tent there. It was raining harder now. And the red clay shoulder of the highway getting softer. Kids liked to run in the rain like dogs, but not adults. Carleton was shivering. Carleton heard another high-pitched scream. That was Pearl, was it? He said, “It's my fault. I shouldn't of let her come with me. I told her to stay home but she didn't listen.” By
home
he meant not his and Pearl's own home because they didn't have one, he meant his in-laws, but nobody would know. Carleton was fearful of crying. His lips were moving—“Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ.” First time Pearl had had a baby, he'd broke down like a kid. So scared. He was a coward, that was so. He knew, there was danger of infection when a woman had a baby in such filth, everyone knew of babies that had died, and mothers burning up with fever, or hemorrhaging to death. “Carleton, she'll be all right. They're taking care of her. Carleton?” It was a woman named Annie: freckle-faced Irish: big motherly girl, in her late thirties but still a girl, breasts soft against Carleton's arm like they were loose inside her shirt. In the rain Annie looked like a wax doll, smiling at him with her mouth shut so he could not see her teeth. Red was smiling, too. Smiling hard and ghastly. And thumping Carleton's shoulder. Telling him it didn't make any difference to any baby that ever got born, whether it's a hospital or anywhere.