A Miracle of Catfish (22 page)

“Thanks,” he said. “Mine run out a fluid a while ago. Just bought the son of a bitch last Saturday.”

The dumpy girl was more than glad to hear it.

“They just don't last long enough, do they?” she said.

“Naw, they don't,” Jimmy's daddy said. He started to look at his Timex but he thought that might be rude. They'd sound the buzzer at one minute till. “I used to carry a Zippo all the time but the damn things are so bad about leaking and blistering your leg with that fluid, I quit them.”

“Them Zippos is nice,” the dumpy girl said. Now that he was up close to her again, he could tell that she had a pretty hefty set of breastworks herself. She just wore these loose clothes that ill defined her figure, he saw. She was a little broad in the ass, but so was Johnette.

“Yeah,” Jimmy's daddy said, blowing smoke toward the ceiling, casually glancing toward the new girl, then looking back to the dumpy girl. “Then I carried matches for a while. But if you out in the wind you can't hardly get a light off a match.”

“Ain't that the truth,” she said. She was looking up at him with a smile again, and Jimmy's daddy wondered if she was wanting to, like, maybe
go
with him or something. He knew there were a lot of plant romances, most of them between married people who were constantly messing around or looking for somebody to mess around with, as close as he could tell. There was a man who worked down in Shipping named Hornwell who was married and wore a wedding ring, but always ate lunch with a woman named Jones who worked at the end of the line, packing stoves into cardboard cartons and sealing them with a glue gun. Sometimes they left together at lunch and came back wearing different clothes. They never left together after work. She was married, too.

“Well, thanks for the light,” Jimmy's daddy said, and started to turn away from her again, but she held out the lighter.

“Why don't you just take this one?” she said. “I got three or four more in my purse.”

“You sure?” Jimmy's daddy said. He kind of hated to take a lighter from her, but it was going to be a pain in the ass to smoke for the rest of the day until he could get to a store and get a lighter. Or some matches.

“Sure I'm sure,” she said. “Honey, you can flick my Bic all day long.”

She turned a little red in the face after she said that, and giggled again, and Jimmy's daddy took the lighter and dropped it in his shirt pocket.

“Well thanks,” he said, and then the one-minute warning buzzer sounded in the break room.

“You welcome,” she said, and kept standing there.

“I guess I better get going,” he said. “Collums'll get his panties in a wad if I ain't got my head up under a lift when he walks back in the shop.”

She laughed like he'd said the funniest thing in the world and turned away to get her purse off the table. The new girl and the other dumpy girl had already gone.

“Yeah,” she said. “I got to get back in there and punch in, too. I'll just walk back to the time clock with you if you don't care.”

Jimmy's daddy was puffing on his cigarette and didn't know how he could say no, seeing as how he'd accepted a light and a lighter from her.

“I don't care,” he said, and the next thing he knew he was walking beside her, past Seaborn, who was getting up with a shit-eating grin on his face. Jimmy's daddy shot him a murderous look and pushed open one half of the double doors while the dumpy girl pushed open the other one. They went outside together and stepped across the ten feet of concrete and sunshine that separated the break room from the front entrance of the plant and walked in under the overhanging roof and inside to the darker light of the plant. Workers were punching their time cards and sticking them back into a rack and then hurrying toward their jobs. Jimmy's daddy and the dumpy girl moved forward, him behind her, got their cards, and punched back in.

“I'll see you,” he said, and slipped his card back into the rack. He turned away to leave a last time.

“I sure hope so,” she said.

He just waved at her and started walking back toward Maintenance. Then the main whistle blew for them to get back to work. He started down the aisle and he turned to look back at her. She turned, too, and waved, and since he thought it would be impolite not to wave back, he did.

It poured down for the whole funeral. That was on Sunday. It had been raining for three days and it didn't look like it was going to stop any time soon. There was mud on the ladies' shoes, mud on the tires of the cars, mud on the truck that brought the tent for the shade they didn't need.

Lucinda had taken some tranquilizers for her nerves. Albert had to help her away from the grave site once the service was over, her daddy in his starched shirt and tie and suit looking somehow sharp as a tack. Looking like she'd never seen him look before. The suit was new. So were the shiny brown shoes. Somehow the suit and the shoes had made him look about ten years younger. He had a fresh haircut. And he didn't smell like a cow. He was like some new daddy she didn't know. A daddy who could have been someone else. A businessman. A jeweler. A maker of fine cars.

There had been all the people to thank and to say hello and goodbye to, and there had been the walks from the cars into buildings and the walks back out and the picking out of the casket and the ordering of the flowers and the selection of the music and the preacher and the pallbearers and everything, every awful bit of it. It had all been a blur, still was. She was so glad that he'd waited on her to get here before he did any of those things. And it wasn't over yet. They still had to go back to the house and talk to people. And eat. And try to get some rest. And try to figure out what they were going to do. Hell. What was there to do? She was gone.

People were starting to drift back to their cars. It had been raining in Atlanta when they drove to the airport, when they boarded, raining in Memphis when she walked out of the airport with Albert and their bags and caught the bus for the car rental agency. Raining all the way down I-78 into Holly Springs and on down Route 7 South to Oxford. Out Old 6 to Yocona, down DeLay Road, across the river, and then up over all the hills and down to the road her daddy lived on. There was a shortcut
you could take. An old dirt road everybody called the Cutoff. Muddy as hell in the winter. That was one reason she'd left: mud. She'd gotten sick of mud. And smelling cow shit. And working in a big vegetable garden in the summertime when it was hot. And chasing cows. And getting kicked. She knew a farmer's life was a hard one. It was hard on everybody around him. He'd worked for fifty years to get what he had. Worked her hard, too. And Mama. And Queen. She could remember playing jacks with Queen on the kitchen floor. And picking peas with her. Once, behind the barn, she had seen Daddy kiss her on the mouth. She had never believed that Queen had gone back home without saying good-bye. For years she'd thought she was still here, just hiding somewhere. Now she thought she was probably dead.

She stood there looking at the flowers they had mounded over her mother. So many people had sent flowers. And Lucinda had seen more people she knew from her childhood, some she'd forgotten about, some she remembered. Like Mister Toby. And he still looked just like he always had. A little grayer. Maybe a little bit smaller. New teeth. Different teeth. He was standing over there next to her daddy in the rain, just at the edge of the tent, and she knew they needed to go and let the workers who were hanging around the trucks with their shovels go on and do their work.

“You want to sit down?” Albert said.

“Yeah. I think it's about time for that,” Lucinda said. So they walked over to the car and opened the doors and sat down. It wasn't that hot, just humid, but Lucinda cranked it up and let the air conditioner vents blow on them anyway. She sat with her legs out the door, hating the black dress she was wearing and the fake pearls that were all she had. The stupid hat. The awkward shoes.

She was wanting a cigarette, but people kept walking by the car and saying they were sorry, or that they were headed over to the house, where some other women had already put out the food neighbors had brought and had put out paper plates and napkins and plastic knives and forks and spoons and were waiting for the mourners to show up. Lucinda knew how it was. She'd grown up with that. It was what they did in the country.

“I'm sorry,” she said, after some more of them went on by. She reached
for her purse and opened it. “I know we're sitting in the cemetery, but I've got to have a smoke.”

“I know you do,” Albert said, and smiled at her. He'd been so good. So understanding. He had helped her decide things and she had driven around with him to get the things she needed, up to Kroger in Oxford to get stuff for supper last night and down to Fred's Dollar Store for candles and napkins and plastic forks and things. The funeral had seemed to calm him, and now you couldn't tell that there was anything wrong with him.

She lit her cigarette and dropped the lighter on the seat and crossed her arms over her breasts and sat there with the door open and spoke to people as they kept going by. She could see her daddy and Mister Toby slowly making their way from the tent, coming down the gravel in the light rain, what had slowed to less than a drizzle now in the last few minutes. But his suit was wet in spots. She could see that from here. What she couldn't see was how he felt. He hadn't cried. He hadn't said that he was going to miss her. He was vague about when she'd died. Sometime during the night. After they'd talked on the phone. It was mildly troubling for some reason. Like maybe he was lying. But she didn't know that. She could see him laughing at something Mister Toby was saying. She wished she were closer to him. But it wasn't like she hadn't tried. And tried and tried.

“Who's that guy with your daddy, again?” Albert said.

“That's Toby Tubby,” Lucinda said. “I've known him all my life. Him and Daddy have been friends since they were little boys. One of them was born one day and one the next. They're one day apart.”

“Which one's older?” Albert said.

Lucinda laughed and took a drag of her smoke. “I can't ever remember. Mister Toby used to bring these catfish up to the house that he'd caught with his bare hands out of these logs. They were monsters. Him and Daddy used to fish a lot. I don't know if they still do or not.”

“He's excited about that new pond,” Albert said.

Lucinda flicked her ashes out on the gravel and scratched her leg.

“Oh yeah, we got to go see the pond. Maybe when everybody leaves this afternoon we can walk over there. It's not far. You mind?”

“Naw, babe, I don't mind.”

“Great. Well let me get up and go see if he's ready to go. God knows I am.”

She dropped her cigarette on the gravel and stood up and stepped on it, and walked over to her daddy and Mister Toby where they had stopped just short of her daddy's truck and Mister Toby's minivan. Her daddy was so much taller than him that it still looked funny. They'd always been like Mutt and Jeff. She'd be so glad to get these shoes off.

“You ready to go?” her daddy said.

“I guess so,” she said. Then she looked at Mister Toby. “You're coming over to the house, aren't you, Mister Toby?”

Mister Toby nodded.

“Aw yeah. I'm coming. I want to see that catfish pond later on.”

“Good,” she said. She walked up closer to her daddy and stood in front of him. She didn't know what she was wanting him to do, but she wanted him to do something. Maybe say something. He'd held her elbow during the whole graveside service, seated in the draped chairs right in front of the casket, but she never had seen a tear in his eye. Not today. Not any day. He didn't seem to have any. But that was old news, too.

“Are you okay?” she said.

“I'm all right, I reckon,” he said.

“Well,” she said. “Okay. I guess we'll see y'all there then.”

“Yep,” he said, and turned away toward his truck. She watched him get in and start it up. It was just as rusty and dented as it had ever been, and he never would listen to her at all about buying a nice car so that her mother would have something to ride in besides a truck whenever she needed to go to the doctor or wherever, said it was a waste of money. He backed the truck up and started to turn around, craning his head out the window to see. Always poor-mouthing about how broke he was. Her whole life. She knew better than that. Her mother had told her that he had money hidden in the barn, that he always had. Lucinda wondered if it was true, if he still had money hidden out there somewhere in the hay. He got the truck backed up and then turned the wheel and pulled forward. She didn't have any idea how much he had in the bank. But he had all the land. The house. All the cows. And a new pond she hadn't seen yet. He pulled out and headed toward the highway. Mister Toby had
gotten into his minivan and he was pulling out. She waved and got in the car and shut the door.

“Okay now, we're ready,” Lucinda said. “Thanks for being patient.”

Albert reached out and touched her on the arm.

“I'm here for whatever you need,” he said.

“I know you are,” Lucinda said, and reached for another smoke. She lit it and rolled her window down and hung her arm out the window. She looked back to see the men coming with their shovels to the tent. Then she looked away. She put the car in gear and started down the drive. It was hard not to look in the rearview mirror at the men. But she kept her eyes on the dirt driveway and stopped at the highway and looked both ways before she pulled out. There were woods across the road, deep hollows studded with white oaks and hickories and beeches. It was shady down in there. It looked cool and inviting.

“Those are the prettiest woods there,” she said. “Daddy's got some woods like that. Up on the other side of the place. I'm looking forward to seeing the pond. I guess you could swim in it once it gets filled up.”