A Miracle of Catfish (34 page)

Then he stopped. He stood there for a minute, looking at the cow, who was watching him. He knew as well as he knew his own name that she was going to kick him again. And he didn't intend to keep washing and sterilizing that milk tube half the day.

So he went back inside the barn and walked back to the harness room and unlatched it and went in and pulled the feed sacks off the trunk and raised the lid. He lifted the tray and didn't take time to look at the locket again because he had more important things to do. He took the Thompson out and walked through the hall of the barn with the butt of the stock resting on his hip and he walked out into the bright sunshine and looked at the cow. She turned her head to watch him.

“You son of a bitch,” he said. “If you kick me again, I'm gonna shoot you with this damn machine gun. I swear fore God.”

That did it. He couldn't back out now. It wasn't even up to him anymore. He put the gun on the ground and walked over to her.

She was still standing there waiting for him. He looked at her and started right that minute to go back to his truck and back it around to his cattle trailer and hook it up and pull it up to the end of the loading
chute and load her, just take her on to Pontotoc. The calf was plenty old enough to be weaned. But he didn't. He went ahead and squatted next to her back end again and reached in and got his hand around the swollen teat and then pushed the milk tube inside it. Blood and mucus came out first, then some chunks of white matter, then some stuff that looked like bits of butter came out, and the old cow stood there and let it drain. He looked up at her.

She had her head turned again, watching him with a big round peaceful eye.

“See there?” he said. He looked back down at the milk tube. Pure white milk was flowing now. He let it keep draining. Taking the pressure off her bag. He didn't care that he was wasting her milk. Her calf didn't need that much milk now. But that milk was why that calf was so big. Why all hers had been so big. She was a good one. Maybe he wouldn't sell her after all.

He squatted there, letting the white milk spatter in the greenish mud between her hind feet, until it made a puddle she was standing in, and then, finally, after what seemed to be several gallons of milk, it began to ebb.

When he got done with her he untied her feet, took the posts from in front of her and turned her out the side gate and let her go back to her calf. He opened the gate to the heifer pen so that they could get back in to their water and then he went back to his truck and drove it down to the house and parked it. He thought he might watch a little TV before he went to town.

Floating catfish feed was eleven dollars per bag, and Cortez got two. He'd already backed his truck around to the side of the warehouse and Toby walked out with him, holding his green sales slip, and handed it to a sleepy black guy who was in a chair with a fan blowing lots of hot air on him.

“Two bags of catfish feed, Sam,” Toby said, and they waited while the guy took his two-wheeler and pushed it into the shadows of the big tin-covered building. Cortez wondered if they'd killed any more woodchucks in there lately. He saw some guy across the road picking up cans.

“I think I'm fixing to retire,” Toby said, and leaned against the wall in the shade. Cortez leaned with him.

“Shit. You done retired three times,” Cortez said.

“I know it. My old leg gets to hurting, though. It's walking on this concrete all day's what it is. Lurlene has to rub my leg with liniment at night it hurts so bad sometimes.”

They stood there in the heat. Cars and trucks were passing out on the street and there were lots of pickups parked at the Beacon Restaurant just up from there. A colorful sign on a brick house said
local color
.

“You heard from Lucinda?” Toby said.

“Naw. She ain't called. I don't reckon.”

“She might of called while you's gone,” Toby said.

“I guess she could have,” Cortez said.

“Maybe you ought to get you one of them answering machines,” Toby said. “That way you wouldn't miss any calls. We got one.”

“You do?”

“Yep. Plus if it's somebody you don't want to talk to, you can just let the machine catch it.”

“Well how you know who it is?” Cortez said.

“Caller ID,” Toby said.

“What's that?” Cortez said.

“It's a little screen on your phone that lights up and shows you who's calling. Like if it's one of them asshole telemarketers trying to sell you something over the phone, you don't have to answer it.”

“My phone ain't got no little screen on it,” Cortez said.

“You got to get a new phone that's got one,” Toby said.

“Oh,” Cortez said.

The warehouse guy came back out with two big blue paper bags on his two-wheeler and Cortez walked over to his truck and let down the tailgate so the guy could slide them in. Each bag had a picture of a catfish on it. The guy looked like he was about to keel over from sleepiness.

“How much is that, fifty pounds?” Cortez said.

“Yes sir,” the guy said. “You must a got you some catfish.

” “I'm fixing to,” Cortez said.

When the bags of feed were in, he raised the tailgate and fastened it shut and told Toby he'd see him later, then he got back in his truck and
left. He drove through town and up to the square and had to wait for the traffic to clear before he could pull out. Somebody behind him blew their horn and he looked into the rearview mirror to see some person looking at the back of his head.

“Don't you be blowing at me,” he said.

It was very hot already and his truck didn't have air conditioning. That had always seemed like a waste of money, to pay extra for air conditioning in a vehicle since you could always just roll the windows down. But Lucinda couldn't drive one without it. Refused to. She damn sure hadn't been raised like that. He hadn't agreed to buy a window unit for the house until 1973, but he had to admit it was nice when the weather was really humid, like it was now. But he still liked sleeping with the windows up. He thought that night air was probably good for you. The traffic kept coming around the square and there wasn't any way to pull out. The person behind him honked the horn again and Cortez pushed his truck into neutral and pulled out the hand brake, opened the door, and walked back to the car behind him. More horns started blowing. He didn't pay them any attention. Some kid was behind the wheel of the car and Cortez knocked on the window. You could bet he had air conditioning.

The window slid down just a crack. It was a boy about nineteen, and he looked a little scared. His car was shiny and new.

“Yes sir?” he said.

“What you blowing that damn horn at me for?” Cortez said.

“I don't know,” the kid said.

“Don't know?” Cortez said. He was about to get riled.

Some more horns blew and Cortez looked up briefly. Some people in cars were staring at him. He looked back down at the boy.

“I'll pull out when all this traffic lets me out, all right?”

“Yes sir,” the boy said.

“But don't blow that damn horn at me no more. I'll pull you out of there and jerk a nanny goat in your ass. You understand me?”

“Yes sir!” the boy said, and rolled his window back up fast.

Cortez walked back to this truck and got in and released the hand brake and pushed in the clutch and pulled it down in first. There was a big break in the traffic and he pulled right on out.

Some people were mowing the grass around the courthouse and a lot of people were out walking around. Things had changed a lot around the square but they were still kind of the same. Most of the stores were different. He remembered the hardware stores and dime stores that used to be on the square. A long time ago he used to bring his cotton to town to get it ginned just off the square, down on Fourteenth. That was one of Lucinda's favorite things to do when she was a kid, come to town with him in the fall to get the cotton ginned. He could remember a time when they were close and he could talk to her and all that had changed one day. He didn't know what all her mother had told her about him. He felt like she'd told her
some
things about him. He just didn't know what. Mostly he wondered if she knew about Queen. But he couldn't ask her that.

[…]

He drove out the other side of the square and followed the traffic down to the red light on University Avenue and sat in a line of cars and trucks waiting for the green arrow. He didn't get to town very much these days and every time he did, something new had been added. A new business, a new place to eat, some kind of shop. More traffic. More people. He guessed it was like that everywhere. He was sure glad he lived out in the country and didn't have to put up with all this every day.

The line was so long that he had to wait for a second light and by then he was ready to get on home, just as soon as he got a few groceries. He finally got to turn and he went down the hill, past Sneed's, and he glanced out that way to see if they had any steel garbage cans sitting out there. They did, and he put on his blinker to turn right and pulled into the parking lot. He parked and got out and put the keys in his pocket.

They had some picnic tables and some grills set up outside under a big metal awning and he walked over to the garbage cans and looked at them. They had the prices posted on some cardboard signs. A thirty-gallon steel garbage can with a tight-fitting lid was $16.95 and one about half that size was $12.95. He stood there looking at them. He didn't think the little can would hold both bags of catfish feed, so he grabbed one of the big ones and carried it over close to the front door and set it down and left it there and went inside.

He'd always liked coming to the hardware store. Back in the old days you could buy steel traps and you could still buy pocketknives and screen wire and hinges and paintbrushes and screws and plumbing supplies. The store had been up on the square for years, right there at the corner of Jackson Avenue, with a plank floor and wooden barrels of sixteen penny nails. This new place was brightly lit and the people who worked there wore red vests that said
ace
and now they had hummingbird feeders and electric bug killers and air-conditioner filters and shiny new log chains.

[…]

“Is there something I can help you with?” a kid working there said.

“Naw. I just need to pay y'all for a garbage can is all.”

The kid pointed toward the register where a few people were waiting with copper tubing and paint rollers and sandpaper and PVC glue.

“She'll take you right there,” the kid said, and Cortez nodded and got in line. He didn't notice her at first because he was looking at the screwdrivers and cans of WD-40 and small plastic bins of fingernail clippers they had displayed near the checkout so that people would hopefully grab something else on their way out. Then he looked toward the register and saw her. Damn. One of the best-looking black women he'd ever seen in his whole life was laughing and talking to the customer she was ringing up. He was close enough to read the letters on the name tag she had pinned to her red vest: Zula.

She looked like she was about twenty-five. Tall. Shiny black hair and a big smile and a mouthful of clean white teeth. She was a big girl and Queen had been a big girl. Big breasts, big legs, a big behind. He realized he was staring at her and stopped. But it was hard not to look at her. He hadn't been with a woman since he'd buried Queen behind the pea patch, all those years ago. He hadn't been with his wife ever again. He hadn't wanted to. Had no desire to. Not after Queen. How did you go back to what you'd had before you had the best thing you ever had? And how long had that been? He knew exactly. It was thirty-seven years come September 17. All that time. How had it passed so quickly? Thirty-seven winters and thirty-seven springs and thirty-seven hay cuttings and thirty-seven gardens and all the work all that took. Lucinda had been six then. She had been in the first grade. […]

The first customer in the line paid for his stuff and picked up his bag and walked out and the line moved forward. Cortez very much enjoyed listening to the girl's voice while she talked to the next customer. It was a voice that was rich and husky, one that laughed easily. It was the kind of voice you wouldn't get tired of listening to your whole life.

He stood there and looked at some garden hose and squirrel feeders while he was waiting. Somebody was making some keys on the key-making machine and he could hear the machine grinding. He was going to take the garbage can and the feed straight over to the pond when he got in and set the can next to a tree and then open both bags and pour them in and it would be ready when the fish got there.

She finished with that customer and the guy in front of Cortez moved on up and set down his rollers and his PVC glue and a few sheaves of sandpaper. Cortez noticed that he had both rough and fine, figured he was sanding down some furniture. He glanced at the girl again. She had big brown eyes that were so dark they shone. Her skin was beautiful to him. Under the bright lights of the hardware store, surrounded by things he didn't need, he remembered undressing her so many times, and the way her breath would catch in her throat when he caught her nipple between his thumb and finger. And being inside her. With his mouth on her throat and her pushing back against him, moving her hips, her breath getting faster.

He snapped himself out of it. He was a crazy man. Only a crazy man would do what he had done. He needed to be in the penitentiary was where he needed to be. Rotting away in Sunflower County one day at a time.

The guy in front of him finishing paying and then it was just him. He moved on up and the pretty black girl smiled happily at him.

“How you doing today?” she said.

“Pretty good,” Cortez said, reaching for his billfold. “I need to pay you for one of them steel garbage cans out front,” he said.