Arly
Authors: Robert Newton Peck
FLORIDA 1927
Chapter 1
“Up,” said Huff. “Move on up, Arly.”
As I climbed a branch or two higher on the slanting oak limb, Huff Cooter followed. He was still on the downside of me.
“See anything?” he asked.
Squinting in the dark, I looked beyond the sprigs of swaying oak leaves toward the Lucky Leg. Some of the upstair rooms were black, but not all. One was lighted.
“Arly Poole,” said Huff, “you gotta inch up a bit more, so's I can take a see for myself.”
Earlier, it had been Huff Cooter's idea. Down on the ground it seemed to make more sense than away up here, where we were now. Huff's plan was to spy into the upper windows of the Lucky Leg Social Palace, and witness the dandies and the pretty ladies, all having at it. Seeing as it was Friday night, plenty ought to be in swing by this time. Some hot entertaining.
“Hey,” I said, “I can see one of the gals. She's wearing a shiny green dress, with a slit up the side.”
“What's she doing?” As he asked the question, Huff hustled up the oak limb almost to where I was
hanging on real tight, so I wouldn't fall myself down and smack Florida.
A smile near about split my face before I gave Huff a tricky answer. “She's taking something off.”
“
What
?” Huff hissed like a tomcat.
My grin near to hurt my face. “Oh, nothing you'd be itching to learn about.”
“Come on, Arly. What's she taking off?”
“A gent's necktie.”
Huff grunted a dirty word.
Long strands of gray moss was hanging down from the oak twigs, so we had to move our heads whenever the summer breeze made the moss sway. The rough oak bark was scratching my naked chest. Huff and I wore only trousers. Nothing else.
“Arly, what's the
guy
doing?”
“Well,” I said, “right now he's smiling. But he looks more'n a bit nervous to be lonesome with her. He just walked over to see if their door was locked.”
“Yeah,” said Huff. “I bet so.”
Here in Jailtown, the Lucky Leg was about the only public diversion. People say that the sporting carries on during the daytime too. The place was certain bubbling with fun right now. I could hear laughter and the clacking of pool balls. Several people talking all to once. And a man named Mr. Knuckle Knapp was playing a pink piano.
“What's she taking off now?” Huff wanted to know.
“An earring.”
“Is that all?”
“Nope. She's also taking off her other one.”
Huff crawled up to where I lay with my belly flat along the limb. He was trying to see over my rump and into the window.
“Which gal is it?” he asked.
“Flossie.”
Huff moaned a low moan. “Boy, I gotta see her up close.” He started to climb over me for a better view.
My hands tightened on the wood. “Careful, or you'll tumble the two of us, so's we'll fall and bust our necks.”
“Yeah,” he said, “it's Flossie all right. Ain't nobody in Jailtown with hair so sassy red.”
As I looked, I noticed that Flossie's cheeks and lips were red too. Different shade. More like fire. Closing my eyes, I took a deep draw of air through my nose, hoping I'd smell a whiff of her perfume. No luck. All I got wind of was a sorry sniff of Huff Cooter. A picker smell. In Shack Row, where we lived, the Cooter family nested nearby to Papa and me. I'd smelt Cooters all of my life, almost twelve years, and them six Cooters had equal smelt us two Pooles.
“Look,” said Huff, “she got one foot up on the edge of that fancy bed, and slipping off her garter. Yowie!”
“Hush,” I warned him. “Else you'll invite Roscoe Broda's dogs to circle this tree, and bugle.”
Huff punched my shoulder. “Don't you hush me none, Arly. I can lick you in a fistfight any time.”
He was right. He could.
The bedroom window was less than a stone's throw away from us, so we could start to see plenty ⦠until the light went out. Huff groaned. But somebody, and it was probable Flossie, struck a match. The candle flickered a breath or two and then pinpricked the gloom.
“Boy,” whispered Huff, “I sure would like to be that lucky gentleman right now. Wouldn't you?”
“Sure would,” I answered him, knowing certain well that neither Huff Cooter or Arly Poole were old
enough to handle a high time with any of the pretty ladies at the Lucky Leg Social Palace. Both of us were only sneaking up on twelve.
Huff cussed again.
“I can't see much of Flossie. Can you?”
“Nope,” Huff said.
“All we can make out is that there dandy with his necktie off. You reckon Miss Flossie is fixing to give her customer a great big kiss about sudden?”
“Arly, she's possible doing that and plenty else.”
“What you suppose she's at?”
“Oh,” said Huff, closing his eyes, “I got me a heavy hunch that Flossie's got her long red-painted fingernails running through his hair, like ten cooties.”
Listening to Huff's colorful imagining, I leaned forward to push an inch or two closer to the open window. The katydids and crickets were whooping up so frequent that I couldn't hear a word of conversation. So I clung tight to that oak limb and pictured myself in the sweet arms of Miss Flossie. We didn't know whatever her family name was. Nobody at the Lucky Leg Social Palace announced more than a first name, except for Mr. Knuckle Knapp, and Miss Angel Free. The big blonde bosslady. She wasn't ever called just Angel. It was always Miss Angel.
Folks in Jailtown sometimes laughed, guessing that her name was the only
free
thing about Miss Angel. All else was for profit. Cash in advance.
“Huff, how much money do a man tote inside his pants pocket before he can as much as ring the Leg's front doorbell?”
Huff Cooter scratched himself. “Oh, I s'pose away up into the dollars. For sure, he'd best carry enough scratch to spread around, or Miss Angel will watch him git tossed into Okeechobee.”
“Soon's we're twelve,” I said, “you and me'll work as pickers and be earning men. I'll be fetching up melons and cukes right alongside of my daddy. On the labor docket that Mr. Roscoe Broda carries, it'll say Dan Poole, and then me, Arly Poole.”
Huff spat. “Who wants to be a picker? We ain't hardly no better than colored folks. Far as I can figure, a picker ain't nothing but a white darky. Shack Row's all white people, like you Pooles and us Cooters. Yet nobody rise up nowhere, and no how. On account your daddy's like my mama. They'll both settle up the storekeeper every penny they sweat for.”
Huff was right. Mrs. Stout'd claim it all. She'll squint down into that beat-up old ledger book and tell us we still owe. Shack rent eat up whatever it want. Nobody dare to say
liar
to anyone who worked for Captain Tant.
“Arly, can you spot any hot doings in some of the other windows?”
“No. All we can do is guess it.”
Huff was silent for a spell. Then he spoke up. “Are you going to meet the boat when Sunday come?”
“Maybe. On account that the famous person is coming to town. Yet I certain don't know why anybody high and mighty would stop off here. I hope he throws a lot of pennies.”
“Yeah,” said Huff. “All to one fling.”
Once a week, the Caloosahatchee Queen docked here in Jailtown, but not for long. The clean people only stood up, leaning on the railing, and pointed at us. I'd usual wave. Most always, some rich boatrider would fish a penny out of his pocket to toss into the lake. We kids'd dive to fetch it up. Some other kid always brung it up from the deep dock water. I'd not found it even a once time.
But I never quit trying.
The scream woke me up.
Opening my eyes, I rubbed my face with both hands and stared up at the roof of our shack. It was easy to tell by the roof holes that night was near over. A peacock screeched again, making me wonder how so pretty a bird could cry out such a smart awful noise.
“Papa,” I said, “it's time to shake out.”
A few steps away, on the other mattress tick, my daddy was still asleep, breathing heavy like always.
His sleeping sounded stiffer than a sore back.
Rolling off my tick, I heard the straw inside it whisper, as if to warn me that it'd soon make another Florida morning and the picker wagon would be here to lug folks to the field. And if Papa missed the wagon, he'd have to run or get fined by the field boss, Mr. Roscoe Broda.
“Papa,” I said, shaking the bony shoulder that was under his work shirt, “it's soon morning.”
He sat up. “Dang,” I heard him mumble, “it's like I just went down, Arly boy.”
“The wagon'll be coming. You wash up while I fix your eats.” The dirt of the floor was cool under my bare feet as I poked up the cook stove to a boil. Dan Poole
liked hot tea at sunup because it loosened his joints. To be a picker and do stoop work, a man had to make his back bend easy. Papa weren't very big in any direction, up or out.
As it was turning light outside, I hoped he'd hustle himself some, so's he wouldn't be last in line to load onto the picker wagon. Papa pulled off his shirt to wash at the bucket, and his white chest loomed out like a skinny lantern. His arms and face were red and he looked the way most pickers looked, like he'd lost every fight in his life. And that he had never knowed shade.
Outside, the peacocks nagged at each other under the custard apple trees. I was praying that my daddy wouldn't nag me about where Huff and I'd gone last night. And final fell out a tree.
“Hear that?” I said. “Them peacocks realize the mules coming with the wagon. So you best hurry, hear?”
Papa mussed up my hair. “Yup, I hear it, Arly. Don't guess I'd make rising if'n we didn't have them peacocks around.” He pulled his shirt over his thin hair.
“They sure sound ugly, don't they? Even uglier than old Captain Tant hisself.”
Resting a hand over my mouth, Papa said, “No, boy, you don't sass thataway on the Captain. He's hard. But he ain't near ornery as Roscoe Broda, folks say, so you better don't badlip him none. A mean mouth spoons in trouble, Arly. Faith me on it.”
He drank his tea and bit into a flour biscuit faster than a hungry gator. I was glad to see him eat two biscuits instead of his usual single. While he ate, I stuffed a cooked potato and our last strip of dried hog meat into his noon bag, and then knotted the neck so's his food wouldn't foul gritty with field dust.
“Be sure to rest your bag in the shade,” I telled him, “so's it'll keep proper and won't spoil out.”
A mule snorted. Papa jumped, a late look on his face. He didn't cotton to be last in Mr. Roscoe Broda's line.
“We best hurry, Papa. Real sudden.”
“Yeah, we do.”
After I near to pushed him out of our door, together we run up the dusty ground, along the line of shacks. Everbody run, afeared to be late. All I could think of was that I didn't want Dan Poole to be the last man to crawl over the tailgate. Papa couldn't run too fast, so I about dragged him with both my hands hauling to his one. I wanted to work in his place; but rules was rules, about the count of pickers that got took. They didn't usual use nobody eleven.