In Memory of Junior Read online

  What happened was—and this really happened—after the fishing trip, Dad, Uncle Grove, and I took off from Beaufort and flew to Wilmington to pick up these four snakes. What we were supposed to do was fly them on into Summerlin for this guy Jimmy, who we went fishing with. He does snake shows and stuff like that.

  It was my dad flying in the one seat up front and in the wide backseat was Uncle Grove and me. And behind us on top of the storage compartment was a snake cage with this small notched stick through the latch holding the top down, see.

  We landed in Wilmington and spotted the snake guy and followed him over to his truck. He was this little guy with a mustache and big hands. He shook the four rattlesnakes from his cage down into our cage. Two big ones, a medium, and a small. The rattles all started up, then died down. Awesome.

  “They’re all feisty,” the guy said. “I ain’t had them long.” He looked at me. “You ever seen fangs close up?”

  “Nope.” I kind of stepped back.

  He had this stick with a metal hook on the end. He stuck it down in the cage, slid it around the small rattlesnake, and pulled it up. All the snakes’ rattles started up again. He dropped the snake on the ground, pinned the head with the hook, reached down with another stick that had a rope loop on the end and looped it around the snake’s neck, pulled it tight, and then lifted up the snake. It wrapped around the stick. He pressed the hook into the snake’s mouth and opened it wide so that these two little white, you know, like nipple things dangled down. Then it looked like he pressed harder, and these two white, sharp, curved bone-needles came pushing out. One was dripping. Really.

  “Piece of work, ain’t it?” he said.

  Uncle Grove is standing there with his hand on his back pocket. See, here’s the deal. He carries a pistol. You know, he’s the same one dug the grave and all that was in the newspaper.

  The man drops the snake back in with the others. All the rattles started up, sounding like bees. It was like spooky. But you ain’t heard nothing. Listen to this.

  Dad stuck the little stick back through the latch, then paid the guy the ninety dollars or whatever it was this Jimmy guy had given him, and we like took off.

  When we were about fifteen miles south of Horseshoe Lake—that’s where Dad said it was—the engine suddenly got very loud, like the muffler was out or something. Dad kind of started grabbing at things, then there was this powerful vibration. Then, get this, the engine stopped and the propeller froze. Everything was very quiet, except for the wind whistling.

  “What’s wrong?” says Uncle Grove.

  I couldn’t say anything. I was too . . . I don’t know, stricken or something.

  Dad looked back over his shoulder at the snakes. His face was white. Then he said he was going to try to restart the engine. We’re in this slow, quiet glide, just gliding along, and he starts doing this stuff to restart it but nothing is happening. That propeller up front is staying still, pointing up to about the one o’clock position.

  I felt this block of heat moving from my chest up my neck. Then it was ice. “I don’t know what’s wrong,” says Dad. “Something blew. We’ll have to put her down somewhere.” Then he goes on his mike, like, “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. Piper two six six two X-ray. Engine failure.” And all this.

  An answer comes over the radio. “Roger, Piper, this is Cessna four seven two three Charlie.” Something like that.

  “Loud and clear, Cessna, but I’ve lost my engine and I’m landing. Please launch a search and rescue,” Dad says. He tells them where he is—gives them some kind of numbers and all that.

  “This ought to be interesting,” says Uncle Grove.

  “We got some pastures up here,” says Dad. “It shouldn’t be any problem. We’ll just land in one. I’m shutting off the fuel and electrical systems.” His voice was kind of shaking.

  I’d think about the ground down there in front and then I’d think about those snakes in back. I looked and one was in a corner alone and three were stacked on top of each other, very still, like they were sleeping.

  “Shouldn’t we throw them snakes out?” says Uncle Grove.

  “No. Not now,” says Dad. “We’ll be all right.”

  Out to the right and below was an old barn but I didn’t see a house. The ground was flying under us fast, now that we were close to it. It was quiet. No engine. Just wind whistling. We were like just gliding down quietly. There was a big pasture out in front of us. Then Dad was saying something about bouncing over a barbed-wire fence when we—bam—hit, and bounced, but what happened was the main gear caught this barbed wire Dad was trying to bounce over, and held. My head snap-banged forward and back off the front seat, the metal part—that’s where I got the cut. The airplane flipped upside down and landed on the top and skidded, tail-first, along the ground. I watched the ground shoot out behind us, right there at my head, going away from us while we traveled along backwards, upside down, across this pasture. I just hung from my seat and watched dirt and grass fly out behind us, wondering when we would stop. All the baggage from the baggage compartment—thermal blankets, ropes, oilcans, maps, life preservers, flashlight, rags—all this stuff was flying and bouncing every which way and I knew I’d been hit hard on the head.

  Finally, the airplane slid to a stop. We all hung by our seat belts, upside down. I could see out through the front window where we’d been, a kind of path along the grassy ground. And listen, right up there in front, wedged between the dashboard, or instrument place, or whatever it is, and the windshield, was the snake cage—open.

  The first sound I heard was this fuel leaking and kind of gurgling in the tanks, and then, all around in the cockpit, this dry-bones buzzing of the rattles. I smelled gas—strong—and this electric-like smoke.

  The rattles stopped. We were just hanging there, quiet. I was looking at the midsection of a big snake, moving—the rest of him was covered by a thermal blanket and a life preserver. A yellow streak ran down his back through the designs. Another one’s head rose up. Then I realized: it was the same one.

  “Morgan?” said Dad. “You okay?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “I’ll be okay,” said Uncle Grove, “soon as I shoot these snakes. Shit, I thought you were landing on the damn wheels, son.”

  “Wait a minute. Wait,” said Dad. “Don’t shoot nothing yet. Just stay real still. I think—”

  “Don’t turn around,” I said. “There’s a snake right there behind your head.”

  KA-BLOOM. The snake’s head just exploded, like delete. All the rattles started up like mad.

  “Got one,” said Uncle Grove.

  “Wait a minute,” said Dad. “We could—”

  “Shouldn’t we get out?” I said. There was a burning smell and a gas smell. You understand we were hanging upside down and the snakes were in the ceiling right above, or below, our heads.

  The whole time I’m telling the story Teresa is like holding tighter and tighter to my arm and her eyes are getting more and more afraid and the whole feeling in the car there at the lake is getting intense, if you know what I mean. I don’t believe in you know putting the move on somebody like being aggressive or anything like that but she was all eyes and ears and hands and squeezing and stuff, so I kept telling her the story but I wanted to kind of hurry up and get to the end, so I guess I rushed it some, but I got in the part where I had to shoot a snake before we got out—Uncle Grove lost his glasses, told me how to aim and everything—and how we all crawled out with Dad screaming at us to get out, and then the plane caught on fire, like WHOOSH, like a big ball of fire with just the tail and wings sticking out of all this black smoke going up into the sky, and finally the last snake came crawling out of the fire, on fire himself, and finally burned up and died wiggling this way and that.

  We were sitting on this little rise watching all this. It was something.

  Teresa wanted to see the cut on my head, so I pulled back the bandage and showed her. Eleven stitches. The car windows were steamed up by now. W
e were in our own little world. I don’t mean to brag or anything, but I think she’s in love with me—it was one of those times that there might as well not be one thing on the outside of that car or anywhere else in the world, because nothing else counts when you’re at the lake, in a car, with somebody you really, really like a whole lot. And we didn’t, you know, like actually do anything. But we came so close that it was like the end of the world.

  I’m glad I’ve got that story, now. The snake story. It’ll last me my whole life.

  11

  June Lee

  Faison and me were sitting on my couch. Or our couch.

  Tate done this stupid thing and crashed his airplane. They got out okay though. And Faison’s Uncle Grove—somebody found out all about him and he’s going to be on “Donahue,” somebody said. He broke his ankle in the crash and two newspapers sent people to talk to him about all the uproar he’s caused in the last week. His people picked him up yesterday and took him back to Arkansas.

  “Why would Tate go get snakes in a airplane?” I asked Faison.

  “I don’t know. Why not?”

  “Why not? Faison. Look at what happened and answer your own question.”

  “Same thing could have happened in a car.”

  “Oh, no it couldn’t have,” I said.

  “I just wish I’d been there.”

  “Faison.”

  Faison put his arm up on the back of the couch, and started in on his mother again. “Do you think maybe she could have been a lesbian?” All this came up at the beach.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I wouldn’t know what to believe, except your Uncle Grove is crazy. I’m just glad nobody got hurt bad in the crash.”

  “Yeah. Oh well. Where are those journal things?”

  “In the box on the kitchen table. You want another piece of pie?”

  “No.”

  I got up and went to the kitchen and got Junior’s blue spiral-bound notebook and took it in to Faison. “Here.” I showed him where to start.

  I’m glad I was finally able to look at his school stuff, and when I did, I came across these things his fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. McGhee, got him to write in a notebook.

  Junior

  September 28, 1988

  Things I like to do.

  My daddy took me fishing yesterday. The first time he took me I played with the worms the whole time in the floor of the boat. I was five years old. That day we had belony sandwiches and oatmeal cookies and Pepsi cola. I like to fish a lot. I cought a 7 pound bass one time and we been deep sea fishing some too. I cought 27 Spanish makerels in one day. One morning we got up at 5:15 in the morning. Man I was sleepy. When we got there they wouldn’t go out becase it was to roufht. We went to a place and ate breakfast and I got backon and eggs. We tried to find another boat to go out but everybody was afraid to go out becase of the storme. We didn’t catch anything yesterday, but sometimes thats the way it is.

  October 3, 1988

  Pets.

  My mamma has a cat, but my daddy won’t let it come in the house because he says no animal should come in the house. But he is going to get me a bird dog which can be my pet and at the same time he will be my daddy’s hunting dog. Then when I get old enough I will go hunting to. Percy Bledsoe has a german shepard that follows us everywhere we go.

  November 3, 1988

  Uncles.

  My uncel is uncel Tate. He was a hero in the war. He was a pilot and he rescued a man that got shot down in his airplane. I am intended to be a pilot someday. If I get a chance I will probably be a hero in a war too. That is one way I would have a lot of girlfriens after me, but I wouldn’t want them. I would like to fight for America. My daddy would have if he hadn’t been too old. My first daddy did fight in the war but he never told me anything becase I was to young to know what he said. My daddy has got a uncel named Uncel Grove. He lives way over there in Arkansas.

  November 18, 1988

  Aunts.

  I’ve got two aunts who are “great” aunts and two aunts in Kentuky. My “great” aunts grew up on a farm and they know how to cook good.

  January 5, 1989

  Grandparents.

  My grandmother ran off when she was not very old because she was sad and something was wrong with her. My daddy was a little boy. My aunts raised my daddy and uncel Tate. One of them gave me a lawnmower to take apart. I like to take apart things. Daddy showed me how to keep up with all the parts. He said it was a secret about how to do it so I’m not going to tell anybody. It has to do with where to put the parts. I’m looking for a bigger one to take apart. I will be able to have a airplane like Uncel Grove had that I seen pictures of and if I can take it apart then I would be able to fix it if it wouldn’t start. Somebody in my family had a floatplane. My daddy has a picture of Uncel Grove and his airplane with some writing on it. My aunt gave me that old lawnmower but it stayed over at her house.

  January 9, 1989

  Things I like to do.

  My daddy took me hunting yesterday. He killed 6 quales. when I am 12 I will get a four ten shotgun. My daddy and mama fight sometimes but my mama makes my daddy keep talking so they can make up. My mama broke some dishes on purpose one time. But they are in love anyway. Sometimes they get mushy and pukey. I will not get married until after America goes to war. I will be a pilat in the Air Force or on a carriar like my uncel Tate who was a hero. When I get the shot gun that was handed down from the slaves I will be grown and will have to share it with my cousin Morgan who is a dufus. Then I will get married.

  12

  Wilma Fuller

  I was over at Miss Ivy Terrell’s yesterday, poor thing. She’s finally in bed sick sure enough, and I’m glad she’s got Gloria looking after her.

  She wanted to know if that boy that won the scholarship to Duke was in the same Bales family that had all those carrying-ons a couple of years ago. She’d met Miss Laura once a long time ago. She didn’t know none of the rest.

  “Well, see,” I said, “June Lee, the one married Faison—which was Miss Laura’s stepson—June Lee had been going to see Preacher Gordon when that wreck happened and killed her little boy in, what, eighty-nine? and I thought, and I guess everybody else thought that when that happened, and she had this big fight with Faison about the tombstone, that that was the end of their, you know, marriage. And I never thought they’d get back together after a tragedy like that. Tragedies like that can tear a family apart. I especially didn’t think they’d agree on that tombstone, but there it is right out there in the cemetery right now, as big as day, and has been out there some time: ‘In Memory of Junior’ with the dates. A brandnew tombstone.

  “I think it’s odd not to have the boy’s full name on there, but they both seem happy with it, so of course I’m not going to say anything and, Harold, I hope you won’t either. It’s a free country I always said. Of course nowadays people don’t take any responsibilities, don’t feel responsible for nothing except theirselves. Nobody visits anymore.

  “Harold, put that pillow up behind Miss Ivy’s back. She looks a little uncomfortable . . . There, that’s better. Anyway, then all that about them graves, about the time Glenn and Laura died—have you ever in your life heard of such a mess? And I knew ever one of them that was involved as good as I know Harold here, almost, and then that Lord have mercy plane crash. It was all Grove McCord’s fault. He was Evelyn’s brother. Evelyn was the one that left Glenn way back when. You—did you know about that?. . . I wadn’t sure. Nobody knew what happened to her, you know, until Grove finally spilled the beans, and told the boys, her boys, Tate and Faison, all about how she had this fatal disease and decided she couldn’t put Glenn and her boys through it, that she could face it only if she was off somewhere by herself. So she went to Washington State where there were these springs called Warm Springs and she finally recovered after several years and started back home, but found out about Glenn marrying Miss Laura, so she settled in Tennessee—in Jackson, Tennessee—and taught school until she died
, not that long ago. I was glad to get the truth on it, because there had been rumors. Grove told all this before he finally went on back to Arkansas.

  “Well, of course after Mr. and Mrs. Bales died, first it looked like Glenn’s boys and Miss Laura’s daughter would get the farm because it was only normal with that joint ownership thing, and without a will it would go straight to the children. And of all things, nobody thought to look at the deed. Nobody had give that a thought, and then when they were about to split everything up, there it was. The deed. Where Glenn’s papa had said in some kind of something clause that if any of his children were alive when Glenn died, then that land would have to be sold straight to the oldest for one dollar, and so on down the line till the last one. It just shocked everybody. Nobody had seen it, tucked away in the deed.

  “Well, Glenn had two sisters left, Bette and Ansie. Bette’s the oldest, and she managed to shake up a dollar, and they both moved right in—her and Ansie—cause it’s bigger and nicer than both those little houses over on Tully Drive where they were living, and now there they are, doing just fine.

  “Of course you probably know they’ve put in for Gloria for when you . . . get to feeling better, Miss Ivy. I’m glad you’ve got her for now, though. Gloria was so good about everything when Glenn and Evelyn died.”

  “Laura, not Evelyn,” says Harold.

  “That’s right. I got so I can’t remember nothing, Miss Ivy. I guess I had Evelyn on my mind, leaving that baby that was still at her breast like she did. I wish I knew what she had, but I guess some things will have to just remain a mystery. I guess we ought to be thankful for mysteries. But it is hard to believe somebody would leave a baby that was at her very breast.

  “You know my little brother, Fred, was so long breastfeeding that my mama finally told him that if he’d just stop, for gracious sakes, she’d let him start smoking.