and churn and go gray at the edges. Out of the north rolled darker clouds yet, and they filled the sky and gave up their rain and the pines became purple with shadow and the road turned from red to blood-clot brown, then darker. The rain slammed down hard, and the wind thrashed it onto the porch in steel-colored needles that stung my face and filled my nostrils with the aroma of wet earth.
I got out of my old wooden rocking chair and went into the house, feeling blue and broke and missing Leonard.
I hadn’t heard from him since he’d dropped me off, and I’d called his place a couple times and only got rings. I wondered if he’d finally gotten his money. I wondered if he were spending it. It wasn’t like me and him to go more than a couple of days without touching base with one another, just in case we needed to argue about something.
I thought I’d call him again, maybe drive over there after the rain, see if his phone might not be working, but about then the phone rang and I answered it.
It was my former boss, Lacy, the Old Bastard. He sounded friendly. A warning flag went up. I figured whoever had taken my place in the fields had gotten a better job bouncing drunks or shoveling shit, or maybe died of stroke or snakebite, or taken up preaching, which was a pretty good career, you had the guts not to be ashamed of it.
“How’s it hanging, Hap?”
“To the left.”
“Hey, that’s my good side. Nut over there’s bigger. You ready to come back to work?”
“Don’t tell me you’re calling from the field?”
He forced a laugh. “Nah, we had a down day.”
That meant either no one showed up, or certain supplies couldn’t be coordinated, or they’d expected the rain.
“That little thing the other day,” he said. “Let’s let it go. I won’t even dock you. Tomorrow we got to have a good day, losing this one. So, hell, Hap. I can use you.”
“Man or woman’s got hands and isn’t in a wheelchair, you can use them.”
“Hey, I’m offering you a job. I didn’t call up for insults.”
“Maybe we can jump that shit pay a little. Another fifty cents an hour you’d almost be in line with minimum wage.”
“Don’t start, Hap. You know the pay. I pay cash, too. You save on income tax that way.”
“You save on income tax, Lacy. Wages like that, I don’t save dick. I’d rather make enough so I had to pay some taxes.”
“Yeah, well…” And he went on to tell me about his old mother in a Kansas nursing home. How he had to send her money every month. I figured he probably shot his mother years ago, buried her under a rosebush to save on fertilizer.
“Couldn’t your old mother whore a little?” I said. “You know, she’s set up. Got a room and a bed and all. If she can spread her legs, she can pay her way.”
“Hap, you bastard. Don’t start fucking with me, or you can forget the job.”
“My heart just missed a beat.”
“Listen here, let’s quit while you’re ahead. You come on in and I’ll get you working. Tell the nigger to come on in when he’s ready.”
“Shall I tell Leonard you called him a nigger?”
“Slipped on that. Force of habit.”
“Bad habit.”
“You won’t tell him I said it, all right? You know how he is.”
“How is he?”
“You know. Like that time in the field, when him and that other nig – colored fella with the knife got into it.”
“That guy ever get out of the hospital?”
“Think he’s in some kind of home now. I’m surprised Leonard didn’t do some time for that. You won’t tell him about the ‘nigger’ business, will you?”
“I did tell him, there’s one good thing about it.”
“Yeah?”
“You already got the roses for your funeral.”
He rang off and I had the fifty-cent raise for me and Leonard both, just like I thought Leonard might actually go back to it.
Frankly, I had a hard time seeing me going back to it, but a look at the contents of my refrigerator and a peek at the dough in the cookie jar made me realize I had to.
My mood moved from blue to black, and I was concentrating on the failures of my life, finding there were quite a few, wondering what would happen ten years from now when I was in my midfifties.
What did I do then?
Rose-field work still?
What else did I know?
What was I qualified for?
I wasn’t able to tally up a lot of options, though I spent considerable time with the effort.
I was considering a career in maybe aluminum siding or, the devil help me, insurance, when the phone rang.
It was Leonard.
“Goddamn, man,” I said. “I been wondering about you. I called your place and no answer. I was beginning to think you’d had an accident. Refrigerator was lying on top of you or something.”
“I didn’t go back home,” Leonard said. “Not to stay anyway. I packed some of my stuff and came back here to Uncle Chester’s.”
“You calling from there?”
“His phone got pulled from lack of payment. Months ago. I’m calling from a pay phone. You want to know what I’m wearing?”
“Not unless you think it’ll really get me excited.”
“I’m afraid clothes have to have women in them for you to get excited.”
“Maybe you could talk in a high voice.”
“Cut through the shit, Hap. I’m gonna live at Uncle Chester’s awhile. I been going through his stuff. I feel like I want to do that, get in touch with who he was. And more importantly, find out what this fucking key goes to.”
“His main coupon collection.”
“Could be. I’ve looked everywhere. I got other reasons too. I want to fix the house up some. Maybe sell it for more than I can get now.”
“Sounds smart, Leonard. Things are swinging here too. I got my old job in the rose fields back.”
“Lose it again.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Hey, you toted me some, move over here a bit, least till I do what I got to do, and I’ll keep you fed and in toilet paper.”
“I don’t know. That’s more charity than I like. I don’t even have a bum leg.”
“Me neither. Hardly. I’ve been moving around some without the cane. Mostly without it. I don’t plan to pick it up again, I can do without it. Look, Hap. It ain’t charity. You can help me fix the place up.”
“What I can’t fix, which is nothing, I shit on. You know that.”
“You can tote a hammer, hand me nails. And there’s something else. These fucks next door. I got no problems with them yet, but I feel one brewing, way they watch me. They’re biding their time. I’d like to have you at my back, and there’s always the chance they’ll get you first, instead of me. I like the idea of a buffer.”
“Well, I can see that.”
“Good. Can I count on you?”
I considered working for Lacy again. I thought of the rose fields, the heat, the sticks, the dynamic pay.
