Blaze

Brian and Toe-Jam, who would be inseparable pals by the end of the day, stood side by side, arms folded. They both nodded.

“Now, just so’s you know,” Bluenote went on. His strange pale eyes glittered. “I get twenty-six cents the quart. You get seven cents. Makes it sound like I’m makin nineteen cents a quart on the sweat of your brow, but it ain’t so. After all expenses, I make ten cents the quart. Three more’n you. That three cents is called capitalism. My field, my profit, you take a share.” He repeated: “Just so’s you know. Any objections?”

There were no objections. They seemed hypnotized in the hot morning sunshine.

“Okay. I got me a driver; that be you, Hoss. I need a counter. You, kid. What’s your name?”

“Uh, John. John Cheltzman.”

“Come over here.”

He helped Johnny up into the back of the truck with the canvas sides and explained what had to be done. There were stacks of galvanized steel pails. He was to run and hand one to anyone who called for a bucket. Each empty bucket had a blank strip of white adhesive tape on the side. Johnny had to print the picker’s name on each full bucket. Full buckets were tucked into a slotted frame that kept them from falling over and spilling while the truck was moving. There was also an ancient, dusty chalkboard to keep running totals on.

“Okay, son,” Bluenote said. “Get em to line up and give em their buckets.”

John went red, cleared his throat, and whispered for them to line up. Please. He looked as though he expected to be ganged-up on. Instead, they lined up. Some of the girls were putting on headscarves or tucking gum into their mouths. John handed them buckets, printing their names on the ID tapes in big black capital letters. The boys and girls chose their rows, and the day’s work began.

Blaze stood beside the truck and waited. There was a great, formless excitement in his chest. To drive had been an ambition of his for years. It was as if Bluenote had read the secret language of his heart. If he meant it.

Bluenote walked over. “What do they call you, son? Besides Hoss?”

“Blaze, sometimes. Sometimes Clay.”

“Okay, Blaze, c’mere.” Bluenote led him to the cab of the truck and got behind the wheel. “This is a three- speed International Harvester. That means it’s got three gears ahead and one for reverse. This here stickin up from the floor’s the gearshift. See it?”

Blaze nodded.

“This I got my left foot on is the clutch. See that?”

Blaze nodded.

“Push it in when you want to shift. When you got the gearshift where you want it, let the clutch out again. Let it out too slow and she’ll stall. Let it out too fast — pop it — and you’re apt to spill all the berries and knock your friend on his fanny into the bargain. Because she’ll jerk. You understand?”

Blaze nodded. The boys and girls had already worked a little distance up their first rows. Douglas Bluenote walked from one to the next, showing them the best way to handle the rake and avoid blisters. He also showed them the little wrist-twist at the end of each pull; that spilled out most of the leaves and little twigs.

The elder Bluenote hawked and spat. “Don’t worry about y’gears. To start with, all you need to worry about is reverse and low range. Now watch here and I’ll show you where those two are.”

Blaze watched. It had taken him years to get the hang of addition and subtraction (and carrying numbers had been a mystery to him until John told him to think of it like carrying water). He picked up all the basic driving skills in the course of one morning. He stalled the truck only twice. Bluenote later told his son that he had never seen anyone learn the delicate balance between clutch and accelerator so quickly. What he said to Blaze was, “You’re doin good. Keep the tires off the bushes.”

Blaze did more than drive. He also picked up everyone’s pails, trotted them back to the truck, handed them to John, and brought back empties to the pickers. He spent the whole day with an unvarying grin on his face. His happiness was a germ that infected everyone.

A thundersquall came up around three o’clock. The kids piled into the back of the big truck, obeying Bluenote’s admonition to be damn careful where they sat.

“I’ll drive back,” Bluenote said, getting up on the running-board. He saw Blaze’s face fall and grinned. “Give it time, Hoss — Blaze, I mean.”

“Okay. Where’s that man Sonny?”

“Cookin,” Bluenote said briefly, punching the clutch and engaging first gear. “Fresh fish if we’re lucky; more stew if we ain’t. You want to run into town with me after dinner?”

Blaze nodded, too overcome to speak.

That evening he looked on silently with Douglas as Harry Bluenote haggled with the buyer from Federal Foods, Inc., and got his price. Douglas drove home behind the wheel of one of the farm’s Ford pick-ups. No one talked. Watching the road unroll before the headlights, Blaze thought: I’m going somewhere. Then he thought: I am somewhere. The first thought made him happy. The second was so big it made him feel like crying.

Days passed, then weeks, and there was a rhythm to it all. Up early. Huge breakfast. Work until noon; huge lunch in the field (Blaze had been known to consume as many as four sandwiches, and nobody told him no). Work until the afternoon thundersqualls put an end to it or Sonny rang the big brass dinner-bell, strokes that came across the hot, fleeting day like sounds heard in a vivid dream.

Bluenote began letting Blaze drive to and from the fields along the back roads. He drove with increasing skill, until it was something like genius. He never spilled a single container from the low wooden slat-holders. After dinner he often went to Portland with Harry and Douglas and watched Harry do his dickers with the various food companies.

July disappeared wherever used months go. Then half of August. Soon summer would be over. Thinking of that made Blaze sad. Soon, Hetton House again. Then winter. Blaze could barely stand to think of another winter at