Chowder Morning

Linnie lay in a twilight of sleep - that stage just before waking when one so young can see through the translucent skin of their lids. Light and bodies seem like gossamer images in mist. Sounds float rather than deliver, and tactile properties feel like whispers on the skin. So it was that she dreamily felt hands, then arms, slide under her knees and her upper back, lifting her from the tussled mess of sheets on her bed. Her hair caught somewhere and pulled her further into the morning, and she realized by the nubby flannel against her cheek she was in her father’s arms. “Daddy,” she mumbled, still not opening her eyes, “my hairs.” She felt him open the crook of his underarm and pull out the long, white-blonde strands and lay them freely over his upper arm. “Shhhh,” he whispered. “Don’t wake your sister.” She felt herself glide through space, her father deftly turning this way and that to guide them past the bunkbeds and through the bedroom door, then into the kitchen.

Linnie felt warmth in the air, and smelled bacon and coffee. She started to open her eyes but only her left parted and only halfway - enough for her to see the short, dark whiskers on her father’s neck. “Daddy,” she mumbled again, reaching up with her right hand to feel her crusty lashes, “my eyeballs.” Her father clicked his tongue. “Them ol’ allergies again. Don’t you worry,” and he sat her on the counter next to the sink. She felt the coolness of the metal edge trim through the thinness of her nightgown, heard the liquid tumble of water from the faucet hit the heavy, white farm sink. Her father placed a warm, wet cloth across her eyes. “Hold this,” he said. “I’ll get your clothes.” She heard him take soft steps across the hard linoleum, then stop. “And kiddo, don’t you move one little bit. Ok?” Her voice croaked as she said, “I won’t. I might fall to my death.” It was a recitation of her great-grandmother’s admonition, one to keep little girls wary of the dangers of climbing beyond safe rescue. Her father gave a quiet chuckle, “I’m more worried about you not seeing where you land.” She heard him walk away.

Pushing the cloth into her eyes she felt the matting begin to melt and dissolve away and when she opened her eyes it was to the warm, yellow pool of light cast by the bulb above the sink onto the red and gray checkerboard floor. She loved the floor, with squares large enough for hopscotch. She had been trying to teach Little Sister, but lessons were proving difficult. Currently her four-year-old sibling would only step on the red squares, and was too wobbly not to edge into the gray. This led to hysteria.

There were times Little Sister would begin to run from the living room toward their mother in the kitchen, then suddenly stop and stand rigid on a red tile, point at a gray one, her large brown eyes welling with tears and her bottom lip quivering as she whispered, “Scary.” Her mother called it “frustrating,” her father called it “a dilemma,” and Linnie called it “stupid.” She had tried to show her sister there was nothing to fear by standing on a gray tile. She then pulled Little Sister onto the square and into a firm hug. This resulted in her screaming in a way that chilled Linnie to the bone. But she couldn’t let go, because she was also now afraid. Paralyzed, she succumbed for some moments to the possibility Little Sister was right. Perhaps the gray linoleum would melt and they would sink, then plummet, into some other world. Unable to move, She stood horrified and mesmerized as her sister continued to scream, eyes bugged in terror, her mouth so wide that Linnie could see a strange, dangling thing in the back of her throat. (This was later explained to her as the epiglottis. It was a wonderful, strange word, and she tried to use it often.) Eventually, their mother came along and separated them, whisking Little Sister away. Linnie was left to stand alone, imagining the worst.

“Epglotts,” she whispered now, absently stroking her throat, lost in consideration of how to solve the “dilemma” of her sister and the gray squares. Her father was returning to the kitchen, arms laden with the wardrobe requirements of a seven-year-old girl on a cool, early-autumn morning. Something special must be going on as everyone else was still asleep. As she peered out the window to her right, she saw nothing but darkness and the twinkling of utility lights at a few homesteads past her family’s lawn, the railroad tracks, the now-bare corn field, the highway, and south into the countryside. “Are we running away?” she whispered, looking down at her father’s head of wavy chestnut hair, bowed as he threaded her feet into her green jeans. They were actually boys’ pants, with extra patches on the knees for what the catalog called “rough and rowdy” kids. According to her mother, she fell into that category. “No, we’re not running away,” her father said, lifting her under the arms so she could stand on the cool floor (on a gray square, mind you) and pull up and fasten her pants. He winked and smiled his ornery crook of a grin. “It’s much better than that. You put on your shirts and I’ll get your socks and boots.” She pulled on a white undershirt and a striped turtleneck. She liked it, as it sported lots of colors of orange and blue and yellow and different shades of green. It was clingy, but not heavy. Still she wondered how long it would take until she began to sweat. She was surprised when her father returned with not only socks and her mud boots, but also a hooded jacket. “Dad,” she whined, “I’m gonna sweat!” He shushed her again, helped her with the foot gear, took her hand, threw her jacket over his shoulder, grabbed his old green thermos, an extra plastic coffee cup, and opened the back door. Reaching over her head to flip on the porch light he edged her out the door and down the steps. She was surprised by the coolness in the air, and the chilling effect on the delicate interior of her nostrils. She snorted in the cool, damp air automatically, then cringed at the sting. But it brought something else as well. “Wait,” she said, stopping. “I smell bacon.” Her dad laughed, pulling a folded package of aluminum foil from his pocket. “You carry it to the truck. You’ll need sustenance. Gonna be a big day.” She took the package and held it to her chest, taking the steps down to the yard, away from the circle of light and toward the old pick-up truck that she could see only by how the glass windows gleamed under the waning moonlight.

“Susnuts,” she whispered, walking into the dark, her father’s soft laugh wafting to her back, surrounding her, and leading her into the day.

*****************************************

“He’ll be a tough one, for sure,” said great-grandfather Orschel, taking off his German-Richland Petroleum hat - red with the company’s black and white logo embroidered on the front. He was proud of the hat and was careful to hand it to his son, Linnie’s grandfather Walk, then reached into his blue jeans for a bandanna to wipe away blood trickling from above his left ear. “He” happened to be a rooster that had jumped and took awkward flight onto Orsh’s head when the old man tried to grab him. “Your grandmother will be glad to see him go, he’s nearly pecked her to death.” He directed his comment to Linnie’s father. “Well, he’s ornery, but young, so he won’t be too tough for Chowder!” laughed her father. He ran after the chicken, throwing an old, cotton tablecloth over the bird. He held up its spasming body in the bundle, and nodded at Linnie. She opened a door on the short, rectangular chicken carrier and her father shoved the raging rooster inside, where an older hen sat, softly clucking about her similar fate. It was an old carrier made by Grandpa Orsh, crafted from old lumber and dowels. He had made it years before for this very purpose - taking chicken for Chowder. They couldn’t stand up and strut in it, and were forced to sit still and glower on their trip from town deep into the countryside, where they eventually became part of a simmering, giant kettle of thick soup. That soup was laden with other meats, cooked in sizzling fat bacon, then joined by buckets full of diced garden vegetables, and water from a spring-fed well.

The well had been there for as long as anyone could remember, when the Chowder house and grounds were part of a school that had long ago been dissolved, along with the small amount of commerce that had once made up the country village of Warbler. Every few years one of the current or former residents who tended the grounds would paint the well pump to keep it from rusting. Linnie had gone with Grandpa Walk to do the job a few months ago. He used some left-over bright orange implement paint. Linnie thought it made the pump look shocked, and very exciting. Grandpa obviously liked the color as well, having used it on everything in his own back yard back in O-Town, including the yard swing. “Can’t let it go to waste,” he had said around the cigar stub in his mouth, the paintbrush in his hand slapping orange on the wooden slats of the swing. “Nope, that would be a crying’ shame.” (His wife, Grandma Evie, said a cryin’ shame was having to face the neighbor women on either side of their Main Street home when they were all tending their gardens.)

Linnie loved Chowder, which was more than a soup - it was an event. There were chowders in other towns scattered in southeastern Illinois, but the one deep in the countryside southwest of O-Town was the best. She knew this as everyone in her family said so. The grounds were green and lush, with flowers that bloomed when it was their turn - a blanket of daffodils marking spring, poppies and peonies and rose bushes blooming in succession over the warm season. There was a large, long iron tripod made by area men holding a total of 10 swings on heavy chain-link for children to send into the heavens. Two open-air shelter buildings had floors of gravel where the giant kettles - two in each - sat over their fire pits. They made a lot of soup, but they fed the hords of people who arrived from near and far. The Chowder had been going on since the “Nineteen Tens,” according to Grandpa Walk, which Linnie surmised by her young mathematical skills to be a long time. It was started by people who decided to pitch in for a community meal to celebrate the harvest of their gardens, the skills of their baking, the prowess of their hunting, and the feeling of community before facing a long, cold winter. Some of those people still lived in the area of Warbler, some had moved away. But they and their extended families continued to gather for Chowder. A few hundred automobiles lined either side of the blacktop road for as far as the eye could see. It was a remarkable sight.

A photographer from the O-Town newspaper had last year set up his camera on a tripod in the middle of the road to get a photo of all those vehicles. The children sat crouched in the grassy ditch beside the road, watching as the photographer stood by his gear, slurping on a bowl of Chowder, eyeing the western horizon. The adults had long lost interest, but the children were amused by his pacing and muttering as he waited for …. something. “What you waiting for?” yelled Clarence MacLeary. He was the oldest of the kids in the ditch, and a bit of loudmouth. Still the rest of the crowd was glad he had asked. The photographer had been slurping soup and looking into his bowl, but glanced defensively at Clarence. He undoubtedly would have yelled back but he gasped as his eye caught something beyond the boy’s head. “I am waiting ….,” he said slowly as he bent and set the bowl on the road, then pivoted to peer through the viewfinder of his camera, placing his right hand to cradle it, his index finger hovering above the button, “for just the right …… moment.” With that he took several photos, then smiled maniacally, gathered his tripod and camera in his arms and ran toward his car. It was a bit disappointing for Linnie, as nothing momentous occurred for her - until she saw the color photo in the newspaper some days later. Color was uncommon in The Commoner, but more amazing was the sight of the lowering sun casting rays through the trees on the roadside, so that they glittered and danced on the autos that lined the road for miles. “That’s one hell of a photograph,” her father had said, tacking it to the side of the refrigerator with a few magnets. “The depth of field is amazing.” Linnie didn’t see any field, but she did agree. “Hell of a photograph,” she repeated, touching it.

This was Linnie’s first year to be involved in the preparations. She and her second cousin Terrance would be riding in the back of the pickup, wedged in among bushel baskets of potatoes and onions, two spare tires, a toolbox, and a picnic basket full of sandwiches, cookies, and thermoses of coffee made by Great-Gramma Pearl. Her father and grandfathers would be in the cab of the truck, while she and her cousin were to sit in front of either wheel well, and keep an eye on the chicken carrier. “Just keep an eye on things so they don’t roll around too much,” said her father. “And remember … butt to the floor.” Linnie grabbed her behind and nodded vigorously. “Right,” she said. “Butt. Floor. Aye yi Papason.” He laughed, hoisted her into the bed of the pickup, then pulled her hood up. “Now you know why I brought the coat. The wind will be a little chilly this morning.” He walked to the driver’s side door, climbed in and started the truck. Linnie looked at her surroundings, sat down cross-legged, her rear sat securely between two raised grooves of the truck bed. She reached out to touch the potatoes, then the onions. Her fingers brushed the skins, feeling the bits of fine dirt that had dried on the vegetables, then put her fingers in her mouth. She guiltily looked about to make sure no one was watching her enjoy the taste. Just then Terrance hauled himself over the tailgate and stopped. “Are you eating dirt?” he asked incredulously. He was ten, and thought he knew most everything and had been sure to tell Linnie so several times already. “No,” she said weakly, tucking her chin to chest. “Yeah, you were,” said Terrence firmly. “It’s ok. I used to do the same thing. It’s probably ‘cause you have ironed efficiency.” Linnie had no idea what ironed efficiency was, but tucked the words into her memory to inquire about later. “I just like the way it feels between my teeth,” she whispered. Terrence rolled his eyes and took his seat on top of the wheel well across from her. “That’s ‘cause you’re still little,” he sighed, looking to the distance. Linnie shored up her nerve to say, “You need to put your butt to the floor. There could be danger you know.”

Terrence snorted and pulled his brown corduroy jacket tighter, zipping it to his throat. He pulled his sock hat down below his eyebrows, so that his lids were pushed down, and his blue eyes peered through his red eyelashes. Strands of his red/blonde hair stuck out like straw at the back of his neck. Someone had given him a bad haircut. Linnie wanted to cut those little hairs off with her mother’s little scissors. If it pulled a little and made him yell, that would be ok too. Her father stuck his head out the window and yelled for Terrance to sit on the floor. The boy sulkily slid off the wheel well to do as he was told, pushing his legs out so that he kicked Linnie in the knees. Not hard, but just firmly enough to let her know he was offended to have been bossed. “Guess it’s ‘cause you’re still little,” she said softly, smirking, then laughed. Terrence bulled up at first, but then laughed as well. Her two grandfathers climbed into the truck, and it pulled out of Grandpa Orsch’s driveway, down Chestnut Street to the highway for a bit, then onto the long blacktop road toward Warbler.

Linnie and Terrance had moved to just behind the cab, each on either side of the chicken carrier, their hands holding onto the top of the truck bed. Linnie was staring at the back of the heads of the three main men in her life. All of them had dark tans on their necks, her father’s less wrinkled than the others. They were deep in conversation about something, but their words were hard to hear with the rush of wind through the open windows, as it swept the discussion out of the cab and into air. If she could have seen the words that lingered long enough on the current she would have seen “the boy” in red, and “it’s a quandry” in blue. She cast a sideways glance at her cousin, and his face was flushed, his eyes downcast. “They’re talking about me, you know,” he yelled, so that Linnie might hear him above the rush of the wind that swept around the cab of the truck as it drove down the road. “They don’t know what to do with me,” he yelled again, looking at her. There were tears in his eyes, but Linnie was unsure if he were sad, or the wind was causing them to water. “My folks are gone. Did you know?” She shook her head, not knowing what to say. “It’s okay,” shouted Terrance, smiling very broadly. But his eyes did not look happy. He kept smiling, even as he stood up, and as he unzipped his coat. “It’s hot now, isn’t it? I’m going to take off my coat,” he shouted. He pulled his coat open, assumedly to shuck it. But before he could do so, he stumbled backward, and the wind hit him, making his coat billow like wings, and he was pushed back in the bed of the truck and lifted. For a fleeting moment Linnie saw a look of wonder come across his face. “I’m flying!” he shouted. He was lifted further, and fell backward, tumbling over the tailgate, and then he was gone. Linnie screamed, and felt the truck come to a halting stop. She realized she had crawled toward Terrance, and with the stop of the truck slid violently back toward the cab. She was instantly on her feet as she saw in her peripheral vision that the men had vaulted from the vehicle. She began to creep toward the tailgate, and as she did heard Great Gramma’s voice in her head. “He’s fallen,” she cried to herself, reaching the tailgate, her eyes screwed shut, refusing to open and look over onto the road. “He’s fallen to his death.

The Trouble with Terrence

When Linnie dared open her eyes she saw the men crouched over Terrence, prodding him to check for broken bones, peeling back clothes to look for bleeding. Remarkably there was neither. There was a bit of a red goose egg on his forehead, which they assumed meant he had done some tumbling before ending up sprawled on his back on the pavement. So they were asking him lots of questions to discern whether there was any concussion.

“What’s your name boy?” asked Grampa Walk in his reasonable tone.

“Who’s the President?” asked Linnie’s father in a worried tone, rubbing Terrence’s shoulder.

“What the hell are you smilin’ about?” asked Grampa Orsch in his deep, barking tone. “By God you’ve given us a scare. You think it’s a laughing matter? Are you alright?”

Clarence nodded, still smiling as the men helped him sit up, then stand. “Someone helped me,” he said dreamily. “She was really pretty.” The men all looked at Linnie, still standing in the bed of the truck, rubbing her sore bottom where the rooster had pecked her. When the truck stopped she had slid into the carrier. The hen had squawked and the rooster attacked. She shrugged her shoulders and mumbled “Wasn’t me.” Grampa Orsch scowled. “His brains are probably just a little scrambled. Let’s get them both into the cab.” Clarence sat on Grampa Orsch’s lap in the middle and Linnie sat on Grampa Walk’s lap on the passenger side. The early morning sun was still low in the eastern sky and sent spectacular rays through the windows. “Is this heaven?” asked Clarence dreamily. “Hmmpf,” grunted Orsch. “We’re more likely to catch hell once your grandmothers get to Chowder.”

He wasn’t wrong.

If ever a guardian angel had truly saved someone in the history of mankind, it had been the one with Terrence that morning. Great-Gramma Pearl had said so several time since she and Gramma Evie had arrived. She also said “My Lord,” or some variation of the exclamation many times. Linnie and her crew had only just pulled onto the grassy grounds at Chowder and were milling around the truck trying to discern Terrance’s well-being when the grandmothers arrived. Evie was driving, her face calm and smiling behind the wheel of her 1965 white Ford Galaxie. She was always smiling when in her car, the closest to a new one Grampa Walk would ever agree to. It was now 1969, so it fell within the same decade. She felt almost spoiled. Her mother-in-law Pearl was in the passenger seat, squinting as she looked hard at her husband, son, grandson, and great-grandchildren. She went to crank down the window, having forgotten Evie’s new car had power windows. “My Lord,” she mumbled, opening the door, quickly stepping out and standing up.

“What on earth is wrong?” she demanded. Orsh took his cap off and rubbed the back of his neck. “Now Pearl, what makes you think something’s wrong?” he asked. She marched over to them. “Because you’re all just standing here looking guilty, that’s what. Good Lord!” she remarked, having just noticed the bump on Terrence’s forehead. As the men began to explain, she licked a tissue and gently rubbed at the goose egg. Terrance flinched, but was still beaming beatific as she stepped back to further assess his injury. “Dear Jesus, he just keeps smiling,” she whispered fiercely, hands on hips, her mouth in a tight line. “Something’s wrong with him.” She was right. Had he been his normal self, Terrance would have been long gone adventuring in the nearby woods or the corn field, or hiding somewhere. He certainly would never have stood still for a spit bath. The adults discussed whether he should go to the hospital. “It’s 30 miles any direction to a hospital, and Doc Truman will be here soon,” said Walk. “He’s bringing rabbit he’s had in the deep freeze before any of the picky eaters get here to help stir.” The group decided the boy should rest in the quiet shelter of the Chowder House. Propped up on a folded, old quilt in the corner of an old church pew he was handed a tablet and pencil, pulled from Pearl’s practical and large, black purse. “You can play tic-tac-toe with your grandfather,” she said, eyeing Orsh. He nodded gravely, lowering his tall frame on to the pew. “We’ll be fine Pearl,” he said. “Oh, I’ll be back to check on you,” she warned, turning on her heel and marching toward the door. She spun around before exiting. “Don’t you let him fall asleep, Orsh. He might have a concussion.” She was still eyeing Terrence with worry as she closed the door.

“Lord, Lord,” she said now, sitting at a picnic table under one of the Chowder kettle shelters. The table was heavily laden with vegetables - piles of onions, celery, carrots, and potatoes. It would be combined with the bounty on the table in the other kettle shelter: jars of home-canned peas, and garden sweet corn that had been sliced from the cob, put into old lard cans lined with waxed paper, then kept in someone’s chest freezer. The cold sides of the tin lard cans sat sweating in the morning shafts of sunlight. Pearl placed another potato on a pile and “tsked” loudly. “Why on earth do the men let the children ride in the back of the truck?” She and Evie had been peeling steadily for the last half hour. Pearl stood, holding the corners of her apron, which held many a peel. Evie didn’t respond, just shook her head of smartly-set light red hair. It was a short hairdo, falling just below her earlobes, having been set in curlers, then brushed out and sprayed into a no-fuss bob. The slender fingers of her left hand held a potato in place, while the other held a paring knife she used to quickly dice the vegetable. Pearl walked to the edge of the corn field, dumping her peels into a pile of other trimmings. The pile would be mixed with grass clippings over the coming months to create rich compost that, come spring, would be worked into the flower beds.

Pearl stood for a few minutes staring at the rows of drying corn, then spun quickly around, her black oxfords kicking up stringy celery peels onto her stockinged ankles. Linnie thought they looked like a bunch of inchworms making their way up her granny’s leg. She wanted to giggle and tell the older woman about it, but Pearl had started for the Chowder House. She was going to check on Terrence, no doubt. Her strides were quick and strong. Pearl was 70, but her age was only evident by the white of her hair, pulled into a bun at the back of her neck, and the wrinkles on her face and neck. Her body was short, strong, and muscular. In fact, Orsh said that while his wife was “short at the withers, if her backside’s in serious motion, she outranks the hind of any steed.” If he said this while Pearl was nearby, he was snapped with a dishtowel, which she always had in hand.

Linnie was watching that backside, clad in a blue and white pinstriped shirtdress, when she turned around and crooked her finger. “Come on Lin,” said Pearl. “Let’s go check on your cousin.” Linnie ran to the building and she and Pearl stepped inside its warm interior, awash in sunlight from the many multi-paned schoolhouse windows. Orsh lay sleeping on the pew, his head on the quilt, his snores rumbling in his throat, his lips puffing out with his exhaled breath. Terrence was gone. “Good night Lord,” whispered Pearl, who had turned around. Linnie had felt a jolt go through her grandmother’s body, and that’s when she heard the singing. Though she couldn’t make out words, it was the sweetest, clearest voice she had heard in her seven years of life. It made her skin feel tingly. She turned toward it and gasped when she saw Terrence balancing atop an old sermon pulpit. “Do you hear her?” he asked, his face rapt and smiling, his arms reaching above him. “That’s my friend! The one who helped me!” He took a deep breath, and released it in a contented sigh. Then he threw up and toppled from the podium to the hardwood floor.

Voices

“It’s not uncommon Pearl, the vomiting, but let’s get him checked out,” said Doc Truman as he continued to shine light into Terrence’s eyes. Linnie did not like the way he pulled the lids open so far. She could see the whole roundness of Terrence’s eyeballs, and the blood vessels that ran under the pink, moist membrane behind them. It made her cousin look like “Muscle Man,” the name given to the full-size figurine in Doc’s waiting room that showed what a man’s body looks like without skin.

She did not like Muscle Man, and would keep her eyes closed when with her mother in the waiting room. “Linnie, wake up,” her mother would whisper. “I am wake,” she would whisper back. “I don’t want to see Muscle Man.” This had happened more than once. Her mother would sigh, but wouldn’t force her to open her eyes. “Don’t worry Mom,” she would always say, reaching out to clumsily pat her mother’s hand. “Someday I will get better at looking.” The truth was that she hated the waiting room all together. Muscle Man stood on the right side of the reception desk, while Bone Man - a full-size skeleton - stood on the left. She had once overheard her mother calling Doc’s front office a “House of Horrors” to her father.

“House of whores,” she now whispered, watching the doctor with Terrence. She felt Pearl jerk, then lightly pinch her shoulder. “Linnie!” her grandmother hissed, and Linnie looked up to see the woman staring at her with obvious disapproval. “What?” she asked breathlessly, wondering what had happened. The doctor’s voice interrupted the moment. “He has a pupil that is a little dilated,” came Doc’s muffled voice from the its close proximity to Terrence’s mouth. This also bothered Linnie. What if their lips touched? She decided to quickly intervene. “What is dilated?” she asked. The doctor raised up. “It means the black part of that eye is just a little bigger than the other. It may be it has always been that way, or it could be a sign that he has a concussion,” said Doc, smiling gently at Linnie. “That just means his brain got a little bruise when he fell. It’s okay, he just needs a little more attention than we can give him here.” She liked Doc, and the way he would always speak to her in a calm voice, his brown eyes kind. He explained things to her so she didn’t have to wonder and worry. He also breathed in her face anytime he looked into her eyes, and his breath stunk. Linnie had learned to hold her breath during such instances. “And you can tell that with this?” she asked, reaching out a finger to touch the lighted tool in his hand. Of course, she had seen it before, it having been used to look in her eyes, ears and mouth. It now seemed more important. “Yep. It’s an otoscope,” Doc replied. Linnie tucked the word away to think about later.

Doc stood up from his crouch in front of Terrence, who was lying on his side on the church pew, his head resting on the quilt. When Doc stepped away to talk with Pearl, Linnie took his place in front of the boy. “Please get better,” she said to him, wanting to touch the bump on his head, or to hug him. Instead, she clasped her hands together and tucked them between her thighs. Terrence’s lips were still set in a bit of a smile, although he looked pale and queasy. The freckles across his nose stood out like spots that had been painted on his skin. “I’m okay,” he said hoarsely. “As long as I don’t puke again.”

Pearl agreed with Doc that Terrence should go to the hospital in O-Town. The three of them would make the trip in Doc’s station wagon. Orsch, who had woken up when Pearl screamed “Terrence!” after the boy’s dramatic retching and fall, was unloading a few packages of thawing rabbit parts, and a basket of over-ripe tomatoes from the back of Doc’s car. He nodded as the doctor told him the plan. “I’ll keep an eye on things here,” he said solemnly, staring at Terrence as the boy gingerly crawled on to the back seat. Linnie cuddled up to Orsch’s leg, her hands clutching handfuls of his faded, soft blue jeans. Pearl walked up to them, looking serious, her right had clutching at the strap of her purse hanging on her left arm. The tissue that was barely tucked under the stretchy band of her wristwatch lifted in a sudden breeze and eventually fluttered free of its bondage to float into sky. Linnie watched it lift and tumble in the air as her grandmother spoke. “Hopefully we’ll be back by eating time this evening,” she said to her husband. “But I’m worried Orsch. The boy said he heard someone singing, for pity sake. He’s hallucinating.” She then got into the passenger seat of the car and Doc slowly pulled the wagon off the grounds and onto the blacktop, heading north.

“What’s hallucinating?” Linnie asked, impressed with her ability to pronounce the word as she had heard it. Orsch rubbed her back in a preoccupied way, searching for the right words. “Well, I guess you could say it’s something that happens when you’re feelin’ poorly, and you imagine things that aren’t real. Or you think you hear something that no one else does - like singing, I guess. Don’t worry Button, Terrence will be alright.”

Orsch led Linnie by the hand to where the rest of their family was working under the kettle shelter. With the fingers of her other hand she felt her scalp, looking for a bump of any kind. She then rubbed her behind, and wondered if a chicken peck could somehow deliver a concussion. In the distance she thought she heard singing. She rubbed her butt harder.

And here’s a little look at Linnie and Kimmy outside of Chowder

Kimmy has a Big Mouth

“You are not taking the baby to school Linnie,” said Mother, plucking a can of sardines and package of saltines from Baby Sister’s chubby, six-month-old hands. The child puckered and was ready to burst into tears until being lifted from the puddle of an open pillowcase beneath her. She had been perfectly happy as she was, chewing on the metal can in her right hand, and making crunching noises by squeezing the wax paper-wrapped crackers in her left. Occasionally, during her preparations for school, Linnie would walk by and slide the baby along the glossy, hardwood floor. This produced many squeals. Now Baby Sister was held in the crook of her mother’s left arm.

“It’s my turn for show and tell Fran,” said Linnie, putting the food items back into the case that held more crackers and three other cans of sardines - the good kind with mustard sauce. She slung it over her shoulder like a hobo’s pack. This was a technique she had perfected from the couple of times she had run away to the playhouse in the backyard, threatening to jump a passing freight train. She hadn’t done so yet. Truth told, she never would.

Linnie had been standing in the playhouse on one such occasion, with the front door latched from inside and the shutters on the back window flung open, watching the passage of train cars on the track some 100 yards past the edge of the lawn. It was moving slowly, so she was able to see a lot of details. A few olive-green cars bore a white badge with a blue lightning bolt behind it, the words “Cotton Belt Route” stenciled inside the badge. “Blue Streak - Fast Freight” was top and bottom of the badge. There was a car that held pigs on two levels, and metal slats that allowed the animals to stick their snouts through and sniff the air. The train would stop, then jolt and move a few feet, then stop again, making the pigs shuffle and squeal.

Linnie used to think the pigs were lucky travelers - perhaps going to the Cotton Belt, which her grandfather said was in “The South.” (She wasn’t sure where that was, but from his pronunciation she assumed it to be an exotic and mysterious locale.) After Mother read to her the book “Charlotte’s Web” she realized all the pigs that rumbled by her playhouse window were headed for slaughter. She had cried the next time she had seen such a car go by, lamenting the fate of the traveling pigs to her father. “It’s a funny world kiddo,” he said, rubbing her back. “Hey, how about BLTs for lunch?” She nodded her head enthusiastically, and helped by spreading mayonnaise onto toast, then layering the crisp bacon with lettuce and tomato. Afterwards, her father gingerly explained the origin of bacon. And pork chops. And ham. She was horrified and tried to make herself feel nauseous, but she couldn’t work up the sensation. She settled for a guilt-ridden emotion, because she realized she probably would always want to eat bacon. And pork chops. And ham.

While Linnie would likely always be a “cold-hearted consumer,” as her cousin Connie called meat eaters, she still felt sorry for the pigs that passed by. And so it was that day she tried to convey her care for them with coos and snorts of concern. She hoped it sounded like, “When the train stops and the gate opens … run for your life!” The thought that perhaps a few pigs would escape helped to somewhat appease her guilt. It so happened that one pig was entranced by her communication, and they stared at one another for a very long while. Linnie felt she was just about to read its mind when the pig seemed to snort exceptionally loud. But it wasn’t the animal. The snort was followed by a hacking, wheezing cough. Her vision was caught by something moving in the car to the right, where the wide doors on either side were slid open. This allowed for a sunny, scenic view through to the other side of the train, blocked only by the silhouette of something sitting to the left.

Linnie blinked to reorient her vision and at first thought she was looking at a scarecrow, with sticks for arms protruding from a tattered, dirty shirt, and legs covered by what looked like a messy, torn version of her grandfather’s tan, polyester slacks. There were short boots on the scarecrow that the slacks were stuffed into. He saw Linnie and smiled, revealing a mouth of blackened teeth. He jumped off the car, barely clearing the tracks, and slid down the slight, graveled hillside onto the green grass. “Hey honey,” he rasped. “Got something’ in there for a hungry fella?” Linnie found herself unable to move for several seconds, watching as the scarecrow walked unsteadily toward her. His sun-bleached brown hair stuck out in tufts from his head. He tried smiling at her again, and she must have gasped, because he seemed to realize that he was scaring her and he put a dirty hand to his mouth, ducked his head down, and turned around. Linnie was scared of him, but she also felt something else. Sad. Sad that he was hungry. Sad that he was so skinny. Sad that he must not have anyone to educate him on the dangers of train-hopping. “Train-hopping is for bums down on their luck, and most of ‘em fall to an early grave because of it,” Gramma Pearl had once said to Cousin Terrence, holding him by the ear and shaking a finger in his face. (He had been caught trying to do so near the grain mill in Crude, a nearby small town where his parents were living at the time.)

“I have tuna and crackers,” she said in a rushed whisper, hoping the scarecrow would hear her, but also hoping he would not. He stopped, and his left hand reached up to rub the back of his neck. Linnie could see it was dirty, but also red and bumpy, and she noticed his shoulders hitch up in a wince as he rubbed. It must have hurt. He turned around, and she could see his eyes were watery and his leathery lips were pulled down - not like a frown of disappointment, but like how her face felt when she was trying not to cry. She opened the cabinet doors in her playhouse and pulled out two cans and a sleeve of crackers. She wrapped them up in a red bandana snitched from her father’s dresser drawer. She tied the corners at the top to make a pouch, then crawled out the window to hand it to the scarecrow. He was breathing heavily through his nostrils, his face making that frown look as his hands reached out to accept the package. His hands shook as he held them together to accept the light load, much in the manner Linnie watched Aunt Loralei accept the Holy Ghost That Lived in a Cracker at St. Bede the Venerable’s Episcopal in O-Town. Scarecrow stood there for several moments, then asked “What’s your name darlin’?”

“I can’t talk to strangers,” said Linnie. A barking laugh burst from the mouth of the man, along with some spittle and phlegm. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, nodding his head. “That’s just alright. You’ll just be Darlin’ to me. I’m Estus. Now I got to go.” Linnie backed up to the playhouse and scrambled inside the window, pulling the shutters shut but leaving a crack to peer through. Scarecrow Estus hobbled to his train car and had almost gotten inside when the train jolted. He slipped down and his legs went under the car and across the rail. Linnie held her breath, imagining the horror of his skinny legs being cut off by the train. The pigs were stumbling and squealing and the train was groaning and lurching, and she realized some of the cacophony of noise was a scream from her own mouth. “JUMP SCARECROW!” were the words that came out as she lunged from the window onto the lawn. Then suddenly he pulled himself up and into the car. The train gave a final moan and began to roll forward. The pigs gave out a group squeal and noisy stumble, and the man jumped up, one hand grabbing the door frame of his car, the other holding aloft his bandana of food. His black stubs of teeth were bared in a triumphant smile.

“Linnie! You’re smashing those crackers! Snap out of it!” Mother’s voice shook Linnie from the memory. She was clenching the pillowcase in which she had stashed the food.

“You were supposed to make cookies, but you forgot,” She mumbled.

“I know, I’m sorry. And stop calling me Fran,” said Mother as the baby squealed and grabbed a handful of her short, bleach-blonde hair. Actually she looked as though the baby had been doing such all morning, with tufts of her beehive pixie standing out at odd, spiky angles. It made Linnie think of the scarecrow again. In fact, it looked as though her mother hadn’t slept at all. She was still wearing the same clothes from the night before. The purple butterflies on her babydoll smock top had been assaulted by some type of brown baby food, and the hemmed bottoms of her purple, bell-bottomed polyester pants were dirty as well - probably from walking barefoot outside the back door while smoking her morning cigarette. There were dark circles under her bright blue eyes and her mouth kept puckering and quivering and she bit her bottom lip occasionally as if to stop all the motion. “I’m just so tired sweetie. Now please get ready for the bus. Do you need to use the potty?”

Linnie sighed, dropped her bundle, and went to use the bathroom. She was just finishing when Little Sister banged her fists on the door. Kimmy gasped and started to sniffle when Linnie swung it open to yell, “What?!”

“Mommy says for you to walk me to the bus,” said Kimmy. Her bottom lip quivered and her eyes were holding tears that threatened to course down her cheeks. The tip of her nose was red and imprinted with tiny squares. Kimmy had a bad habit of standing at the screen door for ages, her nose pressed against the metal mesh. Linnie was pretty sure her nose was going to look that way for the rest of her life. “Don’t I always walk you to the bus?” huffed Linnie. “No,” said Kimmy. “Sometimes you say tough crap. Mommy says you’re s’posed to hold my hand.”

“I’m not holding your hand,” Linnie growled as she pushed past Kimmy, who whined to their mother. “Maaaaawm, Linnie won’t hold my hand.” Linnie turned to glare at her sister just as Mother said “Hold her hand, and come on now. The bus is at the Branson’s. I swear there are more kids come out of that house every day.” Linnie grabbed her sister’s hand and pulled her past their mother holding the baby, through the front door, down the steps, and down the short, graveled drive to the road. She held her sister’s hand so tight she could feel her little bones grind against one another, and her whine mixed with that of the brakes on the bus as it stopped in front of them. She yanked her sister’s arm as she led her in front of the bus and around to the opened door, up the steps and four seats back. Kimmy slid on the green vinyl to the window, holding her squished right hand under her left armpit, her lips in a pout, staring up accusingly at her big sister. Linnie plopped down beside her. “It’s a beautiful day girls!” said Barb the bus driver. “Smile!” Barb with her short, brown hair - teased into a puff above her head - pulled the mechanism to shut the door, then put the bus in gear and accelerated. Linnie didn’t feel like smiling as she stared at the big mirror and into Barb’s watchful gaze. That’s when she saw the boy. A new boy she had never seen before, probably about her age, maybe also in second grade. Her heart quickened. A new kid! No one during these first few weeks of school had said anything about a new kid. She wondered if he would be in her class, if he would be impressed with the collection of Indian arrowheads she had taken from her father’s wooden box in the hallway that connected the bedrooms and the bathroom. She had stuffed them into the pockets of her windbreaker after Mother announced she would not be taking Baby Sister for show-and-tell. Her fingers rubbed the smooth, hard arrowheads and she smiled at the thought of showing them off. She smiled at the boy’s reflection in the big mirror above Barb’s head. Then she realized something horrible.

“Shit!” hissed Linnie. “I forgot the sardines!” Kimmie nearly choked beside her, before opening her mouth and wailing “Maaaawm! Linnie said SHIT!” That’s when Barb’s eyes met Linnie’s, and she jerked her hand from her pocket to cover her mouth, spilling arrowheads onto the bus floor. Kimmie at this point lost her mind and began to scream about Linnie being a stealer and how much trouble she would be in. Kimmie fell to her knees on the floor and began to scrabble for arrowheads just as Linnie was picking up a rather large one with a sharp tip. Her little sister’s face came down as her own hand came up holding the arrowhead and it jabbed into Kimmie’s face. They both screamed and as Linnie looked to the mirror she could see Barb’s alarmed eyes and the boy smirking at her. She looked at Kimmie, whose mouth was open in a silent scream, blood coursing from her left eye. Linnie fainted. It seemed like the right thing to do.

Shugacan's

Sunday, January 3, 2021

Chowder Morning

The Trouble with Terrence