"I got twelve straight up. I should have some family waiting; we'll give you a lift."
"Appreciate it," he says. "Straight up you tell me? Ah well, I don't care. We got nothin but time to do, wherever we be. What you say you been in on?"
"Possession and cultivation."
"If that ain't a shame – for the good green gift of the Lord. He hadn't wanted it to grow, there wouldna been seeds. How much they give you?"
"Six months, five-hundred-dollar fine, three-year tail."
"If that ain't the shits."
"It's done."
"I reckon. Nothin but time -" He starts to take a sip of his cold coffee, stops – " 'ceptin, oh, I am ready."
He puts the cup down, picks the kit back up.
"Franklin!" a voice calls. "William O. -"
"In the wind, Boss. On my way!"
I'm alone on the bench, sipping what's left of his cup of coffee, spoon still sticking out. The plastic bag his suit was in hangs from the conduit; his blues are right where he left them, on the floor. Ghost clothes. I'm ready too. This stationery is finished both sides.
"Deboree! Devlin E. -"
"On my way!"
* Red Death. What they call the glop of strawberry jelly comes with breakfast coffee and toast – makes, among other things, quite a powerful glue.
* * Never did get those two notebooks back.
JOON THE GOON WAS WHAT
…she used to be called on the beat scene. Shows up this A.M. with her old man who turns out to be the guy in jail with me called Hub, the dude that did two for two. Famous for stretching a two-month Disturbing rap to two years by not standing for any shit. Proud of his rep in the slam, on the streets now he's vowed to change his violent ways – no more red meat, red wine or white crosstops.
Joon drove him up from Calif this morn for the sake of our soothing farm influence. Their Nova quit on the road before it made it into our drive. They explained everything in a bashful stammer, Joon blushing, Hub wringing his huge tattooed hands together like mastiffs in a pit.
We talked some about the early frost, the green tomatoes, how some of them might ripen inside in the sun on windowsills. I told them they better use our car and jumpers to get their rig off the road. They head off, Joon in the lead, her purse knocking against her knobby knees. Made me think of Steinbeck and the thirties and the hand-scrawled warnings that are turning up taped to all the cash registers in the area: no checks cashed for more than amount of purchase!
The first school bus slows and stops by the frost-gilded corn, lets Caleb off just in front of where Hub has my clunker mouth to mouth with his. The kids at the windows flash peace signs; the look of Joon's tie-dye wraparound, I guess.
A neighbor goes by and honks – our ritzy neighbor, the one with rich relatives and a "ranch" instead of a farm. He's driving a new maroon metallic-flake Mustang.
Sounds like they got the clunker clunking again; I hear it pulling into my drive below.
Caleb brings up the mail-bills, broadsides, and a hardbound tome called Love of Place, authored by a famous holy man I've never heard of. You can't learn love of place from those above or below you, it don't seem to me…
Lotsa action, banging, clunking, as the sun seeps through hazy September. A plane mumbles by and the corn goes golder and golder.
The second, bigger-kids' bus. Quiston and Sherree get out. Caleb goes loping through the rows to greet them, swinging a golden ear around his head.
"Hey I bet you didn't know Joon and her Goon was here!"
MOTHER'S DAY 1969: Quiston's Report
I think she's out of the woods I think she's made it to where she ought to have a name.
Dad thinks.
I think a good name is Feline, Sherree says, ree-ally…
Sherree and Caleb and me we're in the orchard feeding her warm water out of one of Sherree's Tiny Tears bottles. We're outside because Dad wants to get some footage. He's moving the tripod all over, worrying about shadows. I think she looks perfect, hopping around in the soft yellow mustard and sunshine. I been thinking about the softness of things, and time going by, and how it will be good to have pictures of her growing up with us all, all the cows and the dogs and ducks and geese and pigeons and peacocks and cats and horses and chickens and bees, with Rumiocho the Parrot and Basil the Raven and Jenny the Donkey, and all these people.
The camera is going. Dad shoots me and Caleb feeding her and Sherree making a garland and putting it around her neck: Princess Fe-line. Then Dobbs shows up in the dumptruck full of his kids and the mint compost mix that Mom ordered.
We all ride out to Mom's garden smelling like a million old Life Savers, and Dad shoots us shoveling and sweeping it out. Then us standing with our shovels and brooms on our shoulders. He shoots the chickens all already lined up at the fence like for class pictures, and Stewart making a big show out of beating up on Frank Dobbs's dog, Kilroy. Then he wants to finish the roll shooting the horses out in the far field.
Quiston, he says, you lock all these damn dogs in the paintroom. So they won't go bothering the fawn.
When the dogs are all shut in the paintroom we climb in the back of the dumptruck that's never dumped since Dobbs fixed it, and ride out to the pasture. Me and Caleb and all the Dobbs kids, and Sherree with her nose wrinkled at the smell. When we go by the orchard she's still nested right where we left her, in the tall mustard behind the flat-tired tractor. Her head is up like a princess all right, showing off her necklace of daisies and bachelor buttons.
The horses are excited to have all these people come visit. Dad shoots them prancing around on their green carpet, fat and feisty. He shoots until he finishes the roll and puts the camera in its suitcase, then gets out the grain bucket. He shakes it so they can hear there's something in it and then heads for the side gate. He wants to get them off the main pasture so it will make hay. They don't want to go. The colt Wild Snort and Johnny bump and nip at each other. Horsing around like kids in the locker room Dad says. Wild Snort's a young Appaloosa stud dropped off by Deadheads passing through last fall, and he's mine if I demonstrate I can take proper care of him.
His mother the white-eyed mare hangs back, watching. She's watching her kid sow his wild oats Dobbs says. Then she goes through the gate where Dad is shaking the bucket. Wild Snort follows in after, then Jenny the Donkey. Johnny the Gelding is last, being ornery and nearsighted. We have to chase him and chase him until we finally drive him close enough he sees the other horses getting the grain poured out of the bucket; then he goes through in a gallop.