"Thank you, Your Honor," Zack said. He gathered up his messy stack of folders and ambled on out.
Zack's only a few years older than me, but he plays the good ol' country lawyer like Andy Griffith playing Matlock.
We got through some possessions of marijuana with intent to sell and some possession of drug paraphernalia, sent a klepto over to Mental Health for evaluation, and listened to a light-skinned seventeen-year-old boy explain that he really hadn't stolen that car, he'd just borrowed it for a few hours and he meant to fill it back up with gas and he would've, too, if that patrolman hadn't picked him up when he did.
When his aunt came forward to pay his fine, I said, "You know, ma'am, you can keep on bailing him out and paying his fines, but he's just going to keep on getting in trouble till you make him face up to things himself."
The old woman looked at her nephew, then she looked me straight in the eye and said, "You prob'ly right, Judge honey, but I love this child and I believe in him, and me and the Lord'll keep praying over him till we'll get him walking straight in the end. You'll see."
What could I say? Don't call me "Judge honey"?
It was 4:15. I ruled on a couple of motions and then recessed till the next morning.
And the evening and the morning were the first day.
CHAPTER 3
MATERIALS AND SCAFFOLDING
"As the working level on a structure rises above the reach of men standing on the ground, temporary elevated platforms called scaffolds are erected to support the craftsmen, their tools and materials."
Wednesday was a holiday—Fourth of July picnic at the Jaycee Park, fireworks over the river. Thursday was a duplicate of Tuesday, and I figured that if all the odds and ends left over from the week's calendar could be heard by noon on Friday, it would give me at least half a day to fritter before I had to start toting barrels and lifting bales for Lu Bingham on Saturday.
Which is how I wound up at my brother Herman's on Thursday evening. * * *
Make an X.
Nip off one of the stabilizing legs and what's left?
You got it, sugar: a lopsided Y, perpetually off-balance.
Every once in a while when my friends and I are skirmishing through yet another battle of the sexes, we speculate about what's actually on that little part of the X chromosome that we still have and men don't—besides the antidote for testosterone poison, I mean.
Toni Bledsoe, who got married again last year and really wants to make it work this time, swears it holds the gene that'll let a woman ask directions.
"When it's perfectly obvious Pete hasn't got a clue where we are, I tell him I've got to pee. RIGHT THIS MINUTE! Honey, if there's ever been a man willing to argue with a woman's bladder, I never met him. And don't want to. So he heads in at the nearest service station and while I'm inside asking for the ladies' room key, I'm also asking the clerk, 'What's the fastest way to highway whatever from here?' Then back in the car I say, 'Pete-Sweet, I bet we could make up some of the time I just lost us if we took a left at that light up yonder... ' et voilà! He thinks I've got a great sense of direction and I don't have to watch him pout for the next hour 'cause he feels emasculated."
My sister-in-law Amy, Will's wife, mutters about being the only one in their house with the physical dexterity to put a fresh roll of toilet paper on the hanger; and K.C. Massengill, who used to work undercover for the State Bureau of Investigation, keeps wondering if that's why there's so much hurling and flatulence on Saturday Night Live when, presumably, all the eight-year-olds are asleep.
I myself think that extra segment gives us a more rational attitude toward tools.
Ever notice?
It's almost as if their try squares and saws and electric drills are some sort of ceremonial totems that will be profaned by secular (i.e., feminine) use unless ringed by ritual promises and protected by sacred vows. Probably goes back to the Stone Age and the first fire-hardened pointed sticks or roughly flaked rocks: "You woman. No touch my axe."
Some men'll let a new puppy mess all over a hundred-year-old Persian rug, use a hand-embroidered guest towel to wipe it up, then get bent out of shape if you pry open a can with one of their screwdrivers or dirty up their hammers cracking black walnuts.
Uncle Ash is a sweetie about most things but he's never real happy if Aunt Zell or I take anything other than simple gardening tools from his well-stocked shed back of the house.
All the same, if I was going to labor in the vineyards of the Lord, I needed to show up with more than empty hands and a willing heart. Fortunately, my brother Herman has four truckloads of tools and he lives right here on the edge of Dobbs. He growls worse than our daddy ever did, but he's not Daddy and I don't pay him too much mind. * * *
He was growling at Annie Sue when I drove into their backyard after supper that Thursday evening. Annie Sue was huffed up and sir-ing him in that snippy-polite way teenagers do when they want to make sure you know that the respect is only on their lips, not in their hearts.
"I told Lu Bingham I'd wire our WomenAid house and now he says I can't," she told me hotly, her Knott-blue eyes flashing in the late afternoon sunlight. "He never lets me do anything!"
"She never did a circuit box by herself and she don't have a license," said Herman. From the tone of his voice, I gathered he'd already said that more than once before I drove up.
"Reese hasn't got a license and you let him wire everything by himself."
"No, I don't and even if I did—"
"Because I heard you tell Granddaddy and Uncle Seth I know more about how electricity works than he does."
"Miss Big Ears is liable to hear something she don't want to hear, she keeps talking back to me," Herman said darkly.
He still had his work clothes on, as if he'd just come in himself. Hot, tired, dirty and probably hungry, too. There was a pinched look on his face, and I had a feeling this might not be the best time to ask him to lend me a hammer. Or for Annie Sue to goad him into saying things it might be hard to back down from. She always makes a big dramatic deal out of things and since she turned sixteen, she and Herman always seem to be bumping heads.
"Come on, honey," I said. "I bet your daddy could use a big glass of tea about now I know I sure could."
Annie Sue wanted to stay and urge, but I was already steering Herman to the lawn chairs clustered under their big pecan tree, so she headed for the back door, impatience with adults in every step.
"And bring me that pack of Tums over the sink," he called after her.
The chairs were in deep shade and it was a pleasure to sit for a while though I knew that mosquitoes would chase us once the sun was fully down. I shooed their big lazy tom from my chair, and as soon as I sat down, he jumped back in my lap like a furry rug. A hot furry rug. But I'm always a sucker for a purring cat, and I missed having one around since Aunt Zell's cat disappeared a month or so earlier.
An occasional car passed on the side street and from beyond the thick shrubbery, I heard the muffled laughter of young children splashing in their backyard pool. Nadine's gardenia bushes had almost finished blooming, yet a few creamy white blossoms hung on to perfume the air.
Cindy McGee and another teenage girl pulled up in the drive behind my car, hopped out, and called, "Hey, Mr. Herman!" before heading for the back door with the familiarity of best friends who run in and out of one another's houses a dozen times a week. They were inside only a few minutes till they were out again, carrying two summery dresses on padded hangers. Their high light voices called, —Bye, Mr. Herman!"