vituperation

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The blinding sun beat down on me from a cloudless sky as I slowly climbed out of the car. The wind carried the stink of manure and farm animals, a queasy mix that catches me by surprise whenever I smell it. I cast a wary eye up at the plain white clapboard house, unease flitting in my gut like a wraith. Logically, I had no idea why I felt this way, but I did.

“You coming up with me?” I asked the spud, who sat in the back seat. She shook her head. I glanced at Robyn, who stared back at me with a wide-eyed look that said don’t even ask.

I closed the car door and walked toward the house, which squatted on the bare dirt like a troll waiting for unwary passersby. The few leaves left in the skeletal trees buzzed angrily at me like an agitated rattlesnake as I passed underneath. Dust puffed with each step, wispy brown ghosts that brooded over my feet for just an instant before the susurrating wind snatched them away. I felt unseen eyes on me as I crossed the dooryard, crawling on my skin like worms.

A man stood in the doorway of the barn, watching me. His face was hidden in the shadow of his wide-brimmed hat, and the only feature I could make out was his distinctive bush of beard. Splotches of varying shades soiled the front of his drab blue shirt. Our eyes met for the briefest of instances and I smiled tentatively. He turned away and faded into the darkness of the building.

I rounded the end of the house. Thank God. There were people at the front porch. My kind of people.

Two couples, forming a rough line as they studied the items for sale arrayed before them. Both couples were older, and quintessential southerners. They made small talk with one another about the goods on the porch, discussing the merits of peanut clusters, sorghum, and how much their grandchildren liked the brightly colored bead jewelry they always bought here. Strange, those plastic baubles. Along with the occasional quilt or potholder, they were the only splashes of color I ever saw in this place.

A couple of mangy mutts lolled in the dust, ignoring us. One was some sort of terrier, knee-high with wiry black and brown hair. A cute pup. The other, not so much. Squat legs and a long fat body made him reminescent of a weiner dog, but his coloring was more like a beagle’s. His bulging eyes rolled around in their sockets, the yellowed whites dull in the brilliant sun, and a hodge-podge of teeth poked out of the side of his mouth where a large section of lip was missing.

A girl, maybe thirteen, stood on the front porch, watching all of us with dead eyes. The black bonnet on her head gave her a severe appearance, as did the ankle-length gray dress she wore. Her feet were bare, and dirty, and she scuffed self-consciously at the rough boards of the porch. When she looked at me I smiled again. She looked away without returning it.

The people in front of me made their purchases and left. I was alone with the unsmiling girl, who picked up a pen, leaned against a table on the porch, and started doodling on a piece of paper there. I checked the items for sale again, looking for what I’d come for, and didn’t see it. I looked at the girl again. I don’t think it was possible for anyone to ignore another person more than she ignored me. I glanced over to the car. Robyn and the spud were staring at me.

From my vantage point it looked like they were revelling in my discomfort.

“Excuse me,” I said to the girl. She set the pen down and looked up. “Can you tell me where the turnip greens are?”

“What.”

She didn’t ask it, she just said it. Her voice was as flat as her eyes. I swallowed, intimidated. I tried another smile as something of a defensive move. She just stared at me.

“Can you tell me where the turnip greens are?”

She looked off to the left, to the garden, and pointed.

“Out there,” she said. Her accent was odd, something like German, but not German. Like German and southern drawl mixed into one. Aught day-uh, it sounded like.

I was perplexed.

“Do I need to pick them myself?”

She stared at me for a long moment, wheels turning in her head as she thought about what I’d asked, before she answered. Her intonation reminded me of Arnold Schwarzeneggar when he’s a terminator.

“No. We will cut them for you.”

“I’d, uh, like to get some, then.” The smile felt frozen on my face, corpse-cold.

“How much.”

“How much are they?”

She considered my question for a protracted moment. “Sixty cents. A pound.”

“How about three pounds?”

She nodded and went inside while I got my wallet out. Seconds later, I heard a loud bang from behind the house and sidled to the end of the porch. A small boy ran from the far end of the house and to the barn. He emerged with an older boy and the two ran out of sight at the back of the house.

I waited in the stark light, trying not to stare too long at any one thing. The breeze had dropped a little, and the leaves sounded like chicken frying in a big pan of oil. I could no longer smell manure, having become accustomed to the scent.

The boys burst through the front door and stopped short, staring at me with the same flat expression their sister had. To be different, I tried a smile, with the same results I’d had before. The boys made quick work of getting knives and a big white plastic bucket from underneath the table, all the while casting sidelong glances at me as if they thought I might attack them. The older boy, who was about ten, pitched the bucket onto its side in the yard, and they chased it into the turnip patch, rolling it like a tire.

“They will cut them for you,” the girl said through the screened front door. She vanished into the darkness of the house.

The boys squatted in the turnip patch, murmuring quietly as they worked. And worked. And worked. For fifteen intimidating minutes I stood alone in the front yard with my two dollar bills and waited while they picked greens one leaf at a time. A parade of cats and kittens wandered by to entertain me, but they wouldn’t let me pet them. Finally the boys returned. They climbed the steps to the porch and tried to weigh the bucket of greens on small set of scales sitting on the table.

Their sister stormed through the front door and yanked the bucket away from the older boy. With an exasperated sigh, she jerked a plastic grocery bag out of a sockful hanging from a string and started filling it with greens. When the bag was full, she zeroed the scale and plopped the bag on it.

Two pounds.

The boys picked up the bucket and started down the steps.

“That’s okay,” I said. “That’s plenty. There are only three of us and I just guessed at how much we needed. I’ve never weighed it out before so I was just…”

I shrugged.

“What,” the girl said. No inflection, no rising lilt to indicate a question. Just a single word.

“That’s enough,” I said, and pointed.

She considered this for an eternity.

“One dollar twenty,” she said.

I handed her the two dollars and received the bag of turnip greens. She counted out the change and dropped it into my open hand, careful not to touch me. I walked toward the car—wanting to run, but not running—with my greens, my fingers playing on the five coins in my hand I planned to drop into the coin holder because I hate carrying change around.

I stopped. Five coins in my hand. I looked down and saw she’d given me ninety cents in change, instead of eighty. Slowly I turned and walked back to the porch where the three stood. They watched me, emotionless.

“You gave me too much change,” I said to the girl. “Ninety cents instead of eighty.”

Her expression didn’t change. “What.”

I held up the dime.

“You gave me too much,” I said, and extended my hand.

She took the dime slowly, suspiciously, like she thought I was trying to dupe her. I walked to the car again and pitched the greens into the back.

“The next time we’re up here and I want turnip greens, please kick my ass,” I said to Robyn as we backed out of the driveway.