vituperation

…continued

Feeling like the city boy I am, I took a deep breath and opened the door.

Warm air carrying laughter swirled around me as I stepped in. Six men, all of whom appeared to be on the far side of seventy, were gathered in the front of the store. Two sat in rickety wooden chairs to my left, two stood behind the counter with the register directly in front of me, and the final two leaned against the produce cooler to my right. I closed the door behind me. One by one the men fell silent as they realized I wasn’t there to shop.

“Howdy,” I said. I felt like a bright spotlight was on me. “I’m looking to hire someone to load a big pile of trash into a dump truck, and thought one of you guys might know someone who has equipment big enough to do it.”

“What kind of trash?” one of the men behind the counter said. I think, but am not sure, that he’s the owner of the store. The two men behind the counter know me by sight, because I’ve been in the store several times, but they don’t know me by name. I know one of them is the owner and one just works there, but I’m not completely sure which is which.

“Just stuff we’ve picked up in the yard and cleaned out of our house.”

“The old Nelson place, right?” said the other man behind the counter.

“Right. We just bought it.”

“From Decatur, ain’t ya?” one of the men to my right asked.

“No sir, I’m from Huntsville. We bought it from people who moved to Decatur,” I said.

He chewed on that for a second. “Named Terry, right?”

“That’s right. The Terrys are who we bought from. We’re trying to fix the house up before we move in, and gathered up a lot of junk. Railroad ties, carpet, sheetrock, stuff like that. I hired someone to drop off a dump truck so we could load it up but it’s too tall for the loader on my tractor.”

I cringed inside as I shared the next part.

“And then when I tried to use the loader to raise the gate, my poor little tractor almost turned over.”

I demonstrated what the tractor did using my hands while I talked. And like the giant dork I am, I even made sound effects as I showed the tractor tipping up and over.

I could tell by their reaction they enjoyed my story. They laughed. A lot.

“I’m trying to tell my wife this is exactly why I need a bigger tractor,” I said with a grin. “But she’s not buying it, so I need to hire someone who can load all this trash up for me.”

I looked around expectantly.

“If there’s anyone who knows somebody,” one of the men to the right said, and pointed to the the men behind the counter. “It’s him or him. They know everybody.”

“My three grandboys have sump’n that’ll do it,” said one of the men to the left. “Got a Bobcat.”

I pictured what I knew as a Bobcat in my mind. They’re small earth movers, often used by landscapers. I didn’t see any way one could reach high enough to put stuff over the ten-foot side of a dump truck.

“Like, a little Bobcat?” I asked. “It can reach high enough?”

“It’s a regular Bobcat,” he said. “It can reach over a dump truck. I got to find my grandboys first. I don’t know where they are.”

“Bet they out in the woods somewhere,” the man next to him said. The tooth pick in the corner of his mouth slid across his lips to the other side and he barked laughter. I heard the men to my right talking to one another in low voices but couldn’t make out what they were saying.

“Whereabouts is your place?” the first man asked.

“Oh, it’s just up the road,” I said. “Maybe a quarter of a mile.”

“By the high school?”

“Not even to the railroad tracks. By the church.”

He considered. “White house?”

“Yes sir, that’s it.”

“Let me find one of my grandboys and I’ll stop by directly and take a look, see what we can do.”

I thanked him and the other men profusely and beat a quick path to the car. I told Robyn what was going on, and explained that ‘directly’ might be ten minutes or two hours. In the south, you never know.

Back at the house, I got the chainsaw out and cut down a big shrub growing between the garage and the shed. While I was working on getting the stump low enough for the grinder I plan on renting, a boat of a car swooped down the driveway after a brief looping detour into the yard. The driver parked at the end of the junk pile and shut off the engine. It was one of the men from the store, but not the one with the three grandsons and the Bobcat.

He climbed out of the car slowly, a little unsteady on his feet. Time had pulled the tip of his nose down almost to his mouth, and he didn’t stand straight, but his eyes were bright and sharp.

“How do,” he said.

“Good, good.”

We shook hands, but didn’t exchange names.

“I was up at the store,” he said. “I got a tractor with a loader that’ll reach over the side of that truck. I told that guy I was with my tractor would do it. I don’t want to come between you and that other guy, though.”

I realized this man had been to my right, one of the ones talking that I couldn’t hear.

“He didn’t show up yet,” I said. “Besides, all he said he was going to do was look at it. He wasn’t even sure if he could find his grandsons.”

“You say you’re from Decatur?” he asked.

“No sir, I’m from Huntsville. Well, I grew up in Decatur as a kid, but I’ve been in Huntsville over 25 years now. We bought from people who moved to Decatur.”

“You buy that little house next door?”

“No sir, that belongs to the dad of the people we bought from. Mr. Huber.”

“Joe Huber died?” he asked, aghast.

“No, no, he’s still alive. I was saying he owns that house next door, but his son lives there.”

He seemed relieved to find that Joe Huber was still alive.

The old man looked at the pile of junk stretched down the driveway.

“You throwin’ out all that carpet?” he asked.

“Yes sir, we’re getting rid of all this stuff.”

He walked to the rolls of carpet and examined one.

“I could use me some carpet like this. Got a few mobile homes I rent out, could use some carpet like this.”

“I don’t know if you’d want to use that carpet,” I said. “I left it on the floor while I was painting, to protect the hardwoods underneath. It’s got paint and caulk all over it.”

“That don’t matter,” he said. “If I can find little pieces here and there that are good enough to use, it’s good enough. People don’t take real good care of them mobile homes anyway. A little dirty carpet won’t bother them.”

“Well, you’re welcome to it and anything else you want.”

We strolled along the junk pile, stopping from time to time. He was interested in the carpet, the padding, the old screens off the house, and a rusted out wheelbarrow so old the wheel was iron and not rubber.

“You gettin’ rid of those trash cans?” he asked.

I started to wonder if anything was going to get loaded in the dump truck at all.

“Yes sir, we’re going to buy new ones.”

“Just start from scratch with all new stuff, eh?” He let loose with a raspy laugh that turned into a cough.

“With some things,” I agreed.

“Well, I got a Ford 5000 can load all this up in that truck, but I don’t want to get on anybody’s bad side.”

“I understand that. All I want is for it to get done because I have to pay for this truck whether it gets loaded or not. And we’ve been waiting almost a month to do it.”

I shared the story of the roof guy and his broken down dump truck.

“So I don’t want to cause any fights between anyone either,” I said. “I just want to get my driveway cleaned off.”

“Let me get on home and I’ll come back when it’s warmed up a little bit. See what’s going on with that other fella and his kids.”

“How much you reckon you’d charge to load this stuff up for me?” I asked.

He fixed me with a bright blue eye.

“You don’t need to worry about payin’ me no money,” he said, and got into his car.

to be continued…