IN THE PINES    

Willard puts Loretta on the juke-box and goes to the window. He looks out and smiles. Not dark yet. He returns to his stool.

“Pour me another, Jesse. I got a real good price on my cotton. Let’s celebrate my new truck.”

Jesse pours Willard another two fingers of Old Crow.

“You been here all afternoon, Willard. Ain’t it time to go home?”

Willard gulps down the whiskey.

“You’re right, Jesse. Guess I’ll head on out.”

Willard rises and staggers toward the door.

Jesse pleads, “Please let me drive you home. You ain’t in any shape to drive and it’ll be dark soon.”

Willard stops in the doorway and replies, “Jesse, you know you’ve seen me in way worse shape. Have I ever had any problems? I’ll be just fine.”

Jesse watches Willard go out the door. He watches Willard race off and thinks, “Arguing ain’t no use. Once his mind is set, Willard won’t listen to nothing a fellow has to say.”

Jesse watches as Willard’s truck races off into the deepening shadows of the pines. He closes the bar, gets in his truck, and follows.

***

Waiting for their father, Willard’s kids play in the yard. Lulu tries to climb up the huge oak in front of the clapboard house. She makes it part of the way up before sliding down. Her knees and hands are bloody. From his perch high up in the tree Grady, her older brother, laughs. Lulu puts her hands on her hips and tilts her head back. She screams, the volume rises with each syllable.

“You ain’t nothing but an old peckerwood. A peckerwood, that’s you. Peckerwood! Peckerwood! Peckerwood!”

Grady laughs again.

Lulu jumps up and down and screams even louder.

***

Willard presses the accelerator and smiles at his truck’s surge of power. He thinks, “Wait til Mamma and the kids see this. Won’t they be proud?”

Pines fly by. Eddie Arnold yodels from the radio. Willard yodels back. He cups a hand to his mouth to smell his breath.

“Damn, I smell like a brewery. I swore not to stop by Jesse’s place. Mamma will ring my neck.”

He reaches into his pocket for a mint. A deer darts out from the pines. He swerves and slams on the brakes. The truck slides in the gravel and into a tree. Willard flies through the window and lands in the ditch. He looks up at the pines as the light fades from his eyes.

***

The hinges on the screen door screech as Ora-Pearl walks out onto the porch. She carries a large wooden spoon like a scepter. Her forehead furrows as she stares down the road leading to the house. Her hair is curled as tight as the knot in her stomach. Willard should have been back by now. She scans the road once more, no Willard. She calls the children.

“Lulu! Grady! Come on in to supper! Your Daddy will be home soon!”

The children run to the house and explode through the door. Ora-Pearl shouts.

“Damn it! Y'all gonna break that door. Sure as anything.”

Grady reaches for a biscuit from the basket on the table. The scepter cracks across the back of his hand. He jumps back.

“Ow! Shit fire and hold the matches, Mamma! That hurt!”

“I meant it too! How many times, I got to tell y'all not to rush in like pigs to the trough? Cuss me again and you'll get double.”

Ora-Pearl thinks, “Dammit! Where is Willard? Did he stop at Jesse’s place again? He better not come home smelling of liquor.”

She looks at her children. Her heart. Her life.

“Go wash up. Daddy will be home soon.”

She stares out the window once more. She jumps as the phone rings. It’s Doc Johnson.

“Ora-Pearl, I don’t know how to…”

Ora-Pearl drops the receiver. She cannot breathe.