amphibi.us

I met Lloyd in 1972.  Was not long after my Daddy died.  Momma said it was a heart attack that took him, that he was walking up to the Pucket’s store and died halfway there.  He’d fell down on the side of Cut Through Road.  When I walked that road that they’d cut through a tobacco field I could always find a warm breeze blowing through, even then near the end of summer before they brought in the plants.

I was walking along the same road when I was stopped by a couple of white men in a knocked up truck.  They pulled up beside me and got out, a taller boy with bright red hair and a shorter, blond one.  The blond one didn’t have no shirt on and had a drawing on his arm of a naked lady.  The tall boy had a knife and told me to give him my money.

I said I needed it for a biscuit.  I walked up to Pucket’s about once a day except for Sundays for a jelly biscuit and a Coke but that tall boy just told me to give him my money.

They came close and the blond one took my hand in his and twisted it up beyond my back and it hurt.  The tall boy put that knife to my belly and said he weren’t going to ask again.

About then a blue truck pulled up behind theirs and a man came out holding a baseball bat and he was yelling for them to get away from me and some words my Momma told me not to say.  The blond one let go of me and the tall boy turned that knife to the man.

He had light brown hair cut short and he was strong looking, taller than that blond one but shorter than the redhead.  He took that bat and swung at the knife and that tall boy his hand went limp and the knife went out into the tobacco field the road cut through and that boy started yelling when that bat hit the blond boy on the jaw and he spat blood and went to the ground.  The tall boy went to turn and run but that bat got him in the side and he went to his knees and the bat got him on the head and he was quiet and not yelling no more.

You alright, the brown haired man asked, and I said yes, sir.

You don’t have to call me sir, he said.

My Daddy always said to say sir, I said, and he said your Daddy sounds like a smart man.

Yes, sir, he was, I said.

He asked my name and I told him and he said hello, Frank, I’m Lloyd.

I guess by then he seen how I was.  He asked me if I knew how to keep a secret and I said it was the least I could do.  He said something about those boy’s plates, how it didn’t look like no one around there would miss them.

We stood there a bit, him breathing heavy like my Daddy used to do and wiping his forehead with his hand and me not knowing what to do.  I was hot and hungry and wanted to go get a biscuit and go home to Momma.

Where were you going he finally asked.  I told him Pucket’s store and he thought on it and reached to his back pocket for his wallet.  He pulled out a couple of bills, bigger one’s than I’d seen.  I get checks from the government but my Momma always took care of those and would give me money for Pucket’s but never bills as big as those.

I was heading that way myself he said.  If you could do me kindly and pick me up a loaf of bread and some eggs you could keep what’s left.  I’ll take care of those two and give you a ride home.  I said that sounded about right.

I walked on like I’d been only with more money, thinking over and over to myself bread and eggs.  At Pucket’s the owner Ronnie helped me out like usual, not saying nothing about the big bills I handed him.  He just slipped one back over the counter to me and pressed a couple of buttons on the register and changed the big bill out for smaller ones and handed them to me and wished me a good day.  Ronnie was always a good fellow, especially for a white man.  He and my Daddy were always good friends, so I always liked him.  I said thank you, sir and got the bag and my coke and left.  Outside I nodded to a white man who was getting gas and he said nothing back as I started for home.

Around when I got to where those boys had stopped me I saw their truck was gone, as were they.  I kept on walking when the blue truck pulled up beside me.  Hey, Frank he called from the open window.  He asked if I wanted that ride and I told him sure.

He leaned over and opened the door.  I got my biscuit wrapped in grease paper from the bag and handed him the rest and got in.  To me, it was a nice pickup but I’m sure few else would have thought it.

I pointed the short ways home and we talked for a bit about nothing much.  He did not ask again if I could keep a secret and I did not ask if he’d killed before.  My Momma had told me about the war and how a lot of boys had to hurt people over there and keep from being hurt themselves.  He seemed to me different from the folk I knew.  He reminded me a bit of my Granddaddy who’d been over in France during the second big war, the way their backs were straight always, the respectful manner they talked to everyone.  I’d ask Lloyd sometime later about it and he thought a moment and told me about some of the things he’d done over there but not too much to scare me.  I never was scared of him though.

He pulled up to the house my Granddaddy had built when he’d gotten home from France and I had about forgot about the money left over from what he’d given me.  I knew he’d said to keep it but I didn’t know if he really meant it.  When I pulled it from my pocket he just waved it away and said a promise is a promise and that I deserved it.  When he pulled away I thought it’d be the last I’d see of him.

Three days later I’d walked up to Pucket’s for my jelly biscuit and a Coke.  Sitting out front when I went to walk home were a couple of old white men and then that blue truck pulled up to the pumps and Lloyd came out and waved at me.  One white man, a bald one called Tunny, turned to the other named Curt and said Curt do you know what’s worst than a nigger?

Can’t quite say I knows what, he responded.

A retarded nigger and they both laughed hard at it.  My Momma told me never to listen to those who said things like that.  They was worst off than me by a lot she’d say.  I was about to walk home when I saw Lloyd walk over to them and lean down close to their faces and he whispered something and they went pale and when he stood up I thought I saw him put something shiny back into his pant’s pocket.

Do we have an understanding he said and they nodded and he went in and paid for his gas and when he came back out they were still there, quiet and doing all they could to avoid looking me in the eyes.  He asked if I wanted a ride and I said sure.

In his truck he asked I ever played checkers.  My Daddy used to play with me and my brother when we were kids but not much since, I told him.

We should play some, then, he said.  He drove back to his house, an old cabin a couple of miles from my home.  It had electricity and water but not much else.  The cabin had a kitchen and bedroom that were not separated and a bathroom.  There was a table by the fireplace where he set up the checkerboard.  Want to be red or black, he asked.  I said, Red.

We played for a couple hours, him winning mostly but I had some good games.  During the play we talked a little, getting to know each other as friends do.  He told me about the war and I told him about what it was like growing up with my condition.  He went quiet when I asked him what he did.  After a few minutes and he asked to be kinged, he said he stole things.  I didn’t ask anymore.

When he drove me home he said I like you and I thought that was funny.  He said I reminded him of himself only as a better person.  After that he said he couldn’t stay in town much longer.  He had to take care of things with his father.  He asked if I liked his cabin and I said it was nice.  If I wanted, he said, I could use it if I needed.  He dropped me off at home and we said goodbye and that was the last I saw of him.

The next day I went up to Pucket’s and went to pay and Ronnie said it was taken care of.  I had a tab and anything I needed would be taken care of.  Those two old white men, Tunny and Curt were there but they didn’t say a thing to me.

Sometime later, my Momma went to bed one night and didn’t get up in the morning.  I called my brother Jimmy and he came down from the city and helped take care of matters.  He asked if I wanted to stay there in my Granddaddy’s home but I knew I could not take care of it like my Momma and Daddy had.

Jimmy had done good for himself and had a family in the city and asked if I wanted to come live with them but I didn’t want to intrude on their lives.  I told him about the cabin and he and I went to look at it and he asked the landlord who said the place wasn’t his.  Someone named Copper had paid for it and kept up on the taxes.  He had a letter from the man for me.  It was from Lloyd, saying the cabin was mine as long as I wanted it and to take good care of it.  Jimmy helped me move in and he took care of my parent’s home, not wanting it to leave the family.

The night I moved in it was cold and I wanted to start a fire.  The tobacco was still up but it’d been getting cold at night.  There were some old logs out back and I brought them in and put them in the fireplace but when I pushed them towards the back, three of the bricks fell out and behind them was a package wrapped in old newspaper sitting in the hole.  I was close to tears when I opened it.  Several stacks of old twenty dollar bills with a note from Lloyd that said to use the money but not too much, as some folks were looking for it.

The cabin was further from Pucket’s than I was able to walk, so I used a small bit of that money to buy a bicycle from a neighbor.  I hadn’t much need for it, as my Momma had Jimmy help set up a trust fund for me, using the money she’d saved from her own work and what I got from the government.  I needed to pay some utilities but that was it.  With the bicycle I started going to the library and about once a week or so Jimmy and his wife would bring me to their home for dinner.  That tab Lloyd had gotten me for Pucket’s was still good and for once in my life I was living on my own, something Momma had said she doubted I’d be able to do but I think I would manage decently.

I took that bicycle down to Pucket’s about a year after Lloyd left and as I was drinking my Coke I heard Ronnie and some men talking.  They found an old truck deep in the woods out on the outskirts of the town with a couple of skeletons in it.  They figured those guys were two crooks who’d been riding through and had gotten drunk and crashed into a big tree the truck was wrapped around and that was the last I heard of those two.  Ronnie rang me up and put my stuff on the tab and wished me a good day and I said thank you, sir.

Sometime after I bought that bicycle I got a knock on the door early one Saturday morning.  There was a man in a nice suit there who said he was from the FBI and wanted to ask me a few questions.  I asked him to come on in and offered him some tea but he said no, thank you.  I asked him what I could help him with and he asked if I ever knew a fellow named Dan Cooper and I said honestly, I didn’t.

He held up an old twenty dollar bill and asked where I got that from and I guess it was one of those I bought the bicycle with and told him someone I knew a while back gave it to me.  The FBI man asked for his name.  I told him Lloyd and he asked if I knew his last name and I told him I didn’t.  He asked when was the last time I saw this man and I said it’s been a year or so.  He thought on it and I guess he knew that was all he’d be able to get from someone like me.

As he left he handed me a slip of paper with his number on it if I knew anything about where he could find the man.  I told him yes sir, I would and he nodded and when he left I threw that piece of paper in the trash.  I knew exactly where Lloyd or whatever that man called him was.  On that letter he’d left with the former landlord he’d put his address.  I even wrote him and told him about the FBI man and he wrote back asking why I hadn’t told the man anything.  When I wrote I told him that he was one of the few people who never called me nigger or retard or faggot and that he was my friend.  When he wrote back all he said was thank you.

© Chris Deal, 2010