I’ll be Back James Bell

I’ll be Back

JAMES BELL

Hollis Brown was not a lucky man. Anyone ’round these parts will tell you as much. It seemed some kind of specter forever loomed over him and his family. His mother died soon after he was born. His sister died from lack of a mother. His brother died from lack of a sister. And his father, well, he let himself go before Hollis learned to walk. As far as luck was concerned, she never did like the Browns too much.

At twenty-two, Hollis made it much longer than any of his kin, all of whom, extended kin included, had passed on in some way or other. Hollis and his wife, Julie-Mae, had fve kids. The last teat-sucker was only six months old. The rest of the children, the other four, were all the same. Two boys and two girls, but they were the same. It hurt Hollis to look at them. They never smiled. Thin thread and patches held their thin clothes together. Their feet were hard as stones, worn by long barefoot hours spent trampling twigs and thorns and burrs a ways out in the woods, and from running through felds to get what they could fnd. They were all skinny as hell, rib cages poking out and bellies big as juice jugs. And they all came about nine months after winter. You can’t blame Hollis and Julie-Mae. They had to keep the place warm somehow.

Hollis’ daddy had built the shack for two, but they packed the whole lot of them under that broken roof by the crossroads just the same. Hollis and Julie-Mae shared a cot on one wall. The two girls slept together on a small and rickety wooden bed across from the cot. The boys slept on the hard foor. The baby slept in a

crib at the foot of the cot. It was the same crib all of his brothers and sisters used. And it was the same crib little Hollis had slept in.

Hollis’ daddy had carved the crib while his mama carried Hollis in her belly, chopping the wood himself, and using what little money he could scrape together to get the nails. But some of the nails were at weird angles. They were bent, broken and poking out, crooked like the teeth of a man who can’t afford to have them otherwise. Hollis believed his father used the heel of his left boot to pound them in. There never was a hammer to be found in the house, only the family knife.

It was the fall of Hollis’ twenty-second year when the food got scarcer than ever. The dry breezes of the summer turned to cooler ones, as they always do, cutting through the holes in the wood shack quick and easy. They whistled past the pieces of iron Hollis had used to patch the holes, which only worked until the rain made the wood swell. Then it was time for more iron and more nails.

“It’s getting awful breezy in here, Hollis.”

“Mhmm.”

“Think we’ll need some more iron soon?”

“We’ll be okay, Julie-Mae… for now.”

Being the God-fearing man he was, Hollis prayed and prayed for work, both for him and for his family. He even used the knife to whittle a cross that he hung on the wall. But as the days since his last job stacked up higher and higher, the weight of them began to crush what little faith he had left. The foorboards of his shack creaked and cracked like they were yelling at each other to fgure which was the loudest, ready to snap any moment from too much pressure. He could feel them bend under the heels of the worn boots.

Though Hollis never was a man of much intelligence, he was good with his hands. But, with the fall of the banks, the people in town weren’t too interested in that kind of man. Every farm was full up then. They’d all the hands they needed. What they wanted was a fancy man, a man in a fancy suit, a man with a

bright pocket square and bifocals to ‘build-up’ the town, a man of means. Hollis, though he wouldn’t confess as much, needed just such a man himself.

“Maybe you ought to ask around, Hollis. There’s bound to be somebody somewhere that needs an extra soul.”

“Maybe…I’ll wait for now.”

“Sure. You wait then.”

In those early days of not working, Hollis spent most of his time on the tiny front porch, staring at the dry brown grass and the cracked halves of broken leaves in his yard, waiting for anyone to pass by with good news. He watched his children walk through the woods every day, not sure where they went or if they’d ever come back. He often hoped they wouldn’t. That maybe they’d found something, somewhere, better. But they returned hungry each day, to Hollis on the porch and to Julie-Mae nursing the new one, her breasts damn near down to her knees and her nipples redder and more swollen than two ripe tomatoes.

Hollis didn’t sleep most nights. The silence was too loud. And when there was sound, it was too loud too. Sometimes, when Hollis watched Julie-Mae rock and feed the baby with the little her body could spare, he caught his baby’s eyes in the faint light of the moon. They were wilder than anything he’d ever seen. They followed him when he was trying to sleep, back and forth and louder than everything.

After a month of waiting, and no one passing along the road with any news of a job, Hollis had taken to walking the fve miles to town every single day. Each morning, Julie-Mae kissed him good-bye. And each night she rubbed his shoulders when he lay down on the cot, sweaty, dusty, and exhausted. It was in the dark, with the lightning of summer storms too late to be summer storms, when he often thought about taking down his father’s shotgun that hung on the wall next to the cross. But no matter how hard the circumstances, Hollis never did. He knew he didn’t have the money for the shells.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, just before the little food they’d rationed ran out, Hollis

bargained for work. Nearly forty days and forty nights of near starvation was going to end. The long ten miles each day was going to pay off. The soles of those boots were damn near gone.

He came home at six the day he got the job. Just after the sunset, the black of night taking away the color of the day. JulieMae thought she saw a grin on his face, though no one never could tell if he was grimacing or grinning.

“Who’ll you be working for?”

“This man named Mephitz I met on the road back home has a small quarry that needs mining. Says he’s going to build something once he gets everything he needs out of it.”

“So you’ll be swinging an axe or something like that, bending over all day?”

“Something like that.”

“Okay.”

“Is there a problem with my swinging an axe, Julie-Mae?”

“I just worry about your back is all, Hollis. I thought maybe you’d fnd something a bit easier. The last time—”

“Don’t put those thoughts in your head. I got enough trouble keeping them out of mine.”

“Okay, Hollis.”

“I got to worry about you and the family. My back don’t need any worry from you on top of it.”

“Okay, Hollis.”

Early the next morning Hollis set out for town, ten of his last twenty cents in his pocket. His steps felt lighter on that frst morning walk. The trees were thick with fall. The coins, two old nickels, shook in his well-worn jeans with jingling promise. The boots of his father were fnally beginning to take to the shape of his foot. Hollis Brown, walking those familiar fve miles, was relieved for the frst time in his life. He had a job.

Mephitz was a small man. Hollis stood two, maybe three heads above him. While Hollis wore his patched Pendleton and battered boots, Mephitz wore a black suit and pointed shiny black shoes and carried a long black cane. The black faps on the front of his coat looked like wings. And to Hollis, Mephitz’s fngers looked like plump sausages and his pink-red cheeks were fat slabs of ham. The man carried his girth like he’d been built with it. While he and Hollis talked to one another, Mephitz held the cane over the edge of the quarry like there was no chance of him dropping it.

“You’re capable of clearing this here quarry with these young boys, Mr. Brown?”

“I am, Mr. Mephitz, sir.”

“Alright then. It will be you, Mr. Tommy Johnson, who is standing just over yonder, and Mr. Robert Johnson—no relation— who should be here any damned minute now.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. And you remember our deal, yes?”

“Yes…I do, sir. You’ll have the half of my land we agreed upon when I’m paid.”

As Mephitz tipped his weight to one side and began to turn, Hollis realized they hadn’t spoken about his payment.

“Wait…excuse me, Mr. Mephitz, sir. Before you go...”

“What is it, Mr. Brown?”

“Mr. Mephitz, we never discussed my payment, sir.”

Mephitz twisted his waxed mustache with his hotlink fngers. Then he took out his half spectacles and began to wipe at the glass with a shiny red cloth from his breast pocket.

“How and when am I going to get paid, sir?” Hollis asked.

his weight on them. Hollis looked down and saw a dark outline of himself in the big and broad black toes. He didn’t like the way it looked, but felt there wasn’t anywhere else for his eyes to go.

“Mr. Brown, you trust me. Don’t you?”

“Umm…yes. I believe I do, Mr. Mephitz.”

“Well then you shall get your money once the quarry has been cleared, right?”

“Right, sir… Of course.”

Mephitz began to move away. Hollis thought of Julie-Mae and the baby.

“But could I—could I get some sort of advance?”

Mephitz shuffed his feet as he came to a stop, the dirt near the quarry sliding this way and that under his weight. He turned back around again and made his way to Hollis.

“Now, Mr. Brown, you haven’t done a lick of work. Tell me, why should I pay you a dime?”

“My family could really use it, sir… And… Because— because you can trust me. I’m willing to make—”

“Another deal?” Mephitz exposed his shiny false teeth, all straight and eerie in that too-perfect sort of way. There was a fery glint in his eye.

“Yes, I’m willing to make another deal with you. Are you up for another deal, Mr. Brown? A pact? A secondary contract, if you will?”

“Yes…yes, sir.”

“Well, here’s what we’ll do, Mr. Brown: I’ll give you six dollars, yes? It’s good for two weeks work and half of your land. And, at the end of the month, if I deem your work satisfactory, I’ll give you the other six. Yes?”

Hollis looked down into those black leather mirrors again and Mephitz pulled out a stack of bills that looked bigger than his

baby boy Jackson. As Hollis stuck out his hand, Mephitz pulled back.

“But, if it is not satisfactory, then I am entitled to the other half of your land. Yes? Do we have a deal?”

“Yes.”

Mephitz pulled the six bills and put them in front of Hollis. He took the bills with fdgety fngers and shoved them deep in his pockets, careful not to rip through the struggling seams.

“Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mephitz. I won’t let you down.”

“See that you don’t, Mr. Brown. I won’t be back until the end of the month, but I’ll be with you in spirit. Others will be around to check on you. ”

And so it began. Hollis went to work with Tommy and Robert in that pit across from the saloon. Both of them were good, hardworking boys. Tommy did most of the heavy lifting, pushing the wheelbarrow up and down the levels of the dirt ramp leading out of the pit. Robert did the digging. Hollis chipped away at the rocks inch by inch. At the close of the day, as they sat on the edge of the quarry looking down at everything below, Tommy pulled out his polished silver fask and Robert pulled out his guitar to play “Up Jumped the Devil.” Those two boys and Hollis cleared that fask every day from then on to the sound of Robert’s picking.

On his walks home, trudging through the dark, Hollis had much time to do much thinking. He thought about how lucky he was to have work, no matter how he’d come by it. Especially when those folks he’d met in town and on the road didn’t have none to speak of. He thought about putting smiles on his children’s faces. He didn’t remember what their teeth looked like, or if they had any left at all. And he thought about Julie-Mae. They were going to make it a little while longer. They were going to eat better than they had in a long while. They were going to sleep sound with full, warm bellies. When the job was fnished, they would worry about winter.

The days of work were long. Even with winter winding its way around the corner, the sun beat down hard during the day. The pick got heavier with each hour and Hollis’ grip on it got looser. The sweat burned off his back and disappeared soon as it hit the dirt. When Hollis returned every night, his children had buckets of cool stream water waiting for him. Julie-Mae poured it down his crooked spine and washed him, head to toe, with one of the last rags suited for washing.

“How are you making out, Hollis?”

“Fine.”

The water ran down Hollis’ calves, winding its way through the few hairs his patched pants hadn’t worn away.

“You can tell me, Hollis.”

“I done told you, Julie-Mae. I’m fne.”

Hollis’ face twisted up as Julie-Mae scrubbed the middle of his bulging back.

“But Hollis, I can see it. It’s from your damned spine bending over. It ain’t no good for you, all this picking. And your shoulders are poking—”

“This is the frst time this family had more’n one meal in a day. And the frst time any of those meals was any good. What is it you’d have me do, Julie-Mae?

“I don’t know, Hollis. I just don’t… Maybe you can get Mr. Mephitz to give you a day off. Can you ask him, Hollis? Would you?”

“Julie-Mae, are you out of your head? I have to do a bang up job on this quarry or I don’t get the rest of this money. I made…I made a deal. And besides, he ain’t around to ask. Ain’t no one but me and the boys down there in that blazing pit.”

“Then why can’t you take off early, Hollis? If ain’t no one around—”

“I can’t. It would be un-Christian. I just—”

“But it would just be one day of rest, Hollis. If there’s one thing the Lord knows, it’s one day of rest. One day. Can’t you ask someone else?”

“Alright, Julie-Mae. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Okay, Hollis.”

“Now, please just mind my shoulders. They been on fre all week.”

The next morning, about two weeks into the job, Hollis rose, put on his boots, and made his way to town. His back really did hurt like hell. With the soles of the boots wearing thinner by the minute, his feet weren’t much better. And his legs had started feeling colder all over, even when the sun was right on them.

When he got to the quarry, Tommy and Robert were already at it, Tommy lifting and pushing the wheelbarrow and Robert digging. Hollis walked to the edge, then stood watching them, rocking from left to right. One heel and then the other.

“Say, fellas, would you mind if I maybe knocked off early once or twice? I don’t want to be no imposition or nothing, but my back has been acting real strange.”

“Sure thing, Hollis. We know you work good and we don’t want you giving up the ghost on us.”

“Yeah. Don’t think on it. Go’n ahead. We won’t begrudge it none.”

“It really would help. I can’t thank you enough. I’m in y’alls debt. It’ll mean so much to my wife and me and—well, I’ll get to it now.”

Hollis picked up his pick, the dead skin on his palms fnding the dead wood, and got to swinging. At midday, he felt his back go. He lay down in the middle of the quarry and looked up at the sky. Two clouds, thick and grey, were making their way over to cover up the sun. Normally, Hollis would’ve liked the shade. But they looked different. Something about them wasn’t right. They didn’t look so much like clouds to him. They looked a lot like animals, like animals facing off for some strange reason,

one with horns and the other one without them. Two big sons of bitches chomping at the bit to have something or someone in the middle.

As the month wore on, Tommy and Robert continued to let Hollis take off early. He left them with a little bit more work, but it weren’t nothing those boys couldn’t handle. The rest did Hollis good. And with each day, the pain started to lessen, if only the tiniest bit.

But unfortunately for Hollis, Mephitz, like he said he did, had his people in town. Those folks checked on those boys six times a day and they made certain Mephitz knew. Not that any of them could’ve known it. No, to those three workingmen, the folks above ground were the folks above ground. Hollis and the boys only passed by them when they made it up the levels of the zigzagging dirt ramp.

When the month was up, Tommy, Robert, and Hollis had the quarry cleared. It really was a thing of beauty. Not a rock, not even a twig in the place. A vacant, spotless hole in the earth, just waiting for somebody to fll it.

On the day agreed upon, the last day of work, Mephitz came to meet the boys. He walked his way over, clipping and clopping. Slow. Like he knew he was going to meet you one way or the other.

“Mr. Johnson, Mr. Johnson, and Mr. Brown. I have three envelopes here. You’ll fnd your payment inside. If you should require any work after the winter, once the snow begins to melt and the weather becomes more tolerable, come back into town. Your names will be enough.”

“Thank you, Mr. Mephitz.”

“Yes, Mr. Mephitz, thank you.”

“Thank—”

When Hollis looked in his envelope, he didn’t fnd the six dollars he and Mephitz had agreed upon. He found only two

Mephitz started to make his way over to the saloon just across the way from the quarry, twisting and twirling his cane like he was proud of the work he hadn’t done. Hollis ran after him, rocking, as his heels hit the dirt.

“Mr. Mephitz…Mr. Mephitz. Wait, sir.”

Mephitz turned and smiled at Hollis. Big veins poked out on either side of his shiny pinkish head.

“Yes, Mr. Brown. What is it?”

“Mr. Mephitz. I don’t mean to—I mean—What I mean to say is—”

“Out with it, Mr. Brown.”

“I’m sure whoever you told to get the money made some sort of mistake, sir. It seems I only have ffty cents in my envelope.”

“That’s no mistake, Mr. Brown.”

“What do you mean, sir? We agreed on six dollars.”

“Yes. This is true, Mr. Brown. But we also agreed that you would only receive those six dollars if you’d done a satisfactory job.”

“The quarry is clean, sir.”

“Yes, Mr. Brown, the quarry is clean.”

“Then why don’t I have all my money?”

“Because you didn’t do your share, Mr. Brown. Your work was not satisfactory. You’ve fallen short. And so I’ve kept the majority of your payment for myself. My work, unlike yours, has been satisfactory.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, Mr. Brown, I know that you’ve been leaving early

every day for the last two weeks. Therefore, you’ve received your payment for two full weeks of work, which I gave you as an advance, and this smaller portion of your wage for a smaller portion of your work. I’d say it’s fair Mr. Brown, wouldn’t you?”

“I asked Tommy and Robert. They didn’t see no harm in it. It was my back. You see, you weren’t here to—”

“I’ve been here the whole time, Mr. Brown. In my own way.”

“But—”

“Mr. Brown, you breached our contract. You’re lucky I’ve given you any money at all. Now, if you still wish to work for me once the winter comes to a close, let me know when I come for your land. And if not, you know where to fnd me. Desperate men always do.”

Hollis watched as Mephitz hopped into the saloon to get himself a drink, his feet coming off the ground. He looked down at the coins in his hand. It wasn’t but one second before he was in and out of the general store and running the fve miles back home like something had possessed him.

After the frst mile, Hollis felt his boots giving out on him. What was left of either sole wasn’t working anymore. He ripped them off and chucked them in the woods. He didn’t need them in this life.

Hollis could feel the pain in his back spreading. His feet were aching from the stones and burrs and thorns on the road. The wind was against him, but he kept running. His children were on the front porch when Hollis came tumbling along like a tornado, kicking up so much dust that you could hardly see the man if you weren’t looking for him. He few past his children’s little craning heads and went to the corner to his father’s shotgun on the wall.

“Hollis! Hollis, what are you doing?”

round from the general store in the chamber and threw seven more down on the table. He looked at Julie-Mae with her hands on her belly, the cotton of her dress stretching tight across it.

“I’ll be back.”

With the shotgun in his hands, he took off faster than he’d come in.

When Hollis blew back into town, the people still in the streets scurried away like bugs. He made straight for the saloon, slowing down a little and walking more upright than ever before, now that he’d rid himself of those damned boots. His feet were ripped red and black. His face was twisted in that in between way no one ever knew which way to take. From a few yards away, he saw the saloon doors swing open.

“Thank you. I’ve had a hell of a time. Best hooch this side of the Mississippi. I’ll be around this way again. Always am.”

Mephitz stumbled out of the saloon and into the street. He looked toward his cleared quarry across the road and didn’t see Hollis coming on his right. When he did look in Hollis’ direction, Mephitz didn’t waste no time. He ran right for the quarry. Folks in town still don’t know why he ran right for a big hole. Some think he might’ve thought Hollis couldn’t get him in there. Others think he was just running to run. And some folks even say they heard Mephitz laughing all the way there, like a schoolgirl who pulled one over on a teacher. But if you got any sense about you, you’d know why Mephitz done what he did. He knew Hollis was going to put him in that hole. Some say that was the end of all that, but I’ve heard it told that later that night, after Hollis had made his way back home in the dark, that Mrs. Mephitz’s car—for there was a Mrs. Mephitz—was winding its way to town, her in the back and in labor. While the driver stopped at the crossroad, she heard seven blasts. Some folks say Mrs. Mephitz would have stopped to help if she could. Others don’t. But I’ve never heard any man pass judgment on her. It’s hard to say what’s right when life is coming.