The ladies scurried about, fussing over the food while the men talked and laughed and greeted each other, but always with one eye on the chicken. Kids were everywhere, and Dewayne and I drifted to one tree in particular, where some ladies were arranging the desserts. I counted sixteen coolers of homemade ice cream, all covered tightly with towels and packed with ice.
Once the preparations had met the approval of Mrs. Orr, her husband, the Reverend Vernon Orr, stood in the center of the tables with Brother Akers, and the crowd grew still and quiet. The year before, Brother Akers had thanked God for His blessings; this year the honor went to the Methodists. The picnic had an unspoken pattern to it. We bowed our heads and listened as the Reverend Orr thanked God for His goodness, for all the wonderful food, for the weather, the cotton, and on and on. He left out nothing; Black Oak was indeed grateful for everything.
I could smell the chicken. I could taste the brownies and ice cream. Dewayne kicked me, and I wanted to lay him out. I didn’t, though, because I’d get whipped for fighting during a prayer.
When the Reverend Orr finally finished, the men corralled the Mexicans and lined them up to be served. This was a tradition; Mexicans first, hill people second, children third, then the adults. Stick Powers appeared from nowhere, in uniform, of course, and managed to cut in line between the Mexicans and the hill folks. I heard him explain that he was on duty and didn’t have much time. He carried away two plates — one covered with chicken and one covered with everything else he could pile on. We knew he’d eat until he was stuffed, then find a tree on the edge of town and sleep off his lunch.
Several of the Methodists asked me about Ricky — how was he doing, had we heard from him. I tried to be nice and answer their questions, but as a family we Chandlers did not enjoy this attention. And now that we were horrified over the Latcher secret, any mention of Ricky in public scared us.
“Tell him we’re thinkin’ about him,” they said. They always said this, as if we owned a phone and called him every night.
“We’re prayin’ for him,” they said.
“Thank you,” I always replied.
A perfectly wonderful moment like the Fall Picnic could be ruined with an unexpected question about Ricky. He was in Korea, in the trenches, in the thick of the war, dodging bullets and killing people, not knowing if he would ever come home to go to church with us, to picnic with the town, to play against the Methodists again. In the midst of the excitement I suddenly felt very alone, and very frightened.
“Get tough,” Pappy would say. The food helped immensely. Dewayne and I took our plates and sat behind the first-base dugout, where there was a small sliver of shade. Quilts were being placed all around the outfield, and families were sitting together in the sun. Umbrellas were popping up; the ladies were fanning their faces, their small children, and their plates. The Mexicans were squeezed under one tree, down the right-field foul line, away from the rest of us. Juan had confessed to me the year before that they weren’t sure if they liked fried chicken. I’d never heard such nonsense. It was a heck of a lot better than tortillas, I’d thought at the time.
My parents and grandparents ate together on a quilt near third base. After much haggling and negotiating, I’d been granted permission to eat with my buddies, a huge step for a seven-year-old.
The line never stopped. By the time the men reached the last table, the teenaged boys were back for more. One plate was enough for me. I wanted to save room for the ice cream. Before long we wandered over to the dessert table, where Mrs. Irene Flanagan was standing guard, preventing vandalism from the likes of us.
“How many chocolates you got?” I asked, looking at the collection of ice cream coolers just waiting in the shade.
She smiled and said, “Oh, I don’t know. Several.”
“Did Mrs. Cooper bring her peanut butter ice cream?” Dewayne asked.
“She did,” Mrs. Flanagan said and pointed to a cooler in the middle of the pack. Mrs. Cooper somehow mixed chocolate and peanut butter in her ice cream, and the results were incredible. Folks clamored for it all year round. The year before, two teenaged boys, one a Baptist and one a Methodist, almost came to blows over who would get the next serving. While peace was being restored by the Reverend Orr, Dewayne managed to grab two bowls of the stuff. He charged down the street with them and hid behind a shed, where he devoured every drop. He talked of little else for a month.
Mrs. Cooper was a widow. She lived in a pretty little house two blocks behind Pop and Pearl’s store, and when she needed yard work done she’d simply make a cooler of peanut butter ice cream. Teenagers would materialize from nowhere, and she had the neatest yard in town. Even grown men had been known to stop by and pull a few weeds.
“You’ll have to wait,” Mrs. Flanagan said.
“Till when?” I asked.
“Till everyone is finished.”
We waited forever. Some of the older boys and the younger men began stretching their muscles and tossing baseballs in the outfield. The adults talked and visited and talked and visited, and I was certain the ice cream was melting. The two umpires arrived from Monette, and this sent a ripple of excitement through the crowd. They, of course, had to be fed first, and for a while they were more concerned with fried chicken than with baseball. Slowly, the quilts and umbrellas were taken from the outfield. The picnic was ending. It was almost time for the game.
The ladies gathered around the dessert table and began serving us. Finally Dewayne got his peanut butter ice cream. I opted for two scoops of chocolate over one of Mrs. Lou Kiner’s fudge brownies. For twenty minutes there was a near-riot around the dessert table, but order was maintained. Both preachers stood in the midst of the pack, both eating as much ice cream as anybody else. The umpires declined, citing the heat as the reason that they should finally stop eating.
Someone shouted, “Play ball!” and the crowd moved toward the backstop. The Methodists were coached by Mr. Duffy Lewis, a farmer out west of town and, according to Pappy, a man of limited baseball intelligence. But after four losses in a row, Pappy’s low opinion of Mr. Lewis had become almost muted. The umpires called the two coaches to a meeting behind home plate, and for a long time they discussed Black Oak’s version of the rules of baseball. They pointed to fences and poles and limbs overhanging the field — each had its own rules and its own history. Pappy disagreed with most of what the umpires said, and the haggling went on and on.
The Baptists had been the home team the year before, so we hit first. The Methodist pitcher was Buck Prescott, son of Mr. Sap Prescott, one of the largest landowners in Craighead County. Buck was in his early twenties and had attended Arkansas State for two years, something that was quite rare. He had tried to pitch in college, but there had been some problems with the coach. He was left-handed, threw nothing but curveballs, and had beaten us the year before, nine to two. When he walked out to the mound, I knew we were in for a long day. His first pitch was a slow, looping curveball that was high and outside but called a strike anyway, and Pappy was already yapping at the umpire. Buck walked the first two batters, struck out the next two, then retired my father on a fly ball to center field.