The best is Straight Time. That's what the notebooks are about.
More guys check in. Weekenders. D-Tankers. Some Blood hollers from the shadows, "Mercy, Deputy Dawg… we done already got motherfuckers wall to wall…"
Eleven forty they take me out give me my clothes, whistle and harp put me in this room with a bench and one other Short-timer, gray-pated mahogany-hued old dude of sixty years or so.
"Oh, am I one Ready Freddy. Am I ever!"
He's pacing around the little room picking up and putting back down and picking back up one of those old-fashioned footrest shoeshine kits, full of personals. He has on a worn black suit, maroon tie and white shirt. His shoes have a sensational shine.
"What you in for, Home?"
"Weed. What about you?"
"I pull a knife on my brother-in-law… my old woman call the cops. Wasn't no actual goddamn fight whatsoever. But I don't care. Just let me on my mother way!"
Putting down his kit sipping his coffee picking his kit back up.
"Yessir, on my way!"
"Good luck on it," I say.
"Same to you. Ah, I don't care. I even lost some weight in here. Met some nice folks, too…"
A young black trusty stops in and gives him a number on a slip of paper.
"I hope you writ where I can read it," the old man says.
"Plenty big, Pop. Don't forget. Call soon as you hit a phone, tell her her Sugardog still be barkin'."
"I'll do it, I sure will!"
"Thanks, Pop. Be cool."
As soon as the kid is gone the old man wads the paper and drops it in the pisser.
"Damn fool tramp. Met some real motherfuckers, too, as you can see." He puts the kit down so he can rub his hands as he paces. "Oh, that ol' city be just right, Saturday night still cookin'. If I can get me to a bus, that is. What's the time?"
"I got twelve straight up. I should have some family waiting; we'll give you a lift."
"Appreciate it," he says. "Straight up you tell me? Ah well, I don't care. We got nothin but time to do, wherever we be. What you say you been in on?"
"Possession and cultivation."
"If that ain't a shame – for the good green gift of the Lord. He hadn't wanted it to grow, there wouldna been seeds. How much they give you?"
"Six months, five-hundred-dollar fine, three-year tail."
"If that ain't the shits."
"It's done."
"I reckon. Nothin but time -" He starts to take a sip of his cold coffee, stops – " 'ceptin, oh, I am ready."
He puts the cup down, picks the kit back up.
"Franklin!" a voice calls. "William O. -"
"In the wind, Boss. On my way!"
I'm alone on the bench, sipping what's left of his cup of coffee, spoon still sticking out. The plastic bag his suit was in hangs from the conduit; his blues are right where he left them, on the floor. Ghost clothes. I'm ready too. This stationery is finished both sides.
"Deboree! Devlin E. -"
"On my way!"
* Red Death. What they call the glop of strawberry jelly comes with breakfast coffee and toast – makes, among other things, quite a powerful glue.
* * Never did get those two notebooks back.
JOON THE GOON WAS WHAT
…she used to be called on the beat scene. Shows up this A.M. with her old man who turns out to be the guy in jail with me called Hub, the dude that did two for two. Famous for stretching a two-month Disturbing rap to two years by not standing for any shit. Proud of his rep in the slam, on the streets now he's vowed to change his violent ways – no more red meat, red wine or white crosstops.
Joon drove him up from Calif this morn for the sake of our soothing farm influence. Their Nova quit on the road before it made it into our drive. They explained everything in a bashful stammer, Joon blushing, Hub wringing his huge tattooed hands together like mastiffs in a pit.
We talked some about the early frost, the green tomatoes, how some of them might ripen inside in the sun on windowsills. I told them they better use our car and jumpers to get their rig off the road. They head off, Joon in the lead, her purse knocking against her knobby knees. Made me think of Steinbeck and the thirties and the hand-scrawled warnings that are turning up taped to all the cash registers in the area: no checks cashed for more than amount of purchase!
The first school bus slows and stops by the frost-gilded corn, lets Caleb off just in front of where Hub has my clunker mouth to mouth with his. The kids at the windows flash peace signs; the look of Joon's tie-dye wraparound, I guess.
A neighbor goes by and honks – our ritzy neighbor, the one with rich relatives and a "ranch" instead of a farm. He's driving a new maroon metallic-flake Mustang.
Sounds like they got the clunker clunking again; I hear it pulling into my drive below.
Caleb brings up the mail-bills, broadsides, and a hardbound tome called Love of Place, authored by a famous holy man I've never heard of. You can't learn love of place from those above or below you, it don't seem to me…
Lotsa action, banging, clunking, as the sun seeps through hazy September. A plane mumbles by and the corn goes golder and golder.
The second, bigger-kids' bus. Quiston and Sherree get out. Caleb goes loping through the rows to greet them, swinging a golden ear around his head.
"Hey I bet you didn't know Joon and her Goon was here!"
MOTHER'S DAY 1969: Quiston's Report
I think she's out of the woods I think she's made it to where she ought to have a name.
Dad thinks.
I think a good name is Feline, Sherree says, ree-ally…
Sherree and Caleb and me we're in the orchard feeding her warm water out of one of Sherree's Tiny Tears bottles. We're outside because Dad wants to get some footage. He's moving the tripod all over, worrying about shadows. I think she looks perfect, hopping around in the soft yellow mustard and sunshine. I been thinking about the softness of things, and time going by, and how it will be good to have pictures of her growing up with us all, all the cows and the dogs and ducks and geese and pigeons and peacocks and cats and horses and chickens and bees, with Rumiocho the Parrot and Basil the Raven and Jenny the Donkey, and all these people.