A HILL O' BEANS

A HILL O’ BEANS

Born and raised in Pennsylvania, when I was 14 years of age, my life crumbled when my parents were killed in an automobile accident and, for two weeks, I was placed in the local orphanage while attempts were made to contact those that were tenuously related in the hope that one of them would take me in as one of their family.

Though grieving, I understood, vaguely, that two families had come forward: a couple from New York who had one child, a girl around my age, and another from Tennessee who had a grown up son; both related in some way to my mother.

On the day that the couple from New York came to meet me, the nuns in charge of the orphanage dressed me up so that I looked my best. I was dimly aware that the New Yorkers arrived in a brand new Chevy and both looked so handsome and distinguished that, in my despair, I kind of hoped that they would pick me. As I sat in a chair, not a single word of consolation for my loss was offered as they circled around me, scrutinising, as one might a piece of furniture in a store. Then, silently, they left. My misery was compounded when a nun caught my eye soon after and, with a shake of her head, informed me that I had been rejected.

As you can imagine, I was not looking forward to being put on show again for the people from Tennessee . My feelings were only enhanced when I gazed from the orphanage window and saw the automobile that they arrived in. I remember being mortified. There was a TV show called The Beverley Hillbillies in the sixties and the Clampett family in that show had a car that was almost identical to that in which the Potkins arrived that day. Though, later, when I found out that they had driven almost 1000 miles in that thing and planned on driving another 1000 miles home, my admiration for their sheer courage went up a notch or two for they deserved a medal for even attempting such a journey in that death trap.

The two elderly Potkins certainly hadn’t attempted to make any special effort, she, Dolores, being dressed in a nondescript dress of some flowery pattern, her grey hair pinned back severely in a tight bun and, he, Bobby Joe, clothed, as he was, in a tatty suit, collarless shirt and a big, old, raggedy sun hat that seemed permanently fixed to his head. It occurs to me that I never did see them dressed any differently in the years we were together. Yes, they took me home with them after winning my heart the moment they had entered that room, rushing to hug me, genuine tears flowing from both. They just smothered me with their love.

I’ll never forget that drive back to Tennessee. It took two and a half days on account of the car constantly overheating, forcing us to stop and wait until the radiator could cool down. Dolores and Bobby Joe paid no heed to the irate motorists honking and hollering at our obstructing the road. They just waved back, thinking the bedlam was some kind of sympathetic expression of the couple’s plight.

“Why, I never did think people could be so friendly in these parts”, Dolores commented innocently.

I did not think to disabuse them.

We ate fried chicken that Dolores had made four days earlier but, though it wasn't fresh, it tasted like manna from Heaven to me after the daily diet of boiled beef and cabbage foisted upon me by the holy sisters.

Along the way, they told me how they had known my mother before she had left Tennessee many years earlier to chance her arm in the big city; my mother being Dolores’ cousin. They even had a photo of my mother as a baby. They spoke to me of their son, Buford, who had been wounded in the war and was now confined to a wheelchair, a metal plate in his head. They were deeply concerned for him having left him in the care of a neighbour while they had set off on this precarious, cross country trek that they felt duty bound to make for, as they kept telling me, I was their kin.

In short, these two people were the salt of the earth and I felt wanted and appreciated from the moment I met them.

They lived on a small farm and were self sustainable in a way that rarely exists these days. They had a river that ran through their property and supplemented their diet with catfish that Bobby Joe would catch. Buford, their son, had been a strapping giant of a man when he went off to Vietnam to fight for a country he knew nothing about. He had returned, two years later, a shell of his former self and spent his days on the porch of the modest house the family occupied. Dolores said he was content to smell the air, listen to the birdsong and watch the river run on by. Buford never spoke but, if he wanted to say something, would draw in the dirt that gathered on that porch every day, though Dolores seemed to sweep it constantly.

It is no exaggeration to say that I loved my time on that farm; almost as much as I came to love my new family. I would bring in the cows first thing each morning and last thing each evening so as Bobby Joe could milk them. I would feed the chickens, gather eggs, tend our vegetable patches; there was nothing I wouldn’t do, revelling in being out in the hot sun, free as a bird. In between my chores, I would sit at the feet of Buford and, taking a leaf out of his book, just enjoy nature. Though we never shared a single word, a bond developed between us and, somehow, I developed an instinct for deciphering his scrawling in the dirt.

Like, one time, as we both sat awaiting our call to supper, Buford drew a rectangle in the dirt with four small circles inside it. I knew immediately that he was drawing our dinner table and plates and he was telling me that he was hungry. I entered the house and told Dolores:

“Buford says he’s hungry, Dolores”.

Without skipping a beat, as she beavered away at her pots and pans, Dolores told me to take a cookie from the cookie jar to stave off Buford’s hunger pangs. I figured that meant two cookies, one for me, as well. I ran outside with my prizes and old Buford’s face just lit up. Dolores just couldn’t bear to think that Buford might be suffering in any way and I preyed on that weakness when, the following evening, I repeated my little chicanery. Only, this time, I added an adjective.

“Buford says he’s real hungry, Dolores”.

“Best take him a couple of cookies, then”.

Only, Buford did not show the same enthusiasm for my manipulation of Dolores’ heart that time and gave me a look of such reproach that I felt remorseful all through supper for my having taken advantage of his mother’s goodness. Boy, that Buford could say more with a look than most folks can say with a lengthy speech.

After our supper, we would sit around the table discussing the day’s happenings, the latest news. We included Buford in everything though he was unable to pass comment. I discovered that I had an innate ability to see my way clearly through any problem, being able to make a case for why this was right or that might not be the right course of action; it just came naturally to me and Dolores and Bobby Joe would exchange looks of admiration at my incisiveness. Of course, I soon developed a big head and I was brought, crashingly, back down to earth, one evening, when Dolores announced.

“Otis, it’s time you went back to school”.

School? I had not even considered, for one minute, that I might ever have to return to school. In fact, I thought that, maybe, just maybe, no such thing existed in the state of Tennessee. Here I was, pompously spouting off when, in reality, I had been cooking my own goose.

“Boy, farm life is not for you. You are set for greater things. You could be a lawyer with your intelligence. Boy, you could start an argument in an empty house, and win it, too. We owe it to your dear Momma to see that you get a good education”.

I looked sideways at Buford and he simply nodded, in full agreement with his mother, and I knew my idyll was over and my ordeal was about to begin.

Of course, I still loved doing my chores around the farm in the early mornings but, hanging over me, always, was that thought that, in a couple of hours, I would have to head off to school.

I was an outsider on account of my accent that did not echo everybody else’s Southern twang and it hadn’t taken very long before a boy by the apt name of Biff Mooney began to harass me. He was a lot bigger than myself and, at least at first, was content to ransack my lunch box but, over time, his intentions became more violent towards me, inflicting Chinese burns and the like.

One evening, as I prepared to walk the cows back to the lower pasture after milking, Bobby Joe fell in beside me. For a while, we walked in silence but, leaning on the gate of the field, later, taking in the beautiful sunset, he turned to me and spoke quietly.

“You know, son, when I was younger, there was a boy at school, name o’ Brooks Dempsey. Used to tell everyone that Jack Dempsey, the heavyweight champion, was his kin and, fools that we was, we all believed him. We thought that, somehows, that boy could fight like the champ, himself. Anyhows, he took a fancy to Dolores and didn’t like it when he saw me talking to her, one day”.

I could see where this was leading but he had my full attention.

“We was both ‘bout your age but Brooks was hell of a lot bigger. He started picking on me, taunting, poking; that sort o’ thing. And I let him. That was my mistake ‘cos it only encouraged him more. Got so I was living in fear o’ going to school each day”.

“What happened?”

I was convinced Bobby Joe was going to tell me how he had managed to learn how to fight, given that Brooks Dempsey a good whupping, could teach me a trick or two.

“One morning, he waylaid me as I was walking to school, about to kick my butt...then, out o’ nowhere, Dolores appeared and slapped him so hard that ol’ Brooks just burst into tears and ran away. Never seen nothin’ like it, before or since. I seen those marks on your arms, Otis. You need to stop whoever’s doing it ‘fore things get much worse. ’S’all I’m saying, boy”.

I knew Bobby Joe was right, of course, but I didn’t yet have a Dolores.

As we walked back home, I had to ask:

“Was he? Kin to the Manassa Mauler, I mean”.

Bobby Joe chuckled.

“Hell, no. But he was a brother o’ Tom Dempsey”.

“Was he an old time boxer, too?”

Again, Bobby Joe laughed.

“Tom Dempsey sure weren’t no boxer. That ol’ boy was a lawyer in Jonesborough. Got caught stealing clients’ money, got struck off. The whole Dempsey family had to git out o’ Tennessee in disgrace”.

I learnt a lot that day. The concept of a crooked lawyer had never occurred to me. Surely, a lawyer had a duty to uphold the law, not abuse it? I thought, more and more, about what Dolores had said about my, one day, becoming a lawyer, myself. Of course, the main lesson that Bobby Joe had tried to impart had been that I could not let my own Brooks Dempsey continue bullying me; I had to stop Biff Mooney or things would only get worse. I steeled myself for the fight back.

A couple of days later, Mooney tried to snatch my arm and twist the skin painfully and I don’t know who was more stunned, him or me, as, in front of everybody, we clashed violently, culminating in a number of air punches being thrown by both of us and ending up with us rolling around in the dirt until a teacher finally separated us, sweating, dirty and breathing heavily.

I was proud that I had stood up to Mooney but fearful of any repercussions. I was told I had to attend the head teacher's office, the following morning, along with Dolores for Biff’s mother had made an official complaint that I had been constantly bullying her son.

I was sure that I was about to be expelled and, as I sat, sullenly, at the feet of Buford’s wheelchair, on the porch, I knew that, deep down, I really wanted to excel at school, win a scholarship to university and achieve my aim of becoming a lawyer; an honest one.

Buford began to draw figures in the dust; one figure on the floor with the other standing over him. I grasped what he was trying to say immediately. I had to give the perception that I had lost. In this way, Biff Mooney, twice my size, would appear the bully that he truly was.

After supper, I rubbed my cheek on one of the support beams of the porch until blood began to appear. Then, in my room, I hit myself in my eye and, the following morning, I was surprised and delighted to see a blue and purple bruise around my left eye. Dolores looked at me suspiciously as we walked to school.

We gathered along with Biff and his mother, herself a big woman. I was rather disappointed to see that, despite my best efforts, Biff had not a mark on his face, whereas I looked as though I had been ten rounds with the great Jack Dempsey, himself.

Mr Crow, the head teacher, looked from me to Biff... and back again; back to me...and back again to Biff. Not a word was said by anyone. Even Biff’s mother, following Crow's eyes, was shaken at my battered appearance. I let this sink in for a moment then, with perfect timing, silently, I rolled up my sleeves to reveal the painful marks from Biff’s tortuous Chinese burns. Case over!

As we walked back out of the school gates, victorious, Dolores turned left instead of right.

“Where are you going? Home is this way, Dolores”.

“Don’t you think I knows the way home, Otis? I’ve lived in that same house since the day I was born, boy. But, if’n we goes that way, I don’t recall no ice cream shop along the way...”

“O Brien’s? We’re going to O’Briens?”

‘O’ Briens was the best ice cream parlour in all of the state. Everybody loved O’Briens. But ice cream on what should have been a school day? I was flabbergasted.

“Well, we got to celebrate your victory, Otis. I figure a gallon of ice cream will go down a treat with the boys back at home. You manipulated that there courtroom, Otis. You had them in the palm of your hand and you didn’t even have to say a word. You’re a natural, boy. Didn’t I tell you, you was set for greater things?”

As we stood in O’Briens, I looked out of the window and delighted in seeing the gargantuan form of Mrs. Mooney, administering several clips to Biff's fat head as she dragged him along. I came to view that gallon of delicious ice cream as my first ever legal fee.

Life has its good moments. There’s no doubt about that and I believe that we owe it to ourselves to make the most of each and every one of them. For life also has its bad moments, often when we least expect them. My life on the farm continued for three more years. For the most part, it was blissful but poor Buford began to experience epileptic fits and, for much of the time, he was confined to his bed, unable to sit on the porch and take in the view that he loved so much. It was that damn metal plate of course but, if the doctors removed it, they feared Buford would die. Overtime, the fits became more frequent and severe and, eventually, Buford passed.

I had departed for university by that time and, when I returned home for his funeral, I was heartbroken but words cannot express the devastating effect that Buford’s passing had on my adoptive parents. It was a downhill journey for both. Dolores, unable to cope with her grief, was the first to go. Bobby Joe lingered on but, his heart, shattered twice, would never recover. I returned home as often as college would allow and it distressed me to see the farm in its neglected state and Bobby Joe attempting to appear upbeat for my sake only. He talked about making the journey for my graduation but I never believed it would happen; that ancient automobile would never make it and neither would my beloved Bobby Joe. His funeral was the lowest point of my life, worse even than losing my own parents, as I stared at those three graves, side by side. Those three good souls who had given me love and stability, each, in their own way, imparting the wisdom that has stayed with me throughout my life and enabled me to be the man, and the lawyer, that I am today.