Bobby Jake owned a slew of hound dogs and always had pups for sale in front of his house. One day, I was moseying past on my bicycle minding my own business when he called from his porch. That boy don't usually get the pleasure of my voice or eyes for that matter, but I was always taught to be polite.
“Hey,” he said.
"Hey." I slowed my bicycle, careful to keep my eyes on the pup pen, not him.
His spindly legs suddenly leaped the five porch steps and before I could blink, Bobby Jake was jogging out to the pen. “Ya wanna buy a pup ma’am? These here’s gen-u-wine huntin’ dogs!”
Sweet daisies. He’s known me since the beginning of time and just wanted my attention. During his second year of Kindergarten he used to dip my braids in the finger-paint to do that very thing and he ain’t stopped since.
Everything inside me said to keep right on going but there was a force drawing me to that pup pen. My innerds shivered at the thought of having to stop in front of that boy’s abode but not just because of him. Bobby Jake’s bothering ability’s matched only by his granny. I reckon it could have been the marble size wart on the tip of her nose that seemed to grow more hair than her eyebrows, or the chewing tobacco she dun always shoved in her cheek. And dead center of her smile was only one tooth, bless her heart. The brave folk in Shuck County, who looked at her eye to eye as she spoke, always got entertained in one way or another.
I ain’t got a mom of my own, rest her soul, and some days missing her really gets me down. So, a couple months back I tried my hand at making some homemade preserves and thought I’d be nice and bring some to his granny. I was only on her porch long enough to hear the bug zapper ‘zap’ a couple of horse flies when she opened her screen door and scared me near to death. We hadn’t even exchanged pleasantries when out of nowhere I felt a thud on my good brown boots that I just spent an hour polishing. Sweet daisies, I’d known her long enough to know exactly what it was, but natural curiosity drew my head down and there on my toe, oozing off the side, set a grainy chunk of brown chew. My stomach tried to throw up everything I’d eaten for the past month, but I fought it and won.
Her eyesight was failing. “Cali Kidde, that you?” she asked. After I told her it was, she felt terrible and offered up the back of her everyday dress to wipe it off. “Here, this’ll shine them boots back up in no time.”
And I’m sure it would. That time my stomach almost won. Anybody knows an everyday dress is a dress that sits everywhere seven days a week. Who knows what everyday things I’d get on the boots my granpappy, rest his soul, left for me just before he passed.
I had to get out of there and still be polite. So, I lied. “Thank you ma’am, that’s okay. Ain’t nothing special about these boots. I’ll be seeing you!”
I left so fast I think my shadow’s still there and I plum forgot to leave the preserves. Ain’t been back to officially visit since. Most days she sits on her porch swing, barefoot and humming to herself. But I was a lucky girl she wasn’t sitting on her porch when them pups was out.
Don’t know what made me extra curious that day because I’d seen pups for sale at his house more often than I can count but I ain’t never found it easy to venture over. If not for the sweet honeysuckle that rode the same air them cute puppy yips and yaps were on, I might have kept on going. I grinned watching their floppy ears flopping as they ran up and back in that pen, tripping and falling over each other like the ground’s made of bacon grease or something. It was a dandy display, no lie. One pup in particular, biggest of the litter, kept me grinning. He was just sitting there wagging his tail, his head cocked to one side, panting and yawning, one ear close to rubbing the ground. He wasn’t all full of spry like the others and I reached my hand over to pet him. He’s so soft and I reckon he liked it because he closed his eyes but he never stood to come over. After a spell, he yawned and plopped himself, belly first, on the cool green grass.
“Bobby Jake,” I said. “If’n these are all huntin’ dogs why’s this one so lazy-like?”
Bobby Jake thought for a minute, leaning up against a tree, hands in his Levi’s pockets, a hay seed traveling one side of his mouth to the other. He even had a clean shirt on and his rooster-tail hair slicked back like he’s a going to church.
“Oh, he gets his hunting skills later on,” he said with a wink. “It comes natural in a few weeks. I’ll give you a good price seein’s you’re my neighbor and all, ma’am.”
Good lord, folk already got the notion that he’s sweet on me, he don’t need no more urging. I swung a leg over my bike seat and politely said, “Well, thank you. That’s right kind of y’all but, no. I’m going to town. Good luck with your pup sale.” And before he had a chance to say anything else or his granny decided to come outside, I rode off whistling a tune.
Now, the only way back to my house is on the gravel road right past Bobby Jake’s. The road dead ends ‘bout a quarter mile east of my mailbox and there ain’t a whole lot of houses in between. My granpappy used to say folk could hear each other brushing their teeth it so quiet around them parts. So I knew it wouldn’t matter if I walk or rode past, that boy’s going to hear me anyhow. I just set my mind to not look at him and keep my wheels turning if’n he talked to me or not. May not have been the nicest thing I could do but I knew Bobby Jake better than the dressed-up pup salesman he’s trying to be and it’s just best to leave it at that.
Coming up on the raggedy, paint-peeling wood fence on the outskirts of his corn field, my bike scaled the opposite side of the road and my eyes scanned for any sign of that boy. I didn’t see him but that didn’t mean he wasn’t lurking about. As I neared the front of his house I eyed the pup pen and darn it all, that cute grey pup was still out and all alone besides. It was mighty hot that day and the big tree-shade covering the pen lured me to stop. ‘Course I gave in.
“Musta been a swell pup buying day”, I said to the pup as I sidled my bike up to the pen fanning myself with my hat. “You sure are a dandy fellah, yessirree, no lie!” I stroked his head and floppy ears. “Sure’d be nice to have a pup around my place. I get lonely and you’d have fun with Comit, yes you would.”
The pup yawned and licked my sweaty palm like he’s agreeing with me and we shared a moment under that tree shade. With the breeze combing the corn fields and the Bob-whites whistling their names between the Cicada’s songs, I looked deep into his eyes and he crawled deep into my soul and at that very moment I knew I was gettin' soft. Shucks, I even had a sleeping place picked for him right at the foot of my bed.
Just then, Bobby Jake’s screen door opened, slammed shut, and there he was approaching like a freight train. “Hey there Cali, ma’am,” his voice sweeter than sugar beets, itching to sell that gen-u-wine huntin’ dog. He leaned against the tree by the pen again. “Y’all come back to see the pup one last time, did you?”
“Reckon that’s why I stopped. You sold the rest of them right quick didn’t you. I wonder why?”
He stood there, digging his hands in his pockets like he’s trying to touch his toes or get an answer from his socks. “Yes ma’am. Right in time for huntin’ season I ‘spect.”
“I see. You gonna keep this one for yourself are you?” I didn’t want to come right out and say I was interested in the pup for me. He might have thought calling me ma’am was what did it and I wasn’t about to spark that fire in Shuck County.
“He’s a cute one, ain’t he.” Bobby Jake spit the hayseed out his mouth and stepped on it like it was smoldering. “Nope, he ain’t for me. Got a buyer decidin’ on him right now.”
My heart thumped like a smooth skipping stone across a still pond. I knew I gave a hurt look, try as I did not to. “Oh. A buyer decidin’ huh?” I stood to leave and stretched like the news didn’t bother me none. “Yeah, he’s a cute pup all right. Sure, hope he finds a good home then.”
The pup stood on his hind legs and laid his cute li’l head on top of the pen eyeing me, his left paw dangling out the bars catching my pant leg. It dun tore my heart in half. So I turned around quick before the tear in my eye escaped and Bobby Jake seen it. Couldn’t even bring myself to say bye to the pup. I just mounted my bike and pedaled fast as I could that mile to my house with Bobby Jake calling my name in the distance.
“What on sweet earth was you thinking, Cali?” I scolded myself as I neared my house. “You know better than to get all soft like that.” I ran up the porch steps, the tears stinging my eyes it so dang hot that day and sat down hard on my porch swing to get that pup free of my soul. Porch swings are good for soul-freein’ long’s they got a good squeaking rhythm to them and mine sure does. Been freein’ souls in the Kidde family for decades.
I was only there a while when in the distance I dun seen Bobby Jake meandering up the gravel road. His rooster tail hair apparently escaped all that hair grease from earlier and there it was flapping in the breeze. Don’t boys ever comb their hair? So, quick as a jackrabbit I made like I was doing something important with the flowers next to my front door, humming with my back to him as he arrived.
“Hey,” he said.
I wiped the tears on my sleeve but didn’t look at him. “Oh, hey,” I said like I never heard him coming.
He cleared his throat and stopped at the bottom step to my porch. “I dun brought you somethin’.”
Sweet daisies! What did Bobby Jake bring and why’s he bothering me so? I sniffed. “You did, huh?” I couldn’t help but think what he might have brought, not that I wanted anything from him. Might have been his granny’s award winning peach marmalade and I had to fight back a smirk. I do like her peach marmalade. I’ll tolerate that as long as he leaves. “All right, thank you,” I sniffed again. “You can leave it there on the stoop and be on your way.”
I heard his boots clomping up the five steps on the porch making my heart jigger and my smile fade at the thought of him getting any closer and seeing my blubbering face.
“Bobby Jake, now I’m not in a proper mood to be seeing no one. Just leave it there!”
Seemed like a coon’s age before that boy finally answered. Good thing too. I was fixin’ to forget my churchin’ upbringing if he didn’t say something or get on home.
“Well, uh, alright then ma’am. I'll just leave it on the stoop like you said and be on my way.”
Good lord, someone tell that boy to quit calling me ma’am. It’s only marmalade. My mouth was already watering but I waited ‘till I didn’t hear his boots anymore before I turned around to get it. But what I saw was not peach marmalade. Jumpin’ crawfish! Bobby Jake brought that pup to me. There he sat larger than life, his tail thumping the porch when he saw me, his head cocked to one side, yawning and panting, one ear close to rubbing the ground. I walked on over to him and sat on the step not waiting another second to pet them floppy ears.
“What about that buyer he had deciding on you, huh? Was Bobby Jake fibbing?” The pup laid his head in my lap and licked my hand. “Yeah, I reckon that don’t matter to you as much as it matters to me. Frankly, I ain’t got the stomach for what I’m about to do but might make it easier if you went with me.”
His tail thumped the porch.
“Yeah? You want go watch me eat humble pie, do ya?” Figured if I was going anyway I might as well fetch the preserves that I didn’t leave with his granny a couple months back.
Bobby Jake was in his normal clothes again when we arrived, working on the same truck that’s never started for near on two years. I stood there for a couple of minutes watching him work and listening to them curse words shoot out his mouth like grass from a John Deere mower. I knew I wouldn’t hear any ma’ams from him then.
“Hey,” I said.
He smacked his head on the open hood and I knew he wanted to curse again but didn’t. That made an evil smirk tug at the corners of my mouth and I thought sure I was going to hell.
“Oh, hey,” he said rubbing his head, looking puzzled to see us. “So, y’all found your proper mood and seen what I brung you finally?” He chuckled. “Cali, you’s a stubborn girl.”
I frowned that the real Bobby Jake was back and fought my instinct to assault him with words. I just wanted the pie eating over with. “Yep, reckon I am. Uh, Bobby Jake I wanted to say thank you. But I don’t understand why.”
Bobby Jake wiped his hands and face on his shirt, his rooster-tail hair hidden beneath a greasy cap. He’s such a boy. “Why? What d’ya mean, why? What the heck kinda thank you’s that?”
I believe he likes testing girls’ proper moods. He did that to a teacher in high school and ended up having her both his years in 10th grade. “What I meant was, what about that other buyer. Why didn’t you wait for them to decide on the pup?”
He looked at me then at the pup then stuck his head back in the engine. “I did wait, you stubborn girl, you’re the buyer. I seen the longful look in your eyes when you pet him and seen how he looked at you, standin’ on his hind legs as you left. Shoulda heard him whine when you got outa sight. I knew who that pup’s going home with. Just couldn’t figure out why you’s too headstrong to say it.”
I was speechless. That’s why he kept calling to me when I rode away. The pup licked my face, filling my nose with his sweet breath like he’s urging me to be cordial. “Thank you Bobby Jake. That’s down right nice.”
He peeked his head up from the engine and winked making my eyebrows twitch and giving my stomach a strange feeling. “What’d you name him?”
“I, uh,” looking down at him in my arms I felt bad I hadn’t thought of a name, so I spat out the first thing that came to mind. “Cleetus. I think I like Cleetus.”
“Well, all right then, he looks like a Cleetus.” He stuck his head back in the truck again, stood on the bumper, and grunted, tightening some part deep inside with a wrench. “Did you need somethin’ else?”
I spied the jar in my arm. “Oh, I plum forgot. I know your granny likes preserves so I brought her some.”
Bobby Jake looked up from the truck, greasy black stripes dripping down his sweaty face. “She’ll be right happy to get that. Might even trade you for her peach marmalade. She knows you like it.” One corner of his mouth smiled and he winked again. Then his wrench dun took a tumble inside the engine and all I seen was more of Bobby Jake than I ever wanted to see when he scrambled to fetch it, no lie. “Did you want to take it to her?” he called from inside.
Sweet daisies, no! My eyes wide and jaw hanging, I turned my face away and set the jar on the ground.
Reckon my shadow’s still there.
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