Zachary Peters

A chapter from How Things Were, an ongoing historical fiction saga.

He remembered many things about his mother. He could recall her face and the sound of her voice. He could picture her smile, and he remembered the apron she always wore. One of the stranger things he remembered was that she was flat-footed. She complained about it when she had to walk to the stores because Dad could not afford a car or even a horse. After a long day of cleaning, walking to town, and yard work, his mother would sit and cry with her feet soaking in warm water.

How often must that have happened for the memory to be burned into his head? Perhaps he remembered this because of his own flat feet, which, like his mother’s, hurt when he had to walk a lot during the day. He had done a lot of walking today. It had been two days, and his dad was still gone from the house. Herbert had piddled all he could around the house and outside.

He had seen some paper blowing down the road. He had jumped up from the front steps to run and grab them. That was two days ago, the same day his memaw had brought over the food. They were from a newspaper, and he could only read the same newspaper clippings so many times before he became desperately bored. The paper said there were these dust storms far away, across the Mississippi, and then mentioned the need for more workers for the tufted quilts in town. He did not even know what day the papers were from; they could have been months ago.

Now, he was walking back home from school. Earlier that morning, he had checked to see if his dad had slipped into the house during the night, even though there was not a chance anyone could slip into the little, wooden shack without Herbert noticing from his bed in the main room. His dad was not home, so Herbert did his best to clean up for school.

He did not know the time, but the sun was just shining through the trees in the backyard. Filling his pockets with hickory nuts, he left, hoping he would not be late. He hated being late, which made him feel like everybody was staring at him. Conversely, he liked being early. It gave him the chance to hide.

Herbert did manage to get there early. He was able to get a seat in the back. His teacher was glad to see him and excited about how well Herbert was coming along in his reading and math. Herbert did not understand what the fuss was about. Wasn’t reading easy? He thought to himself.

At lunch, he found a quiet corner and drank some water. Another teacher walked up to him, asked him a few questions about his day, and left him a banana. Herbert was incredibly thankful. He had only had two bananas before that, and the breakfast of hickory nuts had long ago stopped holding off the hunger pangs.

Then school was over, and it was time for the long walk home. It was always a conflict in his mind to go back home. He, at once, dreaded it and longed for it. To be home was too often a painful discomfort, and yet, to be out of the house was perpetual anxiety.

His walk home was paused unexpectedly. He was intercepted by the pastor’s wife and a group of women who, he noted with interest, were praying loudly just outside the front door of the church. He thought he even heard some of that speaking in tongues stuff that his Memaw had talked about. There were younger and older women together. Their clothes were plain. This was not one of the rich churches. He knew some of the younger women’s kids. They may have been just as poor as he was.

One woman detached herself from the group. “Oh, Herbert, well, ain’t it nice to see you in town! You coming from school?” She asked. She had crossed about thirty feet from the front of the church to the street.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he said, “School just let out.”

“What a blessing,” she said with a smile, but her eyes looked as if they were in pain. “Well, what a blessing.”

Herbert did not understand. “Uh, yes ma’am,” was all he could say. He tried to walk away.

“No, no, I don’t think you understand, little Herbert. It is a blessing. A blessing that you woke up this morning. It is a blessing that you can walk to school, and that you can learn!” She grew more and more excited. The praying ladies kept on praying, their prayers adding a strange musical quality to the moment. Herbert was almost entranced. “It’s all a blessing, and it’s a blessing I got to see you.” Her warm smile radiated peace. Herbert did not know if he wanted to cry or laugh. When Herbert could not come up with anything to say, she continued, “Listen, little Herbert. I got some shoes for ya and maybe even a belt. You see, a blessing?”

“A blessing,” Herbert said, slowly, as a half question. He looked at her timidly, “But ma’am,” he was whispering, “I shouldn’t take no charity. Don’t other people need it more than me?”

Her face twisted a little, like she had gotten dust in her eyes and nose, and then Herbert saw the small tears build in her eyes. She dabbed them away. He was going to apologize for being rude, but she bent down and looked deep into Herbert’s eyes.

“Oh, young man, God has gifted you a special heart, hasn’t He? Don’t let anyone take that away,” she said warmly. She stood. “Come on now, let me see if those shoes and belt fit.”

The belt was too big. She gave it to him anyway, but the shoes were perfect. She said they were Oxford shoes. That meant nothing to him, but he tried to be very appreciative. He really was happy despite the perpetual discomfort of being in town. There was one moment of embarrassment when she had to help him tie his shoes. She gracefully brushed aside the obvious embarrassment as she asked him about his day at school. He was happy to answer, but it did distract him from observing how she tied them. Then he was walking home again.

His feet felt better now, but a blister was developing. He wanted to stop, take off his shoes, and look at the painful spot. The problem was that he could not tie his shoes back on. He had to really look at the knots when he got home so he could practice. He did not want to have to ask for help, and he would have plenty of time. He looked towards the sun. It would still be shining for a few hours, he figured. He would have plenty of light for a while. It was too warm to start a fire in the stove, and he liked to save the two candles he had found for when the days got shorter in winter.

There was some rustling in the woods next to him. A rabbit, or maybe even a deer, was moving around in the woods beside the road. He looked as he walked, but his own footsteps were louder than the noises the animals were making. The leaves were too thick to see through, but he tried to peer through anyway. It was no use.

The ground was dry, and his newly-shoed feet crunched in a way that made Herbert look down and watch his footsteps in the brown oxfords. It was a new sound for him, and he wondered if they would also make a different noise when the road was wet and the clay was slick?

He looked up again and caught glimpses of his house through the trees. The trees thinned out heading toward his house. His house was in an acre clearing on the left-hand side of the road heading out of town. Across the road from his house was an unplanted 10-acre field. The trees gathered in bunches again as the road went south, past his house.

He stopped suddenly in the road, craning his neck, trying to get a different view of something near his house. After several glances, he was sure there was a car parked in front of his house.

It was a newer car, not Memaw’s. He did not know much about cars, though he could drive his Memaw’s. She had let him take it up and down the road a few times. The only thing he knew about the car in front of the house was that it had two doors and four wheels. Who was that? He wondered. The anxiety of home redoubled, and his feet hurt. He shrugged and started walking again.

A few more hundred feet, and he passed the last tree by the road before his house. Not only was there a car there, but a man was also leaning against it. He recognized him, Jim Riddley. He was about his dad’s age, tall and slim. His hands seemed too big for his arms, and he always had something in the corner of his mouth: a cigarette, a cigar, or a pencil. He had not yet noticed Herbert on the road.

Herbert unintentionally slowed his pace, but the span between the last tree and his house was not more than a few dozen yards. In less than a minute, he was a dozen feet away from the car. The crunching of his shoes on the road must have given him away. Jim looked up nonchalantly and gave Herbert a wooden smile when they made eye contact.

“Well, I was a wondering when somebody would be home,” Jim said loudly, as Herbert slowly moved another six feet closer to the car. “I was starting to think I had the wrong house. How ya doing…” He paused, presumably thinking of the right name, “It’s Herbert?”

Herbert nodded and said, “Yes, sir.”

“Right, how ya doing, Herbert?” Jim asked, the wooden smile unchanging. The whole of his face unchanging. Looking at the face made Herbert uncomfortable. He looked away to find something, anything else to look at, even for a second.

“Good, sir, I was just comin’ from school.”

“Oh, school. Well, that is nice. I only had a few years of schoolin’ myself. Must have left… well— ehh” Jim looked off into the distance for a second. “Well, when I was about your age.” Jim looked back at Herbert. Again, the wooden smile was unchanged. “You know where your pa is?”

Herbert shook his head. “No, sir. I thought he was at work at the mill.” Herbert knew that Jim was somehow kin to the owners, maybe he was the owner. The details were unclear. He just knew what his Memaw told him, and what some of the other kids at school or church would say. He did not trust much of what the kids said, though. Some of them had told people that his dad had killed his mom, and that was not true.

“No, not there. I just came from there, and he weren’t there—You know where else he might be?” Again, the wooden smile. It was like looking at a shallow pool of water on the road, still and clear, covering the mud settled at the bottom.

“No, sir.”

Jim nodded slowly, thinking. “Right, well…” Jim said, and spat on the ground.

Herbert finally decided he did not like the look of the man. It was a combination of his ill-fitting hands, the lanky arms, and the face pockmarked with scars. There was a tinge of guilt when Herbert realized he was judging a man on his appearance. That did not seem fair, but…

“Well, boy, those are some nice shoes,” Jim interrupted his thoughts. Jim looked at them with a tilted head and raised eyebrows.

“Thank you, sir. I–” Herbert replied, and he intended to tell Jim about the pastor’s wife.

Jim cut him off. “You steal those shoes?”

The wooden smile was gone, his face had changed. Herbert realized that the wooden smile was the only thing that had made Jim tolerable to look at. “No, sir. Pastor’s wife gave them to me just a little while ago.”

“Mhmm,” Jim looked coldly into Herbert’s eyes. “That was kind of her.”

“Yes, sir,” Herbert said and gulped. “Very kind. I am sure she is still around the church If—if you wanted to ask her.”

Jim roughly rubbed his hand across the stubble of his chin a few times as he looked back down the road over Herbert’s head. Herbert heard the stubble scrape on his monstrous hands. Herbert wanted to walk away, but Jim was an adult and… “You know your dad is a thievin’ fella, don’t ya?”

Herbert had a snap of rage spark across his mind, but it was extinguished by the very real possibility that what this man was saying was true. “No, sir,” he said flatly. Any cordiality had vanished, and Herbert just wanted the man to leave.

The vile mouth spoke, “‘No, sir’ he isn’t? Or ‘no sir’ you don’t know?”

Herbert realized his own mouth was uncomfortably dry. He tried to swallow, but could not. There was what seemed, to Herbert, to be a long silence.

The hard, ugly face, and Herbert had to finally admit it was ugly, finally softened somewhat. The wooden smile returned. “Oh, now,” he chuckled a little. “Don’t fret, boy. I’m a playin’ with ya.” He kept chuckling. There was a glimpse of yellow teeth in his mouth.

“Oh, ye—yes, sir,” Herbert stammered, and he smiled the best he could.

Jim looked around. “Alright, boy, let your dad know a Jim Riddley was asking for him. Would ya do that?”

Herbert nodded.

“Can you repeat my name?” Jim asked.

“Yes, uhh, Jim Riddley,” he said quietly.

Jim nodded his approval and spat again. “Good, see ya around, boy,” he said as he turned and opened the door to his car. As he climbed inside, Herbert moved out of the way, stepping closer to his house. The car started and then pulled away. He watched the dust rise and fade. Finally, he was forced to look away. His feet hurt; he had to get those shoes off.