Harris and Me Read online

  At the end of the table sat an old man in a wool coat—though it was summer and hot in the kitchen from the wood stove on which the pancakes were cooking—a man so incredibly dirty that it was hard to find a patch of skin on his face or neck not covered with soil or grease. He wore a matted beard—stuck with bits of dirt and sawdust and what looked like (and I found later to be) dried manure and dribbled spit and tobacco juice. All this around two piercingly blue gun-barrel eyes and a toothless mouth.

  Louie.

  I had seen bums in the city looking better and tried not to stare as I moved toward the table. Nobody spoke, just nodded and watched the pancakes cooking, and as I sat Louie took a metal can of Log Cabin syrup and poured it a quarter inch deep in a big puddle on his bare plate. Then he sat forward, as Harris was sitting, and watched the blank spot on the table with a fork in his hand.

  There were two empty chairs and I stood for a moment until Glennis motioned to me.

  “Sit. There by Harris.”

  I slid in next to Harris and assumed the other chair was for either Glennis or Clair. It didn’t matter because neither of them sat nor did I ever see them sit to a meal while I was there. Clair cooked, stood over the stove and cooked, and Glennis carried the food to the table. I know they must have eaten but I never saw them sit down and eat.

  Harris ignored me, kept sitting with the fork in his hand, staring at the middle of the table so that I wondered if he was in some kind of trance, perhaps not fully awake yet. Sleepwalking. God knows I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. There wasn’t a clock anywhere but it felt like it couldn’t be much after midnight and I figured at the rate things were going I’d be ready to go back to bed about ten o’clock in the morning.

  I noted Harris grow even more tense next to me and looked up to see Glennis coming with a stack of pancakes on a plate. They looked delicious, steaming and fluffy, and I felt my mouth start to water.

  I was not to get any of the pancakes.

  Before the plate hit the table, Louie leaned forward like a snake striking and hit the stack of pancakes with his fork.

  At the same instant Harris made his bid, jabbing for the stack with his fork but he was too late by miles.

  The whole stack went to Louie’s plate. Seven or eight of them dropped into the puddle of syrup, hesitated while he poured gobs more syrup on top of them, and then disappeared. With the possible exception of some species of sharks in a feeding frenzy, I have never seen anything eat like Louie. The pancakes were consumed whole. He deftly forked them in the middle, twisted them a half turn, and then speared them back into his toothless mouth letting his lips squeegee off the excess syrup, which then ran down into his beard, some of it to drip back onto his plate. In some wonderful manner he would then open his throat and swallow—all without chewing and only half choking.

  The entire stack was gone in ten seconds flat, and he was sitting again with his fork in his hand, the syrup dripping from his beard down onto his shirt and lap.

  “Rats,” Harris whispered to me, sighed, and leaned back, shook his shoulders to loosen the tension, and got ready for the next batch.

  Knute hadn’t moved, was still wrapped around the coffee cup, and I stared at Louie in open admiration. He was a machine completely devoted to feeding itself. Not a word, no wasted motion—just strike and gone.

  The next stack of cakes was the same except that Harris caught a corner of one pancake—a tattered remnant that he poured syrup on and ate carefully, chewing for a long time.

  Louie ate the third stack as well—so far at least twenty pancakes—but he was slowing, dragged down by food, and when the fourth stack came he hesitated. Harris was ready, went in low and nailed it and put it on his plate—I thought with a low growl in his throat but I couldn’t be sure. Louie didn’t seem to mind and belched softly—a green drifter, the kind of belch that made people move away in a crowded room—and turned, waiting for the next delivery.

  “Harris, you share now.”

  “But Ma...”

  Glennis turned from the stove, leaned across the table, flicked at Harris with the back of her hand, and I heard her fingers connect with his forehead so hard his head jerked back.

  He handed me a pancake.

  “More,” Glennis said. “Half.” She raised her hand and he flinched and complied, although he tore the last one in two with his fork so I didn’t quite get half of the whole stack. I didn’t care. By this time I felt lucky to get anything and dripped syrup from the can onto my cakes—Harris had got to it before me and nearly drained it—and ate quietly.

  Knute still hadn’t moved except to raise his arm and drink the coffee. Glennis refilled his mug twice while we ate and he drained it both times without speaking.

  “Come on,” Harris said. “We’ve got to get the cows in.”

  He had finished eating and pushed back from the table. I still had half my pancakes to go.

  “Let him eat,” Glennis said. “He doesn’t know how to eat fast yet.”

  Harris grew quiet but pulled at my shirt and whispered. “Come on....”

  I ate as fast as I could—envy for Louie’s technique grew strong in me—and still chewing followed Harris out the door.

  Into pitch darkness. I had forgotten that it wasn’t light yet and before I realized it I took a step off the porch and tumbled into the yard.

  “Tarnation! Can’t you even walk?” Harris dragged me up and disappeared in the darkness, headed in the direction of the barn.

  The path proved to be an obstacle course. I tripped on a board lying on the ground, took a header over the yard gate, bounced off a granary wall, walked full on into a tractor, and finally arrived at the barn because Harris had taken pity on me and had at last led me by the hand.

  I did not understand what “getting the cows in” meant. Or why we would want them “in.” By this time I was swearing constantly, using words I had learned from soldiers in the Philippines and pretty much didn’t give a damn (how I thought it) if I ever saw a cow—or Harris, for that matter.

  Harris led me through the darkened barn—the smell of manure stopped me cold—and out the back door where he stopped and stepped off to the side and seemed to be fumbling with something. There was a rustle of paper, another moment of silence, and then a flare as he struck a match and lit a hand-rolled cigarette. He took a deep drag, inhaled, and blew smoke.

  “A man likes a good smoke after he eats. You want one?”

  In the glow from the cigarette he held out a cloth sack of Bull Durham with wheat-straw papers on the side.

  I had never rolled a cigarette, had only tried smoking once—without inhaling—with my mother’s cork-tipped Old Golds. But I wasn’t about to admit it to Harris.

  “Sure—give me one.”

  He had to light four matches to give me enough light to see but I at last got one rolled—a pitiful, lumpy-looking thing that threatened to fall apart. He lit the end of it with the flare from the fourth match and—not to be outdone—I took a deep drag, as he had done, and inhaled.

  The effects were immediate and spectacular. The smoke went halfway down, I gagged, choked, and instantly lost all the pancakes I had eaten in a spray that nearly covered Harris.

  He jumped back. “You don’t know nothing, do you?”

  In back of the barn was a quagmire of manure and urine, chewed into a perpetual muck by the cows, and I dropped the cigarette into this mess and leaned against the barn wall vomiting.

  Harris retrieved the cigarette, brushed the burning end off, and put the remaining tobacco back in the sack. “This is hard to come by. I had to steal it from Louie and he’s got eyes like a hawk. Come on, let’s go get the cows.”

  He moved off in the darkness, walking barefoot across the center of the mud and manure, and I followed without thinking. In two steps I was in over my tennis shoes. I jumped back—cow crap to my knees—and tried to go around. Harris was out of sight in the darkness and I hurried to catch him, still dry heaving at five-second intervals. />
  There was the faintest gray light in the east by this time, and as I came around the side of the mucky area I made out a living form in front of me.

  “Wait a minute. I don’t know where...”

  I was hit directly in the groin with such force that it lifted me off the ground, doubling me. I grabbed for the injured area as I started down, vaguely sensing that I was about to start puking again, and then something slammed into the top of my head and my world ended in an explosion of white light.

  3

  Wherein Harris introduces me

  to work and I meet Ernie

  The voices seemed to come from far away, muffled and through a hissing ring.

  “He doesn’t know things, Harris—you have to go slow with him.”

  “Well, how in the hell was I supposed to know he’d walk right up Vivian’s butt?”

  Smack. “Watch the swearing.”

  “Well, what could he expect? Everybody knows Vivian kicks and doesn’t like anybody around her rear end...”

  “That’s just it, Harris—he doesn’t know. He’s from the city.” I could recognize voices now, though I hadn’t opened my eyes. It was Clair. “He doesn’t know anything about farms, the poor dear. And what a way to start, getting kicked by Vivian.”

  Things were still blurred in my thinking. Somebody named Vivian had apparently kicked me. Hard. I made a mental note never to cross her again. Whoever this Vivian was, she had a very direct form of criticism. It was, however, strange that she would hide out in the darkness in back of the barn next to a pool of cow crap waiting to kick the bejesus out of people...

  I opened my eyes.

  I was in the small dining area next to the kitchen, lying on my back on the table with something wet and white over my head and eyes. I couldn’t see anything.

  “See?” Harris asked. “He ain’t dead. He’s moving—look at that. A big damn fuss over nothing.”

  Smack.

  “If you don’t stop swearing, I’ll take a switch to you.” Glennis’s voice.

  I raised a hand and felt a damp cloth on my forehead and face. At that moment the cloth was lifted away and I was looking up at Clair and Glennis. Harris stood down by my feet. Everybody but Harris had worried looks on their faces and I tried to smile.

  “Are you all right?” Clair asked.

  “I hurt.” I touched my forehead where there was a lump that felt as big as a grapefruit.

  “Yes, I know. Vivian kicked you. It always hurts when Vivian kicks you.”

  “Who’s Vivian—and why doesn’t she like me?”

  Clair smiled. “Vivian is a cow, dear. And she doesn’t like anybody. I believe she’d kick herself if she could figure out how to do it.”

  “Why doesn’t somebody kick her back?”

  Harris snorted. “I tried that once and she damn near killed me...”

  Smack.

  “...Well, she did! I’m just saying what happened. You don’t got to hit me for every little damn thing.”

  Smack. “It’s the swearing, dear. You have to do something about it.”

  Harris turned to me. “You about ready to quit laying around? We’re wasting daylight.”

  I tried to sit up but Clair held me down. “Not yet. Vivian caught you on the top of the head pretty hard. You take it easy for a little while. I’ll get you some pie and a glass of milk and then we’ll see.”

  Actually my head didn’t hurt as much as my crotch but I couldn’t tell her that so I just nodded. “Thank you...”

  “Well, for God’s sake—you’re going to give him pie? For a little thing like that?” Harris shook his head. “Hell, I busted a leg and nobody gave me pie. I’ll go out there and let that old bat kick me all day long if you give me pie for it.”

  The last words were rising in tone because Clair had finally had enough and she grabbed Harris and pulled him across the kitchen counter and pounded on his butt with a steel ladle. He wailed a bit but even I knew he was faking it and could tell that the whipping was having no real effect.

  He ran outside as she dropped him. I rolled to a sitting position and resisted grabbing my groin and sat quietly at the table eating pie, which had a delicious tang that almost made the pain go away.

  “You play slowly today,” Clair told me as she and Glennis moved to the door with buckets, headed for the barn. “Don’t let Harris talk you into anything wild.”

  “I won’t.”

  And the thing is, I believed it. I really meant to take it easy, go slow, but as soon as they were out of the house Harris came in and stood next to me, fidgeting impatiently.

  “Come on. We’ve got lots to do.”

  I followed him out, wiping the milk mustache off my upper lip, curious about the farm. The truth was I hadn’t seen it during the daylight and had no knowledge of what was there.

  Harris led off, headed for the barn where they were still milking. The barn lay about fifty yards from the house and was made of old hewn timbers with a slanted corrugated-metal roof. To the right on the way to the barn was a board-sided granary and attached to one wall of the granary was the chicken coop. In front of the coop was a fenced pen and the pen was full of white young chickens—what seemed to be hundreds of them. There were other kinds of chickens loose all around the yard—fifty or so, pecking at the grass and scratching—and several dozen chicks following different hens, mimicking their mothers. The loose chickens were mixed red and black and spotted white, some with funny feathers on their heads that looked like pom-poms.

  Various machines were lined up in a row beyond the chicken pen. Some I didn’t recognize yet—a mower, rake, seeder, cultivator—but I knew what the tractor was, an old, green John Deere, and there was a tired-looking, caving-in truck with the Ford emblem on the radiator grill. Everywhere there seemed to be odd bits of junk and old machinery—mechanical arms that stuck up in the air, two old bicycles, or perhaps three or four old bicycles (it was hard to tell), rusting rolls of fencing, steel pipe, bits and pieces of old cars; it was like a junkyard.

  Attached to the side of the barn were wooden pigpens, which seemed to be full of living boulders—enormous pigs that could have walked through the flimsy boards whenever they wished, or so it looked—and I was just going to ask Harris what kept them in when he stopped dead.

  “Oh no...”

  I had been following him closely and bumped into him when he stopped. He was scanning the yard and the area around the chickens, looking toward the top of the granary roof, which was to our right, and peering into and under the machinery.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “I don’t see him.”

  By this time I had figured Harris was pretty much invulnerable; it didn’t seem that anything could harm him. But he was clearly concerned and I felt his uncertainty infect me. The hair went up on my neck. “Don’t see who?”

  “Ernie. I don’t see Ernie. It ain’t good when you can’t see him.”

  “Who”—I looked quickly around—“is Ernie?”

  But Harris wasn’t listening. He kept scanning the yard and started walking toward the barn, walking so fast I almost had to jog to catch up to him.

  “It’s bad, me forgetting. It’s ’cause you’re here, of course, and you had to walk up old Vivian’s butt and get a little kick and make me forget to watch... LOOK OUT!”

  He had turned and was looking over my shoulder to my rear and his eyes grew wide. I half whirled, had a fleeting image of wings—huge wings, the wings of death—coming at my face and then Hams grabbed my hair and threw me down on my face out of the way.

  “You feathered pile of...”

  Harris was on his back, then on his hands and knees, and then on his back, rolling over and over, beating at what looked like a giant ball of dust and feathers and wings. This broiling mass of dust and profanity moved in the direction of the granary, bounced against the wall. I saw an arm shoot out of the middle and grab a piece of board and start beating the feathers until the dust settled and Harris was on
his knees, holding the board with both hands, pounding on what seemed to be a tired feather duster on the ground.

  “Damn you, Ernie. I’ll teach you to jump me that way...”

  I had risen to my feet gingerly—half expecting some form of attack from a new direction (it hadn’t been a good morning so far)—and moved to see what Harris was beating on.

  My movement distracted Harris momentarily and as he looked up there was a scurry of more dirt and feathers and his enemy disappeared in a hole under the granary floor. But not before I could get a look at it.

  “A chicken?” I asked. “That was a chicken?”

  Harris stood, threw the board aside, and brushed the dirt from his pants. “Hell, no—it’s a rooster. Ernie. If you hadn’t made me look up I would have killed him, too. He’s been working on me for years. I just hate it when I can’t see him.”

  I leaned down and peered under the granary, saw one yellow eye glaring back at me out of the darkness.

  “He’s got to jump me by surprise. In a fair fight I can whip him, but when you can’t see him... that’s the only way he can get me.”

  Now that the dust had settled I saw that Harris was scratched and tom in several places on his chest and one cheek. “You’re bleeding.”

  He wiped the blood off. “It’s his spurs. He gets to raking with them and it cuts some. I’d like to kill the old thing but Pa, he likes Ernie. Says he’s good to keep the hawks and owls away.”

  I could believe that. I didn’t know anything about hawks and owls but I sure wasn’t going to tangle with him.

  Harris was halfway to the barn and I hurried to catch up—not wishing to be left too close to the hole under the granary floor.

  “We got to separate,” he said. “And we’re late.”

  “Why separate? Is there something else going to come after us?” I looked back, to the sides, half ready to duck.

  “No. Not us, dummy. The milk. I thought I’d give you a chance to learn about the farm and the best way to start is separating.” Harris paused to cough and spit and look away—a sure sign, I would find, that he was lying through his teeth. “The folks said to have you run the separator.”