Page 16 of Harman

“Did you come around this morning and get those apples that I wanted you to take to the pig farm, Tony? If you were busy this morning, you should have told me. I would have found someone else. They probably could have used the ten dollars more than you anyway.” Cody stood up and moved over to where the two of them were. “Well, hello, young man. I didn’t see you there.”

“Mrs. Griffin, I can take care of those apples for you. Mr. Arbon said that pigs will eat anything, including people.” Mom told Cody that she’d be happy for him to take them as Tony was too busy watching the streets. “How many bags do you have? I bet you made some delicious jelly with them. Mom says you make the best apple jelly from them worn-out apples of anyone she knows.”

“Thank you, Cody. That was very sweet of your mom. While you’re at the house, make sure that you pick up a couple of jars of it. There some—oh, I have so many things scattering around in my brain that I have to get done. Would you mind working for me? I don’t just mean today, but, well, all my workers are married now with kids, and it will fall on me to get the house looking good.” He told his mom she was making him seem like a lazy ass. She laughed and told him that this was a good cause. That he should make his way to the Bank’s home and figure something out there. Mom was still talking to Cody, guiding him away from the streets to her home. He’d have a pocket full of money before the end of the day and more than likely fixings for dinner. Tony loved his family so much.

The next family member that sat next to him was his baby brother Stone. He looked worn out. Asking him if he was all right got Stone looking up and down the street like he was being chased or something.

“Women are coming out of the woodwork after me. One of them actually told me that this is their last chance of snagging a wealthy husband in me, and they’ll all clamoring to get a piece of me. Like I’m the prized cow or something.” Tony laughed, and Stone told him that it wasn’t funny. “Everywhere I go, there are a herd of them. Waiting with food in their hands. I know how to cook, damn it.”

“It’s part of that old saying. You know it. The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. That’s what they’re hoping for, that you’ll pick them because of how well they cook.” Stone told him that was stupid. “Yet here it is going on. When do you start school back up? I know that you’ve been on Spring break. Won’t be too much longer will it? You’ll be safe in the school. Right?”

“You’d think that. But no. They come there with the pretense of talking about their kid’s grade. Ms. Marbel doesn’t have kids, not only not in my class but even in school anymore. I tell you, it’s like I have a target on my back when I go out.” Tony laughed, and the two of them started down the street. “School is going to be out another week. We have too many school days left over, and they’re wanting to use them. I don’t know why that would be an issue, but the board said that we can’t teach too many days or we’ll get in trouble. I miss my four walls.”

“I need some help. Not really help so much as I need advice. Harman asked me to look at a building that he’s thinking of buying. He needs one for writing space. According to him, there is too much going on at home for him to write. I think that it’s because he’s forever chasing his wife around the house and forgetting about working. I do the same thing. That’s why I no longer work from home. Too distracting.” They both laughed, and Stone said he was actually looking forward to that someday. “She’s out there. I swear it. And when she comes around, you’re going to be knocked for a loop, and that will be the end of you being chased around by strange women.”

The little house that he was thinking about for his brother would have been perfect for an elderly couple or one just starting out. It had two bedrooms, which was one of his requirements, and a kitchen. The other rooms, while they would be good for the space, he didn’t really need them. As they walked around the room, Tony enjoyed the views from the windows, wondering if that would be a distraction, too. It would be for him.

“There’s even cable running in here. I believe that its central heating and cooling is gas too. That’ll be nice. I love gas heat. Gets my toes warm faster.” Tony rolled his eyes at his brother as he went from furnace grate to grate, testing the heat coming from it. “I’m seeing if the heat is disturbed well. Like the ones over the furnace, will they be hotter while the rest of the house is cooler? You have to know these things.”

“Yeah, sure. I’m sure that Harman is worried about getting too hot. As if any of us worry about that.” Stone said that was a good point. “Moron. I have to admit that I do love this tiny kitchen. He can have a nice lunch made without having to travel home or out. Sometimes, I forget to eat when I’m working on a large project. Also and this might be me remembering wrong, but doesn’t he have like a million books? They’d be nice all shelved up in the living room. Take up the carpet and put in wall-to-wall bookcases. In there, he’d even have someplace to sit and read them if he wanted.”

Even though he’d not called his brother to okay the house, Tony decided that if Harman didn’t like it, then they’d find someone else who could live in it. Visiting relatives would enjoy having a nice little place if they were visiting their families with a bunch of young ones. Getting away might be the difference of getting invited back next year.

Just as they were leaving, him having called the realtor to pull it off as a listed place, Harman joined them. And his shirt was on inside out. Stone got to point it out to him before he could, but he loved the embarrassed look on his brother’s face.

Harman walked around the little house with them then. Both he and Stone pointed out the things that they’d thought of around. When he said that it would be perfect, Tony thought that his brother would be about moved in before the ink dried on the deed.

Going to three more buildings that he’d been looking at, his brothers Edwin and Garfield joined them. Jeffery, who had been working with something hush-hush, joined them at about the time they were making dinner plans. Tony knew that his wife was taking the kids to their favorite place tonight, and he would have had to eat alone. This was so much better.

“Why don’t we call Dad. See if he wants to have dinner with his boys. I’m sure he’s not too busy to do that.” Edwin said that he’d call him and make sure that he came with them. Tony called the local restaurant and made the reservations for the seven of them. Tony told him that Harman was with Dad and that he was coming in. He couldn’t remember the last time that Dad and his brothers had dinner together. This would be epic.

They were just being seated when Dad brought up the Banks boy. He was telling them that Mom had pushed him out of the house right in the middle of a project to have the boy do it.

“It wasn’t as if I didn’t want to do it. I was already nearly finished. Then she picked up my screwdriver that I was using to put the last screw in and took about half of them out. Women are a little bit of a screw loose, too, if you were to ask me.” Tony laughed and told him what was going on. “He was going to kill himself? Well, that’s a different can of worms altogether. The kid can only be about ten or twelve.” Stone said that he was fourteen, and that got them all to thinking.

“I have an idea that when he overheard his father saying that he was worth more to them dead, he was thinking insurance. I’m betting right now that none of them have insurance now that they’re out of work, too. I’ll have my wife look into that for them.” Tony thanked his brother for that. “No problem. I want to help, too.”

The rest of the evening was spent talking about the changes around the town since it started growing up around them. The biggest change was the buildings. Of course, that would be it. Trees, too, that they planted along the main drag were so big that the county was thinking that one or two of them needed to be taken down, they were that old.

“Remember that old trading man? The one that would come around with his wares once or twice a month? I was in the cemetery the other day, Mr. Harper’s momma died, and I was there for that, but I found his headstone. Got me to thinking about all the things that are different.” Edwin asked if he’d been the man who had been kicked in the head by his horse. “It was my mule that kicked him, but yes, that’s him. He couldn’t be told what to do without some kind of backtalk. So when he went ahead and stepped into the street behind my mule, he was dead before he landed across the street. The reason that I bring that up is one of his daughters, Lilian June had herself seven daughters, remember them?” Every one of them groaned when Dad asked.

“There was never a group of women born that wasn’t as homely as they were. Nor were that all that nice if I remember correctly. One of them was as big as me. Nearly seven feet tall. And hands? Good lord, they could pick up a grown man by reaching out and grabbing his head without any trouble. Why did you ask Dad?”

“I was contacted by one of her great-granddaughters the other day. She and her family want to come into town and have a memorial for the man who started it all. Old Taterhead Blue was his name. She asked me if I ever knew his first name, and it took me until today to remember it. Sebastian. Sebastian Blue. But he was called Taterhead for nearly all his life, I think. It’s even on his headstone out there.” They talked about more people that had gone through their lives after that. Trying, Tony thought, to outdo the one that had the best memory.

“Dad, tell the story about how Harman got his first name. I think that will top all the other stories.” Harman looked at him and asked what he was talking about. “You were named after one of the biggest characters ever born. Just let Dad tell it. It’s a good story.

“Well, now, let me think on it a bit. I want to get the story set like it was back then. Boy, oh boy, that was a deep memory for me. Hadn’t thought of it in a long time. All right. I have it now. It was just before you were born, Harman.”

~*~

Charlie could see it all in his mind’s eye. The street hadn’t had a good rain in a long time, so it was spitting up dust every time something blew over it. Just a mess, he told his sons, a right mess all the time.

“We’d get these little spurts of rain that would make it worse. Then, the dirty rain would stick to everything a person owned. Even the horses were sick of being dirty and dusty all the time. Then came along Wayne Harman. I think that was his name, wasn’t it, Edwin?” He said that it was. “Had him a wife, too, but she didn’t stay long. To this day, we don’t know if she left town on her own or if Wayne sent her home. But she was just gone one day.” Charlie had always thought, to himself, that he’d killed off his wife by accident one day, and that had been the end of her. “His clothing wasn’t cleaned up anymore. That was the first clue. But she was just a tiny little thing. About five foot nothing and about as big around as my leg. I swear to you, I never seen a couple more opposite of each other than those two. Him a big honking man, and her this stick wife woman. Anyway.”

Charlie still had bad dreams about what had happened that morning. He told his sons, not at all ashamed that he’d shed a few tears when Wayne had met his death. But before getting to that, he told them about how he’d become a character.

“He’d paint his face. Whatever suited him that day, he’d be all painted up and come into town on his little bitty horse. I swear I heard that poor pony sigh every time he would get on him and off. But he always had a carrot or two for it, and I guess it didn’t mind so much.” Dad laughed. “The day before he passed on, he’d come into town as a clown. Now, I want you to imagine about the ugliest clown you’ve ever seen just coming into town with his face all painted up white and a big nose. Didn’t have a tooth in his head either. That sort of put some people off, but not the kiddies. They just loved him.” Edwin spoke then.