- Who should I run into the other day over at Paradise
Feed but the Horse Lady? Standing proud but watchful as a couple of the
boys loaded the trunk of her old car with bag after bag of chicken scratch.
-
- "Burl Sr. brought me some chickens yesterday,"
she said. "Couple dozen leghorns he says are good layers. Now I've
got to feed the things!"
-
- "Sounds like a neighborly thing to do," I said.
-
- The Horse Lady snorted like - well, pretty much like
a horse. "I think there was less to it than that. He's rebuilding
his chicken house for turkeys. Said he got a contract with Tyson."
-
- Uncle Ernie came out to the loading dock, waiting his
turn. "Yep, I heard Burl was out of the hobby chicken business and
going all agricorp. Sign of the times, I s'pose."
-
- "Ain't the times that bug me," said the Horse
Lady. She looked Uncle Ernie right in the eye. "It's the people."
-
- One of the loaders slammed the Horse Lady's trunk shut.
It took two tries. "You're good to go, ma'am," he said. Adding,
as everyone at Paradise Feed always adds, a smiling, "Thank you."
-
- "Mmfft," the Horse Lady said, and without another
word she got into the car and drove off.
-
- "What's wrong with her?" the loader said.
-
- "Nothin' that ain't always wrong," Uncle Ernie
replied. "Woman's never been the kindest, gentlest soul. Even when
she was young she had a temper that would make a copperhead cry."
-
- "She's been okay to me and Gwen," I said.
-
- Uncle Ernie shrugged. "Everybody's OK to Gwen the
Beautiful. But the Horse Lady hasn't had a civil word for me in oh, six
or seven years."
-
- I know how little it takes to pry a little history out
of Uncle Ernie. So as soon as the loader went back inside for my three
sacks of 12 percent horse grain, I went right for it. "What happened?'
I said. "What'd you do?"
-
- "Didn't do nothing," he said. "I was just
the messenger, is all."
-
- He bent his knees just a bit, spread his legs, relaxing
and settling in with the memory without having to sit down. "It was
the second week of deer season," Uncle Ernie said. "Jimmy Blue
and I were at the old Wal-Mart, getting us some camo clothes. Turned around
and saw the Horse Lady giving me her wild mare's eye."
-
- "'Going hunting, I see,' she said, and I reckoned
how that was right. 'Don't you come anywhere near my property now, you
hear?'" she said.
-
- "'Why would I want to go all that way?' I said.
'Plenty of woods and deer everywhere.'"
-
- "'Just make sure you don't,' she said. 'I don't
want anything happening to that baby of mine.'"
-
- "And what baby would that be?" I said, and
she got this cloudy look on her face and told me about a fawn she'd been
raising. How she took it in 'cuz it had no mother. How it got too big to
stay in the house anymore, and she'd put it out.
-
- "'He stayed right around the creek for almost a
year,' the Horse Lady told me, 'big and strong and still nuzzling up to
me now and then. But he's been gone for about 10 days. Probably met up
with some doe.'"
-
- "Ten days, huh?" I said. "Same as hunting
season. Seems to me it's too late for you to be worrying about me "
-
- "And, wham, she slapped my face so hard I thought
my upper plate was gonna pop right out. Stomped off faster than I could
blink."
-
- "Ah," I said. "The messenger thing."
-
- "Exactly. The woman wanted to have some Walt Disney
story going on for real, and I went and reminded her it weren't anymore
likely than rain falling out of the clear blue sky. Hates me for that,
she does. Every bit as much as if I'd shot her deer."
-
- I've been thinking about what Uncle Ernie told me. A
short conversation all those years ago. A woman telling her truth. A man
telling his.
-
- Both of these people have lived long, hard lives. Both
of them know what this world is like. But one wanted to change it - in
her mind if nowhere else - to reaffirm life.
-
- And the other couldn't do that. Didn't see the need.
-
- In my truth, both of them were right.
-
- But that's how I need to see it.
-
- It's how I reaffirm life.
-
-
- Copyright C 2007 by Larry Brody. All rights reserved.
-
-
- Author Larry Brody's weekly column, LIVE! FROM PARADISE!
appears on his website, www.larrybrody.com. He has written thousands of
hours of network television, and is the author of "Television Writing
from the Inside Out" and "Turning Points in Television."
Brody is Creative Director of The Cloud Creek Institute for the Arts, the
world's first in-residence media colony. More about his activities can
be seen on www.tvwriter.com and www.cloudcreek.org. He welcomes your comments
and feedback at <mailto:LarryBrody@cloudcreek.org>LarryBrody@cloudcreek.org.
Brody, his wife and their dogs, cats, horses and chickens live in Marion
County, Arkansas. The other residents of the mythical town of Paradise
reside in his imagination.
|
