Chapter 11

05:30 August 26, 1983

I woke at my normal time, only today I wasn’t the only one up. Pap-pap was sitting at the table in his coveralls. He was drinking a cup of coffee and eating a big bowl of oatmeal. It was what he had for his first breakfast every day. Something filling to help get him started on the morning chores. I grabbed a cup and got my coffee. I skipped the oatmeal. I could wait for Granny to fix breakfast later. I was dressed as normal in my gym clothes.

“Interesting outfit for farm work, Harrison.”

“My normal morning attire while I’m here. I’ll do the milking, feeding, and gathering the eggs for Granny. Then I have my morning routine to complete. I’m gonna run to the hard road and back. If I remember correctly, that’s just about a mile each way. Then I have some exercises to do. Don’t reckon there’s a pole somewhere tall enough for me to do some pull-ups on?”

Pap-pap rubbed his face as he thought for a minute. “Only thing I can think of is you could maybe use the old poles your Granny’s laundry lines are strung on. Bit thicker, but they might work iffen you bend your knees once you start. I’ll look at rigging you something in the barn later today.”

“Granny and I watched the news report last night, Harrison. You weren’t kidding about what you could do, were you? You could have killed those boys easily, couldn’t you?”

I looked around to see if Granny was up. When I didn’t see her I nodded. “I told you Pap-pap, the Navy, they trained me well. I just wish I’d let myself take a couple of hits so it didn’t look so one-sided.”

“To hell you say! Son you may be trained well, but those young men were much bigger and stronger than you. I’m just an old farmer, but even I know you never give the enemy a chance to hurt you first. What was it you told me the other day? ‘Whatever was necessary, regardless of the consequences’. That’s what you said, Son. Has that changed?”

I shook my head. “No, Sir. But if I’d looked like I’d been in a fight, I might not be walking on eggshells waiting to be arrested for attempted murder.”

Pap-pap shook his head. “When you decided to take on the Buckleys, you were bound to end up in this legal battle. That Glenn Buckley treats Angel Falls as his private piggy bank and kingdom. Sure as a bear shits in the woods, you were bound to be accused of something.”

I nodded. “The problem is that I don’t look like a victim. I look like I jumped them from an ambush. While technically that is true, in that I was highly trained and took that ashwood staff as an equalizer, it’s the fact that I don’t have any injuries that almost landed me in jail. It still might. It all depends now on what story Kent and the boys tell. They’ve had a whole night to come up with a story.”

“Yep, but you have the recording from your lawyer of both you and your girl. I don’t think little Harriet will buy into Buckley’s tale. At worst, she might hit you with a couple of misdemeanors to appease the Mayor. Or she might go after them for what they put your girl through.”

I drained my cup as Pap-pap stood and put his cup on the counter and his bowl in the sink with water in it. I followed him and set my cup beside his. We’d use them again when we came in for our official breakfast. “Mom will be here later this morning. I have that meeting at the school and then I’m going to pack up my stuff in town. You might plan to come out with the truck before four o’clock, so we’re gone by the time Dad gets home. I need to empty my account too. All my wages from last week are in it. I’ll use that to open a new account elsewhere. I have to deliver the paper this afternoon too. Plus, I need to find out where Mr. Snodgrass put my staff. I may need it again. My boss, Mr. Olsen, reminded me that Kent has two more flunkies out there. They’re on vacation right now. But with school starting on the third, they’ll be back soon and looking for payback.”

“When you stir up a shit storm, you stir up a big un, don’t you Son?”

I smiled as I broke away to head for the barn. Pap-pap would go to the equipment shed and fill the tractor. He had hay to mow today. “You know what they say Pap-pap.”

He stopped and looked at me.

I smiled again. “Go big or go home.”

He laughed as he walked away. Slapping his cap on his hip as he went.

I milked the cow. Then I grabbed a bucket of mixed chicken feed, which consisted of corn and the inside of green beans, with some crushed-up eggshells. I opened the chicken coop and tossed the feed to the far side. Then took the empty bucket and collected all the eggs. Once I had those I filled the water pans and headed for the kitchen with a pail of milk and a bucket of eggs. I’d collect the slop for the three pigs and would fill their trough before I started on my run.

Granny smiled as I sat both pail and eggs on the counter. “Thank you, Harrison. Breakfast will be ready in about an hour.”

She was kneading bread dough so I knew that she’d already made drop biscuits. I would have to be careful not to eat too much of a hearty farm breakfast. However, learning to cook from Granny would be a good start. “Granny, before I go and complete my morning routine of exercises, I talked with Mom about the dietary needs I have now trying to get into shape. To get fit and healthy. She mentioned that it would double the grocery budget. I told her I would get a job to cover the extra cost and would even cook for myself if she taught me how. I need to eat lean proteins, like chicken breast and fish, more than pork or red meat. I also need healthy steamed veggies with an abundance of leafy greens like kale and spinach. Can you teach me how to cook those things? Baked, broiled, or grilled, not fried? Veggies steamed tender, not boiled or covered in cheese or cream sauces? Stuff like that?”

Granny laughed. “You want me to teach you to cook healthy? You do know that we’re southern, right boy? I can do the things you are asking, but do you want to do without the food you grew up on for this new healthy kick you’re on?”

“More than that, you want me to turn you loose in my kitchen to make these healthy things? How about I just cook them for you for now, and we worry about teaching you before you graduate from High school?”

“That could work as well. I was supposed to meet with Ms. Polly from ‘At Home with Ms. Polly’ after my school meeting. She thought maybe a segment on her show once a month cooking and learning how to run a household for young men might appeal to her audience. Something they could show their male children.”

My Granny laughed at that. “Ms. Polly said she could learn you to cook? That’s rich. I know that girl. Her mama and I grew up together. That young woman can’t cook water without burning it!”

“The secret to Ms. Polly’s hit show ain’t Ms. Polly, it’s her assistant, Sharlotte Craig. Now Sharlotte is a real southern gem. She does all the cooking and explains things to the producer and Ms. Polly. If you go on that show you’ll see Sharlotte does the cooking and then they stick a spoon or knife or fork in Ms. Polly’s hand and she reads her lines off cue cards.”

“How Ms. Polly teaches Home Ec is beyond me. How any young woman comes out of that class knowing which end of the spoon to use, is the question. You get Sharlotte Craig to teach you to cook. Then you’ll know what you are doing.”

After that conversation, I kissed my Granny on the cheek. I wondered if going on Ms. Polly’s show was the best idea for me. For now, I put that on the back burner and let myself get lost in the rhythm of my feet as I started running up the long drive of the farm to the blacktop. It was one mile each way. I ran two miles yesterday because I was trying to outrun my past. If I could get myself back in that same place, that quiet place where I just moved and didn’t think, I should be able to keep doing two miles for the week. I’d add more the following week.

I hated the thought of not having Mr. Snodgrass to work out with, but he would probably be better off without me slowing him down. I had to let go of town life even if I couldn’t let go of Amaryllis. I live on the Parker Farm now. I wasn’t a townie anymore, I was a farm boy. Just one of the unexpected changes that my altering things brought to my life. My falling out with Dad came years ahead of my first time. It wasn’t until after he sold the farm that we’d originally had a blowout.

Unlike this time, that fallout had come to physical blows. My anger got the best of me when he betrayed Pap-paps memory and expressed wishes, and dumped Granny in the care home. That was another thing I would see undone. This time, I would ensure he couldn’t get his hands on the farm or move Granny to the home where she died. If I could, I’d find a way to improve both her and Pap-pap’s health, and maybe cheat death for a little bit.

I somehow slipped into the same mental space as my feet beat the rhythm of my running cadence. I wished I had a Walkman or iPod, the latter of which hadn’t even been invented yet. But a good driving beat would have been ideal to run to. Instead, I fell back on the old military cadence. I remembered some of the old rhythms we used when marching and running in formation.

My feet fell into the cadence, my mind calling out the rhymes as my feet followed along. I had just started back to the house where I would walk a circle between the porch and the barn to cool down before settling into my calisthenics, the burpees, crunches, and pull-ups; when I heard and saw a familiar-looking car coming down the drive. It seems like Mr. Snodgrass had come to make sure I wasn’t slacking off out here in the country.