Chapter 1

1968

Bobby looked at his list. He had four customers now, for his impromptu handyman business, which had started, quite by accident, when he repaired the drain in Tilly Johnson’s kitchen sink. She had a friend, with some rotten boards on her porch, who she recommended Bobby to. He had fixed those boards, at which point the woman engaged him to do a few other things. She had a friend too, whose husband was a traveling salesman, and who needed a man around to do little fix-it repairs. She had a friend too.

It was high summer, the year following when Bobby had lost his innocence. Tilly had given birth in June to a baby that she and Jake were inordinately proud of — she, because she said it was a gift, and Jake, because everyone thought that he was the father, and now looked at him with more respect. He’d brightened up a good deal, and now went out with Tilly from time to time.

The crop in the field was doing fine and would be ready to harvest in a couple of weeks, and Bobby had time to do a few short chores, and earn a little more money towards a car.

It was that friend of a friend of a friend who Bobby was about to visit for the first time. Her name was Martha Thompson, and Bobby knew her from seeing her around at town events.

Bobby remembered Martha as a tallish woman with broad shoulders. He had looked at her more as an adult than as a woman, back then. Noticing women as ... women ... was something he began doing quite routinely after Tilly took his virginity, and then got pregnant by him. But he hadn’t seen Martha around since he had started looking at women differently. He didn’t exactly think about that. He’d worked for two women after Tilly, and nothing sexual had happened at all. He hadn’t gone to either house with sex on his mind, but he had evaluated the women as potential sexual partners. After Tilly, every woman seemed to be a potential sexual partner. But only potential.

So, when Martha opened the door and smiled at him, Bobby noticed several things. He noticed her smile, first. It was friendly and open, and her eyes held none of the wariness that some of the people in town had when they looked at one of “those” kids ... the kids of a woman known to have had Joe’s babies. Then he noticed her breasts, which were large and pillowy under the gray dress she was wearing.

Then he noticed that she had noticed him ... noticing her breasts. When his eyes came back up to her face, hers were pinned on his.

She didn’t say anything, but he felt heat on his cheeks as he realized he’d been caught looking where a gentleman doesn’t look ... at least not when someone else can see him looking.

“So, are you ready to work?” asked the woman. He’d never talked to her before, and her voice was lower ... richer than most other women he knew.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he said. “What do you need done?”

“I’ve got a pear tree out back that split down the trunk in a storm last spring. I hoped it would heal up, but half of it needs to come down or I’m afraid the whole thing will die. I love those pears, but they’re so heavy it’s pulling the trunk apart.”

Bobby followed her, watching her generous behind move under the gray dress. It looked big, but hard too. Bobby wondered how old this woman was. He didn’t have the kind of experience that would tell him that. In his mind, he compared her to Tilly. Tilly wasn’t even twenty-five yet, and was still slim and athletic. She was athletic in bed too. This woman had more flesh on her body, and her hair was pulled back in a pony tail, something unusual in that micro-culture of America. Most women pinned their hair up with bobby pins. He liked the hanging hair behind her head, though. He liked how it bounced as she walked. She looked strong.

“I’ve got a saw out in the shed,” she said over her shoulder, as she led him out the back door.

“Okay,” he said.

She pulled open the slat-board door of a rickety looking unpainted shed, and peered inside. She pointed toward one corner.

“I think it’s back there,” she said. “I’d look for it myself, but I’m just deathly afraid of spiders. Would you find it?”

“Sure,” he said carelessly. He went in, and let his eyes adjust to the dusty darkness. He saw a one-man crosscut saw hanging on a nail, but had to climb over a pile of boards, and a wheelbarrow to get to it. He saw the teeth were rusty, when he pulled it down.

“Got a file?” he asked.

“Maybe in there,” said Martha, leaning into the shed to point to an old dresser, in one corner.

Bobby pulled drawers open to find a mixture of tools. He found a file in one. It didn’t have a handle on it, but when he ran his finger across the ridges, they felt sharp. There was a broom in the corner too, and he took it and swept it all over the dresser, walls, and floor nearby.

“Won’t be any spiders around now,” he said. “I’m going to need you to hold the saw, while I sharpen it.”

“Oh ... all right,” she said.

She stepped gingerly into the shed, trying not to touch anything. Bobby laid the saw on top of the dresser, with a foot of the teeth hanging off, and told her to hold it down. She did, and he started addressing each tooth with the file.

“It’s hot in here,” said Martha, lifting a hand to wipe sweat off her brow.

“Yes Ma’am,” said Bobby, not really paying attention.

“You make me feel like an old woman, calling me Ma’am like that,” said the woman, her voice chiding.

“I’m sorry,” said Bobby. “It’s just manners.”

“Well, I’d like it if you called me Martha instead.”

He grinned. “Okay, Martha. I’ve never known a Martha before.”

While he finished addressing the teeth, she asked him questions about how his sisters were doing, and his mother. He replied without thinking, paying attention to the file, and the tooth he was working on. When he was done, his shirt was dark with sweat.

It was bright outside when they left the shed and Bobby was better able to see that all the teeth were now shiny and sharp.

“It feels better out here,” said Martha, fanning herself, “even if it is sunny. At least there’s a breeze.”

“You could just wait in the air conditioning,” said Bobby.

“We haven’t bought one yet,” said Martha. “I guess we’re just used to fans.”

She took him to the tree, which had grown two trunks early in life. Bobby could see the split where the trunks were pulling apart. The branches of the tree were heavy with greenish yellow fruit. He walked around the tree, looking at it from several directions.

“You know,” he said. “I have an idea that might save this tree.”

“Really?” Martha sounded excited.

“Back in those drawers,” he said, pointing at the shed, “I saw some eye bolts. They were pretty long ones. If I drilled holes in both trunks, about ... there,” He used the four foot long saw to point high up on one trunk, “we could run wire between them, and twist it, to pull the trunks back together. Then we could slather tar on the injury, so water and bugs couldn’t get in. It might heal, then.”

“Why, how clever!” yipped Martha. “I never so much as thought of doing anything like that. Do you think it would work?”

“I don’t really know,” said Bobby. He looked at the tree. “Both sides seem to be healthy right now. We don’t really have anything to lose, trying.”

“Well I suppose you’re right,” said Martha. “I’m so glad Jenny told me about you. You’re smart as a whip!”

They returned to the shed, and retrieved the eyebolts. There was an old wooden ladder lying against the shed, in the back, and they set that up too. There was no drill though.

“I’ve got one at home. I’ll run get it,” said Bobby.

When he returned, with the Yankee type hand-cranked drill and a gallon bucket of roofing tar, Martha steadied the ladder while he climbed up and drilled the first hole. He slipped in the eyebolt, put a large washer on it that he’d also brought from home, and then the nut. Then, they changed sides of the tree and did it all over again. Now all they needed was heavy wire. They found nothing in the shed.

“How about my old clothes line?” she asked. “I don’t use it any more, since we got an electric dryer.”

“Perfect,” said Bobby, and followed her to the back fence, where the sagging old clothes line was. Rather than try to unwind the ends of a wire from the T pole, which was embedded in the ground, Bobby just filed through it. It was as thick as a nail.

Back at the tree, they had to move the ladder back and forth, as the wire was threaded through the eyebolts to form a circle of wire, which Bobby twisted together, bending the ends back so they caught each other. Taking a foot long length of one-by-two lumber from the shed, he slipped it between the two strands, in the middle, and began twisting the wire with the board. He could see the wire tighten and shorten as it twisted. Looking down, he called to Martha.

“Step back and tell me when you think I’ve gone far enough.”

She left the ladder, and walked twenty feet away, shading her eyes with her hand. He kept twisting.

“How ‘bout now?” he yelled.

“I don’t know,” she said helplessly. “Why don’t you come down here and look.”

When he started to let go of the board, he realized the wire was trying to untwist, making the board spin backwards. It didn’t go all the way, but it definitely loosened a lot. He’d have to think about a way to solve that problem. He climbed down and went to where Martha was standing. The branches needed to come in at least two more feet. He sensed the board would break before he could apply that much pressure, so he returned to the shed, where he found an old child’s wagon, with a missing wheel. He worked on getting the axel off, and took it back. He also grabbed a roll of quarter inch rope that he’d seen in a drawer.

Taking it back, he asked, “Can you tie a slip knot?”

“Mercy me, no,” she laughed. “I can barely tie my shoes.”

“Okay, then, for what I’m thinking of doing, somebody’s going to have to tie a knot. Can you climb the ladder?”

She looked up, and nodded. “If you’ll hold it I can.”

He told Martha how to insert the metal rod through the wire, to replace the board, and tied a slip knot in the end of the rope. He had her hold the rope in her teeth, and climb the ladder, while he held it steady.

It was as she did so that he happened to look up her dress.

What he saw first were pale buttocks, under the dress. Then, as she lifted a foot, he saw her pink slit, lying just behind a puff of dark hair. She was looking up, and didn’t see him staring.

He watched, sometimes her hands, and sometimes up her dress, as she inserted the metal rod and began copying what she had seen him do.

“Okay, stop!” he called up. “I’m going out to look, so don’t move.”

She stood frozen, as he backed up and eyed the trunks. He went back and held the ladder again.