Maureen M. Welch
Rivulets of sweat poured down the preacher’s neck as he strode to the barn for his rifle, the boy calling after, “Preacher, please don’t shoot him, don’t shoot Dan!”
“If that mule doesn’t cross the ditch to plow the last patch, I will kill him dead.” The preacher broadcast his edict to a broiling Carolina sky.
The mule sat statue-like, staring to the other side of the ditch, unmoved by the threat of unfolding tragedy, not caring that he was the subject of this heat-charged exchange.
The eight-year-old boy wrapped his arms around the animal’s neck, and pleaded into his ear. “Dan, if you don’t cross the ditch so we can plow, the preacher man will slay you, quoting every line of the Bible while he does. C’mon, boy, I know you’re hot and weary, too. Let’s finish up so we can go home to our good supper. Please, Dan, you are my only, only friend. If you die, I’ll be left alone with them.”
The boy slid down the side of the mule, overall-covered knees sinking into the cracked soil. His one arm clutched his friend as he peeked around the front of his legs in the direction of the farmhouse. Through tears, he saw the tall preacher in the distance, weapon in hand, marching as lord of the righteous.
The boy thought he felt a muscle twitch under his hand. He buried his face in the animal’s side until he could only smell mule.
“I’m begging you, buddy…”
Movement, then hind quarters-up, the mule placidly paced across the ditch.
The boy cried and laughed and shouted in triumph to his holy-roller conservator.
“Lookee here, sir, Dan did just what you ordered! He and I are going to work like lightning to finish this field, yessir. We earn our keep today. Watch us go. No need for more encouragement, sir, thank you!”
Terrorized, he gulped for air.
Rolly woke up, gulping for air. It slowly dawned on him that he no longer was that little boy. He looked around the bedroom of his Florida beach cottage, eventually calmed by the fragrance of confederate jasmine creeping through the screened window. A clock radio shattered the morning until he could reach the side table to switch off its blare.
He put on glasses to read the space above the radio. The beige wall had paint spots missing where appointment cards, medicine check lists, and memos were taped to it, then replaced by other daily notifications. Today’s reminder was on typing paper in outsized block letters:
N. C. HISTORY INTERVIEW
HERE 9:00 A.M.
It was 6:00 a.m. First, chicory coffee, then walk to the beach with Edward. He slowly pulled himself up by the bedside guard rails and examined his open closet. His feet touched the cool wooden floor boards, which he used to be able to mop every day. His toes curled and caressed the heart pine floor. Slipping into threadbare slippers, he muttered and shuffled towards the kitchen.
The kitchen and living room were one; without a false ceiling, the small space looked deceptively open. That openness in the hundred-year-old cottage, nestled on a Florida barrier island is what lured Rolly and Angela Brooks to move from town.
Rolly turned off the kitchen air-conditioner, and wound the jalousie handles to open the back windows. He flipped the switch for the ceiling fans at either end of the room. Turning back, he smiled at an oil portrait of his wife in her youth, a beaming beauty, dark hair piled high. The painting hung between two outsized kitchen windows at the west end of the cottage, always waiting to reflect the cheer of morning light. Rolly directed his conversation to it.
“Sweetheart, you would have me shower. Except for you I would’ve just combed my hair, changed my underwear and splashed a little after-shave for this damn history interview. Should I have last night’s stew for breakfast or fry up that thick bacon? If I must shower and change to a fresh shirt and clean bib overalls, I deserve bacon. Don’t know why they want to interview a ninety-two-year-old anyway. Everything or person from my life is dead, including you, sweet wife!”
He laughed himself into a cough as he put a fire under the percolator. He rooted through the refrigerator for the cornbread his cleaning lady left. It was every bit as tasty as that which his oldest sister, Pearlie May, baked for him whenever she commandeered her tired El Dorado to Florida for a visit.
“Can’t see the carton of eggs anymore for all the casseroles and plastic boxes of food the old biddies bring by. They must think I’m rich or a stud or some hot husband potential. Ha! Now Christine, the cleaning lady: she is young, has a heart of gold, and is an excellent cook. I might give her a tumble if it wasn’t for you, sweetheart, and for the fact that Christine is a lesbium. Here’s the eggs! Want me to save you some hot water in the shower, sweetheart?” Rolly’s voice drifted off.
Rolly turned the kitchen radio to the local news while he cooked breakfast before his morning look at the sea. Feeling good and full, he left the house early, knowing it might be too early for his walking buddy to join them on their daily. Old A1A road edged a small drop-off into the Atlantic Ocean. Rolly paused lingered there for a look, then decided that all was right with the sea today. He needed to hurry home to be ready for that interview. There would be fodder aplenty for his talk-walk with Edward tomorrow.
By 8:50, a white Budget rental car pulled into Rolly’s sandy driveway. A young, overly coiffed, and manicured P. M. Ledford, dressed in a cream-colored suit (short skirt), waved at her interviewee who was visible inside the front screen door. P.M.’s stiletto heels teetered on the rock path to the cottage as she moved like a hummingbird back and forth to her car. She carried a briefcase full of release forms, oral history bank documents, pencils, pens, highlighters; a cell phone; a laptop; a variety of writing tablets. She began her second trip with mic stand, three cables, noise-cancelling earphones, and a heavy sound recorder. The whole while she fluttered, she chattered.
Rolly opened the screen door, moving out, not sure how to address the flurry. He was still a bit stupefied that his interviewer for the North Carolina Library’s Oral History Bank was not a stodgy, retired history professor.
“Morning, Miss, please may I help you carry that heavy stuff?”
Rolly extended his arm and cupped her elbow as her high heels sunk in the sand.
P.M. Ledford appeared not to hear anything the elderly man was saying as he moved down from the porch.
“Good morning, Mr. O’Rolly, I am lost without an assistant, and the accommodations last night, don’t get me started. I couldn’t get here earlier because my hotel was way west of the Interstate. I had hoped to be all set up by now.”
Rolly stared at the whirling woman, still aiming for her attention. He leaned down to make eye contact. He saw her startled expression, made more intense by bright blue eyes staring straight at him, for the first time.
“No need to fret or hurry, we’re not on any clock here in this our Florida island neighborhood we call the Inlet. And it’s Brooks—my surname is Brooks; Rolly is my front name, but everybody calls me Ole Rolly.
He gently took her notebooks from her and placed them on the porch coffee table while she steadied herself.
“Wish you would have asked me about lodging though, there’s a clean, quiet motel down in the Hammock. And, my next-door neighbors are in Maggie Valley for the season. They let me put up family in their place, too. Nice modern house. You ‘d be welcome there. Hand me those big cables now and I’ll plug ’em in inside. If you don’t mind, I like to entertain here on the porch. We’ll prop the screen door open for the plug-ins,” he said.
Rolly returned from inside with two tall glasses of store-bought lemonade. Shocked, he blurted out before he could stop himself, “Not that chair!” P. M. Ledford shot up out of the Queen rattan chair, and grabbed the lemonade glass before it spilled on her suit.
“My apologies,” she said, “I just needed the mic at a regulation distance and this was the closest…” She was now looking at Rolly directly and speaking in subdued tone.
“I’m the one to apologize, Miss. I forgot myself. It was ungentlemanly to raise my voice that way. It’s just this chair is kind of reserved. It was my wife’s,” he said as he rearranged the pillows on it. “Let me pull this rocker over for you—much sturdier anyway. We can move the equipment closer to the railing, if you prefer. If it’s easier, I can bring out my little Casio recorder. It works great. Enjoy your lemonade there and let’s take a breath. And again, please forgive me.”
P. M. Ledford faked a laugh.
“Of course, this chair is fine. Thank you, but sorry, I cannot drink citrus before taping; the voice you know, my essential tool. Also, I want to assure you that my audio ZOOM and TASCAM recorder,” she gestured in a breathless whisper, “are top of the line. And, it is most generous of you to offer accommodations, too, but my travel expenses are provided for me at the distinguished Microtel Inn Business Suites, since I am a Folklorist.” She switched the ON button with a flourish.
Rolly said, “A folkwhat? The letter I got from the North Carolina Library said you were a field worker for the Oral History Bank. And that put me at ease because I was a field worker, too. Back when I was a young’un around Framingham, where momma and I were the only white people picking cotton. We were proud field workers. After Papa died, though, she had to farm me out to a preacher so we could work out our living.”
P.M. Ledford’s eyes grew wide and she switched the ON button to OFF. An attempt at explanation streamed out of her: “Well, to clarify, I move in the world of Folklorism: culture, art, music, history, and our folkways. I hope to work education-wise toward credentials in those subjects.
Through this interviewing job, I hope to cultivate my listening skills. I am told I am a quintessential listener. From this learning experience, I will pursue an advanced degree somewhere in the Research Triangle, probably in the field of public relations, perhaps to serve the governor and/or congress in the hallowed halls at Raleigh.”
Ole’ Rolly was the wide-eyed one now, still standing. He sat down slowly in the rocker and reached for his lemonade.
P.M. Ledford had not taken a breath, so she pivoted to the interview in the same pressured tone. She switched all ON buttons and spoke into the mic.
“We are here on the veranda of the celebrated native North Carolinian, a star radiant with achievements, beginning with his own educational degrees and his local prowess as a horse trainer. Then on to a brave and distinguished career in the military. Once home from the war, he ascended to become a shaker and mover in the insurance industry, and a popular newspaper columnist and writer. He moved to Florida to marry the love of his life, where he developed his gift as an artist, devotee of the school that painted plain air. Now, a highly-acclaimed artist in both oils and water color. But perhaps for all of us out there who aspire to be influencers, his most enviable accomplishment is captured in the newspaper he wrote for. ‘Man with a Million Friends!’ it said under his photo when he retired. I am thrilled to be with him today: Here he is O.L. Rolly! Let’s start off by guesstimating how many followers he has. How many followers do you have on social media, Mr. Rolly?”
“Brooks, ma’am. Just for your Carolina history listeners out there, my surname is Brooks. And thanks, Miss Ledford, for that grand introduction. When you live to be ninety-two, you do meet a lot of people and chock up a lot of experiences, but you can only count true friends on one hand. When I was a child, I only had one friend, Dan, and he was a mule. I know what they call social media, but I’ve never been on Facebook or tweeted on the Tick-Tock clock or anything. I usually write a letter to someone when I feel the need, or call on the telephone. And they do likewise.”
“Oh,” said P.M., a bit deflated.
Silence.
Ole Rolly picked up the slack, “As for my education, I left school at third grade because my mother had to farm me out to a neighbor with a small tobacco plot. I was the youngest of ten, born not long after momma was widowed. In exchange for room and board at a local preacher’s, I plowed the field, planted, and harvested it. It was a common practice for the poor in the south during the 1930s. Never got to know my daddy as he died while I was a baby. But I knew my momma well. She was a Carolina Cherokee and the sweetest woman who ever lived. We lived for a time on the reservation.
After I returned from WWII, I sold insurance door-to-door and worked my way up in the company. Officials there thought I had college degrees in business, and I never spoke to the contrary. I was good at selling things. I became vice president of the agency because I was good at selling. I could talk a good line, sell anybody on anything. . . until I began to question it all. Anyway, I drank away all the money from that success job.
“Oh.” was all P.M. could manage. Another pause, so Ole’ Rolly picked up the slack.
“I do want to clarify about my military time, though. This is important. The veterans saved me. As far as the military goes, I’m popular with the young vets around here because we learned about PTSD at the same time together. My troubles came as a result from driving a Higgins boat, ferrying men to their death in Normandy. I kept driving that death ferry, watching farm boys who never saw an ocean, drown from the weight of their gear in deep water. I saw GIs run up that cliff to a bunker full of gunfire. They kept running up: I kept ferrying them, over and over, until I woke up shaking non-stop in a California military hospital. I received a medical discharge. And you know, darlin,’ after that I lived a lifetime of anger and damage. I hurt those closest to me before I understood that I developed a disease from it, a disease of mind and heart because I delivered those men so long ago to their death.”
P.M. reached forward to press the OFF button on the late model TASCAM. She winced as she removed the headphones.
In a slower cadence, P.M. Ledford said, “Mr. Brooks, would you mind if I took off my shoes? I’m not relaxed, and I think I’m not doing a good job here.”
“Absolutely not, I don’t mind! Want me to rustle us some lunch? I got a cafeteria of pity casseroles in there.”
“No, I’m going to down that lemonade, get on my sneakers and go back to the motel for a re-think. I like listening to you. I’d like to come back. Maybe we could meet again tomorrow? Kind of unofficially. I could bring sausage biscuits from Hardees. No sound equipment. Maybe I’ll bring a pen and notepad.”
“Are you an early riser? Tomorrow is Wednesday, my plein air day. I take a thermos to the corner on the ocean and do a watercolor of Buddy’s old house (rest his soul.) I would love the pleasure of your company. I’ll bring a thermos for you and a camp chair.”
“Please call me Pearl, and I have my own camp chair. I’d love if you taught me about art tomorrow. I saw your paintings from the porch. I especially love the ones of country churches and barns,” Pearl said.
“My sweetheart wife was the love of my life. She nursed me through PTSD and became my art champion because she thought it was good therapy. And it is. It is also a gift I acknowledge that I have. It gives me joy.”
Pearl lowered her eyes. “Maybe you could teach me some about PTSD. It overtook someone very close to me.”
Absolutely yes. How’s he doing?
“Well, as you kindly said of Buddy: “God rest his soul.”
The ocean breezes shifted and moved Pearl’s hair gently loose from her bun. A kind of stillness filled the space between interviewer and interviewee. Their eyes met.
Rolly broke the silence. “Miss Pearl, I think this is the beginning of a wonderful interview.”