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Chapter One
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Selah Yates By Deborah Ann Cidboy

“Did he fall from the top?” Ronny Yates knew about oil field accidents, heard about them on the rare occasions his father was at the supper table. A fall from a lower level of a drilling tower might send a man home in a cast, might end his paycheck for several months and force his family onto the dole. But it ought not kill him. “I don’t know. He was killed outright.” Selah Yates leaned against the door jamb, her face turned away from her son so he’d not see her emotions having their way with her eyes and mouth. A scant three inches on the plus side of five feet, a lifetime of standing and lifting had rendered every spare ounce from her frame. Now, the weariness in her voice was reflected in the slump of her shoulders and made her seem even smaller. Her waitress uniform, the same shade of light brown as her hair, had surrendered most of its starch to time and sweat. She was four hours late getting home which in itself required no explanation. She always told Ronny the only way to make any money slinging hash was to work long hours. That and, she once let slip, wear a short skirt. But this time Ronny’s mother wasn’t describing the leftovers she’d brought home for supper. This time she was telling her only child his father was dead.

Ronny knew something of death, remembered his father describing how a roughneck, new on the job, had managed to get himself crushed by a load of pipe being off-loaded from a flatbed truck. Dumb-ass was flatter than a pancake, his father said before tilting his head back to take a long pull on his Falstaff longneck, a drink in honor of the dead laborer. Then he snorted and said dumbass again.

More recently, Ronny had observed the comings and goings surrounding death in a household. Not three months earlier, some old lady one block over had passed away. Just went to sleep and never woke up, he overheard someone say. Within two days there were cars with out-of-state license plates, Oldsmobiles and Mercurys from Oregon and Idaho, places he knew only as shapes on the multicolored map used for geography lessons. He looked past his mother, expected an ambulance at the curb, maybe a police car, some sign to the neighborhood that death had come back. There was nothing except two cans of garbage that hadn’t been picked up. “Where is he?”

“He’d just got hired on, down in Long Beach. The company will bring him up here tomorrow.” Selah stopped herself. “Bring his body, I mean.” She went into the kitchen. Since she’d brought home no leftovers, she rooted around in a cabinet until she found a can of tomato soup. She attacked it with a can opener, spilled some and mumbled a mild profanity, said no more about her dead husband.

Ronny sat at the table and waited. He thought about the appropriate things a son should say and do at a time like this. But they all had to do with being sorry and he’d not yet decided about that. He considered asking some more questions. Maybe someone saw it happen, knew how far the fall had been. Maybe his father said some last words, that would be important to know. His mother, now with her back to him and stirring the soup to keep it from sticking, didn’t look as though she wanted to talk any more about it.

Ronny let his feelings be set by a memory. The year before, on his thirteenth birthday, his father had appeared out of nowhere like he usually did, said he’d finished a drilling job off-shore somewhere. He gave his son a crisp twenty-dollar bill, tickled his ribs until both were out of breath with laughter, sang Happy Birthday way too loud. The next day Ronny’s dad was gone and so was the twenty. Ronny cried despite himself.

This time he didn’t feel inclined to cry. He had concern, confusion, even curiosity within himself. Had his father’s body been broken in some horrible way? Did men with tools in their hands stand around and stare down at him? But grief failed to take hold of Ronny.

Selah put two bowls of soup and half a package of crackers on the table. Ronny tried to make a little joke by slurping his soup but neither of them laughed. Suppertime was usually for catching up with each other, reporting things that happened at work and school. The evening before, his mother had teased him, said someone had seen them together and mistook him to be her brother. Now, they ate in total silence. Neither finished their soup but nothing was said about that.

“What’re we gonna do?”

Selah shook her head. She’d regained most of her composure but worry still shadowed her green eyes and held the normally smooth contours of her face in its tense grip. “I don’t rightly know. Have a funeral, I guess. I got to figure out what comes after that.” She stood, collected the dishes, commenced to make a clatter in the sink.

Ronny retreated to the living room and dropped his skinny self into a chair in front of the small black and white television his mother had won at bingo three years earlier. He watched a puppet with one big tooth respond to the urgings of a lady with a permanent grin. He picked at a pimple beside his nose, stopped when he remembered what the health and hygiene teacher had said about infections and being scarred for life. He got up and dialed through the channels, searched for a man in a suit who would let Ludlow know, Terrell Lee Yates had died in an accident, Ronny Yates had a dead father. But it was too early for the news. He returned to the puppets and the pimple.

The rustle and bump of things being moved around drew Ronny’s attention away from the sing-song chant of the alphabet. He went to his mother’s bedroom to investigate. Three pairs of men’s shoes were piled in a jumble in the middle of the floor. On top of the shoes was a belt with a big buckle. His mother was looking through the closet, pushing clothes aside.

“What’re you doing?”

“Looking for some decent clothes to bury your daddy in.”

“Oh.” Ronny stood with his hands jammed down into his pockets, watching.

Selah held up a white dress shirt Ronny had never seen his father wear. “How about this?”

Ronny shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”

Selah extended the shirt toward her son. “Here, try it on.”

Ronny did not accept the shirt. “What for?”

“You’re about the same size as him. I need to know if it’ll still fit.”

“I don’t want to.”

Selah’s face flushed. “I could use a little help here, Ronny.” She tossed the shirt toward the bed but it missed and fell on the floor. She looked at it but left it there, went back to finding whatever clothes might lend some final dignity to the corpse of her husband.

Ronny picked up the shirt, dusted it off, draped it over the bedpost. He had no notion of how his father might want to look as a dead man. He found it hard enough to keep up with how he looked alive.

Selah put her husband in the ground three days before Ronny turned fourteen. The funeral was attended by the widow, her son, and a representative of the oil company. The company man brought the only flowers, chrysanthemums arranged in the shape of an oil derrick. The graveside service was conducted by a retired chaplain who filled in for a fee when the bereaved had no preacher of their own.

Ronny whispered to his mother while the preacher searched through his pockets for the scrap of paper where he’d written the name of the deceased. “How come Grandpa Looney’s not here?”

“I called the nursing home, but he said he didn’t feel up to it. Him and your daddy never got along all that well.”

Ronny opened his mouth to ask why but the preacher cleared his throat and requested them all to join in The Lord’s Prayer. Ronny didn’t know the words. He bowed his head and listened to the prayer, remained bowed while the rent-a-preacher said something about better times to come in the sweet by and by. Then, Ronny followed his mother back to the black Packard provided by the funeral parlor.

The oil company man caught up with Selah just as she reached the car. He draped his arm around her shoulders and bent his head close to hers. “If there is any way I can help, you just let me know. I’ll give you my—”

Selah pulled away from him and opened the car door. “We’ll be okay. Come on, Ronny.”

Before and during the funeral, Ronny saw his mother cry twice. The first was the day after she told him his father was dead. She came home from the funeral parlor and asked him to sit with her. “I feel like you’ve got a right to know what our situation is.”

Ronny waited, held his tongue and his expression in check.

“Anyway, I went to that funeral home over on Fourth. Maybe I should’ve shopped around but this isn’t something I know much about.”

“Know about what?”

“This business of burying someone. Your father.” She pushed the words out. “That burial policy your daddy had is not worth the paper it’s printed on. It’ll take all of his last paycheck to pay for the arrangements. We can’t afford for him to be dead.”

Ronny noted that his mother’s eyes were filling. He said nothing but did look away while she blew her nose.

The other time was on the way home from the cemetery. Ronny and his mother were alone, encased within the thick upholstery and tinted windows of the Packard. She fretted awhile about the cost of using the car, then took a deep breath. “We’re leaving here. Just start over, somewhere else without these memories.”

“Where we going?”

“Arkansas, I guess. Fort Gamble. That’s where our people came from, on my side and on your daddy’s side.”

“When?”

“Soon as I can raise some money. We won’t be taking much with us.” A tear made a meandering track in Selah’s makeup. “Your grandpa’s going to stay here, in the nursing home.”

“He can’t come with us?”

“He wants to stay here, where your grandma’s buried. Besides, he’s too frail for the trip.” Selah took a compact and a tissue from her purse. She snapped her compact open, dabbed at her face, repaired her makeup. “So, that’s it. You and me. We’ll do the best we can.”

The day after the funeral, Mr. Sanchez came to the door. After some confusion, he got it across to Ronny that he wished to speak to la señora. Ronny went into his mother’s room. She was busy separating her clothes into two small piles, one to keep and one to be gotten rid of. “That Mexican from down the street wants to talk to you.”

“I’m busy. What’s he want?”

“To talk to you.”

Selah sighed and tossed a bra with a small stain onto the keeper pile. She went to the front door. “Yes? Sí?”

Mr. Sanchez said something in Spanish and gestured toward the Ford pickup parked at the curb.

Selah’s voice brightened. “Oh. Sí. I’ll show it to you.” She walked in the direction of the truck and Mr. Sanchez followed her. Ronny came out of the house but Selah frowned and motioned for him to stay back.

The day before the funeral, a man from the oil company returned their dead employee’s truck to Ludlow and parked it in front of his widow’s house. Selah spoke with the oil company man about the value of trucks and, as soon as he left, placed a For Sale sign in the windshield. Now, Mr. Sanchez pointed at the price hand-written on the sign and nodded. Without hesitation, Selah returned his nod and extended her hand. Mr. Sanchez lightly gripped three of her fingers between the first and second joint for maybe a second, then dropped her hand. He turned to the pickup, patted its shiny hood, took a roll of money from his pocket and handed it to Selah. She took the money, did not count it, slipped it into the pocket of her jeans. Then, she spoke haltingly in broken Spanish, twice waving in the direction of the house. Mr. Sanchez said something but Ronny could not hear it.

Selah returned to the house. Ronny was sitting on the door step. “Get your bicycle and put it in the back of the truck.”

“Why?”

“I told him he could have it.” She continued before Ronny could say anything. “We won’t have room for it on our trip.”

“How much did you get for it?”

Selah took a breath. “I told him it goes with the truck. Go get it.”

Ronny remained seated. “It oughta be worth something. It’s my bicycle. Daddy bought it for me.”

“No, he brought it home to you. I paid for it with tip money.” She looked over her shoulder at Mr. Sanchez, who was looking at the ground. “That doesn’t matter now. I should’ve asked you. I’ll make it up to you.”

“You didn’t give away the TV. You got paid for that.”

Selah narrowed her eyes and tightened her mouth. “Ronny, get the bike. Now.”

When Mr. Sanchez saw Ronny rolling his bicycle slowly toward the curb, he went to the back of the pickup and lowered the tailgate. As soon as Ronny was within hearing Mr. Sanchez nodded, not smiling, and said “Muchas gracias.” He lifted the bicycle into the back of the truck and closed the tailgate. Moving more quickly, he got into the truck, started the engine and did a U-turn toward his own house.

Selah studied her son’s sullen expression. “He’s a good man, paid my price, no haggling. I’ve seen a boy about your age down there. He’ll probably appreciate having that bicycle.”

Ronny spoke as he brushed past his mother. “Yeah, I’ll bet he will. One of his buddies tried to steal it a coupla weeks ago.”

Selah raised her voice, sent it in pursuit of her son. “I’ll make it up to you, Ronny. I promise I will.” She followed him indoors, but he had gone into his room and shut the door.

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jimmy carl harris

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