The Aural Tradition

My first memory of the old man's face was the same as my last; an out take from an old Polaroid, taken from a distance. Over exposed in the August Kentucky sun, late afternoon. He was caught a few steps away from the outhouse, mid-stride with a raised hand and a wide toothless grin. Same yellow button up shirt, same patchy scruff with chaw spiddle.

He moved slow, but looked pretty good considering the years of swinging a scythe in someone else's wheat fields, of days in the rail yards, of holding up his fists to back up his big mouth.

“How do you like that pretty good beer?”

“It's pretty good.” I said. “But the glass has...there's chunks of something stuck on the bottom.”

He said “That's the best cold water could do.”

The chair let out a rusty squeak as he leaned back and arranged his legs into his bullshitting posture. We didn't say anything for a few minutes, the drone of dog-day cicadas interrupted only by his occasional sips. Not just the slurping, but the gasped “ahh” that followed each.

Soon the slurping beer and swallows were the only sound I could focus on. Slyly staring from the corner of my eye, the exhale of satisfaction became more comical. Finally I had to laugh out loud. “Sounds like you think it's pretty good too.”

“Well, that's whatcha get when you go without teeth.” He checked the pot warming by the fire, whistled a quick high note from the heat, and dropped the cast iron lid back in place. “About another twenny, I figure.”

He said getting his teeth knocked out goes back to when he hopped a freight train to a carnival a couple counties over. They paid out twenty-five dollars to anyone who could stay upright in the ring, for five minutes, with their strong man. On the ride out, his mind played back every fight he'd ever been in. Like the land owner in a dispute over a day's wage, the two heavies he'd poked with a pocket knife when they tried to dangle him out a second story window, all the way back to the school yard bully that deserved everything he got. “Despite the way the sunlight looked, washing over the fields Id be working in the next morning, I had a knot in my stomach and no one to talk to about it.”

He got up and lifted the lid again, this time using his shirt cuff. He dug out a couple big scoops of thick soup into a cracked bowl, made by his father in some small town pottery, and handed it to me. It no sooner hit my hands than I was jumping to find a cool spot on the side. Turns out the cool spot was also sticky.

“It's gonna be hot.” he said as he scooped out some for himself into a matching bowl.

“There's...there's still some stuff on the bowl, did you wash these first?”

“Yeah.” He said, sitting down again, “that's just the best cold water could do.”


Anyway, he said the strong man beat him up pretty bad. He ended up spitting out a few teeth in the ring, probably swallowed the others. He took a big bite of soup and started gumming a hot potato, cooling it through his words. “Big son-of-a-bitch. I just had to stay outta the way of his haymakers, wait till he give out, but he still hit me plenty. I'm sure he was looking out through one eye for a few days after, but damn...I thought he was gonna kill me. Don't know if anyone woulda stopped him or not.”

With two broken ribs he managed to get on a train back home, thanks to a hand from a few guys already on. The lurching freight car's rocking motion as it snaked through the hills would normally put him to sleep, but with busted ribs it was now keeping him awake. Only after the engine picked up speed in the flats did he finally fall asleep. When he woke up, come to find out he'd missed his jump and there was no sign of the two that helped him on. Twenty-five dollars missing from his pocket.

I had a hard time finding words. “What did you do?”

The answer came almost like a punchline. “I went home and took another ass beating from the old lady, that's what!”

That was the only part that really scared him; going home to explain to his wife. The train, the fight, losing the money he'd gotten beat up for. “It sounded like a good idea, and we could sure have used the money. But I never told her how I felt like such a fool, after the way it ended up. Tried to be a hero, ended up looking reckless.”

He'd tear the Reaper's nipples off if he ever dared show up for him, but he always pointed to his wife as the tough one between the two.

“I'm tired, that's it for tonight. Just leave your bowl and your glass there on the ground.”

“You sure? I can bring them up, I'd like to do something to help.”

He shook his head no, then turned and yelled “Cold Water! Get here!”

Out from under the side of the porch tripped the dirtiest, floppiest, sag skinniest, Redbone you ever laid eyes on. He panted as he trotted over, but you'd swear it was a smile. He got right to work, just lapping almost every last bit of soup from the bowls. Cold Water was able to get almost all the pickle jars clean of beer, all but the bottom.

“Nothin' cleaner than a hound's tooth.” he said.