Big John

A common thread of this and our other blogs is our desire that the places and experiences that brought us together are not forgotten. With this in mind, I thought I would share with the group a piece of a project that Berg and I keep telling ourselves that we're working on. It's a collection of short stories that occur in and around Pittsfield that illustrate life in modern rural America. As of now, I have finished one and am in the process of writing two others. I'm not sure where Berg is, but last I knew, he was finishing up the tale of Ralph Kendall's day in court. Since I think that I am finished with my first short story, and because it's not that long (it's more like an anecdote), here it is. Let me know what you think about the story and the project in general. There's room for other authors as well, I'm sure. Here it is:

"Big John" by E. Roderick

It’s June in Pittsfield. My father and I are pulling out the 700 lb slabs of limestone that formed the now-broken steps leading from the road to the front walk of our house. The top three steps are already gone, pulled to the back yard in our lawn tractor trailer, and stacked crudely, waiting to be used for yet another of one of Dad’s grand gardening schemes. We assess the bottom, and heaviest step. After prying it out with crowbars, we proceed to lift it into the cart. 5 minutes and multiple curse words later, it’s in the trailer. I begin to pick up chunks of masonry and concrete and throw them in with the slab. Looking up from my work, I notice a man walking towards us on the sidewalk. Closer examination reveals him to be none other than Big John. ‘Just keep working. Maybe he won’t talk to us,’ I think. John’s less than 100 yards away. He waves.

“Hi John,” my father says. Dammit, Dad. He recognizes his mistake. “Want some lemonade?” he asks me, only half-jokingly. John picks up his pace.

“No.” He’s not getting out of this that easy.

Big John lives in Pearl. He’s a bearded man with long, greasy hair. He stands about six feet, four inches tall with broad shoulders. A couple times a week, weather permitting, he hitchhikes into Pittsfield where he conducts whatever business an unemployed, eccentric man has in Pittsfield. When he’s finished, he begins his 20-mile journey back to Pearl. Washington Street becomes Highway 106 as it passes our house and out of town. Highway 106 also happens to be on the way to Pearl.

“Good afternoon, friends,” he says in his coarse voice. Please keep walking, please keep walking. He stops. “Now what have ya’ll got goin’ on here?” I want to tell him that it’s called “work”, and that it’s best accomplished without distraction. My dad answers instead.

“Well John, I bought the front steps from the old Congregational church before they tore it down, and I figured I should replace my old broken ones before I hand over my forced labor here to the Army.” Great. Good job, old man. There are at least three topics in that statement that Big John can work with. I hope you’ve got nothing planned for the next couple of hours.

Everyone in town knows Big John. Many people give him rides, but only the hardiest can manage to transport him all the way to Pearl. Most let him off in Detroit, sometimes Milton, offering some lame, on-the-spot excuse in order to escape his incessant babble. Big John is a storyteller with opinions on every topic, travelling down infinite tangents as if he were allergic to making a point. According to John, he’s done everything, seen everyplace, and met everyone. His stories are never the same and, as rule, always conflict with one another. Today, he spins a yarn about a stint in the Navy.

“The Army, eh? You finished high school yet?” I tell him that I just graduated. His face lights up. “Well, that’s about the time I joined the Navy too. Me and old Bill Hendricks- he lived down by Bay Creek, nearer to Pleasant Hill than Nebo, mind you- me and Bill went together to the recruitment office in Pittsfield the day after graduation and signed up for the Navy. That was about the time that President Kennedy was shipping more and more troops over there to Vietnam. The newspapers didn’t talk much about Vietnam then, but some of us seen what was going on. I told Bill, I said…” He drifted off. “Well now, come to think of it, Bill didn’t live by Bay Creek. He actually lived in Pleasant Hill. Well I said to Bill, ‘Bill, you and me need to get in this fight before someone makes us fight’, so we decided to join up before we was put somewhere we didn’t want to fight. But that President Kennedy, he sure knew what he was doing. I wish today’s politicians…” I study the ground, trying to find more rocks to throw in the wagon.

My dad responds to Big John’s ramblings with the occasional “Oh really?” or “Uh huh.” Every once in a while, he checks John’s facts: “Well John, I always thought it was called the Tet Offensive, not the Ho Chi Minh Offensive.” John assures us that it is indeed the Ho Chi Minh Offensive, named after the campaign’s major objective: the capture of South Vietnam’s president. The man has an audience, and for now, he’s indominatable. My sharp sense of smell picks up what’s probably the real reason John rarely makes it to Pearl in one vehicle. I try not to calculate the last time John washed his clothes, let alone changed them. The smell is overwhelming. I interrupt.

“Where you headed, John?” I ask.

“Oh, I’m just headin’ back home. John Sanderson drove me into town. He was goin’ to visit a man in Bowling Green fixin’ to sell him a 1937 Farmall for his implement museum- the one he owns in Milton.” I once visited Sanderson’s Tractor and Implement Museum in Milton for my Illinois History class—I fell asleep on an old John Deere for most of the tour. I find myself wishing I was back in that machine shed.

“Is he taking you back to Pearl?”

“No,” John replies. “He didn’t know when he’d be coming back through.” I nod. He starts up again. Apparently Big John is as bad at catching hints as he is at catching rides. Then it hits me: what if there’s a point to all of Big John’s ramblings? What if he’s just talking to us so that we’ll feel obliged to give him a ride? I see the method in his madness. It ticks me off.

John ends up talking to us for a total of about forty-five minutes. By the time he was finished, John had re-educated us about politics, American history, the space program, the weather, and even the old Congregational church. Dad finishes the conversation.

“Well John, we’ve got to get this rock to the back before it gets too late. We’ve still got some more work to get done before dark.” Yeah right. It’s 3:30 and he hasn’t even had his afternoon nap. John offers to help us. “I appreciate the offer John, but you better get moving if you’re going to catch a ride before dinner.”

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.” Finally.

I get on the tractor and start it up. I head up the driveway and look back. John is still standing there talking to my dad, probably negotiating for a ride. I park the tractor near the other old steps stacked near the dog pen and begin pulling out the smaller chunks of stone, leaving the big slab for later. Ten minutes later, I walk back out front. Neither John nor my dad is there. Dammit. He’s suckered Dad into taking him to Pearl. I run back and check the garage; the car is still there. Good. Wait…my dad is too nice of a guy not to offer him a ride. He must have invited John inside for something to drink before heading out.

I walk through the back door into the kitchen. My dad is sitting at the table watching Stargate SG-1. He’s alone. I breathe a sigh of relief. “Where is he?” I ask.

“Who?” is his response. Jack O’Neil is fighting some parasitic alien on the TV.

“The Pope. Are you kidding me?”

He’s used to my sarcasm. “John’s walking back to Pearl.”

I’m confused. “You mean, he didn’t ask you for a ride?”

“Nope. I offered him one, but he refused and said that someone always picks him up along the way.”

Now I’m dumbfounded. “Wow. I was sure he was going to ask you for a ride.”

My dad turns his attention from the show and looks at me. “I don’t think John was looking for a ride, Evan. I think he just wanted someone to talk to for a while.” I don’t know what to say. I suddenly feel very selfish and embarrassed. It reminds me of those stories you hear in church about Christ or angels disguised as beggars giving us sinners the opportunity to be saints. I vow to give Big John a ride all the way to Pearl next time I see him walking.

I start upstairs to take a shower, but Dad yells to me from the kitchen. “Big John wanted me to tell you something.” I hope for something profound, something to ease my mind and make me feel a little less terrible. I listen. “He wanted me to tell you that Bill Hendricks actually lived on 6-Mile Creek on the other side of Pleasant Hill.” I laugh and continue upstairs with a smile. Nothing he said could have sounded better.