Talk Vomit

By L.D. Blevins

Big Bob Binion sat on the top step, turned at the waist facing down the length of his porch, holding a tiny hammer over a pile of hulled walnuts.

He raised it over a shell and brought it down in a hell of a tap that cracked its bark-like sides. He used the claw of the hammer to pry out the nut pieces and plopped them in a silver saucer.

Then he scooped up the broken shells and, turning straight ahead, tossed them into the yard.

And saw a one-armed man walking up the hill towards him. He was a young feller, hatless, wearing a pair of muddy Sunday shoes, a stained white shirt, and loose brown slacks held up by a pair of black suspenders.

The young man raised his remaining hand, which was his left hand, in a wave. He continued up the rest of the hill in his own due time.

“Do I know you?” asked Bob.

“Funny you say that,” replied the one-armed man. He took a deep breath that must have knocked loose some phlegm from his lungs because he sent it rocketing out via a hawk into the yard. “I’m Maude Johnson’s son.”

The hammer drooped a little in the old man’s hand. “From over on Big Sinking Creek?”

The young man nodded. “Her firstborn son.”

Bob licked his lips. “What brings you all the way to Rowan County?”

“Don’t you want to know my name?” The young man didn’t blink, he just stared at Bob. 

A set of doves flew across the field on the far side of the county road below the hill behind him.

“I reckon I already know it,” said Bob. “What exactly are you here for?”

Willie grinned. He wasn’t only missing an arm, he was missing one of his front teeth, too. “Maybe I just wanted to pay you a visit.”

“Today ain’t a good day. I’m awful busy today.”

The young man looked at the pile of walnuts. “Sure. You look plum buried under with work.”

“Well, I’m after more than cracking walnuts. I got a load of firewood to split out back and a fence I need to repair. On account of that bad storm come in last night.”

“I’d like to offer to help you.” Willie shrugged his armless shoulder. “I know I’m a cripple but what arm I got is plenty strong. You’d be surprised how handy I still am with it.”

“Well, I couldn’t pay you nothing.”

“That’s alright,” replied the young man. “It would just be me being neighborly.”

“You ain’t my neighbor.”

“Well, I’m your brother Jim Tom’s neighbor. Ole Jim Tom was never too good to stop and speak to me.”

Bob shook his head. “Jim Tom Binion was never too good for nothing. And you can tell him I said that.”

The one-armed man shifted his weight from one foot to another. “My momma died last winter. Maybe you know that already, too.”

“No. I hadn’t heard that news.”

“She had a stroke, they say. Spent the last couple months of her life laid up in a chair. Couldn’t move much there in the end.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” said Bob, after a moment. “She was a fine lady back when I knew her.”

Willie grinned again. “Was she?”

“As little as I knew her.”

The grin faded. “And how little was that?”

Bob shrugged. “Little enough. We were just neighbors.”

The one-armed man took a step forward. “Ever since that train car pinned me, fellers assume I can’t fight no more. But I’ve proved more than one man wrong. I’m still half a brute and I always was a good scrapper, even when I was little. They say it’s the Binion in me.”

Bob glanced to the right, shifted his hammer, locked eyes with Willie again, and brought it down on another walnut. It cracked it plum in two. “I ain’t worn out all the way, myself.”

“Good.” Willie nodded. “We may be old and we may be crippled but we ain’t licked yet.”

“Am I gonna have to get up off these steps?” asked Bob. “Is that what you came here for?”

Willie shook his head. “I just wanted to see you, Mr. Binion.”

“Well, you’ve seen me. Here I sit. What else is there?”

The one-armed man swept his gaze around the house and down the hill and across the field towards the creek. “That’s a nice tractor you got there. And a fine truck. On a great big farm, too. Must have cost you a pretty penny.”

“A farm was cheaper back in ’03. The rest of it’s on credit. I’m an old man now and I’ve farmed most of my life. I ain’t got much cash handy.”

Willie sneered. “I’m sure you got something squirreled away somewhere.”

“Less than you might think,” replied Bob. “And a thief would have a hard time finding it.”

“That house across the road.” Willie jerked his remaining thumb over his left shoulder. “Any kin of yours?”

“That’s my son-in-law’s house.”

“You don’t say? Is your daughter still living?”

Bob nodded.

“Maybe I orta pay her a visit.”

The old man shook his head. “She ain’t sociable like I am.”

Willie laughed. “A man would be hard-pressed to find someone less sociable than you are.”

Bob spat out into the yard. “Come to think of it, I reckon we’re about visited out around here. Maybe it’s time for you to get your ass back to Elliott County where you belong.”

Willie got real quiet. Then he spoke in a lower tone than he’d been using. “You are a mean old bastard.”

“I ain’t the bastard here.” Bob didn’t smile when he said it and he didn’t say it in a temper. It was just a matter of fact.

One fist clenched. Then let go. 

“I’ll tell your brother you said hello.” The one-armed man turned and started walking down the hill towards the road.

“Don’t bother!” yelled the old man, spitting he was talking so loud. “I’ll see him some fine morning.”

Willie continued down the hill. Bob watched him turn onto the road. The young man looked back up at the old one before he passed out of sight behind the barn. He was staring straight ahead when he came out on the other side. 

Bob watched him walk the rest of the way down the road – Willie didn’t so much as glance at Nana Mae’s place – until he crossed the bridge and disappeared beyond the sycamore trees.

He’d had his mother’s eyes. There had always been a wildness in those eyes. They said it was the Johnson in her.

\\

Big Bob Binion didn’t crack any more walnuts that day. He didn’t split any firewood or repair any fencing, either. He just went inside and got him a bottle.

\\

The next morning, he was up and chopping firewood early. The air was so cool his nose was running and the grass was so wet his boots were soon soaked. He was only halfway through his work when his ax handle broke.

“Jesus Christ,” he said.

The last thing he felt like doing was repairing it then. But he had another ax down in the barn and he went to get it.

Bob was turning under the barn doors when he saw the man hanging from the tobacco pole.

He only had one arm.

His eyes – those wild eyes of his – were closed.

Bob almost cut him down himself before he thought that it would be best if the coroner saw him hanging. 

So he went out of the barn and across the road and to his daughter’s house instead.

Nana Mae stirred gravy at the stove while Charlie sipped coffee at the table. There were other empty chairs at the table. They would stay empty. They never would be filled with any children.

“I need to use your telephone.” Bob pronounced it teleyphone.

Nana Mae stopped stirring.

“What is it, daddy?”

Bob tilted his head. “A man hung himself in my barn.”

Charlie’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He coughed and wrenched his mouth like too much hot coffee had just gone down his gullet.

“Who is it?” asked Nana Mae, her one eye wide. Her other eye had been shot out by Little Bob with a slingshot when they were little. Big Bob had beat him nearly to death before their late mother had intervened.

“I don’t know,” replied her father. “He’s a stranger to me.”

END