The Buzzard Table

CHAPTER

18


Many vulture species around the world live closely associated with human societies.

—The Turkey Vulture Society



Maidie Holt, Daddy’s longtime housekeeper, had asked me to pick up a couple of bags of stone-ground yellow grits from the only store in Dobbs that carries that brand. The local grist mill has been in operation since the 1830s, and no commercial grits taste as flavorful. As long as I was getting them for her, I bought a bag for myself. There was a package of shrimp in the freezer that we had brought home from Harkers Island in the fall. They needed to be eaten before they got freezer burn, and shrimp and grits is an easy dish that doesn’t take too much preparation. I knew I had onions, a green pepper, and half-and-half on hand, so I wouldn’t have to stop at a grocery store.

The version I make calls for some sort of fancy Italian ham, but my brother Robert cures out a mean country ham with a smoky, salty flavor that can’t be matched by anything from Italy and he always gives us five or six pounds of it for Christmas every year, each slice individually wrapped for the freezer.

According to him and Daddy, our winters used to be cold enough to let the legs and shoulders hang in the smokehouse all winter without spoiling. No more.

A quarter cup of Robert’s ham diced and sautéed would easily substitute for pancetta, but no other brand of grits could substitute for the bags on the car seat beside me.

As I drove west out of Dobbs, it seemed to me that the days were getting noticeably longer. Time was passing much too quickly, though. Turn around twice and it would soon be summer—sandals, cotton slacks, and sleeveless dresses. What with the growth spurt Cal had taken this winter, I doubted if there was much he could still wear from last summer. Unfortunately, he likes to shop for clothes just about as much as Dwight does, but maybe I could issue a bench warrant for the two of them and haul them both out to one of the Raleigh malls this spring.

They say time is relative, and to prove it, Einstein supposedly compared a minute of sitting on a red-hot stove to a minute of kissing your lover. Driving into the sunset past pine thickets and dormant fields, I wondered how Sigrid, Anne, and Mrs. Lattimore were experiencing time these days. Was it zipping past or dragging?

I turned into the lane that led to our house, then took a cutoff that would take me across the farm to the homeplace. Bare-twigged oaks and maples formed a delicate fretwork against the orange-and-purple sky, reminding me of the stained glass windows in the church where Mrs. Lattimore’s funeral service would probably be held before summer. Even though Daddy’s almost never sick and always gets a good report on his annual physical, Mrs. Lattimore’s terminal illness made me doubly conscious of his eighty-plus years.

His old truck was parked at the back door, and without knocking, I opened the squeaky screen door, then the heavy wooden one, and walked into the kitchen where he and Maidie were. Both sat at the kitchen table and both were in their stocking feet. Maidie was taking the meat off a roasted chicken, carefully putting the skin and bones into a pot with chopped onions to make broth for pot pies. Daddy had spread a newspaper over his end of the table, and several pairs of shoes, including Maidie’s, waited for his attention. Despite the pungent onions, I could smell the shoe polish he had spread on the leather, a familiar homey aroma.

I hugged them both and snitched a bit of chicken while Daddy reached in his pocket to pay me for the grits. Maidie fumbled in her own pocket and came up with only two quarters.

“Don’t worry about a bag of grits,” he told her. “I didn’t give you no birthday present yet.”

“Ain’t my birthday,” Maidie said, her gold tooth flashing.

“Then it must be Cletus’s. Tell him happy birthday from me.”

“You mean you ain’t gonna get him that white Cadillac he’s been wanting?”

“What’d he do with the red one I give him for Christmas?” Daddy asked in mock indignation.

I laughed. Those two have been teasing each other for most of my lifetime, long before Mother died. They tried to get me to sit down and visit, but I told them Dwight and Cal would be wanting their supper soon.

“Y’all gonna be home this evening?” Daddy asked.

“Dwight’s probably already there and I’ll be there myself in a few minutes. Why?”

“Nothing really. Just ain’t seen Dwight to talk to this week.”

“Then come on over for supper. I’m fixing shrimp and grits.”

He looked at Maidie, who gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “Go on. You’ll not be getting anything that good here. I was only gonna warm you up some stuff from last night.”

“Well, if you’re sure,” he said, speaking to both of us.

“Come!” I said.

“Go!” said Maidie.



By the time Daddy joined us, Cal had finished struggling with his math homework—fractions—and Dwight had picked up the newspapers that had been scattered around the couch when I came home.

I spooned the grits into a ring on a large serving platter and now I finished thickening the creamy sauce and poured it over the pile of sautéed shrimp in the middle.

“Yum!” said Cal as he speared a shrimp on his fork.

I knew I’d find a little pile of diced green pepper on the side of his plate when supper was over, but on the whole, Cal’s not a fussy eater, so I don’t nag. Dwight and I have a two-bite rule. He has to eat at least two bites of everything served, but then he’s free to fill up on bread and whatever else is on the table. No way am I going to lock horns in pointless food fights. He gets plenty of fruits and vegetables and it all balances out in the end.

Conversation was general at first because Dwight and I both know from long experience that Daddy will get around to saying whatever he wants to say in his own good time. We caught up on family news. Only six of my eleven brothers live out here on the farm, but two more live in Dobbs, so we stay in fairly close contact. We’re not as close to the three who live out west, but Daddy said Adam had called from California a couple of nights ago.

“Everything okay with them?” I asked.

“Far as I could tell,” Daddy said. “Sure didn’t say nothing worth a long-distance phone call.”

He’s from the generation that remembers when calling out of the state cost a dime or more a minute and it bothers him to talk more than three minutes even when he’s been told over and over again that there’s no extra charge.

“He did say Karen’s mama won’t doing too good and she may fly out here next week if somebody could meet her at RDU.”

I made a mental note to email Adam’s wife and ask for details of her flight.

Eventually, Cal finished eating and asked to be excused. He carried his plate over to the sink and then went into the living room to settle down in front of the TV.

Dwight split the remaining shrimp between our three plates and Daddy said, “I heared y’all know that buzzard man that’s staying across the creek over yonder.”

There was no point asking who he’d heard it from. Daddy’s web of informants stretches across the county and not much pertaining to him or his slips past unnoticed.

“Ferrabee Gilbert’s boy, right?”

“You knew her?” I asked, surprised.

“Naw, both them Gilbert girls was older’n me. I just used to see her around town once in a while ’fore she run off to Washington. Pretty little thing. Prettier’n her sister, and you know how she’s still a good-looking woman. Never quite understood how come ol’ Ben Lattimore turned Ferrabee loose for her. Her boy must take atter his daddy, though, ’cause I don’t see none of her in him.”

“You’ve met him?” Dwight asked.

“Well, I didn’t sit down and eat supper with him like y’all did, but yeah, I met him.” He cut a shrimp in half and I wondered if Chloe Adams had talked to Maidie, who has her own network of informants.

“They say he writes picture books about buzzards?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“See, the thing is, I’ve watched him feed them buzzards. Even seen him pick some of ’em up and put bands or something on their legs.”

I was intrigued. “The buzzards let him do that?”

“Ain’t all that unusual. Remember my cousin Bud? He raised a buzzard chick that got blowed outten its nest. They tame real easy. But I ain’t seen this man take no pictures of ’em. Course now, I only watched him a couple of times and it may be that he goes somewheres else to take pictures. They follow him, you know. Follow his truck anyhow.”

“What’s really bothering you about him, Mr. Kezzie?” Dwight asked, cutting to the chase.

“You know that dirt road that runs along the back of the airport? Garrett Road?”

I didn’t, but Dwight nodded.

Daddy took a forkful of grits and smeared them in some of the sauce on his plate. “Him and them buzzards go there almost every day it ain’t raining. There or to Johnson Mill Road.”

“That goes through the woods on the other side of the airport, doesn’t it?” Dwight asked. “What does he do?”

“Nothing,” Daddy said flatly. “Once or twice he just parks on the side and sets there. Sometimes when he hears somebody rattling down that dirt road, he’ll lean back and put his hat over his eyes like he’s sleeping, excepting atter they go past, he sets back up again and watches them buzzards kettling up over the truck.”

He took a large swallow of his iced tea. “I heared he was out there on Garrett Road around noon today, so I rode over to take a look. He had his jack and a spare wheel laying beside the right back wheel next to the ditch, so I stopped and asked if I could be of help. He thanked me kindly and said that he could handle it, so I drove on.”

“But?” Dwight asked.

“That tire won’t flat, Dwight, so why was he playacting that it was? What’s he doing out there?”