“What brung you here?”
Del rolled the glass between his hands. He wanted to tell him about the grain bin, felt he could for some odd reason. He started off with what most said nowadays.
“I needed work.”
Nolan waited for him to go on while Del stared into his glass. The silence grew. He shifted on his chair, glanced again at Nolan, who’d not dropped his calm gaze.
“Something peculiar happened, and I’ve yet to figure it out, so I thought work might do me some good. I’d been living in the woods awhile.”
Nolan sat back, took a sip of his drink, and said, “What’s peculiar for some, ain’t for others.”
“You might change your mind after hearing this. Boss man I had before I come here, he didn’t care much for me either. In his case, he had good reason. He told me to work in the grain bin one day, and while I was in it, he had a couple other workers open the door. The grain swallered me whole. I couldn’t move, nothing. Then, I couldn’t breathe. It was the worst pain I ever felt, until suddenly, I was outside the grain bin. I could see them trying to save me.”
He stopped talking, watched Nolan for his reaction. Nolan only sipped some more, still listening.
Del emphasized what he’d said. “You understand. I was outside, looking down. I could see everything.”
Nolan leaned back in his chair, and he said, “My granny used to tell me stories like’at all a time. Said some souls trying to leave this earth get trapped ’tween places. Sometimes you end up roamin’ the earth, looking a door to Heaven. You ask me, you was lucky.”
Del felt a bit of relief. “You heard a such as this happening?”
Nolan said, “From my granny. Like I said. You was lucky. Least you didn’t get stuck like some do.”
“Well, I don’t know about lucky. Ever since . . .” And he stopped.
His face grew warm and not from the drink.
Nolan was curious. “Ever since . . . ?”
Del leaned back. Crossed his arms.
He said, “I’m . . . broke. I can’t, you know, be with a woman. It don’t seem natural.”
Nolan gave a dismissive wave. “Only takes the right woman. You ask me, this”—and he held up his glass—“and hard work helps. Reason I drink is to forget. Me and my Dottie, we was together over forty years. She been gone about five, but it seem like forever now.”
They sat in silence for a bit, taking a swallow now and then, and Del reflected on how it might be to have someone like Nolan had. He finished his drink and said something he thought he’d never say.
“I’ll get the next round.”
Nolan dipped his head in agreement, and Del got up and approached the bar.
In his usual friendly manner, he said, “Hey, miss. How’re you tonight?”
She didn’t respond. Leaning against the counter, a cigarette pinched between her thumb and forefinger, looking bored, she pushed off the bar with her hip, blew smoke from the side of her mouth, and in a no-nonsense tone said, “What you want?”
He put a thumb over his shoulder toward Nolan and said, “Same as what he got before.”
She said, “You know how this works, right? Like over to the commissary. Otis supplies the liquor.”
Del said, “Figures.”
She rolled her eyes and said, “Name, number where yer stayin’?”
He gave her the information, and she fixed the drinks, set them in front of him. She made some marks in a ledger, then ignored him and began moving jars and bottles around on the shelves. Del watched the movement of her backside under the snug material of her dress. Nothing. He sighed and made his way back to Nolan, almost spilling what he had when two men stumbled into him, jabbing at each other playfully, full of drink and good times. From across the room came a round of cussing.
“Dammit all, had me a full hand, now you tryin’ to gyp me. You got my money!”
“Hell if it is! You a cheatin’ sonofabitch and everybody knows it!”
There was a scuffle and the crash of a glass breaking. Two of the card players had jumped up and were leaning across the table, holding crude knives and jabbing at each other.
Another card player, an older man with gray hair sprouting from his scalp in a patchy manner and missing most of his teeth, said, “Y’all sit’cher asses down. Act like you got some sense, or you can leave this table. Me and Lanky don’t need y’all to play us a decent game. That right, Lanky?”
The fourth man, Lanky, said, “You right.”
The two men continued facing each other as if they would start fighting, and Del expected someone to get hurt. The older man stood up, knocking his chair over.
He pointed at them, the other hand in his pocket signaling he too had some sort of weapon. “I ain’t messin’. I kin clear it up right now.”
The other men eased back down in their seats, pocketing their weapons, but neither lowered their eyes. Nolan watched the men carefully as well, but it appeared the moment was over, and he turned back to Del.
He said, “Ain’t easy workin’ in a place like this, so they get liquored up.” He took a few more sips and leaned back in his chair. “I ain’t said my piece yet, and I best get on with it so we can get out of here before it gets rough.”
Del detected a change in the tone of his voice, distant, less friendly.
Nolan said, “This here’s the first and last time you and me do this. I can’t be gettin’ into no trouble. I know how he is. We got our place in this camp, and it’s best we act like we know it. It don’t include minglin’ with white folk. He see me with you, doin’ whatever, even talkin’, he gone think I went and got uppity, and he gone teach me a lesson. Put me in my place. That’s just the way of it with him.”
Nothing Nolan said surprised Del at this point. Sure, Nolan had to look out for himself, given what it might mean to any one of them, a death sentence essentially, and he couldn’t blame him.
Del said, “Can’t say as I disagree. It gives him the upper hand, though. If we stuck together, all of us, things might change. Ain’t but the one box. He can’t put all of us in it.”
Nolan gave a derogatory grunt.
He said, “No. But whoever gets put in there, could be you, could be me. I ain’t ready to die. You ready to die? It sounds to me like you meant to be here a bit longer.”
Del said, “No, I ain’t ready to die.”
He thought the grain bin had been horrific, but it was quicker than a slow death in the box.
Nolan said, “You had you a few hours in it, but when it comes to what goes on round here, you got off easy. Won’t be the same next time, for you or me, if he gets any reason to put one of us in it.”
The next few minutes passed in silence, with Nolan appearing broody. Del, wiped out from the hours confined, was hungry, and the liquor was starting to make the headache he’d had earlier come back.
He said, “I hear you, Nolan. I ’preciate the time, and you clearing things up. I also ’preciate you listening to my other story. Good to know I ain’t crazy.”
Del stood, and Nolan gave him a bleary stare along with a final warning.
“Hmm. We all got a little crazy in us, main thing is, watch your back.”