Jack (Chapter 9)

            Kudzu.  There are two definitions for a word I have never heard before in my life.  The first is a vine that covers every living thing it comes into contact with.  If you stand still for more than ten minutes it will cover you too.  The second is a man like I have never met before in my life.  This is strange for me because I come from Portland which is the land of the hippies and weirdos for which the world has no other habitation. 

            As we walked into the general store for the first time, I was met with pickled pigs’ feet (apparently nobody in this community eats them, but they feel the need to utilize every aspect of the animal they kill).  There must have been at least a couple of dozen jars sitting on the shelf.  It took Valerie a little longer to notice them, but when she did it was obvious.  Whether it was the gasp or the gagging noise that gave Kudzu the tip off that we were there, I will never know.

            Out walks this man in his late 60s, I guess.  Long stringy graying hair hanging down across his face and shoulders.  Sunspots and wrinkles covering every inch of skin showing under the faded tye dye shirt and overalls. 

            “Kin I he’p ya’ll wit’ sumpfin’?”  The deep raspy voice of the old hippy was unexpected.  And trying to understand the words he spoke was like trying to read a Mark Twain novel.  The smile revealed a massive loss of teeth, but surprisingly minty breath.

            Valerie was too stunned by the sight to say anything and it verged on rude.

            “We’re just looking for some essentials we might need.  It looks like we might be here visiting for a while.”  I could tell the “visiting” part made Valerie relax a little, but then the “a while” made her tense again as she squeezed my arm for comfort—hers not mine.  She quickly whispered in my ear and left the store, mumbling a good-bye to the strange yet fascinating man in front of me.  As the screen door slammed behind her I looked at the man.

            “My name is Jack.”

            “Jack.  That’s thuh name o’ my bes’ man ‘n thuh war.”  I assumed Vietnam.  He twitched as he talked, blinking on every other word and scrunching his nose. “Peepul call me Kudzu.”  He held out his hand which was surprisingly steady and not surprisingly covered in sun spots.  I shook it.  A strong hand shake for such a skinny man. 

“Ker breek duwhn?”  I knew I would have to listen carefully every time this man talked if I was going to understand him and avoid asking “what?” every time he said something.

“Yeah.  We have been on the road for a few days.  We started up in Portland and are trying to make our way to Miami.  The air traffic controllers went on strike and no one’s been flying for a few days.” 

“Oh.  Sheam, bu’ gladuh yur her’.  Pic’ uhp aneethin’ ya nee’.”  I was impressed by the over enunciation of some words and the dropped endings of other words.  They seemed to coincide with the twitchings.  I knew I would like Kudzu.

“How did you end up here?”

“Jeesus.”  A grin spread across his face in a genuine and unassuming manner.  It didn’t come out like a curse, just a fact.  It had been a long time since I had heard someone say that name when they weren’t damning something evil that had happened to them.  Kudzu continued without my asking, “ ‘e dun brook mah vee dubyah van duwhn.  I wuz hi as a freekin’ kigh-tuh.  Axtly I run it intuh a tree.  A Peerry fund me n’ took me her’.  I been her’ gwon tin yeer.  Aneethin’ ya nee’ ain’ her’ we git tit.”

“Thanks.”  I was looking around the store while he was talking and I found some nail clippers.  As much as I didn’t care about what the world might think about my nails, I hated having talons, so I picked them up.  “How much for these?”

He smiled his almost toothless grin again.  “Teek ‘em, no charjuh.” 

I tried to explain that I would like to pay for the things I will be using while I’m here.  He kept smiling and refused to take the money.  Somewhere in the conversation I believe he said that they had no need for money and that Ms. Sasha Leonard paid for it all.  Who was this lady that financed this whole little odd community of people?  Misfits that didn’t seem to fit anywhere else in the world.

I took the clippers and left.  Often when I am lost in my thoughts I find myself leaving situations and rooms to wander alone aimlessly.  Seriously, who are these people?  We’ve met a short, gymnast type girl with red hair and a smile that can cool the hottest day or warm the coldest night, two widows who garden and cook like everyday is the last and they need to have their full nourishment for their trip to heaven, and now a man who is unaware that the 1960s were half a century ago.  But they are the most generous and caring group of crazies I’d ever met, and genuine about it.  Confusion has taken over and I’m glad we’re stuck here.  These puzzle pieces must fit together to create some picture that’s absurd, yet beautiful.

“Hey ya.”  I’m yanked out of my imaginings back to the world of humidity and heat.  I look around without seeing anyone and then I look down.  It’s been quite some time since I’ve been around kids.  I’m startled by the shortness of the child.  I guess kids are supposed to be short though. 

“Hey.”

“What’s your name?  My name is Chaos.  Akshully my real name is Jacob, like in the Bible, but mamma and pappa always calls me Chaos so ever’one just started calling me chaos.  It means craziness.  I guess I am kinda crazy n’ they send me out of the house most of the time cuz they think I’m like a li’l tornado sweepin’ through the house and everywhere.  I have a tendency to tear things up and I don’ mean to.  It jus’ happens.  Sometimes it’s my brothers and sisters that do it, but I jus’ dunno why I do it, so they can get away wit’ sayin’ that I did it and mamma and pappa will usually believe ‘em.  Hey, have you ever seen a gator?”  I can at least insert a head shake into his monologue.  “Gators are awesome, but also need to be respected because they’re strong, mamma says they’re stronger than oak trees which is purty strong, because she saw one when she was a little girl actually tear down a big oak tree with its short legs and many teeth.  I dunno if I believe that, but I know they’re strong and fast.  One time one got into our pig pen and tore our biggest pig into two parts, the head was over here and the rearend was over there.  You wanna see a gator?  I just came from the river and there was one sunnin’ on t’other bank.  But don’ worry cuz tit’s only abou’ five feet long, it’d put a hurtin’ a dog but it knows a human would be too big to hurt.  They’re scared of people ‘less ya mess wit’ their babies or their friends or their food.  Other than that they purty much leave ya be.  Follow me an’ we can still see it, I’m sure.  Ya need to see a gator at least oncet, cuz they’re funny and awesome.”  I suppose I didn’t have much of a choice, so I followed.  And I thought he was right, you do need to see a gator at least once in your life.

We continued down the road, heading back in the direction from which we had come the day before.  The sky was blue and it was still only about 11:00.  Chaos picked up sticks and hit rocks in the road, kicked the rocks as well and shuffled his feet through the dirt as he continued to ramble about gators, then poison ivy – which he’s had 5 different times, then Virginia Creepers and how you can tell the difference between them.  I walked beside him in order to avoid the sticks, rocks and dirt which followed in his wake, a tornado was an accurate description.  I guessed he must have been about 8 years old, but small for his age.  He was missing a few teeth waiting for the others to grow in.  He wore camo pants and a t-shirt with the sleeves torn off, the shirt had a very faded picture of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on it.  Oh the memories.  He can’t have known who they were.  Or were they still on Saturday cartoons?  Did these people even watch TV?  We continued down the road for a while. 

Eventually we took a turn to the right into the woods, with a barely identifiable path.  Chaos knew just where he was going and continued talking the entire time.  Now he was explaining how he had found this trail and that he thought that Indians must have made it originally because he had found an arrowhead on the path last year.  This kid was awesome.  He was an interesting piece of the puzzle.  I think he would be a brightly colored piece somewhere in the middle.  I could see how he would annoy most people, but since I don’t care to talk most of the time, I knew we would get along just fine.  I hate being around those kids that just stare at you.  They look at you like you’re a blemish on the face of humanity and you should really just be expunged.  And they would use words like that if they could, just to make you feel that much more inferior.  Chaos is nothing like that.

He stops in the middle of the path all of a sudden and puts his finger to his lips.  This is the first break his speech has taken. 

“We gotta be quiet now or we’ll scare the gator.  Gators are scared of people.  Shhh.” 

He keeps moving forward and the tornado calms down.  He slowly gets down on his hands and knees to push aside the palmetto branches.  I squat down beside him and peek through the branches and help him push them aside as quietly as I can.

“Ouch. Damn.”

“Shhhh.”  He gets mad at me for being loud, not for cursing.

“Sorry,” I whisper.  My fingers are bleeding a little, stupid palmettos, I didn’t know they would hurt.  But the edges are sharp.  I nurse my hand with care and Chaos rolls his eyes at my pain.  I man up and push the branch aside again, this time much more carefully.

“Over there.  See?”  His incredibly dirty and scarred (from palmettos, I guess) hands form into a point which stretches out in front of him.

I squint and try to follow his finger.  At first I don’t see anything, but then I hear a low growl.

“He’s sayin’ hi.  Hear ‘im?”

I jump back slightly when I realize that it is directly across from us, no more than 12 feet away.  From what I know of alligators, they’re fast and tenacious.  I regain my composure hoping that this little gator hunter won’t notice my cowardice.  I don’t think he does because he continues to stare enraptured by this oversized lizard who would munch on his head as an appetizer.  His finger points again, off to the right.

“Look, in the water.  See those two little rocks on top of the water?”  He whispers surprisingly well.  “That’s another one.”

Um, if that’s all that gives them away I am not going any where near this water.  I would never be able to pick one out in time to save my own life.  The one on the shore is about five feet long, so I’m definitely bigger than him, but I can’t tell about the one in the water.  Chaos turns to me as if reading my mind and says, “The distance in inches from the nose, the first bump, to the eyes, which are the second bump, is the same number of feet that the whole alligator is from nose to tail.”  Working the estimations in my mind I realize that if my little friend is correct this alligator is about eight feet long.  As soon as I realize this and that the bumps are slowly moving closer to us, I back up out of the palmettos and stand up. 

Chaos follows me.

“I think we should get out of here, little man.”

“Why? Ya scared?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.  And I’m not ashamed of that.  I would prefer to not die by alligator.”

“Fine.  Back this way.”

Once we get several yards away from the hole in the woods.  Chaos continues into his normal path of, well, chaos. 

“Yeah, I call the smaller one Fred and the big one Gigantor.  I never get too close to Gigantor, he’d eat me sure.  Fred, though, I caught Fred once, but mamma said I had to let him go cuz he probably had a family somewhere and I wouldn’t want no one takin’ my daddy away from me and I figured she was right.  But we did kill that big one that one time, he was about 12 feet long.  Pappa had to shoot him about six times and he was still thrashing around for a long time after that.  It took us two weeks to repair everything.  But we ate some good gator for a few weeks, we still have some gator jerky left.  You should try some.  I love gator jerky.  I guess it’s about dinner time.  My stomach tells me when it’s time to eat and I’m always within ten minutes of meal time.  Mamma says I’m blessed.  But then again, she’s tells everyone they’re blessed.  I bet you’re blessed too.  You could come eat too.  Dinner is good.  It’s always sandwiches.  I love sandwiches.  Sometimes mamma lets me put gator jerky on my sandwich and those are my favorite kinds of sandwiches.  Maybe mamma will let you put gator jerky on your sandwich and then she might let me too.”  He looked sort of pitiful when he looked at me, pleading with his eyes for me to come so we could have gator jerky sandwiches.  I couldn’t resist and I nodded my consent while he continued talking.  At least I’d get to meet some more people.  Hopefully they’d be more into talking and less into asking questions.  I mean if they’re anything like this version in front of me I would be golden.