Sitting Up With the Dead: A Storied Journey Through the American South. Pamela Petro
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One whole side of my room was covered in a wallpaper mural of birch trees in autumn, which struggled to a bitter draw with the floral-print bedspreads and knotty pine paneling. When I went out to dinner I discovered that members of a beefy motorcycle gang had occupied the rooms on either side of mine. I would have despaired then, except that my final, half-hearted effort to reach Orville was successful: he would be happy to meet me the next day at the Blowing Rock Recycling Plant, where he works. I could barely understand his accent, but I thought we had made a date to meet at noon.
It was ten past twelve: twenty minutes at the recycling plant, and no sign of Orville. That morning someone had told me he plays Santa Claus in the Blowing Rock schools each Christmas, and that I couldn’t miss him. But I was; each minute that passed I was missing Orville. Just as I’d christened the phrase ‘The Hicks Hex’ in my notebook, a truck pulled up. The driver worked at the plant, but had never heard of Orville Hicks. ‘Why don’t you try the dumpsters just up the road,’ he suggested kindly. ‘Maybe that’s where he’s at.’
I sped up the highway then literally ran, rucksack filled with tape recorder, notebooks, pens, and corn muffins bouncing wildly on my back, into a bivouac of big metal dumpsters. I kept on running until the sight of Orville stopped me cold. From pictures I knew Ray was tall, gaunt and clean-shaven; Orville wasn’t exactly short, but he was bearded and stout. I thought he looked like a great, ambling composite of all the earth’s creatures, plants and animals alike. The bib of his denim overalls, incongruously graced by a gold watch chain, bulged with a belly big and round enough to take on a life of its own, like he had a young piglet hidden in there. His head supported two landmarks: a Carolina Tractor baseball cap and a curly, graying shrub of a full beard grown right up to his laugh lines. Between the beard and cap smiled the face of a brawny elf, nostrils arched with mischief, very blue eyes glimmering beneath bushy brows. The easy good humor that spilled from this man salved my immediate fear that he was consciously parodying himself.
‘I reckon you want t’hear a sto-ry,’ he said cheerfully. I assured him I did.
‘Well come round here to ma lyin’ bench.’ Gesturing with the antenna of his mobile phone, Orville indicated a salvaged plank pushed up against a chain link fence, next to one of the dumpsters. Peeling paint and decomposing plastic littered the ground like eternal snowflakes. Maybe because it was a recycling dump, there was no smell. We settled in and Orville said, ‘Oright, I’m a-gonna tell you ’bout this boy named Jack, okay?’
The good luck of this made my palms ache with pleasure. ‘Did you learn this one from your cousin Ray?’ I asked.
‘No ma’am, from ma’ mama. I had six brothers and four sisters. I’m th’ youngest. See, in th’ evenin’-time, sto-rytellin’ was part of our growin’ up. Mama, she would holler at us, “You young ’uns wanta hear a tale? Then come on in th’ house,” and we’d go in th’ house and sit down thar and do chores while mama’d tell the tales.’ Orville stopped and expertly spat tobacco juice at the dumpster. ‘We’d break beans, er shell peas, er bunch galax. And we’d set thar and do th’ work, and mama’d tell us these Jack tales. And that’s how I learned ’em, by listenin’ to mama up thar on Beech Mountain. This here one’s called Jack and the Varmints.’
Orville made a noise in his throat like children do when they’re imitating a machine gun, except that he was smiling. It was an extraordinary chuckle, half pure joy, half rhythmic device.
Now Jack, he lived waaaay back up in th’ mountains thar with his mama, and they got up one morning, and went to get something to eat, and looked, but didn’t have a bite to eat in the house. Didn’t have nuthin’. And Jack’s mama said, ‘Son, you gonna have to go out and find some work. If’n you don’t, we gonna starve to death.’
Well, Jack, he didn’t like to work too good, if he could get by with it. But he finally headed down th’ road lookin’ for work. Well, Jack got down th’ road a little piece, and found an old board layin’ beside th’ road that come off an old wagon. Well Jack got his old pocketknife out of his pocket, and got to whittlin’ on that board. Walking down th’ road, he wasn’t carin’ where he’s going, er if he found work er not. Got down th’ road a little piece and Jack looked and he’d chewed down a big old round paddle outta that board. Well, Jack put his knife in his pocket and got that old paddle, walking down th’ road with it, swinging it this way and that way. Wasn’t long before he come by a mud hole [pronounced hough]. Jack got to lookin’, and there was a big bunch a flies flyin’ around that mud hough. After a while the flies lit on th’ mud hough, and Jack snuck up on th’ mud hough with that paddle, and he come down in that mud hough, ka-wham! Right in th’ mud hough with th’ paddle he went. And he picked up th’ paddle and looked under it, and he’d killed seven flies! [Orville chuckled]
Well, Jack thought he’d done something big.
‘Excuse me, can I put this in here?’ A man held pieces of an old kitchen chair for Orville to inspect before he tossed them in the dumpster. Orville looked them over and thought he could do something with them, and stockpiled them at our feet.
‘I’m a salvager,’ he said, a little sheepishly.
So Jack went on down the road and he come to the blacksmith shop. He went in ‘ar and he got that blacksmith to make him a belt [pronounced bey-alt]. And Jack put that belt on, and that belt, it read, ‘Big Man Jack Killed Seven at a Whack.’ Gosh, Jack went down the road with that belt on feelin’ big [pronounced be’eg].
Well, it wasn’t long before Jack come by the king’s house. The old king was settin’ on the porch thar smokin’ his old corncob pipe, leanin’ back in a rockin’ chair, and he seen Jack a-comin’, and he said, ‘Howdy son.’
Jack looked up thar on the porch and seen the king, and said, ‘Howdy-do, daddy.’
The old king said, ‘Can I hep you?’
Jack said, ‘Yeah, I’m a-lookin’ fer work.’
‘Well, Jack,’ he said, ‘I need a man. But you ain’t bigger enough fer what I need you for. But come on up here and set down and talk to me awhile anyway.’
Well Jack went up on the porch, set down in the old chair, and him and the king got to talkin’. D’rectly the king looked over and he seen Jack’s belt. And he read it and said, ‘Big Man Jack Killed Seven at a Whack.’ He said, ‘Gosh, Jack, that belt mean what it says it does?’ [Orville chuckled]
Jack said, ‘It sure does.’ The king thought he killed seven men at a whack, din’t know he was talkin’ about flies. He said, ‘Gosh, you just the man I’m a-lookin’ for.’
Jack said, ‘Whaddaya mean?’
He said, ‘‘Cross the mountain here, there’s a big old wild boar on the loose. That thing’ll weigh ya up to two thousand pounds, it got tusks stickin’ waaaay up outta its mouth, and that thang’s knockin’ down fences and killin’ horses and sheep. Nah I need to get that thang killed. If you can kill that thang and bring it back ta me, I’ll give you a thousand dollars.’
Jack said, ‘Gawsh, a thousand dollars. Well, king, I’ll see if I can go back thar and kill it fer you.’
Well, the king went out and got his horse, and put the saddle on it, and put Jack up behind him, and rode ‘cross the mountain to where he last seen that wild boar at. And the king was sa scared of it, he knocked Jack off the horse and he beat that horse to death gettin’ outta thar, very nearly. Jack got up, dusted hisself off, and said, ‘If that king’s that scared o’ that wild boar,’ he said, ‘I’d better not mess with it. I believe I’ll just go on home [pronounced haum] and forget about it.’
Well Jack started ’cross the mountain haum. He got ’cross the mountain, got down in the holler and got lost [pronounced lawes-t]. He got to beatin’, thrashin’ around in the laurel bushes, tryin’ to find his way out [pronounced a-yout]. The wild boar’s on the other side