I wrote this short story last year. It was my first and only venture thus far into writing a story. The writing prompt was a picture of Earl. The characters easy to develop and I felt a kinship to them as I wrote. Sometimes even pretend stories are based in reality. Grief has many faces and hope in my mind looks like Grandma Charlotte. My Grandma Charlotte gave me my first Bible and took me to VBS one summer and that planted the seed of God in my heart that has brought me on this journey of love, that I call my crazy life.
I hope you enjoy my Earl story, I enjoyed writing it.
Charlotte's Legacy
Earl sits out on the porch of his old, grimy potato
farm. His kids have all grown and
left. They’ve begged him to move into
the city with them since his wife Charlotte passed away but, Earl is a stubborn
man. So stubborn that when his teeth
started falling out and everyone said he should get dentures Earl just flat out
refused. As a matter of fact, he told
the dentist to just pull’em all out to speed up the process. He didn’t care, he would just gum his
food…after all, and
he said, “nothing
tasted good since Charlotte died.” He
just ate because it’s what you’re supposed to do.
So there Earl was on his small potato farm plot that he had
worked his whole life and now he was sure he would die there, at least that’s
what he was hoping for. This was where
his kids had been born and where his precious Charlotte had died. His stubborn mule self was not leaving until
they drug him
out in an old pine box. So day after day
he sat alone rocking on that old front porch, birds chirping, bugs jumping and Earl
spitting his tobacco through his old wrinkled, stained toothless mouth in the
hot sun with the fly’s buzzing all around.
“Die already”, he was thinking one of those hot days when
all of the sudden in the distance he saw a figure. It was a small figure in the distance with a
stick. Earl remembered for a brief
moment seeing one of his boys walking up to the house like that. Only that time his precious Charlotte had run
out to greet their son, Tom. She was mad
as hell and screaming all the way about how he had scared her to death,
disappearing like that, but mad as she was, she had thrown her arms around him
and showered kisses on the boy until he begged her to stop. For a slight moment, Earl could hear the
laughter between them, but then, suddenly, the laughter grew faint and slowly
faded away, as did Earl’s moment of peace. No more
Charlotte, no more farming and no more children. Oh sure, they came to visit every few months
but now they too were old and had their own children and grandchildren. His eyes misted over as he yearned to go back
in time, but suddenly the boy was closer, a lanky tow-headed boy wearing
overalls and a crooked grin.
Who is this boy and what is he doing on my property, thought Earl.
He pushed himself wobbly out of his rocking chair and yelled at the boy,
“Whatcha doin here boy?” The boy with the crooked grin answered back, “Whatcha
doin here?” Earl, exasperated already, spit right at the
boy’s feet and said, “Well I live here boy, now answer my question, Whatcha
doin here?” “Well, I reckon I’ll answer your question then
sir, seeing how this is your place and all.
My names’ John and my grandparents live down the road aways, maybe you know them, the McDaniel’s…the corn farmers
bout a mile or so down the road.” The boy paused waiting for a response but
Earl just stared at him.
Truth be told Earl was deep in thought. He was thinking about how long ago, that was
the Cummings farm and he and Charlotte would go play bridge on Saturday nights
with them while their children played together in the yard and chased fireflies. The boy cleared his throat as if he
understood the man had somehow gotten lost in thought and he wanted to bring
him back. “Hhhmm, hmmm..sir?”
Earl snapped back to the present time and appeared visibly
shaken. He looked backward at his
rocking chair longingly then looked at the boy and decided he didn’t need to
keep standing. He settled himself back
into his chair, turned his head a bit sideways and took a good long look at the
boy. “Kid”, he said “you sure are young
to be out by yourself.” The boy quickly
replied, “I’m not young, I’m a whole lot older than my sister, she’s only
three!” Earl feeling a bit crabby about
having his day interrupted even though he knew each day was just a series of
wake up and go to sleep with a whole lot of nothing in between, but still this
boy was reminding him of his own son and he didn’t much like it. He didn’t like it at all! Just like he didn’t like it when the lady
from the Baptist church brought him his Meals on Wheels and wanted to talk
about Jesus. Talk about Jesus, he didn’t
wanted to talk about anything and certainly not about Jesus. He didn’t want to talk, he didn’t want to
feel, he just wanted to be left alone in his chair, put food in the birdfeeder,
watch the news, call his kids on Sundays and hurry up and die.
But now this scrawny, tow headed, freckled face boy was
messing everything up. “What’s your name
kid?” Earl asked. The boy answered, “ I already told you, my
name’s John.” “Ahhh, that’s’ right kid, John that’s your
name. So again, whatcha doin here? “ “ Well, I’m looking for my dog”, the boy replied. Earl raised his voice and and said, “He ain’t
here kid…I ain’t seen a dog all day. So
go on and get on your way.” Right about
then the clouds seemed to roll in thick with rain. Earl looked at the boy. The boy looked at
Earl with big saucer like eyes. Thunder
split the air, the boy jumped half out of his skin. Earl snapped at him, “Get on back to your
grandpappys house kid a storms a comin.”
Just then the rain began to fall, big giant drops, soaking
the boy almost immediately. Standing there drenched, with thunder and
lightning going, the boy’s face went through a series of strange
expressions. First shock that it began
to rain so quickly, then fear that it was so loud, then he screwed his face up
real tight trying to control his emotions.
Then, just as suddenly as the rain had begun, the tow headed, freckled
face boy began to cry big crocodile tears.
Earl watched the boy’s face with amusement but his hard
heart was having no part of helping this boy out. “Run boy” he said to the kid, but something
had happened to the boy, something Earl didn’t understand. The boy had gone from being scared to suddenly
just sobbing uncontrollably with his shoulders hunched over and his head just
hanging there with no pretence of trying to get out of the rain. Earl thought to himself, this is sure
something…what on earth is wrong with this boy?
Then he thought well maybe if I
ignore him he’ll turn home and run.
Earl kept staring at the boy as he rocked in his chair but
the boy just kept standing in the rain sobbing.
Ah hell, thought Earl this kid ain’t leaving. “C’mon kid, come up on the porch out of the
rain.” The boy lifted his head and
looked at Earl, something in his eyes looked familiar to Earl. A loneliness,
a sorrow too great to bear seemed to stare at Earl from the boy’s eyes. For just a moment Earl related to the boy
then he shook his head and yelled at the boy again, “C’mon kid, ya fool! Get outta the rain.”
The boy moved slowly at first like he just wasn’t sure how
to make his legs work, then with a couple of quick steps, he was up on the
porch, collapsing in a heap into Charlotte’s rocking chair. Earl just stared. The boy was sitting in Charlotte’s chair;
even his own grown children didn’t sit in Charlotte’s chair. Earl hated the boy in that moment, he wanted
to muster up all his strength and pull the boy out of the chair, but he was
tired and honestly not sure if all his strength would be enough. And now the boy who Earl decided must be
about seven or eight years old was not just crying but howling. Earl was getting madder and madder. He didn’t want to watch this kid cry and
scream, but he wasn’t quite sure what to do.
He’d never been the type to coddle a kid, that was Charlotte’s job. She was the one who would smother a crying
child into her chest and whisper, “Hush child…now now everything is gonna be
all right, hush child.” Charlotte would
have known what to do right now, Earl thought.
So Earl just sat there a little mad that the boy wouldn’t
stop and a little mad that he didn’t know what to do about it. He fidgeted and rocked as the rain beat
against the hard dry ground and he wondered what could this kid possibly have to cry and make such a
fuss about. Suddenly his mind went to
thoughts of Charlotte. Charlotte
laughing as she washed potatoes outside in a big wash basin, Charlotte too old
to stand and pull potatoes so she would sit on an upside down bucket and as
Earl turned the ground over she would loosen and pull the potatoes out and
chuckle and say she loved doing it. He
knew she didn’t but she want the workers to know she was willing to work right
alongside them. Then just as suddenly he
saw Charlotte in that box, cold and lifeless.
Not looking at all like the Charlotte he loved. He felt a stab in his hear that made him
never want to love anyone or anything again.
A cold feeling crept over him that made him feel like he was dead
already. Hard was how he looked and hard
was how he felt, just hard.
Finally the boy lifted his head, grimy tear streaks down his
face and mumbled something that Earl couldn’t quite make out and he didn’t
really care about and so they just sat there a bit in silence watching the
rain. Before too long the boy whispers
something quietly to Earl. Earl looks at
the boy and wonders why on earth this boy would have ended up on his porch and
would be trying to whisper to an old man who can barely hear a regular voice,
let alone a whisper. “Speak up boy!” snapped
Earl. The boy’s eyes pooled up with
tears again and Earl thought he was going to start up all over again. Earl quickly tried to do something, anything
to keep the kid from crying. Something
to drink maybe, “Kid, you want a soda?”
The boy nodded yes and Earl shuffled off to the kitchen hoping there was
an old soda stashed somewhere in his fridge.
Soda left over from Charlotte.
Charlotte, who liked to have soda in the house for the grandkids, but
wouldn’t drink it herself. Charlotte,
who could have made this boy cookies and probably knew his grandparents.
Charlotte had kept up with the neighbors when Earl had
decided he was sick of people and didn’t see any point in making new friends at
their age. Charlotte had just laughed
and called him an old fool. “Earl”, she
had said, “We all need each other and
someday you’ll be gone and I’m gonna need some friends.” So then what did she do? She went and died first and Earl felt sure he
prove her wrong, he didn’t need anyone.
He found the soda stashed in the back of the fridge grabbed
it and headed back for the porch, half expecting the boy to be gone. The boy however was not gone and the rain had
not let up, it was still raining cats and dogs.
He sat down by the boy sitting in Charlotte’s chair and handed him the
soda and put more chew in his lip. The
boy began to rock in Charlotte’s chair and Earl felt his anger rise up against
the boy again but before he could grump at the boy, the boy started
talking. The freckle face, tow headed
boy had a story to tell and it came tumbling out faster than Earl could
understand it and his hard heart could not let it in until suddenly Earl caught
up to one simple word. Dead. Dead, Earl tried to really understand what
the boy was saying, something about his dog, somebody being dead and having to
move here to his grandparent’s farm. So
when the boy paused, to take a breath Earl took the opportunity to speak
up. “Listen kid, you’re gonna have to
slow down so I can keep up. What’s this
you’re saying about somebody being dead?”
The minute he said it, he knew it was all wrong. Charlotte would have never said it like
that. The boy’s eyes filled up again and
spilled over but this time he held onto his emotions a bit better and he simply
said, “My parents are dead.” “Dead”,
said Earl, “Both of them?” “Yes”,
answered the boy with a deep sadness in his voice. Earl thought to himself, well don’t that beat
all…poor kid.
Earl looked at the boy and suddenly Earl with his toothless
mouth began to tell his story about Charlotte, bit by bit he mumbled about
finding Charlotte in the field, sitting by her bed for three days until finally
she left him and suddenly Earl realized he was crying big crocodile tears were
rolling down his and the boy with the freckles was standing beside him and whispering,
“Hush now..hush now everything’s gonna be all right, hush now mister everything’s
gonna be all right.”
Suddenly Earl felt a dam burst in his heart and he gathered
the boy to his chest and stroked the boy’s hair and said right back to him, “Yes
kid everything’s gonna be all right. You
and I kid, we’re gonna be all right.”
Earl looked up to the sky and remembered all the times Charlotte had
looked up at the sky in a moment like this and said, “Thank You Lord!” He couldn’t quite bring himself to say it but
he thought it. Then he thought, maybe
just maybe there was still a little bit more life to be lived.
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