Coo Coo stayed.
But he and Hyacinth Day didn’t speak to each other. To know Coo Coo was to understand that the old coot didn’t natural take to everybody. He wouldn’t cross Hyacinth’s path.
Few did.
Most every day or so, Coo Coo would up and disappear, melting away like smoke. He never telled any of us that he was going. Coo Coo just plain git. Then he’d return at sundown with a burlap bag chock full of produce of one kind or another: tomatoes, cukes, sweet taters, squash, peas, butter beans and shell beans, collard greens, and celery. As much as he could tote.
“Where you finding these eats?” I’d asked.
Coo Coo shrugged. “Ya gotta know where to shop. And how.”
One morning, when Tar and Hyacinth was still asleep, I snuck off our bed. Leaving the shed, I went to spy on the close-by place where Coo Coo spent his nights. And some of his days.
Sure enough, out come Coo Coo.
Over his shoulder lay a empty burlap sack, hanging limp and useless. It was early dawn. Not quite enough light to call it morning, but close. Enough dark for me to shadow after the old pickie and not git seen.
Inside a clump of low-grow palmetto, Coo Coo stopped. He skinned out of his shirt. Then he done a strange thing. Leaving his shirt all rolled up in a tight ball, stuffing it under a bush, Coo Coo pulled the burlap bag over his head, poking his skinny arms through two holes, his head through a third.
He wore the burlap sack like a shirt.
I followed him for a mile, I’d guess, and then for another. As I was fixing to give up, because Coo Coo was running away, he passed by a bunch of wrecked vehicles. Cars, buses, and trucks. Some other people were nearby, not doing too much. For some reason, most of the people was wearing burlap-sack shirts, like Coo Coo.
I followed him.
Looking one way, then another, Coo Coo snuck behind a large, long, half-buried truck that was mostly under mud. He disappeared. It was as though he’d found a door to out-of-sight. Moving in closer, I waited.
Coo Coo come back. His burlap shirt was off, and the sack was now bulging with some sort of a cargo.
A cargo that clinked as he walked.
“Coo Coo,” I said, “what you doing?”
Almost dropping is load, the old picker turned on me, frowned, then hissed a warning like a cornered possum. “Dang you, Arly. You follered me.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Why? Ain’t we pals no more?”
I nodded. “Sure, we’re pals. I was just nosey, that’s all, to find out what exact you was up to, and where.”
Coo Coo pointed a finger at me. “I don’t like gitting spied on. No, I don’t.
“What’s in the sack?”
Coo Coo snarled, “None of your pesky business.”
I come closer.
“Well,” I said, “it ain’t vegetables.”
“How do you know?”
I smiled at Coo Coo. “On account,” I telled him, “that I never heared no turnip rub another turnip, and go clink.”
“It ain’t the concern of a child.”
“I’m not just any child. I’m Arly.”
Coo Coo sighed. The burlap sack was heavy, maybe heavier than the old geezer could handle. Coo Coo set it down to haul in a breath. “It’s wine.”
“Wine?”
He nodded. “Yup.” With a toss of his head, he motioned behind him to the secret half-buried truck. “Inside the van, there’s a load of wine. Bottles and bottles and bottles full of it. Wine up the geegaw. More’n a army could knock back.”
“And you’re stealing it?”
“No. I’m only looting a little bit of it.”
“Looting is stealing.”
“Who said?” Coo Coo asked.
“Hyacinth.”
Coo Coo made a disgusting noise. “That old scorpion. She’d disapprove of Tyrus Raymond Cobb stealing second base.”
“What are you going to do with all that wine, Coo Coo? If you drink it, all you’ll do is make yourself sick, and then you’ll puke it up, or wet your trousers.”
“What do you care?”
I touched his hand. “Because I do. I’d be a rotten kind of grandson if I let you choose the sorry road. That’s what Our Father John used to say … that drinking strong spirits only led to sorrowful.”
“Holy Joe.” Coo Coo spat. “He’s probably now drownded and buried under a ton of mud, yet he still’s pestering me to … to reform.”
“You been baptized.”
Coo Coo said a awful word.
“Shame,” I said. “Now what would Hyacinth say if she could hear you speak such?”
He said worse.
“Coo Coo, how come you want to act like trash?”
He sighed. “Maybe I am.”
“No,” I said, “you ain’t never. Because there’s so much more inside you than … than wine.”
“Arly boy, a sip of wine don’t about to hurt me that smart.”
“Did you actual say a sip?”
“Maybe two sips.” He laughed.
I laughed too. As I done so, I was recalling something that Our Father John had telled me, about people. It was late one night, the Sisters was all asleep, and Coo Coo had somewhere located a bottle, and was ripening as mellow as a midnight mule.
“Arly,” said Our Father, “if we profess to be Christians, then we must learn that there’s something more important than converting people.”
“What’s that?” I’d asked him.
Our Father John had smiled. “Understanding,” he said. “Our dear old friend Coo Coo partakes of wine, and then makes himself ill, but you and I must understand why. Perhaps we ought to accept Mr. Coo Coo as he is. Thus, our gift to him … is a gift of … Acceptance.”
Standing there, looking at Coo Coo and a burlap sack loaded with looted wine, I knowed only one thing. That I’d accept Coo Coo as he was, not as I wanted him to be. Because, he happen to be pretty doggone good, as far as I could see, and it was near enough perfect for me.
He bent over.
“Arly,” he said, “I don’t fix to drink all this wine. Oh, to be straight out, maybe a bottle. I’m aiming to trade it for eats. Produce. For me and you and Tar Calhoun.” Coo Coo made a sour face. “Even for the Queen of Sheba Hyacinth Day.” He smiled. “I’ll trade most of it for food.”
His smile sort of blossomed among the wrinkles. Nobody, not even a saint or a devil, could ever actual dislike Coo Coo for a entire day. It weren’t possible.
As he looked into my face, I could see that he’d always be a friend. A pal. Yes, a grandfather. He would be Coo Coo forever, and not change. A changing of some of him might mean I’d want to change all, and I certain didn’t. There was no way I’d cotton to wipe out any of the good inside him, in order to scrub away a few dirty specks of bad.
I waited.
Coo Coo limped away to barter the wine bottles for some vegetables. This time it was a sack of sweet corn. On ears.
Later, little Tar and I and Coo Coo shucked it. Hyacinth boiled it in a pot she’d found, and it was golden good. Coo Coo smiled at Tar and me as we ate. As he tried so hard to gnaw the yellow kernels off a cob, using so few teeth, I had to salute Coo Coo.
In the only way he could, he hunted for us.