Pete Guymon drove in with a
truck full of produce.
He joked with Calb Hardly,
Mr. Hardly’s son,
while they unloaded eggs and cream
down at the store.
Pete Guymon teased Calb Hardly about the Wildcats
losing to Hooker.
Calb Hardly teased Pete Guymon about his wheezy
truck sucking in dust.
Last Friday,
Pete Guymon took ill with dust pneumonia.
Nobody knew how to keep that produce truck on the
road.
It sat,
filled with turkeys and heavy hens
waiting for delivery,
it sat out in front of Pete’s drafty shack,
and sits there still,
the cream curdling
the apples going soft.
Because a couple of hours ago,
Pete Guymon died.
was already on the phone to a new produce supplier,
before evening.
He had people in his store
and no food to sell them.
His boy, Calb,
slammed the basketball against the side of the house
until Calb’s ma yelled for him to quit,
and late that night a truck rattled up to the store,
with colored springs,
dozens of hens,
filthy eggs,
and a driver with no interest whatsoever in young
Calb Hardly
or his precious Wildcats.
March 1935