Chapter 2: A Marriage Made In...

Cassie Jean loved her shabby, dingy, dirty little two-room apartment, but not its dirt. One thing Mamma had taught her was that just because you're poor, don't mean you have to be dirty. She got a chunk of lye soap and a bristle brush and rags from her mother and worked hard all day. She had the front room spotless by the time Leroy came home from work two months after they were married. It seemed the heat that day had sucked the life right out of him.

When he became aware of the changes, he told her, "Well damn, what happened to this old place?" If you're goin' to have a baby, y'all hadn't ought to be scrubbin' and all that shoot. Most women when they get knocked up just sort of lay around on their hind ends and don't do nothing until the baby gets born."

Angry because he didn't show more appreciation for her labors, Cassie lashed right back at him, "And how would y'all get to be such the expert on knocked up women? You been in a habit of makin' babies and getting on out of Dodge afterward?"

"Damn, Cass, what got your bowels in such an uproar? I was just concerned about you working too hard and you fly off the handle at me like I had took a leak in your shoe or somethin'. Now woman, all I did was to care about you." Leroy wondered what the matter was? Cassie wasn't supposed to be like that. Most of the time, she always so easy to get along with.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Leroy Honey, I been scrubbin' this room all day and it still looks scabby. I want you to get me some kalsomine to paint the walls with. I want a pretty pink color. I'll get Daddy's old stepladder and have Wanda help me and then we'll have a house to be proud of. This here old duplex looks like shoot, Leroy. I want a lemon to suck on and a tuna salad sandwich."

He looked sharply at her, "What did you just say?" He hadn't listened too close to her ramblings. "What you said about paint and suckin' on a lemon?"

Tears welled up in her eyes, "Leroy Jones, Don't you ever pay no attention to anything I have to say? I want a big sour pickle and a boiled egg. I want it now."

"What is wrong with you Cass I mean, are you crazy or what? Just what in hell has got into you?" He saw the mean look forming on her face and said, "All right, I'll go get you a lemon and a peach and ... aw shoot, you come too." Right then he began to think hard about how he just might walk down to the train yards and catch the first freight to anywhere away from Woodman and Cassie both. The trouble was, he was almost broke and payday wasn't for two more days. But he wasn't going to stand for much more of this stuff.

She grinned and grabbed his arm. "Let's go, Leroy honey." She was two months married and close to six months pregnant, by her calculations. Just recently she had begun to show her condition.

Leroy wasn't too sure of how pregnancies worked. Someone said he was the daddy, so he figured he must be the daddy. However, he did know he was torn between two different feelings. On the one hand, he didn't like to be seen with a pregnant woman who had a baby in her. He felt it looked "embarrassing." He figured that somehow, it just didn't look manly. Of course, on the other hand, it surely proved his manhood to have people know he had made a baby. They walked past the pool hall and on towards Yokum's Store, a small mom and pop store that sold butter, eggs, milk and sundries.

"Hey Leroy, who's that you got with you?" Shep called out from the doorway of the pool hall? "That pretty little girl your daughter?"

Leroy grinned and waved at them. "What's got into them, Leroy? They know you ain't my daddy." She giggled and added, "If you are my daddy, it means we been doin' a real bad thing."

"Aw shoot, Cass, they was just jokin' at me." He grinned down at her.

She squeezed him with the arm around his waist and said, "I know that, Leroy, I was just makin' a joke my ownself." They walked on in silence till they reached the store. He opened the door and went in first. Cassie Jean followed in behind him.

Once inside, she hurried over to the small chest freezer and took out a pint of freshly made ice cream. Mister Yokum made up three gallons at a time and packaged them in single pint containers. They were placed in the small chest freezer in the center of the little store. Then when it was all sold, he made another batch. Cassie grabbed a thick, long sour green dill pickle out of the big glass jar on the counter and said, "I'm ready, Leroy, pay the lady an' let's go."

Leroy nodded without answering and handed the disapproving Old Lady Yokum sufficient coins to cover the purchase. He led his wife outside, again first through the door. She glared at his retreating back. The previous years, that worthless Leroy Jones had taken up with Yokums' youngest daughter and broke the poor girl's heart. Her Tessie had finally run off with that no good guitar player who worked in the cowboy band because of her broken heart. Damn all men anyway.

Leroy absently patted Cassie's butt as they walked along side by side. She held up the pickle, barely visible in the oncoming dusk and giggled, "You know, Leroy, this here thing looks ugly as all get out, but it surely is good, especially with ice cream.

"I don't think you'll have much of a problem keeping your ice cream and pickles for me to eat." He gave her a soft smile and shook his head.

"Well shoot, Leroy, that's okay by me. It just means there's that much more for me to eat."

"Well, that's fine with me."

"You sure you don't wanna have a taste?" she asked and grinned. She held the pickle out to him.

"Well of course not. I'm a man." he protested, half serious.

"Well, I'm a woman and I like my pickles and ice cream. So there." They walked on in silence. What made females, all females, so damned crazy after they got married? He shook his head.

By the time they got home it was almost nine o'clock. "Let's go to bed." Leroy told her.

"Naw honey, y'all go on to sleep. I got to finish my ice cream. You want some?" She held the small waxed butcher carton filled with ice cream out to him.

"You eat it," he answered, "I'm tired." He took off his shoes and dropped his overalls down and stepped out of them. He shucked out of his shirt and lay down naked on top of the covers. Cassie sat on the front porch and savored her ice cream and pickle.

Later she crawled into bed. Cassie felt so heavy and awkward any more. She was careful not to disturb her husband. Cassie grinned and lay on her side. In his sleep, Leroy grunted and mumbled. She giggled and drifted off to sleep. The next morning, Leroy woke up and discovered she had her arms around him. He grinned as he eased out of her grasp as he got up, got dressed and headed to the Hot Spot for his morning stale doughnut and bitter coffee.

"Leroy, my friend." the judge greeted him, "How is married life treating you? More to the point, are you treating your child bride well? She seems to be a nice little girl, not like the rest of her family." He frowned at the mere thought of that useless Bench Daly. The Judge and Bench Daly had a longstanding dislike for each other.

"Well, I don't know about the little girl part, Judge, she just keeps getting' bigger every day. As for treating her right, I don't know if I am or not. She wants a sour pickle and ice cream. She won't eat real food like fried taters and steak and beans and stuff. I think she's goin' crazy."

The judge laughed and told Leroy, "My friend, cravings of that sort are common with some women when they are with child. There might also be irrational behavior, unreasonable demands made on the poor husband and probably morning sickness."

"What's this 'morning sickness' y'all just mentioned, Judge?" Leroy looked at the jurist apprehensively, he was deathly afraid of being around "sick people."

Judge Mack laughed, "Leroy, fear you not. Morning sickness is usually not too contagious. Although there have been instances of the man having it instead of his wife or even alongside her, but never has it proven to be fatal." He thought a moment and added, "Well, not that I've heard of, anyway." He patted Leroy on the shoulder and rose to leave.

Leroy nodded his agreement, swallowed the last of the coffee and followed the judge out. "Talking to you, Judge, has a way of settling my nerves. Y'all have to be the smartest man I ever known." He turned toward the dam project and hurried off at his awkward looking, distance eating lope.

The judge smiled to himself, pleased that a fellow human being was as perceptive as Leroy Jones seemed to be in the present case. He crawled into his Packard and drove toward the courthouse. Once there he could nap a couple of hours, or until court convened. It never ceased to amaze the judge how he could get the most restful sleep possible just sitting in the big easy chair he kept in his chambers.

As he dozed off he thought of Leroy and wondered if it was his imagination that he seemed to perceive hidden qualities in the man. Underneath his crude speech and behavior there seemed to be another person altogether, one that was waiting for the proper moment to emerge.

Leroy hurried on toward work and arrived at his usual time, just a little before seven o'clock. He waved at Milt and the timekeeper, grabbed up his shovels and crash bar. Then he got to work. Milt smiled and decided he didn't give a damn if the two new Mexicans the office had sent him from Enid ever got there. Leroy got in a fight and ran the last pair off because they wouldn't speak English. He decided they were laughing at him and talking about him.

Why they kept sending Mexicans and Indians out to the job was more than Milt could understand. They never lasted because Leroy made them edgy. He worked like a maniac all day long and expected the other two men to keep up. The company insisted on three man teams. Milt shook his head and decided that Leroy would have work as long as he wanted it. He was just too good a man to lose.

When Leroy heard the noon whistle blow, he dropped his crash bar and loped up to the office shack. The timekeeper's wife packed lunches that he sold for twenty-five cents apiece. For a quarter the buyer got a bologna sandwich, an apple, orange or not too ripe banana and an oatmeal cookie.

She made from ten to fifteen cents profit from each lunch which added up to about a dollar fifty a day profit when the men on the construction crew bought them all. Everyone felt it was a great deal. With his wife so ill, even Milt had been availing himself of the cheap lunches.

Milt waved for Leroy to join him in the tool shack. As soon as Leroy came into the darkened interior, Milt pointed to an overturned five gallon bucket and said, "Sit." As soon as Leroy sat, Milt asked him, "Well, how are you holding up to marriage? I guess it is starting to cramp your style a little, isn't it?"

Leroy looked at his boss and said, "Milt, I been trying to save ten dollars a week 'cause the hospital is going to want a hundred dollars just about. I got to have twenty-five dollars for the doc to deliver the kid and Jesus his own self only knows how much all them diapers an' other stuff will cost. I've only been drunk twice since we got hitched. Now I ask you, is that any way for a man to live?"

In a gentle voice, Milt told him, "My friend, there are some people who never drink a drop of alcohol, ever. As for me, I haven't had a drink since last Christmas."

"Well Jesus, Milt, How the hell y'all ever expect to have any fun?"

"Leroy, I play cards with my wife and daughter. We go for rides and sometimes even take a Sunday picnic just to get out away from the city." What he left unsaid was, his wife's medical bills ate up every dollar he could raise. And where another man might run away from his responsibilities, he honored them. Milt's family was his life.

The whole concept of having fun without alcohol seemed a little outlandish to Leroy. "I dunno, Milt, it seems awful unnatural to go that long a time without a little dust cutter to wash your insides out with. That's especially so, now that Cassie's all knocked up and all. I need a drink or two ever' now and then just so I don't walk off on her. She's goin' crazy on me and the judge says that's natural. How does a man put up with all that stuff?"

He snorted and continued, "She wants pickles an' ice cream an' wants to paint the damn place. Who ever heard of paintin' a place y'all rentin' by the month? Women is crazy."

"You must learn to have patience, Leroy. Remember, she's only a young girl, herself. First pregnancies on teen age girls are a lot harder on them. There are so many changes that take place in their bodies that it's hard for them to cope with everything. The next one will be easier."

"At this rate there ain't going to be no next one," he answered. "Too much more of this an' I'm gone down the road."

"It sounds to me like you have some growing up to do yourself, Leroy," Milt told him in a stern voice. "You made that baby. Now it's your responsibility to make the best of things and take care of your child. Think about that instead of how your feelings get hurt." Milt looked on family as being just slightly more important than God.

"Aw hell, Milt, I guess you're right. But it sure is hard on a man to have to live with someone who can't even think straight. Last night she was fryin' me a steak an' onions and she started to puke. She said the grease smell was botherin' her." He shook his head and took a bite of his sandwich. They spent the rest of the noon meal in silence.

That evening when Leroy got home, Cassie sat in wait for him on the front porch. Her face was very tearful and sad. "Leroy, Daddy says he's goin' to come an' take me home. He's mean drunk and ... there he is, comin' up in back of you."

Bench glanced at Leroy and told his daughter, "You got your stuff ready? Let's go." He started toward her.

"Hold on there, Bench Daly, that's my wife there. I say what she does an' doesn't do. Now you get your runty behind out of here and go on home. You might just stay away from here till you learn better manners."

Bench screeched, face turning red with rage, "You red neck white trash, don't you get between me and my kin." He reached in his hip pocket and drew out his six-shooter.

Leroy let fly a looping right handed wild punch that seemed to start somewhere near his ankles and ended up between Bench's eyes. The gun flew out of the man's hand and he dropped to the ground. He lay there in a sodden heap, unmoving. "I warned you what would happen if you ever drew that gun on me, you smart mouthed little son of a buck." Leroy drew back a foot and kicked the downed man.