Saturday morning Bob and Jill drove north out of Knoxville on U.S. 25 toward the little tobacco town of Clinton. With a fine mist hovering around his windshield, he contemplated about what to say to his father once they arrived. No conversation with his father ever came without discomfort, and this one, for some reason, seemed as though it might be very complicated.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Jill said, breaking their silence. “It’s just you’ve met all of my family, warts exposed and all, and I haven’t met your father yet.”
The winding highway turned and dipped into a small valley where Clinton laid, a town of about five thousand people, most of whom grew, cured, sold or hauled tobacco for a living. Away from warehouses, stores and offices in downtown, the residential streets were tree-lined with boughs stretching from one side to another, almost entwining in the middle, creating perpetual shade.
“How beautiful,” Jill murmured.
“My favorite time is winter when the limbs are filled with ice and snow.” Pulling into the driveway of a small wood-frame house with a large verandah, Bob stopped the engine of his car and sighed in resignation. Jill looked at him and knitted her brow.
“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”
“No,” Bob replied. “I really want to, really.”
“Really?” Jill smiled, half in seriousness and half teasing.
“Really.” Bob winked at her and got out of the car. As they walked across the grass, for there was not sidewalk, Bob paused to survey the house in which he had spent his childhood. Bushes his mother had pruned and kept in perfect shape were overgrown and touched the eaves of the house. They had just been cut back enough to allow visitors to mount steps to the verandah.
“I take it we go through here,” she said, going in front through the bushes and up the steps.
“Watch it.”
“Thank you.” She held up her foot and looked down to see a rotted plank with a hole in it.
“I discovered the weak spot the last time I came,” he said, ushering her cautiously to the front door. He knocked hard several times before opening it.
“He doesn’t lock it?”
“Not in little old safe Clinton.”
“That’s what they all say until someone gets hacked to death,” Jill said with irony as they entered the living room.
Again Bob paused, his heart sinking as he remembered how his mother had scoured hours on end to keep their furniture spotless and shining. Now it sagged and was covered with dust.
“The sight of this room would kill my mother if she wasn’t already dead,” he said. Bob looked to a door to the right. “That’s his bedroom. He’s probably still asleep.”
Opening the door, he saw that he was right. Mr. Meade, now fat and bald, snored on his soiled sheets with a shotgun precariously perched on the headboard.
“Dad,” he said in a loud voice, “it’s me, Bob.”
“That you, son?” With a snort Mr. Meade jerked awake and focused his sleep-filled eyes.
“Yeah. Sorry I didn’t call first. Thought I’d come for a visit.”
“You didn’t lose your job and coming back home to live, are you?” he asked, sitting up and fumbling for his coveralls and brown khaki shirt on the floor.
“No, Dad. Everything’s just fine with my job,” Bob replied with patience. “I’m just here to say hello.”
“That’s good because I don’t think I could afford to take care of you.”
“You don’t have to worry about that.”
“That’s good.” Mr. Meade bent over to lace up his work boots. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you. That confounded answering machine of yours ain’t no good. I don’t think it’s taking my messages.”
“Yeah, I’m going to have to get a new one, I think.”
“I think half of the new-fangled machines they’ve come up with are no good, anyway.” Mr. Meade stood and looked at his son. “Looks like you’ve been doing good.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Let’s sit in the living room.” He headed for the door. “The TV room is a mess.” Going through the door, he stopped short when he saw Jill and smiled, revealing yellowed teeth with gaps between them. “Why, ain’t you a pretty little thing?”
“Thank you very much, Mr. Meade.” Jill returned his smile and extended her hand.
“She’s got a good grip on her.” As he shook her hand, he turned to look at Bob. “I always liked a woman with a strong handshake.”
“This is Jill Smith,” he said. “We’ve been seeing a lot of each other lately.”
“Now you settle down next to me, you hear?” Mr. Meade sat on the sofa and patted the cushion. Dust rose and little by little settled back down. “Where did my boy find you?”
“Bob’s been very helpful to my family,” she said, ignoring the dust and sitting. “As you may have seen on the news, my grandfather may be deported.”
“Never watch it.” He waved his hand. “Never knew why the boy wanted to go into that business.” He looked at Bob. “But he’s done good at it, I’m told. Neighbors say they see him on TV every night.”
“Yes, he’s very good at his job.”
“I just watch sports myself,” Mr. Meade said. “Football, baseball. Of course, wrestling’s my favorite but it only comes on once a week.”
“Jill wanted to meet you.” Bob sat in a faded flower-patterned arm chair.
“And I’m glad you did.” Mr. Meade winked at her. “Would you like some coffee?”
“Yes, I’d love some.”
“Would you mind making it?” Glancing at Bob and then back at Jill, Mr. Meade cleared his throat.
“Dad, I don’t think…”
“It’s instant in a jar. My percolator broke, and a new one just cost so much I switched to the powered stuff.”
“I think I can handle that.” Jill smiled as she stood.
“It’s through that door,” he said, pointing.
After Jill left, Mr. Meade focused his attention on his son. He scratched his chin. Bob recognized it as the gesture Milborn Stone used when he played Doc on “Gunsmoke.” To be so proud of not watching television, Mr. Meade religiously watched reruns of old shows and subconsciously picked up on mannerisms of his favorite characters, Bob noticed through the years. Milborn Stone’s scratch and Walter Brennan’s limp from “The Real McCoys” became part of his personality tic, especially when he was nervous.
“That’s a nice young lady you have there.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Try to hang on to her. Good ones are hard to find.”
“I know.”
Mr. Meade looked down and did his Milborn Stone scratch on the cheek once more.
“I’ve been doing some thinking the last few months about a lot of things. You know, I don’t have much longer to live.”
“Your doctor said something?” Bob furrowed his brow.
“Oh, no. I’m strong as a horse. Always have been. But I was down at the senior citizens center a few months ago for my free hot lunch—you know that’s a good thing government does, those free lunches for us old folks. Now some of that other stuff government sticks its nose into…”
“What happened at lunch, Dad?”
“Oh. Yeah. Anyway, Frank Manchester dropped dead, right there before dessert. You remember Frank, don’t you? He used to work at the warehouse with me.”
“I think so.”
“Anyway, it turns out he’s two years younger than me and didn’t have a thing wrong with him, or so folks thought. And he just fell over dead like that.”
“When it comes your time…”
“Well, that’s the way I feel about it, and I don’t worry about the dying at all.” He paused to look at Bob with sincerity. “It’s the living I got to do before I drop dead that’s got me to thinking.”
Bob never heard his father have a discussion like this before. On previous visits Mr. Meade asked how his job was going. When Bob said fine, he said good, because he could not afford to take his son back in. Then they talked about University of Tennessee’s latest football game, or baseball game, depending on which season it was. Mr. Meade brought him up to date who died and reminded him of what part they played in his childhood. Mr. Meade concluded with the weather. All of this took perhaps an hour. After an embarrassingly silent fifteen minutes, Bob found an excuse to leave.
“There ain’t nothing wrong with your answering machine, is there?” he asked quietly.
Bob was speechless. He only shook his head.
“I can’t blame you much. I wasn’t a very good daddy. My daddy wasn’t very good, and I thought that was what you was supposed to do.”
“Dad, you don’t have to say this.”
“I did the best I knew how. But now I know that wasn’t near good enough.”
His old brown eyes searched for forgiveness from Bob, and in that moment Bob thought he saw straight through to his father’s soul.
“It’s nobody’s fault,” Bob said, choosing his words with care. “We all do the best we can with what we got and go on from there.”
“If I could do it over again…”
“Dad, the machine’s going to work a lot better from now on, promise.”
Jill came from Mr. Meade’s kitchen with a rusty old tin tray on which sat three chipped cups filled with coffee.
“Now there’s that pretty girl with coffee.”
Putting the rusty tray on a dust covered coffee table, Jill handed cups to Bob and his father. More than a few minutes were spent discussing with relish the consistency of instant coffee’s quality compared to that of fresh brewed, and how coffee brought out finer memories of life.
“Now I got to fix you kids some lunch.” Slurping the last of his coffee he put his cup down with flair.
“How nice of you,” Jill said.
Bob shook his head and rubbed his stomach.
“On the other hand, we don’t want to put you out.”
“Yeah, Dad, why don’t we treat you by going to Miss Adair’s Diner downtown?”
“If that’s what you want,” he said, standing and heading toward his bedroom. “Let me change clothes first.” He turned and looked at them with genuineness. “But you’re visiting me. I’ll pay.”
“That’s all right, Dad…”
“I got my Social Security check in yesterday’s mail,” he said. “I can pay.”
“Is Miss Adair’s okay?”
“If you ignore the cockroaches crawling in the corner.”
After lunch, they returned to Bob’s old home and sat in the living room talking about latest baseball game scores and how the Atlanta Braves had a good chance of winning a pennant again, about who died last week and if Bob remembered them, and, in conclusion, the quality of East Tennessee’s summer with its lack of rain and how that would affect tomato crops.
“There’s nothing better than a fresh cut sliced tomato from the garden,” Mr. Meade said with a sigh. “Why, I could make a meal out of them, along with those Vidalia onions from Georgia. Nothing’s better than a Vidalia onion.”
And then something out of the ordinary came to pass. There was no awkward moment of silence followed by forced excuses to leave. First Mr. Meade asked Jill about her family and a discussion of the hearing ensued with Mr. Meade being sympathetic. Jill mentioned her relatives would be flying back to Germany after the judge announced his decision.
“That’s something you’ve never done, is it, Dad?”
“What’s that?”
“Fly,” Bob said.
“Why, of course, I have.” He stretched back on the sofa and described a time in the twenties when a fellow with an old biplane came through town and offered rides for five dollars each. He was the only one in town to take the man up on his deal. Bob was taken aback not so much by the fact his father actually flew but that he would separate from five dollars to do it.
“Of course, that was when I was young and didn’t know any better.”
One story after another seemed to flow, from his teen-aged years when he hit a home run for the high school team, winning the big championship, to encountering Al Capone when he motored from Chicago to Miami and stopped off at Clinton to have a flat tire fixed. Those were anecdotes that Bob had never heard before. When he at last glanced at his watch it was five o’clock.
“It’s almost supper time. I guess Jill and I ought to get back to Knoxville.”
“Yep, you don’t want to be on the road when those drunks get out,” Mr. Meade said, standing and heading for his front door.
“Thank you again for lunch, Mr. Meade,” Jill said.
“Any time.” He patted Bob on the back. “You be sure to bring this cute little girl with you next time you come to visit.”
“I’ll do that, Dad.” He became aware of his father’s hand lingering on his shoulders, giving it a soft, gentle massage. Never before had he ever shown any kind of physical affection to Bob, who fought an inclination to tear up.
“That’s good.”
As they drove away, Bob looked back to see his father finish waving, scratch his cheek and limp a little as he went back into his house. Without thinking about it much, he started humming.
“What’s that tune? I don’t recognize it.”
“Grandpappy Amos and the girls and boys of the family known as the real McCoys.”
Sunday morning Bob and Jill drove to Gatlinburg where they had an unhurried breakfast at a pancake house on the main street. Few tourists were out yet, and traffic was sparse. Jill took her last bite and looked at Bob who was staring out the window at a candy kitchen next door where, even on a Sunday, workers were pouring taffy.
“That was a nice visit with your father yesterday,” she said.
“Not like any other I’ve ever had.” He looked at her and felt himself on the verge of tears again at the memory of his father’s hand on his shoulders. Bob put on his television smile. “Which trail do you want to tackle?”
“Nothing too strenuous.”
“How about Grotto Falls?”
“I haven’t been there in years.” Her face brightened.
Bob drove past an enormous Holiday Inn on the right and a tall cylindrical hotel on the left which overlooked Gatlinburg and entered the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. They slowed down for a group of backpackers and stopped a few moments to investigate old Ogle farm, abandoned early in the century. Up the road they parked and began their walk. Bob took Jill’s hand, and she leaned into his side as they made their way along the gently sloping trail spotted with bumpy exposed tree roots.
“Think we’ll see any rhododendron in bloom?”
“Not at this elevation,” he replied. “You have to go higher to see rhododendron this time of year.”
“Thank you again for all the help you’ve been with the hearing and all.” As they walked beside noise Roaring Fork Creek, she squeezed his hand. “Life would be hard for me to tolerate without you.”
“I was glad to be there. But I didn’t do anything your parents couldn’t have done for you.”
“Mom was working too hard trying to stay away from alcohol.” Jill shook her head. “Dad seemed to be in a daze.”
“I just wanted to be with you, whether we were in a court room or in a movie theater or walking along a path that’s killing my feet.”
Jill laughed.
“These stumpy roots are digging into my heels like crazy,” Bob said.
They heard the falls before they saw them. As they turned a final corner they spotted Grotto Falls, not known for being particularly high or having great volumes of water cascade over its boulders, but for its small cave directly behind, where falling water sprayed hikers.
“It’s nice coming here on Sunday morning,” she said. “We don’t have to share it with anyone.”
As they stepped with caution on wet stones to reach the grotto, Bob spoke, choosing his words with care.
“We’ve spent more time with your family, going to the airport, dropping people off here and there, meeting with lawyers, sitting through court than doing things most people in love are supposed to do.”
Jill looked at him and smiled when he mentioned the word love. At last they stood behind the falls and looked through a prism of falling water at boulders, trees and bushes before them.
“It’s not really working for me, though.”
“Oh?” She stiffened a bit.
“I think we should get married,” Bob said. “That way we can be around each other without lawyers or relatives.”
“Oh.” Jill stuck her hand out to feel the falls’ cold water.
“Well?”
“I love the Smoky Mountains.”
Bob appeared apprehensive.
“And I love you.” She hugged him. “I think a late September wedding. On Clingman’s Dome where we can have a good view of fall colors. What do you think?”
He answered with a long, moist kiss. Parting, Bob and Jill jumped a little as they noticed an elderly couple standing just outside of Grotto Falls watching them. The white-haired gentleman put his arm around his wife and smiled.
“It’s good when you’re old too.”