I Remember Him

I remember him as if it were yesterday, picking black berries for his mom’s cobbler pie. He was bare foot with a dirty shirt and frayed blue jeans; if you want to call them blue. His hair dingy red, the color of southern red clay. He never saw me; I was sitting in the water oak, over looking the creek running between our houses. The creek was our playground for fishing and swimming. We strung a kudzu vine over a limb, hanging straight over the creek; for swinging into the deepest part of the water. Down in the shallows was where his family bathed on the warm days. Today was not bath day, it was food gathering day. After placing all of the berries into a big bowl, he would eat a handful before taking them to the house. As a routine, his mother always lathered him up with bacon grease to kill any chiggers, she said it smothered them, it was a wonder it didn’t smother him. I wonder if that was why he always looked unkempt, plus he had wild animals following him quite a lot. It seems as though it was just the other day, he had a skunk run him up a tree. I don’t know who smelt better, him or the skunk. In school he would always sit in the back next to the window. Some of the other boys nick named him Bacon; he didn’t mind, it made him feel important. Me, I gradually got use to the way he smelled like a side of pork. That’s how I always knew when he picked berries for his mom. It was as if the bacon grease tattooed his pores. She did make the best black berry cobbler in town; always taking first place in the county fair. This year, the cash prize would be larger plus the recipe would be published in the state journal and eligible for contest winnings of five thousand dollars. I knew that they could use the money, they were desperately in need of a big wash tub. If it wasn’t for all of his friends at school, his mom would have never won the state prize money and I surely wouldn’t have married him, as I remember… Copyright © 2008 By Caryl S. Muzzey