Jack’s Girlfriend

I found the bot­tle nes­tled between two feed bags in the back of the ware­house. Pab­st Blue Rib­bon Beer, the big forty ounce size, emp­ty except for a few lit­tle bub­bles on the bot­tom. I was sev­en­teen, work­ing a sum­mer job at the Crozet Fruit Grower’s Co-op. I fig­ured anoth­er work­er, Wal­ter, drank the Pab­st. It was three o’clock and he’d been M.I.A. since lunch time.

I took the bot­tle to Jack, the senior man. In his for­ties, five feet three, built like a fire hydrant with a bowl­ing ball head and bristly buzz-cut red hair, he didn’t have much use for Wal­ter. “Tongue-dick,” he grumped, an epi­thet Jack reserved for the worst among us. I didn’t know what it meant and I was too timid back then to ask. “Best we tell Miz Pugh,” he said.

Mrs. Pugh was the Co-op’s Man­ag­er. I fol­lowed Jack across the ware­house and up the stairs to her office where he set the emp­ty forty ounc­er on her desk.

She stared bale­ful­ly at it, the lens­es of her horned-rim glass­es glint­ing in the light. “Wal­ter?” she said.

Jack nod­ded. “Sumbitch.”

“Please don’t curse, Jack.”

“Sor­ry, Miz Pugh.”

A wid­ow in her fifties with polio, Mrs. Pugh walked on leg braces while lean­ing on hand crutch­es. Know­ing Wal­ter had a his­to­ry of binge drink­ing, she had hired him any­way out of com­pas­sion. He had a wife and three kids and no one else would give him a job. She had every right to be angry at him for let­ting her down, but she betrayed no hint of frus­tra­tion that after­noon. Despite her chal­lenges, or maybe because of them, she was the most patient boss I ever worked for.

“Thank you for telling me,” she said. “Y’all go on back to work now.”

Mrs. Pugh let Wal­ter go, and Jack and I had to cov­er his work­load. Jack made it easy for me. He was the strongest small man I ever met. He tossed around hun­dred pound feed bags all day long with an unfil­tered Camel Gold con­stant­ly dan­gling from his lips, smoke curl­ing into his squint­ing green eyes, yet I nev­er saw him break a sweat or even breathe hard.

Work­ing shoul­der to shoul­der with Jack wasn’t exact­ly a bar­rel of laughs. Tac­i­turn and qui­et, he didn’t seem to have much of a life. He lived alone, could bare­ly read or write, didn’t have any inter­ests out­side his job at the Co-op, and didn’t have any friends oth­er than Mrs. Pugh, whose kind, fair treat­ment had earned his devo­tion. My attempts to cheer him up only rarely broke through his stiff-jawed frown to pro­duce his ver­sion of a smile, a short-lived uptick at the cor­ners of his mouth and a sin­gle quiver of the ubiq­ui­tous Camel.

Then one morn­ing near the end of the sum­mer, he walked into the ware­house, grin­ning all over him­self. “My girl­friend said we get mar­ried if I give her a ring,” he crowed.

He’d nev­er men­tioned a girl­friend before, but from there on, Becky was all he could talk about. She was beau­ti­ful with silky brown hair and a just-right curvy fig­ure, and she was kind, sweet, and fun to be with. Jack had been crazy about her for months, but he didn’t think the feel­ing was mutu­al until she said she’d mar­ry him if he gave her a ring.

I was hap­py for him. Then I met Becky.

Jack and I walked down Three Notch’d Road to a store to buy lunch. When we stepped inside, Jack sucked in his breath and rushed over to a woman stand­ing with a man by the drink machine. “Hi, Becky,” he said, his voice trembling.

She was in her thir­ties, Jack’s height, and a good hun­dred eighty pounds. Pim­ples and black­heads cov­ered her chub­by face, and greasy brown hair fell limply to her ample shoul­ders. She rolled her eyes at the mid­dle-aged bean-pole with yel­low teeth stand­ing beside her, and mut­tered, “Shit, Bob­by, here he is again.”

Jack danced around in front of Becky like a pup­py dog des­per­ate for a pat on the head while she ignored him and flirt­ed with Bob­by. There was noth­ing sub­tle about the sig­nals she sent them. She had no inter­est in Jack, and she want­ed to get it on with Bobby.

She was lean­ing against Bob­by and he had just slipped his hand inside her blouse when Jack blurt­ed out that he planned to give her a ring next week. Becky and Bob­by exchanged sly looks. She went up on tip­toes and whis­pered some­thing in his ear. They laughed. She winked at Jack, took Bobby’s arm, and pulled him toward the door. “Bet­ter be a nice ring, Jack,” she said over her shoul­der as they left the store. Jack waved to her with a lit­tle-boy grin on his flushed face.

On the way back to the Co-op, Jack was elat­ed. “I seen a ring in the drug store. It’s real nice.”

The fol­low­ing week was my last at the Co-op. Thursday

morn­ing, Jack showed me a ring he’d bought at the Crozet Drug Store. “Give it to Becky tonight,” he said, his eyes shin­ing. “Then we get married.”

I want­ed to warn him, but Jack was more than twice my age and I didn’t think it was my place to give him advice. I told him the ring was nice and kept my mouth shut about Becky.

Jack didn’t show up for work the next day, Fri­day. At quit­ting time, Mrs. Pugh called me into her office and hand­ed me my last check. After we said our good­byes, she men­tioned Jack. “I’m wor­ried about him. He didn’t call in. It’s not like him.”

I told her about Becky and the ring. I real­ized only then that Mrs. Pugh was the one per­son in the world who might have been able to get through to Jack about Becky. “I wish I’d told you ear­li­er,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“You shouldn’t be. Jack’s a grown man, respon­si­ble for his own actions.”

True, I thought, but I still wished I’d told her.

After I went back to school, I heard that Mrs. Pugh con­vinced Jack to return to work, and I thought he’d be okay.

Time passed. I con­cen­trat­ed on my senior year in high school and didn’t think much about the Co-op.

Then one cold Decem­ber morn­ing I was stand­ing by the wood­stove in the Pied­mont Store in White Hall when Wal­ter walked in. He got in my face, told me it was my fault he got fired by the Co-op, and threat­ened to kick my ass.

My tem­per flared, but as he rant­ed at me, the look in his rheumy eyes gave me pause. He was drunk again. By then he had to know drink­ing was killing him, but he couldn’t stop. He was help­less and hope­less. My anger drained off. I backed down and walked away. I nev­er saw Wal­ter again and don’t know what became of him.

I know what became of Jack. He stopped com­ing to work. They found him at home, dead by his own hand, a gun­shot wound to the head. I don’t recall who told me or when it hap­pened. All I remem­ber is the heart-wrench­ing shock. Fifty years lat­er I can still feel it.

As I wrote this, I thought about Becky. I won­der how she felt when she heard about Jack. Did she know he loved her? Did she care?

Ten years ago, I wrote a nov­el, The Killing Tree, inspired by Jack and Wal­ter. I haven’t tried to pub­lish it. I don’t like it. It fes­ters like a thorn in my hand. I tin­ker with it from time to time, but noth­ing makes it bet­ter. I can’t find a way to rewrite their lives to deliv­er a hope­ful out­come. But I keep trying.