Tale of Johnny Ray

In addition to the fifty cents per hour paid to me by Mr. Hicks, I was provided breakfast and lunch, courtesy of Mrs. Hicks.
It was Willie's way of getting his crew together each morning to discuss the day's activities, which at the time was simply bringing in the hay. As mundane as it sounds, bringing in the hay was a grueling, if not torturous task.
Willie would drive the tractor with the hay wagon in tow. The hay wagon was equipped with a robotic device designed to grab the haybale and toss it up and over the side of the wagon.
The problem was, this mechanical arm was notoriously ineffective. On a good day it might snag every third bale. Some days it was every fifth.
It was one mans job to walk along the trailer and manually throw the missed bales over the side of the wagon, about eight feet up.
This was accomplished with the aid of a large metal hook mounted to a T handle.
Another man would ride in the wagon and stack the bales as they came over the side.

We called these guys the field crew. The barn crew consisted of two more guys who job was to stack the hay in the barn.
When the wagon returned with a full load, the field crew would begin tossing the bales out at the barn door opening.
Having just stacked the last load high into the rafters, it was time to start all over again.
The field crew and barn crew would usually rotate after lunch break, sometimes more often than that in an effort to find some relief from the tedium.
But it was a futile effort. Both jobs were equally taxing. If you went out with the tractor, you were under the blazing Georgia sun, often the 90s, if not over a hundred, with accompanying high humidity.
Your thoughts would wander to the comforting shade of the barn, but that was only an illusion brought on by the heat.
The barn provided it's own brand of torture. It may have provided shade, but it also captured the heat like a primitive oven and sealed off any chance of a breeze.
We stacked the bales over twenty feet high against the back wall. To accomplish this meant laying a foundation and working our way up as if building a pyramid.
And just when you lay in that last bale, thinking you had a chance for a breather, the sound of the tractor could be heard approaching with the next load.
No rest for the weary.

As we entered Willie's house, I was struck by the familiar aroma of Etta May Hicks cooking breakfast.
"Mornin boys" she said in greeting. "I done manged to run slap out of grits. That durn Billy Johnson was sposed to bring a bag in with him this mornin but he ain't never showed up.
Gonna make yall some bicuits and pan gravy instead to go with your eggs. Brought a nice ham outa the cellar for lunch today.
Figured on frying up some of it instead of bacon, as long as we switchin stuff up"
"Well I done decided I'm done with ole Billy Johnson" Willie angrily declared. " That makes twice in the last two weeks that boy ain't showed up to work.
I don't care how much a feller drinks, but if he cain't do his job, I ain't got no use fer him. Mornin boys. I know I can count on you Johnny.
How you doin this mornin Mr. Jake?"
"Doin just fine sir. Appreciate you invitin me over for breakfast" Jake answered.
"Oh don't you worry none about that. Listen here, I understand you a wantin to talk to me bout something. I'll be glad to hear you out when we got the time.
But right now we ain't, and I got something to ask you. You wantin to work? Starting right now? I'm a man short and as you just heard, he ain't welcome back.
Cain't pay much, but I got a room you can have, and I'll feed ya. You ain't gotta give me an answer right this second, but think on it.
If you want to work today, I'll pay you the same thing I pay Johnny. I can use the help"
Jake didn't hesitate. He later told me he felt this offer to be a good omen.
"Sir, I don't need no time to think on it. I'd be honored to stay on and work for you"
"Well it's all settled then. You boys eat up. We got a lot of work ahead of us"


Authors note:
I spent a summer on a dairy farm in 1969 doing the exact work as described above for the exact same pay.
As with Johnny Ray, doing those pushups in basic training don't seem near as bad when you've had that kind of preparation.

 

If you are refering to the last entry, please tell me why.
Is it the description of farm life, or the interaction of the characters?
I'm working in this open format in order to get honest reactions from people who truly love to read.
My wife has found some fault in the fact that I don't spend any time in locale descriptions. I have noticed that also.
Perhaps that is because some authors seem to spend way too much time doing so.
For instance Dean Koontz will go on forever describing the design of a house and the surrounding flowers. Detailed, vivid descriptions that usually have nothing to do with the story.
Johnathan Kellerman, whom I enjoy immensely, has a tendendency to describe in vivid detail the personal appearance of every single character, even minor ones. Color and style of clothing, hairstyle(length, cut and color), jewlery, body type etc.
I suppose everybody has their own quirks and those things may not bother other readers.
I am certainly thrilled with the compliments I have recieved, but any critique is also welcome.

 

Perhaps because I am concentrating more on the people than anything else and not finding the local geography to be pertinent to the story.
But I should take into consideration that everybody isn't as well travelled and have no idea of the difference in south Georgia and Tennessee, or Texas for that matter.

I really began reading a lot in the eighties when I took a break from the road to be a cosmetologist. I know, they don't go together. But I would read in between customers, especially on slow days. Stephen King was my favorite and I read everything he had written, but have finally lost interest after being disappointed with him in the last few years. I did complete the Dark Tower series that he stretched out over what, ten years?
Anyway I have digressed. What I was getting to(eventually) was that I understand that he has it in his contract to be paid by the word, which could lead, understandably, to padding his books with the unnecessary prose you alluded to above.

I am sure you are not familiar with one of my favorite authors by the name of Stephen Hunter. His lead character in his early books was Earl Swagger, a highly decorated Marine in WWII who became an Arkansas State Trooper. Lots of action and flashbacks to the violence of the south Pacific.
After he dies, the son, Bob Lee Swagger(love that name) takes over as a decocorated Marine sniper. Three tours in Viet-Nam no less.
Hunter can diagram a shootout or fistfight in slow motion from different angles and put you in it far better than a movie ever could. I tried his technique in the prison fight scene, but did not steal any content.

My initial goal was to write a Stephen Hunter style book, hence the introduction, portraying Johnny Ray as the tough guy Viet-Nam vet.
But somewhere along the line, while establishing character backgrounds, I unwittingly went in another direction and allowed the back story to become the story. I was scared it was starting to get too mushy, but the homey, mushy stuff is coming easy to me.
Now I'm worried that when I get into the rough stuff in Nam, it's going to be too drastic of a difference for the readers who are enjoying the stuff about Linda and Tammy. And Jake too.
Hoping I can blend things together. Who knows, could end up changing direction(which I already have to some degree) from my original plan or even morph into two different books.

 

Small town gossip circulated concerning Jake's return.
According to some small minded folks, Willie Hicks was not only harboring a fugitive, he was putting his family in danger by allowing the gun toting felon refuge in his home.
They didn't talk much better about Daddy either. He got a bit of a break since he was related to Jake, but also speculation that maybe the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
The small minded people that spread vicious gossip were often the same ones who claimed to have been present at the robbery, often right in the store, who in reality were nowhere near the scene.
The total number of witnesses, including everybody in the store, the diner and the feed & seed store was less than twenty souls.
Over the years the number of "eye witnesses" grew to over a hundred, each with their own embellishment.

Bubba was proud to point out to anyone who would listen that Jacob Reed made his first appearance right here in his humble diner,
although in reality, Jake first walked over to Daddy's shop when he got off of the bus.
Never one to let the facts get in the way of a good story, Bubba claimed to be privy to all sorts of details concerning Jake's release, but also shared tales of his life behind bars.
When Cat shared this with us over dinner one night, Daddy found it quite amusing for Bubba to have gleaned all this information, having never spoken a word to them that day.

Jake's arrangement with Willie Hicks proved to be beneficial for both of them.
Jake proved to be a quick study, eager to learn the workings of the farm.
Willie's only son was away in the Air Force, and from the tone of his letters, he was most likely making it a career. Once completing flight training, he would emerge a lieutenant.
Quite an achievment for a farmboy from Brookfield and Willie had much to be proud of.
But although never spoken out loud, he was inwardly disappointed that his only son chose not to carry on the tradition of his father and his grandfather before him.
He viewed Jake as a Godsend. His loyalty and trustworthiness were evident early on. Though Jake would never know, he needed Jake as much as Jake needed him.
By the following summer, Jake went from laborer to foreman. Took to farming like a duck to water.
By then, Jake had gained Willie's absolute trust, even writing checks on his solo trips into town.
Willie believed Jake to be very intelligent. He could often be heard saying "I swear that boy is as smart as a whip. By God, I believe he could run this whole dang farm hisself".
But in reality, I found Jake to be of average intelligence, and that would be generous.
What he did possess however, was an amazing gift of observation, accompanied by an instinct for detail.
I'm not sure if I ever believed anyone could truly have a photographic memory, but Jake was truly close to having one.
On our first day working the barn together, Jake told Willie exactly how many bales we had stacked all day without having written anything down.
Willie, as was I, was skeptical of this, almost to the point of thinking Jake was having fun with him.
The next day, and for the remainder of the week as well, Willie kept a pad and pencil on his tractor and recorded each and every bale delivered from the field to the barn.
At the end of each day, he would ask Jake for the total and it always be exactly correct.
On the mornings he collected eggs he would amuse Etta May by telling her exactly not only how many eggs were in the basket, but how many were brown and how many were white.

 

When the student becomes the teacher...


I enjoyed Jake's accounting of the day Roberto took down Bongo in the yard at Atlanta each and every time I heard it.
He made it sound like a David & Goliath story. One reason I believe it all to be true was that he never varied in the details.
He told it exactly the same way each time. Almost as if he were watching a movie in his head.
Every movement, every subtle nuance of the combatants.
To this day, I regret that this gift wasn't recognized early in his childhood. What an excellent student he could have been, with positive guidance and motivation.

It was during my second summer at the farm that Jake began giving me boxing lessons. It was then that I became truly covinced of his uncanny power of recollection.
For he seemed to recall, word for word, his lessons from Roberto. I often had the weird sensation that he was channelling Roberto, for his voice would sometime take on an inflection never heard at any other time.
The haybales became punching bags. Having no boxing gloves, I would use ordinary leather work gloves to protect my hands from the coarse stems.
He taught me first and foremost to not telegraph my intentions, and to always look for a tell in my opponent.
He empathized the straight jab and scorned the wide "country boy haymaker". We both found the phrase hilarious, considering our surroundings.
To his credit, Jake developed his own training technique designed to discipline my reflexes. To keep my arms close and not kick out my elbows in a flapping motion.
He would wrap a rope around my torso, pinning my arms to my sides, allowing me to only the use of my forearms.
Then, at varying distances, he would thrust a hay bale at me, usually without warning, forcing me to catch it with my hands close together.
As this exercise progressed, he would place a patch over one eye, often tossing the bale from the direction of the covered eye.
The point of this was to emphasize the critical importance of one's peripheral vsion, combined with limited head movement.

Mr. Hicks became aware of our training sessions but kept it to himself.
Unlike what some of the small minded townsfolk would surmise, he knew Jake wasn't trying to transform me into some kind of mean bully.
Knowing Jake better than most, better than I did on some level perhaps, he saw the compassion in the lessons.
It was Jake's turn to be the teacher. His opportunity to help prepare somebody for what lay ahead in life.

 

You are too kind.
That just about wraps up Johnny's childhood influences.
Time to go back to Viet-Nam for a while.
I'll be getting Linda settled in Atlanta also.