Watertown, Chapter 5, Mr. Pope

“If you meet the emperor of the world, ask him why we stand before the royal table yet do not feast. Even the cook must eat.”Jack read the line again aloud. “The royal table,” he said, his eyes wandering from the letter over to where Charley still slept.

He thought about Dr. Suzuki for a moment, and then carefully folded the pages and tipped them back into the envelope. He inserted the letter back into the book. He slipped the book into the rucksack.

Jack lay on his back and used the rucksack for a pillow. He soon drifted into sleep.The rain had stopped. Droplets fell from the trees, they tinged and left sparkles on the leaves and on the blades of grass. Suddenly, the headlights of an approaching car lit up the bridge and zoomed in.Jack shot up and shouted: “Charley! Charley!”

The dog leapt up and ran out of the bridge. Jack had barely enough time and room to stand up against a side of the bridge as the car roared past. The driver shook his fist nearly close enough to pop him in the nose.“You goddam idj-iot, get out of the road!”It was a black government car. As Jack caught his breath, he watched the car drive away. He raised his arm and made an obscene gesture with his middle finger. The driver saluted back as the car drove away..Charley trotted back into the bridge, sniffing Jack’s rucksack.“Sorry boy, no more sammiches. Not ‘til we get home.”Jack grabbed his rucksack and walked to the edge of the far side of the bridge. He gingerly tested the ground. Ozark mud could suck a boot right off. The ground held, though it was squishy. Jack began walking up the bank of the road and up the mountain.He made good time as old familiar things sprang up along the road to greet him. Mr. Hugh’s graveled road soon appeared on his right. He knew the winding track led to an old cabin perched up the hillside like a vagrant leaning against a bar and about to fall over. As he walked past, Jack looked up, but it was too dark now to see the cabin. He wondered if old man Hughes was sitting there right now, in his rocking chair, hand cupped to the radio, listening to the grand ole opry sounds coming from clear over the hills from Nashville. Sometimes at night, you could even get Chicago, Jack remembered.As he walked down the road, a fork appeared. Down one side, Jack could see the glow of lights from the Red Ball Café. It would be warm inside and dry, but Jack went on and took the other side of the fork. Charley ran forward and then would come back to make sure where Jack was. Mountain Home was just around the bend. As Jack made his way across the side of the hill, the village suddenly appeared. It was a cluster of a dozen homes, one old wooden Baptist church, with a big sign in front warning that “Sunday’s A ‘Coming! Around the Corner!” A storefront and a lean-to garage stood in the center of the little village, with two gas pumps out in front. Jack stopped to drink in the sights of a run-down bunch of tarpaper shacks and clapboard houses set out in the middle of the woods on the side of a mountain. He was home again. Charley came back and stood next to his side, panting loudly.Yellow slivers of light poured out of some of the houses. Jack’s mother lived in a house that butted up against a lime stone ridge. It sat well away from the others. No lights were on inside. He moved silently across the town, and wondered what if someone would see him - would they think they he was a bank robber, or a thief on the run? Someone who came in to steal their babies? A commie come to brainwash them? A ruthless Buddhist monk come to steal their souls from Christ? He could hear kitchen sounds coming from one of the houses. It was well past dinnertime. His stomach grumbled. Jack patted his empty belly and laughed, walking on. Charley followed.Just as he rounded the corner of the town, at the last house just before his mother’s, the front door opened and an old man came out onto the porch. At first he didn’t see Jack, as he was busy tossing the contents of a frying pan out into the side yard. Then, as he finished, he saw Jack and a big smile widened across the man’s white-stubble face. Jack stopped, raised his arm in salute. Charley raced around the yard to see what the man had tossed off the porch.“Boy, is that you?” the old man cried, his eyes crinkling at their corners.“Hey there, Mr. Pope, how you doing?” Jack said.“Well, sheet the bed,” the old man said and slapped his knee. “Hoo dammer!Jack walked up the wooden steps to greet the man and grasped his outstretched hand.“Let me take a look at you, son,” the old man said, searching Jack’s face. “I’ll be. So you’re finally back from the wide, wide world. So now, tell me is you boy, how is you?”Jack stood back and thought for a second. “Well, for a Saturday night, I’d almost rather be taking a streetcar to dance with some Jezebel on Bourban Street and spend all my money listening to Jazz fiends. But instead I came up here to see if you all had been washed off the mountain yet.”The old man roared with laughter from deep within his belly and shook his head in glee. “Hee, hee, welcome to last outpost of civilization. Here’s the doormat. I s’pose you could instead go on down to the Red Ball for a sody pop and try to steal a kiss from old Franny, but she’d probably wallop you on the head with a frying pan.” Mr. Pope play-acted that he was going to strike himself with the frying pan. He crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue. “Unx! Pow! Hee, hee.”Charley, who had been standing at the bottom of the stairs, barked once.Both men on the porch turned to look down at the dog. “Charley, Charley, up here boy,” Jack said. Charley bounded up the stairs and circled Mr. Pope, sniffing gingerly around him.“Well now, who’s your friend here? I think he smells my corn pone,” said the old man, bending down to stroke the dog. “Aw, he’s some stray that followed me up here from St. Joe,” Jack said. “I reckon he’ll let me hang around him so long as I got a sandwich left in my pocket.”Jack turned and grimaced, as he looked up the road to his mother’s house and motioned to it with his head. “Say, Mr. Pope, how come there’s no lights on at my folk’s place? Where is everybody?”Mr. Pope's frowned, and he drew a breath before speaking.“Well, Jack, they took your ma down to St. Michaels. She’s at the Sister’s Hospital. “Come in and I’ll tell you all about it...”Jack blinked.“Come in, come in, son,” Mr. Pope said, beckoning Jack with a tilt of his head. "Me, I just burned me some really thick pork chops but I got plenty more if you don’t mind scraping off the grit.” With that, the old man took Jack’s arm and led him into the cabin. Charley squeezed past and Jack shut the door behind them. Inside it was bright and warm and dry.