Price And Pleasure Read online

We'd kept the fish alive by trailing them in the water. Then we took a look at the little ramshackle frame house perched just above the high water mark. Though the day was warm, smoke curled briskly out of a pipe. Even from their dock we could see tin cans hung all around the eves of their home, every one cut into a spiraling shape. There were hundreds of them, and I figured they were waiting to find their places in the hands of unsuspecting visitors. Or maybe they were just decoration. Somehow it made me worry about the Navasota rising high enough to flood their house. It would seem like such a waste if the ornaments all washed away.

  We walked quietly up the path through the grass and our eyes began to widen with every step. From the midst of his garden there arose the snake-like neck and fish-stabbing beak of a great blue heron, only it celebrated the color of rust. A shaped wad of chicken wire, covered with tin can lid feathers, served as a body. The bird stood its ground, balanced on eerily realistic legs of half inch rebar.

  I tripped over something in the grass, and when I discovered a coiled spring snake I nearly fell over backwards. With its tail end pushed down into the ground, its body and head danced and quivered in the air.

  A shimmering school of brightly chromed fish swam between two trees. I was puzzled at first, but I finally determined they were strung on several fishing lines. Their scales were deeply blued where the torch had cut them, shading to polished mirrors that reflected the earth and sky.

  From a pasture to the west of his house came a small herd of life sized dairy cows, making its way with infinite slowness toward an imaginary milking. From a distance I almost accepted the illusion, but closer examination revealed the true genius of Mr. Walker's art. Peeking inside one of the cows, we discovered an inner framework of tie rods supporting exterior plates of metal cut from the bodies of old cars. The edges of the plates were punched with holes and they were held together with baling wire. Old buckets were hammered into convincing udders and hung in place. They were fitted with teats made from gloves, their fingers stuffed with sand. A breeze kicked up and began to move the plates about and swing those bucket udders to and fro. The realism was uncanny.

  Mr. Walker must have used oil and muscle to dissect machines into primal material, for most parts were whole, rather than cut. Propane didn't come cheap. But where he used its heat, stitching together imagination and metal, magic happened. And being a country man, it seemed natural that magic animals would frequently fill his thoughts.

  Apparently his thoughts often turned to skeletons, for we could see their metal bones, bare as winter willows, roaming among the oaks in the pasture between their house and the road. There were several dinosaurs, a giant saber toothed cat, and the odd pig-sized skeleton. There were two, however, that warranted further investigation.

  Hiding behind a clump of yaupon bushes, peeking out at the threadbare creatures that skulked in the field, were the 'lifelike' skeletons of humans. One pointed a metal finger toward the saber-toothed cat and the other stared, its lower jaw hanging down, legs primed to run. They put big grins on our faces, but the humor was tempered when we looked more closely. Mr. Walker's skill as a metal smith was beyond question, but even he could not produce the detail we saw in the skulls that crowned his handiwork. A heavy coat of white oil paint covered the metal bones, but the grinning skulls were authentic. We wanted to ask him about those, but we never summoned the courage.

  We had entered the backwoods workshop of some strange and fascinating museum. Its contents had seemingly been sent here for refurbishing, and they awaited their 'fleshing out'. At the beginning of our journey we fully expected to return home saying, "Sure, Dad. Mr. Walker's an artist, all right, a junkyard dog artist." But we would not. He was a rare bird, an artist of a different feather. It seemed to me that his specialty was connecting with the minds of children, and we were enthralled.

  One thing for sure: he kept a tidy yard. He tended to pile up various parts in neat little mounds; gears over by the outhouse, sheet metal stacked like cards against a shed, potential ribs, leg and arm bones in wash tubs set on their sides to let the rain out. I looked, but I didn't see any containers holding bleached skulls. Tidiness, however, ended at his back door, as we were soon to discover.

  Two double-hung windows, their sills crowded with potted plants, looked out over the backyard and Mr. Walker's work. I glanced in quickly, not wanting to be caught peeking, and I could see Mrs. Walker lying on a short couch. Mr. Walker's black hands held the paper in front of him, so he didn't see us coming. But before Ben could knock, a deep voiced dog barked and bayed within, then yelped at the sound of Mrs. Walker's high scolding.

  "Git down there, Biter, you flea-bit cur." Biter grew silent, but Mr. Walker's voice boomed out. "Come in this house," he said. We opened the door slowly and peered around its edge. I think we both had serious misgivings, and then I heard Ben catch his breath.

  A giant pot-bellied stove held court in the middle of the room. Its heat reached out and set our damp clothes to steaming, but its formidable presence could not overshadow the piles of clutter that surrounded it. Mrs. Walker, still lying on the couch, looked more frail than I had remembered her in my earlier years. A weathered hide stretched tightly over her frame, exposing its outlines. She beckoned us with a raised hand that seemed to borrow the darkened steel of her husband's fabricated skeletons.

  Mr. Walker rose with a grin and bent over his wife who had her back to us, her knees drawn up to fit the length of the couch. "Look who's come to call, Pleasure," he said, almost in a whisper, then pointed to us. "It's Ben and Abbie, from the Joules' farm." A lank arm waved us closer and he said, "Come in, come all the way in here, young'uns. Sit a spell. What you got there?" he asked as Ben held out the bag of cookies and I the string of fish. "Well look here, Pleasure, look here. They brung us a mess of catfish and...oh my," he said, looking into the bag.

  "Those are mine," Ben said, and it came out much like a confession.

  "Well, I'll just take these into the kitchen. Sits yourself down and I'll get us a little something." He disappeared into the kitchen and we began to inventory our surroundings.

  I sat in the skeleton of a metal chair whose shards of vinyl used to cover its cotton padding, and Ben found a place on a wooden rocker of homemade origins. Its arms and runners were made of different woods and the spindles were crafted from peeled branches. Ben tried a few tentative motions and smiled in surprise as it rocked smoothly back and forth. Mr. Walker's chair was a stuffed recliner. Tape had been employed as a wrap to hold the cotton batting to the arms and seat. Beside the chair on the floor were piles of newspapers and magazines, tin cans filled with chicken bones, and an empty Mason jar. Its previous contents could be seen as a dark stain on the area rug. Various potted plants stood in a row in front of the windows and one, an avocado tree, sought an outlet along the ceiling in several directions. Autumn was no stranger to this room as leaves, shed from all of the plants, carpeted the wood plank floor. The litter had decomposed to the point that a few weeds had taken root and were reaching for light. The heat from the stove nearly stopped our breathing, and a large cast iron kettle on its top puffed out a steady stream of moisture. The parlor served as an effective greenhouse.

  "You chilluns walk down here?" Mrs. Walker wanted to know as she searched out the windows for some sign of transportation. I'd never been called a 'chillun' before. We told her about our canoe and she seemed as thrilled as if we had arrived on a magic carpet. Mrs. Walker did not attempt to rise from the couch while we were there, and she looked quite incapable of keeping house. I began to acquire a new appreciation for the term 'a woman's touch' and the role my mother and I played in making our house a pleasant place to live in. Still, they seemed happy, and if they were at all self-conscious about their home, I couldn't detect it.

  Biter, their one-eyed, mangy black and tan hound, left his hair in the dust that lay thick on every surface not seeing regular use. He dropped to the floor be
tween us and raised his scarred head for scratching, while his worn tail thumped the dust on the rug into little clouds. In keeping with his philosophy of never throwing anything of possible use away, Mr. Walker, or perhaps both of them, were collectors. Knick-knacks, I guess I'd call the things that covered every possible resting-place. The statue of a naked mermaid, minus its head, reclined on the mantle. It shared space with an assortment of other small, always mutilated little figures cast in porcelain or carved from wood. There were several cardboard cigar boxes, each stuffed with wads of trading stamps. Faded photos of sober faced black people quilted the walls. A one-person crosscut saw rested against the wall near the door, and I could see its teeth shining, sharp and business like.

  A bucket on the hearth caught my eye, and its contents jogged a memory. During late spring on our farm Dad castrated the male calves born to our cows, and these were tossed into a similar bucket that I hauled to the kitchen for Mom to cook. They were the same shape as the hairy, hide covered objects beside me, and as I reached for one I realized that's exactly what they were, calf testicles, complete with the