Ker-glop. Ker-glop.
A late spring day when I was five years old. It was almost suppertime. My feet dangled from the wood rocking chair I was sitting in while I shook the jar of clabber Mama had given me. That was what she’d called it: clabber—which I guessed was the word for cream that had been left out to rot. The jar made a funny sound when I shook it: ker-glop.
We lived in Missouri. Not in Kansas City, where we’d lived before, but on a huge farm out in the rolling, green countryside, where you could look all around and not see anything nearby taller than a tree or a windmill. Daddy called our little house a squatter’s shack, for families who didn’t stay very long but worked on the farm only part of the year. We didn’t have running water like we did when we lived in Kansas City. Instead, we had a rusty pump over the kitchen sink with a handle Mama or Daddy had to work to get water. There wasn’t a bathroom in the house, either: we had to walk out the back door to the outhouse, which was out past the chicken coop. The outhouse had three holes in it. I had to hold my nose and breathe out of my mouth whenever I used it, it smelled so bad. We didn’t use the outhouse in the winter, it was too cold. Mama put a big white porcelain pot with a lid on it by the back door and told us to sit on that to do our poo and pee. Then she took it out once a day and carried it through the snow and dumped it in the outhouse.
Ker-glop.
“You be careful with that clabber!” Mama called from the kitchen. “And don’t be shaking it too long!” She was fixing supper; pots were rattling, and I could hear her chopping something—potatoes?—on the wood counter. The oven was going, too. Something smelled good. Chicken, maybe. The small fire I sat next to crackled pleasantly in the stone fireplace. At the other end of the house, in our small bedroom, my sisters, Karen and Debbie, were quietly playing one of the silly games only they knew how to play. Their quiet giggling and whispering sounded like the busy chickens in our yard, clucking and scratching.
“I won’t!” I called back to Mama. The jar of clabber was almost too big to hold onto, but I knew I could do it. I’d done it before, lots of times. Besides, Daddy’d told me he made buttermilk for his father when he was only four, a whole year younger than I was.
“You know how mad your father gets if he can’t have his buttermilk with supper,” Mama called.
“I’ll be careful, Mama.” I had to make sure I didn’t shake the jar too much, like Mama said, otherwise all the cream would turn to butter. It wouldn’t be long; already there were smooth yellowish lumps of butter sloshing around in the milk.
Ker-glop.
Mama had put the jar of cream on the fireplace mantle the night before. When she got up in the morning she opened it up and smelled it, then closed it and put it back on the mantle to sit some more. She checked it like that every couple of hours. When she was satisfied it was just rotten enough, she closed up the lid real tight and gave me the jar to shake. If I shook the jar long enough—but not too long—the rotten cream would slowly change, like magic, into yellowish-beige lumps of butter floating in thick, pale buttermilk. Then I’d take the jar to Mama and she’d scoop out the butter and rinse the excess buttermilk from it with cold water. Finally, she’d salt the butter so it wouldn’t go bad before putting it into a clean jar. The leftover buttermilk, flecked with bits of butter, would be for Daddy. He loved buttermilk. As far as he was concerned, a supper without buttermilk just wasn’t supper. Period.
I couldn’t understand this. One time, before I knew what it was, I opened the jar and took a taste from my finger, and it almost made me throw up. How could Daddy actually like it? Still, I couldn’t help smiling to think I was helping to make something Daddy liked.
Ker-glop. Ker-glop.
I sometimes look back on this placid scene and wish everything stopped there, where things were as close to perfect as they ever got in my family: Mama cooking in the kitchen and the wonderful smells wafting into the living room; the soothing fire; the blue sky and green hills visible from the living room windows; the happy sounds of my sisters playing; the simple chore I was doing which I hoped would please my father.
But I was five, and I had a five-year-old’s restless, distractible mind. Who of us didn’t?
I sat, shaking the jar, and daydreamed about playing with my new model airplane.
Daddy had bought an assembled plastic model airplane for each of us kids at an auction he and Mama had gone to a few nights earlier. They went to the auction once every couple of weeks, hunting for rock-bottom bargains and a box of homemade peanut brittle for Daddy, his favorite candy. He’d made a big deal out of presenting the models to us the next morning: a black fighter plane with a spinning propeller for Debbie; a jet fighter for Karen; and a B-17 bomber for me. It’s likely he didn’t pay more than a nickel for each of the models; they might have even been free for anyone willing to take them off the previous owner’s hands. They weren’t in very good shape. Debbie’s was missing one of the landing gear wheels. Karen’s jet lacked part of its tail. And my bomber had lost the piece holding the clear plastic cockpit windows. We didn’t care. Karen and Debbie didn’t know the difference, anyway. They both squealed when Daddy handed them their models—carefully, as if he were laying delicate bouquets of flowers in their hands—and ran off to our bedroom to play with them. When Daddy brought out mine from the cardboard box, he held it high over my head, as if it were flying, then brought the plane gracefully down through the air in a wide spiraling arc—whistling, for effect—and settled it gently into my waiting hands. Except for the missing windows, the model was in perfect condition. Four engines, each with its own spinning propeller, plastic pilots sitting in real plastic seats, and an instrument panel with dials, levers, and knobs you could actually see. I instantly loved it. I took the plane over to the couch and sat there with it, just looking at it, marveling.
Less than five minutes later, Debbie’s model was broken, shattered into a million pieces after she’d dropped it on the bedroom floor. She screamed as if someone had shot her in the stomach, then cried and cried while Mama came in with a broom and dustpan and swept up the pieces and dumped them unceremoniously into the kitchen trash. Karen stood outside the bedroom door for a long time and watched her sister intently. Then she took her own model and laid it on the bed next to Debbie. But Debbie wouldn’t be consoled. She left Karen’s model where it lay and continued to cry for nearly an hour longer before finally falling asleep.
I felt bad for Debbie. Part of me was convinced she was just stupid. Another part of me thought she was just unlucky. Either way, she suffered.
Just then, a grey squirrel caught my eye, standing next to the tree outside the front room window. He was a big fat one, with a tail twitching in the air nearly as high as my head. I pointed my arm at him and pretended it was one of Daddy’s rifles. Pow! Pow! Pow! Right between the eyes. Now, I thought, we could have squirrel stew for supper. Daddy would have to skin him, though, because I knew I’d get sick from all the blood, and from seeing the thing without any arms or legs or head or fur, just naked, raw meat and bones. That sort of thing never bothered Daddy. The day before, after I’d gone hunting with him, I watched him on the covered porch skinning a rabbit he’d shot. He’d looked as if he was pulling the skin off a tomato, and the blood on his hands was just tomato juice. He was talking to Mama, and he was laughing, like it was nothing. I couldn’t do that. Maybe if I was bigger.
Ker-glop. Ker-glop.
I thought of the things I wanted to do when I got big like Daddy. Like hunting squirrels and rabbits by myself. And flying in an airplane. Daddy had done that. He’d been in the Air Force. Daddy’d told me that’s what they did in the Air Force: flew airplanes all day and night, to protect our country from the dirty Reds. He said he used to fly so high in the air that the people on the ground disappeared, and the cars were like tiny ants chasing each other all over the place. I wanted to do that, go higher than anyone else in the world, maybe even fly to the moon. Boy, I thought, wouldn’t Mama and Daddy think I was something then.
Ker-glop. Ker-glop.
It was starting to get dark outside; the sun had already dropped down in back of the chicken coop. I knew Daddy would be home any time now, and we’d have supper. Then Daddy and I would go out and cut wood for the fireplace. Daddy usually let me hold the flashlight while he swung the axe. I’d done a really good job the night before; Daddy hadn’t had to tell me even once to hold the flashlight still, even though my whole body was shaking from the cold.
“BILLY!” I heard Mama scream, startling me so badly I almost dropped the jar of clabber. I looked up, wide-eyed. She was standing in the doorway to the kitchen looking at me like I’d done something real bad and she was going to hit me for it.
“What?” I whined. “What’d I do?” Something started burning behind my eyes.
She came over to me and jerked the jar out of my hands. Her face was red. “You imbecile!” she spat at me. She held the jar up to her red face and shook it. I saw then why she was mad at me: there was nothing but a yellowish blob of butter in it. The buttermilk had disappeared. I could feel the blood drain from my face and turn to ice water in my stomach. Mama’s face got puffier and almost scared-looking. “I ought to beat you to within an inch of your life!” she said. She held the jar in one hand and raised the other as if to hit me. I was already crying, just knowing what was coming. I wanted to run but all I could do was close my eyes and put my arms over my head and wait for the beating. The blow never came. Instead, Mama made a loud grunting noise, as if she’d just tried picking up something too heavy to lift, like a house. I heard her turn and walk back to the kitchen. “Your father will have to do that,” she said. “You get to your room and wait for him there.”
A new wave of ice water washed over me. I felt dizzy, sick to my stomach. I knew Daddy was going to use the belt on me, he always did. I couldn’t even think of how much it was going to hurt without sobbing. “NOW, YOUNG MAN!” Mama’s voice snarled at me from the kitchen. I slid down from the rocking chair and ran down the hall to the bedroom, where Karen and Debbie were huddled in the middle of the room with their toys scattered over the floor: marbles and jacks and bits of paper. Their eyes followed me intently as I brushed past them and threw myself onto my bed and lay there with my head face down in the pillow.
I couldn’t stand the thought of them just sitting there, watching me. “Get out.” I said. I looked up. They just stared at me. “Get out!” I screamed. They both jumped and looked as if I’d blasted them with a hurricane-force wind.
“Karen!” Mama’s voice rolled down the hallway. “Come out of the bedroom, now. And bring Debbie with you. Billy’s being punished.”
“Okay, Mama,” Karen said. She got up from the floor and motioned to Debbie. A minute later they’d gathered most of their toys and walked out of the room. I heard Karen go into the kitchen and ask Mama what I’d done. “You mind your own business,” Mama said. I got up to close the bedroom door and accidentally slammed it, and my heart sank. No doubt Mama would think I’d done it on purpose. The thought made my tears flow even more, and my cheeks burned from them.
I got back onto the bed and racked my brain frantically for something, anything that would get me out of this. Run, I thought, run. But where? My closet? The chicken coop? Maybe the woods behind the barn, but then I’d be eaten by one of the animals, maybe a wolf or a bear. My pillow was getting wet. I rolled over and stared at the brown spots on the ceiling where Daddy said the rain leaked in before the landlord fixed the roof. Through the water in my eyes they looked like brown fish swimming around. I tried to watch them, to forget what was happening, what was going to happen. All I could think of was the belt, and even now my butt was starting to hurt. The more I thought of it, the more I cried. I couldn’t just sit still, lie there, I had to do something.
And then I had an idea. A good one. I wiped the tears from my face and got up and went to my dresser and pulled open my underwear drawer. Mama had just done the washing for the week, so I had plenty. I pulled off my shoes and then my pants, and in a couple of minutes I had all my underwear on, six or seven pairs. I smacked my butt hard with my hand, and I could hardly feel it. Maybe, just maybe, it would cushion me against a belt. Surely, I thought, it was better than nothing at all. I pulled my pants back on. I was wearing so many pairs of underpants that I couldn’t pull up the zipper, but I could snap the button at the top. I lay back down on the bed and waited, still scared. But I wasn’t crying anymore.
Finally, the sound of a tractor floated in through my window, far away but getting louder. I listened until it was in the yard right outside and I could hear Daddy and Tom—the man who gave Daddy a ride home from the farm, standing on the back of his tractor—laughing about something. My heart beat hopefully. Maybe he won’t be so mad. I heard Daddy say, “Thanks, Tom. See you tomorrow.” The tractor noise grew louder, and then faded quickly away. Then the screen door to our kitchen squeaked open and slammed shut, followed immediately by Mama’s muffled voice. I knew she was telling Daddy what an awful thing I’d done. Then something big, something glass, dropped to the floor and broke and I could hear Daddy and Mama—mostly Mama—yelling, and a lot of other things started falling onto the floor and crashing into the wall. After that I didn’t hear anything at all, and my stomach twisted and burned because I knew it was my turn. It seemed like forever before I finally heard Daddy—his steps so heavy on the bare wooden floor that the walls shook—coming down the hall, and then the door was open and he was standing there, looking at me, his eyes narrowed to where I didn’t know how he could see me, and the sides of his jaw working as if he was chewing on old, hard bubble gum. His breath hissed through his nose, long deep breaths. He already had his belt off and folded so the buckle hung at the end, heavy and sharp and shiny. He bounced it off his leg like he was beating a big drum. When he finally spoke, his voice was calm, as if he were asking me what time it was. “How many times have I told you,” he said, “to pay attention to what you’re doing?”
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” I squeaked at him, “I’m sorry. I tried to watch it.”
He nodded his head slowly. “Well, maybe we need to teach you to try harder next time.”
I wanted to cry—maybe he wouldn’t hit me so hard if I was already crying—but all that came out was a whine, and I could tell by his one raised eyebrow that he didn’t believe I was sorry at all. He looked almost pleased about something. He squeezed the belt with one hand while he pointed at my pants with the other. “Let’s get this over with” he said. “Take down your pants.”
Something cold grabbed my heart. “But Daddy,” I said.
“Now,” he said, “or it’ll be twice as bad for you.”
I wanted to run, to be sick, to die, to be anyplace except here. Now I couldn’t not cry, and I rolled off the bed and pulled my pants down to my ankles, bawling as if he’s already started on me. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” I sobbed. “There was—there was this—squirrel!” I looked at Daddy. He wasn’t looking at me, but at my pants. And the layers of underwear. Suddenly my whole insides seemed to fall out of my body. For a second I thought he actually smiled, the way someone smiles when they can’t believe what they’re seeing, it’s just too ridiculous. But he didn’t say anything. He put his free hand on my head and squeezed it hard, turning me away from him, pushing me down so I was half lying on the bed, and then there was the low whistle of the belt arcing through the air and the buckle tearing into me, so hard it knocked the air out of me, and I could hardly breathe enough to tell him I’m sorry, I’m sorry, oh God, Daddy, I’m sorry, please stop, oh please stop, Daddy please, I promise I’ll never be a bad boy again.