Whenever I see a certain older model pickup truck, a memory comes to me. Comes back from somewhere deep in my brain. They say specific events enter lobes in the cerebral cortex, and perhaps are stored in a neuron or maybe your DNA, long term. I’m not sure about this. And I really don’t care where my memories are stored. I just know they will come back, sometimes when least expected. Like when I catch sight of an old green pickup—and, suddenly remember the tragedy surrounding it. It resides in my mind. Forever, I suppose. It all began when an argument started, and a bet was made, between two men in a barbershop.
The argument took place in Smith’s barbershop. The barbershop, located just off the square in Clarkesville, had always been the scene of disagreements, and heated discussions—on just about any subject you’d care to mention—ever since Tommy Smith opened the shop right after the war in 1946. Most of the time, the discussions ended peacefully. Occasionally the subject, debate or whatever you want to call it was carried over from one day to the next. Tommy Smith seemed to have a hand in making sure really controversial subjects stayed around for a few days. I remember the pickup argument clearly because I happened to be in the barber’s chair when it started. It was in early May, 1962. There were three other men sitting in the shop. Judge Ozzie Burton was dozing in a big chair near the back of the shop. Across from the barber chair against the wall, a beady-eyed man was reading the Tri-County Advertiser. He was a druggist. The argument broke out between him and the man sitting next to him. This man was a chicken farmer and had on overalls and muddy unlaced boots.
I’m not sure who started it—not that it matters now. I suppose the druggist did. He was the higher strung of the two. He was reading about some wreck in the paper, and one of them brought up a tragic wreck in the county, way back, that had killed two teenagers. Boys about my age at that time. The druggist had suffered terribly in the war after being captured by the Japanese on some island in the Pacific. His fingernails never grew back right. I remember staring at them that day as he pointed his finger in the farmer’s face and said, “Them boys were killed in a 1950 green Chevrolet pickup!”
The farmer had looked at him incredulously and said, “You’re crazy as hell. It was a 1930’s something or ‘nother, and it was a Ford.”
They immediately looked to the barber standing behind me. His breath and words landed on the back of my head and neck. He said, “ I remember that whatever they was in, it turned over on them, crushed ‘em. Besides, it don’t matter now what kind’a truck it was.”
The druggist said, “Well Tommy, it might matter a little bit to some of us.”
“Seems to me it ain’t that important,” he answered.
The druggist and the chicken farmer looked at each other, and glanced to Judge Burton. They both knew they needn’t wake him. The druggist crossed his arms and leaned back. “I’ll bet you ten dollars it was a ‘50 Chevy!” he said.
The farmer stuck out his chest a little and filled his cheeks with a puff of air. “I’ll take that bet,” he said exhaling. “And I’ll raise you ten dollars.”
“Raise, hell. This ain’t no poker game.”
The farmer’s face turned red. “What do you mean, no raises?” he said.
“I mean there ain’t no raising in a bet such as this.”
“Okay. Dad-gum you, then it’ll stay at ten dollars.” He inhaled again, puffing his cheeks out for a moment. Then he exhaled and said, “How we gonna find out?”
They both looked at the barber. He stopped working on my hair and said, “Can’t you see, I’m working, trying to get this boy’s flattop straight.” Then he added, “Seems like I remember, they figured a deer must’ve run out in front of the truck. Whatever model it was.”
“You ain’t much help,” the druggist said.
“Tell you what,” the barber said, “Ask the Judge, there. Or either call Gordon Walls. He was the coroner back then.”
The druggist said, “I don’t mind calling Gordon. He was in my store yesterday.” The druggist got up, walked to the phone and proceeded to call, right then. We could hear him talking softly. He hung up the phone and walked back to his seat next to the farmer.
“Well?” The farmer said. “Did he remember the truck?”
“Yes and no.”
“What do you mean, ‘yes and no?’”
The druggist explained, “He said he well remembered the wreck. But he don’t remember what kind’a truck it was. Said he was really troubled when they pulled them boys out from under the truck; he dreaded the job that lay ahead of him notifying their parents. That was the main thing on his mind at that time.”
They both looked to the barber. He was almost finished with my haircut, but I had already decided to stay around and see how this argument ended. He brushed my neck and said, “Looks like a stalemate, fellows.”
The druggist had been pacing in front of the barber chair, and it appeared he had awakened Judge Burton because the Judge suddenly said, “Been listening to you boys. I do believe there might be a suitable resolution to your dilemma.”
“What might that be, Judge?” the barber said, as I paid him and walked over to a chair against the wall.
Judge Burton stretched by lifting his arms high and standing for a moment on his toes. “If I’m thinking straight, I believe Old Man Andrew Shaw, who was the daddy of one of them boys, and who owned the truck, has the truck stored in his barn.”
“My word,” the druggist said.
“I’ll be danged. Reckon he’d let us look at it?” the barber said, letting the others know he was as interested as everybody else.
“I think we should ask him,” the Judge said, surprising everyone.
“How’s that?” the farmer said.
“I’ll go to that phone over there, and I’ll call him. I’ve known the old fellow for a long time,” the Judge said. “Fact is, I used to squirrel hunt on his place.”
——
They all met at the barbershop Monday morning. It was always closed on Mondays, so it was no trouble for everyone to ride out to Mr. Andrew Shaw’s farm. I decided Sunday that I would be at the barbershop the next morning and see if I could ride with them. The speculation about the truck had stayed with me all weekend and I was as curious as the others. The barber, the farmer, and the druggist got into the farmer’s pickup. Judge Burton invited me to ride with him in his long Lincoln. Riding out to the farm, the Judge confided that he thought Old Man Shaw was maybe losing his ability to understand things and talk straight. I remember worrying about that comment.
The farm was way out of town, in a section of the county that I believed I had never been in before. The last mile or so was on a narrow graveled road. I heard the Lincoln’s underside scrape a few times on the gravel, but it didn’t seem to bother the Judge. At least he never said anything about it. Old Man Shaw was standing in his yard, leaning on a cane when we drove up. He smiled, shook hands with the Judge, and the Judge introduced us, and explained that we really appreciated him taking the time to let us see the pickup.
Old Man Shaw nodded several times. Then he pointed with his cane to the barn. Inside the barn, we helped him remove a dusty canvas tarp and several dirty and rotten wool blankets off the pickup. The passenger’s door was missing, but we could tell right off that it was definitely a dark green truck. But it wasn’t a Chevrolet. It was a Ford. Probably 1948 or ’49. The Judge looked at the farmer and the druggist, and smiled at both. The old man silently studied the truck. Then he said, “Been some time since I seen it…knew it was here.” The front of the truck was mashed up, the hood bent backwards real bad, and the top of the cab was bent down and was almost touching the steering wheel on the driver’s side.
The Judge said to Old Man Shaw, “I reckon it’s too bad wrecked to try and restore it, don’t you?”
Old Man Shaw didn’t say anything. He just kept staring at it. Finally, he said, “Don’t…know…I kept it.” Then I remember him looking at me with his deep set, raccoon-looking eyes, and saying, “You…want to sit in it?”
I didn’t try to sit in the pickup. None of us did. Fact is, we all left pretty soon after that. I suppose every one of us have thought a million times: Should we have stayed longer with the old man? There isn’t a right answer to that question. We’ll never know why that night he sat in the pickup with the stock of his twelve gauge shotgun wedged between his legs and the end of the barrel in his mouth. And why he pulled the trigger.
Ed Nichols lives outside Clarkesville, Georgia. He is a journalism graduate from the University of Georgia. He is a short story award winner from Southeastern Writer’s Association. Ed’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in: Every Writer’s Resource, Fiction On The Web, Short-Stories.me, Vending Machine Press, Floyd County Moonshine Magazine, Beorh Quarterly, Page and Spine, Belle Reve Literary Journal,Work Literary magazine, Drunk Monkeys, Crack the Spine Literary Magazine, The Literary Yard, Decades Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, Swamp Lily Review and Literary Orphans.
–Art by Rona Keller
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