Fall Line. Joe Samuel Starnes

way?”

      “Aw, I’m working for the sumbitches. The power company. On their scout crew. They want to find anything of value they can sell before it ends up on the bottom of the lake.”

      “Well, I guess I better get these claw feet off and take ’em with me before you do.”

      “Shoot. I ain’t gonna take ’em from you. They ain’t worth that much. But I’ll help you get ’em off. You’re going to have to flip this thing over if you ever gonna get ’em loose.”

      “Yeah. I reckon you’re right.”

      She picked up several of the shoeboxes full of car parts stored in the tub and set them against the wall of the house. Her gray robe fell open and he was glad to see she had a housedress on under it. Elmer helped her clean out the tub, dumping rags in a pile. When it was empty, she moved around to the end and gripped the lip of the tub with one hand on the side and one on the end.

      “Elmer, you get the other side there and we’ll flip it this way,” she said, gesturing toward the house.

      He nodded but looked unsure.

      “This thing is cast iron, ain’t it?”

      “Yeah, but we can get it.”

      She weighed at least fifty pounds more than he did and had strong arms and legs and a sturdy back from years of hauling things around a junkyard.

      “Got it?” she said.

      “Yep.”

      They turned it over. The rusty tub lay on its rim like a dead pig, belly up, its claw feet extending stiffly into the air. Elmer studied the bottom of the tub, caked with spider webs and dirt. Each foot had a screw hidden in the soles.

      “All you need now is a screwdriver to get the bolts loose,” Elmer said.

      “Lemmee see where it is. Come help me look.”

      He followed her into the front room of the shack. The house was as messy as any he had ever seen, and he remembered his mama talking about the McNultys being good people but sorry housekeepers. Car parts were everywhere: a carburetor on the mantel, a tire rim on a love seat, pistons on the dining room table, half of an engine block on the floor.

      She gestured toward the kitchen.

      “Let’s look in these drawers.”

      Elmer opened a drawer in the cabinet near the door and shuffled through a clump of butter knives and ice picks and spark plugs and hood ornaments and car door handles, the small metals clanging softly—everything but the tool they needed. Mrs. McNulty made a loud racket shaking a drawer near the washbasin.

      “Hah. Got it,” she said, holding up a screwdriver for him to see. She led him back to the porch. She crouched and began to loosen the screws within the claw feet. Elmer offered to help but she shook her head no.

      He watched her for a few minutes until that eternal feeling of boredom came over him. He got tired of company right quick, couldn’t stand to share a moment with anyone for too long. The five years he was married liked to have about killed him.

      “Mrs. McNulty, I’ve got to get on back to work, I guess.”

      “What’s that, Elmer?” She was still preoccupied with the feet. She had one foot loose and was working on the second.

      He hustled his balls with his left hand.

      “I said, I got to get on back to work.”

      “Why don’t you have you a seat?” She turned and gestured to two rocking chairs on the other end of the porch.

      “Naw, I gotta go.”

      “All right,” she said, still not looking up. “Thank you for helping me hoist this old thing.”

      He inventoried her yard. She didn’t have a car or truck and none of the vehicles in the junkyard had cranked in decades.

      “Where you headed this evening?”

      “What?”

      “I said, where you headed this evening?”

      She looked up at him directly like the idea of leaving the house had not even crossed her mind.

      “You got to go somewhere,” he said. “They shutting the floodgates tonight. The big water’s coming.”

      He hustled his balls again. He was dying to get away from her and be by himself in the woods, having a smoke and listening to the birds chirping and the squirrels rooting around there one last time. He couldn’t stand to be on the porch with her another minute.

      She looked at him as though she had never seen him before.

      “I guess one of your daughters is gonna come get you, ain’t they?” He was nodding his head yes, answering his own question.

      She nodded, though she looked like she didn’t understand. The nod was good enough for Elmer. He had to go.

      “All right, Mrs. McNulty. I’ll see you in town sometime. Don’t stay out here too late. The lake’s a coming.”

      He turned on the porch and went down, the top step squeaking like a half-drowned bird.

      “Bye . . . Elmer. You come back now, you heah?” she said weakly. But he was already down the steps and didn’t hear.

      Elmer got to the Magnolia Restaurant about the same time his uncle pulled up in his shiny police car, a big black Buick Century with white doors emblazoned with a star that announced Sheriff Lloyd Finley from three city blocks or a long bend in a country road away. Elmer didn’t like to eat out in public with everyone in town stopping to speak to the sheriff and look down on their plates, but he had been summoned by his uncle and had no choice.

      “Mornin’, Elmer.” His uncle extended his thick hand for a shake, his grip warm and strong.

      Elmer clasped his hand and let go as quickly as he could. “Hey, Lloyd.”

      “Son, it’s always good to see you.”

      Elmer didn’t say anything but he held the door for his Uncle Lloyd, his girth in the taupe uniform beneath a white sheriff’s hat filling the doorway. He was glad not to get another lecture about his need for a stronger handshake. He stood behind as his uncle surveyed the Magnolia, choosing a table in the back of the narrow greasy spoon, full with smells of fried sausage and cigarettes. He led Elmer down the aisle between the booths and the counter. Warm steam from pancake batter rose from the griddle and fogged the backsplash. Forks and knives on china and spoons tinkling in coffee cups slowed for a minute, as did the disorganized babble of voices, while everyone paused to see them pass. The sheriff nodded and spoke hello and mornin’ to everyone, from the judge eating his waffle to the busboy with his dishrag. Elmer kept his eyes on the floor and spoke to no one, focusing instead on the black-and-white checkered pattern in the tile beneath his feet.

      He slid into the seat facing the back wall while the sheriff stood for a moment studying the tables and the counter, his expression a mix of smile, smirk, and scowl, ready for whoever confronted him, child or criminal or college professor. Lloyd took off his hat and eased himself into the booth as the waitress whisked by and dropped off menus and cups of coffee. Elmer dumped a load of sugar in his cup and stirred it with a teaspoon. He stared at the black coffee and without looking up he knew his uncle was staring him down.

      “Son, how you been?”

      “I’m fine, Lloyd, fine. How ’bout you?”

      “I tell you what. I ain’t never been so busy with all these folks coming into town. Ain’t no telling how many.”

      “Yeah. I been seeing it in the paper.”

      “It’s the biggest thing ever happened ’round here.”

      Elmer said nothing. Lloyd took a sip of his coffee and set it down. They were quiet for a moment before Lloyd spoke.

      “Did