19

Bayou Ridge

Solomon Royal parked at the bottom of the steep incline and began his slow ascent. He was just past seventy and still in good health, physically, but it was a cold day, it was a pretty fair climb, and he took his time. The Aters house—if you could call it a house—was an old sharecropper's shack on the edge of a small farm owned by a lady who lived in Florida. Locally it was called the Lawlesses place, though Ferg Lawlesses was long deceased.

The new owner never got around to tearing the shack down. The Diamond Ranch outfit farmed the ground for its absentee owner, and their foreman had let old Mr. Aters and his family move in.

Aters was gone most of the time, a drinking man he was, and his wife, a woman in her fifties, their six children, and assorted livestock somehow survived on this piece of barren ridge. No electricity. A hand pump. Dr. Royal knew they lived rough.

He was breathing hard, blowing pretty good, by the time he reached the top. Tar paper on boards, just this side of a shanty. Coal oil smell ... kerosene. He recalled what it was like to live like this.

A girl of about ten with a dirty face opened the door for him. She had old eyes already. He entered without asking and spoke to the room, “Where is he?"

“Over here,” Mrs. Aters said. She was stout and had a doughy face with the same wary gaze as her child's. She pushed a filthy cloth back and he saw the little boy. He moved over toward him, still with his coat on, and set his bag down beside the bed.

“I need the lamp,” he said, and they moved the strong light beside him. Huge shadows shot through the room and the pungent smell took him back to another time, as he prepared to ply his trade.

“Appreciate you comin’ all the way out here. You bein’ sort of retired and all,” the woman spoke from the shadows.

“Um hm.” He bent to the task at hand. He glanced back and saw the little girl watching him. “How old are you, my dear?” She stared at him, transfixed, too shy to speak. “Hm?"

“Tell him,” the woman commanded, adding, “she's nine."

“Nine! Well, that's nice. What's your name, my sweet?” The child mumbled something. He worked with the boy. Finished. “He'll be all right.” Royal gathered up his things and as he walked by the dirty-faced girl he cupped the back of her head in his hand, looking at the stout woman and smiling.

“I think I should give all these kids of yours a good, thorough, routine checkup. Tell you what. Call the office and we'll set up a schedule for you to bring them in."

“Can't afford to,” she said simply. About the ten thousandth time he'd heard that one.

“I'm not going to charge you anything for the visits. We'll start with the little girl here. My, you are dirty. May I have a washcloth?” he asked. The woman turned, got a filthy rag from the sink, and walked heavily across the room and handed it to him.

He took it and rubbed at the dirty cheek, then permitted himself to roughly rub it across her full, pouty lips.

“That's much better. Next week I'll give you a complete examination ... no charge,” he repeated to the Aters sow, on his way out the door.