Bud's "Wives' Tales"

58 Bud's "Wives' Tales" by Rachael McCampbell Before my Father hired Bud, Mr. Hall was the foreman of our farm in Tennessee . Like the barn, the tractors, and some of the cattle, he kind of came with the place. Mr. Hall was a withered little man. He reminded me of one of those apple head dolls we bought at an Appalachian craft fair once. His cheeks were crisscrossed with deep wrinkles, browned and puffy when he smiled like the latticed top of a freshly baked peach cobbler. He was nice enough, but I didn't like to be around him as a little girl. His overalls were always soaked with sweat or motor oil, his boots were covered with a crusty layer of fresh manure, and he smelled pickled like the inside of a silo on a hot July day. Mr. Hall hardly ever wore his teeth so I could never understand what he was saying. Whenever I would carve a "scary" pumpkin on Halloween, I'd call it "Mr. Hall" and make it toothless. Eventually, his eyesight began to fail. The day he shot and killed Tripod (our three-legged dog), thinking he was a ground hog, my father had to let him go. That's when Bud was hired. I guess I was about nine years old then. His real name was Franklin B. Thompson III. I suppose the "B" stood for Bud. Anyway , that's what we always called him. I remember the day he arrived in his old beat up green truck. I heard him rattling toward us in the distance. He was driving too fast over the cattle guards, causing the tools he had in the back of his pickup to clang together and slide recklessly about. From my bedroom window, I watched him as he swerved violently around the potholes at the bottom of the hill. He couldn't find the right gear turning in through the gate, causing the truck to make a deep grinding sound, as if it were trying to clear its throat but couldn't. The truck jerked back and forth even after he turned off the engine. Bud jumped out of the cab like he'd just ridden a bronco, his straw hat pushed down low over his forehead. He was nothing like Mr. Hall. Bud was wearing a new plaid shirt, still creased from being folded. His jeans were pushed down low on his hips causing their frayed edges to sweep the ground as he walked. He attempted to run his hand through the knotted thicket of his blonde hair but couldn't seem to get past his curly sideburns. When my mother greeted him at the door, he smiled broadly, exposing a wide gap in the front of his tobacco-stained teeth. His face, neck, and hands were deeply tanned, but from my window I could see a wide band of white skin beneath his collar. 59 I flew down the stairs to the den and stood halfway hidden behind the door to get a better look at him. Bud was sitting awkwardly on the edge of the rocking chair by the fireplace while my mother sat perched with her legs crossed on the love seat talking. "Dr. Rankin will be back any minute, he was expecting you about now." Smiling over at me she added, "And this is Caroline, our daughter. Caroline this is Bud, the new foreman." "Hey," I said, hiding a smile behind the back of my hand. "Howdy do," he said. He was playing with the brim of his hat on his lap. Bud nervously rocked himself, toe to heel, heel to toe, while my mother asked him questions about his family and where he grew up. His mind, like rusty clockworks, seemed to turn in time to the rhythmical creaking of the rocking chair, answering her questions between beats. Bud's answers would pop up about as fast as a bale of hay is made, but never as tightly packed or well presented . He said he'd worked on several farms not too far from ours for the past seven or eight years. But before that, he'd come from some...