“I don’t understand why the
women-folk don’t want Belly and the rest of us to know.” Jerry stretched out in
his tent, speaking to his wife. She was seated on the ground beside him.
“What is this women-folk crap? Ever since WWII, we have been people first,
equals! Now suddenly, once we have come back to building fires and sleeping
under the stars – living off the land – we’re women-folk. Like we’re separate
species.”
“What you just told me is exactly
why we men are going to treat you women differently than just one of the guys. You are vulnerable in a
way men will never be.”
Chrissy tried to respond with a
logical argument. Jerry let her think
her way to a calmer plateau.
“Is anyone else pregnant?”
“There are only the three of us that
are actively sexual – that I know of. It’s not like we babysit the
bachelorettes. Peggy, Jeanie and I are married. Peggy’s got a stash of
condemns, though.”
“Yeah, I’m amazed that’s lasted that
long.” Jerry mused. “Preacher mentioned he and Smartboard are considering going
bear-hunting.”
“And then there’s Angel and
Jailbird.”
“He’s a man of honor; they’re still
celibate.”
“She’s got to be at least seventeen
and this winter’s going to be a cold one.”
Jerry grimaced. “Well, that was less
than romantic.”
“There’s nothing romantic about bear-hunting
in the piney woods, love.” She smirked and then lay down beside him. “But those
wild roses you picked for me last time were very sweet.”
“Are you ever sorry that I can’t get
you pregnant?”
She nuzzled against him. “Right now,
I’m grateful that we can’t get pregnant. I can’t imagine going through a
pregnancy out here. The closest thing to an OB-GYN is Peggy who took an on line
midwifery course.”
“Do you suppose the 74th
has doctors?”
“That’s not enough of a reason to
join them.”
“Hum,” he slipped his hand under her
shirt. “If we’re real quiet, do you
suppose we could go bear-hunting right now?”
She grinned and kissed him.
“Jerry!” Preacher yelled from
outside of the tent. “We found a bee hive. Pizzaboy thinks he‘s got an idea.
Come on!”
“We’ll start you with the jeans.
That’s why we announced at breakfast today’s jeans day. Anyone with dirty jeans
will start piling them there.”
“Beside the pile of white or whitish
clothes?” Mickey asked Sally.
“Yeah, well, we’re a little behind
in the laundry. I’ll take care of the whites, you do the jeans.”
“So, announce the flavor of the day,
wait for the clothes to pile up. I think I’m getting a hang of this living off the land mojo.”
“Put twelve jeans at a time in that tub
there. Shake them first, to make sure there’s no bugs. Check the pockets –
carefully.”
“Bugs?”
“Or worse. Especially Timmy Hicks.
Smallest jeans. That child finds every squishy critter interesting and collects
them – in his pockets.”
Mickey made a face but assured her
(and himself), “I can do this.”
“Use one cup of laundry detergent
and fill the tub with water from the stream.”
“Don’t I have to boil it or
something?”
“Not yet.”
“Oh, two words that offer such
promise.”
Sally pointed.
“What?”
“Get the stick.”
He did so, and held it vertically
between them.
She placed her hand caressingly at
the top of the stick, placed her other hand on the shaft and then used it to
demonstrate her words. “You know how, in an engine, when the pistons go up and
down, up and down, and up and down, faster and faster until the engine just
screams with heat?”
“Yeah? Oh yeah. Up and down.”
“Once the tub is full, you and the
stick – to the clothes in the tub. Like a hot engine.”
“Screaming hot.”
“Can you guess what happens next?”
He leaned in toward her, “Not yet.”
“You let them soak while you fill
that second tub with boiling water.”
“Steaming. Hot. In a tub.”
“Use a cup of laundry soap.”
“I like bubbles.”
“Take the clothes out of the first
tub and put them in the shopping cart to drain. Then dump the tub that way.”
“Toward the little ditch in the
dirt?”
“It leads away from the river
towards the latrines.”
“So you don’t foul the river.”
“We have a chance at a new start
here. Jerry says we need to treat the earth like grown-ups, not like the
generations before us.”
“The president has an environmental
policy.”
“Yes, Sergeant Mickelson, he does.”
She crossed her arms.
He licked his lips, recognizing how
much ground he’d just lost. “So I dump the dirty water while the first load
drains. Then put them in the hot water bucket, piston them for a while and
what?”
“Fill up the first tub again for the
next load. While it’s soaking, use the shopping cart to drain the hot load.
Dump that tub. Put the water on to boil again and while you’re filling the
second tub, dump three buckets of cold water over the load in the shopping
cart, let them drip a bit and then hang them on the line. Use the cart to drain
the cold tub, put them in the hot tub. Dump, fill, repeat.”
“The line’s going to get full,
looking at that load of jeans.”
“Jeans take two days to dry in this
humidity. When the clothes are dry, fold them on that table. We each mark our
clothes, so everyone will come and get them before dinner tomorrow.”
“What you need is two shopping
carts.”
“What we need is new underwear.”
“Oh, baby, I love the thought of you
in a new, fresh out of the lingerie store, thong.”
“Oh, now that was just a cheesy
line.”
“Hey, cut me some slack here, I’ve
been out of practice this past year.”
She handed him a bucket and took one
herself. “So, how many wives and girlfriends did you leave behind?”
“None that belonged to me.”
Excerpt from
Troughton
Company
© Evelyn Rainey
Available for publication.
