Mason

"The first thing I noticed about your mother were her eyes," Maxroy Mason Sr. told his growing son, a little boy who was more arms and legs than anything else. Mason's troubled brow ran all the way back his bald head, because he "had more trouble than most," he told people. "People don't worry enough, Plug." He called the little boy plug because he was no bigger than a plug of chaw. "Don't worry, be happy? Huh," he gave a small, disgusted cough. "That's living life on credit. Smart folk think they can leave this world with the bill and I say that it's gonna follow you into the next, and how do you think you're gonna pay it up?" His boy shrugged, not quite understanding when his father was rhetorical, he hadn't yet learned it was always and never. "No sir, don't let me ever hear anyone say Plug owes them something, I'll take it out of your backside with a strap." You could see the raised callouses on Mason's palms, rough and yellow. Shaking hands with him was a starling expression of underestimated strength and sandpaper. "I'll worry extra and be paid up, and worry for you too and give you that head start." The boy nodded gratefully. "If I can do that for you Plug, do you know what you can do for me?" Mason put his arm around his boy, "Just make sure you listen."

"Her eyes were hazel and that's what I used to call her. She used to pretend to hate that." His hair was white and had been all of the boy's life, which may be why he was given to nostalgia, he always seemed a man out of place in time. "In some ways boys and girls stay boys and girls all their life. You ever pull on a little girls pigtails, Plug?" The boy shook his head, confused. He would've sworn this would be the exact behavior his father would hide him for. "She used to call me Farmer, and I'd pretend to get mad. The truth is the first thing I noticed was the red clay color in those eyes, the way it gave over to blue. Looked like a tilled field and the October sky. You don't know anything about a field, do you boy?" Plug shook his head mutely.

"No one ever treated her right 'cept me and you, we can be proud of that." He nudged his boy in the shoulder, it nearly knocked the boy off his feet. "Things aren't always fair to good people, it's ok if that makes you mad." The boy was amazed at how Mason strangled the wooden shovel handle. He swore he sometimes heard it creak and groan like an old flight of stairs, and waited for the day his father would reduce the handle to powder. "People don't always let you be nice to them either, they think they don't deserve it, might even get mad at you for it. That make sense?" The boy shook his head. "No, it don't, I agree with you, Plug. Your Mom was like that when I met her." Mason became aware of the impatient wriggling beside him. He couldn't blame him, a funeral is a long day for a boy. He looked down and smiled, "Okay, we can go Plug." They walked away from the mound of dirt on top of the hill, a place Mason had chosen because it was shielded from care by the bows of an ancient oak. "You don't know anything about a field, huh?" The boy didn't answer. "I'll tell you what to remember. Water dry Earth gently, for it is fragile." They went down the horizon and the sun followed after.