When Cleave was a young man he worked at a sawmill. Later on, he was a janitor at a church in Charlotte. They treated him pretty good and when he got to be an old man –waiting for his bus to heaven, he said — he spent some days just sitting in the sun, speaking to friends who passed his way.
I knew him but my brother, Dave, was a friend. One morning we passed his way on purpose. Dave took Cleave some fish and chips and we sat and talked.
I don’t know if Cleave ever learned to read but he was a good story teller. He got to talking about the old days, when he was a young man. He said he got paid in cash after work on Fridays.
“And I’d go into town, and I’d buy a bottle of liquor and I’d find a woman and we’d, we’d — what’s that thing we used to do?” he asked us.
And then he laughed, a laugh that started in his belly and made me envy his contentment.
Coming Monday: Bear Bryant Called