BROTHER JOHN
We was country. That’s why when Mamma and Daddy Pete had John, we knowed he was special. He had him a light bright color and good hair. He didn’t look nothing like the rest of the Tillman kids. We were sure he would be knowed as more than just one of the big Tillmans like me. There was three big Tillmans and four little Tillmans and, in between, seven years time when Mamma says she was too tired to be having babies. John was so special they named him John James because it sounded important and citified. Not country like the rest of us.
By the time the first little Tillman come along, they was calling him Jimmy John even though that weren’t his name, and he was tall and strong for a six-year-old. When he first started school, Mrs. Cooley thought he must prolly be in his second or third year of the first grade. Boy, was she surprised when John turned out smart and knowed the answers to all them word cards she was all the time holding up.
Life in Dundee County was long and slow. Sitting in a corner of East Louisiana, Dundee County was a mix-up of Cajuns and Mississippians and Seminoles with a dab of Gullah Geechees in the mix. Everyone was poor and people liked to give their chirren names that sounded as fancy as one of Big Mamma’s church hats. There was two or three Princes and a Mercedes in most classrooms at the Dundee School. The Tillmans was a proud fambly and Big Papa was a French Cajun. He got to name every new Tillman that came along. Afore John James was born, they had Dantae and L’Olivia.
Somewhere in the years between big Tillmans and little Tillmans, Daddy Pete had him a big tractor accident and then Daddy Roland took over his spot. Daddy Roland never liked John. Being different was not a good thing. You never wanted to stick out lest people would think you was putting on airs.
Daddy Roly done whupped Jimmy John good last night and pushed him off the porch into Mamma’s roses. Mamma was so mad she sent Daddy Roly packing. I felt good for my brother when she done that but Big Pappa said she was only mad about her roses getting ruint. Either way, Daddy Roly was down the road and a month or so later, Daddy Theo joined the household. He was a preacher and we was all on our best behavior around him. Nobody wanted to get they ass sent to hell for bein a heathen, that was for sure.
Mostly I just watched Jimmy John get smarter and smarter. Mrs. Cooley fussed over him like he was a little lap dog and said he would be going off to college one day. Mamma she just said he had a shine on him like none of the rest of us did. Jimmy John hisself didn’t really talk about it none. He learned to be as quiet as he was smart. Whenever he did say something, he just made everybody mad. The last thing I done heard him say was, “Tempt not a desperate man.” He tried to explain it was a line from some Shakespeare play. I never learnt nothing like that at school. Wound up nobody in the fambly said another word to him for three days.
John James settled down to where he was used to sticking out like a two-headed chicken. People knew he would make good one day but they didn’t want to make it too easy for him. By the time the fourth and final little Tillman, J’Andre, was born, no one would try to conversate with him except for Big Pappa. And then Big Pappa would just smile his toothy smile and say “Mm mm mm. How bout that!” to whatever John said. Prolly John talked to Mrs. Cooley and the other teachers who could abide his ways. They kept him in the teachers’ lounge and taught him all by hisself. He was too good to be in a classfull of rowdy know-nothings like the rest of the Tillman clan whose ignorance might rub off on him like river dirt.
When he turned eighteen, John went away. It was all them people in town could talk about. Somebody done made it out of Dundee County. People liked to say they got a letter or a phone call from John, but we all knowed it weren’t true. The Tillmans and their chirren held Jimmy John stories too and trotted them out at all the fambly get-togethers. He became larger and more beloved in the stories than he ever were in life. Now even the little Tillmans had little ones of their own and could barely amember John in real life. But the stories were big and got mixed up with what were real. And everyone who said they knowed him was brought up in a way that no one ever talked much on.
After the flu finally took Big Pappa last winter, weren’t nobody left in the old house, just Mamma and me. All the other kids had families of they own and Daddy Theo run off with one of Mrs. Cooley’s wild nieces. I just stayed on to help Mamma who was all stove up and not up to much save for sitting on the leaky porch talking nonsense. So, one day, when she rose unsteady and said clear as day, “My John is a-comin home,” I didn’t pay her much mind.
Exactly one week later, he come up to the door and knocked like he was a visitor. I knowed it was him right away because I called up his number myself. The morning after Mamma told it, I found her dead in her bed. She was holding one of John old reading books in her hands. “Sweet dreams, Mamma,” I said to her, and closed her eyes. “Your John is come home.”
John and I talked about when we was kids. Then he asked about each of his brothers and sisters in turn and the answer was always the same. “They’s still here in Dundee County, got a bunch of kids.” Then there weren’t no more to be said and we just kind of sat there drinking coffee and waiting for Mamma’s funeral.
The news was in the air and spread like the time old man Thibedoux’s barn caught afire. So many people crowded into the funeral parlor that it was like Mamma was a movie star on one of them magazines. The truth was, of course, they was only there to see John and find out what had become of him. So when he got up to speak after the service, you might could have heard a feather drop in the hen house.
“Thank you, everyone, for coming to my mother’s funeral. I know I haven’t been around much in recent years, but I do think of this place and many of you quite often. Especially Mamma. She was one of the smartest, bravest women who ever lived.”
He took a breath and continued. “Mamma, she scrimped and saved every penny and made sure that I left this place at the earliest opportunity. She told me to never look back. She wouldn’t even talk to me when I tried to call her from Baton Rouge.”
Yep. All they heard was Baton Rouge and they knowed Jimmy John had made good in the city. Prolly a banker or something. I never asked or knowed what he did. I never cared. Truth is, most of those folks already had their stories made up and were ready to pass them on as gospel.
John left the day after the funeral and I never seen him again. After I got Mamma’s affairs in order, I left Dundee County too for the first and last time. I knowed there would be some talk about that too. But most of the talk would always be on John. He had that shine on him.
I took the bus on up to Shreveport and got a job on a oil rig. Making plenty a money and got me an ole gal too. Kept me from missing Mamma and the others too much. Life was treating me real fine. Except ever time I set foot in the bank to cash my paycheck, I looked around at the men in them fancy suits and ties with the shiny shoes and the slicked back hair and I thought about John and how he made good. He was sure special. Not country like the rest of us.
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Linda Caradine is a Portland OR-based writer. Her work has appeared in This Week, The Oregonian Newspaper, RavensPerch, Summerset Review and Free State Review, among other publications. She is currently working on a memoir.
