Note: I am not a writer of fiction. But when faced with a writing workshop challenge to compose a fiction piece from someone else’s perspective, what was I to do? Since I was in the midst of writing a true-story book chapter featuring my grandfather, I called upon a few real-life details to evoke this bit of fantasy. I didn’t even bother to change the names, but you can believe me when I say it is a fictional piece. The thoughts I’ve put in his head came from mine, not his. Besides, my grandfather may have been taciturn, but he was never at a loss for words. Trust me. (And I adored him!)

GARLAND

Born in 1886, Garland grew up with mostly brothers. For three years straight during his twenties, he made the seven-mile walk to Cullowhee Normal School every Monday morning and then back again every Friday afternoon with his younger brother, Odell. During the week, they shared a boardinghouse room.

Garland was used to male company.

When he began teaching school, Garland was surrounded by children. His only adult companionship, such as it was, was with the other teacher in the two-room schoolhouse. She, however, was not male. At night, he went home to his new bride, Georgia. He was all asea in this new world devoid of men.

Ten years later, his family had increased by five—four girls, one boy. One boy, Billy, who turned out to be too much like his father—too smart, too stubborn, too pig-headed—to be much company, even in adulthood. They kept their distance.

The rest of the household hummed with activity: the whir of the treadle sewing machine; the never-ending yackety-yak of Georgia and her quilting friends; sisters playing house or school; the string of neighbor women dropping in to borrow the phone. Why, oh why, had they ever had it put in? And all that girl-crying—was it the answer to everything? The cacophony was a constant cricket chirp in Garland’s ears. Other times, it sounded like fingernails scraping against his schoolroom blackboard.

That’s about the time he gave up teaching in favor of running the little country store just down the road apiece. Once the high schoolers waiting near the door boarded their school bus each morning, it was reassuringly quiet around the place. As the day wore on and morning farm chores completed, farmers began trickling in to pick up their mail, restock their feed supply, or scrounge for a piece of hardware for this or that equipment repair.

They were in no hurry. Whatever emergency awaited them back at the farm wasn’t going anywhere. It would still be there when they returned to their chores. That’s one thing they could count on. There was always time to sit on one of the ladder back chairs or three-legged stools arranged around the pot-belled stove sitting in the middle of the room.

Garland savored those moments. Here, he was in his element. In the company of men. He was never too busy for a bit of fat-chewing with his comrades.

He knew that sooner or later the talk would turn from the weather and the price of cattle to the hot topic of politics. And he knew his face would get as red as the blistering coals in the stove soon as some rube aligned himself with Hoover and his cronies. It was bound to happen. Still, he’d rather engage in a battle of wits with someone in overalls than listen to the incessant yackety-yack of the women who came in to trade their eggs and butter or buy a bolt of fabric.

Retail trade, though, in the midst of the Great Depression, was an even less reliable way to put food on the table than a teacher’s paltry salary. Garland returned to his school room.

Five days a week, nothing but children and women, women and children. Schoolchild rowdiness, sister chatter, housewife gossip, Georgia’s nagging. He retreated into a shell of taciturnity, lonely in places bursting with people. At home, he often slipped off to the barn to get away from it all.

Saturdays, though. Saturdays were his escape. He woke early as usual, dressed, fed the animals and milked the cows like always, then ambled the two miles to town where he could be found standing in the midst of a small clutch of his fellow men, each as anxious as he to escape the drudgery of home life and the grip of their womenfolk.

The man who had nothing to say all week, who felt so out of place on his own property, found a new home on the sidewalks of Sylva. Once again in the company of men, words tumbled from Garland’s mouth as fast and furious as the torrents plunged over the boulders of Black Rock Mountain above his house on their way to Scotts Creek below.

No matter that not one of those men was as whip smart as Garland. No matter that all of them were rock sure they were. No matter that their politics were wrong-headed or that they could argue as long and loud and red-faced as he, as sure of their rightness as he was of his. He had found his place, and for a few hours each week, he was comfortable in his own skin.

The real Garland and Georgia, 50th wedding anniversary. Probably not so comfortable in his own skin at this moment.