“It’s just shiny,” I says. It’s last year’s model but the fella never drove it.
“You got all the luck, Dill.”
“I do all right.”
“Bet it runs good.”
“I don’t got no time for no jalopy.”
“Course you don’t,” Teddy says. “A Beede would have the time but a Smiles would not.”
I sit back down, taking the letter out of my front overalls pocket and resting it on my lap. We sit there quiet. Waiting.
“You gonna give me one of them new pigs you got?” Roosevelt asks.
“You can buy one, same as everybody else,” I says. My good sow Jezebel farrowed last night. Got up in my bed to do it too. She’s spoiled.
“Thirteen piglets and no runts. Dill Smiles oughta give Teddy Beede a free pig,” Teddy says.
“Thirteen’s unlucky. Why you want an unlucky pig for?”
“Thirteen ain’t unlucky for you,” Teddy says admiringly. “You got nothing but good luck, Dill, you got the luck of the Smiles.”
“I don’t got nothing like good luck.”
“Yes you do,” Teddy says using his greezy voice. He must really want that pig.
“I ain’t arguing witchu,” I says.
“Gimme a pig,” Teddy go.
I shake my head no.
“Hell, Dill, I’m practically yr brother,” he says.
“I ain’t no goddamn Beede,” I says and we both laugh.
We see a speck coming down the road. Too small and too slow for no car. It’s Billy.
“You think she got her dress?” Teddy asks.
“She’s Willa Mae’s child,” I says.
“Meaning whut?”
“Meaning by hook or crook Billy got herself a dress. Mighta got herself two or three dresses.”
“Billy don’t favor Willa,” Teddy says.
“Billy don’t favor me neither,” I says.
Teddy cuts his eyes to me, getting a good look at my profile without turning his head. I’m doing the same to look at him. His pecan-colored cheek is fleshy. Gray grizzle around the chin where he ain’t shaved this morning. Willa Mae told me once that I looked like an Indian nickel. Teddy’s mouth opens a little. I’ve brought him to his limit.
“Go head, Teddy, say it,” I says.
“I’m just taking a breath,” he says. He coughs and puts his eyes back front. Why the hell should Billy favor Dill Smiles? That’s what Teddy wants to say, but he wants me to give him a free pig more than he wants to give me a what for.
The Billy-speck coming down the road gets bigger.
“She’s whistling,” I says. We both hear it.
“Guess she got that dress,” Teddy says.
“Billy don’t favor Willa Mae but she’s got her mother’s heart and ways,” I says.
“Not completely,” Teddy says. “Willa Mae didn’t never like to work, but Billy had that good job over at Ruthie Montgomery’s.”
“Billy had a job,” I says.
“Well, Billy was doing pretty good in school,” Teddy says.
“Then she quit,” I remind him.
“Willa Mae was always singing her songs and flaunting herself. Billy can’t even carry a tune,” Teddy says.
“What you got against yr own sister?” I ask him. “What you got against Billy taking after her own mother?”
“Willa Mae ended up in the ground,” Teddy says.
“We all end up in the ground,” I says.
The tune Billy’s whistling don’t sound like a song. Just a bunch of notes and not in a steady rhythm. Then I recognize it. She’s whistling around something Willa used to sing. I can’t recall the words though.
“You got more luck than anybody in Texas,” Teddy says.
“I’ve had my share of bad luck too,” I says and Teddy nods cause he knows.
“Where did I come here from?” I ask him.
“Dade County, Florida,” Teddy says.
“Dade County, Florida, and don’t you forget it,” I says.
I came here from Florida with the promise of work from Mr. Sanderson, and when I found out the work was just field work alongside the wetbacks and the no-counts, I didn’t go back. I stuck it out. I worked harder than all the women and most of the men and saved up enough to start my pig business. Teddy remembers that. And when Willa Mae Beede came home to Lincoln looking to move in with Teddy, her married brother, she ended up living with me instead. Me and her was like husband and wife, almost. When Billy was born, it was me, Dill Smiles, who took care of Willa Mae and her bastard child both. And when Willa Mae left me for good that last time, it was my mother’s house in LaJunta where she decided to die at. I drove out there. Billy was standing in the corner of the room like a little dark ghost. Willa Mae was dying in a bed of blood. She’d tried to get rid of her second baby and botched it. She told me she was sorry for the wrong she’d done me and that she wanted to be put in the ground with her pearl necklace and her diamond ring. I gave her my word. Then she died. I was with her. Teddy knows.
Teddy and me can see Billy good now. She’s carrying a box balanced on her head and holding it with one hand, like they carry stuff over in Africa.
When Teddy Beede looks at me, he sees what I want him to see: Dill Smiles and Dill Smiles’ luck, which, to Teddy’s mind, springs from the bounty of Dill Smiles’ fairness, which in turn, springs out of a long swamp of unlucky years that hardworking Dill Smiles has bravely lived longer than. To Teddy, because I’ve lived longer than my bad luck did, I’m now allowed to enjoy thirteen healthy piglets and a shiny new-looking truck. But it ain’t that way at all.
I paid an undertaker to wash her body and put her in the coffin that I’d paid for out my own pocket. Before he nailed down the lid, I had a last look and took the necklace and the ring. Then me and the undertaker carried her outside and I saved a few dollars by digging the grave and burying her myself. I put her in the ground, put her jewelry in my pocket and brought Billy back here for Teddy and June to raise. When they asked after the jewels I told them the jewels was underground. In truth, I got Willa’s diamond ring in my own pocket. The necklace of pearls she asked me to bury her with, I’ve been selling pearl by pearl to a fella in Dallas who don’t ask no questions. The pearls are all sold but I still got the ring. My hole card. If the pigs fail again I’ll have to sell it.
The luck of Dill Smiles ain’t no luck at all, but compared to Teddy and June and Billy, it’s like I step in shit every day.
July 16, 1963
The Pink Flamingo Motel
LaJunta, Arizona
Dear June and Roosevelt and Billy,
The past month has been what you could call very interesting. Even and me are on what Even calls “the up and up,” and so I am going to surprise you this time by not asking for payment to keep up Willa Mae’s grave.
If you have the time to read this letter you will soon discover what our new circumstances are all about.