OF GREAT CHARACTER
A story by Joseph A. Byrne
Copyright 2011 Joseph A. Byrne,
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0225-3
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Collie looked at him with empty eyes, tear-filled eyes, pained eyes. He looked like he wanted to die, but responded emotionally to Anthony, as though bonding with him. He would survive. He had reason to survive.
Sweet Peas merely made his way to class, his shirt ripped, his arms dirty, his face bloodied, friendless, but with an immense peace inside him, a peace as big as the peace in the barn when the cattle are fed...
This book is dedicated to the great Pea Men of Essex County, Ontario, Canada, and to Claire, my children, my grandchildren, my brothers, their families and my staff.
Also by Joseph Byrne…
SENSES OF AUTUMN
WHITE SNOW BLACKOUT
Chapter 1
PRUSSIA HOUSE
The man sat in the Old Prussia House, renowned as one of Europe’s finest restaurants, in its finest city. It was Milan’s favourite spot, except for the Old Duluth, which had made a brief appearance in Rouyn, Quebec, while he was there.
He had ordered two small beers, which had come quickly. The food never came, but he didn’t seem to notice it. He sat there, dignified, intense, and waited.
Finally, after he had again sat there for a long period of time, the waitress came over. Politely, she explained she was just starting her shift and would be taking over his table.
“What would you like, sir?” she asked.
A silence set in—the type that is hard to explain. Everyone pretends not to notice it; no one interrupts it. Finally, he looked at her, “I would like sweet peas--only sweet peas.”
Perplexed, the waitress made her way back among the Napoleon cakes, the ones now only made in Europe, past the fine linen and pastry. She bypassed the order table and now made her way into the kitchen, the forbidden area, forbidden certainly to wait staff. She ignored the rules and made her way toward the head chef.
“He wants sweet peas, only sweet peas,” she told him.
As the waitress was back there, an older lady, dignified, sitting across from him, straightened up. She quickly glanced to where the waitress had been, but she had by now disappeared behind the swinging doors that led into the kitchen. She looked at the man sitting across from her. Obviously intrigued, she spoke.
“Sir, might I say that I have been around the world many times. Some would say that I know Africa better than I know the back of my own hand. They would say I’ve seen it all, but you intrigue me. I don’t know about sweet peas. Tell me about ‘sweet peas’.”
The man lowered his gaze. He looked at her. “What could possibly interest you about sweet peas?” he asked her. Then, he started to tell her about it.
“It was an honest time,” he said. “There was an honesty there that doesn’t seem to exist anymore. You got up at 3 a.m. and you went to the pea field. You worked until 3 a.m. and then you slept, if at all, until you started to work again, perhaps at 3 a.m. They’re nondescript, those men there. Yet, out there, I met some of the greatest men I’ve ever known. One of these men, I call ‘Sweet Peas’. He thinks he’s no one special. It was the Brezhnev era. The Cold War was really on. It was before the time of detente.”
Chapter 2
ON BEING DRAWN IN
When Anthony first arrived at the pea field, he looked it over carefully. The freshly cut windrows emitted a sweet smell as if to invite him into the field. The windrows were neatly cut, laid in symmetry, curving and bending, equally, from row to row, the same distance apart--ten feet between each row. The cut ends of the stalk were always on top of the windrows, the pea pods hanging down beneath them, generally hidden in the windrow. As Anthony bent over a windrow, he tugged at a handful of vines. The vines released themselves easily from the windrow, as if eager to show Anthony their enormous sweet pea pods, in their prime of freshness. Anthony picked one, split it open with his thumb, running his nail along the seam of the pod. He then put each of the eight giant peas that were in the pod into his mouth, flipping them in one at a time.
“Boy,” he proclaimed, “I’ve never tasted anything better than that,” as he popped some more into his mouth.
He looked again at the freshly cut windrows of peas. It amazed him how they attracted him, as though speaking to him. Their sweet fragrance beckoned him further into the field. He was seduced by them.
On the other side of the field, the uncut pea vines glistened in the sun, still wet from the morning dew. The gentle breeze, blowing over them, caused a slight ripple over the top of them, which seemed to break their unity. The ripple was exaggerated by the effect of the sun’s glisten off of the wet pea plants trying to stand there against the gentle force of the breeze against them. The ripple of wind bobbed the pea vines downward and then released them, as if to motion him further into the field.
“They’re waving me in,” Anthony said to himself, as he looked out over them. It made him smile to think how naturally they spoke to him. So, he simply walked toward them.
“Are you the new driver?” Kurt hollered over from a distance of several windrows of peas. “We don’t start for forty-five minutes yet. The Jolly Green [the factory] is plugged with peas from this morning.”
Even though it was now only around 9 a.m., Kurt, like the other men, referred to morning as the work period before daybreak. Mid-day was the period of time from daybreak to noon. The rest of the day lasted until dark and night lasted until midnight. Anthony couldn’t help but notice the diesel fumes as they wafted in the air as Kurt spoke. He looked further around the field. It seemed like all of the tractors were running at an idle, standing there, not moving. The engines on the pea combines were also running, also at an idle, breaking the calm silence that otherwise stood over the field.
“Maybe they won’t start if they shut them off,” he thought to himself. “See you in 45 minutes,” he called to Kurt, as he started to walk through the field.
Bob was the next one to come over.
“Are you driving tractor for us?” he asked.
Bob was a veteran pea man, having cut his teeth at the old pea viner. The viners were in use in the era before the pea combines had come into common usage. Pea vining was a labour-intensive process. The pea vines were cut in the field using swathers. They were then loaded onto trucks by men using pitchforks.
“Never let the fork touch the ground,” they were told. “Keep it moving.”
The men loaded the pea vines onto trucks, using their long-handled pitch forks, which were then hauled to the pea-vining plant on trucks, where they were again pitch-forked off. Bob had enormous forearms and shoulders, the product of loading trucks in