Rootie Kazootie - Softcover

Naumoff, Lawrence

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0804107459 ISBN 13: 9780804107457

Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2004

Synopsis

Book by Naumoff, Lawrence

About this title

About the Author:

Lawrence Naumoff has received a National Endowment for the Arts grant, the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Award, and a Whiting Writer's Award, among others.  He was born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, and lives outside Chapel Hill.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Rootie Kazootie
PART ICaroline TalksChapter 1On the way home, Caroline and Richard passed a pickup truck coming from the opposite direction, and as it passed, a pig rose up out of nowhere in the passenger seat, stuck its head out the window, looked around and then quickly disappeared."Did you see that?" Caroline asked."I saw it.""Was that Edgar in his new truck?""I think so.""I heard he was riding around with that pig," she said, "but I didn't know he was doing it in a new truck.""Just forget it.""Lucille told me he'd named the pig Lucille, and I thought, damn, he's getting worse all the time.""Just stay out of it," he said."And then she told me he was going to send her on that diet bus tour, or whatever you call it, and that really got me upset.""Let him alone.""She can't help it if she's fat. All the women in her family are fat. He knew that when he married her. He had to have known it. Didn't he?""I don't know," he said."You don't know. You do so. You're just saying that because you don't want to talk to me. You're still mad at me about yesterday, aren't you?""I haven't even thought about it," he said."Yes, you have. You're doing it right now."Caroline had lost her car keys and called Richard at work to bring her his set. This was the second time in two weeks she'd lost a set."I know you don't want me to bother you over there," she said, "but I can't help it if I lose things.""I'm not thinking about it," he said."Everybody loses things. Especially when they get older. It's just part of life. The older you get, the more things you've got on your mind, and the more things you've got on your mind, the less you can handle them. Isn't that right?""If you say so," he said."Oh, I give up. I really do," she said."It's not that bad," he said."But baby it is," she said. "I'm getting to be such a boring person you don't even want to talk to me anymore.""That's not it.""It must be, baby. I know it is. You don't even have to admit it. I'm turning into one of those crazy women approaching forty you read about all the time.""You're all right," he said."I'm not, though. I feel nervous all the time. Everything's changing and I can't keep up with it. You're changing. I'm changing. My body's changing. I've even got hair growing where I never used to.""Come on, Caroline," he said."I do. I'm turning into a man or something. I've read about that. Your hormones start drying up and the masculine ones take over. I swear, I'm just a wreck.""Just take it easy.""The other day in the bathroom, I swear to you, I was on the toilet for fifteen minutes.""That's enough, Caroline.""I was sitting there and I thought, damn, what's happening? I must have lost ten pounds by the time I got out.""Do we really have to talk about that?" he asked."Well, we have to talk about something. If it was left up to you, we'd never talk at all.""Some things you want to hear about and some you don't," he said."You don't want to hear about anything. I never say the right thing anymore. I just don't, do I? I might as well give up. Nothing I do or say interests you anymore. I can't blame you, I guess. I don't have a very spectacular life. I thought at one time I would, but it's just slipped on by and now what have I got?""Don't worry so much all the time," he said."I don't worry. It just sounds like it when I talk. Most of the time I'm real happy. It's just that when I start talking all this stuff comes out.""Don't talk, then.""I knew you were going to say that. Just as I finished that sentence I thought, he's going to say, don't talk, then, and by golly, you did. You said it. We're turning into Mutt and Jeff or whatever. Who was that?""I don't remember.""I know. It's Dagwood and Blondie. That's what we're turning into.""I don't get it," he said."I don't either," she said. "I guess it doesn't fit, really, when you think about it. Still, they were great.""Who?""Those old comic strips. I used to have this crush on Joe Palooka. Remember the guy with the little house attached to his bicycle. I used to think he was so cute. That's the way things are when you're young. You fall in love with everything. It doesn't work when you get older. You need something else.""Yeah," he said."Yeah what?" she asked."You need something else," he said."Are you saying you need someone else?""No, Caroline. I was not saying that.""Then why'd you agree with me so fast?""Forget it.""You always say that. Forget it. That's your response to everything. That's all right, though. I know you don't mean it. This is just one of my bad days. You know how I get. We've already had a great time. I loved the auction."They had been to a farm equipment auction and had boughta cultivator. Cultivators were implements that hooked on to tractors and were used to dig up, the same way a person with a hoe might, the weeds between the rows of crops. Some cultivators could do four, eight, or twelve rows at a time. They hung out from the sides of tractors like wings. This one fit behind the tractor and worked one row only, but could do as much work in an hour as a person could do in two or three days.The vegetable garden was a big part of Richard and Caroline's life, and was, except for their house in the country between the university towns of Durham and Chapel Hill, just about all they had left from what had begun as a back-to-the-land life away from everything. They had real jobs now, went to town a lot, saw other people, had a bank loan, and so forth and so on, but they still planted a big garden and canned and froze as much as they could."Did the old guy die or what?" Caroline asked, referring to the person who had been sold out at the auction."He died.""I wish they had sold the furniture. I looked around the house before they started. I guess the heirs got that."They pulled into the driveway."Can I ask you something?""What," he said."Can I do the cultivating?""If you want to. It's not that easy, though.""I know. I watched you do it when you borrowed Edgar's.""The steering's loose on the tractor," he said. "It's hard to keep it straight.""I'll go slowly," she promised."You better.""I will."He stopped the truck. They got out."Still," he said, thinking about it, "maybe I better do it. Or at least get it started.""Oh, let me. I promise I'll do a good job. You know how I am in the summer when I'm not teaching. I'm just crazy to do things. I love to drive the tractor. Please let me.""Okay, then.""You rest, okay baby," she said. "You've been at that awful job all week and the least a woman can do for her man is let him take it easy on the weekends. Okay, sweetheart?""All right. Help me get it out of the truck."They dragged it out. It supported itself upright on its tines. Caroline got the tractor, which was an old John Deere built like a huge tricycle. She backed it up to the cultivator and Richard hooked it to the lift.The lift was called a three-point hitch. It had two arms that came out from the hydraulic housing between the back tires, and a third point to hook on to above the two lower arms. Once an implement was hooked at the arms, it could be raised or lowered for work or transport and the depth at which it operated in the ground could be controlled."Be sure and don't look backwards," he said."What?" she asked.The tractor was popping and hissing and the clutch pulley whirled around, making a racket like gravel rolling inside a hubcap."If you turn around to see how you're doing, you'll go sideways and run over the rows.""All bright."He watched her from the porch. He put his feet on the rail. She went up one row and down another. She made clean sharp turns, using her wheel brakes at the end of each row. She pulled on the hydraulic lever just right at the end of each row and the cultivator left the ground and swung into the air at the same time she swung the tractor around. She kept the tractor in first gear and finished the garden in less than an hour.Well, she surely can drive a tractor, he thought."Shall I back it in, or what?" she called from the shed."Go in frontwards. That way, if it rains, the engine will stay dry."The shed wasn't long enough to fit the whole thing, the tractor and the cultivator, all the way in."It'll probably never rain again, anyway," she said when she joined him on the porch."I don't know."She put her feet up like his, looking for a moment like a child copying her parent in some exact way. They looked a lot alike, anyway, and could have been mistaken, if not for brother and sister, then at least for cousins. Caroline had long reddish-blond hair, the kind of color people often referred to as strawberry-blond, but unlike most redheads, she had a tanned, olive-looking complexion. She had beautiful bone structure, and she looked good without makeup, which she rarely used. She had high cheekbones and dark eyebrows and, as Richard could have told you if he'd been persuaded to talk about it, there wasn't a mark, a blemish, a mole or a pimple on her from her toes to her hair. She was just naturally good-looking, and though Richard had darker hair, he had the same good bones and skin and natural good looks.They rested like that, then, with their feet on the rail, looking the same while Caroline let the vibrations and noise from the tractor slowly ebb out of her, and she tingled a little, the way a piano string might do as the sound it made slowly faded away. Then she said, "Now what?""Just take it easy, I guess."Sitting on the porch with her husband and working on the land and being home and together was just about as close to heaven as she could get."I love my house, you know," she said."Yeah.""I know it's not a big house and people always ask me why we built such a small house, but I think it's just perfect.""Uh huh," he said, and looked out at the road and listened to a car coming from far away."No one wants to stay simple or modest anymore," she said. "It's like some old idea that's gone forever. Everything's got to be big and fancy and everything's got to be a big show. I hate that. I hate people who live like that.""Uh huh," he said."I like the way we live. It suits me just fine.""That's good," he said."Some people can't take it, you know. They have to go shopping all the time, buy things, have fancy cars, get the latesthairstyle and all that junk. They never get satisfied. They're always looking for something else. I like the way we are. It feels right, you know?""Yes."She changed positions by sitting on the rail and putting her feet on the chair."I want to do something special for you today. I could make a pie. Would you like that? A chocolate pie? Would that be good?""I don't know. Maybe.""I guess it's too hot to get into baking a pie. How about something else. Chocolate isn't any good for you, anyway. It makes you nervous and gives some people a headache.""Is that right?""It is. I read about that in the paper the other day. I was also reading this article," she said and stopped when she saw he had closed his eyes. "Are you falling asleep?""Not.""Okay. I was also reading this article about what Americans really eat, you know, and it's like people eat snacks and junk more than anything. More than real food. You know, the sugar content, it was about all that stuff. It said about as many people were drinking Cokes or Pepsis for breakfast as there were drinking coffee. Can you believe that? I still think milk's the best thing for you."He didn't say anything."I guess you're tired. I don't blame you. I couldn't work over there. I wouldn't, anyway. You know what I'm trying to say. Why don't you go inside and lie down.""I'm all right.""It is just so hot.""yet.""Maybe it'll cloud up this afternoon. When it gets this hot we usually have a thunderstorm. What's that?" she asked, seeing something in the paper."It's just something I was looking at while you were cultivating. I was thinking it might be fun. You want to go?""Of course I do. It looks hilarious."They took his truck, which was in better condition than her car. They had lunch at a barbecue place. The air-conditioning felt so good it might have been worth eating all day long just to stay inside. They ate too much as it was and Caroline was restless once back in the truck."I'm too full now," she said."Me, too."She sighed and fanned her skin with her blouse, flapping it in and out to cool off."I wish we'd gone on and air-conditioned the house when we built it," she said. "It's too late now. I hate these decisions that you make and they turn out later to be wrong. I hate that. We could have borrowed a little more then and done it and not even felt it spread out over thirty years.""They wouldn't give us any more.""Oh yeah," she said. "Now I remember those bastards.""You sure have taken to cussing a lot these days.""I have? Well, maybe I have. Anyway, I don't care. I don't care about anything right now but the heat. Couldn't we buy a window unit?""With what?""We must have that much money somewhere.""I don't.""Couldn't we borrow it? Neither one of us is sleeping very well these days. We just lie there and sweat.""I don't want to borrow any more money.""Of course you're working in the air-conditioning over there. Of course I didn't think about that. That's just like me. I always think about some things but not the right things. Just like I'm always talking about some things but not the right things. You know what I mean? Sure you do. I know what you're thinking," she said. "I'm talking way too much and way too fast again. Right? You're thinking there goes Caroline getting out of control again, but I'm not. I know what I'm saying or at least I know what I'm trying to say by not saying it, follow me? I always get this way when you stop talking to me. I always do. The less you talk the more I do. I guess I'm trying to make up for both of us," she said and stuck her arm out the window and made her sleeve into a funnel so the air went up it and across her body."I think it's not sleeping well that's got us messed up," she said. "I think that's what it is. I really do. We ought to get a book on sleep therapy and see what they say about it.""I feel all right," he said."If you're all right then there must be something really wrong with me," she said. "I'm just getting more nervous all the time and I thought I was going to have such a relaxing summer."Caroline taught first grade and she loved her children and they loved her. Lately, though, all the other things associa...

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0804107459
• ISBN 13: 9780804107457
• Binding: Paperback