Ruby and the Wall

by W.E. Turner


Now, ol' Ruby Gutterman was a real corker; but if you was to see her in the company of her husband, Charles, you might never know it.

You see, Charles was a talker and Ruby wasn't. But even when Charles was just a-talkin' his head off, he always done it with an ear cocked in Ruby's direction, waitin' for her to clear her throat or do somethin' else that would catch his attention. He knew if he was to ever say or do anything that would upset Ruby, he'd hear about it later. So Charles seldom, if ever, said anything that was critical or in any way disparagin' of his wife.

Why he should have been so afraid of her, though, I never could figure out. Charles was a big, tall, strappin' man and compared to him, Ruby was just like a little ol' bird. She wasn't really all that tiny, though, if you get right down to it. She was a nice-lookin', gray-haired lady who stood about five-five or five-six, but was kinda on the thin side; whereas Charles was this big, strong German fella who had red hair (or at least used to, when he had hair) who stood about six-foot three, was broad-shouldered and had this big ol' potbelly on him that came from sittin' in a chair too close to the dinner table at mealtime and at other times sittin' too long on a barstool here in The Beer Joint.

You see, Charles used to come in The Beer Joint, the place I owned there in Caroline, Missouri, two or three times a week and drink himself a few bottles of Michelob Dark beer. He was just about the only person in town who ever ordered that brand, but I always kept it in stock for `im. Then Charles would proceed to tell me about some of the stuff Ruby done at different times that was a little bit crazy. I don't mean crazy crazy, like she was insane or anything; I mean funny crazy, the type of thing that made her such a corker.

He told me one story about her that was told to him by one of Ruby's sisters. It was about the time Ruby and her two younger sisters went into Tulsa to do some shoppin'. Ruby was about twenty-three or twenty-four at the time and the sisters was sixteen and seventeen. Evidently, these two sisters was actin' real snooty and would-be sophisticated, like girls their age are wont to do. The three of `em bought some oilcloth at a dry goods store to use back on their farm for a tablecloth. As they was walkin' back to their car, Ruby took that oilcloth and wrapped it around herself like a sarong, or somethin', then proceeded on down the street, singin' showtunes an' stuff at the top o' her lungs. The sisters, in the meantime, hung back about half a block or so, so's they wouldn't be associated with this crazy woman in the oilcloth. Charles said Ruby only done the whole thing because her sisters was actin' so uppity and she wanted to take `em down a peg. I figure it probably worked.

Now, you gotta understand, Ruby wasn’t Charles’ first wife; he was married for about twenty-five years to a local girl, Wanda Sunderman, before Wanda died o’ heart failure back in ’64. Then Charles met Ruby down in Oklahoma while he was drivin’ his truck and he married her in the summer o’ ’65. She came to live at his place, which was about two miles or so southwest of town and a mile or so north of the Interstate.

Charles wasn’t just a farmer before he met Ruby. He was also an independent truck driver; hauling goods from this place to that and just farmin’ on the side, raising pigs and cattle. But not too long after he married Ruby, though, Charles sold his truck and settled down permanantly to the farm. Ruby didn’t make ‘im do that; he wanted to. He’d had a few wrecks in that big rig of his and got banged up pretty bad a couple o’ times. As he got older, them banged-up places got to achin’ ‘im. So, he figured it was time he retired from the road.

Well, anyway, ol’ Ruby wasn’t too happy with the farmhouse Charles and Wanda had lived in all their lives together while they was raisin’ their three kids. It wasn’t that it was too small or too messy or anything; it was just kinda neglected.

Wanda had been sick for a long time and wasn’t the best housekeeper in the world to start with so the house was lookin’ kinda run down.

But after Ruby give the house a good, top-to-bottom cleanin’, she found out there wasn’t a whole lot left to do. But still, she throwed out Wanda’s curtains and rugs and most of the old-style furniture Charles and Wanda had, but more ta be doin’ somethin’ than because that stuff really needed throwin’ out. She made up new curtains and stripped down and refinished the hardwood floors and bought new and good used furniture that was both sturdy and in the style she wanted and wallpapered the living room and bedrooms to go with the new furniture. She was makin’ the house inta her house, I guess, like women do. Well, I guess I oughta say: like people do, cause that type o’ behavior ain’t just confined to women.

One day, I asked Charles what he thought about his new wife redoin’ the house to suit herself. “Don’t you have nothin’ to say about that, Charles?” I asked. “I mean, after all, it’s your house, too.”

"Oh, it don't bother me, none," Charles said. "It's just stuff. Things, you know. Things don't mean nothin' to me. As long as Ruby's satisfied with the house, I'm satisfied, too."

Charles ain't a very sentimental person, like I am.

I guess Ruby was satisfied with what she was doin', too. But she wasn't satisfied at all with the kitchen and the dinin' room. The kitchen part wasn't bad. It had plenty of cabinet space and the sink right up under the east window; the "country kitchen" style that city folks think is such a big innovation but which farm folks have always used. The dinin' area, on the other hand, was just a tiny little cubby-hole right off the kitchen. That arrangement made both of those rooms small and made the dinin' area kinda dark and dreary `cause it didn't ever get no sunlight. Ruby said she didn't believe she could ever make that room presentable.

More than anything, Ruby wanted to take out the wall between that kitchen and dinin' room, but she didn't know if she could do that without wreckin' the house. Now, she didn't know the terms, but what she needed to know was whether or not it was what's called a "load-bearin'" wall. That, I guess, is where I really come into this story.

Charles, bein' a truck-drivin' farmer (or a farmin' truck driver, dependin' on how you look at it) couldn't tell about that wall for certain, either. He told me Ruby asked him about it one night after he came in from tendin' his pigs.

"Well," Charles told Ruby after he took off his feed cap and scratched his bald head, "I guess we could ask ol' Jim Johansson ta look at it."

You see, I'm Jim Johansson and before I turned to bartendin' after I retired, I was a minin' engineer; first with the Caroline Lead Company and then with the Missouri Bureau of Land Reclamation after the Caroline Lead Mine closed. Charles figured if anybody knew about load-bearin' walls and stuff like that, it'd be me.

Well, it wouldn't do but for Charles and Ruby to come in here to The Beer Joint that very same night to ask me to come out the next mornin' to look at that wall. All this was at Ruby's insistance, of course; Charles woulda put it off till tomorrow or next week or even next year, if he could.

Now, I really kinda figured the two of `em would just leave after they asked me their question. But, bein' the businessman I am and the host at what's, more or less, the evening social hub of the town of Caroline after dark (or after Paul Freiberg closes down the Feed and Hardware and the grocery store, which he owns, too,) I kinda felt like it was my duty to invite Charles and Ruby to sit and visit for a spell.

Some people might say I only invited `em to sit an' visit because they think I'm the town busy-body who likes to know what ever'body in Caroline is up to. Well, there might be a little truth in that.

But, anyway, I think I done it because I didn't really know Ruby too well, yet. She was still kinda new to the town at that time and I'd only met her once, at the post office when I went in to help my wife, who was postmistress, sort out the mail.

"Why don't you have a beer, Charles," I said. "And we have soft drinks or tea or coffee, if you'd like some, Mrs. Gutterman."

"Call me Ruby," she said with a smile, all friendly like. "Could I have a Gin and Tonic?"

"No, ma'am," I said, kinda taken aback. "Just beer. No hard liquour. `S why we call it `The Beer Joint.'"

"Carta Blanca?"

"Uh,... No. No imports. Just domestic."

"Coors?"

"Well," I said, rubbin' the back of my neck, embarrassed-like. "That's kinda like an import, too. Cain't sell it east o' the Kansas line." You couldn't in those days.

Finally, Ruby allowed as how she'd have a Michelob. Charles told her he always drank the Michelob Dark.

"Oh, I don't really like dark beer," Ruby said. "Too bitter. Just make it a regular Michelob."

Now, I didn't know what I expected her to be like, but one thing was for certain: Ruby wasn't the least bit like Wanda. Wanda never touched a drop o' liquor in her life, as far as I know, and always done everything Charles said and always followed his suggestions.

So, then I sat and talked to Charles and Ruby; but mostly to Ruby. I found out she was from Oklahoma, originally, and had been a widow whose husband died of a heart attack, just like Charles was a widower whose wife died of heart failure, and that she had two boys. The older boy, she said, lived in California.

"And the other?" I asked.

"He's a bum," she said. "He dropped out of college a couple of years ago. Since then," she paused, thinkin' for a minute, then began tickin' this list off on her fingers, "he's been a roustabout in the oil fields, a cowboy, a truck driver, spray painter, construction worker, cabinet maker and I don't know what all. Those are just the jobs I can tell you about. He's probably had other jobs, too. Probably some I don't even want to know about."

"Sounds like he needs a little direction in his life," I said.

"Yeah," she said. "And he'll probably be headin' this direction before long. Come and visit us for a while before he takes off again."

Then I asked Ruby what she'd done for a livin' all her life.

"She was a beautician," Charles said, buttin' in.

You see, bein' the talker he was, Charles'd just been sittin' there, gettin' all frustrated while Ruby and I was talkin', and it wouldn't do but what he had to get right in the big middle of this conversation.

At this, I could kinda feel, rather than see, Ruby just bristlin' up beside me. She was doin' kinda like a sow does when you come in the pen and she's got `er piglets with her. Now, what Charles had done was to commit what the French-speakin' people call a "Faux Pas"; you know, a social blunder or a breach o' etiquette; and what Charles done was one of the first magnitude. I don't know about other people, but in the school o' social etiquette I was brought up under, you never, ever interrupted or supplied an answer to a question that was asked of another person, like Charles done. I could tell Ruby was of the same school.

"Had `er a nice little beauty shop in Salisaw," Charles goes on, completely unaware of what he'd just done. "Of course, that was before her husband died and I came along and married `er." He took a drink of his Michelob Dark beer and kinda sat back in his chair with his thumbs hooked in the straps of his overalls, lookin' real satisfied with himself that he'd been able ta horn in on Ruby's and my conversation.

Then Ruby just kinda turned slowly in Charles' direction; and she was all stony and still-like. I caught a glimpse of her gray eyes and I seen they was rock hard, too, and her mouth was set inta one straight line. I seen all them little creases that women get in their upper lips as they get older, and they was all just pointin' straight down and showin' up real sharp in the shadow of the lights from up behind the bar.

I looked over at Charles and he was just lookin' at me, still with that kinda smug look on his face. But then, he glanced over at Ruby and seen how she was lookin' at `im.

Well, I tell ya, I never before seen such a big man (like Charles was) get so small in such a hurry. First thing, that chair comes back down on all fours; "Wop!" Then, Charles just kinda hunkers forward, his forearms layin' across the table. Then he takes that twelve-ounce bottle o' Michelob Dark beer and just hides it in them big, beefy hands o' his. If anybody ever said the words "I'm sorry" without sayin' it, that's what Charles done right then.

That was the first time I ever seen Ruby use that look on Charles, but it wasn't the last. After a while, though, it got ta be just a familiar somethin' that went on between that couple and you never paid it no mind; but that first time you seen it, it was kinda disconcertin'.

So then, I kinda cleared my throat and tried to get our conversation back on track.

I smiled at Ruby. A little bit of an idea was comin' to me. "Now, that's somethin' Caroline could use," I told her. "A beauty shop."

"Oh, yeah?" Ruby asked, suddenly perkin' up real good; her little set-to with Charles forgotten and a thing of the past. "Do you know where?..."

I interruped here, `cause it seemed like both our minds was on the same track, now. "Two doors down," I told `er. "Ol' Harvey Wychoff use to run a barber shop. He died about four, five years ago. Far as I know, his barber chair an' ever'thing's still in there."

"But, how about water?" Ruby asked. "And a sink. I'll need a sink for givin' shampoos and stuff."

Well, it ended up that Ruby and I sat there for quite a spell, makin' plans for renovatin' Harvey's old barber shop. It was almost like it was a done deal. I remember she kept on sayin' things like "I'll," as in "I will," instead o' "I'd," like in "I would." There's a big difference between plannin' and just dreamin', you know, and it shows in your attitude and how you look at things and it comes out in the things you say and how you say `em. I know there's some people make a lotta money teachin' people things like The Power of Positive Thinkin'; but ol' Ruby just done it natural. Ruby and I talked--her a-plannin' and me a-listenin'--for quite a spell.

In the meantime, Charles got up and went around visitin' all the other people in the place, goin' from one table to the next, like a dog might visit ever' tree in a neighborhood, sniffin' out what other dog'd been there, recently. Then, when Ruby an' I went down ta look at the old barber shop (I had the key, since I owned all the buildings in the block on that side o' the street, just like Paul Freiberg owned everything on the other side), Charles followed us down.

Ruby and me opened the door to the old barber shop and let out some o' the musty smell that'd been buildin' up in the place since Harvey died. It was kinda sad ta see, really; at least for me and, I guess, for Charles. We'd both had our hair cut in that big ol' barber chair o' Harvey's many a time. But I'd guess the most poignant (I think that's the right word) ...most poignant thing I saw in that shop was the sight o' Harvey's barber brush, the long one that he usta use to brush the hair off your neck and shoulders after he was done. It was a round brush with long, soft bristles made outta camel hair, and it was sittin' upright on the flat end of its handle on a dusty glass shelf behind the barber chair. Only now, the brush was dusty with real dust instead o' with the sweet talcum Harvey usta fill it up with before he brushed you down. And, you know, I swear that for a second, there, I could smell that talcum, instead o' that closed-up smell the place had, and for that one instant, it was a bright summer day and I was young again, an' full o' vinegar and the whole town of Caroline was a goin' , vital concern. And then I could feel those little, prickly, itchy, short hairs what always gets down inside your collar after a haircut; they were there on the back o' my neck.

I picked up that brush, then, leavin' behind a perfect, round circle in the dust on that glass shelf. I shook that brush off a little bit, and shoved it down deep inta my pocket.


The next day, I went out to Charles and Ruby's house. I looked at the wall and told Ruby it was not a load-bearin' wall and that she could take it out any time she wanted to. She turned to Charles, askin' when it was he could get started.

"Well," Charles said, "I got a lotta stuff I gotta do today. Ol' Number 85's about ta calve. Then, I was wantin'...."

He stopped short, and somehow I just knew, without lookin' at her, that Ruby was givin' him another one o' them looks like she was doin' the night before. I glanced over at her and seen I was right; there was fire, practically, comin' outta her eyes.

Charles stopped and looked down, kinda heavin' out his breath; a sort of sigh, but not quite a sigh, if you know what I mean. "OK," he said. "I'll get started on it this afternoon."

But that old cow, Number 85, didn't start calvin' until about one oclock and by three, Charles was in The Beer Joint puffin' on a cigar, just like it'd been a daughter born to `im that afternoon, instead of a heifer.

I asked Charles if he'd got started on the wall, yet, but he allowed as how he hadn't.

"I'll get on `er tomorrow, though," he told me. He drained out his bottle o' Michelob Dark and ordered himself up another one.

The next day, though, there was a flat on Charles' stock trailer that he had to get fixed and the day after that he had a load o' pigs he had to take down to the stock auction barn and the day after that it was somethin' else.

This sorta thing went on for nigh on a month. Then, one day I was out to Charles and Ruby's place deliverin' a COD package for my wife. I found Charles out in his barn. He was standin' there with a kinda puzzled look on his face.

"Huh," he says when he seen me. "Jim, did you ever have one o' them days when you cain't find things you know you seen, real recent, but now you can't seem to remember where it was you saw `em?"

"Yeah," I said. "Happens all the time. I think they call it `Old Age.'"

Charles just shook his head. "Well, it don't happen to me too often." He kinda leaned over the railin' there in the barn that divided off the two main sections. "Well, this mornin' I was gonna spread a little herbicide on that spot in the back pasture where there's a bunch o' blackberries startin' and damn if I couldn't find my filter mask. I always wear that thing when I'm loadin' anything like that ta keep that stuff outta my nose. But I couldn't find the damn thing. I usually hang it on a nail right there by the spreader in the pole barn. But it wasn't there."

"So," I ask `im, "did you get your herbicide spread?"

"Hell, no. I spent all my time lookin' for my mask. Then, just now, I decided to take off the old hinges where I moved that bar gate off the back corral. Well, I got one of `em off but one of the bolts on the other hinge was bent, so I decided to cut that one with a cold chisel. But the chisel was dull and I was gonna sharpen it. Then I go into the garage, where the grinder is, and I can't find my goggles. I always wear my goggles when I'm grindin' anything. Damn near got my eye poked out by a chip offen a tool I was grindin' once, and I ain't never took a chance like that again. But damn if now, I can't find my goggles." He looked at me with that look of puzzlement on his face that people sometimes get when the whole world is comin' down on `em.

"Well," I said. "They'll turn up. Like I said, happens to me all the time. Old age must be creepin' in."

"Hell, I ain't that old." He shook his head, like to dismiss the whole thing. He looked at the package I was holdin'. "What's that you got there, Jim?"

"Looks like veterinary supplies," I said. "COD. Thirty-eight ninety-four." I handed him the package.

"Yeah," he said, readin' the label. "Worm medicine for th' calves. Well, come on inta the house. I'll write you a check for it."

As we was walkin' toward the house, I asked Charles, "So you don't figure you're gettin' old yet, huh?"

"Well, hell," he said. "I know I'm gettin' older. But I don't figure I'm senile or anything. At least, not yet."

"Yeah," I said. "There's folks that's older. That's for sure. But still, you know, we're a dyin' breed. You an' me an' ol' Jake Bodre an' little one-horse towns like Caroline."

Charles just looked over at me.

"I reckon Jake and you and I are about the only people still around these parts that can remember things like gristmills and brickworks and smokehouses and corncribs made outta unchinked logs instead o' wire and usin' your wellhouse as a refrigerator. Things like that. Plowin' your fields with horses instead o' tractors. Now, it's herbicides and calf medicine by mail order."

"Yeah," he said. "Times is changin'"

We was up to the house by this time. We went in the back door, through the screen-in porch and then into the main part of the house. But when Charles opened up that door and we went in, you could just barely see `cross the room.

There was this fine dust a-hangin' up in th' air, like it was some kinda smoke or fog or one o' them `black blizzards' like they say they had back in the Dust Bowl. Then we could hear it. There was a boomin', and that was followed by a scatterin'-type sound; sand droppin' down to a tile floor.

And there, in the midst of it all, was Ruby. She had on that filter mask Charles said he'd been lookin' for. It was one like painters or other construction workers wear. It wasn't just the cheap, paper kind, with one elastic strap that goes around the back of your head. No, it was a big, rubber thing that had two round filters on each side of the mouth. Then, on top o' that, she was wearin' the goggles Charles'd been lookin' for, too. I tell you, she looked like some kinda bug. Then, besides that, she had on gloves and tall rubber boots that she'd tucked the legs of her pants into and a scarf on her head. She had a sledgehammer in her hands and she was just a-beatin' on that wall with it, makin' th' plaster dust fly. She'd smack that wall and you could hear the lath in the wall crack and splinter, then hear the pulverized plaster and sand droppin' down to the floor.

"Ooooooh, Lord," Charles said.


Well, after he gave me the check and I left, I didn't see Charles again for about four, five days. When he finally reappeared, I asked `im how that takin' out the wall had been.

"Well, it was a job o' work, let me tell you. But it's done, now."

"Ruby happy?"

"Just as happy as a pig eatin' shit."

I kinda looked at `im. He knew I didn't much hold with talk like that.

"OK," he said. "Just as happy as a cow in tall pasture."

I kinda smiled. That was better. I told Charles, "Why, I was thinkin'. When Ruby would take that hammer and smacked that wall.... You know what that sounded like to me? That sound with the sand and the plaster fallin' down to the floor?"

He thought a minute. Then he shrugged. "Like somebody beatin' on a wall with a hammer," he said.

"Yeah," I said. "But just after that, there's a sound when the plaster and sand would fall down to the floor. What'd that sound like to you?"


He shrugged again. "Like plaster and sand fallin' on a floor," he said.

"Well, yeah," I said. "But somethin' else, too. To me, it sounded just a little like the hot lead pellets droppin' down inta the water under a shot tower."

Charles sat and thought for a minute, his mouth kinda open and a kinda confused look in his eyes. "I don't know," he said. That's kind of a stretch."

"Well it did to me." I told him. "After you get that first big 'Whoosh' when the lead hits the water, then after that you hear kind of a click and a clatter when the rest of the shot drops down...."

"That's right," Charles said, after he thought about it a bit. "A shot tower. Ain't seen one o' them in...," he shrugged again, "hell, it must be about forty years or so. Not since ol'... what's `is name..."

"Buford Thomas," I said.

"Yeah," Charles said. "Buford Thomas. Not since he closed down his gunshop and powder works and ever'thing down there by Havenhurst."

"That's right." I said. "And do you remember them hams and stuff they used to smoke down there at that old mill there at Havenhurst? That big, high bay they use to hang `em in while they were smokin' 'em?"

"Why, I sure do," he said. Then he went on, "Hams an' sides o' bacon an' jowls an' fore-quarters...." He smiled and looked up at me with a kinda smile on his face. "You remember how good their sausage use to taste?"

"An' the old mill itself," I chimed in, "before it burned down?"

Charles was gettin' in the spirit, now. "And that cafe and gift shop they use to have underneath it," he said, "where you could look out the window over the mill pond?"

I just nodded. "Yeah. I remember. Now, you can still find restaurants and stuff like that, other places. But you can't find mills and mill ponds no more. And no shot towers."

Charles just looked up at me and remembered back to the days when one man stood on top of the shot tower and poured melted lead from a cauldron out into a copper pan fulla holes and let the hot lead drip out, coolin' as it fell, formin' into perfect, round buckshot. We could both hear the hiss and the clatter as the hot lead splashed into the water pan under the tower. He smiled. There was a little bit o' extra moistness in his eyes.

"Yeah," he said. "A shot tower. That is what that sounded like, kinda."

"Yeah," I told `im as I took a glass outta the rinse water and started dryin' it. "You know, I took out a few plaster-and-lath walls in my time. And that sound.... It always reminded me of somethin' but I never could quite place it. Then, hearin' Ruby at that wall the other day, it hit me. A shot tower. I remember."

Charles nodded. He could remember, too.