Free One More River by Mary Glickman Page B

Laura Anne home, they stopped off at the lovers’ lane along the great river where they’d made their first vows together and indulged themselves awhile in broad daylight.
    All the way back to Guilford, Mickey Moe made plans. First thing, he’d have to arrange time off from work. Uncle Tom-Tom was a good man. He’d surely cooperate. He was his top earner, after all, with the roughest territory. Didn’t that allow him some sway? What was it Tom-Tom always said about him? Mickey Moe considered his mama’s big brother. He was short, potbellied, red-faced with a head of wiry white hair, a man who perpetually hooked his thumbs in his suspenders near the waist and ran them up and down their length while he talked. It was a habit he’d picked up from the ’croppers on his sales route. When he wanted to emphasize a point, he pulled the suspenders out wide and snapped them. The rest, all that twiddling up and down, was preamble. Whenever he introduced Mickey Moe, he’d rock back and forth on his heels while he twiddled and say,
    This boy here may not have a college education. And sure as Pharaoh loved Joseph, he grew up in the town, not out on the Delta with his toes in the mud. But he’s got a nose on ’im, a nose for farmin’ and a nose for risk. I don’t know how he does it or where he gets it, but he can tell you when the frost is comin’ and when the flood. Yessir. (Snap.) He surely can. You just ask any old boy hoein’ a row up by the Pearl. They all know ’im. And don’t get me started on how he knows when the baby’s takin’ sick or where the fire’s gettin’ started. It truly boggles my mind but he knows that, too. Least it seems that way, judgin’ from the checks I pass on to those he’s signed up in the knick of time. (Snap.) You all listen to him. You all listen to him good. You will not regret it. (Double snap. The end.)
    Uncle Tom-Tom was so convincing on the subject of his nephew’s prognosticatory talents, Mickey Moe half-believed him himself. It was true that when he went out into the field cold without leads, he turned up buyers in unexpected places just by following his instincts. He could glance down an off-the-map dirt road and somehow know it’d take him into jam-packed Negro villages or crumbling old plantations no one knew were there except the lonely families who worked them, solitary folk who found Mickey Moe’s sales pitch more entertaining than the picture show or the revival tent. They’d buy some kind of policy from him—usually Tom-Tom’s two-bit-a-week life-and-fire combination plan—mostly because he made such good sense but partly to keep him coming back every month to collect the premium.
    So it should not have been surprising that Uncle Tom-Tom gave his nephew a hard time when he asked for a leave of absence, probably just for a few weeks, actually for as long as it would take. But it was a great surprise to Mickey Moe. Shoulders hunched, neck shortened as if his head were about to disappear into his collar, he stood in front of his uncle’s desk, mute and uncomprehending, while Tom-Tom rattled off his objections.
    Whoa. Back up, son. Who you think I’ve got that can handle all those boys with dirt up their nose you sell to? Your cousins can handle the retail business and the town families, but you’re the only one I got knows how to make ’croppers give up their quarters and smile at the same time. I’m too old to go down those hard roads myself. What makes you think I can spare you? (Snap.) Times are not so easy these days, you know that. Those flap bottoms lose their policies when no one comes by for collection, and who knows who they’ll blame or what kinda trouble they might stir up. Now, I’ve given you a blessed livin’, trained you, and set you out. You owe me this much. Times bein’ what they are, I cannot let you wander off into the wide blue on a crazy whim.
    Mickey Moe was quiet a moment or two, long enough for Uncle Tom-Tom to initiate a slow