Pone A'Bread

PONE A’BREAD

 

            Bully and Marge Clinton owned Bully’s Market, located on South Street in Purville. It was a small market but was favored by many residents over Kroger’s and the A & P for its fine cuts of meat. Bully was a butcher who knew his trade well. Marge was the cashier and was some fifteen or so years younger than Bully.

            Bully’s first wife, who had been the cashier, had died a number of years back from pneumonia.

            A brief ad in the help wanted section of the Purville Progress brought Margret Carter to Bully’s Market. She was nineteen years old and had worked at one of the clothing mills in Purville. He hired her on the spot and six months later added wife to her job title.

            Bully and Marge were happy and prospered in the little market. They had no children; it was not that they didn’t want children, but a medical problem prevented this from happening and in time they learned to live with this fact.

            Over the years they had always employed a Purville High School student to make deliveries and help out around the store, and in a way these boys became their children. The boys would work several afternoons a week after school and all day on Saturdays. Saturday was delivery day and Bully’s little 1936 Chevrolet panel truck was packed full of grocery bags destined for households in the city and nearby countryside.

            Following football season in November, 1948, the delivery job became Tommy Stone’s.

            Jack Dowdy, who had the job, was a basketball player and as the football season ended, the basketball season began and Tommy would not play basketball his senior year.

            Tommy was a conversationalist, though he probably couldn’t spell it. He could talk to anyone at any time about anything and make them think he knew what he was talking about. This was a trait that he had picked up from his grandfather, who had quite a reputation in Purville, and it served Tommy well. Within a few weeks of starting his delivery job at Bully’s, he garnered the favor of all the delivery customers…except one.

            That one was Pone A’bread. Her real name was Maude Carteridge. She

was ninety-three years old, blind for years, and resided alone in a small second floor room in a boarding house on South Ninth Street. A room she hadn’t left in years. She had outlived three husbands and two children. Her other children had moved a great distance away to a state that Maude could not remember, and they never visited.

            No one in Purville, at least in recent years, had seen Maude outside the boarding house. She sat there night and day, in an old oak rocking chair, awaiting the arrival of the Grim Reaper who, in truth, was probably afraid to approach her.

            Tommy had no warning. When he checked the grocery bag ready for delivery one simply said: Pone A’bread 409 S 9th, second floor right at the top of the stairs. The bag contained one loaf of bread and a tin of snuff.

            He made several deliveries on his way to Ninth Street. At the Campbell’s, Mrs. Campbell asked him how the new high school principal was working out.

            “Just fine, Mrs. Campbell. Everyone likes him.”

            At the Delaney’s, Joe Delaney asked how the football team would do next years with most of the good players graduating in May.

            “They’re gonna do just fine, Mr. Delaney. Got some real good juniors and sophomores coming up.”    

            At the address on South Ninth Street, Tommy retrieved the small bag containing one loaf of bread and a tin of snuff. He had never heard the term. Pone A’bread and had no earthly idea what it meant. It certainly wasn’t a person’s name.

            He entered the front door of the old two-story house with small bag clutched in his left hand. It was cold inside and smelled of dampness. Taking care, he climbed the stairs and knocked gently on the door at the top of the stairs. There was no response from inside, and he knocked again more loudly. He heard an unintelligible sound from inside so he opened the door slightly and knocked again.

            “Who’s here?” someone cackled.

            “It’s your groceries from Bully’s, Mrs…” Tommy looked again at the bag in his hand. “…Mrs. Bread.” The room reeked of stale urine.

            “Tarnation! What’s your name, boy?”

            “Tommy, ma’am. Tommy Stone. From Bully’s Market.”

            “Come ‘round har so you can see me, boy.”

Tommy walked around the rocking chair and stood in front of the woman. Her face was leathered and the corners of her mouth turned down grotesquely. A brown drool dripped from the corners of her mouth. Her hair was thin, approaching baldness. A tattered shawl draped her shoulders, and a wool blanket covered her lap and legs.

“Watcha see, boy? Whatcha see?”

“Ma’am, I see a lady in a rocking chair.”

“Look at me, boy. Look hard. Look at my eyes.”

“Ma’am..I don’t…”

“I’m blind, cain’t you see? I ain’t got no eyeballs. They’ve done rotted out of the sockets. Did ya bring me my pone a’bread?”

“Yes, ma’am. There’s a loaf of bread…and a tin of…”

“A loaf? I always get a pone, not a loaf. Put it on the counter, boy, and git yerself out of har. I’m awaiting to die and I ain’t gonna do it whilst your standing there.”

Tommy put down the bag quickly and left. He had never seen such a hideous old woman in his life; he had never seen such a deeply etched frown.

Bully chuckled when Tommy told him about Pone a’Bread. “I didn’t tell you about her, son. She’s been a customer of mine for many years. Used to come to the store when she was younger, tapping along the aisles with her white cane. Squeezing the loaves of bread. Asking for a pone of bread.”

“I’ve never heard of a pone of bread before.” Tommy said.

“It’s what the old people call it or used to. So did I when I was a youngster. Over the years we just began to call her, Pone a’Bread instead of Mrs. Carteridge. She gets a loaf of bread ever’ Saturday morning. I always throw in a tin of snuff also.”

And, indeed, each Saturday morning Tommy would stop at the old house on Ninth Street, climb the stairs, and knock on the door and enter. He would place the bag containing the loaf of bread and the tin of snuff on the counter.

And each Saturday morning, Maud Carteridge would call him over. “Boy, come har. Tell me whatcha see?”

Tommy would look at the twisted old face, the turned down mouth with the brown drool, the thin wisps of white hair. “I see a beautiful lady who has lived a long life and is waiting now to join her family in heaven.”

Never a smile and always the same response. “Boy, yar as blind as I am. Git outa har.”

Tommy Stone continued to work for Bully until two weeks before his graduation from Purville High School. When he wasn’t making deliveries, Bully instructed him on the art and skill of butchering meat and wrapping it. In time Tommy made most of the cuts for deliveries unless, a customer asked Bully for a special cut.

On Saturday morning, May 7, 1949, Tommy made his last deliveries for Bully’s Market. Before starting the deliveries, Bully and Marge Clinton gave Tommy a gold Bulova wristwatch for his graduation. Another one of their adopted sons was about to leave on his journey of life.

Tommy altered his route this special Saturday, saving Pone A’Bread for last. It was nearly two o’clock in the afternoon when he climbed the stairs one last time. A gentle knock and he opened the door as always. What struck him first was the sweetness and not the rank odor he was used to smelling. The room was dark. He placed the bag on the counter and awaited his order to, “Come har, boy.” But no such demand was made. He walked to the front of the rocker and saw not the old twisted face. It was old but had lost some of the hardness. The edges of her mouth turned upward in a smile, no brown drool on  her lips. Tommy touched her hand and it was cold. He adjusted the shawl that had slipped from one shoulder and pulled the wool blanket up tightly around her. He placed her left hand over her right. He placed a gentle kiss on her cold cheek and left the room.

At the bottom of the stairs Tommy was greeted by Cletus Boyer, the owner of the old boarding house on South Ninth Street. “How’s old Pone a’Bread doing today, son?”

Tommy paused for a moment not knowing quite what to say. Finally he smiled. “She’s happy today, sir. Very happy, indeed.”

(This is a true story and I am that Tommy)