A Quiet Man

She acquired the nickname “Lippy” honestly. Her real name was Louise Levine, but everyone knew her as Lippy. She never seemed to mind it.

There were two things about Lippy Levine that struck you upon first meeting her. The first was, she was really beautiful, so beautiful that it was difficult to look away, as you wanted to believe that such beauty must be a trick of the light, or that when she turned her head there must be some horrible disfigurement somewhere to balance her out, but no, her face was angelic in its perfection.

The second thing you noticed about Lippy was that it is difficult to admire her beauty for long, because those beautiful, plump, temptuous lips never, ever quit moving. Their constant prattle would absolutely drive you away from her... you, or anybody else. I don’t know if it is true what they say about women speaking thousands of words more than men per day, but if Lippy was part of the sample group she would have skewered the numbers all by herself. It was nothing for Lippy to ask you a question without ever supplying a pause so that you could answer. She was the damndest thing I ever saw... or heard.

I knew Lippy from school, but we weren’t friends. In fact, I think the only friend she ever had was Bethel Woodberry. Bethel was a nice girl, but she was homely. Bethel was so shy that she rarely spoke a word, giving Lippy free reign. Lippy and Bethel were a good pair. It was always assumed that Lippy would find a similar type man one day, one ugly and quiet... and maybe she did.

I was working on the Levine farm that summer, the summer of ’85. It was the hottest, dryest summer on record for Mecklenburg County. I was the only one Mr. Levine could find to work his fields, as Lippy’s “gift of gabbiness” drove everyone else off. He paid me nearly twice what other farmhands around these parts made. I liked to think it was because I did twice the work the others did, but more likely it was for putting up with Lippy.

For all of her faults, though, Lippy was a worker. She drove the tractor that summer, which sounds like an easy job, but there ain’t no easy jobs on a farm. She was jostled, hollered at, and forced to twist around to face behind her for twelve to fourteen hours a day. She had to keep that tractor fueled and maintained all by herself. If something broke, it cost us time we couldn’t afford to lose. It was also her job to keep a smooth ride over a rough field, so that the man riding on the trailer and stacking bales, that man being me, didn’t bust his ass, or break his back. It was Lippy’s job to see we didn’t lose time, and she did it well. We surely didn’t lose much of it that summer.

It got so that I almost wished we would lose some. I had never worked so hard. There were many insufferable July and August days during that summer when I prayed for a broken belt, or shaft, or clevis pin, or anything, but I never got it. That damned tractor just rolled right along with Lippy yapping atop it throughout those hundred degree days, and weeks. I stacked eighty pound bales behind her until the trailer was full, then I unstacked the trailer before re-stacking those same bales again in the shed by the barn. It was hard, hot, lonely work. It was so lonely that, truth be told, I was glad to have Lippy around.

There were also some other truths to be told. Truth be told, I worked harder that summer than ever before. Truth be told, I liked having Lippy up ahead on the tractor, twisted around to watch me work. Truth be told I went a little faster because of her, and went a little longer. At days end, I liked the respect I saw in her eyes, and the compliments she offered up to anyone who would listen about the hard worker I was. Lippy saying those things was worth more than the extra pay, truth be told.

The only other thing that might have slowed down our work that summer had long since been given up on. It seemed that rain would never come. Sixty-eight days we went without. The sixty-eight longest, hottest days of summer. My body had grown harder, and darker through the drought, but I was nearly “all in“ the day those clouds started stacking up on the western horizon, slowly blowing our way, plowing a cool wave of wind before them. Lippy saw those clouds, too. She shut down the tractor so she could climb up on the trailer beside me.

“You reckon it’s gonna rain, Huck? Lord, we need it! Last rain we had was early May. The Almanac says we will get four inches this month, but it best come quick if we are to get that much. You ever seen such a dry summer, Huck? I don’t believe I have! Daddy says he ain’t seen one so dry since 1960, but them clouds sure look like rain! They could blow north though, you reckon they’ll blow north Huck? I’ve seen it happen. Many’s the time I thought it was coming up a cloud just to see it blow north!”

The yapping would have been unbearable if it wasn’t for the way Lippy stood up front of that trailer, her chin held high toward those gathering clouds, her legs spread wide, her hands resting on those lean hips while that coming breeze blew thin tendrils of her hair across her cheek. Yep, if I’d taken note of her yapping it would have been unbearable, but her rambling had become like the steady rattle and roar of the tractor... just the necessary rumble of the workday. Like the tractor, I learned to live with Lippy’s noise because she made the work lighter, the hours more productive, and the hard, hot days seem a bit shorter.

The rain started as a prattle, hard drops that tattooed the soil like pellets, but it just as quickly stopped. A cool wind followed. Lippy turned, her eyes bright, her expression jubilant. “Rain!”

I smiled too. The rain started again, and for real this time. It came upon us in a rush.

In our dilerium our arms found one another. We squeezed each other tightly as a driving, pelting rain plastered our hair, and cooled our sun-dried skin. We danced across the trailer, being silly, “high” on the odor of wet clay, waltzing to the sounds of raindrops tinkling on the steel tractor like a tin roof, and the hiss of hot steam off its motor.

The rain settled in steady, the storm’s front blown past. Our dancing stopped, but our arms still clung tight. Happy eyes returned my gaze. Lippy said nothing as the glistening film of water rolled from her nose, and her chin.

That nothing she said was the loudest silence I had ever heard.