Jack                                 

by Charles Armstrong 

   Jack Maxwell was the filthiest creature God ever put on this earth. He was tall and strong and good with his hands. 

   Jack lived for cars- his profession and his passion. He wore the grease from old cars like a badge of honor- like a protective outer skin- never to be taken off. 

   He lived in a soap-free zone. Every year, his face became greyer and his hair stiffer until it stood up like an old paint brush. This love of funk extended to every portion of Jack’s life. His family was dirty. His house was dirty. Jack Maxwell was famous.

He was dirty.

   Years ago, before Jack had accumulated such a thick casement of sludge, before he became-famous, he had courted a girl from Iuka, Mississippi, just across the State Line, ten miles away. 

   Local wisdom has it the maidens of Iuka are far and away more comely and well disposed toward marriage than are the more prosaic heifers of Alabama.

   Betty had married below her station in life. It was rumored on Lime Kiln Road that she had finished high school. Rumor had it, also, that she sometimes read books- although I have no proof  of that statement.

   One thing I do know: it was a marriage made in Heaven, for Betty took to dirtiness as if it were the one thing she had searched for all her life.

   They lived with Aint Vammer for a while, until it became evident they had formed a non-aggression pact with grime. 

   Jack built a little tar-paper shack. It was right up beside Lime Kiln Road, so he could get his ancient pick-ups and rusted-out sedans snuggled up cozy and close to hand.

   The house was up on blocks with a corrugated tin roof. There were no trees, no water- that had to be hauled up from the creek.

   In the long and humid summers, the black tarpaper would soak up the heat and hold it close all night. 

   Aside from the herd of automobiles, there were piles of farm machinery, a rambling heap of rusted washing machines, fifty-five gallon drums extending as far as your eye cared to look. Scrofulous chickens were stalked by ravenous housecats. Hogs held forth under the house- you could hear them discussing the events of the day a few inches under your feet while you did the same with Betty and Jack.

   The Maxwells were prosperous, in their way. They had an exclusive franchise on the breeding of house flies in addition to doing most of the valley’s car repairs. 

   Whenever Betty wished to rid the house of a tin can or the remains of last night’s chicken and dumplings, all she had to do was open the back door and toss. The pile thus created was impressive. It rivaled the house in altitude, and was a navigational landmark to people and animals alike.

   Betty had, over the course of years, given birth thirteen times in that house. It is my solemn conviction she had never changed the sheets of her matrimonial bed. Certainly Jack had not.