But by the grace of god

Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed. ~ Herman Melville

“Yont some?”

Jeff handed me the bottle of cheap Canadian rye with strong hands and bold insistence. But neither could camouflage the pleading in his big, blue, bloodshot eyes.

”Here, gitcha sip.”

I’m a germaphobe, sometimes hesitant to share a drink from the same container with even those I share blood. I’ve known Jeff only about a year and based on the state of his yard, clothes, and teeth he’s not someone I’d want to share much of anything with.

But what can survive a bath of 90-proof, right?

I took my snort and handed back the bottle. Jeff tipped it to his lips and gulped, not even a moment to savor, and wiped his mouth on a greasy sawdust-covered forearm. When he looked at me this time those bloodshot eyes were red-rimmed and wet.

That was the second time I saw Jeff cry.

”Purty good stuff, huh.”

It was not. But I nodded and smiled

You see, the week prior Jeff had knocked on our front door asking for an egg to make his daughter a birthday cake. The week before that I helped him patch a busted waterline with some Superglue I had on hand because his truck was broken down and he couldn’t get to town. Last year I gave him a couple pounds of venison, which he happily took. And when the only thing a man can offer in return for eggs, Superglue, deer meat, and your time is a swig of rotgut whiskey you take the swig, you nod, and you smile.

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If you really want to understand rural life in the Ozarks and likely rural life in most of the country, you should watch the movie Winter’s Bone. It’s not a documentary-level look at the modern hillbilly. It is, however, a damn sight closer to reality than most folks realize, even some who live here. I won’t spoil it for you, but the story was written by Daniel Woodrell and falls in line with the general theme of Woodrell’s other works. That theme being: Yes, the creeks and hills in our region (Woodrell calls the Missouri Ozarks home) are beautiful and the culture is quaint on the surface — biscuits and gravy, bib overalls, woodstoves, swimmin’ holes, shelling summer peas in the cool shade of a giant oak — but there is also an ugly and exceedingly desperate side to life here that never makes into the brochures.

Jeff’s yard and home look like a scene from Winter’s Bone.

Jeff’s dilapidated dwelling; the junk piled high in his yard that he’s been “cleanin’ up” by burning in a black-smoke, headache-inducing bonfire every day for the last three weeks; the self-medication with nicotine, ethanol, and who knows what else paid for by whatever means necessary; and the utter lack of optimism in ever altering the course of his life is the marrow, so to speak, of Winter’s Bone.

I don’t have any clues about what’s in Jeff’s checking account. I doubt he’s ever had one. But based on what I see, Jeff ain’t broke like being down to your last $200 or praying for payday to get here before that latest check hits the bank. Jeff has no money and no hope. This is a generational poverty accompanied by depression, the depths of which often lead folks into poor decisions that their great-grandchildren will pay for.

This is cutting live trees from your backyard to sell for firewood. That’s how Jeff has been surviving for the last few weeks, but the raw materials for his enterprise won’t last long. He inherited only one acre of land when his dad passed away last year. Jeff said he’s grateful that his dad left him something, but a tarnished family name is one reason it’s tough for him to find a job.

I think about the generational poverty and mental illness in my own family, the chemical dependence and crime that was part of my heritage and wonder how and why my life turned out so different than Jeff’s. I wonder how my family’s name maintained its honor through it all. I wonder how close my kin came to trashing it for generations. I wonder how close I’ve come. I wonder what kept me from being Jeff.

But by the grace of God, my grandmother would say.

Even as a kid, I couldn’t see any way that phrasing put God in a good light. I mean, what kind of sadistic asshole do you have to be to bestow so much favor on an arbitrarily chosen and thoroughly underserving soul while allowing so much suffering and pain to envelope the sad souls all around him? I know my sins. I know the sins of my fathers and mothers. There’s no way Jeff’s pile is bigger than mine.

“Grace of god” sounds a whole lot like pure damn luck to me.

Jeff and I are both in our early 50s, but his face looks about a decade older than mine. I can tell that he’s still plenty stout, though. We’re about the same height and frame, but his arms are knotted with the middle-aged muscle and sinew of a man whose employment was always physical labor. His broad shoulders are still imposing. He’s told me that he has done some “bad things” in the past. I haven’t asked for details. I almost did the day we shared the bottle, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. And I damn sure didn’t want to heap any more shame on Jeff.

Jeff is already buried in shame.

I can tell by his body language, how he shuffles with the slouch of a thousand worlds pressing down on him. How he calls me “sir” at least once or twice in every conversation and makes me feel weird. How he’s always apologizing for something — his yard and house, his dogs, his sons. But that might be because most of our talks are me griping to him or his adult sons (who sometimes visit when there’s not a warrant out for them) to turn the music down or to drive slower on the dirt road that’s always got a local dog and sometimes a local person on it.

A few months ago, I had to ask Jeff if he knew anything about some folks who let themselves into our outbuilding without permission one night. The trespassers were careful in their prowling. Their only fuck up was forgetting that the shed’s screen door was open when they got there. Nothing was taken, best I can tell, so no harm no foul other than that nag of being violated and the cold coils of suspicion tightening your chest at every unknown sound and shadow in the moonlight. I don’t think Jeff has ever stepped foot on our property with ill intentions, but I knew he knew who had been in our shed. And he knew that I knew he was lying to me.

That was the first time I saw Jeff cry.

My gut has whiffed a few times, but it tells me Jeff isn’t a thief. Not the kind that would steal from a neighbor and not at this stage in his life, anyway. Now stealing gravel from a county road… that’s a different story.

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I’m daydreaming out the office window when I see Jeff stop his old white truck between our driveways. He starts shoveling a little pile of rocks from the truck bed into one of the half-dozen craters ranging from bathtub to commode size that pock our road.

Ours is a private road. Living on a “private road” always sounded fancy to me, but in real rural life that designation carries none of the prestige I thought it would. Basically, it means the folks who live on it don’t warrant enough value (by whatever metric you care to use) for the county to take over maintenance. We’ve got to patch it ourselves. But corraling the eight mailbox owners and getting them to agree on exactly how to address the potholes has proven quite the challenge. And good luck asking folks to pony up funding for gravel, collecting said money, and then coordinating with equipment to spread it. As a short aside, these problems are why humans invented the “necessary evil” of government and taxes.

Jeff is spreading the gravel with a rake as I walk down to ask if he needs any help. It’s a hollow offer and Jeff knows it.

”Nah, won’t take but a minute,” he says as he leans on the rake and drags a stinky cigarette. “You reckon this’ll work, Johnny? I reckon it’ll. It’s that ol’ chip-and-seal gravel. I think it’ll work.” He mentions that he once worked for an asphalt company.

I say that I don’t know enough about any of it to offer an opinion and defer to him.

“Yes, sir,” he replies.

I ask where he got the gravel and the response is a long, silent side-eye.

And then I realize this is like asking him how he can afford whiskey.

I tell him to forget it.

After a little more small talk, I mumble something about needing to get back to work. Which is me playing fast and loose with the word “work” when addressing a man filling potholes. Jeff says bye as he levels with the rake.

I walk to the house pondering on the nuance of thought that leads to stealing gravel to fill potholes for folks who can but won’t pay for it, burning old furniture to clean up your eyesores so the neighborhood looks a little better, and sharing a nip with the guy next door who thinks he’s better than you… and you think he is, too.

I can’t wrap my head around any of it. But I feel like I could.