He Didn’t Look Like No Angel

Everyone called him Cotton Terrill. His hair was as white as his name. He was born old. I used to sit across from him in the small office of his Texaco Service Station and try to read the lines in his face. Some were so deep, I swear, you could have planted a crop down in there.

He was stooped a mite in the shoulders. And he moved at a deliberate pace. Never in a hurry. His smile was as genuine as a country morning. And he could growl some if you got him off on the wrong subject. But there was no bite to it.

You’d take to his eyes first. They were the window to his soul, grayish clear, always alert and moving, and filled with a hint of merriment. The first time I met him I called him Mr. Terrill. He set me straight in less than a Middle Tennessee heartbeat, “Mr. Terrill was my father!”

I was just barely eighteen. He was ageless.

It was my freshman year in college. Words cannot describe where my heart was. Never in my wildest imagination could I envision a place this bad. Classes were hard. I got run over every day at football practice. The University of the South was located high up on the Cumberland Plateau. I’m telling you, it gets cold early up on that mountain!

I was 212 miles from home, in a whole ’nother world. I was lost, lonely, misplaced, and freezing. And Mom wasn’t there to fix me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before bedtime.

The little town of Sewanee was just down the road from the University. Probably a mile from my dorm. I have no idea why I started walking in that direction. I had no car of course. But I had had all I could stand of studying, melancholy thoughts of home, and pondering on why I hadn’t just gone to work for the Southern Star Lumber Company after high school.

I passed by the City Café on my right because I didn’t have any money. I crossed the street and stood before Arthur Long’s General Merchandise store. There was no need to go in. If they were selling brand new Levi’s for a quarter apiece, I couldn’t buy the left back pocket.

The Texaco Station was a couple of buildings back toward the college. As I got along side of it, I got to thinking about Bill Argo’s Gulf Station back home. Shoot, as kids we’d go in there and listen to the old men lie about something. It didn’t cost nothing.

I paused. And made one of the best decisions of my young life.

“Howdy,” was the first word out of Cotton’s mouth. It sounded just like the way we talked back home! I didn’t realize it at the time, it took another year or so to understand that Cotton’s clear, knowing eyes had sized me up correctly the moment I walked through the door…and into his life.

I was in need.

But he made no mention of it. That was not his style. He quietly wanted to know where I was from. He asked about my family and how I came to choose this University. Not nosy like, mind you. Just being friendly….

Well, he didn’t get my whole life story that first day. But I promise you, he got it all before I graduated. Over the years, I got to be a fixture in his place. He made a deal with me early on; he would buy the Coca-Colas from his drink box for both of us while I was in school. I would buy them for us after I graduated…for the rest of our lives.

We had lingering, meaningful discussions about everything, and nothing. You talk about a refuge, a safe harbor, a bastion in my whirling world. He came to the baseball games. And cheered me on.

He never one time seemed to notice that I didn’t own a car. I brought nothing to his table….

I’m not the only person he cared for. I was there early one Saturday morning shooting the breeze when one of the Lappin boys ran in. He had scrambled half way up the mountain from his illegal whiskey still deep in the woods to find Cotton. “The revenuers have got me for sure. They surrounded my truck, loaded with moonshine. I snuck away before they saw me. But they caught me red handed.”

Cotton thought for a brief moment. “Run over to the police station right now, and report that your truck has been stolen.”

A smart young lawyer down in Winchester got the case dismissed.

I went back to visit Cotton a couple of years after I graduated. I wanted to thank him properly. I wanted him to know I would not have made it without him. I started crying and couldn’t get one word out. He hugged my neck for a long while.

And then said, “I’m kinda thirsty, I think it is your turn to buy.”

Respectfully,
Kes
kesley45@aol.com