Ms. Hall's Family Legacy

Say what you will, I won't move from this house.

It's smack dab in the middle of a field owned by the octogenarian, Ms. Hall. Ms. Hall is a true saint; she won't sell this land to the developers for nothin'. She lives up in town, just a few miles away. But I haven't seen her in ages, because I won't leave this house. I rent it from her, you see, and have been for near fifty years. She gives me a sweet discount, seeing as I survey her property, and keep trespassers off the land.

Once or twice, I've seen those power trucks rumbling through the woods and made a phone call to Ms. Hall right quick. She told me the power company was trying to set up an easement on her acreage, without even asking! She told me to chase them off if I seen them again, as she is in the process of suing them for a pretty penny. She's old, all right, but she hasn't lost her quick.

So, here I am in this house in the middle of Ms. Hall's field, and I WAS as happy as tick, just sucking off the land and living out my golden years. Everything was just fine until a few weeks ago, and then something strange happened.

Now, before I elucidate on the rest of my tale, I'll tell you a little bit about the field. It's in Georgia, see, and about a hundred miles or so from Atlanta. That's a purty far distance, but these suburban types now are holing up in whatever little town they can, so now this backwater town of mine is considered 'metro' Atlanta, and the newcomers like to drive two hundred miles round trip to get to some building in Hot-lanta where they make about a gazillion dollars a year, I speculate. Anyway, about this field--see, back in ought nine or ten, some farmers started planting this stuff around our little town to keep the erosion down and feed the livestock for dirt cheap. This stuff is called kudzu, and I'm sure you read about it in one of your uppity magazines. The kudzu kills all the vegetation it gets near, but it's also good eating, filled with vittles and sustenance. Why, I eat a salad of it just about everyday. However, kudzu grows so fast, you can't hardly keep up with it. In one hot muggy day of a Georgia summer, kudzu can grow up to a foot. A whole foot! And Ms. Hall's field is just covered in the stuff. I gotta burn it back in summer, just so's I can keep the driveway clear. But that's not a problem--not really.

Well, getting back to it, I had me a good dog. His name was Luther and he stayed near me all the time. He was a shadow, that dog, and kept real good company. He was the most obedient dog there ever was, and I was glad for it. Some weeks ago, I let ole' Luther out the door to do his business. It was nighttime, but still hot outside. Luther normally did his thing and then ambled right on back to the house, but this night, Luther didn't come back right off. I figured he got a scent and went to follow it, so I's turned on the porch light and left some food out, knowing he'd be back after awhile. But he didn't come back after awhile. He didn't return during the night. And when the morning came, and old Luther still hadn't come home, I knew something was wrong. I put on my walking shoes and long pants, and went to go look for him.

Well, I'm old, so it takes me a bit longer to get moving than it used to, but I plowed through the kudzu and called over and over, "Luther! Luther!" to no avail. I figured that boy up and chased some fowl out and got lost. So I brought some dog biscuits with me and kinda sprinkled them here and yonder, hoping he would smell his way back. It was about two o'clock in the afternoon when I got tired of looking and started making my way back to the house. I was about one hundred yards from my house when I heard something in the undergrowth of the kudzu.
"Luther!" I called out, real sharp, 'cause I was annoyed. The only sound I heard was a little whimper, and then it got real quiet. Deadly quiet, like all the birds stopped twittering and the kadydids stopped strumming. So I followed that whimper and took my walking stick out in front of me, so as to poke around. Sure enough, I followed the sound to where the kudzu was rustling and poked and wouldn't you know I found Luther's old collar? But no sign of Luther.

Now, that disturbed my greatly, seeing how I'm an old man out here with no one for company. And it was mighty strange that I'd find Luther's collar, but not Luther. So I hung that collar up by the door and kept watch for him for a week or so, but he never did show up. And at the end of the week, I was surprised to see the kudzu had grown another three or four feet, and my driveway was starting to get eaten up, so I burned the kudzu back, like always. This time, maybe my nerves were getting to me, because I could swear I heard the kudzu screaming as it went up in flames. But plants do that when they burn, on account of them being filled with water. The episode did make me rather uncomfortable, so I haven't eaten any kudzu since.

I called Ms. Hall after this and informed her she might do well to hire some professional gardners to come out here with some fancy equipment and take care of this kudzu, but she told me in no uncertain terms that would not be happening. She didn't want nobody messin' with her land, and no trespassers anywhere on it. I was adamant and told her about the kudzu and Luther gone missing.
"Well, Mr. Taylor, I hope you are not suggesting the kudzu ATE your dog?" Ms. Hall said, real loud in my ear.
"Oh, no,ma'am, I ain't sayin' THAT. I's just sayin', this kudzu here is gettin' real hard for me to control."
"You'll do fine, Mr. Taylor. That field has been full of kudzu since I was a girl. You just keep burnin' it back!"
I believe it was the next day that I heard a rumble of a truck in the fields. I got my walking shoes on, but went on ahead and climbed into my 1973 Ford Ranger, just the same. I followed the sounds of the trucks way out, about half a mile down the field. Pretty soon, I came up on the trucks, and sure enough, they was from the power company. So, I shut my old Ford off and got out. Strangest thing was...the trucks were still running, but no one was around.
"Hey!" I cried. No one responded. So I leaped up into the cabs of both trucks and turned off the ignition. Now, the field was real quiet again, not a sound from the trees or the earth. And that's when I heard a man's voice, muffled and scared, sayin' "Help, help!" So, once again, I followed that sound into the undergrowth.

My, even if you saw what I had seen, I doubt you'd believe it. I still have a hard time seein' it. But there, right in front of me, was a grown man with great vines of kudzu growing over his arms and legs and his shoulder. The kudzu was sneaking into his mouth and his eyes looked like they was gonna pop right out! I said a word of exclamation, and lo, that man stared right at me. I ran to pull him free, but that kudzu was clinging fast and strong, and my old hands couldn't beat it off. I struggled, and so did the poor man, but after a bit, I couldn't see no more of him, and he disappeared right up into the foliage. Just like that!

Well, I high-tailed it right out of there before the kudzu could get me, and got back to the truck. Wouldn't you know that kudzu had latched itself onto the cab and grown over the wheels? Why, it was plumb stuck! I couldn't make it go forwards or backwards, so I just started to run back to the house. As soon as I could, I called Ms. Hall. I told her the whole story, and thought she would commit me to the loony bin for it. But when I stopped talking, and was breathing hard, she started talking.
"Now, Mr. Taylor, what you have related to me is strange, indeed. I would tell you you're off your rocker, but I know you ain't lying. Back when I was a girl, my Mammy Nurse told me that land was the family's slave land. And when the war ended and all the Negroes were freed, some of them stayed on to sharecrop the land..."
"Yes, ma'am, I know that. My grandpappy was a sharecropper on this here land.."
"Don't interrupt me, Mr. Taylor, I'm tellin' you something. Anyways, that land stayed sharecropped until it dried up, and then that kudzu came and Papa planted it there and the sharecroppers had to move on, 'cause that kudzu grew so fast. But the house you live in, that was inhabited by Mammy Nurse's Grandma, and she was vile, that woman. She was blind and crazy, and said she could put spells on people. And Mammy Nurse said she practiced voodoo, so my daddy didn't make that old witch move, 'cause he was afraid of her. But the story goes that as long as living things go about that land, they'll be eaten up every so often by that kudzu, just to keep the family aware of what they did to the slaves and sharecroppers. And as far as I can remember, it's only happened once; my uncle went on a dove hunt, wound up in the field, and never did come out."
"Ms. Hall!" I shouted. "How you gonna let me live here all this time, knowing what you do about this land bein' hainted by some old voodoo lady?"
"Mr. Taylor, you needn't raise your voice. I was just comin' to that. Story goes that as long as the sharecroppers' blood remains on the land, the kudzu won't spill over the boundaries, and won't threaten the bloodline. Mr. Taylor, you the last grandson of Mammy Nurse. You got to stay there, or else that kudzu will just tear through this whole town!"
"Now, even if that's so, Ms. Hall, I can't live forever! I don't have no kin. What's going to happen when I die?"
Ms. Hall spoke real slow and said, "Well, we'll both be gone. And it won't be our problem any longer." And she hung up the phone. That was yesterday.

So, here I sit, on the porch, watching the kudzu grow and grow. I believe in the past four hours it's come up a whole six inches. I've shut up the windows of the house, so it won't come in. I'm just sitting here, watching it grow, knowing it'll win, eventually. It'll get the house, then me, and then it will move past the boundaries and into the housing developments, and before you and I know it, that kudzu is going to eat the soul of every interloper from here to Decatur. But they ain't nothin' I can do about it, no-how. I's just gonna sit here, and watch, and wait.