Welding with Children

Tim Gautreaux’s “Welding with Children” debuted in the March 1997 issue of The Atlantic. Gautreaux was born in Louisiana, and his novels and short stories, like this one, draw from his experience of growing up in a Southern, blue-collar family. His characters include a range of rural Louisiana residents, many of whom struggle with societal and generational changes. Gautreaux has received numerous awards, most notably the 1999 Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) Book Award for his novel The Clearing and the 1999 Southeast Booksellers Association (SEBA) Book Award for his novel Next Step in the Dance. “Welding with Children” follows Bruton, a small-town man who must babysit his four grandchildren regularly, prompting him to consider his own identity within the town and as their caretaker. The story explores such themes as The Responsibility of Parenthood, The Price of Redemption, and The Importance of Community.

This guide cites the original version published in The Atlantic in 1997.

The story is told from the first-person perspective of Bruton, a welder in the fictional town of Gumwood. Bruton has four daughters who each have a child that they raise on their own. The text opens on a Tuesday morning when Bruton’s daughters all drop off their children—Nu-Nu, Moonbean, Tammynette, and Freddie—at his house while his wife, LaNelle, goes to the casino. Though Bruton disapproves of his daughters’ unmarried status, he acquiesces to babysitting the children. He also agrees to fix his oldest daughter’s broken bed frame because she cannot afford to buy a new one.

Bruton tries to weld the broken bed frame, but his grandchildren keep distracting him by playing with his welding equipment. First, Tammynette places a stone under one of the grinders. Then, Moonbean strikes Bruton with an electric rod holder. Bruton quickly realizes it is unsafe to weld while the children are around and decides to finish the project later. He lets the children play in the yard, though he is self-conscious about the clutter on his property. Bruton’s yard is filled with old appliances and car parts, including an Oldsmobile engine hanging from a willow oak, which his grandchildren use as a swing.

Bruton thinks back on the time he went to college, recalling that he had worked overtime to afford the tuition at LSU. Bruton was not impressed by his college experience, however, and complains he learned little from his teachers, most of whom he considered to be inadequate at their jobs. Bruton dropped out after a semester and recalls learning a lot about the unkindness of others in college, where he didn’t fit in.

When his grandchildren are tired from playing, Bruton takes them inside and cleans them up. Tammynette cries out for an Icee. Bruton is reluctant to buy her one, but when Nu-Nu and Moonbean join in, he decides to drive them all to the store. Before they go inside, however, two old men—an uncle and a nephew with the last name Fordlyson—comment on the children’s born-out-of-wedlock status. The older one, a church deacon, calls Bruton’s car a “bastardmobile.” Bruton considers punching them, but he does not want to create a scene. Freddie asks what a “bastardmobile” is after Bruton buys Icees for the children, and he quickly waves the question off.

In the car, Freddie calls Tammynette a bad word. Bruton asks Freddie where he learned it, and he responds that he heard it on a comedy program. Bruton realizes that his daughter lets Freddie watch TV late at night; the child doesn’t understand the concept of being up “late” and dozes off watching TV instead of having a regular bedtime. He reflects on his daughters’ upbringing and lack of religion as adults. Bruton always assumed LaNelle would teach the girls about religion, as his mother taught him. Now, he realizes that while the girls were growing up, she was too busy working, managing the responsibilities of parenthood, and running a home to also teach them about the Bible.

Back at home, Bruton worries that the term “bastardmobile” has already spread around town; everybody watches everybody else in Gumwood. Nevertheless, Bruton prefers his small community to a big city where “nobody giv[es] a flip about whether you live or die” (7). He asks his grandchildren if their mothers talk to them about religion and decides to teach them about the Bible himself when he realizes they know little about God. He reads them stories from an old book of Bible stories he finds in the house. However, the children are easily distracted and pepper him with irrelevant questions about movies and songs from popular culture. Bruton realizes that the Bible sounds like an “adventure story” to them.

When Bruton leaves the room to get the children some snacks, they turn on the TV against his wishes. To stop them, he cuts the fuse so the TV won’t turn on and then reads the children a book about a dog saving a train. The story engages them, and they listen excitedly until the end.

The next day, Bruton passes by the city hall on the way to a job and is stopped by the older Mr. Fordlyson. He is sitting under a pecan tree that locals call the “Tree of Knowledge.” Bruton wants to walk on, but Mr. Fordlyson urges him to sit next to him. Bruton tells him that it was mean of him to call his car a “bastardmobile” and admits that he needs advice on how to help his grandchildren. Mr. Fordlyson tells him to bring his grandchildren to Sunday school each week (a complicated ask considering the required tithe money that Bruton cannot spare), keep his grandchildren close to him, and clean up his yard. He also insults Bruton, saying he’ll never change and suggesting the children will end up in prison or as sex workers in New Orleans.

When Bruton returns home, he calls a salvage company to remove the junk from his property. He also mows the lawn and uses money from the scrap yard to buy paint for his shop and the front of his house. The following day, Bruton wakes up early to paint the porch and construct a new screen door. Later that day, his oldest daughter arrives with Nu-Nu and Freddie. She tells Bruton that Nu-Nu said his first word, “Da-da.” However, she becomes upset and drives away before Bruton can ask her for more details. Bruton holds Nu-Nu and somberly reflects on the baby’s life without a father. Freddie, curious, asks what happened to the yard, and Bruton tells him that they will set up a new tire swing to hang from the willow tree.