IT WAS BETWEEN eight and nine and the shadows were getting long when Tom Poole came tearing up the dirt lane to his uncles" place. He parked the pale blue VW fastback in front of the barn and he jumped out and slammed the door behind him as if he hated that d.a.m.ned car, which he did. eight and nine and the shadows were getting long when Tom Poole came tearing up the dirt lane to his uncles" place. He parked the pale blue VW fastback in front of the barn and he jumped out and slammed the door behind him as if he hated that d.a.m.ned car, which he did.
"You working late?" Creed"s high and reedy voice, from the shadows of the barn.
"I been been working late and now I"m starting the second shift." As if it was his uncle"s fault. working late and now I"m starting the second shift." As if it was his uncle"s fault.
The construction project in Utica had gone into overtime, which was just perfect for making Tom"s life miserable since he still had his plants to look after. His grandfather Poole had always said that there was no rest for a man who chose to make his way in an agriculturally-oriented endeavor, and the old man should have known what he was talking about since he was usually standing knee-deep in muck when the notion to pontificate came into his head. Tom hadn"t ever paid him much attention and he"d certainly never thought that the old coot"s useless wisdom would apply to him-first with his college plans and then with his construction job-yet here he was. Watching the sky and hauling fertilizer in a wheelbarrow. Calculating his yield and watching the market. Something told him that this was better than onions, but not by much. He hated onions. That was for sure. And he didn"t hate dope, except for the work and the uncertainty that went into growing it.
"I been working late myself," said Creed, his voice whistling in the dark. He hadn"t stepped out of the barn and he wouldn"t. Let the boy come in if he had something to say.
But Tom didn"t go in. Last year"s crop was about used up and this year"s was coming on and he humped up the hill behind the cow pasture to see what was what. Hoping that he could get it harvested and dried and cured before the old supply ran out and he developed a cash-flow problem. He had his tools in his backpack. Not the tools from Utica, but his own. He knew he ought to take some other path up into the high field but there wasn"t ever time. He ought to park his car over on the Middle Road and cut through the woods on the back side of Preston Hatch"s property-either that or find some other way-but who cared. He hadn"t ever been caught and Creed hadn"t ever been caught running that old whiskey still out there either. History was on his side. History and habit and probably custom too.
Up the hill he went and down a little tractor path that was more like a game trail than anything ever made by a man, and then on through a break in the barbed wire that pa.s.sed for a gate. It sagged and it dripped rust. You could close it up if you had work gloves or if you didn"t mind bleeding to death or if your hands were made out of elephant hide like his uncles", but he never bothered. He pa.s.sed through it and walked another thirty yards in the low sun over fallow land. After a while he came to a little patch of woods. His uncle Creed"s old still was hidden in the middle of it and his own marijuana plants were set all about the perimeter where they could get sun. The marijuana competed with fiddleheads and poison ivy and Queen Anne"s lace and a million other kinds of underbrush that he didn"t know by name. It was a mixed blessing. Compet.i.tion and concealment both. There was a time when he"d cunningly set the individual plants among the cornrows, hiding them in plain sight and thinking to put his uncles to work without their even knowing it, but the old men had surprised him and gotten up there with the harvester when he wasn"t looking. A season"s worth of gra.s.s, straight into the silo. He"d hoped the cows had enjoyed it. Since then he"d come to put his trust in nature. He made do without irrigation, contrary to the conventional wisdom, relying instead on a creek from up in the hills that fed this whole area and kept it all more or less green and yielded up this little copse of trees and brush. The creek ran over a couple of little waterfalls where he"d spent plenty of happy hours as a boy, and it still managed to bring him delight-if only indirectly-now that he"d put away childish things.
It turned out the plants weren"t near ready yet, and he didn"t know whether to take that as an affront or a reprieve. He was prepared to begin tr.i.m.m.i.n.g them and carrying them down to dry in the hayloft, and he was sure as h.e.l.l eager to start turning his crop into cash, but on the other hand it was pushing nine o"clock and the air was still G.o.dawful hot and he was just plain beat from the overtime. How come the dope business was turning out to be so much like farming, anyhow?
Vernon was on the porch, collapsed into a great big overstuffed chair. Damp clouds of cotton wadding leaked out of it along every seam as if something inside it had blown up. Vernon sat plucking little bits of the wadding with one hand, rolling them into little pellets between his thumb and forefinger and flicking them into the yard and then starting again. He"d been squinting into the failing sun and waiting for Tom to come down from the high field, down through the pasture and along the fence and into the barnyard where he might either turn toward the house or just get into his car and go. Finally he showed up. He came around the corner of the barn and turned into the yard and the old man spoke to him, his voice coming out with a deep and penetrating kind of squawk, like the voice of a crow slowed down. "Watch your step among them whirligigs," he said.
"I see them."
"You"re always in a hurry."
"I"m a busy man."
"I guess."
A light breeze had come up. It pulled the lace curtain out through the window and Vernon brushed it away from his face with one hand. The whirligigs in the yard veered as if they shared one mind among them, rotating to face away from the wind and begin their slow turning. Winged pigs and cows and horses. Chickens and geese and ducks. They creaked in the failing light and the sound of them drew Audie"s sharp face to the window from behind the curtain that his brother had pushed away. His eyes were vague and his long beard mingled with the lace curtain and he smiled through it as if he had just been reminded of something remarkable.
Tom came up on the steps and sat.
His uncle said, "I seen that crop of yours on television."
"I don"t know what you"re talking about."
"I seen it all right."
From the window Audie muttered something either oracular or idiotic. Maybe words and maybe not.
"I seen it on that 60 Minutes 60 Minutes last week. They was saying it might do me some good." last week. They was saying it might do me some good."
"I don"t know what you"re talking about, Vernon."
They sat for a minute and the wind kept up and the things in the yard kept turning. Audie said something to them, either to the things or to his relations, but he got no answer. Vernon worked at the chair. After a while a door opened somewhere and the lace curtain billowed out from the window and the door slammed and the curtain collapsed back in on itself.
Vernon did not so much as turn in the overstuffed chair. "That you, Creed?"
"Suppertime," said Creed, in from the barn, standing by the dead refrigerator in the dark house. He took a plate of b.u.t.ter from on top of it and swatted away flies and set it on the table. Then he opened the refrigerator and took out half a loaf of bread and put that on the table too. The refrigerator was jammed with stuff but not much of it was food and not much of that was still worth eating. Audie moved from the window to the table and sc.r.a.ped back one of the three chairs and sat.
Vernon flicked away a pellet of cotton batting and held out his hand. "Help an old man up," he said.
"If you sat on a straight chair," Tom said, "this wouldn"t happen."
"You don"t know."
"I work alongside men older than you forty hours a week. Plus overtime."
"Work," said Vernon. He smiled and wheezed. "I know about work. You couldn"t kept up with me in my day."
"You"ve still got your day, old man." Tom stood and hauled Vernon to his feet. "It"s still your day, as far as I can tell."
"I"m sixty years old."
In the kitchen, without turning his head, Audie offered something by way of disputation.
"So I"m fifty-nine then. He"s right enough. I was born in the fall of twenty-five. I"m fifty-nine."
"That"s not old."
"I got a birthday coming."
"I know."
"My own mother died at fifty-six." He shuffled toward the door. He was still half bent from sitting and he tilted forward, grimacing behind his beard. "She had the same cancer as me."
Tom just shook his head. "When"d you last see a doctor?"
"I ain"t never seen a doctor. Not but that one time I got the blood poisoning."
"So how do you know what you"ve got. If you"ve even got anything."
"I know what I got. I seen it kill her. We all did."
Tom held the door for him. "Go on in and have your supper," he said. "Maybe it"ll make you feel better."
"I"ll feel better if you give me some of what you"re growing up by the still." Vernon stepped into the inner dark. "That"s how I"ll feel better."
"I don"t know what you"re talking about," Tom said.
1960.
Preston.
I THINK IF THINK IF they"d been left to their own devices those boys"d put her in the burn barrel with everything else and meant no disrespect by it. It"d been like something out of Homer. G.o.d knows they revered that woman. they"d been left to their own devices those boys"d put her in the burn barrel with everything else and meant no disrespect by it. It"d been like something out of Homer. G.o.d knows they revered that woman.
Ruth.
A PERSON CANNOT PERSON CANNOT forever beat back the predations of time and the world. The house where she lives is the house where she raised up the children and the house from which she buried her husband, but it is not the same place. Her room in the back is a dank and airless cell. Her daughter, Donna, is gone and with her such standards of cleanliness and order as a woman will maintain. She ascribes it to that. Now and then Audie will slip into her room and reposition the lace doily on the bedside table or blow away a rime of dust that has gathered there along its edges but that is the extent of it. The extent of anyone"s intervention or upholding on her behalf. He means well and she thanks him. When he is done he vanishes through the door that he and his brother Vernon hung in the cut hole so many years ago, when their father went on before them and a barrier between their bedroom and that of their mother was required. It was as if they had been waiting all that time. forever beat back the predations of time and the world. The house where she lives is the house where she raised up the children and the house from which she buried her husband, but it is not the same place. Her room in the back is a dank and airless cell. Her daughter, Donna, is gone and with her such standards of cleanliness and order as a woman will maintain. She ascribes it to that. Now and then Audie will slip into her room and reposition the lace doily on the bedside table or blow away a rime of dust that has gathered there along its edges but that is the extent of it. The extent of anyone"s intervention or upholding on her behalf. He means well and she thanks him. When he is done he vanishes through the door that he and his brother Vernon hung in the cut hole so many years ago, when their father went on before them and a barrier between their bedroom and that of their mother was required. It was as if they had been waiting all that time.
In those days Donna slept in the first of the front rooms. The kitchen and the living room and whatever else was required of it. Her bedroom too, then, for seventeen years. In the winter she slept alongside the black and red stove and in the summer she slept beneath the blowing lace curtain. She grew up and she graduated from high school and she moved out to start college. She married DeAlton Poole and he paid for her to study nursing in Syracuse, for all the good it has done her forebears.
These days she comes back to the house with her belly protruding, the child growing in her and the sickness growing in her mother. One to enter the world and one to leave it.
She comes in her car and she takes her mother to the hospital in Ca.s.sius. The old woman doesn"t see any point in going but since it"s Donna she goes. They sit together on a hard bench in the laboratory. Everyone in the hospital knows Donna and by now everyone knows her fading mother too. Ruth parts with three tinkling vials of blood, watching it drain from her arm and imagining that living within it are certain invisible creatures that she is better off getting shut of. If only she could rid herself of it entirely. One more part of her gone, although minus the sickness there might be nothing left. She asks her daughter the nursing school graduate why she cannot draw the blood at home and just bring the vials of it to the hospital herself without troubling an invalid to make the trip. That way she wouldn"t even have to get out of bed. But Donna reminds her that after they have visited the drugstore they will stop for lunch at McDonald"s or the Madison Street Dineraunt, her choice, and this takes a little of the sting out.
The nurse pulls the needle and covers the red spot with a cotton ball and asks Ruth to keep it there please, which the old woman does with a look of vast seriousness and intensity, holding her thin forearm as if it is the most precious thing on earth. Cradling herself to herself there on a hard plastic bench the color of poison. The puckered vein when the nurse returns to cover it over is a pale road map drawn on parchment, the road itself lost and gone, the map of no use to anyone. Not even as a memento.
DeAlton WHEN YOUR FATHER DIED without a will it was ignorance, but if your mother goes the same way it"s nothing but stupidity and pigheadedness. I know they"re simple people, she"s a simple person, and I don"t mean any offense by that. But the law isn"t particularly kind to simple people. It doesn"t make any exceptions for them. without a will it was ignorance, but if your mother goes the same way it"s nothing but stupidity and pigheadedness. I know they"re simple people, she"s a simple person, and I don"t mean any offense by that. But the law isn"t particularly kind to simple people. It doesn"t make any exceptions for them.
Hand me that ketchup.
Intestate is the word for it. It means without a testament. is the word for it. It means without a testament.
Latin? Is that right? Latin? Well I"ll be. You did get all the brains in the family. I don"t mean any offense by that either.
Anyhow I talked with Vince over lunch at the Rotary. He"ll do it for nothing. Professional courtesy. The truth is he does a little corporate work for Dobson and he"ll probably just bury it, but he"d never say so. That"s the kind of thing that if you keep it to yourself it"s a favor and if you say it out loud it becomes an ethics violation. n.o.body wants that.
It"s not going to come as any surprise to her. She"s been getting ready to die as long as I can remember. You"re not going to hurt her feelings.
Vernon.
SHE OUTSMARTED THEM city lawyers. DeAlton come out here with that Italian feller and this pretty little gal the Italian feller had with him carrying the papers. She was a little bitty thing. Looked like that Connie Chung on television. They come out here the three of them and they went on in her room like they owned the place, which I guess they were trying to. But she wouldn"t sign. She wouldn"t sign. She laid there in the bed and she asked that Italian feller how about if she just turned the place over to the four of us before she went. There weren"t no chance we"d throw her out. That Italian feller scratched his head and said he had to allow she had a point, and the little gal with the papers looked like she wanted to laugh but couldn"t. DeAlton pushed them all back out to the car and they left. city lawyers. DeAlton come out here with that Italian feller and this pretty little gal the Italian feller had with him carrying the papers. She was a little bitty thing. Looked like that Connie Chung on television. They come out here the three of them and they went on in her room like they owned the place, which I guess they were trying to. But she wouldn"t sign. She wouldn"t sign. She laid there in the bed and she asked that Italian feller how about if she just turned the place over to the four of us before she went. There weren"t no chance we"d throw her out. That Italian feller scratched his head and said he had to allow she had a point, and the little gal with the papers looked like she wanted to laugh but couldn"t. DeAlton pushed them all back out to the car and they left.
Audie.
MY MOTHER WENT on ahead. After they took her out I went in and arranged her things. I made up the bed. She always kept her clothes in the chest of drawers and I left them right where they lay. Creed came in and said it was about time we had the use of that furniture but I wouldn"t let him. I wouldn"t let him have the use of it. I was in her room and he came in with some things he wanted to put in that chest of drawers. He had some old hats and his winter coat and mine too and Vernon"s, but I told him they could just keep on hanging in the barn the way they always did. There wasn"t any reason to use up her chest of drawers that way. I asked him where we would put her things if we took them out and he said we ought to give them to the poor. on ahead. After they took her out I went in and arranged her things. I made up the bed. She always kept her clothes in the chest of drawers and I left them right where they lay. Creed came in and said it was about time we had the use of that furniture but I wouldn"t let him. I wouldn"t let him have the use of it. I was in her room and he came in with some things he wanted to put in that chest of drawers. He had some old hats and his winter coat and mine too and Vernon"s, but I told him they could just keep on hanging in the barn the way they always did. There wasn"t any reason to use up her chest of drawers that way. I asked him where we would put her things if we took them out and he said we ought to give them to the poor.
Preston.
YOU HAD TO GO through Ruth"s bedroom to get to the jakes. It"d been that way from a long time back, when Lester and Ruth lived there just the two of them. It was all right in those days, I guess. Before the boys came and Donna. Anyhow the jakes was in between the house and the barn and you had to go through Ruth"s bedroom to get to it. I would imagine there was a parade all night long with those four children. through Ruth"s bedroom to get to the jakes. It"d been that way from a long time back, when Lester and Ruth lived there just the two of them. It was all right in those days, I guess. Before the boys came and Donna. Anyhow the jakes was in between the house and the barn and you had to go through Ruth"s bedroom to get to it. I would imagine there was a parade all night long with those four children.
When Ruth pa.s.sed on and they closed up her bedroom, I think they were surprised at not having the use of it anymore. The jakes, I mean. I don"t think they saw that coming. They were pretty well occupied about her and I don"t blame them. This was in the summertime. I believe they used the woods for a while, somewhere up by the still. They used the woods as long as the weather held but the seasons change whether you like it or not and they couldn"t keep on that way forever. I"d see the three of them coming and going up that hill and down again one by one and I"d feel sorry for them, but I wasn"t about to offer up the use of our facilities either. I could blame that on Margaret but I won"t, since I felt the same way she did. It was a failing and I know it but there are limits to everything, even kindness.
What brought it on was that pretty soon Audie wouldn"t come out of her bedroom for anything. That"s why they had to close it up. She had an old caned chair by the bed and he sat in it and he wouldn"t even come out to work on his whirligigs. A person who knew him would have figured that that work and those whirligigs were the things he loved most in all this world-those and his brother Vernon-but in the end that distinction went to his mother.
Donna.
SHE WAS GLAD that her mother had pa.s.sed away in the summertime, if you could say such a thing. The ground would be soft. n.o.body ever got buried in the winter. She had been three years old the winter her father died, and although she believed that she remembered his funeral she knew that such memories may have been hearsay. Her mother"s words made flesh. On the other hand she was certain that she did recall his burial, which took place one bright spring afternoon on a little plot of ground that bordered Hatch"s woods. Her brothers dug the hole. The world was green, and stepping into the woods was stepping into a bottle. To put her father into that fertile ground was to be a.s.sured that he would rise up again. At some point in her youth she realized that she did not know where his body had been kept during the months following the funeral, and rather than have to find out she was glad that her mother had chosen to pa.s.s away when the weather was warm. that her mother had pa.s.sed away in the summertime, if you could say such a thing. The ground would be soft. n.o.body ever got buried in the winter. She had been three years old the winter her father died, and although she believed that she remembered his funeral she knew that such memories may have been hearsay. Her mother"s words made flesh. On the other hand she was certain that she did recall his burial, which took place one bright spring afternoon on a little plot of ground that bordered Hatch"s woods. Her brothers dug the hole. The world was green, and stepping into the woods was stepping into a bottle. To put her father into that fertile ground was to be a.s.sured that he would rise up again. At some point in her youth she realized that she did not know where his body had been kept during the months following the funeral, and rather than have to find out she was glad that her mother had chosen to pa.s.s away when the weather was warm.
Her brothers dug this hole too, right alongside the other and sharing the headstone. Careful not to interfere with what was already there, hidden in the earth and not risen up after this score of years but still worthy of veneration. Preston came up and helped them map the hole with a snap line and a carpenter"s square. He drove pegs into the ground and he strung the line and they worked within the perimeter of it, heading straight down. Audie didn"t dig but sat vigil at some remove on an upturned bucket, keeping an eye on the hole. He had the look about him of a man considering not just what had to go down into it but what might come up.
The preacher who served the church in Carversville had another charge in Lenox and one more in Peterboro, and he was a hard man to pin down. During the week he was nowhere and on Sunday he was everywhere. For a while Donna wasn"t sure that she could even get him. The undertaker from Ca.s.sius swore that he could find somebody else in a pinch but she didn"t want a stranger. The preacher from Carversville was stranger enough. She thought his name was Tuttle.
Her mother"s body went to the funeral home and stayed there overnight and came back again like something on loan, twelve miles altogether in the most luxurious conveyance she had ever ridden. Inside a box the whole distance. DeAlton paid for it. Someone from the state came out to a.s.sess the burial ground, a barrel of a man who paced off the yardage between Preston Hatch"s wellhead and the hole and declared the operation unacceptable on account of something having to do with groundwater. Preston scoffed. He said he"d been drinking the remains of the deceased"s husband, Lester, for twenty-one years and he wasn"t the worse for it yet. Worse things died all the time up there in the woods and n.o.body cared. The state man had a face like a boiled egg and it ran with sweat in the sun and he didn"t feel like arguing either chemistry or philosophy with someone he took for a b.u.mpkin. Regulations were regulations, and the new hole was fifty feet short of squaring with them. Preston asked what the fine would be. The man from the state told him, and Preston said he"d pay it himself. He volunteered to pay it himself right then and there if that was what it took and the man from the state looked tempted and he fidgeted some and put the forms back into his pocket but when all was said and done he didn"t take him up on it. He just got back in the car and drove off. Preston went inside and drew himself a gla.s.s of water.
Tuttle drove up while Audie was prying the old hasp away from the track door on the side of the barn. Vernon had given him a hammer and a crowbar, and although the hammer had but one claw and the crowbar was too big the outcome was certain nonetheless. Audie would not have quit without Vernon"s authority. He would not have quit even if he had understood the full import of his work: that his brothers meant to use the hasp to seal their mother"s room against him. The nails that held it to the barn were old cut iron and they were driven into a solid oak upright and they screamed as they yielded inch by inch. They screamed and gave up their straightness, and Audie cursed them in his own way. If Tuttle minded or even understood he made no mention of it. He had certainly heard worse, for there is something about the nearness of death that shows men plain and unadorned. An individual may conceal himself before G.o.d but not before that. The preacher wore a straw fedora against the sun and he tipped it to Audie and he went on past. He knocked at the door but no answer came. He put his nose against the screen. It smelled of rust and he called through it into the dark but his voice in that small s.p.a.ce was no larger than his knocking and it produced the same result. He wiped the reddened and checkered tip of his nose on the back of his hand and hitched up his pants and went down from the porch, on past Audie again and around the empty barn and up into the fields.
Creed was on the tractor, his silhouette atop the ridge making a slice against the sky. He saw Tuttle coming and he cut the engine and it took a while to quit. The ridge where he was working was a little bit of a walk, and although it took Tuttle some time to reach him he made no effort to climb down and meet him halfway. He sat in the sun and waited, and Tuttle came on slowly.
"I"m sorry about your mother." Tuttle said it without introducing himself, trusting that Creed would know him by his collar.
"She was dying for a long time."
"I guess we all are." Tuttle shaded his eyes and looked up toward Creed where he sat on the Farmall. "We"re all dying from the moment we"re born."
"I mean the cancer," Creed said.
"Right. Right you are. The cancer." There in the dry field with dust on his shoes, he turned and surveyed the landscape from beneath the shade of his hand. He turned his back on Creed and sighted down toward the barn. "I know she was a fine woman," he said. Such were the words that came under these circ.u.mstances. He said them with his back turned, as if to allow for some doubt that he"d even spoken. "I"m sorry for your loss."
"So how much for the job?"
Tuttle turned back. "What was that?"
"The funeral ain"t until tomorrow so I guess you come about the charge."
"Oh, no. There"s no charge. I appreciate the thought, but there"s no charge."
"All right. She paid her debts and I won"t have her go out owing."
"Oh, no. Never fear."
"All right, I won"t."
Tuttle brightened a little. "You could make a donation, though. If you like." And then, by instinct, "The church is always in need."
"Vernon keeps hold of the money," said Creed. He put his foot on the starter.
"Actually, what I came for was to see if there"s something you"d like me to say about your mother."
Creed pulled at his lip, brown teeth behind a brown hand. "She paid her debts," he said. "She done her best with the four of us. That"s all."
"She did her best."
"It weren"t easy." His eyes gla.s.sed over thinking it, and his foot bounced on the starter.