Faraway Places (12 page)

I walked out the back door of the barn to see if the holsteins were in the back corral and if the pigs were in their pen. That's when I bumped into something hanging there in the dark, something hanging from the winch. I walked out the back door of the barn and bumped into the nigger hanging there from the winch, his legs gone to the knee. Crows flew up, then settled back down on him. Their wings flapping sounded like fire, like the tongues of fire over the Apostles' heads. I stood there in the dark and thought: Holy Ghost.

Those birds had eaten out the nigger's eyes—his bodily eyes—and they'd eaten his lips.

I looked at the nigger hanging there. I couldn't move. I watched the birds cover him. Those crows. They were perched on his shoulders, perched on his head. Others were hovering. I could hear them in the dark. The dream I can't stop having is full of them: crows all over the nigger—Geronimo—more crows than I've ever seen fill the sky. My dream is filled with those birds, and the rustle of fire.

That night, too, there were the flies buzzing. Or maybe there weren't; maybe it was just that haywire sound in my ears. But I think I did see them. It looked like the nigger's hair was flying right off him, but I think it might have been flies.

The sound—the sound the flies were making—was the worst sound yet, worse than the sound of crows, but the smell was worse than that.

When I realized what it was that was hanging there, that it was the nigger—my Geronimo—when I saw the crows on him and heard the flies and felt those flies on my face, part of me went over by the pole fence and part of me went over by the river, to the elm tree above the pig pen. When I realized what I'd bumped into, I wasn't just standing there under the winch and our barn's rose window anymore. It was like I'd died and was on
my way to heaven, only it wasn't heaven where I got. It was the feeling of getting to heaven, though, like when the swing started going over onto itself, that feeling that I wasn't in my skin anymore, of getting out of my skin, out of my circumstances, one step shy of flight.

That's when I went for the saddle room. I went straight to that room, made a beeline for it as soon as I was myself again, when I could walk and think. I got the key from the secret place by the red radio. I unlocked the door and opened it. I went right in, right to that secret drawer. It was locked so I took down the twelve-gauge that was hanging below the .25-20, leaving just the halo of the twelve-gauge on the wall. I blew a hole in the drawer, buckshot spraying every which way. Then I reached in there and got that secret envelope and opened it. After all those years, this is what I found:

There were five photographs of a woman taking off her clothes; in the first photograph, she had on her coat and her hat and her high heels. In the second photograph, she had a dress on and the high heels. In the third, she just had her slip on and the high heels. In the fourth photograph, she just had her bra on and her panties on. Her nylons hooked to that part that holds them up. In the fifth photograph, she was naked.

There was a coupon torn from a magazine to send away for a Spanish fly.
Drives the female wild
, it said on the coupon.

There was a picture of naked men, seven of them, standing on a lava rock by a lake, arm in arm, smiling. I think one of them was my father and the rest were his six brothers.

There was a photograph of four men in uniform. One of them was my father during the war, in Germany. The men in uniform were with a fifth man dressed up like a Negro woman with black on his face, smoking a cigar. The other three men and my father were looking at the man dressed up like a Negro woman, laughing and drinking beer.

And there was a photograph of a nurse who looked like Esther Williams. She'd signed the photograph,
To Joe, Always My
Love, All of It, Eva
, and then there was something written in German. At least it looked like German to me.

There was a Trojan—“a contraceptive,” it said on the outside of the package.

There was some strange-looking paper money, none of it green.

There was the sheet music to the Perry Como song “Faraway Places.”

There was a Holy Card with the Holy Eucharist on it that said that Joseph Robert Weber had received his First Holy Communion. Along with the Holy Card was a photograph of my father—he was just a kid—standing next to his mother. Grandma Ruth looked younger but just as fat. My father was wearing a suit. There was a German shepherd dog in the background in front of a house that needed paint. At the bottom of the photograph was written:
My First Holy Communion Day, 1925
.

There was another photograph of my father in a suit with wide lapels and baggy pants. He stood in front of that same house, still in need of paint. My father was older in that one. The German shepherd was older too. My father's hand was on the dog's head.
Me and Fritz on my Holy Confirmation Day, 1933
, was written under the photograph, and this was written there too:
My Holy Confirmation Name: John
, it said. That's what it said and I wondered if my father had chosen the same John as I had—the St. John who wrestled with the devil.

That was it, at least I thought that was it, and then I saw a piece of silky cloth, a pink color, that had dropped out. I picked it up. It was like an envelope. I opened it and pulled out three more photographs and a blue ribbon like the kind you can win at the Blackfoot State Fair.

The blue ribbon said
Best Butterfly Collection, St. Veronica's School, Eighth Grade
.

Two of the photographs were of my mother: one was of her with a different hairstyle. In that she was wearing a real short
dress. She was pulling up that short skirt even higher. Under the photograph she had written,
Gosh! Yah! Boy! Mary
.

The second was a photograph of my father kissing my mother at their wedding.

The third was of my father, smiling proudly, holding a little baby in his arms. Holding me.

And then I heard something. I looked up and saw my father standing in the doorway. He said: “What the hell are you doing?”

I looked him in the eye. That was the hardest thing—looking into my father's eyes as he stood there in the doorway. There wasn't any secret anymore and there weren't any rules anymore and I was looking into his eyes.

My father started walking toward me, like he always did, like he was the one who knew it all, and he repeated his question,
what the hell are you doing here?

I hauled off and hit him as hard as I could with the back of my hand.

My father stepped back, dazed, and wiped the blood from his mouth. Then looked at the blood on his hand, as if he couldn't believe it was real.

“Don't hate me, Jake—I was drunk,” my father said.

My father never called
me Jake
, or
Jacob
, or
Jacob Joseph
, or
John
. He never called me
son
. He called me
Jake
when he talked to other people, but to me it was just
do this
or
do that
. “I hated you before you were drunk,” I said, and then I called him that name, called him
motherfucker
. “Motherfucker,” I said.

My father looked down at the floor, at all his pictures, at his ribbon, at his Trojan, at the Spanish fly coupon, at the man dressed up like a Negro woman, at the Holy Eucharist, at Eva, at
Gosh! Yah! Boy!

His chest was rising up and going down fast, just the way it would before he explodes when he gets mad. I still had the
gun, though I didn't know if it was loaded still. My father just stood there breathing hard and deep and looking at the floor.

Then my father kind of slumped down to his knees; his head was only inches from the barrel of the twelve-gauge. He picked up his blue ribbon in his big hairy hand, then picked up the picture of him and his dog Fritz on that day in 1933 when his new name was John.

The picture of him naked with his six brothers was right by my foot. I kicked it over to him. He picked it up and looked at it.

My father sat back on his feet and looked up at me. Then he picked up another photograph. I knew which one it was and wished he wouldn't have picked that one up—the one of him holding his little baby. He brought the photograph up close to his face, as though he couldn't quite make it out. With his chest going up and down like that, my father started to cry. He heaved a big sigh and looked up the barrel of the gun at me. His eyes were looking at me but they weren't really; they were looking at something, for something, that wasn't there anymore.

“How did it all happen at Endicott's that night?” my father finally asked.

“You wanted a fair fight, like a man,” I said. “And Endicott whipped you. You dropped your guard,” I said.

“When did the nigger kill him, do you know?” my father asked.

“How do you know it was the nigger who killed him?” I asked.

“The sheriff told me,” my father said. “At first they thought Endicott died of natural causes and that his dogs got to him after that. But then they picked up the nigger on the highway, walking down the middle of the highway, with hardly nothing on and Endicott's whistle around his neck and part of Endicott's scalp hanging from his belt.”

“Those people just got a nose for trouble,” I said. And then I said, “He saved your life.”

“Who saved my life?”

“The nigger, Geronimo, saved your life.”

“Geronimo?” my father said.

“That's his name, the nigger's name,” I said.

“Saved my life?” my father said.

“He shot Endicott with his bow and arrow. Endicott was going for his dogs to sic them on you and turn you into what they turned that woman Sugar Babe into, but Geronimo stopped him, shot him in the eye. I saw it all,” I said.

The sky started to come in the room then, black sky, no stars.

“How'd Endicott get back in the house then?” my father said.

“We put him in there, and then covered our tracks. Then we covered yours.”

“And both of you carried me back here?” my father said.

“Yes,” I said. “In Old Glory. But I didn't make it all the way.” I heard the screen door slam.

“Mom found us both lying there by the back door in the rain wrapped up in the flag,” my father told me.

“She said it was a miracle.” He looked at the ground and shook his head. “Why?” he said.

“Why what?” I said.

“Why did he do it, the nigger—”

“Geronimo,” I said.

“—Geronimo,” my father said. “Why did he do it?”

“She was his mother,” I said. “Sugar Babe was his mother. It got real quiet in the saddle room then, my father's chest rising up and going down, “We'll have to tell the sheriff,” he finally said.

“Why?” I said.

“Because maybe we can get Geronimo off—for saving my life.”

“You don't know?” I said.

“Know what?” my father said.

I hung the twelve-gauge back up on the wall, inside its halo.

I stepped aside, holding the door open for my father. I let him walk through the back door of the barn and into the navy-blue night. I let my father step right into the nigger. I let him bump into him just the way I did.

I'd taken the flashlight from its halo on the wall, and when my father bumped into the nigger hanging there from the winch, I shined the light into my father's face. Then I shined it into the nigger's.

My father's face was against the nigger's crotch. My father tried to get his balance. He had to touch the nigger with his hands to get his balance back. My father tried not to touch the nigger, but he had to. It was either that or fall.

And then my father looked up to see just what it was he'd bumped into. I helped him by shining the flashlight his way.

It was more horrible than even I thought it was with the flashlight on like that. Even the smell was worse when you could see it.

I felt good that it was horrible, then. For my father's sake.

I watched my father start to make funny noises: grunts and sighs and little-girl screams. I watched him jump away like he was on a pogo stick. I watched him fall down, away from the nigger. My father was wiping his hands, trying to get that nigger's blood off. I watched him howl and start crying again, this time loud with big sobs.

“I didn't know! I didn't know! God forgive me, I didn't know!” my father was crying.

AFTER A WHILE
my father got quiet again. He got up off his knees. Then he bent over and puked—three times. He wiped his mouth on his shirt sleeve and stood up as straight as he could manage. He walked over to me, but I wasn't afraid. He couldn't hurt me anymore.

But he did. My father hurt me again.

My father just walked over and put his arms around me, just walked up to me—no problem—after all those years and
grabbed on to my neck and hugged me, hugged me because he needed it. Maybe because he thought I needed it too.

But I didn't hug him back. Touching him was like him touching the nigger. I only held on to keep my balance.