A Far Piece to Canaan (25 page)

“Hidey, Samuel,” he said, and stepped out and closed the door. “What you up to?”

“Foolin',” I answered. “Figured I'd see what you were doin'.”

“Just kind of restin',” he answered as we walked into the yard and picked our way through the farm tools. “Whata y' think of our stuff?”

“Looks pretty good.”

“Yeah. Hit's a lot for th' money, Pa says. All we need now is a tobacco setter and mowin' machine and we can crop anywheres.”

“Looks that way,” I said. “Your mules are mighty pretty.”

“Wanta go see 'em?”

“Sure.”

We started past the kitchen and Alfred come out to join us. He was terrible skinny, and he looked like he'd kept on losing weight since we sold the tobacco.

“Hidey, Samuel,” he said. “What you think a them mules?”

“They're a pretty team, Mr. Mulligan.”

“Yeah, them's as purty a team a mules you'll ever see. Look at them backs and chest. They can pull anything. What's old Morse doin' today?”

“Restin', mostly.”

“Yeah, that's what I been doin' too. We needed that dry spell, y' know. Weather broke just right to let us catch up some. You see my strawberries?”

“They're coming on fast, ain't they,” I said, and they were white with blooms.

“Hit's gonna be 'nother great year,” Alfred said, not paying any attention to my answers. “See them pigs?” he half shouted. “Not a runt in th' bunch. Hogs is at twenty-eight cents. Shit, them'll be ready for market in a few months. Folks didn't think we could make last winter with no more'n we had. Reckon I showed them.”

After he said that, Alfred kind of half staggered back to the house. When he got to the door, he turned around and yelled for me to say hey to old Morse for him if I saw him. I thought that was an odd thing to say since Dad and me lived in the same house.

Fred and I fooled around for the rest of the day. I had a good time until right in the middle of talking about making new slingshots I remembered the rabbits and something inside me just sagged. A little while later, I headed for home.

We finished setting around the first of June and we were further behind than ever because all the other work, like corn planting, hay baling, sheep shearing, hadn't been done. It wouldn't have been so bad except Alfred just kept going slower and slower. Ervin was worse. One afternoon, while I was getting some stuff for Mom from the feed room, I heard the back barn door squeak and Dad and Alfred come in arguing. I looked through a crack and I could see Dad half dragging Alfred to a stall, where he set him down and leaned him against a beam. Alfred looked awful.

“How long you goin' before you see Doc Culbert?” asked Dad, resting on one knee in front of Alfred.

“I ain't seein' no doctor, Morse. My daddy got puny and went to a doctor and he died. Ain't none a them sonamabitches gonna get me.”

“I wouldn't worry about doctors killin' me if I were you, Alfred.” Dad said. “You're dyin' now th' way you're goin'. It's just possible he could still do somethin' for you, though.”

Alfred shook his head. “Ain't payin' out my tobacco or strawberry money!”

“Aw shit, Alfred, you could cut him some wood this winter. I'll help you. Besides, what good's your mules and equipment if you're too sick t' work 'em?”

“Supposin' I die before winter?”

“Then I'll cut th' wood for you. You won't be a charity case.”

Alfred's face squenched up. “What if somethin' happens 'n' you can't do it?”

I could see Dad was fed up. “Then Culbert's outta luck! Goddammit, Alfred, I'm through talkin'. I'm takin' you in and you can't stop me because right now, I'm stronger than you. Sling an arm around my shoulder or I'll carry you like a goddamn baby.”

“I'm gonna die, Morse,” Alfred said, trying to push Dad away. “You take me t' that doctor and I'm gonna die!”

“Bullshit! You'll be burying stiffs in no time. Mamie'll have a smile from ear t' ear.”

“Huh, hit'll have t' improve, 'cause she ain't had nothin' t' smile about recent.”

Finally Alfred quit struggling and he put his arm around Dad's shoulder. They stood up together and walked past the feed room, where Dad saw me and flushed red.

“How long you been there?” he asked me.

“Awhile,” I answered.

He stared for a few seconds, then said Daisy and Gabe was hooked up to the cutting harrow and for me to disc until he got back, or near dark, then get in the cows and start milking because he was taking Mr. Mulligan to the doctor.

It was real late when Dad got back, and Naomi, Mom, and me sat at the kitchen table with him while he ate. It turned out when he got to Culbert's, the doctor just sent them on into Lexington and that's what had taken so long.

“How bad is it?” Mom asked.

“They don't know,” Dad answered. “They put him in the hospital and said they had to run tests and would know in a couple of days. Some organization's payin' for it.”

“What did Culbert say?” asked Mom.

“He said Alfred was a sick man.”

Mom wouldn't leave it alone. “Didn't you ask what was wrong with him?”

Dad gave a big sigh. “He said Alfred was in bad shape.”

Mom kind of slumped in her seat. “How'll we get everything done? What about the tobacco crop?”

“I'll have to do it with Samuel and Ervin. Fred will have to handle most of Alfred's stuff. We'll help him when we can.”

“What about housing time?” said Mom. “What then?”

Dad didn't answer for a while, then said, “Maybe Alfred will be back by then.”

It was a week before Alfred got home. The doctors told him he had the sugar diabetes and had to take imulin shots for the rest of his life. Alfred got mad and told the doctors he wudn't taking imulin shots after he got home because he couldn't afford it and even if he could he wudn't going to let some sonamabitches stick him with needles and that they better come up with something else fast because he had to get back to work since work was his bidness. The hospital gave him a piece of paper telling him the things he could eat, but the Mulligans didn't have anything on the list. Without the imulin and right victuals, Alfred started getting sick again. Finally, Dad talked to Doc Culbert, who said if Alfred would tell him what they had to eat, he'd try to write out a new list. That worked pretty well and before long, Alfred was back in the fields. He wudn't the hand he had been though, and got down on himself something awful.

It was July before the spring work was finished. Dad told me to just take off and do whatever I wanted until tobacco housing. I was all set to try making friends with Fred again so I could enjoy the rest of the summer, when Rosemary come over to see Naomi. She was all dressed up in a blue skirt and white blouse and a little heart cameo necklace. When she came inside there was this great smell of perfume.

“I have something t' show you,” she said to Naomi, then she stuck out her left hand. There was this big diamond ring on her finger, and Naomi screamed, “Rosemary! You're engaged!” Then they both started jumping up and down and hugging each other and laughing and talking about who it was, and when she was going to get married, and where she was going to go on her honeymoon, and how happy she was and all.

This feeling come over me. I wanted to run but my legs wouldn't move. When things got to where they halfway worked, I went to the tobacco barn and crawled up on the mowing machine seat and bawled until there wudn't any tears left in me.

I
awoke late the next morning and spent an hour in bed reading a novel that had won the Man Booker Prize. It was typically British, meaning that it moved at the speed of a crippled snail. Heresy, I know, for a professor of comparative English literature.

After breakfast I started driving. I had no plans, but apparently my subconscious did, because when I reached the entrance to the old Shackelford place, I stopped. What sixty years before had been a rutted lane ending at a farmhouse in need of paint, was now a two-hundred-foot blacktop driveway to an antebellum-style mansion. This was sacred ground. Rosemary Shackelford, the first woman I ever loved, lived where that elegant home now stood.

Until this moment I had never really considered the move from Kentucky to Indiana as a watershed event in my life. Once in Indiana, however, I found myself excluded from the mainstream community, especially when it came to girls. I had exactly two dates in high school. The girl's name was Kendra and I had just gotten my driver's license. We had fun, but when I asked her for a third date, she refused and said her father didn't think it was right for her to go out with a boy who wasn't Christian. That was a moment of real pain. Since I wasn't a good athlete and was considered a hillbilly, I was pretty much at a loss for male companionship as well. I retreated into our farm and into reading, which I came to love because books afforded me a form of friendship and gave free rein to my imagination. During my senior year, one of my teachers insisted that I apply for a scholarship to an elite New England liberal arts college known as Collingwirth. How I got accepted is still a mystery to me.

My luck with girls was no better in college than in Indiana. Collingwirth was populated by the children of the rich. There were five Jewish kids there, all rich except me. And all male. I didn't have a date in two years and eventually quit trying. Then a miracle happened.

Cheryl Marie Smith was a waitress at Tulley's, my college town's least favorite coffee shop. Tulley's was perfect for me because it was devoid of Collingwirth students, whom I detested. It had four tables, twelve red plastic counter stools, two waitresses, one cook, and few customers. Cheryl was blonde, cute, divorced, a part-time student at a local college, and about twenty-three. I frequented the coffee shop as often as possible, sat at the counter chatting with her and trying to work up the nerve to ask her out on a date. One day she asked if I had seen the movie at the town's only theater. I hadn't, and she said, “If you're free tonight, let's go.” I had three papers due in two days. “Not doing a thing,” I answered, and a few hours later I indulged in the first non-self-administered sexual experience of my life. I almost didn't. Apparently none of Cheryl's previous lovers had been circumcised, and while guiding my clumsy attempts at penetration she squealed, “Oh my God, part of it's gone!”

I thought she was referring to size and became instantly flaccid. A few minutes later Cheryl remedied that malady and I declared my manhood. I was a novice but a fast learner. Of the now nine Jewish kids on campus, I was comforted by the belief that I was the only one getting laid. Then tragedy struck!

I was dating Cheryl on Wednesday and Saturday nights. One Monday evening I had exciting news to impart. I raced to her little apartment with a bottle of cheap wine, quietly used the key she had given me, and entered. Sounds emanated from her bedroom. I was certain she was struggling with someone and burst through the bedroom door to rescue her, only to find Cheryl and my philosophy professor deeply involved in hedonist studies.

I received an A in philosophy that semester.

The good news I had been in such a rush to tell Cheryl concerned reviews on a paper I had worked on for an English professor. As a research assistant, I was studying the effect of Charles Dickens' visit to the United States in 1842 on his future work as editor of the British newspaper,
The Daily News
. During that trip Dickens had become bitterly opposed to slavery and shifted the direction of the newspaper after he returned to England. That was well-known, but little had been written about the effect of the American trip on Dickens' later work. My observations were not totally new, but offered my professor an exhaustive review of the topic. The academic accolades got him tenure and he wrote me a glowing recommendation for NYU's graduate program. A few months later, I met Nora.

I was jarred from my musing about Collingwirth when a man of about forty came out of the mansion that had replaced the Shackelford farmhouse and walked briskly toward me. I exited the car. Once he saw my age, he dropped his aggressive posture.

“Can I help you?”

I laughed. “Not unless you can tell me where Rosemary Shackelford lives.”

It was obvious from the look he gave me that he found this a little strange. I quickly made an effort to remedy the problem. “I'm revisiting places I lived as a child, and the love of my juvenile life lived where your house now stands. The family name was Shackelford.”

The man smiled. “Carry a torch a long while, don't you?”

We both laughed. I recognized his accent. “Have you lived here long enough to trade in your Red Sox tickets for field-level Cincinnati Reds?”

The man shook his head. “I plan to have my ashes scattered in Fenway's outfield. We've lived here three years and I don't know any of my neighbors.” He smiled and started to turn away, then turned back toward me. “Sorry I can't help you with Miss Shackelford, but I'm sure you'll meet another girl soon. Have a nice day, sir,” and he walked toward his house.

I backed out of the driveway thinking about Rosemary. I wondered if she was still alive. If she had children. If her life was happy with the man she had chosen. The words of my undergraduate psychology professor ran through my mind: “You never forget your first love.” Apparently, he was right.

What was I going to do today? I had no idea, but then it didn't make any difference. I was retired. An abandoned derelict floating on an irrelevant sea. I decided to go back to my hotel and spend the day soaking in the swimming pool.

As I started driving, I looked to my left toward the ridge where our tobacco barn had set. I found myself upset by its absence and felt an urge to explore where it had stood. I parked at the fractured old gate, then walked to the top of the ridge and followed the creek toward the volcano hill. When I was abreast of “our house,” I began my search. The bluegrass was so tall that what I felt with my feet was as important as what I saw. I wandered in circles until I tripped over the remnants of a ventilator panel, one of many such planks that could “open the barn up” to the air. This would aid in curing the tobacco after it had been harvested. When rain threatened, of course, it could be closed. It was obvious to me where I stood. In 1946, I would have been standing in (or beside) the tobacco barn. I searched, but found no further remnants.