Heading Out to Wonderful (29 page)

They had pork chops for lunch, fried in a black cast-iron skillet. Ned joined them, hungover, looking like he couldn’t find his way to the door even if you left it open. Alma tried not to let her sadness show, the loss of respect, the anger she felt in her heart toward this man who had brought her own, her only boy, back from the dead in what she still believed was a miracle. The men ate well. She ate little.

“Sam? You ready to go see the cows?” Charlie turned to him.

“Will?” asked Alma, looking at her husband. They had talked, hadn’t they?

“Oh, let the boy go, Alma. It’s a beautiful cold day, he could use the fresh air, now that he’s cooped up all morning at school.”

Alma rushed back to her classes, the dishes still in the sink, where, by nightfall, they would bring such a rush of tears to her eyes that she would have to grab the counter to stop herself from falling.

By nightfall, she could only think of all the things she had meant to say, about forgiveness, about her gratitude that the life of her boy would continue, the continuance making everything else possible, almost all else bearable, except this, her own neglect. By nightfall, she could only wonder, staring at the dishes, trying to think of how people were to be fed, how they were to go on, one supper after the next. She could only think, There are no fires of hell. There is only mercy.

But that was later. After lunch, Ned walked back home to read his mysteries and replace a rotted board on the back porch, and Will went back to the shop to wait for the customers who never came, whittling the afternoon away, talking to other shop owners, knowing he’d close up the shop at three thirty to join Alma for services for the dead boys.

Charlie gathered his knives from the shop, Sam got the baseball glove he took everywhere now, except to school, where it was not allowed. Then Charlie hoisted the boy into the cab of the truck, and waited for Jackie to jump into the front seat. They drove out of town about one thirty, listening to the radio.

“Beebo, why are there flags everywhere?”

“Something bad happened on this day, Sam.”

“What happened?”

How to explain the awfulness of that cataclysm, that grinding of metal under bomb, those men sitting there like ducks in a pond, the bombers coming out of nowhere and raining fire? How to explain the death toll, the mothers and fathers bereft, the president on the radio? How to explain the size of it to a six-year-old boy?

“It was in the war, before you were born. Some planes came and dropped bombs and a lot of people died.”

Suddenly, their favorite song came on the radio, and its magic lightened their hearts, and Charlie and Sam laughed and sang along with the Count Basie Orchestra.

Did you see Jackie Robinson hit that ball?


It went zoomin cross the left field wall.

Yeah boy, yes, yes. Jackie hit that ball.

Young again, young and free and completely at ease, Charlie sang at the top of his lungs, and pulled on his Lucky Strike and threw the butt out the window, but the sparks were invisible in the bright rushing sun.

Yes, yes, yes. . . Jackie’s a real gone guy.

The song ended as they passed her house, as they always did, except this time she was standing on the porch, and this time Charlie did look up and over, and he saw her, a simple girl on a plain, whitewashed porch, his girl once. No, this time he saw her clearly, not a movie starlet anymore, those days were gone and would not return, but he saw her as she was, as God had made her, and he saw also his fields and his houses, the house in the woods, and he wanted her beyond belief. He drove on with only the slightest hesitation, the tiniest slowing of the black truck. He tousled the boy’s hair, sang, “Yes, yes, yes, Jackie’s a real gone guy,” even though some other song had come on the radio, and it seemed as though they had never done more than look, had not stopped that first time on the road, then driven through the gate and hidden the truck behind the house.

CHARLIE SEEMED SUDDENLY FREE
at last, as though the charges had finally been dismissed just this minute. He was free of guilt, free of property, and he laughed with the boy and talked about exactly how long it was until spring training, and what Sam supposed the real Jackie Robinson was doing right that very minute, up there in Connecticut where he lived. Playing with his kids, Sam guessed. Taking a nap, as Sam had to do, still, every day except Wednesday, when he went to the slaughterhouse with Charlie. On those days he had to go to bed early to make up for it, even though he stayed awake, as he always did now, until the whole street was asleep and dark, in case he missed anything, in case somebody decided to creep into the house and murder his whole family, his mother and father, whom he guarded fiercely in the dark.

THE SLAUGHTERING WENT QUICKLY.
Sam waited outside with Jackie, messing around. There weren’t flies, this time of year, not much for Jackie to chase, so Sam and Jackie played ball, the thud of the ball in his glove, the racing of the dog and the return of the ball, all slimed up, until the palm of his mitt was dark with the dog’s spit; Charlie inside, cutting, carving, doing his work, during which he didn’t like to be interrupted, couldn’t play catch with a boy.

DONE AND WASHED, THE
sides of beef hanging in the coolers, the back of the truck filled with steaks and chops and rumps and legs, covered with a clean white cloth, Charlie came out, his sharpest knife in its leather case hanging from his belt, and he looked at the boy, and he looked like a boy himself again, fresh and ready and rested, and he and Sam threw the ball back and forth while Jackie raced in and out of their legs, trying to steal it. Charlie caught the ball, and jumped and spun in the air like a shortstop, magic in the fluidity and grace of his motion, and threw gently, more gently than his arm motion would suggest, and landed the ball smack in Sam’s glove.

“Out! Out at first!” Sam yelled, and threw the ball over his head, so high he could barely see it, and felt the wonder as Charlie ran forward and caught the falling ball, catching Sam up in his arms at the same time, swinging him around, racing for home, a graceful, continuing motion that landed Sam in the truck, the ball in his mitt in his lap, and Jackie beside him, the truck gunning to life, a Lucky lit, the radio back on, country songs now, the high twang of the mountains, the lonely fiddle and chattering banjo.

On the road, Charlie drove faster than ever, until they rounded the corner and there was her house, and she was still on the porch, and even Sam could tell from her face that she was sad, like her dog had just been run over. A flowered housecoat was open at the knees, her feet bare even in December, barely twenty-one years old and alone in her grief, but Charlie drove on past, looking, swiveling his head, drove about fifty yards past the house, then slammed on the brakes, throwing the boy and the dog against the dash, the ball rolling onto the floor. He stopped and backed up as fast as he had gone by, and then he just sat and the two of them, Charlie and Sylvan, just stared at each other for a minute.

Then Charlie threw his Lucky Strike out the open window, and turned to Sam. “I’ll be back in a minute. There’s something I have to do. Be a good boy, Sam. Take care of Jackie.” He touched the boy on the head, and looked in his eyes, and kissed him for only the second time, this time on his head. He tousled the boy’s hair and then he was out of the truck and through the gate and up the hill, roaring her name, walking fast, head down. He had one hand up, but Sam couldn’t tell whether he was waving hello to the woman whose name he called out or good-bye to him. Charlie and Sylvan met, and stood staring at each other without a word, then she abruptly turned and he followed her into the house.

On the radio, Doc Watson was singing, “Go with me little Omie, and away we will go, we’ll go and get married and no one will know.” Then Sam heard the first noise, her scream, the first of seven that afternoon, and he got out of the truck, Jackie at his heels, and he ran up to the yard, and stood in front of the house, and listened, trying to tell where the noises came from, first downstairs, then upstairs. They were terrible noises, Charlie bellowing, Sylvan’s screams punctuating the roar, the clatter of breaking dishes and chairs, everything upside down.

Hadn’t they been singing just a minute before, Charlie and Sam? Hadn’t Charlie swiveled in the air like a boy, and kissed him on his head where his hair still felt warm?

These were not the noises they usually made. Sam was frightened, and thought of climbing the porch steps and looking through the window, but he was too afraid. Whatever was happening was only between the two of them, and he didn’t want to see it, was frightened to know what it was.

They were in the attic now, he could tell from the noise, and everything was ripping and turning over and breaking. And then it was quiet for about ten minutes, not a sound, then back down the stairs with more noise, and Sam backed away, backed away from what he knew was coming toward him, seeking air, a witness, and he didn’t want to be a witness, didn’t want to know what had been happening. He usually did, he usually did want to know what happened, to know what things meant, their secret reason for being, but this thing he wanted to back away from and not have the knowing, not have the memory that would be in his head forever. Then there was another long period of silence, another ten, fifteen minutes, no sound except Charlie barking short, blunt orders, and those were even more frightening.

But it started again, the screams, her name bellowed, the name Charlie hadn’t said once since that day, not even spoken to her except that once, in court, and that so low that it couldn’t be heard—but it was, by the twins, they heard and they told.

Then Sylvan came out of the door, and Sam knew what it was.

Sylvan came out of the door, and across her chest like a constellation of red stars were seven stab wounds, blood everywhere, seeping and spurting, a savage show of blood across the gaudy flowers of her country housedress and then she fell dead, her last scream ending in a lowing, keening sigh that came only at the end, as she fell on her face, down the steps, sliding, bouncing until she lay dead, half on the steps, her face in the yard, the blood flowing downhill to drip from the stairs and pool in the yard around her face, Charlie following after, the knife in one hand, bloodied, in the other a manila envelope, also crimson, everything red and slick with blood.

Charlie stepped over Sylvan’s body, looking down, seeing what he had done, making Sam afraid for a minute that he was going to bend over and carve her up. But he straightened and howled one last time, a howl of grief at the ending of things, of everything, then he just looked and walked to where Sam stood, crying now. “Beebo. Beebo,” the boy said, almost in a whisper, a pleading for it to stop, for it not to have happened, because he understood what had happened, didn’t even have to be grown to be familiar with the sharp steel smell of dying.

Charlie stood above the boy, the boy he had brought back from the dead, and he dropped the envelope on the ground and reached out to place his hand on the boy’s head.

His hand is covered with blood, and now there is blood in the boy’s hair as well, and there are scratches on Charlie’s face, and there is fear in Charlie’s eyes, the fear of the animal in the second before the trigger is pulled, before the buckling of the knees, the toppling, the meat of his beautiful body going rotten with the fear, but in Charlie’s eyes, it is not there for a second, it is there for an eternity, bright, his eyes filmed with blood and tears as he looks out of the vast sea of blood and regret into which he has launched himself, and the envelope lies on the ground, and the knife in Charlie’s hand is slick with blood, the crimson sheen on steel. Charlie touches the boy’s face, and hair, and speaks in a voice that he has used once before, in the courtroom where he pleaded for mercy from a woman who had betrayed him, and he speaks and he says, “Remember this, Sam. Remember. Take up that envelope and don’t lose it ever. It’s yours. It’s what I’m giving to you for your birthday every year for years and years. Try to be a good boy. Please don’t forget me,” as though Sam would or ever could anyway. And then Charlie lifts his head and he looks at the late afternoon sky, and now it’s time for services for the dead war dead in town, and the bells start to toll, one bell for each soul lost, and Charlie puts his hand beneath his own chin and stretches his neck back and takes the knife and slits his throat cleanly and deftly and deeply from ear to ear, and the bells are tolling and the radio in the truck is still playing, “Go down go down you Knoxville girl with the dark and roving eye,” and the bells are ringing and the bombs eight years before are raining down again on the innocent boys and his mother and father are kneeling on the bench now, far away, not here to tell him what to do, far away in prayer but, if he had known, both thinking of him, of their own child engulfed in Japanese flames, and Charlie falls almost immediately, his head just barely still attached to his neck, and he falls on the boy, the weight and smell of him, the blood, the laundry soap of his shirt, sprayed now with the blood from his neck, the boy sprayed, too, and trapped under the weight of Charlie’s body and the gush of his blood, until he can wiggle free, until he can stand, Jackie already nosing in the blood of the man who had fed him all those mornings and evenings, Jackie skittish, knowing something is wrong, and looking to the boy for guidance, for a command, and then the boy says, “Get, Jackie,” screams it, “Get. Away!” and Jackie backs off, looking up at Sam with those eyes, those eyes that say what, What is happening, what am I to do?