This Rock (6 page)

I blowed the gray grime off the whetrock and slipped it back into my pocket.

“Oof,”
the pig said, snuffling up against the planks of the pen.
“Oof oof.”
The pig was always lively early in the morning. As the day got hotter it would find a spot in the corner and take a long nap. But now it turned quick as a cat, slamming the side of the pen, hoping I'd come with a bucket of slop to pour down the chute.

The pigpen smelled sour. Not just the sour of manure, but of festering summer mud. It was the sour of cobs rotting in the muck, of milk spilled from slop gone rancid. It was the sour of cabbage rotting and old dishwater. It was the sour of old juices standing in hoof pools and turning to ferment. The mud of the pen was deep and black. It was a grease of shit and bone jelly, of silt and fetid creams. Cobs stunk, and stalks of weeds pickled in the slime. Every day I throwed in armloads of fresh weeds for the hog, and the weeds soaked in the ooze. The trembling batter of the pen seeped out through cracks and glittered in the sun. The mud was deeper than the thickest pillow. Great curds and turds of mud got churned up by the hog's hooves. Flies hung in a glistening veil over the grumbling hog. The air around the pen was a rainbow of stinks and fetors, poots and belches of rotten breath.

The dirt at the lower end of the pen was where I dug for fishing worms in the spring. In the black mealy compost there was twenty worms in every shovelful, orange worms and purple worms threaded like screws. There was wigglers whipping in frenzy like raw nerves and long night crawlers that glistened like snakes, worms with swole bands and blister rings, worms that flattened at the edges. You could
dig a canful of worms there in a minute. Tangled together, the worms moistened theirselves with foam and suds and spit of slime.

The muck and musk of the hogpen growed the biggest weeds around the place. Stalks of corn volunteered from seeds in the manure. And sometimes pumpkins and tomatoes growed there too. But it was just plain weeds, ragweed and hogweed, plantains and iron-weed, for the most part. Biggest of all was the pokeweed that by late summer reached its purple stalks eight or ten or even twelve feet high. But pokeweed didn't like the richest ground. It thrived along the edges of the spill from the hogpen, in the red clay and leached-out dirt of the old strawberry bed.

I swung the scythe by the path and sliced canes of johnsongrass that dropped like little wheat to the ground. All grass grows jointed canes if left to mature and go to seed. I swept the blade over the ground, cutting everything off at about two inches. The cut stalks and leaves fell where they had growed. This is the way to put the earth in order, I thought. The blade hissed as it swung into the biggest weeds.

Weeds grow on stalks like little towers. Weeds have tubes and wires and shafts in their spines. Weeds have suction lines and veins going up and down inside, pulling juice from roots up to leaf tips. I swung the blade like I was pulling a big crooked oar. There was a rhythm I got into mowing, but it took a while to find it in the morning. Some days I never found the rhythm at all and kept speeding up and slowing down, swinging the blade farther out and closer in.

Ragweed has limbs that grow out of the main stalks like shelves. The limbs was braced and held by brackets. The limbs was kept stiff by the juice inside until the stems hardened. Weeds growed and filled out theirselves in the hot sun. But later in the day everything would wilt a little and go limp at the tips. Leaves that was crisp as new dollar bills in the morning dew would go rubbery and curl at the edges and crumble like spilled dried ink.

The big weeds reached out their limbs like they was resisting me. The weeds growed closer together than an army, their leaves overlapping like shields. The arms waved me back but I advanced a step and a swing at a time, and the weeds fell backward like they was pulled from beneath. This is the way to make weed fodder, I thought.

I didn't think about how broke I was, and I didn't think about what I was going to do in the fall. I didn't think about how I'd made a fool of myself trying to preach. I didn't think how silly I looked, and how all my plans had fell through. I didn't think how Annie ignored me sometimes and flirted with other boys, and made me so mad I felt crazy.

Already I could smell my sweat and the scent of chemicals raising from the cut weeds. The bleeding stalks smelled like perfumes and spices. Fumes rose from the wet leaves like somebody had spilled varnish or paint thinner. It was intoxicating to smell the vapors rising from the felled ragweed and nettles. There was a bunch of chemical smells, of oils and saps and nectars. The scents made me a little dizzy. The air was lit with clear smoke and herbal fogs. There was a dozen different vapors in the air.

Along with the smells there was grasshoppers and beetles boiling up where I swept the blade. There was dust and bits of thistle, seeds and ripped leaves flying where the weed stalks leaned backward and fell. The air was filled with moths that had been sleeping under the leaves, little white and lavender butterflies stirred up by the mowing. Spiderwebs between stalks got tore and spiders jumped out of my way or scurried along the ground between cut stalks. There was spiders along every inch of ground under the weeds, big spiders and little, black spiders and yellow spiders, garden spiders and furry spiders. There was spiders that looked like black pearls. Some resembled boats running on their oars.

Hoppers and leaf mites shook loose from the disturbed weeds and boiled up like dust. Every stalk seemed to have a meal of white and yellow lice on it if you looked close. I swept the blade close to the ground, moving ahead in half circles with every sweep. I wanted the ground to look like it had been mowed with a razor.

The handles jolted almost out of my hands and the blade rung like a sword. I'd hit a rock the size of a grapefruit and seen the white cut the blade made on the weathered rock. Weeds had mashed green stains on the rock. It was a rock I'd mowed into before. I leaned over and picked up the rock and throwed it against the side of the hogpen. The pig snorted and lunged from one side of the pen to the other.

I will not be stopped, I said to myself. I will not be stopped from
building something grand. I will not be stopped from serving the Lord in my own way. Where there is not a way I will make a way. I will not be trapped on Green River. A life without a mission has no meaning. I was drunk with sweat, and I was inspired by my labor.

I raised the blade and inspected the edge in the sunlight. The metal was stained green, and leaves and pieces of stalks stuck to the wet steel. All the brightness was covered with weed juice. There was a nick in the edge where the rock had bit a gap in the sharpness. I took the whetrock and begun to sharpen the blade all over again. I couldn't whet out the nick, but I could sharpen around it. The rock had damaged a perfect blade. A few more nicks like that and the blade would be useless. The rock had stood in my way like Moody stood in my way and like my own foolishness stood in my way. The lack of money stood in the way of my going away from Green River. I sharpened the blade like I was punishing steel. The steel felt soft and fat under the grained stone. I rasped the sides until the blade sparkled. I sharpened the nick until it was thin as a razor.

My fury made the sunlight brighter and the weeds more vivid. I could see every weed stalk; every leaf and stick of trash stood out. I seen every separate fly over the hogpen and the silvery grain of the weathered boards. I seen the chalky white butterflies whispering away and grasshoppers clicking and flinging theirselves from weed to weed like giant fleas. My anger made the air shine, and I felt the heat coming up from the weeds and moist ground. The steams and vapors from the ground rose into my face. The weeds had molten gold in their veins that burned my skin.

The big weeds was like everything else that stood in my way. I launched into the stalks, swinging harder and faster. I meant to quell the whole bank of weeds. I meant to quell the whole field. The weeds rose up at me and mocked me and resisted me. The weeds was stampeding into their lushness. The weeds rose in waves higher and higher, about to wash over and bury me in a great flood that would drown every path and clearing, every field and road. Weeds tossed out arms and vines of morning glories caught on bushes and trees. Briars raked everything that passed, catching rabbit fur and fox fur. Big canes of blackberry briars shot up like fountains, crawling with chiggers, and swirled around in bins, washing away in currents over the other weeds.

I'll churn things up and make them alive, I thought.

A foam and a froth of flowers, a swirl of petals and pollen, honeydew and honeybees, tangles and locked arms, tied the vegetation in knots and caught the blade in wads and clots of fiber. I swung the blade harder and harder, cutting weed stalks big as sticks and juicy saplings. I cut skunk cabbage and catbriars and little thorn trees that had volunteered. I cut pine seedlings and mowed rank on rank of hogweed and queen of the meadow. The weeds was taller than I was. I was mowing in their shadow. I felt like a swordsman fighting a whole army. I slashed and slashed with my blade wider than a cavalry saber. I swung farther and deeper into the advancing line.

Something hit me on the cheek hard as a bullet. I turned and seen it was a hornet. Another come at me and I ducked. And then I seen the nest stuck like a loaf of gray paper between two big weed stalks. The paper was crumpled and looked like a brain ripped open. I swung the blade and cut the nest in two. And then I raised the scythe and slammed the end down, crushing the nest like a paper melon. Another hornet drove a spike into my forehead. I seen the nest was filled with hornets and grubs, like a pod full of seeds. I turned and jumped away, pulling the mowing blade after me.

When I turned to look back, hornets was boiling up around the broke nest. They rose in a black fizz, and the pig squealed like it had been stung, and lunged against the side of the pen. The nest was hard to see because it was right at the edge of the wall of weeds where I had stopped mowing. I hurried to the shed beside the corncrib and got a tin can of coal oil from a jug of lamp fuel. Then I checked my pocket to make sure I had matches. The scent of kerosene was like smelling salts in the hot air. Go careful, I said to myself. Go slow because you are stung and riled up. A hornet shot past my cheek as I tossed the kerosene on the paper of the nest.

Standing far back as I could, I struck a match and tossed it. But soon as the match hit the weeds it went out. I lit another one and pitched it slower. This time the flame flickered and started to spread across the stubble. With a whoosh the fire climbed up into the biggest piece of the nest.

The flame leapt higher into the uncut weeds, but in the bright sunlight
I couldn't hardly see it. Smoke filled the pulsing air. And along with the hum and roar of the hornets I heard a crackling. At first I thought it was the weed stalks popping, or the joints of the stalks. But there was a crack, and I seen a hornet circle in the flame and fall away. There was a snap, and a hiss like a drop of grease hitting a hot pan. The hornets raged faster and more frantic. They was so angry they wouldn't leave the ruins of the nest. They flung at the fire and attacked the flames. As they touched the fire they busted like popcorn.
Splat!
And
ssss!
I wished I had another can of fuel to throw and burn them up.

But I was quick ashamed of myself. That is what anger will get you into, I said. Anger will destroy, or make you destroy. Anger will make you roar and crack open like the nest of hornets. Anger will turn you into a fool.

The fire smoldered out in the green weeds as soon as the kerosene was burned up.

I backed away and took up the mowing blade and whetrock that was so hot in the sun they almost burned my hands. It was late morning and I had maybe half an acre to mow before dinnertime. Below the hogpen there was big weeds crowding along the edge of the cornfield all the way to the river. Most of the weeds appeared to be in flower, reaching out to show their blossoms to the sun. I put the whetrock in my pocket and turned backward, facing the hogpen. I mowed backward like somebody rowing.

I felt I was swimming in sweat. The sweat flowed over me, trickling and licking. The sweat was carrying all the poisons and anger out of me. The sweat was washing me from the inside. Sweat was a baptism from within, bleeding out the fester of rage. The sweat was cleansing me of the resentment for all that stood in my way.

I was soaked in sweat by the time I reached the end of the field and quit for dinner. I felt wrapped in sweat as I walked to the house. I was so wet, I thought I might go swimming. But I knowed that was a bad idea, to plunge into the river when you was red-hot. Instead, I stopped by the springhouse and dashed water on my face and arms and on the back of my neck. That cooled me off some, and I listened to water from the pipe murmur like it was quoting Scripture.

Ginny

T
HE FIRST TIME
I knowed Moody was in the liquor business was when he was about sixteen. Tom had never had nothing to do with liquor, and Papa had only took a drink from time to time when he felt peaked. I liked to take a dram myself to settle my nerves but never had done no drinking in front of the younguns.

Moody kept going down to U. G.'s store in the afternoon instead of working on the place, and he come back later and later. Sometimes he come back after the rest of us was in bed. And in the morning he'd look washed out, like he had worked all night instead of sleeping.

“Moody, why do you lay out so late?” I said to him.

“Coon hunting with Wheeler,” he said.

Back then, it was true that him and his friends Drayton and Wheeler used to hunt coons on moonlit nights. Wheeler had some old coonhounds that roamed around the mountains half the night while the boys set by a fire and listened. And they sometimes cooked a chicken they had stole from somebody's henhouse.

“You can't be coon hunting every night,” I said. Moody looked so wore out and acted so irritable I was afraid he was sick. He was always skinny but had fell off a few pounds too.