New Novel Chapter Nine

   MEMORIES

AND OTHER AFFLICTIONS

 

The Life and Times of William Nathan McCaskill

 

A Novel by Chris Sherrill

Copyright 2012 by Chris Sherrill

 

BOOK ONE

 

BRUCE AND CRAZY JANE

 

CHAPTER NINE

 

 

 

        Jane’s story was like a briar in my mind and the only way to get it out was to get to the bottom of it. Was it possible that Cyrus McGilroy was a double murderer? It’s easy to believe negative things about someone you already feel negatively about. Jane’s words had carried conviction, but how much confidence could you put in the words of someone who got her information from voices in her head?

            “Dad, tell me about Crazy Jane’s mama and daddy.”
            We were splitting wood. He leaned on the maul and looked at me critically.
            “Why do you want to know about Jane’s family?”
            “Homer and Horace heard some stuff about her killing her daddy and mama.”
            He released a little snort of a laugh.
            “Rumors about her and her family crop up every so often, then they die down.”
            I waited patiently for more, but there was no more.
            “Is there anything to any of the rumors?”
            “Not so far as I can tell.”
            He was silent. We split wood for several minutes.
            “How old was she when her father left?”
            He looked at me closely. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
            I shrugged.
            “Jane was just a baby when her daddy left.”
            “Did you know him?”
            He nodded and seemed to let go of something.
            “It was said that Sam Good was a rounder, walking all over the countryside to visit his far-flung lady friends. It leaked out through a white acquaintance that on one of his excursions, Sam had found a gold nugget in a stream. Since this region was the location of the first American gold rush in the early 1800s, a lot of people took it seriously and the thing began to grow.
            “I went to one meeting to hear what Sam had to say. He struck me as an honest man. He was well spoken for a colored man, and he spoke with a controlled excitement that made him persuasive. He was tapping into that deep well of human greed and a lot of people, white and colored, put up money to buy the land and equipment for a mining operation. He insisted that he wouldn’t tell where he found the nugget unless coloreds were allowed to invest in the enterprise, which made him that much more believable.
            “A lot of folk started putting up money, and some of the more knowledgeable men started working on setting up a stock company. Nobody wanted outsiders to get wind of what was going on and buy the land out from under them so while the legalities were being worked out, it was decided that instead of putting the money in the bank, Tom Tilton would hold it.”
            “Tom Tilton?”
            Dad nodded. “Tom was an honest, God-fearing man, one of the most respected men in the county, which was why he was elected eighteen times as the State Representative from this district. Tom held the money and kept a log book of everyone’s contribution. Sam went by Tom’s one night, assaulted him, stole the money and took off for parts unknown.”
            I stood there with my mouth open.
            “Someone found Tom wandering around in his back yard the next morning. He was dazed, bruised, blood all over his shirt, scratches all over his arms and face; said Sam had attacked him in the house, chased him out into the woods and beat him until he told where the money was hidden. Even though it wasn’t Tom’s fault, he was ruined by it. About a year later he was getting ready to move to Florida when he had a heart attack and died.”
            “Was there really gold?”
            Dad pursed his lips. “Sam carried his ‘proof’ around in an old, heart-shaped locket with a little photo of a colored gal he said was his mama. It was a little rough stone not much bigger than a mustard seed that had a yellow glint. He’d let you look but not touch. It could’ve been gold. My guess is the locket was the only thing worth anything.”
            “How much money was raised?”
            “I heard different figures, but I guess it might have been ten, twelve thousand dollars.”
            “Wow!”
            “Yeah. That’s a lot of money.”
            “Who was the white acquaintance?”
            Dad studied me briefly. “Cyrus McGilroy. I’m sure he was just taken in by Sam like everyone else, but it ruined him, too, in the community.”
            “Did you put up any money?”
            He laughed dryly. “Ten dollars and fifty cents, all the cash money we had at the time. Your mama was dead set against it and after Sam absconded with it, it was a source of friction between us for a number of years. I’d just as soon you didn’t talk about this in her hearing.”
            “Yes, sir.”
            Dad handed me the axe and I split for a few minutes.
            “Where is Tom Tilton’s land?”
            “Let me guess what you’re thinking. Sam didn’t rob Tom. Tom got rid of Sam, buried Sam and the money somewhere on the property and died before he could retire with it to Florida. That was one of the theories at the time; you heard it mostly from Republicans who would’ve done anything to defeat Tom in a general election. Lots of people have dug on Tom’s land over the years. All they got for it was dirt.”
            I shrugged and grinned.
            “Tom never married and soon after his death his heirs sold the land to a timber company who clear cut it and planted it in pines, 200 acres of pines.”
            He was trying to discourage me. I just nodded and held his eyes.
            “It’s about six miles west of here on highway 65, past the Antioch community. Go north on 65. I hear there’s a new diner out there; it would be another mile past that, on the left.”
            “Thanks, dad.”
            “If you’re going to play the fool with this, don’t mention it to your mother.”
            “No, sir.”

---*---

            I let the story play around in my head for a few days. I knew dad was right; he was almost always right, but I had to go by the Tilton place. I’m like a dog with a bone, except sometimes I don’t know if I’m the dog or the bone.

            Two hundred acres is a lot of land, so I enlisted Homer and Horace. What fifteen year old boy could pass up the chance to look for buried treasure and a body in an abandoned well? Homer even proposed that the stream with the gold might be on Tom Tilton’s land. He generally stretched everything beyond its breaking point. One Saturday afternoon we jumped on our bikes and rode over.
            We spent the entire afternoon walking the land. The house and barn had begun to show definite signs of impending collapse so we avoided them. We fanned out, twenty yards between us, and began through the pines. There were lots and lots of pine trees, lots and lots of pine trees. The timber company had thinned them a few years before so the walking wasn’t difficult but it was monotonous: pines and not much else. Oh, there were a few little streams here and there where you’d find a few hardwood trees, and there were a few blackberry thickets, but mostly it was pine trees. We didn’t find anything that looked like an abandoned well.
            The twins were discouraged. I was, too, honestly. I let the idea slip into the back of my mind. It wasn’t hard. The weather didn’t cooperate and I had school and a girl friend. In the afternoons I had basketball, then baseball in the spring and always chores and occasional sparing with Bob Smith. Gwen got her driver’s license and took me to school socials. She even let me double date when she was dating someone for the first time or wasn’t really interested in the boy. When summer came, I got a job with Garvin Williams, a big time truck farmer up near the city of Overton. It required long days and hard work, but he paid well and by the end of the summer I was overseeing a small part of his operation. It was easy to let the buried treasure get buried in my own mind. I did sneak by to see Jane a few times. Each time she seemed more and more distant. I never mentioned going to Tom Tilton’s place. Maybe I should have.
            Years sweep by in short paragraphs.
            In September I returned to school, turned sixteen and got my driver’s license. I’d saved my money from the summer job because I had to buy most of my own school clothes, but I had enough left over to buy a 1938 Dodge. I’m a sucker for a deal, or just a sucker. It needed ever so much work, but I took on the challenge. When it was running, I drove that thing all over creation.
            In October, which seems to me a fatal month, I came home from school to find dad waiting for me in the yard. His demeanor was unpromising.
            “I’ve got sad news for you, Billy. Young Bob Smith is dead.”
            “Bob? How?”
            “Word is, Big Bob was drunk and took his stick to his missus and when young Bob stepped in, he used it on him. Cracked his scull. He was in the hospital for a day before he died.”
            I couldn’t believe it. Bob and I had never become bosom buddies, but we had come to respect each other. To the world, Bob was a bully, but I’d seen that he was just a guy, something he hid from the world. Dad went with me to Bob’s funeral. There were so few people there that dad and I were asked to help as pall bearers. Bob’s mama, her face bruised, sat like an oak, a hollow-eyed, lifeless oak with not even one more tear to shed, even for her only child. An empty sadness came over me. Dad respected my silence. We were back home before I spoke.
            “Was Big Bob mean because he was poor, or was he poor because he was mean?”
            “I don’t know just how those things go together, son. Poverty has a way of etching itself into the grain of families. Making no effort to escape it only etches it deeper. The only way to polish it out is for generations to try and fail until a generation loses its memory of the blight and can free itself from poverty’s fist.”

---*---

            When I went by after Christmas, Jane was more upbeat than I’d seen her in some time. When I showed her the tangerines, she laughed and hugged me. She’d made cookies hoping I’d come by. We had a wonderful visit. She didn’t mention the voices once. We laughed and kidded like brother and sister. I stayed for a long time and was sad when I had to leave. She didn’t want me to leave, either, and kept asking questions about basketball and school and my girlfriend. Finally I was at the door.

            “You a good friend, Billy McCaskill,” she said.
            “I like being your friend.”
            She smiled wistfully and gave me a hug then pulled back and kissed me on the cheek.
            “I gotta say thank you for loving a crazy colored gal.”
            It felt wrong at first. But it was true.
            “I…I do love you, Jane.”
            She smiled brightly and took my cheeks in her hands.
            “I glad you never went with me to my bed, ‘cause I know when you come, you coming for me and not for what I give you.”
            I gave her a tight hug and a kiss on the head.
            I felt so good about Jane. It felt like she had reached some milestone in her life. It also spurred me to make another trek out to the Tilton place. It was an impulsive decision so I didn’t mention it to the twins. I drove out, of course. What teenage boy will take his bike when he has a car? Alone, the place felt creepy. The leaning old house seemed to stare at me grumpily. I was surprised and annoyed at myself for letting my imagination get to me. I walked parts of the pine forest that the twins and I hadn’t walked before, but I got the same result.

---*---

            Winter and spring followed their prescribed courses. Sally Murphy broke up with me to date an older boy with a job and a nicer car that usually ran, but who stepped into her position but Amy Gooden, the prettiest girl in school. I was still at the top of the social ladder.

            In May Garvin Williams called to see if I was ready to go work. It was time to plant. In late May I went by to see if I could help Jane with her early garden. She let me in but grudgingly. She seemed jumpy and kept eying me closely.
            “Don’t know as I be putting in a garden this year,” she said.
            “Why not?”
            “What the use? Ole Gil just come down and cut it all down, like he done last year.”
            I was at a loss. I’d not seen any evidence of that.
            “Why would he do that?” I asked.
            Her eyes pinched like she was trying to pick up some distant voice. She leaned close. “They saying he gonna kill Jane. Most all of ‘em saying that now.”
            “How many are there?”
            She looked at me blankly for a moment like I’d asked how many angels could dance on the head of a pin then her eyes got fearful. She leaned toward me and in a scared whisper said,
            “Legion.”
            I was a simple country boy. I’d barely heard of mental illness let alone had experience with it. Yes, Jane had said some strange things and done some unsettling things, like holding that butcher knife out of sight once before, but I liked her; I don’t know why, I just did. And for the most part I’d thought of her quirks simply as an interesting oddity, and frankly it had made me feel special to be the only friend of the local outcast. A part of me still fantasized about her supple body pressed against mine in a carnal embrace. I knew it could never be, but that didn’t prevent the fantasies. And I thought that as her friend I had some influence over her; I’d pulled her out of her sad moods before and helped her hear the music, but I suddenly realized that Jane was not an oddity and, more than that, she was far outside the pale of my puny opinion. She was deeply disturbed and needed help.
            How could I let anyone know she needed help without revealing that I’d spent time with her, alone? My mom would go through the roof. I struggled with it in my mind. Maybe she was just having one of her sad times. No, whatever it was, it wasn’t just a sad time. There was something else going on, something that needed to be addressed. I got dad alone.
            “Dad, I…I need your help.”
            He heard the tone and looked hard into my face.
            “What is it, son.”
            “It’s…it’s Jane. Dad, Jane needs help.”
            He just looked at me for the longest time. I answered his unspoken question.
            “I’ve been visiting Jane off and on for a couple of years.”
            His eyebrows went up.
            “Not like that, honest. We didn’t do anything but talk. She was just so sad and lonely and didn’t have any friends or family, so I’d go over once in awhile and we’d just talk.”
            “This is going to hurt your mama.”
            “Yes, sir, I know. I wasn’t going to say anything, but when I went by a few days ago she was just so scared.”
            “What’s she scared of, Billy?”
            “She hears voices in her head that tell her that people are out to hurt her. She’s certain that Mr. McGilroy is out to kill her. She’s terrified, dad. She’s terrified and has no one who cares about her or who can help her.”
            I don’t know why the tears began to burn my eyes. Dad, one hand on my arm, took me in.
            “I’m going to ask this one time, Billy, and I need an absolutely honest answer. Did you ever lay with that girl?”
            “No, sir.”
            He sighed deeply. “Okay. I think your mama will be able to deal with the disobedience. I don’t know how she would’ve dealt with that other.”
            “Is laying with a colored really a sin?”
            “I should’ve had this conversation with you a long time ago. Coloreds and whites have some different physical characteristics, but we share the same hopes and dreams. We’re all children of the same God, all washed by the blood of the same Jesus. The issue isn’t color. The issue is having and keeping your position in society. Your mama would be upset about you lying with any woman, white or colored, who was beneath you on the social ladder.”
            I was about to ask why social status was so important, but I didn’t; I already knew the answer, though I hadn’t known I knew it. All my life, I’d challenged those above me in the pecking order and looked down on those beneath me. I’d done it in response to some unspoken internal need to lift myself. Social status is important simply because it is.
            “Can someone do something for Jane?”
            “I’ll ask around,” he said. “She’s an adult and can’t be forced to take treatment she doesn’t want. Keep this under your hat until I can see if anything can be done for her.”

New Novel Chapter Eight

Here's the next chapter. Hope you enjoy.

 

MEMORIES

AND OTHER AFFLICTIONS

 A novel by Chris Sherrill

Copyright 2012 by Chris Sherrill

 

BOOK ONE

BRUCE AND CRAZY JANE

CHAPTER EIGHT

 

 

            It was a long time before I visited Jane again. Cyrus McGilroy’s threat to see my dad had a powerful effect, but there were other reasons, too. Homer, Horace and I spent time exploring and playing. We cut away the brush beside the pool down at the sawmill, making our own private swimming hole. Winter turned into spring and it was time to plant again. Basketball season ended and baseball season began. When there weren’t games there was practice. Bob Smith and I continued to spar. I’d learned all he had to teach so we boxed for the sport and the practice.

            When summer came, Jake got a job working for the town of Pinckney and Charlotte got a job in a bank there and rode with Jake in the 1944 Chevy he’d gotten. Dad got Gwen and me jobs at Tucker’s peach shed eight miles south of us. He drove us down each morning and picked us up each afternoon. The pickers went out at first light and by 9:30 the tractors were bringing in wagons piled high with bushel baskets of peaches. That’s when we had to be there. The girls culled the peaches, picking out the one that were badly formed or bruised. I worked loading the boxes onto waiting tractor-trailers that carried the peaches to cities in the north. Gwen made twenty-five cents an hour. I made thirty-five cents an hour and thought I had found the golden goose. We argued about the pay differential. I had the more physically demanding job. Besides boys believe they’re superior to girls. We can’t help it. I think it’s genetic. Males get criticized for it, but I’m sure females believe they’re superior, too.
            In the afternoons and on Saturdays we had our regular chores. Kids and adults gathered most weekends at the school ball field for pickup games, and I went when I could. I rode my bicycle every chance, with or without Homer and Horace who were helping their dad on the Hudson’s farm.
            I had a growth spurt over the spring and summer, grew five inches and got slimmer, not a lot slimmer; I was a hefty boy. I saw Jane from a distance, fishing at the lake and once at Demby’s, and saw Mr. McGilroy two or three times from a distance.
            First thing you know, Jake was packing to go back to college and Charlotte was preparing for her freshman year. Gwen and I started school again, and I turned fifteen. I went out for the football team and soon found that I liked football better than basketball or baseball because in football you’re supposed to be rough. And my first school romance blossomed. Sally Murphy, one of the cheerleaders, and I started hanging out together at school and sitting together on the bus on game days. Though I’d been driving vehicles as far back as I could remember, I was only fifteen and couldn’t drive legally, so those were our dates.
            A pretty woman elevates a man’s standing with other men. I had fought and hustled my way to a higher rank among my peers, but Sally Murphy on my arm lifted it even higher. I liked it. I liked Sally for herself, but I liked even more the effect she had on my rank.

---*---

            In early October, Rev. Stockton died of a heart attack. He’d been the minister at Ebenezer for twenty-seven years. Sudden unexpected deaths will stun a community. He’d barely been laid to rest when Gus Hudson died. He wasn’t but thirty-five. He’d been out bush-hogging, got off the tractor to check something and, well, nobody knew what happened. The tractor had surged forward, knocked him down and run over him. Miss Emma found him.

            Everything comes in threes.
            In the middle of October, Bruce got sick. He’d been sick off and on for most of his life, but he’d always bounced back. I guess he’d used up his last bounce. Day by day you could see him getting weaker and weaker, and one night he just eased away. Nearly to the end he kept that innocent smile.
            It tore a big piece out of my parents’ hearts. They called on that old stoic fortitude that had served them so well for so long, but it wasn’t there. Gwen and Charlotte tried to take over the household duties for mom, but she wouldn’t let herself be alone with her broken heart. Jake and I tried to take over some of dad’s chores. He would sit and stare out across the lake then sigh deeply and go back to work for awhile before he sat again and stared out across the lake.
            Bruce’s death hit me hard. I’m not sure why. I didn’t see it coming and it hit me like a battering ram. I was able to find some stoic fortitude for myself when others were around, but at night in my bed, I wept. Gwen heard me and came to my room. We held each other and cried.
            It was hard, really hard the day we laid Bruce to rest. As we made our way to the graveside, I looked around. Nearly the entire congregation was there as well as many other members of the community. Bob Smith was there. Elam Simpkins, a black man who sometimes helped on the farm, was on the periphery of the crowd with his wife. Several feet behind them was Crazy Jane.
            It takes an awful lot of time for a deep wound in your heart to heal, but you have to keep on. Jake and Charlotte went back to college. Gwen and I went back to school. I practiced football in the afternoons. About a month after Bruce’s death, the coach had something to attend to and football practice was cancelled. I rode past the church on my way home, stopped at the cemetery and sat on the ground beside my brother’s grave. I couldn’t help but cry. I felt so guilty about being ashamed and embarrassed by Bruce. I heard a car door close. I dried my tears and didn’t look around but heard footsteps as they came up behind me.
            “Hello, Billy.”
            “Hello, Miss Emma.”
            “I’m so sorry about Bruce.”
            “Yes, ma’am. Thank you. And I’m sorry about Mr. Gus.”
            “Thank you.”
            We were silent. I expected to hear Miss Emma walk away but didn’t.
            “I’d be obliged if you’d sit with an old lady for a little spell,” she said.
            “You’re not old, Miss Emma.”
            She smiled indulgently. I stood and we walked to a cement bench she’d had put beside Gus’ grave.
            “This is where I want to be laid when I’m gone,” she said, “right here where I put this bench. Will you remember that for me, Billy, in case I go suddenly and no one knows to get rid of this bench? Will you?”
            “I sure don’t want to be out of line, Miss Emma,” I said, “but you could marry again and have children. You’re a handsome woman.”
            She blushed and looked at the ground.
            “Thank you, Billy. That’s not out of line. A woman likes to feel attractive. Gus always made me feel like I was attractive. But I can’t have children, and I don’t know as I’ll be looking to get married again.”
            “I’m sorry, Miss Emma.”
            She bowed her head and brought a dainty handkerchief to her eyes. I wasn’t sure what to do, but I scooted over until our legs touched and put my arm around her shoulders. She leaned her head against me and cried briefly then she patted my leg and sat up. I moved my arm. She daubed the corners of her eyes.
            “I thought that particular well was dry,” she said, “and I certainly didn’t mean to impose on you, but I appreciate your kindness. There’s something comforting about physical contact with a…a kindred spirit.”
            I thought about holding Gwen and crying with her.
            “Yes, ma’am, there is.”
            We sat there quietly for another minute.
            “It doesn’t seem to make sense, does it?” she said.
            I thought to try to dodge that question, but I didn’t.
            “No, ma’am. I’ve been thinking how many things don’t make sense.”
            “You want to talk about it?”
            “No, ma’am.”
            She nodded. “I know you miss Bruce.”
            I looked away when my eyes moistened.
            “I was mean to him. I was embarrassed by him.”
            She put her arm around my shoulders.
            “Why couldn’t he have been normal, like other kids?”
            “He was always happy, always smiling, and that makes me think that he didn’t have to endure the conflicts you and I experience as life tugs us in contrary directions. Personally, I think that children like Bruce are God’s gift. While all the rest of us are fighting to find and keep our place in the world, there are these special children who love everyone for no reason except that they do. If they notice the wrongs we do them, they forgive them. I think God gives us children like Bruce to remind us that there is such a thing as unconditional love.”

---*---

            Holidays are particularly difficult after the death of a loved one. We tried to create a sense of normalcy during Thanksgiving and Christmas, but one of the voices in the song of our family was forever silent.

            I sneaked over to Jane’s after Christmas. I took her an orange and a tangerine. Fresh fruit, especially citrus fruit, in the wintertime was a treat back then, so there was always an orange in our stockings along with the nuts and hard candy. That year there had been three oranges and three tangerines for each of us.
            Jane was tentative, her eyes haunted, when she answered the door. She stood for a brief moment then opened the door for me.
            “Sorry I haven’t been by.”
            She just nodded. I sat and she sat opposite me, her left arm on the table and her right down beside her.
            “I brought these for you.”
            “What they is? I know that an orange. That an orange, too?”
            “It’s a tangerine. It’s like an orange, but sweeter. Try it.”
            She didn’t show much interest and didn’t take the fruit, so I started pealing it. She looked from my hands to my face.
            “You ‘bout all growed up,” she said wistfully.
            I halved the fruit and pulled a wedge off, handing it to her. She just looked at it.
            “You eat it first,” she said suspiciously.
            “I already know what it tastes like. This is for you.”
            “Ole Gil send you down here with that?”
            “Gil?”
            “He trying to poison Jane, you know. He ain’t sent you to poison Jane?”
            “Jane, I wouldn’t hurt you for anything. You’re my friend.”
            Her eyes showed a skirmish going on inside her. I didn’t understand it but I saw it. It frightened me and made me sad at the same time. I put the wedge in my mouth and chewed, spitting the seeds in my hand.
            “They’re real sweet, but they have a lot of seeds,” I said.
            The skirmish in her eyes continued. I held a wedge out to her. She just stared at it as if there was nothing else in the world. I was at a loss.
            “Jane…”
            I spoke softly, but her eyes snapped up to mine. She looked through me then focused on my eyes. She seemed afraid.
            “I don’t hear it no more. They so loud, I don’t hear the music no more.”
            “Who’s so loud?”
            “The voices. The voices so loud I can’t hear the music.”
            I stood up and went to her side.
            “Dance with me.”
            I held out my hand. She was indecisive.
            “You come to hurt me? That what they saying.”
            I had a chill.
            “No, Jane. I would never hurt you.”
            “It Billy, ain’t it?”
            “Yes, ma’am. Billy McCaskill.”
            “He a good boy. He dance with me.”
            I put my fingertips on her forearm.
            “You ain’t gonna hurt Jane?”
            “No. I want her to hear the music.”
            As she let me take her hand she brought her right arm up and set the butcher knife on the table. That gave me another chill. She stood and brought her body up close to mine and we began to sway. We swayed slowly for three or four minutes.
            “I hear it,” she whispered. “I hear the music.”
            I could tell that she was hearing the music; I could tell from the sway of her body. She put her head against my shoulder, her mouth near my neck.
            “Why you nice to Jane? Why you nice to a crazy colored gal?”
            “I like Jane. She helps me hear the music, and I like to hear the music.”
            We danced slowly for a long time, five minutes maybe.
            “Why they so loud, Billy?” she whispered. “Why them voices so loud?”
            “What do they say?”
            “Crazy things sometimes.”
            “They talk to you?”
            She hesitated then nodded. “Sometimes they talk to me. Sometimes they talk among they selves. They doing that now. They saying you gonna hurt Jane.”
            I shook my head slowly. I don’t know if I was more scared or sad. I turned my face slightly and gave her a little kiss on the ear. Jane’s hand went up and touched the spot.
            “You kiss a colored gal.”
            “I kissed my friend.”
            “They saying it a poison kiss.”
            “Jane…”
            “I don’t care.” She snuggled up against me. “You my friend, and I hear the music.”
            “Don’t listen to them. Listen to the music.”
            “They say ole Gil gonna kill me, sooner or later.”
            “If you’re afraid of him, why do you stay here? Why don’t you move?”
            She pulled back slightly. “Where I gonna go? I ain’t got nobody. Where I gonna go?”
            “I’m sorry.”
            She nestled up against me.
            “I couldn’t run away, even if I had somewhere to go. He done told everybody how crazy I be, how I done all manner of wicked things when I was a youngun. The Sheriff just pick me up and haul me back. Then I be sorry. I learnt that lesson.”
            “What do you mean?”
            “He had the Sheriff come take me to that mental hospital. He done it ‘cause I started screaming and hollering ever’ time he come to do his business with me. The more he slapped me around, the more I screamed and hollered. He finally got fed up and made my mama say it was her idea and swear to all sorts of lies. Then after my mama died, he come down and laid down the law, said he’d get me out but I had to do what he wanted, when he wanted it.”
            She looked up at me as if for understanding.
            “That hospital a horrible place. All the men be using Jane, so I come back. He don’t bother me much, just now ‘n again. I can grow my flowers and dance in the sunshine, and I’m glad I come back ‘cause I found a friend.”
            She nestled back against me and we swayed gently for another few minutes.
            “He kilt my mama,” she said softly.
            I stopped dead still. “What?”
            She tilted her head back, held my eyes and nodded. “They told me he done it.”
            That gave me the creeps. I didn’t know what to say. “Somebody ought to tell the Sheriff.”
            She smiled indulgently.
            “You? Or me?
            She laughed humorlessly.
            “Can’t nobody do nothing. For certain can’t no young white boy nor some crazy nigger whore do nothing.”
            Could nothing be done?
            “Long as I remember, ole Gil been coming down here. He used my mama and when I got big enough, used me, too. Got me in the family way and sent me off to have the baby. Made up some lie I’d run off to whore with some rambunctious crowd. I was in the mental hospital with a belly full of youngun. After the baby born, they give it away and a doctor fix me so I couldn’t have no more babies.
            “That’s terrible.”
            “They still a lot of doctors fix poor colored women like that.”
            “Jane…”
            “They say he kilt my daddy, too. Mama wouldn’t never talk ‘bout it, just said he went off one day and never come back. One time when she been in the muscadine wine she said he probably at the bottom of some dry well on Ole Tom Tilton land.”
            “Who’s that?”
            “Don’t know. Anyhow Ole Gil told everybody he a no account scoundrel, and maybe he was, but he didn’t deserve to get kilt just so some white man could have his wife and little girl.”
            I hugged her tightly.
            “That man evil, Billy. Don’t let him never get wind of you coming around here. Ain’t no telling what he might do, and he can lie so good, he get away with it. Course, he ever hurt you, I cut his throat.”
            She looked up at me with a gentle smile and caressed my cheek.
            “You my friend.”

New Novel Chapter 7

And here we are with chapter seven. Remember the disclaimer from earlier (or scroll down to read it), remember that this is copyright protected, and enjoy.

MEMORIES

AND OTHER AFFLICTIONS

 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF

WILLIAM NATHAN MCCASKILL

A Novel by Chris Sherrill



Copyright 2012 by Chris Sherrill

 

BOOK ONE

CHAPTER SEVEN

 

 

            With chores and school and getting ready for winter, I didn’t see Jane for some time. Part of me welcomed the separation. As would be my state of being for most of my life, my lower nature and my higher nature were at odds. I still had that powerful sense that it would be wrong to satisfy my sexual desire by taking advantage of Jane’s need for a friend, but there was the sense that we were becoming friends and, if she weren’t buying my friendship, then she was doing something she wanted to do.

            That sounds all high minded, and it’s what I repeated to myself but at the heart of it all were two simple facts. First, she was black, and it was ingrained that a relationship, any sort of relationship, between a white male and a black female was strictly taboo, beyond taboo. Second, I was afraid. A fourteen year-old boy will fantasize about being with a twenty year-old woman, but the reality of such a thing is pretty scary.

            Fortunately, I had other things to occupy my mind.

            I ran into Bob Smith down at Demby’s. He was at the counter waiting for Mr. Demby who was looking for something in the back. I stood beside Bob. He looked at me, gave a little tilt of the head and looked away.

            “How’s it going?” I asked.

            He considered me. “It’s going.”

            “Not much new, huh?”

            “We ain’t friends, McCaskill. You think we’re friends or something?”

            “No.”

            Mr. Demby came back, took Bob’s money, then mine. Bob was in his old pickup sipping his dope when I went out. I walked over to him.

            “How’d you learn to box?” I asked.

            He considered me then shrugged.

            “Seen a feller at the County Fair one time taking on all comers. Said he’d pay ten dollars to anybody who could last two rounds with him. I watched him all night. Nobody lasted more than one round. I decided I wanted to be able to do that, so I went back every night for a whole week and watched him. During the day, I practiced by myself. He seen me there every night and on the last night they wasn’t no more suckers, so he took me in the ring and showed me some moves, made it part of his show, give me a dollar when it was over. I kept practicing by myself and, course, they’s always opportunities to practice on other boys.”

            He arched an eyebrow and cranked the pickup.

            “Teach me to box,” I said.

            He looked at me quizzically then snorted a little laugh.

            “You done alright.”

            “I want to know how to box.”

            Bob looked off into the distance. “My old man took his stick to me that night, after y’all left. He don’t usually need no excuse, so I sure ain’t looking to give him none.”

            “He doesn’t have to know. How will he know?”

            “You crazy, McCaskill. If we boxing and not wrestling, I’ll beat your ass.”

            “But we’ll just be practicing, not really fighting. What can happen?”

            I think you bring shit on yourself sometimes with your own words.

            Bob agreed and we went behind the store and sparred for awhile. There were actual blows exchanged, but we were pulling the punches. He showed me how to jab and block. He showed me how punch in combinations. He kept telling me to keep my head up but I kept ducking and an uppercut caught me flush on the nose. He wasn’t even swinging that hard, it just caught me perfectly. I heard a crack and blood gushed out.

            “Damn, McCaskill! Damn! Look what you done. My old man gonna beat hell outta me.”

            “I won’t tell. I’ll say I fell.”

            I started walking away. I was still dazed from the blow. Bob’s hands were on my shoulder and he put me in his truck.

            “Damn, McCaskill,” he said as he cranked the engine.

            A few minutes later we were pulling up to my house. Dad was in the yard and looked at me as I got out. I had my head tilted up to stop the bleeding. I stumbled. I felt Bob’s hands on my shoulders supporting me.

            “What…” dad exclaimed. “Bob Smith, I swear…”

            “He didn’t do anything, dad. I did.”

            I heard the screen door slam and mama and Gwen came running out. Halfway, Gwen ran back. I gave a brief explanation of what had happened. Gwen came back with a wet towel. They were so agitated that they weren’t listening to me. Mama started crying anger tears.

            “It’s broken this time. It’s broken. This is the last straw, Billy McCaskill. You hear me? And as for you, Bob Smith, I swear…”

            “Stop it, mama,” I said loudly. “Will you just stop for a minute?”

            Everyone looked at me in disbelief.

            “I told you, I asked Bob to teach me how to box. He was showing me and I ducked when I shouldn’t have.”

            “Billy McCaskill…” mama said with a quivering voice.

            “Mama, I want to learn how to box. As soon as my nose gets better, I’m going find Bob again.”

            “I won’t teach him, ma’am,” Bob said. “I swear I won’t teach him.”

            “If he won’t teach me, I’ll just pick a fight with him and learn that way.”

            Everyone was silent.

            “Billy McCaskill, you are the hardest headed boy I’ve ever seen in my life. What am I going to do with you?”

            “Mama, it’s just a broken nose. It was an accident. If I’d walked into a door, you wouldn’t tell me to stop walking. Bob wasn’t trying to hurt me. It was an accident. He could’ve just gotten in his truck and drove off, but he didn’t. He brought me home even though he knew he’d have to face you.”

            They were silent for a moment.

            “I just don’t know why you have to be such a…ruffian,” mama said.

            She turned her side to me and daubed her eyes. The depth of her disappointment hurt. A sudden tear rolled down my cheek. Bob looked away.

            “What do you want me to be, mama?” I said softly. “If you want me to be a lap dog, that’s what I’ll be. I swear I will. Tell me what you want me to be.”

            Mama turned and walked back to the house. I think she didn’t want anyone to see her tears. Gwen followed, her arm around mama’s shoulders. Dad put his hand on Bob’s shoulder.

            “Thank you for bringing my boy home, Bob.”

            “Mr. McCaskill…”

            “It was an accident. Don’t think anymore about it.”

            Dad took me to the doctor’s office and he reset my nose. That hurt worse than the break. The tension in the house was thick for the next three days. Mama was chilly toward me. Gwen was my nurse.

            “You know mama loves you, Billy,” she said. “You’re her favorite.”

            I laughed, which hurt my face. She pulled a bloody gauze plug out of my nose.

            “It’s true. Jake is his daddy’s son and you’re your mama’s son.”

            “Who are you?”

            “Mama’s daughter. Charlotte is daddy’s daughter, when she chooses to visit this plane. We all have favorites, can’t help it, just like I love Jake and Charlotte, but you’re my favorite, and I’m your favorite.”

            “You’ve got it all figured out.”

            She shrugged. “It doesn’t take a genius. You just have to watch.”

            After school on the third day, I was sitting at the kitchen table working on some homework. Mama was behind me fixing supper. Gwen was occupying Bruce in another part of the house, so I knew something was up. Mama seemed fidgety. Finally, she sat beside me, turning her chair to face me.

            “Turn around here,” she said. “We need to talk.”

            I turned my chair to face her.

            “Mama…”

            She held her fingers to my lips for a moment.

            “I don’t want you to be a lap dog, Billy, not my lap dog, not anybody’s lap dog. It’s not in your nature and if I made you try to be that, it would kill your spirit.”

            “I don’t want to disappoint you anymore, mama. I want you to love me.”

            Her head twitched back slightly.

            “Do you think I don’t love you, Billy?”

            I leaned forward so she wouldn’t see me cry. She leaned forward and hugged my head.

            “Oh, Billy, there aren’t any words to describe how much I love you.”

            I cried. I think she did, too. Presently she sat up.

            “Dry your eyes, son. I have more to say.”

            I sat up and wiped my sleeve across my eyes.

            “I’ve been thinking, and I wonder if maybe I took a wrong course some years back. When you were just a little thing, I saw how bright you were, and I began to think that maybe you’d be a teacher one day. That’s been my goal for you ever since. That was what I wanted, and I didn’t stop to consider what you wanted. I always thought I was giving you positive direction and you were just a contrary child, but maybe I was trying to force you in a direction that was against your nature.

            “I say you’re hard-headed. Your daddy says you’re determined. I guess those are two sides of the same coin. We both agree that you have a big heart. You’re rough and tumble, but you know right from wrong and you’ll be a good man one day, and that’s all that matters, so I’m going to let out the apron strings, let you follow your inner voice and make as many of your own decisions as is safe for a boy to make.”

            “Mama…”

            “I’m almost done,” she said. “Wait here.”

            She stood and left the room. I just looked at my hands. She came back fifteen seconds later and set a large box on the table beside me, then took her chair.

            “Open it.”

            “Boxing gloves?”

            “They were less expensive than the visit to the doctor.”

            I laughed. “I love you, mama.”

            “I love you, too, son.”

            I leaned forward and hugged her.

            “Let’s not get all gushy again. Honestly, I don’t know where you and Gwen get that gushy side.”

            “I think we get it from you,”

            “Huh. Go wash up and set the table, then call the others. Supper will be ready shortly.”

---*---

            I can’t describe how good it felt to have my mom as an ally. She wasn’t about to knuckle under to whatever whim came to my mind, that was against her nature, but I began to see in her eyes and in her attitude that she was weighing everything as to how it might benefit me.

            I practiced boxing with Bob Smith a couple of times a week in our barn. Dad often watched. Gwen watched a couple of times but she didn’t like violence. Mom wouldn’t watch. Bob and I got to be on pretty good terms. I wouldn’t say we became friends but we developed a level of mutual respect.

            I still rode my bicycle whenever I could for as long as I could.

            At school I did what I had to do to get by, academically, but I enjoyed socializing. Some of us were playing basketball after school and the coach saw me and got me to try out for the team. We were a small, community school, so you didn’t have to be good to play a sport; you just had to be willing to work at it. Maybe life is like that. Anyway, I was a strong, solid kid and took up a good bit of space under the basket. We practiced every day after school and dad got a big flashlight for my bike so I could ride it home after dark. A number of times I thought about swinging by Jane’s but it was too dark. On Saturdays I had wood to cut and split to make up for not helping with that during the week. Jake was away at college, so that fell to me.

            We had our first basketball game the week before Christmas break. We played a bigger school and got a thorough thumping. The bus ride back was quiet. We did better in the second game, but still lost. I liked basketball. I was awkward and largely ignorant about it, but I liked being part of a team. Then school let out for Christmas.

            I’ve always liked Christmas and everything I associate with it: the crisp winter air, the music and the atmosphere. I like to greet and be greeted with, ‘Merry Christmas’. I just like it. It was a pleasant Christmas, for the most part. Bruce was sick for a lot of it. He was sick more and more frequently. They said it was a part of his condition. Except when he was very ill, he never lost his big blameless smile or his cheerful greetings.

            Before Christmas we participated in the church pageant, as usual, went caroling to some of the shut-ins. We drank spiced cider and ate with dad’s people, then did the same the next day with mom’s people, just like we did every year. Christmas Day we spent quietly at home, just family. It sleeted the day after Christmas and no one could go out. The days after Christmas tend to be anticlimactic, boring. On New Year’s Day it had gotten warmer and I told the folks I was going for a ride and took off.

            I circled wide and went to Jane’s. She was in one of her sad moods, but Christmas all alone, with no family or friends is depressing for anyone. She listened indulgently as I talked about school and basketball. I got some wood and stoked the fire in her little cook stove.

            “I got something for you,” I said.

            She looked with an unreadable expression.

            “Jane didn’t…know you be coming by,” she said.

            “That’s okay. Here.”

            She took the little object.

            “What it is?” she asked.

            She weighed it in her hand.

            “Open it.”

            She tore the paper off and held it up.

            “A whet stone?”

            “For your butcher knife.”

            She suddenly busted out laughing, then jumped to her feet and hugged my neck.

            “You don’t think Jane crazy. You don’t think Jane crazy if you got her a stone to whet her knife.”

            I reached into my back pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She watched with interest as I unfolded it.

            “I drew this the day you gave me the pumpkin pie. You can have it, if you want it.”

            She took the paper and studied the image for a long moment before she looked up at me.

            “You drawed this?”

            I nodded.

            “Who it is?” she asked. “This Jane?”

            Her voice was soft and guarded, as were her eyes. I nodded. She looked back at the paper.

            “Jane purdy,” she said softly.

            “Yes, Jane is very pretty.”

            She wrapped her arms around me and held me tightly for the longest time. I held her. It was just so damned stimulating to feel her body against mine.

            “You come with Jane,” she whispered, “she give you something special.”

            She started to pull away but I didn’t let go.

            “No. I can’t.”

            “If Jane white, would you go? Jane can’t never be white, but she been trying to talk better with you. She listen to how you talk and try to talk like you, so you don’t think she just a ignorant colored gal.”

            “I think you’re very smart.”

            She looked in my eyes, smiled and gave me a little hug.

            “Your mouth say you don’t wanna go with Jane, but other parts ain’t so sure.”

            “I can’t. My mama and I had a hard time a little while back, but we’re working on it and she’s trying really hard to trust me to do the right thing. If she found out I lay with a grown woman, it would break her trust, and I don’t want to do that.”

            “You a good boy.”

            She pulled away and patted my cheek.

            “When you ready,” she said.

            “We should just be friends,” I said.

            She studied my eyes and something seemed to click. Her eyes narrowed.

            “You be my friend just because?” she asked.

            I nodded. “Just because.”

---*---

            As I got to my bicycle Cyrus McGilroy came out from behind a tree. It scared me so bad I yelled. He pointed his cane at me like a gun.

            “You’re playing with the devil, boy,” he said.

            I couldn’t speak.

            “That gal’s crazy. I’m telling you for your own good. Ain’t no telling what she’s capable of. Stay away from her.”

            I jumped on my bike and sped away. He called from behind.

            “Don’t make me go see your pa.”