Part 3 (2/2)

Preston.

THIS HAPPENED WHEN Lester was still alive. He didn't go the same way his wife Ruth did, or like Vernon did either for that matter. Cancer couldn't get him. He was too hard. Then again maybe it could've and he just didn't live long enough, but either way he worked like a mule right up to the end. It took an awful lot to kill him. Lester was still alive. He didn't go the same way his wife Ruth did, or like Vernon did either for that matter. Cancer couldn't get him. He was too hard. Then again maybe it could've and he just didn't live long enough, but either way he worked like a mule right up to the end. It took an awful lot to kill him.

This was when he was still around, though. I was a senior in high school and those three boys looked awful young to me, but G.o.d bless them they did men's work. Vernon particularly, although I don't know why I say that. I guess because whenever Lester didn't have him running, his brothers did. He always had Creed to amuse and he always had Audie to occupy. You'd think a boy would take some pleasure in that but I'm not sure he did. I'm not sure he could.

Everybody knew you couldn't trust Audie with anything sharp, but Vernon had ideas of his own. He had a jackknife with a blade about four or five inches long. He always kept it sharp. How I heard it later was he took Audie and laid the back of his hand flat down on the lid of a milk can and he took that jackknife and opened up the blade and held the point of it to the palm of Audie's hand and pulled. Just pulled on it in a straight line as nice as you please, pressing down gently all the while, as if he was drawing a picture or something, until the blade sank in a little and started making its cut and the blood came. Audie watched it come for a second like it was a magic trick or like the red was coming out of the point of the jackknife instead of from him-like it was a fountain pen, even though he didn't know the first thing about fountain pens and he doesn't to this day-until Vernon picked up the tip and showed him what was what. Audie felt the sting and he saw the cut and he began howling right off. It seemed like he didn't realize he was hurt until then. I must have been in school at the time or else I'd have heard him holler and come running. I don't know if Lester heard him or if he was up in the fields somewhere, but the result was the same. The old man kept his distance like always. He'd have whipped Vernon if he'd found out.

Vernon knew what he was up to. If anybody else had stuck Audie that way, it would have been what they call the end of a beautiful friends.h.i.+p. Then again n.o.body else would have thought to do it. But anyhow no power on earth could diminish Audie's admiration for his big brother. Not even something that an ordinary person would take for cruelty. It wasn't normal, but you had to respect it. Vernon had Audie wipe off that cut on his pant leg or somewhere and he shushed him and he took him over to the woodpile. They picked out some sticks of wood and went back over to the porch and sat down. Vernon pulled out the knife again and Audie took one look at it and started to shake all over but Vernon calmed him down. He took the knife to the wood and cut. I guess he had a talent for that kind of thing although he never showed it but that once. He'd spied an old barn cat sitting on the fence and he pointed it out to Audie and then he whittled up the very likeness of that old tom faster than you could blink. I still have that carving, is how I know. It sits on my mantelpiece to this day. Now that Vernon's gone I don't guess he'll be doing any more of them. It's a collector's item.

He shut the knife and he set the little wooden cat on the porch rail, and they admired it the two of them. A minute went by and he picked up another piece of wood and gave it to Audie. He opened the knife and he tried to give that to him too but Audie turned away and started to shake so he had to quit for a little. They just sat and admired the wooden cat, with the knife lying there on the board floor between them. After a while he picked up the knife again and took the carving off the rail and made some little improvement to it. Maybe he cut in the slits for the whiskers. I don't know. Then when he was done he tried handing the knife over again and this time Audie took hold of it. He took hold of it like it was a live bird or something on that order but he took hold of it all the same. I don't think he's ever let it go since. The lathe came later and he's just as cautious with that.

Not that he's ever gotten much good at it for all the time he's put in. He never did have much of an eye, to tell you the truth, and now that he's three-quarters blind it's worse. But he keeps at it. He'll still do a cat sometimes or a sheep that you can make out but the rest could be anything. Some folks like it. There's a shop over in Clinton that keeps two or three of them right out on the counter and you can't tell what they are but they've got pretty good prices on them. Margaret dragged me over there and the gal running it had a sign up saying they were antiques, and I had to set her straight. I reminded her how honesty is the best policy. What she calls them these days is folk art.

Every now and then somebody'll come out here and watch those whirligigs spinning away in the yard like they're visiting some kind of an open-air museum. Sometimes they'll give Audie a little money if he'll part with one. They don't give him much, but he doesn't need much. He won't part with that dog one I don't guess, but he'd part with most of the others if you asked nice enough. I've seen cars here with plates from New Jersey, Ohio. I don't know where people find out about it but they do. The whole yardful of those things just creaking away, and it all started with that knife cut on the palm of his hand on the milk can lid. You could say it's just one more thing he owes his brother Vernon. That's how he'd put it, I think. Just one more thing he owes his dead brother.

Ruth PRESTON H HATCH COMES HOME with a girl. She isn't a pretty girl, but Preston isn't a handsome boy either. She is from a good family in town and she radiates the certainty that she is something special and that Preston is privileged to be courting her. She carries herself in a fastidious way and she holds her head erect and her nose elevated and she keeps her face composed into a supercilious mask, even during moments of repose, as if to offset the failed dull frustration of her ordinariness. Her name is Margaret Willbanks, and she is taller than Preston by a head, and by and by she will marry him. with a girl. She isn't a pretty girl, but Preston isn't a handsome boy either. She is from a good family in town and she radiates the certainty that she is something special and that Preston is privileged to be courting her. She carries herself in a fastidious way and she holds her head erect and her nose elevated and she keeps her face composed into a supercilious mask, even during moments of repose, as if to offset the failed dull frustration of her ordinariness. Her name is Margaret Willbanks, and she is taller than Preston by a head, and by and by she will marry him.

Her visits begin in the springtime. The days are not yet long but they are getting longer and the world is greening. She and Preston sit on the porch and he admires her and she ignores him utterly and smokes Chesterfield cigarettes, one after another, to ward off the warm pasture stink already rising on every hand. Preston has a little tenor banjo that he plays for her amus.e.m.e.nt, and the looks that pa.s.s across her face suggest that she does not know whether to be amused by it or appalled. Preston keeps his eyes on the fret board and does not notice either way. He plays pretty well, but he will give it up and lose the knack once they get engaged. ”After she'd taken the bait,” he will say, ”I was able to quit fis.h.i.+ng.” And Margaret will roll her eyes.

His banjo music draws the boys from the farm next door and Margaret's presence draws them too. Vernon nearing the edge of manhood and Audie right behind him as usual, in both chronology and position. After they finish their ch.o.r.es they leave the barnyard and cross the narrow dirt lane to the Hatch property and stroll up the gravel driveway as nonchalant as a pair of boulevardiers. Six-year-old Creed overtakes them sometimes, his feet clapping up a flurry of dust. He knows where they are headed even if they like to pretend that they do not. Then the three of them slouch against the side of the elevated porch with their backs to Preston and Margaret and their hats tilted down over their eyes, sucking on stems of new gra.s.s, listening as the mysteries of music and romance unfold all at once.

”The Three Chevaliers,” Preston calls them under his breath, having taken Margaret to see that debonair Frenchman in The Beloved Vagabond The Beloved Vagabond and desiring to continue harvesting the benefits. and desiring to continue harvesting the benefits.

The Three Chevaliers are always caked with cow manure and they smell worse up close than the fields do at a distance, so Margaret scowls in their direction no matter what Preston calls them. Sometimes she catches Vernon shooting her sly looks from beneath his cap, which gives her the w.i.l.l.i.e.s. He does not seem to be modestly appraising her as a boy from the town would, but evaluating her in a kind of raw and strictly material way instead. As if a.s.sessing her market value. For milk or meat or reproduction. There is an animal quality to the looks he gives her, and as she endures them she wonders if this kind of thing might underlie every single impulse in the civilized world. Even the innocent glances that she receives from boys in the town. She wonders why she keeps coming out here, and then she lights a Chesterfield and looks over at sweet, homely Preston and catches the near-swoon in his eyes and wonders no more.

The truth is that the boys don't know much about women. They have their mother and their little sister, Donna, and the teachers at school, but beyond these their world is a kind of male fortress. To them Margaret looks like royalty, as inaccessible as she is incomprehensible. Like their mother and their father she smokes cigarettes, but she smokes pristine store-bought Chesterfields instead of rolling her own and that only adds to her mystery. Vernon slips one of them from her pack one afternoon when she has gone inside to use the facilities. He slips it from the pack where it lies open on the railing and he slides it into the breast pocket of his overalls just as nice as you please. n.o.body sees, not even his brothers. Later he goes up into the woods and smokes it down to the filter but he does not think much of it. He does not think much of the kind his parents smoke either, but at least they've never made him feel that he is having to draw the smoke through a stopper. In the end he concludes that the best thing about Margaret is the power of her lungs.

The Three Chevaliers bring little Donna with them one afternoon. Whether they think she might enjoy the music or just mean her as a distraction is long past knowing. She is two years old and mobile. She is as filthy as her brothers, but for reasons of her own. As they leave the barnyard, Vernon tries wrangling her into his arms but she kicks loose and will submit only to holding Audie's hand as they cross the little dirt lane. She follows the sound of the banjo music like a scenting hound and climbs onto the porch and makes a try for Margaret's lap, but Margaret rebuffs her.

Vernon.

WE ALL DONE IT TOGETHER. I took the cigarette and Audie pulled a hair from the horse's tail and I sent Creed into the house for a darning needle. I seen a cigarette explode in the funny papers once but I don't know where you'd get a thing like that. Something would blow up a cigarette. That weren't the idea anyhow. I seen Margaret didn't like our smell and she didn't like our sister either so I thought maybe she ought to smell something worse. We took that cigarette and strung the needle with horsehair and run it right down through the middle of it like running it down a pipe. We run it through and back three or four times I think. I trimmed the loose ends of it with my knife. Audie was pretty good with the knife but I didn't want to take no chances that he'd cut himself or cut that cigarette or crush it down or bleed on it or something like that. Ruin it some way. Then where would we be. We'd have to start over.

Audie.

VERNON HAD BROWN FINGERS against the white. He said he had to be careful how he handled that cigarette but he had brown fingers against the white of it and some of the dirt rubbed off and I thought we were done for but it didn't turn out that way. She was watching Preston and listening to that banjo music of his and she didn't notice. She just took it and lit it right up. She didn't look. against the white. He said he had to be careful how he handled that cigarette but he had brown fingers against the white of it and some of the dirt rubbed off and I thought we were done for but it didn't turn out that way. She was watching Preston and listening to that banjo music of his and she didn't notice. She just took it and lit it right up. She didn't look.

Vernon.

I SLID THE CIGARETTE SLID THE CIGARETTE back in the pack just the same way I took it out. We stood against the porch and waited. I did anyway. I waited. Me and Creed. Audie turned to see what Margaret was up to but I give him a slap and he come back around. Then he seen the way I was just standing there against the porch like always and he copied me at it. He stood there with his back against the porch waiting. He was shaking some because he couldn't tell what was going to happen next. I asked Preston would he play that song my brother likes and he said your brother Audie and I said yes that brother my brother Audie and he played the song. ”Turkey in the Straw” I think. It set Audie's feet moving and calmed him down some. About halfway through I heard her strike a match and that was that. Audie always did love ”Turkey in the Straw.” back in the pack just the same way I took it out. We stood against the porch and waited. I did anyway. I waited. Me and Creed. Audie turned to see what Margaret was up to but I give him a slap and he come back around. Then he seen the way I was just standing there against the porch like always and he copied me at it. He stood there with his back against the porch waiting. He was shaking some because he couldn't tell what was going to happen next. I asked Preston would he play that song my brother likes and he said your brother Audie and I said yes that brother my brother Audie and he played the song. ”Turkey in the Straw” I think. It set Audie's feet moving and calmed him down some. About halfway through I heard her strike a match and that was that. Audie always did love ”Turkey in the Straw.”

Margaret.

THEY WERE JUST BOYS. We were all just children, really, although Preston and I surely didn't think so at the time. Why should we? A year later we'd be an old married couple. Another year after that, he'd be in France.

I don't think the Proctor boys liked my intruding into their world. I was an outsider. A foreigner. A girl girl, frankly. They weren't any more comfortable around girls then than they are around women now. So they punished me by putting that horsehair in my cigarette and letting me smoke it. That's the way I always understood it. Perhaps there was less to it than that. But everything's open to interpretation, isn't it?

Good heavens, it's a wonder I kept on smoking after that day. It's definitely a wonder I ever went back to Preston's parents' house. If he hadn't taken my side and run those boys off, I don't believe I would have. And then where would I be?

My understanding is that the boys got a good scolding from their mother, but that's as far as it went. I'll bet their father had a good laugh over the whole thing. I was sick to my stomach for two days, and I'll bet he had a good laugh at my expense.

1965.

Audie.

WE NEVER BUILT anything much but we sure could tear down. My brother Vernon with the sledgehammer and Creed with the crowbar and me collecting the nails that fell out. They were those old square ones, black iron. You can't get those old square nails anymore but here they came falling down and bouncing in the plaster dust and there I was collecting them up. That was my job. My brother Vernon gave it to me. The nails left little trails where they bounced. Some of them were still in the uprights or the lath or both and those I had to pull out with the claw hammer. It was broken but I made it work all right. My pockets got full and the one with the hole in it leaked nails down my pant leg and right on out. You can't get hold of those old square iron nails anymore and I liked the look of them. I could put them to use. anything much but we sure could tear down. My brother Vernon with the sledgehammer and Creed with the crowbar and me collecting the nails that fell out. They were those old square ones, black iron. You can't get those old square nails anymore but here they came falling down and bouncing in the plaster dust and there I was collecting them up. That was my job. My brother Vernon gave it to me. The nails left little trails where they bounced. Some of them were still in the uprights or the lath or both and those I had to pull out with the claw hammer. It was broken but I made it work all right. My pockets got full and the one with the hole in it leaked nails down my pant leg and right on out. You can't get hold of those old square iron nails anymore and I liked the look of them. I could put them to use.

Tom.

HE WAS A FASTIDIOUS BOY, happiest in the round of his own regular habits, and nothing about the Carversville farm interested him. Not the green fields that lay around it and not the hard mechanics of working it. The animals were the worst. The scratching of a hen on the board floor of the front room would drive him into the yard. The low, wet rooting of a hog made his gorge rise. From the chickens to the sheep to the weary old workhorse, every one of the animals seemed to him inscrutable, treacherous. He hated even the harmless dog, Skip, a mottled mongrel of uncertain heritage and vague origin. Boys may like dogs as a rule, but Tom had no time for Skip.

His father brought him, to demonstrate how far they'd come. To demonstrate it to himself, to the boy, and perhaps to his wife as well. Maybe even to the brothers, although they didn't seem to care much about anything other than the work that lay in front of them. DeAlton loved bringing Tom with his white tennis shoes and his neat dungarees and his spotless T-s.h.i.+rt out to the place where it all began. The place where his mother had come from.

”Do you know what grows best on a farm like this?” he asked Tom as the three of them turned off the main drag from Ca.s.sius and started up the dirt lane. ”Opportunity!”

Tom sat and looked out the window, panicky and wide-eyed. The Hatch place next door looked ordinary enough, but he didn't trust it. It looked like a house that had been plucked from a regular street in town by a tornado or something and then dropped down way out here in the fields all queer and disorienting. It made him think of The Wizard of Oz The Wizard of Oz, which in turn made him remember the flickering image of the Wicked Witch of the West cackling in the storm outside Dorothy's window. Both times he'd seen that movie, he was deeply relieved when things finally settled down and the color came on and Dorothy wasn't in Kansas anymore. He thought Kansas looked like Carversville.

”Yes, sir,” said DeAlton. ”A place like this grows opportunity like weeds. Opportunity to improve yourself, for one thing. Why, just look at your mother!”

She s.h.i.+fted the plate of cookies she had riding on her lap. ”You know,” she said to her husband, ”I'd think a place like this might even present the opportunity to sell a milking machine, don't you? Provided a person made a little effort.” She surely knew that this wasn't true, but it was a topic that never failed to deflate him a little.

DeAlton rolled up his window against the rising dust and Tom did the same. DeAlton hit the gas and the car flew over a couple of b.u.mps and he yanked the wheel hard and spun it into the yard. ”We've come a long way,” he said as he hit the brakes. ”And I don't mean just up from town.”

Vernon put a thin blanket on the horse and tied a rope around her neck. They didn't own a saddle and they never had. It would have taken an unusual sort of saddle to fit this particular beast, with her abrupt swayback and her weak shoulders and her bloated stomach that seemed to be getting worse. He guessed maybe she had cancer too or was getting it. There was still plenty of use left in her all the same. Say what you want about her conformation, she had Percheron blood somewhere and she would be a long time losing her strength.

The boy inquired about her name and the uncle told him that he could give her one if he wanted. They'd never seen the need. Tom put a little thought into it but decided he'd leave well enough alone. Instead he stood perfectly still in the corner of the barn, as if by not moving he could prolong this moment of disengagement. Make it last until it was time to go home. He watched milky light pour in through the cracks between the boards. He watched dust motes and chaff rise up and take to the air like spooks. It all got in his nose and made him sneeze. Vernon laughed-a sound like a horse-and he said the mare was ready if Tom still wanted that ride. He had never said he'd wanted it but he moved toward the horse anyhow, and as he did Audie materialized from around an edge of the track door without ever opening it wide enough for a cat to pa.s.s through. Vernon indicated Tom and gave Audie the rope and told him not to hang himself with it.

Tom approached the mare as if he were approaching a bomb. As if his uncle were holding a detonator instead of a length of rope. Audie put the rope in between his teeth and bent down and made a step from his hands, and thus he helped Tom climb onto the mare. Before they left the barn Audie reached into his pocket and drew out the better part of one of Donna's cookies, oatmeal raisin with a dusting of lint and silage and G.o.d knew what else. Smiling through his whiskers, he offered it to his nephew. ”No, thanks,” said Tom, thinking that what looked like a raisin might be almost anything.

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