The Old Weird South

by Tim Westover

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  The water is cold. Colder than one would expect for the summer, but I am at the bottom of the lake. Down here, the water is black; you and your surface eyes couldn’t see your hand until it was almost touching your face. But I can. My eyes never close. I see fish—small, big, frightening. Near me is a tree stump. It’s old, ugly, waterlogged, and stiff. Before there was a lake, there was farmland—crops and homes and gardens. They are gone, but there are still trees, stumps, the secret forest that spreads under the waves. Whole trees still stand in some places, their branches just below the surface. Old fishing line is wrapped around it. Fishing line will tangle around you like a python snaring its prey. I feel the muddy sand under me mixed with leaves and roots. Above me are children swimming. They dive from the boat so they can try to touch the bottom. Eyes shut, they hold their breath until they feel the cold sand under their toes. Then they push up as hard as they can so they can once again take a dry gulp of air. They don’t see me. Even if their eyes were open, they wouldn’t see me. Their eyes are not like my eyes. Above, where the sun touches the water, the parents of the diving children sprawl on their foam floats, letting the lake water cool their hot skin. Boats speed above me, their wake rippling down to me, setting the trees to shudder as though buffeted by a wind. Sometimes the boats pull skiers, wakeboarders, or tubers. Once, I swam, skied, floated, and lived. Now I reside on the lake bottom, where there were crops and homes and gardens. I can no longer remember how I got here. I only know that my fishing line holds me here, among the trees of the eternal forest, long after the lake has washed the other lives away. No one managed to find me. No one ever will.

  The End of Grace

  Meriah Lysistrata Crawford

  On August 23, 2011, at 1:51 pm (EDT), there was an earthquake centered in Louisa County, Virginia, with a magnitude of 5.8. Unlike most earthquakes on the West Coast, where tremors are seldom felt even a state away, this quake was felt for hundreds of miles—as far north as Montreal. According to the United States Geological Survey, this is “due to the ease of wave propagation through the North American craton.”

  The Virginia quake, as it is now called by people outside of Virginia (we call it the Louisa quake or just the quake), caused extensive damage and shook up millions of people who’d been going about their day believing that the ground was solid beneath their feet. The majority of the damage could be found, not surprisingly, in Louisa County itself. Innumerable chimneys were converted to a scattering of bricks on roofs; two schools were damaged beyond use; a historic nineteenth-century house and church were devastated by the heaving ground. Facades collapsed in front yards. Power lines fell. Dishes and glassware and knickknacks and irreplaceable family heirlooms were smashed on floors for miles around.

  In the weeks that followed the quake, FEMA first declined to intervene and then consented. A disaster was declared, inspectors and workers swarmed the county, checks were written, repairs were made—or not, in some cases. The community mourned, came together, and carried on as communities do.

  Aftershocks continued for months, leaving everyone on edge, but before long, most people looked back on the quake with a mixture of relief and pride. It was a trial the people had endured, and it would become a story they would tell for the rest of their lives. Not so bad, really, once the fear and frustration and hard work had passed into the dim forgetfulness that time delivers. And anyway, no one had died—that was what really mattered. Or almost no one, anyway.

  The Louisa quake was caused by “compressional forces,” resulting in “one rocky block being pushed up relative to rock beneath the fault”—so the experts at USGS said with a sort of charming innocence. A geology professor named Callan Bentley, from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, suggested in a blog post that “differential rebound of the crust due to isostatic adjustments” might be to blame. But an offhand note about his cat near the end of the post brought him closer to the truth: “My cat was hiding in the closet and wouldn’t even come out for food.” It wasn’t just the earthquake that scared Callan’s kitty. I’m pretty sure it was me.

  I want to state this clear and plain, right off: I didn’t know this would happen. I want that clear—not because I think it absolves me of my responsibility, my guilt—but because I would not have ever done it if I’d known what would follow. But how could I? How could I have ever imagined that I might read a few fading lines scribbled on the flyleaf of a battered old cookbook, shed a few drops of blood on the ground, and cause the entire East Coast of the North American continent to pitch and shudder and cry out? It’s mad is what it is. I’m mad. Surely.

  But I was there, alone in the woods with that cookbook and a sharp paring knife and a world of hate in my heart for that man. That evil man. I sat on a flat rock under a huge pine tree, propped the book open on my knees, and tried, tried, tried to pierce the skin of my palm with that knife. So much harder than I imagined.

  I closed my eyes tight and thought of him—his sneering contempt, his refusal to even listen, the way he laughed, finally, when the house collapsed under the assault of the bulldozer. My house. Mother’s house. And her father’s and his father’s, back to 1836. Gone.

  And the knife cut in.

  Blood pooled in the cup of my hand. I watched it well up and thought of my mother. A strong, vibrant woman a year ago—still tending her small garden. Now unable to cope with the loss of her home . . .

  Hatred overflowed with my blood, pattering onto the pine needles and rocks and dirt between my feet. I tipped the book up and read the lines, tilting my hand to speed the flow, filling the words and my blood and the ground beneath my feet with rage. My voice grew louder, and my fury swelled; my fist clenched, and the stream of blood fell faster.

  And the earth answered my call. She roared—her cry echoing mine—and then his voice cried out in pain and terror, rising to an impossible crescendo. And finally, the horror of understanding in his screams. Understanding at last.

  And then silence.

  When the ground had gone still at last, I stumbled back to my car in shock. I drove home, climbed exhausted into bed, and slept. A few hours passed. When I rose, I gaped in horror at the television. Impossible. Impossible, I told myself. That could not have been me.

  I listened to the men talking on TV about the quake and slowly, inexorably, became convinced they were right. Or almost convinced. Because of the timing—and the fact that it worked. And then I tested it because I had to be sure.

  I stepped outside, walked a few minutes into the trees, peeled back a bit of scab—“Ow! Ow! Ow!”—and let a drop of blood hit the dirt. The ground shifted and roared as I fell to the ground, sobbing.

  Yes. It was me.

  I pressed my shirt firmly to the wound and ran back to the house for a bandage. The USGS reported it as a 4.2 aftershock, occurring at 8:04 pm. One single drop of blood: 4.2. I must not bleed on the ground again. I must not. I called in sick, just to be sure.

  And then the next night, in the early hours, I stepped outside to get a better signal on my cell phone, as I had done a million times before, and caught the sole of my foot on a sharp piece of rock. “Ouch!” and “Damn!” and the ground cried out again, as if in sympathy with my pain. I dropped my phone and clutched at the door, dragging myself and my bleeding foot inside as the earth pitched. August 25 at 1:07 am: 4.5.

  I called in sick again. And again and again until I was fully healed.

  As more time passed and lives returned to normal, I tried to find some peace in my act of vengeance, but there was none. The equation was unequal, and I couldn’t fix it. Finally, I understood that the equation had not been mine to work. A line had been crossed that never should have been—and the ground just kept on shaking.

  I had to wonder. All this nonsense about seismology and tectonic plates—scientists and studies and charts and monitoring stations and experts expounding unendingly—was any of it real, or was it just a sign of our pathetic need to explain in some vaguely scientific
way what can’t be explained at all?

  In the absence of answers—real answers—I have done what I can. I burned the book. I have left clear instructions that my remains are to be cremated when I die. And I have researched thoroughly and selected what I believe is a safe way to bring my death with all possible haste but without risk of my blood being shed. I can only imagine what the result would be if I were shot or stabbed or hit by a car, causing my blood to drain freely on the ground. I cannot, as the good person I once unhesitatingly knew I was, risk that. Not for anything. For what has already happened, know that I am so, so sorry. If I could undo it, I would. I only hope this works. We will know soon enough.

  Florida Natural

  Ben Bowlin

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlA7J4rFNTM

  It’s my turn. The foreman waves his hand, and I’m off, moving before his shoulder twitches, senses magnified, pulse loud and heavy in my ears. Adrenaline burns bright, and I’m dizzy, floating, devoid of body and carton and clothing and mind. Colors sharpen. The stench of ripening oranges pierces my nose, burning the hairs, boring through my sinuses into my brain like those bronze hooks Egyptian embalmers used to harrow through their pharaohs’ skulls.

  I read the fine print on the cuff of the foreman’s tan leather work glove: Rawling and Company. Made in China. I don’t slow down to grab a carton anymore. I’m always holding one before it’s my turn to run. I can throw a carton with either hand, hitting the hole in the grove precisely, every time. I’ve never missed. It’s at a tricky angle, this hole. You’ll hear about other groves with flat spots level to your chest, right in front of you. Who knows what that must be like? It’s something I’ve never experienced. The closest thing I can think of—the sheer, decadent convenience of a hole in a grove that is both chest-level and flat and right in front of you—to tell you the truth, it reminds me of an ATM or those electric fortune-teller booths at carnivals or maybe being born with vestigial wings. But we didn’t get to choose where our grove’s hole popped up—it was there when we arrived. About eight feet off the ground and at a sloping downward angle, so you could just tip the carton in if you wanted.

  Sometimes you hear about guys showing off. Their buddies stand to one side holding a carton. When the foreman swings around, these guys leave empty-handed, and before they reach aisle 15—dairy products, butter, orange juice, and eggs—and before they hit the hole, some joker tosses them a fresh carton, and they pull a move while they catch it, maybe somersaulting or bounding into the air. People applaud. If I have time, I clap too.

  We must not resent success.

  Sure, we might have our differences, but people are much the same, aren’t we? Before my first stint in jail, I had an English professor who always said, “The human race is a team sport.” I think about that often. I have this hunch sometimes that we all may as well be the same person. We all want the same Big Things, don’t we? Happiness and love and some encounter with infinity? We’re headed for the same hopeful places. We differ only in the details. By which I mean I keep my cartons with me. I wait for my turn standing near the pickup full of cartons with one in hand. When the foreman waves, I run. I haul ass. I like running, like the way it freshens the air. The orange grove hangs fecund in the harsh sunshine, swaying along the warm unending coastal breeze. I look stupid when I run, I admit. But surrounded by coworkers, appearances become irrelevant, and only our technique matters. Here’s mine: a measured sprint to the hole, a running hop, and just as my hand enters the limbo up to the forearm, a small smooth throw-toss of the carton, ensuring we will never touch. It takes seconds. Sometimes I jump too soon, and I have to throw the box from a distance. I’m overenthusiastic, ungraceful, and effective. I’m the Joe Montana of gently tossed orange juice. My work doesn’t look pretty, but again, I have never missed. No Average-Yet-Discriminating Grocery Shopper leaves the orange juice section disappointed, at least not if I have anything to do with it. Running with this fresh carton of orange juice, watching falcons fly in widening orbits above me, I think again of how much I love this. The sheer pursuit of it all. Each time someone at 100 Fairview Road in Ellenwood, Georgia, stops at aisle 15—dairy products, butter, orange juice, and eggs—lingering and pushing slowly past the yogurt, we are standing at the ready; the foreman reaches out just as you, Average-Yet-Discriminating Grocery Shopper, reach into the depths of the premium orange juice selection searching for that perfect, obscenely fresh carton—that same burning orange turning my nose inside out as I run—and the foreman holds his hand aloft, and my God, I run past time—I mean, I must because here I am, here it seems I have always been—wrist at the edge of the hole between your grocery store and this grove, my hand stretching into limbo at the same moment yours reaches in, feeling the warm Florida breeze and the reassuring heft of Florida’s Own. It reminds me of that Michelangelo painting, the one with the horrible name. God’s up there, leaning forward to not-quite-touch Adam Kadmon, who slouches lazily, limp-wristed, hand and finger apathetic. He seems bored of creation even as it occurs. I think about us—you and me, I mean. If we were Adam and God, who would I be? Do our hands radiate heat toward one another? How close are our fingers? If I shed my gloves, would I feel your fingertips brush against my own? I say it again: I suspect we are the same, if only for one unending moment.

  Do not fear me; I am a stranger, I am a phantom. My hands are clean, and anyway, whether or not you like it, I am there, and then I am gone. I fall in a neat roll along the ground, panting. I rest ten minutes and head back to my place in line. And you disappear onto a life, one carton of orange juice richer. We are worlds apart, but vete en paz, I say.

  Go in peace, I beg you. Let these falcons enjoy the show.