VII
Auntie Ada, as she was know to just about everyone in the county, was 100 years old the year of the nation’s bicentennial, just exactly half the age of the United States of America, so of course newspaper reporters came from all over the state and many parts of the country and just about interviewed her to death. Most of what she said they couldn’t print, so most of them ended up enlarging her picture to take up more space and said a few words about all the events she had been a witness to during her century of life so far (even though she hadn’t paid much attention to most of those events except the wars, being too preoccupied with the less momentous events of her own life). The lists were pretty much the same from one paper to the next, so her relatives did not bother saving but one or two of the articles for her scrapbook: war of course, presidential assassinations, the great depression and the civil rights movement, absolutely none of which she had ever approved of.
What Auntie Ada preferred to talk about were the difficulties she had encountered trying to raise her nephew John Banks, his penchant for preaching, his stubbornness, his days of glory, his downfall and then, finally, his disappearance. She would wonder out loud at least a dozen times a day if he were still alive, and if alive, where and how he was. Back in the sixties her stepchildren hired a private investigator to look for him just to get some peace, and when he could turn up nothing, he suggested they try the TV, but that proved useless as well. It irritated Auntie Ada no end that every week she had to watch long lost relatives reunite on television because some observant person out there in television land, as they called it, had been watching and called in with news of the lost folks, but no one ever called in about her John, whom she had loved in spite of all her scolding. “Was for his own good,” she’d say over and over, but she could never rid herself of a private guilt and she’d been chewing on it for near half a century.
It was just about the time of the great depression she’d last seen him. She’d been so busy with him, she hadn’t noticed she was getting on in years and hadn’t thought about marriage or kids of her own until she was past bearing children. Then when it looked like she was in for a long life all alone, she was asked into holy matrimony by a widower with three children and she did care for them, somewhat more gently than she had cared for John. Her husband had passed on twenty years earlier at the ripe old age of 85, and being only five years his junior, she had thought to follow him soon thereafter, but her body just didn’t seem to want to give up on her. Even one of her stepchildren passed before she did, and him the doctor in the family. Didn’t seem right.
But reaching 100 was more laudable apparently than just lingering on into one’s nineties, especially if the birthday coincided with the nation’s bicentennial celebration. She didn’t see what all the fuss was about and figured the reporters must be pretty hard up for news, and she’d tell them so right to their faces, and after a while, she just refused to do any more interviews. She’d pretend she wasn’t home, hide in her bedroom with the lights off until they went away, like she was a criminal or owed someone money. It was damn irritating.
But then she got the letter. He was not a reporter, but a retired cop, who had seen her face in the paper, or maybe on the TV, yes that was it, praise be, the damn television came through at last. This cop had seen her on the television talking about her nephew John, and he said he thought he knew him and wanted to come talk to her. He didn’t say what happened to the man he thought was her nephew, so she figured she’d better let him come to visit like he offered to do. He sent his phone number and told her it was okay to call collect, so she did as soon as she got his letter, and asked him right off the bat if he was working with some newspaper reporter, because she’d stopped talking to them, told him her lawyer told her not to talk to them, which was a lie, but Auntie Ada figured everyone else said it, why not her? She tried to ask him over the phone was her nephew alive and where, but he told her he wasn’t sure the man he thought was her nephew might not be, so he’d rather come see her and ask some questions first.
So then he was there on her doorstep having driven the five hours from Charleston, and it occurred to him that the questions he needed to ask might be painful and the whole thing reminded him of when he was still in the force and had to visit families to ask questions about murder victims or murder suspects and how that was always, each and every time, right up to the very end, a problem for him.
After he’d partaken of the cookies and lemonade and candied watermelon rinds she offered him, he had to jump right in, there was no other way.
“The man I knew, in Charleston, well he’d been a preacher. And I know you mentioned that your nephew was a preacher and that he disappeared around 1930 or so. Can you tell me a little more? Was he the guy that claimed he had a woman with him was going to give birth to the second Christ?”
“You mean the second coming of Christ. There couldn’t be a second Christ, you know.”
“Well, yes, that. Was that your nephew?”
“Well, yes, kind of embarrassing actually. But, you know, a whole lot of folks fell for it. It didn’t surprise me really, John pulling something like that. He always was a con man, but you know, I loved him anyway. The way you talk, I guess this guy you knew is dead?”
“He died a hero ma’am.”
“Well, now I find that hard to believe. I loved him dearly, I just told you, and I did, but he never did fool me. He was a con man, plain and simple. Can you tell me where he died? And when? Had he ever married? Kids? Stuff like that? You know any of that about him? I don’t need to hear about heroics.”
But her caller looked so crestfallen that even outspoken Auntie Ada had to relent.
“Okay, I see I am a crotchety old woman. Here you want to cheer me up and tell me something fine about my own kin, and I’m telling you to put a lid on it. That’s what the grandkids say to each other: ‘put a lid on it.’ No, you go ahead and tell me. What kind of hero was my John? Not a war hero, I know that, so don’t go trying to tell me he was one of them.”
“No ma’am, he wasn’t a war hero, but he raised money for a shelter for homeless vets from the First World War, and he counseled young men going to the Second World War. Those of us who knew him on the street, that was his mission, you know, the street, nothing pompous or high and mighty about your John, no he was a humble man and those of us on the street admired that, that humility and that courage, because it takes courage, you know, to minister to the needs of the poor and the homeless…”
“What were you doing on the street back then? And when exactly was it? World War II, you say? You a cop then, or a soldier? Were you homeless?”
“No ma’am, I wasn’t homeless, I was a cop back then. It was just after Pearl Harbor…”
“That when he died? Pearl Harbor? No wonder he never turned up when we went looking for him. He wasn’t in trouble was he? I mean, you didn’t have to arrest him, did you?”
“Oh, no ma’am, I didn’t have to arrest him. He was a good man. He died saving a man.” Now her visitor was thinking fast and making up a new story. He’d intended to tell her that her nephew had been killed in the war saving a fellow soldier, but she’d already warned him she wouldn’t believe no war hero story, so he had to transfer the scene of his practiced monologue to the streets of Charleston.
“Stop right there, young man. If you’re going to tell me my nephew John got involved in some other person’s danger, we may as well say our good-byes, because it was another man you knew. My John avoided danger. I can believe he raised money for a shelter, especially if he was living there himself, and I can believe he talked the ears off any young man going off to war who would listen, but stopping someone else’s bullet, no way, Jose, the grandkids always say that: ‘no way, Jose,’ and I know what they mean. No way. I knew my John.”
“Well ma’am, I just wanted…”
“You just wanted to cheer me up, because you had to tell me my nephew was
dead all these years and I didn’t even know it. But you can’t and you don’t have to. I got worse to worry about than whether John died an ordinary man or a hero. I got my own conscience to worry about, is the fact of the matter. You see, I never said good-bye to him the last time he left home. You don’t know where he is buried do you? Do you think an old woman like me could make the trip? I sure would love to lay a few daisies on his grave, say a proper good-bye.”
“I’m not sure, ma’am, it was a long time ago. I could try to find the grave, I guess. I could drive you back with me to Charleston, and you could take the bus back home. Would you want to do that? I can’t guarantee I can find the grave after all these years, but I’d be willing to try.”
“You’re the hero, young man. Did you know that?” and Auntie Ada smiled at him almost flirtatiously.
“Well we can’t leave now if it’s all the way back to Charleston and it wouldn’t do for me to have a man under my roof. I’ll call a few friends and see if we can’t get you put up for the night. That okay with you? I have a stepson who has a guest room, now his son is off to college. What do you think? But he’s a ways over the mountain. I’m trying to think if one of the old geezers here in town has an extra room. You got to call your wife or anything?”
“My wife’s dead, ma’am, and I live alone now, but thank you. I’ll be okay at the Motel 6 right outside town. I’ll pick you up in the morning. What time can you be ready to travel?”
“Well now, hold on a minute. I’ll get you some dinner first. Then we’ll make plans for the morning. I should warn you I’m old and slow and probably won’t be ready to leave until nearly 9 o’clock.”
And that was how Auntie Ada made a new friend who was willing to listen to her stories about the old days, and could be trusted not to tell the papers or any of her neighbors, either.
It was a beautiful day for driving, and seeing the landscape pass by reminded Auntie Ada of things she’d long forgotten. She recalled how, after John had gone traveling, a man that had been gone for years and gone to war too, had returned to the county with a beautiful wife and what a sad story that had been. “Killed her in the end…it was the talk of the county for a couple of years, poor man, she’d been fooling around on him, right under his nose, folks said. No one blamed him, but you know he blamed himself. Was never the same after that. I’ll never forget that look he had in his eyes, and yet, here I go rambling on and on, and I did forget all about it until just now.”
“I gather he didn’t go to jail? Maybe he’d have felt better if he had.”
“Oh, no, I don’t think so. I know what you mean, but he was a strange fellow, half Indian, I heard.”
“You think Indians are strange? What if I was to tell you I was half Indian? What would you think then?”
“Oh mercy me, are you? Are you really?”
“No, but what if I was to tell you that?”
“Well what are you then? So’s I don’t go embarrassing myself again.”
“Italian. That okay?”
“Of course it is. You know I don’t mean nothing by that kind of talk. We all just talk that way, you know, about folks as are different. And we always heard stories about Indian magic, like that they could turn themselves into animals like that, so you know, people were just a little bit afraid of Indians when I was coming up, and we all get our ideas when we’re young, don’t you think?”
“Well I hope we get a few ideas when we get old, too. So, did you know that there was a time when folks thought old women were witches?”
“What? You trying to get me mad?”
“No, I just thought you’d think that was an interesting idea. I mean, you and I know that old women are not witches. Why, we even know there’s no such thing as witches, but a hundred years ago, some folks thought there were witches and that old women could work some bad magic. Sometimes folks would burn or drown an old woman just because it was so strange for a woman to live so long, know what I mean?”
“You are trying to get me mad. Did you say you were a retired cop? Or a school teacher?”
“My wife was a school teacher. I was the cop.”
“I see.” And then Auntie Ada was quiet for a while, wondering who it was used to burn old women just for being old, and just exactly what this guy was up to, now he had her prisoner in his car all the way to Charleston.
“Funny how things change over time though, ain’t it? Nowadays no man would kill his wife for committing adultery. Why, we have these young people coming in to buy land and they build themselves some cabins and call themselves a ‘commune,’ and I heard they all sleep together or take turns with the husbands and wives, something like that, and no one kills anybody else. In fact they make a big deal about being against war and hunting and what not.”
“Yeah, we got some newcomers to the counties around Charleston, too. Nice young folks mostly. Think?”
“Well sure. I don’t understand ‘em but I’m glad they don’t go killing each other over some silly jealousy. I never did understand it but maybe that’s because I didn’t get married myself ‘til I was already past 40, regular old maid I was. No one thought I was much to look at, but now we all look alike anyway; the men, the women, you get to be 100 and what difference does it make, huh? I felt sorry for that pretty woman, being pretty just got her dead. And you know, it’s a small world, because it was her daughter what had the baby my John told everyone was the second coming of the Christ, God knows what got into him. He couldn’t have been in love with her, she was but 14 at the time, 13, 14, something like that. She just didn’t want to tell who got her pregnant. Some folks kept pretty busy wondering what boy did it. I don’t think John did it, pretty sure he didn’t. John wanted people’s admiration and sometimes their money, but he wouldn’t have done that to a young girl like that. Said he fished her out the river. And her poor father, no one ever could find him after that. They was other sad stories too, from the old days. Want to hear ‘em?”
“Why didn’t you tell the papers?”
“Oh, they don’t want to hear what I got to say. They already know what they want to put in their stories, and if you tell them what they want to hear, they quote you on it, and if you tell them something else, they still quote you saying what they wanted you to say, know what I mean? I mean all them lawyers telling folks not to talk to the papers is right, I think.”
So Auntie Ada rambled on, barely stopping for breath, because most young folks thought the old ones were boring and never had a naughty thought in their lives, but she knew different. She told about the old couple that ran the general store right up into their eighties, and how that little old woman was one of the best bear hunters in the county because, way back before anyone could remember, her husband had left her alone on the farm with the young farmhand, while he went to hunt bear for a couple of weeks, and when he came home, he found her in the hayloft with the farmhand, and he shot the farmhand, but he didn’t shoot his wife. He just took her with him next time he went bear hunting. But small world that it was, it was their grandson, Ada was pretty sure, who’d been caught with the pretty woman in the shed, and the husband had shot them both that time. Well, for all the self-righteous gossips might like to point the finger, it happened all the time, then as now, except now people were out in the open about it and got a divorce instead of killing each other.
“Not always,” thought the cop. The fact was, nothing ever really changed much about human beings, but the clothing styles
They stopped to eat in Hinton and were hungry again by the time they got to Charleston, and Auntie Ada was getting tired from the drive and ended up staying the night with the cop’s sister. And the next day the three of them went searching among the remains of the paupers’ cemetery that had once been at the edge of town and was now surrounded by new buildings and neighborhoods, and the subject of some controversy as to whether it should be turned into a parking lot. No one mentioned any of t
hat to Auntie Ada, and finally they did find the grave that was marked “JB,” and Auntie Ada said a prayer and laid down the store-boughten flowers she had gotten for the occasion that morning, and then she was ready to go home, to lay down her guilt and her questions and go about her business as she had always tried to do; a no-nonsense kind of woman, they called her (and if that was so, some wondered, how is it that John turned out to be so full of it?).
But then a funny thing happened. Auntie Ada was too tired to take the bus home that afternoon, and she was welcome to stay another night with the sister, so she did, and the poor woman came in the next morning to find that Auntie Ada had died quietly, and presumably comfortably, in her sleep. “She just wanted to find out what happened to her nephew,” she told her brother, and he just sighed and said he was going to write a book.
Discreet as they tried to be, they had to contact he woman’s stepchildren about the death and make arrangements to transport the body back to Greenbriar County, and so the local newspapers did get hold of the story after all, at least that part of it that they wanted to tell. And wouldn’t you know? One of them reporters did some research in old newspaper archives and dug up the stories about the baby born with no arms and hounded the retired cop until he told his part of it, what he knew, which was more than they had expected, but he didn’t know that, all of which just goes to show that Auntie Ada was right about not talking to the reporters. It all made pretty interesting reading that year.
And then a folksinger made up a song and sang it at the state fair in Lewisburgh, and every now and then, someone up and claimed to BE the baby boy, James, who’d been lost track of during the great depression, never mind that he’d be 47 by now, and was born with no arms, or even that he was a he. It was a sin for folks not to believe in the death and resurrection. It was a sin for folks not to believe in the virgin birth some nearly 2,000 years ago, so why shouldn’t folks be asked to believe that Christ had returned in the form of a baby James, who could stay forever young, grow him a pair of arms, or even change himself into a young woman? The thing was, the mental hospitals were running out of room and money and letting folks out that shouldn’t have been let out, and soon they were all wandering the streets and preaching and claiming to be someone else. And when the newspaper stories hit the stands, those folks just had something new to hope for, some new escape route from the reality that had driven them crazy in the first place. That was one theory. And then there were those who thought maybe it could be true, why not? And then there were those who always responded the same way to every new thing that came up: “What is this world coming to?” Which was a damn silly question when you thought about it, the world had been coming to something for so long and nobody seemed to ever get it figured out. And that was how the talk went on the streets, until the stories died down, when something new came along to catch the interest of the reporters.
But that retired cop, maybe because he’d actually seen them, the mother and the baby, when he was a young motherless child himself, or maybe just because he’d been a cop all those years and got used to wondering about such things, did indeed drive himself nearly crazy trying to track them down. That investigation occupied him for the rest of his life and led him on many false paths, but not so false, maybe because he met a lot of sorry folks who were cheered by his interest in their stories, even when the stories turned out to be the wrong ones. His sister once scolded him about the amount of time and money he put into the search, but when he asked her what else he had to spend his time and money on, she couldn’t come up with anything, so she stopped scolding. She’d been old enough to go work for a family while her younger brother was being dragged around the countryside by their lunatic grandparents to tent revivals and getting all worked up over religious prophecies. She married a nice man who made a good living, and they had raised two fine children, and she’d earned some peace and quiet, so she was off to her bridge game and her brother could do whatever he damn well pleased.
#
Last night I dreamt
you came to me
caressed my hair
stroked my cheek
stop my tears
so I can sleep.
But then I woke
to find you gone
and I was left
to know alone
alone I was
left to know
I'd always be
Where did you go?
Why did you go?
Taking with you
all the joy
I'd ever know?
Stillbird Page 22