The worn mahogany dresser with the white marble top had been shifted over to the other wall and it caught my eye. A framed photo I hadn’t seen before. I stood, and walked over to examine it. Last summer’s hike on the Exodus trail in the heart of the Cumberland mountains. My arm flopped over Emily’s shoulders, pulling her into me, each wearing straw cowboy hats tipped back, all sunglasses and smiles. My brother-in-law Luke had taken it. I remembered the day. I’d been stung on the ankle by a honey bee. Covering my mouth, a let off a soft howl. Tears flowed. I flipped the photo face down. This wouldn’t take days or weeks. It would take years.
Shrieking came from the hallway, playful laughter. I gathered myself and stood in the doorway. Brant and Lilly were dragging luggage, scraping suitcases across the wood floors of the hallway, about to vanish into the next guest room.
I hung on the doorjamb to steady my feet, feeling faint. “Don’t unpack yet,” my voice cracked. “We’re trading rooms.”
Except to sleep, I pretty much avoided the second floor altogether where I often felt the presence of a ghost lurking in the old guestroom, waiting there for me like some panic attack wanting to jump out. Emily’s sister Vanessa was very worried about me. She kept saying I looked drawn. Shaking her head with disapproval. Mumbling something about a failure to thrive. So she parked me at the kitchen table with little chance of escape. The first few mornings served steamy coffee, eggs over medium, country fried ham or bacon chipped gravy poured over biscuits from scratch. Days and evenings found a table filled with bread baked golden brown, fresh chicken deep fried in a clumpy batter and sprinkled with cracked black pepper or slow wood-smoked apple turkey. All of this Vanessa’s attempt to lift me back to life through sheer calories. And so, I ate. Enough that my belt expanded two notches, back to the worn hole where it used to be. The onslaught of Southern fare required healthy digestion which required days filled with intervals of napping on the couch, or out on the hammock by the fish pond or light reading on cushions sprawled in bay window facing south, soaking up the sun. This gave Luke and I time to catch up on our careers. He was also in law enforcement, the only self-proclaimed red-headed officer for the Exodus County Police Department. Which I heard wasn’t even true. We exchanged tales of big city insurance fraud investigations and backwoods rural takedowns. He made me tell the story of Lassiter and the boat harbor three times and at each conclusion, his orange eyebrows lifted high as he declared I was famous. Neither were short on material.
Over our first week, Lilly and Brant found their footing in country surroundings with astonishing speed. Which brought me relief, and a bit of envy. The kids were so elastic. Yes, there would be hard days ahead, and moments of struggle. Despite our circumstances, our arrival to our new home in the Cumberland Mountains had been smooth so far. The Bodwell kids, Chase and Rachel, were roughly the same age. Together they were like a little pack of unleashed wolves, darting about, sprinting from the house to the big hay barn in the far corner where the forest began, in an eternal game of tag that never ended. The heat of the early summer afternoons filled in, the group usually wound up floating on rafts in the fish pond, popping the air valves open to play “the sinking ship.” They shared an array of mannerisms and physical traits, like eye color, the shapes of mouths, the sound of identical laughter, even the way they ran with loose legs and stiff arms. The similarities brought me great comfort. We truly were with our family. And one thing was certain. No one missed Chicago.
One late evening after dinner, with the windows drawn open beneath an impossible blanket of stars and a warm breeze carrying the song of tree frogs and buzzing beetles, we all began to unpack. We didn’t plan it or talk about it. We just started. I backed the Ford Taurus off the car hauler and rolled open the rear door of the moving truck. Since we’d sold or given away most possessions, the process of bringing in clothes, personal items, and a few pieces of furniture only took two hours. When we finished, Luke scrunched his face, his goatee and eyebrows the color of new pennies. He stared into the abyss of the empty box truck and crossed his arms. “Is this really all the shit you brought, man?”
Since our arrival, an overwhelming weight that crept in a little more each day, found us with our shoulders hunched over and heads down: No one had mentioned Emily. Not once. Until we finished unpacking. Late and alone in a room upstairs, I presented Vanessa with the sealed box I’d packed so carefully in Chicago. She took it, and gave me a crooked look. I nudged my head at her, like, go on, open it. Pulling the flaps open, her eyes went wide, then bulged. She came up Emily’s hairbrush, took a deep breath, smelling the wisp of blonde hair caught in the tines, and nuzzled the brush, stroked it down her cheek. I studied her arms, her jawline, her heavyset eyes and suddenly found myself wanting to kiss her. Badly. My face flushed red, pin-prickled with shame. How dare you. I bit my lip hard, using the sharp pain to throw off the spell. And it worked. But why this unholy impulse?
The interplay of starlight and nocturnal shadows caressed her body, making her skin illuminate like porcelain, the moonbeam cutting into her eyes with a sparkle. Then I got it: In that precise moment she looked exactly like my dead wife. Sitting before me in the glow of night, inches away, she’d transformed physically into Emily. This wasn’t just me caught up in the moment. In college, everyone got the girls mixed up, thought they were twins. I exhaled and my shoulders dropped with relief. I didn’t want Vanessa. I missed my wife. And I wanted her back. Vanessa dropped the brush into her lap.
“Oh, Shade,” she cried. “Fuck it all.” She burst into tears and buried her face into my chest, crying. Against the heat of her breath between the shuddering sobs, my body went rigid and I turned my head away. My gut turned cold and recoiled inside. My collarbone went wet with her tears. I picked a speck on the ceiling, and ignored this.
“I just can’t believe she’s gone,” she cried.
She might not be that far away. I wanted to tell her the casket we buried back in Chicago was empty. But not yet.
6
Everything Under the Sun
After a few weeks of lurking in the house, thank merciful God one of the commodes stopped flushing altogether. Vanessa had been on me like glue since the move here. And I seized a broken commode as an opportunity to get the hell out of the house. I felt my role as guest was turning into hostage. With the faulty commode flapper-ball removed and tossed in a brown paper bag, I veered for the door. Vanessa tried to talk me out of going. She was scared. I was still not well she protested. But I insisted on doing my part and emphasized that Luke left several hours earlier for work. To get paid. With real money. I explained I wasn’t earning my keep. I told her how guilty I felt. That the very least I could do was help around the house. Eating meal after meal didn’t count anymore. But I was lying. I didn’t care about money right now. Vanessa was driving me crazy. I needed to stretch my wings. Breathe on my own. To get some perspective on my new geography. To be left the f… alone.
Out in my Ford Taurus I found my stash of hidden nicotine gum and unwrapped one, chewing, and reflecting. I wasn’t trying to stop smoking. I tried the gum once, bummed a piece from a cop colleague. This shit tastes terrible, I told him. He smiled. But how does it make you feel. Ten minutes later, I’d found myself as sharp and focused as ever before. It centered me. Now I’d been on the stuff for 10 years. And at this point I had no conviction to ever stop. It made my life better.
Fifteen minutes later, I merged onto the town’s main road, Exodus Avenue, a central thoroughfare constructed of granite cobblestone that made the Ford’s wheels to shudder and slap even at slow speeds. Perched above the elms that lined either side of the street, the smallish, golden dome of the Story Mount courthouse twinkled against the hot sun. I aimed the car that way, crawling past an endless row of American flags hanging from brass poles mounted on old brick storefronts, the red, white and blue duplicating itself block after block. Until Exodus Avenue ended all at once at the stony face of the towering C
umberland Mountains. I parked the car and got out. The view was so abrupt and contradictory, the street here, and bam! A mountain wall dropped right there. It looked unfinished, as if someone had forgotten to dig the tunnel to allow the road to go on. And a few miles to the north, a huge gash stretched from the sky to the ground that split the mountain face open. The enormous fissure looked like a missing tooth, as if a giant had walked up with a sledge hammer and knocked a hole out of the middle. I realized this was what Luke was talking about, the Cumberland Gap.
Swapping stories one night, Luke had told me that the Gap alone was responsible for the birth of the town, the settlement of Kentucky and in large part, the entire expansion of the United States into the west. Apparently, a million moons ago, the cosmos slung a meteor into the face of North America. The space rock raced down at an angle, blew through the mountain chain, and touched down with a nuclear-scale impact. Millions of years later, we find Story Mount, a town built entirely inside a colossal bowl-shaped impact zone left behind by an ancient asteroid. “The Gap” left behind in the mountain, granted a keyhole access point into the western wilds where pioneers chased the American Dream all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Story Mount owed her very existence to a violent celestial explosion and the utter annihilation of everything that had been in its place before her. Just like me. I got here the exact same way. Why this all happened, I don’t know. Maybe it was fate, or a dark force. Maybe a dirty trick played by the cosmos, or the devil himself was responsible. ‘Why’ didn’t matter anyhow. The fact remained my life as I knew it had been blown to pieces. There was no old life anymore. There was just life. Cupping my hand to block the sun, I looked up at the empty chasm, staring into the immense void filled with wide emptiness. If the sheer violence and destruction that tore that mountain in two gave starving multitudes a chance at a new life, perhaps the hole inside my heart might also become the passageway through which I emerge on the other side, somehow reborn.
I got back in the car, gave a quick u-turn, and drove back toward the courthouse where I was able to parallel-park in front of densely packed storefronts, the flags hanging listless in the breezeless heat. I grabbed the brown bag, and came out on the street looking for parking meters. There were none. It confused me. Inside the polished plate-glass windows, a few people milled about, looking more than buying. A worn pair of horses came clopping by, pulling an open carriage with no customers. The driver holding the reins, a woman who looked agitated, didn’t return my smile. I strolled down the brick sidewalk, half-heartedly looking for a hardware store but more honestly just taking in the sights and sounds of this new mountain home.
At the corner, on a bench in front of a barbershop, three elderly farmers with loose leathery skin sat in overalls, chewing and mumbling at each other. Discarded peanut shells were scattered all over the pavement at their feet. I practically stepped on a couple pigeons pecking at the shells. A car backfired. I jumped. The pigeons scattered. An economy car with tinted windows and hip-hop thumping, revved and backfired again, the muffler intentionally sawed off to jack-up the noise. I glared as the car rolled slowly down Exodus Avenue. Behind the bubbling and peeling tint, a white shaver-head thug with neck tattoos hung his lit cigarette out the driver’s window and took turns staring down each pedestrian as he passed. My heart kind of broke because I knew what it meant. No place was safe anymore. The scourge was already here.
Luke told me a few months back about big city problems going down in small town America. Even out here, idyllic countryside in the middle of nowhere, the murky tide of dipshits had rolled in with their needles, guns, meth, heroin, teenage prostitution, tattooed necks, STD’s and homicides. Prior to moving, Luke had warned me to let go of any naive visions of Mayberry and the Andy Griffith Show. He’d compared it to a disease, something along the lines of a cancer spreading hat could not be stopped. There was just no escaping it he’d said. Now I started to understand. The skinny, bald zombie-boy slowed down alongside me in his purple shit-box roller and scowled, locking his half-dead meth eyes on mine. He blew out smoke with greasy lips, stroking a tiny patch of wiry chin hair, I switched the paper bag with the plumbing parts into my left hand. I’m right handed.
“You got a problem, mainnn?” he tilted his head out the window, face coming on like a worn Halloween mask, making the smoke look ugly, making the street look ugly, making everything under the sun look ugly.
“A problem?” I didn’t blink and stepped forward. “Not yet. But I have one for you right here. I jammed my hand into my back pocket knowing meth-monkey would think knife or gun. He jumped on the gas and tore off, shrieking out the window that he was coming back for me. I wanted to throw my arms up. I wanted to challenge him to come back and play. But then I would only be adding to the ugliness. I caught a flash of my counselor Kathleen Hodges in my mind. I did the quick self-assessment she taught me. No. This wasn’t on me. He engaged me. Posturing and word-play are for cowards. No need for shouting and loud conjecture. If you want me, just come and get me. I will step forward. I will meet you half-way. I didn’t invent the rules. I just played by them.
Working my way to the edge of the historic business district, a tiny public park appeared in the hazy heat where a Veteran’s memorial fountain that had been taken over by soil and English Ivy. A lanky man popped out from behind a holly tree holding a rubber mallet in one hand and an empty metal bucket in the other. He wore polyester pants hitched nearly up to his chest and white tennis shoes stained green with grass. I guessed him to be in his 30’s. With disheveled fly-away hair and glasses smudged with fingerprints, he thrust out the pail and shook it. “I seen the Argopelter! Now pay up or else!”
“Argo-what?” I checked over my shoulder, mouth hanging open, to see if I was on the ass-end of some local joke, some rural version of being punked. He puffed up his chest, and shook his bucket at me again, rattled with loose coins. I nodded, reached into my jeans, pulled off a dollar bill and he tore it from my hand. With unmasked delight, he dashed back to into the park and immediately found another tree to bang the rubber mallet on. This place was getting more like Chicago with every passing moment. Back in the city, odd characters flavored and personalized neighborhoods with their own brand of crazy. It was similar to the way a friend’s ugly birthmark or severe overbite becomes endearing over time. For instance, there was a sweaty dark-skinned woman outside the Randolph-Wabash station near the Chicago Loop, always wearing the same stained metallic green jumpsuit and plum colored wig that always slipped forward over her nose, that made her crane her neck backward so it wouldn’t slip off. Each day at the station, she stood on a milk crate and shouted disjointed Old Testament verses into a bullhorn with no batteries. Initially the sight of her gave me anxiety, making me fear what would happen to me if one day I woke up and totally lost my shit. Then one day I stepped off the loop and she wasn’t there anymore. Never again. And oddly, I missed her. The guy with the metal bucket and the mallet raced to a new tree and started banging again. And I liked it.
The yeasty-beer scent of fresh pizza and barbecued meat filled the air as I searched for anything that resembled a hardware store. Slowly. Folks around here were not keeping pace with my Chicago time. They moved about so slowly I mockingly wondered if they were depressed or had lost the will to live. I’d get caught behind them and become forced to literally jog into the street just to get around them. Then a beat later, I’d be back walking on the next set of heels, resisting the urge to shove them out of the way, and soon enough, wanting to tear my hair out. Toddlers could walk faster. Not a week ago I was leapfrogging downtown city blocks with an electrifying sense of urgency, thumb texting, eating from wax bags, hailing taxis, all at breakneck speed. And then suddenly I was here. In the middle of nowhere, practically dying on the street in slow motion.
Everyone I passed nodded at me with a “howdy” or “mornin” as if we all worked in the same office for the same company. A few paces to the next store front, I came to a standstill,
arms flopping to my sides with disbelief. A man and woman engaged in full blown conversation, shouting from opposite sides of the road, reviewing little Timmy’s 7pm Tuesday evening t-ball game last week, sparing no detail. “He bats better than he pitches.” Laughter. “Just like his Paw.” Laughter. “Does he like picking clover in the outfield? He seemed real busy!” More laughter, yelling right into the faces of passersby with no absolutely regard. Why not cross the street and have a normal fucking conversation?
A few doors down a yellow sign sat swinging over a low doorway: We Sell Anything Under the Sun. Glimpsing into the window, tools and paint supplies hung from wall hooks. Inside, the place smelled of grape soda, lemon detergent and brown paper bags. Across the scuffed tile floor just in the front entrance, worn metal shelves overflowed with sale items- flashlights, knives, packages of batteries, candy, beef-jerky, gloves, ear muffs, diapers, baby food, commode plungers, aspirin, bottles of root beer, hummingbird feeders and leaking bags of birdseed. Nothing was grouped properly, but everything appeared obsessively stacked and folded with adhesive price tags, like a yard sale. A very heavy woman sat propped on a stool behind the counter, water-balloon arms jiggling as she repositioned on her seat, wearing a pink and white horizontal striped moo-moo. She stared at me, chewing gum, the chin bouncing below to keep up with the jaw. She studied me from my head to my feet, studying what I think was my crotch, and fixing her eyes there. She paused between each word, fanning herself with her hand. “Well, well, what have we here.”
Smiling, I stepped up and laid the busted commode flapper-ball on the countertop. Her jaw froze, giving the gum a rest. Tiny, dark mascara eyes searched me, patted me down. The kind of look you can feel crawling against the skin inside the clothes. The broken flapper-ball was a non-starter. She was oblivious.
Skin the Cat Page 5