The Promise of Rest

by Reynolds Price

  And though all the others assumed that Grainger was either asleep, upright in his chair, or had wandered into some thicket of memory, it was simply a fact that none of them except Grainger Walters—in their thoughts here now—had moved on into fresh knowledge and hope. Since a year ago when television brought him the ghetto riots from Los Angeles—whole days and nights of fire and pillage by young black men—Grainger’s mind had frequently called up memories he’d heard in childhood from his slave-born great-great-grandmother Veenie.

  Veenie had been born around 1820 in southeast Virginia and was halfway grown when a preacher named Turner led his short revolt of a few black men that managed to kill some fifty white people in the summer of 1831. Veenie had even told Grainger she’d stood not twenty yards from the scaffold and watched Turner hanged in the county seat when she’d been sent to town for one spool of thread. And somewhere in his trunk in this room, Grainger still had the buckeye—the dry horse chestnut—that Veenie had found near Nat’s swinging corpse as she left the sight that morning and walked to the master’s kitchen where she worked every day from sunrise to bedtime. That much pain and iron endurance had come and gone in the live presence of a woman Grainger had loved and leaned on, not fifty miles from where he sat tonight with three white people he’d worked to serve, one of whom was his cousin. Yet Veenie’s cold blood, thick as a dragon’s, crept through him tonight.

  So the mixture of those two ominous thoughts—the California riots and old Veenie’s memories—had preyed on Grainger ever since; and lately he’d spent long hours each day, and many whole nights, in the vivid certainty that wholesale righteous dreadful slaughter waited for every soul he’d cared about, live and dead (he specifically thought that the dead, white and black, would also rise at the Judgment with their strength renewed and turn on one another with pitchforks, butchering axes and hand-forged knives). And none of it worried him all that much since, in his mind, Grainger likewise knew he had enough Negro blood in his veins (he was more than half black) to be permitted to save two souls when the gore streamed at last. He’d long since chosen the two he’d rescue—his dead wife Gracie, who’d abandoned him many years ago, and one young white man that sometimes (now in Grainger’s shifting mind) wore the face of Rob Mayfield, then Hutch’s own face and sometimes Straw’s, then Wade’s face the way it had looked in childhood: clear as a clean plate with two keen eyes, not bone-thin and blind, which it must be now.

  The other thing that wove through Grainger’s mind as he sat at the head of this bountiful table was a line of numbers he tried to recall—1-1-2-2-something-5-8-9-9. He barely knew it was Wade’s phone number his mind was hunting; but be finally thought it was urgent to ask for somebody’s help, whoever these people here might be—he was no longer sure. So he reached for the fork on his empty plate and rapped the plate hard.

  Straw said “You don’t plan to eat more tonight, Mr. Walters? We’ll be up till day.”

  Grainger ignored him but looked to Emily and said “Tell me what this number means.” This time he could only say “1-1-something,” then “9-9-9.”

  Emily went blank.

  Even Straw was stumped.

  Hutch quietly said “He’s working on Wade’s telephone number.” Then he said the whole number clearly toward Grainger. “Wade’s telephone number in New York City is 212-732-5899. You want to call Wade?”

  Emily gently said “No—”

  Strawson said “Let Mr. Walters say. It’s his damned party; he’s got his own plans.”

  But Grainger’s eyes had shut down firmly. He might very well have been dead upright.

  And Hutch took the possibility seriously. He reached out, turned Grainger’s wrist and held two fingers against the skin that was dry as any adder’s. It was chill to the touch, and at first Hutch could find no pulse or motion. But he lightened his pressure till, finally, there seemed to be the wide-spaced thud of ongoing life. He moved his fingers to Grainger’s neck, the hollow below the back of his jaw. There Hutch could sense an actual beat, still faint and slow.

  Emily whispered “The wine was too much for him, this late.”

  Straw said “He fades off like this a lot.” When Hutch had taken his own hand back, Straw said “Mr. Walters, we’ve got this cake to eat.”

  Emily said “He can nave cake anytime. Let’s put him to bed.”

  Straw said “He’s fine, just playing possum.”

  Hutch said “First possum to live past a hundred. Let’s lay him down.”

  But though he spoke gently, Straw insisted on his own rights. “I want to remember this night; get the cake.” He’d drunk more than half the bottle of wine, though he showed no sign of more than his daily heat and focus.

  Through the screen Hutch saw that the night was almost on them, and the air had turned cooler than he’d expected. He’d already seen Straw’s camera by the door; so he said “Take a picture if you want to now, but I doubt we’ll need reminders of this.”

  Grainger said “I don’t show up on film no more.” Then he actually laughed, the first time in three years. His eyes stayed shut another long moment; then Grainger looked to Emily. “Em, let’s light us a bonfire and eat it.”

  At first nobody quite understood; then Emily realized he meant the cake. “I just put one candle on your cake, Mr. Grainger. Last year you started over on your age.”

  Straw laughed. “Last year we nearly had our own firestorm.”

  Emily stood and went to the kitchen counter, lit the one green candle and brought the cake forward—the caramel cake that Grainger had asked for, rich as any oil billionaire and made by a half-cracked widow down the road. Emily waited for Hutch or Strawson to sing; but though they faced her, they both stayed quiet.

  So Grainger said “Everybody’s too old to sing but me” and croaked his way through a curious version of the first line of “Happy Birthday.” Then he went mute again to eat the sizable slice Emily gave him. And when Straw stood to bring on the presents, Grainger only said “I don’t need a thing cash money can buy” and held out his long raised palm to Straw.

  Straw set the three boxes back by the door. “You’ll enjoy them tomorrow.” The contents were socks and a pair of red suspenders and, from Hutch, a framed photograph of his mother—Hutch’s own mother Rachel, whom Grainger had known and helped years back. Till now she’d been absent from Grainger’s wall of pictures; her death, in childbed, had pained him too hard.

  To that point Straw had seemed cold sober, his alert best self. But when Grainger balked him from giving the gifts, Straw’s face had gone slack. Then every cell around his eyes and mouth had crouched.

  Hutch thought He’s about to say something else mean.

  But what Straw did was stand up soberly and go to Grainger’s bed. He sat on the near edge, took up the phone and punched in eleven digits slowly.

  If Grainger understood, he sat very still and thought I was right. Here comes what I dread.

  Emily guessed at once what Straw was attempting.

  Strangely it didn’t dawn on Hutch. He was watching Grainger again, that lordly face, taking the sight of it back to his own first memories.

  When they’d put the phone out here a few years ago, they’d hooked it up with a twenty-foot cord so Grainger could call for help from anywhere. Now Straw walked with the white receiver toward the table; and a moment after he stood by the old man, the number answered. Straw quietly said “Wade, did I wake you up?” Then, with waits, Straw said “We’re all down here for this big event” and “I’m glad to hear it” and “Tell it to Grainger.” Straw put the receiver against Grainger’s left ear.

  Grainger’s hand didn’t come up to hold it, but he seemed to listen for half a minute. What he finally said was “You can’t see me.” Wade must have answered something like “No, not on the phone” since Grainger said “Here now in this room. You’re looking right at me but I’m all gone.” If Wade was still there, he either said nothing or launched a monologue—Grainger said nothing else.

 
So Straw took the receiver back.

  But Grainger’s hand came up and seized it. He said to Wade “Just do this for me.” Then he leaned to hold out the phone to Hutch, to give him this chance.

  It didn’t startle Hutch or rile him. It was plainly as much a piece of this day as the ancient life that was still beside him in Grainger’s body, a part of the course that Hutch had always understood to be laid down before him, a step or two ahead of his feet. He said “Evening, Son.”

  “Evening sir.” Wade sounded younger, by maybe ten years, than the last time they’d talked.

  “I’ve missed your voice.”

  Skittish as Wade’s mind had got in recent days, he’d thought of such a moment for months. A great run of stored scalding words waited in him. But he held himself back enough to say only “I’ve missed a lot more than your voice, believe me.”

  Grainger was still in his chair, watching Hutch. His eyes hadn’t blinked in maybe two minutes.

  Emily and Straw were in the kitchen, scraping plates.

  That near to Grainger—and all Grainger signified of their shared family’s reckless waste—Hutch was suddenly free to say to his child “When can I see you?” It felt like the first words ever between them.

  And Wade’s voice was still young and hard as a child’s. “I can’t see you.”

  Hutch thought he referred to the blindness Grainger and Straw had mentioned. “I’ve heard about that. I’ll help all I can.”

  But Wade had intended a bigger refusal—he couldn’t imagine the sight of his father, after what had passed between them in recent years. He said “I’ve got all the help I can use.”

  “That much relieves me. But I’d still value the chance to see you. I finish classes in three more weeks.”

  Wade seemed to be gone—the wait was that long. Then a voice that was almost certainly his, though younger still, said “What if I told you to come here right now—by dawn at the latest?”

  Hutch said “I’d start driving.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Tonight.”

  Wade took a real wait. “How long could you stay?”

  “Long as you need me. Son.”

  “You just said you had three more weeks of class.”

  “I’ll get a stand-in; that’s my least concern. You say what you want.”

  Wade drew a long breath but couldn’t speak.

  “Some friend’s there with you tonight, I trust?”

  Another pained wait, then finally Wade said “I’m by myself.”

  “For how long?”

  “Another few minutes, maybe an hour.”

  “Wyatt’s still with you, right?” Wyatt had been Wade’s companion for nine years; he’d quickly become the main obstruction, and then an all but impassable wall between Hutch and Wade.

  Wade said “Not Wyatt.”

  “He’s left?”

  “He’s dead.” On its own, Wade’s voice made a high rough cry like a wail on the TV news from Palestine.

  Hutch thought Thank God but he said “Oh no. I thought he wasn’t sick at all.”

  “Wyatt shot himself, downstairs, out on the street—February 18th.”

  At first Hutch could only think Has Ann known this and not told me? But he knew not to ask it. Keep pushing on. So he said it again another way. “Wade, you’re not all alone there, are you—not in the night?”

  “My neighbor checks in twice a day and runs errands for me. A man from the AIDS center comes every morning. I haven’t seen a doctor in weeks, haven’t needed to—thank Christ for that.”

  “But you’re blind, they say.”

  “Did Grainger tell you? I asked him not to.”

  Hutch said “He’s here beside me right this minute. We’ve eaten his birthday cake, and it’s past his bedtime by hours.” Hutch could see that Grainger’s eyes had shut and his head had drifted down onto his chest.

  In the kitchen Straw and Emily were quiet, clearly waiting on Hutch to end the call.

  Hutch was so overloaded with feelings, he could hardly think. “Son, we need to let Grainger lie down. Can I call you back in half an hour?”

  “No, professor. I need to get quiet.”

  “Then I’ll be there tomorrow.”

  “No. Leave me alone, Hutch.” Wade had called Hutch Father all his life till today.

  Hutch heard the change and thought it was hopeful. He said “I’ll call you back in a little. If you don’t want to talk, don’t answer the phone.”

  But Wade was gone—had he heard the last words?

  Hutch called his name again once, then rose and replaced the phone.

  By the time Hutch turned back toward Grainger’s chair, Straw was leaning to the old man’s ear. “Sleepy time down South.”

  Grainger didn’t respond; his head stayed limp on his chest, no sound.

  For whatever cause, Hutch felt again the rush of strong pleasure—was it pleasure or a strain of panic, he wondered?—and he thought Let him go. It was Grainger he meant—let him go on now to death and eventual rest, at the end of this night when the old man had flung what might be a bridge between father and son, both frozen in silence till this full night.

  Straw already had Grainger out on the bed. Hutch watched him unbutton the collar button, the cuffs of the starched shirt; then as Straw moved lightly to loosen the belt, Hutch untied the high-topped shoes and shucked them, then laid the blanket back on the old man, foot to chin (Grainger often spent whole nights in his day clothes).

  Grainger said to the air in general “I told you they’re coming with sickles, cutting a road, but nobody heard me.” He was gone then, asleep, not ready to die; or death was not yet ready to take him—no one else ever had or would.

  When Hutch followed Straw down the steps, he walked a little behind in hopes of a quiet few minutes to print on his mind that last sight of Grainger. He might well see him tomorrow morning before he left—he might be leaving tonight if Wade said “Come on” again—but Hutch understood that, once he’d spread that blanket up three minutes ago, he’d made his final try at thanking a man: an openhanded unsparing kinsman, whom he’d never see matched in this world again.

  The mold was as long gone as whatever mold made the architect of the Great Wall of China, the goldsmith who beat out the pure death mask for Tutankhamen’s withered face; as gone as the captain of the last clandestine slave ship that worked the south Atlantic in the girlhood of Grainger’s great-great-grandmother and who still plowed on through the old man’s mind, though powerless to appall him now.

  At the foot of the steps to the main house kitchen, Straw turned and saw Hutch lingering in the dark yard. Straw spoke out clearly. “Take the air you need. I’ll be inside. Call for me if you need me. I’ll ride to Mars if you need me that far.”

  Hutch bowed his head and waved and stayed by the big oak, seated against it, looking back through his blind son’s life to the days when they’d run around this same tree—Wade in the years before he was twelve, Hutch in his thirties, both flung by love like hawks by a storm.

  6

  IT was past nine o’clock and fully dark before Hutch entered the main house and climbed to his bedroom on the second floor. It was the space he’d occupied when he lived with his father Rob in the country—usefully lonely adolescent years with a man more likable than most, though one who was apt to cause frequent pain, and with Grainger beside them much of the time. Straw and Emily, for thirty-odd years, had used Rob’s old bedroom downstairs. It was directly under Hutch’s; but though Hutch had left his door open now, he heard no sound except the normal creaks of a dry house older than Grainger.

  Hutch had cleared his thoughts fairly well in the yard. He thought he understood that his forced encounter on the phone with Wade was the cause of the clairvoyant pleasure he’d felt through the day—not pleasure in a son’s far-off agony but in contact restored—and Hutch had planned his next sure move. He wanted to sit here a few more minutes in a room that had sheltered much of his life, then to go back down an
d phone Wade again as he’d promised.

  He’d repeat his offer to drive north tonight; he could be at Wade’s West Side apartment by early morning and do what was called for. If Wade would agree to accept his help and come home, Hutch could simply lock the New York apartment, get Wade to the car by hook or crook and leave the chores of packing and shutting down a life till some decisive choice had been made, by death most likely. Life with a dying son in Durham would need its own plans. Hutch had a shaky confidence that somehow a path would open before him once he had the boy home.

  A boy—right—thirty-two years old who had strong warnings of the danger he risked but who walked, open-eyed, into this destruction. The first need would be some reliable help, a companion or nurse. Surely Durham, a town with three huge hospitals, could offer qualified practical nurses to tide them through the last weeks of school. Then Hutch could take over full-time till the end. He’d already set his mind on the hope that Wade could die at home, the comfortable house where he’d grown up.

  What will Ann try to do? Once Hutch had helped Ann move into her new life, he and she had hardly communicated except for business matters (and then mostly by letter); and—strangely, though they used the same grocery store and shared many friends—they hadn’t met face-to-face in nearly ten months. Their mutual friends were not talebearers. Ann’s new job kept her off Duke campus. And Hutch had gradually managed to fill, with friends and work, what had seemed like a sucking wound when Ann spent her first night in three decades outside their marriage—outside the idea of their marriage at least; they’d of course been briefly parted by business trips. The thought of Ann tonight, with Wade’s phone voice still strong in Hutch’s ear, felt as distant and cool as a handsome old house seen from a fast car, trailing off in the dusk of a rearview mirror. It’s me Wade has asked for, if anybody.

  Hutch looked up, intending to head downstairs toward the nearest phone; and there stood Strawson, silent on the doorsill, both hands raised like a cornered thief. He’d changed into a dark blue polo shirt and black cotton trousers. Oddly Hutch thought Pallbearer’s clothes.