The Lost Country

by William Gay

  After a few minutes he came out of the pines looking covertly all about but he did not see anyone.

  She finally agreed to go to a doctor. He took off half of Monday to drive Sudy to the doctor’s office, but she would not allow him to accompany her inside. He sat in the car and watched her slowly climb the steps reluctantly, an unrepentant prisoner approaching the bench. He did not see how she could function in the world so little did she speak. Still waters, how deep did they run. Surely she must need an intermediary to plead her cause. He could not imagine her talking to strangers, though he knew she must. She parceled words out as if she hated to see them go, might have better use for them later. Or perhaps it was just with him. She leant slightly to open the door, looked back at him once and then she was out of sight into the doctor’s office.

  He sat facing the quiet sidewalk and watching the early morning’s business slowly accomplish itself. Young girls cutting school passed wreathed with bold laughter, all the world must seem a joke. They eyed him briefly as if practicing on him, just keeping a hand in, then went on. An old man came very slowly and patiently down the sidewalk supporting himself with a cane, progressing toward the steps with infinite care as if he conveyed something of marvelous fragility. What brought him here alone? Edgewater wondered. What news awaited him here? With time allotted a day at a time the news could only be in degrees of mediocre or bad, though he guessed any day was good as long as it was there at all. A young couple passed hand in hand and went up the steps. The wind brought him bright scraps of their laughter after the door closed behind them.

  He waited a long time. The morning wore on and finally the day began to clear, a wornlooking sun broke through the southeast quadrant of the sky and gave forth a frail light that barely cast shadows. The wind whipped along the streets and sang Coke cups and scraps of paper along the asphalt. A world wearing itself out, unsure of renewal. He turned when the door opened again and saw her come out on the concrete porch and down the steps.

  She got in and set her purse on the seat and sat waiting. He cranked the car.

  What’d he say?

  He said I was pregnant.

  Well that’s a relief. It’s nice to get that straightened out. He didn’t happen to mention when it would be.

  She paused a moment, as if doing some mental calculation. He said it’d be sometime the last of March or early in April.

  He was negotiating his way back out into the street. Have you got to go uptown to get any medicine or anything?

  No. He give me some vitamins in there.

  Is that all he said?

  He said it looked like everything was going all right. He wondered why I didn’t come before.

  So do I.

  He drove her back to Grievewood and went on in to work.

  He sold cars for almost a month and he had some success with it. He wore slacks and a sport shirt and his hair combed neatly and he could talk with persuasion when he was called to but it was not usually necessary. James told him he was a born salesman and assured him he’d go far. As far as he went was a day in late November when Grimes sent him out to pick up a car.

  Grimes sold cars to hardup people who could not buy them anywhere else and he sold old juryrigged cars held together with spit and baling wire and stopleak, dissonant gears packed with grease and sawdust. When asked how long he guaranteed his cars he used to smile a huge smile showing his gold teeth. He’d put his cigar back in his mouth and wink. Six months or till you get it off the lot, whichever comes first, he’d laugh and say. Dealing with people he dealt with he had some problems. Payments were not always met on time. Cars had to be repossessed or stolen back under cover of darkness. If he’d got a large enough down payment he could resell a car till it finally fell apart or he hit some customer prosperous enough or ignorant enough to pay for it.

  When he came in that morning he handed the wrecker keys to Edgewater. You need to go over by Clifton this morning and pick up that Buick from old man Weiss. It’s a long way over there so you need to get you a early start. He pulled a sheaf of folded papers out of his breast pocket. Here’s the title and a copy of the note and everything you need to get it. He ain’t paid a dime in over three months and I want the money, all of it, or the car. If he gives you any shit just hook on to it and drag it off.

  I don’t know. I thought I was selling cars, not repossessing them.

  It’s just something that’s got to be done. It’s a part of business. You better stop over there and get directions. He lives way off the road.

  I don’t think I’m cut out for that sort of thing.

  He laid a stepfatherly hand on Edgewater’s shoulder. You’ll just have to make up your mind. It goes with the job.

  I don’t know.

  He bought coffee to go at the Belly Stretcher Café and set out.

  It was not cold that day but brisk and the azure sky was marvelously clear. There a look of distance to the horizon and an Indian summer haze to the air and Edgewater drove through the countryside not thinking or planning, just holding the wrecker on the road and sipping his coffee.

  Past Flatwoods where the Clifton road branched off he stopped the wrecker and sat parked there for a time, as if undecided what to do and which way to proceed. The road to Clifton fell away in a series of downward curves and deep hollows and where the river lay in blue distance were houses and farms and tin roofs winking, the sun so far away they looked like mockups.

  He got out and stood there leaning against the truck smoking a cigarette and just staring across the hollows as if he might be waiting for someone. Once an old car stopped and its driver wanted to know did he have trouble. Edgewater shook his head.

  I guess you’re equipped for it if you do, the man grinned, gesturing toward the wrecker.

  Edgewater grinned too and the man drove on.

  Old man Weiss had some disease that was consuming him and that Edgewater did not inquire the nature of. This false man of dried sticks and rags sat with a shawl across his lap and rocked in the wintry sun in a willow rocking chair. His face was bright with fever and his eyes gleamed with something that was not life but a mockery of it. There was a calm look about him as if he had made his peace with everything that mattered and was already a resident of some country so far and lost that Edgewater had not even heard it rumored.

  Edgewater did not see anything that looked remotely like a Buick and he did not ask after one. And say you don’t know anybody around here named Jackson? he said, arising from the edge of the porch.

  Not no more. There was a Jackson feller used to live around here ten or fifteen year ago but Lord he’s dead and gone.

  Then I guess it’s not him I need, Edgewater said. Thanks anyway.

  You mighty welcome. Come back.

  I’ll see you. He picked his way through moiling hounds back to where the wrecker set idling.

  What are you doing? Swalls asked him from the front porch of the Knob. Out drummin up business?

  Edgewater grinned. Grimes sent me out after this son of a bitch he said was behind on the payments.

  They went inside and Edgewater drank a Coke at the bar and sat drumming his fingernails.

  For some reason or other you remind me of a man fresh out of a job.

  I guess I just quit.

  You don’t look too pleased with yourself.

  I don’t know. I hate telling my wife about it. She’s gonna have a shitfit.

  Swalls had no reply. Victim of four marriages and scarred in all the ways two people can scar each other he felt no call to advise others. He knew more about almost everyone than he wanted to and he had learned that there are some things that are born faulted and the sooner done with them the better.

  In midafternoon Bradshaw came in. When he saw Edgewater he retreated four or five steps and threw a hand before his face in mock horror. Don’t take it, he pleaded. I’ll be in the first of the month, I swear.

  Fuck you, Edgewater said. Anyway I already quit.

  Edgewater’s brot
her-in-law came up and put an arm about his shoulders. I seen ye out on that carlot in ye sellin suit, he told him. You looked mighty prosperous. I thought a time or two about comin in and borrowin some money but I figured you had the bighead and wouldn’t talk to me. How come ye to quit?

  The notion just struck me.

  I figured you’d be smoking them big long cigars and have Grimes runnin around with a grease rag in his hip pocket by now.

  I reckon not.

  There was a look of prosperity about Bradshaw himself. His cream-colored slacks had razorsharp creases and his oxblood loafers gleamed a rich burgundy. He smelled alike from Bay Rum and the expensive cheroot clamped in his jaw teeth. You want to make a little money?

  Doing what?

  Help me haul a load down below the state line.

  Help you? What are you doing, pushing it in a wheelbarrow?

  I just meant mainly for the company. You could help me drive some. Give you half my profit.

  I don’t think so. I aim to keep as low a profile as I can till I’m sure all that jailbreak mess has blown over.

  Lord, Billy, we won’t hear no more about that. If we’d been goin to they’d a got us when Aday locked us up.

  I still don’t think so. I’d have to leave Sudy by herself.

  Oh come on. We’ll be back by night anyway.

  You’ll have to follow me into town and pick me up. I’ve got to give Grimes his wrecker back.

  Going down the steps Bradshaw paused and hoisted his trouser leg and pulled down his sock to show Edgewater his wound. Look here. Got in a fight out here the other night and I sure missed you, I looked all around but you wasn’t nowhere to be found so I had to go ahead and do it my ownself.

  Edgewater peering down, examining the scabbed-over cut. You mean he stabbed you in the fucking foot? He must have been a little on the short order.

  He pulled his sock back up and gave Edgewater a sharp wounded glance. Hell naw. He was a big burly son of a bitch. He was a Golden Gloves. We got into it over that Caren tends bar in there.

  What happened to your foot?

  Hell, I was runnin him through the woods back there and run over bobwire fence. You ort to seen it. It was night and he was runnin over half-grown saplins and everthing else. Sounded like a bear lumberin around.

  Edgewater parked the wrecker by the side of the garage and went into the office and handed Grimes the keys. Grimes winked at him and arose and walked over to the door and peered toward the wrecker. He frowned. Since I don’t see no Buick I’m assuming you got a pocketful of money for me.

  Edgewater shook his head. He was hauling out papers, the title, note. He handed them to Grimes. I quit, he said.

  You what? You quit?

  Yeah.

  Well that’s a hell of a note.

  Edgewater shrugged.

  What’s the matter? That old man out there get to you? You getting squeamish on me?

  I just quit.

  You think everthing’s supposed to be laid out nice and polite. Everthing run along smooth. You’re full of shit, too. Life’s hard. It’s dog eat dog out there.

  Tell me about it, Edgewater said. He was walking away.

  I ain’t payin you for this morning, Grimes called after him but Edgewater didn’t turn.

  Bradshaw was waiting for him with the motor running. Edgewater got in and slammed the door. Let’s go to Alabama, he said.

  We got to go pick it up where I got it hid. I ain’t been haulin it no more than necessary.

  They took the whiskey aboard and went out Highway 20 to 31 and through Lawrenceburg and rolled on toward the Alabama line. Through Iron City and Edgewater saw with interest the Iron City casket works. Tightfisted sons of bitches, he said aloud.

  What?

  The Iron City Casket Company.

  Oh. I never had no dealins with em myself.

  The day drew on and they drove through slant afternoon light, the hills gave way and so onto a clay banked land of a smoother cast, the highway flattening out and running slick and chalkline straight, the earth here red as if ochred by the blood of old lost battles.

  Whose whiskey is that anyway?

  Bradshaw smiled, the tip of the slim cheroot cocked higher. Yellow feral eyes narrowing to conspiratorial slits. Mine, he said. I bought it from Boogerman and he give me this feller’s name been buying some from him along. Feller named Skelton, down in Lawrence County. Boogerman drawed me a map and done talked to this Skelton on the phone. I got thirty gallon I give seven dollars a gallon for and I aim to sell it twelve. I might take ten.

  You got it all laid out. Where’d you get so much money?

  I borrowed it from Mama. Told her I was buyin half interest in a fillin station.

  You beat anything I ever saw.

  If I don’t now I soon will. I aim to get rich in this here whiskey game. I done put me in some helper springs so she don’t set down so. You notice how she sets with her ass cocked in the air?

  At Wheeler Dam they came upon an enormous traffic jam and Bradshaw fell to worrying. A crane truck with a great boom atop it had tried to cross the bridge. There had not been sufficient clearance and traffic stalled behind it had boxed it in, it could go neither backwards or forwards. There was a din of honking horns and ahead of them where the bridge rose stark and skeletal revolving red lights pointed out two Alabama highway patrol cars, order moving within chaos. The state troopers were flagging traffic back, the truck negotiating laboriously backward through a volatile melee of angry travelers.

  Be just our luck to get caught with all this shit.

  Edgewater didn’t reply. He was staring far below the embankment to where brush tended away and the lake began. The water was choppy and cold-looking, the color of slate, and a few birds wheeled above it, as if tethered by invisible wires, darted down to skim the surface, rose effortlessly on the updrafts of the wind.

  You don’t seem too worried.

  Grimes said it was dog eat dog out here and I guess it is.

  Here comes one of them now, straighten up.

  Hey, tell him I’m a hitchhiker you just picked up.

  But the cop had no words for them, he was busy flagging the truck back, it passed, the driver’s face a pale harassed ovoid through the glass. Traffic began to creep forward.

  I bet that poor dumb son of a bitch don’t never get where he’s goin, Bradshaw said. He ort to bought him a boat. Bradshaw was cheering up, felt that the jaws of a trap had snapped shut and narrowly missed him. He nodded gravely to the patrolmen as he passed, solid citizen, young businessman on his way home from the office. A Jaycee meeting tonight perhaps. Wife, children, dog, slippers, evening paper. He knocked ash from his cigar and accelerated. Sweet home Alabama, he said.

  Towns with only names to distinguish them one from the other fell away in their wake. Town Creek, Courtland, Hillsboro, little sleepy towns with dusk falling on them all alike, they drove into a darkening cloud. At Moulton they inquired directions at a service station, pored over Boogerman’s map. Edgewater turning it this way and that, undecided which way was up. It made as much sense one way as another. Its secrets securely locked.

  Was he drunk when he drew this?

  He was drinkin.

  I see he draws a map about like he makes whiskey.

  Across a sea of dead cottonstalks with sharp empty bolls like aberrant flowers. Knocking at a stoopless door at a slatwalled shack set atop crumbling cinderblock pillars. An aged black man behind peering suspiciously, receding backwards to where darkness began. I knows him but if you just wantin a drink I can fix you up.

  Naw. We just need to see him.

  Oh. Well. It’s a mile or two back towards town then. Little brick sidin, right close to the road. Got a mailbox with a picture of a rooster painted on it.

  When Bradshaw blew the horn the porch light came on and the door opened. A man came out and pulled it to behind him and came down the step. He had a flashlight in his hands. A big black dog fell in at his heels and followed a pace
or two behind. The man was slight, unshaven, as surly-looking as the dog that paced him. He wore overalls and a wool hat.

  Country-looking peckerhead, Bradshaw said. He got out, Edgewater following.

  We got it back here in the trunk.

  Let’s take a look at it.

  The trunk aloft. Light playing on the volatile colorless liquid in gallon jugs with fingerholds on the neck. A veritable cornucopia of visions, nightmares, delirium tremors, a drunkard’s dream. A lifetime supply of hangovers.

  Skelton opened a jug, smelled, shuddered. I’m glad I’m sellin instead of drinkin, he said. He shined the light toward a small gray outbuilding. I generally keep it back yonder in the crib. You can back down through the yard there, it ain’t nothin in the way. I’ll walk along behind and I’ll shine the light for you.

  The wind whipped across the flat field, sang in a loose piece of tin somewhere, a faint few drops of cold rain. Edgewater shivered, wished for a coat.

  Don’t they bother you keepin it so close?

  Not as long as I make a little trip into town about the first of the month.

  Easing backward across the yard, the light pinpointing the crib door. When the whiskey was inside and Bradshaw awaiting mention of money, the man said, I reckon Boogerman told you how I do business?

  No. I reckon he figured I knowed they wadn’t but one way of doin it.

  I don’t know about that. What I been doin is taken his whiskey on consignment.

  Done what?

  Keep it here and I pay him when I sell it.

  The hell with that. This ain’t no goddamn bread truck I’m runnin. Consignment. If that ain’t the goddamn beat of anything I ever heard. You think I ain’t been around?

  I don’t know where you been. I guess you folks may do it different up in Tennessee.

  You fuckin A we do. And Tennessee’s where this whiskey’s headed for right now. Help me load er up, Billy.

  We done made a deal.

  I ort to deal you up the side of the goddamned head. Drive all the way down here with thirty gallon of whiskey and you whip this crazy shit on me. Who ever heard of consigning bootleg whiskey?

  You won’t never make the Tennessee line.