Raintree County

by Ross Lockridge Jr.

  THE ANTIQUITY AND SOURCE

  OF THE NAMES

  UPON

  THE LAND surrounding was lit by the flare of the last rocket, a big one painted red, white, and blue. It left the earth with a great gush of force and shot to a surprising depth. A fountain of fire burst on the climax of the arc. The spray bloomed white, faded into scarlet, lazily fell. Mr. Shawnessy stood, the burnt match in his hand, color of the rocket changing and fading on his face.

  —Behold! John Wickliff Shawnessy is himself the Hero of Raintree County!

  It was the hoarse voice of Professor Jerusalem Webster Stiles, heard among the exclamations of the children.

  The explosion of the great rocket was the climax of the Glorious Fourth in Waycross. The planned program was over. There was nothing to do now but to see the Perfessor off and get to bed.

  Mr. Shawnessy walked over and said goodnight to Mrs. Brown, who was standing alone beside the fountain in the front yard. Some of the children were already taking down the Japanese lanterns.

  —It’s been a wonderful day, she said.

  The Perfessor came over with the Atlas. He handed it to Mr. Shawnessy and put his long arms around the two, like a conspirator. The last lantern was out, leaving the garden dark.

  —I don’t know about the rest of you, he croaked, but I’m pooped! Was there ever such a day! They won’t believe this in New York. Be sure not to miss my next column, which will be entitled ‘A Day Spent with the Americans.’

  —When are you leaving, Professor dear? Mrs. Brown said.

  —On the midnight train, dear, the Perfessor said. How about coming with me?

  —Why don’t you stay with us in Raintree County, Professor dear? And we’ll reform you.

  —My dear, the Perfessor said, you can take Raintree County, and rolling it into a neat parcel, stow it in the first appropriate place that occurs to you.

  He straightened up and spat into a dark tangle of bronze limbs and lily stems.

  —As for that Atlas, John, he said, you see, it was all a fraud. There’s no use trying to make Raintree County over, even in our imaginations. And no flybynight artist would be clever enough to hide something in it that could escape the subtle scrutiny of Shawnessy and Stiles.

  —Wait! Mr. Shawnessy said, trying to remember something. Perhaps that was our mistake. We were too subtle. Perhaps the artist hid it by putting it in the most conspicuous place of all. Perhaps old Waldo found it precisely because he wasn’t looking for it.

  —Like Poe’s ‘Purloined Letter,’ the Perfessor said, instantly pleased with the idea. The arch-criminal fooled the police by putting the stolen object in front of their noses. It’s true, John, that only a supersubtle mind detects the supersubtlety of simplicity. Now, following this line of reasoning, what is the most conspicuous location in the whole of Raintree County, children?

  The Perfessor thought a moment.

  —Obviously the Court House Square, Perfessor, he said, answering his own question.

  —And in the Court House Square, children? he asked.

  —The Court House, Perfessor, he replied.

  —And on the Court House, children?

  Mrs. Brown began to laugh, a low, bubbling contralto, as if perhaps the memory of the Raintree County Court House with its famous Statue of Justice over the Main Entrance, spattered with pigeondung, were a delightfully amusing thing, when seen from the proper—or the improper—angle.

  But Mr. Shawnessy sprang forward, rested the Atlas on the shoulder of the fountain, and flapped the leaves to page five where the long form of the Raintree County Court House was couched in darkness like a sphinx. He tried to plunge his eyes into the space above the Main Entrance where in the standard copies the Statue of Justice stood. He saw a pool of shadow there, vaguely alive with sculpture. In his skipping examination of the Atlas during the day, he couldn’t remember having looked at precisely that spot.

  —Give me a light, Professor.

  The Perfessor struck a match on his sole. He and Mrs. Brown bent over to see.

  The flaring match illuminated for a brilliant instant something in the niche above the Main Entrance that left all three speechless.

  The Perfessor, reaching for another match, recovered first.

  —Zeus! he said. Let’s put some more light on that!

  He struck the match, but the head flew off flaming.

  —Shades of Michelangelo! he said, fumbling for another match. Wasn’t that terrific! It was there all the time, and we didn’t see it.

  Etched in flame, the imprint of the tiny group seen slantingly above the Main Entrance of the Raintree County Court House persisted as an afterimage. On the instant of seeing it, Mr. Shawnessy had felt that it was just as he had known it would be and where he had eventually intended to look.

  And now that he saw it, it was (in the Raintree County sense) not at all naughty—for what was naughty about the oldest picture in the world, the frontispiece for the first book printed by man—the father and mother of mankind in beautiful nakedness, tasting the Forbidden Fruit! With what an exquisite feeling for paradox, an unknown artist had substituted his symbolic statue of Edenic rebellion for the stern yet necessary lady with the scales, whose upright form had ruled the conscience of Raintree County from the beginning!

  He had displayed the inadmissibly beautiful reverse of the coin. He had unveiled the Eleusinian mystery to the Court House Square where it would be seen by all who came there—the Saturday hundreds, the platform speakers, the visiting dignitaries, the prodigal sons, the carnival barkers, the dancing girls, the freaks, the medicine venders, the storekeepers, the candidates for office, the horseback evangelists, the city councillors, the county functionaries, the loafers on the court house lawn, the marchers in the Memorial Day parades, the housewives, the travelling salesmen, the pigeons, the prostitutes, the farmers, the girls in their summer dresses, the small boys with fists of firecrackers—in short, the whole lusty tide of life that pooled and poured into the foursided enclosure of the Court House Square to appease a devout hunger as old as the gathering of mankind in crowds.

  So from their infinity of vantage points, in the changing lights and seasons of this mythical Raintree County, they would behold the double figure hewn from a single block of marble, the E pluribus mum of the classic coin, the Paradisal pair in the moment of republican and pluviarboreal discovery, trembling nameless on the verge of names.

  While the Perfessor groped in his pockets for a third match, Mr. Shawnessy gave him the Atlas.

  —Here, he said, you can bring it with you. I’ll meet you in front of my house.

  He stepped through the gate into the road to rejoin his wife and the three children. But they were already considerably in advance of him. He could just discern the form of the woman he had married entering the tree-pillared night of Waycross, and with her the forms of the three children.

  Yes, he had overcome the aloneness of the garden. On an unsuspected path he had found her waiting. He had helped to fashion her, and yet she had lain at the very sources of himself. In her, he had rediscovered Eve. Bearing the name of an old reformer and Bible translator, Mr. John Wickliff Shawnessy had rewritten into the landscape of Raintree County the great book of God in all its beautiful, disarming candor.

  He felt immensely joyous and calm. The vision was not only Hebraic but Grecian. Had he not also been sent, chief of a visiting delegation of Cosmic Lithographers, to record in stone the eternal verities of the Republic!

  Half-shutting his eyes, he seemed to see the statue of a goddess waveborn and beautiful, begirt with foam, a sign to travellers on the seaward approaches of the Republic. He had climaxed a lifetime of Phidian endeavor by erecting this wondrous symbol, the Lady Custodian of the Temple.

  And perhaps when he approached the Temple, after tying his stonewheeled cart up to the rim of an antique fountain, when he walked past the stone clock with its stone hands fixed forever at nine o’clock (’Tis summer and the days are long), when he ascended
the wide marble steps strewn with the bearded grain and fitted his gold key to the lock and thrust the bronze doors in, perhaps then he would see her standing on her pedestal in the robe and attitude of the island Venus. (Hello, Johnny. How do you like my costume?) And leaning down, her form would lose the look of painted stone for the warm imperfection of a living woman, and she would remind him in her stately voice (lingering like a caress along his name) that a real woman had posed for the goddess found on Melos and that the sculptor who strove with the marble had learned ardently and well the lesson of those deepfleshed loins. (Oft was I weary when I toiled with thee.) And then, stepping down, she would walk before him, allowing her robe to travel off her graceful back. And they would go thus together through the Temple, while a white stony light bathed equally columns, roof, and floor, every line and plane distinct from end to end of the vast rectangular space. And the urge to impose form would possess him like fire and hunger as the Lady Custodian of his life, his mother-daughter-wife-and-sweet-companion, moved undraped between vast lumps of Parian marble newly quarried, in which slept the limbs of gods and goddesses, a world of linear perfections. And her unsandaled feet would make no sound, but he would hear the cold clang of hammers striking on stone.

  And naked with uncut hair, he would follow her, riding a winged horse, until he reached the ledge of the great pediment where the painted marble frieze showed fauns pouring a purple wine into gold cups and nymphs with scarlet cheeks flying from young gods beside a river choked with rushes. Putting one hand around her bending waist, he would touch his face to hers. And for a marmoreal instant, assuming the attitude of a lost engraving in an old book of Raintree County, together they would achieve the ecstasy of form, an unendurable bliss.

  And in that instant the faces of the people, the pale blue vault of sky, the rectangular horizons, the distant temples, the viny hills, the clustering roofs became an image of arrested time.

  By a single bound, riding the white horse of Eros, he had achieved the summit of the Platonic forms, the shrine of Justice on the Court House Square.

  Soon enough, he would have to restore the lady with the grocery scales to her accustomed niche.

  In front of his house he stopped, having overtaken his family. He could hear the Perfessor coming along in darkness under the trees.

  —I’ll see Professor Stiles to the Station, he said to his wife. You’d best go to bed, Pet.

  The Perfessor came up, carrying the Atlas. He took his suitcase from the porch. He said a gracious farewell to Esther, patted Will’s shoulder, winked at Wesley, and paid a pretty compliment to Eva, although his voice was nearly gone.

  —A return of an old throat ailment, he whispered, contracted during the War.

  Mr. Shawnessy and the Perfessor walked together to the Station. The street was littered with fragments of the memorial day—cigar butts, firecrackers, picnic sacks, patriotic programs. The Perfessor whimpered as he carried his suitcase.

  —Here, let me take it to the Station for you, Mr. Shawnessy said.

  —Gladly! the Perfessor croaked. I must have talked a hundred thousand words today. Remind me never to visit you again in Waycross, John. Heaven defend me from the quietude of country towns!

  They turned at the intersection and walked on toward the Station, the Perfessor stooped and hobbling, but still clutching the Atlas. When they reached the Station, they found the agent asleep inside, propped up in a chair. A single lantern burned on the table. The telegraph key clicked sleepily from time to time.

  Sitting down on the outside bench, the Perfessor slumped forward, chin on breastbone, but instantly sat up when the agent came out of the Station swinging a lantern.

  —She’s about due, the agent said.

  The Perfessor opened the Atlas and studied the statuary group that an unknown artist had placed in the most conspicuous place in Raintree County.

  —Ah, he said sadly, Life! Life! John, I’ll give you a hundred dollars for this book, and you can make your peace with the Lady Custodian in whatever way you please.

  —Sorry, Professor, Mr. Shawnessy said, but, after all, she gave it to me on faith. The Senator gets the first bid.

  The Perfessor turned, still clutching the book.

  —Men have been known to kill for artistic masterpieces, he said hoarsely.

  His eyes brightened strangely. His face looked so evil and convulsed that Mr. Shawnessy made an involuntary motion of raising his arm between himself and his friend.

  But in the next moment, the Perfessor, acting as usual, shook with amusement. The sweet, forlorn look came back into his eyes, and he laid the Atlas on Mr. Shawnessy’s lap.

  —There you are, he said. Keep it yourself, boy. It’s your own Raintree County and no one else’s. Forever the little straight roads shall run to lost horizons; and in the niche reserved for Justice, the image of young love and soul-discovery forever shall be poised. It shall be there for you alone, in your unique copy of the universe.

  A low thunder of wheels was swelling from the east. A red eye glared in the dark, grew astonishingly big and close. The agent swung his lantern athwart the rails, and the train rolled heavily to a stop in Waycross Station. Instantly, a figure, resembling the Reverend Lloyd G. Jarvey, appeared from the darkness and climbed into one of the rear coaches.

  —O, o! croaked the Perfessor, who hadn’t missed the movement. The Lord God Jehovah and I are getting out together.

  He and Mr. Shawnessy shook hands, and the Perfessor swung onto the coach behind the coalcar. The glare from the furnace showed a long, thin body in a soiled white suit, a face old and cunning, black eyes shining through pince-nez glasses. Already the engine was beginning to puff. The smoke and the furnace glare stung Mr. Shawnessy’s eyes so that they smarted.

  —Good-by, Professor! he cried out, waving his hand.

  The Perfessor opened his mouth.

  —For our mirrors! he was shouting.

  He tried to say something else, but his failing voice was lost in the roar of the train. He leaned far out, pointed to his voice-box, and then with characteristic quickness of decision elevated his malacca cane and traced huge letters in the air. Mr. Shawnessy was not able to decipher the first part because a gush of smoke crossed the writing, but the Perfessor’s last blackboard flourish was entirely legible and familiar:

  Mr. Shawnessy could no longer see his old friend’s face. He could see only the long arm and the malacca cane, which lingered a moment in the air indicative of stars. But the legend lay across his memory, the initials of his own name.

  Suddenly, he realized that the Perfessor with his usual cleverness must have written them backwards, and what was in reverse for him had come right for Mr. Shawnessy.

  The train which bore the mortal shell of Professor Jerusalem Webster Stiles was already lost in the night except for the smokestack flare. There was a lonesome wail at the crossing a mile west of town. The train was entirely gone then except for the steady chugging of the engine. It was entirely gone then.

  It was entirely gone, and the night had closed in upon Waycross. The agent had left the Station already, and Mr. Shawnessy started back up the street toward the intersection. The starlight was now so intense and his eyes so well accustomed to the night that he could easily read his watch. It was twelve o’clock.

  There was no light burning now in Waycross. He felt a wonderful and soft serenity. All things around him now were sunken into sleep.

  The long day and its images shook in his mind like a chain of luminous and tinkling fragments. As he approached the intersection, faces and faces on the Great Road of the Republic pressed through his memory, fading and fading into summer night. What was this immense, tranquil substance, that which was there, enormous and eternal thereness? And where were all the warm, relinquished shapes of a day spent with the Americans?

  He mused upon the strange dream called Raintree County. In some oriental garden, the seed of it was sown, but it had had its nurture in a womb of fair and fecund ideas on the rim
of an inland ocean, and it had ridden west in winged vessels, and it had rebuilt itself through more than four levels from its earliest antiquities. Now, impending in the still night was the world of mystery, the world that hovered forever beyond the borders of the County. What was Raintree County except a Columbian exploration, a few acres of discovery in a jungle of darkness, a few lightyears of investigated space in nebular vastness! That which lay beyond its borders was simply—everything potential.

  And who was John Wickliff Shawnessy, whose wavering initials had just been signed in smoke in Waycross Station? How deep and broad was the substance of himself, built into this engendering night? Surely there was a being who didn’t bear his name but was none the less a composite of all that he had ever been or ever could be. How did one find access to this eternal Self-Affirmer, this restless Shakespeare of Creation, hovering in a world Behind the Scenes? What was he doing there, down there? Polishing the lines of the eternal tragi-comedy of life, setting up props, trying on masks, restlessly taking on and off the costumes, assembling the company for endless rehearsals, reviews, redactions? What was he doing there, down there? Weaving a legend of a younger brother, a residual and mortal brother, this innocent and fortunate brother who walked the streets of time?

  At the intersection of the two roads, he looked west. West, just touching with clean rim the empurpled earth, a huge halfball of yellow poured down the National Road a river of golden light. Five hours behind her radiant brother, tranquil, with stately descent, the moon had sunk to her setting.

  The wall between himself and the world dissolved. He seemed suddenly lost from himself, plucked out of time and space, being both time and space himself, an inclusive being in which all other beings had their being. A vast unrest was in the earth. The Valley of Humanity was turbulent with changing forms. The immense dream trembled on a point of night and nothingness and threatened explosion.