by Jim Grimsley
He lifts the limp dog by the hind legs and throws her flopping end over end into the forest.
Afterwards he stands as if he is listening. He stares at his hand a long time. He kneels to cover the dark place in the snow with whiteness, stands still holding the knife, turns it in his fingers, no longer gleaming.
You don’t even know enough to be afraid.
Mama steps out of the woods and calls clear, “Are you finished now, Bobjay?”
He turns sluggishly. The knife dangles.
Mama walks neatly through the snow. He shouts, “I ought to kill you,” but Mama pays no mind to him, walks wide of him and comes to you. With relief she kneels and embraces you, turning your faces up to hers. “Walk real quiet and calm,” she says. “He doesn’t know what he did.”
“Are we going to stay here?” you ask softly.
She simply looks at you. “Where would we go? Just walk, that’s all we can do. Real quiet and calm. Don’t look back at him.”
The Lay of Wrath
She closes the door when you have come inside, and switches on the faded lamp between your beds. She makes Grove lie quiet on the cot at the end of one bed and stands watching him. “Does your arm hurt much?”
“No ma’am, it’s still so cold.”
“Amy, wrap him up some snow in a towel.”
Amy marches off silently, fetches a towel, and opens the back door tossing her hair. When she comes back she says, “Papa’s standing right where he was before.”
“I expect he’s surprised with himself,” Mama says, not looking at any of you.
Amy settles the towel gently against Grove’s bent arm. “He’s wicked,” she whispers. “He’s like the devil.”
Mama shakes her head. “You ought not to think your Papa is a bad man.”
“He killed Queenie,” Duck says. No one answers. You close your eyes to stop from seeing it again, but it does not stop: the dead thing spins as it flies into the trees. Mama says to get ready for bed. In the middle of putting on your pajamas you hear the front door open and close.
Heavy footsteps resound through the rooms. When Mama looks at you her eyes have that look of dullness again, and you ache to send that look away. Papa is in the other bedroom by now. Staring at the unmade bed. Now you hear him in the bathroom. You turn your face away from that doorway. You watch his shoes. His voice rakes along your skin. “I wondered where all of you were,” he says.
Mama says, “It’s time to put the younguns to bed.”
He says, “I reckon so.”
“Go sit down and I’ll make you some coffee when I finish.” She buttons Grove’s pajama top and settles the cool towel into place.
“Is our baby sick?” Papa asks.
Mama swallows when he comes too close. But her voice never falters. “His arm is swelling. But I’m keeping cold on it.”
Papa nods his head and lumbers away. You step to the door and watch his back darken and disappear. Mama gazes at Grove and strokes his forehead. She pulls the covers over all of you and kisses each of you on the forehead. Almost as if she were kissing you good-bye. When she turns out the light you hear her footsteps recede endlessly far. You gaze at the ceiling and feel the dark night swell.
For a long time you lie awake listening. The house is quiet. Everyone’s breathing makes a different sound, you could count them separately. Once or twice you hear the heavy thud of Papa’s footsteps and wonder where he is walking. You hear the quiet click of Mama’s careful tread, but never at the same time as Papa’s. You picture her watching him from corners, near doors. She waits for him to sit down before she goes into the kitchen. You picture the match she strikes to light the stove, igniting with a small hiss. You gaze into the darkness overhead. Something turns over and over deep inside you. Except for Mama making coffee you hear nothing but the wind at your window. A brush of snowflakes from the sycamores. You picture Mama beside the window drinking her coffee. You know she is standing because once Papa asks her to sit down, and she whispers she doesn’t want to, she can’t keep still, she’s too nervous. He goes back to his chair. She is silent. You picture her gazing through the window at the snow and the moon, maybe at the arcs of light on the crusted tree branches, steam from the coffee rising into her face. Maybe she wishes she had curled up in a blanket out there in the woods. Maybe she would not mind going to sleep in the cold either. She sips her coffee and takes deep breaths. A long time passes. The house makes few of its usual noises. Beside you Allen, exhausted, has fallen asleep. You hear Duck’s regular breathing, and Grove’s as well. Amy makes no sound. You hear Papa’s deep cough, you hear the chair creaking, the flare of a match. Later Papa asks Mama to help him pull off his shoes and after a moment she does. You hear them drop to the floor. Silence falls again. Mama steps nervously from kitchen to living room. You picture her face passing out of light into shadow. The house falls so calm you can hear the refrigerator humming and your own heart counts moments into the night. Though the room is pitch dark you can see everything in it clearly. Grades of shadow from the beds, the coats thrown on the floor, Duck sprawled in the blankets, Amy sleeping with her mouth open. Grove turning restlessly, murmuring. Allen curled up in a ball touching no one. The quiet does not ease you. In the living room you hear Papa shift in his chair. Mama comes to the bathroom, scrubs her hands in the sink.
Suddenly they are talking. Their voices are calm. Measured bits of conversation, and silence between. Now and then you hear a word you know: your own name sometimes, or Grove’s, or Queenie’s, or Delia’s later: the sound passing through your head like a stream. Vague images flicker in your mind: Delia laughing in the kitchen, the orange dress limp on the clothes hanger, Mama’s white hands on the front door, the silence when she closes it, the moonlit field, Queenie’s body spinning over bushes. You remember the softness of the earth under the house, the sight of Papa’s legs, the pieces of glass and the cold biting your skin. You hear Papa walking again, and Mama saying, “I don’t feel like coming to bed right this minute.” The words flow distantly overhead. After a while Papa’s weight sinks slowly into the mattress in the next room. Your own heaviness mixes with the silence that follows. It might have been that you fell asleep. Though even there you keep watch on the darkness with your sleeping mind, and nothing moves in any room that does not raise some image in you.
Mama walks restlessly in the living room wondering about the morning. Papa turns on the groaning springs and coughs. Coughs so sharp the sound almost wakes you: a hand that retreats in the darkness from touching your shoulder. Someone watches you sleep tonight, you turn over and over. You can feel somebody staring in the dark from far away. Maybe you know Mama waits in the living room hoping Papa will fall asleep before she has to go to bed herself. Though to tell the truth she must have waited many nights that way, before and after this night, and maybe some of your memories are only dreams of other nights; maybe when you are sleeping you can feel all nights, past and present, stretching ahead and back for many years.
You toss and turn, and this time when you touch Allen it is you who are repelled.
Papa’s cough punctuates the night, lifting you close to wakefulness again. A match strikes. In some dream you are having, you picture the flash of orange. In the living room Mama stiffens and closes her eyes. In the silence she can feel Papa waiting. Still she sits by the window, watching the clear light fall onto the snow like white fire. Everywhere the emptiness summons signs: a flash of headlights on the road, the drift of a pale cloud overhead or in the silent house the creak of a spring, the heavy fall of a footstep. When Mama hears it she has been expecting him for some time. Papa comes to the doorway and asks, “When are you coming to bed, honey? It gets so cold in here by myself.”
“I’m not tired yet,” Mama says, keeping her back to him.
“It’s no wonder you don’t sleep, as much of that coffee as you drink.”
“I need it to relax,” Mama says.
“But I need you to relax,” he says.
; “If I came to bed I couldn’t keep still. I’d turn over and over all night.”
After a pause Papa’s voice changes. “Turn around and look at me.”
“Please leave me alone, Bobjay. If you lay still for a while you’ll fall asleep.”
“I can’t rest without you. You know what I mean.”
Mama hugs herself to keep from shivering. “I don’t think I could stand for you to touch me right now.”
“I didn’t ask you whether you could,” he says quietly.
She says good-bye to the white snow on the yard and beyond. She lets the curtains fall into place. When she turns she has already begun to count her breaths.
He has the knife. He holds it so lightly. He himself leans against the doorsill, smiling so earnestly. His pale, hard flesh shining. He reaches to switch off the lamp. In the darkness he speaks so softly his voice reminds Mama of a cat purring. “Come to bed with me. It’s late.”
He gestures with the stained blade. She takes a deep breath and shakes her dark hair. The thought that she might run again makes her smile. She walks calmly past him into the other room.
She watches the window. When she hears his footsteps follow after her, she tells herself she can get through this, she will live. When he lies on the bed behind her, she feels the mattress sink down. Now gravity pulls her toward him too, and she swallows. The moonlight spills softly through the window, washing silver over a patch of floor. Now the whole house is dark and quiet. From the back of the house she can hear you children breathing in your sleep.
“Lay down,” Papa says.
The wonder is, when she turns, the knife does not make her afraid. She might long for it, if it would bring any rest. She says, “Put the knife down,” and he blinks at her. He lays it on the sheets. When he settles back against his pillow she can’t see it. He is smiling, though; it will be all right. He leans toward her, the good hand descends gently to touch her and she holds her breath. But she shivers when she feels the hand on her. Oh please, she thinks, help me to be still.
But in the end nothing can stop her from trembling and drawing away. He draws away too, and watches her darkly. She whispers, “I don’t know what else you expect, after today.”
“You’re my wife,” he answers. His voice resounds. She starts to tell him to be quiet so he won’t wake up the younguns, but he covers her mouth with the good hand. He slides against her. She tries again to let her body go, to let him take it. But past his shoulder she sees knife again. It makes her think of the white dog. For a moment she is in the woods, parting the leaves with her fingers, watching as he bends over the dog and lunges and lunges and at last flings the dead thing spinning. Its shadow crosses the snow. She hears the fall behind her, she does not know how close until she turns. Queenie has come to rest in the root of an oak, and Mama bends over the body counting the deep wounds, the torn belly heavy with burst life. Now this same man kisses her neck. The smell of him thickens and rises all through her. He asks, “Why do you act so cold?”
She answers, “I am cold.”
“Let me make you warm,” he says.
But the smell is too much, she backs away, and something darkens in his eyes. “Who are you dreaming of now?” he asks. “Who is it you want so much tonight that you don’t want me? I saw the bed won’t made when I came back.”
She answers, “There isn’t anybody to dream of.”
She draws a sharp breath when he touches her gown. “There’s got to be something keeping you so cold to your husband.”
She says, “You don’t have any idea what that could be?”
“I have some ideas.”
She looks him in the eye and says, “I don’t want to be close to you. I can’t stand it. I would rather you killed me like you killed that dog.”
“I didn’t hurt that dog,” he says. His voice swells and rings. In your sleep you stir, Danny, as if you know. She feels his stillness before it frightens her. He rises and she sees what he is reaching for. In his face the same coldness and sharpness as the blade. “I never hurt that dog,” he says. “I never hurt you either.” She is transfixed by the thing and the look on his face, and for no reason she thinks of him when she first knew him, when they were first married, and she sees without doubt that his face was softer then, that he has changed to become this, that he has changed for good. He raises the piece of arm, the blued end. She half-rises from the bed, but suddenly he is leaning over her and she cannot move. The knife shines close to her chin. Something in his eyes makes her think he doesn’t know her any more.
When he raises the knife her body floods with a wash of coldness. Her blank cry rising, a perfect silence, that this simple blade and act and night might become everything, that there might be nothing after this. Her furious heartbeat reminds her breathe, breathe, and she watches him hovering close. The sob she sobs catches all of her, and she hears him laughing. But it is not him. She has never been so far away before. She knows the knife is cutting through her gown. The tip of the blade is cold.
He smiles but she is not sure she is looking at him. She is looking at nothing, she is looking at the ceiling and the receding shadow. His voice follows her. “I’m not good enough for you,” he says, “I’m scum, I’m some kind of bitch you don’t want to touch,” he says, “ain’t nothing good enough for you except your children,” he says, “you love them three times as much as you love me.” She makes a low cry as the keenness slides along her skin. “You ain’t had a minute for me since the day they was born.”
She says, “I’ll fuck you, please stop.”
He says, “Oh no, I’m not good enough for you, I’m not your real blood kin.”
She says, “I’ll do whatever you want, please.”
He says, “But you only like it with your kin. Well I can get some of that for you right now.”
You must have heard, Danny, even though they kept their voices soft; you must have heard, because this call is for you.
You will remember the footsteps, or maybe the sound rises out of memory even as you hear the coughing in the bathroom.
Though maybe the memory really begins when he touches your sore shoulder. Suddenly you are awake and you rub your eyes. Maybe you make some soft sound. When you recognize him, leaning down over you, you stiffen. He shakes his head thoughtfully. “Come on,” he says in a voice that rumbles through your bones. “Your Mama wants to see you.”
There is something you want to ask him, now, while there is still time.
But he lifts you like some lifeless doll and you do not make a sound even though pain flashes through your shoulder. He carries you pale through the cold room where Mama waits with the sheets tangled around her, watching you and watching the knife in Papa’s hand. It is not much of a journey. It only leads you where you would be anyway if your Mama had slid past your Daddy in time.
No Distance, Only Clouds
In the morning when you wake, white light is filling every corner of the bedroom, outlining each bleached plank of the walls, coloring Amy’s arm folded in the blanket. When you sit up, careful of your shoulder, you can see the side yard from the window. A clean layer of whiteness covers the familiar ground from the house to the fields beyond, more perfect and unbroken than you would have imagined. You feel full of something like peace. For a moment you cannot remember why it seems strange to have wakened in your own bed.
Then you do remember, and whiteness closes over your mind.
You are riding in the dark with your face against Papa’s stubbled neck, you can smell the sweat in his T-shirt.
Allen stirs beside you, mumbling you ought to lay down before the cold air runs under the blankets.
You listen for any sound from the rest of the house.
Then you hear voices in the kitchen, Mama and Papa talking quietly as if this were any morning, as if yesterday had never happened, and you wonder how your Mama can go on talking to him like that.
Allen says, “Lay down Danny, I’m cold,” and so you do, but it is hard to bre
athe because you are afraid. With snow on the ground Papa might not have to go to work.
You hear Mama say once, “The water won’t get hot a bit faster than I can get it hot,” and Papa laughs.
When you close your eyes the pattern of the yard and snow-covered field is reflected in what you see against your veined eyelids. Since you cannot distinguish words in what they are saying any more, the sound of their words becomes like a river washing you, and the thought of that is like another kind of whiteness. You are tired, you drift into something like sleep.
You dream you are lying in the crook of a tree.
Far below, the golden lion lashes his tail and watches you.
You had been playing with him in the clearing, he would like to go on playing.
Your thigh is bleeding from deep gashes that run the length of the muscle, and you are dumbly watching the blood ooze out from the marbled flesh. You have only stray thoughts, like whether you would be more comfortable if you could break off some branches to cushion your head, or why the lion’s eyes are such a golden color. Meanwhile the big cat shakes his mane and sniffs. He thinks your blood smells delicious, he wants some. He wants to play with your body a while in the grass and then taste your tender thigh. He is watching you with that eager impassivity, that simple hunger. From the base of the tree he calls out to you, a throaty rumbling, and he shakes his mane and parades from side to side.
But at the moment when River Man would have entered the dream to save you, the sound of your Papa’s voice and footsteps penetrate to you and you sit upright in the bed.
Papa has come to the bedroom door. He stands with his back to the doorjamb, watching you with a fixed intensity. You swallow and take deep breaths. You are surprised to learn you are not afraid of him, you are able simply to contemplate his sober aspect, his neatly combed hair and freshly shaven face. He watches you and you do not flinch. Finally he asks, “What do you think you’re looking at?”