Running on Red Dog Road

by Drema Hall Berkheimer

  The sitting room off the bedroom Grandpa died in served to hold the casket for the viewing. People brought food to the house to last for days, and still Grandma cooked more. A ham with rings of cinnamon apples tacked on with cloves. A pot of green beans and new potatoes seasoned with fatback. A platter of fried chicken. Mother made tomato dumplings and deviled eggs and a blackberry cake to serve with fresh whipped cream. A pan of her yeast rolls went into the oven.

  Vonnie and I took our plates out to the swing to eat. Away from all those people who were either talking too much or not at all. Away from the bedroom where Grandpa died. Away from the casket where my Grandpa was laid out in a dark gray suit, his stilled hands folded on the satin coverlet.

  The bells of St. Mary’s Methodist joined those of Wildwood Community Church and the Pentecostal Holiness Church my grandpa preached at in East Beckley. Pastor Parker from Wildwood Community preached the funeral. He and Grandpa were, according to his words on that day, “brothers in Christ.”

  Grandpa had opened our door to him just after dark one night. The big man stood there, shrunken and trembling, sorrow ravaging his face. “She was so little,” Pastor Parker said, “so very little. Like a baby bird.” He wasn’t driving fast or anything. She ran right out from between two cars. It happened so fast, he remembered only a blur of yellow. Her corn-tassel hair, maybe, or her sundress. He couldn’t be sure. But as God was his witness, there was nothing he could do—he’d give his life if there was.

  Of course he would, and no, there was not a thing he could do. “She’s an angel in Heaven now,” Grandpa told him, “safe in the arms of Jesus.”

  They talked often after that, and they prayed, and finally they laughed.

  Grandpa told Pastor Parker he believed he could make a fair-to-middlin’ Pentecostal out of him if he had enough time.

  “I wouldn’t be holding my breath if I was you,” Pastor Parker replied. “You’re invited, though, to warm a pew at Wildwood Community anytime you’ve a notion to.”

  “Well, don’t put my name on one just yet,” Grandpa said.

  The little church filled up, then people crowded the steps and the grounds. People came from all around. W. W. Carter, Superintendent of the Pentecostal Holiness Church, came. He had stayed at our house many times, was almost like family. He taught me how to read before I started school.

  The whole congregation, or so it seemed, came from Cales Chapel, the church Grandpa and Grandma founded in Coal City.

  Cecil Miller came. He was the principal of Sylvia Elementary School, where Sissy Moles and Peggy Blevins and Patty Greer and I would be eighth-grade cheerleaders in the fall, and I would be co-valedictorian with Bill Grose in the spring. They all came. And so did David Stanley and Tony Cox, a couple of neighborhood boys I’d known since first grade. On rainy days they chased us home from school with the slimy fat earthworms that oozed up from the mud and stretched a foot long from their grimy fists, sometimes squeezing the insides out like pink toothpaste. Both sides went slower or faster to keep what we judged a safe distance between us. The rules were unspoken and unwritten. Yet somehow we all knew how to play the game.

  I don’t remember much about the service, but at the end the choir sang a doleful rendition of one of Grandpa’s favorite hymns, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.” There was an invitation for folks to come forward to confess their sins and receive eternal salvation, and I like to think a sinner or two answered the call. The funeral director closed the casket, lined with pearl-gray satin, over my grandpa’s face, and the pallbearers, Uncle Ed and Uncle Cliff and others from the church, came forward to carry him away.

  Cars on both sides of the highway pulled over and turned on their lights as mourners in Chevrolets and Plymouths and Fords followed a black hearse and cars filled with flowers to the cemetery.

  So many flowers.

  “Flowers are for the living,” Grandma says, so she has most of them delivered to Pinecrest Sanitarium, a huge brick building where people with tuberculosis were quarantined and treated, sometimes for years. “Besides, that’s what your grandpa would want me to do.”

  As the hearse carrying my grandpa arrived at an open grave on a gentle rise, the last car pulled onto the funeral grounds. I watched the black iron gates of Sunset Memorial Cemetery swing shut behind us.

  Epilogue: we are going home . . .

  And the end of all our exploring

  Will be to arrive where we started

  And know the place for the first time.

  T. S. Eliot

  Fifty-five years after Grandpa’s death Sissy and I drive through the black wrought-iron gates and up the rise to the gravesite. We stand at the foot of my grandpa’s grave. Humbled and small, I am in the presence of greatness.

  “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my strength.”

  The mountains fold around me.

  The marble tombstone is elegant. That’s Grandma’s doing. Luther Clevland Cales 7.7.1877—7.30.1952

  Grandma’s name and date of birth are also cut into the stone: Clerrinda Adkins Cales 9.12.1887

  But Grandma isn’t buried next to Grandpa. She’s lived in Florida for more than four decades and decides that’s where she will stay. “Be easier on the family,” she tells me. Since most of us have migrated to Florida, I nod like I agree.

  I am holding her hand when Grandma dies on December 14, 1990, at age one hundred three and a half. We bury her next to Vertis, the second of her sons to be buried before her—the first an infant boy—where her two daughters, my mother, Iva Kathleen, and aunt, Lila Lora, will be buried in time. Years later, I consider moving her to the gravesite next to Grandpa, having the date she died carved into the stone. I decide against it. She made her decision, and I will continue to honor it.

  But as the heir next in line, I can be buried there. Two people can if they are cremated, which is what my husband and I have planned. An old rhyme comes to mind,

  I’m a West Virginian born and bred,

  and I’ll be a West Virginian when I’m dead.

  Terry is a native Pennsylvanian. I ask how he feels about being buried in West Virginia. “That’d make you a bona fide, dirt-dyed hillbilly,” I tell him.

  “I’m going wherever you go,” he says.

  “All right then. We’re going home.”

  The last four generations of the unbroken chain of women in my family—my mother, me, my daughter, my granddaughter—are together at my mother’s home in Florida for what will be the last time. Mother, who never smoked, is dying of lung cancer. She is cold, so I go to a closet and pull down a quilt. Behind it is a small brass-trimmed cedar box, meant for storing trinkets or jewelry or memories. I use an old wire coat hanger to retrieve it from the back of the shelf. Mother says it was Grandma’s, so Rindy immediately claims it for herself. She asserts ownership of anything once owned by this great-great-grandma whose name she carries. She shakes the box, then opens it. It is empty. She turns it over. There is an inscription, printed in Grandma’s uneven scrawl:

  TO RINDY FROM HER GRANDMA IN HEAVEN

  We all laugh and cry at the same time, reminding me once again of the joyful sound of Pentecostals praying. Grandma’s presence is with us in the room.

  She visits me sometimes, turning lights on and off to get my attention. Signs from her appear everywhere I go, and I follow her footprints to unexpected places.

  I see her looking down on us, and she is laughing.

  She turns to Grandpa, “Looks like they found the memory box.”

  He smiles and shakes his head. “Sure took them long enough.”

  Now and again, when autumn days crisp like a Winesap and the stars line up just so, the trees fluoresce into brilliance. And when they do, I am grateful to bear witness. As the last faded leaf falls from the cherry tree, scabby limbs are bared to the cold. Night skies come earlier and blacker, lit by stars that glitter like diamonds.

  We are in the waning days of such a season.

  I think back t
o tent meetings and dinners on the ground, to sugar water on my pigtails, and old hymns floating on soft mountain air.

  Faces and voices and sweet sacred places turn in my head.

  My eyes click open.

  Grandma says, “Don’t you be running on that red dog road.”

  But I do.

  I run wild, whooping and yowling against the pale November sky.

  Amen.

  Acknowledgments

  My heartfelt thanks to . . .

  Grandpa and Grandma Cales for being the best teachers I ever had. They taught me that the gift is in the giving. That I should put myself neither above nor beneath anyone. That the world is a good place already and I should try to make it better. I give them credit for most of the good in me.

  My mother Kathleen for buying us a home and fixing the roof and the washing machine herself. For taking me to open my own savings account when I started school. Brainy, responsible—a remarkable role model. She was skilled and talented and an artist in everything she did.

  Aunt Lila for her unfailing good humor. For giving me stories like Lonely Hearts Club Man and Birds of a Feather. Entreprenurial, artistic—a lover of flowers and books and art.

  My brother Hursey Clev, Brooksville Star newspaper, and sister, Yvonne Elaine, Ohio high school teacher—may you both rest in peace. My only surviving sibling, my brother Steve, still in West Virginia—I wish you joy and love and peace.

  My husband, Terry, for listening as I struggled to give voice to the flesh and bones of kin rattling through my Appalachian blood. For unfailing patience and support. For eating cereal for dinner more often than I will admit to in writing.

  My son, Carey, and grandsons C.J. and Andrew. My daughter, Andrea, and granddaughters Rindy and Camy. My great-grandchildren—Drema, Hunter and Lila, Daisy and Cindy, and all who come after. I wrote this book for you. Hold each other close. When times are tough, it’s nice to know someone has your back. Live your best life. One day your grandchild might write a book about you.

  Myrna Moles is the Sissy in my stories. Best friends from age three, she encouraged me to write this book and stayed with me to the bittersweet end. We talked for countless hours, unearthing her memories and mine, agreeing on this, disagreeing on that—sometimes I let her win, sometimes she let me. Over the mountains and through the valleys, she was always there.

  Peggy Blevins, Patty Greer, Myrna Moles, (and me), the fearless foursome who shared Girl Scouts, cheerleading, and secrets—and countless hours talking about all those cute East Beckley boys—Steve Bibb, Bill Grose, Grant Slack, David Stanley, and all the rest.

  Ruth Hoffman (deceased), revered English teacher, Hernando High School, Brooksville, Florida, 1953–54, was the first to tell me I had the makings of a writer.

  Herbert Kiser, honored journalism teacher, Woodrow Wilson High School, Beckley, West Virginia, 1956–57. He believed in me back then and still does. A role model, a mentor, a shining example.

  The Writers Garret, home of our renowned Dallas writing community, allowed me to grow in the heady company of other writers. Saturday mornings in the upper room with Mark Noble’s Stone Soup group was an almost spiritual experience.

  Kathleen Rodgers, great friend and author of two award-winning novels, rescued me from the Harpies when they took over, and applauded loudly when I put a couple good sentences together. Tom clapped too.

  Marcia Cooper, friend, performer, and writer, arranged many of my speaking events. She carried copies of my stories everywhere she went, sharing them with too many captive audiences to count.

  Nancy Stewart, then editor of the Register Herald’s Divine magazine, published several of my stories. Lisa Shrewsberry, former WV South editor, published many others, and Brenda Pinnell, former WV South art director, brought them to life with her whimsical illustrations.

  Bill Marvel, Juli McCullagh, Robin Underdahl (and Judith Greene Emeritus), all published award-winning authors and members of Salon Quatre, our fierce Dallas writing group. After spending a day in their company, I am encouraged, inspired, humbled.

  A special thank you to my agent, Jeanie Loiacono, Loiacono Literary Agency, for connecting me with Zondervan. Thank you to David Morris, Zondervan Trade Publisher, for your interest in my book. And thank you to the amazing team at Zondervan—Stephanie Smith, Bob Hudson, Alicia Kasen, Bridgette Brooks, Jennifer Ver Hage, Bridget Harmon, and all the others—for believing in Running on Red Dog Road and helping me make it better every step of the way.

  Many others helped me hold my dream in my hand. Named or unnamed, I love you all.