by Steve Vernon
Daddy says he guesses it’s a good thing that old Ben didn’t break his leg or we wouldn’t be able to plow the fields come spring.
We can’t afford a doctor, but Daddy says I’ll be just fine. He made a poultice out of spirit turpentine and brown sugar to staunch the bleeding, and he spoke the sixth verse of the sixteenth chapter of Ezekiel six times over the wound. Then he made a cast out of red clay mixed with spring water, and tied my leg straight with a couple pieces of hickory; the straightest and strongest he could find, because Daddy says a branch will grow as the tree wills it, and whatever grows around you will make you just like it started out to be.
He says that the hickory will only make me stronger.
Daddy says that I have just broken a bone, and that I’ll have to stay in bed for a couple of weeks to see if it will heal. I sure hope it does, because I know what I’ll have to do if I don’t get better soon.
Even still it’s kind of fun staying indoors. I get to be invisible if I stay quiet long enough. I try not to even breathe. I just lie here and listen to the creaking squeaking sing-song of Granny’s gray willow rocking chair.
*
It is Monday, according to the calendar, and my leg still doesn’t feel any better, but I tell Daddy that it feels just fine. I don’t want him to think that I’m getting as bad as he says Granny is getting.
He says Granny is getting too old to be of any real use around here. He says she’s been seeing visions, things that nobody else can see. I just figure it’s Granny trying out the new pair of eyes that God or whoever else is waiting for her to come, and has made for her to wear when she’s done down here. The eyes that will let her see her way into heaven or wherever else there is, when Granny finally has to go.
Daddy says that Granny’s been singing in her sleep. Now I want to know what’s wrong with that? Lots of people sing, and it always cheers me up to hear it even if the person isn’t a very good singer. If Granny sings in the night , maybe it just keeps the bad dreams away. Except Daddy doesn’t like some of the names in the songs that she’s been singing. I don’t think he likes the feel of the words she calls upon when she sings, and I don’t think he likes the way she sings it.
Daddy says that he thinks Granny’s leaving is for her own good. He says he thinks it’s for everybody’s good.
You want to know what I think? I think that Granny just makes Daddy nervous. I think he doesn’t like the way she smiles to herself the whole long day.
Nobody asks Granny, but I think she’d agree with me. She doesn’t talk to anyone any more, although we all know she’s always listening.
I’d like to ask Granny what she thinks about all of this, but I’ve got troubles enough of my own. I got to get myself better before Daddy starts talking about how what he thinks is REALLY for my own good.
*
I guess today is Tuesday. Granny’s is still not talking. She just sits by the fire and rocking her gray willow rocking chair. Daddy says she was mumbling. Daddy says she threw something into the fire and then something spoke back to her from somewhere below the coals. I don’t rightly know what would make a fire talk to you, more than maybe the fire’s usual “crackle-warm-crackle” or maybe the occasional “more wood”, but Granny’s been known to hear voices in the strangest of places.
Daddy also says that Granny’s starting to smell funny. He’s right on that last count, but you know I kind of like the way that Granny smells. It kind of reminds me of root cellars and dead leaves and big fat mushrooms growing way down in the dark.
Ma doesn’t say anything against what Daddy says. She use to argue with him some times, and then he’d get going on to one of his dark spells, and she’d get quiet if she knew what was good for her. Most likely because she doesn’t want to end up where Granny is going to be going.
Daddy has made up his mind about Granny. Actually he decided a long time ago. I think back when Granny first came to live with us was when Daddy make up his mind. It seemed he just never took to Granny’s ways.
Daddy says enough is enough, and we all know what that means whenever Daddy says it.
Sometimes I think that Daddy is like the fire, and we all are just chunks of piney knotwood, ready for the burning.
*
Today is Wednesday, and we had to send Granny away. Daddy says it’s for her own good.
Daddy sent her out this morning. I’ve been watching her from my window. I think Ma is watching her too, but she don’t say a thing if she is or not.
I guess there’s not much else to do, with all the menfolk out there in the fields. I keep watching Franny, seeing what she’ll do.
She’s been good about it so far. She only tried to come back once. May wouldn’t open up the door, probably because of what Daddy might say, so Granny went back out on to the hill.
Ma swept Granny’s muddy boot prints off of the front porch, so Daddy wouldn’t see them. I know she’s worried about one of Daddy’s black spells.
Tonight I watch the stars and count them, and I count the fire flies that dance around them, and sometimes I think I see Granny staring into the cabin with eyes as big and bright as tow of the biggest fire flies you ever saw. The moon was full last night, I swear it was, but tonight it’s gone away, like it was afraid of something it might see.
I think it’s afraid of Granny.
I tell myself it’s just the clouds getting in the way, although the sky was as clear as good well water all week long. For a while I tried pretending that the moon was still out there, hanging over our quiet little valley, cut then in my imagination the moon that I was pretending to see stared to look like Granny’s left eye.
At least I hope it was my imagination.
*
It’s Thursday, and I think my leg is feeling better, but Daddy says he isn’t so sure about that. I’m not so sure about what Daddy says. I think Daddy sees a little too much of Granny in me for his liking.
I can still see Granny, standing out there on her hill. The men walk past her, like she isn’t even there, and I want to shout out, to them to watch where they’re going but then I think about what Daddy might say about my leg, and I keep my peace.
Still and all, even when they try to ignore Granny they make it a point to walk way, way around her, like she was a patch of quicksand, or maybe a rabid dog.
Granny spent the day in the high hill meadow. Every time I look up she’s there, and I think she’s looking back at me, and I wonder what she’s thinking about.
Daddy says she won’t make it through the night. We’ll find her up there in the morning, he says, and then we can bury her. Ashes to ashes, and dirt to dirt; dead is as good as gone.
I sure hope my bone heals soon.
*
Friday, the calendar says, and Granny is still out there, still staring at the house. She’s starting to look like an old lightning blasted pine tree, all black and shadowy. This morning I saw her talking to a big old screech owl, perched right on her shoulder. I didn’t think screech owls come out by day, but you never can tell with Granny.
Daddy can’t believe that Granny’s made it through another night. It was cold last night, and the wind whistled like a mocking-bird singing for a supper of souls. Granny is hard to kill, I guess. Grandpa was too. He lasted nearly three days, before he finally lay down and let go.
I figure that she must be eating berries and drinking creek water by moonlight. May be the owl is bringing her things to eat.
I think the cold is beginning to get to her, though. I’ve been watching her out there, and she’s starting to act strange. Laying stick and stones in different patterns, all across the high hill meadow, just like she was a little child.
Watching her up there on the high hill meadow, dragging those dead limbs and rotted boulders about reminds me of the time I spent a whole morning watching a big old barn spider spinning a fly web.
I wonder what Granny’s trying to catch?
*
It’s Saturday and Ma just pulled the drapes shut
on the window, like there was something out there she didn’t like me to see. I don’t think she likes watching Granny anymore. I don’t even know if I do anymore. I keep thinking that I’m next, that Daddy wants everybody out of the house, except for Ma. Then he’ll have her all to himself.
I think that’s what he really wants.
Still, I open the curtains after Ma goes out to the field. Granny is still out there, still making her designs, and sometimes if I stare hard enough I can see the high hill meadow moving under her sticks and stones like a big old house cat moving when you scratch its fur just the right way.
The old milk cow just lay down in the pasture.
That means that rain is coming on, a real frog drowning kind of rain. Daddy says that will be the end of Granny for sure.
*
It’s another day, only there weren’t more than seven days on the piece of calendar Daddy gave me, so I can’t say what comes after Saturday. Daddy says you just start it all over again; you just swing back to Sunday, but I can’t believe that’s so.
There must be something after Saturday.
So I guess it’s the day after Saturday, and Granny can’t last much longer, It rained last night and all today and the dandelions are popping open their umbrellas all through the woods except up there on the high hill meadow where Granny is.
She’s lying out there on the hillside, her face buried down in the dirt like she was talking to it. I can see her move every now and then, so I know she’s still alive. She sort of scuttles around the hillside, moving all quick and angly like some kind of person turned scuttlebeetle.
I guess she’s just dying now. I guess she’s just taking her time and dying real slow. Won’t be long now, Daddy says. He says it like he’s waiting for his supper and he doesn’t want to think about his waiting.
It won’t be long now.
The rain clouds look darker than ever and it don’t look like it’s ever going to stop.
*
It’s the day after the day after Saturday and Granny hasn’t moved all morning.
She is dead I think, but Daddy isn’t too sure about that. He says he’ll check her body tomorrow. Give her a day of rest, he said. Just to be sure.
I think he’s just scared, and I don’t know if I blame him.
Ma doesn’t say a thing at all. She just sits there in Granny’s gray willow rocker, rocking and humming to herself, and staring after Granny.
*
It is the day after the day after the day after Saturday and the menfolk dug a grave and buried Granny right where she fell. The funeral was real pretty, Daddy carved a name board and Ma sang Amazing Grace. Daddy let me open my window, so I could listen.
The funny thing was, while Ma was singing, I swore I could hear Granny singing right behind her, like the wind singing behind the hills.
That was just my imagination I guess. Daddy always told me I was a little too good at seeing and hearing things that weren’t supposed to be there.
It’s all of my fingers but not my thumb after Saturday and Daddy fell and broke his leg today. It was the strangest thing I ever saw. He was walking up the high hill meadow, moving out towards the fields and he tripped and fell over one of Granny’s stick patterns.
Daddy swears it reached out and tripped him. I want to tell him that it’s only sticks and stones, and didn’t he tell me once that sticks and stones will never hurt you?
Except I saw the stick swing up by itself and hit him a spiteful lick on the shin while he was laying there, catching his leg between the ground and a chunk of rock, like a blacksmith will catch a horse shoe on the anvil.
I heard the snap of bone, clear up at my window.
I hope Daddy gets better soon.
Even if he’s mostly mean, I don’t know what me and Ma would do if Daddy had to go away.
*
It’s all my fingers and even my thumb after Saturday and the sun didn’t shine in our valley all day long. Daddy called it an eclipse. He said it happens all the time. I wanted to get Ma to check the almanac but Daddy had torn today’s page out and burned it in the fire. Then he’d yelled at the fire, like it had called him a name.
Ma isn’t saying much today, anyway. She just sits in Granny’s old gray willow rocker, singing and humming to herself and now when she sings I know I can hear Granny coming on back.
*
It is long past Saturday. Granny came back last night. She’s sitting in her gray willow rocker, just rocking away like she’ll never stop. I don’t think the house will ever be the same. I sure know it won’t ever smell the same, no matter how much sweetgrass Ma burns in the fire.
Ma seems happy though. She didn’t even bother sweeping the grave hole mud away.
And Daddy’s made himself a crutch.
I wonder where he thinks he is going?
GALLOW-WEEN – AN ESSAY
Halloween has always been my favorite time of the year. I know that things have changed since I was young. You don’t see the crowds of kids in Superman costumes, hobo garb, clown suits and ghost sheets the way you used to. Nowadays kids are too cool for all that foolishness.
Nevertheless, I still celebrate it every chance I get. For years it was my great tradition to decorate my front lawn with as much booga-booga paraphernalia as I could manage.
What did I have?
Well, for starters, there was a great foam core full moon, painted bright metallic gold and on the highest peak of my roof. In front of that full moon dangled a witch on a broomstick – made from a homemade scarecrow stuffed with sheets and rags and shirts that I had outgrown.
Lord, I have grown through an awful lot of shirts since then. From size medium to extra-large – how the heck could I managed to shrink so much laundry?
On the front lawn was a pair of large sawhorses with an old door slung across them and a huge stuffed Frankenstein monster stretched out. A pair of diabolical looking juice jugs with plastic tubing served as a makeshift IV.
I’m not saying this was fancy, you understand, but it had all of the heart that I could manage to inject into it.
Speaking of heart, one year I found a garbage bag of stuffed animals on the curbside. I salvaged a fine fat stuffed penguin and laid him out on the top of huge wooden stump that I dragged from out back where it usually served as a chopping block for my firewood. I tied that stuffed penguin to the top of the chopping block, inserted a set of finely-crafted foamcore fangs into his beak, and then drove a wooden stake with the butt of my axe – directly into the heart of that vampiric tuxedoed penguin. A few artful dribbles of homemade blood and the work was complete.
My yew bush, a fine fat hunk of shrubbery grew long black plastic tentacles. At the foot of the yew bush I built a mouth with a pair of old stuffed jeans and some mildwed funkified workboots poked out from the jaws of the yew bush. The tentacles were arranged so that the trick or treaters would have to walk beneath the overhanging tentacles along the sidewalk to get to my door. Above my door hung a spider web crafted from the remnants of a hockey net. Above that spider web dangled a huge black fuzzy spider about as large as a bushel basket. Inside the web was a small stuffed Spiderman costume, with its arms and legs pretzelled into unmistakable dead-as-a-doornail angles.
Some nights I would sit out there on that front step beneath that spider web dressed in a big old homemade Frankenstein monster suit with a great black pea coat and a big old fabric head. I would sit just as still as I could until someone walked up and then I would stand and yell something profound like “Booga booga.”
The windows would be painted with black cats, and several carved pumpkins sometimes aided by our black cat who would stare balefully out the window at any approaching trick or treaters.
There were also several scarecrows staked out in front of our lawn – but the highlight was our cemetery. Every year I dragged the old tombstones – decorated with the names of various horror actors and authors – as well as their birth and death dates. Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, H.P. Lovecraf
t, Oscar Wilde, Bela Lugosi and many others were buried each year upon our front lawn.
Then, I would spend hours raking leaves from the backyard to the front. I would rake them from the curbside and the neighbour’s lawn. By the time I was finished that front yard would be covered with about a half a foot deep in multicolored dead autumn leaves. Then I would scatter plastic bones and chunks of driftwood and plastic machetes and cleavers and the like.
Yes sir and yes ma ’m – I did Halloween up in a real big way.
But the strangest Halloween of all happened the year that I decided that my front yard needed an honest-to-god gallows. I constructed it out of scrap two by fours – artfully nailed together in a fashion that would make Red Green look skillful. I hung a huge scarecrow with a noose that was tied in a perfect hangman’s knot.
All right, so my wife tied the knot but I thought the idea up so I still get to wear my Old Spice manly cologne.
That gallows looked good, standing out there just behind the graveyard with a couple of orange floodlights shining on it.
Two days after the gallows went up a woman knocked on my door.
“Mister,” she told me. “My kids love your Halloween yard every year but they can’t walk by here without crying because my husband, in a fit of depression, hung himself in our basement just last year.”
You could not have stunned me harder if you had struck me full in the forehead with a caulking mallet.
I hastily apologized and promised the gallows would come down that very day. I called in to work and told them I had to stay home today. I cut the arm of the gallows and lowered the big old scarecrow down. Then I dressed the scarecrow up in drag – giving him a high peaked witch’s hat and a long black gown. My wife stitched up a hag’s beak and shoved his chin forward. Then I tied him to the two-by-four that stood upright. I built a heap of firewood and decorated it with red and yellow and orange cellophane-style wrapping paper. When I hit it with the orange floodlights it metamorphosed from a hung scarecrow to a witch burning at the stake.