Guests on Earth: A Novel

by Lee Smith

  I had wandered over there shyly the first time, early for my appointment. Sunlight flowed in through a row of big new windows looking out upon the kitchen gardens and across to the woods beyond. Sturdy rough-hewn ceiling beams held swags of flowers, hung to dry: purple statis, golden yarrow, delicate white baby’s breath, those lavender asters that grew in great drifts on the bank behind the Central Building. All their names came flooding back to me. They looked beautiful hanging there. A man came in stomping his feet with the smell of the woods about him and an armful of bright-berried holly and evergreens; he placed them carefully on a wide shelf. Several people were working around a big potting table with a pile of dirt in the middle of it.

  “Evalina?” An older woman detached herself from the group at the potting table and came toward me, stripping off her gardening gloves to hold out her arms. “Welcome. I am Mrs. Morris. I have been looking forward so much to meeting you—I can use your help.” She surprised me with a hug, instead of a handshake. Though Mrs. Morris actually held a doctorate in psychology, she did not look or act like a doctor at all, but like a grandmother, or someone’s ideal of a grandmother, with her gray curls, dimply wrinkled face, and plump figure—even her fingers were pudgy, and stained with dirt. Nor did she ever dress like a doctor, always wearing slacks and a smock or a big green apron with pockets containing the tools of her trade. “Here, put this on.” She handed me a man’s soft old shirt. “And come, sit down—” She led me toward a group of comfortable wicker chairs set in a circle. “Today we shall all start a project together. Come, have a seat. Let’s wait for the others . . .” Oh no, I thought. A group! Nothing of this sort had ever occurred in Horticulture with old man Otto in charge. He had just put us all to work.

  But they soon arrived, all women in our group of six: three who seemed to know each other well, falling into instant conversation. The spinsterish one named Myra was a bore who began all her remarks with “Mama always says . . .” while Amanda and Susan, younger, might possibly be belles, I thought, newly aware of this category. Helen, also new to the group, was older, thin and downcast; while black-haired Ruth was an angry, fidgety woman about my own age who said she didn’t see why she had to come here at all, she was a city girl and this wasn’t what she had expected at this hospital, this wasn’t what she had signed up for, plus she had never had a green thumb, she had the opposite of a green thumb, she had a black thumb, so there!

  Mrs. Morris laughed merrily. “Oh honey,” she said, “Don’t worry—no one else has a green thumb either. In fact there is no such thing as a green thumb.” She sat smiling at us all. “Plants and people have a lot in common,” she suggested. “Both need a harmony of society and environment within the natural laws of biology and chemistry. They need care and food. There are certain things they must have, such as water and sunlight, and certain things they must not have—”

  “Oh, I see what you’re up to!” dark-haired Ruthie spat out furiously. “Jesus Christ, how dumb do you think we are?”

  “Mama always said that cursing shows a weakness of vocabulary,” Myra said primly.

  Mrs. Morris continued, unfazed. “Both plants and people make their way through a life cycle as single individuals, yet both are actually dependent upon their relationships with other plants and animals for survival. These interactions and associations between individuals vary from the casual or superficial to ties that are so close that the death of one partner may threaten the existence of others.”

  Helen, the downcast woman, began to cry at that moment, soundlessly and hopelessly. I wondered if perhaps she had just lost her husband.

  Mrs. Morris leaned forward to take her hand, and went on. “Today you will each pick a bulb to plant and nurture throughout this winter season. We shall begin the process of forcing bulbs now, so that each of you will have a potful of beautiful blooming plants in the darkest, coldest part of the winter when the snow comes to cover our mountains all about.” Mrs. Morris had an almost Biblical way of speaking, though her Southern voice was so soft that we all had to pull our chairs forward and lean toward her a bit to hear. “Of course it is unnatural, forcing bulbs to grow out of their season. This is a special project to bring us cheer for the upcoming holidays. In reality, plants, like people, need room in order to spread and grow and sink their roots—in order to thrive.”

  “And now, look!” She opened the huge old book upon her lap, turning it upside down so that we could all see the botanical prints marching in full color across the pages: cheerful orange and red tulips; lacy spikes of blue, violet, and pink hyacinths.

  “Those always smell so good,” I said involuntarily, pointing to the hyacinths. I was rewarded with a smile.

  “Yes they do, Evalina, and so does this paperwhite narcissus and also the freesia—it’s heavenly, just like perfume, does anybody know it?” Mrs. Morris indicated the extravagant lavender and white blooms. “And then, of course, our most dependable and sturdy flowers of all—daffodils! Does anybody know the Wordsworth poem?”

  I wandered lonely as a cloud popped into my mind, from the little book of poems that Mr. Graves gave me.

  “Jonquils,” Helen said. “Mama always called them jonquils.”

  “Oh, who cares what anybody calls them?” Ruth snapped. She jumped up and went to stand at the big window, jiggling her foot.

  Mrs. Morris stood and smoothed her apron down over her stomach. “Now you must each one be deciding upon the flower you would most like to grow, as we proceed over to the potting table where I shall introduce you to your bulbs.” We moved as one to line up on either side of the table. “Now look at this.” Dr. Morris held aloft a big, lumpy, dirty clod as if it were a jewel. “Can you believe it? This”—pointing at the bulb—“will turn into this.”—pointing at the picture of a giant red amaryllis. She looked at us carefully one by one. “But it will happen only with your care.”

  “Oh brother,” Ruth muttered. Nobody took any notice of her as she stepped tentatively toward us, then retreated, then finally rejoined our group as we all chose bulbs and pots and began—gingerly, in most cases—to break up the soil and put several inches of it into our clay pots, then place the bulbs just so upon it (“No, this way,” Mrs. Morris said gently, upending several, “so they can reach straight up for the sun. We must all reach for the sun.”) Then more soil, then sphagnum moss to hold in moisture. We crammed several bulbs into each pot. I picked daffodils for my pot. Ruth picked the showy amaryllis; I knew she would.

  AFTERWARD I FOUND myself walking back up the long, grassy hill between Amanda and Susan; both would be leaving Highland soon, I gathered from their conversation. Susan, recovering from a broken heart, was looking forward to the holidays, but Amanda dreaded her return to an older, domineering husband whom she referred to as “The Judge” and described as a “sex fiend.”

  A sudden gust of cold air brought us a shower of brittle leaves.

  “Oh well, at least it’ll be warm down there,” Amanda said. “I don’t think I could stand a winter at this place.”

  “Where do you live?” I asked, and she said, “Tampa.”

  “That sounds nice,” I offered.

  “You don’t know anything,” Amanda said.

  The sound of sudden cries and exclamations erupted from the edge of the woods to our left, where a teenage grounds crew was working on beds at the tree line—cutting back the ever-encroaching forest, pruning and separating the perennials, I imagined, for I had worked on these borders myself in the old days.

  “Oh man, you ought to see that thing!” a tall, skinny redheaded boy tossed his hoe high in the air as he burst out onto the grassy lawn, followed by a shrieking blonde girl. But the others gathered closer to the tree line, jabbering excitedly, as a man appeared in the forest’s mysterious opening and then stepped forward carrying something in his arms.

  “Kill it! Kill it!” The redheaded boy started the chant.

  We stopped on the path to watch, but couldn’t see what it was due to the excited clot of
jumping teenagers.

  I found myself transfixed—as my companions appeared to be, too—by the scene and the man himself—dark, small, yet finely made, with handsome features—utterly calm in the midst of all the uproar and consternation. A white dog followed at his heels. He smiled broadly, sweetly, as he walked forward into the group with arms outstretched, as if with an offering.

  “Lord, it’s a snake!” Susan whispered, seizing my arm.

  The teenagers quieted down and gathered around him, blocking our view, then radiated outward to form a circle with the man in the center of it, kneeling.

  Without a word, the four of us left the path and moved down the hill, closer, to see.

  It was a thick-looking thing, like a snake but clearly not a snake, more primeval and misshapen than a snake, despite a recognizable head at one end, with sleepy eyes and a mouth that turned up curiously in a sort of smile. Its blackish-gray body was highlighted with yellow spots on the head which continued down its back toward the wedge-shaped tail. It was about a foot long. Now the man moved back from it a bit, still on his haunches, a position that seemed absolutely natural to him. We all watched in utter silence as the animal began to move very slowly—so slowly that it seemed to ooze across the grass and back into the brush at the edge of the forest. I stared in fascination until it was gone—then looked up to find that the man had disappeared as well, along with his dog.

  The kids headed toward the greenhouse, carrying their tools and talking loudly, as if they had all been on a grand adventure.

  “Mama always says, ‘Snakes are our friends,’ ” Myra announced as we joined the lunch line entering the dining hall in the Central Building.

  “Oh for God’s sakes, who cares what your damn mother says?” Ruth snapped, and Myra’s mouth fell open, as if this were a brand new idea.

  “I don’t think that was even a snake,” Susan said thoughtfully. “I grew up on a farm, and I never saw a snake that looked like that.”

  “But who was the man?” I asked, trying to sound casual, surprised at the catch in my voice.

  “Oh!” They turned to me. “Haven’t you heard the story? Don’t you know?”

  THE ANIMAL WAS a spotted salamander, a mole species of amphibian native to the area but rarely seen except by foresters and gardeners digging in deeply wooded locations.

  What a shame, I thought, that Robert had missed it.

  The man was, indeed, another story, which I pieced together by diligently questioning Mrs. Hodges, Dr. Morris, Mr. Pugh, and the Overholsers, who had all worked with him ever since his arrival.

  His name was Pan Otto, though this was a name he had acquired only since he had been brought to Highland Hospital eight years earlier. I had not missed him by much, actually, a fact which fascinated me, as well as the fact that we were about the same age, twenty-six or twenty-seven, so far as anyone could tell, in both cases. He had lived here continuously ever since, and was now a familiar and beloved figure about the grounds, seen usually in the company of his dog, Roy, a gentle though wolflike creature.

  But I am getting ahead of myself! Mrs. Hodges told me the whole story.

  He was born William Raymond Moss—called Billy Ray—over in the deep mountains west of Asheville. The family had lived up a long, rutted road in an old homestead on Crabtree Mountain that had always belonged to his mother’s family. Considered “slow,” his mother Lorena had seldom left the mountain, and then only for brief trips into town with her parents. Here she attracted some considerable attention, for she was beautiful, but no one came calling until her fearsome father’s death, which left Lorena up there on the mountain with her ailing mother to care for.

  Now the neighbors and townsfolk ventured forth to bring what was needed, food and clothing and even wood. It was not long until they came up to tend the body and bury the old woman in the Crabtree cemetery at the top of the mountain.

  This is when a no-account man named Dwane Moss first set eyes on Lorena, or so it was believed. He married her two months later over in Sylva, before a drunken magistrate. Lorena bore him child after child. Dwane Moss had no known profession other than selling off Crabtree land he had gained through marriage. Shameful, they all said in town, though no one could stop him so long as Lorena signed the papers. People were scared of him, for he was a violent man, hot-headed and alcoholic. But when he shot the wrong man in the groin at a roadhouse fight, the sheriff made him a deal. Since Dwane liked to fight so much, the sheriff sent him off to the army instead of prison.

  Lorena kept chickens, and sometimes people left food in the shed down at the end of the rocky road for her and the children—a bag of cornmeal, perhaps, or potatoes—for some still remembered her and who her people were. In their father’s absence, the older boys ran away, hopping a freight out of Asheville, never to be seen or heard from again. (“And who could blame them?” Mrs. Hodges said, throwing up her hands as she told this part.) Dwane’s brother Roman showed up out of no place and moved in with Lorena to help out, though it is not clear exactly what he did, beyond taking her into town once a month to pick up the check from the army. The older girl, Ava, “smart in school” when she could get there, just didn’t come home one day, staying in town with a classmate’s family.

  And then Dwane got out of the army and came back a hero, with a wooden foot, a lot of medals, constant pain, and a chip on his shoulder. Soon there was a terrible accident up on Crabtree Mountain, and Dwane’s brother Roman got killed some way or other, bringing the high sheriff and his deputies up the long rutted road. Charges were never placed against Dwane, but the county went back two days later and took the twins. Another baby gripping her skirt, Lorena stood weeping at the door to watch them go down the mountainside. After that, folks left them alone. Dwane made regular trips into town for the checks and the drugs he required from the pharmacy, sometimes accompanied by Lorena, who spoke to no one, shopping with her head down at the grocery store.

  Time passed, and more time.

  Then came the blizzard of 1928, which brought two feet of snow followed by an ice storm that left a solid sheet of ice on top of it. When that finally melted, making a river out of the road, Lorena put her coat on and wrapped little Millie up as best she could and they walked all the way down the mountain and just sat down in the snow, the two of them huddled together holding hands by the side of the road until somebody came along and found them.

  This turned out to be a Church of Christ minister named Rudy Swink and two of his deacons, on their way to a prayer breakfast. Crazed, emaciated, and babbling, Lorena pulled at them until they parked the car and walked back up the mountain. She led them first to Dwane’s body, face down in the snow at the side of the house, where he had fallen coming back from the woodshed. He had been dead for several days.

  But that was not all. Tugging insistently at the Reverend Swink’s sleeve, she took them into the house, which was “filthy something awful” as the Reverend described it later in the newspaper articles that Mrs. Hodges had saved all these years. The stove had gone out; you could see your breath in the air. Lorene kept on pulling at Reverend Swink’s sleeve, taking him into a makeshift pantry off the kitchen, which had ladder steps at the back of it leading down into a kind of a root cellar that contained the boy, Billy Ray Moss, in a slatted cage fashioned with chicken wire. At first, in the dim light, they didn’t even see him. Then “Lord God have mercy!” the Reverend had hollered, flinging out his hand in the old gospel style to pray before stumbling forward to open the latch, but the boy drew back into his rags and blankets and would not look at the preacher, or at anyone.

  He was taken to Broughton Mental Hospital in Morganton, where he was the subject of great interest and much attention by the entire medical establishment, who came from far and wide to view him. Although about eight years old at the time of his discovery, he weighed only forty-eight pounds, walked on all fours or maintained a crouching posture, ate with his hands, and did not speak or make eye contact, flinching when anyone approached him.


  “How do you all know all this?” I demanded of Mrs. Hodges one afternoon. “These details, I mean?”

  “Why, my goodness, it was in all the papers, you had better believe it. Worldwide! Everybody knew about it. The Boy in the Cage, they called him. It was terrible, terrible. But he improved, with time. They made him their special pet over there at Broughton, they showered him with attention, and affection, don’t you know, as much as possible, and he improved, he did, quite a bit, to where he could stand up, and walk and run and speak, too—though he has never liked to, mind you—and eat with a spoon and a fork and all that, and even throw a football, and play a harmonica. Oh, he took to the harmonica! But he was still different from other children, of course, and the time came when he reached a plateau, they called it.”

  “What did that mean?” I asked.

  “They came to a point where the boy did not need to be in hospital any longer, and certainly not the state hospital, where all beds are nec-ess-ary. Yet he got booted out of the Oxford orphanage, and then no other orphanage would have him, nor any foster home either, he was just too . . . too different, too un-u-su-al, or so they said. He was removed from placement after placement, which had a damaging effect, don’t you know.”

  “Like what?”

  “Regression,” she said darkly, clicking her needles. “My, yes. Finally they sent him back to Broughton, and this is when Himself got involved.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “The head of child psychiatry at Broughton, a Dr. Spiegelman, had heard Dr. Carroll speak at Duke, and so he came to call upon us, and of course the Carrolls were fascinated to learn what had happened to the boy in the cage, and went immediately to see him, and the upshot of it was that he was brought here, where he has lived ever since, as you see. He has not progressed as far as Dr. C had hoped, I daresay—it soon became clear that he’d never go to university! He’s not got the intellect for schooling, nor the temperament either. Too odd! But he has got a job and a home here now, at least.”