by Jeff Fields
Vance was approaching forty now, with bulging neck and a thick stomach and a sweaty, blond crew-cut. The twins were perfect miniatures of their father. The girl climbed out crossly, rubbing sleep drool off with her wrist and complaining about the heat, and her brother clambered straight up the steps, brushing aside his grandmother's arms, shouting that he had to "tee-tee." Their mother, a frail listless woman with a perpetual headache, stood waving in their commotion without interest, as though birthing this pair had simply shucked her. Introduced to me, she gave a cordial wince of pain and sought the nearest chair.
Vance's greeting to his mother dwelled mainly on his surprise at how much weight she had put on. She returned the compliment, introduced him around, and spent the rest of the evening in her room packing while Farette fed us supper. Afterwards, when the boarders had escaped to their rooms, Vance sat at the table moodily watching Farette and me clear away the dishes while Victor and Vanessa pulled things from the kitchen cabinets, chased each other around the room and wrestled under the table. Finally he called me into the dining room. He sat propped on his elbow, rubbing his hands thoughtfully.
"How old are you now, boy?
Fourteen."
Vance shook his head. "What kind of work can you get at fourteen?" He fingered a beet pickle out of the jar and rolled it in his jaw.
"I'm tall, I'd probably pass for much older."
He looked me over. "Nah, never do it. Damn, oughta be sump'n—what are you doin' now? You're doin' sump'n to help pay your keep here, ain't you?"
"Well, I do chores . . ."
"I mean payin' work, boy! How about a paper route? Ain't you even got a paper route?"
"I've tried. There's a waiting list."
"I've never heard of such a thing!"
"It's a small town, a small paper."
Vance eyed me suspiciously. "Well, by God, you c'n bet I'll find you sump'n'" He wiped his fingers on the mouth of the beet jar and dried them in his pocket. "You'll not lay off and grow fat at my house and not turn a hand." Further discussion was made impossible at that point by Victor and Vanessa, who were trying to pull the cat from behind the refrigerator with a coat hanger. "Off to bed, everybody," ordered Vance.
I slept on the extra bed in Mr. Jurgen's room, as Victor claimed my room for himself. He didn't sleep much, though; I could hear him most of the night searching through my closet and dresser.
In fact, hardly anyone slept that night. To a stranger first coming, it might have gone unnoticed, but if you live for a while in a house of old people, you become attuned to certain shadings of solitude, levels of quiet. You find that there is a difference between the silence of sulking and the silence filled with grief, or the silence of someone merely listening to the softening of a day. You learn the peaks of smaller joys. Come the first bloom of an African violet, the arrival of a photograph of a new grandson, a call to the telephone after a long Sunday's wait, the reaction was small perhaps—the quick whisper of slippers on the carpet, a tap on a door, a soft murmuring—but under it all an exuberance that rang through the house.
And that night, with its muted stirrings: a restless toss of bedsprings, a window sliding open, the jerk of the bathroom light chain, the intensity was there. The house was as charged as a summer storm.
Mr. Jurgen turned over in his bed. I was afraid my own tossing had kept him awake, and braced for his griping.
Instead, he said softly, "I can't sleep."
"Sir?" Mr. Jurgen had never before spoken to me in a tone softer than a sharp reprimand.
He didn't speak again right away. He lay on his side, looking over the end of his pillow. Finally, he said, "I don't know what's going to become of us."
I sat up in bed. I couldn't believe it! My old enemy, Mr. Jurgen. I got out of bed and went and stood beside him.
"Are you scared, Mr. Jurgen?''
He didn't answer.
"Mr. Jurgen," I said, "are you scared?"
He lay looking up at me from the cold square of moonlight, his hands knotted on top of the covers.
I leaned over him.
"Don't you be scared, Mr. Jurgen," I said angrily. "Don't you do that to me! I was scared one time. I lay in that room over there scared to death through many a night, and all you done was complain about my crying. Now don't you make me care about your being scared. It ain't right. It ain't fair. I don't care what happens to you! I don't care if they take you to the county home and lock you away for good and nobody ever comes to see you again! You don't deserve nothing better, you hear me? You don't deserve nothing better, you sorry old . . ."
Suddenly he jerked upright and slapped me across the face. "Get away from me!" he shouted. "If you're going to stay in my room you get back in that bed and keep your impudent mouth shut, you hear me? I hope—I hope that son of hers puts you in the reformatory where you belong!" And he whirled over in bed and snatched the covers over his ears.
I went back to my bed, my face hot and stinging. That's better, Mr. Jurgen, I thought. Much better. Hate me, but don't make me cry with you. Don't make me cry with you. I couldn't stand that just now.
17
The Vance Cahills were in town only through the weekend, the time required to "get Miss Esther's affairs in order," which meant placing the house with a realtor and crating up the things that Lucille liked, and those that Miss Esther absolutely refused to part with, for shipment to North Carolina.
On Sunday afternoon Mr. J. J. Bearden of Bearden Real Estate assembled everyone in the living room. Mr. Bearden was a humble, hunch-shouldered man with a confidential air who leaned close when he talked and breathed on you like a dentist. He greeted each of the boarders in turn, and waited until they were settled. As he was about to start, the front door opened and Mr. Teague came into the parlor, followed by Tio, who took a seat with Em and me on the hall stairs. Mr. Teague made his way to a chair, nodding to everyone, and sat slowly rubbing his knees, watching Victor and Vanessa shove each other off the coffee table. Miss Esther stayed in her room.
"Ah, what a terrible, terrible time," said Mr. Bearden, licking his long front teeth. "I've been a friend of Wylie and Esther Cahill since the day they came to this town, and I can't tell you what sadness it brings me to conduct the business at hand." Mr. Bearden said that a buyer for the property had already been found, and he was happy to assure everyone that the house would continue just like Miss Esther had wanted, as a home for all of her old friends for as long as they wished to stay. The boarders were visibly relieved.
"However," continued Mr. Bearden, "the new owner finds it necessary to make a slight increase in the rate you are now paying."
"How slight?" Mr. Jurgen wanted to know.
"Ten dollars a month."
"Ten dollars!" cried Mrs. Porter.
"Esther Cahill," Mr. Bearden said hastily, "is, as you all know, a most generous woman, but we must remember that to the new owner this is strictly a business enterprise, with certain obvious risks. The house is already in an advanced state of decay, and to assume the liability for boarders of advanced age and physical disability living here . . ."
"Who's disabled!" roared Mr. Burroughs, getting to his feet.
"We're not disabled," echoed Mrs. Cline.
"Yes, well . . . nevertheless . . ." Mr. Bearden had to step over
Victor and Vanessa, who were wrestling at his feet.
"But we can't afford ten dollars more a month," protested Mrs. Porter.
"I'm very sorry," said Mr. Bearden, "there's nothing I can do."
"Why the very . . . !" Mr. Burroughs was interrupted by Victor and Vanessa tumbling against his legs. He whirled on Lucille. "Madam, if you don't get a hand on these disgusting look-alikes, I'm gonna stomp 'em into one obedient child!"
Lucille immediately scurried to collar her children and bustled them off to the kitchen. Vance sat glowering, but said nothing.
"Please," said Mr. Bearden, "there's really no point in discussing it further. The decision is final."
Mr. Ram
pey spoke up. "Who is this new owner, we'll have a talk with him."
"For reasons of his own he has asked to remain anonymous," said Mr. Bearden. "Anyway, I'm sure it would be useless to bargain. He and I have agreed that it would be impossible to operate the house profitably at the current rate. It's simply a matter of dollars and cents. Now, Farette has agreed to stay on as cook and housekeeper, and Mr. Jojohn"—he looked around until he found Em on the stairs—"Mr. Jojohn, you may continue to stay in that garage on the property, and take your meals at the house, and you will be paid ten dollars a month to continue in charge of general maintenance . . . but for that additional salary we must be assured of a little more regularity from you. You must agree to stay on the premises year round and not go rambling off when the mood strikes you."
Em got down from the stairs and ambled into the living room and looked down at the realtor. "Horse face, you couldn't buy my regularity for ten thousand dollars a month. If the deal I had with the old woman ain't good enough for you and your boss I'll leave tonight. Fact, it's gettin' to be too much of a strain anyhow. Place is so old and wore out it takes twelve hours a day now to keep the pipes from comin' apart and steps from fallin' in and killin' somebody. Might pay us both if you just got somebody else to keep the place up, wash the windows, rake the yards, clean the gutters, fix busted furniture, unstop the drains . . ."
"Now, now, Mr. Jojohn . . . I'm sure we can come to terms suitable . . ."
"I'll tell you what I'll do," said Em. "I'll stay in the loft until I get tired of stayin' there. If these folks wants a job done here and there, and I feel up to it, I'll do it. I don't want no meals, and I don't want a dime from you nor that son of a bitch—pardon me, ladies—that was ashamed to show his face here tonight. Them's my terms, and until somebody comes down to that loft to throw me out, I'll figure they're agreeable to all sides."
Em started to put on his hat and stopped at the sound of sniffling coming from the corner. It was Mrs. Metcalf. She looked up, dabbing at her nose with a handkerchief.
The Indian bent down to her. "You scared, little lady?"
She went on sniffling, looking up at him like a frightened little girl, wadding the handkerchief to her mouth.
Em frowned. "There's a mean old woman upstairs," he said. "She'd raise holy hell if she knowed you's down here carryin' on thataway."
Mrs. Metcalf smiled, a little laugh broke through the sob.
Em turned around to those in the parlor. "She put in a lot o' time on you people. You was her family, more of her family than her own, and she took a lot of pride in you. Now, if you got notions that you ain't people no more, if you don't think you'll have the gumption to put on your clothes and feed yourselves when she's gone, and you're gonna go to pieces and start actin' like a bunch of damn fools, I'd appreciate if you'd just pack your bags and call your young'uns to come get you! And I wish you'd do it tonight and be gone 'fore she comes down in the mornin'. I got a lot o' respect for that old woman, and I'd hate to see her shamed thataway!"
He stopped for a moment, looking at me and at Tio, then abruptly jammed his hat on his head and stalked out into the afternoon.
In the redness of the late afternoon sun I took a last walk through the Ape Yard. I walked along the hogback hills, through the glowing fingers that probed the shadows of the hollow, breaking a weed, smelling it, looking again at the store, stopping to remember that place in the river. It was a dismal place, after all; what could there be of gullies and shanties and vine-covered trees to carry away? There would be other sandy creeks, other gulley fortresses, other banks to slide on to the river.
I crossed the hollow and walked up into the town, circling the square, and along the closed stores, looking for someone to say goodbye to. I had spent most of my life in the town, shouldn't there be someone to let know I was leaving? Gwen had said she would arrange things at school, but wouldn't there be another person who, after a week or so, would say, "Whatever happened to old Earl Whitaker? Where has he gone?" If I died there would be someone to say that, wouldn't there?
Wouldn't there?
I stood on the square and gazed along the rows of empty store fronts. Overhead the automatic streetlights were fading on, rising to the darkness as the sun comes to morning, lighting whoever may be standing there, casting the same light when he is gone.
There was a vagrant sitting on a park bench nearby. A man with a curl of red hair stuck to his pasty white forehead. He sat with one shoe off pulling a sock luxuriously through his toes, his yellowed eyes watching me.
I turned and walked away.
Late in the night, after hours of walking, I found myself back in the Ape Yard, in front of the Starlite Cafe in Cabbage Alley. The Starlite was run by Gus Mayfair, who was a porter at the Marble City Hotel uptown until the new manager fired him for drinking. I stopped and tapped on the glass. Gus came from behind the counter with a rag in his hand and squinted through the window, and unlocked the door. "Just closing up," he said.
"I, uh—I was just leaving town and thought I'd get one more of your good hamburgers, Gus."
"I done turned off the grill," he said. Gus was sleepy and didn't like working at the cafe anyway. Gus had enjoyed working at the hotel, where he got to wear a uniform and rich white people tipped him and joked with him. But the new manager had let him go. It had been all right with the old manager if he took a drink on the job; the old manager drank himself, and surprised a man in one of the rooms now and then. But the new manager had let Gus go, even though he only took an occasional drink.
"That's okay," I said, "maybe I'll stop by the bus station diner."
Gus waited with the key in the lock. There was a long crack across the glass door where a drunk had tried to kick it in and Gus had reinforced the crack with a spine and ribs of tape.
"I'm going up to North Carolina," I said. "I don't guess I'll be coming back."
"Yeah—well, good luck to you."
"Right," I said. "Well, goodbye, Gus."
The door closed and a moment later the neon sign went out and bugs plunged and dived and fluttered about helplessly in the dark.
I climbed the hills to the garage and I knew, long before I was close enough to look for a light, that there would be none.
There was no need to strike a light, I knew every splinter of the place. Finding Em's cot, I tumbled on it and lay in the dark and listened to the high whine of the gulley crickets and the muffled, faraway drone of the Ape Yard. The loft, still smelling of warm day-dust, cracked and popped as the old garage settled itself in the cooling air of the night.
18
By noon the next day the moving van had left, the station wagon was loaded, and the hired ambulance had arrived for Miss Esther. Vance had howled in protest over the extravagance until a hurried call to the insurance agent reassured him that it was covered by her major medical. But when the men arrived with a stretcher she shooed them out of her room and came down carrying her bag. She further flabbergasted her son by ordering one of the attendants into the back and crawling in beside the driver. "But, Mama," spluttered Vance, "what's the good of having an ambulance if you're going to ride up front?"
"I'll lay down if I get tired," she said. "First I want to see how this gentleman drives. You all up there"—she adjusted her hat and looked along the line of boarders at the porch balustrade—"you better write to me, now." There were to be no hand-wringing goodbyes, she had made sure of that. She was up before daylight, visiting each of them in their rooms. Now she just looked at them, her old soldiers lined stiffly at the rail, and they at her, etching in, I supposed, those last details of face and feature, the turn of a mouth, the slope of a shoulder, as I had painted in my trees, my bend in the river. When at last she was done, Miss Esther nodded, cranked up her window and ordered her driver on.
The boarders turned and filed past me into the house, still dry eyed, though Mrs. Metcalf was straining hard, and as they passed, each one touched me in a brief goodbye, a squeeze of the arm, a clap on the head,
and walked on, none of us trying to speak in a moment too tight, too full for the rattle of empty words.
Vance worked my suitcase under the straps of the luggage carrier, and I crawled into the station wagon between the twins, each of whom had claimed family rights to a window seat. Vance and Lucille were making a last check of the house when suddenly Victor rolled down the window and yelled:
"You get out of this yard, nigger!"
Tio leaned his bike against the steps and came over to the car. Victor shook his fist in Tio's face. "You want to fight, nigger?"
"Be still," I said, "he's a friend of mine."
Tio handed me a sack through the window. "Mr. Teague sent you some apples."
"Don't you touch this car," warned Victor. Vanessa giggled.
"Tell him thank you for me."
Tio nodded. He tried to say something else but kept getting interrupted by Victor, who had devised a new game. Watching Tio closely, he carefully managed to keep his head in our line of sight. Tio moved around to the back window and lifted his voice. "You seen Em?"
"No, I was about to ask you . . ."
Tio shook his head. He looked at me and shrugged.
"Well, when you see him, tell him . . ." Tio had to cup his ear, Victor and Vanessa were rapping their knuckles on the glass, making faces at him.
"Tell him what . . . ?" Tio was straining to hear.
"Nothing," I said. "Never mind."
Tio adjusted his hat. The nervous tic was starting under his eye. The twins had their faces pressed against the back window, their tongues madly licking the glass. "Well, if I don't see you again"—he looked down at the noses pressed flat, the pink tongues lapping large wet circles—"take care." And, snatching a brick out of the flower bed, he slammed it against the window with such a bone-jarring smack that both twins' foreheads bounced off the glass. They thrashed about in the seat with such howls that eventually Vance ran waddling out of the house, but by that time Tio was pedaling far down the street.