by Jeff Fields
Then Em's voice came low and tentative, soothing. "Lord sakes, honey . . . come in, come in."
I looked around, and slowly got to my feet.
It was Phaedra Boggs, standing in the doorway in a dazzling white party dress. Her face was drawn, tears glistened softly on her cheeks. She looked as though she had been crying a long time. She took the chair Em pulled out for her and sat there. Phaedra Boggs, with the look of a lost and frightened child.
There were stains across the front of her dress. Brown stains, like I got in the summer from cradling wood, and for one confused moment I wondered why Phaedra would be toting wood in a new white dress.
Then I caught the smell.
"We need help, Em," she said, choking, "Papa's in no shape . . ." She broke down, sobbing uncontrollably.
The Indian knelt beside her and cradled her to him, clumsily patting her shoulder.
34
Mrs. Bogg's funeral was held Sunday afternoon, a simple graveside service. Reverend Reese of Rehobath Pentecostal officiated. He didn't know the Boggses, but Em pressed five dollars in his hand and he came. Phaedra stood with an arm lined in her father's. Marvin Boggs, a scrawny little man with a brown suit coat over his overalls, stood rubbing his stringy hair in his eyes as he cried. There were just the three of us, besides the preacher. Em didn't come, as I knew he probably wouldn't. He told the preacher I would show him the way and disappeared.
When the service was over I waited until Phaedra led her father away, and then I broke and came across the ridge running as hard as I could, ripping off the coat and tie and feeling the wind in my face. The ceremony had been more of an ordeal than I had expected. As I stood at the graveside, the memory of the other funeral, the one with the two coffins, had come flashing back, with edges of the howling dream.
I would not put myself through that again. The next funeral I attended would be my own.
I could scarcely breathe.
I slowed to a stop and found myself on the main street of the Ape Yard. People were staring. All right! I told myself, what's the sense bringing up old troubles. I deliberately waited until the pounding in my ears subsided, then, slinging my coat and tie over my back, I began slowly to stroll up the road toward Teague's store.
It was the Ape Yard, after all. It was Sunday. The weather was warm. Children ran by rolling hoops.
There was Tio—the store sneaked open on the Sabbath again.
Life!
"Ay, Lord!" I swung into the store.
"Well, would you ever looka yonder, Mr. Teague, it's one of our favorite customers! Yes, sir, sump'n we can help you with?" Good old Tio. He knew, of course, and had wanted to come, but he also knew it was better if he didn't. So he was ready with the next best thing.
"Give me a pound of cheese," I said.
"Pound of cheese for the man!" Tio cut it out of the hoop. "How about some nice goose eggs to go with it? We got fresh ones in today, but ain't nobody buyin' 'em. Probably have to mark 'em down."
Mr. Teague was giving him a hard look.
"No, we got plenty of eggs. Thought I'd get a couple of those fried pies and melt some cheese over them for dessert tonight."
"Peach or apple?" Tio asked, picking over the bakery rack. "Better take apple. Peach don't look too good."
"Apple's fine," I said.
"This one's mashed. Half price on this mashed pie, Mr. Teague?" The old man looked over and nodded. "Half price—half price," and he went back to his paper.
"How many you say you wanted?
Two."
Tio mashed another one. "There you are. Anything else?"
"No, and don't bother to put them in a bag, I gotta run. Em'll be grumbling for his supper."
"Ain't no use to hurry on his account," Tio said, "he ain't home.
How do you know?"
"I saw him a little while ago, headin' out toward Marble Park.
Marble Park? Are you sure?"
"'Course I'm sure. Had a cartload of ropes and things. Skeeter and Carlos was with him. I hollered at him but I guess he didn't hear me . . ."
I batted through the screen door and tore up the alley behind the store, scaring a drunk facing the wall who looked down at his pants and yelled something after me.
Marble Park was resting in its Sunday quiet, the lawns all tended and its residents on the golf course or at the lake. The hacking sounds reached me long before I climbed the upper street and came in sight of Jayell's yard. I ran into the yard holding my sides and stopped, trying to get my breath. Em looked around and saw me and grinned, and went back to swinging his ax.
"Em, have you lost your mind?"
"Boy, you're a born worrier, you know that?" He threw himself into his swing.
Overhead, from the top of the tree, a network of heavy ropes stretched away in all directions, to the trunks of neighboring trees, to the carport, the stone mailbox mount, a fire hydrant, a telephone pole across the street. The topmost rope ran through a block and tackle anchored to a magnolia in the Hendersons' yard, to Carlos, standing nearby. Another traveled through another pulley system and was held by Skeeter, who waved sheepishly from the upstairs bedroom window.
"Did you have to get them mixed up in it?"
"They wanted to come, and I needed the help." Em leaned on his ax and flipped a bead of sweat off his nose. "You know what time it is?"
"No. Em, they're gonna put us under the jail, you know that, don't you? We'll never see daylight again."
"Rest easy, Early boy, I know what I'm about."
"Where did you get all this gear?"
"I borried it."
"From where?"
"Where they're puttin' up the new water tower."
"We'll never see daylight again."
"I'll have it back before they know it's gone."
"Aw, Em, why didn't you stay home—I brought you cheese and everything."
"Born worrier," he said, shaking his head. "Now, stand back out of my swing." The hacking continued, Em throwing his whole body into it, thick slabs of wood flying steadily from the wedge-shaped wound in the tree.
Half an hour, an hour dragged by, and then I realized something funny was going on. For no good reason Em had stopped working. The tree was hardly more than notched when he ceased his energetic chopping and began puttering around, sizing up the tree, checking tension on the lines. Another half-hour went by. Skeeter sat in the upstairs window, his line dangling loosely in his hand. Carlos dawdled in the shade of the magnolia.
Suddenly Em, standing at the edge of the yard smoking, making a lame pretense at surveying the job, threw down his cigarette and ran for his ax. Then I saw the Hendersons' station wagon pulling into the entrance to Marble Park. When they drove up with screeching brakes and slamming doors, Em was furiously hacking again.
Gwen was gasping with rage, "You have no right . . . who told you . . ." Jayell limped up, neighbors came running.
Em looked genuinely confused and disappointed. "I was going to surprise you," he said.
"Surprise us!" she shrieked. "You raving maniac! Of all the unmitigated . . . you!" She aimed a trembling finger at Skeeter. "You get out of my bedroom!"
"Now, just hold on," said Em, "ain't nothing to make a fuss about."
"Somebody do something!" cried Gwen. "Harold, your house is in jeopardy too!" Galvanized into action by her panic, Harold Henderson ran to one of the guy ropes. Em latched a hand on his shoulder and tumbled him to the ground.
"Now, ever'body just hold on!" The people stopped and backed away. "Jayell, come over here!" Jayell obediently limped up to him, and Em looked down and spoke carefully, deliberately, in a voice low enough so that the others couldn't hear. "Phaedra Boggs's mama. She's dead."
Jayell looked up at him. He stood so for several moments, his eyes flickering as he studied the Indian's face.
"Now, I want you to listen to me. See up there"—he pointed to the top of the tree—"look there—and there, see what I done? Got sustainers there, there and there, and the top
most lines with the main tension is run through them block and tackles the boys are holdin'. They can lift an automobile apiece with them rigs. Now, look at the way she's notched, big broad notch, okay?
"So, if you keep your guy lines taut, and throw most of the pull to Skeeter, there ain't but one way she can fall"—he pointed his arm, palm-bladed—"shoop! Right between the carport and the road. But," he said, watching Jayell intently, "you'll want to be careful, 'cause if you let them guy lines there and there get slack on you, and Carlos lays back on his rope too hard . . ." he slowly swung his stiffened arm toward the house, "then you better get Skeeter out of there."
Em handed the ax to Jayell and walked to the edge of the yard. Jayell said nothing. He stood squinting into the sun. Then he drifted along the yard, surveying the situation, calculating angles. He rubbed his hand over his mouth.
A breeze caught the top branches and the big tree groaned. A hush fell over the yard. "Tighten up there, Skeet," ordered Em, and in the upstairs window the boy set his foot against the sill and leaned. "Everybody clear out of here." The people didn't have to be told twice. They were all crossing the road into Judge Strickland's yard. All except Gwen, who stood in a kind of trance.
Jayell turned and looked at Jojohn, and in that brief, savage glance of joy there was for an instant the old, other Jayell—the idiot-looking out of his eyes.
I heard a loud crack and a man in a baseball cap ticked with fishhooks jerked off his sunglasses and pointed. "There's a crack starting, Jayell!"
Instantly Jayell was in charge. He ran to the window and shouted up at Skeeter. "Throw me down that line and get out of there." Skeeter hesitated and looked at Em. "Do what I tell you!" Skeeter tossed him the line and jumped to the stoop and dropped to the ground. "Em, untie the one on the mailbox."
"I wouldn't do that, Jayell."
"Don't argue with me; from now on this is mine, you hear me? Everybody, do exactly what I say!" Jayell picked up Skeeter's line and backed off with the heavy rope braced across his back. "Earl, untie the one on the hydrant, then Em, you break loose those other two." We jumped to obey his orders. I was certain then of what he was up to. Em was swaying, singing softly to himself.
"All right, Carlos, from now on it's going to be you and me. When I tell you, you turn loose and run like hell, you hear me?" Carlos nodded, blowing with the strain. "The one in the road now, Earl, hurry!"
I ran to the one anchored to the telephone pole and grappled with the knot; it was already drawing, spitting fibers. Suddenly it snapped and lashed across the yard, sending ropes whirling in the pulleys.
"Now, Carlos! Let her g-o-o-o!"
Carlos threw down his line and streaked for the road. Jayell lay down on his line, churning the ground with his heels.
A loud, steady popping filled the air. The gigantic tree listed, then stood motionless for a breath, defying gravity, as though held by ancient roots in the wind. Then with a shift on its severed trunk, a shudder that traveled up its branches like a wind of shock, the great oak twisted and began its slow, floating fall toward the earth.
Gwen's face was clouding, darkening to scream, when Jayell her arm and dragged her out of the yard.
The great trunk knifed through the roof and main bearing wall with an explosion of timbers, the upper floors gave way, adding to the distortion of weight, and the entire house crumbled inward with a convulsive spasm of heaving walls and splintering windows.
The neighborhood was deathly quiet. There was no movement but for the Indian turning slowly in the road, mumbling his rumbling chant.
"Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh."
Jayell climbed up the sloping trunk and looked down into the devastated rooms, an insane smile jerking at the corners of his mouth. "Broke its back," he said, "just busted it all to hell." I edged up for a look. It was like something out of a nightmare. Parts of the roof still hanging sloped crazily inward, and shingles and bits of plaster littered the rug. The glass china cabinet was crushed flat, pictures and lamps lay on the floor, furniture and appliances stood out from the walls, overturned, smashed, covered with debris. Water spouted from the upstairs bathroom.
Jayell stood up and addressed the crowd. "Well, that's it folks. The show's over. I don't know what to tell you about the mortgage, Harry, you'll have to get with Charley of Insurance. Oh, and tell Christine we won't be over for bridge Tuesday. Wendell of Good Works, I'm afraid I'll have to withdraw from your Rabies Immunization Drive, and I will no longer canvass for the Community Chest. Eleanor and Harold, I hereby resign from the Marble Park Recreation Association; you can have the boat, the fishing gear, and anybody who can get to the closet can have the golf clubs. You can dig up those blue-ribbon roses and take 'em home if you like, your honor, they never grew worth a damn for me, even though I gave 'em water purified through my very own kidneys. Em! You son of a bitch!"
He bounded down the tree. Em backed away, then broke and ran. Jayell chased him across the yard, lunged and tumbled him to the ground, Em uncertain at first, fighting him off. Then they were both laughing, pummeling each other, rolling in the road.
Eleanor Henderson led Gwen away. Someone was fanning a lady on the grass.
Jayell leaped on the bike and romped the starter. "Come on here, we got drinking to do!" Em grabbed his hat and tumbled in the cart and the two of them went careening over the hill and out the winding streets of Marble Park.
Gwen stayed with the Hendersons for two days, under the care of Dr. Breisner, and then packed a suitcase and left for Atlanta.
35
It was more than two weeks before Em and Jayell were heard from again. One Thursday, at suppertime, Em came wandering up the steps. Alone.
And to all questions about Jayell, or where they had been, he would only close one eye and answer, "Shhhhhhhh."
Phaedra Boggs must have been keeping a close watch on our place from her house, because Em was hardly in the door and scratching around for his supper before she came bounding in behind him.
"Where's Jayell?" she panted breathlessly.
Em casually rummaged in the ice bucket and filled his tea glass.
"Well—what did you do with him!"
"Done nothing with him," Em said. "'Course, the blue boys up in Carolina, now they done sump'n with him." He made a to-do over selecting a piece of ice.
Phaedra snatched the glass from his hand and hurled it out the window. "I'm in no mood for you, Indian!"
"Ain't nothin' serious, fer God's sake! We was at a dance up in Greenville and he got in a scrape over some little tow-headed gal and they locked him up, that's all."
"And you just went off and left him?"
"Well, he hadn't no more use for me, had he? Wasn't no point in goin' to jail with him. So when the cops come, I climbed out of there. 'Sides, what are you pityin' him for? He's gettin' his three squares a day, and here I can't finish one meal without somebody throwin' my tea glass out the winder!"
"Three squares a—how long has he been locked up?"
"Oh, three, four days, I forget. I ain't been eatin' regular. South Carolina's hard on the stomach. What they need over there . . ."
"Why didn't you come and tell somebody!"
"Well, I hung around—tried to make bail—get the damages took keer of. But the bondsman couldn't get hold of his wife, and I couldn't make 'em understand about his house gettin' mashed, and him bein' a little tore up over that, and back and forth, and oh—it was a general mess, I'll tell you—till finally they just told me to be gone from there." Em shook his head sadly. "It's always like that with me. I was just tellin' the boy here . . ."
The screen door banged shut and Phaedra was squeaking the stairs.
"I tried to get him to bail hisself out," Em continued to me, "he had the money. But the truth is, old Jayell just didn't want to come home." He poked through the dirty dishes in the sink, looking for a glass. "'Course, I figures if the right one was to go after him. . ." He cocked his head to listen as the bike cranked and roared out of the garage. "I swea
r, boy, there ain't another clean glass on the place. If you ain't gonna wash dishes but once a week you can just get up here and rinse me out that mayonnaise jar!"
The next day Phaedra brought Jayell home, home being the abandoned shop on the edge of Twig Creek. Em had rousted the shop boys and we spent all morning cleaning it up. There wasn't much in the way of furnishings, but they didn't seem to care. If ever there were two people who didn't care about anything but each other, it was Phaedra and Jayell.
When Mr. Wyche of Smithbilt Homes learned of Jayell's return, he came down to the shop, and he and Jayell talked a long time. Jayell never moved from the steps, never raised his voice. And he let his former employer walk away with his golden future as though he might have been an itinerant pot salesman.
Mr. Burroughs and Mr. Rampey rattled into the yard and unloaded quilts and canned goods from the bus. "Since you're living in sin the ladies didn't feel it altogether proper to come themselves," Mr. Burroughs explained with a chuckle. "Talkin' about propriety—and them up there eatin' with niggers." Phaedra nearly fell off the steps.
"Which reminds me," Mr. Rampey said. "Farette's expectin' y'all for Sunday dinner."
Skeeter's mother brought down two dresses she had made for Phaedra, and the other shop boys' families contributed an assortment of kitchenware and whatever they could spare from their pantries. Those moving across the hollow dropped off odds and ends they said they couldn't use anymore. People stopped in every day to shake Jayell's hand, to leave a little something, or in one way or another make them feel welcome, and let Jayell know they were glad he was home.
Jayell and Phaedra rarely went out. Sometimes I would see them, returning from a late afternoon walk along the river, stopping to chat with an old man on a porch, and once at a fire in the yard at dusk frying cracklins and baking sweet potatoes Tio had brought, and calling in children from the street. Em and I stopped by from time to time, and one night the four of us piled in Jayell's truck with a crock of buttermilk and a couple of shoeboxes of fresh fried doughnuts and went to a country music show at the fairgrounds.