The Madman of Piney Woods

by Christopher Paul Curtis

  “Not so good, ma’am.”

  “That’s something you’ll have to work on. Learning a second language only enriches your grasp of English. Are you familiar with the phrase dent-de-lion?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “It means ‘tooth of the lion.’ It has been corrupted in English to dandelion.

  “Now, since you have assured me ad nauseam that you are both an accomplished observer and outdoorsman, you have noticed how at the end of their season, dandelions undergo a beautiful transformation. They change from a disc of narrow, flat, bright yellow petals to a globe of ethereal, silver-gray, tiny, near-weightless seeds, each one clinging to its own parasol, each one designed to take flight at the least provocation.

  “That, Ben-jamin, is a perfect representation of the spoken word.

  “Like the dying dandelion, at first glance the spoken word appears to be impressive, yet something as insignificant as a gust of wind or the passage of the smallest measure of time will blow it away into something unrecognizable. The spoken word and the dandelion are available for review only through the frailest and most unreliable of human tools: memory.

  “The written word is different. Once you commit something to print, you are, in effect, chained to it. It is always available to be looked at again and traced back to you.

  “Therefore, written words have to be much more completely thought out; they must be crafted, arranged in such a way that they are clear, strong, and unambiguous. There is a great deal more responsibility required when using the written word.

  “The spoken word allows for more room for the magician, a lot more space for flash and distraction and deception. As writers, we cannot afford to do that. We need to be bold and allow the truth to shield us.

  “When writing for the press, our personal feelings should never sway the way we write. We must strive to be a clear mirror reflecting what it is we have seen and heard, not adding to or taking away anything.”

  “But, Miss Cary, I’m confused. First you said you use words to get across your point of view; now you say I can’t let my feelings show in what I write. That doesn’t make sense to me.”

  She smiled. “That, my dear Ben-jamin, is where the art comes in. That is also where we must respect our readers and allow them to draw their own conclusions. At most we must carefully and subtly nudge, never shove.”

  “This” – she waved my article like a flag – “has gone beyond shoving readers to stampeding all over them.”

  “So that means you’re not going to use my article?”

  “Yes, I’m going to use it, but in my paper? Surely you jest.”

  Just from her tone of voice, I knew this meant no.

  “Have your parents ever had you or your siblings stand against a wall so they can use a pencil to mark both your height and the date?”

  “Yes, ma’am. We do it every year on our birthdays inside the closet door frame.”

  “And aren’t you amazed at how much you’ve grown from one year to the next without even noticing?”

  It always does surprise me.

  “That’s the same thing we’re going to do with this article, Ben-jamin. We’ll get it framed, then I’ll place it there.”

  She pointed at the wall behind her desk.

  “We’ll use it to measure your growth. Soon after you leave this apprenticeship, you will place it in an office of your own. Eventually, with your natural talents, you will hang it in the main office of a newspaper that you own. I have that much faith in you, young man. Keep applying yourself and, years from now, you shall be that good. But now? There’s a greater possibility that Swami Hawley will be prime minister of Canada.

  “Now, off you go.”

  When I left her office, I felt like she’d gut-punched me, brushed me off, slapped me back and forth, gave me a cool compress to put on my cheeks, cold-cocked me with a stiff uppercut to the jaw, picked me up, brushed me off again, then kicked me in the seat of my pants as she handed me a piece of cake and showed me the door.

  Being a reporter isn’t as easy as it looks.

  * * *

  On the train back to Buxton, my mind flitted between Miss Cary’s lecture and Spencer Alexander.

  Have you ever been in an argument and just knew you were right about something but couldn’t find the words to convince the person you’re arguing with? That happens all the time when I’m arguing with Spence.

  It’s sort of like telling everybody there are a bunch of fish in a barrel and no one believes you.

  All you have to do to prove you’re right is to dip your head under the water, get a grip on one fish, just one, pull it out, and you win the argument. But until you actually can get ahold of that one fish, the headlines for that day would read:

  HOW LONG CAN THIS IDIOT KEEP HIS HEAD IN THE BARREL?

  Up until the second you grab that fish, you’re the only one who knows the headline is wrong. To everyone else, though, you are just an idiot with his head in a barrel.

  There’s no more frustrating feeling in the world.

  But the very moment Miss Cary explained to me the difference between the written word and the spoken word was the very moment I was able to wrap my fingers around a fish!

  When the Western Ontario Forensics Competition was over, Spencer Alexander might be the king of debaters in this part of Canada, but one of Mother’s favourite sayings, “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king,” never rang truer. Spence might be the king of the spoken word, something not really all that important, something fragile. Or to put it as Miss Cary would, he’s really just the king of a bunch of weeds.

  I was going to be ruler of the written word, a much more important kingdom. Something that would last forever.

  As dark green trees blurred by the train’s window, I saw that when I’d gone into Miss Cary’s office about an hour ago I was nothing but a boy with a dream. Now, after our talk, I was a man with a calling, and before long, just as she’d said, I was going to be the top person in the most important job on earth.

  It had been a long day and I was tired from doing so much growing in such a little bit of time. I’m ten times more mature now and I can’t wait to let Spence know the written word is more important than the spoken word. He was wrong and I was right!

  The first headline I’d write as a man, not a boy, was directed right at Spence. It would read:

  NYAH-NYAH-NYAH-NYAH-NYAH-NYAH!!!!

  Father and I sat at the dining room table, eating supper.

  I finished my meal and set my knife and fork down to wait for Father to finish his.

  He patted his moustache with his napkin, the sign that he was done and I could take our plates into the kitchen to wash them.

  He said, “Delicious, Alvin. You’ve become quite the cook.”

  I learned to look at cooking the same scientific way I try to look at everything else. And while at first I tried to follow each recipe exactly as Mother’s note cards directed, I soon learned that, just as with a scientific experiment, one achieved the best results by doing a little tinkering here and there. By not being so stuck to one idea that you can’t see any other.

  I reached to pick up Father’s plate and was surprised to see an envelope had been underneath it while he ate.

  “Father?”

  “Hmm?” he said. “I wonder what that could be?”

  He looked at me and smiled.

  I was motionless.

  He said, “Aren’t you going to open it?”

  I picked it up. The warmth from Father’s plate had seeped into the envelope, making it seem almost alive.

  It was addressed to Father and the return address was …

  The room began to spin around me. I plopped back into my chair with the envelope in my hand.

  “Oh, Father. Why are you smiling? What if I wasn’t accepted? I’ll die!”

  Father said, “I saw Mr. Green at the courthouse today. You should know I wouldn’t give you the envelope in this manner unless …”

&nb
sp; The return address was Mr. Victor Green, Buxton Academy, Buxton, Ontario, Upper Canada.

  My hands trembled as I began to unseal the envelope. Father’s plate had warmed the glue enough that it easily came open.

  My eyes refused to read beyond …

  Dear Sir,

  It is with the greatest of pleasure that I am able to inform you that your son …

  I was in! I was in! I’d been accepted for classes from the best science teacher in all of Canada!

  Father and I hugged. He kissed the top of my head and said, “Oh, Alvin. I wish your mother were here to see this. She would spontaneously combust with pride.”

  I said, “Oh, yes, Father, yes, she would.”

  Beyond that, neither one of us could talk.

  If another scientist were to peek into our dining room, they would be hard-pressed to believe that I was a thirteen-year-old young man who was soon to embark upon a voyage of learning with the most respected science teacher in Upper Ontario. All that scientist would be able to observe would be a redheaded boy shamelessly sitting in his father’s lap, crying his heart out with as much gusto and vigour as any three-year-old.

  We hugged each other and cried until we laughed.

  I am the only true woodsman I know. Whilst my friends enjoy the forest and feel at home there, I, on the other hand, am truly a part of it. That’s why, as we sat around the fire listening to Mr. Swan on Saturday evening, a familiar chill crept down my spine. That old feeling of being watched was back.

  Then I noticed him standing just inside the tree line, not forty feet away from us.

  He wasn’t hiding, but he wasn’t doing anything to draw attention to himself either. I nudged Spence and nodded in the direction where the man stood.

  Spencer looked for a second, then shrugged, unable to pick him out in the darkness. Keeping my hand low so only Spence could see it, I pointed right to where the man was standing. Spencer’s eyes scanned the tree line, and a look of disbelief washed over my friend’s face.

  Before either one of us could say anything, Mr. Swan noticed Spencer and I weren’t listening to him, stopped his story in mid-sentence, and pa-toohed a cold comet of saliva into the fire. He was preparing to give us the “And I hopes y’all’s enjoyed your last time listening to the stories of Mr. Willie J. Swan” speech, the speech he gave whenever he was going to ban one of the children from his stories for life. Instead, something in our expressions made his eyes follow where we were looking.

  All of the children exchanged looks of surprise when Mr. Swan stood up and walked to the tree line where the stranger stood.

  Mr. Swan called out, “Well, I’ll be! Seeing you’s done brightened my spirits and brought gladness into my heart. This is sure a huge surprise!”

  The man looked around and said, “It a surprise to me too. I been watching y’all for years and been satisfied just to sit back. For some reason lately, I been having to … or wanting to get closer and closer to hear better.”

  “I’m flattered by that, I sure am.” He stuck out his right hand to the man. “You gunn come sit at the fire?”

  The man stepped forward to shake Mr. Swan’s hand and said, “Willie, I’m much oblige you ain’t forgot me. I think I will join y’all, if don’t no one mind.”

  Mr. Swan said, “Mind? These here young folk ain’t got no idea how lucky they is that you gunn honour them by sitting in they midst. Most of ’em ain’t got the sense of a turkey in a thunderstorm, but even they’s got the brains to know that one day they’s gunn tell they own kids ’bout this. You’s a true hero to all us in Buxton!”

  The man said, “Naw, Willie, ain’t no one a hero. Don’t say that.”

  As soon as they realized who this stranger was, Big Twin and Little Twin shrieked and bolted hand in hand into the night as if a bear were at their heels. I bet the only reason everyone else didn’t follow was because fright had caused them to grow roots and plant themselves right where they sat.

  The Madman of Piney Woods walked into the circle of light thrown by the fire and perched himself on the stump Little Twin had been sitting on before he and his brother ran into the darkness.

  Right next to me! I could have reached out and touched him!

  The twins’ soul-curdling yells were fading farther and farther into the forest.

  The Madman said, “Shouldn’t one y’all go get them two afore they gets lost or hurt theyself?”

  Mr. Swan said, “Don’t worry, they’s gunn run up to the door of the first house or cabin they come to and scare the bejeezus outta whoever’s there. Someone’ll chase ’em off or see to it they gets home. They gunn be just fine.

  “They’s a rare set a twins, ’cause most times with twins, you got your clever one and then you got your thick-head one; with them two, one’s as big a dunce as the next, and scairt to death of they own shadows! Fra-gilest matching set of idiots you’s likely to ever run up on.”

  The Madman smiled and said, “That ain’t what’s normal atall.”

  Mr. Swan paused a second, then asked, “You wants to say something to these young folk?”

  The Madman looked uncomfortable. “Naw, Willie, I been ease-droppin’ on your stories for the longest and ain’t got nothin’ to add. I’m just gonna rest and listen if it don’t bother no one.”

  Mr. Swan said, “That’s fine, whatever you wants.”

  The Madman stared into the fire with a soft smile on his face.

  Mr. Swan spit into the fire again and said, “Where was we at?”

  But he was talking to himself. I looked and every single boy around the bonfire had his eyes locked on the Madman.

  Mr. Swan stood up and said, “I’m-a tell all you little no-goods, if y’all don’t …”

  The Madman looked up and all of the children’s heads bobbed down.

  The Madman said, “I do ’pologize, Willie. I suppose it a bit much for these boys to see me like this. They been hearing so much nonsense ’bout me that this gotta be a shock. You caint hold it ’gainst ’em.”

  Mr. Swan said, “Uh-uh, ain’t no reason for them to be rude like this. Every last one of ’em, wit’ one or two ’ceptions, come from good people and know better.

  “I’m ’bout ready to quit telling these ungrateful brats my stories. I think they’ve heard ’em all.”

  The Madman said, “What was you telling ’em ’bout, Willie?”

  “We was discussing all the places the demons and haints and monsters is hiding out in the woods.”

  The Madman smiled.

  “In that case,” he said, “maybe I got something to tell ’em after all.”

  “The pulpit’s yourn, my brother.”

  The Madman said, “What you think, Willie? You think they’s old enough that they ready to get scairt for real?”

  The Madman seemed to become lit up with such a light that Mr. Swan stopped chewing and gave him a cautious look.

  The Madman looked into the fire and began rocking back and forth, his arms wrapped tightly around his buckskin-covered shins.

  “Willie, you ’members when we was young how we looked to hear stories what would prevent us from sleepin’ for a while? You think that what these young’uns wants?”

  It’s not possible, but it seemed like even the crickets stopped chirping and the toady-frogs in the pond quit making sounds when the Madman spoke.

  He pointed at the six youngest children and said, “Y’all run on home now. None of y’all’s ready for this. Y’all’s too young to even have places in your heads where you can rest what I’m ’bout to say.”

  Some of the youngsters, already rising, looked at Mr. Swan. He said, “Get on home. Stick together.”

  None of them said a word about wanting to stay.

  I didn’t know if he could keep this up, but, judging by who was saying it and by the tone of his voice and by the look in his eyes, this had to be the best introduction of a scary story ever told on earth!

  He said, “Now, if any the rest of y’all’s been blessed with
a sensitive nature, listen here: That ain’t nothin’ to be ’shamed ’bout, but if I was you, I’d use this time to follow them li’l babies back on out these woods.”

  Even if any of us wanted to leave, and it wouldn’t take too much encouraging to get even me out of here, what he said meant whoever got up might just as well hang a sign from their neck saying SENSITIVE-NATURE CHILD, and that’s one thing none of us wanted to be accused of!

  He took his eyes off the fire and, with his body becoming as still as death, he started looking like an owl! A great horned owl! He rotated his head and its tangle of hair to look around the circle, catching hold of the eyes of each of the seven of us left.

  Some cast their glances down, a couple bawled quietly. Spencer stared back, his face twisted in pain. By the time the Madman’s head rotated in my direction, I thought I would be ready. I thought I could be like a reporter observing a scene. Plus, we were almost like old chums. No one knew it, but I’d already talked to him.

  But when those black eyes snatched hold of mine, I knew I wouldn’t have been able to prepare for this if I’d had millennia. There was something different about him now. I wasn’t sure if it was the light of the campfire or the darkness that was all around us, but he was much more frightening now than he was during our talk.

  I was glad I hadn’t told anyone. As terrifying as he was now, even I wouldn’t have believed my tale.

  As the Madman of Piney Woods’s eyes captured mine, I remembered this feeling. Once the fear in me quieted down, I remembered a trip when I was eight years old and the mayor had loaded most of Buxton’s young folk in wagons and taken us to visit the falls at Niagara. We don’t really have a mayor in Buxton, but everyone knows if we did have one it would be him.

  They’d stopped the wagons two miles away so we could more clearly hear the low rumbling growl that had been creeping up on us. The closer we got, the louder it became. Something in the air made the younger horses pulling the wagons skittish and prone to rear up. At the same time, the air made me and the other children giddy and silly. We seemed to lose control of our arms as they flapped ridiculously about.