The Heaven of Mercury

by Brad Watson

  -What’s that, now? Vish said.

  She didn’t say anything, just stood there. Vish stopped her rocking, looked down at the sack, then leaned forward to reach it, pulled the top open and peeked inside. She leaned over farther, fished into the sack, and pulled out the pair of lace-up shoes, a pair of low dress boots.

  -They bout your size, I figure, Creasie said.

  She’d seen Miss Birdie wearing them and then didn’t see them for a long time and had heard her say they didn’t feel right on her feet, didn’t like the heel, which was kind of high, about a two-inch heel. And they sat in the back of her closet long enough to be forgotten and then the last afternoon before they were going to take Mr. Junius home, while they were having their coffee after dinner, Creasie found them in there and tossed them out the bedroom window, sneaked over and picked them up late that night after they’d gone to bed, and took them back to the cabin.

  Vish set the boots in front of her chair beside her feet and looked at them, working her mouth. She leaned over and spat off the porch, looked at the shoes again. She took the sole of one foot and rubbed it against one old withered bare shank, then did the same with the other. Angled them into the boots and pushed down into them. She lifted her feet and plocked them in the boots down on the porch boards a couple of times.

  -Lace them for me, she said.

  Creasie got down on her hands and knees in front of Vish and laced up the boots.

  -Help me up.

  She helped Vish stand up. Vish looked out over the tops of the trees and Creasie could see her flexing her old feet and stiff toes inside the soft leather boots. She bent her knees just the slightest bit and stood back up, then sat down in the chair.

  -What you want, now?

  She told her. And after a minute Vish said to help her up again. She went inside the cabin, stayed for a long time it seemed like, her new boots clopping on the pine floors, then finally came back out and handed Creasie a little pouch, just a piece of old fabric tied into a pouch with a piece of black thread.

  -Just a little pinch in a cup of coffee be plenty.

  -Yes’m.

  -And child. You never got it from Vish.

  -Yes’m.

  She tucked the little pouch into the pocket of her coat and went over to her cabin and made a fire in the stove. She drank some coffee and sat in her living room looking out the window at the trees and the little glow of light around all the darkening leaves. There was a little breeze all day, that would come and go, and the tops of the trees seemed to jiggle in a secret and perverse delight at their imminent fall. It was nice sitting in her cabin again, which seemed abandoned forever of what she’d had there, the life with her grandmother and mother, the walls insulated with decades of the comics pages from the Sunday papers. Dust on everything like a light and settled, dried silt. Cobwebs and spiderwebs like glinting decorations in the fading light.

  Toward the late afternoon she banked the stove, closed the cabin, and walked back up the trail and waited at its head for Earl and Junius to drive up. Pretty soon they did, she got in the back, they drove back out. She thanked Earl for the ride. He said he’d see her at breakfast, that Miss Birdie had some supper fixed for him.

  -You need anything to eat? he asked her. -Papa’s staying here tonight, I’m going to call it a day, take him home in the morning. You can come in and get a plate.

  Junius was asleep in his seat, snoring.

  -No, sir, I had something, she lied. She wasn’t hungry.

  She went to her place and took the little pouch from her coat pocket and put it up on the shelf in the kitchen beside her coffee tin. She went to bed early.

  LATE NOVEMBER, WHAT was left of a hurricane down on the coast come through, cracked off the tops of two pine trees at the pasture’s edge, pushed down one of the old oaks in the Urquharts’ front yard, big roots exposed and clods of red dirt hanging from them. Mr. Earl hired some men to come out and saw the tree up to season for firewood, and Creasie had thought how Frank would be doing that, had he stayed. The chain saws whined and muttered for two days, and unsplit cordwood stacked up out on the north side of Creasie’s cabin, under the shed along the fence line. And December then. She went to town on Christmas Eve and did some shopping for herself. She bought a little wristwatch with a gold band, and set it by the clock tower at the Catholic church, and she took a late supper at the bus station. It was a breakfast supper, scrambled eggs and a piece of sugar ham and toast and coffee. Then she hailed a cab as it was rolling slow past the monument. The driver got out to let her in, an old colored man wearing a cabbie’s cap with the short plastic bill.

  -Yes, ma’am, evening, ma’am, he said, closing her door and getting back into the driver’s seat. -Where to?

  She settled herself, touched the wristwatch on her arm, put her hands in her lap.

  -The Urquhart house, out on the Macon highway.

  The driver looked at her in the rearview mirror a second.

  -Yes, ma’am, he said. -Yes, ma’am, that fare might be a mite steep.

  -Yes, sir, I know it, that’s all right, she said. -It’s Christmas Eve.

  He smiled and laughed, put the old station wagon into gear.

  -Yes, ma’am, all right then, he said, and drove her on out, the radio tuned to a station playing Christmas music.

  -Going to spend Christmas with your family, then, ma’am? he said.

  -Yes, sir, Creasie said. -I am.

  -That’s nice, he said. -Me, too. He looked at her in the mirror, but she looked away, and he didn’t talk anymore, and let her off in the dark driveway of the Urquharts’ house. She paid him.

  -You sure this all right, ma’am? he said. -Looks like nobody’s home.

  -Yes, sir, they just out for the evening.

  He touched his cap in parting and drove off. She watched the headlights swing back onto the highway and stood in the darkened driveway a few minutes. Miss Birdie and Mr. Earl were in town with their children and grandchildren. They’d come in later, then get up in the morning and go over to Alabama, see old Junius. Then come back later that night.

  From where she lay on her bed awake she saw their headlights swing into the driveway and then the garage. She kept no light, didn’t want them to know if she was out there or not. Was a still night, and cold. She huddled under the covers in her clothes, shoes beside the bed. Woke up the next morning late and tired, and the Urquharts’ car gone. She ate some cold cornbread with buttermilk, went back to bed. Late in the afternoon she went over to the Urquhart house and made some vegetable soup, ate a little, and left it on the stove warm for when they returned. She saw the car pull in, headlights on, heard the doors open and shut. A little later a knock on the door. She got up and spoke through it. It was Mr. Earl.

  -Just checking to see if you’re all right, Creasie, he said.

  -Yes, sir, I’m okay. She mustered a little chuckle to reassure him. Oh yes, she was a happy nigger.

  He said, -You have a good Christmas?

  -Oh, yes, sir, I went to see some kinfolks in town.

  -I didn’t know you had kin in town.

  -Yes, sir. Distant.

  -Well, good, good. Well, we’ll see you in the morning then.

  -Yes, sir.

  After a moment he said, -Merry Christmas.

  -Yes, sir, she said. -Merry Christmas to you, too.

  And next morning she was up, washed, and cooking breakfast for Mr. Earl, who went in to work early as usual, for the after-Christmas sale. And Miss Birdie up early, too, already had the coffee going when Creasie got there. She did some cleaning up. And through December, and January, no visit from Mr. Junius, until the end of the month one afternoon Mr. Earl announced he was going to get his papa and bring him over, he’d been feeling poorly, and was going to let him rest up awhile here and eat well, and visit with Levi and Rae and Merry. Next morning he went to get the old man and came back with him in the afternoon.

  Old man had lost weight, was kind of ashy pale. Stayed in the guest room in the
back for most of that evening and the next day, not much left in him she figured, but enough to blow on out like a bit of dust on the windowsill. She offered to take him some soup but Miss Birdie said no, she’d take it back to him. Offered to take him some coffee the next morning, Miss Birdie said -No he likes me taking care of him I think, getting sentimental in his old age. He finally came out of the room for dinner that day on his cane, walking slow and wearing pajamas and a bathrobe, shuffling his way down the hall and through the sunporch and dining room to the kitchen, and sat down at the kitchen table to have lunch with Miss Birdie and Mr. Earl. Creasie served them and went into the pantry to eat. She sat down and set her plate on a shelf and put her fingers into the pocket of her apron, where she had the little pouch Vish had given her. Brought it up and sniffed at it. It was a tangy rottenness in there, like some kind of noxious mushroom dust. She heard them clattering their plates, heard that die down, heard more talking. Got up and went back into the kitchen, poured coffee for Mr. Earl and Miss Birdie, took it to the table.

  -You want some coffee, too, Mr. Junius, she said, no expression on her face.

  -No, no, none for me, he mumbled, gruff and not looking at her.

  She went back into the kitchen, stood by the window looking out.

  -You sure you don’t want a cup of coffee, Mr. Junius?

  -I said I didn’t. She heard him grumbling to them about her.

  -I think I’ll go over to the lake for some exercise, Mr. Earl said. -Cut some wood from that tree that fell last year.

  -Earl, don’t tax yourself, Miss Birdie said. -We got plenty of wood from that tree that fell in the storm.

  -That’s still green, won’t be dry till next year, Earl said. -And we’re a little low on seasoned wood here at the house. That tree’s been down more than a year and I imagine it’s ready. I just feel like getting out and doing it, anyway. Need some fresh air.

  -I’d go with you, I was feeling better, old Junius grumbled, and headed shuffling back to his room.

  Just her lot to live here, wait on these people, live in that shanty out back of their house, be at their beck and call. And nobody but them, anyway. Mama dead since she was so little, her daddy she didn’t know where, gone off, could be dead, Vish never said. She stood at the window. She saw, out on the side lawn and in a flat dull ray of winter sun angling over the hedges through the junkyard across the road, the endless days of nothing but the same, and being nothing but a nigger in the world.

  The others had left the dining room. She was alone. She poured a fresh cup of coffee, took out the pouch, poured it all into the cup, and stirred it. She took it back to Mr. Junius’s room and tapped on the door. No answer.

  She went on in. He was asleep. She set the coffee on the table beside the bed.

  -Just in case you changes your mind, she said, in case he was really awake. He said nothing, breathing heavy. She went out, back to the kitchen, into the pantry, and sat in her chair. Waiting and hoping, and dreading, too. Didn’t know how long she’d sat there when she heard Mr. Earl come into the kitchen in his boots, heard a clatter in the sink.

  He stuck his head into the pantry, scowling.

  -What the hell did you do to that coffee?

  She sat there like a mute, frozen. Then she managed to say, -Is he all right?

  Earl snorted.

  -He’s better off than I am. I’m the one tried to drink it. That’s the worst cup of coffee I’ve ever had in my life. Tasted kind of like Birdie put some more of that goddamn sassafras in the pot again. Or something.

  He just stared at her a minute, then shook his head, saying something to himself.

  -Don’t you bother him anymore, he said. -And make a fresh pot of coffee. Just coffee. I’ll be back in about an hour.

  -Yes, sir, she managed to whisper, after he’d gone out, the screen door slapped to, the truck door slammed, the truck rumbled off. The quiet came back, there in the pantry.

  Last time anybody saw him alive.

  Finus Resurrectus

  HE WAS RESCUED BY the foursome he’d passed on the fairway of hole number 12. Pumped out, unconscious, and carried to the emergency room in the cart of one of the men who’d hit before him on 13. He lay overnight in a bed on the fourth floor of the hospital, and the next morning Orin Heath came up to give him a last check-over before letting him go home. Orin poured himself a flask cap of whiskey, opened the window, and sat in a chair beside it to smoke a cigarette.

  -Looks like you’ll miss Birdie’s funeral, he said.

  Finus nodded. -Might have to.

  -How you feeling?

  -Not too bad, considering.

  -Did you have what they like to call in the National Enquirer a near-death experience?

  -White light and all that? No. Birdie did, out at the rest home.

  -I heard they had to revive her out there.

  They were quiet awhile.

  -Have a drink?

  Finus shook his head no.

  -Your daddy was quite a drinker, too, wasn’t he, Finus said. -What was his name? He asked though he knew and Orin knew he knew this unless the hole 13 pond water had gotten into his brain.

  -Cornelius, Orin said. -Yes, he liked the corn. Said his name gave him a predilection for craving corn whiskey from the getgo. I ever tell you how I got my name? -No.

  It was a game, almost a ritual, with them, came up every year or so in the regular banter. There was often some slight change in the story. -I was an accidental conception, Orin said. -Papa said to me one day when he had a load of corn in him that I was conceived on a romantic evening out in a boat on the lake, and they had it rocking. There was a loon calling, round there. Heat lightning way off, purple sky. He had a moment there, forgot who he was with. Came the time to make a decision, to take it out or leave it in. Do I take it out, or leave it in? Looked down at her face in a flicker of lightning glare, she was a stranger, made him wild with lust. Out, or in? Out, Or-in? My name reflects the grave finality of his decision.

  -That’s preposterous. What’s that about the loon?

  -There was a loon. It’s a strange and ancient, solitary bird. Got an egg the greenish color of tarnished copper, speckled brown. It was in the summer in the northeast, in New England, where he was at school. He brought her back here but she was never happy.

  Finus said, -I believe I was named after an Irish chieftain, but I’m not sure. That or they decided I was just the finest-looking young’un.

  -The loon’s got a strange call.

  -You sound like you been talking to Euple.

  -He came in the other day.

  -Was he talking about loons?

  -No.

  -Beans?

  -Digestive problems. He fears it’s cancer. I sent him for some tests.

  -What do you think?

  -Intestinal gas, Orin said. -Constipation. Talks about beans, eats nothing but meat. Never drinks water. He’s dry as beef jerky inside.

  -What did you give him for it?

  -Nothing. Told him to drink some of those herbal teas, instead of drinking coffee all day. I used to use them for remedies way back, before they got into the stores. I had an interest back then in what they call alternative medicine these days.

  -Just the old remedies.

  -Yeah. Old medicine woman down in the ravine used to make me up herb tea leaves, roots, all that crap. Worked about as well as pharmaceuticals, then. She had a garden somewhere down in there, grew what she didn’t find wild in the woods.

  -Old Vish.

  -That’s right.

  -She used to treat all the black folks back then didn’t she.

  -Well, some. Midwife, mostly. But hell she knew as much in her own way as we did, in those days. What, you want a remedy? Can’t cure old age, my friend.

  Finus stood up from the edge of the bed. After a moment he said, -I’ve never believed your papa’s story. I believe Orin is derivative in some oblique way of Cornelius.

  -Well, Orin said, I have rather liked being an accident. I
t’s relieved me of some of the burden of accomplishment. You seem to be feeling better.

  -I’m all right.

  Orin got up, tossed his cigarette out the window, and closed it.

  -You can go on home if you want to. I’ll give you a ride. Your cart’s in the shop.

  -All right. Maybe I can get out to Birdie’s later on, anyway.

  -Nobody’d blame you if you didn’t. It’s not every day an old man crashes his golf cart.

  -I feel all right, Finus said.

  -Just take it easy, Orin said.

  -I will.

  -I fed your dog, let him out to do his business.

  -I thank you, Finus said. -I’d like to get on home now.

  -At your service, Lazarus.

  HE WAITED, LOOKING out the window of his apartment, until Orin’s car had turned the corner, then skitched his cheek at Mike. The old dog looked up with his sad vacant eyes.

  -Come on, old boy, let’s take a drive.

  Mike followed him slowly down the stairs, taking one at a time on his old shoulders, claws clicking on the wooden steps, scratching on the sidewalk. Finus opened the pickup’s passenger door and gave him a little boost to get him onto the seat, where Mike settled down and put his snout onto his forepaws again, just like he’d been on the floor. But he was alert.

  Finus took old winding Poplar Avenue to the north end of town, out past the shopping center and up the long hill, pulled over in the little dirt clearing in front of the old ruined Case house and shut off the engine, went around and helped Mike down from the truck. Together they walked slowly, both of them a little shaky-legged, careful of exposed roots and gopher holes, down the path that led down into the ravine. Though the day was dry and had not cooled, he felt an instant drop in the temperature along the shady path, which had the softened and weed-edged appearance of an old path not used so much anymore. Finus was aware of birdsong all about him, and began to notice them flitting and fluttering in the low limbs and wild shrubs on either side of the path, and crossing the path ahead of him in short bursts of flight.