Dry County

by Jake Hinkson

  “We need to go over all of it,” I say, “in case you’ve missed something.”

  Something like a smile of relief crosses Richard’s face. I shake my head.

  “No,” I say quietly. “Don’t smile. Please don’t smile. We need to figure out how to best handle this, Richard. We need to do it now, because at any minute the phone’s going to ring and it’s going to be somebody calling to tell us the news. And that’s when we’ll have to start living this whole new pack of lies you’ve made up. If we could die for this without hurting the children, I’d choose that. But we can’t. You’ve taken them hostage.

  “So, we need to go over this again, now, while we still have time, so we can figure out what we’re going to do. But don’t smile like any part of this makes you happy.”

  “Nothing about this makes me happy,” he says. “I’m just exhausted. And knowing you’re with me, I guess I’m just . . . I’m relieved.”

  I have to shut my eyes again. “God forgive us.”

  The first call comes after we’ve gone up to bed. Though neither of us can sleep, we want to appear as normal as possible in case one of the kids wakes up. I’ve changed into my sleepwear—an old VBS T-shirt and some plaid cotton drawstring pants—and he’s lying there in boxers and a white T-shirt. Neither of us has spoken in an hour when his cell phone rattles the bedside table.

  He sits up and looks at it. “It’s Bobby Collins,” he tells me, the phone still vibrating in his hand.

  Bobby Collins is a deputy at the sheriff’s office. He attends our church with his wife, Jonell. Jonell’s pregnant with their first child, a girl.

  “Remember that he woke you up,” I tell Richard. “And put him on speaker.”

  Richard nods. “Hello,” he says.

  “Hey, Brother Weatherford,” the voice says from the phone, “this is Bobby Collins. I’m sorry to disturb you this early in the morning.”

  “It’s all right, Bobby. Is everything okay?”

  “No, sir, I’m afraid not. There’s been a terrible accident. You know Gary Doane, goes to our church?”

  “Gary, yes.”

  “Well, I’m afraid it involves him and his girlfriend, Sarabeth. You know, Sarabeth Simmons?”

  “Sarabeth . . . Yeah I think so. I’m not sure I ever met her, though.”

  “Well, they went off that little side road that runs down by the Little Red River. They were both killed.”

  “Oh, my Lord,” Richard says.

  “Well, sir, the reason I’m calling you is because Gary’s dad is up here. He’s a mess. I wonder if you wouldn’t mind coming down and maybe taking him home. Reason I ask, the sheriff would like to clear the scene. And Vaughn’s in a pretty agitated state. If he becomes too much of a disturbance, I’m afraid the sheriff’s gonna order us to restrain him. I’d rather not have to do that . . .”

  “Of course, I’ll be right down. Be there in a few minutes.”

  I stand up and begin dressing before Richard hangs up the phone.

  “There’s no reason for you to come,” he says. “I can—”

  “I’m coming,” I say. “Hurry and get dressed.”

  When I’ve tied my tennis shoes, I ease open our bedroom door and creep down the hall to Matthew’s room. He’s still asleep. I walk over and shake his arm. “Matt, honey, wake up. Wake up.”

  He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand and asks, “Mom? What’s wrong?”

  “There’s been an accident involving some people at the church. Your dad and I need to go see if we can help.”

  His hair is splayed on one side, his voice drowsy. “Should I go?”

  “No, you stay here. I don’t know how long we’ll be. What I need you to do is make sure everyone is ready for church as usual. I’ll call with any information.”

  He’s blinking. “What time is it?”

  “Almost five.”

  “Who was it?”

  “What?”

  “In the accident, from our church, who was it?”

  “Gary Doane.”

  My husband and I ride in silence to the scene of his crime. The night is still clinging to the sky, and the familiar sights of our neighborhood seem strange, the houses lined up as orderly as tombstones. As we wind our way down the hill toward the bridge, I can see unnaturally bright blue police lights flickering along the river. Then I notice that there’s also the red light of an ambulance.

  “Why is there an ambulance?” I ask. My stomach is sick.

  “Normal procedure,” he says.

  “If someone is alive down there . . .”

  “No one is alive down there. I can assure you of that.”

  What a thing to say. This is my husband. This is my life now.

  We cross the bridge and turn onto the small dirt road leading down to the river. A patrol car is parked in the middle of the road to bar entry, and a young officer I don’t know flags us down.

  When Richard lowers his window, the officer says, “Can’t come down here, sir. Got a bad accident.”

  “I’m Richard Weatherford,” my husband says. “Bobby Collins called me and asked us to help with Vaughn Doane. I’m the preacher up at First Baptist.”

  The officer says, “He left.”

  “Vaughn?”

  “Yessir, left about two minutes ago. Maybe even just one minute. You just missed him.”

  “Oh.”

  “Hold on a sec.” The officer leans into the microphone clipped to his shirt. “Come again?” he says. I don’t hear what the person on the other end says, but the officer replies, “It’s Richard Weatherford, preacher at the Baptist church. Says Bobby called him . . . Yessir. Roger that.” He turns to us. “Could you hang here a second, Brother Weatherford? The sheriff is headed this way, and I think he’d like to stop and have a word with you.”

  “Sure.”

  The officer heads back to his car. Neither Richard nor I say a thing, but I can hear my own breath. I hear him swallow.

  The sheriff drives up the hill. He parks next to the young officer, gets out of the car, gives some instructions, and then strolls up to us.

  I’ve never had a conversation with Bud Ison, though I’ve seen him around. He’s tall and muscular and carries himself like a military man. I know his wife, Cynthia, from the PTA. They’re Methodists and have three sons.

  “Brother Weatherford,” the sheriff says. He nods at me. “Ma’am. Thank you both for getting out of bed at this hour of the morning. I’m afraid Mr. Doane was in a state of agitation. Understandable, of course, but I had to ask him to go on home. I had Bobby follow him, make sure he gets there okay. I’m sorry y’all had to come down for nothing.”

  “Not a problem,” Richard says. “I’m just sorry I couldn’t help.”

  “Do you know what happened?” I ask.

  “Well, it’s Gary and Sarabeth. Sarabeth Simmons. They’re both dead.”

  “Oh, my Lord,” I say. “Any idea what happened?”

  “Well, I shouldn’t really discuss it, ma’am. But I got some questions. Let’s put it that way. I know a couple of guys I want to talk to.”

  “You think someone—”

  Richard gently reaches for my hand to shut me up, but the sheriff doesn’t notice because someone is shouting over his microphone. “Holy shit, sir! We got another body down here.”

  “Come again?”

  “Yessir, we got a body. This one’s in the water, and you ain’t gonna believe who it is.”

  The sheriff’s face changes color. He nods at us and hurries back to his car without a word. We watch him race back down the hill, dust billowing in his wake.

  We drive back in silence. Vaughn Doane is probably home by now. He’s trying to tell Jill what happened. Trying to tell Jill that her son is dead.

  “Pull over,” I say.

  “What?”

  “Pull over!”

  Richard swerves into a grassy ditch, and I almost fall out of the car. I think I’ll vomit, but I don’t. I’m bent over, staring at the dew glist
ening on the ditch’s thick weeds and wild flowers.

  When I know I’ll be okay, I walk back to the car and get in.

  Richard doesn’t speak as we drive back toward our home.

  I tell him, “You need to call Vaughn as soon as we get home and see what he knows.”

  “Don’t you think I should wait and see what they come up with first?”

  “No. You should call to let him know that you heard about Gary. You don’t want him to find out later that you were at the scene this morning and didn’t think to call. Under any normal circumstance, you’d call.” I turn to him. “You’re afraid of talking to him. You feel guilty because you killed his son. But it’s too late for that. If you were going to feel bad, you should have felt bad about sleeping with a boy as old as Matthew.”

  I can feel my hate for him growing with every word. So can he. His face hardens.

  “You’ll call Vaughn,” I say. “Later today, or maybe tomorrow, I’ll call Jill. When the time’s right, we’ll go to their home and sit and pray with them.” I look out the window at the tombstones going by as the sky starts to whiten with the first sunlight. “We need to make ourselves indispensable to the Doanes.”

  He nods. “I’ll call Vaughn when we get home.”

  “Good.”

  He looks over at me for a moment. “What are you going to do now?”

  I look down at my bare fingernails. “What do you think? I’m going to get ready for church.”

  I shower, letting the water lap over my body in cold gushes. I’m so tight I could snap. I wish I had alcohol or pills. I wish I could pray. But I have none of that to call on. When I finally shut off the water, my skin, white and covered in drops, feels as tight as my insides.

  I step out of the shower, wrapping a towel around my chest.

  Richard taps on the door.

  “Come in,” I say.

  He pokes his head in. “I just wanted to tell you I called Vaughn.”

  “I said to come in. Come all the way into the bathroom and shut the door behind you.”

  He steps in and closes the door. Our images in the steamed bathroom mirror are blurred, unrecognizable.

  “I called Vaughn,” he says.

  “And?”

  “He couldn’t really talk. He was crying.”

  “He’s crying because his son is dead.”

  Richard looks down. “Yes.”

  “What did you expect?”

  “Expect? Nothing. I knew he’d be upset. I just thought I should tell you.”

  “Well, you told me.”

  “Yes. Okay. I’ll go and let you get ready . . .”

  He reaches for the door.

  “Richard.”

  He stops and turns back to me.

  I look at him, standing there in his jeans and his sneakers and the old T-shirt. Hatred warms my skin.

  “Get on your knees.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Now. Get on your knees.”

  Instead, he frowns and reaches for the door, turning the knob and opening it an inch before I kick it shut.

  “What are you doing?” he says.

  “Get on your knees, Richard.”

  “I—”

  “There’s nothing you need to say. Get down on your knees, Richard. Do it now. Don’t make me tell you again.”

  He looks at me, his mouth open, searching for words. He tries to summon his incredulous smile, that fake thing he uses as a cudgel, but he can’t quite make it happen. He can’t call on any of his old tricks, can’t just be the same Richard he’s always been. He can’t just dismiss me, not anymore.

  Watching him finally lower himself to his knees makes me wet.

  “On your hands.”

  “Penny . . .”

  I lean over and grab his throat. His neck is bigger than my hand, but I can grasp his throat, can feel its ridged cartilage between my fingers. “Get down on your hands.”

  He lowers himself to his hands.

  I loosen the damp towel, and it flops onto the vanity, hanging off an open drawer and slapping the floor. I spread my legs and grab Richard’s head, balling up his hair in my fist, and push his face between my thighs. Water drips from my hair, mixed now with sweat, and drops onto his forehead, into his eyes.

  “Lick.”

  PART THREE SUNDAY MORNING

  ONE YEAR LATER

  THIRTY-FOUR RICHARD WEATHERFORD

  “Jesus Christ died on Good Friday and rose again on Easter Sunday, but on Black Saturday he lay dead in his tomb as his followers trembled alone in their doubt. That was over two thousand years ago, but this morning I know that some of you are still trembling.”

  I look out over the congregation. The pews are packed this morning, even for an Easter service, reflecting the fact that attendance has been climbing all year. Most of the old familiar faces are here, joined by new members and the usual mixture of visiting family and holiday-only Christians. Pastel splashes of yellow, pink, and purple enliven the usual clothing choices. More people dress up for Easter than for our usual services.

  “God does not want us to be alone. God does not want us to stumble in darkness. God does not want us to shiver in the cold. God will be your constant companion, your light in the darkness, your warm shelter against the freezing wind.”

  I move to the edge of the stage.

  “I want to thank all the performers today for their skill and dedication in bringing us the music and drama of the Easter program. It was wonderful. But before we go off to enjoy the rest of this special day, I need to tell you the truth.”

  The members of my family occupy their usual places on the third row. Penny with her arm around Johnny. Matthew next to his fiancée, Sydnie. Mark sitting with Ruth.

  Only Mary is missing, the first time one of our children has not been with us at Easter. She says it means nothing. She has too much schoolwork, she says. I suspect otherwise, and I know that Penny harbors her own theories about our eldest daughter.

  But the others are in their proper place, the place they have been for so long. Watching me, listening to me, loving me. Unlike the children, unlike anyone here, Penny watches me with a cool expression on her face, the distance between us the distance between critic and performer. Her judgment is cold, precise, and silent.

  “Yes, I need to tell you the truth,” I say again. “And the truth is that life is loss.”

  The congregation squirms at this notion. Life is loss, after all, is not a comforting thought, and this uncomfortable thought is both unexpected and unwelcome, a sudden shadow at the end of our sunny Easter service.

  “Life is loss,” I say, “and the truth is that we will lose everyone in this life. At the end of every relationship—whether it begins with a boy asking a girl out on a date, or it begins with a mother holding her baby for the first time—at the end of every relationship is a grave. We want so desperately for things to be permanent, but they are not.

  “We tremble at this thought. This thought, this absolute certainly that we will lose everyone . . . it’s simply too large, too overwhelming for us to keep in our minds for more than a few moments. But we know it’s true, and this knowledge haunts us. We will die, and when we do, our body will descend into the same dark grave that is the destiny of every man, woman, and child.

  “Death is the meaning of life, my friends. Why are the symbols of our faith the cross and the tomb? It’s to remind us that the meaning of life is death. We will lose everyone we love. If we don’t lose them first, they will lose us.

  “Some well-meaning souls say, ‘Well, the important thing is what you leave behind.’ It’s a nice thought. But the hard truth is that the world won’t miss a beat when any of us goes. The day I die, the traffic lights will keep changing from red to green, and Burger King will keep selling hamburgers, and the world will just go on about its business. ‘Well, what about your beloved children? They’ll miss you.’ And of course, that’s true. But one day they’ll be gone, and then one day their childr
en will be gone, and then no one in this world will have a living memory of me. It will be for me as it will be for everyone in this room; it will be as if I had never existed at all.”

  The church is silent. They are waiting. I’ve told them that the beginning of knowledge is the truth that life itself is fragile and finite. But they’re waiting for the lie.

  So I give it to them. I soothe them with a beautiful and elaborate untruth: I tell them that death is not really death. I turn and face the cross, and I tell them that Christ descended into the grave and he rose again, bringing us the gift of eternal life. I tell them that there is no death beyond the veil for those who accept this gift.

  I turn back to them. Most of them believe me. Most of them have never given the question of life and death serious thought. Most of them were told as children that the death of Jesus somehow means that they themselves will never really die, and they have believed it ever since. Although the exact mechanics of this theology are as uninteresting to them as the exact mechanics of their cell phone, their theology, like their phone, does what it is supposed to do. That’s all they need to know.

  “Remember what Paul wrote to the Corinthians,” I tell them. “‘Death, where is thy sting? Death, where is thy victory?’”

  I tell them that death is dead. I tell them that Jesus killed it. I tell them that they can live forever in heaven.

  Most of them believe me. They want to believe me.

  Among the crowd, however, disbelief is written on the features of two faces. These people cannot believe me, yet they are both here for the same reason.

  Carmen Fuller has never attended this church as far as I can remember. Perhaps she came by once, years ago, to pick up her daughter, Sarabeth, from the youth group. If so, I missed her. I know her only as a face around town. I pass her in the aisles at Walmart. I gas up next to her at Exxon. She is a thin, haggard woman with disappointed eyes and a smoker’s cough.