The Evening Hour

by A. Carter Sickels

  It was a long time ago. But now they lay side by side. Both tired of running, both tired of feeling stuck. How much did Terry remember? Cole looked at him and the truth was, he saw no trace of the boy he used to be. But Cole moved closer anyway. The fear rose thick on his tongue. There was nothing else to say. It was cold. He was shaking. He closed his eyes and moved over until his head was resting on Terry’s chest. Terry said nothing. Did not push Cole away. They held their breaths. Terry’s chest was flat and hard, protecting his heart. Cole could hear it, pumping, beating. Then he felt Terry’s hand on his shoulder. The touch so light, as if Terry was disappearing into air.

  “It’s funny how you stop dreaming of things,” Terry said. “Remember how I used to want to be a race car driver? And all the plans we made to get the hell out of here.”

  “That’s just how things are,” Cole said. “Like you said before, we were kids. But now we’re not.”

  “Yup, now we’re old. Old and used up.” Terry tried to laugh, but his voice was small and thin. It sounded scared, the way he never used to be.

  Cole closed his eyes and lay as still as he could with his head on Terry’s chest. Terry’s hand, light as a cat’s paw, stayed on his shoulder. Both of them quiet. Tense and relaxed, safe and scared.

  That day his granddaddy had singled him out, the others in the church had shouted and prayed, and Cole had looked desperately around for his grandmother. He could not find her. Nowhere to hide, no one to turn to. His grandfather was coming toward him, God in his eyes. There was no light, no light at all. His grandfather had put his old knotty hands on Cole’s face and said in a voice that only Cole could hear, “Your mother give birth to you, but only God will save you. You can be born again.” What was bearing down on Cole was too heavy and he’d suddenly pushed the hands away, then forced his way through the crowd. His grandfather came after him.

  “Don’t you step out of this church, boy.”

  He grabbed Cole by the neck of his shirt and told him to repent. “You walk out of this church, you ain’t never coming back.” Cole twisted out of his grandfather’s hands. He almost fell, then steadied himself with one hand against the wall. He and his granddaddy stared at each other. Cole’s heart was thumping wildly. He took a step toward the door, and this time the old man didn’t stop him. Cole couldn’t see anything. Couldn’t see his grandmother, or anyone he knew. Just saw shadows, and ahead of him, the bright light of the sun. But once he was outside of the church, he suddenly understood what he’d done, and he started running down the dirt road, through the forest to the swimming hole where Terry Rose would be waiting.

  Now he sat up. He was still shaking: his hands, his legs, his whole body. “I gotta go,” he said, and scrambled over the side of the truck.

  “Wait, Cole.” Terry jumped down. “Will you show up with the money?”

  “Man—”

  “I won’t ask you for anything else. Come to the Eagle at midnight. Come with the money, and I’ll get us what we need. I’ll be able to sell it fast, don’t worry about that. And when you leave this shit-hole, you’ll be a richer man.”

  Cole said nothing. Terry said, “Please.”

  For the second time tonight, Terry put his hand on Cole’s shoulder, and then moved it over until he was cupping the back of Cole’s neck. A touch of affection, a touch of trust. Terry leaned in close. Cole looked him in the eyes. It was like it used to be. He did not feel afraid.

  “Terry Rose, don’t fuck me over,” he said.

  A few minutes later, after Cole agreed to show up, Terry was driving away, music blaring, tearing up little trees as he went.

  Cole stood alone in the woods. Swore at himself. Then he walked back to the creek, stepping around little gullies, piles of rock. He stood in the dark. It used to look clear, sunlit. On that day, he’d come running down the path, breathless, and Terry was there, sitting on the bank, drinking a beer.

  “You get saved?” he joked.

  Then he saw Cole’s tears and asked him what was wrong.

  “We got to go now,” Cole said. “We can’t wait, we got to go.”

  Terry had put his arm around him, led him over to a mossy patch under a weeping willow. Cole, gulping breath, explained that he’d walked out of the church. He’d run away from his grandfather. Terry said everything was going to be all right and Cole believed him, thinking this was it, they would go. They were a month away from graduation and now they were going to leave; everything they’d been talking about was here in this moment: they were going to go to the ocean, get the hell out of Dove Creek. But then Terry, his arm still around Cole, said there was something he’d been wanting to tell him. He sat there with his arm around Cole and said that Kathy was pregnant.

  “We’re gonna get married.” He smiled at Cole. “You see what I mean? I can’t go anywhere. Things are different now.”

  Cole felt as if little needles were pressing into the back of his neck. The air smelled of chemicals, no sounds of birds or night insects. How much money could he make. What did he stand to lose. He stared intently, as if the swimming hole could give him the answer. The gun felt slippery in his hard. He held it away from him and then let it go. It sank into the black toxic water. He hesitated, then did the same thing with the last of the Oxy. He wanted nothing on him. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and stood there and watched the sinking. The sludge would rise up and eat them all. He recalled the words of Moses: “I am not eloquent … but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.” And then the Lord promised him that Aaron his brother would be there for him: “I know that he can speak well.” He promised Moses, “I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth.” God was with both of them, brothers. But Cole and Terry were not really brothers. He remembered what Charlotte had told him; he’d not forgotten, even with his head rested on Terry’s chest, listening to his beating heart, Cole knew the truth: Terry Rose would not go down, and he especially would not go down alone.

  When he got back to the house, his grandmother and mother were watching Law and Order, eating popcorn. He sat between them on the sofa and watched two cops run down a busy street in New York. He asked what had happened, and his grandmother told him that a store owner had been shot and they thought the killing was linked to the mob.

  “I don’t know who would want to live there,” she said.

  On commercial break he told them he would leave early in the morning. His grandmother looked frightened, but did not try to talk him out of it. The show came back on and they did not talk about him going, but it was there, weighing on them, in their movements, their quietness. Then his grandmother said she could not keep her eyes open any longer. She told Cole to make sure he woke her in the morning.

  Cole packed very little. A pair of boots, jeans, T-shirts, underwear. An old sleeping bag, a couple of blankets, a jacket. Pictures of his family, pictures of Charlotte and Lacy and Sara Jean and Terry Rose. His granddaddy’s King James. It was all he really owned. When he was finished, he slid the money out from under the mattress and divided it into three piles. He took the smallest pile for himself, then put the other two into separate manila envelopes and he wrote names on them with a marker. He did not feel satisfied. It felt like something was missing, a nagging feeling. So he added more money to the pile in his hands. He thought about Terry Rose, talking so fast and desperately, his hand on the back of Cole’s neck, Terry leaning in close.

  When he walked through the living room, his mother looked up. “You’re going out now?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be back.”

  But he did not look at her when he said it. He got in his pickup and stared at the numbers glowing from the dash. It was fifteen minutes past eleven. He would be early, but he couldn’t stay in the house any longer. He drove through Stillwell. Tomorrow he would be gone from this place. But he could not focus on what this would mean. He felt edgy and nervous, like somebody was tailing him. That ball of ice in his gut returned. He looked for cops, but saw none. He almost stopped and turned around. B
ut he’d told Terry he would be there. Cole was going to give Terry half of what he asked for. Then Cole would leave. He wouldn’t wait around for the profit. He would just go. He summoned his nerves and kept driving. But when came around the bend where the Eagle was, there were red and blue flashing lights dancing across the night. He slowed down. The ball of ice melted in his mouth. Cop cars, an ambulance. He pulled in the parking lot, cut his lights and stayed far back from the scene. After a while, someone staggered across the lot. Cole rolled down his window. “What’s going on?”

  The man stopped, looked up as if he’d been addressed from the sky.

  “Over here,” Cole said.

  He was old and drunk. He came over to Cole’s window. “A shoot-out.”

  “What happened?”

  “It was told to me that there was some kind of drug deal. Something went bad wrong. Feds was here. Some big guy was shooting.”

  “Did anyone get killed?”

  “Yes. One of them did. Jerry or Gary or something. The big one was shot in the leg, they arrested him and a couple of others.” He took a drink. “Drug dealers, drug addicts. I don’t know what’s going to become of this country.” Then he said, “Son, would you mind giving me a lift?”

  Cole stared at him, uncomprehending.

  “I’m just down there in Stillwell.”

  On the way back to town, the man said more about the shoot-out, and when he described the person who was killed, Cole knew for sure. He talked the entire time, going on and on about the state of the world, but Cole stopped listening. He focused on the beam of the headlights. Terry’s hand on his neck. His granddaddy’s hands, trying to heal him. Blue’s hands. She had told him that the mysterious caul that had covered his face was a gift, and he wondered what it was, if it had been wiped away, if it was still with him, if it had blinded him or if it had hidden him. What it was he was supposed to see. After he dropped the old man off, he went back to his grandmother’s. His mother was asleep on the couch, the blue light of the television soft on her face. He dropped a blanket over her, turned off the TV. Then he went into his bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed in the dark and waited to feel something.

  Chapter 21

  He woke before daylight, but did not get out of bed right away. He lay for a few minutes under the blanket, between worlds, remembering last night like a dream. He lifted his hands close to his face and could smell the outdoors. The house was quiet and dark. “Get up,” he told himself. “Get up.” He dressed and washed his face and brushed his teeth. He looked at his hands under the bathroom light. They were dirty. He scrubbed them, cleaning under the nails. Then he made the bed with hospital corners and looked at his room and it was neat and clean. He carried his few belongings out to the pickup. In the east a faint glimmer of light trembled across the sky. When he went back in, his mother was brewing coffee.

  “You’re up early.”

  “I didn’t sleep much,” she said. “Might as well be up. Mama will probably want to drag me off to church.” His grandmother had started going regularly to a different church; she’d not gone back to Luke Cutter’s.

  “Maybe you’ll get saved,” he told her.

  “I already been.”

  It was their joke, and they smiled. But Ruby’s quickly faded; she looked worried. “I feel like there’s still so much we need to say to each other.”

  “I’ll be back,” he said, and he knew this was true. “There’ll be time for that.”

  He did not tell her about Terry Rose. He couldn’t. He did not want to believe it.

  When the coffee was done, Ruby poured two cups and they sat at the table and drank it the same way, black, no sugar.

  She looked like she wanted to say something.

  “What is it?”

  “You never ask about your daddy.”

  “Would I know who he is?”

  “No, I guess not. He used to live down in Bucks County. Last I heard he was in South Carolina.” She ashed her cigarette. “Joe Milligan. He was good-looking.”

  “I’ll remember his name.”

  He finished the coffee. She asked if he wanted more, but he said no, he should get going. When she stood, he went over to her and put his arms around her and they held each other. When they pulled apart, they looked embarrassed.

  “You stay in touch,” she told him.

  “Better than you ever did.”

  She tousled his hair. “You miss him, don’t you?”

  “Who?” he said, caught off guard.

  “Your granddad, who else.”

  “Oh. Yeah, I miss him. You?”

  She nodded. He stopped at the doorway and turned to look at her once more. “He asked for you. On his deathbed, you were the one he wanted.”

  For a second she looked confused. Then she grinned. “Probably he just wanted me there so he could preach at me.” She told him to be careful, he said he would. He went quickly and knocked on his grandmother’s door. Her eyes were heavy with sadness.

  “Were you sleeping?”

  “No, I been praying.”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “You listen for Him. He’s gonna be talking to you.”

  He sat with her on the end of the bed and handed her a manila envelope that was stuffed with cash. She felt the weight of it. She’d never refused his money, no matter where it came from.

  “I’ll be back. You know I will.”

  He told her that when he came back, he wanted to find her living on a nice plot of land somewhere, far away from the mining.

  “Wherever I am, they ain’t gonna walk all over me again,” she said.

  “You’ll keep fighting?”

  “I will. Will you?”

  “I’m gonna start,” he promised.

  He kissed her cheek, and her old hands clutched onto him.

  “Go on,” she whispered.

  When he started his truck, his mother waved from the porch, but his grandmother was inside, praying. He did not want to be afraid anymore, there was no time for that. No time for feeling helpless. The world was big and uncaring, and he was going into it, like Jonah swimming into the belly of the whale. He heard his grandfather’s voice: “You surely are your mother’s child.”

  Light shone from the east as he drove to Green Hills, where everything was still. He pulled in front of Lacy Cooper’s and walked up to the trailer and slid the second envelope behind the screen door and left without lingering. He remembered the Christmas presents and hoped that she would take this: it was all that he could give her. Then he drove through Stillwell. He went past everything that was familiar. He passed the Wigwam and the bank and the Laundromat. No cops pulled him over. Everything was quiet. He parked on the street behind the nursing home.

  He went in through the side door and stepped into the familiar smell of ammonia, cafeteria food, old bodies. He looked around. Larry Potts twiddling his thumbs. Cole touched his nervous hands, waiting until the thumbs rested. Then he went into the rooms of everyone he knew. He said good-bye, and if they were sleeping, he just looked at them. He thought of all those who had died. Remembered what he’d taken from each of them. He’d not returned any of it, not a single piece, and he wondered if they could forgive him.

  He went to see Elvira Black, who’d been moved here against her will. She was sleeping, hooked to oxygen and fluids. He touched her face and her eyes fluttered. He told her good-bye, but she did not wake up.

  As he was coming out of her room, he saw an aide bent over Hazel Lewis, trying to get her shirt back on, and he ducked back into the room and waited. When he looked again, the aide was gone, but Hazel was there, grabbing at her shirt.

  “It’s so dang hot,” she said.

  He pulled down her shirt and put his arms around her and smelled her moldy, stale smell. She began to cry. He’d never seen this before. “Shh,” he said.

  “Cole, Cole, Cole,” she said.

  He said, “That’s my name. Don’t wear it out.”

  Then he drew back and she
looked at him and said it was so hot, and he said he knew it was, and that he was sorry, but it would not always be this way.

  Mabel Johnson was in her rocking chair like she’d been waiting on him. “You’re up early,” he said.

  “Early bird gets the worm.”

  He asked her how the new aide was treating her, and she said all right. Then he touched her hand and told her he was going.

  She told him to get into her dresser. “Go on,” she said.

  He pulled open the top drawer and took out the blood-red scarf.

  “I know it’s getting warm now, but you take it with you to wherever you’re headed.” She motioned for him to lean closer, and then she held the scarf up to him. “It’ll look right handsome.”

  He wrapped it around his neck. It was soft, delicate. He had never worn nor owned such a thing. He told her he felt proud to wear it.

  She did not like good-byes, she told him. So he kissed her cheek and she called after him, “You be careful.”

  He turned east and drove up the mountain. As he passed by the Eagle, his fingers curled around the steering wheel. The lot was empty, no signs of last night. The hurt in him was dull and throbbing, and he sucked in his breath, afraid to let go. His knuckles were a spine of white, and he forced himself to loosen his grip on the wheel. He kept driving and turned onto Rockcamp Road. His grandmother had told him to make peace with his grandfather, but what he had to make peace with was bigger than any one man. He drove around the barricade and pulled up on a slope, hiding his truck in a grove of pines. When he got out, he wrapped the scarf around his neck like something to ward off evil spirits.

  He did not go near the swimming hole. Last night seemed like a strange and sad memory that hummed inside of him, a dull pain. He did not know if Terry Rose had been setting him up or was just asking for help; he would never know. He felt sorry for Terry, sorry for all of them. Up on the hillside, he looked across the land and saw his empty trailer and his grandparents’ house, the blackness still spread over the yard. It still took his breath away, how bad it was. It looked as if something had fallen from the sky, rolled down the mountain, and left a burning gash. The cemetery was washed away, the bones of the dead, lifted up out of the earth. But what did bones matter? Everything turned to dust. Rage jolted his blood.