The Nearly Complete Works, Volume 1

by Donald Harington

  But she reneged. The baby was born, and I waited three years, which was perhaps too long. If I had acted earlier…but the question is speculative anyway, since my end might have been the same in any case. By the end of those three years I wasn’t ready to wait any longer, and I acted. I knew, of course, that Annie would guess who had taken the child. But if they followed, and found us, I had any number of escape routes carefully plotted, and I knew the fastness of these forests better than any man alive…. Or better, at least, than all but one man. He’s another story.

  Will you stay to hear it, G? Or shall I send you off now? By telling you that it was only after I had “borrowed” the child and brought her here to Stick Around, that I finally learned her mother’s reason for not letting me have her: that Diana was her only child, that she couldn’t let me have her only child, that she couldn’t have any more children. Because Burton Stoving was sterile.

  Diana is not, would you say? defective. Somewhat strange, yes, in an altogether charming way. But you wouldn’t think there’s anything wrong with her genes.

  I’d rather whisper, G, but you wouldn’t hear me. So turn up that aid and listen to me very, very carefully, because I’m not going to repeat myself; and if you repeat me to a soul, let alone Diana, I’ll come back once again and hound you to your grave.

  She was my daughter.

  26

  But the story of that, like the end of your sweet naked hour in the cool water of Old Bottomless, is sequestered.

  27

  Let us hurry, now, through a desequestering. Could we have a crescendo of background music, please, Conductor? Fiddles sawed for all they’re worth, in a swelling climax of sound. Thank you.

  You will hear it in your tinnitus, G, but when you climb out of the pool and retrieve your clothing, and plug your hearing aid back in, you will seem to think that it is not merely tinnitus, this grand finale of fiddling that sounds like all eight of the Playford dances mixed together. No, it isn’t tinnitus. When Diana comes out of the pool, you will ask her if she doesn’t think she can hear this tempestuous fiddling, and she will smile and say, Yes, she believes she can hear it too.

  You will look all around you, now, and find the fiddler. He is sitting on a rock within full view of what you thought was your secluded bathing place. A local youth? A spying farmboy? He is a gangling, dark-tanned fellow, in his late teens, dressed in faded blue overalls, chambray work-shirt, a straw hat and—to complete the picture of rusticity—a stalk of Johnson grass gripped between his grinning teeth.

  When he sees that you have spotted him, he will stop fiddling, but in your ear the grand crescendo-climax of strings will continue. “Howdy,” he will say, cordially. The brim of his straw hat is casting the upper part of his face in shadow, but there will be something disturbingly familiar about him. Have you seen perhaps a photograph of him somewhere?

  Diana will see him too. She will cry out, “Day! You’ve come back!” and she will run toward him. He will rise and come to meet her, and they will embrace. And they will kiss. And you will want to evaporate from the face of the earth. Diana will break loose from his embrace and say to him happily, “Well, you old voyeur, you, are we even now?” He will nod, and then she will bring him to you.

  “Day,” she will say, “I want you to meet G. G, this is Day. Day, G. Gee, Day!”

  He will offer his hand and you will take it. “Mighty proud to meet you,” he will say. “I’ve been hearin a right smart about you, feller.”

  “I’ve been hearin a right smart about you too, feller,” you’ll say to him.

  Diana will explain to you, “Day has been trying to learn the Ozark dialect. Do you think he sounds authentic?”

  “Purty good, I’d say,” you’ll say in the same saying, “fer a Jersey furriner. I tuk ye fer a local boy at fust.”

  “Aw, gosh dawg, I’m not that good, yet,” he will protest. Then he will ask you, “Wal, you fixin to light out, directly?”

  “Yeah. Reckon I’d best be gittin on.” Sadly.

  “Come go home with us. Light and hitch. Set a spell.”

  “Caint stop long.”

  “Stay more and eat you some supper with us. No sense rushin off.” The three of you, the four of us, will head for home.

  Diana will tell him, “We’ve been running all afternoon, G and I, just as you suggested. But now my feet are dead. Carry me, Day. Carry me!”

  And she will climb up on his back, and he will carry her on down the road toward home. You will follow. With a smile, you’ll remember the time he had carried her out of Five Corners when she was shot, and you’ll remember the dream he had when he passed out after carrying her four miles to safety

  …in the dream I was carrying her too, piggyback like this, and there was a man following us, who had been following us all along, but he was smiling at us, and she was alive, and laughing, and it was not nighttime but broad day, in some other place where we had finally gone, and not winter but springtime, and she was not hurt but whole, and the dogwood and redbud were blooming and the wind was warm and lifting her hair and her laughter, as I carried her piggyback through that strange and distant but magic woodland, some other place that seemed, in the dream, to be the right place….

  So you will understand what I meant: we fabricate our future in our dreams. But our dreams have a nice habit of often coming true. And you won’t be entirely sad, will you, G? I won’t let you.

  When you reach my yellow house, you will sit, in the late afternoon, before supper, on the porch, in the chairs that are so much like those of Lara’s store-porch. Diana will be excited. This will be a moment that she has long waited for. She can hardly wait. As soon as you are settled in your chairs, she will look at Day and ask him,

  “Now? Okay?” He will smile and nod his head. “Go to sleep, Day,” she will say.

  We will meet again at last, G.

  “We meet again at last, G,” I say. “Our third meeting, isn’t it?”

  You look puzzled. “When was the second time?”

  “You don’t remember?” I say. “Surely you remember.”

  You remember. “Yes, I’d forgotten about that,” you say. “Probably I was keeping it out of my mind, because I don’t really want to believe in you.”

  “I can understand that,” I say.

  “That time,” you say, “you told me to go away. You sent me off, out into the world. And now I’ve tried to come back again. And you’re going to make me go away again, aren’t you?”

  “Not just yet,” I say. “Stick around, for a little while. I’m not due to die until nearly dusk. You know this is the last day, don’t you? They’re after us, G. They’re coming to get us. But we have a little time left.” I turn to Diana and ask her, “Do you think you ran him enough today to make him sleepy? Do you think you got him tired enough so that we could put him to sleep for a while?”

  “Let me get my tape recorder first,” she says.

  28

  I found you, little Guy, in the dark glen of the waterfall. The hound was with you, but he seemed to be just as lost as you. The both of you were reclining on the ground, moping, beside the pool of the falls. The hound barked at me as I approached, and you looked up, fear in your eyes.

  “Howdy there, sonny,” I said, as friendly as I could. Your dog snarled but I gave him my palm to sniff, and he knew my scent.

  “Howdy,” you said, and sat up, not quite as frightened as you’d been at first. You recognized me. “Aren’t you that magician who cured my wart?”

  I nodded. “That I am,” I said, “but I’m not any magician. How’s the wart?”

  “It’s gone,” you said, and showed me. “When I woke up the day after, I couldn’t find no trace of it.”

  “Good,” I said. “I’m right glad to hear that.”

  “How’d you do it?” you asked. “What made it work? Was it just that tobacco juice you spitted on it?”

  “Well, no,” I said. “That was just a gimmick. What made it work was that you believ
ed it would work. And if you believe anything hard enough, it’s bound to.”

  You thought about this, turning the thought over in your almost six-year-old head, and you shook your head. “That’s not true. Because I’m lost, right now. And even if I believed I wasn’t lost, it wouldn’t help. I’d still be lost.”

  “You’re not lost,” I pointed out to you. “Because I’ve found you, haven’t I?”

  You thought about that one, and decided that I must be right. Another little miracle of this old magician. But then you thought of something else, and frowned. “Do you mean you’re going to take me home?”

  “If you want me to,” I said.

  “I’ll git a lickin,” you protested. “They’ll really clobber me, this time.”

  “Probably,” I said, remembering my own boyhood, and then I told you of it. “When I was just about your age, five or so, I climbed up a tree in the back yard to hide from my folks, but my dad found me and started up the tree after me. I had a fool notion that I could just flap my arms like this—” I flapped my arms for you, and you giggled “—and just go flying off through the air, to get away. But naturally I discovered pretty quick that people can’t fly, and I fell down out of that tree, almost to the ground, but that old tree saved me; she put out one of her limbs and kept me from hittin the ground. Then I got up and run away, and just like you, I hid out in the woods all night. But they found me the next day and clobbered me black and blue.”

  You nodded, understanding, and said, “So what can I do? I don’t want to go back and git clobbered.”

  “I don’t blame you,” I said. “I think a grown-up person who’d hit a little kid that couldn’t hit back is pretty low.”

  “Haven’t you ever hit any kids?” you asked.

  “Not since I’ve been grown.”

  “Didn’t you never even spank your daughter?”

  “How’d you know I got a daughter?” I asked.

  “I heerd people down to Lara’s store talkin about you.”

  “Well, no, I never punished her. What’s the point, anyhow, in punishing other people?”

  “Didn’t she never do anything bad?”

  “What does ‘bad’ mean?”

  “Didn’t she never tell a lie or do something you told her not to?”

  “What good is spankin going to do, if she did?”

  “It’s supposed to keep her from doing it again,” you explained, a little pedantically, I thought; this little spadger explaining the facts of human nature to this old man who never learned anything.

  “I see,” I said. “Well, tell me. What did you get punished for?”

  “I told a lie,” you said. “I wanted to spend the night with Lara, but the only way I could do that was tell my Aunt Josie that Lara was throwin a bunkin party for us kids, and when my Aunt Josie found out there was no bunkin party, she really beat me up, but I still wouldn’t tell her what I’d done, and she kept on beatin me. So I run away.”

  “Well, you see what I mean,” I said. “Her punishment of you wouldn’t make you tell the truth. No amount of beating is going to find the truth. So what’s the point of the punishment?”

  You thought about that for a while, and decided that I must be right. Abruptly you asked me, “Can I go and live with you?”

  I’m sorry I laughed. I’m even sorrier that I didn’t give it more thought; but I don’t think it would have worked. My laughing put a hurt frown on your face, so I said, “I’d be right glad to have you, son. But it would be mighty hard to keep you hidden. Folks would find you, soon enough, and drag you on home. And they’d probably be turned against me for trying to keep you.”

  You cradled your chin in your hands and sighed. “But I cain’t go back,” you said. “Even if they didn’t clobber me. Because Lara’s got that feller Everett Dahl now, and she loves him now, and probably she don’t even care if I’m lost or not.”

  “Tell me about it,” I requested, and you told me then that story which, one day, you would try to tell again, in a book called Firefly, the story of a lonely, longing, lovely woman who was the spinster postmistress of Stick Around and whose only love was this tousle-haired little whippersnapper, five going on six, who kept her company all the time…until, just recently, a man from her past returned to her.

  “So you’ve lost her,” I said when you’d finished, and laid a hand on your shoulder in sympathy. “I know how you must feel, son. I’ve lost a few myself.” And in return for your story, I told you some stories of my own, about a brunette in a place called Dudleytown, and a redhead in a place called Five Corners, and a blonde in a place called Lost Cove.

  You listened, captured; you thought I was nearly as good a storyteller as your beloved Lara had been. And when I finished, you asked me, “Is my life going to be like that when I get growed up?”

  “Not just like that,” I said. “Happier, I hope. But like me, you’re going to have to do a lot of searching.”

  “What do I have to search for?”

  “Love,” I told you.

  “Will I ever find it?”

  “I don’t know. I wish I could tell you that you will. But I just don’t know.” I stood up then, and took your hand. “Come on, son. It’s time to go.” I led you out of the glen of the waterfall, and down the mountain to a place where the logging trails begin. “If you ever do find it,” I said, “come back and tell me about it. Or send me a postcard.”

  And then I showed you the division of the trail, the diverging paths. “That fork,” I said, pointing, “goes to Stick Around.” I pointed at the other path. “And that fork,” I said, “goes to some other place. It isn’t the right place either, and it’s a long, long road.”

  “Thanks, mister,” you said. “Though still I wish I could just stay with you. But I will come back and tell you if I ever find it.” You turned to go. But then you turned back for a moment and said, “I never even learned your name.”

  29

  Time for only a few more words before we go. That glen of the waterfall will serve us, G, for one more set. And it’s nearly time. I can’t hold out, in this house, against these lawmen. The sheriff has gone back to Jessup, probably to phone the state police for more help. Soon I’ll have to take this girl and strike out up the mountain. That glen of the waterfall, which I might never have known about if I hadn’t been searching for you there years ago, will make a perfect place to hide for the night.

  I shake your hand, old Gentleman, and thank you for the pains you’ve taken. It has been worth your while, hasn’t it? You’ve got a story, haven’t you? Even if you’ve never found what you really came here looking for, which is love. You found it, but it wasn’t yours. And finding it without being able to have it will keep you searching for it, in some other place. I’m glad of that, G; you’re a good searcher; you’ll go on searching. I leave you again with my First Damnation: the end of the search is the end of the beauty.

  Now I’ve got to go. But you stop me long enough to say, “I hope, Dan, that you’re planning to ‘stay dead’ this time around, that you’ll be leaving these kids alone.”

  I can’t help but laugh at your concern, and I rush to set your mind at ease on that score. “Oh yes, that’s part of the plan. Besides, I’m tired. I’ve had all I wanted. I’m going to sleep a long time.”

  “Good,” you say. “Then there’s just one question. Nothing important. Just an inconsequential dangling end I’d like to sew up. In my notes, I’ve got the different regional variations on your bywords for sexual terms. For example, a penis in Dudleytown was a “perkin,” in Five Corners a “picket,” in Lost Cove a “pestle.” What was it in Stick Around?”

  Old Gross, to the end! I laugh and slap you on the shoulder. “‘Private,’” I say. “Sequestered.”

  “And,” you continue, “vale…velvet…vault…?”

  “Sequestered too,” I say. “‘Veil.’”

  Now, G, when Day “comes back,” you shake his hand too, and tell him you’re sorry you can’t stay longer, and
tell him how much you envy him. He reminds you of my Fifth Damnation, that envy is the worst of emotions. In that case, you ask him, does he not envy or resent your hour in the pool with Diana? Of course not, he says, and adds, “That was part of the script.”

  And you say to him in conclusion, as you have said to me, “There’s just one question. Nothing very important. Just an inconsequential dangling end I’d like to sew up. But could you please explain to me how you put letters in Diana’s box without leaving any footprints? You see, I set this little ‘trap’ of piling up some dust in front of the boxes—”

  “In front of the boxes, yes,” he says. “But didn’t you realize there’s a back side to the boxes, behind the counter? Haven’t you ever been on The Other Side of the counter?”

  Don’t go just yet. There is Diana to say goodbye to, and her request to listen to. How would you like, G, to join them in their final “masque,” their last acting-out? They can use you, even if you don’t exactly relish the “rôle” they have in mind for you, that of the state trooper who shot me. But you possess a rifle, which will lend a semblance of “reality” to their “masque.”

  Diana shows you an old newspaper clipping, supposedly taken from a 1953 edition of the local weekly, the Jessup Record; you consider, for just one brief moment, the possibility that she could have had this newspaper clipping printed for her at her expense on a sheet of old and yellowed newsprint. But you dismiss such a petty thought from your mind, and you read the clipping:

  TROOPER WINS STICK AROUND SHOOT-OUT WITH OLD KIDNAPPER; CHILD IS SAFE

  State Police Corp. Sugrue “Sog” Ellen was credited today with finding the hide-out of the “Stick Around Hermit” who kidnapped the three-year-old child, Diane Staving, daughter of prominent Little Rock family, last week.

  Corp. Ellen, or “Sog” as he is known to chums in Stick Around, where he was born and reared, is familiar with the woods of Lingerfelt Mountain, and said he had a “hunch” where to look. Finding the hermit-kidnapper by a waterfall in one of the mountain’s hollers, Corp. Ellen demanded he lay down his arms and surrender. When the man refused, Corp. Ellen, making sure the child was not in line of fire, shot and killed the man.