Sweet Dream Baby

by Sterling Watson

  I’m hoping this thing doesn’t get out of hand. I got enough doctors when I was a little kid and had the flu and almost died. I hate shots. Every time you go to the doctor, even if you’re not sick, they say, “This boy needs a booster shot.” Why do they always have to boost you? And why do they always stick you in the heiny? I don’t mind it in the arm, but in the heiny hurts, and it’s embarrassing, too.

  I say to Grandma Hollister, “I’ll be okay. I just need to be close to the…” She nods, feels my forehead, kisses my cheek, and says, “I’m going to worry all through church.” She goes to the door. She says, “Bringing bad shrimp into my house after midnight. It gives me a histamine headache.” She touches her forehead and goes to my Aunt Delia’s room, and I hear them talking. I wait and don’t groan and doze a little and wake up and don’t hear much until Grandpa Hollister pulls the Buick Roadmaster out of the garage, and they drive away.

  Then my Aunt Delia’s bare feet pound the pine boards, and she flies through the air and lands on my bed. “Whoopee, I’m sounding the all clear. We got religious freedom, now let’s do something with it.”

  We drive downtown, but we don’t dare go past the Presbyterian church. We pass the Baptist Church, and I can hear them singing. They sing louder than we do. I say to my Aunt Delia, “How come we aren’t Baptists?”

  She squints at me. “The questions you ask, Killer.” The radio is playing church music. You get preaching, too, and sometimes it’s funny, especially from Del Rio, Texas. Me and my Aunt Delia listen to it and laugh. My Aunt Delia says, “We aren’t Baptists because they have something called an altar call.”

  “What’s an altar call?”

  “That’s when the end of the service comes, and the preacher calls for all the sinners in the congregation to come forward and kneel at the altar and dedicate themselves to Jesus. The choir sings, ‘Just As I Am,’ and the people sit there, and it’s hot, and they’re all hoping they don’t have to go down and dedicate themselves ’cause they’ve all done it before, and they’re all pretty well dedicated, and they’ve seen all their neighbors get the fit of righteousness and stagger down the aisle and fall on their knees and let the preacher lay on his hands. So they sit there, and it gets hotter, and the choir sings, ‘Just as I am, I come to thee.’”

  My Aunt Delia sings the words. She’s got a pretty voice, and it’s a pretty song, but she’s making fun of it a little. She stops singing and says, “The choir sings lower and lower and slower and slower, and it gets quieter and quieter in the church, and the preacher is sweating so hard he might just boil down to bone and gristle in a black coat, and his eyes look so hurt ’cause nobody’s getting the fit, and I swear, Killer, it’s a battle of wills. There’s all these people in the church, all of them just as dedicated as they can be and just as saved as a whole boxcar of peppermint Lifesavers, and they don’t want to get up in front of all their neighbors and go down that aisle and fall on their knees and rededicate. ’Cause rededicating means maybe you’ve done something to undedicate yourself, and nobody wants anybody in a small town to know the freshness is out of their dedication.

  “So the battle of wills wears on, and the choir sings, and they’re all sweating, and everybody’s fanning with those fans that advertise some funeral home, and it gets past noon, and the Sunday roast is roasting back home and stomachs are rumbling, and kids are fidgeting, and the choir isn’t even singing anymore. They’re just swaying and humming. Things are so bad, the choir can’t even sing the words anymore. Finally, the preacher wins. Some poor soul, somebody’s crazy Aunt Bewhooziz, or unmarried sister Towhatziz gets up and gives a sob, and wails out her secret sin, and wobbles on down to the front and kneels, and the preacher lays on his hands and thanks his Jesus, and the choir sings real loud, “I come, I come,” and everybody’s happy because the roast isn’t gone be as tough as shoe leather.”

  I say, “I’m glad we’re not Baptists.”

  “Hallelujah to that, Killer. And here’s to religious freedom.”

  We drive down Main Street and it’s deserted. Tolbert’s Drugstore is closed. Mr. Tolbert’s a Baptist, but my Aunt Delia says he isn’t iron-clad because he sells Cokes and coffee and lets people dance to the jukebox. We pass the Mercantile and the Curl Up and Dye Beauty Parlor and come to a little white house with a sign that says, Dr. D. Cohen, M.D. Two cars are parked in front, and one of them has a snake climbing up a cross on the tag. My Aunt Delia pulls in and stops.

  I wonder what’s going on. I thought we were just playing sick to get religious freedom. I hope I’m not getting a booster shot or something. Once when my dad took me to the dentist, he didn’t tell me until we were in the parking lot. I asked him why he told me we were going out for cigarettes. He said, “It’s just a lot less trouble this way, Travis. You’ll know what I mean when you get kids of your own.” I didn’t like it. I look over at my Aunt Delia and I’m wondering if she tricked me. She smiles, but she looks serious. She says, “Come on, Killer. I want you to meet a friend of mine.”

  Inside there’s a waiting room with chairs and copies of Life and Look and Time. There’s a tank with some tired-looking goldfish and an office with a frosted glass window, and there’s a door. My Aunt Delia walks through the door, down a narrow hallway with rooms on both sides, and, at the end, we come to another office, and there’s a man in a brown suit with a bald head and wire-rimmed glasses. His face is gray, not tanned like most of the men in Widow Rock, and he looks tired, and he’s writing. He looks up when my Aunt Delia sticks her head in.

  “Hello, Dr. Cohen. Is Mrs. Cohen around? I saw her car out front.”

  The man pushes his glasses up his nose and blinks at us. He doesn’t smile. He holds his fountain pen an inch above the paper on his desk. The nib is perfectly still. “Hello, Delia.” He looks at me and nods.

  I say, “Hello, sir.”

  His eyes go back to Delia, and they’re doctor’s eyes. He says, “She’s back in the storeroom taking inventory. Go on back if you want to.”

  My Aunt Delia smiles and says thanks, and I think she likes the man, but it’s hard to tell. He’s got lots of books in the little office, and colored pictures of body parts on the walls, and a glass case with metal and rubber instruments in it. He holds his pen above the paper and doesn’t look down until we walk away.

  I follow my Aunt Delia to the storeroom. It’s dark inside, but I can see rows of shelves with boxes and bottles on them. It smells like medicine. My Aunt Delia says, “Mrs. Cohen, it’s me, Delia Hollister.”

  I hear an “Oooh!” from inside like somebody’s startled, then a woman comes out of the dim. She’s tall and thin, and she has a narrow face and lots of thick brown hair. She’s wearing wire-rimmed glasses, too, and a white blouse, and she’s the first grown woman I’ve seen in Widow Rock in pants. She’s holding a clipboard and a pencil. It’s dark and hot inside the storeroom, and the woman steps out into the hallway and stands in front of my Aunt Delia.

  My Aunt Delia says, “I saw your car, so I thought I’d drop in and say hey.”

  Mrs. Cohen smiles at my Aunt Delia and then looks at me.

  My Aunt Delia says, “This is my nephew, Travis, from Omaha.”

  Mrs. Cohen offers me her hand, and I take it. It’s cool and dry and strong. She says, “Yes, I heard about Travis. How do you like it here, Travis?”

  “It’s kind of small, but it’s neat,” I say.

  My Aunt Delia and Mrs. Cohen look at each other, and their eyes pass a message I’m not supposed to get.

  Mrs. Cohen puts the clipboard down and says, “Why don’t you two come to the house for some iced tea?”

  My Aunt Delia takes a step back. “Oh, no thanks,” she says, “we don’t want to bother you. I just wanted you to meet Travis and all. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you.”

  Mrs. Cohen takes off her glasses and rubs her eyes. She calls down the hallway, “David, I’m going to th
e house for a moment with Delia and Travis.”

  “All right, Susannah.”

  Outside, we walk across a raked red-dirt yard to the back door of a bigger house. We go through the kitchen and into the living room, and everything’s clean, and a shelf of books covers one whole wall. Mrs. Cohen takes down a book. She turns to my Aunt Delia. “Did you finish the Wharton?”

  My Aunt Delia says, “Not yet. I’m about halfway through it. I like it a lot.”

  Mrs. Cohen hands my Aunt Delia the book. “Try this one next. If you like the Wharton, you’ll like it, too.”

  My Aunt Delia takes the book. The cover has a man and a woman on it. He’s holding her in his arms. I can’t make out the title, but I can see who wrote it: Mary McCarthy. My Aunt Delia says, “Thanks, Susannah. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  Mrs. Cohen gets a mother look in her eyes. She takes a step toward my Aunt Delia, then she looks down at me. She says, “Travis, will you do me a favor?” I look at my Aunt Delia, and she nods.

  I say, “Yes, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Cohen smiles and says, “Go back into the kitchen and bring me the cookie jar from the countertop.”

  As soon as I leave the room, they start whispering. I know I’m not supposed to come back. I know it’s not the cookie jar they want. The cookie jar is in the shape of the Quaker Oats man, and his black top hat is the lid. I open it and look in at the chocolate chip cookies. They look fresh and smell good. I can hear my Aunt Delia and Mrs. Cohen whispering in the other room. It sounds like the squirrels running through the leaves in the rain gutter above my bedroom window. It sounds like the wind in the trees before it storms. It sounds like my parents arguing behind their bedroom door at night. Only I don’t think they’re arguing, Mrs. Cohen and my Aunt Delia. I stay in the kitchen until Mrs. Cohen calls, “Travis, did you find that cookie jar?” Then I call, “Yes, ma’am, I’m coming.”

  Sixteen

  We’re going to the river. I’ve got six cookies in a paper napkin in my lap, and we’re going to have a picnic. The sky is clear and blue, and it’s starting to get hot, but the wind is cool blowing in the windows. My Aunt Delia drives fast like she always does. The radio’s playing gospel music: “I went to the garden alone, when the dew was on the roses.” She says, “Did you like Mrs. Cohen?”

  I know she wants me to, so I say, “Yes.”

  She says, “So do I.”

  I say, “How come they don’t go to church?”

  My Aunt Delia looks over at me quick, then she smiles and says, “Travis, the Cohens are Jews. Jews go to what’s called a synagogue, and they go on Saturday.”

  I say, “We read about the Jews in church, right?”

  My Aunt Delia says, “That’s right, Travis.”

  I’ve already heard a lot of stories. The Jews are the people who fought the battles in the Bible. They got stuck in Egypt and got out again. They got the commandments. David slew Goliath. Slew means kill. The prodigal son went away and consorted and came back, and they celebrated. But I didn’t think there were any Jews left. I thought they were all gone like the Omaha Indians.

  My Aunt Delia says, “I’m glad you got a chance to meet Susannah. She’s been good to me.” Her eyes go dark blue and sad, and she looks away, out the window at the corn fields and the tobacco patches with the beds of new seedlings. Most people think Florida is just beaches and oranges, but Florida is corn and tobacco and cattle, too. Caroline Huff and Beulah Laidlaw call it Lower Alabama.

  We take the same turn-off we took the day Mr. Latimer called me a half-nigger, and we park in the same place, and I can smell the river. It smells spicy, but not like salt and pepper. It’s a spice that grows wild where water runs. It smells like the air when you go outside in the morning after a rain storm. It smells like fish, but it’s a wild, living smell, not like the fish on your dinner plate. My Aunt Delia says, “Come on, Killer, let’s go see the local attraction.”

  We take the path through the woods, and, after a while, I can hear it, too. It’s not a roar or a splash, it’s a kind of pressure in your ears like when you have a cold, or when you hold a big conch shell to your ear and listen to the ocean trapped inside. As we go, the sound gets louder, and the path tilts uphill, and it’s not easy walking. There are rocks and roots, and there’s slippery green moss on the rocks. The sound gets louder, and the smell gets stronger, and then we break through the trees into a big wall of sunlight.

  We step out onto a shelf of white rock as big as the sanctuary of the Presbyterian church. The rock slopes away to my left and climbs to my right, and across the emptiness there’s the other side of the gorge, another white stone shelf, only it looks thin because it’s so far away. My Aunt Delia takes my hand, and we step to the edge and look down. The sides of the cliff are white and brown, stained by the dark water that’s been cutting down through the stone forever. At the bottom of the gorge, the river runs fast over brown rocks and green moss, with curls and crests of foamy white.

  My Aunt Delia says, “Isn’t it pretty?”

  I nod, and she tells me about how the river comes down out of Alabama and flows all the way to the ocean. How it’s been here since the first people lived here, and how it’s eaten down through the rock—she calls it limestone—until it made this gorge. She tells me how the people came from the state university and climbed down into the gorge and found flint tools and arrowheads that belonged to people who lived here thousands of years ago. And then she tells me why this place is called Widow Rock.

  “It goes all the way back to Civil War, Killer. There was a woman who lived near the river, a farmer’s wife, and her husband was a soldier in the Confederate army. Do you know what that means?”

  I say yes. We studied it in history.

  “Anyway, this woman, her name was Mary Gray, or Cray, nobody knows for sure, she waited all through the war for her husband to come home, and he wrote her letters, and he fought in a lot of big and bloody battles, and she got letters from him all the way through to the end. She waited and she prayed for him to come home, and she kept the farm going—those were terrible times for people around here, Killer—and finally she heard from a man, a soldier who had fought with her husband, that he had been captured by the Yankees and put in a prison ’til the war ended, and then they let him out.”

  My Aunt Delia is still holding my hand, and I don’t mind because there’s nobody here but us, and we’re standing close to the edge of the cliff, and I won’t let her fall. I look up at her eyes, and I can see she’s gone far away, back to the time when the woman waited for her husband to come home from the war.

  “This man who had fought with her husband, who said he was a friend of her husband, told Mary Cray her husband didn’t want to come home to her. He said her husband had been let out of the prison and had gone off to start a new life somewhere else. He said her husband had gone to Birmingham or Atlanta to find another wife and have another family.

  “Mary Cray told the man he must be mistaken. If her husband had not come home, he could only be dead. Either he had been killed in battle or he had died in the Yankee prison. A lot of men did, Killer. They died of disease and starvation in those terrible prisons. But the man kept at her and kept at her. He wouldn’t leave Mary Cray alone. He said her husband was alive, and he could prove it. He said her husband had a young, pretty wife and new children, and he was never coming home.

  “Mary Cray called the man a liar. She said her husband was dead, and from that day on, she wore black, and she demanded to be called the Widow Cray. People saw her walking in the woods at night wearing her black widow’s dress and a long, black veil. Some people said she was a witch. Some said she was just crazy. Some said the man who kept at her had some grudge against her husband from the war. Some said he wanted Mary Cray to be his wife, and he knew she’d never take another man unless she came to hate her husband. Mary Cray appealed to the government for information abo
ut her husband, but the authorities couldn’t tell her what became of him. Some people say she traveled to Atlanta and Birmingham looking for him. Others say she never did that because she couldn’t believe he was alive and had not come home to her.

  “One night she came to the place where we’re standing, Killer, and she threw herself into the gorge. They found her down there on the rocks in her black dress and her long black veil, and that’s why they call this place Widow Rock. There wasn’t much of a town here when Mary Cray killed herself. But the railroad got built and some houses and stores took hold for the railroad workers and their families, and after fifty years, there was a town, and they called it Widow Rock.”

  I look up at my Aunt Delia. Her eyes are dark, and she looks out into the emptiness, and I know she’s not here. She’s back in the time of Mary Cray and seeing Mary Cray standing here, and then seeing her gone from here, her body floating down on the wings of that black veil, floating down like a big dying bird.

  My Aunt Delia says, “I used to come here alone a lot, but I don’t anymore. I used to stand here and wonder what thoughts were in Mary Cray’s mind the night she died, how she could do it, just fling herself off into the dark nothing like that. I don’t come here alone anymore, Killer. It’s better to come with a friend.”

  I say, “Wow,” and it’s a stupid thing to say, but I want my Aunt Delia’s eyes to come back to me. I don’t like what she’s saying, and I want to be her friend. We’re standing close to the edge, and the wind pushing up from the gorge is cool with that river spice, and it makes me dizzy. I pull my Aunt Delia’s hand, and she looks down and says, “What? Oh, Killer. You’re right. Let’s sit in the sun and enjoy our religious freedom.”