by River Jordan
Kate walks past him and sticks a HELP WANTED sign in the window.
“What’s for dinner, Aunt Kate?”
“Well, it looks like you’re gonna sit here long enough to find out.”
Butch asks one more time, “Where did Nehemiah go?”
“I told you, he didn’t say,” Billy tells him, “Did he say anything to you, Trice?”
Trice looks up at Butch and shakes her head, no. Then goes back to her paper.
Strange girl, thinks Butch. Well, at least different. This whole place is different. I wonder if the senator has ever been here. Wonder if he really knows Nehemiah is from here. “Wait,” he tells me. “Watch,” he tells me. Well, I’m waiting. And I’m watching.
“Well, Trice, how about you and me mosey on over to Zadok’s so I can get a haircut,” Billy says.
“I’ll just wait here for you.” Trice is intently preoccupied with the curves and lines on her paper.
“Nope. You can’t.” Billy reaches up and pulls the toothpick from his mouth. “Nehemiah said.”
“All right, all right.” She pushes back her chair, rises up from the table, but doesn’t make it to the door before Kate has the back of her hand up against Trice’s forehead.
“You feverish?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I haven’t seen you look so pale, Trice, since you had pneumonia. Billy, you keep an eye on her.” She looks around the diner. “Now where’d your brother get off to?”
“Didn’t say.”
“Oh, he’s a good one for disappearing without even saying good-bye. That’s one thing I know. Might as well keep an eye peeled back on that boy because there is no telling. Matter of fact, I’ve got a mind to make a phone call or two and round him up.” She stops, hand on hip, thinking. “Matter of fact, I got a mind to get in my car and go round him up, and I can do it, too.” She aims this last statement toward Butch, who recognizes talent when he sees it. Has no doubt this woman can round up anything she wants. “But I guess since you’re still sitting here, chances are he’s still around.”
“I hope so.” Butch replies. But he decides right then and there, if Nehemiah isn’t back within the hour, he’s going to offer to take this woman for a ride. And she can drive. A man needs to recognize his resources when he sees them.
Monday, 11:47 A.M.
Nehemiah pulls up at the churchyard. The clouds have run together now so that the very heavens appear blocked, the sky pressing down close and hard to the ground. Nehemiah opens the car door and rubs his throat, remembering the choking, breathless feeling of his first night at the springs. I can see the parched look on his face, and the parched place trying to patch itself into his spirit. In the time that he has driven from the diner to the church he has indeed, as Trice has seen, been fading away. And he is becoming angrier by the moment. And now, with every mile and moment that he has drawn closer to this meeting, his soul has been moving in the opposite direction. It’s a handful of second thoughts and self-direction that reaches for the church door. And it’s a fugitive of faith that releases it, and without understanding why, begins to run in the opposite direction of his car, of Trice, and of Shibboleth. Out across the field of tombstones where there is nothing but death in his decision.
Inside Pastor Brown sits in a familiar pew. His sun-spotted hand rubs the worn wood. After all these years he is wondering what it feels like to sit here, year after year, watching him, listening to him. Waiting on him to make a move that is never made. And now he is waiting for his opportunity to be the help he couldn’t be, or wouldn’t be, so long ago.
There is a loud sucking sound around the window, one so powerful that the church’s very foundation feels it. The pastor rises to his feet, and exclaims, “Not yet!” It’s not a sorry hope, but a great command of a man of faith, shaken but not shattered, and I respond without a thought, without a plea, just instant accord. I spread out my wings, in their fullness from edge to edge, and hold up the corners of the roof.
The windows rattle and do not stop. They shiver and sigh as if they will relinquish their hold at any moment and cave in, and as the glass begins to crack around the edges of their panes, a moan is heard roaming just behind the windowsills. And beyond it, the sound of Nehemiah’s cries reach the pastor’s ears.
Pastor Brown strides purposefully through the pews. A man full of remorse, but also repentance. He knows the dimension of his dominion. Without hesitation, without fear, the pastor throws open the door and steps outside. A dark, transparent fog has moved in below the horizon, seeping up from the ground as if night has been turned upside down. As if the sky will meet the dirt and erase all of Shibboleth into oblivion once and for all. And although the dark remains, the moment the pastor steps outside with a level gaze, the wind is sucked back into itself, as if something is holding its breath. Pastor Brown begins to call Nehemiah’s name loud and long.
Over at the barbershop, Zadok is trimming around the ears of Wiley Yinger, but the two aren’t shooting the breeze like they usually do. They’ve run out of words, are just going through the motions. And neither of them finds it peculiar or awkward when Wiley stands, puts his ball cap back on his head, and walks out without paying. Soon, Wiley is a block away and Zadok has forgotten he was even there.
This is how Billy and Trice find him. Fuddled. Not at all himself. Not the outgoing “Howdy, neighbor.” Or trying to tell the last joke he heard even though Zadok can’t get a punch line right to save his life.
Billy sits down in the barber chair. Zadok stands behind the chair with a straight razor in his hand. He looks at the back of Billy’s head as if he’d forgotten how to cut hair.
Trice sits down and begins flipping through an old copy of Field and Stream. Then she glances up at Zadok. Her eyes automatically go back to the page, but then she slowly raises them and looks at Zadok. “Hey, Billy, maybe we should come back later for your haircut.” Trice is watching.
“Just a little off around the ears, Zadok…” Billy looks at Trice and scowls, “Maybe a little off the top.”
“Billy, let’s come back, later.”
“Trice, can I just get a haircut? Can I? Everybody fusses at me and now that I’m finally here, you are ready to go.”
“Get up out of that chair, Billy. Now.”
Billy looks at Trice standing in front of him. Looks at the fury in her eyes, at her I mean business look, with her curls threatening to come undone. He turns to look at Zadok to try to understand Trice’s behavior, but then he notices something peculiar, and the hair stands up on the ends of his arms and on the back of his neck. Zadok isn’t there. Not really. Oh, the outward shell of the man is standing with a straight razor in his hand, looking back at Billy without much expression, but what is happening inside that shell, he couldn’t tell you.
“Zadok, I think we’re gonna put this off for just now.”
Trice locks her hand on the crook of Billy’s arm, and they back out of the door.
The wind whips around them as they step outside. The sidewalk the square and are peculiarly quiet. As they look around the streets, there is an absence of all life in Shibboleth. There is something, a whole lot of somethings, missing.
“What the hell was all that?” Billy is looking back over his shoulder, still staring at the ghostly apparition of Zadok looking blankly at him through the glass window.
“I’m not sure he knows who he is anymore. Or at least, right now he’s not who he used to be.” She puts her hands in the back pockets of her jeans, thumbs hanging out. “And he sure can’t be trusted with a razor around your head.”
“It’s spreading, isn’t it, Trice?”
“Not spreading so much as erasing. Like a horrible vacuum.” They walk across the street, toward the square. Both of them are looking left and right over their shoulders. Behind them. Billy looks down the road, into the distance. No traffic. A complete and total lack of traffic. And while he is studying the distance of the empty highway leading out of town, they take a seat on the ben
ch beneath the old Shibboleth Heritage Oak. And Trice sits for a moment, but for only a moment, because when she looks up into the branches of the oak tree she doesn’t see the branches. She sees in pictures.
Now, I can’t tell you exactly what happens in the next moments because they are things unheard and unspoken. They are the whisperings of life to life. But it is a type that is not so easily recognized. I can tell you that Billy is talking. Is saying something about how it’s, “Definitely time to get something done.” And more things like, “I never thought Shibboleth would come to this.” And his conversational mutterings never seem to stop. But Trice doesn’t appear to notice, and he doesn’t appear to notice that she isn’t responding.
Trice is listening to memories. Memories that have filtered up from that bench all of its life. Memories that have clung like moss to the branches of that Oak, have latched themselves on and refused to let go. Memories that were here long before the bench was built, back to the beginning of Shibboleth. And the memories are wrapped in the stories, and right now, strings of the stories are raining down on Trice from those branches in streams. Streams and strings of stories. And look closely, this is the part that you will love. Trice is raising her arms. Trice’s hands are outstretched. Trice is capturing the memories and stories of young people sparking, and of old people telling stories, and of all people laughing and crying while they are told. She is capturing the voices of children on bicycles calling to one another, full of summer and full of joy, passing beneath the breadth of the Oak. Peddling through the shady shadows of its arms’ reach.
Billy looks over and finally is able to hush. As he watches Trice, with arms stretched up and wide now, with her eyes closed, a smile flickering on her face, he knows that she is gathering something he can’t see. Now we begin, he thinks, and he stands up to his full stature. On his guard. Protecting Trice. Just in case.
Pastor Brown has stopped calling Nehemiah. He knows now that Nehemiah won’t, or can’t, answer. He walks through the graveyard, stepping between the tombstones, some of them already unreadable in the shadows. The pastor continues to the edge of the adjacent woods and beyond. He circles through the brush and trees until he finds what he’s looking for, a huddled shape beneath the trees. Nehemiah’s back is leaning against the remains of an old lightning-struck pine tree. It is, and is not, the Nehemiah of your understanding. And I hate to see that it’s come to this. I long to intercede and look to God, wait for a sign, a signal, but there is none. So I wait. And watch.
The two of them remain here like this. Nehemiah continues rocking, his arms locked around his knees, his teeth remain clenched, his words like daggers that escape between them. “I didn’t want…” and the rest of the response is lost in his groaning.
The pastor crouches down beside him, speaking in a low, soft tone. “You’ve reached the place of your decision, Nehemiah.” He points around him but he doesn’t touch the wild, brown-eyed man. “Fight the will and the will fights you.” Nehemiah covers his ears with his hands. “Kick against your purpose and it kicks you back.” The pastor looks up at the dark sky, at the inky mist rising from the ground, and his voice drops to a whisper, “And there is no peace.”
“I didn’t want…” Nehemiah tries again and the pastor responds from some innate place of understanding because there aren’t enough words being said to help him along.
“I know, you never wanted what was given to you. All that strange responsibility.” The pastor stands and as he does so, both knees pop. He looks over his shoulders, half-expecting, half-hoping for divine intervention. At the least, not wanting any more interference of the other kind. For a moment he wishes it was Trice standing here instead of him. Almost wills it to be so. But then he thinks of something, and slowly kneels down again. “Here’s what’s gonna happen. You’re gonna lead and we’re gonna follow. And if you lead us into this darkness, that’s where we’ll go. Right along with you. Me and Kate and Catfish and Magnus.” He slowly stands again, thinks of his garden, just a patch of green and wonders when was the last time that he planted something. How odd, he thinks, I’ve lost track of the seasons. He stares out through the woods, thinks he sees something moving. Then he remembers Nehemiah, remembers his reasoning. “Yep, we’ll all follow. Cassie and Wheezer, Obie and Zadok, and Blister. Every last Skipper, Gallas, and Getty. Every last one of us in Shibboleth. We’re going to follow you right into this,” he brushes his hands against the black mist. “And of course that includes Billy and Trice,” and he kneels down low enough to stare into the eyes that refuse to look back, “because your life is linked to our lives.” A tree begins cracking near them, shaking and swaying. Then another. Then the trees begin to fall. “And we have no say in that matter. None whatsoever. It’s all a part of the plan.” Pastor Brown looks at the trees closest to them. “So go ahead and fight who you are and we’ll stand right here fighting with you.” A tree crashes next to them so close a piece of bark flies off and cuts the pastor’s face. He doesn‘t flinch but pulls his handkerchief from his pocket, swipes at the blood and looks at it, saying, “That is until nothing is left of us that you might recognize.”
Nehemiah’s shaking becomes less severe. His eyes begin to regain their focus, the pupils slowly getting smaller. Pastor Brown sits down next to him, and drapes his arm over Nehemiah’s shoulder, something he has never done in all these years. “I should have talked to you a long time ago. I should have helped you way back when. This would have all been so much easier then.” He waves a hand again at the air and the trees. “Or maybe it wouldn’t have been at all.”
Nehemiah tries to nod yes. The color starts to come back into his face. He doesn’t want to be afraid. Hates the thought, really. And it’s not the fear of what he is that has brought him to this point. It’s the knowledge of what it will require of him. Or the suspicion of what he thinks it will take away. He’s a man of acquired tastes. And he likes them. All of them. Just what is it that God wants from me, anyway? The shakes return and for a moment threaten to become violent. I’m a good man, he screams. But the scream is inside and no one responds. And a good man should be good enough. But then there is an echo of the pastor’s words. “We’ll all follow you. Every last one. Including Billy and Trice.” And those names roll ’round and ’round. Billy and Trice, Billy and Trice, like a pair of dice rocking in and out of his reasoning.
“Trice?” Nehemiah is still speaking with shaking jaws.
“What about her?”
“She’s not,” the shaking starts again, harder and he waits until it dissipates. “She’s not afraid of…” and he doesn’t finish.
“Of what? The strangeness? It makes her a bit odd, I know. But Nehemiah, I’ve got news for you,” Pastor Brown tries to steady the shaking shoulder while he watches the trees overhead, “Trice is not afraid of anything. Trice is perfectly content with being Trice.”
And right now, under the Heritage Oak in the town square, this appears to be true. Trice is listening and gathering. There is a smile on her face, and in the midst of that smile, tears begin to stream from her eyes, roll down her cheeks, run onto her neck and down the front of her shirt. Billy stands with his arms crossed, no longer watching Trice but watching anything in her path, watching for anything that might interfere with what is happening. If I told you that five minutes had passed as they stood here, you would underestimate the magnitude of those moments. If I told you it’s been all day, you’d shake your head and say, No way. I can tell you it is a time of transference. And, really, that’s all time and no time at all.
Eventually, Trice lowers her chin, opens her eyes, and wiping her face, turns to Billy. He stands quietly watching her. “It’s time to go get Nehemiah.”
They consider for a moment the possibility of this as the wind and black mist whips about them. As if stepping off the island of the Oak is not a wise decision. As if they have found their anchor in the middle of the tempestuous surface of the city. Then simultaneously they put one foot down off the curb followed by t
he other.
“Let me drive, Billy,” Trice says. And he lets her. When they are looking for something lost she usually gets behind the wheel. It helps her feel her way along while Billy keeps a lookout. Dogs, missing cats, one time Obie had a husband that went missing but he was never found. Billy looks at Trice’s jaw, at the squint between her eyes. He’s hoping their looking will have better results.
“Remember Obie’s husband, Trice.” They both stare into the diner windows out of habit as they drive past.
“Obie’s husband didn’t want to be found, Billy, simple as that.” Trice cranks the window down in spite of the wind. And as she circles the block one more time, as the wind hits the side of the truck like an iron fist, Billy cast his thoughts out toward his brother just like bait on a line, and tries with all his might to mentally reel him in.
Old Blue passes Magnolia Street and farther down on the edge of town. It passes by the road to Billy’s house, and he thinks to suggest they go check there but he figures Trice knows where they’re headed but he asks her anyway for good measure, “You know where we’re headed?”
“We’re fixin’ to find out if I do or I don’t,” she says. In a little while she turns and drives down the road to the church and they can spot the white Malibu in the distance. Trice pulls Old Blue up right next to the car but they don’t get out. Not right away. A buzzard is watching, circling high up in the sky.
“Something don’t feel right,” Billy says.
“You’ve got that right, Billy.” Trice rolls up the window and puts her hand on the silver door handle but she doesn’t open it. “The church door’s never left open like that.”