I left only a rind of the cheese and a crust of the bread. I opened the bottle of wine and drank heavily until there were only a few swallows left. By this time, Dethero had maneuvered Bess into the graveyard, and between us, we took the SoundScriber off her and I set the Edison batteries near the recording device but did not attach them. I did not want anything, even a dormant connection, to drain the reservoirs of their charge.
“We’ll piddle around in the farmhouses, I reckon, maybe see if there’s a stove or fireplace. Looks like it might rain,” Dethero said.
“That’s fine. You do that,” I said, focused on the task at hand. I took up the shovel. The wine and food had given me a preternatural strength I had not felt since . . . since I cannot remember when. France? Belgium?
“Diggin’?” Dethero said, agog. He looked bewildered. “Who in the hell you gonna dig up, mister?”
“I do not know,” I said. “Someone who can give me answers.”
“Let’s get the hell out of here, Mollie. Don’t want no part of this.”
Mollie looked reluctant to leave, though. She opened her mouth as if to say something. But Dethero made a chopping motion with his hand and she stopped abruptly. Soon I was alone in the graveyard. Silence returned. The grave and SoundScriber waited.
I placed the shovel blade in the loam, set my foot upon it, and drove it into the earth.
30
Harlan Parker: A Rind, a Crust, a Kiss
Night falls sometimes without your knowing. That is the way of it. There are no endings, just beginnings.
The soil was loose and sprung from the clutching grip of earth as if it wanted to be free. There were few rocks in the barrow clay, and a rich, opaline scent rose from it. I fell into the rhythms and syncopation of digging, my own private and onanistic percussive composition, fretting between movement and expectation, excitement driving me on. The rise and fall of breath and an invisible melody—a threnody—pulsing within and around me. It took on the shapes and contours of Honeyboy’s song. There was no room for anything else but the black wall and his melody. I moved in time with it. My head felt as though it were the seat of some infinite pressure. My nose ran freely with blood. My hands burned and rose with fat blisters from the shovel haft, suppurated, raw, wet. I felt strong and reveled in the strength of my body. I felt untethered from the earth that infused my pores, infested my mouth, lived in the cracks and crevices of my body.
It became too dark to see, so I lit the candles I had brought with me and placed them at the foot of the nameless stone angel and was waist-deep in the earth when my shovel hit wood. It was a matter of an hour more to clear the lid of the coffin and open it wide, revealing the figure within. There is no figure as disappointing as the withered husk of man. Clothes returned to gravesoil and dust, all the bones pushing through the remains of the flesh—scraps and parchment pieces drawn tight at the jawline and cheekbones like leather and in other places like vermin-chewed cloth that once held the stuff of life. He yawed, dramatic, in my vision. I moved the candles and sat and smoked and examined the remains. The mandibular bone leering and askew, cocked in a silent bellow, maybe. He had worn down his teeth in life, or they had rotted away, a diet rich in the sugar of apples. A he, surely, for the gravesoil gave the impression of a suit. By candlelight, I looked at my watch. It was only eight o’clock.
I rose from the grave and wandered out among the gravestones and through the wrought-iron gate to find Dethero and Mollie and rest before doing what I had to do.
It is late now, as I write this. I have reread what I have written in this field journal by candlelight. I have searched these words and recollections for some indication into the nature of Amoira, and the story of Honeyboy. The nature of “Crowned in Scarlet.” Couronné en écarlate.
A piece of music draws you on, leading you places you’ve never been. You’d never think of journeying to. Would that I had a hand-cranked Victrola. Once more with Mahler, Stravinsky, Liszt to wash away the melody that has infected me. Once more into the wheeling music of the heavens and spheres. I do not know where I will go from here. Preludio a Colón; L’amour, toujours, l’amour; Ce qu’on entend sur la montagne; Totentanz; Années de pèlerinage; Grande messe des morts; Das Lied von der Erde; La damnation de Faust; Scheherazade. I remember that hot day in Washington, walking with such purpose. I would hear Liebesträume once more. My fingers twitch in sympathetic response to the melody in my head.
But it is not Liebesträume. It is only “Crowned in Scarlet” that draws me onward.
Dethero and Mollie have made a fire, and we have eaten the last of our food—save for a crust of bread and a rind of cheese—and now I use the firelight to take down these thoughts. The girl and her father have gone to sleep and it seems that the whole world of night calls to me in its silence. The yellow firelight shifts on the old timbers of this rotten house. The heavy odor of moldering apples fills the air, and I have seen a variety of wildlife come into the moonlight of the black orchard, noses held high, scenting the litterfall, and then return to the darkness of the woods without eating—a deer, a raccoon, a possum, a fox.
He a bad man, Stackolee.
This world corrupts me and its sweetness—its impoverished and unthinking vice, its careless and unfeeling death—makes me carious with rot. I intend to go to the grave and hear “Crowned in Scarlet” in full. The girl and her father sleep, oblivious to the wonder that is soon to be revealed.
I go now. I go.
31
Mollie Dethero: A Testament of the Events at Cidersend
My name is Millicent Olive Dethero and my daddy told me to write everything down that I can remember about Mister Harlan Parker because neither him or my daddy have any letters. Mister Parker did, of course, since he wrote all the words in this here journal, but he doesn’t have them now—that’s for sure—and my daddy never had any so it’s just me to tell you what happened. Daddy thinks it’s important, too, so that the lawyers and government men don’t think we did something to him. Which we didn’t. So I’ve got to give my testament here before it all fades away.
I have read what’s in this journal and can’t say I understand very much of it but the parts of it that I did take in . . . well, it’s a real doozy, a whopper. The man is certifiable, as Ginny Haskins would say. “Absolutely certifiable, put him in the booby hatch,” she would say. “Lock him in the nutcase. Cat and tonic,” she would say. I know because she said the same thing about me when I shot her brother with my slingshot. I guess I should say now, since I wrote that all down and lawyers and government men will read it, that the only reason I shot her brother was because he kicked my dog, Flutterby, when they came onto our farm at the first of summer to swim in the creek. And I only shot him in the caboose as he ran away. Both Ginny and her brother were lucky I didn’t decide to shoot out their teeth, because I could’ve if I wanted to since I’m the best shot in Stone County. That isn’t a lie, it’s the simple truth, and anyone around here will tell you so. I thought about it, though, shooting out their darned teeth. I was gonna yell, “Hope you two like soup!” and then bust their choppers but I thought about the time I put the snake in Mikey’s bed when he was sleeping and it bit him something good and then he put all the poison ivy in my clothes and I spent a month oozing and itching. So, I didn’t bust their choppers. But I wanted to.
Mister Parker. He was a strange one.
When I think about him, it’s not about how he is now, but when he first came to our house asking about Cidersend, and not how he was on the trip back downriver. I could tell Daddy was going to go with him even before they talked money because he gets restless after a long summer and he once was a rover before Momma made him settle down.
So I knowed he was gonna bargain.
But Mister Parker. He was a big man, tall and gangly really, and he seemed like he could be old and young all at once if that makes any sense but even as I write it I can see it doesn’t. Maybe I should say that there were things about Mister Parker that were y
oung, and there were things about him that were old.
His skin was pale and loose, like he’d dropped some weight, and his shoulders sloped down like he was a man who had carried too much of a burden for too long a time. His eyes sunk into his head, like he’d seen too much or had been sick for a long time away from the sun. Or he had what Grandmam called the “sorrow-sickness.” His voice cracked and croaked when he talked and sang. He was always singing, and I don’t think he even knew he was doing it himself, like my grandmam, who’s always humming. Old folks don’t know what they’re doing all the time, I guess, and they lose control of their mouths. Or maybe, over the course of a lifetime, they get too full of thoughts, and music—music is a thought, ain’t it? It’s something someone thinks up, isn’t it, and then lets free into the world? Like a turtle. Or a baby bird, I guess. Music really isn’t like a turtle, is it? I don’t know.
But he was young, too. He had this really fierce gaze, if you understand what I mean. Like in the Bible in the Song of Songs when that Shulamite woman says “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave.” He had a look that made me think of those words from the Bible, if that makes any sense. I don’t take much from Bible studies, most of the time, but that sits upon me and comes to me at times when I don’t even want it.
So he had a fierce gaze, full of love. For things and thoughts and ideas. And music. Which is a thought, as I said before. Music is a thought that becomes sound. Mister Parker searched for music and so he searched for thoughts and maybe he picked the wrong thought to search for, in the end. But that made him seem far younger than he was, in my books. Also, he respected my daddy, even though they were from two different worlds, and only a young man from the big city would do that, not a man of his age. I guess I’d put him around forty, if I was guessing, but Daddy says younger and Dr. Crowley says older, judging by the state of his body. But the more I got to know him, I realized, he was even younger than his body really—isn’t your body really a thought too? Daddy says you are what you eat, and you choose to eat hard candy and peppermint, or you choose to eat vegetables, and so your body is just a mirror’s reflection of all your choices, right, so it’s the song that your mind makes. Does that make sense? Reverend Owens says we’re souls at sea riding on ships looking for a lighthouse. We’re candles in the dark.
But he was younger than his years, really, because he respected me too.
I liked him right from the start.
Maybe that’s not right.
I was interested in him from the start and the longer I spent with him, the more I liked him.
So, I was happy when Daddy asked me if I wanted to go a-roving with them.
I’ll admit here that I did see Mister Parker in his birthday suit when he came out of the White River. I’d been hunting squirrel, and I killed a couple and was looking for another in the wood by the shore when I heard Mister Parker’s singing and he came up out of the water on the shoreline. He was singing, “He’s a bad man, Stackerlee,” over and over in a croon, under his breath. And he was naked and dripping.
I’ve seen a man’s privates before—I’ve got brothers—so I wasn’t about to go hiding my eyes like I have curls in my hair or wear dresses and flounce about. It’s just regular business. And Mister Parker’s business wasn’t anything to get worked up over anyway. What I really noticed wasn’t his tallywhacker but the scars running down his back and legs, and the hollowed-out husk of his chest. He looked like a man who hadn’t eaten in a month and just got punched in the gut. Bowled over and reeling.
“Is that you, Mollie!” he cried out, and I nearly jumped out of my shoes thinking he might see me. When he covered his privates with his hands, I nearly laughed. I wanted to holler, “Why you covering up now, when I’ve already seen everything you got?” But I didn’t.
Then he did something strange. He cocked his head and looked at the leaves in front of the trees where I hid as if he was seeing something. I craned my head so I might see what he was looking at, but I couldn’t see it. And now, having read his journal, I can tell you for sure there was no raven with a snake in its mouth. And at the time I did not understand what he was doing but I was eager to get away, so that I wouldn’t be caught. So, when he walked on—and boy does a man’s buttocks look funny shifting back and forth as they walk, lemme tell you—I went back up in the woods and looked for another squirrel.
But I guess I should get to the part that you probably want to know about. Him making that recording at the grave.
It was obvious he had dug up the grave under the pointing angel. My daddy might not have figured it out, but I knew the moment he sat down and started eating that moldy piece of bread and that green cheese. He seemed different then. Happy maybe. Like he was where he wanted to be.
So, I waited until he came back. Daddy and I set up camp in the least run-down of the houses and made a fire in the fireplace. If it rained, we would’ve been drenched—I could see the stars through the rafters and there was a hoot owl blowing noise into the night somewhere in the house above us. When Mister Parker returned, he was filthy with dirt and he floated like a ghost made of soil into the house and sat down and ate food, humming and muttering all the while, rocking back and forth. He smoked and drank some coffee Daddy had brewed for him—I love my daddy because he’s a good man who believes he is his brother’s keeper—and then Mister Parker bowed his head and wrote in his journal for two, maybe three hours. He could’ve been a priest or one of those robed monks like they have out west, near Subiaco.
I lay down near Daddy, who was snoring away—he’d had a nip of the shine, for sure, and ate two tins of sardines by himself and smoked many cigarettes, so he was cutting some lumber, let me tell you. Sawing and sawing. I closed my eyes but only barely and watched Mister Parker work in the failing firelight. He rocked back and forth and at some point his nose bled even though I didn’t see him pick at it and he simply wiped the blood away in long streaks down the length of his forearm and sang to himself in a circle, “I am like a mountain, and need no crown on me. I am an ocean, a black and churning sea. I am a mountain, ain’t need no crown on me, I’m a bad man, Stack-o-Lee,” and the way he sang it seemed as though he was talking to somebody, in the same way my grandmam does sometimes, having conversations with people she knew in different places and long ago. And that scared me some. What could have happened that even after a person is long gone—maybe even dead and in the ground—you still want to keep talking to them?
Maybe I fell asleep. I think I did, because I remember being startled that the firelight was gone and the whole house was lit up blue and ghostlike in the moonfall. Mister Parker was gone. So I pushed myself up and, making sure I didn’t wake Daddy, walked out into the orchard and then to Idyll’s End.
It’s here I should say I ain’t much afraid of anything, not boy or girl, not man or woman. If there’s such a thing as a ghost, it seems like a pretty poor and meager thing to get all worked up about, since all they can do is maybe make faces at you or remind you of something that was done long ago. No reason to be scared. I have snatched water moccasins out of the creek and I’ve stared down a pack of wild dogs once with only my slingshot to protect me. I wouldn’t mess with a bear, though, not because they aren’t deserving of fear—they most definitely are—but because all the bears I’ve ever seen were content to just go about their own business and want more than anything to just be left alone. I’ll give them that.
I don’t have no truck with geese, though, other than eatin’ them. They’re mean, evil birds and I kill every one of them that comes within reach of my shot. I do.
But I forget myself.
Idyll’s End and the grave.
I came in on cat’s feet, like when I hunt. I can move silent as hell when I’m of a mind but even if I’d waltzed in, singing at the top of my lungs, I doubt Mister Parker would have heard it.
He’d lit some candles, a couple at the base of the vengeful angel
and one he put at the side of the grave. He went to the recording machine and connected it to the batteries and then carefully withdrew a record—just like one you’d put on a Victrola, except without the grooves, if you understand—and placed it on the recorder and flipped some switches and buttons and levers and then moved away. He said, “This is Harlan Parker in Cidersend. I don’t know what day it is.” He stopped like he’d forgotten what he was saying and then looked up at the sky for a long time. “Close to the autumnal equinox, I think. Idyll’s End. Somewhere in Arkansas. God help me.”
There was a heaping mound of dirt at the statue’s feet and Mister Parker climbed down into the grave like he was sore all over, which I imagine he was, having dug it only hours before.
When he was in the grave, he placed the candle down under the ground level where I couldn’t see and then grabbed his bag and said, “Kiss the crust of my body,” and put something in his mouth.
Then: “Eat the rind of my cheese.” And he ate that too. Finally, he uncorked the bottle with a pop and said, “Drink the blood of my body,” and he drank the rest of the wine.
His head tilted back and he flopped forward into the grave where I couldn’t see him.
Now, this is where it gets a little different, I guess. All of this is true and we brought back his records and the SoundScriber, so if you don’t believe me, listen to the recording and you’ll see—you’ll hear—that everything I have said is true. Maybe I didn’t notice the mist coming up from Hell Creek, but I noticed then that the air was hazy and all around us the forest had gone silent again.
A Lush and Seething Hell Page 30