Out of the Night That Covers Me

by Pat Cunningham Devoto

  He got up slowly to follow her. He didn’t even think to ask about a bathing suit or a towel or a change of clothes for when he finished his swim. “Wait, Shell. I can’t keep up,” he called after her as she jumped off the back porch and he slowly negotiated the wooden steps. His feet were tender on the bottom and still too swollen on top for shoes. Of course Shell always went barefoot.

  She waited for him to catch up. “Last summer was when we first went to the pond, me’n Butch,” she said. “Now he don’t come much anymore, but I still do.” They had walked away from the back of the house, past the water pump and the outhouse, to the edge of their island afloat in a sea of cotton fields. She casually stretched the barbed wires to make a place for them to climb through the fence that bordered the back field. “Go on. I got holt of it,” she said as she motioned.

  He hesitated. “Are we supposed to be going through where there’s not a proper opening?”

  “We are, ’less you wanta walk a mile round to the gate.” She pointed to the opposite side of the field that looked to be half a mile away. He bent and climbed through. They walked in among rows of cotton plants that were stronger and taller than the ones he had hoed. He was careful not to disturb this field, which, he now knew, was hard-won by some past chopper’s labor. On this cotton, the blooms had died away and healthy green bolls were taking shape.

  “This here, Pa and Little Luther done early on, so it’s had plenty of good growin’ time,” she said.

  “They hoed this whole field?” He looked up, trying to calculate the number of rows, but quickly gave up. He needed to concentrate on where he was going and not step on rocks or other sharp things.

  “Chopped it, fertilized it, poisoned it. It’s the first one he done, so it’s the best. Thing is, the whole time Mamma was gone, he didn’t hit a lick on them other fields. That’s how come they so puny.”

  They walked toward a line of trees in the middle of the field. The sun shone in a cloudless sky. Morning breezes swept dust up off the ground and deposited it on cotton leaves. “We should have brought hats, Shell.” He was feeling the beginning of warmth on the top of his head.

  “We ain’t gonna be in the sun long enough to matter,” she said. Soon their feet felt the change from hot, dry dirt to the cool grass that grew up under the trees. They had come into a small woodland in the middle of the cotton field.

  “This is beautiful, Shell, like a picture,” he said. A creek ran through the trees, forming a draw that meandered through the landscape, saving the land from erosion when it was empty of cotton plants. At this spot, the water swelled into a pond where beavers had made a dam. The only sound was the wind passing through tulip poplar leaves high above them.

  When they reached the edge of the pond, Shell wandered over and sat down, her back to a tree with branches that overhung the water. “This here is it. Help yourself.”

  John eyed the grass and trees growing up to the water’s edge. “Are there any snakes around here, like Aunt Nelda said?”

  “Nah, too grassy. Mamma’s just overcautious.” She took up some small rocks and pitched them in the water. Nothing moved but the circles of water traveling back to shore. “See? Nothin’. That’s ’cause they like big rocks to sun on. I ain’t seen any here all summer. Go jump on in. It’ll feel good to your skin. I’m gonna sit here and make a dandelion army.” She began to pick yellow dandelion heads off their stems.

  He hesitated, remembering somewhere in the back of his mind that he should have a swimsuit on. Then he dismissed the thought, eased off his shirt, and stepped forward to the edge, letting the mud ooze between his toes. He watched the water close around the broken blisters on his ankles. It was the first time he had had a bath or what might pass for a bath since he came to Lower Peach Tree.

  The water felt better than anything he could remember. He thought about this as he waded deeper and deeper out into the pond. Was it better than Sunday dinner at the Reeder Hotel in Bainbridge or the train trip he and his mother had taken to Memphis? She had always said those were the best things. He was up to his waist now and his whole body began to shake with pleasure. This was better. This was better. He had never felt this happy at Sunday dinner at the Reeder Hotel. He had liked the trip to Memphis, but he couldn’t remember much about it now. He ducked his face, glasses and all, down into the water and came up only to take a breath. “Shell, I’m going to stay here all afternoon. You may go back to the house if you like, but I am definitely staying here.”

  Shell didn’t look up from her army of dandelion tops she had assembled and was now dropping one by one into the water. “You can’t. The grease Mamma put on you’ll wash off after awhile and then the mosquitoes will get you, and the no-see’ums, too.”

  His feet squished through the muddy bottom until only his head was above water. “I don’t care. A few mosquito bites couldn’t hurt me.” He swirled his arms slowly through the water. “My whole body is thanking me for doing this, Shell.” She dropped more yellow tops into the water, then picked up a stick to swirl them around.

  “Suit yourself.”

  They stayed this way in the cool of the pond. He, dipping his head in and out of the water, swishing his arms around in figure eights, and walking the mud bottom back and forth the length of the pond. She, playing with her dandelions, began to make a frog house by covering her foot with mud. When she had packed the mud firmly around one foot, she slipped it out to leave living quarters for the frog. She began to cover the house with dandelions, all the while explaining to him how a lady frog would come and live in this house and have her babies there.

  “Why did you come here just last summer, Shell? If I were you, I would have been coming to this pond every day since I was a baby.”

  “We didn’t live here ’til last summer. We used to lived in Mill Town, next door to my friend Melba, and we had a hose with a sprinkler to play under.” She looked up and watched him swirling his arms. “That was better than this. I know it was, even if Mamma don’t say it was. I know it was better.”

  “Because why?” He began to feel his head. The blisters had broken and left such a gooey mess of his hair, he would have to let the water slowly loosen his crusted scalp. He looked down at his arms. The dead skin was turning white. He could lift large strips of it off, like peeling a grape.

  “Because we could go to the bathroom indoors and we had lights in all the rooms, that’s why. All my friends was there.” She had completely covered her frog house with yellow dandelions. “If Pa hadn’t gone and tried to unload them packin’ crates, we still would be there.”

  “What packing crates?” He cupped water in his hands and poured it on his hair.

  “You know, packin’ crates at the mill. They use’m to haul off twine in.” She had begun to make a little trail leading away from the frog house, using small rocks to line the path. “The foreman said to Mamma, ‘Three times was a charm and he was sorry, but it was for safety reasons, and no one would hire him, with him drinkin’ like he done.’”

  John had dipped his head back in the water and was half-listening to Shell. “Drinking what?”

  Shell looked up at him in wonder. “Like when he gets drunk from drinkin’ too much. Don’t you even know that?”

  “Oh, yes,” he said, considering it before ducking his head in the water again. “I remember in Treasure Island, when Long John Silver was—” He felt her staring at him. “Of course I know all about that, Shell.” He bent over quickly to hold his head underwater until the subject had passed. When he resurfaced, she had resumed making her frog house’s sidewalk. He decided not to try to explain the life cycle of a frog to her. Let her think that the frog would come live in the house and have its babies. He didn’t care.

  After a time, he came closer to inspect her house. Then he waded back across the pond to a place where maypops grew on vines tangled in the weeds. He picked a maypop flower and brought it to her for a decoration for her frog house.

  She took it, but only out of politeness.
She knew maypops did not belong on frog houses.

  CHAPTER 13

  LATE in the afternoon, Shell said she had to go so she could get back to help with supper. “Besides, I ’spect them no-see’ums is ’bout ready to eat you alive when you get out of that water, you bein’ moist and all. The later we wait, the worse it’s gonna get. Them no-see’ums is worse than them mosquitoes.”

  He didn’t care what she said. He would stay as long as there was daylight. After awhile longer, she said, “Okay, if that’s the way you’re gonna be. I’m goin’. I gotta get on back.”

  “Oh, all right, if you’re going to be that way, Shell.” He dragged himself out of the water. All the grease that Aunt Nelda had put on him was long gone. He could feel the no-see’ums landing on his legs. He grabbed his shirt and tried to fend them off. On the way back, the no-see’ums struck with a vengeance. Shell was right. He grabbed at himself to keep them off, and when he did that, he would slap a part of his body that was still tender from the sun and jerk back in pain. By the time they reached the porch, he was itching on every part of his body, but every time he scratched, there was more pain. John looked down, to see blood coming from the places he had been scratching. He was miserable if he scratched and miserable if he didn’t. He found himself dancing around, stomping his feet, waving his arms to try to keep the tiny gnats away, just as Shell said he would.

  Aunt Nelda was standing in the kitchen door, wiping her hands. “Didn’t you tell him to get on back here before the gnats come out—and look at that. You don’t have a speck of lotion left on you, John.”

  “I done told him to come on back ’fore the grease come off, but he wouldn’t pay me no mind.” They both stood looking at him as if he were some pitiful dog come up to the porch to beg.

  “Come on, Shell.” Aunt Nelda turned to go into the kitchen. “We got to get supper on the table. Get on up under them quilts, John, and Shell will bring you out some lotion and dry clothes directly.”

  He eased himself down in his quilts and tried not to scratch. That evening, to make matters worse, Uncle Luther said he must come to the supper table for the first time since he got burned. “If he can go swimmin’, then he sure as hell’s well enough not to have nobody waitin’ on him. It’s the ones that work that get the waitin’ on.”

  They had cornbread and beans, squash, and tomatoes out of Shell’s garden. For dessert, blackberries that Shell had picked down on the road to the swamp field.

  Uncle Luther pointed his fork at John. “It’s back out to the fields tomorrow.” The fork went back to his plate and scooped up a mound of beans. Several beans dropped back on the plate as he shoved the rest in his mouth and began to talk. “Too much work in the fields for lollygaggin’.”

  Aunt Nelda said, “The boy ain’t hardly recovered from his sunburn. Look at them blisters on his arms. Look at them pieces of skin.” She reached over and stripped a large section of dead skin from his upper arm.

  John noticed that the more Aunt Nelda talked to Uncle Luther, the more she began to sound like him. Uncle Luther held an empty fork in midair. “But he is recoverin’, ain’t he?” He looked at Nelda with satisfaction. “Well, ain’t he? And you wantin’ to call the Doc out here to look at him. Think of the money we woulda wasted, and me bein’ beholden to the Doc to boot.”

  “His skin ain’t even started to peel good. I just don’t think it’s a good idea—”

  “It don’t matter what you think, Nelda. I’m the one does the thinkin’ round here. He needs to learn to take care of hisself better.” He took a gulp of his water. “Besides the fact I got five more days of work in the swamp field that shoulda been finished up three weeks ago.” He leaned on the two back legs of his chair and took a toothpick out of his shirt pocket. “You want me to make a crop, Nelda. I’m makin’ a crop. But it don’t get done sittin’ around on your butt.” He shook his head no as Aunt Nelda tried to give him a bowl of blackberries. All the while, his eyes were looking around the room. Then the front two legs of his chair slammed down on the floor and he got up. “I got business in town,” he said to no one, and headed to the door, grabbing his hat off the wooden peg near the door frame.

  “How you gonna go?” she asked. “Don’t the truck still have that dead battery?”

  “I’ll walk. It’ll do me good.”

  Immediately, Aunt Nelda said, “Little Luther will go with you.”

  Little Luther looked up from his blackberries. “Mamma, do I have to?”

  “Of course you want to go with your daddy.”

  Luther glared at her. “Him goin’ with me or not goin’ with me ain’t gonna keep me from doin’ what I want to do.” The door slammed behind him.

  “Go on with your daddy,” she said.

  Little Luther put his spoon down and upended his bowl to get the last of the berry juice. Then he scraped back his chair and followed his father out the door.

  “Oh, those men. They do beat all.” She began cleaning off the table as she told Shell to go draw more water from the pump for washing dishes. “And don’t dawdle.”

  Aunt Nelda brightened. “As soon as we make this crop, we’ll be out of this place. Have indoor water again,” she called after Shell. “It won’t be long.”

  The boy watched as she cleared plates, revolted with her, with this place, with everything. His eyes were swelling up again because of the bites on his face. His fingers could hardly bend to hold his spoon. His knuckles were cracked and bleeding from the sunburn. He held his head down and mumbled into his blackberries.

  “What’s that?” she said, still clearing dishes.

  “I said,” he said softly, “why do you do everything he says?”

  “What?” She stopped what she was doing and looked at him.

  He raised his head out of the bowl. “I said,” he began, and then said even louder, “why?” And then louder still: “Why?” And then almost a shout: “Why do you do everything he says? Why don’t you tell him to get out?” He stood up out of his chair. “And why don’t you at least tell him to use good manners?”

  Aunt Nelda stood there staring at him and then broke into laughter. “That’s a good one. That’s a real good one, just what I need to end my day, a little joke. If you don’t have a lot of your mother’s sass in you.” She looked at him with tired eyes.

  “It’s not funny,” he said, frustrated tears welling up. “Why do you let him rule us like that? I’m not ready to go back to the fields. It’s not fair.”

  She put down dirty dishes, reached her hand in the pocket of her apron, and took out a crumpled pack of Lucky Strikes, then went to the stove to pick up the big box of stove matches. Coming back to the table, she sat down, got out a cigarette, and lit it. She took a deep breath of smoke and blew it on the match, putting out the flame, then let the match drop out of her hand onto the table.

  Aunt Nelda looked straight at him and spoke in a voice he had never heard before. It was direct, almost menacing. “What you want me to do, smart boy? Just tell me, what plan you got in mind?” She sounded like Uncle Luther now, completely devoid of any pretense.

  She took another drag on her cigarette and looked at the peeling wallpaper that some former tenant had pasted to one wall. There was only the loud ticking of his mother’s clock in this room that passed for a living and eating space.

  The clock, which in times past had given dignity to other rooms with its ticking and chiming, now only mocked its surroundings. It had originally belonged to Nelda’s mother and had been in the living room of the mill house where Nelda and John’s mother, Edna, had grown up. Nelda had always wanted it, but it had gone to her sister because she was the eldest. Before that happened, Nelda had made plans for the clock. It would not waste its life away in a tiny mill house. It would sit over the mantel of the foreman’s house in Mill Town. She would not spend her life like her mother, living in the cramped quarters of an ordinary mill house. She had other plans.

  Nelda was in the ninth grade when she noticed the foreman’s
house as she passed by it going to and from school. That would be her house. She would marry someone who was strong enough to become foreman at the mill.

  She picked out Luther long before Luther even knew she existed. He was two classes ahead of her and the most popular boy in his class. Of course, Luther was no student, but grades didn’t matter: Nelda had brains enough for both of them. Luther was big, and nobody pushed him around. He would make a perfect mill foreman. And she was pretty back then, prettier than her sister. It would be no problem to get Luther. It was only a matter of time before that clock would sit on the mantel in the foreman’s house. It had been an honorable and respectable ambition for a girl in her position. All the other girls in Mill Town had no idea what their future might be. They just drifted along, but not Nelda and her sister.

  Edna, the firstborn, had worked hard at her studies and won a scholarship to the University of Alabama. Nelda had worked on Luther.

  The plan had come unraveled when her mother up and died and left the clock to her sister. By that time, Nelda had dropped out of school to marry Luther, and Edna had married John’s father just before he left to go fight in Europe.

  She took another drag and blew out the smoke in large clouds that hung in air already saturated with the smells of supper. She jerked her head around to John.

  “Just tell me, smart boy! What you want me to do?”

  “You could tell him to leave and . . . and never come back or, or if he wants to stay he’ll have to be nice.”

  She looked at him and then burst out laughing. “My goodness, but you just have a head full of sense, don’t you?” She shook her head in mock agreement. “Let’s see now. He should leave his own house. He rented this here house from the Rawlstons, providin’ we make a crop and give them a share. It’s his house. It’s his crop. Had to get furnishin’ from the bank. The Rawlstons wouldn’t even scotch us for the seed and fertilizer. Now we gotta pay that back. You got any other brilliant ideas, city boy?” Her fingers mashed the dead match, grinding it into the wood of the old table.