WHERE TROUBLE SLEEPS

by Clyde Edgerton

  After God had made the light and the air, water from the clouds ran down and made rivers and lakes in all the valleys, while the dry hills rose up above them ... Next He made man in His own image so that he could think, speak, pray, and therefore rule over everything that God had made so Jar. Humans would be His own sons and daughters. So He made a beautiful place for them to live—with fruit trees and flowers and grass and warm, pleasant weather for them to live in. He called it the Garden of Eden.

  ...And the woman was made by God out of a rib from the man's side. They were called Adam and Eve, and they were the first father and mother of everybody born into the world ... Each man will have one woman made especially for him, and he will find her some happy day in his life, and each woman will find the one man she is made for. And what God has brought together, no man should take apart.

  WHISKEY AND MILK

  Jack Umstead parked at a peach stand just south of Winnsboro, South Carolina. No customers were around. The woman working there looked a little bit old, but not too old.

  "Howdy, howdy," he said. "How about I buy two of your very finest peaches. And if you don't mind, I'd like you to pick them out. One for now and one for down the road."

  "Well, okay. Here's a nice one and ... here's a nice one. That'll be a nickel apiece." She sort of threw back her hair. She wasn't wearing a wedding ring.

  "Hot ain't it," he said, exchanging a dime for the small bag.

  "It sure is. I don't care if it rains again today. It ain't good for business, but I got to go to town."

  "Well... hell, you probably don't want to do this, but I'll hold down the fort for a little while if you want to go into town. I ain't in no particular hurry. I've done grocery work all my life."

  "That's nice of you, but that's all right."

  "I don't blame you. I could steal all your peaches."

  "It ain't that. I just wouldn't want you to have to do that."

  "I tell you what I'll do. You drive my car into town and if I take your peaches you can have my car. It's a new Buick Eight."

  "Ha. How do you know I'll come back?"

  "I trust you. And I know somebody as nice as you has got somebody in the wings."

  "'In the wings?'"

  "Somebody waiting."

  "I wish I did. Well, hell, I'll be back in about twenty minutes, a half hour at the longest. You're mighty nice. Everything is marked, and there's the scales. Thanks a lot. What's your name?"

  "My name is Delbert Harris and I'm pleased to meet you."

  "I'm Emily."

  "Don't worry about a thing. Count your money there now."

  After she drove away, Umstead decided he'd ask her if there was a place around to go to a picture show, or a place to listen to some music—see what that led to.

  He looked at the construction of the stand and figured that in any case, he'd show her how the whole peach stand could be—with very little trouble—rigged to take down very easily. You just needed one nail per main joint, with a certain few exceptions. He wondered how many peach stands were in South Carolina and of those how many were portable. Probably very few were portable. Unless they were very small. The smaller the peach stand the more likely it would be portable. There was for sure some kind of formula for that ratio but nobody would ever bother to figure it out.

  Harvey and Stephen walked along home from the store. As Harvey saw it before Stephen was born, the chances of anything going wrong without a child were lower than with. If that child did something wrong, then there you'd be. Harvey would have to live with that, live with all that worry and have his daddy and mama and brothers and sisters be ashamed of what had happened. His mama and daddy and brothers and sisters would then have a harder time in the world because of it. And so one way to avoid all that was just to not have any children. But Alease had wanted a child more than anything it seemed like, and so he'd gone along because she wanted one so much. They lost twins, stillborn, and then when it was almost too late, Stephen came along. Now Harvey was glad. He had a son, after all. A son he was proud of, and at every chance, he took Stephen to see his own mama and papa because that made them happy. When Stephen was a baby, Harvey had taken him every single day.

  Before they got to the driveway, Harvey saw Alease's brother, Raleigh, sitting on the front porch floor, his back against the wall, his chin on his chest, as if he'd been flung there.

  "Let's go in the back door," said Harvey. "I declare." Nobody in his family had ever been a drunk. His papa would never have allowed it. His papa being so strong was a main reason they had all turned out to be good people.

  In the house, Harvey kept his eyes straight ahead. "Go sit on the couch, son. I'm going to have to tend to Raleigh. You just sit on the couch." The very idea that Alease would have something to say about his brother.

  On the porch, Raleigh said, "Harvey?" He was looking at Harvey's belt buckle. "Harvey, how you doing?"

  "Raleigh, you got to get up and get in the house."

  "Where's Alease?"

  When Raleigh, just home from the Great War in 1918, had stood in the homeplace doorway, his sleeve empty, he had seen a look in Alease's face, a look from his sister who'd grown into a woman. And at that moment, standing there in his uniform, in the few seconds her eyes went down to the empty sleeve and back to his face, right then when her eyes came back to his face, he saw and felt the love that, as he thought he was dying in a muddy field, he knew he'd never again see in his mother's face, the love he remembered from his father's eyes, and the love missing from the faces of all the whores he'd had in England and France, the love he felt, even pictured, as he—among the wounded and dead—had tried to stand up and then had to sit back down, bleeding, the love he'd pictured moving away like a person entering a dark room. But the room's door never closed; he had lived, and at home standing in the doorway, he found all that lost love right there in front of him in this person of his sister, in that look on her face, in her eyes.

  "She's at circle meeting," said Harvey. "You got to get up and get in the house, Raleigh. You wet your pants."

  "I did not. I don't want to get up and get in the house. I want to stay right where I'm at. I'm comfortable. I live here too, you know."

  "Here. Take my hand."

  "Aw, Harvey."

  From the couch, Stephen felt the house shake as Raleigh stumbled up onto his feet. With Uncle Raleigh drunk, his parents were now suddenly little bitty—off to the side somewhere—looking up at great big Uncle Raleigh's red face, and hollering at him. His mother would holler the most. She would be afraid.

  They came through the living room, his daddy behind Uncle Raleigh, holding him up. Then his father called, "Stephen! Come open the bathroom door."

  Stephen opened the door, then moved on ahead of them into the small bathroom.

  Uncle Raleigh turned so that his back was to Stephen. "I don't want to take a bath," he said. He leaned toward Stephen's daddy, then stepped on his toe. His daddy pushed him back, hard.

  Stephen watched his uncle start to fall, above him. He realized that if he didn't jump into the corner, his uncle—this giant tree—would fall on him.

  His uncle held to his daddy—they were falling together —then turned loose, reached out and back, grabbed the medicine cabinet and held on as it pulled loose from the wall. "What the damn hell," he said. The medicine cabinet crashed against the back of the commode, exploding the mirror. His uncle hit the floor—his rear end, his shoulders, then his head, hard enough to bounce up, stop, then slowly lower itself, eyelids closing, as Stephen's daddy, first dancing and fighting to stand up, then collapsed on top of him.

  The medicine cabinet hit the floor, scattering bottles and tubes.

  His daddy raised up on one elbow, looked at his uncle's face, at Stephen. "Go get the broom, son. I'm afraid to move. There's glass all—"

  "I can't get out."

  "Just ... just step over us somehow. Be careful of the glass."

  "That was like a bum' went off," said Stephen. He got ov
er them, slowly, carefully, and in the kitchen he met Mrs. Odum. She had a bag of clothespins hung around her neck and some white underwear in her hand.

  "I heard a crash," said June Odum. "Is everything all right?"

  "Daddy fell on Uncle Raleigh."

  "They fighting?"

  "No ma'am. Uncle Raleigh had to go to the bathroom. I got to go sweep up the mirror. The mirror broke."

  "That's seven years bad luck. Here. Here's the broom. No, I'll do it. Let me just put down these underwear somewhere. I would have that one with the waistband loose."

  Mrs. Odum saw the soles of four shoes—two facing up, two facing down—and beyond that two men entangled. The one on top moved and several slivers of glass fell to the floor.

  "Harvey, is that you?"

  "Yes. Can you get a broom, June?"

  "I got one right here. What in the world was y'all doing?"

  "I was bringing Raleigh to the bathroom."

  "Don't look like he quite made it, you know, all the way. Lord, there's glass everywhere."

  "Can you ... just sweep it from around us?"

  "I don't... I don't think I can get in here. This is the littlest bathroom. Course there ain't no reason to have a great big bathroom, I always said."

  "Daddy," said Little Steve, "I'm getting asthma."

  "Take a pill and lay down on the couch. I can't help you right this minute, son."

  "But there's reason enough to have a big closet, I always said. Course if I had a choice, I'd have a big bathroom and a big closet."

  "The pills were in the medicine cabinet, Daddy," said Little Steve.

  "I don't think they're in there now," said June. "But if you could have two bathrooms then it wouldn't be as much need for either one to be so big—especially if there was just one person using each one."

  "They're in a medicine bottle somewhere," said Little Steve, looking around.

  Raleigh opened his eyes.

  "You'd just need one towel rack, for example," said June. "Hey there, Raleigh. What kind of bottle?" she asked Little Steve.

  "Early Times," said Raleigh. "All things equal."

  "I don't know," Little Steve was saying. "My mama just gives them to me."

  "Where the...," said Raleigh, "the ... where the god-dang are we?"

  "You're in the bathroom floor it looks like to me," said June. "And there ain't a whole lot of room for you to maneuver."

  Harvey slowly raised to one knee, then stood up. "You've got to get up, Raleigh, so I can see if you're cut. I cut my hand."

  "Can I see?" said Little Steve.

  "I think I'll just lay here for a minute," said Raleigh, "until this lady brings me a bottle."

  "It's June, Raleigh. June Odum. I don't have a bottle-that kind. Raleigh, you know how much we all hate to see you in such a fix as this. There's not a nicer man in Listre than you when you're sober. And I don't have no bottle for you. Or for anybody else. It's against all I stand for."

  "We've got to get you up, Raleigh," said Harvey. "Stephen, are those your pills in the corner there?"

  "I think, maybe."

  "Pick them up."

  "Harvey," Raleigh said, "I think ... where'd she say we was at?"

  "We're in the bathroom. Let me see the broom, June."

  June watched Harvey sweep glass from around Raleigh and into a corner. "Go take a pill, son," said Harvey, "and lay down, and I'll be in there in a minute. I don't think you're cut, Raleigh."

  "That boy shouldn't be taking pills," said Raleigh.

  Stephen held A pill in his hand. His baby bottle of sweet milk and Karo syrup stood in the refrigerator, waiting. He reached in and got it. It was cold and wet. His mama had some way of heating it on the stove. He placed a pill in his mouth, then the baby bottle nipple, drank, and swallowed the pill.

  "Let me help you," said Mrs. Odum. "That old asthma just gets in your chest, don't it, son?"

  "Yes ma'am. I have to drink milk out of a bottle. If I drink out of a glass, it makes me vomit."

  "Yes, I know. You come on in here and I'll tuck you in the couch so you can get you some rest. Some things in this old world we just can't help, can we?"

  "No ma'am."

  "Your uncle is not setting a very good example."

  Mrs. Odum placed a blanket over Stephen, tucked it in. "Do you want me to read you a story?"

  "Yes ma'am."

  She picked up Aunt Margaret's Bible Stories from the coffee table. "Do you have a favorite story?"

  "Little Moses getting hid in the water, or Joseph and his coat and his brothers."

  "Let's see," said Mrs. Odum. "See what I can find."

  For Stephen, this was a good, but sometimes a little bit scary, part of the day: when he heard one of Aunt Margaret's Bible stories and sometimes a story out of the Bible itself—over there on the coffee table, too. Things happened in the Bible a long time ago when the Bible was a place and a time together. The Bible was the main real place and the main real time. They had camels and donkeys. And God would just all of a sudden strike a bad person dead. He turned a woman into a salt lick because she looked back at a city. And Stephen got stoned to death: people throwing rocks—great big rocks—at him, until he died because big rocks were piled up all over him. That was as bad as being sent to the electric chair. And there were the good things like when the dove came to Noah with a twig in its mouth and Noah knew the flood was over. Everybody on the ark was going to be saved.

  "Now," said Mrs. Odum, "let's get comfortable. Put your head in my lap if you want to, and I'll read and show you the pictures. Let's do this one.

  When little Isaac was born, Abraham was overjoyed and loved him dearly.

  But then God called Abraham to do a strange and terrible thing. He was to take his dear son Isaac to the top of a hill, and there to kill him and offer him up to God as a sacrifice, as if he had been a calf or a lamb.

  God was the man way up there in the sky with the white beard who looked down and said to do this. A sacrifice meant cut his head off, just kill him because God said so, which Abraham was going to do and Isaac didn't know what was going to happen.

  But just as Abraham had the knife ready to slay his son, God called out of Heaven: "Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him: for now I know that thou lovest Me, seeing thou hast not withheld thine only son."

  That was it. It was just a trick that made Abraham sad at first, and it scared Isaac because he thought he was going to get killed with the knife right at the last minute because his daddy had been hiding it from him. That's exactly the time that Abraham was pulling out that hid knife.

  As Abraham loved Isaac, he loved God more, and we must all he willing to give up anything God wants us to; but you see God only did this to test Abraham's faith, and He would not let him do a wrong thing. God will not make us give up anything we ought to have.

  "Now," said Mrs. Odum, "you want me to ask you these questions?"

  "My mama don't."

  "Well, let's just try a few. Now. What was Abraham's son's name?"

  "Isaac."

  "Good. And what did God tell Abraham to do?"

  "Cut Isaac's head off."

  "Well, I don't know about that. He was just going to make him a sacrifice, which is ... do you know what a sacrifice is?"

  "When you cut somebody's head off?"

  "Well, no, it's more like when you give something up ... like a piece of pie. Like when you give up a piece of pie. You sacrifice it. You just give something up. Abraham was going to give up Isaac, see."

  "He was going to cut his head off."

  "No, I don't think he was going to do that. He was just going to, ah ... I've always thought it was some kind of burning. Let's see if we can find another story. Just a little short one. How about... let's see, here's one that's just a little over a page. It's called 'Seven Hundred Years of Jewish History.' Oh, and look at this picture—Jacob and the angel. Look at that. Now that's right before they had a wrestling match. Did you know about th
at?"

  "No ma'am. I can't remember."

  "Now, that was real interesting. This angel kept Jacob up all night wrestling and finally it was almost a draw until Jacob found a secret place in the angel's back. Here, put your head back down. I believe you're getting sleepy. Your mama will be home in just a little bit, I'll bet. You go on to sleep, now."

  When Alease came home, in through the back door, she thought she smelled Raleigh, but she didn't want to believe that. In the living room, she touched Stephen's bottle and asked Harvey, "Why didn't you warm his bottle?"

  Harvey, broom in hand, just looked at her.

  "Is Raleigh here?" she asked.

  "Yes. He's drunk. And he made a big mess in the bathroom. Pulled down the medicine cabinet."

  In Raleigh's bedroom, Alease sat on her brother's bed. "Raleigh, look at you. Why do you do this? Why?"

  "I haven't done nothing, Alease."

  "We've got to change your pants."

  "I need a little drink."

  "Have you got a bottle?"

  "In my pocket. I think. June was 'pose to get me a new one."

  "Sit up. I'll swanee. Raleigh, you know better than this." Coming in here like this. Why did he do this?

  "Don't be mad at me, Alease. You know I love you. You know I always have."

  Stephen listened from the couch in the next room. He heard his mother getting ready, getting ready to really holler at Uncle Raleigh. One time somebody had been there, two or three aunts and uncles for some reason, and his uncle Raleigh had come home drunk, and they got him in the living room and he started talking about something, about something funny. He was telling a story, and they all laughed and laughed, and then when the others went home, his mother had lit into Uncle Raleigh and Uncle Raleigh had ended up crying and blubbering, and the whole time all of this went on, Stephen remembered, he'd been on the couch drinking warm milk and Karo syrup from his bottle. Alease watched as Raleigh reached to his back pants pocket. "I got a little old pint right there, I do believe." She watched him slowly pull it out, hold it up, look at it. "I just need one little drink to get me through."