WHERE TROUBLE SLEEPS

by Clyde Edgerton

  "Honey, there are some things you can't help and he had to be put out of his misery. And whoever it was didn't mean to run over him. It's no need to get mad at them. And you shouldn't ever say you're going to kill somebody."

  "They didn't even slow down."

  "Well," said the gypsy man, "they did touch the brake before they hit him."

  "It was just all in all bad timing," said Mrs. Odum.

  "You just can't tell what a car is liable to hit," she said. "My uncle Searcy had a cow hit by one one time," she kept on, "He got over s'emty steaks out of it."

  Stephen said to his mother, "Why did you have to do it-have to kill him?" He started crying again.

  "I was the only one could."

  Umstead decided he wanted to be a little more involved. "You got a brave mama, son. Ain't many women'll do something like that. You got a shovel, ma'am? I'll bury that kitty for you."

  "You're the one kin to some of the Joneses over in T.R.?" said the neighbor woman.

  "Yes'um. Beyond T.R. a ways. My name's Delbert Jones. And you're ..."

  "June Odum." That's a Pall Mall she's smoking.

  "Alease Toomey." Deep red in her hair.

  "Raleigh Caldwell." Drunk. Crazy hair.

  "Pleased to meet y'all. I saw you feeding your boy the other morning, Mrs. Toomey."

  "Oh, yes."

  "Urleen, Blake's wife, told me about you," said Mrs. Odum. "Blake, down at Train's Place."

  "I know Blake and them boys. Yeah, my folks moved off not too long after I was born. Moved down to Columbia, South Carolina, and then after a few years there, we moved to Mississippi."

  "Which Joneses was 'at?"

  "There was a Annie Jones I guess was the main one." Get off it. "You got a shovel, ma'am?" he said to Mrs. Toomey. "I'll bury that kitty for you."

  "There was a Annie Jones over in Bethel. You not talking about the Annie Jones from over in Bethel are you?"

  "No'um. Not in Bethel, I don't think. My people stayed mostly to theirselves. And they weren't here all that long either. Back over beyond T.R. You got a shovel, Mrs. Toomey? I'll just take this little kitty across the road and bury him."

  "Well, yes, we got a shovel in the smokehouse. But ... Stephen, go get the shovel."

  "We used to have a sawdust pile where we buried all our animals," Umstead said, "and we had a worship service every time. I'll take care of it."

  "Can I go?" said the neighbor boy.

  "How about just burying him out in the field behind the house," said the boy's mama. "I don't want Stephen crossing that road," she said. "And we buried two goldfish out there. Just beyond that middle tree. And you'll do a little service?"

  "Yes'um."

  He thought her eyes were a little steadier on his than they needed to be.

  "You can go with them, Terry," the Toomey woman said. "Then you need to be running on home, son. I think I'll just sit on the porch for a minute."

  Umstead, with the shovel holding the two pieces of Inky and bits of grass, headed for the field behind the house. The two boys followed him. At the edge of the field—field peas it looked like—just beyond the middle tree he placed the kitten on the ground. He couldn't quite get over the small size of North Carolina fields. In the Delta a field could be well over a thousand square acres. In the Carolinas they were sometimes littler than a bed. He looked across the way to the back of Pendergrass Grill. Cheryl might come out to throw something away. Then he looked at the Toomey garage. "Let's go on over closer to the garage where your mama's got some flowers started." He scooped the kitty up into the shovel. "A kitty ought to make right good fertilizer for some flowers." Near the back corner of the garage he dug a hole about the size of a water bucket. Skimpy layer of topsoil, he thought. With the point of the shovel he raked the head and body into the hole, then raked in all the loose dirt and smacked it twice, leaving shovel prints.

  Raleigh, the drunk, walked up pretty unsteady. "I could have done this."

  "There's more dirt in there than they was before," said Terry.

  "I could of done this," said Raleigh.

  "I don't mind."

  "Where'd the extra dirt come from?" asked Terry.

  "What's that, Budrow?"

  "Where'd that extra dirt come from?"

  "There's a kitten in there now. Before there won't. He's taking up space. Shall we all bow our heads for a moment of prayer? For God so loved the world He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Amen. Now. Son, you want to say a word about your cat?"

  "Sir?"

  "Your cat. You want to say something?"

  "No sir."

  "I don't think he knows what you're talking about," said Raleigh. "Say something good about the cat, boy."

  "He chased balls," said Terry.

  "Well, hell, I know that. Stephen needs to say something religious, for Christ's sake. It was his cat—but his mama was the one taking care of it. Say something."

  Pall Mall walked up. "Did y'all say a prayer?"

  "Yes ma'am, we did," said Umstead. "And we're doing some more right now."

  "I don't think I know any animal prayers, except I don't guess there's no reason to make a animal prayer any different from a human prayer. After all, humans are animals too, or so say the dern science books."

  "Do cats go to heaven?" Stephen asked.

  "Better ask your uncle that one," said Umstead.

  "Do they?" he asked his uncle.

  "Why, hell no. They never accepted Jesus, have they?"

  "I don't know."

  "Why, hell no. They go to Ratland where there's rats as big as tigers. That's where things get evened up."

  "Once she got the bead on him," said Umstead, "she popped him a pretty clean cut."

  "I always heard that good animals go to heaven," said Mrs. Odum.

  The mother, Alease, walked up.

  "Mama," said Stephen, "I think I'm getting asthma."

  "Let's go inside and get you a pill, then. Terry, it's time for you to go on home, son."

  Raleigh reached for the shovel, took it, staggered, and said to Umstead, "Kids nowadays don't know the first damn thing about work. That boy ain't seen a hour's work in his life and he's almost s'em years old." He added a few pats to the little grave.

  They all started toward the Toomey house.

  "You in the war?" Umstead asked.

  "The Great War."

  "You don't look that old." Umstead thought he looked like he might have fought in the War Between the States.

  "I'll be fifty-seven twenty-third of December."

  "Yeah, well ... I saw a little time in the Second World War. I got in right at the end. I was lucky, I guess."

  "Looks like there's gonna be another one."

  "Yeah, I'd say there is. How'd you lose your arm?"

  "Shrapnel. Hindenburg line. October 1918."

  "That's a shame."

  Umstead wondered how many arms and legs were lost in the two big wars. How many lefts and how many rights. He figured it was probably more rights. Just the nature of things. "Did you hear the story about the soldier got shot in the leg and his buddy took him to the medic tent?" Umstead asked Raleigh.

  "I don't think so."

  "Soldier got shot in the leg. 'My leg, my leg!' he hollered. His buddy picked him up and throwed him over his shoulder like a sack of feed and started running toward the medic tent. About that time, a stray cannonball shot the hurt soldier's head off and the buddy didn't know it. At the medic's tent the buddy threw the soldier up on the operating table and the medic said, 'Why'd you bring him in? His head is shot off.' And the buddy said, "Well, hell—he told me it was his leg."

  "Yeah, I heard that one."

  The two boys caught up. Raleigh said to Stephen, "That cat wouldn't be dead had you took care of him right. There is certain things you got to do when you're taking care of a animal. If you'd paid attention to what I told you he wouldn't have to be out there dead and buried."
>
  "Mama's been taking care of him."

  Jack Umstead lingered as Raleigh and the boys walked ahead. He had a chance to speak to Alease for a few minutes. "There's a kind of satisfaction to just doing something right, ain't there?" he said to her.

  Alease realized that Harvey, because of how he was, his whole being and history, would never think to say that. "There was nobody else to do it," she said.

  "Anything suffering like that needs to be put out of their misery," said Mr. Jones. "Reminds me about the electric chair. Some people suffer a lot longer in that thing than they tell you about. I don't know why they don't just gas everybody. I'd rather have my head cut off than be electrocuted. I've got shocked before doing various things. One time when I was working on electric lines—on a telephone pole. It's a jolting experience."

  " 'Jolting?' " Alease frowned and smiled together.

  "That's the word: jolting."

  "I took Stephen up to see the electric chair—to show him what can happen."

  "If he don't be good, you mean."

  "That's right." Alease brushed hair back from her eye. He seemed to understand. "I took both them boys."

  "Sounds like a pretty good idea to me. When I was in grammar school in Mississippi they had a portable electric chair they'd take around and show. I never knew anybody that saw that thing to get in trouble. By the way, I buried the kitty next to the garage instead of behind that middle tree. I noticed you'd started some flowers out there and a little animal like that'll be useful fertilizer."

  She stopped and looked toward the garage. Harvey hadn't got the poles yet. "I'm trying to get a flower bed started out there, but with Raleigh and all I just haven't had time to get it going."

  "I'd be happy to do some digging for you. I'm looking for something to keep me busy. I got a few days before I head on back home."

  "You've seen your relatives?" He was a handsome man, she thought. In his own way.

  "Yeah, and it ... it just didn't turn out exactly like I'd hoped it would. It's just a sad story."

  "Well..."

  "You think about it—me helping you out a little bit—and let me know. I wouldn't charge you nothing."

  "That's mighty nice of you. Stephen, son, let's go on and take you a pill. Go ahead to the house, son."

  At the grill, Umstead could tell that Cheryl was crazy to see him. And he'd had such a good time with her that he was right glad to see her, but this Alease presented a whole new kind of interest to him. She was mature and strong. And married.

  "Hey, Cheryl. How you this morning?" He sat at his place.

  "I'm a little bit sleepy. You want the usual?"

  "I always want the usual."

  Cheryl leaned onto the counter. "I been thinking all morning about how that blinker light came in through the shades and lit up your arm. Kind of blink ... blink ... blink."

  "I been thinking a little myself. Let me have a couple of them biscuits, too. And some strawberry jelly, if you got it. I don't see nothing here but grape."

  DIRTY ENERGY

  Next morning, raleigh eased down the front steps and on across the yard toward the Jones fellow sitting out in his chair. Jones might be able to offer him some relief.

  "Morning."

  "Morning."

  "So you're just passing through?" said Raleigh.

  "Yeah, more or less. Visiting some kinfolks. But it's hard to stay in the house with them. Have a seat there. They're just a little too hard to stay with."

  Raleigh kept standing. "Oh, man. I tell you. It's a right pretty morning."

  "Sure is." Jones shaded his eyes from the morning sun.

  "I was just wondering. I couldn't buy a little drink off you, could I? In case you might have one."

  "Well, I keep a bottle in the trunk of my car there. Trunk should be open."

  "Oh, that'd be nice." Raleigh headed for the trunk. "I'll be glad to pay you—I'm sort of coming down off a little spell and my sister's got my bottle. I just had a taxi bring me one and damn if she didn't get it. I told the son of a bitch to stop next door, and damned if he didn't drive right up in the yard and blow the damn horn. I'll be glad to pay you." He reached into the bag.

  "Don't worry about that. There's some little paper cups in the bag."

  "Yeah, right here. You got something a little bigger by any chance? Oh shit, there she comes. Never mind." Now she was messing it all up again.

  The Jones man stood.

  Raleigh said to Alease, "I said I was stepping outside for a minute."

  "I want you back in the house, now. You need to get in the house and eat some breakfast. Come on. Your breakfast is ready. I didn't know where you were."

  "I told you I was stepping outside." She should have heard.

  "Well, you didn't say it so I could hear you."

  "I did, too."

  Raleigh headed back toward the house, the damn house.

  Umstead noticed that Alease hesitated, just the briefest second. "Have you thought anymore about me doing a little work for you?"

  "Well, I don't know. I hate not to pay you but we don't usually pay for yard work. I try to do all my own yard work, except sometimes it seems like I don't have much time."

  "I did rethink my offer. I am going to need some pay."

  "Oh? ... Well, I—"

  "I haven't had a real good glass of iced tea in a long time."

  Stephen went out on the porch looking for his mama. The gypsy man over there was talking to her. That man could dig big shovels full of dirt every time. Uncle Raleigh was walking toward the house, looking down at the ground. The gypsy man stepped back a step and laughed. His mother stepped back too, and then turned to look at him standing there on the porch. She had a big laugh on her face. Then she looked like she remembered something.

  Stephen wanted her to come on back and play the breakfast game. He was hungry. "Mama, I'm hungry."

  Down at the church, as Mrs. Clark thought about Jesus being right there last night for a second night that week, a pain shot through her ankle. She was sitting on the couch and had put just a little weight on it. She reached over, got her pills and capsules, a couple extra for the pain, took them with a cup of water, and lay back down.

  So it was all true. Everything about God and Jesus was true. She'd had the whole thing revealed to her right there outside her office door. There was, after all, a reason she had sprained her ankle—the reason was so she could meet Jesus face to face. As good as face to face.

  She prayed her morning prayer, felt close to the Lord. Somebody was coming up the stairs. Good. Could it be...? No, that was the preacher's sound. She could always tell the preacher's sound.

  Preacher Crenshaw noticed a new poster on the stair wall—announcing the youth trip to Lake Blanca. He had to write a letter to Cheryl Daniels. Immediately. She'd called him on the phone at home the night before to be sure he could carry four or five boys in his car and they got to talking and talked and talked and he'd laughed and kidded her about a very thin tomato slice she'd served him on a hamburger at the grill. This durn tornado had come along winding right on into his life, a life in God's service, going along so smoothly: he had his own church, his own congregation, his own choir, choir director, his own precious and sincere relationship to Jesus and God, his own house and expense account, discretionary fund, his own five well-behaved children, his own faithful, hardworking wife, and his own secretary. And now winding and tearing its way into his life was this warm red tornado—way younger than him for heaven's sake—no matter how hard he kept trying to close the door to it. This tornado, just a little tornado at first, but it grew every time he saw her. There were more sparks and life and fireworks in her eyes than he could bear to look at, and she must have a body underneath there like nothing he'd ever even been able to imagine, and now she was in charge of taking a youth group to Lake Blanca next Saturday morning and had asked him to come along—to drive a carload of kids. Her real motive, he knew, was so they could be together—he just knew that had to be he
r real motive—and he'd awakened at 3:11 a.m., looked at the lighted tips on the clock hands, and said to himself that he shouldn't go to Lake Blanca ... then ... then he thought that he had to go to Lake Blanca for the good of the youth, the church. They did need another driver. But maybe that's not why he was going really. Then he couldn't go back to sleep because he knew good and well he needed to talk to God about this. He hadn't talked to God about it because he wanted to handle it himself. It wasn't exactly the kind of thing he wanted to bring God in on unless it got real bad.

  Well, it was real bad, and so he had prayed. And prayed, and prayed.

  He'd not felt an answer from God in the middle of the night, but he'd expected one the next morning. During breakfast while the kids were sleeping and Marjorie was drinking coffee and reading the newspaper—she used way too much sugar in her coffee—during breakfast he felt God speak to him, and God said write Cheryl Daniels a letter. Cheryl was a full-fledged woman and he had to go ahead and treat her like one, head off this business at the pass. Go ahead. Get on over there to the office and sit down and write Cheryl Daniels a business letter, spelling out things—as a man of God. The way he had to be. A business letter would get her attention, would finish all this off for good. God was there for him, providing an answer to prayer, so he headed over to the church to write that letter.

  Going up the steps inside the church he thought about what to write. "Dear Cheryl." "Dear Cheryl Daniels, it's always a joy to see you at church." "Dear Cheryl." "My dearest Cheryl." "Dear Cheryl, let's get right down to business."

  The warm tornado was not only full of sex, that word, full of an animal body pull somehow, not only that—Cheryl Daniels made fun of him in the best way in the world, just like they were old buddies. "Preacher Crenshaw, you're going to have a heart attack you don't ease up up there while you're preaching. You got to learn to relax and have some fun." It was almost totally clear that she was talking about some kind of fooling around. "Preacher Crenshaw, the only reason I'm going back for seconds is I know you're going back for thirds and I don't want you to feel bad." She could just reach out to him with her eyes, somehow. "Preacher Crenshaw, you need a haircut." Her whole attitude was fun fun fun fun fun fun fun. Some kind of control was missing.