Under a Cloudless Sky

by Chris Fabry

  The phone rang during dessert and it was none other than Franklin Brown, the pastor on the radio. Just hearing his voice and him calling her “Queen Ruby” again was enough to make her cackle with glee.

  After the food was put away and the dishes done, Hollis built a fire and people gathered to roast marshmallows and tell stories. Ruby asked Hollis if they could walk alone to the cemetery and he went inside to retrieve a flashlight. He winded up not needing it for the walk up the hill because the fire gave them light and the moon was as bright as daylight.

  They stood at the graves of Hollis’s adoptive parents and Ruby dropped a single rose on each grave. “They were special people.”

  “Salt of the earth,” Hollis said.

  “Do you think they knew who your daddy was?”

  “I don’t know. They sure never treated me like anything but a son.”

  “They did a good job raising you.”

  “Tell that to Juniper.”

  Ruby laughed. “You are two peas in a pod, you and Juniper.”

  “I wish I could have met your husband. He sounds the same.”

  “I wish I’d had the fortitude to tell him about all of this. But I didn’t. And I guess I won’t complain.”

  “It’s okay if you want to.”

  “People like to complain more than they like to do anything about it.”

  “You’re right about that. It gives them something to do.”

  Ruby rubbed her wrist. “How did it go with Buddy? Your meeting with him was yesterday, wasn’t it?”

  “Buddy doesn’t come to any more meetings with me. I think he’s afraid you’ll show up again.”

  Ruby laughed. “So who’d you meet with?”

  “His lawyer. I guess we reached an understanding, if you can call it that.”

  “What kind of understanding?” Ruby said.

  “Apparently he’s been scared since October I might come after the Coleman inheritance. I contacted Homer Sowards and asked some questions a few weeks back—knowing that Homer and Buddy were tight with all the property sales around here.”

  “You knew he’d say something to Buddy.”

  “I thought maybe Buddy would come back to Beulah Mountain and face me like a man. But that didn’t happen.”

  “What did the lawyer say?”

  “He said if I’d let go of any talk of the Coleman inheritance, Buddy would work with the assessor’s office to lower our taxes. I told him to make it the same for everybody around here and we struck a deal.”

  “I don’t think Buddy fell far from the tree.”

  “I think he might have bounced up against it.”

  They wandered to the edge of the cemetery and Hollis turned on the flashlight. Ruby dropped a rose at her mother’s grave, then put one on her father’s. At the head of the graves was a new stone with their names and the dates of birth and death.

  “Tell me about our mother,” Hollis said.

  “I’ve told you about all I can remember. And I’ve told Charlotte the rest.”

  “I don’t want to wait for Charlotte to write a book someday. Pick something.”

  Ruby sighed. “I don’t like to think of the bad times. I like to think of her in the kitchen baking or just sitting in the rocking chair humming some hymn we’d sung on Sunday.”

  “‘Dwelling in Beulah Land’?”

  “Mm-hmm. That was her favorite. She would have loved to take you to that church and have you dedicated.”

  “I’ve been thinking about going back,” he said.

  “I was hoping you would. I’ve found it to be life-giving. There’s some busybodies, but most are good people. We could use another bass in the choir.”

  “That’s not going to happen. I didn’t get my mother’s voice like you did.”

  Ruby took her final rose and moved to the last grave. Another new stone stood above it. Ruby’s name was there with her birth and death dates. Underneath were the words Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

  Far away, Ruby heard an old piano and saw two girls tripping through the woods toward doubt and fear and things of earth.

  They stood together in silence, with Hollis training the light on the stone. Ruby heard something moving in the brush by the edge of the cemetery and Hollis pointed the light and there were two eyes gleaming, caught in the beam.

  “Would you look at that,” Hollis whispered.

  “Deer know things people don’t,” she said. “I’ve believed that all my life.”

  The deer sniffed at the air and seemed transfixed by the light. Then it darted into the forest.

  Hollis took Ruby’s hand and they walked together down the mountain.

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  I suppose I write to understand the world. I write to understand those who came before. Several things helped bring this story to life. The first was a photo of my father in a southern West Virginia coal camp, sitting next to his brother. I could have picked them both out of the picture because of my father’s mouth and his brother’s stoic gaze. Even at a young age their personalities were imprinted.

  The second thing that sparked this story came from the words of my mother. Growing up in the Depression, in a place called Campbell’s Creek, West Virginia, left a mark on her life she never forgot. I’ve asked several times if she would like to go back, to walk around the place where she grew up, and she’s declined and not politely. The memories were too hard.

  Several years after my father died, this story bubbled to the surface. To be honest, it was partly because she was driving and the family was concerned she was going to hurt herself, someone else, or both. (She drives a Buick, not a Town Car.) During the struggle, I saw the seed of a modern-day story that could reach through the years.

  Then I came across a story about a company store museum in West Virginia and claims about the Esau scrip. Women of the era reported that sexual abuse occurred in some mining communities. These stories of exploitation have been challenged by historians, but the stories made me wonder.

  There is one more element that brought things together. I host a radio program called Chris Fabry Live. I’ve noticed, through the years, that many callers who are up in years will confide, with the right prompting, some difficult thing that happened years ago that they’ve never revealed to anyone. I’ve always believed this to be a great honor, to be entrusted with another person’s past and hurts, but it is also a weight. As callers reveal themselves, I hear it in their voices. There is something taken from them in the telling, a load they have carried for decades. I can sometimes feel the removal of that thing they lay down in the phone call, and I often wonder why it took so long to put it there and if someone they know and love will help them move forward.

  Then I look at my own life and the things I am carrying, things I’ve never told a soul, and the way those things hold me back from those I love. It is my hope that this story will remove some weight for you, that it will give you permission to allow some burden to be lifted so that there can be healing and wholeness and a lightness to your step, no matter how old or young you are.

  I give thanks to my mother and father, their parents, and those whose stories have been handed down. To the people of West Virginia, who quietly go about life without fanfare or the need for it. For my wife and children, of course, who put up with me climbing the stairs humming a hymn they’ve never heard. For Karen Watson, Stephanie Broene, and the fabulous Sarah Rische, who take my words and help me rearrange them so they make more sense.

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  Available now in bookstores and online

  SUNDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1984

  The elevated train clacked outside my apartment, meandering on its predetermined path through Chicago. Beyond the tracks loomed the Cabrini-Green housing project, where Dantrelle Garrett lived. Dantrelle sat on my couch tossing a weathered baseball into my old glove, watching the final game of the NLCS between the Cubs and Padres.<
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  “Who’s that?” Dantrelle said, pointing at a picture on my bookshelf.

  “My brother and me. That was a long time ago.”

  He studied the photo. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  It was the first time in the three months since I’d met Dantrelle that he had asked anything about my background. I took it as an invitation.

  “I grew up in Pittsburgh, then moved to a little town in West Virginia.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “A long way from Cabrini,” I said.

  “Do you love you mama and daddy?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then how come you don’t have a picture of them?”

  “I do, in an album somewhere.”

  “If you love somebody, they ought to be on top of the shelf.”

  I shrugged.

  “How come you moved to Chicago?”

  These were penetrating questions from an eight-year-old kid, but they grow up quickly in the projects. I told him about my schooling, how I had majored in theater and minored in counseling, but his eyes glazed.

  “You want popcorn?” I said.

  Dantrelle nodded and I pulled out my biggest pot and heated the oil. The smell of the popcorn and drizzled butter triggered a memory, but I pushed it aside and sat beside Dantrelle.

  “When I was a kid, I loved the Pirates. The Pirates were my life. But we moved to this town where everybody rooted for the Reds. And the Pirates and Reds were rivals.”

  “Like the Cubs and the White Sox.”

  “Yeah, sort of. Except they were in the same league.”

  Dantrelle shoved a handful of popcorn in his mouth and butter dripped from his chin. I handed him a napkin and he put it on his lap.

  “You think the Cubs are going to win?” he said, ignoring my story.

  It had been a phenomenal year to be a Cubs fan. Every game on channel 9. Harry Caray and Steve Stone and “Jump” by Van Halen. Sutcliffe and Sandberg and Cey.

  “Yeah, I think they will. No way the Padres win three in a row.”

  It was disorienting to hear Don Drysdale, a lifelong Dodger, describe the game instead of Harry Caray. The Cubs had won the first two at home and lost the next two in San Diego.

  In the bottom of the seventh, my phone rang and I almost let it go, thinking it might be my mother. But I picked up the cordless handset just as a ground ball rolled through Leon Durham’s legs and into right field. Dantrelle cursed. The Padres evened the score at 3–3.

  “Matt?” a voice said with a familiar twang.

  “Who is this?” I said.

  A chuckle on the other end. “A voice from your past.”

  “Dickie?” I said. Keith Moreland fired the ball to the infield, the Cubs’ curse alive. “How are you?”

  “Lookin’ for a breakthrough,” he said, and his words brought back every bittersweet thing from my youth. I had lost touch with Dickie. After high school I had ripped the rearview off my life.

  “You’re probably going to see a breakthrough sooner than the Cubs. You watching this game?”

  “I was never into baseball.”

  I closed my eyes and saw the hills and Dickie’s bike and trips to Blake’s store.

  Dickie Darrel Lee Hancock was the son of a white mother and an African American father. That would have been a hardship anywhere in 1972, but it was a knapsack full of rocks on his forced march through his childhood in Dogwood. Dickie lived with his mother in a garage apartment on the outskirts of town, and it always seemed he was outside looking in. I guess that’s what drew the three of us together. We were all on the outside.

  “How did you get my number?” I said.

  “Called your parents, PB.”

  PB. I hadn’t been called that in years and the sound of it warmed me.

  “They said you don’t have much contact with the past.”

  “That’s not true,” I lied.

  “Took me a while to wrangle your number from them. I suspect they didn’t want me to call because of the news.”

  I stood and touched Dantrelle’s shoulder. “I’ll be right back.” I stepped out of the apartment into the hall and the door closed behind me. “What news is that?”

  “Jesse’s news.”

  Her name, and Dickie saying it, sent a shiver through me. I’d been waiting for this. I’d had a foreboding feeling for years. “Is she all right? Did something happen?”

  “She’s engaged, Matt. The wedding is Saturday.”

  “This Saturday?”

  “Yeah. I just heard about it or I would have tracked you down sooner. My mama told me.”

  I walked down the hallway to a window that allowed a clear view of the el tracks and the specter of the housing project. From my building east was a thriving, churning city. A block west, past this Mason-Dixon Line, was another world. It reminded me of Dogwood.

  “Who’s she marrying?”

  “What’s that noise?” Dickie said, avoiding the question.

  I paused, not hearing anything, then realized the train was passing. The open window let in not only the heavy autumn air but the clacking sound track of my life.

  I told him about the train, then asked again, “So who’s the lucky guy?”

  “Earl Turley.”

  My stomach clenched. I couldn’t speak.

  “Yeah, I can’t believe it either,” Dickie said to my silence. “I know how you felt about her.”

  “Wow,” I said. “I appreciate you telling me.”

  Dickie paused like there was more. “Matt, your dad is officiating.”

  His words felt like a dagger. “Well, we were never on the best of terms when it came to Jesse.”

  “I get that. I know how they felt about her too.”

  “Are you going to the wedding?” I said.

  “Wasn’t invited.”

  “You didn’t answer the question.”

  “That’s not the question, Matt. The question is, what are you going to do?”

  “Do?” I said. “It’s a little late in the game to do anything. Jesse has a mind of her own.”

  “Yeah, but you were the one she turned to when life got hard. Maybe it’s not too late.”

  “If you’re talking romance, Jesse never felt the same as I did.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You don’t know everything about her. I know she confided in you, but there are some things . . . Look, it’s none of my business. I thought I’d call and let you know.”

  “Wait, you know something. You remember something.”

  Dickie sighed. “I talked with her a couple of times. After you left for college. She told me things she regretted. Decisions she made. She made me promise to keep quiet about them. But she must’ve figured I would be the last person to tell you anything. I guess I’m breaking a promise even making this phone call.”

  “Which is something Jesse would never do,” I said. Though there was one promise she was breaking by marrying Earl, and I couldn’t shake that fact. Dickie was privy to many of the secrets between Jesse and me, but not all of them.

  There is magical thinking a child develops when he believes the world revolves around him. He begins to think he has power to control life’s events. I’d always blamed myself for the 1972 Pirates. If I hadn’t left Pittsburgh, things would have turned out differently. A butterfly on the other side of the world flapping its wings. A child in a suburb praying for his team. I had grown out of that mind-set by moving to Chicago and growing up, but something about the memory of Jesse and what she had done, what I had forced her to do, made me wonder if I could prevent another tragedy in her life.

  Dickie broke the silence. “Do you ever think of what happened? Do you ever think of her?”

  “Sometimes,” I whispered, and the words began to flow. “Sometimes I smell woodsmoke or hear crickets at night and I’m back on the hill. It’s all there, Dickie. All trapped inside like fireflies ready to rise.”


  “Riverfront?”

  I smiled. “Yeah. We had fun, didn’t we?”

  “Remember the horse?” Dickie said.

  “That was our first secret.”

  “What about Daisy?”

  Daisy Grace. I could see her chubby face and a fistful of daisies held behind her, and the ramshackle house on the side of a hill that hung like a mole on the face of God.

  “I remember it all, Dickie.”

  “Yeah, I do too.”

  “Especially the parts I try to forget.”

  He told me about his job and what he’d done after high school, but I couldn’t hear his story for the memories he had stirred. I thanked him for calling.

  “I’ll say this, PB: I know it’s been a long time and I don’t know if you’re seeing anybody, but I think you owe it to her to go back. You owe it to yourself.”

  “What about Earl?” I said. “You going to provide backup?”

  “You’re a bigger man than him, Matt. You’ve always been bigger than you thought you were.”

  His words stung my eyes. “Dickie, I’m sorry. I’ve never been able to tell you how sorry I am that—”

  “You don’t have to apologize. We were kids. I’ve thought about calling you and patching things up a hundred times. I was wrong to hold it against you in the first place.”

  “Thank you for saying that.”

  When I returned to the apartment, Dantrelle looked like he’d been gut-punched. The Cubs hadn’t been to a World Series since 1945. Hadn’t won since 1908. And with Goose Gossage throwing BBs, it wouldn’t happen this year. Maybe if Jim Frey had relieved Sutcliffe, things would have turned out differently.

  The old pain returned as I watched San Diego celebrate. Steve Garvey flashed his million-dollar smile and Gossage hopped around the field like a kid who had stolen candy from a general store. Bob Dernier and Jody Davis and Don Zimmer looked back in anguish. It was the end of a season and the only consolation was there would be next year.

  “If they had played three in Chicago, we would have won,” I said.

  “Why didn’t they?” Dantrelle said.