Gov looked from man to man and frowned. He closed his eyes for a moment, put his fingers in the shape of a church steeple, then continued. “An people be talkin all over,” he said, arms swinging back and forth across his audience. “This queer boy an his queer boyfriend have made us a laughinstock. Big Spoon, Glassville, Knuckle, theys all talkin.” He paused to gauge the reaction of the group. Wade stopped digging after the splinter and looked up. Bump came around the aisle with hands on hips; the others were all staring at Gov now.
“Who’s talkin?” someone asked.
“Everybody in Big Spoon.”
“Everybody who?” someone else asked.
“Hill Watson for one. All the boys at Shanky’s. Bobby Joe an them.”
“What’s that Bobby Joe been sayin?” Wade asked.
“Sayin that if we don’t do nuthin bout Paul bein queer, then we must be all queer too. I don’t know bout you, but I ain’t havin no Bobby Joe Blemish call me no faggot.”
The boys at Hivey’s were in a rash now. The very idea of Bobby Joe Blemish and the boys at Shanky’s, which they all regarded as a white trash version of Hivey’s, calling their manhood into question was a slight of grievous consequence. (Big Spoon and Medgar had been bitter rivals ever since 1963, when Medgar and not Big Spoon was chosen to receive the first stoplight in the county. The ill will deepened two weeks later when the mayor of Big Spoon, a notorious drunkard named Winton Blight, facing certain defeat in the upcoming election, rammed his car into the new stoplight pole, toppling the light and shattering it into a hundred pieces. His landslide victory two weeks later only cemented the municipal tensions.)
Gov gained confidence and his voice rose and took on the quality of a preacher in the highest possible fever. “Are we gonna be men again? Or are we gonna let these faggots ruin our town? I want to know what we’re gonna do bout it.”
Bobby Clinch nodded. Jesper Jensen stood. “We gotta take care a this.”
Someone else said, “You got that right.”
Sen Budget couldn’t hold back any longer and burst into the circle with the enthusiasm of a puppy who has just learned his first trick. “I say we go over there right now… all a us together, right now… an run em right outta town. Make em leave right now.” He looked at his brother to make sure he approved. Gov Budget smiled, and Sen Budget stood up a little straighter. “We need to do this.”
Andy Teel said, “Let’s run em out!” There was general harrumphing and nodding all around.
Pops rose slowly from the chair. As he did, the talk quieted as everyone turned to him. He walked over to a display holding wood-splitting tools and accessories. He picked up an ax handle, felt its weight, swung it once, then tossed it to Jesper. “Here you go, Jesper; this may come in handy if Paul and Paitsel put up a fight.”
He grabbed two more and tossed one to Andy Teel, then another to the general circle of men. Grubby reached up and caught it before it clocked Webster Flen in the head. Next he picked up a double-bladed broadax, checked the blade for true, and threw it to Bobby Clinch. “What’s a mob without a broadax man?” he said. Sen Budget smirked enviously at Bobby’s good fortune, then went over to pick out his own broadax. He looked over at Bump Hivey, eyebrows arched. “We ain’t gotta pay for these if we bring em back clean, do we Bump?”
A few in the crowd tittered. Gov Budget was scowling next to the cold stove, arms wrapped around his thin body. “Shut up, Sen,” he said out of the side of his mouth.
“We’re doin community work here, Gov.” Sen’s voice took on a reedy, plaintive quality. “I’m thinkin we bring em back clean, Bump can still sell em.”
“Bring them back clean?” Pops shouted. “No, sir, I think we’re in for a fight.” He made like a boxer, ducking and weaving. “Paul and Paitsel may have all manner of weapons in their house—scissors, razors, electric shears, baseballs.” More men sniggered; Sen Budget looked puzzled.
“It’s community business is all I’m…”
“Sen, sit your ass down and shut your goddamn mouth,” Gov Budget finally said.
Sen’s mouth was still open but no words came out, his shoulders slumped, his jaw quivered; then he closed it slowly and slunk over to the wall behind the woodstove, hands jammed in his pockets, face screwed down in a mix of embarrassment, hatred, and confusion. Tilroy’s face, however, had no such mix—he was shooting pure hatred at Pops. It was a look I had never seen on a kid before.
“Now, where were we?” Pops said, looking around the room. Andy and Jesper had quietly put their ax handles behind them. Bobby’s broadax was lying across a stack of goat feed. “Oh yeah, we are going to run Paul and Paitsel out of town. That’s right.”
Bump stood, feeling a need to defend the group since they were in his place. “Now, Arthur, no one’s talkin bout doin no violence. It’s jus some a the boys think this kinda thing shouldn’t be happenin in our town. Kinda makes us look foolish, some think.”
Pops was standing with his hands on his hips now. He looked down and rubbed the stubble on his jaw. “Boys, most of us have known Paul since we were kids; we all grew up together, for God’s sake—family was up on Cheek Mountain for eighty years. And we’ve known that Paul was a little different from the get-go, but we didn’t care because he was one of us. He still is one of us. When he moved back here eighteen years ago with Paitsel, we all knew, deep down, they were together, and no one raised a stink; we all just went about our business.” He whirled around and caught as many eyes as he could. “You all know that to be the truth.”
“But it’s all out in the open now,” Bump argued. “That’s the difference. Come football when we’re playin Mingo… I jus don’t know.”
“Out in the open? The whole goddamn county has known about Paul and Paitsel for years.”
Jesper stood to make his argument. “But us knowin is fine. An Paul an Paitsel knowin we know is fine. But now all a Big Spoon knows that we know, an that ain’t fine, not by a wide space.”
Pops tried to hide a half smile without much success. “Okay, let me see if I understand your position, Jesper. Them being homosexual was okay as long as no one else in the county knew that we knew.”
“That’s right.”
“But everybody’s always known is my point—us, Big Spoon, Knuckle.”
“They knew, but they didn’t know that we knew.”
Pops put both hands up. “Okay, I think I got it now. You are okay with Paul being homosexual. You just don’t want anyone to know that you’ve known about it all these years?”
Most of the men nodded.
“And now that the jig is up on our town’s little secret and some fools in Big Spoon and Knuckle are talking, we’re gonna run Paul and Paitsel right out of town.” Pops looked around. “Did I get that right? Because Bobby Joe Blemish is big talking, we are gonna run Paul and Paitsel out of town?” Everyone was looking into the floor now.
Pops took up one of the ax handles and leaned on it like a walking stick. Then he looked at Bump. “When Ida had her cancer years back, who started that fund-raiser so you could go with her to Atlanta for treatment? Who took your girls in for three weeks while you were gone?”
Bump looked over at the poster of the new John Deere grain header but said nothing.
“Andy, was it Paitsel who lent you the down payment for that new tractor when the suits at Glassville Bank said your credit was bad?” Andy Teel rubbed his chin and bit part of the inside of his cheek.
“Who started the food pantry to help out folks laid off from the Company?”
“Paul done it,” Jesper mumbled.
Pops nodded. “When my Sarah passed, I had a black time, as you all know. I couldn’t even feed myself, let alone care for a baby. Who was it came over every day to spell Audy Rae so she could care for her own family? Who did all the house shopping?”
There was silence in the room as Pops looked from face to face. After a while he spoke again, softer. “Run Paul and Paitsel outta town? Boys, that’s just not who we are.” H
e said it again, almost in a whisper. “That’s just not who we are.” The only sound in the room was the low hum of the double-door soda refrigerator at the front and the occasional shifting of boot sole on pine. After a full minute Pops continued in the same tone. “I think we’ve had enough talk about this for one day. Let’s all just get on home to our families.”
One by one the men stood and walked wordlessly up the aisle and out of Hivey’s. Sen Budget followed the men out the door, still holding the broadax.
“Don’t be leavin without payin for that, Sen,” Bump said.
Sen looked down at his hand and dropped the ax on the floor as if it had been electrified. Gov Budget was the last to leave. He moved in front of Pops and squared himself. “Who the hell you think you is, anyway?”
Pops stood a little straighter. “I think you know exactly who I am, Gov.”
Gov Budget looked him up and down and said under his breath, “This ain’t gonna stand… you an me… this ain’t gonna stand.” Then he sniffed, walked down the aisle and out the front door.
Pops put his hand on the back of my head and directed me toward the exit. Bump was standing sheepishly behind the counter. He opened his mouth to talk but couldn’t fathom what to say. Pops filled the awkward silence for him. “I think that was a good thing, you organizing this, Bump. Good to get all the talk on the table, don’t you think?”
Bump nodded, then adjusted the bee pollen display on the counter so it was square to the register.
We walked out into the heavy night air, down Main Street and Watford, then onto Chisold in silence. Pops put his arm around my shoulder. Back in Redhill whenever my father would try that I would flinch, feeling the weight of it on me like it was a cold, wet towel. Pops’ arm felt warm and sincere and soothing.
“What you said back there. That was really good.”
“Thank you, Kevin.”
We were silent for a while more.
“Is that why you wanted me to come?”
“What, to listen to me talk?” He smiled and shook his head. “Noooo, you hear enough of that as it is.”
“Why then?”
“Let me ask you a question. Did you learn anything tonight?”
“I think so.”
“Good… care to share it?”
“Well, that you stand up for people—that you don’t like it when people get pushed around. Good people like Mr. Paul.”
“But you already knew that about me. What did you learn tonight?”
I paused, thinking about the scene in Hivey’s and trying to parse what it all meant. “I guess I learned that even though most people are good, they can be talked into doing bad things by one or two jerks, like that Budget man.”
Pops nodded, but was silent.
I thought some more. “And I guess, people sometimes need someone who can stand up and remind them that they are good people and they know what’s right.”
Pops nodded and smiled slightly. He seemed satisfied, but said nothing. As we opened the gate to number twenty-two, I could see the light from the living room and my mother sitting frozen in Pops’ big wing chair. Her head was pushed hard against the high back of it, her hands and arms were heavy on the rests, her thinning body flattened into the cushions as if grief had written some new law of gravity just for her.
Chapter 13
THE HIDING
On Monday, after a full day of calls around the county, I followed Pops up the pulldown stairs into the attic to find his old fishing tent for Buzzy’s sleepover. “Haven’t used it since Glaston Lake last summer,” he said. “Put Lo and Chester to shame, me catching everything.” He turned on the top step and whispered, “I’ve got a honey hole away from camp where the big boys linger. We probably would have starved to death if I hadn’t.”
“Come on, Pops. You guys would have just hiked back to town or something. You wouldn’t have starved.”
Pops stopped, caught his breath, put his hand on my shoulder, and leaned in. “Son, Chester would’ve happily starved rather than admit to Hivey’s that he couldn’t catch a dang fish. He’s a humble man, except when it comes to his fishing. Now, let see where I put the tent.”
We were both in the attic now. The air was thick with dust and heat and the history that seemed to be seeping out of the trunks, valises, and boxes stacked neatly against the gable walls. Old slip-covered furniture, brushed tan by dust, was pushed up against the inside slope of the roof—shapes of dining room chairs, a desk, a table on its side, two matching bookcases, all seemed to be sad old ghosts pining for the opportunity to live once again. In the middle of the room, standing vigil over all the timeworn history, was a large, dark oak wardrobe—the only piece in the attic without a cover. As I moved closer, I could see the intricacies of its woodwork—feet fashioned into eagle claws clutching balls. Each claw became a spiral twist of rose vines, which grew flowers and leaves all the way to the top of the wardrobe, where they curled into a bouquet arch at the top. One side of the wardrobe was a carved relief of a mountain ridge and valley, a rising sun sending beams out of a cloudless sky. The other side was a crescent moon and a star-filled sky over the same slumbering dale. On the doors was a family crest, a coat of arms in four quadrants: a lion on haunches, a stand of tall trees, a bunching of wheat and corn, and a man at a plow. Over top of the doors under the rose bouquet was a beautiful hollow with a waterfall at one end, a small barn in the middle, and a cabin on the right. Beyond the house were tiny fields of corn, then mountainside. Pops was behind me now. “That’s Jukes Hollow, where I was born.”
“Is there really a waterfall up there? Mom said there was.”
“Indeed. It empties into the best swimming hole in eastern Kentucky.” Then Pops chuckled. “We were the only hollow folk with an in-ground pool.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“That it is. One of the most beautiful places on this earth. And I’ve seen some nice places in my travels.” Pops reached up and brushed a few dust specks from the arch at the top.
“He was something, my dad was—a big drum-chested man and stubborn as hell. But when he laughed, which was often, it was like a roll of thunder.” The memory made Pops smile.
“When did he die?”
“In thirty-six trying to organize the mines—ours was one of the last in Kentucky to unionize, and William Beecher Boyd, the owner, was hell-bent to stop it, so he had my daddy killed.”
“Wait a second.” I put my hands up as if to take better hold of this new information. “You mean that Bubba Boyd man… his father killed your father?”
“Well, he didn’t kill him directly, but he had him killed, yes. One of his men planted a huge bomb in the union office, and Dad was meeting there to plan the strike. He died along with seven others.”
I finally started to understand the bad blood between Bubba Boyd and Pops—the history was all falling into place for me.
“Did you make this?” I asked after a while, staring at the workmanship and detail of the armoire.
“No, my talents are elsewhere. Jeb carved it for your grandmother as a wedding present. Did it all by hand—we didn’t have much in the way of power tools in the hollow. Quite a piece, isn’t it?” He ran his hand across the top and sides like he was assessing the workmanship for the first time. Amid all the dust in the attic, the wardrobe was sparkling clean, as if Jeb had just delivered it for their wedding.
Pops pulled lightly on the double doors. They swung open silently. Inside was a row of dresses, hung neatly on wooden hangers. Bright blues and reds and yellows that made the rest of the dingy attic seem like sepia tone. He gently picked a speck of dust off the red dress and moved the blue one another a few inches to the right to give it more breathing space. He was elsewhere now, running his hand lightly across the shoulders of the dresses, lost in the memory of a time and of the person who once filled them. Seeing her dresses made my grandmother seem so real that I could almost remember her too: walking to church on an Easter Sunday in the bright blue dress, chestnut
hair tied back with a wide ribbon and Pops stealing glances at her, marveling all the while at his great fortune. And I could almost see her alive today, at the stove downstairs baking something delicious and saving me the batter-filled spoon. I could almost hear what she would say to my mother to put things right—to make the withering heartbreak of losing Josh just a little easier to bear. But deep inside me I knew that those words had yet to be invented.
“I just can’t part with em.” Pops sighed to himself as much as to me. He put one hand on each of the doors and stood there for a moment, eyes filling up, staring into the wardrobe as if reading an instruction manual on exactly how to close it. After a time he eased the doors shut, ever so gently, so that movement of the attic air wouldn’t strain the creases from her last ironing.
We walked over to a corner piled with fishing rods, discarded creels, an old baseball bat, and various retired sporting equipment: Pops’ high school football helmet, an ancient leather fielder’s glove with none of the fingers linked. I tried to put it on, but the leather was unforgiving. Pops began digging in boxes and trunks, and I wandered over to a light-blue and yellow trunk with ARP written in gold lettering under the hasp. Inside was my mother’s high school career. Her yearbook from senior year, a prom picture, sheaves of A-plus papers, class president certificate, first copy of the school newspaper she started, founding president of the Student Volunteers. All of her teenage accomplishments compiled before me like an old newsreel. I had never thought of her as a kid, or a teenager; she was only a mom to me. And now with her half-broken from grief and guilt, it seemed like that high school girl, so full of promise and purpose, was from some other planet. I closed the trunk.
Pops moved to a large green box and opened it. “Here we are.” He pulled out a brown ball of nylon and tossed it to me. I caught it with both hands. It smelled of old grass clippings, smelled of rain.
We set the tent up in the backyard and after dinner waited on the porch for Buzzy. Pops was twirling his first sour mash of the night and I was breaking a twig into small pieces and flicking them out into the yard. “What if he doesn’t come?” I complained. I was eager to see Buzzy again—eager for some teenage company and conversation. Each time we got together seemed easier than the last, as if the shared adventures of summer were fusing us into blood kin.
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