Hardscrabble Road

by George Weinstein

  Her grandmother took a two-layer chocolate cake from the sideboard and set it in front of Rienzi. Sixteen wax columns jutted from it like closely grouped arrows. Her grandfather lit every wick until Rienzi’s face glowed. She said, “Roger, help me blow these out.”

  I’d never had a birthday cake, let alone candles, so she had to tell me the order of things. I made my own silent wish with my cheek next to hers, feeling the heat of the candles on my face and her warmth beside me. Soft black hair, more like satin than silk, brushed my skin. She inhaled loudly as a prompt for me to do likewise. We blew at opposite ends and worked toward the middle, finally puffing at the same flames. The intimacy ended with our pursed lips not quite touching and acrid gray smoke curling before us.

  She opened my present first. I’d bought it with the leftover from my clothing purchases. Inside a slim box, she uncovered a pocket knife with an embedded compass on one side and a thermometer on the other. The wood handle was as dark as the buckeye in my pocket. She announced the temperature and oriented herself toward true north, which happened to be in my direction. With a smile, she threw out her arms and hugged me tight. If I had seen her looking the way she did now and knew how soft and supple she’d feel against me, I would’ve mistakenly bought her something feminine.

  Her grandparents had done exactly that. They presented her with a pile of boxes that yielded dresses and jewelry. She thanked them, finding something unique to compliment about each one. All the while, though, she used my gift to slit open the wrappings.

  After eating the chocolate-frosted cake, I thanked everyone for having me. Then I took a measured, hopeful breath and said to Rienzi, “Would you like to go for a ride?” She gave me an icing-tinged grin.

  Inside the truck, she said, “Look at you, all dressed up, driving a truck as orange as a forest fire. You don’t look at all like your pictures.” She kicked off her shoes and crossed her legs, nudging me with her toe. “You’ve really filled out.”

  As with Cecilia, I felt grateful for the cloaking darkness. “So have…So have you got, uh, anyplace you’d like to go?”

  “Just drive us around.” She dipped her face into the air blowing through her open window and said, “I can’t believe I’m back again after so long.”

  “Nothing around here changes.”

  “People say that about home, but everything changes. My grandparents told me about the German POW camp and an escape that has everyone excited. Men and women are returning from the service; what they’ve seen and done will change everything even more.”

  I’d made a few turns to get to the highway and cruised toward Hardscrabble Road. Pulling onto the dirt track, I said, “Are we the same? You and me?”

  “I hope so. You aren’t angry with my kidding, are you?”

  “No. But you, ah, want to stay friends?”

  “Of course. That’s why I wrote so much. You’d be surprised about how few people I know. You’re the only friend I have.”

  I said, “Do you ever want more than that?”

  Stubborn and obtuse as usual, she replied, “More than one friend? I guess I’ll make some when I go to college.”

  No geezer in a rattletrap truck needed to tell me it was time to go parking. I pulled onto the same path where Cecilia had directed me. What had she done, in what exact order, to seduce me? I switched off the engine and killed the lights. “I hope you don’t mind the dark.”

  “San Antonio is so bright at night, you can hardly see the stars. Look, there’s Cassiopeia and the Little Dipper and Pegasus—”

  I touched Rienzi’s face as she peered up through the windshield. “I saved myself for you. On this very spot. You remember Cecilia Turner? The hog-killing?” Not the romantic images I intended to conjure. I tried again. “She’s very beautiful now, like a movie star.” I wanted to make her feel that way, to show her. My hand trailed down her neck like soft rain, flowed over her collar bone, and covered her firm, round breast.

  She took my hand in both of hers. Her voice became a breathy burlesque, “Golly Moses, so you’re saying you could’ve poked her on this very spot? On this very seat? Gracious!”

  “Don’t make fun. Not now.” I tried to pull my hand away, but she wouldn’t let go. “I’m saying you’re so special to me that I saved myself. I want to be with you. I want us to be a couple.” I tried to rescue my trapped hand by prying it free, but in an instant she held them both. Rather than entwining my fingers romantically, she clamped down over them and dragged me closer.

  From less than a foot away, she seethed, “Do I owe you? I mean, seeing as how you passed up on a movie star. The least I could do is hike up my skirt, right?”

  “That isn’t what I want.”

  “What then? Tell me.”

  “I want us to…to have a romance.” Her grasp was hurting me; I heard my knuckles begin to pop.

  “I’d say this is a bad start, Roger.”

  I tried a new tack, if only to free myself. “It’s my birthmark, isn’t it? I disgust you.”

  “Don’t be stupid. Am I supposed to say ‘Oh, my dearest, I’ve hurt your tender feelings,’ and give in to you?”

  “There’s nothing to give in to. At least let me go. Please.”

  She laughed and another knuckle popped. “But where will your hands go next?”

  “Stop!”

  “I still like you, Roger. But you have to be invited to grope me.” She kissed me hard, a wet, lip-sucking, chocolate-tasting kiss that finished with her tongue licking my open mouth. I was even more surprised when she slid under me. She still gripped my hands as her knees rose into my chest. In one fluid motion, she rocked her arms and legs and heaved me out the passenger window.

  With a grunt, I belly-flopped in the field. My entire front hit the ground at once: face, torso, and legs. Only my wrung-out hands were spared. I spit out dirt and gasped while the headlights flicked on and the engine cranked. Rienzi shouted, “Next time, learn some manners before you try to make love to me.”

  She stole my truck. High grass hissed beneath it like water on hot coals as she roared away. The taillights flickered, spent flames that vanished in the dark. Ribbons of exhaust wafted past me like candle-smoke. That was all that remained.

  How could a smart boy be so stupid? Exhausted, I decided to go to Spring Creek to wash off and consider how I’d ruined everything. Maybe I’d drown myself. I set off and hiked through the dark, deep woods. I imagined sinking in the water and never rising again, becoming part of the earth and sea and food for the fish. I could be useful.

  Before I had the chance, though, the Dutchman found me.

  CHAPTER 26

  I didn’t reckon on the Dutchman sneaking up from behind again. The trees before me slowly brightened until I could make out lichen on rotten logs and the hairy arms of poison ivy wrapped tight around slender trunks. My shadow overlapped them; dark bands extended from my shoe tips and climbed up the pine bark. Parts of my silhouette disappeared in gaps between the trees, narrow strips of me lost forever in the woods.

  When I turned, the Dutchman hovered about a dozen feet behind me, a perfect sphere. Its buttery yellow glow touched my clothes and skin. Low-pitched vibrations drilled deep into my brain. It wavered, backing away and then moving toward me and retreating once more. Trying to make up its mind when to attack.

  I was terrified but I refused to run. The spirit light became the color of fire and it thrummed louder. How right that I should die alone in the woods on a moonless night—I should’ve remained afraid of the dark. I scrunched my toes, cursing my shoes. I wished I could feel the forest floor, clutch the dirt. Too late. The haint surged through me.

  I forced myself to look. I wanted to see the Dutchman’s face before I died. The glow felt like cool water on my skin and seemed to sluice through my hair. Its brightness didn’t increase as the spirit light flowed into me. Nor did it have a solid core, no image of a vengeful man about to reach through my ribs, grab my beating heart, and snatch my life away. It touched me all ove
r, but with a tenderness I’d only rarely felt. The haint seemed shy but curious. This was no monster. I recognized the quality of its embrace from the comforting fingertips of Mrs. Gladney, Cecilia cupping of my face, and Rienzi’s joyous hug. The Dutchman was a woman.

  The light dimmed as it moved behind me. My shadow on the trees faded and became part of a dark cocoon. When I turned, the haint had disappeared. It didn’t drift away as I’d seen it do before, still visible even from a long way off. It vanished. Finally dead, I thought, but then knew that I was wrong. Something deep inside said that the spirit had let go. It had released its tenuous hold, had found whatever it sought. It departed, never to be seen again.

  Peacefulness settled over me for the first time in many days. My toes uncurled, and I bent down and felt the forest floor. Its damp coolness was just like the haint’s touch. Perhaps the spirit and the earth were one.

  I strode over the narrow paths, confident of my course, at last feeling a part of the woods and the night sky and the wind slipping among the trunks and sweeping down through the canopy to wash over me. Deeper into the forest, where the air stilled, I surged through the fog that stood as motionless as I had. I penetrated it just like the glow had passed through me. As I approached Wanda’s place, I imagined I had become the haint.

  By the flickering light of the flambeau she’d wedged into a nearby stump, Wanda hung bunches of twined herbs and roots from the ceiling of her porch. I was one with the tender stems, shrugging off the rich dirt that clung to my many arms. I became the spout of fire whirling over the end of her torch, spinning with hands waving above my head. My body stretched. It grew thinner and then pointed at the top and bulbous down below as a droplet of pine oil slipped from the flaming wood and I rolled into a ball as the oil let go and we fell through space and splattered onto the stump in all directions. I seeped down among the tree rings, found the roots, returned to the earth, and sprouted up through my feet. I stood before Wanda.

  “Roger,” she said, “you been witched.” Her teeth gleamed yellow in the firelight as she bit a length of twine in two.

  “I feel fine. Better than I have in a month of Sundays.”

  “There’s good witching and bad. I know the look of both. What’chu been up to?”

  “I was fixing to come see you about a judgment.”

  She yanked knots around her last couple of bundles and slung the drooping bows over some bent nails in the porch rafters. “You know I’m no judge, and there ain’t enough of me to be a jury. Go to the white folk in town for that.”

  I sat on the porch with her and told her about the past few days, though I suspected she knew everything I’d done. I said, “Have I messed up everything? Would Cecilia and Hermann be safer if I’d minded my own business? Should I have just tried to be friends with Rienzi?”

  “You freed them. Even the boy that’s really a girl; you’ve opened a door for her by closing another one.” She laughed through her teeth. “All you’ve ever wanted to do is escape from this place, but you’re freeing everybody else first. And more’n just regular folk.” From the porch floor, she lifted the cotton-picker’s satchel stained with damp spots and leaf-green smears. “I was thinking of my mama just as you came creeping along. In my head, I was singing them songs she loved. She practiced all that good magic.”

  “That’s how you knew I looked witched?”

  “That’s how I knew she touched you.” Wanda pulled back my shirtsleeve and wiped her hand across my forearm. She held up her empty palm to me. “You’s sparkling, boy. Mama done that and now she’s finally at rest. I ain’t gonna find her no more when I go a-wandering.”

  I expected flecks of gold or mica dusting my skin, but whatever she saw I couldn’t. For a moment, though, I summoned the touch of light again: gentle ripples through my hair, mothering caresses that now clouded my head with sleep. My neck bent like a stem no longer able to support its heavy flower. My face dipped down and I stifled a yawn. I whispered, “Your mama had real soft fingers.”

  “That and her singing is what I remember most.” She traced a swirling pattern with her fingertip over her empty palm, as if writing in the sparkles she’d lifted. With a sigh, she closed moist eyes and pressed her palm against one mahogany cheek and then the other. Her eyes had cleared when she looked at me. “You wanna sleep in my parlor again tonight?”

  *

  Sunshine tumbled through the uncovered windows when I awoke. The car horn that roused me sounded again with a mild, respectful peep: a question rather than a summons. I sat up and wiped drool from my face. The white quilt beneath me with its tiny, precise stitches held an oval stain like the center of a buckeye. Patterns from the quilt had left marks in my cheek, reminding me of the swirl Wanda had traced on her hand.

  I walked to the open doorway. Robert Bryson sat behind the wheel of his shiny black Pierce Arrow straight-eight. His sedan still looked good, though it was almost as old as me. Mr. Bryson, on the other hand, looked like a raisin—Wanda’s long-ago water curse had left his face shriveled. He tipped back a long-necked brown bottle and gulped. His cheeks pulsed and his skin seemed to fill out. When he stopped drinking, the illusion faded and wrinkles creased his face again. He stepped from his car, came around front, and opened the passenger side. His dark, rumpled suit looked moth-eaten and his wire-framed glasses were bent. With pride, though, he shot his wilted shirt cuffs while straightening his spine. We helloed each other as Wanda rounded the corner of her home, wearing the same homemade dress as the night before.

  She paused at the open car door and looked back at me. “Got a biscuit and a bream on the porch for you. Don’t be nibbling on my herbs though. You a dear boy, but you ain’t no deer, boy.” Mr. Bryson laughed too much as she sat in his car. He pushed the door closed, soft as shutting a dresser drawer.

  I said, “Am I still sparkling?”

  She replied through the open window, “Gleaming like Spring Crik in the sunshine. Ain’t he, Mr. Bryson.”

  He shaded his eyes and squinted as he peered at me, hamming it up. “He sho is, ma’am. Just like you says. A spitting image of Spring Crik yonder. Mm-hm.”

  Wanda stared at me, her mouth a grim line. Without a change in her expression, she winked.

  From the height of the sun, I judged the time to be about nine. I’d missed Jerry’s bread run, my advanced tutoring, and the start of school. The pan-fried bream Wanda left for me was so satisfying—I seemed to experience its memories of effortless swimming in a body built for speed and darting maneuvers—that I decided to play hooky and go fishing. After all the extra schoolwork, I’d earned my truancy. Later, I’d call on Rienzi and ask for another chance.

  I never recalled a time when I felt so confident in my decisions. Suddenly I didn’t care what anyone thought of my actions: they were mine, right or wrong. It was as if the spirit had taken away my fear. Then I remembered that I stopped feeling afraid when I sat in the darkened truck with Rienzi. My confidence had grown before the haint touched me, when I decided to face it. The courage to stand firm: that was a present I’d given to myself.

  Still, the spirit did impart a gift: the intense connection I’d felt with everything the night before had not disappeared. As I went home to change clothes and get my fishing gear, I no longer watched my world. I felt it bone-deep. Details remained sharp: the crushed green velvet of moss; pale, overlapping lines a beaver had gnawed in a tree trunk; a tan snail shell lying among beige stones. With a bit of concentration, I felt myself slide through the curving walls of the moist shell interior, follow the paths of tree roots, and reach skyward with the tallest limbs. I laughed out loud.

  I wondered if drunks could feel something akin to that magic. Maybe my father had felt that way after a belt or two, before those tender feelings collapsed within the angry fire of more liquor. Just as some men did anything for a taste of whiskey, I’d become addicted to that intimate connection with my world. What would it feel like to kiss Rienzi again?

  *

  Mama had a re
curring visitor at home: the green Studebaker Champion again squatted on our dirt driveway. Circling around toward the backyard, I intended to fetch my pole and cooking gear. I stopped short.

  Along the opposite side of the house, I noticed that Rienzi had returned the truck. Then I saw beneath Mama’s shuttered bedroom window, Ennis’ eight-year-old son Tom knelt with the right side of his face pressed against the bare planks. His left eye was closed and, for a moment, I thought he’d fallen asleep with the boards as his pillow. Then I remembered the decade-old bullet hole Papa had shot in the bedroom wall. Tom peered through with such concentration that he didn’t hear me walk up. His left eye snapped open when I came within a few yards of him.

  Tom fell onto his seat, crab-walked backward, and got his feet under him. Without a word, he dashed around the truck and off toward his home on the other side of the peanut field. He ran as if I’d drawn a bead on him and was about to fire.

  Bracketing the bullet hole were well-worn grease marks that matched the curve of Tom’s cheek and forehead and the side of his nose. His mother called, “Tom Willis! Where you at, boy?”

  From behind the shuttered window, a man said, “I swear to God, every time I’m over here she’s calling for that pickaninny.” The same, familiar tone I’d heard while stealing Dan. Mr. Gladney’s voice.

  Mama said, “Willodean calls for that boy every day, believe you me.”