The Pines

by Robert Dunbar

  Shrugging away the images, she blinked at her surroundings. Though still saturated with sunlight, they no longer seemed calm. She heard the agitated voices of birds.

  Standing straight, she looked beyond the clearing to the circle of pines. Why did I come here? More than anywhere else, this place made her realize how self-enclosed the barrens were, how cut off from the outside world.

  God, I’ve made such a mess of things. Tension pulsed in her stomach. I was only trying to make a life for my husband…for my son. She clenched her teeth. Liar! She struck her thigh with her fist. For yourself! She wanted to laugh at her own ineptitude—her being alone seemed so inevitable, so inescapable. She thought of Granny Lee and wanted to cry. How could you leave me? There’s no one for me. I’m all alone. Oh, Wallace, how could you leave me here? Suddenly blinded by tears that almost came, surprising and frightening her, she put her hands to her face. But I never cry. And they won’t make me leave. I won’t let them. He loved that house. We worked so hard. Someday, I’ll…

  He’d been working on the fence when the catastrophic heart attack had come. She’d found him in the yard, his face already gray.

  Someday I’ll finish fixing up the place, and then…

  The locals had hated her from the first day—an outsider who thought herself too good for them. Once they learned about her African-American background—and she knew she could thank Lonny for this—they’d been implacable. But their respect for Wallace, for his strength and his position in the community, had kept their resentments at bay at least to a certain extent. After his death, it hadn’t taken them long to assert their bigotry. Then she’d found Barry, or he’d found her. She knew he was nothing like Wallace, except in strength. A powerful cop, he had clout around here, and the townspeople, living as they did on the fringes of the law, feared him. Besides, she’d been so lonely.

  She drew away from these thoughts, loathing her self-pity. I have to stay strong. Have to. Squeezing her hands to tight fists, she cleared her eyes with the pain of scratched palms.

  No, no magic lingered here, and no nightmares either. It was just a town that like so many others had been swallowed by the pines. No ghosts. Crumbling bricks and a sense of vast age yawned all around her. Yet the pines were older still. They’d ruled here before the colonials had come, even before the Indians. Only small remnants of the Leni Lanape nation lingered; only fragments of the works of the settlers remained.

  She considered those people who had mysteriously stayed, pictured their huddled encampments after the collapse of the bog-iron industry. Nearly starving in the woods, they’d survived on almost nothing, becoming ever more primitive, slipping in time until their children became like the descendants of castaways. Alcoholism, illiteracy and incest constituted social norms. The South Bronx with pine trees. This was what she’d escaped to, the legacy into which she had married.

  But Wallace wasn’t like that. With a smile and a shake of her head, she recalled their first meeting. She’d been a sophomore at City College, a stack of books in her arms as she hurried through the park, and this tall soldier had walked right into her, scattering her books all over the grass. He’d been so embarrassed as he helped gather them, stuttering and stumbling all over himself. He’d been perhaps the handsomest man she’d ever seen in her life. So sweet. So shy. And he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

  She stared again into the flooded basement holes, and a weight settled on her, the lead of great age and of sadness and failure. She thought of the pineys and hated them, hated the limited gene pool, the inbreeding that resulted in all the deficiency and deformity. She’d heard that in the old days, whole decades would go by with the only new blood coming from escaped lunatics and convicts. And now my genes are floundering in that pool. She kicked sand into water, watched circles gently widen. Cripple genes, at that. She cringed at the thought. What if Lonny were right? What if Matthew’s problems were her fault? No, she wouldn’t consider this. If she were to blame, she could never face the boy.

  And do I face him? Slowly, she retraced her steps, moving back toward the woods. If only her grandmother hadn’t died before Matthew was born. She would have known how to love him. After all, she even loved me.

  She looked back at the once-prosperous community of Munro’s Furnace. Generations ago, her husband’s family had owned this town, building their own house just close enough so they could sit on their front porch in the evenings and watch the bustling activity. Only this remained. And if you try to sit on the front porch today, you’ll probably go through the floor.

  The heat increased by the moment. As she walked, she resisted scratching her mosquito bites. If there were ever a war, she reflected, and the big cities were destroyed, it would be as though a dam had burst. Someday the pines would pour out, flooding into New York and Pennsylvania, and the barrens would cover this part of the world.

  Someday.

  The heat weighed on her, and she dragged her feet, feeling lashed to the earth. The trees around her stood ragged and stark, tortured looking, like the people who lived among them.

  Monday, August 3

  Three hot days had passed since the rain, and again the parched ground crunched underfoot.

  His hair gleaming, bronzed by the sloping sun, Matthew stooped to the wildflowers, their small heads bobbing like insects. As he picked more blooms from the clump of weeds, he sang to himself, a soft, wordless tune of his own creation. Taking a bite of the crab apple in his other hand, he imbibed the sweet-acid flavor, then chucked the core. All around him, tall grasses lay down before the wind.

  From the pines, a man watched through narrowed eyes. He inched forward. “Hey, you. Boy. C’mere.” He stepped suddenly onto the path. “I wanna talk to ya.”

  Only the boy’s eyes could actually be seen to change; yet his body tensed with a movement like the shifting of light.

  “It’s allkay, I jus’ wanna ast you ’bout sumthin’. Don’t be ’fraid.”

  The boy stood poised, ready to dart like an animal through the trees. Only curiosity held him.

  “It’s awright, honest.” Wes edged closer, holding out his hand and smiling. “Your ma said I could talk to ya. You know what I wanna ast ’bout, don’t ya? Yeah, you know.” The smile twisted, became something else. “You know sumthin’. Fuckin’ loony.”

  The flowers fell to the ground.

  Wes lunged and grabbed the boy’s arm. “In a hurry?” They tussled. “You ain’t goin’ nowheres. You go runnin’ round in the woods a lot, don’t ya, retard? Ye r out here allatime, I hear. Ya ever see a old man?”

  “You! What’re you doin’ ta him?” The blonde woman charged down the path. “You leave him alone!”

  “Ah, Pam, I was just…”

  She crashed into him, shoving his chest with one hand and pulling Matty away. She pushed the boy behind her. “You stay the hell away from him! You hear?” She looked ready to fly at him with her nails, her face suddenly red and swollen with anger, the birthmark standing out vividly.

  “I wasn’t gonna hurt the little squirt,” said Wes. The blotch on his face matched hers exactly.

  “You shut up! I don’t want you round here!”

  Snickering, he slouched away from her. “Yer mother don’t mind me comin’ round.”

  “You think that bothers me, Wes Shourds? That don’t bother me. I don’t care what that whore does. Matty, you go back inna house now.”

  “I just wanna ast the moron a couple a questions. Ain’t gonna hurt ’im. Thought he might a seen sumthin’ is all.”

  “I don’t want you bothering him!”

  “’Bout a month ago,” he yelled after the running boy. “Old man with a truck. You see him?”

  “Shut up! You stay away from here! Dooley!” Quickly, she stooped and grabbed a small rock, made as if to throw it at Wes. “Dooley! Come on, boy. Where are ya? Dooley!” The dog was nowhere in sight, but sharp barks came from the direction of the house.

  “Whose turn is it?”

  “
So anyway, between us and the cops, we bust down the door.”

  “Yours.” In the ambulance hall, the crew sat around the card table.

  “And there’s this fat guy laying there, and you could see he’d been cold awhile. You know how you can tell, right? He’s on his face with all the liquid pooled in his gut. You know, all sort of blue the way it gets, and the rest of him gray-like.” Showing off, Larry talked too fast, alternately smiling at Cathy Hobbs and blushing. “So anyway, I knew soon as we tried to move him that skin was gonna split and it’d come spilling out, so…”

  “Listen to him, couple weeks on the rig and he sounds like a pro,” interrupted Jack. “Come on. You gonna play or what?” He leaned toward Cathy with an astonishingly intimate grin. “More coffee?”

  Cathy was kind of cute, Athena supposed, looking her over. Little on the plump side, too much blue eye shadow. But why were the guys giving her the treatment?

  Both Larry and Jack reached for the coffeepot. Jack won.

  “Yuck,” observed Cathy, getting a whiff of the blackness he slopped into her cup.

  “I keep telling everybody not to let Doris make the coffee.”

  “So anyway,” Larry went on, “what we did was, we slid a sheet under him and lifted from the corners.”

  Experimentally, Cathy brought the cup to her lips, grimaced. “This is awful strong. I’m surprised it doesn’t melt through.”

  Before Jack had a chance to think of it, Larry tossed her a couple packets of sugar, then fumbled with a bag of plastic spoons.

  “Now those will dissolve,” said Athena, breaking the silence she’d slipped into half an hour before. Cathy glanced at her, and Athena returned her eyes to her cards. She’d never been sure about how much Cathy guessed about Athena and her husband.

  “No, thanks”—Cathy waved away the spoons—“I’ll drink it black. So, anything else been happening?”

  Matthew waited around a turn in the road, and Pam caught up to him.

  “Tha’ sonafabitch.” Her hands shook. “That bad man, did he bother you, baby? What was you doing over here all by yourself? Just playing like a good boy? Don’t you let him bother you. If he ever comes round here again, you just come get me. You hear? I’ll show him.”

  “Says…he says…sumthin’ ’bout a old man.” Dark bars of shadow leaned across the road, and the boy couldn’t look away from them. “Inna woods. I seen…”

  “Now, don’t you pay no attention a him. I don’t know what he’s talking about anyways. Don’t even know hisself. Everbody knows his father just run off.” Seeing how he stared down the road toward town, she stopped.

  “Sumthin’ might be…gonna happen a him.” The empty brilliance of his eyes held a dark wonder. “Sumthin’ bad.”

  “Nothing much,” Jack was saying. “Couple cases of heatstroke.”

  “Looks like you’re in for more of those.” Cathy fanned at the neck of her blouse, then sighed and looked around the hall. “It’s been so long since I’ve been over here. Oh, is it my turn? Rummy.”

  “Shit.” Larry tossed his cards down. “I quit. Look at this hand,” he laughed. “Cathy? Look at what I’ve got.”

  “Yeah, Cath, it’s been a while since you came by. You should stop around more often.” From behind his glasses, Jack’s eyes studied the thin material of her blouse.

  “Oh, you know.” She shrugged, adding up her score. “Doris doesn’t like it. I sure wish she’d let me run again. I go crazy in that house.”

  Athena laughed, a small explosive noise that cut off when they all looked at her. “I was only…trying to imagine sitting around the house.”

  “How many points you got stuck with, man?”

  “You saying that house of yours is still standing, ’Thena?” Jack winked at Cathy as she gathered up the cards and began to shuffle. “I’m telling you, you should get in touch with the historical society.” Taking off his glasses, he massaged the bridge of his nose. “Besides, ain’t you scared of that dog pack way out where you are? I heard they killed somebody.” With an elaborate gesture, he got up and flexed his muscles. “Sitting so long makes me all stiff.” He smiled at Cathy.

  “Who’s winning?”

  The bay door, shut against the mosquitoes, trapped the heat and boxed in the steady drone of the fan. Picking up her cards, Athena played mechanically, trying to ignore the conversation, only occasionally glancing up at the other woman. From time to time, she caught Cathy looking back at her.

  “You guys still running to fires with those old Indian pumps?” Cathy snickered. “You’re going to get your asses fried.”

  “We had a couple good ones last month.” Jack nodded. “Couldn’t figure out what started them. Turned out Fort Dix was using the woods for artillery practice.”

  They all laughed. Then the back door banged, and everyone tensed. Invisible from the table, the rear exit was behind the refrigerator. “Christ, another hot night. I swear to God, I’m not going to live through this summer.” Shirtsleeves rolled up, Doris stopped in front of the table. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came over to see my friends, Doris.” Cathy sat up straighter. “I do still have friends here, you know.”

  “Yeah? Well, I guess stranger things have happened.” Turning her back on them, Doris stomped toward the lockers, silence trailing after her. “You do those reports yet, Jack?” she barked. Everyone just looked at their cards while she grabbed some cleaning rags and headed for the exit.

  The door banged shut behind her, and Cathy slapped her cards down.

  “Hey, Cath.” Jack put his arm around her shoulders. “You shouldn’t let her upset you that way.”

  “What gets me is the way she acts mad—like I did something to her. It’s the other way around. I was always her friend.”

  Athena gave Larry a small smile and put her cards down. “Well,” she said softly, “so much for rummy.”

  “The call came in real routine, you know, that last one I went on?” Cathy’s voice droned almost too low to hear, a self-absorbed monotone. “House hold accident, supposed to be. Nobody else was on, just me and Doris, and this guy answers the door, standing there with a beer in his hand. ‘All right.’ That’s all he kept saying. ‘She’ll be all right. Just needs a little rest.’ We found her under the kitchen sink with a drill bit broke off and sticking out of her head. While we were getting her out, he asked me if I wanted a beer.”

  Athena watched her closely.

  “In the rig, it started coming out again. All over the place. I didn’t know which hole to plug first.” She laughed with a sound like tearing cloth. “At the hospital, they counted seventy-one of them. And Doris kept yelling at me.”

  “Didn’t you call the cops?” Jack asked. “Did your husband come?”

  “Yeah, Barry was there.” She nodded, expressionless. “Me she fires, but that goddamn useless Siggy she keeps on. I know I freaked, but Doris didn’t have to be so goddamn mean.”

  No one spoke. Athena wiped an arm across her forehead and got up. “I just want to see if she needs any help back there.” As she left the table, the group stayed silent.

  She reached the back door, pulled it open and heard the hiss of the hose, then decided Doris would probably appreciate something cold. Letting the door slam, she turned back to get a couple of Cokes from the refrigerator.

  “She gets on my nerves, that’s all.” Cathy’s voice had risen sharply. “She’s so stuck up, and it’s a joke. She thinks she’s so smart. What did she ever do? Tell me that. Far as I can see, she’s never done anything.”

  Athena froze. She felt the anger harden within her, then fade again as quickly. In the shadows, she leaned against the bulletin board. Then a thin crust of sand particles whispered beneath her shoes as she moved back to the door. She closed it quietly behind her.

  All the rig’s doors stood open, and the hose played across and through them. Floodlights glared from the garage roof, throwing the words “Mullica Emergency Rescue” into stark relief.

&
nbsp; “She must know.”

  “What? Oh, hiya, honey.” Doris looked up and smiled. “What did you say? Grab a rag.”

  “That time of the month again so soon?”

  “Christ, you’ve been hanging out with me too long.”

  Things from the rig, stacked along the wall, tilted precariously, and a radio, perched on a window ledge, muttered and squawked about sending money “to help develop mental defectives in south Jersey.”

  “Is that really necessary?” Doris stepped back to snap it off, then gestured toward the rig. “The old girl washes up pretty good, doesn’t she?”

  “You look lovely to night, yes.”

  “Oh jeez, I walked right into that. I repeat—you’re definitely spending too much time around me.”

  Athena hefted a bucket of water. “You were a little hard on Cathy just now, weren’t you?”

  “I don’t want her hanging around here.” She twisted the nozzle on the hose, squeezing off the water. “Besides, it’s not like I fired her. She quit on me when I needed her.” Taking the bucket, she heaved soapy water onto the floor of the rig. “She wants to come back, doesn’t she? Well, she can forget it.”

  “We need runners.”

  “Not like her, we don’t. What the hell good is she if she’s going to get hysterical on calls?” Doris snorted. “Got to run home and spend a week in bed.”

  “Some people just aren’t strong enough to…”

  “Then they don’t belong here! Strong! Oh Christ, I’ve heard that before. Like it’s a curse. Does that mean we’ve got to spend our lives mopping up after people that aren’t?”