Hannah’s uncle didn’t bother to pretend he relished the prospect of their living with him for a long time. She overheard him explain to mama Opal how his “responsibilities in life had come to their proper conclusion” at the moment his wife died. The subject came up, mostly by innuendo, from month to month as summer elapsed into fall, but when his sister announced that she was taking a job at the Johnson plant, LeRoy shrugged—he had made his position known. He professed unwillingness to adjust: if Opal and her daughter were able to work around his habits and needs there wouldn’t be much for him to say.
For Hannah the experiment with school was not a success. She started in the first week of September. The schoolhouse was too far away, east of Babylon, for her to walk, and class let out too early for mama Opal to pick her up. Uncle made the trip, driving her there and back, for a week, but by the weekend he had come to his decision. He had relished, he said, the chance of being left alone to his own routine during the day, and so long as Hannah continued to pull her weight by doing her chores before and after school, he had no complaint about her continuing schooling—however, he would no longer drive her. I’m not your private chauffeur, he told her. He had not come this far through life only to arrange his entire day around Hannah’s personal schedule. If she and her mother could figure some other way for her to attend, she could rest assured he wouldn’t stand in their way. His contribution’d reached its conclusion, though.
With two extra mouths to feed, Hannah’s helping out at home was more practical than anything she could learn in school. He said this, too. And so the decision had been made.
Where did his meanness come from? don’t know. Does he see me as some kind of bastard-girl? don’t know. I am to blame for something, maybe for mama Opal’s having to marry Nicky, but it wasn’t my idea to go and make me, was it? no. Maybe he loves mama Opal (I think he does) but he doesn’t love me. He hates Nicky. He won’t discuss paying for somebody to find Nicky and bring him out here away from the city and put him under someone’s care, someone who can fix his mind problems.
We didn’t do very well in the day, uncle and I, when she was away at work. Here was the best of all, the best uncle and I would ever do together—
It was supper, or breakfast. Supper. He drank his coffee out of the saucer instead of the cup anyway, but here he was eating his peas on his knife. Neat row of wrinkly balls on the silver.
“Hey,” I said. “Look at that.”
He didn’t like the word hey.
“Hey that’s good,” I said, and tried with my knife. Peas down my front. I gathered them up with my hands and ate them. Mama Opal wasn’t pleased. I was acting up.
“Hannah, the hey story,” she said.
I didn’t want to do the hey story.
Mama Opal said, “Hannah.”
Uncle hated hey and she knew it. “No.”
Mama Opal and I never had words. It wasn’t something she and I did. We were together. We faced the world together. So, I did the hey story—
“Hey is for horses
which live in the stall.
Hey ain’t the right word
for polite folks at all.”
She did smile, though, at my “ain’t.” She knew I put it in on purpose. “Pretty good,” uncle said. “Here’s how you make peas stand still on your knife.”
It had to do with gravy.
Gerald
December 1955
CHRISTMAS EVE. HANNAH has made a minor discovery. If her uncle were to catch her here in his bedroom she would be stropped and put on double chores.
Uncle has warned her about not “transgressing the sanctity” of this bedroom. But uncle and mama Opal are not in the house. Mama Opal has driven the truck into town to pick up last-minute surprises for Christmas. Uncle, who is of the opinion that women should not be seen at the wheel of automobiles or trucks, and who had argued with her about it as always before she took the keys and left, driving swiftly away in the constant snow, is down in the pasture. He may be recognized as that bent figure in overalls and earmuffs observed from the northeast window of his bedroom.
He is some distance from the house, in perspective not taller than Hannah’s thumbnail held out at arm’s length. Each frequent breath is visible as a small puff.
Hannah crawls cautiously across the plank floor. The planks are wide and rippled. She glances again, from the depths of the room, to assure herself he is not lumbering back up toward the house.
He is not. He appears to be studying something in the lower field, through the curtain of snow. Hannah now feels safe, but her heart is beating hard. It would take several minutes for him to reach the house even if he started up the long, gradual slope right now; there would be plenty of time for Hannah to sneak back to her own room.
There is, in the bedroom, a fractional scent of mildew. She thinks this is strange as the room is immaculately clean, austere. A red-and-white Navajo blanket, an eye-dazzler, serves as a rug on the left side of the double metal-framed bed. Every object seems to have its place in the room. Nothing appears to be mislaid and nothing is askew. Physical rite, mode of worship in the right angle. The wallpaper, whose design is an incongruous pattern of blue and gold flowers gathered into fagots, is badly faded, and probably is the victim of the mildew.
The girl hasn’t the faintest notion what she is doing here, what her curiosity has led her to; it seems natural, however, to begin to open drawers and look through their contents.
Shirts, underclothes, long johns, stockings. Tidily folded and arranged. In the bottom drawer blankets, extras for the bed when it gets very cold. Underneath these blankets she comes across something interesting. Photograph in a rosewood frame. Looking out the window to make sure he is still at safe distance from the house (he is), Hannah lifts the photograph out of the drawer and stands up to examine it more closely. The image is browned by age, is mounted on a light beaverboard that is chipped a little on one corner but has prevented it from curling. There are three children in the photograph. A boy, an adolescent, on the left, standing, thumb of his right hand inserted self-consciously at the corner of his trouser pocket, outfitted in a double-breasted suit with a cravat and formal collar, a precocious smugness on his young face. It is uncle LeRoy. The eyes are telling. The lower lip, which curves neither up nor down, trails forward into an appreciable pout and makes visible a fine line of teeth. His dark hair is parted on the right, combed forward into an angle, cut at precisely forty-five degrees to the eyebrows, across the forehead. Below the brow, wide-set, iodine-colored in image as in life, these eyes gaze out, unperturbable. His left ear, hidden save for its tip, because of the camera angle, is much higher on his head than his right.
Opposite him, in the right of the frame, leaning against a shapely table, is mama Opal. She cannot be more than five or six years old. She is kneeling (possibly crouching? it’s hard to tell, for her legs are shrouded under the drapery of her clothes) on a plush chair. Her pale leg-of-mutton sleeved pinafore is starched and ruffled. On the table is an open book. Her right hand rests delicately in the gutter of the book, holding down its springy pages.
Whose idea was the book? the photographer’s? their mother’s? And who, or what, are they staring at intently, behind the apparatus that faced them in the studio? a funny stuffed monkey hung at the end of a stick? And that carnation there placed on the page of the opened book, did that act in the photographer’s imagination as a simple symbol for the freshness and promise and purity of youth? Who was this third figure, posed in a reclining position atop the table, his lanky legs dangling off the end on the left side, torso propped up on his left elbow, his shoulder leaning affectionately against the puffed sleeve of his sister’s pinafore? He, too, wore a double-breasted suitcoat, but of a lighter color than his brother’s. Is that a ring on his finger or a flaw in the print? Who could this be if not a brother? But uncle LeRoy did not have a brother, and mama Opal had no brother other than uncle LeRoy.
Why was this boy’s face scratched out with
many bold strokes of sepia-colored ink? The face once depicted here is almost eradicated. Who would have done such a thing to a family portrait?
Careful not to disturb the hairbrush, the hand mirror, the inlaid box of cufflinks set on the top of the chest of drawers, Hannah leans forward on tiptoes to look closer at the vandalized photograph. The ink failed to blacken the eyes out completely—the eyes of the older boy are still visible, even though the lower half of the face is actually torn away, gouged off by the pen. The eyes are clear and light, like those of mama Opal, and around the irises a fine dark line traced a circle, kind and rapt, perfect circle.
Sharp pain melted into the sound of a solid slap: it is felt at the back of Hannah’s head. Her ear popped while her hand caught the side of the inlaid box which tumbled with her to the pine plank floor of the bedroom. The first kick was just between her bony buttocks and she lay on her side. The second kick of such force it actually propelled her forward. There was a darkness of shadow cast across her field of vision, which she could not understand, as she stared at the wainscoting and floral wallpaper that abutted its fluted ridge. Her body coalesced. Involuntarily, it awaited the next kick. She heard her blood up in her throat and her breaths that came short, shallow and irregular.
Hannah could not locate his voice. It asked her what she was doing here. Uncle stood over her, one stockinged foot placed on his niece’s hip. The foot, heavy in its gray wool, gave a nudge forward, insisted upon an answer. Toes worked off Hannah’s hip and dug deeper into her soft, narrow side. They bore down. Hannah could feel her face getting hot. Uncle’s hand picked up the photograph.
“Do you know where you are?”
Hannah coughed. The foot rolled her over onto her stomach, then rested its weight on her back. Hannah closed her eyes and kept her face turned away from where uncle stood. He must have taken his boots off downstairs so she wouldn’t hear him, she thought as she cradled her head in her arms.
“What would your mama think of you?”
“What?” so small it seemed to be the wallpaper speaking, or the inlaid box.
“Breaking into other folks’ rooms? That’s the way you been brought up, is it?”
She was jerked light as fluff off the floor, one hand yanking her head up sharply by her hair and the other dragging her by her leather belt. The girl flailed ineffectually, and screamed as her uncle tossed her, face down, across the room, where she landed on her knees and chin. Quickly she began crawling on all fours toward the open door. Under the lintel uncle caught her up by the back of her shirt with such force that the buttons were torn away from its front. What’m I doing I’m going too far, he thought, but it was as if he himself were just a component and not in control of it.
“I didn’t mean to,” she said.
By the collar of Hannah’s shirt he marched her down the steep staircase, thin arms dangling like the stick arms on a scarecrow to either side, hung aloft by the fabric of the torn shirt, walking her across the front room to the kitchen, both of them crying just a little, perhaps, and him thinking so what if she knows about Gerald so what if she brings all that business up out of the cellar again, her mother knows now, they all do, that it was not his fault, not mine, and there was no need for Opal to go like that, look where it landed her after all, and look at this little sidewinder—“You little son of a bitch,” even then realizing he got the gender wrong, even then realizing that was part of the problem, somewhere.
She is not thinking. She is afraid of his hands. They seem to be slapping at her face. Her shirt is open at the front and she is thinking about wiggling free and making a run for it, but his hand is over the flat pan of her ribs holding her back.
Opal entered by the kitchen door, bags in both hands.
“Hannah?”
Uncle LeRoy let go of her, turned, hurried out of the kitchen.
“Roy?”
They heard him climb to the second floor in a few long strides, skipping two or three stairs at a leap.
“Roy?” she screamed, and quietly, “Hannah?”
He was directly overhead. His footfalls preceded the sound of his bedroom door slamming shut with such force that the panes of glass in the kitchen window rattled in their frames.
“Hannah, what’s happened?” She dropped her bags and pumped up fresh water onto a linen towel to clean her daughter’s bloodied chin. Hannah’s shoulders heaved and her face was so contorted it seemed she was screaming with laughter.
Mama Opal began to cry, also. Shrill beyond anything Hannah could remember, mama Opal started to shout her brother’s name.
“Roy … Roy … Roy …”
As suddenly as she began crying she stopped. She told Hannah to hold the towel to her chin, and to lie down on the table. The towel was frosty cold with the well water.
She was at the foot of the stairs calling his name, over and over.
Hannah looked at the blood in the towel. Outside the snow seemed to have let up. She tried to roll over onto her back but found she couldn’t. Her face ached. She wondered whether uncle meant to hit so hard—she was sure he didn’t.
The same semiblackness she suffered upstairs darkened the view before her. It was as if a blanket had been laid over her head. It was frightening.
“Mama?”
“Roy, you get down here and go get Doctor.”
“Mama?”
Uncle LeRoy left in the pickup truck without saying a word. When Doctor arrived mama Opal explained to him that the girl got bucked in the snow by a young filly. He knew she was not telling the truth. The snow had let up. There was no reason for him to ask any questions. Uncle LeRoy stayed out of the kitchen. He lit a fire in the front-room hearth. The snow started to fall again in earnest. Mama Opal let Hannah pop the corn to string with the cranberries (they had a nicer color than gooseberries, but you couldn’t string a gooseberry anyway) for the tree uncle had cut that afternoon in the field. She was not going to let Hannah’s Christmas be spoiled. She did not invite uncle in to help them trim the tree or drink the eggnog. This had to be somebody’s home, and tonight it would be theirs.
Butcher
August 1956
MAMS—NOW EVERYTHING was going hunky-dory before I started up work here in this town Babylon its near Blue Hill and Red Cloud you can find it on one of your National Geographic maps. But now this here sleepiness started to bothering me so much after the accident I dont know whether I’m coming or going. Thats because everything blew sky high. But I guess I’m getting a little ahead of myself. I believe I told you in my last I settled on coming to this place partly cause as I got such a fear of them cyclones you know and part because I got the offer to work here at this meat plant its one of the biggest and most modern in the whole state. So I got me a nice little place in town living on the second floor of these spinster ladies house, started up working here and the job pays good and have taken a considerable liking to the town. At the plant is where I made the acquaintance of the broad. The broad is what they call her I should say. I dont know why they call her the broad. I wouldnt call her that myself if it was left up to me but I was still pretty new here at the job and she was already going by that name when I come on. She’s prim and proper but she’s got a wild streak on her too. You know she reminded me first time I saw her of when we lived in back on Grove Street in Lincoln, remember? Remember that girl there I met that young girl there she was from Wichita Kansas. She was good looking. She had got her a good bookkeeping job short hand and the works. She roomed three doors east of us staying with that widow lady. She would come and sit in the swing, those were the days. I asked her once if she knew how to play bridge and she said no so I taught her how to play bridge. She was such a nice girl I wonder what ever become of her if you know let me know would you? Anyway I know the broad her real name what it was but thats just because I looked it up in her purse one afternoon a while back when she werent around I dont believe I recollect where she was but she werent in the front office where she works for this Mister Johnson he owns
the place. Maybe she went home early she has to tend to that nutty gal of hers. I know that gal drives her brother to drink sometimes anyway thats what they say. She dont have no husband because she lives over with her brother Roy Mann on his ranch. They say her husband run off quite a piece back. She may not really be a bastard, the gal I mean, is that how you call them and well I dont have no way of knowing myself for sure but thats what the scuttlebutt been. I seen her once, skinny tyke, both knees with scabs, awful cute. Cant imagine what a young sprout finds to do with herself out there in the middle of nowhere like that out on that big spread, three maybe more thousand acres they say he’s got. Uncle of her is a queer one, worst temper they say youd have a time finding. It has to do with that he lost his wife premature. She got cancer bad. They all say he started acting peculiar right after that maybe took to drinking some too. Opal I called her one day a few days back I guess. She didnt hear me least I dont believe she could have heard me being that she didnt answer me back.
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