Shedding Skin

by Robert Ward

  In the third year Susan does not move at all. She sits in front of the window and stares at her hands. Occasionally she utters a sound, but it is a strange use of language. “Coke,” she will say. Or “Cheeseburger.” I get panicky and call in a doctor. He comes. A little short man with bad teeth. He stares into her throat. He keeps staring. I wonder if he is considering taking Susan’s last asset, her beautiful teeth, and putting them in his own mouth.

  “So?” he says. “What’s wrong?”

  “What do you mean, what’s wrong? She only sighs and yawns.”

  “So? This is perfectly normal.”

  “Hmmmmmmm,” I say.

  The doctor gets into his big black car and leaves.

  “I think I am going to get some milk,” I say.

  “The draft will get you,” she says.

  “You know I am leaving,” I say.

  “Of course I do. I’m such a bore.”

  “Maybe it could be different,” I say.

  “Ennnnnnnnhhhhhhhhhhh,” she says.

  Too late. She’s fallen back into it. But she is right about one thing. The draft could get me. Still, I have to go.

  I leave her most of our money and ride all the way across town to Kirk and Walter’s apartment. I have not seen them for two years because of my effort to emulate the mayor.

  “Ward,” Walter yells as I walk into their apartment.

  “Mr. Straight,” yells Kirk.

  “I am going on the road,” I say. “Like the singers on folk and rock albums. There is something new happening all over America. Everyplace but here. It’s happiness. You all coming?”

  “Sure,” they shout. We slam our arms around each other and I know that I will never be like the mayor. In the back of my mind Warren is chuckling loudly.

  “Just wait,” he says. “Wait till you see what else.”

  XVIII.

  Hittin’ That Hard and Dusty Trail

  We hitchhike to the Baltimore Beltway, laughing and singing. It’s six o’clock at night and we have just eaten a huge meal. Soon it grows dark, and we are standing under the arc lights whistling a tune.

  We are still under the arc lights, still waiting on the Beltway. Unlike most hoboes, however, we are not being blinded by the cruel neon. That is because the lights have gone out about two hours ago. It’s eight-thirty in the morning and we are dirty and exhausted. I am feeling less and less like Woody Guthrie. Kirk is going through an agony routine (falling in the grass, yelling “Oh no, nooooo, pleeeeeeeease pick us up”). Walter is sleeping on his feet, a trick he swears he learned from a Cisco Houston record. I’m still standing here with my thumb out. It occurs to me that perhaps gypsies don’t take as many bags as we have. Kirk has two suitcases and a guitar. Walter has one suitcase and a pet hamster named Dusty Roads (he named it as we got to the Beltway). I have two suitcases, a banjo, a guitar, a mandolin, and a camera (so I can take action pictures of us working in the fields with the real people of the earth).

  “Ward,” whines Walter, “are we ever gonna get picked up?”

  “Not unless an empty U-Haul comes by. Look at all this stuff we brought. Nobody in the world would stop for us.”

  We all look at it. Kirk begins to laugh at Dusty Roads. Walter gets hurt and picks up his belongings.

  “I am through. Screw you guys.”

  Walter is walking up the ramp, kicking his feet into the curb, enjoying Kirk’s apologies.

  “Come back here. I was only putting you on. I love your goddamned hamster. Christ, I would protect him with my life.”

  Walter keeps walking away from him, his head bowed. I believe he really is hurt. Kirk tells me he will be right back, and runs after him. I watch them disappear around the bend, my thumb still drooping toward the highway. At that moment two cars stop to pick me up. I race toward the second one, bags and instruments in hand, and explain how sorry I am I cannot go with him but the other guy stopped first. He says I am breaking his heart. I am falling over my suitcases, breaking banjo strings, my camera bouncing in my mouth. With the driver’s assistance, I flop into his car.

  As I zoom away, I see Kirk and Walter coming back down the hill. They wave good-bye, pick up their things and head back to Baltimore. It’s me all alone now, and I am tempted to ask the driver to stop the car because I think he has a flat tire. When he does, I will run away and get back to Susan in time for supper and sighs. But I don’t say anything, just watch the highway, hum “I Been Doin’ Some Hard Travelin’ “ and occasionally bite my wrist.

  PART TWO

  XIX.

  In Which the Narrator Becomes a Mountain Man and Harvests the Grapes of Wrath

  I am standing barefoot in the soil. (As soon as the first driver let me out of the car, I took off my workman’s boots and casually tossed them aside. I also opened my workshirt and imagined myself on a record album, standing on this long, lonesome road.) There are trees firmly rooted in this, the earth. I lean over backward, my banjo bouncing off my knee, my guitar, camera and mandolin dangling from my neck, cutting off circulation. I stare into the West Virginia night, out into the vast vast stars. There is a feeling of absolute elation here (caused by either a mystical oneness with the universe or dizziness from blood shortage), an emotion which begins at orgasm level, travels through the brain, out the top of the head, and swirls into the cosmos from wherever it came. This feeling, this priceless feeling, which lasts three minutes. Then I am forced to admit that I am hung up here, Nowhere, U.S.A., with a bunch of instruments I do not play. I am glad I do not have Dusty Roads with me, for I would eat him.

  “You are a fool,” says Warren.

  “Monday morning quarterback,” I retort.

  “Why don’t you sit down on the edge of the picturesque country road and shout the blues?” asks Warren.

  I do not answer. There is very little I can say that will be classified as fast repartee. I scout the roadside for woodchucks and other animals I have seen in Walt Disney movies. Nothing … I put my hands over my eyes (shading them from the moon?) and look on down the line. For as far as I can see (about ten yards) there is only darkness. It is a darkness which has a life, a will; of that I am certain. First it gets black, total blackness. Then it gets blacker. I decide that colors have been poorly named, that if I live through this, I will start a revolution in aesthetics and language by renaming all shades of black, blue … This fantasy keeps me from biting my wrist and giving over to unmanly hysterical whimpering, for maybe thirty seconds. Then I feel my lip doing the trembles.

  I am saved from an early breakdown by the headlights in the road. Leaping directly into the path of the vehicle (never considering that the car may be doing more than ten miles an hour, thus necessitating my death), I wave my arms and yell, “Howdy, neighbor.” Woody Guthrie said in his autobiography, Bound for Glory, that all “hill folk” would instinctively understand “Howdy, neighbor” and invite you in for corn bread and sour mash. The car, however, cannot hope to stop and honks its tinny horn once, as it veers to avoid hitting me. I watch it fishtail, spin and crash into the trees a few inches to my right.

  “Gee,” I yell, as I run over to the smoking battered heap. I am thinking that if I revert to the language of an innocent child, whoever gets out will not turn me over to the Ku Klux Klan for castration.

  “Whad the fug you doing in the road?” says a youthful voice, coming from the twisted front end.

  “In the road? Gee,” I say, two or three octaves higher than usual. I worry that I may sound like a punk and he will cut off my balls without waiting for the Klan.

  “That’s rot,” the voice says. “In the folking road. Either you’re in the road or omma nigger avaider.”

  I decide to humor him. He is, after all, a savage, and I should be able to get him on my kind of time.

  “Sure am sorry, neighbor,” I say, doubling over and making an awkward bow of apology. (I am attempting to look like a humble hill folk who has just won the Congressional Medal of Honor, and is having his reception with
the President.)

  The ruse works beautifully. He is stopped short by my passivity. I picture myself with flowers around my neck, and all the greasers in the world paying me constant homage.

  “Gawsh” is all he can conjure.

  “I was jes wandering out on the road, and the darkness made me kinda dizzy,” I say. “Om plumb tuckered out.”

  “I reckon you can stay up at my place for the night,” he says, as he inspects the crunched smoking mass wedged in between two fat trees.

  “Why, thanks, neighbor,” I say, sticking a blade of grass between my teeth. “My name’s Bobby … Bobbyward.” I pronounce both names at once, like Walter Brennan, who is the only hillbilly I’ve ever seen. It works like a charm. His face opens in a smile.

  “Stump’s mine. Byron Coughing Bird Stump. You mighta heard some of ma records. You play all them instruments dangling round your neck?”

  I stare down at my guitar, mandolin, banjo, and camera overwhelmed with embarrassment. The only song I can play is the first verse of “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and worse than that, the man in front of me is one of the major bluegrass gospel ethnics on the exciting new country scene. Walter has all the In The Field recordings of the Singing Stump Family. I feel like running into the woods and never coming out until I can play all the instruments. But this is not possible, for I would be eaten by bad animals.

  “Kinda,” I say, still affecting my folksy voice but with a Henry Aldrich falsetto. “I can kinda play ‘em.”

  Before I know what is happening I am in the Stump Family’s living room. Two-hundred-year-old mandolins hang from the wall, next to a drooping elk’s head, and directly above a silver satin pillow with a picture of a bee with boxing gloves on and a pugnacious look on his round face. Coughing Bird explains to me that the pillow was sent by his brother Tommy Joe, who was in the Seabees but who was “runned over by the only Caterpillar tractor on Guam. Bones jes crushed all up.” Five-hundred-year-old dulcimers sit next to the ancient rocker all covered with handmade crazy quilt. The Stumps are glad-handing me. Many backslaps are going down, and I am being pummeled by Daddy Stump, whose real name is Lester Buddy-Bob Stump. I am being hugged by Coughing Bird’s cute cute sister (in miniskirt with white tassels and whiter plastic miniboots), Rosie June Bug Stump. I am being kissed (slobbered on actually) by Ma Lottie Stump, and even Coughing Bird is punching at me like an old lost friend. My own reaction is the appropriate “Aw shucks” routine, and I am making as much effort as possible to stick out my front teeth. I decide right then that I am going to spend the rest of my life with these people and cultivate myself as a raucous hick.

  After a wonderful night’s sleep on the softest featherbed in the world (softer than the carpet of grass Johnny U. races to the protective pocket on), I awake to the sound of twanging banjos, booma booma bass runs and blissful four-part harmony. Christ, I tell myself, they sing when they get out of bed. What wonderful wonderful people. I throw on my socks and my workshirt and skip down the ancient steps. Sure enough, there they are in the living room. All of them standing in a line, all of them wearing their green satin shirts with Stump Family written across the chest in gold letters. I notice the incredible pair of tits possessed by June Bug, tits which swell with pride every time she strains for a high note. I thrill to the amazing hands of Coughing Bird on banjo, and the equally deft fingers of Lester Buddy-Bob on guitar. Ma is playing Jew’s harp in the corner, and is putting down some very hot licks. I nod my head in appreciation, and feel country magic surging through all my organs.

  The Stumps are more than grateful for my applause, and invite me to eat breakfast with them. I marvel at the simplicity of the meal. Although the grits gag me, I eat two full helpings of them, and drink three glasses of buttermilk, which causes my entire throat to move inside my neck. But the strangeness of the food (for surely that is all it is: I am learning new ways and new food; real food fresh from the farm is strange to me because I am used to plastic food from the Food Fair) is more than compensated for by the earnest simplicity of the talk.

  Pa Stump: “Ah pass them grits and ah gimme them biskits.”

  Ma Stump (scratching a sore on her nose): “Uh O.K. Here’s the vittels.”

  Pa Stump (rubbing his chin, which is now covered by a long hanging buttermilk loogie): “Boy’s gotta ead.”

  Coughing Bird (grits falling from his mouth): “Ahh umm ahh.”

  June Bug (wiping her nose with her sleeve) : “My nose has an ole bug in it.”

  I listen to this talk as if it is the first conversation in the history of man. Here are people, I tell myself, who sit down and eat. Really eat. The very eatness of the scene is what gets to me. They feel their food, they swish it around in their mouths, let it drop back on their plates. And their conversation reveals the simple joy, lost for all time to the bourgeoisie, of the real eating process. I am so overwhelmed by my insight that I forget I may throw up all over this shredded lace tablecloth.

  “You really eat,” I scream. “You really fucking eat.”

  My joy is short-lived, for Lester Buddy-Bob smacks me in the teeth with the back of his massive hand.

  I cannot believe it as I fall to the rug, and he is on top of me, beating my face. The other Stumps manage to pull him off. As Ma Lottie waddles to the kitchen to get a cold cloth for the big gash in my forehead, June Bug explains to me that I should “hadn’t never said bad words ‘cause Lester jes loses his good sense when he hears ‘em.” I try to explain that the source of the words was joy, that they are the greatest eaters I have ever seen, but it is to no avail. They look down on me with vacant stares and wide smiles of mindless sympathy. I curse myself for my lack of discretion, and spend the rest of the day, working out back in the sawmill with Byron, trying to explain. He tells me “jes to forget it, and maybe Lester will.” I say “I sure hope so” many times, and shake my damaged head for emphasis.

  That night at dinner, I am not so amazed at the eating process. I am too up-tight to notice anything. Lester spends much of the time shooting me hard looks, and the family ignores me. I swallow my food with great difficulty (this happens every time I get upset, ever since Freda force-fed me her egg and asparagus specialty in front of all my friends on my seventh birthday) and vow to find a way to appease them. During dessert (pig knuckle pie) I tell Lester that he is the greatest banjo player in the world. This does me little good because Lester plays guitar. He raises his hand and tries to give me a karate chop to the windpipe. Fortunately he telegraphs the swipe and I am able to duck. The hand hits my temple, and I am suddenly moving through a dark place in slow motion. Spinning out of the black is a voice, two or three voices, a choir of voices. I awake to find the Singing Stump Family in front of me, their red chubby faces smiling, their necks straining toward heaven. “ ‘There is a fountain all filled with blood …’ “

  I listen with rapt attention, absolutely bent on winning their favor. Obviously I have broken an unspoken unwritten law of the hill folk, but I am certain I will be able to get back in their good graces.

  “That’s great,” I shout, attempting to applaud. I am unable to do so, for they have me tied to a chair.

  “You folks has got me all wrong,” I say, in panic.

  The family doesn’t seem to hear me, and launches into “From Mother’s Arms to Korea,” a song with the refrain:

  They sent her an unfinished diary

  That told of the life of her son

  It started the day that he went away

  And ended ‘neath the enemy’s gun….

  Finally the family moves in a song I have never heard before (or since) about a man “who skinned a nigger good, boys”:

  Skinned that nigger good now, boys

  Cut that coon rot fine

  Twist his balls all round his neck

  Stuck ‘em in turpentine, yeah

  I attempt to show my appreciation of the joke, but am cut short by Coughing Bird, who comes over and unties me. The family smiles a lot and offers me some “home bre
w,” which I drink gratefully. (They do not mention the tying up and neither do I. I figure that some things are better off unspoken.) Soon we are sitting on the crashing back porch, sipping white lightning in the orange moonlight. I realize that the family has some shortcomings, but now that I am being accepted, now that I have at last atoned for my conduct, I am only too glad to overlook these frailties. It makes them more human, I say to myself, as the liquor makes me instantly stoned.

  “You know,” I hear myself say, with total horror, “for the salt of the earth, you motherfuckers act mighty strange.”

  I do not attempt to resist as both Lester and Byron smash their fists on the top of my head. In the heat of the morning I awake and stare at the soft pink sky. No, not the sky; it moves. I am underneath a hog, and he is beginning to defecate. As I make futile attempts to squeeze out from under the big load I hear the good Stump Family begin a rousing version of “Couldn’t Rinky Ramble.”

  “Ha ha, you bastards,” I scream, shaking my fist, wiping hog shit from my eyelids. “Ha ha, ha ha hahahahahahaha …”

  Though I am covered with bruises and small bits of hog shit (which have dried in the sun), I am determined to earn the respect and friendship of these marvelous Stumps. That is why I am carrying eighty-pound sacks of sugar and shelled corn up the side of this treacherous mountain to the ramshackle still which bubbles merrily beneath the trees. The work is back-breaking and my arms are breaking out in little red spots (from the sun? from anxiety?), but on my fourth trip down the hill, Lester gave me a big smile and handed me a thick crust of brown bread, which was covered with a lumpy red substance. I accepted it, smiling, and experienced (for a second) good moments shared with a friend. Even though it was virtually impossible to swallow (I found myself gagging and rolling over and over in the dust), I must admit that if judged by taste alone, it was quite delicious. After helping me to my knees, Lester explained that it is an old family recipe, a recipe rarely sampled by strangers. It is called chicken beak jam. Through watering eyes and streaming nose, I informed him that I was afraid that one of the beaks had become lodged in my throat. He only said “Haw,” and explained that the Stumps never had that trouble because their throats had stretched from singing all those years. I said that I thought they were wonderful singers, and after several minutes’ more retching, carried the sack up the mountain.