In a Sweet Magnolia Time

by Wintner, Robert;

  I think the transition from flesh to spirit is more difficult when the transit begins far from nature, like, say, in town, any town, where local knowledge concerns pavement and commerce, and general information passes for wisdom. Yet even from the urban core the facts, stats and personal contacts default to a greater knowing. I don’t mean you’re suddenly smart at death, after a life of vacuous mentality. Take for example the President of the United States of America at this juncture, who best illustrates this point. His biographers record no ideas or positions in his youth. At Yale and Harvard, ideas and positions are presumed but in him were absent. He got by as an heir, avoiding the misspeak that might irk the patriarch in those salad days of liquor, cocaine and leg. But I suspect minimal discretion; I think George II will meet his maker knowing little else but what the cue cards tell him. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, a dyed-in-the-wool Southern Democrat who sees no value in the two-car suburbs with new appliances, who sees earthly power as no absolution for a mean spirit.

  I have more faith in my cat Ruby, walking regally across the deck, jumping onto a chair and from there to a low overhang off the roof and easing on up to the ridge, where she fluffs, squints at the green-tinted sunbeams and seems to sense the world around her more than her president. That’s the knowing available to some of us, before or after death. Maybe things are best perceived from a rooftop, or at least from a reasonable distance.

  We put Jim Cohen out with the rest of the Cohens under a good size magnolia by the pond they called brackish because it broke off from a curve in the creek about a hundred years ago and stayed half salty in spite of its freshwater spring. I knew the place well and went there often for its beauty and stillness. Nobody else went out there because of the graves, except for Jim, who went out for something else. He showed me the place some years ago, pointing out how the creek had snaked in and back out in a deepening curve till the pond had no choice but to separate, once the creek pinched back in so tight it left the pond and flowed freely without it. Then he showed me how fresh the pond had become, evidenced by the swarming dragonflies dipping their tail ends to the surface to deposit their eggs, so their larvae could hatch and mature below the surface. D’enfant skeeta hawk cain’t drank no saltwater now.

  He still makes me laugh; the baby mosquito hawks can’t drink saltwater. I cupped a handful and tasted fresh.

  Then he showed me how he scratched the itch when he hankered for old times with the old mobility, when mystery and adventure waited around every bend of every creek and river. Nothing scared shit out of him like lightning, and I shared that fear. Most people head inside at the first flash over the horizon, not waiting to see what moves in. The air and humidity in this region pump the ions up to discharge right now with so much current flashing in the bolts you’d think it was warheads exploding. Not that anyone would want to fire on Wadmalaw. Who’d care? Unless they missed the nuclear submarine base up in North Charleston and hit here by mistake.

  Everyone gets caught out in the lightning sooner or later, driving down the road if nothing else. Jim Cohen got caught often as not in his bateau with nothing for it but to row like the devil for home. But that was years ago. Years later he stacked three old tires out by the pond and family gravesites, because he believed the lightning didn’t take nearly so quick to freshwater, and if it did, de sparit ob de fambly were there to save him, and if they didn’t, there wouldn’t be so far to carry his body. He got me to help him carry three more tires out there and stackumup one gray, blustery afternoon to demonstrate his technique, showing me how to sit on the tires for poor man’s insulation and warning me not to tip the whole load over, unless I got stuck, and then there wasn’t nothing else for it, if a man wanted out.

  So we wedged into the tires as the clouds got black and blue on a bad mood till the bolts came crashing, first a mile out and in about two seconds maybe a hundred feet out. The squall soaked us to the bone, breaking regular with lightning for ten or twelve minutes. Then it passed, leaving us ready to head home with nobody restless anymore. He didn’t press for my assessment but seemed satisfied. Then he warned me that if I came back without him, don’t forget to check in dem rubbah tah fuh dem rattuh snek wid dem cawton in e mouf, which he had forgot to do, but neh min’; dem snek be’s sceeyid as us two foo, fuh true.

  I haven’t felt restless enough to try that one again but did go back out to the freshwater pond a few times to feel the stillness and the place. I don’t know if they’d allow me in for the long haul, but I wouldn’t mind helping Jim feed that tree. I might see how his kin would feel about a plain pine box. It’d go away in no time, no marker necessary, unless they want to say something about a loving husband and father. I might have a little chat with Julya while I’m at it on the sins of squandering and the prudence of investing for the future, reinvesting the dividends, never touching the principal or losing sight of the greatest wealth of all, the one inherited long before my arrival.

  I think Waites Waring was my friend and mentor, that he and I reflect the Lowcountry for better or worse. We arrived together long way around, adapting to a truth long buried in our hearts. Maybe his Yankee spitfire let him see it. Maybe not. Aníse and her uncle unveiled it for me and remain steadfast in quelling my doubts, and so does the beauty abounding.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2005 by Robert Wintner

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-3271-1

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