by A. M. Goetz
Jane smelled like wild honeysuckle and wood smoke, and her hands was gentle and warm. And if we hadn’t both already been in love with her that night she helped me patch up my brother, we would have been by next morning.
Jane asked me once why I didn’t step in and stop Merle when he’d start in on Dack. She’d asked Sonny once too, long ago. And I think she felt bad when we both hung our heads like the useless bastards we seemed. I never told Jane the truth—never told her that we’d tried in the beginning. Sonny was 13 the first time Merle lit out after Dack, and Dack, he was just nine. Merle hit him broadside with a big branch off the old, dead apple tree that sat decaying in the back yard, hit him so hard he knocked him clean out. Dack lay there on the ground, small body still like he was dead, and Sonny, without even thinking about it, picked up a big, flat rock and broke it over the back of Merle’s head.
If we thought things was bad before Sonny used that rock, it wasn’t nothing compared to what come after. For a solid year after that, anytime Merle got it in his head that Dack needed punishing, he’d make me or Sonny do it. And if we didn’t do it, it was Dack who’d pay. I once had to punch him in the face 11 times, and Sonny—he’d had to hold Pop’s old revolver pointed at Dack’s knee while Merle put a single bullet in it and spun the chamber.
The son-of-a-bitch made Sonny pull the trigger.
Merle had ways for keeping us all in line, and Dack made a good weapon. Dack was the youngest, the most helpless, the most vulnerable of the three of us. We’d both die to keep him safe. Merle knew it. He knew it and used it.
Worse, the bastard enjoyed it.
When we refused to hurt Dack, Merle would just hurt him worse and for longer. Then he’d stand over my brother’s limp form and preach at us like it was our fault the kid was bloody and unconscious in the dirt. Merle was a growed man when he landed on us, and we was just kids without options. Once Pop passed on, we had nobody left who gave a damn whether we lived or died. We became “them Ashkettle boys”—wrong as gray mold on strawberries—pests to be avoided at all costs and hope we didn’t spread.
We wasn’t no disease to Jane, though. Jane was moldy herself and knew what it looked like.
So when she come right out that one time and asked me and Sonny why we didn’t do something about Merle, it hurt.
It was the kind of hurt that even the yellow foxtails couldn’t fix.
4
“Wanna head up New York way?”
I looked over at Dack, surprised. The kid hadn’t said two words since we’d make our break. Mostly he just sat and stared blankly into space. When he wasn’t staring, he was humming some song that only he knew.
At night, he’d toss and turn – restless.
Sometimes he woke up screaming.
“Yeah?” I asked, struggling to keep the genuine curiosity out of my voice. “New York ain’t nothing but people, man. You hate people.”
Dack shrugged and then winced. Jane had wrapped up his ribs real good, but it was obvious he was still having trouble catching a deep breath. Dack was probably in agony, but being Dack, he’d hide it so’s not to worry me and Jane.
“Sonny.”
It was Dack’s way of saying our brother was in New York, And if he had suddenly volunteered that he was really a woman underneath all that flannel, I wouldn’a been more surprised.
“How you know that?”
Dack shrugged again, carefully, and just smiled. Kid was sharp as a whip, smarter than me, smarter than Sonny, but people thought he was dumb ‘cause he didn’t say much anymore and when he did talk, sometimes he’d just drift off in the middle of it. When Pop was alive, my little brother could have talked circles around just about anyone. These days though, he didn’t have a lot to say, and his mind wandered. One minute he’d be in the building, the next minute, he’d be off somewheres else altogether. And mostly, he’d have no recollection of it later. Sonny said it was all the head injuries he’d suffered at the hands of Merle. Sometimes Dack’s brain worked, sometimes not, and it was just a crap shoot to see what you got when you started up a conversation with him. Still ... that thing about New York surprised me.
“Pop had a hunting cabin.” Dack shared, jolting me back what felt like a hundred years. I’d forgotten all about that old cabin, I was surprised Dack hadn’t.
“Think that old place is still standing?” I asked, suddenly hopeful. If the walls was up and the roof sorta sound, it was all we’d need.
Dack shrugged again. He reached for the steaming cup of coffee that Jane handed him, smiling up to thank her, and when Jane smiled back, empathy of the likewise-afflicted reflected in her eyes, my heart did a little stutter down deep in my chest.
“S’hot.” She offered in her deliberate way. “Drink it slow, maybe.” She turned away, still talking as she went, and her hair did this ripple thing down the side of one high cheekbone before she brushed it away, annoyed. “Sawmill gravy’s on. Dad gits hungry ‘bout this time, so’m making extra.”
Dack nodded, hunger blooming on his face, and I hoped to God a different kind of hunger wasn’t pasted across my own. I felt my neck start to pink up so bad I had to hightail it to Jane’s bathroom to hide ‘til it passed.
When I come back minutes later, Dack was sitting on the couch, a plate filled with gravy and bacon on his lap. His coffee rested on the floor at his feet, but Jane was in the middle of bringing him the single kitchen chair to set his food and drink on so’s he wouldn’t have to bend too far.
Jane was like that.
Her dad sat in the recliner, eyes mostly blank, with his own plate brimming to the edge with gravy over bread. Only difference was, his bread was still in whole slices. Me and Dack, we always tore our bread into pieces and called it bites. Jane sat on the broken television that rested on the floor next to its working replacement, a bacon sandwich in her lap minus the plate. She beckoned me toward the kitchen.
“Bread’s on the table. Stove’s hot.”
I nodded, heading out to inspect Jane’s offerings. The gravy was thin and smooth and brown just like it was supposed to be, and next to it sat an old, chipped platter from the A&P. It was filled with a sizable pyramid of bacon ends—the kind you got cheaper ‘cause they was mostly fat and hardly any meat. Jane had them fried nice and crisp though, so it was hard to tell the difference.
I filled the single plate left in the cupboard, then peeked into Jane’s dad’s fridge to see what might be handy in the way of drinks. I snagged a can of beer and settled down on the couch beside Dack, eyeing Jane’s old man in a sideways glance to see if he minded. And when he only smiled, I knew I was in the clear. I relaxed for what felt like the first time in weeks. It was the first meal I’d eaten since a single egg at breakfast, and Dack—I had no idea how long it’d been since he’d seen a full plate of food—but judging by the way he was shoveling it in his face, too long, I’d guess.
We spent Thanksgiving at Jane’s house and ate red kidney beans with ribbles she dropped in. It was plain, but filling, and Jane’s dad brought up bottles of homemade raspberry wine that was better than store-bought. We stayed ‘til next Friday a week, when I was able to pick up my paycheck, and it looked like Dack was good enough to move on. Jane’s dad, in a rare moment of clarity, brought Dack a worn and folded bandana that last day. It was Army green and ugly as sin, but Jane explained that he’d worn it under his helmet in The War for years. Ever since, it’d been washed and folded away safely in a dresser drawer, and Jane herself hadn’t seen the thing in ages.
Al brought the bandana to Dack, shook out the sharp creases and the dust and re-folded it with us all looking on. He formed it into a triangle, then, gentle as a kitten and with his hands shaking, he placed the triangle over my brother’s poor, plucked scalp and tied it securely in back, tucking the point down under the knot. It covered all the bald spots and had the added advantage of making my pretty-boy brother look a little badass. Al stood back and admired his work, then nodded and smiled. And if he hadn’t tossed in the unanti
cipated wink at the end, I’d have thought those two expressions was all he had in his kit.
Al was full of surprises, and his daughter was a lot like him, which made it all that much harder for me and Dack to leave the only place that had even come close to feeling like home since Pop passed.
“Come back someday.” Jane instructed in her curious, succinct way, as we stood next to my old car. She handed me a plastic bag filled with jerky.
“Gas to keep you going.” She said simply.
I nodded, and my mouth quirked up to form a smile despite the misery that was trying to fight its way out my eyes and down my face. But Dack had no such reservations. He walked over to Jane and pulled her close in a tight, wordless hug, tucking her head beneath his chin and grinning like he hadn’t just spent the last seven years as a mad dog’s fucking chew toy.
And Jane, she grinned right back. It was rare as diamonds and just as beautiful. Jane hugged my little brother like he was her own, then she let him go with a kiss on his chin ‘cause it was far as she could reach. She stepped back and around then and simply folded herself into me, Ben’s old tee shirt soft and warm against my skin as I caught her willingly, not the least bit surprised at how well she fit.
5
We left Pennsylvania that Friday morning, me – a little sad at leaving Jane behind, and Dack just desperate to git moving. It was a strange thing, Dack’s anxiety, and unlike my little brother. I pictured us running to Sonny, but Dack, I think maybe he pictured us running from Merle.
Like Merle would ever care enough to come after us. Sure, he hated us and all, but tracking us down? That would take motivation and at least a little bit of cunning.
Motivated and cunning wasn’t words that come to mind when Merle was in there taking up space.
Still, the further we got from South-Central Pennsylvania, the more relaxed my brother became. We’d started out with his fist hitting against his knee repeatedly. It wasn’t on purpose. I think it was just a way for him to get some of his anxiety out. After a half-hour on the turnpike though, the strange punching motion halted, and he reached over and snicked on the radio. By the time we hit Scranton, he was singing along with White Plains, his poor head bobbing along in time as he half-sung, half hummed the lyrics.
It was good times, something none of us was used to, and I couldn’t help subconsciously bracing my shoulders for that piece of the sky I knew was gonna fall down and smash us both like ants eventually.
My brother’s actions surprised me, still I’d learned to take my peace where I could find it, and I gaped over at Dack, rolled my eyes and chuckled when his long, slim middle finger popped up.
Bastard hadn’t even looked over. It was that sixth sense of his, and I had to snort.
“Asshole.” I declared.
Dack grinned, and I swear to God, it was the first time I’d seen his teeth in a decade. “Maybe.”
“Maybe.” I seconded, and veered over to take the next exit. Food was needed, and I had a whole paycheck burning a hole in my pocket. “You hungry?” I asked, not really expecting a reply. Dack never ate much, and when he did, it usually made a reappearance within an hour or two.
But Dack surprised me again, “Maybe.” He said again, eyes flashing with what looked like genuine interest, and I almost wrecked the car from the spark of life I’d seen there.
It don’t sound like much, but I hadn’t seen the kid this animated since Pop was alive. I wasn’t sure I knew what to do with him.
Still, we found a fast food joint right off the exit and a parking space right in front like it was waiting for us. Inside, I ordered for both of us while Dack wandered off to find a booth in the corner. My brother didn’t like people much, and I didn’t blame him a bit. In my experience, they wasn’t worth a whole lot.
And sure enough, as I brought the food to the table where Dack waited, far in the back of the restaurant, there was some old guy leering at him.
My brother was a good-looking kid, always had been, and with his dark hair way too long and Al’s bandana covering up most of the damage, he looked younger than ever. Sure, he had two black eyes, but even they didn’t disguise the glory that was my brother’s face. Girls loved Dack. He’d always just been too busy trying to stay alive to notice, just like now. Fool was completely oblivious, sitting by the window, swaying a little and fingers tapping out a tune on his old jeans that only he heard, but I’d spent my life with my antenna fine-tuned to Dack FM, and I spotted the pervert as soon as I rounded the group of oldsters settled in by the back door. His table was on the way to ours, and I stopped right in front and just stood there, glaring.
Asshole finally noticed me, and he straightened up in his seat and had the courtesy to look away embarrassed. I wanted to scream at him that my kid brother was only sixteen and ask what the hell was wrong with him, but that would just bring him to Dack’s attention. I settled for a dirty look and a silent warning that the man seemed to understand instead.
I moved on and slid into the booth across from my brother, marveling in silence at the way his eyes lit up at the food. I’d ordered him two burgers, onion rings, peach pie and a big, thick vanilla shake, and the first thing he did was tear open the pie and dip it right into the shake. He ate like a man who hadn’t seen food in years instead of someone who’d wolfed down Jane’s breakfast just hours ago.
But that was fine. In fact, it was better than fine. Just like me, Dack stood just a shade over 5’ 9”, and was woefully underweight, thanks to Merle’s penchant for using starvation as punishment. And as I sat wolfing my own sandwich, I vowed to fatten the kid up or die trying.
But an hour later, right on schedule, I pulled the car over to the side of I-81 so Dack could bail from the front seat and puke up the last 12-hours-worth of food.
I sighed, picturing dollar bills that we didn’t have splattering across the asphalt, but I still stopped at the next fast food joint we saw and ordered a cup of ice water at the drive-through. And when Dack settled back with a contented sigh and took small sips of the cool water to ease his burning throat, I felt like I’d finally managed to do one thing right.
6
It was Pop who taught us never to be scared of the land or anything it wanted to give us. He had a healthy relationship with the mountains that surrounded us on three sides, hunting, fishing and harvesting ‘em to supplement the sparse groceries we bought in town. He was a Conservation Officer with the Pennsylvania Game Commission, but most locals called him game warden. Pop wasn’t real popular in backwoods Appalachia where families was still starving even in 1979. Still, he always came out on the side of the white-tailed deer, black bear and even the occasional wayward elk that wandered down our way from upstate.
We lived smack in the middle of a population of farmers who viewed wildlife as a threat more than a treasure, but Pop – he always held a reverence for living things, even while they was eating his tomatoes and his corn ears and the tops out of the pepper plants that we needed to git us through those bitter northeast winters.
“The animals have to eat too.” He’d say when an angry neighbor come pounding on our door in the early hours of the dawn after discovering a chicken coop plumb cleaned out by a black bear in the night.
No, Pop wasn’t popular, but folks respected him, which was why our swift descent into obscurity was so hard to take once he was gone.
Folks was chomping at the bit, I guess, for reasons to dislike the kids of Everett Ashkettle, and to them, Merle’s arrival was a godsend. Drunk more than he was ever sober, Merle fought in the bars, whored with loose women, cheated in the stores, paid bills only when he had to and alienated every neighbor he ever run across.
It was Merle who turned us from Everett Ashkettle’s boys into a scourge upon Union township.
Maybe that’s why nobody ever helped us. I used to hover over the toilet late at night, puking, while I listened to Merle go at Dack and wonder – we went from clean and comfortably dressed in suitable clothes to filthy and leaf-ridden in less t
ime than it took the sun to settle down over Sideling Hill.
How could nobody anywhere have noticed? How’d they miss the bruises on Dack’s face, the scars on his arms and legs and back? How’d they miss the pounds of weight we lost and the tons of baggage we picked up that nearly crushed us?
I’d have given all I had back then if just one teacher or neighbor or pastor would have knocked on our door and laid Merle out for all the times he hurt my brother. If just one person had been waiting for me and Sonny and Dack when we sprinted, barefoot, into the woods over scalding snow as gunshots rang out behind us and splintered the tree bark over our heads, if just one person had been waiting there to guide us to dry shelter and warm food – it would have made a difference.
It would have at least made us feel like we was human and not just sores on the backside of mankind.
I couldn’t blame my brother for hating people. Most days, I could barely stomach ‘em myself.
Those years we had with Pop though, they made up for everything that came after. And me and Sonny, we did our best to make sure Dack remembered as much about our pop as we could recall ourselves. Anytime Merle went on a bender and passed out for days, we’d take Dack and head up the mountain, a tent, backpacks and one of Pop’s old shotguns in hand. We kept our camping stuff and sleeping bags hidden in the woods back then. Later, we stashed it in the trunk of my old Monte Carlo so’s it’d always be handy. We’d hunt out of season for food to stave off the constant hunger that ruled our lives and pray that somewhere, somehow, Pop understood. We’d stretch out on contraband blankets beside a fire that sizzled and popped greedily from the white oak and ash we fed it, and we’d wait anxiously for that first mouth-watering taste of rabbit or squirrel fresh off the spit. We showed Dack how to find his way in any forest and how to tell the morels from the yellow stainers and the death caps. And through it all, we shared the stories we remembered about Pop. Pop knew how to fix mealworms and crickets that made ‘em taste like gourmet food, and he’d sprinkle ‘em over salads made of field mustard and fiddleheads. He pan-fried the fish we caught in the stream out back with pineapple and coconut, making it taste more like dessert than necessity, and he could fry deer tenderloin that melted in our mouths like chocolate.