Now That You're Back

by A. L. Kennedy

  And there I was, in a little grey house that was nothing but dry and tight as an old skin. Used to rattle and snap and drumbeat all night and I can still hear the BANG it used to make out of even the littlest step. I should know, I only made the littlest steps then. I had a figure in those days, I was petite, and walking just as soft as ever I could because there was a baby in the house. That was you. My daughter.

  I tiptoed across those rooms day and daily with the nice waist that you didn’t spoil one bit, being such a tiny, bitty thing when you were born. Folks would get worried just looking at you, you were so small, but I didn’t ever worry. I just loved you like my mother loved me and that did fine for both of us. We were company for each other.

  Now you’ll want me to tell you who else was in that place with us, or if we were there alone. Well a man called Taylor Whitman was there, too, and he was a friend of my father’s and he was also my husband. He would be what you would call your biological parent along with me.

  Don’t you worry, on his account, neither. He wasn’t just as nice as your father is now, but he was good enough and I didn’t know any better, not then.

  Taylor Whitman was a quiet man who owned the hardware store and had a keen interest in frogs. He would chase a particular frog for miles, just to look at it, hear it sing. Course most times, he’d catch whichever one was nearest, cut off its legs with a little knife he had and throw it up for our dog, Buddy, to catch. Buddy had a keen interest in frogs, also.

  Taylor Whitman was not handsome, but he was agreeable and could play fine Bluegrass banjo and sing simultaneously. He would sit out on the porch nights, drinking beer, listening to the bugs and singing. He was happy that way. Once he told me that good white folks had a duty to play the banjo, or it would get left to the jazz artists and negroes and those white trash, albino types up in the hills that you read about. I don’t know if that was why he got so allfired happy, those nights, but he certainly did love that banjo.

  There was one unfortunate thing about Taylor which neither of us guessed until after our marriage, because our courting was conducted very properly, with him being such a close friend of my father and, in any case, not inclined to be energetic with anything other than frogs. Taylor Whitman was allergic to my skin. Didn’t matter what I did. If I washed or didn’t wash or rubbed myself with who knew what kind of fancy preparation sent direct by mail, it didn’t make no difference. I couldn’t set a finger on him without his blistering up – cablooey – like an acid-burned bullfrog. It was a shame.

  We were a close couple, all the same. I got into the habit of wearing gloves around the house and our intimate relations were assisted by kind of flannel all-over bodysuits that his mother ran up out of underwear and some additional pieces for the face and so forth. You see, there was a point to all that because Taylor Whitman had a place where he wasn’t one tiny bit allergic. He would get almost amphibious about those times we could spend together with his mama’s help. She even put a little needlepoint embroidery around those important places where the flannel had to be left open which I thought was kind of cute but weird all the same, from somebody’s mother and all.

  Weird or not, almost every possible night we’d squeeze on into those suits, shuffle up and hug each other like we were fire-fighters or bee-keepers, or Lord knows what and Taylor Whitman’s bitty eyes would be sparking through his bitty eye-holes and then we’d be off and under the sheets.

  And those suits were hot, even without sheets. The summer I’m talking about, was just around the time I had decided those suits were too darn hot altogether. I would lie in the early morning, listening to Taylor Whitman’s big old boots just busting the boards underneath him and hearing the dawn outside, already too hot and stiff and cracked to do anything more than sigh. I’d get a big blue feeling and pretend I was asleep until he’d gone, which was pretty easy when he couldn’t see none of my face on account of the suit. And when he was gone I’d walk around that house bare naked with the blinds drawn, just to feel broke out and healthy a little. I had an idea that if the heat kept on a month longer, I’d wake up one morning boiled down to the bone.

  I was tired all the time. Just to breathe was making me tired and it didn’t seem my life would ever be any different from the way it was then. I would always be looking after Taylor Whitman and looking after his big, dry house and tending to his frogs and his mother’s sleeper suits. You were the only brightness in my life, I can tell you. I would purely live to sit out by the back door with you and see what new things you’d thought of to do, all fresh there under the shade and the loving sun.

  You were just kind of accomplished in smiling when a beat-up, green station wagon pulled in back of the house and a man wearing coveralls and sneakers climbed out. He stood with his arms crossed, real snug, and smiled right over at you and me, like he was throwing us a flower. Then waved his hand and he said, ‘Good morning, Mrs Whitman, ma’am. Your husband told me I should come right over, take a look at the land for those new frog pens he’d been planning. Hope I don’t disturb you none. Oh my, but that’s a lovely child. What is her name?’

  He knew you were a girl right off from the start and I wasn’t used to menfolk taking much of an interest in children that weren’t of their own making, leave alone recognising what kind they were, so I must say was glad to have the acquaintance of this man who ambulated clean up the path, shook my hand, real gentle, and told me what he was called.

  ‘Robert McConnerey Coons, Ma’am, Robert McConnerey Coons. And I am most delighted to meet you.’

  As the weeks went by, I grew used to the visits from the station wagon and the neat noises there would be around the house and outside from Robert McConnerey Coons tapping and sawing and hammering, setting things right. Mr Coons himself didn’t make no noise at all. He was lighter on his feet than I was, only his feet was bigger, naturally.

  He finished the frog pens in double quick time and they looked as pretty as a line of doll’s houses, all painted up. but then there was the fence to mend and things wrong with windows and the bug screens and the roof. It was a wonder the house hadn’t just split right open one night, like an overwatered melon, and killed us all stone dead. But Robert McConnerey Coons got everything fixed – he was downright indispensable.

  ‘You can call me Bob, if you like. Most folks do.’

  ‘Well, you can call me Irma Jean, Bob.’

  ‘Why, is that your name, Irma Jean?’

  ‘Yes, it is, Bob.’

  ‘That’s one bee-ootiful name. Irma Jean.’

  Taylor Whitman seemed to like Bob just as much as I did. The store ran much better when Bob was helping out. He had a way of talking to people that set them entirely at ease and he could have made a sow buy belly pork and like it. And it was a wonder, how much he seemed to do in a day.

  ‘Well, I just work the way I feel I should, Irma Jean. That’s all. My Papa, he never did have the trick of doing anything for long and finally he died with no money and no home to speak of and it was a bad and shameful business altogether. I never knew my Mama, see – so he was all the folks I had.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Bob.’

  ‘Thank you, but there’s no need. I don’t mind it now. I just feel that being an orphan and all, I should show men and women who are born with a bad start in life that they can turn out just fine, all it takes is application – get up and go.’

  ‘There should be more people like you, Bob.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that. But I do know the world sorely needs more doing and less belly-aching. Nobody owes me a living, I make my own.’

  He did, too. Taylor Whitman would come in, almost every day and tell me something good that Bob had done. He would go anywhere in town, if somebody happened to mention they had a child’s swing needed fixing or an automobile wouldn’t start, any little troublesome thing. He helped out in the store and round the town, built our house all over again from the ground up and still had time for his own work. Taylor Whitman said Bob was always buyi
ng a new axe-head, or a saw blade, or a special knife. It sort of made it all come together when Bob happened by one night with his fiddle and started up playing, sweet as maple, alongside Taylor Whitman, both of them pulling on bottled beer and making music in time with the bugs. That night, I fell asleep with the sound of Bob’s fiddle still hopping and sliding out over the rosebud archway he helped me plant. And all the way inside of me, I had the happiest feeling I’d ever know, like a little golden frog, dancing under my heart.

  Then, one day Taylor Whitman went out of town to see a man upstate about some lizard traps. He left Bob to mind the store.

  ‘Morning, Irma Jean.’

  ‘Why, Bob, you should be back in town, filling in for Taylor Whitman.’

  He’d surprised me, I have to say. Bob surely did sneak on those sneakers of his. All the way into the house and I never knew he was there until I felt him breathe, up close behind me. I’d of been scared, if he hadn’t been smiling so nice.

  ‘I’m sorry. I scare you?’

  ‘No, Bob, not a bit.’

  That was a lie on my part, but a nice one, so it didn’t count. I’ve always said, it ain’t what you do, it’s your attitude while you do it that should count.

  ‘I’m glad you weren’t scared. You don’t have nothing to be afraid of from me. I promise.’

  ‘Well, thank you. What brings you here? Did Taylor Whitman have a message for me?’

  ‘Not at all. I was out this way, doing some repairs for old Mr Haarman. I left a note at the store, say where I was. I won’t be away long and it’s always quiet in the mornings. I thought I’d stop by and tell you good morning, say how much I appreciated your hospitality, when I first come to town.’

  ‘Thank you, Bob. That’s very kind.’

  ‘You been kind to me. I remember that. Better lock your door now, when I go. There’s things happen, you know.’

  I did know, too. Everyone had heard about it – there were folks dying. I won’t go into details, because it was all a long time ago and there’s no need to be specific. I think it’s enough to say that drifters were showing up dead. A whole recreational vehicle full of Californian transient types were found in the woods by the Interstate. All dead. It was kind of weird, because nobody knew why so many folks were being killed – and they were killed for sure, none of them died any way you could have called natural. But nobody could get too riled up about it, neither, because none of the dead folks was anybody you could put a name to. We didn’t know them and we didn’t know anyone that did. They just weren’t the kind you’d call necessary.

  Leastways, that’s how it seemed to me. It was only Taylor Whitman made me think it could have the least thing to do with us.

  ‘Irma Jean Whitman?’

  ‘Yes, Taylor Whitman.’

  ‘You been talking to that Bob Coons?’

  ‘Not lately.’

  Which was true. I hadn’t seen him for a couple of days, but I did blush up a touch because I enjoyed Bob’s company a tiny bit more than Taylor Whitman’s, what with me and him being unable to touch and all.

  ‘Well, don’t you let him in the house no more, you hear?’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘Because I tell you not.’

  Taylor Whitman could be like that. Specially when he was short of frogs and the drought had just plain dried them up, by then. He had a man in Seattle mail him frogs, but they were all dead on arrival, didn’t matter what he did.

  So the next time Bob came by the house, I almost opened up the door to him, because I’d forgotten what Taylor Whitman done told me. Bob remembered, though.

  ‘No, Irma Jean. Don’t you open that door. Hiya.’

  That ‘Hiya’ was for you. He’d always pay you attention, no matter what.

  ‘But, Bob, that’s nonsense. Taylor Whitman just got a wild hair about something, it’s not to do with you.’

  ‘Oh, it is, Irma Jean. It is to do with me. Come up by the window and I’ll tell you it all.’

  So I moved on over by the window and opened it up so I could look down at Bob. That window just smoothed open – Bob’d done another good job there.

  ‘Irma Jean, what did he tell you?’

  Bob seemed kind of serious and was talking real low.

  ‘Oh Bob, he didn’t tell me nothing, only said I shouldn’t let you in the house. I said it was nonsense, but he wouldn’t listen.’

  Bob stared down at his sneakers awhile, then drew in a long breath.

  ‘Well, I gotta be honest with you, Irma Jean. I ain’t honest too much, but you brought me to it. Taylor Whitman is right, kind of, you shouldn’t let me in the house.’

  ‘Well, why not?’

  Bob messed around in the dirt with one of his feet and then started up talking again, awful quiet now.

  ‘Irma Jean, you know there’s been folks dying? Last month, it was nearly twenty men and women, all cut up – pieces missing and, in several awful instances, no heads.’

  ‘Twenty – that is a lot isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s nearly one person every day, Irma Jean, if you spaced them out even, and they die horrible. Why, if they weren’t tortured and heartlessly slaughtered way out of town, no one would get any sleep. You know that? Screams carry, that’s what they’re for.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought about it, Bob.’

  ‘I’m glad, Irma Jean, that proves you’re a good person, like I always thought. Thing is, all of these bodies were killed with different sharp objects – sometimes a knife and a chisel, or a saw blade, or an axe. An axe is used very often, one way or another. Now does that make you think of anything?’

  ‘Well, I suppose it’s kinder that way, than killing them with a blunt object – I always thought that sounded kind of drawn-out and clumsy when you read about it in the papers.’

  ‘Well, bless your heart, that’s a very considerate thought. But I’m afraid, your husband doesn’t have your way of thinking.’

  ‘What do you mean, Bob?’

  Bob jumped up and rested his chin over the window, so he was kind of there in the room and he give me such a long, soft look.

  ‘Irma Jean, Taylor Whitman thinks I’m the one doing it. All of that perverse and conscienceless butchery.’

  ‘Oh, Bob – he’s only fooling. Taylor Whitman has an odd sense of humour, I always say it’s the time he spends with things that croak, spoils him for regular conversation.’

  ‘You have a lovely soul, Irma Jean, but this is serious. Taylor Whitman owns the hardware store, he’s sold me all types of sharp object over these months and he’s remembered each and every one. An awful lot of those objects have turned up at the crime scenes – even the long nails and the wire.’

  ‘But you didn’t do all those things, did you? Bob?’

  Bob give a tiny cough and blinked. Slow.

  ‘Would you turn me in if I had?’

  ‘Of course not, you ain’t ever done no one here any harm. Everybody round here likes you. They would say the same. Sometimes Taylor Whitman’s opinions just get me fit to be tied. I am sorry if he has offended you.’

  ‘That’s all real good to know, Irma Jean. I have to be going now. You take especial care, I mean that. Bye.’

  He dropped back down to the dirt and walked away, didn’t say another word. Now I heard not a thing more about Robert McConnerey Coons for a week or so and then one night Taylor Whitman said that Bob had to take a trip and see his mother who was sick up in Alaska. He wouldn’t be around for a while. I knew that just wasn’t true because Bob was a orphan and that we must of hurt Bob somehow and made him leave, so that blue feeling come over me again and I went to bed early without my suit. Taylor Whitman must of felt bad, too, because he was up pretty much the whole night, fooling with his banjo and listening to how lonesome it could sound without Bob, playing up alongside of it.

  The whole town missed Bob. You couldn’t walk down the street without someone asking if he would be gone long, if he was coming back. There were still bodies turning up in the
woods or out at the lake – all over the state – but mostly we didn’t talk about that, we wondered about how Bob was getting along. That’s the way the Good Lord made us, we care about people, even strangers once we get to know them. One woman – Bob fixed her daughter’s wooden arm – she was all for driving clean up to Alaska with herbal remedies she’d cooked up to cure his mother. She would of done it, too, only the Deputy knows she can’t really drive an automobile and won’t let her go outside of town, case she gets in trouble.

  About this time Taylor Whitman had himself a scheme to build a snake pit which I was worried about because of you maybe falling in it, or the snakes maybe getting loose, but it wasn’t working out anyway because he didn’t know how to dig it right and it just fell in all the time, without Bob to help. In the end, even he had to say, ‘I surely wish Bob was here, he’d get this done in a minute, I know.’

  Now you remember how I always used to tell you that wishes come true? Well, this is when I learned that. I don’t know how much Taylor Whitman’s wishes counted for, but I’d been wishing Bob would come back, ever since he left and I’m not ashamed to say it. Each morning, I’d walk about behind my drawn down blinds and think of the way he stood that first morning in those neat, dusty red coveralls, just looking at you and me. I even took to leaving my doors unlocked, as if that would seem more welcoming, if he ever did show up again.

  Naturally, when Taylor Whitman turned in for the night, he’d lock all the doors to keep us safe until morning time. Least that’s what he thought and so did I, until I woke up while it was still dark and saw Bob standing there at the end of the bed. He snuck up alongside of me and whispered, ‘I had the other keys for your new locks. Hope you don’t mind.’